Excelsior Fashion Products, Easter

They pay us time and a half and don’t dare catch us drinking: we don’t insist, don’t pass a bottle, but each sips a private pint, all sitting in the narrow room with our backs to the center, each facing his work—router, stain tray, buffing wheel, drill press— and with that sweet taste echoing in our bones, we watch our hands make what they always made —rosewood handles—but now we smile in delighted surprise and Marchesi brings envelopes that record a full day’s work though it’s still noon, processions still fill the streets, choirs, loudspeakers bellowing Hallelujah: and we change into our finest clothes in the locker room, admiring each other’s hat brims, passing bottles freely until all are empty, and at last we separate in the brilliant street, each in the direction of a different tolling bell.