by Mick Lowe
Sticks and stones. Jake continued to slash the wrench through the air in broads strokes, warning off the rush he knew was coming, but no one seemed to want to lead the charge.
Finally, one of his tormentors stepped forward, fists upraised. Henry Hoople. Jake recognized him from the Union Hall as one of the most vocal leaders of the anti-Mine Mill insurgency. An older man with a ponderous beer-gut that strained the zippered front of his miner’s overalls, Hoople advanced on Jake, who met him with leveled gaze. Hoople’s dark, hate-filled eyes struck him as being too close together. All in all, Jake thought, Hoople’s face reminded him of a pig.
He parried the clumsy haymaker right he knew was coming.
Jake’s every instinct was to wade right in, both fists flying, but something—some innate sense for self-preservation, perhaps the bone-weariness that lay just beneath the adrenalized veneer of his own aggression—tempered his reaction. Jake sensed that sheer youthful bravado would not carry this day. He dare not advance on Hoople, lest one of the mob edge in behind him.
Instead Jake yielded to his fatigue, his shoulders slumped, and he lowered his guard, turning his back on Hoople, as if in surrender.
“Hey, Harry, will ya look at that! Mrs. McCool’s wittle boy wants his mommy!”
Hoople never saw it coming. Jake was certain because as soon as he whirled around he once again locked eyes with Hoople—those stupid, close-set, dark eyes—glittering with malice. Jake launched the blow from the balls of his feet, and only in the instant before it struck Hoople did Jake think he saw a sudden look of comprehension— “Oh!”—just before the eyeballs rolled back in Hoople’s head, and he slumped to the deck, dead weight, like a sack of shit, beer gut pendulant.
“Hey!”
“Hey, Harry! You okay?”
Jake watched as the mob rushed forward to attend to their fallen hero. And then, for just the second time that day, he turned his back on them.
And there, like the hand of God itself, was the cage.
2
Big Bill’s Young Lad
“You okay, son?”
Jake recognized his inquisitor as Thomas “Tommy” Thompson, the hoist man. Thompson, he knew, was a contemporary of his father’s who’d suffered a serious accident underground years before and who had therefore been relegated to light duty on surface—safer, physically less-demanding work, it was true, but also life without the bonus, the mother’s milk of a miner’s existence. Jake was crossing the shaft house floor when Thompson approached him. The older man spoke in a low voice, which told Jake theirs was intended to be a private conversation.
“Soon’s I seen ’em stop at 2150, I figured Hoople and his goons was up to no good. Tender told me what happened soon’s he got to surface, so I thought I better get the cage back for ya, just in case.”
“Gee thanks, Mr. Thompson. Yeah, it was pretty hairy down there for a while, but we got matters sorted out eventually.” Jake rubbed the knuckles of his right hand gingerly. They still ached from the impact of the blow to Hoople’s chin.
Thompson shook a head thick with silver-grey hair. “Just wouldn’t do, having Big Bill’s young lad gettin’ hurt, his very first day on the job!”
“Yeah, well, thanks again, Mr. Thompson,” Jake edged his way toward the dry. The adrenalin from his confrontation with Hoople had worn off, and all Jake could think of was a long, hot shower to wash away the sweat and rock dust that coated his body.
The dry—how did miners’ lingo ever come up with such a name for a shower room? Jake wondered. Typical. A roof was a back, a face a breast, even the drills turned backasswards.
Jake emerged into the early gloaming of a soft May evening a few minutes later, a man transformed. He paused to take stock of his surroundings. Grateful to be back in it once more, he took a deep breath of fresh air, the sweet smell of spring filling his nose and lungs. The earth was just beginning to thaw after the long northern winter, and the air was redolent with a certain mystic, stirring aroma, equal parts rebirth, mystery, fecundity and promise.
It all—all the very best in life—lay before him now, just within his grasp.
There was a hint of a swagger in the step of Big Bill’s young lad as he headed for the waiting jitney.
3
Jacob Hamish McCool
“Oh, he did, did he?”
Big Bill was on the phone as Jake entered the back door. The smell of dinner stopped him in his tracks. Meat loaf! He loved his mother’s meat loaf.
“Is that so?” Jake’s father was on the telephone in his “office,” his accustomed spot at the dinner table where he sat each day poring over the Toronto dailies. Big Bill, now retired, was an enthusiastic follower of world affairs, and the morning’s newsprint littered the Formica tabletop even now.
“Cold-cocked him, you say? Well, I’ll be damned! Well, thanks for the call, brother.” Jake stood just inside the door, transfixed by how everything in his parents’ house had changed, yet not changed. Big Bill looked up at his son with eyes that were glistening with affection.
Taken aback by this sudden outpouring of paternal pride, Jake hastened toward the living room. All he wanted was to drink a beer, put his feet up, watch TV and relax. But his father intercepted Jake, draping his big hands over his son’s shoulders. Big Bill’s eyes were moist with pride and affection.
“Good work down there, Son.”
Somehow Jake knew he didn’t mean the round he and Bob had just blasted.
And then Big Bill did something that he’d never done before: he locked his son in a tight embrace. Jake felt awkward and embarrassed by this sudden bear hug, coming as it did right there in the living room, and in front of the big picture window, a design feature the McCool residence shared in common with every other ticky-tacky bungalow on the street.
The two men stood there for a long minute, a moment Jake would never forget.
“JACOB HAMISH MCCOOL!”
There were few sounds on this earth so fearful to Jake as his mother’s voice invoking his rarely spoken middle name.
Jake found her, as he knew he would, in the master bedroom, her arms crossed above her apron, one foot tapping impatiently, smoke practically pouring out of both ears. Jake closed the door behind him.
“What is the meaning of this, young man?”
Jake shrugged, and tried to look innocent. “Nothing. It was just—”
“I don’t want you to get involved in this union business!”
“Aw, ma, it was nothing I can’t handle—”
“Your very first day on the job!”
“But I had to stand up for—”
“But me no buts, young man!”
“But ma, you should have heard what they said—even about you.”
“Pfft! What haven’t I already heard! What do you think I didn’t hear after I decided to stay with the Auxiliary back in ’58 and not go to that rally in the arena?” His mother’s dark eyes flashed with pride, anger and determination.
Jake was speechless. He’d always known of his mother’s activism in the Mine Mill Ladies’ Auxiliary, but he’d no idea that her commitment had been so battle-hardened. Silence descended as they stared defiantly at each other, and the awareness sank in that they had fought—were fighting—for the same thing. Good Lord, thought Jake, I get this from both sides of my family. He is a scrapper, thought Alice McCool. Just like his father at that age.
The silence lingered as mother and son appraised each other anew.
4
Jacob in the Whale
Even though he was retired and no longer strictly speaking a member in good standing of Local 598 of the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers, Big Bill still attended the monthly members’ meetings of the big Local, imperiled as it now was by a sinister insurgency of mysterious but powerful and well-organized origin. The elder McCool was like an old boxer answering the bell. And on this early spring evening Jake decided to tag along. Not that he cared about one union over another, but what the hell?
The big Union Hall was packed, the air charged with tension and cigarette smoke so thick you could cut it with a knife. Big Bill drifted off, melting into the multitude, leaving Jake to survey the scene. And it was quite a scene.
A single, wide aisle ran down the centre of the big room, splitting the rank and file right down the middle. Jake spotted Henry Hoople on the right hand side, and, judging by the glare Hoople shot his way, Hoople also spotted Jake. Hoping to stay out of trouble and remain inconspicuous, Jake quickly found an empty chair in the rear, on the left hand side. Even those last few empty seats were filling up around him.
At the front of the big hall a half-dozen or so men in suits and ties—the Local Executive—sat behind a row of tables high up on the elevated stage. They looked down on the roiling mass assembling below. In between them stood a single, imposing, mustachioed man behind a wooden lectern, resplendent in a three-piece suit and tie. This was, Jake knew, Spike Sworski, president of the big Local.
Sworski rapped the podium with his gavel, calling the meeting to order. The hub-bub on the floor fell to a low, angry buzz, and Jake’s attention began to wander …
His eyes were drawn upward to the expansive, vaulted ceiling of the great room—one of the largest indoor spaces in the city. The whole affair was supported by a series of beefy wooden beams that soared upward out of the wooden floor that always reminded Jake of a gym floor, the beams arching up and then curving, angled, to join overhead at the centre of the ceiling.
Laminated wooden beams, as beautiful in their soaring, upward curve, at least to Jake’s eyes, as anything in any church … Wooden because, as Jake’s dad and uncles had recounted to him a million times, the Mine Mill Hall had been built in the aftermath of the Second World War, when steel was still in short supply. The inherent self-reliance and resourcefulness of several thousand determined hard rock miners had devised this solution to the architectural conundrum, trumping the co-efficients of load bearing over daunting distance and height by interlayering and interlacing hundreds of two-by-sixes.
The rows of soaring beams always reminded Jake of giant ribs. He felt as Jonah must have felt, in the belly of the whale.
“Mister Chairman, Mister Chairman!” An angry, stentorian voice interrupted Jake’s daydream. Hoople was on his feet. “Point of Order! In light of the clear and present danger represented by godless world Communism to our free and democratic way of life, Mister Chairman, I propose that each and every member of our Executive Board should be required to immediately swear an Oath of Loyalty to the Queen, and to the government of the Dominion of Canada, and to further swear that he is not now, and has never been, a member of the Communist Party of Canada!”
Hoople’s dark hair was shiny with sweat from all that yelling. It was stifling in the Hall, Jake realized, and Hoople’s angry oration seemed to turn the temperature up a few more notches, as his backers leaped to their feet, bellowing their support, and the members on Jake’s side—including, he supposed, his father and uncles, they must be up in front there somewhere—jumped to their feet and roared back across the aisle. Sworski banged his gavel furiously. “Order! Order! The brother there is recognized!”
A rank-and-filer on Jake’s side remained standing as those around him simmered down and sat down.
“Mister Chairman, Local 656 of the United Fishermens’ and Allied Foodworkers’ Union is now in its second month on strike out in Vancouver, and I move, Mister Chair, that this Local Union donate one thousand dollars to the Fishermens’ cause, as a show of solidarity in their courageous stand against the rapacious greed of the fish plant owners of this country’s West Coast!”
“Whaaat?” The right hand side of the room erupted in a great roar of calumny.
“There ya go! Another Commie outfit!”
“Why should we—”
“Order! Order!” Sworski, who towered over the rank and file on the floor, was banging his gavel furiously once again. “There is a motion on the floor!” Even though it was amplified over the public address system, Sworski’s voice was barely audible over the din. “Do we have a seconder?”
Someone on Jake’s side quickly raised his hand.
Sworski carried on, unperturbed by the howls of outrage from his left. “It has been moved and seconded that we donate one thousand dollars to the strike fund of Local 656 of the United Fishermens’ Union, to support their heroic struggle. All those in favour?”
A forest of upraised arms surrounded Jake.
“All opposed?”
The mass across the aisle signalled its unified opposition.
“The motion is carried!”
A howl of outrage greeted Sworski’s words, forcefully echoed by triumphant cheers from those around Jake.
Sworski continued to hammer away with his gavel, to little avail.
“Point of Order!” Hoople was on his feet again, so irate that a single lock of black hair now hung down over a forehead glistening with sweat. One of his shirttails had worked its way loose over his paunchy belly.
“Point of Order, Brother Chairman! Aw, fuck you! Challenge the Chair, Mister Chairman! I challenge the Chair!” Hundreds of burly miners around him bellowed their leather-lunged support of Hoople.
Sworski shook his head emphatically, calling repeatedly for order, except that now the uproar had become so boisterous that his actions carried back to Jake only in pantomime.
And so Jake never did really hear Sworski’s declaration that the unruly meeting was adjourned.
Only the shuffling of feet and scraping of chair legs on the hollow-sounding hardwood floor told Jake that yet another disastrous membership meeting of Local 598 had drawn to a close. As the members began to drift back out toward the entrance the jeering continued. It was a wonder to Jake that no one came to blows as the two factions funneled shoulder-to-shoulder through the exits.
At length, Big Bill located his son in the crush. He draped a paw over his son’s shoulder.
“So, whaddaya think? Comin’ out for a few beers with your uncles?”
Jake readily agreed. It was early yet, thanks to the meeting’s abrupt end.
After all, it was thirsty work, running the largest Local Union in all of Canada.
5
The McCools Ride Again
Two generations of McCools adjourned to the Nickel City Hotel. Just a few blocks down the hill from the Mine Mill Hall, the Nickel City was a favourite watering hole of Mine Mill loyalists.
Jake found himself at a small circular table, the top of which was covered with clear glasses brimming with draft beer. Beside his father and his two brothers, they had been joined by Spike Sworski himself, much to Jake’s surprise. The union leader wasn’t drinking much beer, Jake noticed, but he joined right in on the stories the elder McCools were sharing about the rough-and-tumble days of organizing the union.
The warm memories and laughter were flowing as freely as the beer when Jake first noticed them, a half-dozen Borgia hard cases, headed straight for the table, almost at a run, their faces hard-set with malevolent intent. The wrath of God.
And then the bar erupted with the racket of breaking glass and overturning tables. His father and uncles were on their feet even before Jake, whose attention was riveted by one of the invaders who was headed straight for him. No! He was after Sworski! As he squared to confront him Jake noticed a dull glint from the attacker’s right hand. Knucks! The son-of-a-bitch was wearing brass knuckles! When the guy led with his right, Jake side-stepped the blow, grabbed his wrist, and yanked hard enough to pull him off balance. Taking no chances against such potentially lethal force, Jake stood above his attacker and stomped down hard—twice—on the arm holding the knucks.
Then, and only then, did Jake think of his dad. Big Bill was on the other side of the table, his back to his brothers. The elder McCools had formed a tight circle, each of them brandishing a jagged shard of a broken draft glass, daring anyone to come near. No one did.
Evidently the interlopers had seen en
ough. Almost as quickly as they had converged on the McCools they vanished, out the door and into the night.
Everyone at the table was hyperventilating, rearranging his clothes and laughing slightly in relief. Sworski tugged down on the vest he was still wearing beneath his suit coat. Jake wasn’t sure how many punches he’d thrown.
“I hardly know how to thank you, young man.” Sworski extended his hand to Jake.
“Jake McCool. It’s an honour, Mr. Sworski.”
“Ah yes. Big Bill’s young lad. I’ve heard of you.” Then Sworski stepped back and surveyed Jake and his elders with a sardonic grin. “The McCools ride again, I see.”
And then, to Jake: “Why don’t you come see me at the Hall next week?”
6
Into the Night
They rode silently at first, father and son, up well-lit Notre Dame Avenue, through the Flour Mill, the city’s venerable French working class district, just north of the downtown core.
But after they crossed Lasalle Boulevard and headed deeper into the Valley the streetlights became scarce and the enveloping darkness lent the car’s interior a sense of intimacy. Jake at last broke the long silence.
“So is he?”
“Is who what?”
“Is Sworski a Commie, like they say?”
“Son, I honestly don’t know. What I do know is he’s a good union man, honest and true to the rank and file.”
Jake was well acquainted with the familiar dichotomy—in Sudbury you were either “a union man” or “a company man.” There was no middle ground.
“But the ’58 strike, dad, you can’t tell me that wasn’t a fuck-up.”
“No, I can’t. But remember every member gets a vote in this union, and the members voted to go out. Spike was just following the will of the membership.”