When Horses Had Wings

by Diana Estill

  I looked away and pretended not to hear the potential assailant.

  All around me, electric screwdrivers buzzed. The assembly belt’s motor whirred. Women chattered as they snapped cranberry-colored calculator lenses and gold bezels into place. High above my workstation, a symphony of sounds rose, the least of which had been the woman who’d yelled at me from forty feet away. I decided not to look her direction again.

  A few minutes later, Scar Face called out again, louder. “Hey! You better look’et me wid dat ugly-hair head o’ yours.”

  Sheepishly, I glanced over at her.

  “You better slow your scrawny ass down.” The woman wagged one index finger in sync with her head, which gyrated peculiarly from left to right. I glanced at my trays. And then, as any sane person would have, I slowed my skinny ass down.

  My face heated with embarrassment and anger. Hadn’t I suffered enough torment during high school? Didn’t I have enough threats to deal with already? Was this bullying going to continue for the rest of my life? It seemed there was no place I could go to escape it. Mindlessly, I loaded keys. I looked forward to my dinner break. With any luck, maybe the beast with three eyebrows wouldn’t corner me in the cafeteria.

  The tension around me eased. Once again, the production line hummed with casual conversation.

  “You hear ‘bout Martha?” one lady asked another.

  “G-ir-ir-l. Go on, now. Ever’body done heard ‘bout that bitch.”

  My ears worked like radar. I took it all in and didn’t know what to do with any of it. Other than Kenny and his momma and maybe a few show-off schoolgirls, I hadn’t ever heard anyone speak that way in public.

  A man on the other side of the assembly belt spiced up the night further when he asked, “Have you heard that new Streisand album, The Way We Were?” It took me a second to realize he was speaking to me.

  I was anxious to make small talk with anyone right then. “Yeah,” I answered, despite knowing Kenny had told me not to speak to other men.

  “OO-oo-oo,” he squealed. Then he rolled his eyes. “I just got it to-day. And every time I listen to it, it makes my nipples get hard.”

  I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but something seemed different about the guy. If Kenny had met him, he probably wouldn’t have even minded me speaking to him. I laughed out loud at his comment. And then I remembered Scar Face and shut up. She’d grown quiet. Maybe she’d caught up and was no longer mad at me. I picked up my tempo, but only a little. 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0. 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 0. 9876543210, 9876543210, 9876543210.

  “Say, motha-fucka!” It was her again. I knew that voice, and I wasn’t about to raise my head. “I know you know I’m talkin’ to you.”

  9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1,0. 9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1-0. 9 – 8 – 7 – 6 – 5 – 4 – 3 – 2 – 1 – 0.

  “I’m gonna cut your ass if you don’t slow down.”

  The assembly line turned so quiet that I could hear the sound of my own heart pounding. Why didn’t somebody take up for me? Couldn’t they see I was new? Couldn’t they tell I was practically a child? I was only trying to do my job well. Good grief. This might have been my first stop on the way toward independence, but I had no intention of making it my final destination. 9 – 8 – 7 – 6 – 5 – 4 – 3 – 2 – 1 – 0. 9 – 8 – 7 – 6 – 5 – 4 – 3 – 2 – 1 – 0.

  Gibbons returned to the assembly area. He’d been observing all this through the glass as if we were guppies in his private aquarium. He marched over and whispered in my left ear. “Did you slow down?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, speed back up.” He walked away, leaving me in a quandary. I wanted to do what he asked. But I didn’t want that whacko woman to show me her switchblade.

  Near tears, I caught up to Gibbons on my dinner break. “Mr. Gibbons, I want to do a good job for you, but—”

  “You’re doin’ great. Doin’ fine.” He sipped from his Styrofoam cup of coffee and stared down a hallway that seemingly had no end.

  “Yessir,” I said, trying to be respectful. “But, see, I don’t want to die over it.”

  To my surprise, Gibbons knew what had been happening to me the whole time. He simply hadn’t realized the woman had threatened to knife me. He’d had problems with her before, he said. And from what I could tell, he was as afraid of the brute as I was. To remedy the situation, Gibbons transferred me to the day shift the following week.

  FOURTEEN

  “I can load keys real fast,” I told Russell, my new supervisor. He just looked at me and blinked as if I’d said something unintelligible. His size-twenty-eight jeans and rodeo-prizewinning belt buckle distracted my attention, but I thought I heard him mumble, “We don’t do that here.”

  Russ, as he told me to call him, had a horseshoe mustache that looked like it might overtake his mouth at any minute. His stringy brown hair hung three inches past his collar. And his ears, which poked through his oily mop, caused him to look like he had handles jutting out on either side of his head. I felt sure that if they’d let him become a supervisor, I might work my way up to company president.

  “You’ll start at station twenty-seven.” Russ pointed to a small table at the back of a room big enough to park twenty-five cars inside. “I’ll put you next to Selma. She can get you started.”

  I hurried to keep up with him while he walked to where he’d just indicated. His lizard-skin cowboy boots pounded the vinyl floor in a way that hinted he might be fifty pounds heavier than his jeans size suggested.

  “Ever use a soldering iron before?”

  I’d only used two kinds of irons that I could recall, one on my hair and one on my dresses. “No, sir. What’s a soldering iron?”

  Russ gave me a sympathetic look. “Selma’ll show you.”

  Selma, who must have been about thirty-eight, spent her weekends singing with a country and western band. She had teased-up, over-bleached hair and wore red-light-district nail polish and matching lipstick that looked like nothing I’d ever seen in any Avon catalog. But I loved sitting next to her. Even the pockmarks on her face interested me. Most days, it was just the two of us soldering next to each other for eight hours, and sometimes a QC, which I learned about two months later stood for “Quality Control” worker. We talked about worthless husbands and priceless children, which didn’t stray all that far from the songs she liked to sing. Once, I even told Selma about David Lassiter, my first boyfriend. She lent her unsolicited advice and said I should call him up sometime.

  Occasionally, a QC gal we called Bird would strut over in her mustard-colored smock and say, “Got any solder-bridges for me?” Then she’d pick up the last few PC boards and lead-frames I’d just assembled and hold them underneath a special light she used to find flaws.

  Selma told me that Bird had earned her name from being a little dim and from wearing her hair spiked so that it stood up like a cockatoo’s feathers. But I thought maybe it had more to do with that beak on her face. She had a schnoz like a toucan, and she was always poking her bill where it wasn’t welcome.

  “Did you see the new nightshift supervisor?” Bird asked Selma.

  “Nope. Is he cute?”

  “Gives me pea-nut butter legs.” Bird widened her stance and swiveled her hips. “Easy to sprea-ea-ea-d.” Her gaze shifted to me. “How ‘bout you?”

  My face grew hot. She was all but asking me if I’d have sex with Mr. Gibbons, the man who’d been kind enough to get me transferred to day shift. He seemed more like a father figure than a sex symbol to me. I couldn’t even think of him the way she was suggesting. “I’m married,” I said, indignant, and then I went right back to soldering.

  Bird snorted. She gave a knowing look to Selma. “So am I. And so is Selma. You think that means anything?”

  I stopped soldering and stared at her. “Yes, I do. I think it means a lot.” She’d pushed a self-righteousness button I never knew I’d possessed. “I think it means you don’t mess around with other people.”

  Bird slapped t
he table with the flat of her hand and sneered. “How old are you, anyway?”

  “Nineteen,” I said, not knowing why I felt compelled to answer her, or for that matter, why I’d let her get my goat. “Almost twenty.”

  “Well, shug, let me tell you something.” Bird said this like she was some kind of wise owl instead of the pullet I knew her to be. “While you’re sittin’ here being all high and mighty with me, your husband...don’t he work nights?” She glanced at Selma but didn’t wait for confirmation. “Your husband’s out there humpin’ somebody else.”

  I turned to Selma, expecting her to jump to my defense. But she only nodded like she was listening to a Sunday sermon aimed directly at her. She reached over her soldering iron holder and wrapped her long scarlet nails around my left wrist. In a consoling voice, she offered, “It’s okay, Honey. They ah-ahll do it. You just haven’t caught him yet.”

  Most women wouldn’t want to hear that their husband was having an affair. However, I decided if Kenny was involved with someone else, it must be Christmas because that was the best gift I could ever receive.

  I could see the opportunity in that situation. I’d catch him, find out about his mistress, and act outraged over his betrayal. Truth be told, I’d be dancing a little jig behind his back. His temptress would likely be younger than me, big-breasted, and blond, but I wouldn’t care because then no one, not even Momma and Daddy, would fault me for leaving him. I’d be free of Kenny at last. He’d be the perp, and I’d be the victim of his tomfoolery. I’d be the wife he didn’t have sense enough to keep, instead of the one he’d driven bonkers. Adultery was one of the many Thou shalt nots I’d read in the Bible, so no one could argue with that. I remembered one verse said it was even wrong to lust after your neighbor’s wife. But I couldn’t recall any that spoke against being mean to your own. Maybe that one got left out. I didn’t know. All I understood was that a woman needed to have a terrible tale if she wanted any sympathy for leaving her spouse. And I didn’t think Kenny’s name-calling and shoving would be enough to do the trick.

  ~

  A few nights after Bird had deposited those first seeds of doubt, I decided to check up on Kenny. I peeked in at him to make sure he was asleep, first. Then I slipped into the bathroom, opened his wallet, and surveyed its contents: a five, two ones, his driver’s license, a social security card, a photo of his momma, and what looked like a stub from a carnival ride ticket. We’d taken Sean to the County Fair a few days before.

  There’d been no leads in there, after all. Possibly Kenny had enough intelligence not to hide evidence in his billfold.

  Kenny would slip one day, though. And when he did, I’d be there waiting like a bobcat ready to sink my incisors deeply into him. I’d stalk him without calling attention to my suspicions, something I’d failed to do the day I’d accused him and he’d pushed me to the ground. Next time, I’d spring from nowhere. And then I’d drag his sorry self all the way to divorce court. I’d tell everyone what he’d done, too. Maybe even the District Attorney, since the girl he’d be seeing would likely be underage. If Kenny so much as tried to stop me from leaving him, I’d have Daddy drive over with his twenty-two and set him straight. Momma would tell me, again, how under special circumstances Jesus forgives people whose marriages don’t work out. And within a few months, Sean, being only two years old, would forget all about Kenny. I’d find a new daddy for him, someone who could teach him how to be a gentleman instead of a monster. Someone like David Lassiter. And then we’d all live happily ever after in a brick home with lots of zinnias, marigolds, and crape myrtles in the front yard.

  Sheets rustled in the bedroom. Kenny called out, “Renee? What the hell? You comin’ to bed tonight, or are you waitin’ up for the Tooth Fairy?”

  “Be right there!” I set Kenny’s wallet on the bathroom sink and crept back to the bedroom. Leaning across Sean’s twin bed, I kissed him lightly on one cheek. He stirred, clutched his Teddy bear, and became still again. Soon I’d have him sleeping in his own room, a whimsical place where toys would dance from painted wooden shelves and superheroes would fly across his windows.

  After I slipped under the sheets and joined Kenny, he said, “I’ve been waiting for you to come scratch my back. It itches.” His voice was so loud that no one would ever suspect he shared the room with a sleeping toddler.

  “Where?” I whispered, hoping he’d take the hint. I raked my nails down both sides to find the offending spot. The quicker I hit the mark, the sooner he’d shut up.

  “All over. Just keep scratching ‘til I tell you to stop.”

  I pictured that wildcat again, tearing muscle and fat away from the bones of an animal twice its size. “I’m tired. I’ll scratch it tomorrow.”

  Raising his voice another notch, Kenny ordered, “No. You’ll do it now.”

  “But Ken-ee-ee-ee—”

  “It’s time you did something for me. You shouldn’t of gotten a job if it makes you that tired.”

  My job wasn’t open for debate, so I sank my nails in deep. Maybe I could shred the top three layers of his hide, strip off the hardened exterior that prevented him from regarding anyone’s needs but his own.

  “Mm… hmm. That feels good. Rea-ea-l-l g-oo-d.”

  I had to distract myself, so I contemplated the burgers I planned to cook the next day and the chain lamp I’d placed in lay-away at the furniture store last week. Then I thought of Granny and remembered she’d soon be moving. She’d said she had something to give to Sean. I wondered what it was.

  ~

  I didn’t how to act when Granny gave me the gun, seeing as how I’d never once held one. I was more scared than grateful. “Belonged to Old Man,” Granny said before she instructed me to keep the prize for Sean. “Don’t give it to him ‘til he’s old enough to be responsible. Meanwhile, you never know when you might need a little protection.”

  Considering the way Kenny handled that rifle, I questioned whether Sean would survive to see his teen years.

  Right off, when he saw the Remington, Kenny cracked the gun apart and stared down the barrel. Snapping the firearm back together, he used my head for a sightline. “Ain’t nothin’ in the chamber,” he said, as if it would have mattered to him if there had been. “Now I’ve got me somethin’ to keep you in line.”

  “What?” I asked, all but daring him to repeat himself.

  “Oh, don’t be so goddamn serious. I’m just kiddin’ ya.”

  “Did you notice I’m not laughing?”

  “You don’t laugh at nothin’ no more.” He brought the rifle back to a vertical position. “I’ll be back in a minute. Gonna ride up town and get me some shells.”

  FIFTEEN

  Memorial Day was exceptionally quiet. The gravel trucks didn’t run on Hawk Creek Road because of the holiday, and no one came to visit us. Texas summers combined with a lack of air conditioning tended to deter all but the most determined guests.

  I’d been avoiding Neta Sue, like always. She worried me with her warped ideas about child rearing. Why would I listen to her, anyway? Her son was proof enough of her parenting skills. Still, I’d let her take Sean to her house for a few hours. In such a short time, I figured she couldn’t do too much damage. Besides, I needed a break. Now I had the afternoon all to myself because Kenny was off someplace with a friend, supposedly shooting water moccasins.

  I sat on my gold chenille bedspread and let our window fan tease my hair. My mop was impossible to brush, too wavy. But then I remembered the new hot comb Momma had bought me. “It’s supposed to tame frizzy hair like yours,” she’d said. I’d tossed it in a drawer and forgotten about it until just then. After years of pressing my hair with an iron, rolling it wet onto orange juice cans, and later oatmeal cartons, I’d pretty much given up on smoothing my locks. What worked for others seldom suited me. But since I was in the doldrums, I decided to experiment.

  That wasn’t the first time I’d had the urge to revamp my appearance. I’d been near stir-crazy the day I’d plucked
my eyebrows, a decision I’d not once regretted. But the blond-in-a-bottle hair-color job I’d later done on myself had been a huge mistake. It had taken nine months and two layer-cuts to get rid of the yellowish straw I’d been left with. Only the ends of my shoulder-length hair remained brassy. I’d squeezed lemon juice on the rest, to make the colors blend together better. A little straightening might further improve the total effect.

  When the first strands of my hair dried to a silky finish, I just about cried. I’d never looked this way before: normal. My tresses neither frizzed nor waved. They were as smooth as Cher’s! I did my makeup and wrapped myself in a slinky halter-top. Next, I squeezed into a pair of low-rise jeans. Standing in front of my closet mirror, I was stunned by my own reflection. Could this be the same person who’d walked her high school hallways in fear of being seen? Why, I’d had nothing to be ashamed of—nothing at all. I had simply needed better hair-care products, along with a little eyebrow tweezing. Of course, it hadn’t hurt that I’d added a few beauty products to enhance my facial features. I’d outgrown that gangly appearance I could see had been only a temporary stage. Thanks to Sean, I’d gained the necessary weight to fill out my size-six hip-huggers. Damn, I actually looked all right.

  I swayed my hips, wondering if someone like me could be alluring. What would David Lassiter have thought if he’d seen me? I’d like to show him a few of the new tricks I’d learned from Kenny. They’d likely be twice as much fun with a man who truly appreciated me. Someday I vowed to find out.

  The front screen door slammed, announcing Kenny’s arrival. “Renee! You need to get your son. He’s asleep in the car.”

  I stepped out from behind the closet door and acted as if I’d been putting away laundry. “Oh, you’re home.”