Work Song Read Free Page A

I learned, due to certain members’ foreign accents that turned the double u sound of “IWW” into wobble-u ), and the Wall Street-run company. There had been strikes and lockouts. Riots. Dynamitings. The Anaconda Copper Mining Company bringing in goon squads. A lynching, if I understood right, of a suspected IWW labor organizer. And even that was not the worst of the story.
    “Then there was the fire.” Grace’s voice stumbled. “In the Speculator mine two years ago.” She drew a breath. “One hundred sixty-four men were killed. My Arthur”—all the eyes in the room, including mine, darted to the wedding picture—“among them.”
    Griffith and Hooper moved uneasily in their chairs. “We was on the earlier shift,” Hoop murmured, “or we’d be pushing up daisies with the rest of them.”
    In the pause that followed, I sat there before the jury of their faces.
    There is something in me that attracts situations, I know there is. Here I was, faced by three people with whom I had spent only forkfuls of time, asked to make one of those choices in life that can dwarf any other. I had to pick a side, right now, or else hit the chandelier switch again and bolt into the night.
    I looked around once more at my expectant tablemates. Mentally asking their pardon for what might be called situational loyalty, I made a show of making up my mind.
    “The Anaconda Copper Mining Company,” I declared, “shall not have my services.”
    “Now you’re talking!” Griff slapped the table resoundingly and Hoop nodded. Grace favored me with a dimple of approval.
    “But what am I to do?” I turned out my hands, empty as they were. “I need work with decent pay to it. My funds have been delayed in the course of my journey.” If you substituted trunk for funds , that was perfectly true. Grace’s expression changed for the worse at this news.
    Griffith looked the length of the table at Hooper.
    “Creeping Pete,” said Hoop. “Needs a cryer.”
    “Possible,” said Griff. “Too sober?”
    “Not for long.”
    “Righto. Got just the thing for you, Morrie.”

2

    T he C. R. Peterson Modern Mortuary and Funeral Home admitted just enough daylight through leaded windows to let a few sunbeams wander among the casket display as if shopping from heaven. Otherwise, everything in the building was somber as a dead bouquet, and that included Peterson.
    “Hmm.” His back turned to me, he was leafing through a black-bound ledger that, with professional interest, I tried to peek at. All I could glimpse past his out-thrust elbows were column headings such as Place of Death , Next of Kin , and Payment Due . “Yes, yes, here they are, Griffith and Hooper, the both of them fully paid up on a ‘Miner’s Farewell’ burial contract, our nicest. Candles and all.” He clapped the ledger shut and turned around in creaky fashion. “Sound men, sound judgment. Generally.” This last was accompanied by a lidded look that took me in from hat to shoetop.
    “I give equal weight to their vouching for you as a possible employer, Mr. Peterson. Your establishment is very, ah, businesslike.”
    He seemed to brood on that. “Mr. Gorman—”
    “Morgan.”
    “—what would you say recommends you to this line of work?” He swept a hand around the casket display.
    You can’t just say, A strong stomach. I glanced past him to the darkly furnished room that served as the funeral home’s chapel, with its waiting bier and an antiquated organ that I could almost tell by looking would wail out notes fit for a Viking pyre. A thought struck me. “My funerary experience is not vast,” I admitted, “yet I have been fortunate enough to be an observer at some historically solemn occasions. I happened to witness the funeral procession of Edvard Grieg, to name one.”
    “In Oslo?” He straightened up like a stork on the alert.
    “There under the Scandinavian sky of heroes, with his own music resounding like the heartbeat of the fjords.”
    “What did they