by Robert Ward
“Doing real good, boys,” Henry yelled. “Might get me a job selling donuts at Harborplace. Boy, will that be temptation.”
He rubbed his round, soft stomach with a circular motion like he was helping all those little round donuts to roll on through there, and Dog and I cracked up.
“How’s the Babe?” I yelled. The Babe was Henry’s girlfriend, a two-hundred-plus former stripper at the Club Peacock. Everybody we knew thought Henry had lost his pea brain when he hooked up with her, but she had turned out to be good for him, or as good as any woman could expect to be, given Henry’s proclivities for long drinking binges and getting fired off jobs. The latter was his specialty. Like most fat people he was sensitive—92 percent of them are sensitive about being fat (and nothing else)—and when some guy would mention his monstrous size in an unfavorable light, he would take to pulling his famous National Geographic bull rhino act, trampling the perpetrator of the unkind remark and everything in his stout path. Naturally this gave him a certain reputation at the bars. “You hear who Henry run up on today, crumpled up Leroy Selkirk, put a heel mark on his cheek.” But it didn’t go over extremely well with his employers, who one after the other reluctantly let Henry go. As a result of his deep sensitivities, Henry was just about unemployable, but to look at him standing there waving to Dog and me you would have thought he was John Beresford Tipton getting ready to give away another million bucks to some poor war orphan with big round eyes.
“Me and the Babe doing fine,” he said. “She’s working down McCormick. Come home smelling like spice cake every night. Whewooooooooie!”
Doggie laughed hard and put his arm around me.
“Shit,” he said. “Henry in a donut shop, ain’t that fine?”
“He is a handful,” I said, still laughing.
Dog laughed with me for a minute or two more, then turned away and began itching his scalp so hard I thought he’d rip out his remaining hair.
“Red, this place is really getting to me. I need some air. There’s a coffee truck outside. How about saving my place in line, okay?”
“Sure,” I said. “But we’re getting a little close up for you to be leaving. Once I get there I got to go on through.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll be back in plenty of time. You want some coffee?”
“As long as you’re going.”
“Thanks, pardner.”
Dog smiled as if he had been let off a life sentence and headed for the door. When he opened it, I could see the wall outside of twisting, roaring snow.
About forty seconds after he was out of the green-walled room, the line started moving along like there was cancer eating the other end of it. I got down and started fumbling with my drenched, stubbly work boots, pretending that my lace was untied, but a big greasy-haired guy named Al Rourke, with a head like a medicine ball and eyes like they were cut out of a pumpkin, began bitching at me.
“Come on, Baker. Quit the stalling. Dog’s out of line, it’s his problem.”
“Take it easy, Rourke. I’m moving as fast as I can.”
“Well, get on with it. I want to get out of this place.”
Finally there was no holding it back any longer, and I found myself up to the information desk, face-to-face with Miss Motown. Close up her hair looked like sea kelp and smelled like the dissected frog down at Patterson High.
She asked me the essentials—name age address—and then got around to my work.
“Rougher down at Larmel Steel.” I smiled at her. “That’s a skilled position.”
She tilted the maroon, heart-shaped glasses, with the gold-link chains which hung around her neck, and looked at me as if she was checking out a leprosy victim.
“Rougher? I’m sorry, Mr. Baker. That falls under the category of unskilled laborer. You go to the line on the left please.”
“Now wait a minute, Miss …” I looked at her nameplate, which sat on her desk like a big black razor blade. “Maybe you don’t understand just what it is a rougher does. I turn bars of steel that are hotter than hell. I don’t do it right, the steel jumps the track and somebody ends up walking on stumps for the rest of their life. There’s plenty of skill in that, you better believe it.”
She looked at me and touched her hair, which bounced up and down, all one big spring.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Baker. Under our present laws your job is categorized as unskilled work. The line on the left, please!”
“I don’t give a damn about your categories, lady,” I said. “It’s got more goddamn skill than what people do in here, and I’m going to the line on the right.”
“Mr. Baker,” she said in the even, strained tones of a woman who had seen the light when she read the rules, “you’re unskilled or I call the guard. The choice is yours.”
“Yeah, come on, Baker,” Rourke said behind me. “You gonna shit or get offa the pot? There’s other people wanta get home too.”
I turned and looked him in the eye and then past him, searching for the Dog.
“Listen, Rourke, I’ve had a long day. Don’t push your luck, okay?”
“If I was you I’d shut up, Red,” he said, making a fist.
“Why don’t you open your hand, Al, before I stick it up your ass.”
Rourke’s head jerked back as if I’d slapped him, and he narrowed his slitty eyes as thin as paper cuts.
“Mr. Baker, will you please take your card, sign it, and go to the left line?” Miss Motown said.
“You ever sing with Diana Ross?” I said. “You look a lot like the Supremes.”
“Listen, Mr. Baker, either you move or I call the guards. Take your pick.”
I turned back around to Rourke, and there, three feet away, was Dog, his big brown head covered with snow and his mouth hanging open in a surly way as he stared at the space he was supposed to occupy.
“Excuse me, Rourke. I’m getting back in line,” Dog said politely.
Rourke’s head swiveled around like a periscope. “Your place in line is back there, Donahue,” Rourke said, pointing to the unseeable rear.
Dog looked at me and smiled, nodding his head back and forth, holding the coffee and donuts tray in his two flame-red hands.
“Hey, Rourke,” Dog said, smiling politely and putting the cardboard tray down on the corner of the desk, which made Miss Motown’s deep-penciled eyebrows raise almost up to her lacquered hair.
“You know what, I think I saw your ass in the back of the line. Maybe you oughta go back there and screw it back on your neck.”
Rourke waited a second, as if to sort all of that out, and then nodded slowly, as if he’d almost caught up with it.
“You want some trouble, Donahue? Is that it?”
“I’m sorry, Rourke,” Dog said. “I had it all wrong. I thought your ass was back there when it’s right here on your shoulders.”
“Dog,” I said, trying to play peacemaker.
But I was a lifetime late.
Rourke reached forward, grabbed Dog by the lapels, and picked him straight off the ground. Dog looked shocked, like he’d seen a miracle. He goes two twenty in the winter, and nobody I ever recall had budged him. When he went up his hands flew out, upsetting the snack tray, which flew up in the air, the brown, steaming coffee flying all over Miss Motown, who gave out with a bloody scream. Her little opera was short-lived, however, because when she saw Dog kick Rourke squarely in the nuts with his dangling knee, she threw her hand over her mouth in horror. Rourke doubled over like a manikin, and Dog gave him a good chop on the back of the neck, which put him flat out on the wet green tile.
Rourke didn’t move, so I bent down to see how he was breathing. I turned him over and saw a mean red bump rising on his forehead.
“Hey, Al,” I said. “Al, you all right?”
He moaned a little and opened his eyes.
I looked up at Dog, who was still pumped up, his eyes wide open, his teeth clenched tight.
“Hell,” Dog said, shaking his head. “Hell …”
But now Mis
s Motown had come to her senses. She slid out from behind her desk, coffee dripping down her face, and she started flinging her arms out in an umpire’s “safe” sign.
“No way,” she yelled. “No way! You are out of here, mister. There’s no way this kind of violence is allowable.”
“Hey,” Dog said, really sounding sorry. “I didn’t start it, I just—”
But she shook her head, put one hand on her hip, and pointed the other at the door.
“Out, out, out,” she yelled.
“Okay, okay,” Dog said.
“Hell, I’ll go with you, Doggie.”
But the Dog smiled and shook his head, putting his hands on my shoulders.
“No, Red. You’re almost through. I’ll meet you over in the mall bar.”
“Hey, I don’t need this shit,” I said.
“Nah, you got to go through. It’s all right. You stay around and tell Al I’m sorry. I shouldn’ta kicked him so hard. Just lost my mind.”
I looked down at Rourke, who was groaning and picking himself off the tile. He looked younger and sweeter waking up.
“Hang in there,” Dog said. “You hear something for me, let me know later.”
“Okay,” I said. “Take it easy, Dog.”
I watched as Dog left, some of the men slamming him on the back and pointing down at Rourke, who was not one of your most popular people at the mill.
It was two more hours in the left line before a man with a face like an Indian wood carving gave me restful green-colored cards on which I had to print the names and addresses of two places I’d applied every week. This same helpful jerkoff then came up with his “listings” (as he called them), all the exciting new career moves an out-of-work rougher could hope for. Wonderful jobs like Deliverer of Telephone Books and Car Wash Technician, both of which paid one hundred dollars a month less than unemployment benefits.
Technically he could have turned me down for any benefits for refusing to go out on those jobs, but he looked about as whipped as I felt.
His eyelids hung down over his face like two broken blinds in a Baltimore Street flophouse, and he had breath that smelled like the wake of old cruise tugs down the Chesapeake.
“There is one job that might open up,” he said, running his soft white hands up and down his black rooster tie. “Be a couple of weeks.”
“Where’s ‘at?”
“Harborplace.”
“Harborplace,” I said. “That’s where my wife works. What kind of job?”
He looked down at his desk and ran his hand across his thin white lips.
“That would be in your maintenance field,” he said.
“The maintenance field. You talking janitor work? Trash collecting?”
“Well, some of that. It’s a part of the special task force the mayor has instituted. The Baltimore Full Employment Brigade. Kind of like the old CCC camps. You know what I mean.”
“Yeah, I got the picture. Let me try and paint it for you. My wife is working as a waitress in Weaver’s Crab House, and she looks out the window and sees me, her husband, bagging trash, crab claws, and french fries people have thrown out. Picking up candy wrappers and ice cream sticks. You think I’m going to be able to hack that?”
Red Baker, Garbage Guy.
“Well, Mr. Baker, it’s only temporary, and it pays two hundred a week.”
“That’s terrific,” I said. “Is that it? That’s all you got?”
“Mr. Baker, I wish there was something else. These are hard times. I’m sure your wife would understand.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Call me when it comes up.”
This got a great big smile out of him. I half expected him to come out from behind the desk and give me a merit badge.
I turned around as he wrote a number on his card, and I looked at the two or three hundred other guys waiting in line for this exact same shit. Suddenly I wanted to pull a Henry and just rhino the hall. Sweat poured down my forehead like I’d just been walking in a hot summer rain. My ears felt as though they were flaming.
Nigger work for Red. Thirty-nine years old, working as a trash man.
A scream started inside of me, and I walked out of there, past the lines of huddled-up, dead-eyed guys. I walked out fast, hardly even speaking to men I knew.
Across the street I found the new mall bar. It was called the Angry Oyster and had a picture of a little demon oyster popping out of a shell with a rough-and-ready look on his face. The new Baltimore.
Inside the place was built like a schooner, with portholes and fake teakwood and waitresses pushing fifty done up in pirate miniskirts, black patches over their eyes, and rags wrapped round their heads. I looked at their varicose-veined legs and thought of Wanda and of myself, old sailors rotting away down on Pier One.
I knew that was horseshit, I was giving into cheap country music corn, but I felt like I’d been bludgeoned, hit with a belaying pin, and I staggered through the hanging plants until I found Dog in the corner, his head down on his arms and empty shot glasses surrounding him like fake jewels.
Some spittle dribbled from his mouth, and he snored loudly.
A waitress with a bleached-blond beehive came over and smiled at me. There was red lipstick on her teeth.
“You know this guy, hon? He’s been at it for a whole afternoon.”
“Yeah,” I said, “I know him. Just bring me a double Wild Turkey. Okay?”
“Sure hon, but I hope there’s not going to be two of you like that. We got our policies, ya know?”
I nodded, saying nothing, knowing if I did I might suddenly leap out of my seat and start tearing down the plants. I just watched her fat ass move away, and I sat there staring at knocked-out Dog, who snored loudly, ignorant of the cold news.
• • •
It wasn’t long before the word came down. This wasn’t your commonplace layoff; it might be six months before Larmel opened again. If they did at all.
I heard it from Billy Bramdowski one afternoon when I was food shopping while Wanda worked down at Weaver’s Crab House. Felt weird prowling down the aisles of the Giant Supermarket like a housewife, doing my comparison shopping and thinking how damned embarrassed I was going to be when I pulled out our coupons for cereal, and sugar, and soap.
I was halfway down the breakfast foods aisle, pushing my big gleaming shopping cart, when Billy Bramdowski turned into the aisle and faced me.
At first I thought he was going to back up and get out of there, he looked that spooked. But then we both laughed and met there among the Count Chocula boxes.
“You hear what they got in mind, Red?” he said, rubbing the back of his hand over his cheek.
“No, what’s that?”
“They’re going to take the money they would be paying us, and they’re going to sink it all into getting computers and stuff.”
“Trying to compete with the Nips, huh?”
“Yeah,” Billy said, sighing and looking down at his feet. “It’s a hard one, Red, because when we do get back there, it’s liable to be an all-new setup. Got to go to computer school to know how to use it. Seems like every which way a man turns, there’s another wall.”
“Well hell, Billy,” I said, patting him on his square shoulders. “You can learn to run a computer as fast as the next guy. I can see you out there pushing those old buttons and yelling about warp factor one. A regular Captain Kirk.”
This was a piss-poor attempt at humor, and Billy didn’t even smile. I have a feeling he didn’t even know who Captain Kirk was. Instead he just stared down at his shopping cart, which was filled with peanut butter and jelly, and crackers and cookies, and big bottles of Coke. Kid food.
“How’s Jennie doing?” I asked.
“Fine.” He smiled. “She’s going to deliver in the summer. Number four.
“Kids are a blessing, Red. Just hope we can pay for this one.”
“Hey, you’ll find a way. Hang in there.”
“Seen your friend Vinnie lately?” Billy asked.
/> “No, and I been losing lots of sleep over it.”
Billy laughed and fooled with the zipper on his old N-l jacket.
“That was some day. Thinks he’s a badass. Well, gotta get home, Red. I’m head baby-sitter nowadays.”
“Me too, Billy.”
He tried another smile out and left me standing there staring at the oatmeal boxes. And feeling downright whiny and sorry for myself. Not to mention pissed off. Taking our pay and plunging it into fucking computers which would probably do our jobs for us when we tried to come back.
I wanted to take the shopping cart and run it into the big display of foreign crackers that was at the end of the aisle.
But I cooled it. I told myself that I was going to keep it together.
Take it one day at a time. Think about things carefully. Hunt down every job lead.
Act like a family man, Red Baker, keep your eye on the bright days ahead. One day at a time….
Which is how I tried to handle it. Don’t panic, keep it together, use the time off to see Ace. I remember a day not long afterward when Ace and his buddies were playing tackle football at Patterson Park in the snow. He was up early in the morning, and I had helped him with his helmet and shoulder pads and his old Johnny Unitas (number 19) jersey.
“Now don’t break anything,” I said. “Remember, you got to play basketball.”
“Sure, Dad. I just hate to miss Saturday football. It’s a tradition.”
He poured half a bottle of milk on his fourth bowl of cereal, and I ran my hand through his hair.
“You’re telling me? Listen, Doggie and I were in the first Saturday game. We played for five hours in the rain, but we won that sucker.”
“No kidding, Dad? You played sports?” He laughed.
I shook my head. Sometimes he put me on like I did Dog. But I didn’t mind it much. Hell, the truth is I loved it.
But he must have misunderstood my silence, because he started apologizing.
“Hey, Dad, I was only kidding. You know I like to hear about your old games.”
Ace grabbed the pads from the kitchen floor, and I helped him lace them up.
“Is that the one that you threw to Dog for the winning touchdown?”