A few minutes later they covered their ears and closed their eyes for the blast. As planned, the wall in front of them collapsed in on itself, and an area sixteen feet wide and eleven feet deep was reduced to a pile of rubble. As always, Michael's eyes began streaming as soon as the dust cloud reached him. Even though he'd made sure to press his lips together, he could taste the dust on his tongue. He took off one of his work gloves and held his palm out to catch some of the water that never stopped dripping from the top of the tunnel. Once his hand was wet enough, he wiped his eyes. Ned, who had just done the same, began the noisy process of clearing his throat. When he spit, his saliva was darker and dirtier than the rock it landed on.
As Michael and the others began the long process of clearing the rubble from the blast and loading it onto the train that would transport it down the tunnel to the belt that would carry it up to the top, Michael thought about the house he and Greta had settled on. They'd seen bigger houses for the same price, but this house had a big square yard that disappeared into rough brush and bramble. The brush extended only about thirty feet and then faded on the far side into another stretch of manicured lawn—their neighbor at the back. Their plump and powdered real estate agent suggested that they could clear it and cultivate it to blend into their lawn so they wouldn't lose those thirty feet of acreage. "Yes," Michael had said to the woman. "The yard is bigger without it." But when he and Greta asked for a few minutes to talk it over, they walked up to the top of the yard and took a closer look. Greta reached down and pulled apart some of the bushes that had grown into each other. "Blackberries," she said, drawing her hand away and popping her finger into her mouth. She looked at him over the top of her glasses as she sucked at the thorn.
"Careful, Mrs. Ward," the real estate agent called out from the kitchen window, which looked out over the deck and into the backyard. "They might be poisonous! I haven't identified them yet!" She shouted this in the most pleasant tone of voice. It no longer sounded strange to either of them to hear Greta called Mrs. Ward. They had long ago decided that it felt exactly the same as it would have felt had there ever been a ceremony to make it official.
Greta smiled, looked back at Michael, popped a single blackberry into her mouth. "I like it," she said finally. "It's time these little ones of ours learned a bramble from a briar."
"Yes, it is," he said, wanting to put his arms around her but conscious of the woman observing them. Greta chewed her blackberry, picked another, held it out to him in the palm of her hand.
"Ah, go on," she said, her teeth black with juice.
At lunch, Michael unwrapped his sandwich—a thick slab of ham between two slices of brown bread—and tried not to get goaded into the conversation shouted around him over the roar of the fans and the pant of the water drainage system that never stopped pumping. Who was good for nothing. Who was injured. Who was faking. Who was stepping out on his wife. They brought up this last for the benefit of Mick Twomey, who was a Catholic in the old style and who Michael had never thought would last as long in the tunnels as he had. He prayed as he swung his pick, he prayed as he plunged his heavy rake into the gravel, he prayed as he heaved sandbag after sandbag over his shoulder to keep the underground streams at bay. "You shouldn't talk that way about a man and his wife," Mick said, as they knew he would, and they cupped hands to ears so he would say it again.
The wood benches that had been lowered down the shaft years before were slowly rotting in the damp and the dark, and Michael, who was at the very end, could feel the wood plank under him begin to soften and give way. He wondered what kind of evening it had turned out to be up top.
"Aren't you eating, Powers?" Michael asked. Ned had taken a bite of his sandwich, turned it around in his mouth a few times, and gagged as he swallowed. He's getting worse, Michael thought. Maybe a layoff would be good for him. Maybe he'd do better if he went home. Maybe I should say it to him. Later, when the shift has ended. Maybe I should say, Ned, have you really thought about going home? Maybe I should say, Ned, you're not getting on here at all anymore. He would have said something, definitely, if they were still at home and Ned were one of his camp, but they were not at home and Ned was not of his camp, and this was something Michael had tried to explain to Greta recently—the question of how to behave toward a friend who is nothing more, no blood, no ties beyond having the same employment and looking forward to seeing him in the morning when he got to work.
"I forgot something," Ned announced suddenly, standing up. "Anyone need anything from the top?"
"You're going to the top?" Michael asked, and then felt his cheeks burn as the others glanced at him.
"I am," Ned said, speaking only to Michael. "I'll be back in a minute." There was no such thing as being back in a minute if you had to go to the top and back down again, so the whole row of men watched as Ned sloshed off through the mud to ask the bellman to signal for the cage. The bellman shook his head, pointed up the shaft, jerked his thumb toward the belt that was still transporting the rubble blasted out that morning. Michael looked away as Ned put his shoulders into the request, stepping up close to the bellman and nodding toward the phone that only reached one destination, the cage operator on top.
After lunch Michael and the three others who were charged with fixing the mighty mole—the engineering miracle that promised to bring tunnel digging into the twentieth century—rolled up their sleeves and decided to get on with it, no use in putting it off any longer. Ned was supposed to be with them but had not yet returned from his errand. The mole, a monstrous machine that weighed three hundred and fifty tons and was nineteen feet in diameter and seventy feet long, had changed the way the tunnels were bored. Shaped like a cylinder, like a rocket turned on its side, it excavated twice as fast as the drill and blast method, but it had been broken now for more than a week. The engineers had glanced at it, said it was "on their list," but the walking boss told Michael and the others that since they used the machine and knew it best, they should have a look at it that afternoon. Maybe it was something as small as a loose hunk of granite jammed between the blades. It had taken a full week of twenty-four-hour shifts to lower the mole down the shaft in its many parts, and another week to assemble it below.
The train, sounding its horn three times to signal a man load, brought them to the opposite end of the tunnel from where they'd blasted that morning, and there sat the mole, the sleeping beast, its trailing gear eerily silent and empty of rock and dirt, its lights blinking red in a rhythm that reminded Michael of a pulse. It filled the tunnel so completely that they could walk beside it only in single file, and even then they had to suck in their bellies and press up against the slippery rock face. Michael, first in line, inched his way around to one of the giant arms that gripped the rock in front as the machine's head drove forward. Attached to the head were twenty-seven cutting blades of three hundred pounds each.
"See anything?" one of the others called from the back of the line.
Michael reached up to run his hand along one of the blades and used it to pull himself forward. He reached around for his flashlight and, switching it on, ran the light over the rest of the blades. Standing on tiptoes, he shone the light over his head at the pointed nose of the machine and in the central lock where the blades came together. Turning, he swept the light up and down the front of the mole and then at the wall of rock that faced it. If the mole was truly stuck, they'd have to build a second shaft directly over her to bring her out. This would take weeks. Whatever Michael found, he'd have to discuss it with the rest of them before they reported to the engineers. Would the company be more likely or less likely to lay off men if the mole was stuck and needed to be brought out?
"Nothing," Michael answered finally, ducking his head as he pushed around to the far side of the machine. "Why don't you clear out and try starting her up. I'll take a look at what's stopping her."
"You sure?" Mick Twomey asked as the rest of them edged backward.
"Is it you these lazy fuckers stuck in the
re, Ward?" Ned Powers shouted from the way back. He had finally caught up.
Michael and the rest ignored him. "I've seen the engineers do it a hundred times," Michael assured Twomey. "I know where to stand."
A minute later, once the other men had cleared out from beside the machine, the alarm sounded, and Michael could hear them running up and down the trailing gear and calling out to one another, shouting instructions. Just as it should, the mole began to vibrate, first gently and then with more speed. Michael, his palms pressed hard against his ears, could feel the rock at his back trembling as the enormous cutters started to spin. The head drove the nose forward, and sparks flew as it made contact with the granite. Michael, already in a crouch, tried to make himself even smaller and listen to what the machine was telling him. Something in the rhythm of the cutters' spin did not quite match the vibration coming from the body, and after a moment the whole contraption sighed and began to slow down.
"Turn her off," Michael shouted when the noise subsided enough for him to be heard. He made his way forward on all fours. Using his hard hat as a shield, he kept his head down against the bits of rock that might chip off and fly at him. He heard his instruction shouted down the line like a game of telephone.
"The head is fine. The nose is fine," Michael shouted. "It's the cutters." As he shouted, the spin of the cutters came to a complete stop.
Michael's legs ached from crouching. His left calf muscle began to cramp, and he put his hand on the now still machine to pull himself up. "You there, Twomey? I said it's the cutters. There's something wrong with the spin. Powers?"
He could hear voices in the distance, one of the advantages of being so far down the tunnel and away from the roar of the fan, the generators, the constant bells and whistles signaling what was going up the shaft, what was coming down. The mole hummed gently, as if to remind them that she was still alive. Michael could hear that the men were arguing and getting louder. "Goddamn it," he said aloud, and wondered what could be keeping them. After a minute or so of trying to make out what they were saying, he decided it wasn't his problem. If they could waste time, so could he. He straightened his legs, first the left, then the right, as far as the tight space would allow. He stretched his arms. He tucked in behind the blades and rested against the head where they were rooted. The head alone was more than ten feet around, weighed more than two tons, and felt smooth and comfortable against his back. He leaned back farther and let his spine match the gentle curve of the solid steel cylinder. I could go to sleep right here, he thought, brushing away a drop of water that landed on his cheek.
A moment later he heard the purr before he felt the vibration, like a car engine switching gears. Too surprised to call out, he jumped up to scramble back to his corner, but something stopped him and the shock made him stupid and slow. He tried to reach behind himself, over his shoulder, to swat at whatever was caught. The hood of his rain slicker, he realized, hurrying to unzip it. A split second later, in a mighty display of power, the mole did its job exactly as it was supposed to, exactly as it had not done just a few minutes before. The accumulated strength of three hundred and fifty tons drove the nose forward toward the granite, and the two tons of steel holding the blades in place—and against which Michael had decided to rest—became the axis at which all that power was transformed from something indefinite and haphazard into a driving force, centered and efficient. Michael envisioned the terrible spin before he felt it, and a single breath later, body limp as a rag doll, he went along for the ride.
When Greta learned that Long Island College Hospital was not on Long Island, where she'd never been, but in Brooklyn, where she had, she began to cry. "Long Island!" she'd shouted at the cabdriver when she jumped in, leaning her head over the partition to add, "Please hurry."
The driver sighed. Please hurry, please hurry, that's all he ever heard. "I'll never get a fare back," he said. If she was in such a rush, she'd offer to pay for the return trip. "Where on Long Island?"
Greta, not used to taking taxis, was surprised that he had not zipped away from the curb upon hearing her destination and panicked that he would reject her request and ask her to get out. She'd never seen anyone hop into a cab and then hop right out again. Did she even have her purse? Yes. Wallet? What buses went to Long Island? Did the Long Island trains leave from Penn Station or Grand Central or both? When she spoke again her brogue was as thick as the day she arrived, a phenomenon that occurred whenever she was nervous or angry or very happy, and she had to repeat herself twice. Taking a deep breath, she told herself what her bosses had told her at Bloomingdale's all those years: slow down, enunciate. Think before you speak, Greta. Greta, try to act as if you understand.
"Long Island College Hospital," she said for the third time, and just like that, he understood the situation.
"Hey, good news," he said. "That hospital is in Brooklyn. We'll be there in twenty."
"Miss," he added when he saw that she had begun to cry—big, heavy sobs that transformed her face so much that he could no longer have guessed her age. "I'm sure it'll be fine. I got an aunt who went to that hospital. She had the big C. Breast. Turned out healthier than ever. I'm going over there for dinner day after tomorrow."
Greta wiped her face with the sleeve of her shirt and realized that she'd forgotten to ask Julia what she should give him in the way of a tip. Quietly, and out of the view of the rearview mirror where the driver kept trying to catch her eye, she slid a crumpled ten from her purse and smoothed it out against her thigh.
Once in the emergency room, Greta leaned over to place her mouth directly in front of the circular hole cut out of the glass partition at the information desk. "There's been an accident," she said. "The water tunnels." The woman behind the glass told Greta to take a seat, a doctor would see her shortly. Like an obedient child, Greta stepped carefully around the waiting patients, people clutching their heads, people cradling their arms, and found an empty chair. Once seated, she wondered if the woman had heard her right. Wake up, she told herself, and putting on her most businesslike expression, she went back up and explained that she wasn't injured, her husband was, he was a sandhog and had gotten injured on the job.
"A what?" the nurse asked. "A hog?"
"Construction," Greta explained. "Water tunnels. Please. His name is Michael Ward. I don't even know what happened."
"The tunnel worker," the lady said, and her expression softened. "Okay, I'm sorry. Step through that door and go up to the third floor. Tell them who you are, understand? In the meantime I'll call up and tell them you're on your way."
From the moment Greta had sat down on the backseat of the cab, she'd felt short of breath, like someone much stronger than she had his hands around her throat, and now that pressure spread to her chest, her stomach, and her legs, which were becoming heavier with every step. "Third floor," she repeated as she pushed through the swinging door. She should have taken Eavan and James up to Mrs. Kraus and had Julia come with her. Julia was always calm. Julia always knew the right questions to ask. The display above the elevator door said that the car was on the eighth floor and rising. She looked around the corner for the stairs, and when she found them, she clutched the banister and took the three flights two steps at a time. Once on the third-floor hall, she looked left and right for the nurses' station, took a few quick steps in one direction, and, changing her mind, turned around and went the other way. When she found it, she announced herself before she'd even stopped walking. "The tunnel worker," she said. "I'm his wife."
She heard her name being called and turned to find Ned Powers walking down the hall toward her. He was still in his work clothes, mud dried and caked to the middle of his thighs. It was difficult to tell where his boots ended and his jeans began. His top half was cleaner where he'd removed his jacket, but his neck and face were filthy. My God, she thought with a lurch, there must have been a rock fall, a collapsed wall, Michael buried and crushed. Then, spying the flashlight still in Ned's back pocket, she remembered that this w
as normal, this was how they all looked after work before they showered and put on their street clothes again. It didn't mean anything more.
"Ned," she said, rushing up to him. "What happened?"
"I've been here the whole time, Greta. He's just out of surgery. Surgery is downstairs and then they bring him up. In the ambulance they said he has a broken arm and a cut in his leg that goes almost to the bone, and they had a question about his ribs. The doctors won't talk to—"
"Can I see him?" she asked Ned, and then turned and repeated her question to the nurse.
"No, dear, not yet. But I'll send the doctor out to speak to you. You can wait for him in the lounge, and I'll send him right in."
"Greta," Ned said, leaning up against the wall and taking a deep breath as the nurses cringed and looked at one another. "I'm a fucking eejit ninety-nine point nine percent of the time and I know it full well. Michael, he always says no, Ned, you're not a fucking eejit, but I—"
"I just want to see him, Ned," she said, walking past him, but he reached out his enormous hand, which was as knotty and rough as Michael's, and pulled her toward his chest.
"He'll be fine," Ned insisted to the top of Greta's head. After a few seconds Greta managed to wriggle away. Filthy pig, she thought. I could kill him. It was his fault somehow. She felt it. What did Michael see in this man, his only friend? All the nice Irish who work in the tunnels, and this is the one he lands home with every other Friday to eat up all the meat she'd gotten on sale at Spice'n Slice. And gab in the living room, gab and gab, Michael barely saying a thing, only smiling and nodding and adding his two cents now and again. That Ned Powers could talk to the wall. She had to kick him out half the time, dropping hints about the children and bedtime and them not used to cursing and shouting stories and laughing all night when, of course, they were well used to it, Ned being over so often since Kate went back home with their baby. Jesus, the shock that day when they heard about his little boy.
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