THE BELL
….Scotty, the foreman, had his unique way of communicating with
all his personnel, Italians, Germans, and locals. But Scotty had a soft
tooth for Mike, the young Hellene immigrant, who worked efficiently
and diligently, and who he allowed, during the evening shift, to drive
the yard engines, those monsters which Mike took from the rail they
were parked to pump some fuel into their tanks or fill their sand tanks
with dried up sand, and that gave extra pleasure to Mike who, even if
he only had to switch the engine from one rail to another and run it for
less than a kilometre distance, made him feel like a king since only the
engineers and mechanics were allowed to drive these engines.
Mike remembered one time when he was in the cabin while
Scotty was driving one engine and noticed Mike’s excited glance and
attention to how the engine was operated. Scotty knew that, although
the new immigrant had difficulty with the new language, Mike had a
very sharp brain and eyes that registered every small detail that related
to everything other people did. It was that time when Scotty said,
“You’d love to drive one of these wild women, eh, Mike?” to
which the labourer didn’t say a word but his eyes had said it all and
Scotty, the Scottish guy with the washed-out eyes and phlegmatic
breathing who didn’t give a shit about the company’s regulation and
protocols, he was after all close to his retirement, decided to allow this
labourer, Mike, to drive the engine once, and truly that was the time.
“Here, sit down, Mike,” his foreman had said as he got up and
showed Mike the driver’s seat on which Mike sat while his pulse accelerated
like the engine pistons, and after he managed to relax a little
and, under the guidance of Scotty, drove the engine for about one hundred
yards, when Scotty advised.
“Now apply the brake, slowly, slowly, softly, like when you caress
the body of your woman, you son of a bitch, softly…” which Mike did
and brought the engine to a halt. Mike never forgot those words, and
delighted like a peach, he had a ball every time the boss asked him to
fuel an engine while the mechanics or their helpers looked at Mike
with envy in their eyes. And it wasn’t much of an affair to drive the
engines, but it was what Mike loved to hear the thundering sound…
