Stony looked through the link fence across the street. The thirty-story skeleton of the high rise towered over everything. He noticed the rows of wooden shanties and men in hard hats walking about. The parched dirt around the site was littered with wooden planks bridging potholes.
"How you doin', babe?" Tommy asked again.
"I think I'm gonna puke." Stony had a pained look on his face.
Tommy laughed and got out of the car. Stony followed him. He couldn't figure out how to strap on the belt so Tommy helped him. "You'll be O.K." Tommy put his arm around Stony, escorting him across the street, through the link fence and up the steps of a trailer converted into an office. A huge fat man in a gray business suit and a red hard hat stood over a white-haired guy sitting at a desk. They were examining blueprints. The fat man looked up when Tommy and Stony walked in.
"Artie." Tommy put his arm around Stony again. "This is my kid." The white-haired guy ignored them. Artie nodded, said something else about the blueprint to the white-haired guy, then extended his hand to Stony. "Hiya. You gotta fill these out." He handed Stony two work forms. "You got a pen?" Stony said no. He was fucking up already. Artie handed him a Bic pen from his shirt pocket. "Where it says employer write 'Empire Electric.'"
Stony leaned over a desk and wrote neatly.
"Stay with it, Stones, an' in ten years you'll be richer'n this fat fuck." Tommy laughed and winked at Artie. Artie scowled at him. Stony couldn't remember his social security number and had to take out his card.
"You play ball for the Mount?" Artie regarded Stony.
"Yeah." Stony wrote down the number.
"All-City Honorable Mention CHSAA," Tommy interjected.
Artie ignored him. "What was your record?"
"Six, three and one." Stony handed him the forms.
Artie nodded his head in mild approval. "I useta play for Cardinal Spellman."
"Oh yeah?"
"O.K., your father'll show you what to do. Just remember to be careful an' wear this all the time." He tapped the hard hat.
"Artie's the contractor," Tommy said as they walked down the trailer steps. "He started out just like you. The guy pulls down forty grand a year, got a house in Pound Ridge, a gold Caddy and two racehorses. An' he's a nice bastard too."
Stony ducked down to enter the long, dark wooden electricians' shanty. Ten men in various stages of dressing for work sat or stood balancing on one leg, pulling on greasy chinos, lacing orange boots, folding sport shirts and strapping on utility belts. Tommy had his hand on the back of Stony's neck. "Here he is!" They looked up and checked Stony out. He felt embarrassed.
"This is Eddie, Vinny, Malfie, Blackie, Jimmy O'Day, Jackie, Augie and Carlos." Stony shook hands with some, nodded to others. Most were younger than Tommy, but Blackie and Jimmy O'Day looked close to Tommy's age. Tommy laughed and chattered as he changed into his work clothes, every fifth word out of his mouth "My kid." A splintered bench ran the length of the shanty. Above it, overhead, ran a long ledge with assorted hard hats ranging from shiny new red ones to battered paint-peeled old ones. On the short far wall under a window covered by chicken wire hung a calendar with a split beaver blonde laying on a chaise longue. Two dim light bulbs on the ceiling gave everyone a sickly subterranean tinge. When a shrill whistle blasted, the men filed out. Artie La Russo stood outside the shanty next to a pyramid of cable reels. Each man as he passed Artie bent down, grunted and hoisted a reel on his shoulder.
"Stony, you work on twenty-two today with Malfie. Vinny, you got the deck with Jimmy."
Stony stooped down and lifted a cable. Artie stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. "Sonny, you lift like that you gonna look down an' see your balls on the floor. Never stoop, always bend."
Stony climbed the temporary wooden stairs up twenty-two flights. There were no banisters and some of the landings were only a broad beam of wood lying diagonally over a five-by-five space that covered a drop of anywhere from one hundred to two hundred feet, depending on the floor. The cable weighed seventy-five pounds and after five flights Stony's shoulder was on fire, but he couldn't rest because he was in the middle of a caravan of men, all carrying the same burden. At fifteen, Tommy and Blackie dropped off to work that floor, at eighteen, two more, at twenty, two more; he and Malfie got off at twenty-two, and Vinny and Jimmy O'Day kept going until they hit the highest level of the building, the deck. Once off the stairs, Stony dropped the spool of cable on its end and used the other round end as a seat. He sat there, head between his knees, trying to catch his breath. When he looked up he could see for miles across the Bronx from this height, a chunky sea of TV antennas, high-rise buildings and housing projects. Stony was awed by the ugliness of it all. Malfie passed Stony, dropped his load about fifty feet away, sat down on the spool and lit a cigarette. As Stony was getting up to roll his cable toward Malfie, Tommy's head appeared. "Hey, kiddo! Howya doin'?"
Stony groaned. "My back is killin' me."
"Nothin', you'll get used to it. Hey, lissen, you're the gofer today. You got a pencil and paper?"
"No."
"Here." Tommy handed him a scrap of brown paper and a chewed pencil. "Go get all the guys' coffee orders an' go over to the Greek's, that luncheonette where I parked the car, O.K.? An' don't forget the guys on the deck."
"Right now?" Stony was exhausted.
"Right now, an' come back fast so the coffee don't get cold. You can put me down for a black no sugar and a cheese Danish, O.K.? An' don't forget nobody—get Artie too down in the trailer." Tommy winked and ran downstairs.
Stony started with the deck, stopping at all the floors where the electricians worked. Eager to please, he tore ass out of the building to get Artie's order in the trailer. Artie stood on the steps. "Whoa! Whoa! You run like that, you'll knock out an eye. Take it easy, take it easy." Stony made himself slow down.
"I'm goin' for coffee, you want anything?"
Artie dug into his pocket and gave Stony a dollar. "Yeah. Get me a black coffee and an English muffin." He ducked his head into the trailer. "Hal, you want anything? The kid's goin' out. Make that two blacks, an' don't run!"
As Stony raced to the luncheonette, all the electricians except Malfie congregated on the twentieth floor to drink the coffee they had bought and sneaked upstairs before Stony took their orders.
Stony walked carefully out of the luncheonette. He held a rectangular gray cardboard box bottom containing twelve Styrofoam cups of three blacks no sugar, three blacks with saccharin, two regulars, one cream no sugar, two teas with lemon and a Pepsi. In addition, he had three cheese Danish, one English muffin, one ham and egg on white, one Drake's cake, and a salami and egg on an onion roll. The cups were capped with plastic tops that spurt liquid from the center. Code letters were penciled on top. After dropping off the trailer orders. Stony cautiously climbed the stairs. Coffee and tea dripped from the slightly soggy bottom of the box, soaking his chinos, but he was proud of himself. He got back in ten minutes flat. He was sure it was a new land speed record for gofers. His first stop was fifteen, but Tommy and Blackie weren't there. Eighteen was devoid of electricians too. Nervously he hit twenty where he found all of them.
"Where the fuck you go. Queens?"
"The fuckin' kid prob'ly stopped for breakfast."
"He's holdin' up the whole goddamn show."
"Stony, this ain't the way to start off here," Tommy said.
Stony's armpits started to sweat. He was mortified.
"Whatta you talkin' about! I ran!"
"He ran. My dead gran'mother woulda had it up here faster."
"I don' wanna talk about it."
Griping and bitching they picked out their orders. Stony stepped back, close to tears. He looked pleadingly at Tommy, who only shook his head sadly.
"This fuckin' coffee's cold!" Augie dashed his cup to the ground.
"I ast for no sugar, you cocksucker! I got fuckin' diabetes! You wanna see me go into a coma?"
"I ast for Seven-up, this prick got me Pepsi." One by one they threw their cups to the ground.
"This fuckin' kid gotta go!"
Stony spluttered, three notions away from suicide.
"Hey, kid." Vinny, a fat, gap-toothed thirtyish guy, squinted at him. "When you left the Greek's, you feel a tap on the back a your head?"
"Huh?"
"That was your change."
Stony, open-mouthed, had no idea what the fuck he was talking about. Then Augie cracked up. Tommy stifled a laugh. In seconds, they were all howling. Stony stood there like a schmuck with earflaps, rivers of tea, coffee and soda at his feet.
"I don't get it."
This comment redoubled the laughter. Jimmy O'Day fell to the floor, curled up on his side, tears of laughter threatening him with a coronary.
Stony sensed the worst was over. Tommy grabbed him and kissed him on the side of his head.
"I don't get it."
One by one, the electricians shook his hand, welcoming him into the clique. Stony smiled uneasily, still trying to put two and two together. As they filed back to work, laughing and eating their Danishes or sandwiches, Stony felt like a jerk for not seeing what the hell was so goddamn funny.
At eleven o'clock the guys sent Stony back to the Greek's with lunch orders. At eleven forty-five, Tommy, Jimmy O'Day, Eddie and Vinny came down, picked up their lunches from Stony, collected their thermos bottles from the shanty, walked off the site and sat on the grass island dividing traffic on the Henry Hudson Parkway.
"Aw Christ!" Vinny stared in disgust at his open thermos. "Look at this." He pulled out two chunks of glass that had been floating on top of the coffee. "Bastad!" He flung the broken thermos behind him. It rolled off the grass and into traffic.
"Hey, shithead!" Tommy watched the thermos roll slowly across the band of highway. They all shifted to see if the red plaid cylinder would make it. A white Ford zoomed right over it—the tires missing by six inches. "Hey!" they all shouted, ducking and shielding their faces with their arms. When the Ford passed they all laughed. A burgundy VW tore past, just missing the thermos. Again they ducked. A wood-paneled station wagon, trailing the VW, hit the thermos dead center. There was a loud pop and a crunch. The force of the crush spurt the coffee out of its container like a gigantic brown gob of spit, spraying them all. Vinny jumped up and threw his apple at the flying station wagon. Everybody was laughing and taking swipes at the coffee on their shirts and in their hair.
"Vinny, you're a real jibone, you know that?" Jimmy O'Day brushed coffee off the knees of his khaki chinos.
Eddie got up, waited for a lull in the traffic and sprinted to pick up the mangled thermos. "Look at that." He dropped it on the grass. It was crushed flat as cardboard. Jimmy O'Day picked it up with two fingers. Tiny grains of glass trickled out of what was left of the mouth.
"Hey, Vinny, that should be your head, you know that? We coulda gotten a piece a glass in our eyes." Jimmy O'Day sprayed egg salad as he talked.
"I dropped it this mornin' down a stairs. I thought maybe if I don't open it an' forget about it it won't be broken at lunch-time."
"It should be your head."
"I got enough problems." Vinny scarfed down half a salami and prosciutto sandwich. He reached for Jimmy O'Day's thermos. Jimmy O'Day snatched the thermos protectively.
"Drink piss, ya bastad!"
Vinny smiled, nodding in Jimmy O'Day's direction. "You believe this green nigger?"
Jimmy O'Day didn't respond, licking the traces of egg salad from his fingertips.
"Here." Tommy tossed a half-pint orange wax carton into Vinny's lap.
"Thanks." Vinny shook it up, peeled back the lip and chugged half the contents. "Feh!" He spit in the grass.
"Whassamattah!" Tommy sat up indignantly.
Vinny grimaced, closed the mouth of the container and tossed it back to Tommy.
"What the fuck's with you. That's good orange juice." Tommy was insulted.
"That's orange
drink,
" Vinny said wearily.
"Bull
shit!
"
"Tommy, can you read?"
"Yeah, I can read."
"Well, read the fuckin' label then."
"Sunkist orange ... drink. So big fuckin' deal. What's the goddamn difference? It taste orange, don't it?"
"Tommy, you know how they make orange drink? They take some boonie after he works all day at Nedick's and they make him take a bath. When he gets out they put the water into them little orange things an' they sell it to assholes like you."
"Hor'shit! It tastes better than that Tropicana garbage."
"Hey!" Vinny raised a finger as case in point. "Now, Tropicana, that's
real
orange juice. That's the best. If you don't like Tropicana then you don't like real orange juice."
"Bullshit, I don't like real orange juice! Who the fuck are you to tell me I don't like real orange juice!" Tommy turned to Stony sitting cross-legged, quietly eating. "You just gonna sit there an' let this fuckface insult your father?"
Everybody laughed. Stony wondered what the fuck he was doing sitting in the grass in the middle of a highway with a half a dozen grown men in T-shirts, earning a hundred grand a year among them. He shrugged, wiped a dab of egg salad from his mouth. "Hey, Vinny, don't tell my father he don't like real orange juice."
***
"So?" Tommy moved the car out onto the Henry Hudson Parkway.
"So what?" Stony rolled down the window.
"So how'd it go today? Roll up the window." Tommy flipped on the air conditioner. The car filled with a mildly musty smell.
"It was all right."
"You pissed about this morning?"
"Nah." Stony put his foot up against the glove compartment.
"You looked like you were gonna have a heart attack." Tommy laughed, slapping Stony's leg off the dash.
Stony sighed. "I'll tell you, it wasn't as bad as I thought."
"Good!" Tommy said with a slightly mocking tone.
"Hey, you know when they sent me out in the truck for beer? I was about a mile away from the building. I look up, I can see all you guys playin' cards on the deck. What would happen if Artie caught you?"