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Bricks & Ties
Bricks & Ties
Travel
by Edna St. Vincent Millay
The railroad track is miles away,
And the day is loud with voices speaking,
Yet there isn't a train goes by all day
But I hear its whistle shrieking.
All night there isn't a train goes by,
Though the night is still for sleep and dreaming,
But I see its cinders red on the sky,
And hear its engine steaming.
My heart is warm with the friends I make,
And better friends I'll not be knowing;
Yet there isn't a train I wouldn't take,
No matter where it's going.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“3:20’s late today.” I dumped another shovelful of clay into the waiting cart and took just a split second to wipe the sweat from my forehead before turning back to the pit.
“Three-what?” A foot to my left, Tom grunted as he heaved up a bit-too-ambitious load of his own, muscles straining beneath his coal black skin. A second whistle sounded, closer this time, and he dumped his load on top of mine with a sigh that might have been meant more for me than the work. “This about a train again?”
“Always about a train with Joe.” His brother Martin, not far to my right, barely beat my next shovelful, and I had to hold for a second while he unloaded his.
“Man’s got to have interests.” I tossed my load on the pile and turned back to the slowly shrinking bank. Martin snorted, and Tom chuckled a little as he emptied another shovelful, but thankfully neither of them bothered to say just what they found so funny, and I hoped it was my choice of interests and not the fact that I’d dared to name myself a man.
Sure, the law might say I was still a couple years too young to count, but shoveling clay was a man’s work, and no one could deny it. I’d worked my way up through the yard from the time I was a runny-nosed kid too young for anything but spatting, but I was on a level with most of the men now, and if I could get a setter’s place in the kilns next season, I’d be as thorough a brickmaker as anyone on the yard, not counting the foreman and the pitmaster.
Tom and Martin were only a couple years older than me, though we’d all joined the brickyard the same season—me and my brothers fresh off the boat from Italy, and them and their pa just up from a place called Georgia—and we’d spent our share of anxious minutes huddled up together in the coal bins when the truant officer made his rounds. Then one day I’d tripped on a crooked brick and cut my leg, and instead of taking their chance to get away, they’d come back to help and got caught with me, and we’d all spent a miserable day cooped up in the schoolhouse together. That episode had cemented our friendship, and we’d stuck together through the years, regardless of whether we got the same job any given season.
It’d been a long day, and we were all tired, so no one said much for a while, but just as we were coming near the end of our last load for the night, Tom reached out and jabbed an elbow into my ribs.
“How come those don’t get you all het up? Plenty more of ‘em around here.”
“How come what don’t?” I glanced around, puzzled, and Martin snickered.
“Didn’t even hear it. Told you, he can hear a train whistle miles off, but he’s deaf to boat horns.”
I shook my head and made sure to step on Martin’s foot as I dumped the last shovelful and signaled the cart forward.
“I been down the Hudson on one of those tugs before. No adventure in that. It’s the trains that’ll really take you places.”
“What kind of places you thinking of going, Joe?”
“Oh, nowhere. Out California way—Alaska—Texas—maybe get a job in a Wild West show.”
Tom outright guffawed, Martin cracked a grin, and I smiled, knowing they loved the fantasies I invented for my imaginary travels even more than I did. For me though, it wasn’t the exotic jobs or the outlandish places that tugged at my heart as much as the thought of the travel itself—having the freedom to pick up and put down my roots whenever I felt like—not being tied to any particular place—that was what the wild whistle of the train meant to me.
Not that I ever believed I’d have a chance at any such life, but if a man did his best and his duty, a little dream now and then wouldn’t hurt him. Marco had given in to the lure after just two seasons—left at night without a word and hadn’t been heard from since, but I’d been too young to even think of the idea at the time, and now my life was tied to the brickyard with traces I didn’t intend to slip.
I left Tom and Martin at their tenement building and made my way to the next one down, kicking off my clay-coated boots before I went inside. But instead of heading up to our third-floor room, I dropped my boots next to the stairs and went down the hall to the Bianchis’ room, where Lotta greeted me with a cheerful protest from where she lay on the sofa.
“Giuseppi, you’re filthy! Wash up before you touch anything.”
She was about the only one left who insisted on calling me by my Italian name; even her father had slipped over to Joe on all occasions since I never used anything else in the yard. But a part of me liked the little scrap of connection to the home I barely remembered, so I obeyed without protest, then changed out the water for Mr. Bianchi to use before turning to the three little ones in the corner.
“All right, time to go home for supper. Were you good for Miss Lotta today?”
Three heads of unruly black hair gave enthusiastic nods, and Lotta murmured “always,” which I didn’t believe for a minute, but if I didn’t complain about my work, I guessed I couldn’t expect her to complain about hers. Not that I could offer her anything, let alone a fair wage, for looking after the kids while I was in the yard, but she said it gave her something to do besides think about her back all day and kept her from feeling useless because she couldn’t hack bricks with the other women. We looked out for each other here; we had to if we were going to survive.
I thanked her again, scooped up little Maria, who was still dangerous on the stairs, took Barbara’s hand, and made sure Frankie was following, then we all trooped up the stairs to our room, which still felt empty with Tony gone, even after all these months. We’d managed on our own, the two of us—when the last of our sisters had married not long after Marco left, and again when Gianna had died just after Maria was born. But now it was just me—me and a brickyard and three little ones who depended on us both.
I let them chatter at me while I changed out of my work clothes and scooped out the beans I’d set to cook in the morning. After supper was finished, Frankie insisted on reading a page out of the book Lotta had loaned him, and I listened and nodded, even though he could’ve been making the whole thing up for all I could tell. Another couple seasons, and he’d be old enough for spatting, but my heart hurt a little at the thought as I watched him hug the book to his chest. Maybe sometime before that, I could find some extra work between the brick and ice seasons, so we didn’t have to scrape pennies quite so carefully, just in case he ever actually wanted to go to school like the law said. If I could swing it somehow, it might not be such a bad thing to have one out of the family who knew how to read and write.
My back and shoulders ached from a day of shoveling, and I couldn’t hold in my yawns any longer, so I herded the kids into bed in spite of their protests, listened to their prayers, then whispered my own as I fell onto my covers. As I drifted off to sleep, I heard the far-away whistle of the 8:55, and just for a moment, I was stepping onto its platform, leaving everything behind and heading out to take in all the world had to offer—but only in my dreams. Only ever in my dreams.
Copyright March 2024 by Angie Thompson
Photo by ApertureVintage, licensed through DesignBundles