Bystanders

by Tara Laskowski

  What it is, is: The bottom line is that it’s all about the bottom line.

  “Come sit here. Eat,” Ma said, and Jack complied. The cabbage and noodles were steaming. He added loads of salt and pepper, stuffed large forkfuls down his mouth. “You need more meat on your bones,” she said.

  Ma could use some muscle herself, he thought. She was so fragile, barely five feet tall. He and his dad used to joke they could use her to bench press if they wanted to take it easy on the workout.

  “You’re coming to your great-grandmother’s party?”

  Damn. He’d completely forgotten about it. His great-grandmother Ursula was turning ninety-five. No one thought she was going to make it to 100, so they wanted to celebrate while they could. It had been planned for months, since before the strike. Jack hadn’t even been out in public in Wilkes-Barre for weeks. It had been too dangerous.

  “Please tell me you’re coming, Jackie.”

  “Ma, I don’t think they want me there.”

  What it is, is: We’d all be dead, non-existent, if it weren’t for the unions.

  “Of course he wants you there. Don’t be like that. It’s just—it’s just, well you know how he is.”

  “Yeah, Ma, I know.”

  What it is, is you know nothin’ about it.

  As if conjuring him up with his thoughts, Jack heard the familiar growl of his father’s ‘69 Chevy coming down the street. Ma looked at him, her eyes worried.

  “I should go,” he said, reluctantly getting up from his half-eaten food.

  She shook her head. “No, Jackie, stay. He’ll want to see you.”

  Jack snorted. “You know that’s not true.” He grabbed the copy of The Times Leader and tucked it under his arm. Then he kissed Ma on the cheek. “I’ll slip out the back. Thanks for the food.”

  ***

  The employees of The Times Leader had walked out on October 6, 1978—just about three weeks before Jack started working there as a general news reporter—but the tensions had been brewing since before Jack had moved back to the area. It was why he’d come on board—they needed reporters to keep the place running, and they were willing to pay well. In the very beginning—when they were shuttling reporters back and forth from the Woodlands hotel to the newsroom because it was too dangerous for them to drive—Jack thought it would all blow over pretty quickly. He wasn’t prepared for the rage, and he didn’t understand it. He’d seen grown men hurling themselves on the tops of moving cars and screaming obscenities at young women. He’d had his tires slashed twice. But after all that, he was still astonished as it continued, escalated.

  His father understood those men, though. He’d been a union guy his whole life, and Jack’s grandfather a coal miner. They were as loyal to the unions as they were to god and country.

  What it is, is: If not for the unions, your PaPa would be dead.

  He had heard the stories about his grandfather. Long hours in the mines, dangerous conditions, coming home head-to-toe black as night, blending into the shadows of the house. How he would scrub off all the soot in the bathtub, leaving trails of black tar like tire tracks in the morning. How the unions had saved him, had saved Jack’s dad, too, when he got his first job in the mines, saved them from dropping dead of carbon monoxide poisoning, saved them from getting axed for no reason.

  “What it is, is protection,” said Jack’s father. “Loyalty. Didn’t they teach you any of that in your fancy college?”

  Jack had often imagined his father sitting in one of the lecture halls on campus, listening to a philosophy professor expound upon Marx’s theory of human nature. He imagined him squinting at a Richard Hamilton collage at the pop art exhibit in the art gallery, leaning forward, chewing on the edge of his unlit Kool cigarette, mumbling, “What the Christ is he doing anyway?”

  As absurd as it was to imagine his father in college, Jack suspected his father thought he was just as out of place back here in Wilkes-Barre. That he equated Jack with the “fancy foreigners” as he called them, editors and writers brought in from New York and Chicago, mostly, who came in and took over the paper and thought they could run it their own way, with no regard for the people here, for the way things are done.

  “The way it is, is, no one around here wants their bull—we want the way it’s been—a family business. No one cares about family anymore, though. It’s every man for himself out there.” He spoke this passionately, the wheeze from his lungs getting in the way, making him stop every once in a while for a fit of coughing. “They want to break up the Brotherhood. Make us weak, split apart.” He talked about it like he had something at stake, when really he was just a long-time subscriber, an old man in his boxers and socks sitting on the back porch in the morning, smoking cigarettes and checking the Phillies stats and the police blotter and the obits for anyone he knew. But for him, it was a war. And Jack was the enemy.

  ***

  When Jack got to the newsroom Friday morning, there was a lot of commotion. The reporters were all gathered around the Metro desk, and Jack had to nudge his way through to see what was going on.

  “They’re going to be so mad.”

  “Who cares?”

  “My god, it seems quieter already.”

  “I kind of miss the honking.”

  They were all admiring a sign that spanned across three desks. Frank Shemanski, the metro editor, sat on the edge of the desk, hands crossed, smirking. He saw Jack and clapped. “Jackie! Take a look! Take a look! I told you I would get it and I never ever go back on my word.”

  “Can you believe it?” Sophie Kerchak, one of the reporters, asked him. “These boneheads managed to swipe it right from under their noses.”

  The sign read: honk if you support us in shaky handwriting and big block letters. It had been created by the picketers and propped at the edge of the burning barrel outside The Times Leader office for the last few weeks. After days of nearly constant HONK HONK HONK echoing through the newsroom, Shemanski and a few others had sworn that come hell or high water they were going to steal that damn sign.

  “Fab, Shemanski. You’re a genius,” Jack said. “How in the world?”

  “Ah-ha, a magician never reveals his secrets.”

  Jack high-fived him. “All right, man. We need to hang this up.”

  “Yes!”

  “Right in the middle of the newsroom!”

  “They’re just going to make another one, damn it.”

  “But we have the original!”

  “Now you have to get the burning barrel.”

  In the middle of the commotion, Mike Jones, the managing editor, stood next to Jack and slapped his back. “You got your first death threat, Jack. Welcome to the club.” Jones handed an open package to Jack. It was addressed to him, but had looked suspicious enough that the guys in the mailroom had already opened it.

  It was a copy of a headshot of Jack taken in high school at a Rotary Club event (how had someone even found that?) with a knife pasted above his heart and a little cartoon bubble that said, “I’m a SCAB!”

  “Hoyt Library,” Jones said, and Jack looked up at him.

  “What?”

  “Library, most likely. The copy looks like it was taken off a microfilm machine. Someone did their homework on you.” He chuckled. “I’m required to ask if you would like a detail.”

  “What?” It was all he could seem to muster. Jack was still trying to process. The image of his smiling face with a knife pointing at it was disarming.

  “A cop. Following you around. For your protection.” Someone behind him pulled the paper out of his hand, started showing it around the newsroom. There was a bulletin board where they tacked up the best ones. And he’d heard the photographers had a pool betting on who would be next. It had become a rite of passage, a joke. So far, no one had actually been hurt—not yet.

  “Oh, uh.” He was having a ha
rd time listening. Next to him, Crighton, the night editor, was typing on one of the terminals, asking Sophie a question about a story he was reading, oblivious to the commotion. Always a stickler for the work. “So is it effect or affect?” he asked her, his face squinting so close to the screen that Jack worried the guy’s glasses were going to clack against it. Behind him, two reporters looked down through the window at the picketers. “Don’t be a hero,” one of them said, and then they both groaned loudly, reacting to whatever was outside. In the corner off by himself, Harold Gufstaski, a sports reporter who always wore some type of Phillies apparel, ate yogurt out of a Mason jar while he listened to a game on his transistor radio.

  “We’ve got extra cops around the building already, but we could get someone to follow you home, that sort of thing. Jaserski’s got one, for obvious reasons—” a brick had been thrown through Jaserski’s front window at home—“so just let me know. Company policy now.”

  “I think I’ll be all right,” Jack said.

  “Well, at least let some guys walk you out tonight.”

  When Jones left, Sophie handed him back the paper. “I thought you’d want this for your scrapbook,” she said.

  “Yeah, thanks.” He wasn’t in the mood to laugh. He sat down at his desk and rubbed his forehead.

  She sat down next to him, her knee brushing against his jacket. She smiled, trying to comfort him, he imagined.

  Sophie’s boyfriend, who had been a photographer at the paper, had walked out on the first day, and as far as Jack knew, he and Sophie hadn’t spoken since. But the opportunities—especially for the women on staff—were too great to pass up for those who’d crossed. It had become an Us against Them mentality. The newsroom was its own bunker in Vietnam, and there was no way the enemy was going to win. Any one of them would probably kill for the others right now.

  “A couple of us are going over to the Treadway in Scranton tonight for drinks. You should come, Jack.”

  He nodded. “I would, but I’ve got this family thing.”

  “Oh, that sounds like a blast.” She sat back in the chair and fiddled with a ring on her middle finger. “Skip it.”

  “I can’t. It’s my great-grandmother’s ninety-fifth birthday. I think it’s illegal in at least forty-nine states to miss something like that.”

  She nodded. “Yes, but surely your grammie doesn’t stay up late. So you should come over after and see us. We miss you after all. You never hang out with us anymore.”

  “Way to guilt-trip a man that’s just been given a death threat.” But she was right. Jack hadn’t been much of a joiner lately. He’d used the excuse of moving, but it was everything that was getting him down.

  “But you’ll try, right? For me?”

  “Sure, I’ll try,” he said, but they both knew he wasn’t serious.

  ***

  The family had rented out the American Legion for Grandma Ursula’s birthday celebration. Even though the employees had tried to clean it up, you couldn’t help but notice the stench of stale cigars and cheap beer permeating the place. Jack came alone, late, and most everyone else was already there, getting drunk and stuffing themselves on the pigs in a blanket and chicken fingers set up on the buffet table against the far wall. He grabbed a punch glass and filled it to the top, scanning the crowd.

  He ran into his mother and Aunt Anita first. They were standing with an older man Jack didn’t recognize. His aunt’s dyed red hair stood in ringlets around her head, and as she smiled, pink lipstick smudged the tips of her teeth. “Jackie, honey, I want you to meet Mr. Highton. He’s been my neighbor now for twenty-five years.” She looked up at Highton, who was sipping something the color of maraschino cherry juice. “Jack here is Stanley’s boy. He went to Columbus.”

  She meant Columbia, but she was already a little tipsy and he didn’t bother to correct her. He saw his mom’s lips turn up in a smile, but she didn’t make eye contact with him. Jack smiled up at Highton, who was very tall, and saluted him. Highton looked like he didn’t know a university from a historical figure anyway. He smelled like Old Spice and looked slightly dim, like he was floating on the effects of some good drugs. “To the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria,” Jack said.

  “Thank you for coming,” his ma whispered in his ear. “You’re a good boy.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Jack said.

  “Your father’s downstairs with the boys and the beer,” his mother told him. “You should go say hello.”

  It was the last thing he wanted to do, but before he could say anything, Highton coughed loudly and touched his aunt on the shoulder. “You know, Anita, that Milton’s boy just finished law school? I remember when that kid was running through our legs chasing dog tails.” He laughed, shook his head. “Time flies.” He blinked, and nodded at Jack. “So what are you doing now, Jack?”

  So he didn’t know. His ma blushed. Highton would have an opinion about the strike—and from his mother’s expression it wouldn’t be a favorable one. She turned and pointed to the dance floor. “Look, Benson! Is that Marie on the dance floor? Look at her go.”

  He silently blessed his ma and because she’d saved him, he did as she asked and excused himself to get a beer. The keg was in the basement—a back room, concrete floor, away from Grandma Ursula’s eyes. She didn’t like the alcohol, so it was just better if she didn’t see it.

  Jack’s father was leaning against the back wall with a full plastic cup, and Jack’s uncles formed a semi-circle around the keg. They had been talking loudly, voices echoing off the bare walls, but when they saw him, they stopped. They focused on him, and the cold of the basement seeped through Jack’s clothes. The bare lightbulb hanging from the ceiling made the whole place feel like an interrogation room. Despite the cold, Jack began to sweat.

  “Need a refill?” Uncle Maury asked, his Northeast PA accent thick. Jack hadn’t ever noticed how they all talked—syllables all squished together, cut-off ends of words—until he’d left for awhile and come back. He didn’t like the way Uncle Maury was smiling at him, but Jack handed over his empty punch glass anyway.

  Uncle Maury took it, tilted it, shook his head. “Real fancy glass, eh? None of this plastic cup stuff for Jackie, huh boys?”

  From the back, his dad said, “Oh no, only the best for my kid.” The air had a venom in it, a hum like a live wire snapping electricity. “Make sure you pour it right. No head on that beer, Maury.”

  Maury handed Jack the glass. “Thanks,” Jack said. He turned to leave. That’s when he saw his Uncle Lou holding the paper and it stopped him.

  Lou shook it at him, smirking. “Nice story, Jackie. Front page stuff, eh?”

  “Fancy glass, fancy job,” said Uncle Frank. The four men were all looking at him, waiting for something. He remembered one summer, on Aunt Anita’s farm, when his uncles had taken him up to the well, hoisted him up, and pretended they were going to drop him in. His Uncle Lou had held his arms, dangling his feet in the giant well, which smelled dark and dank, like a cold, cold metal. Dance, Jackie, dance.

  “Pass it over here,” said Jack’s dad, taking the paper. He read from the story in a high voice. “Across the street, in an abandoned museum, sits the one last artifact from the good ol’ days of Wilkes-Barre.” He looked over at Jack. “You proud of this?”

  Jack knew he should just leave. They just wanted to mock him, knock him down a peg or two, show him he didn’t belong.

  “You proud of this? This rag? This shit paper that shits on its employees? Proud of betraying everything I taught you?” His father’s voice was raised and slurred—he’d probably been drinking for hours—and he winked a glassy eye at Jack. “This is what I think of this.” He threw the paper on the ground behind him. Turned. Unzipped his pants. The warm piss trickled off Jack’s newspaper and onto the cold concrete, leaving a dark trickle of wet zigzagging toward the keg.

  ***

/>   The Treadway was packed when Jack showed up. It wasn’t hard to see The Times Leader folks, though, all gathered around the giant circular booth next to the bar. The Treadway had become their bar of choice since the strike, far enough out of town that picketers didn’t show up looking to pick fights with scabs. It was a typical hotel bar, with lots of wood paneling and velvet-covered bar stools, but the drink specials were decent and they sometimes brought in live music on the weekends. Jack was in the mood for something simple like a whiskey and coke, but the mixed drinks were terrible—the soda was always flat and syrupy and they crammed the small glasses with ice—so he asked for a scotch straight up.

  “I can’t drink that stuff,” Sophie said when he squeezed into the booth. There were too many of them, so he was jammed up next to her, their knees knocking under the table. She had changed into a small green dress and black tights and had swiped some kind of glittery stuff on her eyelids that sparkled under the dim light. He could smell her perfume and the smoke from the cigarette she’d just finished.

  “Me neither,” he said. “I bought it so I’d sip it.” He tried to go into details about the peat and stuff, but his uncles’ words about being fancy and pretentious came back to him, and he quit talking. On the other side of him, Gufstaski kept jabbing his elbow into Jack’s shoulder as he re-enacted a disastrous attempt to cover a field hockey game where angry parents decided to boo him instead of the losing team.

  “I’m glad you came,” Sophie said.

  “Was it a surprise?” Jack asked, the scotch starting to calm him.

  “It was,” she said. “It’s a good thing I didn’t bet on it. I would’ve lost.”

  “Me too,” he said.

  “So what changed your mind? Your great-granny decide to turn in?”