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Roaldus ?ichmond
OPRN ALL NIGYT
"On a lob like tis n a town this size," he aaid, "I
guess you get to know about everybody. Waybe you get to know
too much about most of ler. All different kinds of people
cone in to eat. You see some funny ones, all right.*
Ye was a dapper little figure in his white apron, lean-
ing on the counter of the diner, a 'elite cap cocked on his
sleek head, Le had probably been Good-looking once. Now his
skin was pallid and there were dark pouches sagging under his
eyes. Being night..man in an all-night lunchroom is not con-
ducive to health. But is manner was cl,eerful and self-assured.
"All the younger stonecutters drop in about every nights
and marl, of the older one. F -,o I heir plenty of talk about
the zranite business. beet stonecutter left in Barre quit
the other day. Yeah, he had to quit. They called it kidney
trouble or something, but it's t.b. all right. Fie name is
Grandi, a hand carver, and they eay he was good, plenty good.
He cut statues and things like that. %ye like him are reel
artists, you know, geniuses. There aren't so man' of them
left. The boys all say Grand' was the best --and now he's all
done.
":7e used to come in here once in awhile, Orandi did. A
quiet guy, not very big, but wiry and strong. I think he came
from Carrara, where they cut marble. You oould tell he had
someti:ing just by looking at him, se? what I mean? he had
that look about him, in his eyes and face, the way he acted
and talked. he was always quiet and kind of dignified, kind
of sad looking. But proud too, you understand. You could tell
by looking at he was no ordinary worker. Be was a fine
looking man too.
"I've done about everything myself, tried about every kind
of :ob. But I never tried cutting stone. I have fooled around
the sandblast room thourh. good pal of mine, a Scotch fellow,
runs a sandblast macLine. Once in awhile he lets ma work on
sometiine 044670 some simple lob. It ain't so tough either. A
kid could handle the machine. There's no vibration --it comes
through a lone hose to cut the vibration. About a hundred
pounds air pressure it is. They use rubber to protect the atone
tl)ey're cutting. If you're going to cut a flower, say, you
work ol!t the lines of the flower. Then you blow the surface
around it back, see --to brine the flower out. Yeah, they cut
letters with the sandblast too. They can out in straight and
sharp if you want to pay for it. If you want a cheaper lob
they cut in on a slant, because it's easier. But of course
they can't do with machines what Orandi and the others can do
by hand. If a statue is machine out it shows it. You can tell
in a minute. You take a look at the Burns statue up there by
the high school. You can damned well see that wasn't cut by
any machine. That's a beautiful job.
"In here we get different batches of customers every night.
What I mean there's a crowd after the first show of movies,
another after the second show. Then there's a gang after mid-
3.
ni0A when the bars closes and after them come the people who've
really ben out on a late party. Besides there's the people
driving through late, and early morning, tourists and truck
drivers, all like that. )1.(1 you ever notice how people hate
to go to bed? They'll hang around and hang around, drink cof-
fee and smoke cigarettes and talk, bcting to go hoz:e and co
to sleep. I notice that a lot on this job. It's a funny thing
too. I suppose sore of them have reasons for not going home.
haybe they're scared of getting, hell from their wives or mothers.
Ilut I think most or then Just hate to go home to bed... It's
kind of like dying, I cues, sleeping is. just naturally
hold back fro:r it. They 'rani around the street or a place like
this, doinL nothing, just han ing around talking. some guys
have wives waiting, some ha just an empty room and an empty
bed. I don't know which is the worst, honest I don't. I'm
still single.
wysv born in Vermont, but I've kicked around the country
ouite a lot. I worked in Jersey City awhile, then I was in New
York. I (a,-! short-order cooking, I worked in a grocery store
and a shoe store, I tried selling, and I drove a taxi. I tended
bar In Boston, but I cot to drinking too much, so I quit. It's
hard for me to stand drunks when I'm sober. I used to sneak
a lot of drinks. When I saw it was getting me I quit. Sure,
we get drunks in here too, and once in awhile there's a fight.
This Is quite a town for scrapping. These foreigners are quick-
tempered, and plenty of Yankees are pretty wild and tough, you
Irnow. This town's got a kind of tough rep anyway --but it's
a good town. At least it's alive, and that's more than most
A
'11
Vermont ton s are.
"1 was out in Detroit worki,k6 in a 'ord plant for awhile
too. That's a !Ard-boilee, burg all ri:711t. Tho Purple sang
was operating out there then, and they bumped off plenty of
guys. They tilled seven or eight C:locker enb drivers in one
we 4, T don't know what ti.y had on tl•,,em, but thci-,1 k.nocked
'er, off rLht and left that one week. Lot of tough mug,A3 in
7etroit, lot of whorehouses and tough Joint. It was too god-
damn hard working for Mat assembly line stuff is a son-
ofabitch, I'm tAaing you. T1,at's nothing but slavery. I
cit and went to work in a ';Thites Tower place, you k:Iow the
nickel-hmburger 7,11ite Towers. That's where I got onto U:is
all- yt buaines.J. It ain't so bud when you got used to it.
I hil.or like it. I ,less I always liked nit bettor tan
day an-, ;ay. ;:hon 1 was a kid I used to frig around all night
an folks ErE always ivin me hell for it. It's damn
too.. on the old folks, tin, home worrying what kind of
troblo teir kids a,:n gotin, into toni1-_t.
"I eacl 1-lomo when my :loth -r died. That was five -six years
a o. t),abbed a plane fro ,:l 7:etroit, tryinz to jst her:, in time
but Iwns tot' late. I've been over since, and i elven't
mi.ed many niLlIte back of this counter.
N2r course 7ou t a co nle niC,ts off a week, and if you
ev,•:r want to get ofr for someting special one of the other
boys will work for you. "ferc's only two of vs on at night,
and sometimes we're rushed like hell. You know how they all
.one at once, in bunches. Sometimes the nights are goddamn
long too. But the pay is pretty good and we get our board.
5.
14e eat good hero, I'm telling you. Still a guy gets sick of
always eating in the 114N4 place, especially the same place you
work at. But what the 1411 don't you get sick of in this world?
"I don't know about the liar. It looks bud over there with
Russia and Japan in it now. I knew they'd be hard to beat viten
Italy went in. Litler must've known Russia and Japan was coming
in. England and Franco* should've driven in there while Germany
was after Poland. They watted too damn long. Poor Poland,
what a god -awful licking they took, And Prams folded up suidk.
ELybe Litler will quit after he ruins England —but I doubt it.
If it kecps on six months we'll get dragged into it sure as
hell, But England's holding out good.
"I don't know how the Italians here will take it if we
go to war with Italy. nost of 'en I've heard talking, hoped
1:ussoltni would stay out in the first place. They didn't want
Italy in with Germany. lost of 'em like it pretty good in this
country. Mere are a fow Fascists but they don't talk too loud
or cpen. It ain't safe.
"All -jou hear now is war talk. In every bar and r6staureint
in the country they're talking war. You can't believe anything
you read tn the papers today. The British claim one thing,
the Nazis claim another. There's no statement of facts, it's
just what they claim. I think both sides lie like hell. We
don't know What's really going on over there, Row can wet
"Last nunday war in a joint drinking with a gang --one
of those fourth-class license joints, you know. A Spanish
woman runs this one. Everybody got high and everybody got to
arguing about the war. They argued for hours about if you
6.
stmrted flying from Burlington to bomb Barre, where would you
release the bombs. Say you were flying three hundred miles an
hour. Some said right over Barre, some said over Yontpelier,
some clatned way back between Waterbury and Middlieex or further.
One guy said he'd drop them aa soon as he left Ourlingtont over
forty miles away. Everybody got drunker and louder and madder.
They sure bombed Barre from all angles and all distances. It
was funny as hell to hemr fem. I laughed my bead off listen
"Well 0 I wan too you: for the last one, but I'll get the
cell this time, leaybe not the first call but I'll get it sooner
or later. I always wanted to go to Europe, but I'm not crazy
to go over just to get blown apart. some of the single guys
are kid::ing about getting uarried right away to get out of it:
Lots of guys have done it already, But What the hell, if I
hive to go I'll go, just like my uncles did last time. One of
then died in a Norman prison camp. The other one has been
drinking himself to death ever since. I've heard him at night
when he's dreaming. It wusn't nice to hear either.
"Everythingle war talk, war news, war. They don't even
talk about granite now, or sports, Joe DiMeggio, or football.
It's all the war.
"And everybody's drinking harder than ever, seems to me.
I've noticed it in here. They go get plastered, blind drunk.
That's the war, And at Tunbridge Pair they were drunk by the
thousand. Of course they always did that before. But every-
where they're hitting it harder than ever. The war reaches
over here, way up into Vermont.
ell, there's too many le am" too few lobe. :f this
one gets bluer it'll take cnre of tat. Anyway I don't know
as I want to s7end all mv life behind thts coddarn counteir. I
got no folks left to worry shout me, no wife anl kiln to leave.
AndI don't thinh the girlsI co round with would die of broken
Ilearts or anythlng, th.e wav I used to think they would...
"Yersir, vou said it, boy. Who wants to live forever?
nkay, coring rtrht up. Two do7s with nnstard and two coffees."