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.

We sat there and watched the coke quench towers batteries belch out huge clouds of steam, and john said ‘I gotta shit”.

“Well”, I said, “a long way back to the door building” Knowing John preferred the downstairs crapper, left hand stall, so he could shit and read his paper, flip his ashes in the floor drain.

“No, there’s a crapper over here. May be old but it’ll work” He pointed to a low building under a car dumper, and we walked over.

The crapper was a two-holer, reasonably clean (by mill standards) and lit by only one 60 watt bulb. “Stay in here with your flashlight” john said, “Because sometimes that damned light burns out”

So I walked into the next stall, lifted the lid, and took a piss while John settled down for some more solid matters.

Now, in retrospect, it should have dawned on me that I was pissing in a pretty near dry bowl. THese two crappers hadn’t been used in some time. THe water in the trap had all evaporated and the sewer gas was coming up through them pretty well, it smelled pretty rank (even more so than most mill crappers). Anyway, I piss, and flush, and zip, and just as I’m turning to exit the stall I hear a huge KA WHOOOOM!-Johnny sails past me, his frail old body hits the wall opposite the stall and he hits the floor, his face pressed against the filthy floor, pants and underwear around his ankles, ass in the air, nutsack hair still on fire. I’ve never seen anyting more disturbing in my life. He was so skinny that I had visions of emaciated POW camp survivors.

As to what happened-Seems he was OK as long as he was smoking, the ember wasn’t enough by itself to ignite the sewer gas coming out if the dried out trap, but he flipped the butt in the bowl and lit another one with his zippo at the same time, and the exploding sewer gas propelled his tiny skinny body completely out of the stall.

He didn’t have pubic hair for weeks afterward. Thankfully he was unhurt but for his pride, and as I was the only witness (and I wasn’t saying a DAMNED thing) I let it drop, until now, these twenty five odd years later. Johnny is gone by now, of course, and with him his name, as he had no children, and his wife proceeded him in death, so there’s nobody to embarrass. God rest his soul. Hope he finds Acidman and tells him this story.