The angry roar and hiss of the factory fill the air. A cherry bomb goes off behind Bobby Finnegan. He flinches at the explosion, only five feet from him, and he lets loose of his share of the roof panel and watches it settle onto the trim die, then steps back as Eddie cycles the press with the lone pair of palm buttons. There is a tremendous crunch as the press bottoms out and the scrap pieces clatter down the scrap chutes or onto the floor, to be kicked or shoved down the chutes later when there is a lull in the action. And then, whoosh, he can feel the air as a rolled up pair of cotton gloves whizzes past his face. Down the line a plastic sandwich bag filled with water hits the press face and splatters over the guys manning that press.
Bobby hurries back to the draw press, which has just boomed and exploded another huge piece of sheet metal into the form of a car roof. Then he and his partner, Eddie Smoad, reach into the die, well, not really into it, since putting any part of your body in a pinch point is grounds for firing, and drag the heavy panel out and tip it up so that they can get both hands on it, one hand clamped tightly to keep the panel from slipping and slicing to the bone through the thin, cotton gloves. Bobby and Eddie are in a rhythm, running at times back and forth between their press and the big, lead toggle press, which is capable of cycling every eight seconds. They load another huge panel and the men step back, two more of them on the other side of the press waiting to take the trimmed roof panel on to the next press. Like a huge game of leap frog, there are four men between presses, two cycling the press and two going back upstream to get the roof panel out of the prior die, alternating job positions.
Bobby and Eddie grab another panel out of the greasy draw die, and a shower of cotton glove balls rains down on them. One of them hits Bobby in the side of the face, knocking his safety glasses part way off. It won’t be long until he can return fire; he knows who threw that one and now he owes him. Bobby and Eddie load the panel, step back, and the monstrous trim die crunches another one. Then Bobby sees his chance; there are a half dozen glove balls on the die shoe, and he grabs two of them and wheels around, preparing to fire as his torso rotates, when he slips in the oil that has steadily dripped from the roof panels and the press all morning.
Bobby can hear the press movement and wonders at that. That is what he always would remember, the press cycling when it wasn’t supposed to. Bobby stops himself from falling into the scrap chute, with his back against the lower die shoe and his left arm on the die adaptor, and can feel the rough cast iron sliding, as if in slow motion, down the back of his head, remembers it touching his shoulder, and hears the ka-lump as the die bottoms without metal in it, and the huge die pad settles itself.
Dazed, Bobby stands leaning against the press bed and die shoe, thankful that he had not fallen down the scrap chute or into the die. Then Eddie is screaming, and something doesn’t feel right to Bobby, and it is then he notices the big red splotch in the roof die, and sees the bone fragments hanging along the trim edge of the die adaptor, looking like the metal slivers that sometimes build up when the trim steels are getting dull. Bobby releases the glove balls onto the floor and watches as one of them bounces down the scrap chute. Then the pain comes like a deep, evil fog, and Bobby sees that his left arm is gone from his biceps on down.