A convoy of lowboy flatbeds snakes around the plant. Every couple of hours, a loaded truck groans away from the shipping docks and onto Route 30 with press beds and motors, lathes and mills, and fork lifts and tow motors, all on their way to new owners who bought them at auction several months ago. There is no way to stop the procession of movers, men making a living dragging away the remnants of other men’s lives.
A thousand people pack the front lawn of the stamping plant. There are the children, making their way to the starting line, the parents and grandparents, and the plant management along with the union officers, all together this one last time.
Then a whistle signals the beginning, and the children dash out onto the prize-covered field. The boys and girls fill their donated, plastic Walmart bags with the prizes, all of them finding success as there are thousands of eggs scattered on the lawn. On the far side, a couple of children race along, scooping the eggs into their bags. When the smaller of the two reaches for a large egg, he is sent reeling across the lawn by the other boy. The boy sits up, his prizes scattered before him. He looks around to get his bearings, and sees his transgressor actually picking up the eggs that spilled out of his bag. He rushes over and confronts him.
“Those are my eggs.”
“You dropped them. They’re mine now.”
The cheers from the parents and grandparents drift across to the two. The younger boy looks around and then back to the boy. “There’s eggs everywhere. Just go on and leave mine alone.”
The bigger boy steps forward and shoves him. “You don’t get it, do you? My dad’s management. He owns this plant. He’ll always be in charge. And so will I someday.”
The younger boy doesn’t understand what the other is saying. He glances across the field to where his dad and grandpa are standing. They both worked here. Didn’t they maybe own some of the place, too?
The boy starts scooping up the rest of the spilled eggs. “Go on now. Or I’ll push you down again.”
The boy hits the other as he has been taught—with his fist, on the eye, and as hard as he can.
The older boy sinks to his knees, sobbing now as he fingers his already swelling eye. “You hurt me….”
The smaller boy takes both egg-filled bags and backs slowly away. “Fuck you,” he says. “I’ve got all the eggs now.”
William Trent Pancoast
1949—
“Blue collar writer” is how the Wall Street Journal referred to William Trent Pancoast in a 1986 front page article. By that time, his working-class-flavored short stories and essays had appeared in many Midwestern and international magazines and newspapers. Pancoast’s novel Crashing had been published in 1983. In 1986, his United Auto Worker’s union history was published. Pancoast would spend the next twenty years as the editor of a monthly union newspaper—the Union Forum—while continuing to publish his fiction, essays, and editorials not only in the Union Forum but also in Solidarity magazine, the 1.2 million circulation United Auto Workers International publication.
The term “blue collar writer” suits Pancoast just fine. As he said in the WSJ interview, “The reason I write about work is that that’s just about damn near all I’ve ever done.” The dust jacket of Crashing notes, “He has worked as a construction laborer, gas station attendant, railroad section hand and brakeman, factory laborer, commercial laundry foreman, and machinist. He has been an English teacher and is a journeyman die maker.” Pancoast supplements his blue collar writing credentials with a B.A. in English from the Ohio State University.
William Trent Pancoast is now retired from the auto industry after 30 years as a die maker and union newspaper editor. Born in Galion, Ohio, in 1949, Pancoast now lives in Ontario, Ohio.
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