Twenty-two-year-old Tony turns the key in the lock – regretting the jangle his theme-park souvenir keyring makes, wishing the tiny echo chamber of his Maw’s UPVC front porch wasn’t so brilliant at amplifying sound. The light comes on in the upstairs bedroom, she’s heard him – ears like a bat. Senga Morris hurtles down the stairs with a head full of rollers and pure rage.
“Anthony Francis Morris! I told you to keep it down when you come in! You'll wake the baby.” And as if on cue, a baby cries from a distant corner upstairs. “Brilliant, he’s awake, congratulations!”
“Mum, be nice,” Tony says, “it’s my last night here.”
And she remembers this too, her face melting into a smile. “You will come and visit, won’t you?”
“I promise, Mother”, and with that, she gives him a cuddle and heads back up the stairs.
Trudging into the kitchen Tony fills the kettle, flicks the switch and waits for the steam – head in hands, elbows propped up on the breakfast bar. Tonight wasn’t worth it; he wasn’t sure he even spoke to anybody properly.
The night in question is a sticky August Friday night in 1992 at Motherwell’s Railway Tavern – a heady mix of some folk Tony kind of knows from down The Craig, Dalziel High, some of his Da’s pals who were probably just at the Tavern anyway, and distant family members who felt obliged because one of their own was heading off. A ‘celebration’ because Tony is going to make a name for himself across the pond – a former Ravenscraig employee, headhunted to work at the Indiana Harbor Steel Plant in Chicago. A receiver and dispatcher putting all he knows to good use now that Scotland’s biggest steel manufacturing plant has closed.
It has only been a few months since production stopped, and 1200 black balloons were released into the sky to symbolise all the jobs lost. It’s as if one floated over the Atlantic and was caught by an American exec willing to give this wee lad, fae Fernegair, a chance at a new life.
And tonight was meant to be a celebration of that – drinks, dancing (stumbling) and a terrible collective attempt at Bon Jovi’s Livin’ On A Prayer. But all Tony wanted to do was stay home and soak up the last hours he could with his family. The party was never his idea – it was expected, the lads from The Craig arranged it. He’d never even been to the Tavern before, and he left as early as he could to get back home.
Tony dotes on his family – eldest brother to Angie, 19, the one with the baby. Angie is basically Tony’s best pal; she has the gift of the gab. He’s never been great at social stuff, and now that wee Michael is around, she isn’t as available, which is as it should be, but he misses her already.
Tony spies the Chicago contract, still unsigned, lying beside the toaster. He makes his tea and sits to have one final read over it. He knows he’ll be doing the same kind of job – overseeing all the trains coming in and out with goods, dreaming of where each carriage will end up, just the same as at The Craig. But it won’t be the same – it’ll be thousands of miles from anything he’s ever known. With a pen click, he signs, his hand moving before his brain can catch up – “You have to do this”, he tells himself, “lads from Fernegair don’t get chances like this.”
It's now morning, and Tony hasn’t slept well. Endless possibilities of what could go wrong, but the flight down to London from Glasgow isn’t until tonight, his dad isn’t picking him up until seven, and it’s only a half hour’s car journey to the airport. What else to do today?
Tony has breakfast with all the girls – crusty morning rolls with tattie scones, Lorne sausage and red sauce. Mum only has to tell everyone to “wheesht” once - a Morris family record - and the baby manages not to scream for 15 minutes. It's perfection. But Tony needs some air. Escaping through the echo chamber back into the outside world, he sees the weather has returned to a Lanarkshire normal – wet, grey, not very warm – bliss!
Tony always walks. He's never learned to drive because he can always walk to anywhere he needs to be – school, then work, and Glasgow is only ever a train ride away, not that he goes very often. Tony’s world is small, and he likes it that way. But it’s about to become huge.
Over an hour has passed, and Tony’s feet have found him approaching the looming fences of where ‘work’ used to be, thistles now sprouting up around the near-derelict site. Yet many of the Ravenscraig Steelworks buildings are still intact. He slips through a gap in the fence, the ankle cuff of his 501’s snagging on the wire – his best jeans! His only jeans! He wonders if Levi’s are cheaper in Chicago? Aren’t they made in America? He hopes his Mum can stop being grumpy at him long enough to sew the rip before the flight tonight – his fat steelworker sausage fingers could never hold a needle. Has he ever even tried? Fancy going to America and never even trying to sew before?
He walks past chimneys, warehouses, train tracks, and former furnaces—an industrial behemoth suddenly silent, the complex machine halted where Tony was so honoured to be a tiny cog. A fox pads out from near the fence line and stops right in Tony’s path. They stare at each other, two scrappy urban animals making their way in the world.
A raindrop rolls down his face. He looks up, but the sky has cleared, and the rain has stopped. He feels another droplet, but it’s not rain; it’s him. A flood of tears erupts from his eyes. He can’t remember crying like this – for the old job? For the tragedy of The Craig? For what’s to happen to me now? For leaving everyone in Fernegair?
“Tony – what are you doing?” The fox bolts as his sister Angie’s voice rings out across the concrete graveyard from the road. She knows her brother will be out wandering, and she knows where he’ll end up. “Get over here you idiot!”
Tony wipes his face and scrambles through another gap in the fence towards his sister, with arms outstretched. They hug for longer than they normally do.
“I’m going to miss you,” Tony declares, trying to hold back another downpour.
“We’ll always be here,” Angie replies softly. “The Craig may no be… but us folk, we’re made of steel, we survive, and you’ll always have your home here when you need it".
