The Shlepper

Arriving at the Mozart Avenue work site at 6:40 a.m., approaching the group of men sitting along the curb drinking coffee out of paper cups, “Hi!” he said to the first man he made eye contact with. “Tony Esposito around?”

Not much older than Mitchell, the scruffy young man wearing oil and cement splattered blue jeans and a like decorated sweatshirt, answered, “Yeah,” jerking his thumb over his shoulder, in the direction of the City of Chicago’s newest parking facility, “Esposito’s in there, someplace.”

“Thanks.” Mitchell walked to the edge of the cavernous, steel-beam skeleton then into its maw by means of a rickety, uneven roadway made of paint and cement slopped 2X12 wooden planks that had been lain, by the most direct means, over a crisscross undergrowth of circular one-half inch steel reinforcement bars and around a forest of vertical four by eight plywood, cement-form encased steel ‘I’ beams to the far southern corner of the one floor, two parking deck facility. “Hi! Tony Esposito around?”

“Yeah.” A middle-aged, dark haired, deeply tanned man with a light growth of white stubble on his chin, wearing spotlessly clean chino slacks and matching shirt looked away from the two men he’d been instructing. “I’m Esposito. What can I... Oh, yeah!” Tony looked at him a moment, then back at the other two. “Okay. The two’a you know what to do! You,” motioning to Mitchell, “come with me.” Going a number of steps over the plank roadway, out of earshot of the other men. “Hi,” holding his hand forward. “I’m Tony.”

Shaking the offered hand, “I’m Mitch Lipensky. Good to know you.”

“Yeah?” Smiling wickedly, “Maybe ya won’t think so after today... Shelly tol’ me you was gonna be here an’ I shouldn’t do you or him no favors ‘bout the work, an’ I ain’t gonna. But bein’ as you’re new at this an’ it’ll cost me more in time an’ slopped concrete, I’m gonna give ya one’a the smaller ‘barrows... You got gloves?”

Reaching into his back pocket, “Yeah.” he produced a pair of leather work gloves.

“Good, you’re gonna need ‘em... Oh, by the way, Shelly tol’ me most likely you was only temporary an’, if I can, to kind’a keep you out’a sight when the union reps come by. So when I tell you, you go disappear. Get yourself coffee or somethin’ for twenty, twenty-five minutes, till they take off. Okay?”

“How’ll I know when the go?”

“Them pricks always drive dirty blue Chevys.”

In the neither-world between labor and management, Tony Esposito, the foreman of this crew, had been ‘Shop Steward’ for so long and had been so well liked that the membership had neither voted him out of the position nor found anyone they would rather have.

Originally working as a carpenter Journeyman under Morris Barrish – Sheldon’s father – although at different levels, Tony, along with Sheldon, had  worked himself up through the ranks of Costello Construction and the two men had formed a long and lasting friendship.

At times Sheldon would give Tony and his men concessions that might normally take negotiation and compromise. This improved the loyalty and moral of the men thus giving Costello Construction a higher quality of work from the ‘Esposito crew’.

Tony, at times, would do small favors for Sheldon... like hiding his nephew from union representatives whom would occasionally come on site to check for, and on the validity of union membership cards that were held by those of the work force.

“Hey, Tony!” someone called, “Concrete’s here!”

“Okay, you guys!” Tony yelled through cupped hands, “Get on it! Let’s hustle!” He looked at Mitchell. “Move your ass!”

... Standing behind and beneath it, the downward angled rotating steel barrel looked, by Mitchell’s perspective, as large as a house and ground as though – rather than the thick, black grease he saw – sand had been tossed onto the cogs that turned it. The rumble that emitted from within the rotating drum had the sound of...? liquid thunder.

The sluice opened and a gray glacier of chunky glop sledged down the shoot into his smaller... smaller? wheelbarrow. When the concrete hit, the three cubic feet of splashing semi-liquid rocked the steel carrier almost jerking the two wooden handles out of his hands. Tightening his fists about the handles, straining the muscles of his back, arms and legs, “Uhhhh!” lifting the rear of the wheelbarrow, stepping off the side of the plank that was beneath the concrete shoot, “Uhhhh!” pivoting the wheel to the right,  “Uhhhh!” pushing, he began the long, “Oh, shit!” journey from the ‘Portland Concrete’ truck at the curb outside, into the cavernous, steel-beam skeleton of the City of Chicago’s newest parking facility, and over a quarter block of springy, bouncy, uneven planking as all the while he attempted to keep up with the man before him and away from the lip of the wheelbarrow of the man behind him and with each step the three hundred and fifty pounds of sloshing weight, along with the weight of the smaller... smaller? wheelbarrow did all it could do to yank the handles from his hands, and the continuous compensating strain on first one wrist then the other felt as if the multitude of small and large bones of his hands, wrists, arms and shoulders were being pulled from their joints. Nearing the end of the plank path, the last number of steps were taken at a trot in order to give the men pushing the larger, two wheel wheelbarrows and his – okay, yeah – smaller, one wheel wheelbarrow enough momentum so when he reached the end of the plank roadway the man could lift the rear of the wheelbarrow projecting the – in Mitchell’s case only three hundred and fifty pounds of – concrete out and over the steel reinforcement bars where the concrete crew, in high rubber boots, stood within the widening sea of concrete spreading, evening and smoothing what, within minutes, began the solidifying process that would eventually become the lower deck of the City of Chicago’s  newest parking facility. 

He made one trip, then another, then that ‘Portland Concrete’ truck was empty and gone but,   “Ohhh, shit!” there were four other grinding, rotating steel barrel ‘Portland Concrete’ trucks idling along the curb.

Having spent almost four years in the U. S. Coast Guard, Mitchell Lipensky had thought that chipping paint, scrapping paint and painting was hard work. But this work was work beyond all comprehension of what he’d ever thought of as work and by the end of the first coffee break of this day he could hardly lift himself off the curb and, “Thank God!” by the end of this day he felt as though he’d died and gone to hell.