Souls of Steel , livre ebook

Xlibris US - Philip Garrow

Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement

Je m'inscris

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

316 pages

English

Vous pourrez modifier la taille du texte de cet ouvrage

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

A propos
Informations
Extrait

Description

There's no available information at this time. Author will provide once information is available.

Sujets

Fiction

Informations

Publié par	Xlibris US
Date de parution	09 octobre 2022
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781669848585
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0200€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

SOULS OF STEEL

The Saga Begins

Philip Garrow

Copyright © 2022 by Philip Garrow.

ISBN:
Softcover
978-1-6698-4859-2

eBook
978-1-6698-4858-5

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the Holy Bible, King James Version (Authorized Version). First published in 1611. Quoted from the KJV Classic Reference Bible, Copyright © 1983 by The Zondervan Corporation

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 10/06/2022

Xlibris
844-714-8691
www.Xlibris.com
846388
CONTENTS
Epigraph
Prologue: the River
Coda: after the Deluge
Chapter 1 Booking Passage
Chapter 2 Maiden Crossing
Chapter 3 Crewmates All
Chapter 4 toil below decks
Chapter 5 Advance in Rank
Chapter 6 Goddess of the Voyage
Chapter 7 Celebrations on Board
Chapter 8 Steel Doors and Boiler Rooms
Chapter 9 Charted Courses
Chapter 10 North Atlantic
Chapter 11 Full Steam through Ice Floes
Chapter 12 Struck Hull
Chapter 13 Phillips’ SOS
Chapter 14 To the Lifeboats
Chapter 15 Roar, then Silence
Chapter 16 Waters Vast and Black
Epilogue: the View from Woods Hole
About the Author
Epigraph
to capture Africa, men stole her sons.
to bleed the Iroquois, men slashed her trees.
to starve the Sioux, men murdered herds.
to drown our Children, men steamed through bergs.
to summon doom, men tore out mills.
our souls of steel cry out as one.
____________
for Tiger Tigger Tiny Tanks—
with our Family giving
thanks…
Prologue
the River
The Monongahela River carves a serpentine course northward from her headwaters in the mountains of West Virginia to her confluence at the steel city of Pittsburgh. She slices her silent way through rustic Appalachian woodlands. She runs her rolling waters by ghostly remnants of steel mills and coal yards and small towns abandoned. One hundred and thirty miles of River course. Seventy as the arrow flies. Twice the distance, due to her meanderings. No other river her modest length has carried more industrial traffic in all of America. Few in all the world. No other river her modest length has carved a serpentine course through more social disintegration.
In 1944 the Pittsburgh region produced more steel than all the industrial might of Germany and Japan combined. Pittsburgh steel—made by Pittsburgh women, whose Pittsburgh men were fighting the war against the Japs and Nazis. Pittsburgh steel that beat the Japs and Nazis. Steel city. Steel men. Steel women. Steel families.
By 1984 the Pittsburgh region had become center stage for Shakespearian tragedy in blue collars. For collapse of the city’s working class culture. For loss of the city’s working class structure. Mills, mines, and factories shut down. Tens of thousands lost their jobs. Their families. Their homes. The center stage upon which a Shakespearian company had been playing for three generations.
It happened to a company born in the USA. A company begot of steel city Pittsburgh. A company lost—swept away in the deluge of irresistible progress. 21 st Century technologies. Global economies. Servile politicians. Sterile statisticians.
It happened where a River runs north—to a steel city.
Coda
after the Deluge
A yellow half-ton jeep—sleek solid wooden stake bedded—pulls up to a mill gate. Parks close by its railroad crossing. In former days, this act would have been unthinkable. On the thirteenth day of the second month of 1984, however, it doesn’t matter a bit. The guards, warm and safe in their snow-banked barracks, don’t give a second glance to the offending truck or goofy writer kid everybody knows is crazy. He can park any place he wants to. There’s no mill traffic. No mill. No industry. No energy. Just ghostly empty 19 th Century ancient factory remnants of America’s bygone booming gilded age. No matter what the kid does he can’t get in the way.
February slices the compound in icy anger. Specks of crystal snow slice steely sharp against layers and shades of cold lead gray. The mill yard is framed by aged’ broken cyclone fence that reaches beyond blizzard’s breadth. An insolent sprig of Queen Anne’s Lace waves to the kid from the fenceline. The kid waves back. Slides out of the truck. Jerks against the shock of door handle static. Begins his dreaded march—but halts before the mill gate. Fumbles about in his pockets. The severance papers are in the glove box. Upon retrieving them, he dares read the frigid composition one last terrible time. It chills his hand in capitalism’s absolute zero temperament.
Be advised that you have the option to terminate your service with the Wheeling Pittsburgh Steel Corp. Should you take the severance pay, you will surrender your employment rights. Information regarding the amount of money you are eligible for can be obtained from the Industrial Relations Department, Allenport Plant. Sincerely, Joseph D’Aglio Vice-President of Industrial Relations, the Wheeling Pittsburgh Steel Corporation.
The kid slides by silenced time clocks. Waves to guards in their snow-banked barracks. They don’t wave back. He advances across howling winds and treacherous ice floes. His course is set for the Industrial Relations Department caught in frigid composition. For the hundredth time he pulls on the door that is clearly marked push. Steps into a workplace dim lit. All but abandoned. The director of industrial relations is hunched over a tiny desk near the counter. A single light bulb—dangling from the thinnest strand imaginable—shines weakly down upon him. His spacious private office at the rear is locked shut and dark lit. There is no company present. No cheerful secretary. No stone-faced assistant. No accountant wearing Pittsburgh Steeler jerseys despite the time of year. No pipe-puffing janitor. No sexy little mail carrier. No radio blaring ‘60s oldies. No scent of coffee brewing. Nor radiator hissing. No home. No hearth. No heat. All warmth and cheer are gone. Darkness and chill fill in. Bobby struggles on one phone while another rings with maddening insistence. He scribbles as he talks. Doesn’t glance about. Bobby’s is a clerical burden.
The kid takes command of a metal chair over by the far wall. Its thick green padding and big steel arms afford comfort unexpected. He digs out his notebook. Begins the recording of this distasteful event. Long minutes later he is summoned. Bobby looks cadaverously thin. Beaten and broken under pale light. The kid clears his throat.
“Hey, Bobby. Here ta sign fer my severance.”
A table set hard against Bobby’s bulkhead is flooded and flowing over—a pulpy sargasso sea of signed statements. Bobby passes a form over the counter. The kid scrawls his name in fine-line black ink. Uses his own fine-line black ink pen. Bobby examines the document. Tosses it to dissolution. Returns wordlessly to jangling bells. The kid fumbles about in his back pocket. Pulls out the papers. Crumples them. Drops them in a wastebasket on the way out. Retreats across siberian wastelands—toward a rusted barbed wire fenceline that will forevermore separate him from steely men. From steely mills. From steely worlds.
wind
was rising.
winter storm gathered to the west.
a sea of offspring flowed from steelwork fields.
eight decades of sweat-worn men,
Pittsburgh coal,
icy rivers,
tie-held rails,
shanty houses,
faithful women,
hope-filled sons,
loving daughters,
caught—all of us—in bloody world events.
our children’s tale must now be told,
whose souls of steel
cry out to Heaven.
Chapter I
Booking Passage
It is the spring of 1974. Unseasonably hot. Sweat trickles down the neck and back of one Thaddeus Christopher Gallo. He wipes it away with a blue work hanky. Hesitates at the edge of a bustling railroad crossing. A sparkling cyclone fence is all that stands between him and a substantial steel mill pumping out prodigious iron product.
… how many times’ve i been in there, clutchin’ the Old Man’s hand so tight it made my arm ache?…
The scene stretched off into an endless dust-swirl parking lot. Off into a thousand hues of painted metal. Off into the arc of hot sunlight on cool glass. Off into curved and curling vistas. Appalachian Mountains rose in richest green beyond the iron dust red-rust gray smoke. Above the fortress gothic towers. Outside the barbed wire guard shanty fenceline. Behind the dark satanic lair of witchcraft secret steely brews. Tad drew a trembling breath. Took a reluctant step toward the steaming citadel. Teasing breezes nudged him ever so softly forward. He obeyed, slipped through the gates, and set course for a tall distant yellow brick building.
“Hey, buddy! Hey, you!”
Tad looked back toward the gate. A red Mack tractor trailer—hauling monstrous silver steel coils—shifted gears and lurched across the tracks. Suffocating clouds of strange white dust rose all about. As the choking fog began to settle, the source of shouting began to emerge. A heavyset man. Stark. Standing near the guard shanty. More dust settled. He wore a guard uniform. More