moments, lean on his shovel, and chat with me about Freud between ton-loosening blasts? Of course, I'd have to find him first.
The day arrives and I join Father, all this an annoying distraction. I'm sullen. He doesn't notice my mood. He loves having me come along, but I've been in the Cut before and I'm not interestedâI just want to get it over with.
Mother and I have gone with him on a Sunday down the long stairs with other families and stood gawking at the immensity. But today, for my assignment, Father will tell me about it again. He'll include more detail and he'll love every minute.
One excellent thing: I get to wear my out-with-Harry clothesâno skirts allowed in the Cut during working hours. Maybe because of that and Father's enthusiasm I actually do forget about Federico ... for a short time.
So I stand with Father early in the morning and he plunges in, gestures toward the various machines and work sectors: "...midnight supply trains bring in coal for the shovels..." I take notes. "...they're kept running twenty-four hours, eighty-five of them running at any given time." Impressive. "Blasters send down rocks and the diggers go to work breaking them up. The shovelers move in and put eight tons of boulders and dirt onto a car in a single bite. My job is to keep those cars running and carry the spoil away..."
How could I take this lightly? I'm impressed all over again. I like the mechanics, the nuts and bolts of how things work. Got that, no doubt, from working with the boys and from Fatherâgenes don't discriminate much by gender.
And something else. Down inside the canal with the workers, it's different from a Sunday stroll there with Zoner families. That's a sightseeing tour, benign and touristy. In the sweat and noise of a workday there's a frightening aspect, a looming threat, as if the whole thing might decide to swallow us, then spit us out, like a gargantuan serpent fed up with the relentless grinding on its gut. It makes me uneasy.
Not Father, though. He's in his element. He's calm and happy, hard at work. He keeps talking and I write as fast as I can.
He points to the trackshifter. (Yet again.) The giant mantis is parked as usual by the wall, waiting.
"Every night it repositions the railsâpicks them up and lays them down in a new spot. Have to move the whole operation along, tracks and all..."
I think it's the humanness of the machine that gets him, the way it behaves like a child with a train set, rearranging the track at will, easily. It's a giant human. But aren't all machines? I'll make that part of the essay, what giant machines do. How like us they are, the trackshifter with its giant arms and giant prehensile claw. It's all we know, our puny human bodies, so we copy them and make machines. This is the kind of thing that gets me top marks and I know it.
I glance around at the workers, pick-and-shovel fellows, glistening in the heat. I want to have a word with them. But Father goes on talking and I write and boulders crash onto flatcars, steam shovels grind, and warning whistles scream before every blast. I think I can't take much more, then Father finishes speaking and stands thoughtful in the deafening inferno. I have to ask him:
"Doesn't the bedlam wear you out?"
"Noise means it's progressing the way it's supposed to. Doesn't bother me a bit."
That's why he's boss, I think, and make note of that, too. "I need a break," I tell him.
"Sure."
I make my way across dirt clods and gullies to a group of workers, scores of them that line the canal wall breaking up the larger boulders. There's just a chance...
"Hay Castellanos aquÃ?"
I say.
"No.
Antillano solo."
No Spanish, only West Indians.
I look on down the length of the canal. As far as I can see there are workers, forty thousand of them at any given time. I've just queried a dozen and Federico is not among them. This is folly.
I take a good look at the canal, a rare view from the floor, andfinish off my notes:
The day arrives and I join Father, all this an annoying distraction. I'm sullen. He doesn't notice my mood. He loves having me come along, but I've been in the Cut before and I'm not interestedâI just want to get it over with.
Mother and I have gone with him on a Sunday down the long stairs with other families and stood gawking at the immensity. But today, for my assignment, Father will tell me about it again. He'll include more detail and he'll love every minute.
One excellent thing: I get to wear my out-with-Harry clothesâno skirts allowed in the Cut during working hours. Maybe because of that and Father's enthusiasm I actually do forget about Federico ... for a short time.
So I stand with Father early in the morning and he plunges in, gestures toward the various machines and work sectors: "...midnight supply trains bring in coal for the shovels..." I take notes. "...they're kept running twenty-four hours, eighty-five of them running at any given time." Impressive. "Blasters send down rocks and the diggers go to work breaking them up. The shovelers move in and put eight tons of boulders and dirt onto a car in a single bite. My job is to keep those cars running and carry the spoil away..."
How could I take this lightly? I'm impressed all over again. I like the mechanics, the nuts and bolts of how things work. Got that, no doubt, from working with the boys and from Fatherâgenes don't discriminate much by gender.
And something else. Down inside the canal with the workers, it's different from a Sunday stroll there with Zoner families. That's a sightseeing tour, benign and touristy. In the sweat and noise of a workday there's a frightening aspect, a looming threat, as if the whole thing might decide to swallow us, then spit us out, like a gargantuan serpent fed up with the relentless grinding on its gut. It makes me uneasy.
Not Father, though. He's in his element. He's calm and happy, hard at work. He keeps talking and I write as fast as I can.
He points to the trackshifter. (Yet again.) The giant mantis is parked as usual by the wall, waiting.
"Every night it repositions the railsâpicks them up and lays them down in a new spot. Have to move the whole operation along, tracks and all..."
I think it's the humanness of the machine that gets him, the way it behaves like a child with a train set, rearranging the track at will, easily. It's a giant human. But aren't all machines? I'll make that part of the essay, what giant machines do. How like us they are, the trackshifter with its giant arms and giant prehensile claw. It's all we know, our puny human bodies, so we copy them and make machines. This is the kind of thing that gets me top marks and I know it.
I glance around at the workers, pick-and-shovel fellows, glistening in the heat. I want to have a word with them. But Father goes on talking and I write and boulders crash onto flatcars, steam shovels grind, and warning whistles scream before every blast. I think I can't take much more, then Father finishes speaking and stands thoughtful in the deafening inferno. I have to ask him:
"Doesn't the bedlam wear you out?"
"Noise means it's progressing the way it's supposed to. Doesn't bother me a bit."
That's why he's boss, I think, and make note of that, too. "I need a break," I tell him.
"Sure."
I make my way across dirt clods and gullies to a group of workers, scores of them that line the canal wall breaking up the larger boulders. There's just a chance...
"Hay Castellanos aquÃ?"
I say.
"No.
Antillano solo."
No Spanish, only West Indians.
I look on down the length of the canal. As far as I can see there are workers, forty thousand of them at any given time. I've just queried a dozen and Federico is not among them. This is folly.
I take a good look at the canal, a rare view from the floor, andfinish off my notes:
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