Buzzy smacks his fist on the tabletop and stomps off into the parlor. He grabs the rest of the newspaper from the twins. He folds it up and puts it into a box next to the cellar step. Cause Esther’s only nine, she starts whining ’bout her dolls, Buzzy says they can’t be pissing that newspaper away like that. He says we’re gonna need it to line our shoes again when it starts to snow.
I follow Buzzy out onto the porch. He’s setting down on the kindling box rolling up a bit of tobacco in a little square of newspaper he kept so’s to make up a cigarette.
“Times is tough, Chet,” he says to me.
He shakes his shoulders and lights the little cigarette with one of the kitchen matches. I’m thinking I don’t need to be told about how times is. We ain’t hardly had no meat in a week and Buzzy had to sell his radio just to get us the last round of hamburger and cabbage.
“How come we’re so bad off?” I ask him.
“Where ya been?” he says. “There’s a strike on.”
I nod and reach for the cigarette when he holds it out to me. I take a good puff and pass it back to him.
“We been on strike for six damn months,” I says. “But we ain’t never been so broke we had to go short of food before.”
“Damn curfew,” Buzzy says to me.
“40 Mine been closed long before they started up this curfew,” I says.
“Chrissake Chet! Where ya think our money been comin from?”
Buzzy tosses his head and takes a pull that burns down the rest of his cigarette. He says for me to remember when that dago Facianni come to see him in the 40 Hotel.
“He’s the boss a them Black Handers,” I says. “I ain’t fooled that he’s just some barber.”
Buzzy nods and says that’s exactly what he is. He tells me how them wops hired him to run a load of bootleg liquor out to Seanor every week since two months after this strike started up.
“How ya think we been gettin fed so good?” he looks right at me.
I don’t know what to say to all this, but it makes some sense, for sure. I always wondered how we bought a radio in the middle of a coal strike. When I ask Buzzy what happened, he spins around so roaring mad that I scoot my ass back away to keep from getting clipped.
“Ain’t ya been listenin to nothin I said, Chester?” he asks me. “Them Black Handers ain’t gonna risk all their liquor gettin snatched up by a bunch of greedy curfew Pinkertons. I ain’t been to Seanor in weeks.”
We sit there on the porch for a couple of minutes before I stand up and lean against the banister. It’s getting cold. I twist the collar of my coat up so it covers my neck some. I look down the street past the frame houses at the company store. The union told us not to shop there. Not that it matters, since we ain’t got no money and EJ Berwind sure ain’t offering credit to any miner on strike.
I ain’t sure how Buzzy’s gonna feel ’bout hearing it from me, but I ain’t too keen on starving neither—so I tell him what I heard down the rock dump going through the bony looking for last night’s coal chunks.
“The union got a store tent set up behind 35,” I says to him. “They got flour and lard and vegetables.”
“Ya need money to go to the store, Chet,” Buzzy says.
“Since that Charlie Dugan come in, I heard they’re offerin credit to all the strikin miners. Like them stores they set up down Saint Michael back in May.”
At first, I’m thinking Buzzy won’t wanna go to no union store, but when he hears there’s a chance of us getting some credit, he’s raring. He pinches the cigarette out between his fingers and tells me to go get my hat from in the house. He tells our ma that we’re going up 35 and that we’ll bring something back for supper that ought to be better than that damn mush.
My ma shakes her head and tells Buzzy to keep his eye on me and to be careful of them guards. Buzzy just laughs and says that they ought to be careful of him.
“Just don’t be runnin yer mouth so much,” she says.
Crouched low on the front porch, we watch them Pinkerton horses go clomping up Second Street past Kosturko’s. When they make the turn into Ash Alley, me and Buzzy slip off of the porch and through the line of backyards towards Zachek’s. After crossing the rail bridge over Paint Creek, we claw our way up over the 40 rock dump into the woods.
Shortcutting over the bony piles, it only takes us a half hour to get to the Slovak Cemetery, where the path breaks off towards 35. We’re real high up on the ridge at the edge of the boneyard and we can see the whole way down over the hill into Windber, the paved streets and plankboard sidewalks, the yellow brick Hungarian church, the red brick Polish church, and street car tracks that run the whole way along the valley from Eureka 38 to Dago Town.
Off by itself on the opposite rise, the superintendent’s big brick standalone sets back from the street, and there’s a whole line of Pinkerton cars out front, near as many as we can see parked on Ninth Street between the Berwind’s Big Office and the two-story Eureka Company Store for the Windber miners. Perched out on the edge of the limestone rock at the corner of the trail, Buzzy says he can see two more Cossack cars setting down on Main Street out front of the Windber train station.
Cause we made pretty good time, we hoof outta the woods and down into 35 before it’s too late in the afternoon. We don’t see no guards right off, but Buzzy has us keep to Railroad Street on the far side of the tracks so we can cut through the miners’ yards and back into the woods if any of them Cossacks catch sight of us.
“So, where they got this store set up, Chester?” Buzzy says to me.
I tell him we gotta get over to the other side of 35, to the south corner of Horkheimer’s farm. So we hike along Railroad Street trying to keep a weather eye out for the Pinkertons. But it’s only miners on the streets and there ain’t too many of them. I tell Buzzy I’m feeling hungry enough to eat half a pig. He says he’s getting a rumbling in his stomach too and that he can’t wait to get to the union store.
“Maybe they got some pierogies cookin over there,” I says.
Buzzy just laughs and says we better keep on walking. So we keep on through 35 past the row of miners’ frame houses and the pit boss’s standalone at the end. It’s a good walk till the road curves back away from the high tipple of 35.
But when we get to Horkheimer’s cornfield, there ain’t no tent and there ain’t no cars and there ain’t no miners. There ain’t even no men from the union or nothing in the field. Me and Buzzy cross the road and we’re standing up right in the middle of where the union store oughtta be. But there ain’t a damn thing ’cept high yellow grass that’s all crushed down by some tire tracks.
Buzzy kicks at the ground a couple times, and I’m waiting for him to give me hell for dragging us out here, but he don’t yell or nothing, just says that we should start back.
I’m feeling starved, and I grab up a weed from the side of the road and stick it in my mouth for something to chew on. Buzzy grabs one too and we start hiking back down 35 Road till we get back to the plank sidewalks where the company doubles sprout up on both sides of us again.
First miner we see, Buzzy says to him ’bout the union store being gone. He tells us that Charlie Dugan and them had the tent set up till this morning, but then the Cossacks come in and run the union outta 35 Patchtown. They told the union men they’d set fire to the tent and everybody in it if they didn’t clear the hell out.
“What happened to the store?” I ask.
“They packed up the whole thing and headed up to Mine 42.”
Buzzy spits out his weed stalk and says that we’re going up to 42 Patchtown. Then he turns around and starts right back down 35 road where we come from. I go chasing after him leaving that miner from 35 holding his hat. I yell to Buzzy that there ain’t no way we’re gonna get back from 42 before it’s full dark.
“Oh, we’re goin out to 42, Chester,” Buzzy tells me. “I didn’t come this whole damn way for nothin.”
“We can’t walk through the woods in pitch black,” I says.
“We’re gonna have to go home through Windber.”
“I don’t give a footlong shit if we have to walk home through hell, Chester. Just so we ain’t goin there empty handed.”
Now Buzzy knows there ain’t no way we’re heading through Windber at night without running into the Pinkerton guards, but he ain’t in no mood to be argued with and I sure as hell ain’t in no mood to be walking the whole way back to 40 Patchtown without him.
Seven
It’s already close to dusk when we round the 42 rock dump and finally get a peek at the union tent store. Raggedy and stained, that big green army tent sets up on a patch of scrub between 42 Road and the Pennsylvania Rail tracks that mark the county line. From the curve of the road, I can see Charlie Dugan standing between his black Ford and the union tent.
Charlie’s still wearing his necktie, but his shirt’s stained and his suit coat’s flared open. He’s got his hand on his hip talking to the miners lined up to get into the tent. I crack to Buzzy that Charlie’s the one what saved me from them Pinkertons back at the train riot, but Buzzy don’t much seem to care and speeds up his walking. I hurry it up after him.
“Ya hear what I said, Buzzy?”
Buzzy says that he heard me, but he don’t slow down one bit. When we get to the store tent, I start hiking over to give a hello to Charlie Dugan, but Buzzy grabs me by the shirtsleeve and yanks me to the back of the line with him.
“Remember, “he says. “We’re in a big damn hurry. We ain’t got no time to be shooting the shit.”
Waiting with the other miners, I hear everybody pissing ’bout how hard times has got with this curfew come down on us, no food and Cossacks everywhere. After Charlie disappears into the tent, some men say that the union’s damn near outta money and we best get what we can get outta this store.
When it’s our turn to get inside, one of the union men at the tent flap asks us for our local and Buzzy says that we come from down 40. The fella nods to us and says that Buzzy gets a full share, and since I just come off of being a trapper boy last year, I only get half. He hands Buzzy a burlap sack and we step inside the tent store.
Back against the green flaps on the far side, a couple fellas try on shoes, and in the corner some fill up their flour sacks with potatoes and cabbages. Buzzy hands our sack to me and I follow him. We shuffle over to where they got some crates of sweet potatoes stacked on the ground. We pop some of them into our sack along with a half dozen onions and cabbages. At a makeshift table one of the union men dishes us up a bit of hamburger meat wrapped in butcher’s paper. I ask him where all this meat come from. He says that union men up in Cresson sent a hundred pounds of cow meat down to us for the strike relief.
“That’s pretty tasty,” I says to him.
I feel a hand come down on my shoulder, and when I turn around Charlie Dugan is standing there next to Buzzy. Looking a bit tuckered, Charlie’s saying that all of us union men gotta stick together if we want to beat them damn operators. I know he’s kinda shining me on a little bit, but I still like that he’s talking to me like I’m any other union man and not like I just come off of being a trapper boy.
“Heard ya had some trouble down 35 today,” Buzzy says to Charlie Dugan.
Buzzy’s taller than Charlie and pushes hisself so close that Charlie has to look into his chin when he talks. Charlie cuts his eyes sideways and says that ya, they got a visit from the Cossacks. But he says he ain’t too worried ’bout them coming up here cause they moved the tent store to the other side of the county line and their deputies ain’t got no authority to come over into Cambria County.
“If ya think that’s gonna put the brakes to them Cossacks,” Buzzy laughs. “Ya been spendin too much time up in Cresson pickin out fancy suits.”
Buzzy lifts up the tail of Charlie’s suit coat and gives it a run between his fingers. A couple of the miners on the other side of the tent is starting to look over at Buzzy and Charlie standing there.
“Son,” Charlie says. “I’m glad ya could come up here to get some meat and vegetables for your family to eat.”
Charlie backs away toward the door of the tent, turns his back on Buzzy and me. Seeing there ain’t gonna be no trouble, the other men in the tent turn back to what they was doing. But I step forward and push myself up in front of Buzzy.
Calling to Charlie as he’s walking out, I says, “Mr. Dugan, I just wanted to say thanks for the hand ya gimme down the 40 station.”
Charlie Dugan smiles at me and says that he thought he seen me before. Then he asks me if Buzzy’s my brother. When I says ya, he looks over at Buzzy and gives him a smile and says again about all of us miners sticking together.
Charlie holds his hand out for Buzzy to shake, but Buzzy just tightens up his eyes and keeps them stared straight over at this one miner in the corner who’s got one shoe on and one shoe off. Finally, Charlie just shrugs. He says, “See ya boys later” and walks back outta the tent.
I can’t say I like the feel of Charlie walking back outta the tent by hisself and me not saying nothing to him. It ain’t just that he give me the toss down the train station, but something else too. I’m trying to figure out just what’s bothering me, but Buzzy grabs me by the arm and says it’s getting late and we better get a move on back home quick.
We snatch up a half pound of sugar each and five of flour for Buzzy and half that for me. When we get over to the tent flap, the union man at the door says we can have a pear and an apple for each brother and sister we got, so I grab up the fruit and drop it down into the sack. Then the union man checks our sack to make sure we got our fair share before he pulls back the tent flap to let us outta there.
I’m saying thanks. Thanks to everybody. Even Buzzy says thanks once. Right before he says we gotta hurry it the hell up and get outta damn 42. He pushes the sack into my hand, and we start double quick back down toward Eureka 35.
I’m up in front and Buzzy’s in back and we’re shaking our legs pretty good and our feet are tapping them reddog roads click, click, click. We tear one of them pears outta the sack and split it up good. I got my half down in about a second and I’m sliding my tongue cross my chin licking up the juice drooling off the corner of my mouth. The moon’s coming up big and orange as safety paint and so close it’s like somebody shoved a bushel basket up in the sky above the 42 tipple.
By the time we get far enough into Windber to see the guards, I’m sweating pretty good under my pit jacket. Going out to 42 didn’t even sound so good when we was back in 35 and Buzzy was saying ’bout looking like fools wasting our time coming the whole way over the boneyard ridge for nothing. But now, looking at the size of them blue suit Cossacks hovering over by the Somerset Avenue Eureka Store, I’m starting to feel like my blood is ready to run straight away right out of my veins and hightail it back to 40 Patchtown.
“Just walk natural, Chester,” Buzzy says to me and I realize that with running that liquor Buzzy must be pretty used to this kind of feeling. “Them boys ain’t got no idea where you’re coming from or where you’re supposed to be. To them you’re just one more slobbering pollock.”
I’m trying to look natural as I can, but I’m clutching onto our sack like for dear life till we get past them guards and make the turn onto Somerset Avenue. I let out my breath and Buzzy says I done good. He grabs the sack outta my hand and starts up whistling the “Two Tonner Polka.”
Headed through the West End, there’s more miners and other folks out on the sidewalks and we’re kind of blending into the crowd like, but once we get up past Mihalek’s Drugs by the Palace Hotel, I’m coming to see that there’s near as many Pinkertons on the streets of Windber as there is haunting 40 Patchtown.
Buzzy must know a good many folks, cause all kinds of people says, “Hey, Buzzy” and “How ya doing, Buzzy?” when we’re walking down the street. Buzzy barely even bothers saying “hey” back and don’t pay ’em no mind. It’s strange to me how he got this whole other life going that I don’t know nothing about.
I’m just starting to get a little bit comfortable sneaking through town when the thinner of them dagos what come into the 40 Hotel with Facianni slides up on us from behind. He slaps his hand down onto Buzzy’s shoulder and says the barber needs to talk to him pronto. Buzzy nods and right quick he pushes the sack into my hand.
“I’ll be back in a minute, Chester,” he says. “Just stand here and don’t do nothing stupid.”
Buzzy goes jogging round the corner with that dago leaving me in front of the Arcadia Theatre. I’m shifting from one foot to the other and I feel dumb as hell to be standing there by myself. All these supervisors and superintendents and bosses is going into the picture show with their wives and sweethearts and they’re looking at me harsh, like what’s this dirty trapper boy doing standing here on a Saturday night all by hisself in front of the Arcadia Theatre. I’m sweating out my pits and I don’t like them looking at me one bit and I just try keeping to the shadows.
It seems a long damn time before Buzzy comes stomping back. He’s mad as I ever seen him. He’s spitting on the ground and kicking at the sidewalk and I’m half sure he’s gonna smack the teeth outta my mouth just for breathing.
“Your union friend done me pretty good, Chester,” he says.
“Whatcha mean?” I says.
“Sunafabitch turned me in.”
Buzzy pulls open his Peacoat and shows me his inside pockets is stocked full of pears.
“Ya take them from the union tent?” I ask him.
“Damn right,” he says. “I wasn’t walkin all that way to get six lousy pears for the trouble.”
“But we ain’t the only ones that need ’em.”
Quick as lightning, Buzzy slaps me cross the side of my head. His hand catches me right under my eye and I can feel my head jerk off to one side and my eyes start to tear up. But I ain’t gonna cry. I bite down on my lip so hard it’s all I can think about.
Buzzy looks at me for a second, then he grabs hold of my pit jacket and pulls me around the corner into Swede Street alley. He’s all nervous watching me and starts brushing my hair back from where he got me with the palm of his hand. He says he’s sorry one time, then another and that scares the piss outta me, cause I ain’t never heard Buzzy say he’s sorry for nothing.
40 Patchtown Page 5