Big Man, A Fast Man Read online

  July saw me in Pittsburgh at union headquarters. A desk man. Her note I kept in a drawer. I guess I must’ve read it a thousand times. What she said was this. She went along with Brannigan’s view that her staying on in Youngstown could only help the company. “Personalities and personal lives,” that’s a quote. I know it by heart, “Personalities and personal lives must take second place in this historical moment of the class struggle.” Quote unquote. Straight out of the soapbox. But she didn’t end her letter that way. Down at the bottom she wrote she loved me. She wrote it was marriage or nothing. She left an address for me to write her.

  That calls for one more drink. One ittsy-bittsy drink. I never wrote her, dumb fool that I was. First I figured I better be careful on account of the newspapers. Then, I had to see where I was at. Pittsburgh wasn’t for me. I wasn’t cut out for what amounted to a demotion. Sure, it was temporary. I knew that. The union had to keep me high and dry ‘til the Youngstown hullaballoo was over. Then I put off writing her. Out of sight, out of mind. But mostly because I was worried what next for me.

  Here’s where Art Kincell comes in. Le’s have a drink for old Art a-mouldering in his grave. Old Art I met in Youngstown. All kinds of characters came to that town, like I’ve said. All kinds of union leaders. Some with money to help us, some to see how the hell you fight a big strike. Old Art, he’d seen my pictures in the papers and he wanted to see me private. See Brother Lloyd private. And he was Brother Kincell with his nails manicured. To cut a long story short he had a job for me after the strike was over. Had a line on him, old Art. “You’re thinking steel is your industry but I say to you in all sincerity, Brother Lloyd, what the hell’s the difference?” Talked a blue streak how the big thing was organizing the unorganized. In steel, in auto, in textile, in any God damn thing. And I was the kind of man who could grow with his union. I said, “Brother Kincell, you’re wasting my time.” He said he’d double whatever I was making, and the offer was open. To call him collect any time. That Christmas I spent home with my mother in McKeesport. I was fed up with Pittsburgh, marked as a hot potato. So what I did one night was call Art collect in Washington. When I hung up I had a job. To report to Harry Holmgren in Cleveland. Yes, sir, I had a job. My future on a silver platter. Only I wasn’t wise to it then.

  When I hung up, my mother, she sighed. I felt funny. Here I was leaving something that had been my whole life. She was sorry for me. Aw, that old mother of mine. I wanted to be alone. I wanted a drink. Yes, sir, a drink’s in order. A drink to the future. A drink to my old mother, to Annabelle. Aw, God. That’s how it is. I went down the street to the terrace. Down below in the valley, the Bessemers and open hearths. There was no winter down there. A steel-town sky down there, a regular Miami sky. And that whur-a-whur of steelmaking. That whur-a-whur. I just stood there thinking. Thinking. What you think of at a time like that. How the plant I’d organized was down in that valley. My first strike was down there. It was all down there and I was leaving it all. Quitting like Johnny Mitchell quit the miners’ union to live in New York. Ain’t that a queer one? Johnny Mitchell, old and gray, walking the East Side to remind him of the poor. That’s history and I know my history. What made him quit the miners? What did he want with his life? What was he searching for? One thing’s sure. You never find it. Like when I was a kid in Shenandoah, I remember. Funny, how I remember it now. These older kids they showed us li’l kids something shiny yellow. It was like the top of a nail but thinner. “It’s gold from a gold mine,” they said. We didn’t believe ‘em at first. We knew there were no gold mines in Shenandoah. Only coal. But then this big boy said, “There’s only the old gold mines everybody’s forgot.” We believed him. We went home and got shovels and followed the big boys out of town to the spot where it was supposed to be. We dug and dug and then all those older kids who’d gone home showed up and laughed and yelled at us for being stupid Orangemen. So dumb we were digging for gold. My mother, she explained the joke. St. Patrick’s Day was a week off and she said, “Those dirty Papists wanted a bit of fun.” I don’t know why I should tell you this now.

  Johnny Mitchell? Least I didn’t turn into a Johnny Mitchell. I stayed in the labor movement. I stuck to my principles. By God, I stuck. I didn’t change. I know my history.

  Digging for gold? Funny, I should remember it now. This whole life. Queer, this whole life. Just a kid that Christmas when I phoned Art. Just a kid and my whole life was gone. My whole life was down in that valley. Good-by Annabelle and hello Harry bring on the whores. She was down there, Annabelle. Don’t think I’m drunk. I saw her from the terrace in that golden sky, the sparks flying. Down there and that other one. That other one sleeping so quiet, don’t wake her. God don’t wake her, she’s the death of our lives. I’m not drunk. Don’t think I’m drunk. Hello and good-by. That’s life, ain’t it, pal? Or should I call you brother like old Art? Hello and good-by. That’s life. You’re young only once and that calls for a drink. The hurting comes later. Hurting people, I mean. How the hell do you keep from hurting people, the people you love?

  Ah, I’ve said enough. Too much. But don’t you forget this. Billy Lloyd’s one man who never forgot the rank and file. One big shot who’s never forgot.

  CONFIDENTIAL MEMO 1/11

  To: G.O.D.

  From: St. Peter

  Forgive humor in this final memo/ see above. Shall B.L. enter the kingdom of heaven/ a happy realm of ideal public relations? I’m reminded of the day when he spoke of Art Kincell’s loss of power and mentioned how he recalled a phrase he had read. “The king is dead, long live the king.” Billy Lloyd the tinplated king/ to paraphrase his tinplated hero.

  The King speaks the truth. Even the King’s lies are truth. When the hand gripping the sceptred truth of the age, Power, is a royal hand. His Benevolent Majesty Billyboy.

  His account of his youth made me think of my own youth my own dreams and hopes. G.D., please memo me, Why does it always have to be a different America when we are young?

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  Text Copyright © 1961 by Benjamin Appel

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  Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN 10: 1-4405-6286-5

  ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-6286-0

  eISBN 10: 1-4405-6285-7

  eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-6285-3