Page 98 of By Any Means

“How does it work?” he asked.

August wheeled to plug it in to the electrical. Chary watched as the thing stretched itself and spun, molds clacking emptily. He tried not to recoil. Spider seemed perfectly apt.

“There are four molds,” August said, “for every one blower they move beneath. Stand back.”

Laurie did so, hands in pockets. He’d probably seen many machine minders mauled. Chary, who had not, got closer.

August said, “It’s built with a simple boy operator in mind. They or the gaffer becomes the minder.” He put on Chary’s gloves, grabbed a gather from the furnace, and plopped it into the machine’s reservoir. “Everyone else…”

“…it will make obsolete,” Chary finished.

In time with the spin of the machine, August filled molten glass. The machine did the rest, working around its core: the initial blow, the clamp of the mold, the second brief puff, the release of mold. It finished in but a moment: four neat little jars done in half the time as one.

As Chary gawped, August plucked the jars out and set them on the marver.

“You see? I’m too impatient to properly blow, don’t even know how, really, and I can do it. Anyone could.”

Laurie chuckled. “The Local loved that, I bet. This, against some of the most skilled laborers in industry.” He gestured to a jar, as though he wanted to inspect it. August handed him one of his gloves.

“Careful,” Chary said, “it’s still hot enough to spontaneously shatter.”

“I watched nine-year-old boys run these halfway across a warehouse.” Laurie shoved on the glove and picked up the jar. “My source told me of some blond, bearded gaffer observing union meetings, advocating machines, speaking for the runner boys. Knew his stuff, had a referral, but they kicked him out. It was you, Wright, not Chary. Wasn’t it?”

He sounded as though he already knew, and of course he did.

“Kicked out forcibly,” August confirmed. “My referrer did it—the one who got me in in the first place. I don’t blame him; he was worried for his own skin. Now I understand more why.”

Laurie considered the jar, then set it down. “Because they went one step farther.”

“They sure did.”

“What was the goal there, hmm? Not to get your brother almost murdered.”

Now it was, quite suddenly, an interrogation, and August the defendant.

“I feel bad about it, all right?” August said. “I apologized. I didn’t know it would happen. Would you have thought they’d consider murder, Tulley? Your own kind of people? I thought they were done with me and that was it. Then you came around asking more questions, and they weren’t done.”

“I ain’t excusing murder, or my blame in this,” Laurie said. “But you made ’em scared, then confronted them with their fears as an inevitability: losing all their jobs. Because this is many times more productive than even Chary’s shop, so of course the glassworks owners are gonna use ’em. That’s fewer jobs to pay. What did you think would happen?”

“Fewer boys per shop, he said,” Chary interjected, and did some easy math. “It’d be a hundred fifty boys out of our New York factory alone, not counting Jersey. Out of the factory and into school. But the boys aren’t represented, not even working in a union shop. Why should the unions care about boys losing work?”

“Back in school or working elsewhere.” Laurie hummed. He turned back to August. “You kept the machine from Raberding but not from the unions. But wanting the patronage of union-led shops is just the same as handing the business advantage to Brooklyn Glass. It makes no sense. So, what’d you want from it?”

Chary knew before August could answer; it was in the reluctant twist of his lips and the quick, desperate glance over to him, not quite for approval but close. A taking of temperature. The boys.

“I wanted to make my brother proud of me. To do something good in his name for once.”

“August...” Chary whispered, because Laurie didn’t know who he truly was yet, Chary hadn’t been honest with him, and August didn’t know he hadn’t.

“Nothing to do with Raberding?”

“No. I don’t give a shit about Tjo anymore or his unionized, unified profit utopia. He can do what he likes. I’ll even lease the thing to his shops. That was the idea, in fact; you are right.”

Laurie still looked skeptical. Perhaps it was just his default.

“So, why haven’t you just put them to work in Wright glassworks—and lease them out then?”

August shrugged. “No sponsor to build more. She’s not much to look at, but she’s ten automobiles apiece in costs, more or less. I couldn’t afford it, not before nor after.”