Lightning Lane’s Last Day
Posted by Mike E on November 24, 2008
By Mike Ely
Lightning Lane was one of the only Black foremen at the mine. And in the 1970s that was rare for the whole industry.
For decades there had been sharp divisions within those few mines that even hired Black men, like U.S Steel Gary Holler, Eastern Associated’s Keystone #1 or Consol’s Eckmann.
The Black workers made less money, and in a crudely racist fashion they were considered unfit for the skilled jobs or foremen’s positions. Black workers at my mine largely worked as motormen, running the long chains of coal cars out of the mine to the tipple, outside where the coal was dumped onto the railroad. And white workers largely worked at the face of the mine — deep in the tunnels where the coal was clawed out and loaded onto conveyor belts. And all the most privileged jobs — like setting up water pumps, or maintaining the air fans, or machining replacement parts for the worn equipment were the reserve of white workers who guarded their skills jealously.
And so it was, undoubtedly, the breaking of a barrier for Lightning Lane to make his foreman’s papers and be put in charge of a crew of men. And it was undoubtedly the breaking of a barrier for those white guys to take their orders from a Black man — especially who was not given to polite talk and deference. And in those days many such barriers were being broken, and such divisions were breaking down. And today, I guess, in the aftershock of Obama’s victory, we are all reminded how much the breaking of these barriers have meant to Black people in the long climb out of slavery.
But for all that, I have to add that Lightning Lane was a royal asshole. I mean really.
He was hated by many of the men, and for good reason.
Lightning was a hardcore slave-driver, whose every thought seemed to be about running more coal in every available minute. He didn’t give a shit about anything else. Every day he talked about which section had run the most coal, and which were having problems running coal, and how much coal he expected you to run for him. He may have broken a barrier, and it may have had larger meaning. But Lightning Lane was not about breaking barriers — he was about himself and coal. Always, more coal, ground up, glistening black under our passing lights, moist, heaped under the low mine roof in the small rail cars. Always one car filled, moving on and yanking up the next, clanking, empty car to be filled.
Rising water, bad air, breakdowns, rest, injury, dust, crumbling top… none of that mattered to Lightning–and he told you so to your face.
He was known for never stopping to eat, grabbing a sandwich in a mud caked hand, as he moved around the section checking on the men at work. Like other foremen of that type, he lurched through the mine at a half run, leaning forward on a long-handled mine hammer, looking a lot like Groucho Marx in Duck Soup. And all this was intended, of course, as theatrics for pushing production — because he wanted you too to move at a run, and cut short your own lunch and run more coal.
To squeeze out all the coal he could, Lightning would keep his men working to the last second. So leaving late every day, his crew would always be racing for the outside — ten miles from the working face to the daylight of the portal — iron wheels skimming and clattering along the rails. It was reckless, but after all, Lightning didn’t want to pay any overtime either.
Basic safety rules require that a mantrip stop at forks in the tracks, whenever switches need to be thrown. But Lightning had a different method, he would jump out of his crew’s rolling vehicle, and dash ahead to the switch, throw it, and then take a flying jump into the still-rolling car — not a second to lose. It was a dangerous trick — if your timing was off, the passing car could catch the switch wrong, and the switch controller could jerk back violently, shattering your arm.
And anyway, one day, Lightning’s crew was running late as usual. Their helmet lights flashed wildly against the tunnel walls as their man-car rattled toward the outside. As they came to the fork, Lightning jumped out as usual and ran ahead to the switch. But this time his boot caught on one of the railroad ties and he pitched forward, falling hard, with his head landing on the rail itself — all just as the mantrip rolled up on him and crushed his skull between steel wheel and steel rail. It was all over in a split second.
Outside the second shift was gathering on a beautiful day. I was standing with everyone else, lined up alongside our man-cars, waiting for that long ride into the cool darkness. Most of us were just chewing, and spitting, and catching some last moments of sunlight on our faces.
Start time passed. Something was holding us up — maybe a derailment or rockfall on the main line. That last man car hadn’t arrived. And our shift couldn’t go in until it did.
And then it rolled out slowly from the mine’s driftmouth, past the machinery barn, through the fragrant stacks of sawed pine timbers, towards us. Slowly. And we all just sensed something was very wrong. They pulled into a parallel track, with a man’s body wrapped in a piece of white canvas.
An ambulance screamed up the hill. As we watched Lightning lifted gently into the back, some of the men quietly started pouring out their water — which is always the symbol of going home. Once your water is poured out, you can’t go in to work.
In a wildcat strike, the miners pour out their water as a way of voting. A few pour out their water, and then more, until it is clear that all of us are walking out.
But this day, there was no question where we were going — after a fatality, we don’t work. Each shift stays home for twenty four hours. It is just what miners do. It is part mourning. It is part protest. It is certainly tradition. It is also that it is very hard on your heart and your nerve to roll into that mine when they just brought out a man you knew, in pieces, wrapped in torn canvas.
As we started to step away from the mantrips and head back to the bathhouse, suddenly the mine superintendent Showwater burst out of his office, slamming the door and running across the timberyard towards us. His tie flapped over his shoulder, his shiny hardhat gleaming white in the sun.
As he arrived near us, he jumped on a pile of railroad ties to speak.
“Where are you going?” he shouted. His thoughts were on lost production and his next call to Boston.
“Lightning’s dead,” someone answered simply. “We’re going back to the house.”
“But he was one of ours,” Showwater shouted, “not one of yours.”
Everyone paused, taking in the thought. One of my friends, Stan, turned his face to Showwater and said simply, “That just shows the difference between you and us. For us, a man died here today.”
We took our showers in silence, then drove down off the hill and dispersed into the surrounding coal camps.
—————————————————–
Mike Ely is with the Kasama Project (http://kasamaproject.org) where many of his other writings appear. He can be reached at kasamasite (at) yahoo.com.
Carl Davidson said
Amen to Stan. In the final conflict, the working class abolishes not only the capitalist class, but all classes, including itself, the working class. What remains and goes on is liberated humanity.
TellNoLies said
Thats a powerful story, and not just as a testimony to what Carl notes.
It seems to me that an always underappreciated aspect of breaking barriers is precisely how it makes it possible to dispense with certain illusions and to get closer to the essence of things. This system promotes “royal assholes,” and in the course of doing so sometimes sweeps away certain wretched traditions. It is neccesary to the process by which we come to apprehend the underlying brutally royal assholism of capital accumulation.
irisbright said
I also really enjoyed this a article. Thanks Mike, for writing it for us. I immediately thought of Obama while I was reading it-and the difficult business of distinguishing friends and enemies. I really thought the refusal of the mineworkers to engage in revenge politics at the death of Lane was sort of uplifting.
My grampa and my dad are union bricklayers. I worked in construction in my teenage years–not union, mind you, just side jobs.
TNL, nice comment.
nando said
Obviously Lightning is not one of the workers (and is not a “union brother”) or anything like that. In fact, he had imagined himself as a perfect instrument for squeezing more out of the workers — a perfect tool. In hopes of getting something better for himself.
So the workers response was a moment of “largeness of mind” — of seeing the bigger picture, of seing beyond the fact that this guy was pretty widely disliked (for good reasons by some, and because he was a black superviser by some others). They wren’t about narrow identity politics — just viewing everything by how it immediately affected the workers, or viewing people simply by how they immediately treated the workers….
It is the difference between “revolution as revenge” and “the working class can only free itself by freeing all humanity.”
land said
It is the revenge versus freeing all humanity.
It is also an incredible story. There’s something about the life of the miners that lends itself to a quiet strength. Those two ways of looking at things:
“But he was one of ours, – not one of yours.” And the reply “That just shows the difference between you and us. For us, a man died here today.”
A fact. Lightening Lane was an asshole. But he was still a miner. And the mines got him.
And the statement – “after a fatality we don’t work.”. It’s what miners do.Part mourning. Part protest And there must be a lot of fatalities. It is very moving. And people go back in.
I read that either in South Africa or China youth there who work in the mines could go without seeing the light of day for 10 years. Go in before daylight. Go out after sundown.
Two questions: I know there was some organizing in the mines. Of communists. That took some grit. I think the Party must have been a lot more revolutionary then.
The other question. What did the women do. Did they work in the mine?
I worked for several summers in the tobacco fields and I never met women so strong. Work would start at 6 and they would be up
at three taking care of the farms.
If they didn’t work in the mines what did they do. What were their stories.
On the one hand there is technology that is changing everything. But you still have people going down into the earth to bring up the resources.
I would like to figure out a way to use this article. So any suggestions.
One more thing. The language that went with the life. Pouring the water. Words like mantrip. The tradition “once you pour out your water you can’t go in to work.”
Amazing article.