I felt a strong shit coming. The subway bounced. That didn’t help. There was nothing delightful about the port-o-johns waiting for my deposit at the job. It was Friday, which meant the shit would be piled above the rim of the toilet and the rotting stench would make me dizzy.
I finished shitting. Big Mike was waiting for me by the loading dock, next to a big, steal passenger hoist. The Ironworkers waited in their rusty jeans. I never spoke that early in the morning and no one expected me to. We glided up the side of the building in the blue cage, the big river shrinking below us, the orange sun passing the moon above the city skyline.
Big Mike was my partner. “You feel okay today?” His cap covered his ears despite the warm temperature that morning. He kept himself clean shaved. “I don’t know why you shit in those things,” he said, watching the skeleton of the tenth floor pass by. “I told you to go over to the fucking offices next door and tell them you know Big Mike. It’s clean there. There’s a lock on the door. Soft toilet paper. Those things are disgusting. You can get diseases."
The cage bounced to a stop and the gears grinded one hundred fifty feet above the ground.
“Thirteen,” Paulie yelled. He lifted the gate and anyone who wanted to get out did so, but not before making some sort of comment about the bouncy ride.
“I’m taking the stairs from now on,” one guy said dragging his tools over the gap between the hoist and the edge of the building.
“Go ahead, be my guest,” Paulie said. “I’m tired of your fucking breath any way.”
On his way out of the hoist Big Mike squeezed Paulie’s arm. “I told you not to call it thirteen. I’m not working on the thirteenth floor.”
“That’s what it says on the floor Big Mike.”
“I don’t care,” Big Mike said. “Call it fourteen or twelve and a half or something fucking else, but don’t call it thirteen.”
“Alright already,” a clean-cut electrician said from the back of the cage.
Big Mike turned around and faced the few remaining passengers; big guys with tool belts and scars. “Shut the fuck up before I throw you off the building,” he said. “Today is the day somebody’s going off the side of the fucking building.”
He’d say that every day and it became amusing to anyone who knew him. He could have done it. Rumor was he did over a wise crack two decades before.
Paulie closed the gate and the hoist continued up the side of the building.
“Before I went to the can I would-a thrown that fuck off the fucking building,” Big Mike said.
We stood at the edge looking into the windows of the dark offices next to us. Heights didn’t bother me at that point; neither did the thought of dieing by accident. A janitor closed the blinds on a window. In another window an early arrival in a tie and sitting at his desk rubbed his eyes.
A carpenter swung a hammer into the dry wall behind us. His flannel shirt was white from the drywall dust. “Fucking son-of-a-bitches say one thing, I do it and then they say no, change it, do it like this, the plumber has to come in and do this. Fuck them, this is the last time I do it.”
“What the fuck you complaining about?” Big Mike said. “So what if you got to do it again. They pay you enough.”
The guy looked at Mike like he was an asshole. He was probably right, but Big Mike was my partner so he never gave me shit. We were only laborers, the lowest guys around, but Big Mike had something on everybody- he was connected, at least he said he was. He kept quiet when the feds busted him and he spent fourteen years in the clink. The top guys don’t forget that.
“Fucking idiot,” Mike said. He took off his hat and brushed his hair over the bald spot on his head. “Somebody should throw that dumb fuck off the side of the fucking building.” He peeked over the edge and then looked back at the carpenter leaning over his gang box, pictures of naked models fingering themselves taped to the inside. “When I was in the can guys would hang pictures like that all over their cell. I could hear them jerking off at night. I couldn’t sleep. I’d get maybe three hours a night. Now I get maybe four in my sister’s basement. She puts a load in the dryer at midnight and I’m like, how am I supposed to sleep through that g-dunk, g-dunk.”
Besides our job as laborers, the basement was the only other thing Big Mike and I had in common. I lived in my parent’s basement and he lived in his sister’s. But he was fifty-six and I was twenty-five and I had never done any prison time.
Carlos came up behind us with two yellow rolls of caution tape.
“What?” Big Mike said.
“Chief wants us to start taping the side of the building off with this.” Carlos was only nineteen and he had already gotten himself into debt with a local bookie. He was a real nice kid but that didn’t make a difference to the guy he owed six thousand dollars to. Now his arm was in a cast and he wasn’t good for much except getting coffee break and directing traffic when delivery trucks backed into the loading dock.
Mike looked at the yellow tape. “Okay. This should prevent someone from falling off the side of the fucking building. What idiot came up with this idea?”
“Chief told me to do it,” Carlos said.
“Chief’s an idiot.” Big Mike reached into his pocket and pulled out a small fold of cash. He held up a ten for Carlos. “Go get us some coffee.”
Carlos hated saying no to Big Mike. “Chief said not to leave the job anymore unless it’s coffee time or lunch.”
“That’s what I want,” Mike said. “I want coffee.”
“He meant like 9 o’clock coffee time. They want to lay me off already. I can’t get fucking laid off Big Mike”
“I want coffee now. I’ll have it at nine too.”
“I-wha-I,” Carlos stuttered.
“Wha-wha-wha,” Mike repeated. “Take the fucking money and go get us some coffee. Get yourself something too.”
Carlos shook his head. “C’mon Mike. Chief’s gonna fuck me, man. He’s keeping me working, man.”
“Don’t call me fucking man,” Mike said, squeezing Carlos’s shoulder with his hand. “The spics say man. I ain’t a spic.”
“No shit. I’m a spic,” Carlos said.
“Don’t say that about your self.” Mike shoved him along. “Go.”
“Fuck,” Carlos said as he waddled off in his baggy pants.
Big Mike threw a pebble of something at Carlos. “And don’t go to that truck for coffee, go to the bagel store. I hate that truck, it’s shit water.”
I didn’t know why I was there, standing next to Big Mike, leaning up against my push broom. I hated my job. I hated myself. I hated Big Mike.
“You alright kid?” Big Mike asked. “You’re quiet. I don’t like when you’re quiet. It makes me feel like something’s wrong with you.”
“Nothing’s wrong,” I decided to say.
“How’s your dad?”
“He’s fine.”
“Tell him I said hello when you see him.”
“I will.”
“Tell him they got Mexican’s sweeping up and cleaning up the water in the basement. They got like ten of them down there. That’s our work. In the can the wetbacks were the worst.”
“I’ll tell him.”
We started with the caution tape, wrapping it around a concrete column and pulling it to the next column to wrap it around. But it lagged between the columns and touched the concrete floor.
Chief came behind us. He was a biker from old Bayonne, arms covered in tattoos and a bandana tied around his head under his hard hat. “Anyone see Carlos?”
“No,” Big Mike said. “Check the third floor. He likes to hang out down there with his friends and talk about rap music.”
“I checked down there, he’s not,” Chief said.
“I don’t know then,” Big Mike said.
Chief looked over our progress. “Yo, the tape is falling onto the floor. You can’t do that.”
“Do what,” Mike said.
“It’s got to be tight between the columns man. Someone could step right over that shit.”
Mike tossed the roll of tape onto the floor and brushed the little hair he had under his hat. “Oh, and this?” He tore a piece of tape in two. “Is this going to stop someone from walking off the side of the building? Besides, if someone’s dumb enough to walk off the side of the fucking building they should fall to their death. What, am I God? It’d be nice, but I don’t think so. Whoever is, is doing a pretty fucking shitty job.”
Chief picked up the roll of tape. “OSHA fined Belvis the other day so they have to put some sort of warning up along the perimeters. I’m not saying it’s going to save lives. It’s for show so do it right or you have to do it again.”
“I’ll do it all day,” Big Mike said.
“Do it right or I’ll find someone else to do it. Where’s Carlos? He could do it with one arm.”
“I told you I don’t know where he is,” Mike said.
“You guys got to put hard hats on. OSHA can see you from the ground standing on the edge of the building.”
“Fuck OSHA,” Big Mike said.
Chief looked at me. “I’ll get some harnesses too. You don’t have to tie up but at least from the ground it’ll look like you’re tied up. They’re taking pictures and laying down some heavy fines.”
“What the fuck you care, you got to pay the fines?” Mike said.
“I don’t have to pay shit, but if they keep losing money on fines we’re going to lose our overtime and I know you don’t want that old man.”
Big Mike would’ve worked twenty-four hour shifts if they let him. “Now we’re speaking the same English. They take my overtime I’ll take someone’s life.”
Chief looked at me again and smiled. “What, you party late last night?”
“No,” I said.
“You get laid at least?”
“No.”
“Mind your own fucking business,” Big Mike said.
Chief looked at my eyes. “You look like shit.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“Leave the kid alone,” Big Mike said. “He’s thinking about chicks.”
“No I’m not. I’m not thinking about anything.”
“Me and Bernie are going to The Bear for lunch,” Chief said.
Mike put his hand up against Chief’s chest. “Don’t influence the kid. He’s been taking it easy.”
“Bullshit,” Chief said. “My ass easy. The only thing going down easy is a cold beer and another cold beer and then another cold beer. A couple shots in between.”
“Maybe,” I said.
Chief shoved Mike. “Stop working for once and come with us.”
Big Mike shoved Chief back. “I can’t go to a bar. I got my probation.”
Chief smirked. “Who gives a fuck, it’s beer, it’s legal, right? Have a ginger ale.”
Mike took the caution tape from Chief. “Not for me. Let me do my job.”
“Okay you old fuck,” Chief said. “If you see that little spic fuck tell him to call me on the radio. I give him a radio so I can get a hold of him and he doesn’t answer it. The kid’s a fucking idiot.”
“Carlos ain’t an idiot,” Big Mike said. “He looks up to you fucking assholes and he thinks it cool shit to bet on the games even if he’s got no money. He’s gonna end up dead or in prison.”
“That’s his fault, I warned him,” Chief said. Then he looked at me. “You sure you’re alright?”
“Fine,” I said.
“Come to the Bear with me and Bernie, I’ll buy you a beer.”
“I will.”
“See, you got the kid drinking at lunch,” Big Mike said.
Carlos walked up with coffees and Chief looked like someone stole his motorcycle. “Where the fuck was you?”
Carlos handed us our coffees and threw the empty bag off the edge of the building and it road away on a wave of wind.
“I told him to get us coffees,” Big Mike said, lifting the lid on the cup and blowing away the hot steam rising.
“You get me nothing,” Chief said.
“I didn’t know you wanted something,” Carlos said.
“Next time,” Mike said.
“No more of this, I told you that,” Chief said. “Who told you you could leave the building?”
“I told him to get some coffee,” Big Mike said. “The kid’s no good with his arm like that.”
“I’m your boss.” Chief pointed at Mike. “Not this clown.”
“Fuck you,” Mike said.
“Next time you can go shape the hall,” Chief said to Carlos. “There’s three fucking trucks trying to pull in at the same time so get the fuck down there before the cops show up because the traffics all fucked up and find Jerry and he’s going to want to know where the fuck you are. I’m trying to keep you here with one arm and Jerry wants you gone so fucking shape up and stop listening to this fuck.”
“Fuck you,” Big Mike said. “Tell Jerry to go fuck himself too.”
Chief kicked the floor with the heal of his boot. “Oh, check this out Big Mike. Red Wings are on sale at the fucking shoe outlet on 22, what’s it called, I forgot, but… buy one pair get another pair free. Fucking nice, right?”
Big Mike lifted his hat revealing the loose strands of hair pasted to his forehead. The scar above his right eye was where they got him his first night in prison. “Red Wings, no shit. They go for one-fifty, one-seventy-five most places.”
“Right,” Chief said. “I couldn’t believe it. I got a winter pair too. There good for up to, or down I mean, to 15 degrees.”
“It’s going to be a cold winter,” I said.
“What the fuck you need two pair of boots for when you can only wear one at a time,” Carlos said.
“You’re a fucking idiot,” Big Mike told Carlos. “Didn’t you get no education.”
“Fuck you old man,” Carlos said. “Who’s talking to you?”
Big Mike lunged for Carlos but missed when Carlos dodged him. “I’ll throw you off the side of the fucking building you keep talking to me like that you fucking spic.”
“Fuck you, Pollock,” Carlos said.
Chief grabbed Carlos by the shoulder and held him.
Mike waved him away. “Let the little fuck run. Maybe he’ll run right off the side of the building.”
Carlos laughed. “What’s with you and going off the side of the building?”
“What?” Mike asked.
Carlos took his cigarettes out. “You’re always talking about throwing someone off the side of the building and now you want me to walk off the side of the building. What’s up with that?”
“You, you little fucking spic, that’s what’s up with that,” Big Mike said.
Chief shoved Carlos. “What the fuck you doing still standing here. They’re going to make me fire you. I ain’t kidding dude.”
Carlos walked off to catch the hoist on its way down.
“Take the stairs,” Chief said. “You’ll wait forever for Paulie.”
“Fuck that,” Carlos said without looking back.
Chief brought Mike and I hard hats and harnesses so we could finish tying off the edge of the building with the yellow caution tape. It was warm enough for me to take my sweatshirt off. By 11 O’clock my arms pits were sweaty.
Big Mike moaned. “We used to have a small group of guys they’d send out to jobs to fuck with the contractors if they weren’t paying the guys benefits or something like that. Some of them were real pricks. The hall would send me to a job and I’d stand there all day and refuse to work. Or sometimes I’d fuck things up so bad they would loose a lot of money. I rolled a double ender into a ditch once. That was funny. The guy was screaming mad and I’m upside down in the fucking machine laughing my balls off. No shit. That’s the way it was then. Now it’s all fucked up. I hate this shit.”
“Yeah, me too.”
“You’re young. You should save your money and figure out a way to get out of this shit, I don’t care who your dad is. You save your money, right?”
“What do you think I’m doing in my parent’s basement?”
“You’re smart kid. You don’t gamble. You don’t do drugs. You’re smart.”
I looked at my watch and realized it was time to head downstairs for lunch. I could leave ten minutes earlier if I took my time getting down the stairs.
“You going to meat Chief for lunch?”
“Definitely.”
Big Mike laughed. “Be careful. Don’t drink too much.”
“Why don’t you come?”
“I got to call the hall and make sure these pricks are up to date with my bennies. They fall behind too much. You should check on yours too.”
The Bear was two blocks away on Main Street. It was a nice break from work and Meagan the bartender had a great ass and after working all morning with men it was a relief to see a nice smile.
Bernie sat between Chief and I. He held a Corona in both hands, like someone would take them if he let go. “C’mon girl,” he said finishing the second bottle, “I only got a half hour and I’m going to need at lease six of these before I get back to that hell.”
Meagan swept her honey colored hair from her shoulder. “Two more Coronas?” She was well aware her smile got her the tips and the tight shirt got her even more.
Bernie squealed. “Of course, and give me a shot a Hennessey while you’re at it.”
Chief shook his head at Bernie. “You haven’t done shit all morning.”
Bernie flashed his dead tooth. “No one over there is doing shit. Why do I, cause I’m black?”
“Exactly,” Chief said.
“Fuck that shit and fuck you,” Bernie said. Meagan placed two bottles of Corona in front of Bernie. “Don’t forget the shot.”
“Alright, relax,” she said. “Jeez.”
She walked away and Bernie leaned over the bar to check out her ass. He flapped his tongue like a lizard. “I’d like to stick something dark and hard in that. Don’t care if it’s white.”
“White, black, purple, green, what difference does it make to you,” Chief said.
“That’s right,” Bernie said. “Doesn’t make a fuck of a difference as long as it’s wet. Wet and pink.”
“The thought of you fucking anything makes me want to puke,” Chief said.
“Good,” Bernie said. He leaned into me. “If I was you, I’d be on that all night.”
“On what?” I asked.
“Shit man, what cloud you on today?”
“I’m just thinking about some things. I can’t explain it.”
Bernie finished one of the bottles of beer. “How you can’t explain it?”
I finished my beer and waited to ask Meagan for another. I didn’t like to bother her. “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe I’m not thinking about anything.”
“I hope you’re thinking about pussy,” Bernie said.
“No.”
“I hope you ain’t thinking about dick.”
“No. I’m not thinking about that either.” I was thinking how fucked up it was for me to sit around and talk about shit like that.
Carlos came up behind us wearing the reflector vest they made him wear when he was directing traffic. He squeezed in between us and tried to get Meagan’s attention.
“What the fuck,” Chief said to Carlos.
“What?”
“Who’s backing in the trucks?”
“I am.”
Chief waved an imaginary wand. “Oh, what are you a fucking magician?”
“No.”
“How the fuck you backing in deliveries from here?”
“I backed the guy in and the Carpenter foremen said he’d be like an hour so I was like fuck it. Let me get a beer.”
“What Carpenter foremen?” Chief asked.
“I don’t know his name. The short guy, looks like he wears a diaper.”
Bernie laughed. “I seen that guy man, what a freak. I seen him all riled up the other day running around looking for his apprentice. Thought he was going to pass out he was so red.”
“Yeah,” Carlos said. “He’s got a real red face. I think he’s Irish.”
“Watch it, I’m Irish,” Chief said.
“You’re a fucking mic,” Bernie said.
“Half.”
“It’s fine, don’t worry,” Carlos said. “I got it all under control man.”
Chief scratched his goatee with one hand and rubbed the topless chick on his shoulder. “Yeah, I’m sure you do.”
Meagan refilled Bernie’s shot glass and brought him two more Coronas. “What can I get you?” she asked Carlos.
“Ah, I’ll have a Corona and a shot.”
“What kind of shot?” Meagan asked.
“Um.” He was only nineteen and he hadn’t spent much time in bars.
“Make it vodka,” Chief said.
“Who does shots of vodka?” said Bernie.
“I do,” Carlos said.
“Well, drink your beer and do your shot quick,” Chief said.
“Relax,” Carlos said.
“Don’t tell me to relax,” Chief said. “I don’t really care if you loose your fucking job, but if you don’t pay that asshole back his money soon, he’s going to break your other arm… if you’re lucky.”
“Fuck him,” Carlos said.
“Yeah right,” Bernie said. “That guy’s serious man. You’ll find out.”
“No I won’t,” Carlos assured him.
“Hey, fuck it,” Bernie said. “I’ll pull the trucks in and you can clean the stairs.”
“No, I don’t think so,” Chief said. “You’re my nigger. I need you to clean the stairs, before someone falls.”
The four of us walked back to the job together, half drunk and happy. When we reached the job Jerry the super was by the loading dock settling an argument between the carpenter with the red face and Paulie the hoist operator. I guessed Paulie was trying to do someone else a favor by letting them pull their truck in front of the carpenter’s delivery. The carpenter must not have been doing right by Paulie, meaning he wasn’t paying him enough in the pocket; that’s what it took sometimes to get your material into the building. You can’t carry the shit up the stairs so Paulie is your only option. It helps get things done quicker if you slip him a few Benjamin’s. And if you didn’t, well then that was just an insult.
When Jerry spotted us he walked off. I wasn’t afraid of him because he couldn’t fire me. Besides, I was entitled to my lunch. And if he could find a way to fire me I’d have thanked him.
“See,” Chief said to Carlos, before he got between Paulie and the carpenter.
Big Mike and I took the hoist back to the 13th floor. Coincidentally that’s where the delivery of metal studs and track was going. Paulie walked out of the hoist in front of us, his beer belly pushed out to make him look bigger. The guys were waiting for their next load of metal.
“You can all take a break,” Pualie told them.
“No problem,” the skinny guy said.
“No, big problem,” Paulie told him. “Your foreman’s a douche bag so until he changes his attitude nothing’s coming up here.”
“I got no problem with that,” the skinny guy said.
“Doesn’t make a difference if you do or not, it ain’t happening now,” Paulie said. “That little shit down there can wait ‘til overtime, how’s that.”
“Sounds good,” the skinny guy’s partner said.
The others in the hoist were yelling at Pualie, encouraging him. Things like, “Kick his ass Paulie- Make them walk- Sit on them.”
If you pissed Paulie off that meant you walked the stairs. No big deal if you’re working on the second or third floor. But sooner or later you were going to have to get up to the tenth, the fifteenth, or the twentieth. Try doing it with tools.
Big Mike and I didn’t now what to do with ourselves so we watched the ferries cross the river.
“You have fun at lunch?” he asked.
“Sure.”
He laughed. “I’m sure you did. Meagan working?”
“Yeah.”
“You ask her out?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know.”
“You got to get some balls kid. What you got to lose?”
“I don’t know. Nothing.”
“Right, so next time you go in there, you order a drink and you take her hand and say, ‘I think you’re really nice and I’d like to take you out for dinner’ and then you fuck her.”
“It’s not that easy.”
“Yes it is,” he said, patting me on the back. “Me and my friend Charlie, when we had our own company, holy shit, we’d take girls out every night for dinner and they all put out.”
“She’s not like that.”
“They’re all like that.”
“Maybe that’s what you think.”
“I don’t just think that, I know it. Shit, you don't think I’ve been with plenty of women? I have.”
“I’m sure you have.”
Big Mike shook his head at me. “Sometimes, I don’t know if you’re all there kid. I really don’t know.”
No one was around on the 13th floor; just me and Big Mike and the city skyline across the river. I took a couple of steps back from the edge because sometimes the glares on the Hudson made my vision blurry.
Big Mike watched the sunbathers on the grassy pier spotted with young trees and iron benches. “I should bring my binoculars tomorrow. When I was your age I would have been down there right now trying to pick up some of them woman down there.”
He was close to the edge, thirteen office floors up. I walked up behind him.
He took his hat off and combed his hair over his bald spot. “I hate the summer. If it wasn’t for pretty women in little skirts, I wouldn’t have any use for it.”
I pushed my hands into his back and the muscles in his neck tensed before he realized he was falling. I stepped back and kicked a roll of caution tape over the side and then I could hear his body thump on the new pavement below. I looked over and some others in hard hats gathered around his body. They looked up and saw me looking down. It was obviously an accident. No one could prove otherwise.
