Original Sins

by Lisa Alther

  “Good man, there.”

  “Yes sir, they sure does mess things up, these union peoples.”

  “Who did it?”

  “Seems like that somebody toted them in in their lunch pail. Opened the pail in the shift change when nobody wasn’t looking, and the wind just picked them right up.”

  “Did you read it?”

  “Glanced at it.”

  “Well, don’t you believe it. Mr. Prince does right by us.”

  “Yes sir, I expect he does. He a fine man, Mr. Prince.”

  “What you think about all this union foolishness?” You couldn’t hardly ever tell what a jig thought about something without you asked him. A white man, his face would color, or his mouth would twitch. But a jig had a face like a cat in front of a mouse hole.

  “Ain’t studying no union.”

  “Well, that’s good, cause they don’t let coloreds join anyhow.”

  Niggers. They was now two in the breaking room. When he’d first started in, there was only one in the whole entire place—Donny, who was the janitor. They was sort of like weevils—they spread. Next thing you knew, the spinning room would be infested, then your lunchroom and your locker room. All this civilian rights shit, it couldn’t help but go to their heads.

  He never would forget that night at the Barbecue Pit last summer when this big ole Pontiac pulled up, full of jigs thinking they’d get theirselves served. The Pontiac had New York license tags, and this was round about the time when the whole area was full of Yankee Communist agitators. You’d sometimes see them around town—these smart-ass white kids in blue jeans and sweaty Tshirts, who hadn’t shaved or had a haircut all year; and these surly nigger bastards in college sweatshirts, who didn’t have the manners not to look you right in the eye when you spoke to them.

  Anyhow, there was this carload of jive-ass jigs down from New York wanting milk shakes. And setting there in the back, about to get the shit kicked out of him, scared to death, with his eyes all bugged out, was old Donny. Jed had never had a kid brother, but sometimes he felt that way about Donny—all the time having to get him out of scrapes he’d been dumb enough to get hisself into. Why Jed bothered he couldn’t of said.

  First the civilian rights assholes, and now the union turds—it got plumb exhausting trying to maintain your freedom and democratic rights in the face of all this infiltration from up North. He surveyed the room as the workers found their places. Everyone knew niggers wasn’t smart enough to run these machines. Couldn’t most white folks run them right. All the calculations and adjustments. Had to have a head on your shoulders, and a brain in that head. All niggers had was cocks—big ones, to hear it.

  Toward noon it occurred to him that Mrs. Pritchard had been to the bathroom about five times. Well, maybe she had diarrhea or something. He watched her close on her next trip. She sidled up to Joe Macon at his machine, exchanged greetings, then slipped a folded paper towel into his hand and walked on. Joe glanced around nervously, unfolded the towel, removed a piece of blue paper, wrote something on it, and rewrapped it in the towel. Mrs. Pritchard walked past from the bathroom, not looking at him, and he passed her the towel.

  At lunch a note from Sally fell out of his box as he opened it: “When you read this, darling, I’ll be at our home minding our cute little babies and thinking of you, and waiting on you to get home to me.” He felt a twinge of irritation.

  “What you got there?” Hank asked, trying to grab the note.

  “None of your bidness,” Jed said, forcing a lecherous grin.

  “It’s dirty, I bet,” Betty said with a knowing smile.

  Jed realized that if he never spoke to her again for betraying him to Hank, he’d have no one to eat lunch with. So he decided to speak to her, but never to forgive her.

  Jed asked Hank, “Did you see them leaflets this morning?”

  “Yeah.” They sat in silence. “But you know,” Hank added, “I don’t like being told by nobody what I can and can’t do. I got my freedom of speech, just like every other American.”

  “So who’s telling you what to do?”

  “Appears to me management is saying they don’t want nobody starting up no union.”

  “Shit, we done all right without no union. I can run my own life. I don’t need to pay no union to solve somebody else’s problems.”

  “Yeah, but I got my right to speak up without getting run out the door.”

  “You don’t have to pay nobody dues to be able to speak up.”

  They ended up arguing over whether Willie Mays or Mickey Mantle was the greatest all-round outfielder of all time.

  Mr. Prince called Jed into his office that afternoon. Jed stood at attention in front of his desk. His wife’s father, his children’s grandfather. Jed respected Mr. Prince, always had. He was thankful for those years on the ball team. Unlike poor old unhappy Raymond, he understood that you had the backs, the line, the reserves, the Waterboys. Each had their responsibilities. And over them all you had Coach Clancy, whose word was law if you wanted to win ball games. The same in a family—the children of different ages, then the mother, then the father in charge. If you didn’t have no chain of command, if everybody wanted to do ever job and wanted the last word on ever decision, you’d never get no thread spun. Like Coach Clancy used to say, “You couldn’t have all chiefs and no Indians.” Raymond had never accomplished nothing in his whole life and didn’t have no idea how to cooperate. He saw everything in terms of struggle. It was probably why he was so skinny. He wore hisself out struggling all the time.

  “Have a seat, Jed,” Mr. Prince suggested.

  “Thank you, sir. I’d prefer to stand.”

  Mr. Prince smiled faintly. “As you like. What I wanted to ask you, Jed—you’re out on the shop floor. Have you heard any talk about this union organizing?”

  Jed hesitated. He was pretty sure Raymond was involved. Loyalty to his family vied with loyalty to his company. And Mrs. Pritchard. She was up to something. But she’d taught him Sunday School when he was six. “Just talk so far, sir. And those handbills in the parking lot this morning.”

  “Well, it’s no secret, Jed, that you’re being groomed to become a foreman, and Mr. Mackay feels … Mr. Mackay and I feel that a union isn’t in the best interests of the company. Will you let us know if you hear anything definite?”

  “Yes sir. Of course I will, sir.”

  They looked at each other.

  “How’s Sally?”

  “Just fine, thank you, sir.”

  “And the kids?”

  “Yes sir, they’re fine too.”

  “We’ll have to get you all over for a meal sometime soon.”

  “Yes sir. That’d be real nice.” Jed felt uneasy when Mr. Prince got friendly. It didn’t seem quite right to mix up work with family. Boss, father-in-law. You had to keep them separate or it got too confusing.

  Back in the spinning room, he summoned Mrs. Pritchard. “Appears to me like you practically haunting that ladies’ room today, Mrs. Pritchard.”

  “I reckon that’s my bidness, Mr. Tatro.”

  “I reckon it’s my bidness, Mrs. Pritchard, when you start using company time for personal matters. You want to tell me what you’re passing around in them paper towels? Invitations to your retirement party?” He studied the bare patches of scalp showing through her thin red hair and tried to forget that it was she who’d made him memorize the Ten Commandments when he was six.

  She blushed. “I don’t reckon I do, Mr. Tatro.”

  “All right, Mrs. Pritchard. But I don’t want to see you running back and forth to the bathroom all afternoon when you ain’t even meeting production.”

  “That’s a lie, Mr. Tatro. I’m the best worker in this room, and everybody knows it. You got no right to complain on grounds of me not getting my work done.”

  “I’m just thinking, Mrs. Pritchard, if you got so much spare time on your hands, maybe we ought to up your quota.”

  A machine broke down. Unable to fix it, Jed
had to go hunt down a utility man.

  During the quiet moments that followed, he stood watching the room full of whirring clattering machines. Threads wrapped round and round hundreds of spinning bobbins, weaving ever tighter and thicker cocoons. His father, his mother, his brother, himself, eventually his son, probably his daughter’s husband—how many hundreds of thousands of miles of thread would wrap onto bobbins in their combined lifetimes? “When you read this, darling …” Would she love him just for himself and not for anything he could do for her? If he’d never been varsity tackle on the state championship team, if he lost his job, if his prick fell off tomorrow night, would she still love him? Is this what it was all about then? The house, cars, bank loans, a wife and kids and parents, church on Sunday. This bittersweet mix of duty and obligation, possessiveness and mutual comfort and occasional passion. Day after day, until days added up to years, and years became a lifetime. Was this it? In the Castle Tree they’d had such big plans …

  His fists tightened with his need to smash something.

  In the locker room he persuaded Hank to go to the Mill House. He phoned Sally to say he had to work half the next shift.

  “But what about supper, honey? I got your favorite meal setting right here on the stove—chicken-fried steak.”

  “Can’t you heat it up when I get home?” Thinking: take your goddam steak and shove it. “But it’ll be all dried out, honey.”

  This problem stumped him. “Well, eat it yourself then.”

  “Honey, I can’t eat one pound of rump steak!”

  “Well, shit, throw it out. I don’t care what you do with it.”

  Silence. Then a sniff.

  “Oh, come on, darlin. Don’t cry. Be Daddy’s big girl.”

  “It’s just that I been cooking your favorite things all afternoon,” she wailed. “And waiting on you, and wanting to see you, and now you tell me you won’t be coming home after all.”

  “I am coming, darlin. I’m just gon be a little late.” He gripped the receiver as though it was a hand grenade he was about to lob into a schoolroom. “You’ll be all right, won’t you, sweetheart?”

  She sniffed and said miserably, “Yes, I’ll be just fine, Jed honey. You come on home when you can, hear?”

  “Yeah, but there’s something I gotta tell you, honey.”

  “Who is she?” she asked in a small scared voice.

  Jed laughed abruptly. “No, darlin. There’s no one else. It’s just that chicken-fried steak ain’t my favorite no more.”

  Silence. “But, honey, chicken-fried steak has always been your favorite.”

  “I know, but it ain’t no more.”

  “Well, how come not, honey?”

  “I guess I’m getting tired of it or something. Twice a week for three years is a lot to eat of one dish.”

  “Well, Jed, I just don’t know what to say. First you tell me you don’t like bologna sandwiches anymore. And now you tell me you don’t like chicken-fried steak.”

  “I know. I’m sorry, honey. I feel awful having to tell you. But I thought I’d better.”

  “No. No, I’m glad you did, sweetheart.”

  He walked up to Betty in the parking lot. “Me and your old man, we gon cut up over at the Mill House. You wanna come?”

  “Huh-un,” she said. “I got to get on home. But yall have one for me, OK?”

  “You one lucky man,” he informed Hank as they roared off. “‘Have one for me.’ Christ, Sally almost divorced me when I said I’d be late.”

  “Aw, you love it. Both of you do.”

  “Naw, I don’t. Not this evening I don’t. Sometimes I think I can’t take it no more. Sometimes I just want to tear something all to pieces.”

  “You just feeling ugly this evening. You used to get like this at school. You’d go out on the ball field and bust a few heads and feel better real fast.”

  “I feel like—I don’t know—like I’m in some kind of a trap or something.”

  “You feel back to normal after some beers, buddy.”

  Afterward they assembled a dummy from some grain sacks and laid it on the railroad track just before the arrival of the night train from Chattanooga. They hid in the bushes and watched the engine’s headlights sweep up the valley. And they howled as the lights picked up their dummy and the engineer threw on the steam brakes in a great whoosh. The wheels pulverized the dummy as the train hurtled to a halt.

  As they stumbled through the woods back to the car, they clung to each other to keep from falling.

  “Shoot, Tatro, if anybody was to see us, they’d think we was a couple of faggots!”

  They laughed uproariously. Jed threw his shoulder against Hank and knocked him off-balance, then threw a block that brought him down. They lay giggling in the leaves. The arms around you in the huddle, the slaps on the rear, the horseplay in the showers, the frenzied embraces after touchdowns, the blocks and tackles. He missed them.

  He jumped up and stood peeing into the creek. Hank joined him. “Boy, that Miller really puts lead in your pencil, don’t it?” Jed demanded.

  Hank laughed. “I reckon it’s about time for a fishing trip, don’t you?”

  “Sure feels like it.”

  As they rode back to town, Jed started whistling.

  “See what I mean? You feeling better now, ain’t you?”

  Jed pulled the Chevy into the garage, got out and surveyed his little house. It contained the people dearest to him in all the world—Sally and their kids.

  He strode into the house. And was greeted by Sally, red-eyed, rocking the baby and glaring at him. He bent to kiss her, and she turned her head away.

  “Aw, now, baby, don’t do me like that.”

  “Hush. You’ll wake the baby.”

  “‘Hush, you’ll wake the baby,’” he mimicked, jealous of this tiny creature who was in both her good graces and her warm arms. “Well, put it back in bed.”

  “I will when I feel like it.”

  “I said put it back to bed! A man works hard all day, he deserves some attention from his wife when he gets home.”

  “Yeah, you really smell like you been working hard.”

  He grabbed at the baby. Sally hugged it tightly and swept it out of his grasp. The baby began whimpering. “Now you’ve gone and woke her up. You’re no bettern a great big baby yourself. Why don’t you grow up?”

  She disappeared into the children’s room.

  He sank into a chair. She emerged, babyless, and sat down across from him. “Well! Did you have a good time?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I know you weren’t at work. I phoned the mill.”

  He glared at her. “Yes, I did have a good time.”

  “Cheating on me’s bad enough. Lying about it makes it that much worse.”

  “I ain’t lying.” He knelt on the floor and laid his head in her lap. “I swear to you I ain’t running around on you.”

  She began stroking his hair. “I wish I could believe that.” “You can, darlin. I swear you can.” His hands moved inside her housecoat and found her breasts. She moaned as he squeezed her nipples. Jealousy always excited her.

  Jed and Mr. Meaker stood before Mr. Mackay’s desk. Mr. Mackay sat in a business suit, with Mr. Prince on his right.

  “Mr. Meaker, I’d like you to think of good reasons why the following people in your department should be let go: numbers 18045, 63794, and 43572.”

  Jed and Mr. Meaker looked at each other and at Mr. Prince blankly.

  “Mrs. Pritchard, Mrs. Osborne, and Mr. Grimes,” Mr. Prince interpreted.

  There was a long silence.

  “They’re all three doing their work, sir,” Mr. Meaker mumbled.

  “I’m afraid they’re all three doing other work, too, Mr. Meaker. Union work, on company time.”

  Jed opened his mouth to say he knew Betty Osborne would never do nothing like that, but no words came out. Mr. Mackay terrified him. He was like God—a sweep of his hand and Jed’s house, his cars, and T
V console would vanish into thin air.

  “They got families, sir,” Jed mumbled.

  “Yes, I know, Mr. Tatro. So do you. You notice I’m not asking you to get rid of your brother, although I should.”

  “Mr. Mackay,” Mr. Prince interrupted, “we don’t do business like this down here.”

  “Robert, if you people knew how to do business, you wouldn’t have had to sell to Arnold, would you?” He raised his eyebrows.

  Mr. Prince flushed. “Mrs. Pritchard has been with us for twenty-seven years. Her father was one of our original employees.”

  “Robert, I’ve already told you that this family retainer number doesn’t impress me. We’re in business to spin thread, not to run a social welfare service. There are government agencies for that. Now, I want those people let go as pleasantly and quietly as possible.”

  Mr. Meaker gave Mr. Prince a questioning look. Mr. Prince hung his head.

  “But, sir, they haven’t done anything wrong to fire them for,” Mr. Meaker said.

  Mr. Mackay stared at him wordlessly, until Mr. Meaker lowered his eyes to the floor.

  In bed that night Jed felt a need to force himself on Sally. He turned her over roughly, rolled on top of her, pinned open her legs with his knees, and drove himself into her time after time. To his horror, she began moaning and raising her hips to meet his. Betty Boobs used to do this. He froze in mid-thrust, and his erection wilted.

  “What’s wrong, honey?” she gasped.

  “Nothing,” he growled, rolling off and turning his back.

  “Did I do something wrong?”

  “Where did you learn that?”

  “What?”

  “The way you was moving.”

  “I don’t know. I made it up.”

  “Well, don’t do it no more.”

  She said nothing.

  “It ain’t ladylike.”

  “I … OK, Jed honey.”

  That weekend Jed and Hank went to Hank’s cabin on Buck Mountain. They cast for trout all day in rushing streams and at night sat before a campfire with a cooler of Miller’s.