In his honor, and because I know he’d appreciate it.

When I was doing my penance inthe steel mils, on summers like this, sweating my brains out in 114 degree heat standing on top of coke ovens, I met a lot of characters.

One in particular, comes to mind: I’ll call him John. We used to call him “the skull” because he looked like a skeleton with some skin stretched over it. I swear, if he stood between you and the setting sun, you could count his bones. John was about three hundred years old, and kept coming to work long past a point where he could have retired because work was all he had left. He showed up, shuffled into the plant, sat at his workbench, and smoked Chesterfields all day. Nobody bothered him because he’d earned the right to sit there, god knows nobody wanted to pester him, he was the grouchiest fucker alive.

The edict came down from above that ALL the boys had to do their turn in the barrel, and so eventually, John had to give up his spot on the bench and grab a tool belt, head off for the field.

I was with him on the first day he had to go afeild in thirty years, and while it was a drag having to schlep toolboxes around in hundred-plus degree heat wearing long underwear and two pair of pants and two shirts, it was at least nice to get out of the damned shop. ANd John was fuill of lore about the place, I learned more in that morning about the operation of what was then Inland Steel than anything else.

About eleven, we sat down on a pile of coal tailings and ate sandwiches black with coal soot, and talked about all the changes Johnnny had seen. He told me about the years he’d spent there, about coming back from Korea to find that his wife had found religion and no longer wanted to have anything to do with him- but would not grant him a divorce. He spent the next thirty years sleeping in separate bedrooms, barely talking to her, and once a week, spending the night with a girl from a local strip joint. He cooked for himself and cleaned fo rhimself, and he said, he was happy as he could be, considering.
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