Four of a Kind: A women's historical fiction

by Russell, Vanessa

  “Sit still!” he barks and I sense some alarm in his voice.

  I’ve lost my sandwich to the darkness below me. I want to eat, to cry, to demand, to beg. Fight with honey, someone once said. “Look, TJ, I don’t understand any of this. I’m sorry but my sandwich dropped from my lap and I can’t see it.” I use my sweetest tone. “Can you get it?”

  “In a minute.” He continues fumbling through the bag and a bottle of liquor comes out. TJ takes a long swig; I can hear his throat swallowing drink after drink, I can smell the bourbon. He pushes the bottle into my hand. “Drink, then you can eat.”

  I hand this back to him after my attempt. “It’s too strong.”

  His flashlight shines down on my sandwich and this he picks up off the floor and throws across the tiny room. “Drink!” His voice is shrill now.

  I do as I’m told, now wanting the booze as much as he does. I guzzle and with an empty stomach, it hits hard. Back and forth we pass the bottle without words until I’m woozy. He seems to be drinking for courage, I’m drinking for cowardice. It’s all I can do not to start screaming, fighting, clawing. The bourbon works its black magic and I relax and sway and watch his hands light the candle, now seeing two, no, only one, becoming glad for the cozy darkness around us. The flashlight is off and has disappeared into black and I feel I am disappearing, too.

  “Why, why, why,” I hear myself say softly. “Why am I here?”

  This seems to give him the opening he’s looking for. “For this, baby.” And with a power and strength I can’t reckon with, he grabs my shoulders, pushes me back and he’s swiftly lying on top, moving hard and fast as if afraid I’ll get away, his breath getting louder in my ear, hands pinching, groping, pulling, my dress and panties twisted, ripped enough for his mission. I struggle like someone under water, weight and motion a hundred times heavier. His weight is on me, then in me, then through me, like I’ve been skewered to the bed.

  The impact of what he’s done hits later, in the smothering closeness, blackness of the room, the candle now disappeared with the flashlight, and of him passed out beside me. I lie immobilized, trying to breathe in deeply, and with each expelled breath goes a Why? Finally the early morning light shows me the dark gray blood on my thigh, his unzipped trousers, and I become abruptly sick and run to the slop jar.

  “Rinse with this,” he says, now standing at the cupboard with a Mason jar of water. He’s a stranger to me now; revolting, sloppy, his hair flat on one side, no shirt. He does his business at the slop jar while I drink thirstily. I’m as sick as I’ve ever been and can only lie down again to keep from falling in the shifting room. I face the wall and he spoons in behind me and soon I hear him snoring. I sleep in pieces, between the real, the unreal, the dreams, the nightmare. I’m not sure which I’m in when he begins to move against me. “Don’t be upset with me,” he mumbles, his hand coming around to squeeze my breast. “I love you.” And soon he’s doing what he did hours before and this time I just lie there, any movement causing more pain, just lie there and wait and it’s taking longer and he’s moving slower and he’s talking to me, telling me how he loves me, how he wants me, how I need him to marry me. And all I can concentrate on is the burning, and how my energy had bled out and what’s the use and just get it over with. Over and over, unbuttoning my blouse, kissing my breasts, and can’t he see I’m not there anymore? Uncaring, unfeeling. Except somewhere in me, I hope he dies.

  “Why” I ask him as he prepares to leave.

  “I’m here to impregnate you so that you have to marry me.”

  I want to scream at such a horrid plan but I need answers more. “Why is that so important?” I’m relieved I sound as calm as he, but my trembling hands betray me and I place them under my legs on the bed as I sit there watching him bag the candle holder, food papers, empty bottle of bourbon. I feel sick to my stomach just looking at it. I’m showing signs of pregnancy already.

  “Daddy and I need your plantation; it’s more fertile land than this one and we need more land to grow more cotton. And. Love. I want you,” he says like an after-thought. He looks at his watch and begins to move hurriedly.

  “What is your real name?”

  He sighs like I’ve gone too far. “Thomas Jackson Pickering.”

  “The ‘William’ part …”

  He nods. “Is my daddy’s name.”

  How original.

  He picks up my sandwich that he’d thrown eons ago. He hands this to me. “Enough questions. Fill your mouth with this. I’ll bring more tonight.”

  “Tonight? You’re leaving me here all day?” I stood, shaky, at the verge of a breakdown. “Take me with you!” I shout. I can’t bear the thought of another … I grab his shirt sleeve. “It’s too dark here. I said, take me with you, you bastard!”

  I heard footsteps returning outside and the door unlocking. Whoever was there remained to listen.

  He gives me his cocky grin. “Oh so now I remember you. You’re the rude bitch who left me stranded at the club.” He drops his grin and pinches my chin. “You were a cock-tease that night, weren’t you?” My eyes fill with tears and his expression changes with it. “I’m sorry, baby, but you deserved what you got. For all those weeks, I’d jump at your beck and call, take you where you wanted to go, save all my dances for you, I was a slave to your love, honey, and yet you treated me badly. Now you’re a slave to my love, baby doll. Daddy said I can keep you here until you learn how to treat your man, because, if you don’t, you’ll have to learn how to obey your master. .But now that we’re a couple, we’ll treat each other better, right?” He kisses me on the cheek. “See you tonight.”

  As he opens the door I feel a dam break inside. I rush at him screaming, clawing, him fighting back and me not caring if he killed me. I have to get out of there.

  Like the night before, something in him switches to high power and his strength takes me over. I’m thrown on the bed and he sits on top of me, his knees squeezed into my ribs. I thrash about like a mad woman until he slaps me into silence.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he says, stretching out over me. He holds my face in his hands. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, I swear to God I didn’t.” He’s crying now, sobbing into my neck. “Baby, please forgive me, I won’t hurt you again, just be patient with me, okay? I’ve got to work this out with Daddy. I’m his slave, now I’ve made you into one, and oh God, oh God …” on and on he whispers.

  “I’m pregnant now,” I whisper. “So, you can let me go.”

  “You are?” he says, searching my face for signs. “How do you know?”

  “I had morning sickness, remember?”

  “Baby, it can’t happen that soon. Unless.” He becomes rigid and arches away from me. “Unless you’ve fucked someone else before. It was that man at the bar with the big ears, wasn’t it?” He jumps off the bed and before I can get there, he’s out the door and I hear the lock click over, saying trapped again.

  I sit there in that damned shack, munching on that stale bologna sandwich, trying to make it last, trying to settle my stomach, trying to stay calm. I don’t know what time of day it is when I hear footsteps and the door unlocks and opens. My eyes adjust to where I recognize the plantation’s colored cook and she’s motioning to me with her hand to come over there quickly. When I do, she whispers, “I got word from Clary to get you out of here. She’s worried sick, child.” She pushes me out onto the porch. “Now get going and don’t look back and don’t say a word to what happened here, or Clary will hang from a tree, sure as the world.”

  I stumble off the porch and turn left. “That way a-take you back to the devil,” she whispers sharply. She comes up behind me and turns me right. “This way a-take you through cotton patch to a dirt road. Then turn left. Walk til you get to a brown rusty truck. My son will drive you into town and hand you money, sent by Clary. She said to tell you to buy a ticket and go home.” She pushes me forward. “Remember, don’t look back and don’t say a word.”

  I do all she says, ex
cept buy the ticket. There isn’t enough money in the envelope to do that, according to the train station teller. Not even close. And not enough for the hotel next door. But I have enough for a tiny room in the attic of a boarding house down the street for a few days. I look hazy-crazy and need a place to clean myself up and think what to do. The heavy-set lady there brings a pitcher of fresh water, and shows me the community bathroom down on the second floor, saying only old men board here, all the young have enlisted in the war. “You’re lucky I have a spot for you, honey, there’s no housing left and the hotel prices have gone through the roof. Hundreds have come in to work at the shipyard.” The make-shift room consists of a twin bed and a night table, with a divider to hide attic storage stuff, and it’s stifling up here. I can’t get back down the two flights fast enough.

  Dinner is the most delicious in my life and while there, two old men are talking about their new jobs at the shipyard and how they’re hiring anyone, “even women”. They laugh because the world’s gone crazy, and they make jokes about women crying if they get a “boo-boo”. They say the war machine is hungrier than ever, now that all the young men are over in Europe fighting, and factories are getting desperate. “My neighbor is giving welding classes to girls if you’re interested. Has it all set up down in his basement,” one of the old coots say, the same one who had teetered precariously over the table on one foot, pretending he’s in high heeled shoes, crying in a high pitched voice, “oh, oh, I broke my nail!” and then falling to the floor with, “oh, oh, I broke my heel!”

  “Nothing complicated,” he continues, raising his hand as if to reassure me. “Figure the girls can handle the tack welding, as long as you can do it horizontally, vertically, and flat on your back. You ever been flat on your back, girl?” They both snicker and Mrs. Worthington gently scolds them like children and includes the other three odds and sods who sit there grinning, enjoying the show. I sense she’s enjoying their jawing but I pay attention to none of them, except to ask questions. Their ridicule chalks another one against the male species and this is when I realize I’ve started keeping score and only speak to them when necessary (I only said hello and goodbye to the cook’s son who drove me into town). Yet these bastards spur me on and admittedly I want to prove them wrong. Besides, earning a living appeals to me and I don’t have enough money to go back to Mama and I sure as hell can’t go back to Joe’s, even if the traitor does have my Duesy. And now I owe Clary twenty-two dollars – I can’t even begin to think how many months of her wages she loaned me. All good reasons and I ask the hunchback old man with the missing teeth where I can go tomorrow for the welding class. He offers to walk me there on the way to the Savannah River Shipyard and that’s how I get started.

  Like he says on the long boring walk while he beats his gums, the training is fast and easy, now that the unions have allowed the curriculum to be shortened to get new welders to the yard sooner (“but don’t get to thinking that the girls can join the union; get that out of your pretty head right now” and he catches me rolling my eyes and he leaves in a huff, muttering “ungrateful bitch”). We’re five women total in my class, all in various stages - some having returned from the shipyard to learn more than tacking - and we do some giggling and fussing but when it comes down to the work, we take it as seriously as making pie crusts. I nickname us The Girls (after telling them the old-coot story) and whenever one of us uses or calls out that term of endearment, we all stop what we’re doing (if we’re not holding the blow torch), put our hands on our hips and thrust our chests out. We carry this on to the shipyard too and other women catch on to it and call out the government slogan, Working Women Win Wars! We laugh until we’re wiping the tears away. On our breaks we stick together passing around Lucky Strikes and talking about the passes men make and who’s hotsty-totsy and who’s all wet. The men call us bird-herds as they walk by but they don’t dare approach us. Laughter is the best ammunition that a woman’s got.

  One such afternoon we’re all standing outside and I have a heart attack when I see TJ walk by in his red cashmere sweater and tan slacks. His printing shop isn’t far away and he looks like he’s just out for a stroll. A couple of The Girls whistle at the “sheik”. I pull my cap down over my face and tell them to can that shit. He halts briefly for one horrible minute but then only returns a blow-kiss and continues on. Shirley, our best atta-girl, puts two and two together and says, “Girls, girls. You know those rich types are about as useful as a screen door on a submarine.” I ask, “Got anything more than that cig?” They seem to understand and, that night, they escort me out to the dance hall across the street and I get sauced.

  I thought The Girls would be housewife types “flocking to war work”, like the campaign ads illustrate, but most had worked before, even those who are married. It’s just that the Depression years had kept them down, and the pay here is a hell of a lot better than waitressing or clerking at sixty dollars a month. Some say they’re here for patriotic reasons but the major motive is the money, and when I find out I’m going to make two hundred and twelve dollars a month after five days of learning to tack-weld, I’m bedazzled. The yard even has a twenty-four hour children center for the white mothers.

  I can’t get to the shipyard fast enough and when I tell Mrs. Worthington I got the job, she says she’ll wait until my first paycheck to get her boarding money because I’m a lady. She says loudly that she’ll defy any man who’ll cheat her but she has a knowing smile and something devious in those beady eyes. She makes me think there’s only one letter difference between defiance and deviance. She’s cheap, I know that. The first thing I buy is a feather tick for that prickly straw mattress in her attic. The tick has Harriet Pickering’s name stitched on the tag.

  The most difficult part is working while wearing the full protective gear in Georgia autumn heat. With heavy green suede-like overalls, men’s suede gloves up to the elbow, and the helmet with the protective face shield, we’re cooking inside and I don’t mean in the kitchen. I come close to fainting a couple of times but would rather die than do that around these men. They’d never let me hear the end of it. They’re wise-guys, mostly, and I learn more swear words than I knew existed. I love wearing the trousers though (even though I find I’m less likely to apply lipstick) and I love my job as assistant to a union welder, Dicky Rolletini, working on the frame of a submarine rescue ship. He doesn’t have to wear as much protective gear as I do, so he gives me the easy jobs where I don’t have to get into terribly awkward positions. With the clothing and Dicky protecting me, I don’t have to worry about a thing.

  Well, that’s not entirely true. Three months into the job and I have to face something: I haven’t had a visit from the Red Baron. I’m making excuses up to this point: more physical exertion than I’m accustomed to; I haven’t counted the days correctly; doing men’s work has made my body act like a man; I have a disease from the asbestos fibers coming off my welding rod when it comes in contact with the welding torch flame (Dicky told me about that danger). I know the real reason but I can’t face it any different than I can face Mama.

  I send her and Clary vague letters about doing my patriotic duty. I know Mama will like that and I know Clary will know better. I send her money and mum’s-the-word, and she writes back that Duesy is fine and Uncle Joe is not. All good news.

  Through December, Dicky’s not so protective anymore: the boss is asking him why I’m gaining weight; the boss is asking him if we fool around; the boss is asking him if I’d go to the shipyard doctor to be checked for female weaknesses; the boss is telling him unmarried chubby women are less responsible; the boss is telling him I have a job until the end of December (because “nobody on his watch gets the ax at Christmas”) and that’s it. “Don’t come back in January, kitten,” Dicky says with a shrug of his shoulders and a quick glance at my protruding stomach. “The boss tells me that’s why he hates hiring women. They always get knocked down or knocked up.”

  I’m hurt because I’m thinking he’s my fr
iend, but I know he considers himself lucky to have such a job with a hole in his heart and therefore not any good to the war as a soldier. The Girls give teary goodbye hugs and a promise that I’ll be be-bopping soon, and I slow-waltz it back to the boarding house.

  “No one will hire you, pregnant as a spring heifer,” Mrs. Worthington states with hands on hips. I find out she’s right and end up working off my boarding doing her kitchen work. There’s nothing exciting to tell you about that – what woman doesn’t know about kitchen work?

  “A soldier no doubt did this,” she says, coming into the kitchen one evening and catching me rubbing my lower back. “That’s what a girl gets when whoring around town,” she adds, referring to my few nights with The Girls at the shipyard dance hall. It isn’t TJ’s hangout but I’d stopped going out altogether, in fear of running into him.

  I immediately straighten and turn back to the sink. I’d never admitted to her about my condition. “For fifty dollars I can get you a potion,” she says casually, folding linen napkins at the working table. I turn to face her, eyebrows raised. “It’s legal,” she continues quickly, keeping her eyes focused on her work. “A menstrual blockage, it’s called. Advertised in the newspaper but smart women know what it’s used for. A simple drink that will cure you of female troubles.”

  I think about it. So there. I’ve said it. I’m tired of the shame and I want to go home to Mama. Men don’t meet my eyes anymore and I figure my life is over in finding a beau, or even someone to dance with. Don’t get me wrong; there are many women around that are pregnant but they proudly wear that gold wedding band as proof of decency, and talk incessantly about their husband overseas, like the women themselves wear the Purple Heart. A few have stayed here and their husbands come in from the ships and stay overnight and I have to hear bedsprings creak decently all hours of the night. I never know how to answer their questions on where my husband is fighting and sometimes I lie and make up a place. I’m getting good at lying through writing Mama. I’ve had dozens of imagined explanations with her and none of them are convincing. No matter what, she’ll only tell me that if I’d done what I promised about the birth control clinic, I wouldn’t be in this mess. She’s right. So there. I’ve said that too. Yet my conscience is part of the problem and the other part is the fifty dollars. I’d spent most of my dough from the shipyard on rent and clothing. With what little I have left, I have to buy bigger dresses.