44
PARTISAN REVIEW
understand the face now and feels that something is emerging
here, this man is going to talk-and he wants to draw him out,
let him spin himself out.
"So you're an old scab,eh ?"
The man grins momentarily. These must be new fellows
and he could tell them a thing or two, these wise union guys.
"Seattle," he says. "It was maybe seven years ago we
had a strike there that lasted four months. What did
I
do?
I worked those four months-and let me tell you I made more
than I'd made for a year! The unions-"
"Yeah, tell us about the unions."
"vV
ell, there was guys like you coming down to the place
every day, picketing and all that stuff-only I didn't fall for it.
Seven years ago that was. So you see," he looks up at them,
(these must be very new and innocent fellows) -"you' re wasting
your time here."
Brandt is fascinated by -the man's eyes which are grinning
with the grin he has suppressed on his face and he feels that the
man is enjoying this and thinks that they will plead with him
and that maybe he will even enjoy their pleading.
"Well Seattle," Brandt says. "Any other place you
scabbed?"
The man glances up, aware of the hatred in the questions
now, but these fellows are kind of helpless and they know they
are helpless and so he doesn't mind talking.
"Sure," he says. He runs his fingers through his hair.
"I've been all over the country, you know-mills, factories, I
even did mining once."
Brandt opens his coat wider and shifts on the bed. He
has patience and he wants to hear this man out, let him talk
himself out.
"Well, and where were you mining?"
"Pennsylvania. Nine dollars a day. I r emember that–
nine round dollars each and every day."
"So you've made some money on strikes?"
"Now don 't get me wrong." The fellow is almost anxious.
He will expand on it for these two. (After all?) " I worked
regular too, ... years of it in my time, and I never had a decem
coat to show for it
I
What's the us e ? See , what's the use for
me?
Unions, bosses, strikes-! say the hell with them all.
What does it mean to
me?
But now if they' re fighting over
something and make conditions where I can work and make
