The Cart Man Cometh
I'm at the bridge tonight and I must go out into the snowy night to feed the ducks. It will not be daylight for a couple hours, their usual feeding time, but their insistent quacking is already bothersome.
I fed the ducks a couple loaves of bread, a process that has some science to it. No sooner do I finish feeding the ducks and turn to reenter my bridgehouse than a fellow from the ranks of the homeless struggles by pushing a cart through the snow. It's just a regular supermarket shopping cart, hardly meant for such travel. The cart's sides are built up with corrugated cardboard and it's filled to the brim with aluminum cans the pusher has collected, We wave to each other. He's a regular around here and we exchange some grunts about how tough it is to push that cart through the snow, I know he's got nearly a mile to go before he gets to the scrap dealer. But the cart-pusher seems undaunted by the prospect. He goes on despite his sorry shoes, soaked through with the briny slush of winter streets, and his pants legs caked halfway up with frozen snow. He is not halfway across the bridge when a city crew suddenly arrives to remove the snow from the bridge.
With the precision of military assault, three pickup trucks augmented by a Bobcat plow, all with flashing yellow lights deploy upon the bridge, A platoon of workers tumble out of the extended cabs, and, to the shout of crisp orders, snap up their snow fighting weapons from the rear truckbeds. They' re dressed head-to-foot in traffic orange coveralls with reflective vests and yellow hardhats. On their feet they all wear shiny black boots whose coating defies the snow and ice to stick, What a contrast the workmen make with the shopping-cart pusher, who now feels trapped at the midpoint of the bridge. A menacing squad of blackbooted orange giants is coming straight at him from ahead. To the cart-pusher, uniformed men are a constant threat. The vision of his precious load of cans, cart and all, being tossed capriciously over the railing into the blackness of the river, is not out of the question to him. And seemingly coming at him from behind is the growling little Bobcat plow.
The shouts from the plow driver and the work crew meant to reassure the cart-pusher are misunderstood and partially drowned out now by the sound of the salt spreader. To the cart-pusher, so accustomed to being harassed, the shouts come across as the usual rude and impatient commands to-get-the-hell-off-the-bridge-or-else. The cart-pusher shouts brave defiance back at the plow driver, but fearfully pushes his shopping cart ever harder through the slush and packed snow. He pushes harder than one of the wobbly front wheels of the cart can comprehend, which in a panic turns sidewise to the direction of travel, tipping the cart and spilling the precious cargo. Only a mound of snow saves most of the cans from slipping under the railing into the dark waters below. The cart-pusher, thrown to the ground by the tipping cart, is on his knees in the snow, like a child in a sand box, trying to gather to him the strewn cans that lie within his reach.
It's a bewildered cart-pusher who is helped to his feet and brushed off by one of the orange jumpered workmen. Another workman rights the cart, while others quickly gather the scattered cans tossing them back in. Another worker brings a plastic bag filled with empty cans from the back of one of their trucks and adds them to those already in the cart, more than making up for the few that fell into the river, Two of the workmen pushing shovels abreast, clear a path for the cart to the end of the bridge, where the cart-pusher can get on to the regularly plowed street, And as soon as the path is cleared the cart-pusher hurries off toward the scrap yard without a gesture of thanks to the workmen who aided him. There is no "thank you" left in the man.
I watch all this through the windows of my bridgehouse. I can' t hear what is said but the postures and movements are unmistakable. The whole little incident is played out in a few seconds but it gets me to thinking about the diNerences between the workmen and the cart-pusher. The cart-pusher is almost a man alone. The alliances formed between homeless people are at best temporary and evaporate in the slightest dispute or change in circumstance. The cart-pushers most enduring relationship is probably with the weigher at the scrap yard whom he doesn't trust very much. I'm tempted to go on more about the cart-pusher and the homeless. I've gotten to know something about them in my years working on these downtown bridges where so many of them congregate. But right now I'd like to focus on the workmen.
Normally we don't pay much attention to the complex connectedness of people. We just take it for granted like the fish take the sea around them. It is in contrast between the "fish-out-of-water" cart-pusher to the condition of the workmen that we are able to discern the true density of most people's connectedness. Let's do a simple inventory of the many tethers that connect the workmen in contrast with the great void of disconnectedness of the cart-pusher.
The workman is a member of a team. These men know each other, having worked together for more than a few years. Our workman has a place in the group. Beyond relating to the fellow members of the crew, he relates both to the crew foreman who's in on the job with him and the supervisor who arrives in a orange sedan topped with flashing yellow lights to check up on the job. The supervisor will also be checking other crews that are out working.
The trucks and the salt-spreader are run by members of a Teamster's local, the Bobcat driver is a member of the Operating Engineers, the same union I belong to. The men that handle the shovels and brooms and feed salt into the bobtail spreader are members of Laborers International. A man of one union does not do the work that "belongs" to a man from another union. They all know the boundary lines between them so there is no rancor or dispute, just the smooth work of practiced crew. They have a little contempt for the supervisor who tells them to make sure they do something they were going to do anyhow. Yet they know he must do that to earn his pay.
But this crew is not an independent operation. Deep in the bowels of City Hall, in a large room called "Snow Command," men and women, even now at 3 AM, are seated before glowing terminal screens directing the hundreds of pieces of snow removal equipment and thousands of employees out working to clear the streets and bridges so the city's business can begin the next day. They coordinate with the county and state snow commands who have crews out doing the similar work. All the command centers are busy absorbing the latest reports from the national weather service as well more local reports from airports, the coast guard, and selected observation posts.
While all this is going on, running costs are already being computed. Snow command will have rated the storm as to its severity. Each level of severity requires a different commitment of resources. Each distinct deployment of men and machines make a different hourly demand against the funds allocated for snow removal this fiscal year. Even the decision to bring in machinists to mount plow blades on the garbage trucks in preparation for a maximum effort is a large expenditure of money. The controller of funds makes hourly reports to the Office of Budget and Management. This office, in conjunction with the departments that direct the crews, prepares reports for the chief executive officer, the mayor in the case of Chicago. This consultation and communication goes on with almost hourly frequency, no matter what part of the world the mayor may be in. The large expenditures involved in these decisions have repercussions on all functions of city at least into the middle of summer, in fact often for years to come.
But this is only the august connectedness of the job of the workman. Compared with the furtive existence of the cart-pusher there is indeed great contrast, But it is in the mundane, not the august, that the most painful contrasts in connectedness show up. The workman has a home and family. They may not be the happiest but in any event he is a bonafide celebrant of two of the three greatest myths of our society, ownership and family. Only the myth of debt has greater sanctity than either of these two myths. A home owning family man is a person of stature but to be credit worthy is to be accepted into the realms of the exalted, Our workman's wallet is not stuffed merely with family pictures; magical credit cards, insurance cards, licenses and other spellbinders cram into the leather talisman.
Our lowly cart-pusher has no such claims on these gods.