The lift shimmied and rose into the noon sky stretched thin under the weight of the June heat. Twenty men, and all that muscle slabbed tight over their hands and squared at their shoulders. They birthed the skeleton of the building, but if the elevator cable snapped they would fall in a jumble of limbs. Even though they pulled the building together, they knew that what they did was more than their sum. No matter how good they were, how tightly they bolted the swinging I-beam, how carefully they set the crosses, they knew they could not argue with gravity. The earth would treat them with the same indifference as loose steel, a dropped hammer, a windblown lunch. This was the secret: the building wanted to stay standing, to grow, to sway but hold on, and so did they. The IDS Tower wanted to be noticed and admired, as did the Indian crew. Its bones of steel and skin of glass were treated roughly by the wind, heat, and ice as were their skin and bones. That was the secret they carried with them as they crammed into the steel cage that hoisted them upward. Under the watchful eyes of the ground crews and the earth itself, they were silent until they were let off to climb the last three floors with their mallets and spud wrenches dangling like extra limbs from their belts and sack lunches tucked under their shirts. Once they were alone they began slight conversation, like tinkers banging out pots, trying not to wake a sleeping family. The newer members wore harnesses until they realized they were in more danger of getting trapped and crushed by beams than of falling. Soon they went without. After a while they, too, wore moccasins to give them a better feel for their footing.

Simon was no different. When he walked down to a Gateway demo site in 1963 he was green. One-Two had told him what to say, but he was still nervous. The foreman looked him up and down. Union? Simon shook his head. Permit? Simon shrugged. What tribe? Ojibwe. The foreman nodded and called over the Winnebago.

“You know him?” asked the pusher.

“Yeah. Know the family.” said One-Two.

“He ever work steel before?”

One-Two looked at Simon. Simon didn’t say anything.

“He did some burnin. He can cut, and works like a horse.” All of it lies.

“Bullshit. If he knows what to do, then why the hell he come down here instead of the hall? You know better than that.”

“Work’s down here. They don’t know him at the hall. He’d be sittin there twiddlin his fuckin thumbs all day. Besides, all the books are on the job already, you know we’re short-handed. I’ll take care of him.”

The pusher shook his head.