by Pat Spears
Crystal Ann walked to the stove, stirred a pot of rice, and growled. “You sure you want to work in a snake pit of straight women? You’ll have to keep your mouth shut and your hands in your pockets. Teddy claimed to know a young dyke that didn’t, and she hasn’t been heard from in over a year.”
Jodie had heard the same story, but her determination was hard set. She needed work, any work, short of selling her body on the corner of Sixth and Middleton.
“Okay, but about a man vouching for me—Arthur Washington’s not around anymore, and if he was I don’t think his recommendation would exactly cut it. And I’m not about to ask Teddy to do anything like that. It’s too dangerous.
“Dangerous? What the hell do you think she does every time she walks into that garage pretending to swing a dick?”
“No, and that’s final.”
“Ah, here’s where brains and grit kick in.” Crystal Ann smacked her lips, and Jodie knew she was hatching some wild scheme.
Sessions over the balance of the evening were equally grueling and humiliating. Jodie stood before the bathroom mirror, fabricating a life story, while Crystal Ann barked instructions from a seat on the toilet. She was a natural at playing the asshole hiring man.
The morning of the interview, Crystal Ann insisted Jodie wear the one skirt and blouse she owned, forcing makeup and whorish styling on her bobbed hair.
Jodie swore, “Oh, God. With my face, it might as well be Halloween.”
Crystal Ann blasted back, “Forget showing a little cleavage, but would it kill you to smile?”
Nerves sharper than barbed wire, Jodie parked the Rambler in the factory lot, and the engine sputtered to a stop. An array of junked cars and trucks told the tale of flat pay envelopes. But she wasn’t here to get rich. Rent and food money would be good. She followed the sign to the front office, her confidence so low she feared tripping over it.
Approaching the woman seated behind the front desk, Jodie said, “Hey, I’m here about a job. Do I tell you?” She’d meant to sound smarter, but it would have likely been lost on the woman.
“Yes, I’m Mr. Jackson’s secretary.”
Jodie took her superior tone as one aimed at separating her from the women on the floor.
“You here about the inseamer job or the ticket-tacker?”
Crap, it already felt like a shell game. Maybe she could work a little arm around the shoulder, gal-to-gal humor.
“Now on that,” Jodie paused. “Hellfire, to us working gals, a job’s a job, right?”
The woman’s dismissive stare told Jodie all she needed to know about her pissy start.
“What I mean is, it don’t really matter. I need work.”
“I see. You’ve got no experience.” Her second shot of superiority.
Jodie glanced at the door, considered walking. But she swallowed hard and offered the best she had. “Not exactly. I’m considered a quick study.”
Forty-three minutes later by the agonizing tick of the clock on the wall, a man shouted, “Sugar, send that gal on in here.”
Sugar wiggled her sweet little ass, the whole of her redeeming value, into the office, and announced, “She says she’s Jodie Taylor, and she’s got no experience.” She turned and walked out, the man never looking up.
The office smelled of the cigar butts that overran the bear claw ashtray at the man’s elbow, and his bald head shone pink as a newborn’s under the overhead light. He looked up, his gaze traveling the length of her body, and in spite of Crystal Ann’s efforts, it was clear he saw nothing that interested him. She instantly despised him—and every circumstance of her miserable life that had her at his mercy.
“Well, go on, sit down.” He removed a nubby cigar from the corner of his mouth and spit into a Del Monte pineapple can.
The odor wafted across the desk, and Jodie willed her disgust from her face, fighting back her desire to run. Then she remembered nights on the row when she’d gone to bed with her belly cramping so that sleep wasn’t an escape. Instead of flight, she planted her feet on the floor, pinching her knees together in the fashion Crystal Ann declared lady-like, her self-image enough to gag a goat.
“I’m Jodie Taylor and I’m here about any job you got. Know that I’m not afraid of work.” She wished she remembered the job titles the woman had used.
He squinted across at her. “You’re not from around here, are you?” His tone carried the message that outsiders weren’t hired.
“No, sir.” Jodie pictured Crystal Ann screaming, her hand pressed to her forehead. For sure, she’d stumbled coming out of the gate, and she worried that the job was already lost.
“You’d be married? A house full of sickly babies, I’d wager.”
“Married? Oh, yes sir.” She smiled sweetly, dropped her tone into syrupy sadness. “But there won’t be any babies. You see, I got kicked by daddy’s mule.” She placed a hand to her lower stomach.
“Got nothing but the graveyard shift. And your husband’s gonna want a young thing like you around nights.” He gave her a knowing wink.
She lowered her eyes, her fingers laced. “Yes sir. But, he’s in bed early. And all such as that comes before.”
She hoped he’d mistaken her disgust for shyness. He chomped down hard on the cigar nub, causing her to believe he’d heard something that wrongly tipped the scale. She’d need to shift to the bigger lie, the one Crystal Ann swore would land her the job.
“Like I said, I’m not from around here. But you might know my Aunt Sally. She offered to come here and personally vouch for me.” She felt she’d gag on her own sweetness.
He sat upright, glanced toward the open door, and leaned across the desk. “That’d be Sally at the Wing?”
Jodie nodded vigorously, still smiling.
The yellow pencil he held snapped in half. Blood drained from his face as if a vampire had sucked him dry. He shouted for the woman.
“Get … what’d you say your name is?”
“Jodie Taylor.”
“Get Taylor signed up.” He turned to her. “When can you start?”
Jodie walked out of the building with orders to report to the night supervisor at ten-thirty. Crystal Ann had sworn he wouldn’t dare check her story, and had giggled, adding details about an incident at the Paradise Motel and Mrs. Jackson’s solemn oath, backed by a double-barreled shotgun. It would appear he’d taken his wife’s threat to heart.
Crystal Ann brought supper from the Wing, wrapped in waxed paper, and cleared the kitchen table of accumulated junk. She set the table with a tablecloth, placing a single candle in the middle, and had changed out of her uniform into a floral smock Jodie liked. It had a scoop neckline trimmed in pink lace. Jodie studied Crystal Ann’s face in the soft glow of candlelight and considered that she’d once been pretty.
“Go on, sweetie. It’s your celebration.”
Jodie’s last celebration hadn’t gone so well. Then, Crystal Ann wasn’t Aunt Pearl.
“These pork chops sure aren’t Arthur’s. Then, we get plenty of idle time.”
“Sally still blames me, right?”
“She does, but let’s forget about that. I’m so proud of you. You’ve outgrown the scared runaway who stepped into the Wing collecting on a handout.”
“Couldn’t have done any of this without you.”
Crystal Ann reached across the table, squeezed Jodie’s hand, and smiled. Jodie sensed an opening, and she dared.
“What do you hear from Brenda?” She knew of the letters that came occasionally to the mailbox on the road.
Crystal Ann withdrew her hand. “I’ve heard nothing new. Only good intentions served up as empty promises. But it’s sweet of you to ask.”
“I’m not asking to be sweet. I’m asking for more.”
“And I’ve thought about you and me. But I’m not ready. I don’t want to promise what I can’t deliver. Neither of us deserve that kind of hurt.”
Jodie nodded. She’d wait. Should Crystal Ann ever let go of Brenda, she felt her stay
in the pink trailer would change for the better.
Twenty-Eight
Jodie arrived thirty minutes early and sat in the Rambler, watching the shift workers arrive and disappear through a side door. She gathered her scattered Wonder Woman and followed the last of the stragglers through the same door.
“Hey, you the new girl?” The question came from a woman half Jodie’s size, and one she guessed to be a few years older. Her stringy brown hair was twisted into an unruly pile caught up by a bright red ribbon, her look that of a festive porcupine. She sported a fresh shiner that she made no attempt to hide. She chewed bubble gum and stood so close Jodie could smell the gum’s strawberry flavor.
“I’m not so new. But I am here to start work.”
The woman tilted her head and grinned. “You’re a smart-ass, ain’t you? I’m Bitsy Whogivesaflyingfuck. My mama swears the name’s Comanche, but she’d rather lie than suffer the truth.”
“I’m Jodie .…”
“Well, just Jodie, you’re in for a big treat. That old hag standing over there next to the time clock is the super-bitch. You’re bound to hate her guts by sunup. She ain’t met you, but she already knows you’re white trash. A born whore, and too damn sorry to work.”
“Well then, I guess I’m off to a better start than I figured.”
There might be something to reincarnation. If so, Jodie believed she’d met the remake of Jewel Taylor. She smiled, in spite of her rule about straight woman, admitting to liking the broomstick with the sassy mouth.
A horn blasted, and Jodie watched gaggles of clucking women break ranks and move to positions along the rows of machines. She covered her ears as the cavernous room exploded with a deafening mix of machine noises: clatters, clangs, and deep hums. How was she to fit into this breakneck-paced assembly of machines and women?
Spotting the supervisor moving in her direction, Jodie worked to steady her nerves. The woman appeared to be middle-aged and walked with the stiff gait of a woman with worn knees. Her hair was teased and sprayed into the shape of a school globe, the entire western hemisphere flattened against the right side of her head. She put Jodie in mind of Aunt Pearl.
“You Taylor?” Her tone, more an indictment than a question, did nothing to contradict Bitsy’s remarks.
“Yes, ma’am, I am for sure.”
“Well, come on. Let’s see if you’ve got sense enough to run one of these machines. Looks like you’ve got the back, all right. Then, you big gals are the first to wear down. It’s all that extra weight on these concrete floors that does it.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Jodie echoed.
Six months on the job, and Jodie had advanced five stations on the assembly line, but it hadn’t taken her that long to learn that piecework was rigged to reward nimble fingers and dulled minds. Arthritic hands that slowed or active minds that wandered contributed to failed production quotas and flatter pay envelopes. If a woman’s work didn’t rebound, she was let go without ceremony.
Jodie’s extra pay over her quota was enough to keep her on the job, but she was more determined than ever to refill the depleted coffee can and take her leave. If the backbreaking work wasn’t enough, the daily stories of these women fed her determination.
Yolanda Yates, bleached white as an albino from fifteen years of sleeping days and working nights, was a pure marvel: a long time in piecework yet bright as a button, and she held her own against younger women. Still, she’d tell anyone who cared to listen that a fifteen-year pin, stirred in a meatless stew, was a meal that hung in the throat.
Jodie and Bitsy sat together at supper break. Hard-eyed Sybil, three-times divorced, sat at the next table.
“If you ask me, they’re breeders and leavers. Ain’t worth the little effort I’d use stomping their balls to jelly.”
“That sour bitch is at men again. I’ve loved every man I’ve bedded.” Bitsy shrugged. “At least for the duration.”
Sybil’s harsh words had a way of spooking the timid, but not Bitsy. “And how come you don’t use that mean mouth of yours to complain about two toilets for thirty-five women pissing on the whistle?” Bitsy slammed her meal bucket shut.
“And why don’t you sit your skinny ass down?” Sybil was a woman Jodie wouldn’t choose to tangle with.
Yet Bitsy, thin as a hoe handle with an edge as sharp, shot back. “’Cause we’ve got a so-called ventilation system that don’t do nothing but circulate clouds of lint. That blue crap sticks to every inch of our bodies. Clogging our noses, filling our throats, and stinging our eyes. If that don’t kill us outright, then we survive it to push out monster-like babies.”
Bitsy had insisted that they should confront the manager, and if he turned a deaf ear, they should walk off the job like mill workers up north.
Sybil harrumphed through her flat nose and drawled. “And that one’s going to make this shitty job sweeter with tough talk. Her no bigger than a bloated tick.”
Jodie watched in silence, as though she had no stake in the argument. Teddy had warned her to keep her head down and her mouth shut and not get close with anyone. What Teddy discounted was the fact that Jewel Taylor had raised her from the crib with the same warning. She needed no reminder. Secrecy was as much a part of her as whatever bad shit she breathed in the moment.
Twenty-Nine
The letter Jodie had dreaded for nine months, since moving in with Crystal Ann, arrived on a Saturday. Crystal Ann sat at the kitchen table late into the night, swigging whiskey and reading the one page written with a blunt pencil, letters shaped like those of a kid, over and over, tears streaming down her swollen face.
“How can you be sure? You’re leaving on nothing more than that? It doesn’t make sense.” Jodie worked at keeping the anguish out of her argument.
“I can’t be sure. And I know it doesn’t make sense. It’s not meant to make sense. I feel what I feel. She swears leaving me was the worst mistake of her life. Promises that if I’ll come to Mobile, everything will be good again.”
Jodie didn’t argue further, although she’d heard plenty of doubt in what Crystal Ann didn’t say.
“You think you might get back this way someday?” Jodie was unwilling to say if it doesn’t work out.
“No, I hear Mobile’s real pretty and warm year round. I think I’m going to like it there on the Gulf of Mexico. Should you ever come that way I hope you’ll look me up.”
“I’ll do that.” She said what Crystal Ann wanted to hear, but the offer that Jodie should look her up didn’t go unnoted. She’d hang her hope on nothing more than its vagueness.
By the scant light of the setting moon, Jodie helped Crystal Ann load what little of her possessions the Rambler held.
“Please tell me you’re going to be okay. You’ve got your job, this place, Teddy and Maxine, and the women at the Hide and Seek. Your truck should get you to Dallas for the tryouts next spring. You’ll be okay. Please tell me you understand.”
“It’s all right. Don’t worry. I’ll be fine. Send me a pretty postcard, and I’ll write you back.”
She drew Jodie close, held her tight, and whispered, “If I’d only met you first, you know I could’ve loved you the way you wanted.”
Jodie blinked hard and stepped back. Just maybe, Crystal Ann doubted the promise of love as much as she did.
Crystal Ann gave her a pained smile, got into the Rambler. “You promise to feed the stray cat until he decides to go elsewhere?”
Jodie nodded.
She watched as Crystal Ann drove out of the clearing onto the dirt road. She swore at having failed to remind Crystal Ann to have Teddy fix the Rambler’s busted taillight. Right along with other things she hadn’t found a way to say. She took a seat on the top step, and the air smelled of the damp leaves that now covered the ground in the nearby woods. The half-moon had disappeared behind a flurry of clouds, and Jodie felt that old ache of aloneness.
From the field of withered cornstalks, the stray entered the clearing on stiff legs, his tail arched, tip e
nd swishing like an antenna.
“Damn, cat, where’d you come from?”
The cat walked a measured distance and stopped.
“You here for a handout?” She stepped inside the trailer, leaving the door ajar.
Jodie sat with Rose, a woman she knew but was in no way attracted to, apart from Rose’s willingness. Rose had peppered her with a steady stream of questions that Jodie took as a way of judging her intent, until she grew weary of either side-stepping or outright lying.
“Jesus, Rose, stop with the damn questions. I’m not here to spill my guts; I’m here to get laid.” A quick apology did nothing to change the outcome, and Jodie found herself sitting alone.
Gabby leaned across the bar. “What do you hear from our gal in Mobile?”
She frowned and shook her head. “Not a damn thing. You?”
“Nothing.” She wiped beer mugs and glanced out across the near empty barroom. “Had hoped she’d finally ditched that religious nut and would stay put.”
Jodie nodded. “Yeah, well I guess I’ll shove off. See you.”
“Hold up a minute.”
Jodie turned back, and Gabby came from behind the bar.
“If you’re damned determined .…” She nodded in the direction of a skinny bottle-blonde dancing alone on the empty dance floor.
“Her? What makes you think …?” Jodie rammed her hands in her back pockets, swaying a bit. One rejection an evening was her limit.
Gabby frowned. “Hell, do you think she came here to dance alone any more than you want to go home to your own hand?”
Jodie weighed the emptiness of the long drive and, against her better judgment, crossed the room and took the woman, who called herself Star, into her arms. She was certain Gabby had called her Betty June.
They made their drunken way to a late model ragtop, Star confessing to having paid top dollar for a convertible without working hydraulics. Jodie asked what she was thinking.
Star shrugged. “And who’s going to know it don’t work?” She smiled conspiratorially, as if she’d somehow outfoxed the envious. The irony wasn’t lost on Jodie, but it wasn’t Star’s brain that had her caught up in a reckless mood.