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[10/12/99]

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Several years ago, I worked as a part-time baggage handler at Chicago's O'Hare Airport. Months before I was hired, the airline's nefarious CEO had imposed "across-the-board" pay cuts that turned most employees into malcontents. Strangely enough, the salary hatchet did not fall upon those in upper management. The CEO maintained his multimillion-dollar salary. His cronies continued to receive their high-end incomes as well. Those on the front lines -- pilots, flight attendants, ticket agents, ramp workers and low-level office personnel -- bled profusely, however. According to rumor, my ramp supervisor's salary had been sliced from about $40,000 to just above $30,000. Needless to say, employee morale was lower than the belly of a snake.

After two months on the job, having fallen into the rhythm of driving tugs, loading and unloading passenger luggage, emptying lavatory toilets (you don't want to hear the details) and working outdoors from 10 p.m. until 2 a.m. in sub-zero weather, I was approached by a senior baggage handler. Vic (not his real name) was a 30-ish ramp rat of formidable strength and personality -- the kind of guy people listen to because they're afraid not to.

The ramp was rife with stories of Vic's ferociousness. He'd beaten the crap out of some guy in the employee parking lot, he'd threatened to do the same to a few others. He was a man not to be messed with. So when he walked up to me on one particularly frigid evening, I felt an extra chill in my extremities.

"Hey!" he said, making a motion with his head. "Come over here a minute."

I stopped what I was doing and followed Vic to a secluded spot on the ramp side of the baggage claim area. Here, we offloaded arriving bags onto a conveyor belt that carried the bags to waiting passengers on the other side of the wall. Vic was toting a piece of soft-sided passenger luggage. But instead of placing it on the belt, he laid the bag on the cold concrete floor. He crouched above it, motioned for me to do the same, and after scanning the area for supervisors, he spoke to me in the no-nonsense voice of a criminal conspirator. "This is how things work around here," he whispered. He unzipped the bag, rifling through the contents with expert speed that produced immediate results. "What you're looking for is this," he said, waving an envelope in front of my face. "A lot of people, especially old folks, put money in envelopes. They give it to kids before they fly away."

Vic grinned and tucked the envelope into his trouser pocket, while waiting for my reaction. I supposed he expected me to be flattered. After all, he was Vic. The man. He had personally welcomed me into the inner circle. It was an act of criminal kindness, I guess. A nod that meant I was "OK." He trusted me with a secret that could put him out of a job and maybe behind bars. The same secret, if not managed properly, could put me in the hospital or the grave.

At first, I just stared at him. Then I shook my head as if I'd just swallowed a gulp of skunky beer. "This ... this isn't right," I told him while backing away. "It's not cool, man."

Vic stared at me without expression. Had I seen anger or disappointment in his countenance, I would have been able to better gauge his intentions. But his face was a mask of indifference. To look at him, crouched above an open suitcase, looking at me, you couldn't tell if he was watching a particularly uninteresting television program or gutting a fish. This was cause for worry. As I turned and started walking toward the ramp area, I felt Vic's eyes boring into my back.

When I showed up for work the next night, a handful of co-workers -- all of whom had close ties to Vic -- refused to speak to me. I nodded to them, a few nodded back, but their eyes never met mine. Worried and unsure of how to deal with Vic, I reported to my first flight of the night. Vic and a couple of like-minded rampers greeted me with looks that were colder than the 15-below-zero temperature. "Watch your back," he said, his breath drifting from his lips in frosty white plumes. "The ramp is a dangerous place to work."

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