Apocalypse for Beginners Read Online Free PDF Page B

companies: the Bauermann Portland Cement Works.
    The plant was located beside the Fresh Kills River, a stone’s throw from what would one day become the world’s biggest garbage dump. The biggest factories, the largest dumps—America, the promised land.
    The Bauermanns’ golden age came to an end in the early years of the Cold War, when the family was pushed out of the local market by the Mafia. Of course, they tried to stand their ground, but after dozens of battles on the construction sites, death threats, sudden boycotts and a considerable number of truck windshields shattered by baseball bats, my venerable grandfather, Wilhelm Bauermann, decided to leave to other visionaries the task of building New York.
    The exodus of the Bauermanns took place on a December morning in 1953. The family convoy stretched over several kilometres of Interstate 87: cement trucks, crushers, washers and, above all, a monumental kiln resting on two drays.
    “A
what
?”
    “A kiln. It’s a rotating oven. It looks like a large, sloping pipe. Raw material goes in one end, clinker comes out at the other, and the oven can operate day and night, non-stop.”
    “Fascinating.”
    “May I continue?”
    “Please do.”
    So, the Bauermanns travelled up into New England, crossed into Canada and stopped at Rivière-du-Loup in an embryonic industrial park a few kilometres from the soon-to-be-built Autoroute 20. Lots of overpasses on the horizon.
    Canadian garbage dumps were not as extensive as the American ones, and the factories were smaller. So the Bauermann family scaled down its ambitions. My uncle Kurt would sometimes reminisce about growing up in New Jersey, the giant plant that never slept, the constant traffic of cement trucks, the groan of the kilns and especially the mountains of coal, which, from the top, offered a view of the Manhattan skyline veiled in mist like the Baghdad of
A Thousand and One Nights
.
    Our family kept on grinding out cement. The Bauermanns’ destiny was traced out as clearly as the path of a termite colony: my father ran the cement plant, my uncle Kurt managed the concrete plant and my legendary aunt Ida commanded the fleet of cement trucks. She’s the one posing in that famous picture in our basement: arms folded, standing like a rock in front of a half-circle of enormous chrome-plated Mack trucks. Whenever I want to conjure up the image of the conquistador Hernán Cortés,I think of that pose of Aunt Ida’s. Watch out, New World.
    Hope laughed. Wasn’t I overstating the case just a little? No, I was not. For the Bauermanns, concrete wasn’t just a business; it was a matter of civilization, a mission to be passed on from father to son. We were builders of worlds.
    “So you plan to take over the factory?”
    She’d hit on a sensitive subject—the Bauermanns’ calling was in jeopardy. Neither Kurt nor Ida had produced offspring, and my brother had just committed treason by going off to study psychology—my father was still reeling from that blow. As the youngest, the onus of delivering the coup de grâce would fall to me, and I dreaded the day when I would have to announce my intention of studying comparative literature rather than strapping on the harness.
    The expression on Hope’s face changed abruptly. She turned toward the bungalows and looked worried, or cross. Just as I was about to ask her what the matter was, hailstones began to pop all around us. Within seconds the storm came crashing down on our heads.
    We ran down to the dugout for shelter.
    The squall was violent and abrupt. It was impossible to make our voices heard above the din of hail striking the roof of the dugout. The pits in the baseball field soon overflowed with millions of hailstones as immaculate as Styrofoam beads.
    Hope looked on, lost in thought. The latter part of my story had evidently annoyed her, and it was not hard to figure out where I had blundered. I had complained about a situation that Hope envied: my father cared about