Blood on the Forge

by William Attaway

  He leaned down. She let her lips touch his. But her eyes were far away and worried.

  To Chinatown, in his darkness, the minutes up to nine o’clock were like years. Every few minutes he would ask the hour. When told he would be astonished. It seemed incredible that the clock could creep so slowly. Once or twice he got the feeling that time must be moving backward.

  When the clock said eight Chinatown was almost crazy with waiting. Melody was afraid to tell him the true time.

  He told him, “Yeah, it’s nine o’clock right now.”

  So he put black patches over Chinatown’s eyes and left the house an hour ahead of time. They went through the dark back roads to the edge of town. Keeping on the outskirts, they began a circle westward. This was not the nearest way to the west end but it was the safest. The armed deputies stayed near the center of town.

  Chinatown was worried now about his appearance. He began to question Melody.

  “How my tooth? Don’t feel like it’s shinin’. All I got to depend on is that there tooth.” He chattered on endlessly.

  The dry-goods store had locked its doors long before, but little lights beckoned from the windows above. Melody waited until he was sure no one else was about, then he put Chinatown’s feet on the narrow outside staircase. Chinatown struggled away from the helping hand at his elbow.

  “Don’t help me, less’n I ask for it,” he told Melody.

  So Melody did not touch him again. Chinatown mounted the steps, intense concentration in every nervous move. At the top he felt for the door and knocked. His sharp ears could hear the shuffle of carpet slippers somewhere inside. He straightened his back and turned down his hat brim.

  A thin, sharp-eyed woman cracked the door less than an inch. She peered at Chinatown’s shaded face.

  “Who you want to see?”

  “Tell the gals that Chinatown’s come around.” He handled his blind head as though he were seeing the woman. There was a good grin on his mouth.

  The woman peered at him again. She saw the shadowy figure on the steps behind him. Melody was making signs at her with his hands. She snorted. “You got the wrong place, mister.” She began to close the door.

  “It’s me,” spoke up Melody. “You ’member me.”

  “Don’t want no drunks around here.”

  Melody sprang in front of Chinatown.

  “Wait a minute. I was here before. This my brother I was tellin’ you about.”

  The woman opened the door and let the light fall in Melody’s face. Recognition hit her eyes.

  “Oh yes. Come on in.”

  Melody pulled Chinatown through the door. The woman saw Chinatown’s face.

  She said, “So this here is the blind man you was telling me about.”

  Chinatown’s shoulders drooped and he grabbed hold of Melody’s arm. He began to swing his black-patched face from side to side.

  “Well, C’mon,” beckoned the woman. “I got a girl said she’d take him.”

  “Let’s us go home, Melody. Let’s us go home,” pleaded Chinatown in a whisper. In that moment he had become helpless again. He was close to tears.

  But Melody led him down the long hall. The woman stopped them at the last door. She opened it without knocking and peered into the room. Melody was standing to one side and could see a narrow section of a white iron bed.

  “Got one here, honey,” the woman said into the room. She turned to Melody. “All right, let him go in.”

  Chinatown would not release his grip on Melody’s arm. He clung despite the nudges at his ribs.

  Melody whispered fiercely, “Walk ahead—by yourself.”

  “I wants to go back,” said Chinatown. He began to weep.

  Melody dropped his hands to his side. He started to speak angrily to his brother, but the words did not come out. Then he made a little gesture to the woman.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked.

  “Reckon I better take him back home,” he apologized. “He ain’t used to bein’ out yet.”

  The woman drew her mouth into a hard line.

  “This is what I get for lettin’ a blind man in here in the first place.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Melody.

  “Get him on out of here,” she snapped.

  “C’mon, Chinatown,” said Melody.

  “Damn cheapskates comin’ around here,” mumbled the woman. She said to the unseen girl, “No sale, honey.”

  The girl came to the doorway. Her only piece of clothing was the flowered kimono that dragged the floor. She was a big-boned Slav girl with an honest face. Her hands were scrubbed red. Straw hair framed her slightly freckled face. A wad of gum popped endlessly in her jaws.

  Melody looked quickly at her.

  “Rosie!”

  Zanski’s granddaughter, Rosie. She stood there without surprise. She might have been resting on her feet behind the counter at the lunch wagon.

  “Friends of yours, Rosie?” asked the little woman.

  “Hallo,” she said to Melody.

  “I didn’t know you was here,” stammered Melody.

  “Sure.” She popped her gum and made a sign to the woman. “It’s all right.”

  The woman walked away, grumbling.

  Chinatown had his head on Melody’s shoulder. He still clung onto the arm as though it were the only support in his darkness. The tears had stopped, but he continued to sniffle. He wiped his nose on Melody’s coat.

  “That’s your brother got blinded when the blast went up?” she said.

  “Yeah,” said Melody. “Gonna take him home now.”

  “Bring him in here,” she said.

  “He don’t want to.”

  “He needs to lay down for a little,” she said. She came out and took Chinatown by the arm.

  “C’mon, you need to rest just a second. Then you can go home.” Her tone was easy and soothing.

  Chinatown let himself be drawn forward. He did look very tired. The emotional tensions he had undergone had left him very near collapse. He sank down on the bed and closed his eyes. Immediately he was asleep. The black patches had slipped until one rested across the bridge of his nose, the other on his cheek. The light from the bed lamp shone directly into his purple eye sockets.

  The girl put a newspaper across the lamp shade, darkening the bed. Then she took the newspaper away.

  “I forgot the light don’t worry him.”

  Melody watched her with grateful eyes. This was a good girl. He thought of Anna and her weeks of patient nursing. So many like them were good and kind. Why was that so? In his gratitude a wave of emotion brought a lump in his throat, and he thought that the only really good women he had known were like these women.

  “About ten minutes’ sleep ought to fix him up,” he said. “Then we’ll git goin’.”

  Now he was ashamed of his purpose in coming here.

  The girl was not abashed. She still had a matter-of-fact, everyday attitude.

  “Ain’t no need to hurry,” she said, slumping into a chair. “Wouldn’t be no trade tonight. Everybody busy around the mill.”

  He sat down on the bed and put his hat on one knee.

  “Ain’t been gittin’ by the lunch wagon lately,” he said. “Didn’t even know you was gone.”

  “Oh, I’m still workin’ there,” she said. “Noticed you and your brothers didn’t come in no more.”

  “You still workin’ at the lunch wagon?” He could not keep the surprise out of his voice.

  She laughed. “You think that’s funny, huh?”

  “Naw, naw, nothin’ like that,” he assured her.

  “Well, it is kinda funny. Most all the other girls here work in the box factory in the daytime—come here at night.”

  “Yeah,” he said.

  It would not have been polite for him to voice his curiosity, but she knew of it through his face.

  “You can’t take home just eight dollars every week,” she explained. “Not if everybody is gonna eat.”

  “What
about the men in your family?”

  “Ah-h-h . . .” She made a gesture. “They are all with the union. My brothers—they have not been on job since a month ago. They go crazy. But they got to stick by the union.”

  Melody thought of Zanski and his talk about his “kids.” He wondered about the old man. Had his pride in his granddaughter soured, changing his entire outlook?

  “I’m for the union too,” she went on, “but all of the trade here comes from scabs and strike breakers. Nobody else got any money.”

  Melody was still thinking about Zanski.

  “By the way, I ain’t seen your grandfather. How he gittin’ on?”

  “He has taken to the bed,” she said. “I don’t think he’s gonna get up.” She turned her face to the wall.

  For a time he sat, not wanting to speak, a little afraid to move, for fear of disturbing her concentration on the wall. He knew that his mention of Zanski had upset her. He could have kicked himself, for he had known all along how Zanski would feel about his granddaughter.

  He spoke hesitantly. “It ain’t your fault. Don’t feel bad.”

  She kept her face to the wall. He could barely hear her voice.

  “I don’t feel bad. It’s the fault of them rotten scabs that us women got to bring the money in the house.”

  “I ain’t quit the mill,” he said, “but I ain’t no scab.”

  He kept his head cocked for an answer, but she did not speak.

  “You ain’t mad at me?” he ventured.

  She looked at him. Her gum began to pop.

  “There ain’t no sense in me bein’ sore on nobody. Nobody ’d care if I was. Beside, that’s the only good I got to tell the priest now on Sundays—that I ain’t sore at folks.”

  “You goes to church ever’ Sunday?”

  “Sure.”

  “I ain’t heard no preacher since I kin remember,” said Melody.

  “I ain’t missed since—since when I had chicken pox. Was just ten years old then.”

  “My brother, Mat—he mighta been a preacher maybe. But me and Chinatown—we jest growed up bad.”

  “Church means more to me now,” she said. “Confessin’ and all. I don’t know how to say it, but it feels better to know that God’s gonna punish me ’cause I’m bad.”

  “You ain’t bad,” he said.

  “All the girls here go to church,” she continued. “They like to confess.”

  “Reckon it’s all right if they like it,” he said.

  She nodded at Chinatown. He stirred a little in his sleep, as if he felt her nod.

  “He would feel better in the church,” she said, and her hands made a movement as though she were molding a clay man.

  “I heard tell of a blind preacher once,” said Melody. “Used to recite the whole Bible in his head.”

  “There is a girl who works here some days. She talks about a blind man she’s takin’ care of. Says he goes off his nut. I tell her that he should be in the church, but she don’t listen.”

  “This here blind preacher used to travel in Kentucky,” said Melody. “I never seen him, but they say he’d git crazy and climb right up to the church rafters, trying to reach heaven.”

  “I tell her same as I’m tellin’ you,” she went on. “But I quit talkin’. She said she kept him plenty quiet by puttin’ his hand inside her dress.”

  Melody stiffened.

  “What you talkin’ ’bout?”

  “This girl,” explained Rosie. “She says all the priest has got for the blind man to feel is beads.”

  “Who this girl?”

  “I quit talkin’ to her. Nobody can say that about the good priest.”

  “What’s her name?” shouted Melody. He jumped to his feet.

  The shout awakened Chinatown. He began to whimper.

  Rosie was alarmed. Her words came quickly.

  “I forget her name. She’s a Mexican girl. I don’t know anythin’ about the man. I don’t know any blind Mexicans.”

  There was a knock on the door.

  A sharp voice called, “Any trouble in there, honey? Any trouble?”

  Melody stood still. He waited. Rosie said, “No, everythin’s all right.”

  They could feel the woman listening outside. Then her slippered feet padded back along the hall.

  “Knew them fellers was drunk,” they heard her mumble.

  “What’s the matter with you?” asked Rosie. “You want to get me tossed out of here? She don’t allow no rough stuff in her rooms.”

  Melody said quietly, “This here Mexican girl—she wears a dance-hall dress with beads all over. She got on high shoes with glass in the heels.”

  “You know her then?” said Rosie.

  “Her name Anna,” he said.

  “That’s her name, all right. She ain’t been here in a week though.”

  So this was why Anna had been so anxious to stop their trip to the west end. Now that he knew, things in the past took on new significance. Chinatown had said something about her not being home to hear the rats at nights. Melody had not thought anything of it at the time. Now that he considered, it seemed unnatural that Anna should have been so satisfied with her arrangements at home. He should have known that such a woman would not be out of her man’s bed unless there were some substitute.

  Rosie was full of questions, but Melody cut her off.

  “Looka here,” he told her. “I got to go somewhere quick. Can’t take Chinatown. Kin he stay put for a coupla hours?”

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  “I’ll be back and git him ’fore you know it.” He took a five-dollar bill from his pocket. “Here. Jest leave him sleep till I git back.”

  She took the money and tucked it away under her kimono. Melody went over to Chinatown and pushed him flat on the bed.

  “Go back to sleep,” he told him. “I got to run out for a second.”

  Chinatown tried to cling onto his arm, but Melody jerked away. He could not hear his blind brother’s whimperings now. He ran through the hall and down the outside staircase to the road. He had not closed the doors behind him. He knew that the sharp voice at the head of the stairs berated him. Then the door slammed.

  Out in the road he hesitated a minute. He knew what he was going to say to Anna. But those words would not keep during the long trip around the edge of town. He broke into a run, heading homeward in a straight line. His feet hit the ground with confidence, for the moon had come up, making the night like day.

  The workmen he passed on the road turned and stared. Then they watched narrowly for his pursuers. In a steel town men walked slowly, toting their aching shoulders. A running man must have deputies at his heels. A couple of deputies called out to Melody as he went by. They went a few steps after him and then gave up the chase. Once he saw a group of mounted men on the road ahead. He turned off, circling a hill. That new direction would take him a little out of the way, but he could not risk being stopped.

  He had circled the hill and come into the section where most of the Slavs lived. Courtyards began to flash by. The women were on their front stoops to gape after the crazy man running, with nobody behind him. They fluttered their aprons. Deputies seemed to be everywhere. They were occupied with their job of keeping the streets clear. They did not bother to catch him. But a mounted trooper dogged his footsteps for a long way. He escaped by running through a narrow passage between a group of houses. But fright had helped waste his strength. He was winded. His breath whistling through his teeth, he leaned on a fence in front of a tar-papered house. A man peeped out of the door and began to jabber at him. Melody could not understand the words but he kept nodding his head. The man was still talking when he started to run again.

  Melody had slowed to a fast walk when he reached the twisting road leading to his home. He had known that the big pile of ashes and garbage would be in his path, but now it seemed to hop suddenly in front of him. He was too tired to change direction and walk around it. It was better not to think but go straight a
head. He stepped into the soft stuff around the edges of the mound and struggled to the top. The brittle ashes broke under his feet. His muscles went soft and let him down. Only then did he realize how he had punished himself. The air was like fire roaring in his throat.

  Then he saw Big Mat. He knew that big outline too well to be mistaken. From the opposite end of the street Big Mat was approaching the house. Melody got to his knees. His body struggled to rise. He slid aways down the mound. A tin can left a burning streak across one of his ankles.

  For a long time Big Mat had been empty, like a torn paper sack inside. But all of that was over. He had begun to heal his ruptured ego with a new medicine. That medicine was a sense of brutal power. A few careless words from a police deputy had started that strange healing. This Monday would complete the cure. That the cure might be deadly was too deep a thought for him. The only thing he felt was a sense of becoming whole again.

  So that Monday morning when he started for the mills he did not hear Melody say, “I got more important business than strikes on my mind. Chinatown come first.” Big Mat hardly remembered Melody and Chinatown. He knew that something had been said about the west end of town and a dry-goods store where there were town gals, but all that meant nothing today.

  Today he would be the law—the boss. . . .

  As yet Big Mat had not seen any real action. There he was in the mill, working as always. It seemed as though his short time on the job would never end. This day the men could not carry on the making of steel as they had in the past. There was a mere skeleton force trying to keep the furnaces from growing cold. Big Mat rushed from place to place with a squad of experienced men. However, it was impossible to protect all of the fires. Some of the furnaces had to be abandoned.

  The effectiveness of the strike against the furnaces astounded Big Mat. Men had done this thing to these seemingly eternal fires. Now these monsters that made metal were dependent upon the strength of Big Mat. It moved him to rush madly about the yards, knowing that only his will would keep a fatal crack from their big, brittle insides.