Abe stood in the back of the union hall, crowded with men, yes and women, tumescent with anger, drunk with choler, as the priest, red-faced, bellicose, umbraged defiance at what had transpired that day.
Union men bristling with outrage Abe had seen before. Didn’t he labor too? Although his word was not that of muscle and bone and sinew — he did not work 12 hours driving horses, spinning beer barrels or grinding no policeman’s baton had splintered open his head — he labored in the union halls, greased palms in City Hall, rubbed elbows and forced himself to whiskey with Martin Kelly and Phil Crimmins.
He, too, collapsed into bed sweaty with too many hours of work too distasteful to expunge.