Men on Men by George Stambolian (ed)

Author:George Stambolian (ed) [Stambolian, George]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Homosexuality, Male—Fiction., American fiction—20th century., American fiction—Men authors., Men—Fiction.
Publisher: Plume Books, New York
Published: 1986-11-15T05:00:00+00:00

HARDHATS

Ethan Mordden

AS THE SON OF A BUILDER I spent high school spring vacations on various construction sites in and around New York. It was my first experience of absolutely impenetrable men, not only tough but emotionally invulnerable. Ironworkers—the men who lay a building’s steel skeleton—are a class unto themselves. Passing someone while carrying a load of material, they don’t say, “Excuse me,” but “Get the fuck out of my way”—yet they say it in the tone Edmund White would use for “Excuse me.” Challenged by their own kind, they can be vivacious; challenged by an alien, they are fast and lethal.

It’s an intolerant class, racist, sexist, fascistic yet patriotic about a democracy; almost the only place to see the flag these days, besides outside federal agencies, is on the trucks serving construction sites. (They also mount a flag atop each building as the last girder is placed, as if they had climbed rather than built a mountain.) Ironworkers are not merely proletarians; they are proletarians without the barest internal contradictions, without ambition, pull, or PR. They are the cowboys of the city, skilled workers who are also vagabonds with nothing to lose. They have one of the toughest jobs in America: exhausting, permanently subject to layoff, and extremely dangerous. The raising of office towers routinely claims a life or two. At least bridgework is worse. The Whitestone Bridge was regarded as a life-sparing marvel because only thirty-five men were lost on it.

There is one major contradiction in the ironworker, his endless enthusiasm for street courtship. What other set of Don Juans ever went out so unromantically styled—casually groomed, tactlessly dressed, unimaginatively verbal? “Got a cookie for me, honey?” they will utter as a woman strolls by. Of course she ignores them; it wouldn’t get you far in the Ramrod, either. Sometimes a group of them will clap and whistle for a ten, and I’ve seen women with a sporty sense of humor wave in acknowledgment. But there the rapport ends.

So why do they keep at it? Has one of them ever—in the entire history of architecture from Stonehenge to the present— made a single woman on the street? There are the occasional groupies, true: a few days ago I saw a young woman with the intense air of the bimbo about her waiting outside the site next to my apartment building just before quitting time with a camera in her hands. But this is the kind of woman these men have access to anyway, not least in the neighborhood bars where they cruise for a “hit.” The ladies of fashion who freeze out these lunch-break inquiries are a race of person these men will never contact. After all, women like being met, not picked up, especially not on the street.

One of the workers next door eats his lunch sitting on the sidewalk in front of my building. Men he discounts or glares at; women he violates in a grin. The pretty ones get a hello. I was heading home from

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