“What do you do exactly?”
“I don’t stay inside, thank God, I couldn’t stand that. Henry Ford can’t stand it either. He comes and goes at all hours. ’Course, he’s the boss. I’m a lowly utility driver. Pay’s not bad for unskilled work—twenty-eight cents an hour for a nine-hour day. Mostly I drive Model T’s down to the freight yards for shipment. Sometimes I deliver a special-order car to a sales agent in Ohio or Michigan or northern Indiana. Occasionally I take a car on a test run.”
“Ford has its own test track?”
Carl laughed. “Right outside. Cadillac Square, Woodward Avenue—the streets.”
“I’ve an appointment to film the new Model T in the morning. A man named Couzens arranged it.”
“James Couzens. Money man. Kind of a sour apple. Smiles maybe once a year. God, it’s good to see you. Let me tell you about this gorgeous girl I met.”
In the Ponchartrain dining room, they ate a huge meal of pot roast, potatoes, corn on the cob, cauliflower and summer squash, hard rolls and pumpernickel, with a constant flow of beer. Paul asked how it happened that Detroit was becoming the auto center. The earliest manufacturing had been widely scattered from the Midwest to Massachusetts.
“They say it’s because a lot of local people had experience in building marine engines for the lake boats. Nobody had to start machine shops or foundries, because they were already here. And there’s money all over the place. Millionaires whose fathers got rich building carriages or railroad cars are looking for another plunge. There’s a good spirit in Detroit. People are willing to take risks. Mr. Olds, the Dodge brothers—they’re born gamblers.”
How had Carl learned to drive? He grinned. “In secret. Six inches at a time.”
He explained that he’d formerly worked at a bicycle repair shop in Columbus, Ohio. A few wealthy men stored their autos at the shop, taking them out only in good weather. Carl observed the drivers carefully for a few weeks. Then late one night he took his first untutored “drive” in a one-cylinder Packard runabout, going forward six inches, then back inside the storage barn, with only a few light bumps against the walls.
Two nights later the shop owner walked in unexpectedly and caught him at it. The owner admired his cheek and his eagerness to learn, told him to take the Packard around the block the next day. He’d be liable if he banged it up or put a single scratch on the paint.
“I told him I wouldn’t, and I didn’t.”
“And you got on with Henry Ford with no trouble?”
“I wouldn’t say that. I was nervous as hell when he interviewed me.”
Paul took his cigar out of his mouth. “The head of the company talked to you personally?”
“Well, it doesn’t usually work that way, but when I came here from Columbus, I wrote a letter to Mr. Ford. Pretty crude stuff, I’m an awful writer. I couldn’t believe it when he wrote back. He invited me to his house. Said he hardly ever did the hiring, except at the top level, but there was something in my letter that he liked.”
“What was it?”
With an ingenuous smile Carl said, “I was kicked out of Princeton.” Then he described his memorable first meeting with his employer.
On the night of the interview, Carl had stood beneath one of the verdant old elm trees on Harper Avenue for a long time, feet fidgeting, stomach flip-flopping. He couldn’t remember being in such a state of nerves, probably because no other moment that he could recall, not even stealing a first kiss from Hilde Retz on a chaperoned sleigh ride in seventh grade, was so charged with tension and anticipation.
Harper Avenue was far from a poor street, but neither was it upper crust. The object of Carl’s attention was a large but plain frame house, not at all what you’d expect of a man supposedly on his way to riches. Henry Ford had grown up in the country out by Dearborn, and he’d grown up poor, that much Carl knew. Maybe he didn’t like to associate with the Woodward Avenue crowd, most of whom had inherited their wealth.
Finally, with an exertion of will Carl overcame his anxiety and stepped off the curb. In the shrubs around the wide porch, birds twittered in the twilight. A plain-faced woman answered his knock.
“You must be the young man Henry’s expecting. I’m Mrs. Ford, won’t you come in?”
The principal shareholder of the Ford Motor Company bounded into the hall to greet him. Ford’s celluloid collar hung by one button; he’d discarded his tie. He was a tall, skinny man with big ears, piercing deep-set eyes and a craggy face that reminded Carl of Civil War photos of Lincoln, only less wrinkled. Mid-forties, Carl judged.
“Come in, Carl, have a seat. Care for a cup of coffee, or Malto Grape? That’s a fruit drink. We serve nothing stronger.”
The front parlor was furnished with a lot of old, dark, unpretentious furniture. The major pieces were surrounded by a Victorian clutter of fern pots, footstools, taborets, and curio cabinets. As Carl sat down, awaiting a grilling, an adolescent boy ran down the stairs into the front hall. Ford hailed him and introduced his son, Edsel. “What do you want, son?”
“Can I take the car out, Pa?”
“Sure, but be back before dark.” The front door banged. Ford said, “Fine lad. Our only child. Named him for my best friend. Started him driving at age eight.” Thumbs stretching and un-stretching his suspenders, Ford regarded Carl soberly. “So you want a job at our factory. Tell me why.”
Carl drew a long breath and delivered a halting but fervent statement about his fascination with machinery, autos in particular. He said that driving, even on the roughest roads in the foulest weather, thrilled him.
Ford asked whether he was a native Detroiter. No, Chicago. What was his father’s trade? Oh-oh.
“He’s a brewer, sir. Crown’s beer.”
Ford gave him another long, searching stare. “Heard of it. I won’t hold it against you.”
Mrs. Ford brought a tray with glasses of Malto Grape. Ford settled back and cracked a couple of jokes while they sipped their drinks. Then he pulled a letter from his shirt pocket and examined it. Carl recognized the note paper. Ford folded the letter and complimented Carl on being dismissed from Princeton. “I left school at fifteen and I’ve done all right. Far as I’m concerned, college is mostly bunk. Emerson said, ‘A man contains all that is needful to his government within himself.’ Have you ever read Emerson?”
“No, sir, I’m afraid not.” A lit professor had assigned it, but Carl had been too busy playing football.
“You should.” Ford sprang out of his chair. “Let’s sit on the porch while it’s still light. I like to watch the birds.” He led Carl out a side door. The wide porch bent around the corner of the house. Ford took the swing, Carl one of the white wicker chairs. The evening was fragrant with the smell of mown grass.
“You have any questions, Carl?”
“Well, sir, could you tell me what kind of work I might do if—?”
“By jiminy!” Ford leaped off the swing, pulled a brass telescope from a wicker basket. Whatever he saw made him exclaim, “Have a look, have a look. Baltimore oriole. I love birds.”
Carl screwed his eye to the eyepiece. In the fading light he saw a flash of orange in a spirea bush, but that was all. He murmured something he hoped sounded appreciative.
“Since you like to drive, we’ll try to find a driving job. I must warn you of one thing. I insist that men who work for me conduct themselves in a moral way at all times. No cursing, no carousing or brawling, nothing to bring shame on the organization or themselves. I have a saying: At Ford’s we want to build men along with automobiles. Clear about that?”
Carl said he was. “Good.” Ford launched into a monologue to which he clearly expected his visitor to pay heed. “There’s a future at Ford. We’re a dynamic company in a dynamic industry. Of course, my ideas are different from most of the other fellows turning out cars. They all want to cater to the well-to-do. Fancy touring models with high price tags. Not my way, not my notion. The cars we’ve marketed up to now, they’re all right, but
they still cost too much. I want to deliver a simple car, soundly made, speedy, dependable, but priced low enough for millions to afford it. That’s where I see the big profits—getting the car not to the elite but to the multitudes.”
He stroked a finger along his lower lip and smiled. It was a curious smile, cold and cynical.
“They think I’m crazy, the rich boys from Grosse Pointe. I know what they call me. Henry the Shiftless. Always tinkering. Never had a good idea in his life. We’ll see. To be great is to be misunderstood, that’s what Emerson said. I was put into this life for a purpose. I’ve lived before, you know. We’ve all lived before, many times.” As the night fell and cicadas began to whir, Carl’s hair almost stood up. Ford was saying mad things in a perfectly sane voice.
“I believe in my last life I was a soldier, killed at Gettysburg the first or second of July, eighteen hundred and sixty-three. I was born into this present life at the end of that very same month, July 30. One life slipping into another, easy as the seasons changing.” Carl sat in stupefied silence, having no idea of how to reply. He was reprieved by the clatter of a telephone bell. Ford’s wife called him through the screen. “Take the number, Clara. I’ll call back.”
He shook Carl’s hand again. “Report to the personnel department on Monday, seven a.m.”
“Mr. Ford, thank you. Thanks very much.”
“Don’t be late. Personnel will sign you up, settle what we’re going to pay you. Frankly speaking, I like the cut of your sails. Just remember what I said about the behavior we expect. There are no exceptions. Say, care for a cigar before you go?”
“No, thanks, I don’t usually—well, sure.”
Ford handed him a cigar as they strolled into the hall, held a match for him. Carl puffed. The cigar had a strange flavor, like tobacco adulterated with some chemical. He felt he should say something complimentary anyway. He was about to do so when the cigar exploded.
Ford slapped his thighs, convulsed. His wife rushed into the hall. “Oh, no, Henry. Not this nice young man. My husband is an awful practical joker,” she said in an apologetic tone.
In a hall mirror Carl saw his singed eyebrows and the burst cigar growing out of his mouth like a weird flower. He plucked out the cigar and said, “Yes, ma’am, I see.”
“Sense of humor’s important to a man,” Ford said. “Sign of a good character. No hard feelings, right?”
“Oh, no, sir.” He wondered how long it would take his eyebrows to grow out.
“Well, then, thanks for coming over. Oh, and don’t forget. Go to the public library. Read some Emerson. Good night.”
In the lobby of the Ponchartrain, Carl said good night. The food and beer had left Paul logy, craving fresh air. “I’ll walk you to your place if it isn’t in the next county.”
“Only about a mile. North of Gratiot. What they used to call the Kentucky district. It’s nothing to see. A lodging house for single men. The neighborhood’s run down.”
“Hell, I was raised in a rundown neighborhood. Lead on.”
They strolled up Woodward past dark office blocks and lighted saloons. Carl said, “When will your book be published here?”
“You know about that?”
“Mama wrote me.”
“It’ll be next winter.” Paul hadn’t mentioned the book. Carl was leading a fairly aimless life, self-indulgent, without a clear future. Talk of the book could be construed as Paul bragging about his success. He loved his cousin too much to risk making him feel bad.
He needn’t have worried.
“That’s wonderful. I can’t wait to read it. I’m proud of you. The whole family’s proud.”
Carl spoke truthfully about his neighborhood. Antoine Street was trash-strewn, lined with ugly two-family houses, most with weedy yards, peeling paint, broken stoops or porch railings, the whole feebly lit by corner street lamps a block apart. Somewhere a baby squalled. Someone picked at a banjo. In the shadows a gaunt hound snarled at them. The dog’s eyes glittered like yellow stones.
Looking between the houses toward the service alleys, Paul saw shacks that were evidently lived in; lanterns shone in several of them. The surroundings depressed him.
A white woman in a squeaky porch rocker watched them pass. In the next yard two black children played jacks in the dirt. Carl said, “The street’s what they called mixed. It’s cheap to live here. Jesse, my riding mechanic, is a Negro. He has a little bachelor house two streets over. He keeps it tidier than most of these.”
“Do the colored and the white get along?”
“Pretty well. Most of the trouble comes from outside. Irish gangs run through and beat up people for sport. There’s my place.” He pointed to a frame house at the end of the block. A man lay prone on the porch. A woman stood over him, weeping. “Hey, that’s my landlady.”
Carl dashed ahead. Paul followed quickly, through a gate in a low white fence with many pickets missing. The man on the porch raised his head, tried to raise himself. Blood dripped from his mouth. A couple of upper teeth hung by red threads. One slitted eye was puffed up big as a hen’s egg. The man sprawled flat again. “Oh, God, it hurts. I think they broke a rib.”
Carl said, “Mrs. Gibbs, what happened to Ned?”
Mrs. Gibbs sobbed. “He came home from the shop real late. He said they jumped him at the corner and dragged him in the alley. I’d already locked the back door. He had to crawl all the way around the house. He called me, but not loud enough. I didn’t find him laying here till five minutes ago.”
“Who did it? One of the gangs?”
After a struggle to raise his head again, the injured man tried to curse. He only managed to spit more blood.
“Oh, sure, the gangs,” the woman said with a bitter toss of her head. “A gang sent by the E.A., that’s who. The foreman’s threatened to fire Ned for being what they call quarrelsome, a troublemaker. You know my Ned, strong for a union shop. He speaks out.”
“Detroit’s an open-shop town,” Carl said to Paul. “The E.A. can be pretty nasty about enforcing it.”
“What’s the E.A.?”
“Employers’ Association of Detroit.”
“Do you have trouble like this?”
“Not at Ford’s. My mechanic’s had a brush or two at his foundry. Listen, Paul, I have to lend a hand here. It was a swell evening.”
“I’ll help you carry him inside.”
They lifted the moaning man carefully. Mrs. Gibbs held the screen door. They laid Gibbs in a mussed bed in a fetid bedroom. Mrs. Gibbs asked Carl to fetch Dr. Stein. “I’ll see you in the morning,” Paul said as they left. He turned toward the river. Carl trotted the other way.
Paul walked back to the Ponchartrain in the stillness of the night. In the distance an auto backfired. Or was it a pistol going off? A couple of minutes later a wailing siren suggested the answer.
A gaudy whore accosted him. Deep in thought, he waved her off with his cigar. On a picture screen in his head he saw the landlady crying, the blood running from her husband’s mouth. Detroit, the booming auto capital, wasn’t as peaceful as it seemed on the surface.
20. Model T
Friday morning, a taxi brought Paul to the Ford plant on Piquette Avenue, about three miles north of the city center. Tall white letters painted on the cornice of the brick building proclaimed the HOME OF THE CELEBRATED FORD AUTOMOBILE.
The plant was some four hundred feet long and sixty or seventy wide, as dull and dreary as any manufactory anywhere in the world. Through the open windows came the sound of mallets pounding metal, the hum and whine of machine tools and motorized belts, a cacophony that made him crave earplugs. The air was a miasma of motor oil, gasoline, paint, and God knew what else. In a holding yard to his left, several boxy black autos were lined up. Another drove from behind the building, through the gate and parked. The driver ran back in the building. It wasn’t Carl, he noticed.
Paul straightened his tie and lugged his case toward the factory entrance. A truck carrying axle assemblies rolled
up behind him. Lettering on the cab said DODGE BROS.
Entering, he turned left, past a bullpen of stenos and clerks and into a small reception lobby at the end of the corridor. He asked for James Couzens, the man in charge of finance, bookkeeping, shipping, advertising, and sales for the company. Carl had warned Paul about Couzens, said that while virtually everyone at Ford liked Henry, most feared and despised Couzens, whose mistress was a balance sheet and whose temper could be volcanic.
Paul sat on a bench and read through two issues of Motor Age before Couzens came out of his corner office. He was a pudgy man with pince-nez and a cold, patrician manner. He shook Paul’s hand without smiling.
“This going to take long?”
“It shouldn’t. The light’s fine this morning.”
“You can’t do any filming inside, we have secrets to protect.”
“You covered that in your letter.”
Couzens acted as though he hadn’t heard. “This is a busy plant. We roll out twenty-five cars a day.”
Bristling, Paul said, “Mr. Couzens, my pictures are shown in hundreds of theaters in the U.S. and Europe. I thought the company wanted publicity for the Model T.”
“Henry’s the one who wants publicity. He arranged this. I just did the paperwork.”
“Maybe I’d better talk to him.”
“I’ll take you up. He went to body painting and trimming a while ago. Leave that case here. Follow me.”
Couzens led him down the hall past the main entrance. Not completely boorish, he pointed out things as they went along. “Employment office. Our machine shop. Bar stock storage. In there we keep cushions, running boards, tops, steering columns. This is shipping. This is the electrical department—magneto assembly.”