July 1, 2006--Saturday Story: "Bull Gang"--Final Episode

Bull Gang

Part Three (posted on June 24thth) was devoted to Sigrid’s visit to Brooklyn. While there, Lloyd’s German Baroness girlfriend had the opportunity to meet his parents and, unexpectedly, Aunt Madeline, of the three deceased husbands, who made her final appearance in these chronicles. And then, after a fitful lunch in which the Second World War could not be suppressed as the central topic of conversation, Lloyd was able to make his escape and on foot brought Sigrid around the corner to meet the legendary Heshy and his father, Mr. Perly. There, after talk about Existentialism, which Lloyd had some difficulty following, the War yet again inexorably surfaced. It was thus a relief finally to both reader and writer to discover, at the end of Part Three, the boys back on the Bull Gang where they are surprised to find themselves assigned to work directly with Eddie Ribori and his men—they found themselves moving on from the endless days of just unloading trucks.

In the Final Episode, which follows, we . . . .

The next morning, Monday, when changing in the construction shanty, I noticed that Heshy had a book stuffed in his sack that appeared to be written in French while I was still working my way through The Stranger. With everything that was happening, it was looking as if it would take me the whole summer to finish it.

While pulling on our overalls, studiously avoiding any references to Sigrid’s Sunday visit to Brooklyn, Eddie Ribori approached us and said, “There’s a big fan arriving today—they say the biggest ever made, twenty tons, twelve feet tall—today you two’ll be working with me and the men.”

For the first time, the full Bull Gang, Tommy (the Turnip) Annunziata, Louie (Man-Mountain) Maloney, Marty (the Parrot) Martinova, Eddie (the Bull) Ribori, and now Heshy (Big Dick) and me (Joe College) were united. Packed together in the plywood-sided construction elevator, we were headed up to the fortieth floor fan room. Eddie Ribori had his pry-bar and rollers clutched to his side like battle flags. And as we rose slowly passed the half-built floors in that creaking apparatus, Eddie began to tell us what awaited.

“The engineers tell me there has never before been a mother-of-a-fan like this one. They had it specially designed for this job. The owners, the Tishmans, wanted just one fan on the fortieth, only one, unlike the other fan rooms where we put in two, even three. But they want just one to be used to heat and cool their executive offices—they wanted it down at the end, away from the Fifth Avenue side, so there would be no vibrations, no sounds up there in their suites.” He paused to let this sink in. “I know what you’re thinking, they’re a bunch of faggots, but what else can I tell you—it for them to decide and for us to dispose. They’re paying our salaries.”

We stood huddled in silence, exchanging looks—Heshy and I excited about the opportunity that this presented; we would finally be doing something substantial—for the time being, at least, no truckloads of ducts to grapple with in the blazing street. The others probably were thinking it would be just another day at the office. No big deal. To them what did it matter—ten tons, twenty. They’d seen it all. Just a job. But Eddie seemed to be wanting us to understand that this represented something special, minimally a special challenge—to hoist and then move into place the largest fan ever built for an office tower.

We slipped by the twenty-fifth floor. Eddie then addressed his men—“I know you think this is just more of the same—what we’ve been doin’ together for, what, ten, twelve years now? Well before I came up to the shanty this morning I was down on the street, on the 54th Street side, where the riggers dropped it last night, to take a look at that Mother. That is one big sucker. It’s filling the whole street.” I looked over to Heshy who was standing dwarfed between the Turnip and the Mountain. He too seemed to be surprised by what seemed like Eddie’s awe. The Parrot began to emit a continuous, unmodulated sound.

Eddie next turned to Heshy and me, “This now is a fan, understand, not just a bunch of ducts. So stay out of our way until I tell you what to do. I don’t want to be makin’ any hospital visits tonight.” We slumped back against the wall and grunted that we understood.

Then again to his crew, “I’m gonna need you to give me a full-day’s effort today. You hear me? I’ll be watching what you have for lunch. Especially what you have to drink. I don’t want anyone to be losing an arm or anything. Particularly you, Turnip, considering you already have only one wing that works.” He chuckled at his own joke. I had never before heard him refer to any of his men by their nicknames, much less make that kind of fun of them. It for certain looked as if this would be a different kind of day.

The car bumped to a stop at the fan room, high above the city, which was struggling to emerge from its overnight haze. We were up above where the “skin,” or walls had yet to be affixed to the open steel structure; and although the air on the ground was still, promising to fire up as the day advanced, up there, in that open web of I-beams, there was a stiff wind which, if it persisted, would hopefully keep us cool as we labored.

Eddie Ribori led us over to the 54th Street side and strode right to the edge, so close that his boot tips literally protruded beyond it; and, without holding on, leaned out into empty space to try to catch the attention of the riggers who, 400 feet below, were waiting for us to be in place so they could begin to hoist the fan.

He waved his arms more and more frantically since he apparently was having difficulty rousing them. This was an era before there were wireless communication devices. “Those fuckers,” he said to us, half turning, still balanced, it seemed to me precariously at the edge, “They’re probably still asleep in their rigs or checking out the skirts on the office girls coming out of the subway.” He stuffed two fingers into his mouth and began to add piercing whistles to his waving, hoping the sound at least would reach them. But the wind cut through it, blowing the sound back at us. In frustration, he backed off and, swearing under his breath, walked over to where we stood—well back from the edge.

“Marty,” he snapped his fingers in the Parrot’s direction. Marty appeared to be unaware of what was happening, of Eddie’s agita, he was so lost or focused on producing what now seemed more soft cooing than chirps. “Get over here,” Eddie barked. This jolted Marty out of his world of noise. He seemed perplexed that Eddie would address him so harshly after all their years together. Today was clearly unique. “I need you over here,” Eddie signaled. Marty and Eddie then moved back toward the last row of beams and, side-by-side, with Marty being sure to grasp one of those columns, together peered down toward the street.

Marty knew without direction what Eddie required him to do, what he alone was qualified for: thus from him then there exploded such a tumult of piercing shrieks, an entire jungle of sound, that it appeared that the riggers’ hoist began immediately to churn and squeal, as if in natural response to its fellow creature, even before one could plausibly expect the Parrot’s call to have reached them on the ground below.

It looked as if the Parrot’s day might be done since Eddie nodded to him, “Good job,” and indicated with a gesture that he could go over and sit on the shady 53rd Street side until perhaps he was needed again. Which seemed unlikely.

That hoist was situated on a structure of its own, secured to the topmost steel beams, and rose with the steel, floor-by-floor so as to always be placed at the very highest point, to be available to lift from then street the largest of loads, fans as an example, that were too massive or heavy to ride on the Provolone’s more modest contraption. This hoist, in its essence, was also a contraption of its own design, made up of a system of pulleys at the top through which a forty, fifty, sixty-storey-long steel cable was threaded, which in turn reached to the street and to which, via a series of huge hooks and buckles, in the old days called Sky Hooks, the riggers would clamp their loads and then hoist them, twenty tons of steel beams or equipment, inch-by-torturous-inch, up to the sky where we waited.

At that pace it would take about half an hour for the fan to get to us and so Eddie sent Heshy and me down to the food wagon on the street to get coffee and crullers for him and the men. As was to be expected, Vito Provolone was first in line and was ordering his usual coffee with six sugars and three cheese Danish, which he would woof down without chewing. “So they got you faggots doin’ a real day’s work for a change. Watch out for them slippery spots, I don’t want you boys doing any swan dives onto my rig. The last college boy here took a flop and I had to spend a week cleaning up his mess. He got his blue blood all over everything.” He waddled over toward the hut by his lift to inhale his food, roaring with laughter so violent that it could probably be heard all the way up on the fortieth floor.

When we got back up to fan room with the coffee, the fan had already arrived. It hung suspended in the air, swaying slowly on the cable that had lifted it. In its bulk it blocked out the morning sun, casting a shadow of its own well into the vast room.

Eddie said it could wait for us until we had our break. We sat on piles of lumber and discarded crates, not able to take our eyes off that machine. Sipping my coffee, I couldn’t figure out how it could be maneuvered from outside, where it was floating in air, seemingly defying gravity, to inside the building itself much less how it could be hauled across at least fifty yards of floor and set in the tight space that had been walled off to house it.

I was snapped out of my musings by Eddie who clapped his hands, saying, “OK, let’s get the job done. Louie, it’s your turn. Marty woke them up down there, now you get that sucker in here.”

Man-Mountain, who had been sprawled out with his coffee and crullers across a pile of tarpaulins, rolled heavily onto his side and somehow through a series of contortions managed to get up onto his feet, also swaying, not entirely unlike the fan which was still blocking our views to the north. He shuffled over toward where it was swinging on the cable in the swelling breeze. Eddie joined him. He had a thick coil of rope around one shoulder, which he wore like a giant shoulder bag. When he got to the edge of the building, not unlike a cowboy swinging a lariat over his head before launching it around the neck of a steer, Eddie swung that rope out over 54th Street in a series of enlarging loops; and when its diameter was about eight feet, let it fly out to where it ensnared the hoist’s cable. It had struck with such velocity that it whipped itself around and around that cable until it was virtually knotted. He then secured the other end to one of the columns.

And as with the Parrot, Louie, without any instruction from Eddie, hauled his bulk right to the edge. From my angle, ten feet back from there, it looked as if his enormous stomach not only hung out well beyond his belt’s feeble effort to contain it, but also well out over the street. Knowing from physics class something about center-of-gravity, I feared he was perilously close to tipping forward and would wind up splattering himself all over Provolone’s hoist. Just like that college kid.

But with surprising agility and grace he quickly, in one motion, released the rope from the column where Eddie had cinched it and threaded it across his back, under his left arm and over his right shoulder. Now he stood, still at the edge, but with his back to the open air and fan; and he slowly lowered his body into an angle against the weight of the fan, which as a result had begun to twist. And as he bend further forward, Louie’s center of gravity was incrementally more and more shifting into the fan room and less and less out over the street. And incredible, imperceptibly, the fan, hanging on it cable, began to inch toward Louie and thus the building. Louie was snorting from the effort. He was saturated by his own sweat. But he was unrelenting and soon had the fan pulled right to the edge of the building where he held it in place by rooting his legs to the floor as if they were are part of the concrete.

Eddie then unfurled a thirty-foot-long strap of the kind I had seen furniture movers use to wrap large pieces. He somehow was able to scamper up onto the top of the fan itself, pulling the strap behind him. And like those furniture movers, he quickly proceeded to wrap the fan with the strap. That done, he hoped back into the fan room, hooking and additional rope to the strap.

Without pause, there was a limit to how much longer Louie could be expected to avoid a coronary occlusion much less hold that monster in place, Eddie signaled to Tommy, who jumped up to join them. The Turnip, without a pause, snatched two of Eddie’s rollers, stuffing one under his useless arm, and hopped right over to where Eddie stood, who was helping to keep the fan in place by holding on to the second rope, which he had tied around his waist.

I looked over at Heshy and he at me, both wide-eyed and exchanged shrugs which in effect asked, “What should we do to help?” We could think of nothing and I was beginning to wonder why Eddie had asked us to join his men. We could have easily been left behind with our trucks.

But I could immediately see why the Turnip had this role to play—to set the first, key roller in exactly the right place, just at the building’s edge, precisely where the fan was gently nuzzling the building. Placed and held there—the holding was the issue—Louie and Eddie could ease it in, literally one more inch was all that was required, and then the riggers down below, at Eddie’s signal, they were now on the case, could lower it that one inch to where it would begin to nip the first roller. And when that was accomplished, a relatively slight tug on both ropes would begin to roll the fan into the building—such was the power of the roller, or wheel, another lesson from physics class. That twelve foot behemoth, all those twenty tons would now be reduced to mere inches and ounces.

Tommy, with only one good arm had so refined its function, not unlike how blind people find their other senses enhanced, that he and only he of the men on the Bull Gang was adept enough to get, what I now understood it to be, that magnificent arm all the way under the lurking fan and had the ability to hold it as totally still as it needed to be for the fan to take its first bite of the roller. All the rest would be, as Eddie put it, “a piece of cake.”

And that’s where Heshy and I came in—when things became a piece of cake. That was clearly our theme for the day, pastries, which we ran back and forth for to keep the men supplied, but also to join the effort only when it was declared a piece of cake.

After Tommy had set the three rollers in place and the fan, now fully in the building, was resting on them, the work that remained, moving the fan across the floor and sliding it into its housing, was all about just where and how to place the rollers. As the fan slid forward the back roller of the three would pop out and needed to be placed in front so the movement forward could be continuous. My job was to catch the back roller when it came free and run it up to the front to Heshy, who, under Eddie’s very explicit and precise instruction would tell him exactly how to place it. “A half inch more turned to the left will do it Big Dick. We have to begin our turn right here.” Heshy would make that adjustment and Eddie, using his pry-bar at the back to wedge it forward, the fan began to make it wide-arcing turn to the left, toward where it would eventually reside.

“As I told you when you boys began,” now that the hard part was over, Eddie was feeling expansive, “it’s all about simple things. As I said, all I need are these three guys, these rollers here and this pry-bar that has been with me for more than twenty years. You are always making things so complicated,” he made a face as if the idea of complexity made him nauseous. “Where has that gotten you? Or the world for that matter?” Louie and Tommy nodded. The Parrot had fallen asleep, wheezing on the tarps. “I’ve seen a lot of that fucked-up world. My family too.” At that he stood still for a moment as if to take in his own understanding of things, “And I can tell you it’s the guys in suits with their fancy educations that have got us into all this trouble.” He paused again, as if trying to remember something lost in time. But he quickly snapped out of his reverie and became the familiar Eddie again, launching a huge globule of phlegm into the corner where it thudded against the wall.

“Enough of this shit, let’s get this done and grab a few beers.”

We did get it done, without even having to work overtime--we had secured the world’s largest fan in place where it would keep the Tishmans comfortable for decades. But I also think I had learned how the great pyramids of Egypt were built! Simple.

* * *

“How’s Heshy doing?” the foreman, Lou Wasserman asked when I arrived at the shanty extra early, two days after we wrestled with the giant fan and one day after I stayed home from work, suffering from a debilitating migraine. Lou was visibly in a state of upset beyond his daily agitation.

“All right, I guess. I was sick all day and didn’t talk with him. I didn’t see him today either since I came into the city by myself.”

“So he didn’t tell you what happened?”

“No, as I said,” now with mounting annoyance, the day after a migraine was not a lot better than the day they struck, “I was sick and stayed in bed with the blinds closed.”

“I know you were sick, but still. . . .”

“What’s going on Lou?” What happened?”

Lou pulled me over to the corner where he had set up a makeshift desk—a piece of plywood on two saw horses. He whispered so as not to be overheard even though there was no one else in the shanty and was unlikely not to be for at least another half an hour. “Since he didn’t tell you, you better sit down.” Which I did. On his stool.

“So you didn’t hear about what happened to Joe Muri?”

Now totally exasperated, I shouted at him, “No! I was sick as a dog. As a matter of fact I felt as if my head had been split open.”

“I better tell you then before the men get here.” Lou couldn’t stand still so half the time he had his back to me and I had to remind him where I was sitting so I could hear what he was saying.

“It was during lunch break yesterday. All the guys were over on the 54th Street side, which has the shade that time of day. The usual, sittin’ around bullshitting. Ogling the girls.” He was talking to himself, having forgotten I was there.

“What happened, Lou? You’re making me crazy.”

“You know the hoist you used for the fan on Monday?” I nodded. “Well the cable came off the pulley on the roof while the guys were out there having their lunch. More than 400 feet of fucking steel cable that must weight at least five tons.”

I gasped. I had recently seen that cable and was beginning to imagine the effect it would have if it slammed into the street from so high up, “What happened Lou?” The left side of my head began to thump from the residue of the migraine.

“Most of the guys saw it coming and jumped up onto the cinder blocks and ducts piled on the street to get out of the way. But when that cable hit the ground it danced around like it was alive. Like a downed power cable still juiced with electricity. Jumping all over the place. But this cable was also like a, what-do-you-call-it, a sickle or a scythe. Slicing and cutting everything it hit, including eight-by-eight wood beams and fourteen-inch iron pipes.” At the recollection of the cable’s destructive power, Lou shuttered and lapsed into silence.

I knew he had more to tell me, “What else happened Lou? You mentioned Joe Muri.” I held my breath, but I could hear his shallow breathing.

“It was bad, very bad.” I remained still, waiting for him to be ready to tell me.

“It cut off his leg. His left leg. That fucking cable. Sliced it right off. Joe’s leg. Like it was cutting cheese.” He began to whimper.

I sat slumped on the stool, shaking from just the telling. The thought of Joe’s leg, his athlete’s leg . . . the horror.

I managed to choke, “Is he all right? I mean . . . .”

“Yeah, he’s alive. Thanks to Heshy.”

“Heshy?" I was stunned. “What did he do?”

“He saved him, he saved Joe. That’s what he did.”

“Tell me Lou.”

“The blood was gushing from the stump and Joe passed right out. In pain I guess and in shock from losing all that blood. Heshy was sitting not far from him. That cable coulda’ killed him to. But he was OK and ran right over to where Joe was and took off his belt and made it into a tourniquet. The cable was still hopping around so it was still dangerous. But Heshy wrapped that belt around Joe’s thigh and tightened it until the blood stopped. I was right there too and watched. I couldn’t believe my eyes--what Heshy did. He would loosen it too, just as they say you have to do to prevent gangrene or whatever. Heshy did that the whole time while waiting for the ambulance.”

Lou needed to pause again to gather himself. My head felt as it was being ripped in half.

“And what’s more,” Lou continued, “while waiting for the medics Heshy found Joe’s leg. The piece that had been cut off. It had been tossed across the street by the cable. It was right there by that jewelry store. Heshy picked it up with his bare hands and carried it back across to where we were. All the guys frozen in place, me too I’m ashamed to admit.” Lou half turned away from me, “Then he asked Eddie Ribori, Heshy did, if he could have his shirt to wrap it up in. To save if for the medics because he said the doctors might be able to reattach it. They can do that now, Heshy said.”

I felt myself fainting.

“And then Heshy went back to where Joe was lying in the gutter, in his own blood, and sat there on the street with him, holding Joe’s head in his lap. Talking to him like Joe was just a kid who fell off his bike or something.”

* * *

I left the shanty before any of the men arrived and wandered around the area all morning. I wasn’t ready to face them and what they had been through. I felt I had somehow let them down by not being there. That I didn’t now deserve to be a part of what they had together experienced. Yes, I had really been sick and there was no way I could get to work. But still.

And then of course, what would I say to Heshy—“I can’t believe it” or “How are you doing?” or “Tell me what happened” or “I heard you saved Joe’s life” or, more complicated, “Congratulations”?

I had a pretty good talk with myself as I drifted from street to street, hardly aware of where I was. I concluded that it was time to stop doing so much pretending and feeling superior and, frankly, to grow up. I was not allowing myself to learn what I needed to learn. It wasn’t about being at Columbia and parading around with my pipe and beret. And it wasn’t about being pre-med and going to medical school or even becoming a doctor.

And all the time I thought I had things to teach Heshy. How ironic!

So as evidence to myself that I was beginning to understand what I needed to do to become someone I could face in the mirror every day for the rest of my life, rather than slink home and hide from what was waiting back at the job, which is what I would have done in the past—run and hide--I realized what was waiting there was much more than the fifteen dollars an hour that had originally attracted me. So, I thought, I had better get my ass in gear and get back there—it was almost lunch time.

* * *

They were out on the street as always, but on the 53rd Street side, away from where the cable fell and where Joe was injured. There was not the usual chatter or whistles and sucking sounds whenever a girl went by, running the gauntlet. Accidents were frequent on construction sites—three men from other trades had already been killed on the Tishman job—but Joe Muri? It was inconceivable. And above all, he was one of us.

Heshy and Eddie Ribori sat together. Tommy and Louie and Marty, the other members of the Bull Gang were there too, but they kept their distance. I walked over to Heshy and Eddie. Heshy looked up at me. I offered a clumsy wave of greeting. He nodded his head as if to say, “It’s OK. I understand.” I sat down on Eddie’s other side. Close to him.

“So as I was telling you last night, my father probably worked in your neighborhood, in Brooklyn. Paving the streets. You said that when you were a kid there were still dirt streets. Well, he worked for the Sicilian Asphalt Company. They did all the streets there back then. It was backbreaking work. They didn’t have the equipment they have today. Just shovels and rakes. On days like this it was so hot that his shoes stuck to the asphalt.” Eddie sighed. “But it paid the rent.

“He was a small man. Maybe five-feet, if he could make himself stand up straight. Which he couldn’t. His dream,” Eddie snorted, “was to have tall sons. Can you believe that?”

Heshy said, “Yes I can. My father is also very short.”

“Well, he had two sons, and both of us turned out this way—still working with our hands. But when I got into the Tin Knockers union, he was very proud. He said, in Italian of course, ‘Only in America.’ He loved America and what he thought it stood for—opportunity. He never heard all the Ginny jokes the ‘real’ Americans threw at us. The ones born here. Either he didn’t understand the English or he closed his ears to them. He wanted so much to believe in this country.” Eddie again grunted ironically.

“Let me tell you I also bought all that bullshit. I had a son too. And I wanted to be sure he never had to do this,” Eddie gestured at the men sprawled out around us. “He went to school, even college. That was my American dream—that he’d be a college boy like you.” He looked just at Heshy. “And unlike you, maybe he wouldn’t be a doctor, but maybe he would get a good job at a bank or an insurance company. Be an executive. Make a decent living. Own a house, not be a slave to the landlord like me and his grandfather. He’d have kids of his own too. Then my grandkids would be our doctors.”

Eddie then sat for some time, not speaking, staring off at nothing.

“What’s he doing now?” Heshy finally ventured.

More time passed. Then Eddie said, hardly audible, “He’s dead. He was killed. Ten years ago. In Korea. Up by the Inchon reservoir. That motherfucker Truman sent him there. Took him out of college just when he was doing well.”

After a moment Heshy put his hand on Eddie’s shoulder, “I’m sorry.”

Eddie sat there slumped forward, nodding his head at Heshy’s touch, but quickly pulled himself up and squared those bull-like shoulders. “Let me tell you though what I learned from all this. Defiance. Not anger. I got passed that. I know what I just said about Truman. I’m still angry with him. But toward life I stand defiant. Not what happened to Eddie Junior, not anything is going to defeat me. I still believe in the future.”

And then he turned to me and then to Heshy and said, “In you guys for example. I believe in you. Both of you.” He locked eyes with each of us in turn.

He hauled himself up from the nail keg where he had been sitting and said, “It’s time to get back to work. We’re not done here yet. Let’s take more of the Tishman’s money.”

But before joining Tommy and Louie and Marty, his men, to go back up to the fan room—there were still more to do there, Heshy and I were back unloading trucks—he turned to face us and said, “See you later Lloyd.”

And to Heshy, “You too Doc.”