40 Patchtown

by Damian Dressick

  “Give some a beatin,” my sister Esther says, her eyes wide.

  “How bad a beatin?” I ask.

  Buzzy grabs hold of my shirt.

  He says, “Don’t worry how bad a beatin.”

  He pulls me across the kitchen to the stairs and sets me on my ass on the bottom step. Yanking onto my ear, he pulls my face right in breathing distance of his, so no one can hear what he’s gonna tell me. He pushes his finger hard into my cheek right below the cut.

  “You’re going into the attic,” he says. “You I gotta wait till I come for you, Chester.”

  Buzzy scowls and he pushes his mouth up to my ear and says real soft, “This ain’t no bullshit. Ya know these is hard men. You do what I tell ya.”

  “Okay,” I says.

  Buzzy steps back and he stands up. He says to everyone, “Chet’s already been in one fight today. He don’t need to be in another one.”

  My ma is blessing herself. I can see that she don’t believe a word of this, but she ain’t gonna ask no questions neither.

  “Don’t be sayin nothin ’bout Chester,” she points her finger at the twins.

  I don’t like to be chickening out of nothing, but I ain’t gonna argue with Buzzy neither. I scram up the steps and open the door to the attic. I’m trying to get the steamer trunk pushed over so I can reach the ladder to get into the attic when Lottie comes trotting up the stairs. Turning to face her, I take a deep breath thinking she’s come to give me hell for causing trouble. But she puts a roll in each of my hands. She says, “I thought you might be hungry.”

  I take a bite of one of them rolls and tell her thanks. She flashes her green eyes down at the linoleum on the floor of the hall. Pushing her foot around she says, “Chester, ya gotta be careful running with Buzzy. He ain’t bad exactly, but he’s so fulla mad that he don’t always think ’bout what’s gonna happen.”

  I think I understand what she means, but I can’t say nothing against Buzzy. I just tell her thanks for the rolls again. She gives me a smile and helps me push the trunk over to the ladder. When she goes back down the stairs to help my ma, I hear ’em the dishes clatter as they get the supper on the table.

  I climb up the ladder and push the whitewashed board away from the opening and yank myself up into the attic. It’s dark and cool enough I wanna go back down to the kitchen and ask Buzzy for his coat. Instead, I light up a candle and put the board back. There’s a couple of boxes of shit my ma brought up from West Virginia lying round and I drop my ass onto one of them.

  I’m setting there quiet chewing up the rest of them rolls, which is hard work cause my jaw hurts like hell when I open my mouth. I’m hoping my jaw ain’t broke. I wouldn’t mind so much a scar from this cut, cause that’d look pretty hard and all. But a broken jaw. No thanks.

  After them rolls is gone, I’m still hungry and I’m getting bored of setting. I can smell the dinner cooking down there, the cabbage and meat. I’m listening real careful to what’s going on downstairs, but all I hear is the sounds of them eating supper. They don’t talk much but I’m right above the kitchen, so I can hear them banging round plates and bowls.

  I’m thinking ’bout the first time I seen the Pinkertons. It was back April of this year, 1922, right after this coal strike started up and Buzzy and me was walking home from the first big union meeting out on Gerula’s farm. Them Pinkertons come into town on horses, and we watched them ride down Joe Smolko and Lefty Jankowsky who was both motormen out Eureka 37. They chased them right up Ninth Street past Eureka Store. When they caught them, them Pinkertons busted Joe and Lefty up with a blackjack good. Beat them till their faces was so swolled they couldn’t see nothing. Buzzy told me that was revenge for the two of them wrecking a motor on the way into number 37 mine the first day of the strike so nobody could go down there to work.

  “Open up, ya damn pollocks!”

  I hear somebody saying this and I crawl over to the side of the attic where there’s a little slatted window at the peak of the roof. Looking out from ’tween the slats I can see these Pinkerton bastards on my neighbor’s porch. There’s two of them in their blue suits all dolled up to look like police. They’re beating the door with a blackjack and yelling for Ol Man Kosturko to come out. I wanna say maybe they ain’t opening up cause them’s Hungarians in that house not pollocks, but I see two more of these sunsabitches ride up to our house on dark horses.

  These two climb down and make for our front door. The one is tall and heavyset with a mustache that comes down past his mouth. He’s already got his blackjack out and he’s slapping it against his leg. The other sunafabitch is sawed-off and none too steady on his feet. The big one starts cracking his blackjack into our door.

  “C’mon, ya pollocks,” he says. “Open up this goddamn door.”

  I hear feet shuffling across the floor and the key turning in the lock. I shift myself forward so I can get a better look at what’s going on. I watch the door open a crack and see a wedge of light shining onto the porch.

  Then the fat sunafabitch drops his shoulder into our door and it goes flying back, the doorknob smashing up against the wall. My ma’s shouting high pitched and these bastards rampage their way into our house. I hear furniture getting splintered and dishes shattering. There’s screaming and these no good bastards is calling my ma a stupid pollock bitch.

  “Where’s your husband?” one’s asking her.

  I can hear everything pretty clear cause the walls of these Patchtown houses is thin as paper.

  My ma’s acting like she don’t understand no English. She just keeps saying “Jezus Salwowac Nam” which is Polish for “Jesus Save Us.” Listening to them cursing my ma, my stomach tightens up and my nostrils are pulling apart. I want to spring straight down and give them sunsabitches what for, but I told Buzzy I’d stick up here.

  I hear a crash like a big piece of furniture getting busted up. That’s when I finally hear Buzzy, his voice is loud and clear and mean as hell. It’s the one he uses when somebody just got whipped bad enough for it to last a while and he ain’t even near done whipping. He says, “Anythin else ya bastards want?”

  There’s more crashing and more yelling. Buzzy’s yelling and the sunsabitches is yelling. Plates is shattering and the parlor wall shakes like the San Francisco earthquake is rattling our kitchen to pieces. Then there’s a crack and everything goes pretty quiet until one of the Pinkertons says to take Buzzy outside into the backyard. I crawl over the boxes, rushing to the slat window at the other side of the attic in time to see them dragging Buzzy out the back door.

  Both of them Cossacks is covered with food and their uniforms is tore. The short one’s got his lip split and the blood’s run down his neck and dripped onto the front of his white shirt. Buzzy’s kicking and struggling, but the big bastard’s got him in some kind of rasslin hold.

  “Help this boy out, Jim,” the big one says.

  The short one pulls out his blackjack and gives Buzzy two real quick across his belly. Buzzy coughs, but I can see he’s still ready to go. The big Pinkerton must see it too, cause he jerks Buzzy’s head back by the hair.

  “Help him out some more, Jim.”

  This time the little Pinkerton gives Buzzy the blackjack across his knee. Buzzy’s got his face all screwed up and he’s hollering like it hurt pretty good.

  “One more time.”

  After another crack at Buzzy’s knee, the big bastard Cossack lets him go and shoves him forward into the yard. He stomps on Buzzy’s hand and asks him what he knows about miners chasing scabs home from Eureka 40.

  Buzzy just groans and tells him to go piss up a tree. The little one says he probably don’t know nothing anyhow. He says that pollocks is just too stupid to cause that much trouble. Then each of them bastards gives Buzzy a kick in his belly before they go peacocking back through the yard to their horses. Buzzy’s still laying there, his bare feet wiggling outta the legs of his dungarees, when them bastards climb up into the saddle and clomp away down Second Street towards the p
ick-me store.

  Three

  Buzzy’s limping pretty good, but he’s better off than some of the other fellas heading up the boneyard ridge to the union meeting. A couple of men got their arms broke and one fella can barely walk. A couple more got shoulders that’s all banged to hell. Most everybody living down 40 Patchtown is flush with bruises or cuts or their faces are all swolled. Ol Man Kosturko, he’s got a big white bandage covering up his whole head.

  We’re taking the back way up to Gerula’s orchard. We heard they got organizers and big union men coming down from district headquarters this afternoon to help us figure out what to do about these damn Cossacks putting their boots to us. That’s if our fellas can even get past all the new thugs the damn Berwinds has brung in.

  For a week now, fresh Pinkertons been coming in by the dozen. We seen them loafing around the train station down Windber. We seen their spotters, too. We watched them standing out there in front of the Palace Hotel with their hands in their pockets and their eyes keen on the streetcar, peeled strict for anybody headed into town on the union’s nickel.

  It’s no secret them Berwinds had their feet to us miners’ throats ever since this strike started up. Between the Black List and the Pinkertons and tossing folks out of the company’s houses and them owning every damn thing in town from the Burgess to the rock dump, they kept us in our place, and good. But since they found that dago’s body in McKluskey’s drainage behind the 40 mine last week, things has gone straight to hell. Cossacks is crowding round thicker than horse flies on shit. We heard they’re even bringing them in from far as Pittsburgh.

  I ’spect them sunsabitches must have got wind of this meeting somehow, cause they’re watching everything extra close today. Baldy says he heard they even got a roadblock set up out on 160 headed into town. E.J. and the rest of them Berwinds don’t want none of our fellas coming into Windber—which everybody knows is just “Berwind” with the letters mixed up.

  Cause Baldy and Stash live down 37, they ain’t been catching no beatings. So they’re all lighthearted, fooling around. They been tossing a ball back and forth over Ol Man Kosturko’s broken head the whole way from Meckley’s Field to New Ashtola. I walk beside Buzzy who’s got a stick up under his arm like a crutch. He’s blanketing the white tops of that Queen Anne’s lace with tobacco juice and saying he’s going to murder the deputies that give him the beat down.

  Once we get to spitting distance of Gerula’s, one of the oldtimers yells at Baldy and Stash to stop fooling around. They give him the raspberry, but when they start tramping down the footpath to the orchard where Gerula’s letting us have the meeting, they’re settled.

  Down in the middle of them apple trees, I can see men from 41 and 42 Patchtowns and some Slovaks from 30 and 35. There’s Eye-tailyan miners from 32 and a couple of fellas from out 38. Some of them miners got swolled lips or black eyes but none of them look to be catching it like we are down 40.

  “Ya boys are lookin rough,” says one of the Slovaks from 38 Patchtown.

  “They been hittin us pretty good,” Ol Man Kosturko tells him.

  I recognize some of the trapper boys what used to live down 40 ’fore the Pinkertons give ’em their papers back in August. I worked with them pulling air traps deep in 40 mine before Buzzy got me on with him loading mule cars on the B seam last fall. Looking thin, them trapper boys is over with their pas hunting in the leaves, scrounging for apples that’s left over from the harvest last month. Them boys live in the Tent City back behind McKluskey’s now. They’re camped out down there in chicken coops and tents that’s left over from the war. I give ’em a nod and they gimme a nod back.

  “Boys makin it alright?” Baldy asks them.

  “No use kickin,” one says.

  “Depends who yer kickin,” Buzzy tells him, hobbling away.

  The bunch of us follow Buzzy over to the other side of the orchard where one of the union men is talking Polish. Men are worried and everybody’s asking what we can do ’bout all these fresh Cossacks come into town.

  The organizer says that bringing the union in is the only way we’ll get any rights at all from these Berwinds. He says they’re gonna keep cheating us long as they can.

  “I know they’re bringin the Cossacks in on ya!” he says. “That’s the only way they’ll keep this union out!”

  Then he starts yelling out all the stuff we’re trying to get outta the Berwinds by striking.

  “Ya men want to get honest weight for yer coal?” he asks. And miners says back, “Damn right, we want honest weight!” and then he says, “Ya want pay for the deadwork?” and men says, “Damn right, we want pay!” This goes on till he gets through all the stuff we’re striking for. A contract to be in the union, no more secret pay lowering, checkoff for the union dues. Every time he says something new, men shout back that’s what they want.

  I seen this lots of times before, but a good many of the miners from 40 ain’t doing no shouting back. Some are just standing over at the edge of the crowd looking scared. Others is grouped together in two’s and three’s whispering about slitting the Cossacks’ throats and going after the Berwinds with dynamite.

  When that organizer’s done, another fella gets up and starts making the same speech all over again in Hungarian. Buzzy says that we’re wasting our time here. I don’t understand no Hungarian anyway, so I head over to look for apples with them trapper boys from the Tent City.

  While we’re grubbing in the leaves, a car comes rumbling up Ashtola Road. Some of the miners try melting into the line of oak trees at the edge of the orchard. I figure they remember the meeting back in May where the Berwinds had the Staters roll in and haul everybody off to Somerset to the jailhouse. But when the miners see a couple union men go over to meet the car, everybody comes running right back.

  Mikey and me race over to the car to see who’s getting out. We recognize one of the men right off, cause he’s John Brophy, head of the union up in Cresson. He come down here a couple of times before. He got slicked-back silver hair and a black necktie over a clean shirt. He’s smiling at everybody and waving. The other fella is younger, maybe twenty-five. He’s got bright blond hair that’s blowing in the wind, a square face and big shoulders. He’s wearing a necktie too, but it’s just hanging round his neck loose. He’s watching Mr. Brophy and flashing us his bright teeth.

  All the miners gather round the car, pushing, trying to get in closer. Buzzy slides up behind me and says they just wanna get in tight next to Brophy in case he come down to hand out the strike relief in person. Baldy and Stash laugh, but some of the men look at Buzzy hard, like he’s a kid who’s talking too damn much. Buzzy might have a point ’bout the strike relief though, cause I’m looking at everybody’s clothes and they’re looking like they ain’t held together with nothing but coal dust.

  “How ya men doin?” Mr. Brophy asks.

  He slams the car door and walks over into the middle of the orchard. The younger fella gets a wood box outta the back of the car and carries it behind him. Men come up to him while he’s walking, and everybody says that we’re hanging tough and we ain’t licked yet and stuff like that.

  When they get to a spot of ground where the orchard is still all seedlings, the younger fella sets the wood apple box down and Mr. Brophy climbs up on top of it. The men step back and give him a little room. He looks out over the crowd of miners who’s mostly quiet now.

  Mr. Brophy says, “I come down here from Cresson cause I heard them Berwinds has brought in fresh Cossacks to give ya the beat down.”

  His voice is high, but loud and all the miners listen when he talks, which is kinda funny cause a lot of these miners can’t understand no English.

  “Well, boys,” Mr. Brophy says. “I’m here to tell ya, ya brung it on yourselves!”

  The men start looking at each other kind of confused. There’s lots of whispering and mumbling. Men from all the different patchtowns are saying like, “What ya mean, John?” and such.

  “Yer playin th
e Berwind’s game!” he says to us. “Goin after their shittin scabs with violence.”

  I’m near holding my breath, while Mr. Brophy talks.

  “Berwind’s whole goal is to paint us union men up like crazy foreigners. Get folks thinking our union ain’t nothing but a bunch of no good criminals who’ll murder a man without thinking twice,” he says. “The Berwinds are winding us up like a watch.”

  He says how violence just gives the governor good reason to send another mob of State Policers into Windber and get rid of the union once and for all. He says this is how they done for steel mill fellas three years back in Pittsburgh, how they done for them boys in Homestead. Mr. Brophy says they’ll do anything to keep on paying us slave wages.

  “Ya men wanna know what them Berwinds done to get them scabs to come here in the first place?” he asks us.

  I look back behind me through the crowd and even though not too many men say that they want to know, Mr. Brophy pulls a folded-up piece of newspaper outta the pocket of his suit coat. He yells into the crowd of miners calling for somebody that can read the Eye-tailyan.

  One of the dago miners from 32 tramps up to where Mr. Brophy is standing on his box. I watch Mr. Brophy unfold the paper and give it to the Eye-tie.

  “Tell these men what that advertisement says,” Mr. Brophy says.

  The Eye-tie from 32 is all beaming, excited to show off for his buddies he can read. Smiling over the crowd, he says, “Dis paper say ‘Brand new mine. Just opened. Five hunnerd miners needed. No less den 12 dollars a day for every man. No labor troubles.’”

  “Where’s it say that nice new mine is?” Mr. Brophy asks him.

  “Windber, Pennsylvania.”

  The dago ain’t smiling no more and the men who can understand English start hollering right off. Then the Eye-ties start hollering cause the fella from 32 repeats what he said to them in dago. Before long the Polish and the Slovaks and Hungarians too all understand how Berwind is tricking them scabs into coming out here.