union man

11/26/10.  mastracchio's west, millerstown.  sitting at the only bar in a nondescript pennsylvania small town.  southern margin of ridge and valley territory on the juniata river where it bisects a broad and heavily farmed valley bracketed by low forested ridges.  perry county signifies backwoods rural for the suburban tangle to the south.  and locals embrace that aesthetic, but it's not nearly as wild as the mountain heart of central pennsylvania, the filled-in V that stretches from corry southeast to mcconnellsburg and back northeast to montrose.  for every farmer there are three who commute to harrisburg for jobs in state government.  mastracchio's (west) is a surprisingly successful newish surf-and-turf pub on the edge of town, on the main drag that now leads nowhere ever since it was replaced as US322 by four lanes of concrete along the river.  weekday nights are quiet except for the pool hustling crowd, but weekends bring all comers.  time-warped farming couples in horn-rimmed glasses, wal-mart distribution center roughnecks, high school teachers blinking away memories of college in slightly-more-cosmopolitan locales...and this thanksgiving weekend the expected homecoming throng.

at my left elbow a housewife sharing nachos with her husband.  she wants to flirt with someone-anyone, but can't pull the trigger.  at my right elbow is a severely listing carhartt jacket clinging hard to the bar and lurching over to the stools occasionally to leer at the wait staff.  my eyes are locked straight ahead and upward on oregon-arizona football so as not to disturb any delicate balances.  (the constant topic here, perry county bar fights, sounds real enough) but the real show is to my right at the short end of the bar at the front where the pool hustlers are gathered.  mostly it's a loudmouth I initially took for the owner of the joint since he's acting as if he, well, owns the place.  with flourishes he sidles over to the jukebox, every time shouting some joke to nacho husband about the latter's doo-wop inflected selections.  and every time there are many HA-HAs and jocular finger pointing.  nacho wife is tiring of it all and shooting glances in my general direction.  but all eyes are on the bar owner.  now he's running the table against another hapless foe, a serious look for a moment.  but then it's back to the frivolity.  he doesn't look perry county, and we learn that he's a 'flatlander' from new holland.  his face is rounder and softer than the local type -- partly because he's more anglo than pennsylvania dutch, partly because he's lived a life of suburban prosperity.  moderately coiffed grey hair, dark eyes, oxford shirt, jeans -- something about him suggests 'small business owner.'  possible that I'm conflating him with the 5th street wine&deli owner.  in any case, his charisma floods the bar, but I can't remember anything he said.  it's as if his non-local stories fall to the ground soundlessly, leaving him only with the occasional shouts across the bar to the handful he actually knows...invariably perry county returnees come back from careers in the big cities south.

so for all his polish, he's easily eclipsed by the union man whom he dispatches with ease at the billiard table.  union man:  the sort of face that draws your eye, not because it's attractive, but compelling in an angularity that suggests caricature.  an overly sharp and plunging widow's peak bracketed by a spiky high-and-tight fortress sitting atop his large head.  the lower half of his face pulled down and forward dramatically, nose and chin curving together like a broken crescent.  intense eyes that that widen to punctuate his story with 'what, who me?' surprise at appropriate points.  a white long-sleeve t-shirt announces some allegiance with OU, 'SOONERS' burgundy-lettered along both sleeves, and it conceals a powerful frame, all long arms and military posture.  and indeed he and the trucker posing  as a down-and-outer across the angle from him trade military experiences.  the connection comes more through their sons, both of whom are in the signal corps somewhere in germany.  the down-and-outer has the tattoo to confirm vietnam, but union man is too young for that.

then it's time for the story:  this man stands, never sits, and as he talks he sways just a bit as if he's delivering his routine on stage.  he's at some other perry county bar (didn't catch it, but I was imagining the 'hard hat' in newport).  he's the archetypal 'minding his own business' protagonist, of course.  so he's either playing cards in the back or having a beer at the bar (both versions back-to-back) and watching the pool tables.  (this is the land of men who  travel from bar to bar with cues in matching black bags.)  a stranger shambles over and asks what he's looking at / does he have a problem.  our hero defuses the situation:  "I was just looking over at my union brother and thinking I'd like to buy him a beer."  apparently this is enough for the agitator, perhaps because union man has signalled that his 'brothers' have his back.  ['brother' has a more casual/general  connotation here as well, marking any loose affiliation.  but for the union man a 'union brother' is a serious bond.]  in any case, the agitator walks over to some other guy at the bar and cold cocks him.  there's blood, and the victim is first described as a big man, but he's also an 'older guy' with white hair.  the agitator seizes control of the commotion that he'll take anyone there.  union man steps in and takes the opponents outside and checks to see if the older guy needs 'medical attention.'  as is clear by now there is absolutely nothing remarkable or interesting about union man's story, and it's delivered as a series of cliched situations and analyses, but he makes it compelling somehow.  the agitator thread got lost somewhere, but when union man re-enters the bar two women are on the ground fighting it out, one apparently related to the agitator.  our man is an island of order in a sea of chaos, of course, but girls on the floor means hands off.  another woman comes up, he asks for her identification, and it turns out that she's related to the sucker punch victim and so dives into the fray.  and the story trails off there, having reached the limits of what union man can picture.