On Time

by Paul Kozerski

  Snug in his embrace, Sarah nuzzled against him.

  “Still,” he said, “it’s what’s going to happen to so many of the other guys with nothing to fall back on, that bothers me, too. As the most senior guy around here, I feel I should somehow be doing the most in trying to save their jobs.”

  She traced a finger across his square chin.

  “What real friend wouldn’t? You’re a good man to think that. But you haven’t failed anyone. You certainly never lied to or cheated any of them, have you?”

  “Heck no.”

  “Okay then. You’ve been as much as one man could be, to both your job and your friends. But you’re still only one man. What could you do alone to really make a difference?”

  He slumped beneath the impossible burden.

  “Nothing, I guess. This new bunch of bottom line management only seems to care about what they think up on their own, like no other ideas count. And there’s those guys who get their bossing jobs only because of big wheel family connections - like the little punk we’ve got here now.

  “Before, when we had the majority of guys who still worked their way up through the ranks it really was different. A hard workingman got noticed and could go as far as his smarts took him. And back then, when good guys did make it to the top they didn’t forget where they came from.

  “Guys like Chester Phinnesey. When he started out, we worked side by side as section hands, right out on those rails. Both fresh from the Corps and France, we bucked ties and laid track and sweated in the sun together; him, eating his wilted lunchtime sandwiches with dirty hands, just like the rest of the us.”

  Joe nodded proudly.

  “And just look at him now. Chief of motive power. He busted his hump and made something of himself with what he had inside. Guys like him, they walked in other people’s shoes and understood the way of things. That kept us a team . . .”

  His words fell off and Sarah straightened to the sudden quiet.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Joe peered deep into the night as he replied.

  “Do you have some writing paper? Good, special occasion stuff?”

  “Sure. Why?”

  “Can you get me some?”

  “You mean right now?”

  “Yeah. Right now. Come on. Help me do something.”

  An hour later Joe held the finished product before them.

  Dear Mr. Phinessey,

  I am an employee of yours, working the Prairie Division since 1919. I work out of the Mayhew yards with good men, who are scared of losing their jobs to cutbacks from the diesels replacing the steamers we run.

  You can check the records to see that we are a small yard, but do good and fast work. You worked here yourself for a while as a section hand in your early days after the Great War and your time in the Marines, like me. Maybe you might remember some of us boys from those times. We are still good hands, but most of us are too old to start over.

  I have been thinking on it and want to say that this subdivision is about the straight and levelest hunk of road on the whole pike. So why not keep us running steamers on it? Lima, Baldwin, and Alco don’t make them no more, I know. And if the downtown shops close to steam there won’t be any place near for top class repairs. But there’s got to be enough old hogs still out there in decent shape to buy up at scrap prices and bring here for parts to keep our own best engines running. I heard Mexico does this with old ones that they have bought off some U.S. of A. roads, right now. We might even hook up with the Nickel Plate or Norfolk and Western, on some kind of trade or share program for parts and machining. They both look to be staying with steam for some time to come.

  I know that the Mayhew switchyards have to go. But as for the engines, you know that we have our own mines with the lowest sulfur coal in Illinois and we have sweet water plugs all through this subdivision that takes it easy on boilers. So, I thought that maybe a man who is good with numbers, like you, could figure out how many engines we’d need to keep steaming for another seven or eight years and at least leave the roundhouse, coal bunker, and maintenance jobs alone, until then. Then, when them engines and us old heads wore out, you could replace us both with new guys and diesels, if that’s still what you wanted.

  I know you are a very busy man. But maybe you could find some time to think on it. That’s all I have to say.

  Yours truly,

  Joe Graczyk,

  Man number #5728,

  Joe regarded his final product as if gazing down the barrel of a loaded gun.

  “Maybe this is all just wacky. I don’t know that I ever wrote a half dozen letters in my whole life. Now, from nowhere, I come up with one that could bring the house down.”

  Sarah looked on her man and his effort with fierce pride.

  “It’s what you really feel in your heart, isn’t it?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “Then, whatever happens, send it. Just as it is.”

  Joe began looking for reasons not to.

  “This is kind of suggestion box stuff. Maybe I’d be going over people’s heads, too far. And look at my writing. I don’t talk so good. My words might not be right.”

  “It’s fine,” Sarah declared. “It says what you mean. That’s all that matters.”

  “But maybe I should at least hire somebody who has a typewriter to do it up proper.”

  There, she felt a flash of inspiration.

  “I like it just the way it is. But, the Siwicki’s have a typewriter and Lorraine is good with it. She’s home most of the time with Geri. I could get it there later and have her go over it.”

  Joe shrugged.

  “I’d feel funny asking something like that.”

  “She’s a trustworthy girl,” Sarah assured. “She’d get it done right and keep the matter to herself. Besides, I’d pay her.

  “Like I said outside Joe, Lorraine is still our daughter-in-law. Maybe someday she will remarry. That’s her right . She’s a very young woman with a full life ahead of her. But her daughter will always be our granddaughter, our blood. And nothing will ever change that. Us pretending it’s not so, won’t make those things just go away.”

  Joe surrendered both the letter and the topic.

  “Do whatever you think is best.”

  A glint of resolution bloomed in his wife’s eyes.

  “I will. Now, it’s after four o’clock. You’d better get ready for work.”

  He forced a smile as the letter passed from his hand.

  “Yeah. Probably won’t hear nothin’ back, anyway. You know how those big office places are. It might not even get read. Just lost or thrown away.”

  Sarah gave a compliant nod.

  “Sure. Now go, get cleaned up. I’ll pack your lunch.”

  CHAPTER 24

  The distance between rails is a span known as their gauge. It was brought to the U.S. by way of wheel widths first imported on British locomotives. That breadth of four feet, eight and one-half inches, from rail center to rail center, was rumored to have originally come down to the Brits via occupying Roman legions of a millennia prior. It was a distance said to have developed from a road width necessary for the maneuvering of their two-man war chariots. And although those mighty legions had long since faded into history, their practical unit of measure remained.

  When homegrown locomotives blossomed in the States, that original gauge found itself expanding and contracting with the whims of geography, economy, and road management. It ranged from a stingy interval of only 36 inches, to a preposterous spread of two yards. Still, the majority of track widths always hovered somewhere near their origin and in the late 1880s it was finally decided to standardize the entire country at what gauge the British had ordained.

  In this current year of 1955, one mile of railroad track contained 270 lengths of rail, each weighing in at slightly under
a ton. 24,000 one-pound spikes secured those rails to 1700 wooden crossties.

  Those crossties in turn, tipped the scales at 150 pounds each and were hewn from rough-cut hardwood beams. Every tie was first, shed seasoned up to 18 months. They then were pot-creosoted to help their wood endure a quarter century lifespan of extreme weather, low maintenance, and destructive loading stresses.

  Like any robust commodity, rail manufacturing, too, was born of modest beginnings. They started out as simple wooden beams covered with iron strips for horse-drawn mine carts. Their evolution into solid iron and ultimately steel I-bars, came with the growth of power and loads they were required to support.

  Early on, it wasn’t unusual for rails to contain commonplace manufacturing flaws. The normal, strength-governing grain flow of compacted metal sometimes experienced interruptions during its steel mill rolling process. The resulting flaws were known as stress risers and held the potential for rare, though unannounced and catastrophic failure during their service life.

  Since the 1920s, improved rolling techniques and better steel alloys had kept pace with the ever-growing locomotives. The more recent invention of magnetic flaw detection equipment also kept the mainline honest. Still, defective old rail lengths did remain scattered about, lurking in inconspicuous places.

  One local hunk of such faulty rail had survived a quarter century of Mayhew mainline traffic. Though bearing a serious transverse fissure through the center of its head, the latent flaw remained dormant and in early 1942 its length was removed from service, replaced by a brawnier grade of new generation rail, meant for heavier wartime use.

  The old rail was set to a junk heap destined for World War II scrap metal needs. But, with the ragged pulse of those hectic days, providence intervened and the bad hunk was never junked. It instead, was recycled as part of a hasty siding laid at the local Rahl Brothers plant grounds, when their factory expanded for greater military output.

  The hazardous rail length now set weed buried and forgotten on the derelict property. Locked away inside a woven steel fence, it led the way to a few carloads of aging freight caught up in bankruptcy litigation, biding its time, until the siding was torn out and it finally completed its long-interrupted journey to the melter.

  Today a local track gang finished their seasonal tightening of mainline trackage, just outside that locked factory fence. Done securing the day’s final bolt, Ulees McCall lowered a massive spanner wrench and straightened the kinks from his back. He dabbed a trickle of sweat on his forehead, chancing a final, uncomfortable look into the quiet, weedy property beyond.

  Outwardly, it was just another unkempt, abandoned siding. Simply a piece of overgrown turf, little different from other vacated spots springing up along the mainline these days. One he’d been passed countless times without a second glance. Yet, the man sensed something new in there; morose, unsettling. A featureless dread had drawn his gaze inside the padlocked acres repeatedly since arriving, as if the very earth was turning sinister and reaching out, beyond its confines.

  One of Aunt Marvella’s old sayings came to mind, that there indeed were bad spots in the world. Snake-bit, was what she called them, her name for ground gone sour and treacherous places to be avoided.

  Ulees could now feel such here. An oppressive curdling of spirit beneath the sod and soil was mounting. Something bitter was awakening, germinating, steadily taking root and gathering into a real-life menace. Worse, as he studied it, something within almost seemed to be focused on him.

  The tool car sputtering to life broke his spell. Ulees shook off his dread, gratefully scurrying over to join his workmates in the trip away. As the property dwindled, he fancied a hopeful dankness in the air; a promise of rain. Far off, he imagined thunderheads gathering and prayed that Marvella’s old claim of a second baptism might as well, be applied to a storm dousing of that troubled hillside.

  CHAPTER 25

  Sarah Graczyk stood in the archway separating her front room and kitchen as son Jim stirred upstairs. Midweek tidying chores completed, she folded her dust cloth, satisfied with the result. This was her kingdom, her responsibility, and she tended it well.

  While not exactly austere, the Graczyk homestead did mirror a no-frills practicality typical of those who’d come from impoverished beginnings. It was a nondescript meat-and-potatoes place; functional and sturdy, with no frivolous amenities. Composed of durable fabric, wood, and linoleum, any touches of flair were limited to a modest, potted plant or strategically positioned figurine.

  The place where Sarah stood had a new generation name and was called a living room. But in this household, it was still referred to as the parlor and used mostly for holiday fare. Shoeless, post-church, Sunday newspaper reading was condoned here, while general occupancy remained reserved for formal, dress-clothes-only, occasions. In times of national emergency though, all fiats were lifted entirely. Any and all were allowed to gather and crowd about the family’s two band Motorola console radio, as it announced and defined the crisis.

  Populated by a robust couch, pair of simple easy chairs, and unpretentious coffee table, the room’s north wall held a three generation old, wind-up Ansonia shelf clock. Because of Joe’s precise maintenance, it ticked away in perfect time and with the same subtle, metronome beat it had issued since long before indoor plumbing or electric lights were common to area homes. The clock’s dark walnut skin matched a glowing burl veneer of its tall roommate, the nearby Motorola; identical, foot-thick shines radiating from both as the result of Sarah’s relentless polishing.

  Off to the side, a modest dining table and half dozen ladder back chairs set draped in protective dust shrouds. A lace table cloth would be brought out for special festivities. But only a simple centerpiece otherwise marked the table’s barren plane, until some deserved festivity, or another requisite cleaning, again authorized its unveiling.

  The personal history logged beneath this roof was considerable. Baptisms, first communion parties, wedding engagement dinners; along with forty years of tinsel, holiday turkeys, deathwatches, and assorted national vigils, were grafted in its core.

  It had witnessed the birth of two sons and a daughter, from the very bed in which they’d been conceived; their attending physician, always the same, local midwife. It had seen both of Sarah’s parents and that daughter, also expire here.

  A son’s a son, ‘til he takes a wife. But a daughter is yours, all the days of your life.

  The old, mother’s adage filled her head, as Sarah considered this, the very birthday of that lost baby girl.

  Death had certainly been no stranger to the woman. Through friends, family, and neighbors, she’d been touched liberally - from her shipboard experience of the passing little boy, to the worldwide Spanish Flu pandemic, shortly after arriving in this country. Joe’s tragic mail train mishap. Her middle brother’s horrible mangling death in a factory’s machinery and the heartrending loss of a grown son to war. Each new passing had added another hash mark to her life’s logbook. Yet, even so, anyone of those, which she’d loved and lost, had known something of life’s sweetness and so she felt them as being less cheated in the trade.

  But tiny Ladyslawia Rose had never encountered the vulnerable softness of a trusting puppy or made a wish on a shooting star. She’d been denied the first sight of her life’s true love and a sharing in that most sacred of feminine covenants, the mother-daughter confidence. Instead, all baby Rose had known was a brief, suffocating world, never meant to see her first new day or to ever know those who loved her.

  A poignant smile crossed Sarah’s face. Today would have been yours, lost little one. 27 years old - already. How might have you celebrated? Would children of your own cavorted about as you blew out candles and parceled off slices of freshly iced cake? Would you have laughed at silly birthday cards, embraced special gifts, and fought back happy tears as you hugged those who gave your life meaning?

  As always,
all remained unanswered questions, leaving Sarah to blink her misty eyes clear and check the time. In a couple of hours, she would make her annual, solitary pilgrimage to St Mary’s Catholic church. There, beneath the judicious gaze of dusty marble saints and assorted stained-glass deities, Sarah would add a tiny new flame of remembrance to the silent ranks of flickering blue and red votive candles. Kneeling before the Queen of Heaven, she would quietly weep one mother’s private tears over her lost child in the company of another mother, who knew and understood.

  After a few minutes, Sarah would dab her eyes clear, apologizing to the heavenly hosts for again having contended with her selfish intrusion. There’d be a final genuflection, then the ten block return walk home and preparations for her family’s supper.

  But all that was a private matter, meant for later in the day. Right now was a time of concern for the living. And, as she heard Jim readying overhead, foremost in her mind rode the spreading rift between her husband and son.

  Jim Graczyk swept a hand across the familiar spread of dresser-top clutter. Away came his wallet, watch, and comb. But the breeze of his motion also disturbed an isolated hunk of card stock that came to life and chased after; its crimson face covered in a pox of hideous black print forever screaming out his treason.

  Giving up all rights and privileges to rank and file representation.

  Jim pushed back the card. But, he couldn’t do the same to his memory of receiving it those weeks prior, when Sunday Guzmán had stood by in silent witness as the formal union withdrawal form awaited Jim’s signature.

  Such a small hunk of pasteboard. Yet, its implications were sobering. With it, Jim’s days of yard work would come to a quick and irretrievable end. That meant more than a simple trade of clanking freight cars for an anemic rustle of carbon paper. Or, even losing a casual safety net of blue-collar belonging. It was the severing of a lifelong umbilicus to his culture and his heritage, a renouncing of his hands-on Mayhew citizenship that rested on a par with religious schism.