The Witness

That Winter seemed to last forever. At the end of March the ground was still frozen. Walking home from a night shift at the mill, I huddled my head into the collar of my jacket to shelter my cheeks and ears from the biting cold.

By the time I reached home the first traces of daylight had broken the rim of the dark sky. I went in the back door and found Pa in his bathrobe in the kitchen with a pot of fresh coffee brewing on the stove.

In the past weeks he had been having trouble sleeping. Even after taking the pills the doctor had given him, he lay awake through most of the night. Just before dawn he would come quietly downstairs. He would light the oven to warm the kitchen and put on a pot of coffee and wait for me.

I came in cold and tired with the dust of the mill on my cheeks. I wanted only to wash, peek in on my sleeping son and then climb into bed beside my wife, between the sheets that would be warm with her body. But Pa waited for me with a pot of coffee and I had to sit with him for a while.

"Didn't you get any sleep again, Pa?"

He pulled the cord of his robe tighter and turned his face slightly away, because he was no good at deception.

"Better than I have slept in weeks," he said. "Maybe those damn pills are beginning to work."

He poured me a cup of steaming coffee and the sharp aroma pulled at my weariness. "Pa, you made it too strong again," I said, sitting down. "I can tell by the look of it." I was sorry the moment the words were out of my mouth.

"I only put in six scoops," he said. "You told me six scoops was just right."

"Sure, Pa," I said. "Six scoops is right. I just remembered Ethel saying she was going to switch to another brand. Maybe she got one that is stronger."

He walked to the pantry and brought down the canister of coffee. He raised the lid and stared intently at the beans.

"Don't worry about it, Pa," I said. "Sit down and have a cup yourself."

He came to sit down at the table. He dropped two slices of bread into the toaster. Then he raised the pot and poured himself a cup of coffee. His hand trembled slightly because he was old and not well. But his hand still looked big and strong, with the large powerful fingers I remembered as a child. I would get out of school in the afternoon and run to wait for him at the north gate. He would come across the bridge with his crew from the plate mill at the end of the turn. He would see me waiting outside the fence and holler and wave.

He would swing me to his shoulder and the men would laugh and slap my legs. I would ride home high on his back, his hands holding me securely, proud of his strength and his love.

"How did it go last night?" Pa asked as I sipped slowly at the coffee.

"We beat the other two turns by eleven ton," I said.

"No fooling!" His face flushed with pleasure for me. "Who was rolling?"

"The Dutchman," I said. "On all three furnaces."

"He must have been going like hell!" Pa laughed and his pale and tightfleshed face seemed to flood suddenly with color. Whenever we spoke of the mills he seemed to feel the heat of the furnaces, the glowing slabs bobbing on the rolls.

"You boys still can't touch our record," he said. "I'll never forget that night. Bungo on the furnaces shooting the slabs out like shells from a cannon. Montana on the crane over the hookers. Fuller thinking we were nuts when we gave him the tonnage at four."

He sat up straight in his chair with excitement flashing in his eyes. The doctor did not want him excited, because of his heart and, besides, I had heard the story of that night a hundred times. The stocker with a smashed hand who cried when they took him to the hospital because he didn't want to leave the crew. The way old steel men who had been there swore the crane was a bird snatching up the slabs like a crust of bread. And Pa up and down the length of the mill hustling his crew in a voice that could be heard above the thunder of the roughers and the shrill whistles and bells of the cranes.

". . . And that fool, Barney," Pa was saying, "getting his hand pulped and refusing to go to the hospital. Even taking a poke with the other hand at one of the plant cops who tried to force him off the line."

"Pa, listen," I said. "We both enjoy talking about the mills, but this morning I'm really beat. I run myself crazy trying to keep up with the records set by my old man." I laughed as I stood up and gave his shoulder a slight punch. "Every few days a damn foreman asks me when you're coming back, so they can start breaking tonnage records again."

He smiled up at me then and I saw the thin clean line of scalp under his thick gray hair. "You're a damn good millman," he said. "Better than I ever was, bigger, and (continued on page 160)Witness(continued on page 79) a hell of a lot smarter."

"Sure, Pa," I said. "Go tell that to some of the old-timers and they'll lock you up." I arched my shoulders and stretched. "Let's go up," I said. "Maybe you can get a couple of hours' sleep before the kid gets up."

"You go ahead," he said, "and I'll be along in a minute. I'll just rinse the cups and make the kitchen look nice for "Ethel when she comes down."

He stopped me when I reached the stairs. "Don't forget the kid's birthday party," he said, and all the love and devotion he felt for Alex was in his warm wink of anticipation. "Tonight is the night."

I stopped for a moment in Alex' room. He was asleep in his crib, looking like some kind of dark-haired angel. He was quick and bright and a joy to be near. I spoiled him a little, but Pa was worse than me. When Ethel cracked Alex across the behind for something he had done wrong, Pa left the room because he could not bear to hear the kid cry.

In the bathroom I stripped and shivered as I washed. I washed, I went quickly into the bedroom and slid carefully between the sheets. Ethel stirred beside me and I kissed her soft warm cheek. She moved gently against me, warming my body with her own, until I stopped shivering and fell asleep.

Alex woke me a little before one. His habit was to creep softly into the room and climb up on the bed. If this wasn't enough to wake me, he would bring his mouth to my ear and, like a puppy, begin nibbling at my lobe.

There was a joy in waking to the boy's great brown eyes and clean-child smell. I would hug and tickle him till he shrieked in delight.

Afterward I showered and dressed and went downstairs hungry. I kissed Ethel, standing before the stove, and gently stroked her swollen little belly that pressed up against her apron.

"Potato pancakes again?" I said.

"Don't eat them, "she said cheerfully.

"Anything else?"

"Eggs."

"I married a cook," I said.

"We get a what we deserve," she said. "My mother used to say, Ethel, marry a rich man and keep off your feet."

"You didn't get that little belly standing up," I said. She took a swipe at me with her dish towel and we both laughed.

Alex came into the kitchen with cookie crumbs around his mouth and wanted another one. Ethel told him no and I winked at him and slipped him a chocolate chip from the jar. He ran out of the kitchen with his prize.

"It's his birthday," I said.

"You spoil him worse than Pa," she shook her head.

"Where is the old man?"

She motioned toward the back yard and the garage. "With Orchowski," she said quietly.

I sat down at the table and she brought me the potato pancakes and several slices of sharp salami.

"They should play in the house," I said. "Find a place somewhere in the house. That small heater doesn't keep the garage nearly warm enough."

She started at me silently. I ate slowly, without looking up from my plate. We had covered this same ground often before. I kept bringing it up, even when I knew what she would say.

"Mike," she said wearily, "Mike, what's the use of talking?"

"I know, honey," I said. "But he's not well."

She made a helpless gesture with her hands. In that moment I realized how much of her day was spent in the kitchen cooking for us, washing the dishes, ironing the clothes. The potato pancakes struck in my throat.

"I know, too," she said, and she spoke softly. "I want to do right, but I want to be fair to Alex, too. Why don't they play in Orchowski's house?"

"You know why,"I said. "His son-in-law doesn't like his cigars his beer."

"They don't have a child like we do," she said. "When they play inside here I can't keep Alex out of their room. Pa hasn't got the heart to lock him out. I don't mind Orchowski's cigars, how bad they smell in the house, but I mind the hollering and the cursing. Honest to God, Mike, you've heard them."

"They're roosters with cut claws now," I said, feeling my cheeks hot. "All they can do is swear and holler."

"I know that," she said patiently. "But curses and hollering are no way to bring up a child." She twisted the dish towel uselessly in her fingers. "This neighborhood is bad enough," she said. "They call it the bush and laugh at the number of bars. When Alex grows older he will need all the strength we can provide him now, all the decency we can give him now."

"All right," I said. "All right, for God's sake, Ethel, let it alone." There was a senseless anger in my throat, because I felt she was right.

She came over and stood for a silent moment beside my chair. I leaned my head against her breast and smelled the flour on her apron.

"Eat," she said gently, and her small soft fingers rubbed my neck in a soothing caress. "Eat your food before it gets cold."

I ate a little more and left the table. I called Alex and got him ready for a walk. He rolled on the floor while I tried to pull on his leggings. I crouched above him and he pressed his tiny hands against my chest, begging me to crush him. My chest dipped against his body and he squealed with fear and delight. I got up and slipped on my jacket and tied a muffler around his throat.

In the yard the ground felt cold and hard beneath my feet. The dark gabled roofs of the mill loomed at the end of the block, throwing a shadow across the houses built closely side by side. The shrill whistle of a crane rang through the clear cold air.

We walked into the garage and Pa and Orchowski were bent over their checkerboard on a small table. Even though the small oil stove in the corner glowed with a steady flame, Pa wore his coat and had a wool scarf wrapped around his throat. Orchowski was dressed in a sweater and jacket and a pilot's cap with the flaps pulled down over his big shapeless ears.

Alex broke from my hand and made a dash for Pa, tumbling into his lap. Orchowski grabbed the board and held it aloft while Pa wrestled with the kid.

"If it ain't the steel man," Orchowski smirked between his pitted cheeks. He was a bull of an old man, a roller and turn foreman in the old days, and a terror on Saturday nights. "Tell me, steel man," he said. "You still picking up hot slabs with bare hands and swinging on the crane like Tarzan?"

"Leave the boy alone, you bastard," Pa said. "Today they make steel with their heads, not their backs like we used to do."

"I know," Orchowski sneered. "Sure, sure." He scratched his nose. "Play checkers. You're losing and you're trying to turn over the goddamn board."

The kid listened to them intently and I remembered what Ethel had said. I stood there a moment and shivered in the chill of the garage.

"Why don't you guys play inside?" I burst out. "This place is an icebox."

Orchowski and Pa looked at me. Even Alex stopped wiggling between Pa's legs and stared up at me as if he understood I had said something foolish. Orchowski looked at me with that smirk cracking his lips. Then he turned back to the board and waved impatiently to Pa to move.

Pa kept watching me with concern. "This is fine, Mike." He shook his head at me, slowly at first, then faster and beginning to grin. "Teddy and me like it fine out here."

For a moment Orchowski did not look up. Then he seemed to feel the waiting in the silence and raised his head. Something in Pa's cheeks must have stung him.

"To hell with playing inside," he growled. "Out here we can breathe."Then he slapped his leg with his fist. "You gonna play checkers!" he yelled at Pa. "If you don't make a move I'm gonna go get a goddamn beer!"

"Shut up, you bastard!" Pa cried. "You're a poor loser and a scab!"

I took Alex by the hand and we left the garage. We stood outside in the yard and the shifts had changed and the millmen walked past our fence. Some called greetings to us and some walked tired and silent with their heads bent against the cold. After a while Alex told me he was getting cold and I took him into the house.

• • •

After supper that night, while Ethel decorated the cake, I took Alex upstairs and put him into the tub. While I soaped and rinsed him with the spray, Pa sat on the laundry hamper and laughed as he watched him splash. When I lifted him dripping out of the tub, Pa caught him in a big towel and began to rub him gently dry. Then he carried him into the bedroom and they tussled on the bed while Alex screamed.

"I got to dress him, Pa," I said.

"Ok," Pa said, and he gave Alex a soft final swat across the fanny. "I'll go down and give Ethel a hand."

I finished dressing Alex and combed his hair. He was a handsome boy with Ethel's fine features. I looked at him with pride and love, thinking of him as a part of my flesh.

Ethel came upstairs and she smelled from the warm and fragrant kitchen. She gave Alex a kiss and waited until he left the room. When she turned to me there were bright spots in her cheeks and a weariness around her mouth.

"Mike," she said, "Pa wants to decorate the dining room and he's making a mess of it. I told him Blanche was bringing a few Japanese lanterns to put over the lights, but he's found some old faded crepe paper in the basement." She paused a moment, with her cheeks pale, and moved her fingers to tug helplessly at her apron. "I hate myself," she said, and she spoke softly, almost in a whisper. "I hate myself every time I complain. He's got no one but us and I want him to know this is his house, too. But I can't help myself." Her eyes became red and I could see her trying hard not to cry.

"I'll tell him," I said. "I'll tell him I want to fix it a certain way."

She shook her head, sorry suddenly that she had come upstairs, sorry that she had spoken. "Let him alone," she said. "Don't tell him anything. Don't make me feel more ashamed than I am already."

"If he would take a walk," I said, "up to the corner or over to Orchowski's for a half hour, we could finish decorating the way you want." I paused. "Orchowski is coming to the party, isn't he? You told Pa to ask him, didn't you?"

I could see the misery working behind her cheeks. Then it was my turn to feel ashamed, because I was glad she had not invited Orchowski, not for any other reason but that he made Pa seem worse than he was.

We did not speak again. There didn't seem to be anything either of us could say. I started down the stairs and Pa waited for me at the bottom. I muttered something about turning the thermostat higher to warm the house.

"Is Ethel all right?" he asked. I looked away, because he seemed to sense quick when something was wrong.

"She's got a little headache," I said.

He turned away and I looked down on his gray-haired and strong head and the slight slump that rounded his big shoulders.

"If you think Ethel won't be needing me for anything special," he said, "I might take a little walk. Maybe there's something she wants from the store." He had to pass me to reach into the closed for his coat. I looked at him closely, but he only smiled.

"That's Ok, Pa," I said. "I'll see if she needs anything." I called up to Ethel and knew that she was standing silently on the landing at the top of the stairs. For a long moment she did not answer, as if she were trying to compose her voice.

"No," she said, "but tell Pa to hurry back. He's sitting next to Alex at the head of the table."

Pa tugged on his coat and walked to the door and closed it behind him.

In about an hour the dozen or so guests for the party had arrived. Ethel's sister, Blanche, had come from the North Side with her husband, who was an insurance executive. He kept walking around sniffing the house. There were a couple of women Ethel had once taught school with and a couple of the turn foremen with their wives. Pa had not come back.

We waited a while longer and Ethel passed around some more cheese and crackers and I opened some more beer. Everybody was getting restless. Alex, becoming impatient, began to whine. I went next door finally, to Max' place, and asked to use their phone. I called the Burley Club, but the bartender hadn't seen Pa. I called Orchowski's brother-in-law's house, but no one answered. On the way back I peered into the garage, but it was dark.

In the house I told Ethel to cut the cake. Alex was crabby and didn't want to blow out the candles. The insurance executive and Blanche had bought him a $22 dump truck and he didn't want to even open the other presents. I was angry and suddenly sick with worry about Pa, thinking something might have happened to him. I went into the kitchen to get another pint of ice cream and when I got back to the dining room everything was strangely quiet.

Pa stood in the front hallway. His hair was mussed, his collar unbuttoned, and his eyes were bright and glistening in his face. Orchowski, an idiot's grin on his pitted cheeks, stood behind him. The stink of whiskey covered them both like a cloud and fell across them into the room.

I looked once at Ethel and her cheeks were the color of chalk. Pa took a step forward and stumbled and then braced himself against the doorway of the room.

He swept his arm up recklessly in a swing that included everybody in the room. He kept staring at all of us and then he fumbled behind him, catching Orchowski by the coat and tugging him forward.

"I brought my goddamn friend home for the party," Pa said, and the words came slurred and thick from his tongue."My goddamn friend who worked with me at the plate mill for thirty-six years."

"Thirty-seven years," Orchowski said, swaying and grinning beside him.

Alex yelped then for his grandpa and one of the foremen laughed and walked forward to greet them. Ethel moved then and smiled across the pale band of her cheeks. I helped Pa off with his coat and Ethel took Orchowski's jacket, and for a moment in the closet I felt her hand, cold and trembling against my own.

A short while later I got Pa upstairs and helped him undress. He was sobering, his eyes suddenly blurred and melting, and he kept mumbling under his breath. When he was under the covers, I sat down on the edge of the bed near his head. I heard the last of the guests saying good night and the door closed for the last time. Ethel brought the kid upstairs and put him to bed. All the while, the old man lay there with his eyes wide open, staring up at the ceiling.

Ethel came into the room. She stood for just a moment inside the door and then she walked to the bed and leaned down and put her cheek against Pa's cheek.

"It's all right, Pa," she said, and she was crying, the tears running silently down her cheeks. "It's all right and I'm glad you brought Mr. Orchowski."

Pa touched her cheek with his fingers and moved his lips without making any sound. He touched her cheek that was wet with tears, in a kind of caress, and tried to smile to reassure her, and then turned his head helplessly to the wall. I motioned to Ethel to leave the room.

I sat for a while longer beside him. He twisted and threshed beneath the blankets.

"I was drunk," he said. "Honest to God, boy, if I hadn't been loaded I wouldn't have come in like a goddamn fool. I wouldn't have hurt Ethel like that."

"Let it alone, Pa," I said. "What are you making such a big thing of it for? Ethel said it was all right. We were wrong."

But he would not be comforted. He would lie still for a few moments with his eyes closed and I thought he had fallen asleep. Then he seemed to startle awake and his fingers moved in restless tremblings along the spread.

I got scared and left the room and called the doctor. He came and gave Pa a shot. After a while Pa fell asleep, his rough breathing eased and quieted.

• • •

It was not very long after that night, only a couple of months later at the beginning of summer, that the old man died. In May we sowed a bed of columbines and Pa talked of seeing them flower and just a few days after that he was dead.

When he died he had been in the hospital two days with a hard and heavy pain in his chest. The second night a blood clot formed and he died in his sleep. We had seen him early in the afternoon of that day, and when they called us back to the hospital, all I remember noticing was how really thin his wrists had become, how slim and pale his strong fingers were.

We buried him three days later. The old rollers and turn foremen who were still alive came, and a bunch of the men from my turn. It rained a little on our way to the cemetery, the drops glistened on the bankings of flowers around the grave. Ethel cried a lot and she was near enough her time for giving birth that I was scared for her and for the baby.

On the way out of the cemetery I saw Orchowski. He was dressed in a baggy gray suit, a stiff collar around his broad throat. I wanted to talk to him a few moments, there beside the old man's grave, but someone took my arm and I lost him.

We stopped on the way home to pick up Alex from Mrs. Feldman, who had looked after him. The rest of the way, Alex between us in the car, Ethel and I didn't speak. I parked the car and carried the kid into the house because of the puddles that still gleamed in the gutters and made small pools along the side of the walks.

The house was damp and quiet. I turned on some lights and put up the heat. Ethel came in behind me and we stood like that for moments, listening as if there were sounds and noises we expected to hear.

"I'm tired," Ethel said. "I've got a headache. I'll get Alex ready for bed and go to bed myself."

"I'll bring him up in a minute," I said. "Let him play for a while."

She stood in the hall and slipped off her coat and the jacket of her suit. The light fell across her body and I could see the great swell of her belly, the slow labored movement of her arms. She saw me watching her and came over and kissed me on the cheek. I held her close in the circle of my arm.

"We tried," she said, and there was a thin tight edge to her voice, and she looked at me out of her weary and swollen eyes. "We did what we could for him, didn't we, Mike? Didn't we?"

I remembered the night of Alex' birthday and the way she cried against the old man's cheek.

"Sure," I said. "Sure, baby, you did."

I sat for a while in the back room watching Alex play with his toy cars on the floor. Outside, the cars passed in the twilight and from the mill I heard the whistling of the slab-mill crane.

I listened to the kid humming a foolish song as he played. I thought suddenly of Ethel dead, someday, like my ma, and me having to live with the kid and his wife.

I got up and went into the kitchen. Through the window, night had fallen over the back yard. A few fireflies flickered over the garden. The outline of the garage loomed silent and dark against the lighter sky. I moved to the sink, feeling a tightness breaking in my throat.

When I began to cry, the water running so the kid would not hear, I didn't know for a few crazy moments who I was really crying for--the lost old man or myself.