Soon he was roaring down the toll road for New York. There was surprisingly little traffic for this time of night. Just as he began chanting disaster-to-enemy curses to the tune of “Indian Love Call” it began raining.
Rudolf wiped his eyes and still couldn’t see. Finally he remembered to turn on the wipers. It began coming down like a cow micturating on a flat rock. Rudolf drove on through the rain at a stolid forty-five, as fast as the dump truck could go without tearing the governor out by the roots. He wished he’d ignored Pamela’s tantrum and driven it to Northumber the day they’d tried to buy him. It would have been fabulous, the end-all of put-downs if only he could have parked a dump truck among all those Cadillacs and Continentals and Lamborghinis. Rudolf sighed.
The toll road divided with one branch heading off somewhere into the wilds of New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Rudolf realized his error at the last minute, swept across a couple of lanes and was rewarded with angry honks and tire squealings. The truck continued its unfaltering forty-five. He wondered if Tuchi had found her way to Northumber yet. The rain lessened and he didn’t have to concentrate so hard to keep the loose-steering truck from wandering across more than three lanes.
Cars whizzed past, tail lighting spray into rocket exhaust. Rudolf aimed his missile cityward and was suddenly lost in the by-ways of Van Cortlandt Park. The dump truck cab’s rear window was missing. Rudolf felt the chill settling into his bones. He took another slug of garbage juice and extricated himself to cross the Harlem River.
A cop waved and blew his whistle. Rudolf waved back and drove down — what the hell was he doing clear over on Second Avenue? The rain lightened to a drizzle as he mushed doggedly south, ignoring honks and policemen’s whistles. St. Audrey’s new building was somewhere south of the East Village, he knew, down around 9th or 10th where they had talked for years of clearing out the aging Russian-Polish neighborhood.
Suddenly Rudolf realized he was not alone. Dozens of transit-mix trucks were grinding along, jockeying for position. Rudolf got in line. Drivers waved fists and honked at the dump truck’s defilement of concrete mixers. Finally Rudolf focused long enough to see they were all pointing the same way. He veered over to the next block and insinuated himself into another line.
Slowly the line moved through an opening in a board fence. Above the clatter of idling dump trucks he could hear the steady rumble of concrete being poured into hoppers and lifted into the Manhattan sky. He looked up into the dark where buckets were disappearing in the drizzle.
Dump trucks were collecting smashed form lumber, odd lumps of hardened cement, all the leftovers from a building that would enclose more volume than the Great Pyramid. Rudolf crept along the line, looking for a way to get out. He drove under a hopper. The truck shuddered and settled as tons of rubble came crashing into it.
The loader waved him on. Rudolf killed the engine. It refused to start. Hot from all that idling and creeping, he guessed. It would be okay after resting a few minutes to cool off. There was shouting and waving. The truck behind pushed him to one side and the line began moving again.
“Where’s your hard hat?” the dispatcher asked when he got out.
Rudolf ducked back inside the cab again. Goddamn was it ever cold out in that rain! He took another gulp of garbage juice. Feeling blindly in the darkness, he found the flask he had bundled inside his bleeding madras loin cloth. He got out of the opposite door where the dispatcher couldn’t see him.
“Hard hat!” somebody yelled as he walked toward the crane.
“Lost it!” Rudolf yelled back.
The stranger pointed to a small shack. There was no attendant. Rudolf helped himself to a hard hat and continued toward the crane, his bundle grasped firmly under one arm.
“Hey, you can’t do that!” somebody shouted as Rudolf climbed the concrete hopper. It was too late. The bucket was rising into the drizzly overcast with Rudolf standing on the bail, gripping the cable with one hand.
He had never ridden a crane before. He had always assumed it would ride smooth like an elevator. Instead, the hopperful of concrete was ascending in a series of jerks. Rudolf wondered if the height would make him dizzy. There was some anthropological nonsense about Indians being unafraid of heights which the Iroquois exploited to dominate the high-iron trades in New York. Rudolf didn’t much believe in sweeping statements. He was thankful that the overcast already obscured the ground. Wrapped in a cotton-wooly womb of mist, he had little chance to see how far up he was.
He felt the bucket sway. Then as the cable flexed it began slowly spinning. Rudolf hung on, gripping his bundle firmly with his other hand. Below him in the bucket were several cubic yards of wet concrete. He hoped he could find a way to step off once he reached where they were pouring.
He gritted his teeth and hung on. From time to time crude spray-painted numbers appeared on the blank facing. How many levels ago had he passed number one hundred?
The bucket slowed with a series of jerks that threatened to dump him in the concrete. He wondered what would happen if he fell in. Would he float or would he be immured like some victim the Romans used to plant in a bridge to ensure a resident spook?
There was a glow in the mist below him. Rudolf felt the wind shift direction. Within seconds the mist dissipated and the glow became a searchlight. Far below him angry ants gesticulated and opened mouths in noiseless, fishlike shouts. Rudolf wondered when one would think to reverse the hoist but at that moment somebody snagged the bail and pulled the bucket inward. “What’re you doin’ here?” the man with the hook asked. “Personnel lift’s over there.”
Rudolf gave an apologetic shrug and stepped off. Here in the work area there were lights everywhere. He heard the loud ring of a handcranked field telephone. He hurried toward darkness and discovered he was leaving footprints in fresh concrete. He walked faster, pretending not to hear the angry shouts. Finally he blundered onto solid concrete. He shifted directions and found a dark corner.
In here, out of the wind, Rudolf felt so much better that he decided he might as well do it right. It would confuse things if he got caught. He stripped off his clothes, took the bleeding madras loincloth from around the flask and put it on along with his feathers. Sticking to the shadows, he began dribbling a faint track from his flask of culture.
It was a far longer walk than he had imagined around the building’s outer walls, back to the brightly lit area where men were still pouring concrete. There was a strange drifting sensation. Rudolf wondered if the building was swaying or if he was.
A grate-screech of cable through pulleys warned him. Just in time he ducked around a corner to avoid a dozen well-dressed men in hard hats who stepped off the open platformed personnel elevator. At first Rudolf thought they were plainclothes police or some kind of security force but, instead of deploying to search they huddled in the mist. Minutes later the lift returned with more men carrying mikes, lights, and cameras. Gradually it dawned on Rudolf that the searchlight below had not been aimed at him. He was an inadvertent witness to the topping out, a ceremonial hoopla over the last girder in the building.
No wonder he’d gotten up here without trouble. People had been expecting strangers’ and media freaks. He stuffed the nearly empty culture flask into his bundle of clothes and wondered how he was going to get down and out of here.
Down and out. Rudolf found that phrase evocative. He remembered Flaherty’s flamboyant gesture at the Johns Hopkins riot. If an Irishman was proud, what was a Sioux? He shivered and took another preventive sip of garbage juice. The grips were aiming lights. Rudolf peered up. The cameras would shoot from down here, emphasizing height and making it all seem very dangerous.
Suddenly Rudolf realized he had left his camouflage coup stick home in the village. He really didn’t need it but… He put his hand down in the darkness to see what he had been stumbling over and discovered several leftover trimmings of reinforcing steel in a neat little pile. He found one the right length. It was heavy but it was the best he could do.
He took his shirt from around the culture flask and ripped it into strips. He wrapped the steel bar, covering its length and wadding knobs on each end until it resembled the incubator holder Lillith had immortalized in Life. He began a judicious plucking of wrist and ankle ornaments until the reinforcing steel bore a semblance of feathers. Goddamn, it was cold! He took another preventive sip of garbage squeezings.
Rudolf crouched in his hideaway, watching as shivering grips climbed a story higher to act as standins. Cameramen cursed double shadows, rearranged lights, cursed again. Finally somebody spoke into a walkie talkie and the lift came creaking up again.
Half of the golden horde was here! St. Audrey was here. Another man was getting off the lift. At first Rudolf assumed he was one of the Iroquois iron workers. But no high-iron man would wear a business suit up here. It was the goddamn Mohawk!
They moved into position and began the solemn nonsense of laying the last girder which would have to be removed and properly positioned after the ceremony by some Indian who knew one end of a rivet from the other. Rudolf began cautiously working his way around in the shadows. He found a slanting beam and started climbing.
The heavy steel “coup stick” was still gripped in his teeth when he crept into the light. While the mayor of this disaster area and the golden horde exchanged smiles and earnestly scribbled on the white-painted girder Rudolf stood up one level over their heads.
After one startled glance the cameraman moved his lens just enough to keep both Rudolf and the golden horde framed. Rudolf removed the coup stick from his mouth and put his finger to his lips. It was not necessary. The camera crew stared, seeing delightful visions of story-of-the-year awards. Rudolf suspected that in his heart of hearts the cameraman was hoping he would drop a grenade among the solemn celebrators below, providing it could be done without damaging the lens.
He began dancing along the girder, pointing his coup stick toward the four winds, silently mouthing the disaster-to-enemy curse and making baleful gestures at the golden horde busy performing their own magic ten feet below.
The golden horde could face accusations of knavery with equanimity but to appear ridiculous was serious. They grew nervous, sensing that all was not well when the camera crew’s smiles began turning into suppressed laughter. Finally one looked up.
Suddenly it was keystone cops as Rudolf danced and thumbed his nose before scampering off into the darkness with the golden horde in hot pursuit and a delighted cameraman getting all the footage. Then the golden horde abruptly remembered they were more than a hundred stories above Manhattan’s granite and the guard rails still not installed.
There was a hurried confabulation of turkey gobblers, then the Mohawk was climbing a girder up to Rudolf’s level. Suddenly Rudolf remembered that, no matter what his other faults, the Mohawk had been a high-iron worker before finding a home on the cocktail circuit. He wondered if Pamela’s present consort would bother to take him alive.
He wished he’d gone easier on the garbage juice. It was the first time he had ever done any real climbing. No matter how good he might be, the Mohawk would be better.
From the corner of his eye Rudolf could see the golden horde already crowding onto the personnel lift, leaving their pet Indian to do the dirty work. He wondered if the TV crew would fold their tents too, then realized they were waiting with cameras poised to record the final episode.
If Rudolf could just drop down to camera level and get to the lift before the Mohawk found him… Abruptly he realized he didn’t know how to run the lift or even if it could be controlled from this level. In any event, it was not here.
The Mohawk was. Walking like a storybook Indian, he trod the girders, looking straight at Rudolf. It was an instant before Rudolf realized the Mohawk couldn’t possibly see him in this darkness. But he would soon. Rudolf lowered himself as far as he could from the girder. It was still a respectable distance down to the next level. He took a breath, addressed a prayer to the unknown god, and let go.
Shock came clear up to his shoulder blades but after a moment Rudolf guessed nothing was broken. While the pain was subsiding he wondered if he had energy left to kick himself. Barely ten feet away was a ramp where he could have walked down. The Mohawk was stepping toward it, still staring toward where Rudolf had been a moment ago. Rudolf would never get another chance like this. He climbed the ramp an instant before the Mohawk stretched to straddle the gap from one girder to the next. When the cocktail party assassin was stretched to his utmost Rudolf reached up and grasped him gently in the same place Tuchi had touched Rudolf.
The Mohawk’s shriek was so hogcallingly soprano that Rudolf never understood how the TV crew didn’t hear it over the clatter of concrete pouring. The Mohawk lost his footing, swung wildly and teetered an instant. Suddenly Rudolf realized how close they were to the edge of the building. He grabbed the gyrating Indian by the lapels and pulled him back to safety.
While the goddamn Mohawk was voicing his hysterical gratitude Rudolf said, “I wasn’t saving your life; I was saving your clothes.” He swung the iron coup stick in a brief arc and began undressing the Mohawk. On his way back to the camera crew Rudolf remembered to pick up his own clothes and the culture flask. He didn’t think he’d need either on the way home but he’d need his money and driver’s license.
As Rudolf had assumed, even for cameramen, clothes make the Indian. As he approached wearing the Mohawk’s suit and hard hat a grip asked, “You see him?”
“Over that way,” Rudolf pointed as the lift arrived to disgorge some very rough looking types. He stepped aboard the lift. There was a button and a hand-lettered card telling how many rings for up, down, and stop. Rudolf was a quick study.
Riding the bouncing lift down to ground level, he transferred his lares and penates to the clothes he was wearing. He tossed his own clothes onto a scaffolding somewhere near the ninetieth floor and stuffed the culture flask into one of the Mohawk’s pockets. As he reached the ground several sirens hinted it was time to get out of here.
Rudolf was cold. It was still raw and blustery, threatening rain again. He wondered momentarily why they had picked such a time for a topping-out ceremony, then realized it had probably been scheduled weeks in advance, the golden horde being as pressed for time as the news media.
The lift gave a final jerk. “What’s going on up there?” the spooltender asked.
“Some wild Indian dancing around with feathers,” Rudolf said. “They got him though. Better warn the cops to have a straight jacket ready when he comes down.”
“Jeez!” the spooltender said.
Rudolf walked off into the darkness, wondering which was the shortest way around the building to his dump truck. Two carloads of police and an ambulance arrived, their sirens barely audible over the clatter of machinery. Rudolf knew he shouldn’t but he was so godawful chilled… He took another nip of garbage squeezings.
Finally he found the concrete hopper and oriented himself. The truck’s engine had cooled. It started on the first spin. Rudolf heard more sirens and saw police ringing the construction site. It could get hairy if they found garbage squeezings or any kind of bottle in the cab of his truck. Hoping he could drive a straight line through the cordon, he tossed jug and flask through the glassless rear window onto the load of rubble. A cop took one look at his hard hat and waved him on. Rudolf followed the other dump trucks north up Manhattan.
Soon he realized they were heading for the George Washington Bridge. Remembering his last ride through New Jersey, Rudolf shuddered and got out of line. Just as he reached the outskirts of the Bronx it started raining again. Even wearing the goddamn Mohawk’s suit, Rudolf couldn’t stop shivering. He fished the plastic jug back into the cab and had another precautionary sip of garbage squeezings.
Though fine for the gravel pit, the truck’s steering was too worn and loose for the highway. Rudolf concentrated on his driving and tried to ignore the honks and fists shaken at him. Even if he hadn’t gone a trifle heavy o
n the garbage juice Rudolf doubted if he could have driven the groaning monster much straighter.
Periodically cars and smaller trucks cut in on him but so far none had flashed red lights. Rudolf ground steadily onward through the rain. An hour passed and he noticed that one small camper kept reappearing, cutting in on him.
By the time he reached the outskirts of New Haven Rudolf was plagued by a tiny nagging suspicion. An hour later in downtown Hartford he realized not even New England’s endless duplications of place names could produce this kind of coincidence. He was a hundred miles into the wrong state.
The camper reappeared. It cut in on him; trying to force him off the road. Rudolf barreled serenely onward, secure in the knowledge that in any game of highway “chicken” dump trucks hold all the aces. That was why it was doubly annoying when he was finally stopped not by police, not by an outraged citizenry, but simply because the truck stopped running.
He ground on the starter. Minutes passed before he thought to study the truck’s somewhat whimsical gas gauge. A cop appeared. Several Indians appeared. Everything was fogging in like an unhypoed print. Rudolf wondered if he were exhausted from all that driving through driving rain. Somehow that offended his sense of literary symmetry. He wished he had another drink of garbage juice but when he reached for it there was a curious double exposure memory of a brown arm reaching into the cab and exiting again with the jug. It was all very confusing. Rudolf sneezed. He hiccupped.
The next time he awoke, without even opening his eyes, Rudolf knew he was going to wish he hadn’t. Was he in jail? The bed was too soft for that. He stretched and his hand found a warm, hairless leg. Rudolf opened his eyes. Beside him Lillith sighed and moved in her sleep.
Now you’ve done it! Rudolf told himself. The thought that he might be joined in holy matrimony to this capable amazon brought Rudolf upright with an abruptness that threatened to send his head rolling into a corner of — where the hell? It looked like a motel room. Across the bed he could see the door to the john.
The Aluminum Man Page 15