Bailey's Cafe

by Gloria Naylor

  Besides my mail, I had brought in the afternoon papers and saw that two of the firms I’d initially approached in Chicago were now due for return visits; the positions were still being advertised. I knew these were renewed advertisements because the third company had taken additional space to print, Only White Need Apply. You saw such notifications often at the lowest levels of employment, but it seemed that my presence had helped to broaden some minds. Of course, I wouldn’t be returning to that company anymore. They had made their specifications for the job more than clear. And I wasn’t about to use my energy for crusading, especially in all that heat. I was only returning to where they’d stated that they wanted any qualified candidate for the position. But I was dreading the thought of getting back into that suit and vest, and to delay it I began to work on some projections for the probability of my future success. I know some of you are already thinking that you don’t need graphing paper and a Ph.D. to tell me what that probability was. But you have to understand exactly how much I was dreading getting back into that suit.

  The welts ran across my back in diagonal lines; they ringed my neck and wrists where the collar band and shirt cuffs fastened. They were red and puffy, and if I didn’t keep my body temperature down, they kept swelling until they burst. I had resorted to a pocket watch at the beginning of the heat wave because it wasn’t possible to tell when the blisters from the wristwatch would break and the drainage become visible. I could cover the other blisters on my body with a fresh shirt between appointments, or if there was enough time, cool baths in the middle of the day held them down to a fine rash. I couldn’t afford to sit out the entire summer waiting for the weather to change; I needed to know if I could factor in another type of wardrobe without disrupting my future search for employment. And this is where the concept of statistical independence comes in.

  I had already accumulated enough data from my previous interviews to use the law of large numbers with reasonable accuracy. I divided the number of times I had been rejected for a job by the number of places where I had applied, which brought me toward a probability estimate of total failure. Now, I could not say for certain that I would be rejected each time I kept applying for this job in the future, but the more rejections I accumulated, the more such an outcome looked like a possibility. You see, the closer you move the number of experiments to infinity, the closer you move the probability to certainty. Okay, so now I was at thirty-five and counting, with the reasonable conclusion that the probability assignment for my circumstances was very low, tending to zero, total failure in finding a company that actually wanted what they’d advertised that they wanted. But now we start applying some of the basic principles in my field: The outcome of one interview does not imply anything about the outcome of another interview. My past experiences should have no bearing on the next experience to come; someone, somewhere, is advertising for a qualified man as a marketing analyst and they actually want just what they print in the newspapers and tell me over the telephone, a qualified man. If it turns out to be false, the next time it might be true. False again, but the next time it might be true. Statisticians call this the independence of events. And it certainly helped me to stay free of bitterness or frustration. I would keep researching each company, preparing proposals, and trying in the next place and the next. All right, move on to the next city and the next. The independence of events.

  Okay, so far I haven’t done anything but take you through a little fancier version of the coin-toss math that you learned in middle school. Now we get to another one of the basic principles in my field, which was even more liberating for me in that miserable and hot room. I had been taught laws that allowed me to extend the definition of independence so that I could calculate how little the occurrence of one event changes the probability of occurrence of another event. If I now freed myself from that gray flannel suit and dressed in something else, how much would that change what was happening to me at these interviews? And you know, with the probability of success already established as low as it was, the answer was, not very much. A gray flannel suit made no more measurable difference than a brown tweed, a brown tweed than a pinstriped. Cuffed trousers, straight trousers. I kept plugging in the new factors with the differences between them coming out as minuscule.

  You see, a two-piece sports ensemble with a V-neck and short-sleeve shirt would relieve me from torture. And John David had a line of them in terry cloth that would have been ideal. A white sailcloth hat and white leather moccasins would finish it all off quite smartly. I didn’t jump up and buy an outfit right away. I returned to those two companies slated for another round and got rejected again. Then I went browsing in Marshall Field’s. The men’s department and haberdashery were loaded with the proper fabrics for enduring the heat: terry cloths, monk cloths, worsted gabardines—but all in a sports cut. And there was no use kidding myself; plugging the factors of a leisure suit into a business paradigm threw the numbers all out of whack. It was the equivalent of comparing apples and oranges while I needed apples and apples. You simply don’t go looking for a job in a cosmopolitan city dressed like you’re going to the beach.

  I found a park bench under a decent shade tree, taking off my jacket and loosening my necktie and collar. I was able to splash water on my face from a nearby fountain and wet my handkerchief to cool the welts around my neck. I watched the people strolling past, allowing myself a moment of envy for the tiny tots in their sundresses and short pants. The bohemians certainly looked comfortable as well, women in their peasant blouses and flowered skirts, shirtless men in overalls and thonged sandals. I started thinking of other cultures where proper business attire was geared to tropical weather: the flowing Arabian djellaba, the light gauze Bombay dhoti. Or just to be an African with silk and gold worked into the loose folds of a ceremonial robe. Any of them would be taken as seriously as I wanted to be with this briefcase of proposals by my side. And the thing is, I could have passed for a real African or Arab, even an East Indian. And how far from the truth when there was some African blood in my lineage? The masquerade was tempting, believe me. Foreign attire wouldn’t change the probability of rejections to any measurable degree, so why not?

  Unable to sleep that night with the mercury staying above 80 degrees, I wrestled with the inevitable. The only business clothes that could keep me going through that summer were ones designed for the American female. The sleeves were short, the skirts loose and airy. I wasn’t an Arab, and I wasn’t a Ghanian, and I wasn’t a native of Calcutta. And I was alone in the Midwest at thirty-five down and still counting because I couldn’t afford to give up. If I got sick with heat prostration and lost my momentum, there’d be too much time to think. I might start believing that thirty-five down and counting was more than enough to speak for a finite truth. I might start believing that the right to call myself an American Negro had bought me just another jail. Nothing could save me then. I’m gonna fuck you or kill you. No, not this time. Thirty-five down and counting had, at least, earned me a pawnshop revolver to jam up into my own anus.

  The calculations I did the next morning only confirmed what I had thought. Keeping it within the realm of business attire, an extremely conservative dress would make no measurable difference in my probability of success than a gray flannel suit. But I was still relieved when the heat wave lifted and I could finish my business in Chicago without having to resort to one. I wasn’t that lucky in Michigan. I finished Grand Rapids in bearable weather, with the rejections up to forty-six and counting, to settle down for a reasonably long stay in Detroit. My mailed proposals had garnered me half a dozen interviews. And with postwar production in full swing, the automobile companies alone would take me several weeks. My first week there, the heat was tolerable enough to allow me to get by with my gray flannel suit. Even after all this time, I was still mystified by the shock on their faces when I walked into one of those executive offices. I always signed my entire name at the end of the query letters that stated my qualifications, and it headed ever
y page of a marketing proposal—Stanley Beckwourth Booker T. Washington Carver—how could they not realize I was an American Negro?

  My first round through the automobile industry brought me the best offers I’d had to that date: three assembly-line jobs and even one as assistant to the assistant foreman. I told them that I knew nothing about oiling engines and mounting them into cars. They told me that as bright as I obviously was, I’d have no problem learning. My second week in Detroit the heat wave returned with a vengeance. I purchased my own small fan and spent two nights sleeping under it in a tub of cool water. The other roomers complained to the landlady about my locking the bathroom door and she told me I couldn’t stay there running up her electric bill that way. So I bit the bullet, went downtown for a day of shopping, and bought another wardrobe. I told the salesgirls my sister was stout. I left with a simple tailored cotton dress and street jacket. Dark cotton gloves. A modest straw bolero—no ribbons, no veil—realizing my own hat would make the outfit look ridiculous. For that same reason I was pressed to give up my shoes and socks in exchange for very flat sandals and sheer cotton stockings. That was as far as I needed to go. I could carry my wallet in the briefcase along with other papers and keep the stockings up by twisting them above the knees. When I scrutinized myself in the mirror, the image was a little strange but definitely presentable. And hitting the steaming sidewalks of Detroit, I discovered how blessedly free it was.

  Those first blocks to the bus stop were hardly easy, but I kept telling myself to keep my eyes straight ahead and concentrate only on one soothing breeze and then another that kept circulating through the light clothes. I used that bus ride the same way I always did: glancing through the classifieds for any new want ads and then organizing the checklist for my second and third rounds of visits. Sure, the people downtown stared, but then they always had when I was in a business suit. And it also wasn’t the first time I received frightened glances from pretty blonde receptionists. The very same ones as only last week, as a matter of fact. And now I’m going to hold a conversation with what I assume are some of your more troubling thoughts about this whole endeavor:

  This man isn’t really serious. What chance does he have of being hired for such a high-level position wearing a woman’s dress?

  —What chance did I have of being hired for such a high-level position at all?

  But if this company just happens to be the one place that will truly give a chance to any qualified man and he walks in there wearing a woman’s dress, he’s certain to be rejected.

  —But the margin for this company being just such a place—having rejected me before—on just the day that it’s hot enough to necessitate my wearing a dress was statistically small. Much smaller than the margin of physical comfort that those clothes offered me.

  But he doesn’t know that for a fact.

  —It’s quite true, I didn’t. I was only at fifty-five and still counting. And then it’s possible that the man who offered him the assistant to an assistant something down in the factory might have had a change of heart over the week. It appears he was awfully impressed by that proposal.

  —While not highly probable, it is possible. And if that was the case, I blew it.

  The next day I didn’t need those clothes; the day after, I did. I left Detroit at sixty-two and counting. Toledo at seventy-one. Akron at seventy-eight. Youngstown at eighty-two. Cincinnati at ninety. Most of the time I was in my gray flannel suit, but each time I had to put on a dress it was getting easier. As the numbers kept accumulating, any nagging doubts I might have had were put firmly to rest. Those dresses weren’t making a bit of difference to anyone but me. On the up side, I’d never felt more like a man. With each new town I was growing stronger in purpose, having no excuses for not working from dawn until well after dark. My proposals had started out just being academically sound; now they were sharpened with reference points from like industries in other regions of the country. I could talk as if I’d been working in the field for years with a ring of authority in my voice. I knew more about shoe leather, pork products, steel, cast-dieing, corn flakes, baby formula, heavy machinery, parts and accessories than many of the companies distributing them—and it showed. In the way I walked into an office. The way I leaned toward a desk, flipping open a portfolio. Sometimes forgetting that with French pleats I had to close my legs.

  On the down side, it took a lot of fast talking not to get arrested in the streets. Officer, if I intended to be impersonating a female, wouldn’t I have done a better job than this? They could smell my aftershave. See the way my hair was closely trimmed. Short fingernails. A heavy briefcase. Then you need some help, pal, ya know? The one time I was hauled in for possible commitment, the judge turned out to be a man who listened with his eyes. To back up my story, I showed him my travelogue.

  —Where are you headed next? he asked.

  —Pittsburgh.

  —Well, good luck.

  I did have it, because the weather changed. It was moving into fall, so I could pack away my dresses, but in a funny way I missed them. Pittsburgh was a mecca for what I wanted to do. It served as the raw pulse for what moved most of America. Steel. Iron. Petroleum. Coal. And I even read in the local papers about plans to harness the bomb. Imagine, a whole city of street lamps lit up from atomic energy. But it was that kind of place; energetic is the only word for it. Industrial research was old hat there. And if I couldn’t make it in a place that small with so much to offer, I doubted if I could make it anywhere. I settled myself into a rooming house overlooking one of the valleys and planned a long siege.

  I know I’ve been talking about the whole ordeal as if it were one big mathematical experiment, but there has to be something a little prophetic about it being my ninety-ninth place. Waco Glass and Tile. An international company with a huge complex of buildings that rivaled U.S. Steel. If You Can Break It, We Make It, said the nameplate facing me on the huge desk. Old man Waco’s creed, said the head of domestic marketing. I told him that my father was somewhat of a poet as well. The head of domestic marketing wanted to hear all about that. The head of domestic marketing was extremely interested in my life. The rise from a cotton farm to a scholarship at Stanford. I had already corrected him twice, but the third time he brought up my sharecropping beginnings, I knew to let it rest.

  He leaned over the desk and fixed me with a pair of awestruck eyes. My proposal had stunned him, he said, absolutely stunned him. Why, my proposal had been just extraordinary. I sat there wondering how such effusive praise could still feel like a slap in the face. My marketing plans had been … well, why, he was simply speechless. In fact, that particular marketing proposal had been quite basic. It was built on a little common sense and what I had observed traveling across the country. Women were having a lot of babies. And with men coming back from the war to an economy that was booming, women were going to be having a lot more. And Waco Glass would be well served to phase out their division in flint-glass tumblers and start producing baby bottles. It was nothing to go from there to a ten-year plan based on target regions for the greatest increase of infant population, working with the factors of socioeconomic levels (the poor are likely to have more children, the wealthy less likely to breast-feed) and throwing in previous census data to back it up. But the head of domestic marketing kept going on and on, and, of course, I kept smiling and saying, Thank you.

  It seemed that the marketing division of Waco could use a man like me. Why, he was going to break both of my legs if I tried to walk out of that office. And he bet that this kind of enthusiasm from someone like him sure came as a complete surprise to me. I agreed that it did. Yes, he bet that I was bowled over by his enthusiasm. He just bet that I’d thought he wouldn’t see the brilliance of this marketing strategy because he wouldn’t be able to look past the fact that I was a Negro. (I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop.) But there were decent Americans without an ounce of prejudice in their hearts. And he was the first to admit there weren’t enough of them. He had be
en around Negroes all of his life. He knew that Negroes were some of the finest people in this country. Why, a Negro woman had been like a mother to him—better than his own mother. And she still worked for him and the wife, getting a little old and senile, but hell. (I kept waiting for that shoe.) And not that Hattie was ever easy to get along with—not one of those servile Negroes that made some people comfortable—no, she had spit and fire in her. Would talk back to him in a minute, like an equal. (It was ninety-nine, you see, and I wanted to stop counting.) And Hattie had two boys that had turned out pretty well, considering. She had worked her fingers to the bone for those boys and without a breath of complaint about supporting their shiftless daddy—cutest things you’d ever want to see. Why, he would take a bullet for Hattie. If he offers me less, I thought, if he offers me one penny less than the base salary advertised in the Wall Street Journal, I’m going home, putting on my navy blue dress, and coming back here to tell him where he can shove Hattie.