Ham Shapiro had worked at Jackson Lampmakers Ltd. for a little over thirty-five years. In that time, he’d done lots of jobs, from starting out sweeping the assembly rooms to being one of the top assemblers in the factory. According to the chalkboard by the time clock, he currently held two records that the other line workers hadn’t beaten: The Most Consecutive Days Without Illness or Accident (312) and the ‘Catch-All’ Clear Line Award (62.4 inches).
The ‘Catch-All’ Award had to do with his working the very tail end of the Floor Lamp Base line. Only the best workers could be put in the last spot of any line. It’s what the foremen call the ‘Catch-All’ position. His job was to put the final twists and turns on all the bolts and screws that the workers in front of him had laid into place. If any were missing or crooked, he had to correct them, and at the same time, he had to lay the brass top plate on each lamp base in its exact position and set its fasteners. Only then could he slide the finished base to his right to switch it over to the next line. A lot of clear line between the Catch-All and the first worker of the next line meant that the Catch-All was fast and accurate. A fast Catch-All meant his line could move faster, and a faster line meant more units could be manufactured. The factory bosses gave the Catch-All’s incentives to move more efficiently – the key to the foremen’s lavatory and free meals in the canteen, not to mention the higher pay for more units produced. The line with the fastest Catch-All got daily bonuses also, so that motivated the workers to make few mistakes and to work faster themselves.
With over two yards of clear line to his right and nearly a year of perfect attendance, Ham Shapiro couldn’t be touched by anyone trying to beat his records. He was so good that there was even talk going around in the canteen about his name being moved from the chalkboard to a metal plaque. He was the factory’s golden child, people said. The foremen loved his speed and consistency, the workers on his line loved their bonuses, and the bosses loved the figures on their production sheets.
Add to those things these three facts that everyone at Jackson Lamplighters Ltd. knew about Ham: he never lost his temper, he never laughed at off-color jokes, and he always smoked a quarter of a cigar in the canteen at the close of each day’s shift. People also gossiped that he had studied with Prussian scientists at a university in his home country. Others reported that as a youth he had sworn secret oaths to the Kaiser and then fled to America just before the War ended. One or two Catch-All’s from other lines even whispered that he had a portrait of Kaiser Wilhelm II in his apartment. But no one really believed those tales. They were too unlikely.
What people did believe were his work records and those three facts. Everything else people said about him was idle rumor. Ham always went straight home after his cigar, and always alone. He never invited anyone, and the few curious enough to invite themselves were always kindly turned away. Nosy people could never get him to say anything about his personal life either. If pushed, he would reluctantly talk about only two subjects – work or temple. Nothing more, nothing less.
So people thought that’s all there was to Ham Shapiro – just the factory and the scriptures. Even his landlady believed that was all there was to the quiet, middle-aged assembly line worker who rented the basement of her boarding house.
When he didn’t come to the factory on what would have been the 313th day, the foremen knew something had to be terribly wrong. When they telephoned his boarding house and heard that he wasn’t answering the landlady’s knock and had bolted his door, they feared the worst.
When men from the factory came to the boarding house to help break down the door on what would have been the 314th unmissed work day, they expected to find Ham Shapiro dead.
When the men discovered an empty apartment filled with a homemade forge and crates of metal tools and parts stolen from the factory over the past thirty-five years, they all scratched their heads and wondered why Ham needed all that metal.
When they learned that police had found strange chemicals and foreign schematics among the stolen goods and that federal agents had come in to investigate, they all remembered the rumors about Ham having sworn secret oaths to the Kaiser before the War.
When they read in the papers that the U.S. Government had confirmed that the basement apartment had been a bomb factory for at least the past thirty years, they wondered how where Ham had taken the bombs and how many he could have made over three decades.
When they heard on the radio that the discovery in Ham’s apartment had led federal agents to over a dozen similarly abandoned basement factories in cities across the country, they realized that Ham must have had many more connections that just at the factory and at temple.
When the explosions started a month later, they all realized that they hadn’t known Ham Shapiro at all.
The ‘Catch-All’ Award had to do with his working the very tail end of the Floor Lamp Base line. Only the best workers could be put in the last spot of any line. It’s what the foremen call the ‘Catch-All’ position. His job was to put the final twists and turns on all the bolts and screws that the workers in front of him had laid into place. If any were missing or crooked, he had to correct them, and at the same time, he had to lay the brass top plate on each lamp base in its exact position and set its fasteners. Only then could he slide the finished base to his right to switch it over to the next line. A lot of clear line between the Catch-All and the first worker of the next line meant that the Catch-All was fast and accurate. A fast Catch-All meant his line could move faster, and a faster line meant more units could be manufactured. The factory bosses gave the Catch-All’s incentives to move more efficiently – the key to the foremen’s lavatory and free meals in the canteen, not to mention the higher pay for more units produced. The line with the fastest Catch-All got daily bonuses also, so that motivated the workers to make few mistakes and to work faster themselves.
With over two yards of clear line to his right and nearly a year of perfect attendance, Ham Shapiro couldn’t be touched by anyone trying to beat his records. He was so good that there was even talk going around in the canteen about his name being moved from the chalkboard to a metal plaque. He was the factory’s golden child, people said. The foremen loved his speed and consistency, the workers on his line loved their bonuses, and the bosses loved the figures on their production sheets.
Add to those things these three facts that everyone at Jackson Lamplighters Ltd. knew about Ham: he never lost his temper, he never laughed at off-color jokes, and he always smoked a quarter of a cigar in the canteen at the close of each day’s shift. People also gossiped that he had studied with Prussian scientists at a university in his home country. Others reported that as a youth he had sworn secret oaths to the Kaiser and then fled to America just before the War ended. One or two Catch-All’s from other lines even whispered that he had a portrait of Kaiser Wilhelm II in his apartment. But no one really believed those tales. They were too unlikely.
What people did believe were his work records and those three facts. Everything else people said about him was idle rumor. Ham always went straight home after his cigar, and always alone. He never invited anyone, and the few curious enough to invite themselves were always kindly turned away. Nosy people could never get him to say anything about his personal life either. If pushed, he would reluctantly talk about only two subjects – work or temple. Nothing more, nothing less.
So people thought that’s all there was to Ham Shapiro – just the factory and the scriptures. Even his landlady believed that was all there was to the quiet, middle-aged assembly line worker who rented the basement of her boarding house.
When he didn’t come to the factory on what would have been the 313th day, the foremen knew something had to be terribly wrong. When they telephoned his boarding house and heard that he wasn’t answering the landlady’s knock and had bolted his door, they feared the worst.
When men from the factory came to the boarding house to help break down the door on what would have been the 314th unmissed work day, they expected to find Ham Shapiro dead.
When the men discovered an empty apartment filled with a homemade forge and crates of metal tools and parts stolen from the factory over the past thirty-five years, they all scratched their heads and wondered why Ham needed all that metal.
When they learned that police had found strange chemicals and foreign schematics among the stolen goods and that federal agents had come in to investigate, they all remembered the rumors about Ham having sworn secret oaths to the Kaiser before the War.
When they read in the papers that the U.S. Government had confirmed that the basement apartment had been a bomb factory for at least the past thirty years, they wondered how where Ham had taken the bombs and how many he could have made over three decades.
When they heard on the radio that the discovery in Ham’s apartment had led federal agents to over a dozen similarly abandoned basement factories in cities across the country, they realized that Ham must have had many more connections that just at the factory and at temple.
When the explosions started a month later, they all realized that they hadn’t known Ham Shapiro at all.
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