Space Magic (13 page)

Gino squeezed Tony’s shoulder. “I’d better go in and pay my respects.”

“Yeah. You do that.” He wiped his eyes quickly and turned back. “Thanks.”

Gino walked into the living room, where Gus and Anna’s wedding photo sat atop a plain pine coffin and a huge cross of flowers perfumed the air. Tony tried not to remember that the coffin was empty except for a pair of bloodstained and mangled steel-toed boots, tried not to think about how much the coffin and the flowers and the priest had cost, tried not to worry about how he was going to support Anna and her kids as well as his own Sofia and little Bella... tried not to wonder how many more men would die before this job was finished.

Gino finished praying and rose to his feet. He kissed his fingers and touched them to the coffin. “It’s a damn shame,” he said, looking over his shoulder. “That’s—what, six already this year?”

“Seven.”

“Jesus.” He shook his head. “They’re killing us. Honest to God, Tony, they’re killing us with this schedule.”

“I know. But if we don’t make this deadline you know they’ll give the damn bridge contract to Inland and then every single one of us will be on the W.P.A.”

“Now you’re talking like management.”

Tony pursed his lips, drew in a breath through his nose. “I have to go and give this money to Anna.” But as he turned to go, Gino caught his shoulder.

“We don’t have to take this. We can fight them. We can unionize.”

Tony slapped Gino’s hand away. “And we can lose our jobs. Or worse. Remember Republic Steel?”

Everyone knew how the Republic Steel strike had ended. On Memorial Day 1937, a crowd of picketers were met by armed policemen as they approached the plant. Ten men died in the resulting melee, hundreds were injured, and the strike was broken. The newsreels called the strikers a bloodthirsty mob, but the steelworkers’ grapevine said they were just a Memorial Day picnic crowd, including women and children, armed with nothing but placards. Either way, the strike had been a disaster for the union.

Gino’s dark brows drew together as he stared hard into Tony’s eyes. Then he turned away and waved dismissively at Tony. “Go on, then. Tell Anna, if there’s anything I can do...”

“I’ll tell her.”

On the way to the back bedroom where Sofia comforted the grieving Anna, Tony passed through the kitchen. Warm smells of the lasagna and porcetta and ravioli brought by the aunts and neighbor women enticed his nose, but the stove was cold. Cold as death.

-o0o-

Tony sat up in bed. “Who’s there?”

At first there was no sign of what had woken him. Sofia snored gently beside him, and little Bella breathed peacefully in her crib beside the bed. Similar sounds came through the door, where Anna and her two children slept in the living room. Six people made a tight crowd in the four-room company house, but Tony could not shirk his family obligations.

Just as Tony was about to settle back down and close his eyes, he saw something move. It might have been the curtains stirring in the fitful breeze, but no—it was at the foot of the bed. Something rippled in the stripes of yellow light cast by the street light through the Venetian blinds.

Tony’s eyes snapped open and his heart pounded. “Anna? Is that you?”

“Don’t you know me, you moron?” The voice was familiar, but it sounded like a long-distance telephone call from the bottom of a freezer, and the hair rose on the back of Tony’s neck.

“Gus?”

“Who else?”

Tony squinted into the darkness. Was that a human figure perched on the footboard? Or was it just a shadow? Tony could see right through it to the Blessed Virgin on the wall behind it.

“You’re not Gus,” he hissed. He gripped the sheet so tightly he felt it start to tear.

The figure leaned forward, the stripes of light shifting across its face, and Tony thought he saw Gus’s big ears and prominent Adam’s apple. Just like his. “Who else would know about the deal you and I made with Walter Ailes?”

Goosebumps pricked Tony’s forearms. “I never should have let you talk me into it in the first place.”

The shadow seemed to shake its head. “I’m sorry about that, now.”

Tony closed his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose hard. “This is a dream, right?”

“Maybe. But even if it is, there’s one thing I want you to remember when you wake up.”

Tony let go of his nose, stared at the shadowy figure.

“You’re going to have to decide who your real friends are, little brother. Ailes gives you money, but...”

“I have Anna and
your
kids to support! There’s no way I can back out now.”

“Don’t make the same mistake I did.” And then, without transition, Gus was gone.

Tony gazed on the face of the Blessed Virgin. Her cheap printed smile was not very comforting.
It was just a dream
, he told himself. But then he put out a hand to the footboard where his brother’s ghost had sat. The wood was cold under his fingertips, though the July night was sweltering.

Tony put the pillow over his head, just like when he was a kid, and shivered until he fell asleep.

-o0o-

Molten steel glowed orange-red as it seethed from the giant ladle into the ingot molds laid out at Tony’s station. He pulled a bandana from his pocket and wiped the back of his neck as he watched the pour, then stuffed it quickly away before guiding the ladle to the next mold. Hot air and sparks roared out of the mold as the steel poured in, burning the scowl on Tony’s face.

Bruno the foreman slapped him on the shoulder. “You’re wanted at the office,” he shouted over the clang and rush of the plant.

The oak and glass office door closed with a thud, blocking out most of the sound from the plant floor beyond. “I’m Antonio Collina,” he said to the suspicious-looking clerk behind the counter.

Walter Ailes, the plant’s director of personnel, emerged from a back room a few minutes later. His hair and skin were very pale, and wire-rimmed glasses perched atop his hatchet-thin nose. Tony was ashamed of his own swarthy, grimy complexion.

“Thank you for coming, Mister Collina,” said Ailes. “Won’t you please come this way?” His skinny hand was cool and surprisingly strong, easily matching the pressure of Tony’s callused fingers.

Together they moved from the concrete of the plant floor onto hardwood. Tony became increasingly uncomfortable as they walked, acutely aware of the gray grit imbedded in his coveralls, his face, his hair. He was afraid to touch the clean cream-colored walls; he knew he stank of sweat and hot metal. “What’s this all about, Mister Ailes?” Tony whispered. “You said never to come into the office.”

“Yes. But Mister Kensington wanted to have a word with you.” Ailes opened a heavy door on which OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT was written in gold leaf.

The office behind the door was bigger than Tony’s entire house, with high ceilings and oak bookcases full of ledgers. The desk, also of oak, was the size of the altar at St. Cajetan’s. Behind the desk hung a portrait of OUR FOUNDER, Joseph G. Kensington. And below the portrait sat Joseph G. Kensington II, President of Kensington Steel. He stood and held out his hand.

Tony had never met a Kensington before. He was nearly as pale as Ailes, but his nose was round and pink and his jowls seemed to bulge from his high starched collar like a big bubble-gum bubble. “Mister Collina, I was so sorry to hear about your brother Giuseppe.”

“Thank you, sir.” Kensington’s hand felt like a bunch of uncooked sausages. Tony didn’t want to grip it too firmly, for fear it would burst.

“I like to think of everyone here at Kensington Steel as family. And families stick together in time of hardship, do they not?”

“Uh, yes, sir.”

Kensington wiped his hand with a white silk handkerchief, then dropped it in the wastepaper basket. “I am aware,” he said, “that some members of the Kensington Steel family do not have the family’s best interests at heart. Mister Ailes tells me that the weekly reports that you and your brother have written on these agitators’ activities have been most informative.”

“Thank you, sir.” Tony gritted his teeth at the memory of the men who had lost their jobs as a result of those reports. But the extra six dollars a week in his pay envelope, which had been a luxury for a family of three, were a necessity for six. It would be even worse when Anna’s baby came.

“I want to make sure that these reports continue. Despite the unfortunate circumstances.”

“Of course, sir.”
You cold-hearted bastard
, he thought.

“We believe,” said Ailes, “that there may be an increase in... antisocial activity, in the wake of your brother’s death.”

“I don’t understand, sir.” But Tony knew what he meant, and he felt sweat trickling down his sides.

“We are talking about
unionization
, Mister Collina!” Kensington thundered. “Communists and anarchists. Bloodthirsty men who desire nothing less than the destruction of the American way of life!” His pink cheeks grew pinker.

“All we ask,” said Ailes in a soothing voice, “is that you appear to cooperate with any attempt to unionize the men, and keep us informed of the organizers’ actions.”

“I, uh...” The room was suddenly hotter than the August sun and the proximity of the blast furnaces could explain. “Yes, sir.” He would have to avoid Gino. If nobody asked him to join, he wouldn’t have anything to report on.

“However, Mister Collina,” said Ailes, and his words were suddenly as thin and strong as his fingers, “please do keep in mind that you are not our only such... reporter. If your reports are not complete and accurate, we
will
know it.”

Six dollars a week.
“You can depend on me, sir.”

-o0o-

As Ailes was escorting Tony back to the plant floor, a Serbian laborer came up to him with a large, heavy box. “Where you want this, Mister Ailes?”

Ailes’s face betrayed a sting of annoyance. “Put it with the others.”

“Yessir.”

As the Serb turned away, Tony noticed the words stenciled on the end of the wooden box: AXE HANDLES, TWO DOZ. Aghast, Tony watched as the Serb opened a store-room door. Behind that door were more boxes of axe handles, and other things: tear gas grenades, rifles, and riot guns with barrels the size of beer bottles.

Ailes’s eyes narrowed with anger. “You should not have seen that, Mister Collina. I trust you will keep this information... confidential?”

“Uh, yes sir.”

“Good. And I hope you will understand that we are prepared to defend Kensington Steel from the forces of anarchy.” He lowered his voice and leaned in close. “By
any
means necessary. Do you understand, Mister Collina?”

“Yes, sir.”

-o0o-

Later, back in the noise and stench of the plant floor, Tony recalled what Gus had said about deciding who his real friends were. But that had just been a dream. The six dollars a week was real, and it would keep his brother’s children from going hungry.

Even so, and even in the heat of the blast furnaces, Tony shivered.

-o0o-

Weeks went by. Tony filed his reports, usually nothing more than repeating his co-workers’ grumbles and anti-management jokes, and the money came in every week. He kept his conversations with Gino focused on baseball and their wives’ cooking. After a while he started to relax.

Then, one night, he dreamed of Gus. They were playing stickball in the street by the house where they’d grown up, though they were both adults and wearing their steel-mill coveralls.

“Heads up!” shouted Gus, and hit a long high ball to Tony.

“Got it!” He reached for the ball, but it sailed past his outstretched fingers and into the bramble bushes behind Uncle Ottavio’s house.

“It wasn’t my fault!” Tony cried.

“I may have hit it,” Gus said, “but you blew your chance to catch it. Now you have to go into those brambles and fetch it out.”

The bramble bush was very dark and tall, and seemed to grow as Tony watched. “I’m scared,” he said, and turned back to Gus.

Gus was covered with blood, and sharp points of broken bones emerged from his cheeks and forehead. The eyes were white and staring in his ruined face. “You should be.”

Tony woke screaming. The sheets were soaked with sweat, and Bella began to cry. Sofia got up to comfort her, but as she patted and rocked the baby she asked Tony, “Is everything all right?”

“Yeah,” Tony said. “Just a bad dream.”

Six dollars a week. He hoped he hadn’t sold himself too cheaply.

-o0o-

The next day Tony sat heavily on a bench in the break area. He took off his hard hat and rested his head in his hands.

“You heard we lost another one?” said Gino as he sat down next to him.

“Aw, Jesus. No, I just didn’t sleep well last night. Who?”

“Negro boy down in the coke yards. Pietro Dani—you know him?—he fell asleep running a crane and dropped a whole load of coke right on top of the guy.”

“Jesus.”

“We’re not going to take this any more. We’re going to take action.”

Tony’s heart felt as though it had just stopped. “Don’t tell me this, Gino.”

“I know you don’t want to hear it. But we’ve got to do something. We’re meeting down at Polish Hall tomorrow night at eight. We’ve got a man from the C.I.O. to help us organize.”

Tony swallowed. “No thanks.”

“Please. It’s important. We’ve been talking about doing something for a long time, but Gus’s death was what finally got us moving. It would mean a lot if you could show your support.”

“Yeah,” said Arturo Cavenini as he sat down on the other side of Tony. “You should come.”

You are not our only reporter
, Ailes had said. Could Arturo be one of the others? Now Tony would have no choice but to write Gino up. “I really wish you hadn’t asked me.”

“C’mon,” said Arturo. “What can it hurt?”

Tony thought about axe handles, and gas grenades, and riot guns. “It can hurt a lot.” He stood up to leave.

Then he felt a cold touch at the back of his neck, and heard a voice like a long-distance phone call in his head.
Go to the meeting
, it said.
Do it for me.

“What’s wrong?” said Gino. “You look like hell all of a sudden.”

“It’s nothing. Just gas.”