Author: Larry Lau

At my room at the Melvin hotel, I packed up in a hurry, taking only what would fit in my backpack. In ten minutes, I was hustling through the streets to the outskirts of town. Stopping at a bridge heading North, I started hitchhiking, half expecting to see union guys with baseball bats pull over and offer me a lift. But it didn’t take long to get a ride, and after getting safely out of Denver, I was able to let go of that nightmare scenario. It was a sunny afternoon, and my first ride was friendly and harmless.

       By nightfall, I’d had a succession of short rides, never having to wait too long between each one. It was about 10:30 pm when my last ride picked me up. The driver was only going about twenty miles, but I was grateful even for that. It was beginning to get cold in the foothills and the heater in his car felt most welcome. When we came to where he turned off onto an even smaller road, there was a little country store nestled at the corner of the intersection. I got out of his car and thanked him, and he wished me luck and then disappeared. There was a single light above the door to the store. It was dark inside and obviously closed. Looking up and down the two-lane highway, there was nothing but a wall of tall fir trees fencing both sides of the road in both directions. No traffic, no headlights, no sound. And the night was getting darker as clouds overhead closed in.

       I crossed a small empty parking lot to the front of the store. There was a porch with a wooden awning covering the store’s entrance. Setting my backpack on a bench by the door, I stood still and listened, hoping to hear the sound of cars approaching. But there was nothing to hear. I walked back up to the road again and looked left in the direction I had just come from, hoping to see faint signs of headlights in the distance, but there was nothing to see. The other direction was the same silent darkness. Crossing back to the porch, I sat down on the bench and lit a cigarette.

     Halfway through my smoke, I remembered the little transistor radio I had. I pulled it out of my backpack and switched it on, hoping for a little company. But the reception was terrible. A scratchy country music station squeaked through the static, too difficult to listen to, and on another station was the nearly indecipherable sound of a man preaching. Putting the radio back in the pack, I thought I heard the sound of a car, and I hurried up to the road again. But there was still nothing to see. 

     Standing in the middle of the road I began to feel the haunting sense that I was disappearing. It was the blackest of nights, and every minute seemed to crawl on its knees. I had never felt so overwhelmingly alone. Only the dim light from the single lightbulb kept me connected to the world, and I knew that without that small light, I would be swallowed up into the darkness forever. I had left New York without a plan. Nobody knew where I was, nobody had asked where I was going. My brother didn’t know where I was, nor did my father, neither had inquired. No mention had been made about returning for my third year at Columbia. My mother had died five years ago. I had never dealt with witnessing the phone call between Gloria and David, which shattered the last thread of illusion I had about our relationship. When all that happened, I thought there was nothing to do but jump off into the unknown, and attempt to stay one step ahead of an unacknowledged mountain of grief. I called it adventure, it had all the outward appearance of being that. But it was really pretense. Cocky, to be sure, but under the surface, I wanted to disappear. In Denver, I found a little bit of joy in building a small life but got chased out of town. And there I stood.  

       When I felt something soft and cold land on my eyelids, I looked back toward the store, and saw the air was filled with large floating snowflakes. Rushing back to the porch, I stood looking out at the thickening cascade. The snowfall gently gliding downward, covering the ground like a quilt, seemed to quiet the night even more.

       Then I heard the unmistakable growl of a truck. It was distant but real. I made tracks through the fresh snow to the road and sure enough, I saw headlights far off down the highway. My heart began to pound. It was well past midnight.  I began to wave my arms, sticking my right thumb up as high as it could go. Please see me, I yelled to myself. The snow fell even thicker. The truck was getting closer and I started to jump up and down, shouting, “Hey! Stop!” I could tell by the deep sound of the truck’s engine that it was an eighteen-wheeler, and I knew that truckers were more likely than regular folks to pick up hitchhikers, so my chest burst with hope. But the truck didn’t slow down. It barreled toward me at a monstrous speed then exploded past me with a rush of wind.

       Jostled by the tailwind, I backed up a few feet and watched the truck recede into the distance.  Walking back across the parking lot to the porch, I sat on the bench and watched the thickening snowfall. But it was too cold to sit. I got up and shoved my hands deep into my pockets, and started to pace back and forth. The night returned to its heavy silence. Then I heard what sounded like a foghorn. And it startled me. Could it be the truck that had just blown by? I ran up to the road and looked in the direction it had been heading, and sure enough, there it was, parked on the side of the road a hundred yards away, its red rear lights blinking. He must have seen me.

        I yelled as loud as I could, “Wait!” And ran back down to the bench and grabbed my backpack, and ran as fast as I could back up the parking lot and down the road to the truck, yelling over and over again, “Wait! I’m coming!” Just as I got to the back of his truck, I heard the driver shift the truck into gear and begin pulling away. I ran even faster and I got to the shotgun side door and looking up through the window, I shouted, “Stop!” The driver turned and saw me.

       Once he had brought the truck to a full stop, the driver indicated for me to climb in. Opening the door, I felt a burst of warm heat coming from the cab. Shivering, I closed the door.  The trucker said, “Hell, son, I waited five minutes, figured you didn’t want to ride with me.”

       “No. God, no. I just didn’t realize you had stopped. I heard you blast your horn, otherwise, I would’ve missed you altogether.”

       “Well, alright. Where you headed?”

       “Oregon. A little town just outside of Portland called Lake Oswego.”

       “Ok, well, I can get you near halfway there. I’m crossing to west Wyoming, to a little hole in the wall called Rock Springs. There’s a truck stop and you can get a decent breakfast.

       “Sounds great.”

       The trucker and I shared stories for a while, but after twenty minutes, I fell fast asleep mid-conversation. When the trucker saw me hunched over, he reached over and tapped me on the shoulder and said,

       “Go ahead and climb back into the sleeper.”

       I did as he said and was asleep again the second I stretched out. Six hours later I woke up in western Wyoming. The sun was out, brilliant and bright, and I heard the trucker say, “Come on, son, let’s eat.”

There was something repellent about the man shouting at me. You could hear it in his voice. Even before turning to look at him, I knew there would be trouble between us. He had a mean round face, squinty eyes, and a permanent snarl for a mouth. He was also short and pot-bellied, and only his new boots had touched any mud. It was obvious his little pink hands hadn’t held a shovel in many years, if ever. I looked over at Moose, standing nearby, and he made a slight head tilt in the direction of the man approaching and mouthed the word “Union”. Moose and I had been digging a trench on the north side of the construction pit and it was already a hot day before noon. Planting my shovel in the dirt, I wiped the sweat off my face and waited for the barking man to get close.

       “Hey, you,” He said, in a tone that confirmed my initial assessment, “What’s your name?” He carried a clipboard in one hand and a pen in the other. He had trouble keeping his balance as he slipped up the small incline to where Moose and I stood.

       “What?” I asked.

       “What’s your name?” He asked angrily.

       “My name is Hank,” I said, very slowly. 

       Glancing down at his clipboard, he said, “There’s no Hank on the list.” He raised his voice and repeated, “you’re not on the list!” He looked at me expecting an answer. 

       I shrugged my shoulders, shook my head, bit the corner of my mouth, and said, even slower,

       “I don’t know why.”

       “What’s your social security number?”, he demanded.

       “Geez,” I said, “I don’t know it by heart. It’s too long.”

       “Where’s the card? You got a wallet, don’t you?”

       “Yeah, I’m pretty sure it’s in my wallet.”

       “Well, let’s see it,” he demanded, getting puffy and red in the face.

       “Oh, I never bring it to work. Look how muddy I get.” 

       The rep looked like he was about to pop a blood vessel and I was thinking that the best feeling in the world at this moment would be to put him out of his misery by whacking him upside the head with my shovel. But the smart move was to continue to play dumb. He was beginning to stammer and I could tell that the interrogation was quickly coming to a close.

        “I’m checking on you,” he said, turning to leave, slipping in the mud again. “Goddammit. You better have your ID with you next time I see you.” And he stormed away.

       I glanced over at Moose, who smiled at me with what appeared to be newfound respect. We started digging again and then we both started laughing.

       “I didn’t know you could be so dumb, Hank,” Moose said.

       “Neither did I.”

       “You be careful. Those are not nice people.”

       “Yeah, that was close.”

       “You wanna grab a beer after work?”

       “Absolutely.”

       I’d been on the job a few weeks and things had been going smoothly. I liked the hard work, it was honest sweat. I was saving nearly fifty bucks out of every paycheck, and already I had a couple hundred tucked under the mattress. It seemed like my fortunes had turned for the better, and I felt a certain contentment. Life was simple and uncomplicated. From the first day, they put me with Moose and told me to follow what he did. Moose was called Moose because he was just that, big as a moose. We liked each other and soon became a team. I’d almost forgotten that I wasn’t in the union. Nobody until today had asked me about it. It was a little unnerving to be reminded that there was somebody up there counting heads. I had put off the little bully with my dumb guy act. But for how long? 

       After work, Moose and I washed up and hosed the dirt off our boots, then headed over to a dusty little tavern that was close by. It was becoming our Friday night tradition to share a pitcher of beer. It was Moose’s turn to buy. We entered through the front door, passing by a dimly lit neon Budweiser sign glowing red in the window, cutting through pink shafts of fading sunlight angling into the room. The bartender turned and nodded to us. He had a worn, but hopeful look on his face. It was just five o’clock, and we were his first customers it seemed. I went to the back room and put a quarter down on the pool table’s edge, and then sat down on one of the tall chairs braced against the wall and lit a cigarette. It felt good to get off my feet.

       Moose entered carrying a large pitcher of beer and two glasses. He set them down on the small table connecting our chairs and poured the beer. We raised our glasses and drank. Moose emptied his in one long tilt, then poured himself another. He smiled big and satisfied, and I smiled back, impressed.

       “You ready to get your ass whooped?” I asked, standing up and walking over to the coin slot. I fit a quarter into the slide and pushed it in, releasing the balls from underneath the table. They tumbled out into the tray and I racked them up. Once the table was ready, I sat back down next to Moose and took a hit off my cigarette and beer. I offered to let Moose take the first shot, but he waved me off. So, I chalked up my cue stick, set the cue ball just right, and slammed it into the rack with a loud crack, sending the balls every which way across the table. A couple of the balls were sunk on that first shot, so it stayed my turn, and I proceeded to run almost the entire rack. I had warned Moose that I had some talent in this sport, having grown up with a professional-sized pool table in our basement. I was a crack shot by the time I was twelve years old. The smaller quarter tables in most taverns were child’s play for me. It was almost embarrassing how little Moose got a chance to play. I’d sink several balls and then Moose would make a crappy shot and sit back down, then I’d run several more. But Moose never got flustered, I think he liked staying close to the beer.

       We were in the middle of our third or fourth game when one of the Mexican laborers, Jose, from work walked in. We smiled and waved a friendly hello. He sat down on the other side of the room, and then, a minute later, he got up and placed a quarter on the edge of the table. He was challenging the next winner, and that was me, of course. Moose had yet to win a game. 

       After I won the game with Moose, Jose got up and put his quarter in the slider, and racked the balls. It was my break, and my first shot was killer, sinking three balls. I ran nearly the whole table before Jose got a shot. He missed, and I cleaned the rest of the table. Jose smiled at me and then left the room. A few moments later he returned with a friend, who held up a quarter, and I gestured for him to go ahead.  He inserted his coin and racked a new game, and I proceeded once again to dominate the table. Jose and his buddy conferred softly in Spanish, and then Jose left the room again. Moments later, he returned, but this time with two more friends. The new guys smiled at me and put their quarters on the table. As before, I dispatched them both, effortlessly. This continued a couple more times until there were eight Mexicans sitting on the other side of the room, and they weren’t smiling anymore. 

        Then the chatter in the room ceased, and all eyes turned toward the entrance. Two serious-looking hombres entered the room. They stepped to either side of the doorway, like sentries at a guard post. And then a man appeared between them dressed all in white: white suit, white shirt, white boots, and a white cape draped over his shoulders. Everything about him radiated power. Taking an unhurried step into the room, he calmly acknowledged the faces staring at him. Then, he turned to me. Holding my eyes in a hard stare, he snapped his fingers and one guard came up behind him and removed his cape. The other guard handed him his pool cue. A third man racked the table. Not a word had been spoken. Never having seen a vision like this, I was temporarily transfixed. The room was completely hushed. Then the man in white gestured for me to go ahead and start the game.

       Oblivious to the darkening mood in the room, I lined up the break shot and slammed the cue ball into the rack. It was a devastating break, spreading all fifteen balls across the table, sinking two of them. I didn’t suppress my cocky grin. Scanning the table, I locked in several consecutive shots. Without hesitation, I sank ball after ball with dangerous confidence. When I finally did miss a shot, there were only four balls left on the table, which included the eight ball. The man in white stepped to the table and considered his shot. I sat down next to Moose and took a sip of my beer. The man in white took his first shot and he sank the ball. The mood in the room instantly lifted into smiles of approval. The man in white was clearly at a higher skill level than his minions, but he moved and held his cue like an amateur. He managed to sink one of the remaining balls, an easy shot, but he didn’t leave the cue ball in a favorable position, and he missed his next shot.

        I started to get up from my chair to finish the game, but Moose stopped me and grumbled under his breath, “Hank, not for nothing, but maybe you should consider losing this game.” He tilted his head toward the other side of the room, where ten plus unhappy faces stared at me. Like a kick in the teeth, Moose’s warning made me suddenly very aware this was no game to win. 

        Stepping to the table, chalking up my cue, I took time analyzing the shot. It wasn’t difficult, but I had to make it seem like it was. The room knew I was a good shooter, and any intentional miss would be even more insulting. A tipping point was at hand and I had to play the next moment with perfect precision. The second to last ball was an easy lay-up, so I had to sink it. But I purposely overplayed the cue ball and it rolled farther away from the pocket than necessary. Then, taking aim, I gently tapped the cue ball and it slowly rolled across the distance, connecting with the eight ball just right. Just when it looked like it was going to fall into the pocket, it brushed against the cushion and stopped. The last shot, the winning shot, was impossible to miss, and the man in white didn’t. Moose and I walked out of the tavern alive and unharmed. 

       Once outside, Moose said, smiling,

       “I didn’t know you could be so dumb, Hank.”

       “Neither did I.”

       “You wanna do it again next week?”

       “Absolutely.”  

       The following week things got dicey. The repellant little union man returned. It had been a handful of weeks since our first encounter and I frankly had forgotten about him. But there was the same snarly voice shouting, “Hey you!” I turned and saw him stomping in our direction, looking even more agitated than the time before. When he got up close, he loudly demanded to see my I.D. And all I could think to do was to play dumb again. He pointed a threatening finger at me and shouted above the noise of the construction site, “I’m tracking you down! Today!” He turned quickly to leave, but his boots had sunk into the mud and he fell to his knees. “Goddammit!” he shouted, picked himself up, and stormed off.

       Moose and I didn’t share a laugh this time. When I looked over at him, his face held real concern. I tried to shrug it off with a pasted smile, but we both knew serious trouble had arrived. We continued our work in silence. It was Wednesday, and nothing happened the rest of that day. Then Thursday came and went. But halfway through Friday, just before lunchtime, I heard Moose say, “Hank, you better make yourself scarce, and quick. He’s back.” I looked over at the wooden stairs that led down to the floor of the construction pit, and sure enough, he was coming. I didn’t want to lose the job, but I didn’t want to be bullied either. Not knowing what to do, I dropped my shovel and hustled away in the direction of the far side of the pit, where I could climb the opposite stairs and disappear. But halfway across the distance, the repellant man’s screaming voice caught up with me. It was too late, he marched straight at me. I stopped in my tracks, in the dead center of the construction site, and waited. I didn’t know what was going to happen, but I could feel anger beginning to boil up inside of me. 

       He got up close, bellowing profanities, letting loose a torrent of insults and threats. He knew how to deal with people like me. And just to make himself clear, he stepped even closer and stabbed his finger into my chest, screaming, 

       “You understand?” 

       And that was his mistake. I whacked his arm away from my chest, hitting it hard. He stumbled backward with a look of shock. I stepped toward him and yelled back,

       “Who the hell are you to deprive me of a job? I work hard for every dollar I make. Who are you to demand a cut of my pay?” 

       It was obvious he wasn’t accustomed to pushback. He took a small step in my direction like he was going to strike me, but I would’ve welcomed that and he knew it. Instead, he backed up.

       “That’s it, you’re done!” He stammered and turned tail, furious.

       I rejoined Moose and picked up my shovel and started digging alongside him again. But we both knew it wouldn’t be for long. Sure enough, a short time later, a man shouted down to me from above,

       “Hank, the foreman wants to see you. Now.”

       I acknowledged the summons, and then looked over at Moose. He was angry and shoveled hard. Not looking at me, he said,

       “Dammit Hank, I didn’t know you could be so dumb.”

       “Neither did I.”

       “You take it easy.”

       “Absolutely.” 

       The trailer door to the foreman’s office was open and I stepped inside. Corky looked up from his desk and a huge smile spread across his face. He leaned back in his chair and laughed as he said,

       “Damn, Hank, I don’t know what you said, but I’ve never seen that little prick so mad. He burst in here fuming and spitting curses, hopping up and down, demanding I fire you. I can’t remember when I enjoyed witnessing something so satisfying.”

       I looked at Corky, surprised and relieved. I had expected to get my ass chewed. Instead, I was joining Corky with a big smile of my own. But, then, he continued.

       “We like you here, Hank. You’re a good worker and you learn fast. There’s been talk about training you to become a crane operator. That pays sixteen an hour. But in the meantime, that little son of a bitch has threatened to close down the entire site if you don’t immediately join the union. Today. Otherwise, you have to be gone. Today. There’s nothing I can do. I’m hoping you’ll stay.”

       I looked at Corky and I could see he was sincere and I felt deeply appreciative. He was offering me a good opportunity. But I didn’t like being pushed around. I didn’t like being forced. And the thought of being lorded over by that disgusting union man made my stomach turn. So, I thanked Corky but told him I couldn’t do it. He stood up and as we shook hands, he said,

“One last thing, Hank. If you’re not going to join the union, you probably should skip town in a hurry. Those boys don’t mind making an example out of people like you.” Hanging my hard hat on a hook by the door, I thanked Corky one last time and walked out of the trailer.

       They must have thought I was hard of hearing. At least for that first week, it took some getting used to. “Hank!” they would shout over the din of heavy construction machines. “Hey, Hank!” And a couple of seconds later I would stop in my tracks realizing they were shouting at me. That was my new name. That was what I told Corky, the project foreman, when he leaned back in his chair and said, “What’s your name son?” I needed to stay sharp on this.

      Having pounded the pavement in downtown Denver for a few days, looking for any kind of job, I finally landed a position as a busboy at a Greek diner working the lunch shift. The pay was near nothing, and though the complimentary meal helped a lot, it wasn’t going to cut it. Rent at the Melvin Hotel was twenty-five a week and my wallet was running on empty. I had to find a better-paying job and quick.

    That was when I came upon the construction site. A fifty-story skyscraper was being built. They were at the foundation stage, the beginning. An entire city block had been dug out, a huge square pit excavated at least fifty feet deep. Looking down from street level, there were construction workers scrambling from one end of the pit to the other. Dozens of hard hats doing their jobs in ear-splitting noise and continuous muscular motion. Huge machines spitting out brown exhaust. Bulldozers pushing dirt, pile drivers pounding steel shafts, welders shooting sparks of blue light. A huge crane occupied the center, lifting and moving heavy supplies of steel pipes, re-bar, lumber, and pallets of 100-pound cement bags. Large trucks grinding up the ramp, filled to the brim by a relentless back-hoe. And across the site, on the far side, perched a mobile home on a wooden platform. Men with clipboards and rolled-up blueprints, wearing different colored hard hats came and went from there. None of them anywhere as dirty as the men below. These had to be the bosses. And that was where a man got hired if he wanted a job. I had nothing to lose by asking.

       Walking the perimeter of the pit, making my way to the mobile home, I was thinking how to approach the man inside. I had seen the other bosses walk away, so the main boss was alone. That was to my benefit. It’d be better one on one. I had to make a good show of it and figured confidence would be the best selling point. With that in mind, I picked up my pace, turned the last corner, and strode straight for the office door, head held high. Halfway there I cleared my throat a few times, thinking to lower my voice and toughen the sound. Then, just as I arrived at the wooden steps, I jerked to a halt. I couldn’t use “Larry” as my name. What kind of name is that for a construction worker? I bet you couldn’t find a single “Larry” anywhere in the country who worked construction.

     The man inside would say, “What do you want?”

      “I want a job.”

       “What’s your name?”

       “Larry”.

       “We don’t hire Larrys. Get out and don’t come back.”

        I had to think of something else and fast. Lingering just outside the door, turning in circles and rejecting every name that came to mind, a rising wash of panic began to bubble up inside of me. The Boss could step outside any second and catch me standing there, mouthing silent name options. “Brad… Scott… Bob…Ernie…Edward…” No, No. No. None of these worked. It had to be perfect. I wasn’t a big guy, so my attitude had to do the trick, and there was no way that attitude could begin with “Larry”. But nothing came. Drawing a blank and feeling conspicuous, I turned around and began walking away. But after a few steps, a thought suddenly clicked in my mind and I stopped. I had it. I had the answer. Right there in my middle name. Henry. And the diminutive of Henry is Hank. And Hank couldn’t be a more perfect name for a construction worker.

       Clenching my fist and punching the air, I did an about-face and marched back to the wooden steps of the trailer. Taking a couple of deep breaths, I remembered a phrase I’d read somewhere, “The Gods favor the bold.” I was about to find out how true that was. Bounding up the steps, I stopped at the entrance. The door was open, and there was the main boss sitting behind a cluttered desk, making pencil marks on a piece of paper. He was facing in my direction, but without looking up, and before I could knock on the door frame, he growled,

       “What?”

       I took a large step into the trailer and shouted, “My name is Hank.”

       There was a pause in the air before the boss man looked up. When he did, he stared at me for a few seconds, and then said,

       “Hank?”

       “Yes sir, my name is Hank.”

       He continued to look at me and I could tell he was assessing the alien presence that had just entered his world. But I stood firm and waited him out, fixing his stare boldly with my own. After a bit, he set his pencil down, and, leaning back into his chair, a slight smile cracked through his hardened face.

       “Well, Hank. What can I do for you?”

       “I want a job. I’ll work hard. And I’ll work for less than what you pay the union guys.” These last words stumbled out of my mouth without permission. Biting my tongue, I hoped I hadn’t just ruined my chances. He might be a union guy himself. But the boss man didn’t throw me out. He cracked an even broader smile. Leaning further back in his chair, he lifted his right boot onto the desk, reached over to his coffee mug, and took a sip. I stood there waiting, my mouth dry as sand. Then he said,

       “Well, Hank, I have room to hire you, but I’m sorry to say, if I do, I’ll have to pay you what I pay the union guys. Would you still want the job?”

       It took a couple of seconds for what he just said to sink in, but when it did, I nearly jumped out of my sneakers.

       “Yes sir, yes. I would, very much. Yes.”

      The boss man stood up from his chair and said, “My name is Corky. I’m the project foreman. You see that table over there? There’s a stack of application forms. Take one and bring it back filled out tomorrow morning. I’ll expect to see you 8:00 am sharp. We work an eight-hour day, plus half-hour lunch. The pay is five bucks an hour, can you handle that? Oh, and don’t let anyone know you’re not in the union, the reps get a little touchy about that.”

         Stunned at my success, nodding affirmatively, I said, “Yes sir. Mums the word. Eight am. I’ll be here at 7:30. Thank you sir.”

       Crossing to the table, I picked up an application form and then crossed back to the door. Just as I was stepping out of the trailer, I heard,

       “Hank”.

          But already preoccupied with how rich I was going to be at five bucks an hour and how good a steak dinner would taste after I cashed my first paycheck, I continued to step through the doorway. Then I heard again, this time a little louder,

       “Hank.”

        I stopped. For two seconds. Then wheeled around and said,

       “Yes sir?”

       Pointing at my sneakers, Corky said,

       “Wear boots tomorrow. You can’t work on a construction site wearing sneakers.”

       Looking at Corky, then at my feet, then back up at Corky, I stammered,

       “I don’t have boots. These are all I got.”

       “Well, shit,” Corky said. There was a pause and my heart began to sink. Then he said, “Okay, just don’t step on anything sharp for the next two days. You can buy a pair of boots after work Friday, which is payday.”

       “Yes sir. Boots. Friday. Will do. Thank you, sir, thank you.” Turning to leave, thinking the steak dinner would have to wait a week, I heard Corky again,

        “Hank?” I stopped. For two seconds. Then spun around,

       “Yes sir?”

       “Are you hard of hearing, Hank?”

       “What?”