CAST OF CHARACTERS INVOLVED IN THE SCENES
(In order of speaking)

GREG LINDEN: Native American, post college, bright and ambitious. Wants to get ahead in both the native and white worlds no matter what it takes. Joe’s son.

BECKY DAVIS: Native American, Greg’s girlfriend since high school. Now ready to spread her wings. Unfulfilled. Not innocent.

CLERK: Union Clerk who gives the jobs out each day. Little patience with “losers” since he obviously is a figure of great importance due solely to his own hard work and winning personality.

SAL PETRINO: Union crane cable operator. Perennially unlucky and in denial about why.

BRAD MARTIN: Native American, Iron worker, mentor to several generations of younger iron workers. A man’s man whose drinking is now starting to catch up with him. Estranged from his family and lonely. Dave’s older brother.

DAVE MARTIN: Native American, Brad’s younger brother. A former bad boy, who is trying to change his image, but no one will let him. Estranged from his brother, and wanting to leave his smuggling pals and start over as an artist (large metal sculpture). Always had a thing for Becky.

JESS SHARP: A cynical ne’er-do-well, working as an iron worker one day, a smuggler the next, whichever will let him expend the least effort. Friendly on the surface with everyone, but really only in it for himself.

FERN MARTIN: Native American woman, forced to support herself when she left her alcoholic husband. She’s involved in tribal politics on the reservation and works part-time in the city at the Native American Center in NYC. A mentor to her niece, Becky, and younger Native women who want to have careers, not just support inadequate mates.

JOE LINDEN: Native American. A second generation smuggler with a deadpan sense of humor. Also a mentor of a kind. Greg’s father.

Pages available for On the Mangled Beam:

Introduction (You are here now.)
On the Mangled Beam