class struggle

1962

it was a sunday afternoon

at the bowling alley
brighton place & california avenue
in the hallway downstairs
that elmer fleishman
asked tiny (the biggest among us) & me
when we were going to go upstairs
and get ready to set up pins
for the steelworkers duck pin league

we both said in unison

we were on-strike today
for higher cents-per-line
and now a couple more pinsetters
chimed in and it looked like a full-fledged
worker action of 13-year-olds
and elmer was nearly in tears
as he whined about how bad
the business was
and then
even a couple of union steelworkers
started pleading with us that we should just
pin-set for them today and "negotiate" tomorrow
with elmer 'cause that's the way
their union would do it
but we remained "belligerent"
13-year-old "wildcatters"
trying to get more pinsetters to join us
and after about a half-hour
realizing we only had half the numbers we needed
to really shut it down
we joined the others in our holes at the end of the lanes
thinking about how to do it better next time
scarfing up the extra quarters coming down the lanes
for tips
& lessons
in half-ass solidarity

--- e b bortz