(no subject)
I am such an utter dork. All of this thinking about immigrants wandering around in Deit has made me want to write very wrong historical fiction about immigrants wandering around in the United States.
. . . at least I'm not writing that drabble with Matteo Ricci and Kwan Yin that I spent a good hour of work wanting to write?
He was Irish, and so he was by definition "Red." There were at least six "Reds" at the factory and another eight at the tracks, and until someone learned that even Irishmen had Christian names, he would live life answering to someone else's summons and taking someone else's orders. In the stifling heat of the factory, as he helped turn out pieces of locomotives so that American men could conquer their American wilderness in their American way, Red O'Sullivan felt more Irish than he ever had in Ireland.
The work was better here--harder, but better, he knew, and he checked the grimy clock that hung centered on a support beam for any sign that it was over. They had taken to blowing a train whistle when the work was over, but Red frankly didn't trust the train whistle or the people who blew it. The clock had said twelve past last night when they'd finally blown the damned thing, and twenty-three past the time before, and even Czeslaw had grumbled mutinous words in Polish when the boss had blown the whistle a grand total of forty-six minutes after time.
Czeslaw Zatorsky was living with Red, or Red was living with the Polack, or something like that. If Czeslaw had spoken enough English to keep up his end of the conversation beyond "Rent late" and "work now" and, on a few brief but memorable occasions, "Sleep--talk too much," then they might have been able to work out their arrangements to greater satisfaction than simply sharing a room the size of bed and a bed the size of a matchbox.
It was seventeen past time, and they were holding the whistle over again. That was what it was about, after all; the damned Americans wringing every drop out of the Polacks and the Reds and the God-knew-who-else. Sweat of the brow, piss in the corner, blood often as not; the Americans wrung them dry, paid for every cent, and made the newcomers want to keep getting wrung dry for the sake of those precious pennies.
This was what it meant to be an American.
At last, at twenty-nine and three quarters past, the train whistle blew over the toiling mass of men, and every last one of them did the customary inventory of his fellows as they queued up to get the hell out of there: fingers, right-o; teeth, present; nasty knock to this one's back, but he'll live; bruises, scrapes, cuts, burns, all where they were yesterday, but with friends.
Czeslaw was prodding one of his fingers as though he'd mashed it, and Red spared him a wince out of sympathy but didn't ask. He had no idea if the Polack had the English for "I see you smashed your finger" and "does it hurt?"
He was almost sure that Czeslaw Zatorsky didn't have the English for that. No one asked it at the factory; they damned well knew that it hurt and didn't want to be reminded.
The gaslamps made the hazy, hot streets into a pretty maze of soft light, and Red wondered if Eileen would like the sight.
Finicky woman would have said that it was far too hot for her, could they please get a breath of air down by the river?
"Would you like to go down to the river for a spell?" Red asked before he remembered that Czeslaw hadn't much English.
For a long moment, a moment like the first breath of air outside the factory, the Polack looked the Irishman up and down. He had thick, heavy hands and a broad face set with rather sharp eyes--Czeslaw had them, and he had a missing tooth on the bottom. Red had pulled it out himself when it had gotten too rotten to leave in, and he remembered that night a bit too clearly when Czeslaw smiled.
The Polack didn't speak, but the two of them walked down to the river in companionable silence.
Some time ago, when America was young and still idealistic, she'd put up a bridge over the river for carriages to cross; Red laughed a little at the thought of tricked-out Founding Fathers jouncing over the old stone bridge with their carriage-wheels squeaking, but a train whistle swallowed his laugh away and carried over the new tracks that crossed the bridge.
Progress chugged onward, and Czeslaw cast stones into the river to watch them skip once-twice-thrice before sinking away in the moonlight.
"Eileen wouldn't like it much here," Red told the train as he watched it roll over the bridge; he couldn't even hear himself. "Too noisy. Too hot. No green left by this way."
Content to leave the rest of the stones where they lay, Czeslaw stretched himself out on the bank with his head pillowed on a half-dead scrub of grass and his hands curled up in front of him like an infant's. No unease there; nothing but a furtive motion like a shadow in the wind that was Czeslaw stroking his mashed finger.
The train clanked away into the darkness, taking with it coal and steel and all of the bones of progress but none of the soul.
This was the soul--this here, where Czeslaw lay on the bank and Red stood against one of the bridge's stone legs. This, here, where two men who couldn't understand each other watched a train that they understood less roll into a future that they understood least of all.
They would need to be getting back soon to sleep off tonight's work and get ready for tomorrow's, but still Red stood and watched the tail-lamp of the train fade away and away and away. He couldn't hear the clank and chug any longer. He could barely even hear his own breath on the thick air.
That was progress, Red knew, and far away, the train whistle blew.
. . . at least I'm not writing that drabble with Matteo Ricci and Kwan Yin that I spent a good hour of work wanting to write?
He was Irish, and so he was by definition "Red." There were at least six "Reds" at the factory and another eight at the tracks, and until someone learned that even Irishmen had Christian names, he would live life answering to someone else's summons and taking someone else's orders. In the stifling heat of the factory, as he helped turn out pieces of locomotives so that American men could conquer their American wilderness in their American way, Red O'Sullivan felt more Irish than he ever had in Ireland.
The work was better here--harder, but better, he knew, and he checked the grimy clock that hung centered on a support beam for any sign that it was over. They had taken to blowing a train whistle when the work was over, but Red frankly didn't trust the train whistle or the people who blew it. The clock had said twelve past last night when they'd finally blown the damned thing, and twenty-three past the time before, and even Czeslaw had grumbled mutinous words in Polish when the boss had blown the whistle a grand total of forty-six minutes after time.
Czeslaw Zatorsky was living with Red, or Red was living with the Polack, or something like that. If Czeslaw had spoken enough English to keep up his end of the conversation beyond "Rent late" and "work now" and, on a few brief but memorable occasions, "Sleep--talk too much," then they might have been able to work out their arrangements to greater satisfaction than simply sharing a room the size of bed and a bed the size of a matchbox.
It was seventeen past time, and they were holding the whistle over again. That was what it was about, after all; the damned Americans wringing every drop out of the Polacks and the Reds and the God-knew-who-else. Sweat of the brow, piss in the corner, blood often as not; the Americans wrung them dry, paid for every cent, and made the newcomers want to keep getting wrung dry for the sake of those precious pennies.
This was what it meant to be an American.
At last, at twenty-nine and three quarters past, the train whistle blew over the toiling mass of men, and every last one of them did the customary inventory of his fellows as they queued up to get the hell out of there: fingers, right-o; teeth, present; nasty knock to this one's back, but he'll live; bruises, scrapes, cuts, burns, all where they were yesterday, but with friends.
Czeslaw was prodding one of his fingers as though he'd mashed it, and Red spared him a wince out of sympathy but didn't ask. He had no idea if the Polack had the English for "I see you smashed your finger" and "does it hurt?"
He was almost sure that Czeslaw Zatorsky didn't have the English for that. No one asked it at the factory; they damned well knew that it hurt and didn't want to be reminded.
The gaslamps made the hazy, hot streets into a pretty maze of soft light, and Red wondered if Eileen would like the sight.
Finicky woman would have said that it was far too hot for her, could they please get a breath of air down by the river?
"Would you like to go down to the river for a spell?" Red asked before he remembered that Czeslaw hadn't much English.
For a long moment, a moment like the first breath of air outside the factory, the Polack looked the Irishman up and down. He had thick, heavy hands and a broad face set with rather sharp eyes--Czeslaw had them, and he had a missing tooth on the bottom. Red had pulled it out himself when it had gotten too rotten to leave in, and he remembered that night a bit too clearly when Czeslaw smiled.
The Polack didn't speak, but the two of them walked down to the river in companionable silence.
Some time ago, when America was young and still idealistic, she'd put up a bridge over the river for carriages to cross; Red laughed a little at the thought of tricked-out Founding Fathers jouncing over the old stone bridge with their carriage-wheels squeaking, but a train whistle swallowed his laugh away and carried over the new tracks that crossed the bridge.
Progress chugged onward, and Czeslaw cast stones into the river to watch them skip once-twice-thrice before sinking away in the moonlight.
"Eileen wouldn't like it much here," Red told the train as he watched it roll over the bridge; he couldn't even hear himself. "Too noisy. Too hot. No green left by this way."
Content to leave the rest of the stones where they lay, Czeslaw stretched himself out on the bank with his head pillowed on a half-dead scrub of grass and his hands curled up in front of him like an infant's. No unease there; nothing but a furtive motion like a shadow in the wind that was Czeslaw stroking his mashed finger.
The train clanked away into the darkness, taking with it coal and steel and all of the bones of progress but none of the soul.
This was the soul--this here, where Czeslaw lay on the bank and Red stood against one of the bridge's stone legs. This, here, where two men who couldn't understand each other watched a train that they understood less roll into a future that they understood least of all.
They would need to be getting back soon to sleep off tonight's work and get ready for tomorrow's, but still Red stood and watched the tail-lamp of the train fade away and away and away. He couldn't hear the clank and chug any longer. He could barely even hear his own breath on the thick air.
That was progress, Red knew, and far away, the train whistle blew.