40 Patchtown

by Damian Dressick

  Men are shoving their fists in the air saying we oughtta march to Windber right now. They’re shouting we oughtta go down to Ninth Street and dynamite the Berwind’s Big Office right away.

  “Eureka Stores too! Blow all them Berwinds sky high!” says one hunkie from 42.

  Mr. Brophy only lets this go on for a couple of minutes before he gets back up on his wood box. He holds his hands up in the air to quiet everybody down and his young fella goes over to the car and lets the horn blast till they do.

  “I know how ya men feel about these bastards,” Mr. Brophy says. “Ya wanna get ’em with the dynamite. Get ’em with the black powder!”

  All the men shout, “Hell ya! Let’s gittem! Let’s gittem now!”

  Mr. Brophy says, “I wanna get ’em too. I wanna get ’em good.”

  All four hundred men in the orchard start up shouting and hollering about how to get shots in on the Berwinds till Mr. Brophy puts his hands up for them to quiet down and starts back talking hisself.

  “That’s why we gotta be smart,” he says. “Why we can’t take the bait.”

  He tells us that the Berwinds will do anything to keep the Windber mines non-union. He says they’re dirty sunsabitches with all kinda tricks up their shitty sleeves. He says that sometimes they’re succeeding.

  “Take the other night,” he says. “Younz all know a scab got killed out behind Eureka 40. Beat in the head out on one a them farms.”

  I look up at Buzzy and then slip my head around for a peek at Stash and Baldy. I feel my heart thudding in my chest and my gut starting to turn. My hands are sweating till my palms are so damp they’re almost wet like.

  “It’s just that kinda foolishness makes it easy for the Berwinds to show us out no damn good.”

  Mr. Brophy says that the fella what got killed didn’t speak no English. Two weeks off the boat and he answered that ad in some dago newspaper in Perth Amboy. Dumb bastard didn’t even know he was scabbing. I can feel my mouth dropping open and my throat getting tight. A line of bile cuts across my stomach and sweat start running down my back. All at once I want to step forward and explain it to Mr. Brophy how the whole business what happened with the scab was an accident, how nobody meant to kill him, that we was in the dark our own damn selves.

  Buzzy reaches out and grabs me by my hand like to hold it. But instead he squeezes it, hard, hard. So hard that it hurts enough I might cry. He bends down and brings his mouth to my ear and I can feel his razor stubble brushing against my earlobe.

  “Don’t you say a word, Chester,” he says to me. “Not a god damn word.”

  I give him a little nod and Buzzy eases up on my hand some. I look back up at Mr. Brophy perched on his apple box.

  “Now, I know it ain’t no union men that done this,” he says stern, but almost like he knows he’s lying. “But ya can bet the company’s gonna say it was, to make the union men out as murderers.”

  Buzzy ain’t let go of my hand and he’s shaking his head. I see his lips crease up like he’s clenching his teeth fit to bite through a pick handle. I make a face, but he doesn’t say nothing, just spits into the dried-out leaves and looks back up toward Mr. Brophy, who’s pointing his thumb at the blonde fella with him. Mr. Brophy says his name is Charlie Dugan and he’s a union organizer from New Jersey. He’s the one what found out about that advertisement for them scabs.

  “He’s gonna be stayin down here helpin younz out with the strike.”

  Mr. Brophy steps down and shoves Charlie Dugan towards the apple crate. I try a couple of times to jerk my hand loose of Buzzy’s and when he finally lets go of me, I take a couple of steps off to the side. Balanced on the downslope next to one of the hunkies from 38, I watch Charlie Dugan climb up onto the crate. He looks a little nervous up there for a second, but after he gives a little cough, he settles right in and ya can tell that he must be pretty used to talking to folks gathered round like this. He says that the Berwinds got another train of scabs coming into 40 Patchtown tomorrow night.

  “Ya know what we’re gonna do ’bout that train,” he shouts. “We’re gonna get out there on the hard picket line! Ain’t one of them men getting off that train won’t know these Berwind mines are struck mines. Ain’t a one won’t know these mines are gonna be union mines!”

  A lot of the miners start to yell ’bout how they’ll picket for all they’re worth, that they’ll let them scabs know what’s what, but I notice that some fellas ain’t been paying no attention to what Mr. Brophy or Charlie Dugan been saying. They’re still whispering about making a midnight run to the powdershed to loose up the black powder and the dynamite and have a Big Office Demolition Party.

  Craning my neck round to see who’s saying what, I see Baldy and Stash talking close with each other, almost whispering. Buzzy heads over towards them yanking out his tobacco plug from the pocket of his britches. He offers them each a bite from the plug in turn and when they’re all set we turn back down Ashtola Road. I walk with them, but I keep off to the side with hands pushed down into the pockets of my own britches and don’t ask Buzzy even for a chaw.

  Four

  The beatings we’re catching down 40 must have got miners in every Patchtown pretty damn riled, cause there’s maybe a thousand men waiting at the station for the scab train from South Fork. Miners are everywhere. Crowded between the soot stained buildings. Jammed in close to the high tipple. Pushed up against the doors of the motor barn. Some are carrying signs and working on the chants, but there’s more than a passel of fellas just sniffing the sulfur smoke, looking mad as hell and ready to go. They’re snarling there ain’t no chance these scabs don’t know they’re scabbing on us.

  I’m waiting for Buzzy with Baldy and Stash on the high ground to the side of the big yellow brick powerhouse where they make the electricity for 40 mine. Balanced on the heaped up slag, we’re watching the girls what come down to the station with their mothers. The girls wear gingham and old flour sack dresses and the ladies got theirselves tucked into house coats and thready print dresses. They’re all clutching onto the pennies and bread crusts they brung down here to hold out and offer the scabs. Like to shame them, saying you’re so poor ya have to steal our men’s jobs, maybe we can give ya something.

  Over by the sand shed, Charlie Dugan is tryin to buck up the fellas from 40 what been getting walloped by the Pinkertons. Some of them look awful banged up, but he’s shouting and yelling and it ain’t long before he’s got a whole crew pushed in close to the tracks chanting “Struck Mines!” and hoisting up block letter signs saying PAY FARE WAGES! and MINE ON STRIKE! Course I know some of them fellas been into the corn liquor since lunchtime and more than a few come down here hoping to kick them scabs’ asses straight up between their shoulders if they set one blessed foot off that train.

  Down at the 40 Little Office where we get our scrip, there’s maybe ten Pinkertons scrambling round outside like headless chickens. They don’t look none too happy to see the whole lot of us miners all keyed up. One of the big bastards from the Coal and Iron Police comes running outside the office yelling at a couple of them Little Office Pinkertons and jerking his thumb over at a cluster of miners around the motor barn. Then he yanks hisself up onto a big black Cossack horse. Jabbing his spurs into the bay’s flanks, he wheels that horse around and tears hell for leather back towards Windber.

  Curious, I watch the Pinkertons he yelled at check their guns and cinch up their belts before they start stalking up the tracks toward the motor barn. All the rest of them guards just fall back inside the Little Office.

  Still waiting for Buzzy before we go down to the picket line, I ask Baldy what he thinks about the scab that got killed in the drainage ditch. Him and Stash grab hold of my arms and yank me back behind the pump house.

  “Chet,” Baldy says to me. “Ya can’t be talkin ’bout that.”

  “Nobody heard me,” I tell him. “’Sides I just asked what ya thought about it.”

  “I tell younz what I think about it,” Stash turns his
head around to make sure there ain’t nobody standing close enough to hear us. “I think we’re damn lucky ain’t none of us setting down the Somerset jailhouse.”

  Baldy nods. “That ain’t no shit, Chester.”

  He crosses his arms and looks over at Stash. Stash and Baldy are both older than me and I like running with them, but I sure don’t care for both of them are staring at me like I’m some kinda dope like Mikey and they have to tell me what to do.

  Stash says to me, “Anybody asks where ya was that night, ya tell ’em ya went up Ashtola to swipe apples outta Ol Man Gerula’s barn.”

  I look down and tell Stash okay and he gives me a quick pat on the shoulder. I ain’t gonna say nothing to them now for sure, but I keep dreaming about that scab splashing round in the ditch behind 40. I’m on the muddy bank, heaving bony pieces through the air at his thin arms and narrow chest, but when the chuncks hit, they just melt and run down his pit vest like black wax till the whole ditch is plumb full and it’s running over the bank up onto my boots. When I wake up I can smell that drainage in my nose, stinking so bad it’s like I been sleeping in McKluskey’s ditch, like it’s me crashed down and stretched out flat, dead in that dark water.

  When Buzzy comes wobbling down Third Street, we all step out from behind the pump house. He’s still limping some, but he’s whistling and smiling like he gotta hijinks up his sleeve.

  He struts over to us and gives Baldy a poke in the ribs. Baldy punches him back a quick one, but Buzzy just laughs. He lifts up his shirt and shows us he’s gotta big Y slingshot stuck in the waist of his pants.

  “Now whatcha gonna do with that, Buzzy?” Baldy asks him.

  “Ya just wait and see what I do with this, Baldy Chenesky.”

  We follow Buzzy into the knot of miners in between the powerhouse and the 40 station platform. The train’s already due and everybody’s getting anxious. We start up yelling with the other miners.

  “We’re union MEN and the union’s SWELL. EJ Berwind can burn in HELL.”

  In the middle of my own yelling, I turn round to get a look at all the men shouting and carrying on behind me. It’s good to see so many miners come out to picket this train and let them scabs know these mines are struck, let them know they shouldn’t even think of getting off that train in 40 Patchtown. We’re fuming from the passenger tracks the whole way back to Patchtown Road.

  Over to the left, past the tipple, I see that the some of the Pinkertons what come from the Little Office have snuck up all the way up past the motor barn to the yellow line of mantrip cars in front of the shifter’s shanty. I watch the biggest Pinkerton scuffle his flabby body up onto the deck of one of them mantrip cars.

  He starts clanging his billy on the handrail screaming for all of us miners to get the hell outta here.

  “This train depot is company property,” he yells to us. “Every damn one of you is guilty of trespassing.”

  All the men shout him down, telling him to go to the devil. We know that the train station belongs to the town and we can stand here if we like.

  “Don’t be trying none of your greenhorn tricks on us!” we tell him.

  Mr. Dugan even walks right up to the edge of the mantrip car almost nose-to-nose with that Pinkerton and says we got as much right to be here as the Pinkerton does. When some miners from 40 come up behind Mr. Dugan and curse the Pinkerton out fierce telling him that we got more rights, cause he don’t even live here, the other Pinkertons start getting nerves and they climb up onto the car to get away. I’m glad to see the Pinkertons put back on their heels for a change, but them miners talking that way is sure getting that fat Pinkerton fierce vexed. He shuffles right to the edge of the flat car.

  He says, “All of ya pollocks will get yer due when McMullen comes down from Windber.”

  Now, McMullen is the new head Cossack they brung in from the Homestead strike to straighten us out after the scabs started getting chased home from the mines. Everybody knows he’s the bastard behind all the beat downs, but when the miners hear ’bout him coming to fix us now, they’re all laughing cause there’s so few Pinkertons and so many of us miners. Somebody yells that McMullen can “go shit in his hat,” and all the men hearty it up pretty good. They say it might improve the look of his head. But the chief Pinkerton gives them the evil eye and tells them they’ll be settled with later.

  “Come down here and settle up with me now ya got such big balls,” says a skinny bearded fella from 35. I don’t know him too good, but I recognize him from Buzzy telling me to watch out for him, cause he’ll slip four bits to the shift boss for a better place on the seam.

  The other guards up on the car are looking at one another and backing away from the edge. When more miners gather round and push in close, they pull their billies and clutch them at their legs. There’s maybe twenty-five miners circled in around the mantrip car egging them guards to come on down. Mr. Dugan tries to get everybody calmed down, but not too many miners is even pretending to listen to him. I know some of them fellas got hammers stashed up under their jackets, and they’re awful hot for them guards to come down into the crowd to give them what for.

  “Chet,” Buzzy yanks at my sleeve. “Let’s join the party.”

  I follow Buzzy’s eyes down to where he’s gripping the sling shot. Outta his britches pocket, he pulls a handful of cast iron rail nuts.

  “I told ya fellas I’m gonna settle up with them Cossacks,” he says.

  Baldy and Stash laugh, but before Buzzy can load one of them nuts up in the sling, the train whistle sounds, and everybody rushes back over to the platform to wait for the scab train. Over my shoulder, I watch them Pinkerton guards slip down off the mantrip car. They hotfoot it back to the Little Office ducking theirselfs behind the line of two tonners.

  Miners crowd in thick and tight all up and down where the track pushes close to the platform and there’s even more back behind. Patches of miners is grouped the whole way from the sandhouse on the other side of the high tipple to the spot the passenger tracks deadend in front of the pick-me store.

  When we see the first flash of lights from the scab train shine out around the Paint Creek bend, all our signs go back up in the air and we’re all shouting and hollering for all we’re worth. Stash and Baldy rush down a little slope to get in with the miners who’s pushing closest into the platform as the train’s rolling in. The screech of the locomotive brakes drowns out all the shit everybody’s saying and some of the women cover up their ears. We watch the sparks fly up off the tracks. Miners spring back behind the platform line.

  I wait with Buzzy over at the corner of the powerhouse. He says he ain’t going down into the crowd on account of his knee being screwed up. He takes a mouthful of corn whiskey and we watch the train squeal to stopped. Most of the miners and a lot of their wives too push down flush against the train and start shouting for the scabs to go the hell home.

  Buzzy and me watch the old women and even some of the girls spit on the train and the men pound it with their fists. When the scab herders open up the doors to get a look at the crowd, some of the fellas toss rocks and bottles and they clatter off the metal loud as you please.

  Buzzy says, “Damn scab herders is too yella to come out.”

  It looks like Buzzy might be right cause they shut the train doors up tight quick. Everybody cheers when the train gets hit by some more rocks and even a couple of bricks from some hard fellas Stash knows from down 37.

  “Buzzy,” I says watching this. “Ya think there’s any chance it’s like ol Brophy says?” I can’t say Mr. Brophy in front of Buzzy, not if I want to keep all my teeth. “They’re just trying to get us to take the bait.”

  “Chet,” Buzzy says, “use yer head.”

  Buzzy smacks me in the chest with the pint bottle he’s drinking from. “That kind a shit’s all well and good for Brophy and Dugan and the rest a them Johnny Bulls. No matter how this strike comes out, we’re still pollocks and hunkies and dagos and they’re still ridin round in cars wearin nec
kties.”

  Buzzy backs up behind the corner of the powerhouse, out of sight of the train platform, and slaps the liquor pint into my hand. He says, “If we’re gonna get shit outta these bastards, we gotta fight like hell.”

  I nod to Buzzy and spin the cap off the bottle. I take a quick taste of the corn liquor which is strong and burns down my throat. I look up the high blackened wall of the powerhouse which is long as McKluskey’s barn and more than twice as tall.

  “What about the dago we kilt?” I ask Buzzy.

  “Piss on him!” Buzzy says. “The only way we’re gonna win this strike is to keep it so hot them Berwinds can’t get nobody to come to Windber. Make it as hot for them as they’re makin it for us.”

  I give Buzzy a nod, but I ain’t so sure I know what to think.

  I round the corner and take a peek down at the platform. It’s getting on dark and the electric lights on the tipple and conveyers shine down onto the crowd and the scab train, giving the whole mess a yellow glow. Cursing and grumbling and heaving chunks of bony up at the car, that corn liquor maybe catching up to them, miners are getting even rowdier than they was when the train fresh come in. It seems to me we’re making it hot for them scabs, but not for the Berwinds. I spot Charlie Dugan down by the last train car in front of the sand house. Some of the studda babas around him is singing hymns and he’s trying to follow along with them old women, but you can see he’s distracted by all the fellas cursing and throwing stuff and he don’t know enough Polish anyway, so he ain’t doing so good.

  Both the singing and the yelling eases up when folks spy the headlights from McMullen’s long black deputy car rolling up the road from Paint. We watch that sedan round the big curve at the top of 40 Hill and rumble down its way the whole way down Patchtown Road. As the car drifts in towards the Little Office, folks quiet down flat and watch it putter to a stop.

  When McMullen flings open the door and gets out of the sedan, he’s decked out in some kinda fancy outfit and it’s like all of us together draw a deep breath. Short haired and wiry, that Pinkerton’s sporting a big bristly mustache and two rows of brass buttons running the whole way down his blue-dye wool coat and yellow murderer’s stripes stitched to the seam of his pants. Them other Pinkertons come racing out of the Little Office saluting the sunafabitch like he’s General Grant, but he don’t pay a shred of mind. He just shifts his slouch cap, goes round to the back of the sedan and snatches up an armload of rifles from the trunk and slaps them into the hands of the Cossacks. He barks at them deputies, cajoling all of them to get their donkey asses into that car. When the sedan’s plumb stuffed, he jumps back behind the wheel and spins up a mess of coal dust, jerking back away from the Little Office and onto Patchtown Road toward the train platform.