Friday, 1 PM, Indiana Harbor, East Chicago, Indiana: The Mittal steelworks sits at the bottom of the southern curve of Lake Michigan. In its industrial heyday, this strip, stretching from South Chicago to Gary, was part of the Ruhr of America. All night, the sky glowed like a bonfire; all day, the air glittered like mica. Today Mittal is the biggest steelmaking complex on the continent. It’s a steaming, rusting city, miles long and miles deep. Monolithic chimneys force out thunderheads of smoke, so that even on bright days the mill labors under dingy clouds and its tanks, towers, and filigreed bridges always appear in silhouette. Long chutes crisscross the vista, and heaps of crushed stone fill the foreground.
There’s no place for him to get what he needs in Escanaba, he says. “Up there it’s like, ‘What’s a computer?’ People tell me to go to Staples. Why, so I can buy a chair?” There’s a Comp USA in northwest Indiana, but there’s never enough time while the Block is docked to get to the store. The sailor is a captive of his vessel.
“28 even.”
Flash tilts his wheel left, then right. On smooth waters, at low speeds, you can’t feel the boat move. You have to trust your eyes. On the pixelated computer map, the boat always points to the top of the screen; the land revolves around it.
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“Yeah, I know it.”
“This is pretty magnificent,” I say.
