“There is a fine line between, and simple human indecency, Earl.” Mayer protested as he paced the room.
The apartment that Mayer rented sat on the edge of that thread-bare fine line between the residential districts and the factories and slaughter houses of west-side. It was the kind of home that depending on the direction of the wind the smells of freshly baked bread and even if a fantasy the even more distant ghostly smells of the flowering fruit-trees of the city's east-side upper-class neighborhoods. But when the wind blew the other direction as it so often seemed to do it brought to the air the sulfuric and carbon air of industry and slaughter. The entire five-story apartment structure was a brown-brick building stained a thick black and gray as if it straddled the very precipice that dropped to Hell itself.
“Mayer, I think you're being rather emotional and distracted by the whole affair.” Earl's voice said, in a low gruff tone. Earl was the man that Mayer split an apartment with, as well as Earl's wife. The apartment was more in his name than Mayer's, but an amiable and intellectual relationship between the two meant both parties were comfortable in splitting the small three-room quarters.
Earl himself was a bear of a man with arms the thickness of full-grown oaks. A thick heavy moustache and mutton chops with the consistency of steel wool defined his otherwise lumpy round face. His nose had been broken in fights and at work, and the dark skin of his face was burned with hot metal and stained with caked blood. In old times he had been a cowboy on ranches further west, but in the years between then and now the old cowboy had learned to settle down when he married and eventually drifted back east to Central City to seek employment, which he found in the long hours of the stockyard.
“I wouldn't be so... But... Fuck.” he grumbled, pacing the living room.
The apartment was sparsely furnished, due in most part to neither men having much time to furnish it. To that effect what it contained were the bare necessities of living: a range, a lumpy brown couch and matching chairs, and a Persian rug so worn before it had been picked up it was almost a large sheet of sandpaper. On a coffee table in the center of the room and on top of a cabinet two oil lanterns burned with an eerie yellow-green lime-light.
“If you're so bothered by it, perhaps you should leave town and settle back down into the country.” Earl suggested dryly, taking a long drag at a hand rolled cigarette. His knuckles were deeply stained by his use of tobacco.
“I couldn't do that.” Mayer groaned, “Now when I know what people go through. The simple indecencies. Besides, one way or another this will catch up to the country. I'd be simply running from it is all.
“I hear about my parent's stories from the old-country, and I read and I see and I hear and I can't help but imagine that what my ma and pa left behind is going to slither up from the darkness of the old world and bed down in America.”
“Well if you're afraid of what's happening over in 'urope coming around here, then why keep talking like you do?
“Edward, I've seen you at work, talking to guys when you get the chance about these concerns of yours. And we all agree. You just need to get your ass into gear friend and do something about it.”
Edward nodded, and combed his fingers through his hair. “I know.” he said.
“Listen,” Earl said with a wet grunt, “I've been keeping my ears out as you have and I've been hearin' things. And it turns out there's going to be a party convention in town coming up soon. If you want to start something, then starting it then will be your best bet.”
He brushed the air with his hand, painting long thin strokes of cigarette smoke through the murky air. “I know you got the sand in you to do greater things. But if you're gonna be a soldier for the beaten down as you claim you to be then you can't let this sort of thing go.”
“What would you recommend?” Edward asked.
Earl shrugged, “Up to you.” he said with a narrow grin, “But talk as you do, you might be able to turn it into something better and greater.”
Edward looked out towards the window. There was not much to see beyond it because of the haze that enveloped the glass. But what Earl said was true, he knew it that much. He was a man of all talk and listening. He was in a way building a case like a lawyer against the city and the ruling class, one of moral wrong-doings as well as legal; but one he would never take to court, to act on. “Union strike.” he said to himself.
He looked to Earl, he nodded. “Maybe you can get in contact with the Knights of Labor?” he suggested.
“No.” said Edward, to Earl's shock, “The Knights aren't so forward thinking. They'll go only half-way. But if I want anything to happen it should go all the way.”
Earl sat silent, puffing on his cigarette. “The only way to move ahead, and to cut off the head of the serpent is to not make simple concessions to protect the ruling class. It has to be ended, to be finished before it can be born.”
“What you're talking is full scale revolution!” Earl protested.
“Would that be wrong?” Edward mused, turning from the window to his friend, “After all, this country wasn't built by getting concessions from the English to make a partly independent nation. It had to shoot and fight for total independence so as to build a nation that was – or should have been – a society of equals; as they set out to write.
“You and I know it's not quiet perfect, but social progress isn't an easy fight. More than just fair wages, shorter hours, and safer conditions those who labor need to have the same control of their production as they do their country. The Knights won't help us there. They're a middle-ground, but as an ally they'll go so far before they back off.”
“Well when you're ready to go George Washington say the word.” Earl said with false interest.
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