There never was a story with a happy ending in Baltimore, but this comes as close to cutting it as any I have heard. What happened was this: In the winter of ‘83, the year the President and his band of television writers were telling us how the economy was on the big climb, 60 percent of the work force at Larmel Steel were told they could grab their lunch boxes, clean out their lockers, and make tracks for home. We weren’t supposed to be bitter because we had a whole week’s notice. Not that it was any huge surprise. They don’t ship steel because they got a soft spot for erecting buildings, and the truth is we weren’t exactly creating a whirlpool of business. But it came as one hell of a blow anyway. I remember the way the mill looked that last night. Like one of those ghost towns you see in John Wayne movies. I walked past the slag heap, gone cold now that the furnaces were shut down. All the machinery sitting there with the fine steel dust settling over it, the guys walking around slowly in the unnatural quiet, staring at one another blank-faced and blinking in the lead-dull light.
