Gladiator

by Philip Wylie

  XVII

  Hugo sat in Madison Square Park giving his attention in a circuit to theFlatiron Building, the clock on the Metropolitan Tower, and the creepingbarrage of traffic that sent people scampering, stopped, moved forwardagain. He had sat on the identical bench at the identical time of dayduring his obscure undergraduate period. To repeat that contemplativestasis after so much living had intervened ought to have produced anemotion. He had gone to the park with that idea. But the febrile firesof feeling were banked under the weight of many things and he couldsuffer nothing, enjoy nothing and think but one fragmentary routine.

  He had tried much and made no progress. He would be forced presently todepart on a different course from a new threshold. That idea went roundand round in his head like a single fly in a big room. It lost poignancyand eventually it lost meaning. Still he sat in feeble sunshine tryingto move beyond stagnancy. He remembered the small man with the hugeroll of bills who had moved beside him and asked for a cup of coffee. Heremembered the woman who had robbed him; silk ankles crossed his line ofvision, and a gusty appetite vaporized even as it steamed into thecoldness of his indecision.

  He was without money now, as he had been then, so long ago. He budged onthe bench and challenged himself to think.

  What would you do if you were the strongest man in the world, thestrongest thing in the world, mightier than the machine? He made himselfguess answers for that rhetorical query. "I would--I would have won thewar. But I did not. I would run the universe single-handed. Literallysingle-handed. I would scorn the universe and turn it to my own ends. Iwould be a criminal. I would rip open banks and gut them. I would killand destroy. I would be a secret, invisible blight. I would set out tostamp crime off the earth; I would be a super-detective, following andsummarily punishing every criminal until no one dared to commit afelony. What would I do? What will I do?"

  Then he realized that he was hungry. He had not eaten enough in the lastfew days. Enough for him. With some intention of finding work he hadleft Mr. Shayne's house. A call on the telephone from Mr. Shayne himselfvolunteering a position had crystallized that intention. In three dayshe had discovered the vast abundance of young men, the embarrassment ofyoung men, who were walking along the streets looking for work. He whohad always worked with his arms and shoulders had determined to try toearn his living with his head. But the white-collar ranks were teeming,overflowing, supersaturated. He went down in the scale of clerkships andinexperienced clerkships. There was no work.

  Thence he had gone to the park, and presently he rose. He had seen theclusters of men on Sixth Avenue standing outside the employmentagencies. He could go there. Any employment was better than hunger--andhe had learned that hunger could come swiftly and formidably to him.Business was slack, hands were being laid off; where an apprentice wasrequired, three trained men waited avidly for work. It was appalling andHugo saw it as appalling. He was not frightened, but, as he walked, heknew that it was a mistake to sit in the park with the myriad other men.Walking made him feel better. It was action, it bred the thought thatany work was better than none. Work would not hinder his dreams,meantime.

  When he reached Forty-second Street he could see the sullen, watchfulgroups of men. He joined one of them. A loose-jointed, dark-faced personcame down a flight of stairs, wrote on a blackboard in chalk, and wentup again. Several of the group detached themselves and followed him--tocompete for a chance to wash windows.

  A man at his side spoke to him. "Tough, ain't it, buddy?"

  "Yeah, it's tough," Hugo said.

  "I got three bones left. Wanna join me in a feed an' get a jobafterward?"

  Hugo looked into his eyes. They were troubled and desirous ofcompanionship. "No, thanks," he replied.

  They waited for the man to scribble again in chalk.

  "They was goin' to fix up everybody slick after the war. Oh, hell, yes."

  "You in it?" Hugo asked.

  "Up to my God-damned neck, buddy."

  "Me, too. Guess I'll go up the line."

  "I'll go witcha."

  "Well--"

  They waited a moment longer, for the man with the chalk had reappeared.Hugo's comrade grunted. "Wash windows an' work in the steel mills. Breakyour neck or burn your ear off. Wha' do they care?" Hugo had taken astep toward the door, but the youth with the troubled eyes caught hissleeve. "Don't go up for that, son. They burn you in them steel mills. Iseen guys afterward. Two years an' you're all done. This is tough, butthat's tougher. Sweet Jesus, I'll say it is."

  Hugo loosened himself. "Gotta eat, buddy. I don't happen to have eventhree bones available at the moment."

  The man looked after him. "Gosh," he murmured. "Even guys like that."

  He was in a dingy room standing before a grilled window. A voice frombehind it asked his name, age, address, war record. Hugo was handed apiece of paper to sign and then a second piece that bore the scrawledwords: "Amalgamated Crucible Steel Corp., Harrison, N. J."

  Hugo's emotional life was reawakened when he walked into the mills. Hislast nickel was gone. He had left the train at the wrong station andwalked more than a mile. He was hungry and cold. He came, as if naked,to the monster and he did it homage.

  Its predominant colour scheme was black and red. It had a loud, paganvoice. It breathed fire. It melted steel and rock and drank human sweat,with human blood for an occasional stimulant. On every side of him wereenormous buildings and woven between them a plaid of girders, cables,and tracks across which masses of machinery moved. Inside, Thor washammering. Inside, a crane sped overhead like a tarantula, trailing itsviscera to the floor, dangling a gigantic iron rib. A white speck in itswounded abdomen was a human face.

  The bright metal gushed from another hole. It was livid and partiallyalive; it was hot and had a smell; it swept away the thought of the darkdescending night. It made a pool in a great ladle; it made a cupfuldipped from a river in hell. A furnace exhaled sulphurously, darting asnake's tongue into the sky. The mills roared and the earth shook. Itwas bestial, reptilian--labour, and the labour of creation, and theengine that turned the earth could be no more terrible.

  Hugo, standing sublimely small in its midst, measured his strengthagainst it, soaked up its warmth, shook his fist at it, and shouted in avoice that could not be heard for a foot: "Christ Almighty! This--issomething!"

  "Name?"

  "Hugo Danner."

  "Address?"

  "None at present."

  "Experience?"

  "None."

  "Married?"

  "No."

  "Union?"

  "What?"

  "Lemme see your union card."

  "I don't belong."

  "Well, you gotta join."

  He went to the headquarters of the union. Men were there of all sorts.The mills were taking on hands. There was reconstruction to be doneabroad and steel was needed. They came from Europe, for the most part.Thickset, square-headed, small-eyed men. Men with expressionless facesand bulging muscles that held more meaning than most countenances. Theygave him room and no more. They answered the same questions that heanswered. He stood in a third queue with them, belly to back, mouthsclosed. He was sent to a lodging-house, advanced five dollars, and toldthat he would be boarded and given a bed and no more until theemployment agency had taken its commission, and the union its dues. Hesigned a paper. He went on the night shift without supper.

  He ran a wheelbarrow filled with heavy, warm slag for a hundred feetover a walk of loose bricks. The job was simple. Load, carry, dump,return, load. On some later night he would count the number of loads.But on this first night he walked with excited eyes, watching thetremendous things that happened all around him. Men ran the machinerythat dumped the ladle. Men guided liquid iron from the furnaces into amaze of channels and cloughs, clearing the way through the sand, cuttingoff the stream, making new openings. Men wheeled the slag and steeredthe trains and trams and cranes. Men operated the hammers. And almostall of the men were nude to the waist, sleek and shining with sweat;almos
t all of them drank whisky.

  One of the men in the wheelbarrow line even offered a drink to Hugo. Heheld out the flask and bellowed in Czech. Hugo took it. The drink wasraw and foul. Pouring into his empty stomach, it had a powerful effect,making him exalted, making him work like a demon. After a long, noisytime that did not seem long a steam whistle screamed faintly and theshift was ended.

  The Czech accompanied Hugo through the door. The new shift was alreadyat work. They went out. A nightmare of brilliant orange and black fledfrom Hugo's vision and he looked into the pale, remote chiaroscuro ofdawn.

  "Me tired," the Czech said in a small, aimless tone.

  They flung themselves on dirty beds in a big room. But Hugo did notsleep for a time--not until the sun rose and day was evident in thegrimy interior of the bunk house.

  That he could think while he worked had been Hugo's thesis when hewalked up Sixth Avenue. Now, working steadily, working at a thing thatwas hard for other men and easy for him, he nevertheless fell into thestolid vacuum of the manual labourer. The mills became familiar, lessfantastic. He remembered that oftentimes the war had given a moredramatic passage of man's imagination forged into fire and steel.

  His task was changed numerous times. For a while he puddled pig ironwith the long-handled, hoe-like tool.

  "Don't slip in," they said. It was succinct, graphic.

  Then they put him on the hand cars that fed the furnaces. It waspicturesque, daring, and for most men too hard. Few could manage theweight or keep up with the pace. Those who did were honoured by theirfellows. The trucks were moved forward by human strength and dumped byhand-windlasses. Occasionally, they said, you became tired and fellinto the furnace. Or jumped. If you got feeling woozy, they said, quit.The high rails and red mouths were hypnotic, like burning Baal and theJuggernaut.

  Hugo's problems had been abandoned. He worked as hard as he dared. Thepresence of grandeur and din made him content. How long it would havelasted is uncertain; not forever. On the day when he had pushed up twohundred and three loads during his shift, the boss stopped him in theyard.

  A tall, lean, acid man. He caught Hugo's sleeve and turned him round."You're one of the bastards on the furnace line."

  "Yes."

  "How many cars did you push up to-day?"

  "Two hundred and three."

  "What the hell do you think this is, anyway?"

  "I don't get you."

  "Oh, you don't, huh? Well, listen here, you God-damned athlete, what areyou trying to do? You got the men all sore--wearing themselves out. Ihad to lay off three--why? Because they couldn't keep up with you,that's why. Because they got their guts in a snarl trying to bust yourrecord. What do you think you're in? A race? Somebody's got to show youyour place around here and I think I'll just kick a lung out right now."

  The boss had worked himself into a fury. He became conscious of anaudience of workers. Hugo smiled. "I wouldn't advise you to trythat--even if you are a big guy."

  "What was that?" The words were roared. He gathered himself, but whenHugo did not flinch, did not prepare himself, he was suddenly startled.He remembered, perhaps, the two hundred and three cars. He opened hisfist. "All right. I ain't even goin' to bother myself tryin' to breakyou in to this game. Get out."

  "What?"

  "Get out. Beat it. I'm firing you."

  "Firing me? For working too hard?" Hugo laughed. He bent double withlaughter. His laughter sounded above the thunder of the mill. "Oh, God,that's funny. Fire me!" He moved toward the boss menacingly. "I've anotion to twist your liver around your neck myself."

  The workers realized that an event of some magnitude was taking place.They drew nearer. Hugo's laughter came again and changed into asmile--an emotion that cooled visibly. Then swiftly he peeled up thesleeve of his shirt. His fist clenched; his arm bent; under the nose ofhis boss he caused his mighty biceps to swell. His whole body trembled.With his other hand he took the tall man's fingers and laid them on thatmuscle.

  "Squeeze," he shouted.

  The boss squeezed. His face grew pallid and he let go suddenly. He triedto speak through his dry mouth, but Hugo had turned his back. At thebrick gate post he paused and drew a breath.

  His words resounded like the crack of doom. "So long!"