Rollie Knight and May Lou were two of the eight because this was where - for the time being - they lived. Though the room was tiny by any standard, it served the dual purpose of living and sleeping, while a closet-sized "kitchen" adjoining housed a sink with cold water only, a decrepit gas cooker, and a few plain board shelves. There was no toilet or bath. These facilities, such as they were, were one floor down and shared with a half dozen other apartments.
Rollie looked morose, as if wishing he had not agreed to be involved with this. May Lou, childlike and seeming to have sprouted like a weed with skinny legs and bony arms, appeared scared, though she was becoming less so as Wes Gropetti, his black beret in place despite the heat, talked quietly to her.
Behind the director were the camera operator and soundman, their equipment deployed awkwardly in the confined space. Barbara Zaleski stood with them, her notebook opened.
Brett DeLosanto, watching, was amused to see that Barbara, as usual, had dark glasses pushed up into her hair.
The camera lights were off. Everyone knew that when they went on, the room would become hotter still.
Leonard Wingate, from the auto maker's Personnel department and also the company's ranking Negro executive, mopped his perspiring face with a fresh linen handkerchief. Both he and Brett were backed against a wall, trying to take as little space as possible.
Suddenly, though only the two technicians had seen Gropetti's signal, the lights were on, the sound tape running.
May Lou blinked. But as the director continued to talk softly, she nodded and her face adjusted. Then swiftly, smoothly, Gropetti eased rearward, out of camera range.
May Lou said naturally, as if unaware of anything but her own thoughts,
"Ain't no good worryin', not about no future like they say we should, 'cos it ain't ever looked as if there'd be one for some like us." She shrugged. "Don't look no different now."
Gropetti's voice. "Cut!"
Camera lights went out. The director moved in, whispering in May Lou's ear once more. After several minutes, while the others waited silently, the camera lights went on. Gropetti slid back.
May Lou's face was animated. "Sure they took our color TV." She glanced across the room toward an empty corner. "Two guys come for it, said we hadn't made no payments after the first. One of the guys wanted to know, why'd we buy it? I told him, 'Mister, if I got a down payment today, I can watch TV tonight. Some days that's all that matters.'" Her voice slipped lower. "I shoulda told him, 'Who knows about tomorrow?'"
"Cut!"
Brett whispered to Leonard Wingate beside him, "What's this all about?"
The Negro executive was still mopping his face. He said, low-voiced,
"They're in trouble. The two of them had some real money for the first time in their lives, so they went wild, bought furniture, a color TV, took on payments they couldn't meet. Now, some of the stuffs been re-possessed. That isn't all."
Ahead of them, Gropetti was having May Lou and Rollie Knight change positions. Now Rollie faced the camera.
Brett asked, still speaking softly, "What else has happened?"
"The word is 'garnishee,'" Wingate said. "It means a lousy, out-of-date law which politicians agree ought to be changed, but nobody does it."
Wes Gropetti had his head down and was talking to Rollie in his usual way.
Wingate told Brett, "Knight's had his wages garnisheed once already. This week there was a second court order, and under the union agreement two garnishees mean automatic dismissal."
"Hell! Can't you do something?"
"Maybe. It depends on Knight. When this is over, I'll talk to him."
"Should he be spilling his guts on film?"
Leonard Wingate shrugged. "I told him he didn't have to, that it's his private business. But he didn't seem to mind, neither did the girl.
Maybe they don't care; maybe they figure they can help somebody else.
I don't know."
Barbara, who had overheard, turned her head. "Wes says it's part of the whole scene. Besides, he'll edit sympathetically."
"If I didn't think so," Wingate said, "we wouldn't be here."
The director was still briefing Rollie.
Wingate, speaking softly but his voice intense, told Barbara and Brett,
"Half the problem with what's happening to Knight is our own attitudes - the establishment's; that means people like you two and me.
Okay, we help somebody like these two kids, but as soon as we do, we expect them to have all our middle-class values which it took us years of living our way to acquire. The same goes for money. Even though Knight hasn't been used to it because none ever came his way, we expect him to handle money as if he'd had it all his life, and if he doesn't, what happens? He's shoved into court, his wages garnisheed, he's fired.
We forget that plenty of us who've lived with money still run up debts we can't manage. But let this guy do the same thing" - the Negro executive nodded toward Rollie Knight - "and our systems all set to throw him back on the garbage heap."
"You're not going to let it happen," Barbara murmured.
Wingate shook his head impatiently. "There's only so much I can do. And Knight's just one of many."
Camera lights were on. The director glanced their way, a signal for silence. Rollie Knight's voice rose clearly in the quiet, hot room.
"Sure you find out things from livin' here. Like, most of it ain't gonna get better, no matter what they say. Besides that, nuthun' lasts." Unexpectedly, a smile flashed over Rollie's face; then, as if regretting the smile, a scowl replaced it. "So best not to expect nuthun'. Then it don't hurt none when you lose it."
Gropetti called, "Cut!"
Filming continued for another hour, Gropetti coaxing and patient, Rollie speaking of experiences in the inner city and the auto assembly plant where he was still employed. Though the young black worker's words were simple and sometimes stumbling, they conveyed reality and a true picture of himself - not always favorable, but not belittling either. Barbara, who had seen earlier sequences filmed, had a conviction that the answer print would be an eloquently moving document.
When camera lights went out after the concluding shot, Wes Gropetti removed his black beret and mopped his head with a large, grubby kerchief.
He nodded to the two technicians. "Strike it! That's a wrap."
While the others filed out, with brief "goodnights" to Rollie and May Lou, Leonard Wingate stayed behind. Brett DeLosanto, Barbara Zaleski, and Wes Gropetti were going on to the Detroit Press Club for a late supper, where Wingate would join them shortly.
The Negro executive waited until the others had passed through the mean hallway outside, with its single, low-wattage light bulb and peeling paint, and were clattering down the worn wooden stairway to the street below. Through the hallway door, the odor of garbage drifted in. May Lou closed it.
She asked, "You want a drink, mister?"
Wingate started to shake his head, then changed his mind. "Yes, please."
From a shelf in the miniscule kitchen, the girl took a rum bottle with about an inch of liquor in it, which she divided equally between two glasses. Adding ice and Coke, she gave one to Wingate, the other to Rollie. The three of them sat down in the all-purpose room.
"There'll be some money coming to you from the film people for using your place tonight," Wingate said. "It won't be much; it never is. But I'll see you get it."
May Lou gave an unsure smile. Rollie Knight said nothing.
The executive sipped his drink. "You knew about the garnishee? The second one?"
Rollie still didn't answer.
"Somebody tol' him today at work," May Lou said. "They said he don't get his paycheck no more? That right?"
"He doesn't get part of it. But if he loses his job there'll be no more checks anyway - for anybody." Wingate went on to explain about garnishees - the attachment of a worker's pay at source by court order, which creditors obtained. He added that, while auto companies and other employers detested the garnishee system, they had no choice but to comply with the law.
As Wingate suspected, neither Rollie nor May Lou had understood the earlier garnishee, nor was Rollie aware that a second one - under company-union rules - could get him fired.
"There's a reason for that," Wingate said. "Garnishees make a lot of work for the payroll department, which costs the company money."
Rollie blurted, "Bullshit!" He got up and walked around.
Leonard Wingate sighed. "If you want my honest opinion, I think you're right. It's why I'll try to help you if I can. If you want me to."
May Lou glanced at Rollie. She moistened her lips. "He wants you to, mister. He ain't been himself lately. He's been . . . well, real upset."
Wingate wondered why. If Rollie had learned about the garnishee only today, as May Lou said, obviously he had not been worrying because of that. He decided not to press the point.
"What I can do," the executive told them, and you must understand this is only if you want it, is have someone look over your finances for you, straighten them out if we can, and try to get you started fresh."
He went on, explaining how the system devised by Jim Robson, a plant personnel manager for Chrysler, and copied nowadays by other companies - worked.
What they must do, he informed Rollie and May Lou, was give him, here and now, a list of all their debts. He would hand these to a senior Personnel man in Rollie's plant. The Personnel man, who did this extra curricular job on his own time, would go over everything to see how much was owing. Then he would phone the creditors, one by one, urging them to accept modest payments over a long period and, in return, withdraw their garnishees.