Invasion of the Blatnicks

by Neil S. Plakcy

  12 – Solidarity Forever

  Monday morning, sitting behind his big desk, with a set of plans in front of him and a hard hat on the side table, Steve thought he was adjusting pretty well. He knew his way around the site, and he knew the right superintendent to ask for whatever he needed. He had his own set of the building’s drawings, and every day he felt he understood them better. His mother had kept her promise and was only calling him at work three times a week, and by the fifteenth of November he had stopped flinching every time Richie called him “Cousin Stevie” out on the site.

  He knew it was too good to last. That afternoon Celeste buzzed him and said, “Bill is here to see you.”

  There was no reason for Bill to walk all the way up to the trailers to see Steve. He either waited for Steve to show up on the site or called him to come out. “Send him in,” Steve said.

  “We need to talk about this union thing,” Bill said. “This has got to be too much of a pain in the ass. I can’t have no union guys going around doing what they been doing.”

  Uncle Max believed in open shops and right-to-work states and the God-given right of a man to do an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay. Steve had a written statement from him that read “I don’t think workmen should have to pay monthly dues to corrupt organizations whose only purpose is to sponsor fat cat lobbyists in Washington who try to shoot down the development and construction industries.” It was filed in a drawer somewhere.

  Accordingly, the Everglades Galleria was run as an open shop, and union contractors were encouraged to work in harmony alongside non-union ones. The day before, the steamfitters had walked off the job after someone had tipped several pounds of sugar into their generator, clogging its valves and causing it to spew out an oily sludge.

  “Has it gotten worse?” Steve asked. “I thought it was just a little sugar in somebody’s generator.”

  “You’re talking a thousand dollars’ damage,” Bill said. “Ain’t just a little sugar.”

  “You said you could replace the steamfitters, though.”

  “This morning the carpenters came in and found somebody slashed all their new drywall to ribbons,” Bill said. “Tommy O’Brien, he’s the foreman, he said they were gonna pull out unless we could guarantee them some protection.” Bill lit up a cigarette and tossed the spent match into the hallway. Steve opened up his bottom drawer and pulled out an ashtray. He set it on the corner of his desk near Bill.

  “And somebody stole the plumber’s goddamned gangbox. Third one in a week.”

  “Shit,” Steve said. “All those tools.”

  “Had his marked-up plans in there, too,” Bill said. “Notebooks and flashlights and who knows what all else.”

  “So what can we do?”

  “We got to get Junior to sit down with us and the three of us develop a plan,” Bill said.

  Steve’s phone buzzed. Celeste’s voice was grainy and distant. “Cindy Levine on line two,” she said.

  “Tell her I’ll call her back, OK?” Steve said. He turned to Bill. “You want to get together tomorrow morning, first thing? We can meet in the conference room.”

  “Not around the trailer,” Bill said.

  “You think there are union spies?”

  “Spies?” Bill said, laughing. His laugh was more like a tobacco-choked cough, and Steve always wanted to go around and pat him on the back until he stopped. “Hell, I ain’t afraid of no spies. But that Junior’s got a temper on him and if we don’t want nothing broke, we got to take him out.”

  “He’s not that bad,” Steve said.

  “Ain’t you seen all those holes in the walls of this trailer? Ain’t no mice making those holes. It’s Junior’s foot. And he’s broke windows, too, sometimes the same one twice. He’ll pick up anything handy and throw it if he thinks he can get away with it.”

  “All right,” Steve said. “Lunch tomorrow. Carbon Monoxide Café all right with you?”

  “What the hell is that?”

  “That little Cuban place out on the highway,” Steve said. “It’s called La Cantina or something. Brad calls it the Carbon Monoxide Cafe.”

  “Don’t you go picking up ways from that Brad,” Bill said. “Next thing you’ll be wearing them pink shirts. Only two kinds of men wear pink shirts -- doctors and faggots. And I don’t see you carrying no beeper.”

  Steve started to laugh as Bill walked out, muttering, “Carbon Monoxide Café. Shee-it.”

  He had the phone in his hand, about to call Cindy, when Maxine came in. She was wearing knee-high go-go boots, a leather mini-skirt, and her usual tight blouse and push-up bra. “I need a favor, Steve,” she said.

  “Sure.”

  “Can you come out to the site with me? Bring a tape measure and I’ll explain on the way.”

  Steve pulled the 25-foot tape out of his desk drawer and followed Maxine out of the trailer.

  It was one of those unsettled days that herald the change of seasons in Florida. A strong wind swept around the site, changing direction every few minutes, carrying dead leaves, dust and shreds of torn paper with it. The sky was overcast all the way from the ocean as far into the Everglades as Steve could see, and he was not sure if the distant rumble he heard was thunder or just a heavy tractor moving on the other side of the site.

  “I’m working with a clothing tenant,” Maxine said as they walked toward Building A. “Maybe you’ve heard of them. They’re called “On The Rag” and they sell ladies’ leisure wear. Their slogan is It’s always the right time of the month to shop.”

  Steve could not help laughing.

  “This is a good deal,” Maxine said. “They just have some special requirements. They’re very insistent on a 20-foot storefront, and even though the drawings say twenty feet I want to measure myself, just to be sure.”

  The space they had to measure was at the near end of the mall, overlooking the nature arena. A crew of carpenters was framing out the planters that doubled as seats and ringed the arena, and as Maxine bent over to make sure that her end of the tape was flush against the partition wall, several of them whistled. A redheaded guy in overalls called out, “Hey, sweet thing, why’ncha come over here and sit on Daddy’s lap?”

  “Twenty feet, one and a half inches,” Steve said from the other side of the storefront.

  Maxine wrote that down on a scrap of paper and slid it into her blouse, between her breasts. Her fingernails were long and red, and she had several gold rings on each hand. “Thanks, Steve.”

  She walked toward the carpenters and the man next to the redhead said, “Oh, here she comes man, you better be ready.”

  Maxine walked right up to the redhead in the overalls and held out her right hand, so the men could see the long red fingernails glistening and the gold rings sparkling. The redhead reached out to shake her hand, but instead Maxine quickly grabbed his crotch. She held it for a moment and all action around her froze. Then she let go, shook her head, and said, “It’s always that way. The biggest pitch has the smallest follow-through.” Then she wiped her hands together, turned and walked away.

  All the catcalls that followed, however, were directed at the redhead, not at Maxine. “Hey, she got you, man,” said one guy.

  “We’ll just call you pinhead,” another said.

  Steve shook his head and laughed as he watched Maxine stroll out of the building. He turned and walked toward the far end of the mall, where they were finishing up the demising walls between the tenant spaces.

  It was starting to look like a mall, Steve thought. The bulkhead above the stores had been completed, delineating where the mall common area stopped and the storefronts began. With the planters and the framing for the fountains in, he could see the way shoppers would enter the mall and stroll around.

  Every day the mall moved a step closer to opening. Steve didn’t know what would happen to him when construction was complete, but he wasn’t worried. In contrast to his job in New York, when he’d been so narrowly focused, he felt he was learning ne
w skills every day. He was confident that he could find a new job when the Galleria opened, so he was free to look forward to seeing all the pieces come together.

  Thinking about New York reminded him that he had to call Cindy. He had just started back to the trailer to make the call when he saw someone wriggling under the framework of the fountain at center court. “That’s strange,” he said, to no one in particular. The rough plumbing had been installed and inspected before the framework was built. There was no reason for anyone to be under there.

  He walked over to investigate further, and kneeled down to look into the hole where the person had disappeared. “What’s going on?” he asked. All he could see were feet.

  “I’m stuck,” a muffled voice said.

  “Jesus,” Steve said. “All right, I’ll pull your feet.”

  “Be careful!”

  Steve braced himself against the framework and started to pull. He felt the person wriggling and bumping as the feet came out, followed by the legs, the torso and then the head. “Uncle Max!” Steve said, when he saw who he’d been pulling. “What were you doing under there?”

  “Just a little spot checking,” Uncle Max said, standing up. “It never pays to delegate one hundred percent of the responsibility.”

  “Well, you’re lucky I saw you go under there,” Steve said. “We might not have found you til we started pumping water into the fountain.”

  Uncle Max dusted himself off. He had wood shavings in his mustache and sawdust in his hair. “I believe a developer has to get his hands dirty now and then.” Steve followed him outside. “If I can teach you anything, it’s that. Why, I remember a time when I was in Borneo and I hired these natives to build a boat for me.”

  He continued the boat-building narrative until they were back at the trailer, and Steve never did understand why Uncle Max had been slithering around under the fountain framework. He paused at the door of the trailer, knowing there was something he had to remember. “Coming in, Steve?” Uncle Max asked.

  Steve remembered. Call Cindy, he thought. But when he walked into the trailer there was a call holding for him, and then another call came through, and then Rita called. “Do you remember Mrs. Lebenschmitt on the sixth floor?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “The poor woman, she lost her husband last year.” Steve imagined an elderly woman walking around the grocery store, looking up and down the aisles for her lost husband.

  “I’m sorry for her.”

  “Actually, she came into a very nice inheritance. Lots of life insurance. So she’s redoing the apartment, and she’s hired me to put together some plans for her.”

  “Congratulations,” Steve said. “So Mrs. Lebenschmitt lost her husband, but at least she’s getting a new sofa.”

  “Steven,” Rita said. “Don’t be mean. She’s an old lady, all alone in the world, so at least she can have some new furniture.”

  “And just exactly how old is she?” Steve asked. “Older than you?”

  “Oh, yes,” Rita said. “At least seventy.”

  “An old lady. So where’s that dividing line? When does somebody become an old lady? Say, sixty?” Rita herself was sixty.

  “I know when you’re teasing me, Steven,” Rita said. “I have to go now. I’m taking Mrs. Lebenschmitt to the Design Center to look at end tables.”

  “Bye, Mom. Have a nice time.” As soon as Steve hung up, Celeste buzzed with another call. He was busy for the rest of the afternoon, and did not remember to call Cindy again until he was walking out the door at six o’clock. He stuffed the pink phone message in his pocket and thought he’d return the call the next day.

  The phone message went into the wash that night, and Steve forgot about Cindy until she called again, just as he and Bill were waiting for Junior in front of Celeste’s desk. “It’s Cindy Levine again, on three,” Celeste said.

  Junior appeared out of the back hallway. “Ready to ride?” he asked.

  “Shit,” Steve said. “Celeste, tell her I’m out to lunch.” He opened the front door and stepped outside. “See, I’m not lying. I’m out. I promise I’ll call her when I get back.”

  Junior drove them to the restaurant in his truck, barreling over the rough dirt road to the main highway, and then blasting down the four-lane like a pinball coming out the chute.

  The sliding glass doors of the Cuban coffee shop faced the highway and they were always kept wide open, because there was no air conditioning. Flies buzzed in and out, checking out the cuisine, which for them included customers as well as food.

  Junior, Bill and Steve sat behind a group of laborers from the site. “I think this damn weather is real,” Junior said, and then an eighteen-wheeler zoomed by and drowned out the rest of his sentence. He picked up the menu and said, “The arroz con pollo here is extra-terrestrial.”

  “Is that good or bad?” Steve asked. Junior didn’t answer, and then the waitress came over. “Is the ropa vieja spicy?” Steve asked her.

  The waitress smiled and said, “Ropa vieja,” and wrote it down on her little pad.

  “She doesn’t speak English,” Junior said. He ordered the arroz con pollo, which led Steve to believe that extra-terrestrial was good, and una cerveza to drink.

  “Give me one of them there cervezas too,” Bill said. “And a hamburger. Got that? Ham - burger.”

  “Ham - burger,” the waitress echoed. She turned back to Steve and asked, “Cerveza?”

  “Si,” Steve said.

  “I don’t think we ought to have to talk their lingo just to get food,” Bill said.

  “Lucky for you hamburger is the same in every language,” Junior said. “Then all you have to learn is how to say beer.” He laughed and said, “So why all the secrecy? What did you want to talk about?”

  “It’s about these damned unions,” Bill said. “They’ve been getting worse.” He recited a few details of the sabotage.

  Junior started to look like one of those cartoon figures getting mad-- his face puffed up and turned red and Steve expected to see steam coming out of his ears.

  “Now Junior, don’t get your blood pressure up just yet,” Bill said. “I figure we can put together a plan that’ll show these union fellas where they can get off.”

  Steve kept darting glances at the workmen sitting in front of them, hoping none of them were union men. He had nothing against unions himself -- as a matter of fact, he had fond memories of learning to sing “Solidarity Together” during an eighth grade social studies class.

  Steve imagined a forties movie in grainy black and white, some Dust Bowl Okies with handmade picket signs marching in circles and blocking the way of concrete mixers. He saw Uncle Max in a pinstripe suit with a watch chain, standing on the porch of the trailer, lecturing about social responsibility and the history of the union movement.

  “See, we set up these separate entrances,” Bill said. “The union gate and the non-union gate. That way if they want to start picketing us we’ll still have one gate open for the union contractors, visitors, whoever all else has to come in.”

  “We’re going to need signs,” Junior said. “You got a pad there, Steve?” Steve was still watching the workmen and imagining picket lines and didn’t come back to reality until Junior waved his hand in front of Steve’s face and said, “You still with us, Steve?”

  “Absolutely,” Steve said. For a moment he thought Junior was questioning his loyalty.

  “Then get a pad out.” Steve pulled a small notebook from his pocket and showed it to Junior.

  “All right. We’ll need three signs for each gate,” Junior said. “I’ve got the exact legal wording in a file back at the trailer. We’ll need to put up some fences, too.”

  Steve heard chairs scraping in the background but couldn’t quite place why they sounded menacing.

  “I don’t want to hear about any more drywall or generators. I don’t want to hear about any more union trouble at all. I want those fuckers to know we mean business.”

  Out of th
e corner of his eye Steve noticed that the laborers had finished eating and were paying for their meals at the counter. There were eight of them, all big guys who looked like they worked hard.

  “Do you really think we’ll have any trouble?” Steve asked.

  “If there is, we’ll be ready for it,” Junior said. “We can put three guards on each shift. We’ll put a chain-link fence around the perimeter of the site and check ID cards at the gate, if it comes down to it.”

  In the background, one of the workmen started to sing. Steve recognized the tune in an instant. It was the song he’d sung in eighth grade, and he had to resist the impulse to hum along.

  “Solidarity forever,” the man sang. He was blond and bearded and wore denim cutoffs and a t-shirt. Then another man chimed in, and the two of them repeated the two words. At the third repetition, another two men joined in.

  All eight men moved into a circle around the table where Steve, Junior and Bill sat quietly, not saying anything. By the time the men reached the final line, “The union makes us strong,” they were all singing.

  The eight men began to walk around the table slowly, singing the song again. Everything else in the restaurant had stopped. The waitress, the cook, and all the other customers were watching the men sing and walk slowly around the table.

  When they began the third chorus, the blond, bearded man broke from the circle and walked out the door. The others followed him in a steady line, singing all the time.

  The last one in line was a middle-aged black man wearing white painters pants. He stopped next to Junior’s chair and patted him on the back. He said, “Man, we know all about you guys.” Then he continued out the door.

  Steve realized he had been holding his breath and that his heart was pounding. “Jesus Christ,” he said.

  “Great decision to come out here to talk this over, Bill,” Junior said. “We could have had a nice private conversation in the trailer, you know.”

  “Hell, Junior, if we’d been in the trailer you would have busted something up by now,” Bill said.