Working Class Hero: a serial novel(Chapter 5: People)

Every night when I returned home from work, I took off my shoes and left them in the hallway, per the dictates of my mother. They were encrusted with the dyes and grime of work and there was no way she’d allow that muck on her carpets. So every afternoon, before I went to work, I sat on the stairway of our second floor apartment and put on cold shoes, preparing to face another night of routine.

At the end of my second month at the mill, Howard returned from his absence, and despite the bandage wrapped on his arm, he acted as if nothing had ever happened. The first thing he said upon walking in the door was of course another one of his dim-witted malapropisms. “I’m like Superman, the iron man. I’m deconstructable.” Ralph paid him no attention, acting as if Howard had been working next to us the past five weeks as normal. I laughed as usual.

At first I found Howard to be a welcome relief from Ralph’s bitter all-work attitude, but after a few days, his general levity and laziness began to wear on me. I mentioned this to Ralph on Thursday after Howard had conveniently disappeared during our preparations of a large mixture of purple number 11.

“Howard’s gone AWOL again” I said while scooping red powder into a bucket.

“Yeah. Probably sleeping on the bales of cloth next door.” Ralph matter-of-factly replied. He was preparing the acid solution.

“Sometimes I wish Howard wasn’t so damned lazy.” I said. “We have a job to do here.” I needed more red dye. The container was empty, so I searched the extra containers beneath the table.

Ralph stopped and waited until I rose again, a new container in my hands. He looked at me with sharp eyes. “Save your Puritan work ethic for Leon, will ya.”

“Hey, I’m just saying.” I said.

“Well, I’m just saying too. Lay off Howard.” Ralph replied.

“You can’t exactly say he’s much of a help.” I answered, as I struggled to open the new container.

“Well, you didn’t miss him much when he was gone, man, so why should you miss him now when’s he gone?” Ralph asked with a sardonic sneer. Or it could have been a wince; the acid had a loathsome smell.

“It’s the principle,” I answered with a groan. The container would just not open. “We gotta work so he should work too.”

“So you have it all figured it out. College boy, eh? Well you know the saying: until you’ve walked in someone else’s shoes.”

I looked down at my own shoes. “Well these are getting dirty while his are resting nicely.” I finally got the container open and powder had spilled onto the floor, and on me. “Look, I like Howard too, but you have to admit he’s a clown.”

Ralph stopped mixing the solution. “Look man, you don’t even know Howard.”

“Oh I know Howard, “ I laughed. “He’s loud, lazy, and brainless.” I scooped more red dye into the bucket.

Ralph threw down the stick he was using to stir. “Look, Howard’s had a raw deal, OK. He’ll never tell you anything about this shit, but I will. Just never say I told you.”

I stopped and looked at Ralph. This wasn’t banter any longer. Not even banter with an edge. Ralph looked like he was about to tell me some ghost story, standing around the acids and dye powders. I never saw him like that before. His face was drawn of any humor or anger.

“Howard and his wife tried for a long time to have a kid,” he began his story. “Howard would laugh that it wasn’t his fault. He wasn’t shooting blanks. Of course, he didn’t say ‘blanks’. He wasn’t shooting any ‘blacks’, is what he’d say. And of course I’d scream at him, ‘blanks, blanks, you’re not shooting any blanks.’ And of course Howard would say ‘hey that’s what I told my wife too.’ Ralph was smiling now.

“Man, he’s always confusing his words.” I laughed.

“That’s Howard. Anyways Howard and Diana finally had a baby boy, and you never saw Howard as happy then. Man, talk about your jokes. He even gave away exploding cigars.”

“Cool.” I replied.

“Yeah, Howard can actually be funny on purpose sometimes,” Ralph laughed. Then he turned somber again. “Well things went great for three months. But Diana was always tired and angry, and I could tell things weren’t going too well between them. But he’d talk about the baby this and the baby that and to tell you the truth, I got a little tired of it, but hey, he was a father. What are you going to do.”

“I can’t picture Howard a father.” I replied.

“Yeah, that’s the thing. The baby died. In the crib, in his sleep. Howard went to wake him in the morning, and he was lying on his stomach, not breathing.”

“My God.” I answered.

“My effing God exactly. Howard didn’t come to work for weeks after that. And when he did come back, he never spoke a word about the baby. Still hasn’t to this day. We only found out through Diana, and that was something I’d never want to listen to again. She was crying in between every goddamned word.”

“He’s never mentioned it at all?” I asked.

“Not a fucking word, Calvin. And when he came back to work he didn’t say a single word period. He just worked. He must have been like that for months. When he talked all we’d talk about was work and only if we had to. But one day, he let out one of his Howardisms, ‘I need another relief pitcher of blues number two.’ He began laughing and I began laughing until we both were laughing tears. Literally I mean tears. We didn’t say anything, but we laughed. And after that Howard was just Howard again.”

“He certainly is an individual.” I replied as I started scooping some blue powder into the bucket.

“He certainly is.” Ralph returned to the acid solution. “So maybe you can understand why I’m happy just seeing Howard being himself.”

“Sure. But I didn’t know” I replied.

“Calvin, you’re going to find out that despite your mother-effing college education, there’s a lot you don’t know.” He was silent for a minute. “People,” he sighed.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing; just people.”

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Chapter 1: Life Span
Chapter 2: An Academic Dialogue
Chapter 3: On-the-Job Training
Chapter 4: Dreamwork