Tales from Ingot Mold: The Rigger-Biker War
I mentioned the riggers in my last story about Dad’s experiences at the Bethlehem Steel; they were one of the roughest and best paid shops in the entire company, and they knew it. The riggers did all the work on the high steel, often balancing on I-beams in wind or snow or rain. They often brought their young sons in to send them walking along the beams, explaining that if you didn’t get over your fear of heights at a young age you’d never conquer it. They also would bring beer in to drink for lunch -- though they originally used to go to a nearby bar for their beer, until, well…
The owner of this bar was not a Steel worker himself, but he got on well with them. Like a lot of local businesses, the bars and grocery stores and nickel-and-dime department stores and restaurants, most of his business came from the Steel workers and their families and he knew it. Some places were favored by one shop or the other. Violating these unofficial territories never lead to much more than pranks and the like, but since this bar belonged to the riggers and they were known for getting rough with people (what was the company going to do, fire them? No rigger would backstab another rigger; and no scab would dare stay on the job 100’ in the air alongside men who hated him) the place was avoided by wise people.
But while the place was noisy and rough, the riggers kept their own peace inside. Dad and Zeke once got to drink a round inside because they knew one rigger, named Joe (though he had such a heavy Slav accent it came out more like “Cho”), a beer barrel of a Slovak. Dad remembered the place as looking rather industrial and working-class, with sawdust on the floor, wooden tables and chairs, and framed pictures along the walls of riggers who’d gone on to that Big Construction Project In The Sky, either due to old age, sickness, or (rather rarely) lethal falls. The riggers themselves, despite their own rather fearless attitude about their work, took such deaths seriously enough to call off whenever one happened, first attending the funeral and then waking their fallen comrade at the rigger bar for most of a day, sharing stories of him and other heroes of yesteryear, before returning to work after their hangovers went away. Really, save for a decided lack of valkyries, that bar was effectively Rigger Valhalla. The bar owner was also a favorite with the local cops, due to his custom of giving one free drink to any officer on patrol (cold beer in summer, Irish coffee in winter) who dropped by.
But then the old owner died and his cousin took over and things changed.
The new owner considered himself a rebel, and fondly imagined himself as an outlaw biker. And he had no use for either “pig cops” or “working class suckers”. Down came the pictures of riggers, to be replaced by Marlon Brando from The Wild One and dudes on Harleys. He never really got actual for-real One Percenters in; more like One Percenter fanboys in leather jackets and riding Japanese motorcycles. Real Harleys were a rare sight at that bar. And the new owner and his wife were unafraid to let the old favorites know that they weren’t welcome anymore in the most obnoxious ways. When a pair of cops on patrol showed up on a snowy night, hoping for the traditional freebie, the new owner not only chased them out, he called their station house and got them in trouble for drinking on duty (the local police sergeants and captains all knew about the place, of course, but since the owner only gave out one drink each officer per shift they’d ignored it). He then crowed about it to his wannabe biker buddies. They all had a good laugh over putting one over on the ”pigs”. The local cops ground their teeth and awaited a chance for revenge.
Then it was the riggers’ turn. Joe the Rigger want to the place one day after his shift; he was the first man there and the place was otherwise filled with wall-to-wall bikers. This was also the first a rigger had been in the place since it re-opened, and his first question to Sid the new bartender/owner was, “Hey, vere did all uff the pitchers go?”
“In the trash,” Sid gloatingly told him. “I ain’t my cousin, I ain’t gonna waste time on you chump riggers. Here’s your beer,” he all but threw the bottle at Joe, “now drink up and get out!” Joe scowled at him and began walking over to a corner table. And as he did,, he bumped the elbow of the biker who was fancied the leader of this outfit, mostly because he looked vaguely like Brando. Brando jumped up cursing.
“Sorry dere,” Joe said in his heavy accent.
“Sorry, you stinking Slovak?” The man rose to his feet and knocked the beer out of Joe’s hands. “Not yet you ain’t sorry. Now you get on your knees and apologize --” and that was as far as he got, because Joe immediately punched him square in the mouth. Biker Brando went sprawling to the floor. He leapt back to his feet, cursing furiously, and flew at Joe, who promptly knocked him flat again. This went on for three or four more rounds, with Brando getting back up and promptly getting knocked right back down again by Joe. Finally, after he collected a black eye, broken nose and a bloody lip, he slowly rose again.
“Chust lie down, you stupid boy,” Joe told him gravely. “I am tired of hitting you in front of your friends.” That was the wrong thing to say, as it reminded Brando of them.
Brando promptly turned to his gang and said, “Hey, what are you doing, just sitting there and letting that Slovak beat me up? Help me teach him a lesson!” And with that the whole gang, over a dozen strong, jumped poor old Joe and beat him bloody. He fought bravely and handed out several black eyes, but the end is as the old saying goes: one cannot stand against many. Joe ended up with broken bones and went to the hospital.
It didn’t take the Riggers long to learn what had happened, and where. The whole Steel held its collective breath, wondering what sort of vengeance the riggers would wreak. Brando and his bikers were out of town by this time, having apparently headed off to some biker meet out of state. And Sid was just plain avoided by all his cousin’s old customers (which left him and his wife annoyed to realize just how much business those people had been).. The other shops, the local cops, Steel management, in fact everyone but Sid and Brando, was left wondering what would happen. But as the weeks went by and Joe came back on the job and nothing happened, everyone began to think that maybe the riggers were going to let it go. Sid and Brando and their gang certainly thought so, publicly rejoicing in their victory over the “Slovaks” and “Bohunks” at the Steel.
But there is another old saying: a fool takes vengeance at once and a coward never. The riggers were neither of those things, but they were patient. And so they had someone keep an eye on Sid’s bar, and then one day the word reached them: Sid was there and so was Brando and his gang.
Dad remembers taking lunch with Zeke when suddenly every single rigger on the shift was coming down in the elevators and stairs as fast as they could. About thirty or forty grim-faced men assembled in a body at the main gate and then headed out, a cold fury in their eyes. One of the plant managers came out of the office and headed for them, obviously about to start demanding an explanation, but when he took one look at their eyes he backed off.
Zeke asked my father: “Hinkle, you got any idea what’s going on?” When Dad assured him that he didn’t, Zeke just looked after the riggers and said, “Whoever got them that mad ain’t going to be happy that he did.”
About two hours later the riggers returned. Some of them showed the signs of battle; black eyes and bloody noses and torn clothes. They first got the plant manager out and told him, “We took care of some business. Never you mind what. But to make up for it we’ll work two hours free after work today to cover for it.” And that was that for the moment.
After work, Zeke told Dad, “Come on, Hinkle, I think I know what happened and I want to see.” So Dad went along with Zeke to Sid’s Bar, and they found the place cordoned off by the cops. All the windows were smashed out, broken furniture was lying on the sidewalk outside, and the door was off of its hinges. Sid was outside yelling at two very amused looking police officers. The motorcycles were lying around too, looking as though someone had driven a truck over them. The bikers themselves were nowhere in evidence.
Dad and Zeke quietly walked over to one police officer they knew and asked him, “Hey, Ed, what happened here?”
“Well, you remember what happened to old Joe a few months back, don’t you? The riggers were watching the place and today they found out that Brando and his gang were in town and celebrating. So they came over and kicked the door in. Then they walked in and said, ‘We’re friends of old Joe. We’re gonna beat the sh*t out of you a**holes!’ And then they did just that! What a fight!” The officer shook his head appreciatively. “There ain’t a single stick of furniture or bottle of booze left in one piece in there. They even tore the pay phone off the wall and hit someone with it!”
“Hey, didn’t the owner call you?”
“Him?” Ed snorted. “Yeah, he did. And when he told me what was happening, I laughed at him and said, ‘You don’t like cops, so deal with your own problems!’”
“And what about the bikes?”
“Oh, them! One rigger brought this good-sized truck down here, and while everyone was fighting inside he drove it over the bikes and then he backed it over them 2 or 3 times. The bikers are on their way to the hospital, all except for Brando. The riggers tried to get him but all they got was his leather jacket; he ran too fast and got away to hide. When we got here he started yelling and screaming how we had to go and arrest every Slovak in town. He carried on so much we had to arrest him for making a public disturbance.”
And that was the end of the Rigger-Biker War. It was also the end of that gang of biker wannabes and of Sid’s Bar. He left town and the riggers eventually found a new watering hole. And what they did to avenge Joe’s beating became a local legend for many years afterwards. It was a long, long time before anyone tried making trouble for the Bethlehem Steel riggers again.
The owner of this bar was not a Steel worker himself, but he got on well with them. Like a lot of local businesses, the bars and grocery stores and nickel-and-dime department stores and restaurants, most of his business came from the Steel workers and their families and he knew it. Some places were favored by one shop or the other. Violating these unofficial territories never lead to much more than pranks and the like, but since this bar belonged to the riggers and they were known for getting rough with people (what was the company going to do, fire them? No rigger would backstab another rigger; and no scab would dare stay on the job 100’ in the air alongside men who hated him) the place was avoided by wise people.
But while the place was noisy and rough, the riggers kept their own peace inside. Dad and Zeke once got to drink a round inside because they knew one rigger, named Joe (though he had such a heavy Slav accent it came out more like “Cho”), a beer barrel of a Slovak. Dad remembered the place as looking rather industrial and working-class, with sawdust on the floor, wooden tables and chairs, and framed pictures along the walls of riggers who’d gone on to that Big Construction Project In The Sky, either due to old age, sickness, or (rather rarely) lethal falls. The riggers themselves, despite their own rather fearless attitude about their work, took such deaths seriously enough to call off whenever one happened, first attending the funeral and then waking their fallen comrade at the rigger bar for most of a day, sharing stories of him and other heroes of yesteryear, before returning to work after their hangovers went away. Really, save for a decided lack of valkyries, that bar was effectively Rigger Valhalla. The bar owner was also a favorite with the local cops, due to his custom of giving one free drink to any officer on patrol (cold beer in summer, Irish coffee in winter) who dropped by.
But then the old owner died and his cousin took over and things changed.
The new owner considered himself a rebel, and fondly imagined himself as an outlaw biker. And he had no use for either “pig cops” or “working class suckers”. Down came the pictures of riggers, to be replaced by Marlon Brando from The Wild One and dudes on Harleys. He never really got actual for-real One Percenters in; more like One Percenter fanboys in leather jackets and riding Japanese motorcycles. Real Harleys were a rare sight at that bar. And the new owner and his wife were unafraid to let the old favorites know that they weren’t welcome anymore in the most obnoxious ways. When a pair of cops on patrol showed up on a snowy night, hoping for the traditional freebie, the new owner not only chased them out, he called their station house and got them in trouble for drinking on duty (the local police sergeants and captains all knew about the place, of course, but since the owner only gave out one drink each officer per shift they’d ignored it). He then crowed about it to his wannabe biker buddies. They all had a good laugh over putting one over on the ”pigs”. The local cops ground their teeth and awaited a chance for revenge.
Then it was the riggers’ turn. Joe the Rigger want to the place one day after his shift; he was the first man there and the place was otherwise filled with wall-to-wall bikers. This was also the first a rigger had been in the place since it re-opened, and his first question to Sid the new bartender/owner was, “Hey, vere did all uff the pitchers go?”
“In the trash,” Sid gloatingly told him. “I ain’t my cousin, I ain’t gonna waste time on you chump riggers. Here’s your beer,” he all but threw the bottle at Joe, “now drink up and get out!” Joe scowled at him and began walking over to a corner table. And as he did,, he bumped the elbow of the biker who was fancied the leader of this outfit, mostly because he looked vaguely like Brando. Brando jumped up cursing.
“Sorry dere,” Joe said in his heavy accent.
“Sorry, you stinking Slovak?” The man rose to his feet and knocked the beer out of Joe’s hands. “Not yet you ain’t sorry. Now you get on your knees and apologize --” and that was as far as he got, because Joe immediately punched him square in the mouth. Biker Brando went sprawling to the floor. He leapt back to his feet, cursing furiously, and flew at Joe, who promptly knocked him flat again. This went on for three or four more rounds, with Brando getting back up and promptly getting knocked right back down again by Joe. Finally, after he collected a black eye, broken nose and a bloody lip, he slowly rose again.
“Chust lie down, you stupid boy,” Joe told him gravely. “I am tired of hitting you in front of your friends.” That was the wrong thing to say, as it reminded Brando of them.
Brando promptly turned to his gang and said, “Hey, what are you doing, just sitting there and letting that Slovak beat me up? Help me teach him a lesson!” And with that the whole gang, over a dozen strong, jumped poor old Joe and beat him bloody. He fought bravely and handed out several black eyes, but the end is as the old saying goes: one cannot stand against many. Joe ended up with broken bones and went to the hospital.
It didn’t take the Riggers long to learn what had happened, and where. The whole Steel held its collective breath, wondering what sort of vengeance the riggers would wreak. Brando and his bikers were out of town by this time, having apparently headed off to some biker meet out of state. And Sid was just plain avoided by all his cousin’s old customers (which left him and his wife annoyed to realize just how much business those people had been).. The other shops, the local cops, Steel management, in fact everyone but Sid and Brando, was left wondering what would happen. But as the weeks went by and Joe came back on the job and nothing happened, everyone began to think that maybe the riggers were going to let it go. Sid and Brando and their gang certainly thought so, publicly rejoicing in their victory over the “Slovaks” and “Bohunks” at the Steel.
But there is another old saying: a fool takes vengeance at once and a coward never. The riggers were neither of those things, but they were patient. And so they had someone keep an eye on Sid’s bar, and then one day the word reached them: Sid was there and so was Brando and his gang.
Dad remembers taking lunch with Zeke when suddenly every single rigger on the shift was coming down in the elevators and stairs as fast as they could. About thirty or forty grim-faced men assembled in a body at the main gate and then headed out, a cold fury in their eyes. One of the plant managers came out of the office and headed for them, obviously about to start demanding an explanation, but when he took one look at their eyes he backed off.
Zeke asked my father: “Hinkle, you got any idea what’s going on?” When Dad assured him that he didn’t, Zeke just looked after the riggers and said, “Whoever got them that mad ain’t going to be happy that he did.”
About two hours later the riggers returned. Some of them showed the signs of battle; black eyes and bloody noses and torn clothes. They first got the plant manager out and told him, “We took care of some business. Never you mind what. But to make up for it we’ll work two hours free after work today to cover for it.” And that was that for the moment.
After work, Zeke told Dad, “Come on, Hinkle, I think I know what happened and I want to see.” So Dad went along with Zeke to Sid’s Bar, and they found the place cordoned off by the cops. All the windows were smashed out, broken furniture was lying on the sidewalk outside, and the door was off of its hinges. Sid was outside yelling at two very amused looking police officers. The motorcycles were lying around too, looking as though someone had driven a truck over them. The bikers themselves were nowhere in evidence.
Dad and Zeke quietly walked over to one police officer they knew and asked him, “Hey, Ed, what happened here?”
“Well, you remember what happened to old Joe a few months back, don’t you? The riggers were watching the place and today they found out that Brando and his gang were in town and celebrating. So they came over and kicked the door in. Then they walked in and said, ‘We’re friends of old Joe. We’re gonna beat the sh*t out of you a**holes!’ And then they did just that! What a fight!” The officer shook his head appreciatively. “There ain’t a single stick of furniture or bottle of booze left in one piece in there. They even tore the pay phone off the wall and hit someone with it!”
“Hey, didn’t the owner call you?”
“Him?” Ed snorted. “Yeah, he did. And when he told me what was happening, I laughed at him and said, ‘You don’t like cops, so deal with your own problems!’”
“And what about the bikes?”
“Oh, them! One rigger brought this good-sized truck down here, and while everyone was fighting inside he drove it over the bikes and then he backed it over them 2 or 3 times. The bikers are on their way to the hospital, all except for Brando. The riggers tried to get him but all they got was his leather jacket; he ran too fast and got away to hide. When we got here he started yelling and screaming how we had to go and arrest every Slovak in town. He carried on so much we had to arrest him for making a public disturbance.”
And that was the end of the Rigger-Biker War. It was also the end of that gang of biker wannabes and of Sid’s Bar. He left town and the riggers eventually found a new watering hole. And what they did to avenge Joe’s beating became a local legend for many years afterwards. It was a long, long time before anyone tried making trouble for the Bethlehem Steel riggers again.