Slept a dreamless sleep.
Got up early.
Felt refreshed.
Mama made oatmeal, fresh-squeezed orange juice, toast, and jam.
Put on a clean new pair of overalls. Fixed myself a couple of sandwiches for lunch.
Joined the other workers of the world as we waited at the bus stop.
I felt regular.
Felt good.
Caught the bus.
Got off at the plant.
Went through doors, walking proud, looking for my foreman.
“Hello, new world,” I said to myself. “I’m ready.”
THE LINE
I’d been in police lineups, but I’d never worked an assembly line.
Tell you the truth, I liked the assembly line. Had a rhythm, a definite groove. I liked the movement, liked seeing those auto parts dancing down the belt. It was sort of exciting.
I thought of Pop, the man who had me working next to him all during my childhood. Pop had taught me the value of hard work. He had shown me that I have a knack for making things and fixing things. Pop had given me the confidence that I was showing my foreman.
Foreman was impressed. He saw I was willing and capable of doing anything the men could do. He respected me.
I caught on quick. I could handle the speed of the assembly line in no time. I could handle placing the right parts in the right places. I could handle some of the guys looking at me like they wanted to say, “What’s this bitch doing here?”
After a day or two, I even made friends with some of the guys. Once they saw I could stand with them toe to toe, they gave me props.
I got to work early. Worked my ass off. Sometimes I didn’t even bother taking the breaks so I could get more work done.
I was on fire.
I wanted to shine.
I wanted to show everyone that I could hack it, I could do whatever they gave me to do.
At night, I went home tired, but it was a good tired. I’d go to sleep early and wake up at the crack of dawn, ready to go again.
“You sure are the eager beaver,” said Mama.
“I’m working on a promotion,” I said after I’d been there a short while. “Foreman says if I keep going the way I’m going, he could bump me up to an assembly line that pays a little more.”
“Just keep at it, baby,” Mama encouraged me. “I sure am proud of you.”
I was proud of myself.
The shit had sure-enough turned around.
The way a good rap has a good flow, well, my work life had a flow. I was making bumpers and I was making friends. I was seeing how the straight life was the good life. When you get off from eight hours of solid manual labor, when you don’t try to cut corners and give it your best, you feel good about yourself.
I was feeling great about myself.
“Snoop,” said the foreman one afternoon, “would you step into my office for a minute.”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
Here’s that promotion, I thought.
“Snoop,” he said, “I gotta let you go.”
“What!”
“Got no choice.”
“I thought I was working out.”
“You were working out great.”
“Then what’s wrong?”
“Your jail record. They told me you served long time down in the pen.”
“I did,” I said, “but I never said I didn’t. It never came up in the interviews.”
“Well, it’s come up now.”
“And you can’t say nothing for me?”
“I said a lot of things for you, Snoop, but my boss overruled. He said you’re dealing with sharp metal down here, and with your record, that’s dangerous.”
“That’s bullshit. I ain’t hurting nobody. I ain’t even arguing with nobody. You seen me arguing?”
“Not once, but, like I said, Snoop, I don’t got the final say.”
“There ain’t no way to appeal this?”
“’Fraid not. They say you gotta clear outta here.”
“Today?”
“You’ll get paid for today, but I’ve been told to escort you out.”
“Like I’m a criminal,” I said, “like I done something terrible here on the job.”
“I don’t like it any more than you do, but that’s the way it is. All I can do is wish you luck.”
“I’ll need it.”
IF AT FIRST YOU
DON’T SUCCEED . . .
. . . try and try again.
That’s what Pop always said when we were making stuff together.
If I hammered a nail crooked or patched the roof wrong, Pop would say, “Getting it right takes time.”
Mama reminded me of that when I got home from being fired.
“Sure, you’re discouraged,” she said. “You can’t help but be. But hang in there. You did good at that job. You’ll do better on the next.”
Gotta confess that it took me a week or so to get my spirits back up. I had a big resentment to shake off. Back in the Cut, they had told me if I followed this program and took their advice, I’d work.
Well, I took their advice and got canned.
Getting fired makes you feel like shit. And especially after you break your ass to do a good job. Getting fired unfairly makes you mad.
But what could I do with my anger?
Wasn’t no one’s fault. If the assholes who run this car plant wouldn’t give me a break, I’d find someone who could. I’d keep my attitude positive. I’d think about the things that Uncle told me. I’d think about all the prayers that Mama and my godmother Denise said for me.
I’d go back out there and find another job.
“Glad you’re not discouraged,” the guy at the employment agency said to me.
“Not discouraged,” I told him, “just determined. Determined to get something and keep it.”
At first he didn’t have anything, but I kept going back.
A week passed. Then two.
Finally, when I went the third time, he was smiling.
“Found something for you, Snoop,” he said.
“I knew you would,” I said. “I’m about to luck up.”
LUCKED UP OR
FUCKED UP?
Back at Grandma’s House, they called it Job Readiness. They made a big deal of it. I took the shit seriously and wound up working at the car plant. After I got jacked up at the car plant, it took a little minute to clean up my attitude.
But I did.
I was back on the positive tip. I was ready to take this job the employment agency was offering at some book warehouse.
“What do I have to do?” I asked the guy.
“Haul boxes. Heavy ones. That bother you?”
“Fuck no.”
First day of the gig, Mama fixed me another big breakfast. She prayed on me. She said, “Lord, thank you for blessing this child with your grace. Thank you for touching her heart with your love.”
I caught the bus. I was back in the workforce. I’d gotten out of the Cut in July. Now it was September. The weather was still warm, the world still looking good to me. I couldn’t help but remember back to how it was inside Grandma’s House. Those bars, those bricks, those endless days, endless weeks, endless months and years.
Hell, I was grateful to be sitting on a bus, a free woman with a new job.
Foreman was a white cat. Nice enough. He presumed I was strong or I wouldn’t be there—and he was right. I lifted the heaviest boxes they had. I hauled the shit all day long until one guy looked at me and said, “Girl, you stronger than two of us.” I just nodded.
I got through the first day fine.
That night I went out to Buns, a club up on Lexington and Green. It was a mixed club, gay men and women, and since I got out of jail I had noticed how many more gay women were out of the closet. I had had me a couple of little romances, but nothing permanent. I wasn’t interested in permanent. I was interested in celebrating the fact that I got another job. I was sipping on wine when a gal c
ame up to me, real aggressivelike, and started talking. I don’t like aggressive. I ignored her, but she got loud and testy. I could see she might be trouble. When she started cussing me, I ignored her. I’d learned my lesson about getting into it with crazy bitches. I moved on. Went home and went to sleep. Tomorrow’s another day.
Tomorrow brought another challenge. Cat at work came up to me and said, “What’s a skanky bull dyke doing working at a place like this?”
I just looked at the motherfucker. My eyes said, Fuck with me and I’ll cut your nuts off, but my mouth didn’t say shit. I kept doing what I was doing.
That didn’t satisfy him.
“I hate dykes,” he said. “Women ain’t got no business eating pussy.”
I kept on loading.
He kept on provoking, saying all sorts of raunchy shit.
I wanted to go upside his side so bad I could hardly contain myself. But I did. I pretended the asshole wasn’t even there.
Finally, when he shoved me real hard, I was about to lose it and knee him in the balls. That’s when God or good luck stepped in. The foreman was walking by, heard what the guy was saying, and fired his ass, right then and there.
Things were changing for me. The timing was good.
The job was good. I liked working in the warehouse more than the factory. Wasn’t as loud. No sharp parts to cut your hands. Plus, other than the asshole who’d been dogging me, nicer people. Even made a couple of friends.
Life was finally taking a good turn. The days were going by. The nights were calm. The weekends could be fun, especially if I got lucky on Saturday—all girls’ night—at Buns. I was staying out of trouble. And even saving some money.
Was completing my second month at the warehouse. Feeling confident. Finally settling into a routine that seemed to make sense. The guys were always complaining about sore backs and sore arms from all that lifting, but I was fine. I could do this thing.
Arrived on a Monday morning.
As usual, I was the first one there. Eager to get started. Went to the little locker where I stashed my lunch, opened it, and saw an envelope. Inside was a slip that said my services were no longer required.
Took the slip and went to the foreman.
“Why?” I asked.
“Your jail record.”
I said what I said to the last foreman. I hadn’t been asked about jail. If I had been, I would have told the truth, but it never came up.
This cat was cold.
“Tough shit,” he said. “You’re out.”
I kept trying to explain.
He cut me off and said, “We don’t want ex-cons here.”
This was the same guy who’d been telling how well I’d been working out, the same guy who saw I could outlift almost every fuckin’ man in the warehouse. I hadn’t missed a day, hadn’t gotten into a single argument, much less a fight. I was the model goddamn worker.
“Can I just say—” I began to argue.
“You can’t say shit.”
I thought about ending this job by slugging the foreman. I came awfully close, but I didn’t.
What was the point?
Here all this time I thought I had lucked up, but I was really fucked up.
In my head, I was fucked up bad.
CAR WASH
There’s a funny movie they made way back in the day called Car Wash. I watched it on TV a couple of times. Richard Pryor plays a hustling preacher. The jams are poppin’ and the story’s real good.
My story at the car wash ain’t real good.
I took the gig to get my parole office off my back. After the first two fuckups, I was bummed out. I did what I was told to do and wound up getting screwed. I not only worked, I worked my ass off. I worked until I was sore from my head to my toe. Every muscle ached. Every good feeling I’d had went bad. Positive turned to negative. Sunshine turned to shit. All my eagerness, all my go-for-it energy, all my it’s-gonna-turn-out-good energy turned rotten. I was sugar on the floor.
But I also figured I needed to do what I needed to do. Was a car wash any worse than slapping bumpers on cars or lugging around boxes of books? Besides, everyone in the movie Car Wash seemed to be having fun.
It was the end of summer. The last blast of heat was pushing through Baltimore. The radio was blasting Jay Z “Big Pimpin’.”
The line never stopped. Motors kept churning. Engines kept burning. Put me on the wash line. Slap on the soap. Soap up the windows. Soap up the hood. Soap up the doors and the fenders. Soap up the Corvette, soap up the Jag and the Lexus. Listen to the rich bitch scream that we ain’t using enough soap. Think about soaping up her big mouth. Think about the lunch break. Hear the bossman screaming, “Wash cars, hurry up, wash those fuckin’ cars.”
Do it all day Monday. Do it Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday and Friday. Work a ten-hour shift on Saturday. Sleep late Sunday and when you wake up remember that all your fuckin’ dreams were about washing cars. You can’t stop washing cars.
I wanna stop washing cars. I wanna do something better with my life. I take off a day to go out on other interviews—office jobs, factory jobs, jobs at the mall, jobs in hotels. But every interview comes down to asking me about my past. In every interview I tell the truth. And in every interview I’m told they ain’t interested. See ya later. Don’t slam the door behind you. Have a nice day.
So it’s back to soaping up cars. The tricked-out pickup trucks. The big-ass Escalades. The Ferraris that cost more than twice as much as my mama’s house. Sometimes I think of getting behind the wheel of one of those motherfuckers and driving off. Up to D.C., up to New York City, up to Canada until no one can find me and the goddamn car is mine. Stupid fantasies. Just soap up the cars. Soap up my life. Soap up my brain. Wash the bad thoughts away. Thoughts of going back to the block. Thoughts of doing what it seems I’m supposed to do—work the corners.
You don’t need no interview to work the corners. No one asks you questions and looks into your past. You don’t gotta worry about being accepted. You don’t gotta negotiate no salary. It’s every nigga for himself. It’s survival of the fuckin’ fittest. That’s what I’m fit for. That’s what I’m born for. That’s who I am.
But I think of Uncle, and I think of Mama, I think of Denise and all the good people in my life and I go back to soaping up the cars. It’s ten in the morning. It’s two in the afternoon. It’s almost time to get off.
I smell of soap.
“You ain’t soaping like you mean it,” says the bossman as I walk out the door.
“Excuse me?” I say. What the fuck does that mean?
“You doing a lame-ass job.”
“This is a lame-ass job,” I tell him.
“You missing spots.”
“Bullshit,” I say.
“And the guys don’t like working with no bull dyke.”
I snap. “You know what? You and the other guys can go fuck yourselves in the ass. Fuck you, fuck the other guys, fuck this car wash, and fuck every motherfuckin’ car-drivin’ asshole who comes in here. I’m out.”
LIFE AIN’T NO MOVIE
Life ain’t no comedy. Ain’t no folks singing songs on the car wash line. Ain’t no cute jokes and ain’t no happy ending.
That’s how I was thinking when I told the car wash cat to fuck himself. I was fed up. Fed up with knocking my head against the wall. Fed up with niggas’ fucked-up attitudes. Fed up with name-calling. This so-called straight world out here was no world I could relate to. It was a world I had to leave. I’d tried it and I’d fuckin’ failed. So it was good-bye to bad garbage. I was going back to the only world where I’d ever done any good, the world where bad was good and where I was super-bad.
My rep was already established on the street. My shit was already standing. My shit was marked in stone.
I paid my dues. I had sat my little ass down in the Cut for a minute.
Now the minute was up.
Now I said, “Fuck everything else.”
I was tired of struggling.<
br />
I could have talked to Mama, but I didn’t.
I could have talked to my godmother, Denise, but I didn’t.
Could have found a cool counselor or some righteous preacher, but fuck the counselor and fuck the preacher. I was tired of this fucked-up do-goody attitude. I was tired of being someone I would never be.
Back to the dog-eat-dog world.
Back to get it when you can.
Back to the goddamn block.
Ain’t gonna fight with no one. Just bust a move and jump outta sight. Move outta Mama’s house. Move in with a girlfriend. She’s pretty cool. She lets me runs things. She knows I’m the man in the relationship. She don’t bug me about where I’m going and how I’m making a dollar.
I got me five hundred dollars saved.
Take that five hundred, buy me a half ounce of coke, and work off that.
That’s it.
That’s the start.
Put that Mickey Mouse go-straight shit out of my head.
Think like I used to think.
Think ahead.
Start dealing with this coke and move up to heroin. More money in heroin.
Got one thought and one thought only:
Start slow, stay cool, but wind up the biggest drug dealer in East Baltimore.
This time fuckin’ go for it.
I know the game.
Now I’m playing to win.
DICKHEAD
I called him a dickhead ’cause he was a dickhead. I called him a fuckin’ prick cause he hated my ass so bad he bent the rules. He wanted the satisfaction of locking me up—and he did.
I was out there on the corner. Since the car wash bust, I had only been out there for a hot second. Got my shit together. Got me a couple of corner boys to watch for the cops. And got me a couple of hitters who would run the drugs to the customers in the cars. I knew what I was doing.
But this particular cop had attitude flying out his ass. Every time I was ready to open shop in the morning, he’d cruise by and talk much shit.
Grace After Midnight Page 11