The Studs Terkel Reader_My American Century

by Studs Terkel

  Oh yeah, the foreman’s got somebody knuckling down on him, putting the screws to him. But a foreman is still free to go to the bathroom, go get a cup of coffee. He doesn’t face the penalties. When I first went in there, I kind of envied foremen. Now, I wouldn’t have a foreman’s job. I wouldn’t give ’em the time of the day.

  When a man becomes a foreman, he has to forget about even being human, as far as feelings are concerned. You see a guy there bleeding to death. So what, buddy? That line’s gotta keep goin’. I can’t live like that. To me, if a man gets hurt, first thing you do is get him some attention.

  About the blood poisoning. It came from the inside of a hood rubbin’ against me. It caused quite a bit of pain. I went down to the medics. They said it was a boil. Got to my doctor that night. He said blood poisoning. Running fever and all this. Now I’ve smartened up.

  They have a department of medics. It’s basically first aid. There’s no doctor on our shift, just two or three nurses, that’s it. They’ve got a door with a sign on it that says Lab. Another door with a sign on it: Major Surgery. But my own personal opinion, I’m afraid of ‘em. I’m afraid if I were to get hurt, I’d get nothin’ but back talk. I got hit square in the chest one day with a bar from a rack and it cut me down this side. They didn’t take x-rays or nothing. Sent me back on the job. I missed three and a half days two weeks ago. I had bronchitis. They told me I was all right. I didn’t have a fever. I went home and my doctor told me I couldn’t go back to work for two weeks. I really needed the money, so I had to go back the next day. I woke up still sick, so I took off the rest of the week.

  I pulled a muscle on my neck, straining. This gun, when you grab this thing from the ceiling, cable, weight, I mean you’re pulling everything. Your neck, your shoulders, and your back. I’m very surprised more accidents don’t happen. You have to lean over, at the same time holding down the gun. This whole edge here is sharp. I go through a shirt every two weeks, it just goes right through. My coveralls catch on fire. I’ve had gloves catch on fire. [Indicates arms.] See them little holes? That’s what sparks do. I’ve got burns across here from last night.

  I know I could find better places to work. But where could I get the money I’m making? Let’s face it, $4.32 an hour. That’s real good money now. Funny thing is, I don’t mind working at body construction. To a great degree, I enjoy it. I love using my hands—more than I do my mind. I love to be able to put things together and see something in the long run. I’ll be the first to admit I’ve got the easiest job on the line. But I’m against this thing where I’m being held back. I’ll work like a dog until I get what I want. The job I really want is utility.

  It’s where I can stand and say I can do any job in this department, and nobody has to worry about me. As it is now, out of say, sixty jobs, I can do almost half of ’em. I want to get away from standing in one spot. Utility can do a different job every day. Instead of working right there for eight hours I could work over there for eight, I could work the other place for eight. Every day it would change. I would be around more people. I go out on my lunch break and work on the fork truck for a half-hour—to get the experience. As soon as I got it down pretty good, the foreman in charge says he’ll take me. I don’t want the other guys to see me. When I hit that fork lift, you just stop your thinking and you concentrate. Something right there in front of you, not in the past, not in the future. This is real healthy.

  I don’t eat lunch at work. I may grab a candy bar, that’s enough. I wouldn’t be able to hold it down. The tension your body is put under by the speed of the line...When you hit them brakes, you just can’t stop. There’s a certain momentum that carries you forward. I could hold the food, but it wouldn’t set right.

  Proud of my work? How can I feel pride in a job where I call a foreman’s attention to a mistake, a bad piece of equipment, and he’ll ignore it. Pretty soon you get the idea they don’t care. You keep doing this and finally you’re titled a troublemaker. So you just go about your work. You have to have pride. So you throw it off to something else. And that’s my stamp collection.

  I’d break both my legs to get into social work. I see all over so many kids really gettin’ a raw deal. I think I’d go into juvenile. I tell kids on the line, “Man, go out there and get that college.” Because it’s too late for me now.

  When you go into Ford, first thing they try to do is break your spirit. I seen them bring a tall guy where they needed a short guy. I seen them bring a short guy where you have to stand on two guys’ backs to do something. Last night, they brought a fifty-eight-year-old man to do the job I was on. That man’s my father’s age. I know damn well my father couldn’t do it. To me, this is humanely wrong. A job should be a job, not a death sentence.

  The younger worker, when he gets uptight, he talks back. But you take an old fellow, he’s got a year, two years, maybe three years to go. If it was me, I wouldn’t say a word, I wouldn’t care what they did. ’Cause, baby, for another two years I can stick it out. I can’t blame this man. I respect him because he had enough will power to stick it out for thirty years.

  It’s gonna change. There’s a trend. We’re getting younger and younger men. We got this new Thirty and Out. Thirty years seniority and out. The whole idea is to give a man more time, more time to slow down and live. While he’s still in his fifties, he can settle down in a camper and go out and fish. I’ve sat down and thought about it. I’ve got twenty-seven years to go. [Laughs.] That’s why I don’t go around causin’ trouble or lookin’ for a cause.

  The only time I get involved is when it affects me or it affects a man on the line in a condition that could be me. I don’t believe in lost causes, but when it all happened... [He pauses, appears bewildered.]

  The foreman was riding the guy. The guy either told him to go away or pushed him, grabbed him...You can’t blame the guy—Jim Grayson. I don’t want nobody stickin’ their finger in my face. I’d’ve probably hit him beside the head. The whole thing was: Damn it, it’s about time we took a stand. Let’s stick up for the guy. We stopped the line. [He pauses, grins.] Fbrd lost about twenty units. I’d figure about five grand a unit—whattaya got? [Laughs.]

  I said, “Let’s all go home.” When the line’s down like that, you can go up to one man and say, “You gonna work?” If he says no, they can fire him. See what I mean? But if nobody was there, who the hell were they gonna walk up to and say, “Are you gonna work?” Man, there woulda been nobody there! If it were up to me, we’d gone home.

  Jim Grayson, the guy I work next to, he’s colored. Absolutely. That’s the first time I’ve seen unity on that line. Now it’s happened once, it’ll happen again. Because everybody just sat down. Believe you me. [Laughs.] It stopped at eight and it didn’t start till twenty after eight. Everybody and his brother were down there. It was really nice to see, it really was.

  TOM PATRICK

  He has been a city fireman for two years. During the preceding four years he had been a member of the city’s police force. He is thirty-two, married. “It’s terrific for a guy that just got out of high school with a general diploma. I don’t even know English. My wife is Spanish, she knows syllables, verbs, where to put the period...I wish I was a lawyer. Shit, I wish I was a doctor. But I just didn’t have it. You gotta have the smarts.

  There was seven of us. Three brothers, myself and my sister, mother and father. It was a railroad flat. Me and my brother used to sleep in bunk beds until we were twenty-seven years old. And they’re supposed to be for kids, right?

  He owns his own house and can’t get over the wonder of it, mortgage or not. A back yard, “it’s like a piece of country back there. It smells Like Jersey. We have barbecues, drink beer, the neighbors are good.

  Twenty years ago it was all Irish, Italian, Polish. I went in the army in ‘62 and everybody was moving out to Long Island. There’s a lot of Puerto Ricans now. They say the spies are movin’ in, the black are movin’ in. They’re good people. They don’t bother me and I don’t bo
ther them. I think I’m worse than them. Sometimes I come home four in the morning, piss in the street. I think they might sign a petition to get me out.

  The guys in this thing were prejudiced. I’m probably prejudiced too. It’s a very conservative neighborhood. A lot of the cops are here. Up to the fifties, these guys were my heroes, these guys in the bar. You hear this guy was in the Second World War...I was a kid and a lot of these guys are dead now. Forty-eight, fifty years old, they died young, from drinking and shit. You just grow up into this prejudice—guy’s a spic, a nigger. When I was in the army I didn’t think I was prejudiced, until the colored guy told me to clean the floor five, six times, and I was calling him nigger. You express yourself, get the frustration out.

  One o‘clock in the morning, in August, we had a block party. They were dancing on the fire escapes. People were drinking. We had three, four hundred people there. We had a barricade up on the corner and the cops never came around. The fuckin’ cops never came around. We don’t need ‘em. I think when you see a cop everybody gets tense. Instead of concentrating on the music and drinkin’ beer, you keep lookin’ over your shoulder: Where’s the cop? You know.

  I got out of the army in ‘64. I took the test for transit police, housing police, and city police. It’s the same test. It was in March’66 when I got called. I got called for the housing police. For the first six months you just bounce around different housing projects.

  I was engaged to this other girl and her father was mad that I didn’t take the city police, because I could make more money on the side. He said I was a dope. He said, “What are you gonna get in the housing projects? The people there don’t pay you off.” Because they were poor people. I said, “The money they give me as a cop is good enough.” Most of the people around here don’t go on to be doctors or lawyers. The thing to get is a city job, because it’s security.

  I worked in Harlem and East Harlem for three years. There was ten, eleven cops and they were all black guys. I was the only white cop. When they saw me come into the office they started laughin’. “What the fuck are they sendin’ you here for? You’re fuckin’ dead.” They told me to get a helmet and hide on the roof.

  This one project, there were five percenters. That’s a hate gang. They believed that seventy percent of the black population are Uncle Toms, twenty-five percent are alcoholics, and five percent are the elite. These fuckin’ guys’ll kill ya in a minute.

  This project was twenty-five buildings, thirteen stories each. Covered maybe twenty acres. It was like a city. I remember the first night I got there, July fourth. It was 105 degrees out. I had come in for the midnight to eight tour. I had an uncle that was a regular city cop. He called me up the night before and he said they expected a riot in this project. He said the cops had helicopters going around above the people and a lot of cops in plain clothes and cars. He was worried about me: “Be careful.”

  This one black guy said, “You stay with me.” That night we went on the roof and we’re lookin’ down and people are walkin’ around and drinkin’ on the benches. This colored guy was drinkin’ and I went down there seven in the morning. I told him to move. “Somebody’s gonna rob you.” He said, “Man, I ain’t got a penny on me. The most they could do is give me somethin’.” And he went back to sleep.

  The thing is you gotta like people. If you like people, you have a good time with ‘em. But if you have the attitude that people are the cause of what’s wrong with this country, they’re gonna fuckin’ get you upset and you’re gonna start to hate ’em, and when you hate, you get a shitty feeling in your stomach that can destroy you, right?

  When I went to the housing project, I said, There’s a lot of people around here and you meet ’em and the older people want you to come in and have a beer with ’em. I used to go to some great parties. I’d go up there nine o’clock at night and I’m in uniform with my gun on and you’d be in the kitchen, drinking Scotch, rye, beer, talking to these beautiful Spanish girls. These are people, right? Poor people. My family’s poor. They talk about the same thing and the kids come over to me and they’d pet you or they’d touch the gun.

  I made an arrest. Some kid came over and told me a guy across the street had robbed his camera. So I ran over and grabbed the guy. It was petty larceny. The colored cop said I broke my cherry. So he took me to the basement that night and they had a party. A portable bar, record player, girls come down, they were dancin’.

  I couldn’t wait to go to work, because I felt at ease with these people. Sometimes I’d look in the mirror and I’d see this hat and I couldn’t believe it was me in this uniform. Somebody’d say, “Officer, officer.” I’d have to think, Oh yeah, that’s me. I wouldn’t really know I was a cop. To me, it was standin’ on the corner in my own neighborhood. Poor. I’d see drunks that are like my father. A black drunk with a long beard and his eyes...He’d bring back memories of my father. I’d be able to talk to the kids. They’d be on the roof, fuckin’, and I’d say, “I’ll give you ten minutes.” It took me two minutes to come. “Ten minutes is enough for you right?”

  One project I worked out of I made nineteen arrests in one year, which was tops. I didn’t go out lookin’ to make ’em, I ran into shit. If you run into a person that’s robbin’ another person, man, that’s wrong! My mind was easy. I just figured if a guy was drunk or a guy’s makin’ out with a girl, it shouldn’t be a crime. I was with this one cop, he used to sneak up on cars and look in and see people gettin’ laid or blow jobs. I used to be embarrassed. I don’t like that shit.

  I made all these arrests and they transferred me out. I didn’t want to leave, ’cause I knew the people and I thought I could be an asset. It was Peurto Rican, black, I had like a rapport. Jesus Christ, I loved it. They’re sending me to Harlem because I’m so good. Bullshit! That jerked me off. I wanted East Harlem because you had every thing there. You had Italians, still. I used to go up the block and drink beer. I used to listen to Spanish music. And the girls are beautiful. Jesus! Unbelievable! Spanish girls. My wife’s from Colombia. She’s beautiful. I love it when her hair’s down. I think that’s where I got the idea of marrying a Spanish girl. In East Harlem.

  I wasn’t against Harlem, but there was no people. It was a new project. I was just there to watch the Frigidaires. I was a watchman. Sewers open, the ground wasn’t fixed, no grass, holes. We used to stand in lobbies of an empty building. I want to be where people are. So I got pissed off and put a transfer in. After six months people started moving in—and I liked it. But they transferred me to Canarsie. Middle-income white. And all these bullshit complaints. “Somebody’s on my grass.” “I hear a noise in the elevator.” Up in Harlem they’ll complain maybe they saw a dead guy in the elevator.

  I never felt my life threatened. I never felt like I had to look over my shoulder. I was the only white cop in that project. The kids’d be playin’, come over and talk to me. Beautiful. But sometimes they just hate you. I’m in uniform and they just go around and say, “You motherfucker,” and stuff like that. I can’t say, “Wait, just get to know me, I’m not that bad.” You haven’t got time. If you start explainin’, it’s a sign of weakness. Most people, if you try to be nice, they’re nice. But you get some of these guys that got hurt, they really got fucked, they got arrested for not doing anything.

  I was with a cop who arrested a guy for starin’ at him! Starin’ at him! The cop I was with, Vince, he had a baby face and the guy on the bus stop kept lookin’ at him because this cop never shaved. He said, “Motherfucker, what’re you lookin’ at?” The guy said, “I’m just lookin’. I said, “The guy probably thinks you’re not a cop’cause you got a pretty face.” Vince puts the night stick under the guy’s chin. Naturally when a guy puts a night stick under your chin, you push it away. As soon as you do that, you got an assault. He arrested the guy. The guy was waitin’ for a bus!

  With this same Vince, another kid came around, a Puerto Rican seventeen years old. They all knew me. He says, “Hi, baby,” and he slapped
my hand like that. “How you doin’, man?” Vince said, What’re ya lettin’ the kid talk to you like that for?” I said, “This is the way they talk, this is their language. They ain’t meanin’ to be offensive.” He says, “Hey fucko, come over here.” He grabbed him by the shirt. He said, “You fucker, talk mister, sir, to this cop.” He flung the kid down the ramp. We had a little police room. His girl started crying. I went down after this Vince, I said, “What’re you doin’? You lock that fuckin’ kid up, I’m against you. That fuckin’ kid’s a good friend of mine, you’re fuckin’ wrong.” He said, “I’m not gonna lock him up, I’m just gonna scare him. You gotta teach people. You gotta keep ’em down.”

  Just about that time twenty kids start poundin’ on the door. The kid’s brother was there and his friends. We’re gonna get a riot. And the kid didn’t do anything. He was just walkin’ with his girl.

  I was in the riots in ‘67 in Harlem. I saw a gang of kids throwin’ rocks and they hit this policeman. The cops inside the car couldn’t see where the rocks was comin’ from. When they all piled out, the kids was gone. They thought the rocks was comin’ from the roof. So these guys come out shootin’ to the blues. One big white guy got out, he says, “Come out, you motherfuckin’ black bastard.” I was with five black cops and one said to me, “Get that fucker away from me or I’ll kill him.”

  City cops, they got clubs, they think they’re the elite. Housing is H.A.—they call us ha-ha cops. Transit cops are called cave cops because they’re in the subway. These are little ribs they give. Who’s better, who’s New York’s Finest?...I was in the park three years ago with a transit cop. We’re with these two nice lookin’ girls—I was still single. It’s about one o’clock in the morning. We had a couple of six-packs and a pizza pie. We’re tryin’ to make out, right? Cops pull up, city cops, and they shine the light on us. So my friend shows the cop his badge. The cop says, “That’s more reason you shouldnt’ be here. You’re fuckin’ on the job, just get the fuck outa the park.” ’Cause he was a transit cop they gave him a hard time. My friend was goin’ after this cop and this cop was goin’ after him. I grabbed him and the driver in the police car grabbed his buddy and they were yelling, “Keep outa the park.” And the other guy’s yellin’, “Don’t come down in the subways.” I coulda turned around and said, “Don’t ever come in the housing projects.” It was stupid shit, right? A guy’ll pull out a gun and get killed.