She washed, washed again, conditioned, and blow-dried her pretty yellow hair. It was Ice Gold, the exact color of her lipstick and new nail polish.
As she dressed in satin pajamas, dried flowers rustled on the sill. The mellow May air was still cool as it rushed in through the half-cracked bedroom window.
It was 10:00 P.M. She was itching in places she couldn’t scratch, tossing and turning, and trying to concentrate on Julian. Wrapping the cotton coverlet over herself, she turned on her side.
Tossing and turning, Khan kept replaying her conversation with R.C. Should she have told him to fuck off? Why had she been so gracious, telling him they were friends? Could she really be his friend?
The clock on the nightstand said 1:10 A.M. and she wasn’t even close to sleep. She kicked the covers to the side and tucked the sheets beneath her chin. Shortly thereafter, she tried to dream about Julian fucking her brains out, something R.C. rarely did. Then Khan tried to remember R.C.’s deficiencies: he was so old, he had a problem fucking and staying hard. As she continued struggling to sleep, Khan tried to picture R.C. as a tired, withered old man. Finally she fell into a dreamless sleep.
* * *
Khan was almost finished with her day’s production. Her new partner, Jeremy Stannapolis, was working out well. Khan smiled smugly as she watched Luella swishing down the aisle. Luella had insisted on a new partner when Khan had been out with her injured hand. At first Khan had felt hurt. As much as Luella was a pain in the ass to work with, Khan had grown accustomed to their teamwork. Now, Khan was glad; her new partner was much easier to get along with.
Just then, her cousin Valentino came by her workstation, dressed in a pale lavender sport suit. Beneath his suit, Tino wore a tight white T-shirt. Khan thought, With a body like his, how could he hide it?
“Hey there, cousin. How you doin’?” Valentino said affectionately. Nodding in the direction of Luella, he said, “I’m sure you don’t miss being partners with Luella.”
Khan instinctively rose to Luella’s defense even though she was pissed at her. She knew Luella was a good person underneath. “She’s a pain in the ass, Tino. But we worked well together. Don’t diss her. It’s only natural I see a side of her that you don’t.”
“Next thing you know people around here are going to be calling you a whore, too.”
“Tino, Luella’s a good wife and a good mother. She works hard to put her two boys through college.”
“A good wife, hah! She’s the kind of wife that asks her husband to pull out the broken stove and once he fixes it, doesn’t mop the floor behind it before he pushes it back.”
“Hm.” Khan cocked an eyebrow at Tino. “What if it wasn’t dirty?”
“It was dirty all right. Look Khan, every man around here knows that the broad has had more pricks than a secondhand dart board.” He sneered. “And them fools are still standing in line to screw her during lunch in the company parking lot.”
“You lying.”
“Get real. The women around here call her Skunk Butt behind her back.” Tino’s eyes grew in amazement. “Where you been?”
“Shhh, here comes your dad.”
Tino mumbled, “And he knows all about her too.”
She could hear the sharp intake of breath from Tino as they walked toward Ron, who had been stopped midway in the aisle by a man and woman.
Khan noticed the woman eyeing her uncle’s crotch during the entire conversation. She was positive that Tino observed it as well.
“Well, Ron, it’s just like Millie was saying,” the man spoke up. “Cordell Mitchell, the supervisor on midnights, worked Saturday and Sunday afternoon in Maintenance moving machines out of the Illusion truck unit. I don’t know what’s going on around here, but that’s a carpenter’s job and he knows it. He thought he was slick, but my Millie spotted him all right.” Millie, still eyeing Ron, nodded in agreement. “Are you going to write up Cordell or not? We’ve been getting the runaround from the other committeemen for over a week now.”
“I’ll speak with Cordell this evening,” Ron said patiently.
“You know he’s going to deny it,” Millie harped, still giving Uncle Ron’s body the once-over.
“I can’t just take your word for it, Sam,” Ron said, as he shifted a stack of papers from one arm to the other. When he caught sight of Khan, Ron ended any further discussion. “I’ll get back with you by tomorrow. That’s the best I can do.”
Khan thought the woman was tacky, checking out Uncle Ron so blatantly. But apparently her uncle didn’t agree. His eyes sparkled from the woman’s attention. And in those eyes she saw a certain sexiness that she’d never noticed before. She had to admit, at fifty-six, and with thinning gray hair and a thick mustache, her uncle was still quite a sexy man.
“Hi, Ron,” Khan said after Sam and Millie had left. “I’ve been meaning to stop by your office. It’s been so long since we talked.” She gave Ron a quick conspiratorial wink, then smiled. “Will you give my best to Aunt Ida?”
“Sure.”
“Ron,” Valentino said, nodding hello to his father, his tone more formal than usual.
“Hey,” Ron said, not bothering to add anything more—not even a “How are you,” never mind a “Hi, son.”
Khan felt torn. The tension between father and son was almost unbearable. Even though she loved them both, she didn’t want to get involved in whatever battle Ron and Tino were duking out.
Ron looked at Valentino, hard. “How’re Sarah and the baby?”
Valentino gave his stock answer, and Khan wondered why Ron seemed to know so little about Tino’s family.
Just then Luella approached them.
Luella was wearing the teeniest top possible without risking being written up by her supervisor. Hell, the weather had barely stabilized at seventy but already the diva of Champion was ready to show off her huge breasts and flat stomach.
Khan was often shocked by Luella’s scanty attire, but she had to admit that even at forty, Luella had a body worth showing off.
Luella’s long, luscious legs on her five-foot-seven-inch frame made her hard to ignore. The wild, crinkled, shoulder-length hair she had weaved and wore to perfection only added to her sexiness. And Luella had a natural mesmerizing presence about her that reminded Khan of Marilyn Monroe.
If truth be told, Luella made Khan keep her own shit in check. Khan didn’t want to be outdone in the looks department by a woman sixteen years older than she was.
“Did you take care of my grievance?” Luella asked in the throaty voice she used for flirting.
Valentino rolled his eyes and Khan smiled.
What’s up with these women checking out Ron’s crotch? Khan wondered. He couldn’t be raising that much hell at his age. Or could he?
Ron avoided her eyes. “The meeting is on for next week, Luella. You’ll hear from a member of the committee. You know I don’t handle those negotiations.”
Luella’s ripe body was inches from Ron. “But I want you to handle it,” she said in a whimpering voice. “They don’t know my situation like you do.”
Khan could feel both Ron and Valentino cringe.
“I’ll talk to you later, Khan, Dad,” Valentino said abruptly.
Khan could almost hear Ron scream when Tino’s “Dad” echoed down the aisle.
Luella extended her nude leg and cocked her shoulder back before turning her gaze toward Tino. “I’ll see you later, junior,” she said.
“Sure.” Valentino rushed off.
Usually during work hours, Valentino addressed his father as Ron. The policy had been established since Valentino was first hired in at Champion. He hadn’t broken Ron’s harsh rule until now.
What was up with this triangle? Khan wondered. You could cut the tension between Tino, Ron, and Luella with a knife.
It was lunchtime, and only a few people were in the unit. Generally, Khan ate by herself, having no desire to join the others in the cafeteria. Khan was about to leave and go eat when her uncle stopped
her with his hand on her arm.
“Come up to my office for a minute.” It wasn’t a request; it was a command.
Passing all the committee room offices, Khan followed Ron into his office, which was the largest on “committee row,” as the workers called it. Unlike the other cookie-cutter rooms, Ron had color in his office. His visitors’ chairs were dark teal, his desk and bookcase a dark walnut wood grain. Two large fern plants, courtesy of Ida, were balanced in opposite corners.
Once inside he asked her, “Do you have money in the bank?”
“Sure I do,” Khan said nervously, taking a seat across from his desk. In her head, she calculated her small amount of savings but her weak smile didn’t betray her.
“You know there is bound to be a strike soon.”
“I thought you said we weren’t going to strike, Uncle Ron,” she said. “We can’t afford to strike.”
“Mexico’s stealing our jobs, and the company is letting them do it.”
“Mexico? How could they compete with American workers?”
“Blue collar workers hired by Champion in the fifties were able to buy new homes, put money in the bank, and even send their children to college. Now the company is hiring our brothers and sisters at six dollars per hour.” Khan knew this was way below union scale.
She kept silent.
“The wage in Mexico is even smaller, so now some of our union sisters and brothers who have been laid off are working at small plants where unions have no power. They sign up at ten dollars an hour and less.” That was ten dollars less than they would make if they worked for the Big Four, Khan calculated.
“So you think we should worry about the contract in September?”
“We have a little time, but Mexico’s automobile production has more than doubled over the past five years. Do you understand what I’m trying to say, Khan?”
She jerked her head up and said, “I’m not sure.”
“I’ll give you an easy example. I think Champion’s going to offer us a buyout. Eight years ago Champion pulled this same stunt. We had young workers with families waiving their recall rights and accepting fifty-thousand dollars in severance settlements. One man in particular took a job at a small welding factory for eleven dollars an hour after he took his settlement and left. This was eight dollars less than he made at Champion. Just over a year later, he was laid off from that job. The fifty grand was gone, and his wife filed for a divorce.”
“You’re scaring me, Uncle Ron.” She was finally beginning to pay attention.
“What’s happening is that we’re losing thousands of jobs to Mexican labor. I’m not just speaking about our black brothers and sisters. I’m talking about the UAW. Color doesn’t matter. It’s been increasing steadily for ten years. Sure, Champion tries to deny it, as do the other automobile companies. But they’re lying. Our president claims that increased trade with Mexico will create jobs on both sides of the border. He believes that, in thirty years, America will benefit from expansion into Mexico. Meanwhile, thousands of families employed by the automobile companies, especially in the state of Michigan, will be the first casualties of that free trade.”
“Where’d you hear this, Uncle Ron?”
“Read the papers, Khan. And not just the society section. Over the past seven years alone, the Big Four Detroit-based automakers, Champion, General Motors, Chrysler, and Ford, have reduced their production in Michigan to one-point-six million cars from two-point-eight million. Obviously, they’re reducing workforce as well. You don’t hear too much about it because we’re not laying off people. The company is reducing the head count through attrition, death, retirements, and firing. Now where do you think that leaves you and me in a few years?
“Champion just eliminated six hundred salary workers in their Flat Rock Operations. An unspecified number of hourly workers is expected to follow. No. Our company’s not playing fair. They’re not telling us the truth about how they’re doing business, what their picks are. Just lately, I learned that in this plant all the small parts are grouped together now under Plastic Products and Trim Products Division and Allied Products Organization. Champion plans on grouping everything together now and eliminating more jobs. I’ve been trying to find out just how many more jobs they’re going to eliminate. You better stop spending every dollar you get your hands on and stop taking this overtime for granted.”
“Do they really only make ten dollars a day in Mexico?”
“They make less and they feel like Rockefellers,” Ron said, shaking his head. “Soon everyone will start feeling the pinch. The blue collar jobs will be the first to go, but they won’t be the last. The suburbanites are not immune, and neither are the bankers. Everyone in Michigan is tied somehow to the automobile industry.”
“Are you talking about Thyme?” Khan knew Thyme and Ron had a complicated working relationship.
“For sure. But she and her white husband don’t got a damn thing to worry about: they know what’s going on at the top, so they’re probably planning their escape. But people like you and me, we will cease to matter if the American manufacturers run their business the way they feel is most cost effective.”
“My goodness, Uncle Ron. I never thought about it that way.” How in the hell am I going to pay my mortgage if we strike? Fuck the car, they can take that shit back. But I can’t sleep on the streets. Damn!
“You have to realize how much Detroit has declined since nineteen sixty-eight. Its population has slipped below a million for the first time since the early nineteen hundreds. There’s nothing but liquor stores on every corner, and vacant premises. Detroit has yet to recover from the riots of the nineteen sixties. We’re in trouble here, babe.”
“Well it sounds like a strike is inevitable.”
Ron looked pensive. “I can’t say what the union’s planning. A lot of changes are being made. Membership is way way down, just like I predicted.”
The merger of the top three unions that was announced in 1995 by the Big Four was close to being implemented. The steel workers, the automobile workers, and the machinists would soon be under one umbrella union. The result would be a two-million-member behemoth. As the transition had occurred, many workers had lost a sense of their own voices being heard and had begun dropping out of the union altogether.
No one had thought it would happen so soon—no one except hard-line union officials like Ron. Ron had reiterated over and over again that the unions would merge. He had been right on target.
Although it was the unions who won the wage gains of the 1960s and 1970s and led American blue collar workers into the middle class, those same workers were now losing ground to inflation, cuts in benefits, and the attrition of manufacturing industries. They had begun to lose their foothold in the middle class.
“I think if you’re smart you’ll start putting away some cash,” Ron said, slicking down her blond hair. “And I must admit, your hair is real pretty.”
Khan blushed. “Stop, Uncle Ron.” Few of the other workers knew she was Ron’s niece. It was better that no one knew she was related to a union manager. If people knew that Ron was her uncle, some of the assholes would jump to conclusions and think she was getting an extra hour of overtime.
“Like I said, you’re smart. Smart people have money in the bank.”
Khan plastered a wide smile on her face. Her Visa as well as her MasterCard were over the limit, and Nieman’s had confiscated her card the last time she shopped there. I’m as broke as a sick, limp-dicked dog, but ain’t nobody but the bill collectors got to know, Khan thought to herself. R.C. had always told her that money was made to be spent. She just wished she wasn’t such an expert. Hell, she thought, who could afford to save money these days?
Maybe only those at the top. Like Cy and Thyme.
8
__________
“Wow! That’s hot!” Luella said, blowing the smoke off the mug of coffee her husband, Omar, had just handed her. She popped a Dexatrim into her mouth and downed half the scalding
coffee.
It was four in the morning and at least seventy-five degrees outside on this late May morning. Despite the temperature, Omar, the same man who wouldn’t dream of leaving his bed when there were ten inches of snow outside, had insisted on warming up the car for her.
“The air’s working fine, sugar.” He went through the motions of checking the oil, gas gauge, and tires.
Like I didn’t know that already, fool. She got into her car, sat her mug in the holder, and slammed the door shut. She turned on the headlights, put the car in reverse, then let the window down.
“Omar, make sure that the trash is taken out.” She could see from her rearview mirror that her neighbor’s was already on the curb. “Today’s Friday, you know.”
Their three-bedroom ranch was situated on Six Mile Road near Hubbell. Omar drove eighteen-wheeler refrigerated semis for a living and was gone twenty days out of the month. The least he could do, she figured, when he was home, was take out the damn trash.
“I won’t forget, sugar.”
As soon as she pressed down on the gas pedal, she could see him giving her his familiar puppy-dog look. “What is it?” she asked, poking her head out the window and frowning.
By any woman’s measure, Omar was a good-looking man. His skin was the color of rich mahogany. His irises were black and unreadable; a woman could see herself in the depths of them. Of average height and build, Omar’s sexiness was his nonchalant attitude toward his all-American-boy good looks. At forty-five years old, his hair was still so thick he cut it himself twice a week. All combined, he possessed the attributes that made women want to follow him to the ends of the earth.
“Will you be home by three? I’ve got to get my rig loaded—”
Luella looked bored. “Look, Omar, I know you’re going to California. And I know you’ll be gone for a week.” Thank God. “Now what is it? You need to get loaded up on pussy before you leave?” She forced a smile. Stupid bastard. You would think after twenty-two years of marriage, he would have figured out by now why she ever married him in the first place.
Blue Collar Blues Page 10