by Ann McMan
Pauline pulled the plate back out of my reach. “What do you mean?” Her voice had taken on that suspicious edge it got whenever she felt threatened—like she’d just swallowed a pack of razor blades. I knew I only had a few seconds to turn things around.
“I’ve been noticing that he seems a little . . . preoccupied lately. I worry that something might be . . . bothering him.”
“Nothin’s botherin’ him. He’s fine,” she snapped. “That Luanne Keortge just has it in for him because she had to walk her fat ass in three feet further than usual this morning.”
“No, Pauline . . . that’s not what I meant—”
“I’m sick and tired of the damn conspiracy against Earl Junior around here.” Pauline clutched my plate. “Everybody is just jealous because he’s likely to get that promotion to warehouse manager.”
“Promotion?” This was the first I’d heard about any promotion, or about any managerial slots opening up. “What promotion?”
Pauline was glaring at me with her beady eyes. “Don’t think I don’t know what your little game is. You just want to tar his reputation so you can ruin his chances at this job. But I got news for you. Everybody here knows what you been up to with that UAW spy . . . carryin’ on like a harlot.”
“Pauline . . . that’s not what I . . .”
“Save it. Your break is over.” She dug her big spoon down deep into the steaming vat of goo and slopped a heaping mess of it on top of my empanada.
“Here’s your lunch.” She thrust the plate toward me. “Now git outta here before Buzz comes lookin’ for you.”
I was stupefied, and stared down at the gummy mass spreading out across my plate. Then I gave up and beat a hasty retreat to pay for my eclectic plate of inedible S.O.S.
One thing was for sure. Luanne wasn’t the only one who was going to have a tough time making it until the next ten-minute break.
The mood at Hoosier Daddy that night was pretty morose. I wasn’t the only one slinking in there with a backside burned raw from all the bitching it had taken from managers who were scared to death about what might happen when the first wave of Ogata’s transition team showed up. People were grumbling and going on at every table. It was clear there wasn’t going to be any karaoke tonight . . . nobody was much in the mood for singing.
I did notice that there was a lot of lively activity over at Tony Gemelli’s table. Things must be good in the agitator business. A few more days like today, and the UAW might have to move its base of operation to a bigger bar.
I didn’t see El anyplace. That was probably a good thing. I didn’t need anybody else razzing me or giving me flack about what had happened on Sunday. I didn’t know what in the world I had been thinking when I let myself go like that. I knew that El was going to be here, then gone, and I’d be left alone again—this time with a ruined reputation and, probably, a truck bed full of manure.
It was depressing. No matter how hard I tried, I always seemed to make bad relationship choices. It was like clockwork. If somebody plopped me down in front of a cosmic police lineup of potential girlfriends, I could be counted on to point my finger at the one suspect who would be guaranteed to bring me the most misery and heartache. I thought for the zillionth time about quitting my job and moving someplace else. Maybe St. Louis? One of my college roommates was now working in management at Boeing, and she kept bugging me to come out there and work. Maybe she was right . . . it was going to take me the rest of my natural life to get anyplace here.
Just like it would probably take the rest of my natural life for me to meet someone who wouldn’t end up using my heart as a doormat.
Aunt Jackie slapped a second bottle of cold Stella down in front of me. I hadn’t even realized that my first one was nearly empty.
“You look like you need this,” she said. “Must a been some kind of day at that plant. I never seen so many long faces in here.”
Lucille was tottering along behind her. He turned around a couple
of times, then plopped his fat body down near the leg of my table and grunted. He was staring at the door that led to the parking lot. Even he looked depressed.
“Thanks, Aunt Jackie.” I tried to shake myself out of my mood. “Is something wrong with Lucille? He looks off tonight.”
“Oh, hell. He’s just lookin’ for that union woman.”
I was shocked. “Who?”
“That other agitator . . . El somebody.”
“El?” I asked.
“DeBarge, ain’t it? El DeBarge.”
“Why is he looking for her?”
Aunt Jackie rolled her eyes. “He’s just in love with her.” She looked down at her obese companion. “Ain’t that just the damndest thing? This dog don’t give nobody the time of day. But all that union woman has to do is wag her fanny at him, and he’ll about give himself a hernia doin’ tricks. Tricks. He ain’t never done tricks—not unless you count holdin’ the world record for the most consecutive farts.”
I didn’t really know how to respond. I was pretty sure that if El wagged her fanny at me, I’d be making a fool of myself, too—doing cartwheels and handstands, or anything else that would capture her attention. Beneath the table, Lucille grunted again.
I know exactly how you feel, buddy.
“I ain’t never seen this dog so hot to trot over somebody. Not unless you count that damn candy-ass Affenpinscher that Jerry Sneddin used to bring in here. Lucille was the same way about her.”
I remembered Jerry’s fussy little dog. He used to bring it to the plant all the time, and it barked constantly. They were pretty inseparable.
“What happened to Jerry’s dog? Nobody’s seen it in a while.”
Aunt Jackie snorted. “She’s at home with her litter of nine puppies.”
I looked down at Lucille, who was sniffing his business. “Uh oh.”
“You don’t know the half of it. Now that ass-wipe is trying to hold me up for support payments . . . for a damn dog. And he says I have to take the whole kit and caboodle of mongrels, too. Now just what in the hell am I gonna do with nine of the ugliest dogs in god’s creation?”
“Nine?” Nine dogs that looked like toy versions of Lucille?
Suddenly, my problems felt pretty small.
Aunt Jackie shook her head. “Jack-Affs. That’s what he calls them . . . Jack-Affs. Hell. Who knows? Maybe I can start some kind of boutique trend and sell ’em each for a king’s ransom.”
I nodded. “Then again . . . maybe you can get Lucille,” I lowered my voice so he wouldn’t hear and made cutting motions with my fingers, “fixed.”
“Shit.” Aunt Jackie was watching my delicate pantomime. “They’d have to use hedge clippers on this boy. He’s got a bigger pair than most of the men who come into this joint.”
Against my will, I looked down at Lucille, who was wholly engrossed with his nether bits now. Aunt Jackie was right. He was pretty . . . endowed.
“You might be right.”
Aunt Jackie sighed. “So that union woman better just keep watchin’ her p’s and q’s.”
“Where is El?” I tried my best to sound nonchalant.
Aunt Jackie wasn’t buying it. “She ain’t here, and you don’t need to go lookin’ for her, neither.” She lowered her voice. “If them agitators wasn’t so good for business, I’d tell ’em to clear on outta here. I don’t need nobody sowing discord in my place. But ever since the filter plant closed, I’ve had a hard time making ends meet.” Her eyes looked dreamy. “Those second shift boys sure could sock it away.”
“Hey? Friday?” a voice bellowed. It was T-Bomb. She was making her way across the bar with Luanne huffing along behind her. I heard Lucille emit a half-hearted growl.
“Oh, lord.” Aunt Jackie sighed. “Talk about people who can sock it away.” She looked down at me. “You heed my warnin’ about them agitators, honey. No good can come outta that for you. Now I better go tap off a couple more pitchers. That keg is almost empty, and I need to change it out before the rest of y
our pals roll in.”
I nodded. “Thanks, Aunt Jackie.”
She walked off in a blaze of blue polyester.
“How long you been here?” T-Bomb demanded.
Luanne dropped her suitcase-sized purse down on a chair. “I gotta hit the loo . . . that S.O.S. has been cramping me all afternoon.” She eyed me. “How’d your chat go with Pauline?”
I shrugged. “I’ve been pretty cramped up, too. Tell you anything?”
Luanne snorted. “That woman is a menace to public health.” She adjusted the waistband of her pants through her oversized blouse. This one had enormous tiger lilies all over it. “Get us a pitcher, T-Bomb. I need something to wash that taste outta my mouth.”
“I’m all over it,” T-Bomb said.
Luanne was already heading toward the bathroom. “And ask Aunt Jackie for some toothpicks. I got a corn husk stuck in a molar . . .”
“Dang, that woman is high maintenance.” T-Bomb turned around on her chair and waved a hand toward the bar. When she caught Aunt Jackie’s eye, she made a pouring motion with one hand, and held up two fingers on the other.
“What about the toothpicks?” I asked.
“Hell . . . I got some of them in my purse, left over from last week, when I pissed Pauline off.” She started rummaging around in her cavernous shoulder bag. She had an enormous, lime green colored one today. It perfectly matched her Capri pants, which was shocking and disturbing all at the same time. “Hey? You goin’ to the fish fry on Thursday night?”
The V.F.W. fish fry was one of the biggest social events of the season in Princeton. Everybody kind of considered it the Indiana equivalent of Pork Day.
“I suppose so.”
“Well, don’t sound so excited. It should be fun this year. I hear the women’s group at Owensville U.M.C. is makin’ all the fruit pies. That’ll be a nice change from that nasty banana pudding them band boosters brought last time.”
“I know. I thought I’d see if Grammy wants to go. She missed it last year.”
“That gout of hers was acting up, wasn’t it?”
I nodded.
“Well.” T-Bomb pulled a bundle of cellophane wrapped toothpicks out of her purse and slapped them down on the table in front of Luanne’s chair. “Tell her to eat cherries. That’s what the doctor told Donnie. But between you and me, I think his problem comes from spending too much time on his duff, punching a calculator.”
T-Bomb’s husband ran his own accounting business.
A burst of loud laughter came from Tony Gemelli’s table. Several guys were giving each other high-fives.
Aunt Jackie showed up with the pitcher of Old Style and two glasses.
“What’s that about?” T-Bomb asked, pointing across the room.
Aunt Jackie shrugged. “Them agitators is just doin’ what they do . . . workin’ the crowd, gettin’ everybody all liquored up and sympathetic to their cause. I seen it happen about fifty-eleven times, now. It don’t pay no never-mind, neither. Once that vote happens, they’re gone—no matter which way things pan out.”
T-Bomb was staring right at me the whole time Aunt Jackie was talking. If her eyes had been lasers, I’d have had two holes burned into my forehead.
“I gotta get back over there. As much as I hate to see them union types show up, they’re damn good for business.” Aunt Jackie tugged at the straps of her bra to reseat her ample set of assets, then turned around and lumbered back toward the bar.
“What?” I asked T-Bomb. She was staring at me with a raised eyebrow.
“Don’t sit there and act like you don’t know what you’re doing, Missy.”
“I haven’t done anything.”
“Oh, yeah?” T-Bomb poured out two glasses of beer. “What do you call that little tango number the two of you was doin’ yesterday in the bathroom?”
“That was an accident, and you know it.”
“Accident my derriere. You must think I was born yesterday.”
“No,” I muttered. “It takes most of a lifetime to develop your unique fashion sense.”
T-Bomb lowered her glass of beer. “What’d you say?”
“Nothing.”
Luanne made her way back to the table and dropped into her chair. The thing groaned and swayed beneath her weight, but she stayed on top of it with all the grace of a champion bronco buster.
“How was that corn report?” T-Bomb asked.
Luanne rolled her eyes. “About as productive as that patch Jay planted out behind the shed.”
T-Bomb laughed. “Well maybe he’d have better luck if he moved some of them rusted Oldsmobiles outta there.”
“You try telling him that. He swears they’re gonna make a comeback, and he wants to have the market cornered when they do.”
“Hell,” T-Bomb took a big drink from her frothy glass of beer, “if they do, he’ll need a ton of them see-through seat covers and a butt load of Bondo.”
Luanne was looking around the bar. “I see that business is good at the union table.”
T-Bomb nodded. “It always is until the credit card runs out.”
“You can’t really blame them,” I added. “At least it livens things up for a while.”
They both looked at me like I had lost my last marble.
I waved a hand. “Come on . . . tell me it’s not true. It gives everybody something new to think about, instead of obsessing over things they can’t change.”
“You been hanging out at the House of Praise again?” T-Bomb asked.
“Of course not.”
“Well, you might as well just dye your hair blond and start line dancin’ with them hoppers, if you’re gonna keep talkin’ mess like that.”
I looked at her. “You know it’s true. There are things at the plant that need to be changed.”
“I guess you heard about Earl Junior’s promotion, then?” Luanne asked.
“You mean he got it?” I was incredulous. “I thought that was just a rumor started by Pauline.”
Luanne shook her head. “Nope. Looks like we got ourselves a new warehouse manager.”
“What the hell was wrong with the last one?” T-Bomb asked.
“That Davis girl? She couldn’t find her own ass with two hands and a flashlight, much less keep up with a pallet full of brake shoes.”
“So they replaced her with Earl Junior?” I asked.
Luanne shrugged.
“That’s all we need.” T-Bomb was shaking her head. “Drool all over the stock. Hey? Maybe they can start calling them Outlaw 450 tires Droolers?” She laughed.
I sighed and glanced over at Tony’s table. There was still no sign of El. I wondered where she was. Beneath our table, Lucille grunted. Pathetic. I’m a lodge sister with a lovesick Jack Russell.
I finished my Stella and pushed back my chair. “I gotta hit the road.” I dropped a ten-dollar bill on the table to cover my tab.
“Why?” T-Bomb looked disappointed. “We just got here.”
“I know. But I still have to stop by Grammy’s and pick up Fritz.”
“Well, don’t forget to ask her about the fish fry.”
“I won’t.”
“Why don’t you just get her a dog of her own, instead of leaving Fritz over there all the time?” Luanne asked.
“She likes Fritz.” I shrugged. “They watch her stories together.”
“Hey!” T-Bomb interrupted. “You can give her one of them JackAff puppies. I saw them last week and they’re kinda cute . . . once you get past all the wiry hair and under bite.”
“I don’t think so.”
“They’re kinda like Jerry,” T-Bomb cackled. “Only better looking.”
“Yeah,” I said. “There’s a mental image I didn’t need. See you both tomorrow.”
I waved goodbye and headed for the exit. About a dozen people were clustered around Tony Gemelli’s table now. It looked like half of the first shift maintenance techs were there, plus a smattering of guys I recognized from the pipe fitting area. I figured that once
the word got out about Earl Junior, Tony would probably need to move his base of operations to the VFW hall—Hoosier Daddy wouldn’t be big enough to accommodate everybody.
It was pretty quiet outside in the parking lot. The moon was nearly full, and everything looked brighter and cleaner than usual. Of course, this also meant that all the night critters would be active, so Fritz would be up and down off the bed about a hundred times. I wondered if maybe I should just leave him at Grammy’s?
I was nearly to my truck when I noticed that something about it seemed off. It was listing to the left slightly. What the hell? I walked around to the passenger side and saw that it had a flat tire. Great. This was just what I needed . . . to have to change a damn tire at eight o’clock at night.
I looked around for options—like an unattended vehicle with the keys still in the ignition. There were none, of course. I was going to have to deal with this on my own.
I stood there for a minute and toyed with the idea of heading back inside to see if one of the guys would come out and help me, but I let go of that fantasy pretty quickly. If I asked for help, I’d never live it down back at work. I sighed and unlocked the passenger door so I could retrieve the jack kit from beneath the rear seat.
I unloaded the spare and loosened the lug nuts on the flat.
“Need a hand?” a voice from behind me asked.
I about jumped out of my skin and dropped the torque wrench. It hit me on the ankle. “Shit!”
“Sorry,” the voice apologized. It was El.
I angled my body around so I could see her. Even in the semidarkness of the parking lot, I could tell that she looked fabulous. She had a skirt on tonight, and from my vantage point, her legs looked like they were about nine miles long, which was odd, since she was about a foot shorter than me.
El followed my gaze. “Something wrong with my legs?”
“No, they look just fine.” Shit. Where did that come from?
She raised her eyes to my face and half-smiled. I felt like an idiot.
“I’m not used to seeing you in a skirt,” I explained. “You look . . . different.”