Free The Bridge by Gay Talese Page A

collect his pay as soon
     as he could and go back to the union hall and wait for a new job . . .
    But before he could escape the scene, the whole line of bridgemen came down the catwalk, some cursing, a few smiling because
     it was too ridiculous.
    "What are you stupid bastards laughing at?" said the walkin' boss.
    "Aw, com'on, Leroy," said one of the men, "can't you take a little joke?"
    "Yeah, Leroy, don't take it so hard. It's not as if we lost the casting. If we know where a thing is, we ain't lost it."
    "Sure, that's right," another said. "We know where it is— it's in the river."
    The walkin' boss was just too sick to answer. It was he who would later have to face Murphy.
    Across on the other catwalk, the rival gang waved and a few of the younger men smiled, and one yelled out, "Hey, we set ten
     castings today. How many did you guys set?"
    "Nine and a half," somebody else answered.
    This got a laugh, but as the workday ended and the men climbed down from the bridge and prepared to invade Johnny's Bar, Joe
     Jacklets was seen walking with his head down.
    If a casting had to fall, it could not have fallen on a better day-September 20, a Friday—because, with work stopped for the
     weekend anyway, the divers might be able to locate the casting and have it pulled up out of the water before the workers returned
     to the bridge on Monday. There was no duplicate of the casting, and the plant where it was made was on strike, and so there
     was no choice but to fish for it—which the divers did, with no success, all day Saturday and Sunday. They saw lots of other
     bridge parts down there, but no casting. They saw riveting guns, wrenches, and bolts, and there was a big bucket that might
     have been the one that had fallen with four bolt machines, each worth eight hundred dollars.
    Even if it was, the machines as well as the other items were now unserviceable, having been ruined either by the water or
     the jolt they received when hitting the sea from such high altitudes. Anyway, after a brief inspection of all the tools down
     there, the divers could easily believe the old saying, "A bridgeman will drop everything off a bridge but money."
    Yet this is not precisely true; they drop money off, too. A few five-dollar and ten-dollar bills, even twenty-dollar bills,
     had been blown off the bridge on some windy Fridays—Friday is payday. And during the cable-spinning months, inasmuch as the
     men were working long hours, they received their pay on the bridge from four clerks who walked along the catwalks carrying
     more than $200,000 in bundles of cash in zippered camera cases. The cash was sealed in envelopes with each bridgeman's name
     printed on the outside, and the bridgeman would have to sign a receipt as he received his envelope from the clerk. Some bridgemen,
     however, after signing the receipt slip, would rip open the envelope and count the money—and that is when they would lose
     a few bills in the wind. More cautious men would rip off a corner of the envelope, clutching it tight, and count the tips
     of the bills. Others would just stuff the envelope into their pockets without counting. Still others seemed so preoccupied
     with their work, so caught up in the competitive swing of spinning, that when the pay clerk arrived with the receipt slip,
     a pencil, and the envelope, the bridge-man would hastily scribble his name on the slip, then turn away without taking the
     envelope. Once, as a joke, a clerk named Johnny Cothran walked away with a man's envelope containing more than four hundred
     dollars, wondering how far he could get with it. He got about twenty feet when he heard the man yelling, "Hey!"
    Cothran turned, expecting to face an angry bridgeman. But instead the bridgeman said, "You forgot your pencil." Cothran took
     the pencil, then handed the bridgeman his envelope. "Thanks," he said, stuffing it absently into his pocket and then quickly
     getting back to the cable-spinning race.
    On Monday, September 23,