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Mason’s Two Dollar Bill

Jim Meirose

    Mason sat on the grey metal seat welded to the side of the tall green two dollar bill machine, feeling the cold come up from the steel, signaling his body that he was where he belonged. He had been on the job four weeks now; and it was so much better than his prior job, running a handle grinding machine at Steele’s Hammer Works. Those machines were so puny and spindly. This machine was so much more massive and powerful; feeling Godlike, he leaned his bony shoulder against the heavy green steel casting, pressing buttons, pulling levers, and watching meters and turning valves, sending shivers of earsplitting vibration through the great machine’s frame and himself; up through the seat and into his spine and into his throbbing brain; and once more he was told by the great mechanism that he was exactly where he belonged, where he’d always been meant to end up; and at last the tall stacks of two dollar bills came smoothly out the wide maw of the machine onto a heavy framed solid steel dolly. Short squat swarthy Tillman, Mason’s helper, would take the massive Dolly when it was full, and bring it to where the money would be processed further, and he brought back an empty dolly and put it its place—and the two dollar bill machine would barely pause, before the great motors and gears and levers and rods and cylinders and printing press plates deep inside powered up again, and Mason gripped the handholds and half closed his blue eyes once more, riding high on the vibration and the noise and the heat radiating from the great mass of steel beside him.
    Higher.
    Higher!
    Higher!
    Just these few weeks on the wonderful job and he already had the massive machine mastered. Proudly he sat high in the operator’s seat, day after day, mindlessly absorbing the vibration and the heat and the noise, until one day Jim Pritchard the horse-faced manager came up in his white shirt and short wide tie and motioned for Mason to stop the machine, that he wanted to speak to him. Mason pushed three red buttons and the machine whined to a shuddering groaning stop, as though it was angry at having been stopped—and he hopped off the seat five feet onto the floor.
    “What do you need, Mr. Pritchard?” said Mason, pushing his shock of black hair from his black eyes, his ears ringing from the din of the machine and his backbone tingling.
    “What is it?” he repeated. “What can I do for you?”
    The stooped over tall Pritchard raised a brown clipboard before him in his long spindly fingers as he answered.
    “We need you to work this machine Saturday and Sunday, Mason. Nine to five shift. Full quota. What do you say?”
    Mason fought the vibration from his head and screwed up his lips and scratched at his chin. He had plans with his pale plain wife Edna to take her mother to St. Andrew’s shrine this Saturday afternoon. Edna believed in prayer; Edna wanted to go badly. Edna believed in God.
    Mason grimaced and brought his hand down from his chin and shoved it in the pocket of his blue work pants, and told the truth as Edna would have wanted.
    “Sorry, Mr. Pritchard, I really can’t work overtime this weekend—me and Edna and her Mom have plans—”
    Pritchard’s large watery blue eyes flashed and his jaw dropped.
    “I’m afraid you’ve got no choice,” he said to Mason in a lower, rougher voice. “I’ll tell you what Mason—overtime is mandatory here—If you don’t come in this Saturday and Sunday, then don’t come in Monday or Tuesday or anymore at all. Listen—we need you Mason. We need you on this machine Saturday and Sunday. We’ve got quotas to make. We’re behind where we should be. There’s money at stake. We need you. That’s it. Be here. I know you will.”
    Pritchard smiled dimly, narrowed his eyes, turned around on his heel and went back to his glass walled office and sat down and put his clipboard on the desk and picked up the phone and started to punch the buttons. Mason stared across at him, hardly believing he’d just heard what he had, until big Tillman came up pushing an empty dolly, gripping its handles in his wide hands.
    “What’s the matter, Mason?” said Tillman through fleshy lips. “Why are you just standing there like that? You look pissed off or something. Why isn’t the machine running—”
    “I supposed I am pissed off, Tillman,” said Mason. “I’m pissed off, and I’m confused.”
    “Why?”
    Mason’s eyes flashed.
    “Do you ever get asked to work overtime, Tillman?”
    “Sure I do,” he said slowly. “All the time.”
    “Do you ever say no to the overtime?”
    Tillman looked around and scratched at an arm.
    “Oh, sure, once in a while—but it never matters to Pritchard if I do. Anybody can do my job. There’s nothing to it. Just push this thing. Push it up full, push it back empty, push it up full, push it back empty. You see me. It’s not like your job up there in your seat, all complicated with all those handles and meters and buttons and valves and all that. I couldn’t do that kind of job. You got a brain, Mason. That’s why they got you up there.”
    “But you say no to overtime?” asked Mason again.
    “Yes I do.”
    “Thanks.”
    Grim-faced Mason swung himself back up onto the chair on the side of the two dollar bill machine and pressed the buttons and pulled the levers, watched the meters and turned the valves, that sent the din of the gnashing of gears and grinding of steel and the clatter of all the moving parts in the machinery winding all around him like a heavy white halo of earsplitting noise that he rode for the rest of the afternoon, smothering out all thoughts of what Pritchard had said, making him feel great as it always did, as his spine and brain were nearly shaken to bits, until the loud whistle mounted high on the yellow concrete block wall blew that said it was four thirty—time to stop the machine and go home to Edna. As he cleaned up in the washroom he plunged his filthy hands into the steaming hot water and the words of Pritchard came back to him and he bit his lip hard, nearly bloody, to stop them from winding through his brain.
    —then don’t come in Monday or Tuesday or any day at all—
    Pritchard couldn’t have meant that, thought Mason.
    Nobody ever means anything like that.
    Pritchard couldn’t have meant that at all.
    Yes—Pritchard was just joking. A weird kind of Joke, but a joke. After all Pritchard had smiled as he turned away. Yes.
    Mason smiled, deeply relieved.
    At home he went up the grey back steps and through the back shed and into the small yellow kitchen. Edna stood by the sink in a flowered dress with a dishrag hung in one hand and a plate in the other.
    “Hello honey,” said Mason, going over and lightly pecking her on the cheek.
    “Hello,” she said smiling, flipping the dishrag and plate up on the drainboard. She leaned her bottom against the counter edge and folded her arms.
    “So what’s new with you?” she asked. “Still like the new job? I’m so glad you’ve got a job you can stand—”
    He unbuttoned his blue shirt as he answered.
    “Oh—yes, its fine. But a little problem came up today.” “What?” she said, suddenly straight-lipped, pressing a fist to her hip. “What problem?”
    He slipped out of his shirt and draped it over a chairback as he spoke, being honest as he knew she always wanted him to be.
    “I need to work the two dollar bill machine Saturday and Sunday. We can’t go to the shrine.”
    Edna’s pale eyes bugged, and she planted a fist against her hip.
    “I’m sorry Edna—we can go another weekend—”
    “What?” she said harshly. “This has been set up for a month. Mom really wants to go this Saturday. Its all she’s talking about.”
    Mason swallowed hard and wrung his hands.
    “I know,” he said. “But I can’t help it.”
    She folded her arms and shook her head.
    “Well, just tell them you can’t work, you’ve got plans.”
    He tugged at a sleeve of his white t-shirt.
    “I did,” he said. “It didn’t do any good.”
    “Why not?”
    Mason glanced down from her frown, then back up into it, blinking hard to beat it back.
    “Mr. Pritchard said if I don’t work the overtime, I shouldn’t come back ever again.”
    Her mouth formed into a large O.
    “What? Does he really mean that?”
    He shuffled his heavy work shoes.
    “Well, I don’t think so—I mean I hope not.”
    She leaned on the countertop and tilted her head.
    “You mean nobody there can ever say no to overtime?”
    He told her what Tillman had said—that he had said no to it, and gotten by, and why.
    “Lord!” she cried, pacing from one end of the kitchen to the other and flailing her arms in time with her words. “You mean because you do a more complicated job than somebody else there, you get punished? Because you’re good at your job? That’s wrong Mason. That’s so so wrong.”
    She planted her hip hard against the countertop and threw her head back.
    He waved a hand and stepped across the room.
    “I know it’s wrong, Edna. But there’s nothing I can do—”
    She raised a hand to stop his words and pushed away from the countertop and stepped toward him.
    “Yes you can,” she said sharply, pointing into his chest. “Tell them that if you’re going to be forced to work, you’ll only work if you get paid for the overtime. You get paid for overtime down there, don’t you?”
    She looked up at him hard-eyed, her mouth tight.
    “I don’t know if I get overtime pay—”
    Her jaw dropped.
    “What? What do you mean you don’t know if you get overtime pay? Didn’t you find that out when you interviewed for the job?”
    “No. But I like the job—my machine—”
    She raised a finger into his face.
    “But nothing!” she said. “That’s it! Go in tomorrow and say you need to get paid, or you won’t work. That’s it. That’s what you’ll do. Never mind you like the job, your machine, and all that baloney. You work for money! You work to get paid! You won’t be forced without being paid!”
    “All right,” said Mason wearily.
    All right.
    She filled the table with food from the oven and stove and they slid onto their hard kitchen chairs. They ate their chicken and mashed potatoes and peas and a ring of silence Mason couldn’t stand formed around them, tightening the room about him, tightening a ring about his head, making him eat faster and faster—she was right. He shouldn’t be forced. The food nearly choked him going down. He shouldn’t be forced unless he got paid, the silence told him. And he should be paid well. Suddenly he was grateful for the silence; the silence always told him what was right. The evening passed, they watched TV, they chatted lightly, no more talk about work, except one thing.
    “You know what Edna?”
    “What?”
    “I’m going to tell them tomorrow Edna. Everything you said is right.”
    “Of course its right. Good. I love you Mason.”
    “I love you too.”
    They went to bed. He went to sleep quickly, deeply fatigued by the earsplitting noise and vibrations and stresses and strains and hard words of the day. And sleep was an escape for him; an escape from all the stresses.
    The morning came too quickly, as always.
    Edna was right, he thought as he dressed. He would tell Pritchard. He would go see him first thing.
    He would get paid, or not work. That’s it.
    After entering the huge grey-floored factory building, Mason made his way around the giant ten dollar and one dollar machines toward Pritchard’s office at the dead center of the factory floor. The machines roared with great rattling and rolling and pumping and sighing sounds that told him what he had to do, as he strode forward, his steeltoes shuffling confidently across the smooth concrete.
    Need to tell Pritchard—no work unless there’s overtime.
    Need to tell Pritchard.
    Need to tell him—
    Need to—
    Need—
    Mason rounded the corner of a large roaring and chattering one dollar bill machine and faced the door to Pritchard’s office. Pritchard sat at his desk, his back to the door, and his head down, examining some document laid on his lap before him, his skinny chicken neck showing every bone up the back. Mason knocked at the steel doorframe. Pritchard swiveled his chair around with a loud metallic screech. He spoke as though surprised at the sight of Mason. Mason always went straight to his job. What could be wrong?
    His eyebrows rose. His lips writhed out words.
    “Mason—how’re you? What can I do for you? Something wrong with the two dollar bill press—something you need— it’s the ink room isn’t it? They don’t have your ink—”
    “No, Mr. Pritchard,” said Mason. “I want to talk about the overtime you told me about on Saturday and Sunday.”
    “Oh right,” said Pritchard, lowering his brow and tossing his paperwork on the desk, leaning back, and rubbing his slightly protruding belly. “Decided to work it have you? That’s good. I knew you’d come around. I knew you’d do the right thing.”
    His mouth twisted into a syrupy smile.
    Mason looked down, coughed lightly into his hand, cleared his suddenly bone-dry throat, then looked up and gripped the doorframe harder as he forced out words.
    “Yes, oh yes, I’ll probably work it—I’m working it out with my wife and her mother—but actually I was wondering if I’ll be paid for working the overtime if I do.”
    Pritchard slid a hand into his pocket and slightly threw back his long-faced head and spoke through yellowish protruding front teeth.
    “Well of course you won’t be paid for it, he said. You’re a salaried employee. Salaried employees don’t get paid for overtime. Overtime is part of the job—it’s mandatory. You don’t have a forty hour a week job—you work the time it takes to get the job done. Didn’t they make this clear to you during your job interview? It’s something they should have covered Mason. I can’t believe they didn’t.”
    Mason’s stomach once more grew deeply hollow and he gripped the doorframe even harder, his nails digging into the thick paint.
    “Well,” he said in a thin voice. “No they didn’t.”
    “They should have,” said Pritchard. “I can hardly believe they didn’t. We’re professionals back here in this plant. Professionals don’t count nickels and dimes about getting paid for a few hours of overtime. Professionals do the job. That’s it. We need you to work, Mason, and that’s it.” Pritchard sat ramrod straight and his large hard eyes bored into Mason’s as he waited for a reply.
    Mason gulped hard—his throat was dry—why was his throat so dry? He dug his nails deeper into the doorframe.
    “Well—okay Mr. Pritchard—thanks for the answer,” Mason heard himself say meekly, and Pritchard quickly raised a skinny white sleeved arm to signal that that was all he expected to hear back from Mason.
    “Now go out there and run that press down into the ground,” said Pritchard, his mouth in a smile, his lips writhing wormlike. “Pump out those two dollar bills—they’re important. Nobody can run that machine like you, Mason. Nobody’s ever run that machine like you. So go to it. And we’ll see you Saturday and Sunday.”
    Pritchard looked down, turned a page of the paperwork before him, and bent once more to his work without waiting for Mason to answer. No answer was expected; just obedience. Wrapped in the rattling and roaring of the machinery all around him, which mercifully drove all thought of the words that had just been said from his mind, Mason made his way robotlike to the ink room to get a pot of ink for his press, as he did at the beginning of every shift. As he started to go through the narrow iron door set in the wall he nearly collided head on with tall blonde haired Richard Brockman, the one and ten dollar bill press operator, who gripped two large pots of ink in his thick-fingered hands. Mason looked up to Brockman, and respected him for being able to run two presses at once, full speed. Mason hoped to be able to do that someday; and the way he was going, he would make it. It was all about proving yourself. It was all about being best. He quickly stepped back from Brockman to avoid the collision.
    “Woops—sorry,” said Mason. “Almost ran into you.”
    “That’s okay,” said Brockman, pausing momentarily. “What’s new? I saw you in talking to Pritchard before. Anything new with the two dollar bill press? She running all right?”
    “Oh—sure she’s running fine,” said Mason, looking around. “Say Brockman, I’ve got a question.” said Mason suddenly, surprising himself as the words slid out.
    “What?” replied Brockman.
    Mason spoke softly.
    “Does anyone here get paid for overtime?”
    Why was he asking, he thought—he’d just been told the answer by Pritchard—but something in him said ask Brockman. See how he sees it. See what he thinks.
    Brockman leaned his shoulder on the doorframe and held the ink pots at his hips.
    “Why do you ask?” he said, narrow-eyed.
    Mason looked away. He didn’t really know why he had asked he’d just been told that should have been good enough he felt foolish for asking, but damn, it just came out—
    “Well, since you asked—I get paid overtime,” said Brockman. “My job’s dangerous. All those knives and swinging levers and spinning gears—plus the danger of running back and forth between two presses—I could slip and fall bad. I got to work on the run. They got to pay me. I’m worth every penny.”
    Mason felt the bile rise in his throat and his stomach sicken hearing this. He pressed a hand to his stomach as the words kept coming out.
    “Aren’t you salaried?”
    “Oh, of course,” said Brockman. “We all are. So are you. We’re professionals. Say—why are you asking all this?”
    Mason’s stomach churned. He choked back the bile.
    “Oh—no reason. Just curious. Have a good day.”
    “You too.”
    Brockman walked off, ink pots rattling in his hands and Mason went into the darkened ink room and got his pots— black, deep black, and green, and red—and went out through the roaring that once more mercifully permitted no thought of what had just been said until he reached his two dollar bill machine. He poured the inks into the tanks and got up on his chair after nodding to Tillman that they were going to start and he pushed the buttons and pulled the levers to start the gnashing and roaring of the machine and the sound and vibration came up under him and held him up, surrounding him completely as a tight whirlwind; the face of Pritchard drifted before him, in the noise, mouthing the word professional, professional, and the twos poured out the front onto the cart and Mason really kept Tillman hopping with his Dolly and he churned his way through the day; the work, the breaks, the lunch—and Mason made himself think of nothing but his earsplitting clashing and crashing machine until it was the end of the day, and time to go home to Edna.
    Edna. He just knew Edna would say something; what to say to Edna—
    As he drove his seven year old Chevrolet toward home his mind switched gears and the conversation with Pritchard he’d had this morning ran through his mind and he forced it out by numbly gripping the wheel and concentrating on guiding the car through the surging traffic. When Mason came in the kitchen Edna stood at the counter carving great thick slabs of meat from a large hot slightly overdone roast beef. Mason went and pecked her on the cheek and said “Hello.”
    “Hello Mason,” said Edna. “Roast beef tonight.”
    “I know,” he said. “I can see that. It looks good. It smells good. You’re a great cook, Edna. Really great—”
    She suddenly waved the large carving knife and turned to face Mason. As she spoke she planted her other hand on her hip and leaned against the counter with her weight shifted over on one leg. She tilted her head back as she spoke.
    “Did you ask your boss about the overtime we were talking about yesterday?” she said.
    “Yes,” he said, his throat once more dry; he knew she would ask this; why does she have to ask this; he wanted all this talk to be over, he’s had enough of it for one day; he moved to wash his hands at the chipped white sink.
    “And what did he say?”
    The knife swung in her hand. Her eye pierced him. He looked away and swallowed hard in the suddenly roaring wall of quiet between them.
    Open your mouth let what comes out come out—
    “He said I won’t get paid,” blurted Mason. “Said I’m a professional and professionals don’t get paid for overtime.” “What?” she said, half turning away and savagely plunging the knife into the roast, making him shudder. He put his hands up between them.
    “It’s what I said—I have to work the overtime. And I won’t get paid. I talked to the boss—he said I’m a professional and professionals do what they have to do no matter how many hours it takes and don’t count nickels and dimes.”
    Her head sharply tilted.
    “What? That’s baloney Mason!” she shouted.
    Her voice echoed to silence. The silence of the room cut through Mason. It was too quiet it was too too quiet— and her eyes my God her eyes—
    She roughly pulled the knife from the roast and waved it at him again as she spoke fast.
    “I can’t believe all those people that work in that big plant would put up with not getting paid overtime—”
    “Well, one doesn’t put up with it,” blurted Mason, raising a hand, but instantly sorry he’d said anything. The silence echoed around him again as she waved the knife before speaking, wide-eyed.
    “What? Who doesn’t put up with it? Do you mean you’re not going to put up with it—I hope that’s what you mean!”
    Mason dried his hands with a striped dishtowel as he answered lightly.
    “No, that’s not what I mean. It’s the guy who runs the tens and ones press. Says he gets paid for his overtime because its dangerous.”
    She looked up at him, her face twisted into a mask.
    “Well isn’t it just as dangerous for you?”
    Mason turned the water back on and started washing his hands again.
    “Mason. Why are you washing your hands again? Answer me- -isn’t your job just as dangerous?”
    “Wait a minute,” he said. “Wait ‘till I wash my hands.”
    The sound of the rushing water came up around him as if to shield him as Edna began speaking fast and loud from the echoing quiet of the room.
    “I don’t understand, Mason—you say you’re told you can’t refuse overtime but then somebody tells you they refuse it all the time—then you’re told nobody gets paid overtime but then somebody tells you they do—what kind of a damned place is that you work at? What kind of a damned place—”
    She waved her hands back and forth and over and under one another, still holding the knife, as she went on.
    “—none of it makes any sense Mason. Be a man! Stand up to that boss of yours and get a straight answer about all this.”
    Mason dried his hands in a paper towel. Their eyes locked. Her eyes spoke to him. Her words cut through him.
    Be a man, she said through her eyes.
    He dried his hands harder. Their eyes remained locked. Now Tillman’s words drifted by in the silence between them.
    —I don’t work overtime if I don’t want to—
    Brockman’s words followed, low and smooth.
    —I get paid overtime because my job’s dangerous—plus I run two presses at once—that’s hard to do—
    Now Pritchard’s words coiled up through the quiet like tendrils of smoke from a cigarette in a stale still room.
    —nobody gets paid overtime here we’re all professionals—
    Pritchard’s pale face appeared over Edna’s.
    —and by the way don’t come back again if you don’t work Saturday and Sunday—
    Mason gulped.
    —don’t come back Monday or Tuesday or ever again—
    Mason swept a hand across erasing the vision of Pritchard’s ugly face and shut down all the words. His chest tightened—he turned angry. Mason’s hands formed to fists and he squeezed the paper towel hard. The room reformed about him as he spoke. He felt real again.
    He felt like a man.
    “I’ll confront the boss with all this tomorrow,” Mason told Edna loudly. “You’re right Edna. Its wrong how I’m being treated. Everybody should be treated the same.”
    “Well good,” she said.
    “Be a man.”
    She finished cooking and brought the food to the table and they ate the roast and small white potatoes and gravy and corn in the now calm silence of the room. Mason had nothing to say in his anger. Edna had said enough already. After dinner they watched TV in silence and went to bed. Mason lay there looking up into the roiling dark.
    Be a man, she had said.
    Tell Pritchard.
    Don’t ask him—tell him!
    On the way to work next morning the trees and fields and houses and telephones flashed past Mason’s car to match his racing thoughts. He pictured himself standing before Pritchard, imagined himself telling him.
    —I can’t work the overtime, Mister Pritchard—
    And he imagined what Mister Pritchard would say.
    —All right Mason. I understand. That’s all right—
    A short squat water tower went by, abandoned.
    Mason imagined himself saying it again.
    —I can’t work the overtime, Mister Pritchard—
    A great stand of rotting dead oaks passed by.
    —Then don’t come back again, said Pritchard, rising—
    Mason squeezed the steering wheel hard and pressed harder on the gas and the sound of the engine came up through the floorboards. He cut Pritchard off, out loud.
    —I told you Mister Pritchard. Can’t you hear? I’m not working the overtime, and even if I did, I should get paid! And I’m coming back Monday and Tuesday and all even if I don’t work the overtime—because you’re wrong, Mister Pritchard. You’re dead wrong—
    —What? What’s got into you Mason—what do you mean—
    Pritchard turned in his swivel chair with a loud screeching squeak of the chair bearings. He slowly rose and began to talk but Mason now had reached the plant and quickly pulled the car into the parking lot and parked it fast and got out and went into the grey factory and once more made his way around the pounding chattering rocking and rolling machines to Pritchard’s office. Busy men hustled and bustled about him. But he passed through them.
    Be a man, he thought, approaching the door.
    He came up. He knocked on the doorframe.
    Pritchard looked up from writing in a yellow pad.
    “You again, Mason? What is it this time? I hope it’s not a problem with your press this time—”
    Mason once more leaned a hand on the doorframe.
    “Mister Pritchard, I got to tell you straight—I really can’t work this weekend. Edna’d been planning this visit to the shrine for weeks. I’ve got to take her. I have no choice.”
    Pritchard leaned back in his chair and twined his long pale fingers together. His red lips writhed around his yellow teeth as he spoke.
    “That’s too bad Mason,” he said. “I hate to lose you.”
    Mason’s stomach hollowed once more. Again, he pressed his hand against it. He spoke as steadily as he could.
    “What do you mean, you hate to lose me—”
    Pritchard rose. He seemed taller than usual.
    “Step in here, Mason. Come on in. Close the door.”
    Mason entered and closed the door behind him. The tall glass walls filtered out the din of the machines outside. Pritchard tossed his head and pointed into Mason’s chest and spoke.
    “You know Mason, I mean what I said before, You don’t work the weekend, you don’t come back again. Ever. It’s company policy. Overtime is mandatory. Everybody’s told that coming in—I know you must have been told that coming in—”
    Edna’s hand came up behind pushing gently against Mason’s back. He took one step toward Pritchard and raised a hand.
    “But I wasn’t told that. And you don’t force Tillman to work overtime.”
    The concrete floor pressed to the soles of his feet. His feet suddenly ached. Pritchard grimaced and his eyes flashed.
    “Who told you that?” he snapped.
    “Tillman told me that.”
    Pritchard raised a hand, rolled his eyes toward the ceiling, and then lowered them firmly into Mason’s.
    “Oh God, Tillman. Listen—between you and I, Mason, pushing a cart’s all Tillman’s good for. Anybody can push one of those carts. We don’t need people to push carts on overtime. I’ll push the damned thing myself on overtime if I have to. But we need you on that two dollar bill machine, Mason. It isn’t just anybody knows how to run that one. That’s a tough machine to run. You should be proud of yourself. I’ve watched you. You’re a master.”
    Pritchard paused, stepped forward, and put his hand on Mason’s shoulder. He set his eye firmly into Mason’s. His strong sour breath enveloped Mason’s head as he spoke.
    “Yes, you’re damned good at running that machine,” said Pritchard. “Damned good. We need you. That’s the difference between Tillman and you. We need you. We need you and I can’t let you let us down.”
    Pritchard’s hand flexed on Mason’s shoulder and his eyes bored deeply into Mason but Edna’s hand was still pressing from behind and pressed forward once more and Mason spoke.
    “Brockman gets paid for his overtime,” Mister Pritchard.
    Pritchard’s eyebrows rose and his face turned blank and he spoke calmly.
    “Oh? And who told you that, boy?”
    The hand flexed on Mason’s shoulder, digging in.
    “Brockman told me,” said Mason.
    Pritchard’s hand came off Mason’s shoulder and he stepped to the side of the office and raised his stubbly head and looked out over the rows of tall green machines, churning out piles and piles of bills, and he spoke softly to Mason.
    “Have you looked close at Brockman’s hand, Mason?”
    “No. Why?”
    Pritchard turned back to Mason with his hands on his hips.
    “He’s missing three fingers. Lost them on the dollar machine, out there. Out there where you work. He had the nerve to sue us, but we couldn’t stop him. He had a good lawyer. Part of his settlement was he gets overtime pay from now on. He didn’t tell you that part, did he Mason? He didn’t show you his hands, did he? Did he?”
    Pritchard stared open-mouthed into Mason’s eyes.
    “No, he didn’t.”
    Pritchard tossed his head toward Mason. His great brown watery blank eyes caught the light.
    “Would you like to have three fingers missing Mason?”
    “No.”
    “Aren’t you glad you’ve got all your fingers, Mason? Aren’t you glad you’re whole? You should be thankful you’re whole and healthy. That’s what you ought to be thinking about. Not this nonsense about a little overtime.”
    Edna’s hand pushed Mason once more.
    “But I can’t work the overtime—”
    Pritchard turned fully toward Mason and pointed.
    “Oh cut that out Mason! Be thankful that you’re whole and healthy and not a dimwit like Tillman or a cripple like Brockman. Be thankful your biggest problem is you’ve got to work a weekend’s overtime. Now—go on out there and push that press hard! Show us what you can do! And we’ll see you in here Saturday and Sunday. You’re a damned good man Mason. Damned good. I’ve had my eye on you Mason. I don’t want to lose you. And I won’t lose you!”
    Edna’s hand had melted away in the storm of words from Pritchard and the office door opened and Mason was blown backward out of the office and he stepped away without answering Pritchard, and he went to the ink room and got his inks and made his way toward the two dollar bill machine, went past Brockman’s machines and tried not to look at Brockman’s hand, went past Tillman without even saying hello, poured the inks into the tanks, climbed into his chair, and started the press up. Violently he pressed the buttons.
    You’re a good man Mason, had said Pritchard. A damned good man—
    The grinding and whirring and clashing of the steel parts deep inside the machine whirled about him as a whirlwind, and the sighing and slamming of the press he sat proudly upon formed a thick circle of earsplitting noise through which only a few words penetrated, a few very important words, repeating themselves with each surge of noise and vibration up through Mason’s steel seat, and up through his spine to his brain where he heard them.
    —we don’t want to lose you Mason—
    —we don’t want to lose you—
    The machine roared through another day. Breaks and lunch came and went; his ears rang and his body vibrated through each break and lunch echoing the important words.
    —We don’t want to lose you—
    And four more words added in—
    —You should be thankful—
    And six more—
    —you should be thankful you’re whole—
    The two dollar bill machine’s raging din carried Mason to the end of the day and he drove slowly home to Edna, idly counting the poles passing by to pass the time, something that he had always done in the car when nervous, to keep the words from continuing to repeat through his mind. The poles went by in a soothing rhythm.
    —one hundred one—
    —one hundred two—
    —one hundred three—
    He pulled the car slowly into the loose gravel driveway and got out and went under the spreading oak tree that had been there since long before there were ever two dollar bill machines, and would be there long after, and up into the house into the kitchen. Edna stood boiling a tall pot of egg noodles. A canned ham sat heating in the oven. A good meal; one of Mason’s favorites. Mason came in and pecked her on the cheek and stepped over to the cracked sink once more to wash his hands, and she asked him right out, with no hesitation, what had been on her mind all day. She didn’t want her man screwed; she wanted him to stand up, be a man, as her Father and Grandfather always had..
    “Well? Did you tell them?”
    He turned off the water and got down a paper towel. He turned to her and spoke softly.
    “Yes, I did.”
    She put down the stirring spoon, crossed her arms, and faced him. His tone told her there was still a problem.
    “Well?” she said. “What did they say?”
    He went and scraped a kitchen chair away from the table and sat down leaning his head on his hands. “I’m thankful,” he said.
    “What—I asked you what did they say—”
    He spoke abruptly, loudly.
    “I’m thankful! And that’s all I’ve got to say.”
    She planted a hand on her hip.
    “What do you mean you’re thankful? What are you thankful about? Did you tell them you expect to get paid the overtime did you tell them you expect not to be forced to work the weekend did you tell them did you tell them did you—”
    Once more he felt her hand pressing into his back urging him to have said the right thing, to say the right thing, to do the right thing, but Pritchard’s spidery hand was there too, pressing into his chest, pushing the other way, also urging him to have said the right thing, to do the right thing—but the two things clashed and contradicted one another and the hands pressed hard and into him and met together, palm to palm, near his heart. All of the words tangled into a hard knot there, and suddenly he knew—
    —they both loved him!
    So it didn’t matter what he said or did—they both loved him and he would move forward for both of them, moving from day to day as he’d been doing, and the kitchen chair became the steel seat on the side of the two dollar bill machine and the kitchen contained the fierce clashing din of the machine as he sat, pressing buttons and pulling levers, the bills smoothly coming out of the front of the machine and out across the kitchen table, keeping Tillman hopping with Pritchard and Edna looking on, both right, both smiling, both so proud of him watching the noise and vibration lift him high, higher, finally raising him into the timeless silence far above the clash and crash of all the meaningless words and the sights and sounds and smells of the kitchen and whatever he’d do or not do this weekend or the next or the next and Mason loved just one thing in that endless instant; his wonderful, towering, roaring two dollar bill machine.

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