93
Lying there afloat in the darkness Mitchell stared from the sloop’s belly up through the companionway into the factory’s hanging panels of florescent lights and the turbine-like whine from industrial dryers and washers. Immigrant men in heavy black rubber boots and aprons waded knee deep in soap suds as they guided enormous laundry cylinders on ceiling tracks. The women in ranks across the factory floor. Old women in babushkas, their faces like headstones. Other women ripe with life, some as young as Mitchell. They were the sorters, standing all day at tables buried under hills of linens. Others stood in the fog and hiss of steam presses. Others stood at sewing machines and their hands flew through the incessant clicking. Still others were folders behind tying machines, besieged by men with invoices and canvas hampers, the chunky rolling of the metal wheels like bass notes in the endless noise. Languages were the undercurrent. Greek and Hispanic and Carribean dialects, all subdued by the watchful eyes of a few white men in white collars.
On a lunch break Mitchell opened a steel door and stepped into blinding summer sunlight. Heat sweltered off the asphalt driveway and the parking lot at the back of the factory. He put on his sunglasses and felt a new weight to the keys in his pants pocket. His heart surged as he walked past his co-workers, men and women taking refuge from the heat under shade trees. He raised the peg-stand to his motorcycle and kick-started it. The gas tank was full. He throttled the bike and rode out of the neighborhoods and under railroad tracks where he accelerated onto an on-ramp circling upward for a quarter mile until it straightened into a six lane highway. Shifting with the throttle wide open he flew past traffic on a bridge over a river and out of the city where the land opened and the highway promised a future without time clocks or mundane certainties. The speedometer vibrated at one-hundred-ten. Wind was shoved hard into his chest and burning the skin on his face and hands. New skin, the old one had just been shed.
Days later he returned to the city and his rented room. He took a few odd jobs until he was processed into the military. A mistake maybe, if there is such a thing. He would learn the hard way, on the hard road. But he would get on that motorcycle still...
Andy had been working the candle with the patience of a watchmaker. He had refashioned the wax and tried to light the candle repeatedly but each time the wick had sucked out the flame. It took Mitchell a while to sort through his memories and remember where he had left Andy.
"Anyway, the guy wasn’t just some long-haired ragged hippie with a pocketful of drug money. We found out later his name was Toby. He was the best nine ball player on the east coast. In the world, maybe. He and Larry played straight pool until somewhere in the early morning it was obvious that Toby couldn’t win. These guys could go the distance, believe me. Then Toby asked for a different game. He was down seven thousand dollars, so he had every right to ask for a new game. Larry couldn’t quit, it’s not done. That was how he made his living. He suggested nine ball. Destiny, right? No one suspected Toby. Larry walked right into it and lost his shirt. In the world of pool halls and hustlers it was the changing of the guard. And I was there."
Andy lit the candlewick and a dull orange glow flickered shadows across his face. Mitchell could see he was only half listening, less than half believing. Smart guy Mitchell thought.