Chapter 5 #4
Here it was. The eternal gulf, the gap in understanding Laurie had been trying to get the workingman to cross for what seemed like his whole career: that work, in and of itself, was not a virtue.
That because he had lived it didn’t mean it had to be the same for his children or his children’s children. That things could and should change.
But just try convincing a workingman of industry, whose whole life surrounds his fourteen-hour shift, whose job is the means toward his place in the world, that his work isn’t his virtue. Isn’t all he is.
Even Laurie himself, who had bucked against his inherent nature for a solid decade in an attempt to make his worldly place as a valet—until that very nature had betrayed him and gotten him dismissed—understood how hard it was to detach work from self.
And god knew making himself Lawrence Tulley, infamous reporter, hadn’t done that.
“New York’s got all ’em laws,” Irving went on. “This ain’t the South. My shop, I’d swear no boy’s a day beneath fourteen. With letters of certification and everythin’. School three months outta the year, too. Or so they say—I’m not their father.”
Laurie held up his hands. “I’m not handing out fines, man. I’m not interested in Brooklyn Glass,” he lied, “or your job. Not for itself.”
Irving looked suddenly warier. “For what, then?”
“I wanna hear everything you know about your competitor across the river. Whatever you’ve heard about Wright Glass.”
Irving smiled. “I knew you wanted somethin’.”
“They aren’t unionized, so I can’t imagine you have any loyalty there.”
“I sure don’t feel any loyalty to ’em. Wright fired me for tryin’ to organize, some ten years ago. Before Brooklyn opened up, before I learned flint glass. Had to go to Indiana, send money back. Hated it. And as you’re payin’ me…” He gestured Laurie closer.
Laurie braced himself for the biggest rumor of all, rooted in truth: Hear the owner himself works at a furnace. Can you imagine?
But no. Irving whispered, “Wright folks have been droppin’ like flies for the past couple of years.”
Laurie frowned. Even a non-union shop had very little turnover and high demand. A glassworker was so skilled, he was nigh irreplaceable, was paid better than almost any other factory worker anywhere. “Literally dropping, or leaving? Gaffers, boys? Are they falling ill at greater rates than usual?”
“Blowers and boys both. Mostly leavin’. Some locked up. Some gone missin’.”
“Huh.”
Irving nodded. “Most of ’em folks that folks wouldn’t miss, if you know what I mean.”
“Geez. Yeah. Damn.” He sure did. It was his job to convince a bunch of white working- and middle-class men to care about and vote for social change.
Unsurprisingly, the greatest outrage in white men happened when the injustices were done upon…
white people. As brutal as the cotton-field job had been, and even with its focus upon children, it hadn’t gone very far in public outrage, possibly because Laurie hadn’t whitewashed a thing.
Help the brown children? Why? It was their lot, wasn’t it?
At least they were free, weren’t they? Laurie shook his head. “You mean folks of color. Immigrants.”
Wright Glass wasn’t unionized. Unions were predominantly, if not explicitly, white and male and didn’t allow boys. There weren’t many trade unions for the marginalized—the Knights of Labor had always allowed folks of color, but were mostly obsolete and powerless these days.
Wright Glass feasibly might have, or had, employed the marginalized—who, when denied union membership, obviously snapped up non-union jobs where they could.
“Yes I do. You should write about that, Laurie Tulley.”
As though he hadn’t tried. “How’d you miss them?” Laurie asked. “How’d you hear about it?”
Irving looked offended. Discomfited. “I’m not a racialist. Like I said, I worked for Wright before they canned me for organizin’. I worked with ’em side-by-side. With everybody. The Locals aren’t sposta discriminate… I still have friends there.”
“Were these folks friends of yours? The arrested and missing? Fellow organizers? Do you have names?”
“I don’t know any salts,” Irving said loyally. “But no. Sorry. Them weren’t my friends. Not directly. I didn’t know ’em.” Like any Not-A-Racialist, he was faintly ashamed of this.
“And nobody’s gone missing from Brooklyn?”
“Not that I’ve heard of, pretty sure. I can ask at the next meetin’ of the local, week after… next. But I’d think I’d have heard.”
Laurie agreed. If nothing else, it would mean an open spot, an opportunity for an apprentice to move up and thus another spot for an apprenticeship, which were not only coveted but artificially restricted by the union. At a union shop everyone would know everybody coming and going.
“Thanks, Irving. I appreciate all this.” He pulled out his card. “You’ll keep me updated? Find out those names? And anything else on Wright Glass. I’m on Newspaper Row, Appeal building, second floor. We do pay our informants,” he added.
Irving inspected the card. “Huh. Then why the hell’d you let me fuck you, pretty boy, if you could’ve just paid?”
“I toldya. I like it. You’d usually do it for me just fine.”
Irving eyed him. “Better find out what changed.” He grinned. “Or jus’ get a dildo. Y’know. One of ’em wooden pricks.”