The stretcher's on wheels. Soon he'll be shipped out of this narrow room where the bed lies shrouded in white, held up by rails of stainless steel. Until the TV sails through wet, black air, the bowling balls at the Strand seem heavy, the linoleum floor in the cage elevator shaved too thin. Until the TV sails into the valley of railroad tracks, silent as a fuse, our flat Iron City drafts at Lasek's Bar bore into our stomachs and stew. Until the TV booms into the empty coal car, a shower of sparks and glass, and we hoot and high-five, speeding off in the car like crack high school commandos, we aren't sure whose side time is on, playing tackle in the mud, buttoning our nights with Space Invaders at the Luna, considering marriage.
Students stream in and out of elevators.
I walk by without speaking, my head bowed. You don't tell me what to do. Needles of pressure gauges quivered above his smudged white hard hat. The third explosion shook the dirty glass when the iron first flowed, and he told me to shove the black, clay cubes into the plunger gun that plugged the hole. Drawing a long iron spoon from the furnace notch, he pours out ten puddles of liquid light into the dust.