"How you doin', babe?" Tommy asked again.

"I think I'm gonna puke." Stony had a pained look on his face.

Tommy laughed and got out of the car. Stony followed him. He couldn't figure out how to strap on the belt so Tommy helped him. "You'll be O.K." Tommy put his arm around Stony, escorting him across the street, through the link fence and up the steps of a trailer converted into an office. A huge fat man in a gray business suit and a red hard hat stood over a white-haired guy sitting at a desk. They were examining blueprints. The fat man looked up when Tommy and Stony walked in.

"Artie." Tommy put his arm around Stony again. "This is my kid." The white-haired guy ignored them. Artie nodded, said something else about the blueprint to the white-haired guy, then extended his hand to Stony. "Hiya. You gotta fill these out." He handed Stony two work forms. "You got a pen?" Stony said no. He was fucking up already. Artie handed him a Bic pen from his shirt pocket. "Where it says employer write 'Empire Electric.'"

Stony leaned over a desk and wrote neatly.

"Stay with it, Stones, an' in ten years you'll be richer'n this fat fuck." Tommy laughed and winked at Artie. Artie scowled at him. Stony couldn't remember his social security number and had to take out his card.

"You play ball for the Mount?" Artie regarded Stony.

"Yeah." Stony wrote down the number.

"All-City Honorable Mention CHSAA," Tommy interjected.

Artie ignored him. "What was your record?"

"Six, three and one." Stony handed him the forms.

Artie nodded his head in mild approval. "I useta play for Cardinal Spellman."

"Oh yeah?"

"O.K., your father'll show you what to do. Just remember to be careful an' wear this all the time." He tapped the hard hat.

"Artie's the contractor," Tommy said as they walked down the trailer steps. "He started out just like you. The guy pulls down forty grand a year, got a house in Pound Ridge, a gold Caddy and two racehorses. An' he's a nice bastard too."

Stony ducked down to enter the long, dark wooden electricians' shanty. Ten men in various stages of dressing for work sat or stood balancing on one leg, pulling on greasy chinos, lacing orange boots, folding sport shirts and strapping on utility belts. Tommy had his hand on the back of Stony's neck. "Here he is!" They looked up and checked Stony out. He felt embarrassed.

"This is Eddie, Vinny, Malfie, Blackie, Jimmy O'Day, Jackie, Augie and Carlos." Stony shook hands with some, nodded to others. Most were younger than Tommy, but Blackie and Jimmy O'Day looked close to Tommy's age. Tommy laughed and chattered as he changed into his work clothes, every fifth word out of his mouth "My kid." A splintered bench ran the length of the shanty. Above it, overhead, ran a long ledge with assorted hard hats ranging from shiny new red ones to battered paint-peeled old ones. On the short far wall under a window covered by chicken wire hung a calendar with a split beaver blonde laying on a chaise longue. Two dim light bulbs on the ceiling gave everyone a sickly subterranean tinge. When a shrill whistle blasted, the men filed out. Artie La Russo stood outside the shanty next to a pyramid of cable reels. Each man as he passed Artie bent down, grunted and hoisted a reel on his shoulder.