All Day Wednesday, Page 2

today?" he asked.

  Jory held the cover so he could see the title. "Celine's 'Journey tothe End of Night.' It's French."

  Ernie's interest quickened. "French, huh? Has it got any good stuff init? You know, like Miller has?" He laughed.

  "No."

  "Well, what's it about?"

  "About a guy who thinks he might commit suicide."

  "Oh." Ernie thought about it for a minute. "Is that _all_ it's about?Just some guy wonderin' if he should bump himself off?"

  "Yes." Jory turned a page.

  "Oh." Ernie thought about it again. "And he made a whole _book_ out ofit? Just that ... no sex or nothing?"

  "No. No sex or nothing."

  Ernie laughed. "Well, it sounds pretty stale to me."

  Jory sighed and gave up reading. He put the book down. "No, it isn'tstale. The book does depress me, though." He pushed it to one side.

  His eyes traveled around the cafeteria; he thought for a moment thensaid: "Do you ever get the feeling, Ernie, that your life has gottenstuck? That you are just going round and round, caught in one singlegroove--that you just repeat the same scene, day after day?"

  Ernie shook his head. "Nah. I never feel like that."

  "I do. I get to feeling it bad, sometimes. Why do you suppose that is,Ernie?"

  Ernie considered the question for a moment. "Well," he said helpfully,"it might mean you're cracking up."

  Jory laughed. "Thanks. But when I need an analyst I'll go out and hireone. No, I think I feel that way because life has somehow become a lotmore futile than it need be."

  Ernie shrugged and let it go. He wiped the last trace of spaghettisauce from his plate. Jory got funny moods--probably because he readso much, Ernie suspected--but he was a good man. All the guys in theplant figured Jory for a regular guy. He liked to read some prettyfunny books, but so what? It was his eyesight, wasn't it?

  Ernie remembered something else. "Hey," he said to Jory as he lit acigarette, "Harrigan over in the tool room told me that you writestories. That right?"

  "Yeah. But I don't have as much time for it as I once did."

  "You ought to stay home nights like I do. Then you'd have time." Erniepaused and added piously, "It makes you sharper on the job, too."

  Jory started to laugh but caught it in time. He worked on the linenext to Ernie, and had witnessed the foul-up this morning. He said,"What do you do until bedtime? Watch TV?"

  "Every night. Boxing is good on Fridays. Monday night ain't so hot.Wednesday, tonight, will be good. Lots of Westerns.

  "You ought to try it. Come to think of it you look sort of tired. Youshouldn't go out drinking week nights."

  Jory shrugged. "Maybe I will try it. What are your favorite programs?"

  Ernie told him.

  "Say," Ernie asked, "do you make any money writing stories?"

  "Once in awhile. If I sell the story I'm working on now, I think I'lllay off for a couple of months and get a cabin down in Mexico. Thefishing will be good at Vera Cruz--" He stopped and frowned. "No. Iguess I won't. I can't."

  "Why can't you?"

  "Something I forgot. Never mind."

  "No," Ernie persisted, "you were saying--"

  "Forget it."

  "Oh, I get it. You're afraid to lay off because they might not hireyou back?"

  "Nuts. There's always some place that is hiring. You'd be surprised atsome of the jobs I've had, Ernie." He grinned. "As far as that goes, Imight get laid off here before I want to go."

  "What makes you say that?"

  "Look around you. How many men are working today?"

  * * * * *

  Now that his attention was called to it, Ernie glanced around thecafeteria. Normally, it was packed during the lunch hour. Today, itwas less than three-quarters full.

  "So? Some of the guys are out sick, that's all."

  "There won't be much work this afternoon. We got most of it out thismorning."

  "It's some new bug. Like that flu thing last winter." But Ernie'svoice, as he said it, was defensive. In Ernie's book, a layoff was abad thing.

  Inside, Ernie's mind began to calculate the possibilities. It was athing Ernie's mind always did when it was confronted with theunexpected. His mind didn't like to work, but Ernie liked theunforeseen even less.

  It was unlikely that the entire plant would be shut down. In that casewhat supervisors would want him to stay on? He ran through the list ofhis superiors and immediately came to Rogers.

  Ernie winced. After this morning, Rogers would post him for the layofffor sure. He could take it to the union, but--Ernie stopped and lookedsuspiciously at Jory.

  Did Jory know about the beef he had this morning with Rogers? Come tothink of it, Ernie didn't _know_ there was going to be a layoff. WasJory just needling him?

  He looked around the cafeteria again. The tables on the edges of thefloor were deserted and empty. To Ernie's eyes it suddenly looked asif the men who were eating had purposely gathered so they could beclose together. They sat with their backs hunched, turned on the emptyspaces behind them.

  Even the noise, compared to the usual din of the cafeteria, seemed tobe different. It echoed and fell flat. Ernie didn't like it. He feltfunny. The overly familiar cafeteria had suddenly become strange.

  A feeling began to grow in him that, somehow, the cafeteria was wrong."It ... looks funny," he said.

  Jory became alert. "What looks funny?"

  "I don't know ... the room."

  "What's wrong with the room?" Jory bent over. His eyes were intent,but his voice stayed low. He spoke with great care.

  "I ... don't know. It looks funny. Empty. Older. No, wait--" And thefeeling was gone. Ernie shook his head. It was the old, crowded andnot too clean cafeteria, again.

  He turned to Jory. "Well, they better not! I was out of work sixmonths on the last layoff." He paused and marshaled a last, tellingargument: "I can't afford it!"

  Jory laughed. "Take it easy. I said there _might_ be one. Lots ofthings might happen. Hell, the world itself might come to an end."

  Ernie said grumpily, "I don't like 'mights'. Why can't they leave aman alone and let him do his work? Why do they gotta--"

  Jory stood up and grinned. "Come on, Ernie. What do you need moneyfor? I mean, other than to keep up the payments on your TV?"

  Ernie rose. "Don't be such a guy," he grumbled. "We better get back.If I come in late from lunch, I've had it."

  It was a quarter of a mile across the plant yard to where they worked.They walked in silence for the first few yards. Ernie thought his ownthoughts and listened to the sound of their feet on the gravel.

  Presently, Jory said, "Ernie, you watch the fights. Do you rememberback when they had the Rico-Marsetti bout?"

  Ernie still felt irritable. "Hell, yes, I remember. It was just twoweeks ago. You make it sound like it happened six months back."

  "How well do you remember it?"

  "Well enough. That bum Marsetti cost me ten bucks when he dived in thesixth. He was the two-to-one favorite."

  "He didn't dive."

  "Yeah? You ask him?"

  "No. I read the papers. He was pretty scrambled up ... in the head, Imean ... for quite a while after they brought him back to his dressingroom."

  "Maybe he was that way all along. Maybe they just then noticed it."

  Jory laughed. "Don't get cynical, Ernie. It's a sign of old age. No.Marsetti was really out of his head. He kept going through the lastround ... you know, in his mind. He did it perfect, thirty or fortytimes, just up to the knockout." Then he stopped and went through thewhole round again.

  "The doctors that examined him said that it happened because he raninto something he couldn't face."

  Ernie said sourly, "Yeah. Rico's left fist."

  "Maybe. But it gave me an idea."

  "Oh?"

  "Yeah. The idea is this: Could the world get knocked out that way?Suppose it did. Suppose everybody ran into something they couldn'ttake. Would they just run in a closed
circle? Would they take a singleday, like Marsetti took the sixth round, and just repeat it over andover again?"

  Ernie scowled and stopped. They were outside the plant door. "Boy," hesaid, "you are a bug, ain't you? What are you trying to give me?"

  "Just an idea, Ernie."

  The suspicion that Jory was needling him came back. "Well, I don'tlike it,"