Blue Collar Blues

by Rosalyn McMillan

  It was a typical Monday morning. Tired workers grunted their hellos and good mornings, followed by the angry whirring sound of power sewing machines gearing up. Even the machines had an attitude this morning.

  * * *

  Fifty-five minutes later, Khan was hunched over her machine, sweating like a mad dog poised for the kill. It had taken her less than an hour to sew up most of her float.

  The power of the machine’s humming vibrated from her fingers to the tips of her toes, but it hadn’t done much for the throbbing pain in her head. Where was Luella? It just wasn’t like her to be so late and not even call. Then Khan’s thoughts returned to R.C.

  Fuck it. That bastard owes me an explanation.

  She reached beneath her table and retrieved her purse in search of change for the telephone. As she did so, she inhaled the unpleasant odor of a man who thought he could camouflage not taking a bath with an overdose of cologne—her supervisor, James Allister. So much for the phone call.

  Scratching his head with a pencil, Allister stood by her machine with the time sheet in his hand. “Mornin’, Davis. I need you to pick up two hours of production to cover Luella’s job until she gets in.”

  Khan looked at the time sheet and rolled her eyes. Thirty years ago the union and the company had agreed to let each unit monitor the amount of overtime granted to their employees. The rule was that, while one employee might get more overtime than another, no one should ever get more than thirty-two hours ahead of the other people in the unit. Everybody kept an eye on everyone else by watching the postings that the supervisors put up near their desk every Monday. If one worker was posting eight hundred hours and another posted eight hundred and fifty, everyone knew there was a problem.

  The thirty-two-hour spread was agreed to because everybody’s job was so different that it was impossible to maintain the overtime spread any closer. The agreement was rarely enforced until the late 1980s, when overtime started becoming scarce. Now, everyone watched the postings like a Budweiser lizard watching a frog. And everyone knew that if they were offered overtime and refused it, the amount of the hours they refused would still be added to their total overtime hours. If someone was twenty-six hours ahead of the others in the unit and was offered six hours of overtime, it would put them at the limit whether they accepted the hours or not.

  The cold coins in her hands felt like hot metal against Khan’s sweaty palms. They burned with the fire she felt in her teeth and gut. “Not today, Allister. I’ve got plans this afternoon.” Of course she didn’t tell him that her plans had suddenly changed: instead of spending a romantic day with R.C., all she wanted to do was go home and cry in peace. “Give her a few minutes. I’m sure she’ll be in.”

  “Can’t wait. I’ve got Rouge on my back and you’re low on hours. If you don’t want the overtime, I’ll have to charge you.” Allister made no attempt to hide the smirk on his chalk-white face.

  Khan turned to see that Chet, who ran the listing and welt-cord machine in front of her, was almost out of work. Luella’s absence was stopping progress.

  The scent of Allister’s cheap cologne sickened her and she turned up her nose. “Sorry. Not today,” Khan said, silently cursing Luella under her breath. Khan just couldn’t deal with more hours. She needed some time to herself.

  Turning back to her machine, she sewed a few stitches in the plastic cording, then pushed the button for the arm to cut off the excess. Swiveling to her left side, she placed the cypress-cloth cushion and leather facing between the welt cord, then pushed the knee pedal to lift the foot and shoved the stock beneath it. She could feel the thick, smooth texture of the luxury body-cloth against the tips of her fingers as she lockstitched the top, following through to the end of the 5/8-inch sew seam. After clipping the threads, she spot-checked her work, then tossed it on the cart beside her table and noticed that her watch said six A.M. Where the hell was Luella? Khan just couldn’t deal with working overtime today, of all days. She felt like she could barely make it to quitting time.

  There were four more cushions left. In two minutes Khan would be out of work. Without Luella moving work down the line, Khan, like Chet, would be cooling her heels.

  No such luck. Khan looked up to see Mary Kemper, a sewing operator from the Syrinx unit, sitting down at Luella’s machine. Khan sighed. Mary could sew triple production, but half of it was usually garbage. The quality curve on their line would plummet today. Any other day, Khan would care. But right now, she couldn’t worry about quality. She felt her problems were greater than Champion Motors.

  * * *

  At that precise moment, Luella was driving like Road Runner passing Wile E. Coyote on her way to work. When Luella had tried to start her car this morning, her DieHard had been as dead as yesterday. She’d waited fifty minutes for a tow truck to give her a jump, and when she finally took off for work, she was furious. At the corner of Big Beaver and Alpine, she was just a mile away from Champion. It was still raining and she was driving too fast. Her bald front tires caught an unexpected puddle and she skidded off the road, losing control. Luella crashed into the pole that supplied electricity to eight city blocks as well as to Champion Motors. The pole went down and the lines were cut, dancing in a crazy spray of deadly white light.

  Khan was forcing the last two pieces of rear backs beneath the sewing foot when the foam edges of the stock stuck on the side of the foot. With her left hand holding the stock in place, she yanked the wheel with her right hand, then pressed down on the foot pedal.

  Immediately, the plant went on emergency backup power. The system provided electricity for the emergency lights and certain strategic computer systems, but no production operations.

  Khan heard the sound of the generator and looked up at the blinking lights. Even without electricity, her powerful sewing machine was still moving from the force of its own momentum, sending size-ten needles piercing through her left middle finger, again and again, making a trail up past her knuckle and stopping at the center of her hand. The coarse green thread felt like a wet whip against her tender skin. Blood began to seep through the stitches, each a sixteenth of an inch apart.

  “Ahhh.” Khan sucked in her breath and turned her head away. “Oh Lord, what have I done! Oh my God!” She screamed.

  The bluish tinge from her engagement ring was the last sparkle of light she saw before losing consciousness.

  Chet hollered for a mechanic. He and Valentino worked for fifteen minutes to dismantle the machine and release her hand.

  Still unconscious, Khan was whisked off to William Beaumont Hospital.

  * * *

  When Khan opened her eyes, it took her a moment to get her bearings. Everything around her was beige. She couldn’t be in the plant. Then she inhaled the sharp smell of disinfectant and, looking around, remembered what had happened. She looked down at her hand, which was covered with blood and throbbing.

  She heard the sound of footsteps coming toward her and prayed that it was R.C., that somehow he had heard of her accident and realized the mistake he’d made. Even though she knew this was foolishness, her heart sank when the doctor entered. He mumbled some medical terms to her that she didn’t try to understand. What did it matter? She was injured and in pain. And the man she had loved for five years wouldn’t be there to take her home.

  Damn you, R.C.! her mind screamed as she felt a hypodermic needle piercing her skin.

  She watched through squinty eyes as the doctor worked on her hand. Since the shot they gave her for pain didn’t work, she felt every one of the thirty stitches he looped through her swollen hand. But that ordeal was nowhere near as intense as the pain in her heart.

  The doctor tried to soothe her with comforting words. Still, Khan tuned him out. Her thoughts ran back to the day several years before when her Uncle Ron had told her that R.C. would never marry a factory worker. He had been right.

  A spasm of pain seared through her fingers, and Khan winced in agony. By the time the shot finally began to work, the docto
r was finished and her hand was bandaged.

  * * *

  Four hours later, Khan was back at the plant. The doctor in the medical office at Champion provided her with a slip that released her from work for the remainder of the day and put her on temporary disability until she had her stitches taken out. Though she was excused from working, she still had to report back to him on Tuesday.

  By 11:40 A.M., Khan had parked her car at the Virginia Park Townhouses—home. It was nearly fifty-seven degrees and the sun was just coming out. A small wind lifted the budding branches in the front of her condominium complex, then let them fall again. The warm breeze carried the scent of spring as she placed her key in the lock and opened the door.

  Once inside her compact condo, she was greeted by the sensual fragrance of French mulberry displayed in decorative wrought-iron pedestal bowls.

  Wincing at the pain in her hand as she hung up her coat, the anger she had felt earlier flushed through her again like the hot flash of a woman going through menopause. She felt confused. Exactly how, she wondered, was she supposed to feel?

  Disgusted with herself, she clicked on the television set and turned to BET, Black Entertainment Television. The top ten videos were on. Maybe that would change her mood.

  “Ha! Ha!” the choir said.

  I don’t see a damn thing that’s funny, Khan thought as she shed her work clothes and slipped on a pair of diamond-patterned silver and pink cotton pajamas.

  “Put your hands together,” she heard the choir shouting from the television at the opposite end of her apartment. They were stomping on the devil. In her mind, she envisioned R.C. Her knee twitched in anticipation. Hell, she thought. I can do better than that.

  Khan tried not to look at the picture of R.C. on her dresser. The harder she tried not to look, the more it kept drawing her eyes like a magnet. Yet she couldn’t put it away—not yet.

  She snatched off her engagement ring, which the doctor had thoughtfully switched to her right hand, placing it in the top drawer of her dresser along with all the expensive jewelry R.C. had given her. All of it glittered and gleamed and looked as vulgar as she felt.

  The photo of R.C. and his bride flashed through her mind. She removed the heavy antique silver locket from around her neck. Inside was a picture she and R.C. had taken when they were in Las Vegas.

  Khan picked up the phone and dialed his home to see if his flight from Japan had arrived. She knew he was scheduled to land at 9 A.M. His maid, Bonnie, recognized Khan’s voice the second she grumbled hello.

  “Mr. Richardson isn’t here, Ms. Khan,” said Bonnie.

  “When do you expect him?”

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  Of course Bonnie knew exactly where the bride and groom were. And of course she wouldn’t tell Khan. Things were going to get ugly and there was no way of avoiding it.

  “Tell him I called.” She spoke between clenched teeth. “And Bonnie, I suggest you pull R.C.’s coattails to the side and whisper in his ear that if he doesn’t call me today, I’ll be on his doorstep tomorrow to kick his rusty black ass.” And that half-breed he married instead of me.

  Tears welled in her eyes as she hung up. “Ha. Ha. The joke’s on me.”

  Her stomach grumbled and ached when she went into the bathroom to grab some tissue. Whatever pain medication they’d given her made her tongue feel thick and dry. Just then, the telephone rang.

  “Hello,” Khan said hesitantly, praying that it was R.C.

  It was Thyme.

  “Hey, girl. I heard about your accident this morning. How’s my little friend faring?”

  Khan felt her shoulders sinking. “Oh, okay I guess.” She wiped her eyes with the tissue but the tears kept falling.

  “Stomp! Stomp!” the choir said louder. “Church, are you with me? Put your hands together.”

  Khan punched the remote and turned off the television set. She’d had enough of feeling ridiculed. Especially by a group of folks who didn’t even know her.

  “Hey,” Thyme said, “you sound funny.”

  “It’s the medication,” Khan lied. She inhaled and pulled herself together. “Have you heard anything about Luella? Allister told me while I was in the medical office that she was in a car accident.”

  Thyme laughed. “The pole she hit is in worse shape than she is. It took Detroit Edison nearly four hours to get the lights back on inside the plant. We were just about to send everyone home.”

  “I can imagine what all those folks were doing up there in the dark.” Khan managed to laugh. “Screwing like gerbils.”

  “Be nice now, girl. Everyone’s back to work. Even Luella.”

  “Great. Now Allister’s probably having her do my job as well as hers. And he’ll still probably charge me four hours today,” Khan huffed. “Maybe if I bought that stinking bastard a bottle of Cool Water cologne he might get the point. Then again, he might try to fire my broke ass.”

  “Loosen up, Khan. Get some rest, and I’ll be over as soon as I can. Need anything?”

  “I hate to ask, but do you mind stopping at the Somerset Collection to pick me up a half-pound of Mrs. Fields oatmeal-and-raisin cookies?”

  “You hate to ask? Girl, when are you going to grow up? You’re just like a little kid. Just tell me what you need—I’m your friend.”

  Khan felt a tear touch her smile, and tucked her pajamaed legs beneath her. Never, she thought, I’m never going to grow up. That’s what R.C. loved about me.

  2

  __________

  Thyme Tyler unlocked her desk drawer and removed the FedEx envelope. The name and address of the sender had been omitted. For at least a month she’d been waiting for this information. She could feel the perspiration itching on the tips of her fingers as she ripped open the top and removed the contents.

  Inside was a list of people who worked for Champion Motors and their salaries and bonuses. Thyme’s breath stalled in her throat when she heard a knock at her closed door.

  With fingers as nimble as an eel, she quickly covered the FedEx package with the monthly costs sheets from the maintenance department that she was supposed to be going over.

  If she couldn’t trust this information being delivered to her own home, she certainly couldn’t risk her secretary finding out about it.

  “Dr. Tyler?” her secretary, Elaine, said as she entered after the second knock. “I’m leaving now.” Elaine handed her a pink memo slip. “Your husband called while you were meeting with Mr. Lamott.” Her husband, Cy, also worked for Champion, but he worked at World Headquarters in downtown Detroit. Thyme was the plant manager at Troy Trim.

  Thyme could have sworn she saw Elaine blush when she mentioned Ron Lamott’s name. She’d heard there was something romantic going on between her secretary and her friend, Ron, who also happened to be union boss at the Troy Trim plant. But lately Thyme felt as if Elaine had begun spying on her. For the past month, Thyme knew, rumors had been circulating around the plant that she was going to be replaced as plant manager by the first of the year. And her secretary’s actions of late made Thyme feel as if Elaine were somehow checking up on her. Would Elaine be stupid enough to put her own job in jeopardy? After all, Elaine was a single mother with a small son to raise. Could Ron use Elaine to gather company information that Thyme was privy to before she got canned? Didn’t they both know that Thyme was as much in the dark as the hourly workers? She made a mental note to keep a careful eye on Elaine.

  Thyme and Ron were good friends and had always respected each other—despite the fact that she was the plant manager and a non-union salaried employee. It was as if he were a Democrat and she a Republican. At the plant, Thyme and Ron were on opposite sides of a clearly drawn barbed-wire fence, but in the private sector they were friends. And although she and Ron had butted heads in the past, they had weathered many union versus company storms.

  “Thanks, Elaine.”

  At that moment, a loud crash echoed from the company parking lot outside of Thyme’s windo
w. From Thyme’s office they could see Ethel Adam’s red Illusion truck just backing out of her parking spot. As both Thyme and Elaine looked on, Bill Elliot hit her from the rear with his white Algeron. After twenty-three years working in the automobile industry, Thyme identified employees by the cars they drove rather than by their names.

  When Thyme turned her attention away from the scene, she noticed Elaine’s eyes roving over her desk like lasers scanning, and when they met Thyme’s gaze the connection was combustible.

  “Is there anything else that I can do for you?”

  “Call the Troy police,” Thyme sighed. “Knowing Ethel, she’ll be cussing Bill out until they get here. She just bought that truck last month. Then feel free to go.”

  Elaine smiled and left.

  Thyme smelled frightened sweat—her own—and felt it slide down between her breasts as she uncovered and began to reread the material she’d so carefully hidden.

  Behind her, the clock on the wall ticked like a deathwatch, reminding her of the past, the present, and all that was to come.

  Just before the weekend, her boss had advised her that Allied Vespa was interested in letting Troy Trim bid on a new job, and tomorrow twenty of their bigwigs were arriving to tour Thyme’s plant.

  She had made sure every crook and crevice in the 550,000-square-foot plant was meticulously stacked, packed, cleaned, and organized. The gray cement aisles had been waxed twice over the weekend, and all employees had been warned to keep their workstations spotless.

  But Thyme couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something strange going on. Ordinarily, she knew about the tours at least a month or two in advance. This was too hurried; it just didn’t make sense. I smell a tamale, Thyme thought, alluding to the growing trend for Champion to syphon off Troy Trim’s work to their Mexican operations. Her instincts suggested that the two situations were somehow connected.

  When she questioned Cy, he seemed vague, almost evasive. As a division manager of three Champion trim plants, Cy should know what was going on. Would he keep something from her?