I can fly!

I was not long out of college and working as a management trainee at an injection molding factory. The factory is long-closed and the OSHA statute of limitations, if there is such a thing, has long expired. 

It was my lot that week to spend some time on the graveyard shift, that 11-7 time slot no one likes. The factory had a range of presses, from 50 ton to 2500 ton machines. Some of the molds were quite large, all were very heavy. Cranes crossed the factory ceiling, not construction cranes, but the overhead machines that are ubiquitous in nearly every factory. 

There was one particular mold technician, maybe in his late thirties, who was eccentric, to say the least, but he was a wizard at his job. He could set up a press, wave his fingers over the controls and make the mold spit out perfect, repeatable parts every time. But he was batshit crazy. 

Big heavy 4x4 boxes that originally held raw material were used to collect scrap and recycling - plastic can be reused - and one of these boxes was at the foot of every press. I was walking along when I heard a thud. I looked down to see a quivering screwdriver embedded in the side of the box right beside me. Crazy mold tech Marty had thrown his screwdriver like a knife into the side of the box. He grinned, pulled it out and walked off. I learned he did this all of the time and could famously launch his screwdriver from 20 or more yards away with unerring accuracy. 

It was late in the week, in the doldrums that hit around 4 AM, that I finally saw his famous act up close. Over the roar and pound of the presses, I heard laughter. I looked up to see Marty flying above my head.. He took the hook from an overhead crane, and fastened  to the back of his belt and raised himself up fifteen feet above the machines and was slowly transversing the factory floor like an Industrial Age Peter Pan. 

The plant manager called me in to ask if I had seen the flying on the crane. I asked what would happen. “Ah, Jose (he always called  me Jose), he’ll have a couple of days at home. When he takes his meds he’s a good worker,” he said. “Besides,” the plant manager grinned at me, “We would all like to do it if we had any balls.” He glared at 23 year-old me. “Don’t get any ideas. Your ass will be fired.” 

It did look like fun.