Learning The Trucklot Boy Trade

There’s a black and white picture of my sister with her long black braids, my squinty-eyed cousin Janis, Cute cousin Linda and me with by black rimed glasses crocked on my face, lined up in our church clothes on Peoria street with a mountain rising in the distance for background. We stood in order of age and height. My sister, at ten, was the oldest. We were a year a part from each other. At seven, in diagonally checked vest, bow tie, and short pants, I was the youngest.

It’s not a mountain. It’s the cinder pile and it’s only at the end of the block just across Huron. Peoria street T’s into Huron and a wide cinder covered dive continued north, across the street, for at least a couple long blocks, wide enough for semis to pass each other and maneuver.

To the west of the drive, starting across from the cinder pile, were the factory buildings that fronted on Sangomon street, with sunken loading bays filled with rain water and dead rats. Beyond old Pete’s shack at the bottom of the ramp, where dump truck drove to the top of the pile to dump their loads, was another truck lot. The deeper into the lot you went, the more decrepit and abandon to rot the parked trailers became.

Way in the back a debris littered viaduct under the Soo line is where my cousin Wayne taught me, Frankie, and Little Georgie how to bust booze and beer bottles to get a long point to use in a fight. He stood under the viaduct near where the rusted superstructure came down in the center into a raised concrete pier dividing the two bays. Wayne was twelve, my idol. Imagine James Dean as a skinny kid running in the streets, just starting to slick back blonde hair.

“You got to grab it by the neck,” he said. “The kind with the long neck is better. Hold it like this, and you got’ a hold it lose in case it breaks wrong so you don’t cut yourself so bad.”

We all had bottles we held. Frankie threw his against the concrete wall holding up the track bed and got one with a better neck.

“Yeah. That’s better,” Wayne said. “So you don’t just whack’em. You got to use a glancing blow, like this.” He skimmed it against the concrete pier with a fast, almost sidearm swing. It left the neck intact, broke most of one side away, and left a long point almost as long as the bottle before he broke it.

My friends and I were tentative at first, scared. Little Georgie dropped his bottle as soon as it struck the concrete. Frankie was afraid to try. My bottle didn’t even break.

“What a bunch a chickens,” Wayne said, looking directly at me.

“Let me try again?”

I whacked it and cut the web between my thumb and finger. I stuck the web in my mouth. Little Georgie tried again and got a long point.

“I did it. Hey. You guys. I did it.” He slashed at the air. “Ha ha. Take that. Take that.”

Wayne grabbed me by the wrist and roughly handled my hand. I winced. There wasn’t much blood. “It’s not so bad.” He through my hand back at me scanned the littered street and picked up another bottle. “Here,” he said. “Try again, glancing this time. Glanceing.”

I approached the concrete pier, steely eyed, like my other hero, Paladin, from Have Gun, Will Travel, right before a gunfight. I scrunched up my face and struck my blow. I didn’t need to say anything. I held the long point hi over my head glinting in the sunlight, a skinny trail of blood running down my arm. After admiring the gift of my new talent, I turned.

“Come on, Frankie,” I said. Don’t be chicken.”