tl;dr: A 2006 journal entry recounts renovating a wrecked house in Pittsburgh during winter, where the author discovers the city's "scrapper" culture after a cast-iron bathtub vanishes from the yard overnight. When they later recruit two scrappers, Ron and Wade, to haul an old furnace up from the basement, the operation devolves into chaos involving Wade's claustrophobia, missing toes, and Ron taking an axe to the plumbing. The scrappers' payoff for the ordeal: four cents a pound for steel.