Lincoln Public School's SBSP--Secondary Behavioral Skills Program...one graduate of said made quite a name for himself this past Xmas--Hawkin's murdered.
Well it was Sharon and Margo, observing in the classroom. I remem Sharon and one point, later, saying, "Maybe if you didn't talk so much."
So one observation I was like in a tomb...no talk, no utter, but you could see this young man walking stiffly about the classroom.
That was predate O, predate Iron. I talked Iron with Tom a little bit, never imagining I'd ever go back to it.
And then the kid who came at me with scissors--and suddenly, I had my hand on a chair. I didn't say anything. But suddenly he saw that he'd get hurt if he tried to attack.
Attack dog.
We move to Chapter 12
Chapter 12 Donut Delivery
7/28/2004 8:07:13 AM
Pig Palace Redux
(I don’t think this date is quite right) July 28 We were so dutiful and purposeful. We were like an altar boy when it came to the electricians. Even Rick shook my hand.
TAD SAID, as he followed me out of the building “That’s what the union doesn’t realize when they get rid of the apprentices that they won’t have anybody to do their work.” Or something like that. We were standing at the outskirts of the Hormel plant, what would be the SE corner of same. Where there’d been a furious gust of wind and snow and there were some boilermakers fabricating some steel parts and we had to imagine how cold it was, they had blue tarp up hung on various sections of the building, suspended from the thermostat, the huge device that pumped electricity that heated the building that fired up the furnace the hot grilling of where the hair of the hogs was burned off.
Of course, when Tad said “get rid of apprentices” I had no idea he was talking about me. I was just pretty confident that I’d be returning to Hiller. I’ve got to find the date when I dropped off the donuts. I know I was still in the union but I’ve got to come across a date.
I was in a particularly translucent state: still in a bit of a fog from the accident. Well, no, we can’t call this an accident, per se. but it had so many similarities to the accident I’d had 30 some years before, also working union, also working under contract in that I was part of the brotherhood that put those structures together.
I thought of the benefit softball game they had for me at Klasey Park. How there was almost a cool $900 raised. I remember bein’ in the stands, watching. Kerry and Jeremy were both there and, sure enough, there was a picture taken. That was in the local paper. It showed wife and child and husband. Jeremy, looking like he wanted to squirm out of Kerry’s arms. Other than the pix we took when Jeremy was riding the little scooter at the Nebraska State Fair, that was the last one that was taken of our family together.
I shook myself awake from my trance. No, there was gonna be no way I was gonna forget the trades this time. See, always before, after the softball game, I wanted to get in the car that Dad had helped us buy, covering the payments I still owed on the truck and then going through Voller’s in Pender to buy a brand spankin’ new Ford Galaxy 500. and get on out to the Powerhouse, go back to Port Neal landing, take that exit off the I-29 interstate, drive a few miles and bump across the railroad tracks and walk into the Local 184 Ironworker’s shack and say thank you.
But I never did. As I remember it, I don’t think I could get myself out of bed early enough. And I don’t think I could drive. And this is really strange. Only ‘til later, after Kerry left, did I start driving. And really, there was no reason I couldn’t drive. What I mean is, I didn’t lose my license or anything. No, it was the most curious thing. Off she goes and there I am, a car in the driveway. Start it up and let’s go. So, basically, I didn’t want to role her out of bed and have her get everybody up and ready, Jeremy included, and head on out to the Powerhouse—which would’ve been I reckon a good 40 mile drive. At any rate, to make a long story short, I didn’t ever get out there as I could picture myself, as I imagined myself doing—going out there and thanking them.
Well, come to think of it, I did go on out there. That’s when I started working again, in February of the next year. I’d just finished up the college stint at Briar Cliff, paid for by either Ebasco that was part of the settlement or Workman’s Comp. Actually, that’s probably a few months before I started climbing the compensation ladder. But, I remember I was taking Social Studies and some Old English class. I had to drop Social Studies. And I didn’t do very well in the English. And, it being a cold winter, I never thought I’d ever get past all the credits to graduate from college, you know, plan B after the accident, I went back to the hall. And I couldn’t believe, but ole Jimmy Cahill, he sent me back out. Oh, Lordy. So maybe it did get some thank you’s in then. But really, I was so conflicted by the different forces, I didn’t know which was to turn, which end was up.
But that was then, this was now. I going to make sure, I did it this time. I was not going to space it off or forget about it in anyway. Paul Lueke, after all, had pulled up in our broken, sharp-sloping driveway. And the envelope was thick, full of money. “there’s almost $400, the guys took up a collection. And then there was a card from Hormel's with some Pig’s Blood on it.”
I was speechless, standing on the broken concrete front porch and accepting the card. No, I had to get down to UP I had to get to Pig Palace.
I’m thinking, This time, there’s gonna be closure.
BUT I SOJOURNED TO FREMONT. The days were getting longer so that this drive was not so dark as it was when I first commissioned there.
AND NOW I’M THINKIN’ OF TONY. DAVIS I SAID WHEN JIM PALMIDINO ASKED ME WHO THE JOURNEYMAN WAS I WAS WORKING WITH. THIS IS AFTER I was suspended for a time. After I was told that I was not “mechanically inclined” and I was laid off by Hiller.
“No, I don’t think that’s right…,” I said, looking at the silver-haired Paladino.
“No, I don’t think that’s right either.” Both of us were lost in what really was Tony’s last name. I tried to picture him, standing before his small make shift desk, looking at what the orders he had to give out his men for the day, the sound of hog’s heads rolling above in the background.
“Hiller,” is how I proudly pronounced it when Clyde asked me in class what company I was working for. Like it was just about the best damn contractor in the world and that I was such a part and parcel of the lynch pin that turned that great wheel that built Omaha and Nebraska and the United State and of course the world that it would almost want to make you blush. Like how Dianne bought this red Carhartt jacket. Just after Christmas. It was a gift. Did she buy it herself or did someone buy it for her?
“where’d she go,” the tall carpenter that drove everyday from Lincoln with his old Ford Tempe that was such a resemblance to old Tempe we drove when I was shuttling my way as principal around the Lynch confines and sure enough would wake to roosters crowing in the morning “what happened to Diane?”
I didn’t know, No one knew. “I heard she’s out of the union,” they said at one point. While she was getting high marks relatively speaking from Steve, her journeyman that she was working for, someone was picking up that she wasn’t grasping, wasn’t getting into the flow of things quite right.
Smart enough, like me, to get past the test. And then the other experience before hand. She worked at Avaya;s on the production line so that must’ve what got her involved with the electricians, maybe a layoff and then she thought she’d try it.
She always did the lottery. Every week she’d hit us up for the Nebraska Lottery, the other Lottery. I wasn’t’ sure. I only put my $5 in the check pool a couple times. The best hand I could summon was two pairs. And then someone else always won with a straight or a flush or a full boat. I of course can’t remember the declension of cards but mine was no where near high enough.
So Dianne took care of the lottery number as well as the check pool. She bought the new Carharttt jacket. I was going to compliment her on it but it was in the room, the concrete floor, cold in the winter, even though we had all the drywall up in our temporary room and I was commissioned to put up the insulation near the top and all the corners and the crevices that managed to make me lose my tin snips.
It was ALL PART OF THE TOOL BUYING AND THAT’S WHERE I FIT IN DIRECLTY WITH Dianne. It just wanted to kill you that you saw how she bought the jacket: after all, was she not an electrician? She’d put her small hardhat on, her long black hair falling far past the middle of her back. With a cigarette in her mouth, she’d follow Steve out the door.
But SUDDENLY DIANE WAS THERE NO LONGER. It’s hard to say what exactly did happen. Hank, who was bright and loquacious and freely admitted to all sorts of drug expeditions in his younger years, didn’t’ say much about it and Steve was there a few weeks later looking over the blue prints with Tim and Paul.
THE ONLY THING I CAN REMEMBER is how Bob and I had to get hold of some ladders. And there would be Dianne, holding the ladder, looking up at Steve. She had an immaculate cute butt and, to be quite honest, maybe would make a better go of it as a waitress in a fancy club or dancing across the stage. There WAS RUMOR THAT SHE HAD some pictures of her taken in provocative poses, in her undies, but, like the young permanent apprentice that I am, I just sat quietly and patiently between the two racks of tools and parts: minnies, screws, you name it. Couplings and conduits. To this day, even though I worked with them for more than a few months, still can’t tell the difference.
I FINALLY THOUGHT OF SOMETHING FUNNY. WHEN I SAW NEW ORLEANS RICK AGAIN, HE SAID HE’D DRIVEN down there with his wife and a couple others, had a great time seeing gals without their tops on, in the French Quarter, that I’d say to him, “I heard she ran off with a drywaller from Constructors. Of course, this is not the name of the company. I can’t recall it right now. But they were a non-union outfit that came in—now I remember, Midwest Drywall—and finished up the fine grade part of the structure as Allied didn’t have enough money to bid it, manpower to man it, whatever.
BUT WE WERE UNDER STRICT ORDERS not to persecute the Midwest people, not try to damage their vehicles or go on strike or walk of the job.
AND NOW I’M THINKIN’ OF DANNY; HE BUILT HIS OWN mobile tool shed and we more or less Russ and I scolded him mentally for taking the time to do it but then Russ went ahead and built his own, much more elaborate, much more fanciful, picking up hinges handles here and there, track and stud to drill in and put it all together, a lock at the end of the day so that it would all be there the next day.
THE ONLY REASON I SAW THIS AS HE APPLIED FOR THE SUPT. JOB FOR VRANA, DIDN’T GET IT, WASN’T MAKING NEAR ENOUGH money at the 40 hours, needed OT so bad he could taste it
AND THEN I GET A CALL YESTERDAY to apply for college professor.
BUT I’D JUST SIT in my corner. The carpenters liked me—I’d been elevated. But it wasn’t’ too much longer after Dianne’s departure ‘round about New Years that I had to take a hike.
NO, TAD WAS MORE OR LESS telling me that I’d been fired, that I’d been run off the job. He didn’t say it in so many words and there that morning standing looking at the huge old structure billowing out smoke and foam and steam out of the stacks and glad I was no longer part of it.
LOVE YOU BROTHER,
LOVE Y OU TOO.
Of course I’d never call, of course I’d never see him again but now I have to GET TO THE BUSINESS AT HAND.
RE: Alleged Discrimination in Employment – Signing Perfected Charge
Dear M. Hartnett:
Please find enclosed a perfected charge form(s) Please sign and date each compliant in front of a notary public for notarization.
On behalf of the Commission,
Kandace Kay Shirley
EOC Investigator
(402) 595-2751
THE PARTICULARS ARE (if additional space is needed, attach extras sheets(s):
I have a disability. I am 52 years old (dob 9/16/51). I began my employment with Respondent approx May 2004 as an Apprentice Electrician. My employment with Respondent was ended approx three weeks after I informed R of my disability and requested an accommodation.
I allege this is illegal disrimination on the basis of disability in violoation of the Americans With Disablities ACto of 1990 and Section 48-1104 of the Negraska Fair Emplloyment Practice Act and on the basis of age in viola of The Age Discrimination in Employ Act of 1967, as Amended, and Section 48-1004 of the Nebraska Act Prohibiting Unjust Dis in Employ Because of Age for the following reasons:
the day I began employment with R I told them of my disability and that sometimes it takes me longer to learn something new.
Approx three weeks later, my employ with R was ended. The reason given was that I was “not grasping concepts.”
my employ with R involved no new concepts. Prior to my discharge my duties consisted of digging dirt,t getting trenches read, and pulling wire.
I believe I was also terminated because of my age. Other Apprrentices who are employed by R are all in their early 20’s. their employ with R was not ended.
7/29/2004 5:55 AM
BUT THE JOURNEY DOWN THERE WASN’T SO BAD. I figured that instead of tracking down a notary, instead of then putting it in the mail why I might as well just fly down there.
It’s where the two daughters have been going to school. And, because Kaitlin couldn’t drive,
“I’ll take advantage of that offer,” the man said as he hustled to the door that I held open for him. It was a curious lot, stepping out of an old dark burgundy Chevy van. They were a couple young kids, with glasses. A mom that was slightly on the rotund side, the dad with a huge patch of bald that went almost to the top of his head. He was also slightly on the rotund side, the two kids looking at me a little expectantly as I opened the door, the mom just smiled and said thank you.
You wonder how many people are willing to open the door for them?
I was just looking for a radio. So I said, “do you have any transistor radios?” No, you can check across the street. I saw there was a couple large sound systems and just before I visited this aisle, I saw that there were cases and shelves and racks of firearms in all locations, the floor filled with cases of guns locked tight, squeezed against one another.
I REMEMBER HOW WHEN I’D CLIMB IN THE BACK OF Jon’s pickup to go to the job site, the UP building, just one year ago. A few of the carpenters would sit in the back of the pickup. You could do this because not until last Sunday—or was it the Sunday before?—you could ride in the back of a pickup. But apparently someone saw someone fall out of this box or regarded it as too dangerous and were all sorts of alarms and concerns and it was put in front of the legislature and it was easily passed. But, before this, it was a-okay to ride in the back.
And ride in the back we would. Who was that one lead carpenter that scowled at me, yes, of course, Ron. He was fun and friendly but had something of a gruff nature about him. Even though he wasn’t but a couple inches taller than me or maybe just a 20 lbs or so heavier, I could tell he could prob’ly easily kick my ass. He was one of those burly guys. But anyway, it was Ron’s pickup we clambered aboard if it wasn’t Johns. And then Bob’s Chevy would be another favorite vehicle. It beat the hell out of walking five blocks to work.
BUT THE REASON SOL’S ENTERS into this picture is that when we would all be in the back of the pickup (moving our lunch pails to and fro, our jackets, hardhats, and, if we were new on the job and coming in for the first day,
7/21/2004 4:28:35 PM Julie July
July 21 Well, this is a surprise. WiLL THIS IS A SURPRISE.
“SO I’M gonna mark your case closed,” Julie said to me in her pale pants and her light summary blouse.
“Yeah,” I said. “I guess so.”
She uttered a funny retort that I didn’t catch. The office was empty and it seemed rather today like those with disabilities and head injuries had taken a day off.
7/22/2004 8:29:32 AM
she talks in a low voice, almost inaudible and I’m always of half the notion to ask her to speak up. But she stays rather unruffled and unbothered. I caught her a couple times moving back and forth on the narrow hallway that leads I guess to maybe a break room down the hall or restrooms or places the workers, who sometimes outnumber the clients, go to have a break, get a drink of water, take themselves away.
SINCE THIS WAS MY LAST DAY THERE, I THOUGHT WHY NOT TAKE SOME NOTES.
I got there a little after 1 pm
Well, you’re late. You can’t show up for a job that’s late.
I think his name was Mark.
He leaned against the counter and peered at the cute young black girl who was answering phones, putting things away.
“yeah, but they pay me for that.”
Then a thin white man who was just behind me came to meet up with one of the caseworkers. 7/22/2004 8:35 AM
7/23/2004 7:43:44 AM
Dan and Amy had to sojourn back to How Who Hitty. I had to take inquisitive and darling twins. Sam and Libby: I didn’t think of them as such. But very dutiful and obedient but nevertheless given a chance to speak their mind, hold their peace. Sam had his collection of baseball cards he showed and imparted to Brendan and they played catch briefly in the rain.
Wouldn’t that be something, down the road I thought, if they were ever on the same baseball team?
BUT I COULDN’T STAY OR TARRY MUCH LONGER. Kath and I have been struggling through the malaise that is Soci Sec disability. I’m glad someone like Paul and Co. is taking us, more or less, by the hand and, with attorneys on our side, a Pat Cavanaugyh, we can apply after we’re rejected, Kath said this morning that some people are rejected five times, we can then use our heavy hitters/
“Well, the lady said to me, “you can do some menials tasks. I know people who are head injured that can work.”
She would look at me, then look at her screen. “no you don’t need those, we already have those.” This was in reference to my birth certificate and other forms of ID Kath imputed that I take along to file.
I GUESS THE SCENARIO IS I GET REJECTED AGAIN THEN we can use our heavyweights to go after ‘em.
WE WERE HAVING TROUBLE deciding when my last day was. That is what I should have brought along. I could distinctly remember that’s when my last day was, June 8th because I’ve looked at the calendar a couple times. And I remember it was Tuesday of my fourth week of Thompson Electric.
IN SOME FAR OFF LAND OF PARTIES AND SHEER AND UTTER MADNESS I THOUGHT OF BRADLEY THOMPKINS.
That I thought because I heard the words Sioux City that it was the one and the same. The guy I used to party with, that was in construction that cousin Stanly Martineck worked with for quite a few years I think before he got in the post office. Then I thought, the guy I talked to at the office and whom I told I had sustained a serious head injury and that it “might take me two or three times to get it” was also, somehow, a guy I used to know in Sioux City.
Like he was one of the Graves or something like that and therefore had a connection and was in the electricians and has done quite well for himself, being able to spread his work load down to Omaha.
AND THEN I THOUGHT HOW BRADLEY IS MY BUDDY FROM A LONG WAY BACK.
THAT SURE, THEY KNOW ME, I’M THE GUY THAT FELL FROM THE SKY, I’m an old How Who Hitty party animal and there should be an equi-distance between the attempts I’ve made and the accomplishments I’ve been able to acquire.
Which means they’re gonna stand behind me. Let me get through the rougher parts of the electrical experience and make me keep truckin’ and plugging along.
“well you’ll be done here Thursday.” It was Terral. He was the journeyman they pulled out of Team Electric or something. He was a journeyman. And there was work to be done and he knew what to do.
So it was fire alarms. The young pre-apprentice who stole my long screw driver he knew all the smokes and fire alarms and controls and switches that were in this big box that was in this small yellow job box.
WHEN DID THINGS CHANGE WITH HILLER?
I don’t know how or when or why but one minute I’m enthralled to Tim Barr that I was able to put up the conduit for fire alarm they’re gonna run, workin’ with Crazy Bob and the next thing I know I’ve got a packet in my hand that I have to go from floor to floor to track down tools.
And that made me take the stairways to the very top. It was my pre-heart attack days—on the very vestiges of same. I had a terrible rating but in the winter as the days were getting longer but that didn’t make it one bit warmer as we stood on the dock and waited for the buckhoist how it could get much colder the North wind pushing from out of the river we bundled and huddled on the buckhoist that was not running that day because the operator hadn’t arrived, hadn’t shown up.
BUT I ONLY DID THIS ON Thursday. The other days I got to go with Tad to help him hang up the conduit that we’d put in the wall with the minnies.
It Was a good DISTRACTION AND, I THOUGHT, IT’S GOOD that I’m doing this because I DON’T KNOW the names of the materials and tools and this would help me become better acclimated.
And then tracking down and finding all the ladders. Where is Jake working, where is Jim Palmidino working?
“he’s up on the penthouse.” He’s up on 13. I just saw him not too long ago.
THEY ALSO GAVE ME A RADIO. So that they could track me down if they needed to. I think I did drop it once and knocked off the small plastic cover with which you could turn the volume on or off, up or down.
BOB ALWAYS HATED HAVING A RADIO. They want to keep track of us. Sometimes he would talk to the conversation that was going on, say, between the Capitol electricians. And he would say, “well, go find it.” With a small laugh. His curly hair jutting out from his hard hat.
“I got kicked out of school for fighting” jhs I think it was. He was saying this to a couple of other electricians. But no one kept up with this part of the conversation and I think he went from McMillion to Monroe or vice versa.
NO, THEY PUT ME WITH TAD. There was a lot of work to do in the Penthouse. Pipe had to be run all the way from the ceiling.
This was the floor I remember sometime before as the one in which Rod LeGrand, Greg LeGrand, Ron Hartman, Rod Hartman and Russell had put up a fake wall. Built a fake room. No it was called a mock wall. Just like they had a mock atrium wall. That’s what was written on the saw “copper wall.” They put up the tin and see how it looked and then decided what color they wanted to go with.
ThAT WAS ABOUT ONE YEAR AGO TO THIS DAY. THAT I WAS carpenter, putting up the mock wall.
And basically it was just moving boilermaker materials out of the way and watching as the ironworkers set the iron through the clear windows, pushing their JLG’s through the various sections of this floor.
It was WHEN I SAW CHUCK MAGINAIO (now, I know that’s not even close to being his name but all the ironworkers know about him, who he is, what he does because he’s one of the ironworkers who does the tall iron, the high iron and can walk the 4” iron without a hitch, without a misstep and then just keep connecting.
BUT ANYWAY IT WAS GOOD to see the ironworkers there and to talk to a few of them. Jerry Ellis came by later, in fact, the same day I showed up on the job, “Hey Hartnett what’re you doin’ here? What’s goin’ on, Hartnett?”
It was déjà vu all over again.
BUT THAT WAS WITH THE CARPERNTERS AND A FEW MONTHS later with the electricians the ironworkers were gone on the interior phase of it and were settin’ iron for stairways and such as before it was just guard rails, and then right behind them were the carpenters putting up the drywall, the electrician's squeezed in their somewhere putting up the smoke alarms.
NO, I JUST NOW WALKED AROUND THE CONFINES WITH A CLIPBOARD IN MY HAND. ACTUALLY, it was a folder that listed all the tools Hiller had on the job. All the equipment that was there on the job.
HANK WAS UNDER SOME SUSPICIION as in one of his many stories in the cold blue room of the shack where I almost always sat between the two selves of supplies—minnies, screws, clamps, deep boxes and shallow boxes….—there was a heater that warmed the rooms.
Hank said something about he was there on the job one night and saw people were working and checking on things. This was about the same time one of the Hiltie guns disappeared. And so there was always a look out where the Hiltie could’ve gone and because the H gun was gone then eyes turned on him. Well, not really eyes but an air of suspicion.
BECAUSE PAUL WAS IN CHARGE of running the show at the UP Building. I don’t know when he drove away or when he was done but it was tough getting the end part of the job finished up, journeyman coming in unexpectedly, leaving just the same as the work around the confines of Omaha ebbed and flowed/
7/23/2004
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