Last Exit to Brooklyn

Harry Black is a married man and a father who works as a machinist in a factory. His wife, Mary, dismisses his odd behavior as Harry being “funny sometimes” (65). In reality, Harry’s head is filled with sexual thoughts and unspoken loathing for Mary. When they go to bed together, he hopes that she will leave him alone and fall asleep. When they do have sex, he has many violent thoughts. Mary enjoys his roughness, while Harry is “physically numb” and resentful. All he can do is “endure the nausea and slimy disgust” (67). He no longer cries about his predicament, but he deliberately gives himself muscle cramps so he can distract himself with the physical pain. He leaves his wife in bed and chain smokes cigarettes alone in the dark kitchen. Eventually, he returns to bed and falls asleep.

Harry endures another night of the same violent nightmares that have plagued him for a long time. He wakes up and goes to the factory, where he works on a lathe. Harry is bad at his job and dedicates more time to the workers’ union than the factory work. Because of his involvement in the union, the bosses cannot fire him for his mediocrity. He spends most of his day chatting to other workers about union issues in open defiance of the bosses. He drinks beer on his lunchbreak and bickers about union rules. The other workers barely tolerate him. After the company’s minor infraction of the union rules, Harry threatens to call a strike. The factory bosses view the potential strike as an opportunity to finally get rid of Harry. Two weeks later, with the union contract set to expire, the entire factory goes on strike. Harry is happy.

The strike headquarters are located in a vacant store next to a bar near the factory. Harry organizes the picket lines and the stamping of the union books. He becomes anxious with so many responsibilities, so he drinks in the bar next door. At the end of the day, he is satisfied with his work, and he tries to ignore Mary as she cooks dinner. Her conversation makes him anxious again until he drops his cutlery, leaving her alone while he goes to the bar. At the bar, he notices a transgender woman. He listens intently as she describes a party involving drag queens. Even after the group of men leaves, Harry thinks about the woman’s voice. When he returns home and has sex with Mary, he tries to cling to the memory. He is confused and exhausted.

The next morning, Harry leaves early to avoid conversation with Mary. He drinks coffee in the Greek diner and then returns to the strike office. Harry orders kegs of beer for the men on the union’s expense account, and by the end of the day, he is drunk. The next day, Saturday, Harry invites people from the Greek diner to drink the beer in the union office. The men, including Vinnie, accept his offer. Harry drinks with them all day and eventually asks Vinnie about his transgender friend; he is told that the woman is “onea Georgettes friends” (84). Harry insists that he is straight and brags about his sexual prowess. The men eventually leave Harry alone, so he staggers home, sleeps a little, and then returns to the office on Sunday morning and starts drinking again. The men return later in the day, bringing a stolen radio that they plan to sell to Harry. They begin drinking, ignoring Harry, and talking to each other.

On Monday morning, Harry feels sick but drags himself to the office and drinks a beer “to straighten himself out before the men came” (86). He spends the day drinking and talking, eventually returning home. He feels depressed that night and argues with Mary in the morning before returning to the office. Over the coming days, he limits his activity until he does little more than sit in the office chair and drink beer. The strike’s novelty fades with seemingly no end in sight. Weeks pass, and the enthusiasm diminishes among the strikers. The atmosphere intensifies, especially hatred toward the bosses. They throw rocks and shout at anyone who tries to cross the picket line. When the police try to stop the violence, a riot breaks out. Harry avoids the brawl as firehoses are used to disperse the strikers. By the time the riot ends, 82 men are hospitalized. The men retreat to the union office, where Harry passes out beer and encouragement. The union officials make a new plan of action as Vinnie and his friends enter, asking Harry about the “trouble.” The men offer to get rid of the trucks that crossed the picket line for $200, and the union president accepts their offer.

The next day, the strikers’ enthusiasm returns. They spend the whole day drinking and venting their anger at the bosses. That evening, Vinnie and his friend destroy the trucks that crossed the picket line. The next day, Harry drinks in his office. Vinnie arrives with his friends, including the transgender woman whom Harry mentioned to him previously. Vinnie introduces her as Ginger. She convinces Harry to order food and bill it to the union. Deciding to “toy with him” (97), Ginger sits on Harry’s lap and puts her finger in his ear. She flirts with him, and—with Harry drunk to the point of falling over—they dance. Then, she bores of Harry’s lecherous behavior, so she announces that they should move the party elsewhere. Harry is confused and drunk; he begs her to stay. Everyone but Harry leaves, taking the food and alcohol with them. Harry falls asleep in the office.

By Monday morning, the men think they will win the strike soon, though their enthusiasm quickly fades. The factory bosses remain uncompromising. That evening, Harry visits a bar named Mary’s that Ginger mentioned. The bar is popular among transgender and gay people. Harry stays for a few drinks and enjoys himself but leaves when Ginger arrives, as he fears that she will tell people where he was. The next morning, Mary is angry with him for being away and drunk so often. He slaps her across the face and leaves for the office.

Several nights later, as he sits and drinks at Mary’s bar, Harry decides that he is happy with his life now that he can spend what he likes and bill it to the union. He stares at a “pretty young” (102) transgender woman, who smiles at him. They chat at the bar, and Harry drunkenly brags about his role in the union. He goes to her apartment, where she introduces herself as Alberta. While they have sex, Harry has wildly violent visions of his wife. He feels a pleasurable, indefinable confusion as he falls asleep. When he wakes, he realizes that he enjoyed himself but fears anyone discovering his liaison. He and Alberta spend the day together before returning to her apartment. After another night together, Harry remains happy. He does not leave Alberta until Sunday afternoon. After a few more hours in a bar, he returns home and ignores Mary and the baby.

The next morning, Mary asks Harry about his weekend whereabouts. He hits her again and leaves for the office. The strike continues without success. Harry visits Mary’s bar often and meets Alberta and her friends, and while he sleeps with people he meets at the bar, no one enjoys his company. One autumn weekend, he visits the countryside with his new friends, and he is “happy to be with them” (109).

The strike continues throughout the autumn. Some workers take new jobs because they need the money. Eventually, the company begins to make concessions, but they insist that they want “the right to discharge Harry Black” (110). The union representatives are aware of the need to end the strike, and they devise ways to remove Harry from the factory without opening themselves to criticism, though they ultimately decide that he is too useful to remove. Harry continues to drink with Vinnie and his friends after the strikers leave, always charging the food and beer to the union. He barely talks to Mary but still frequents Mary’s bar.

The strike continues through Thanksgiving. Harry attends a drag ball, where many men and women dress in “rented expensive gowns, jewelry and fur wraps” (114) to put on a show. Harry talks to his gay friends and stares at the men and women in drag, though he begins to resent their beauty. Harry kisses a transgender friend named Regina and takes her home. Over the coming weeks, he sees Regina often, buying her gifts that he charges to the union. After Christmas, the strike is settled because the factory bosses want to fulfill a new government contract. They give in to the union’s demands “one-hundredpercent-right-down-the-line” (116). Afterward, Harry realizes that he can no longer pay for frequent dates with Regina; she breaks up with him. Now that he lacks money, everyone at Mary’s also ignores him. He returns home and takes out his anger on Mary, hitting her and insisting that his sadness is all her fault. She bites his hand, and he falls asleep alone in the kitchen.

The workers return to the factory for the first time in nearly a year. Harry cannot focus, so he leaves the factory and sits in the bar. He later drunkenly stumbles homeward but meets a 10-year-old boy named Joey whom he recognizes from his neighborhood. Harry takes Joey into an empty parking lot and sexually assaults him. Joey screams and runs away, fetching Vinnie and his friends from the diner. They beat Harry nearly to death and call him a “freak,” dumping him in the parking lot and returning to the diner.