In recent years she'd developed her grandmother's arthritis and nearly any change in the weather hurt her hands; she could only manage five or six hours a day sewing before they fixed themselves shut into claws. Once, a union organizer had come poking around the shop, waiting outside the front door at closing time, he was the one who'd suggested that her condition might have been a repetitive stress injury—not arthritis. That's common, he said. Arthritis at your age isn't. Unfortunately the organizer had given up on their shop, as none of the other women would talk to him—they all knew they'd lose their jobs immediately. And the truth was Steiner wasn't so bad to work for. She knew that with her strange hours she would have been fired from a bigger company, but Steiner, the shop owner, let her do whatever she wanted. Flex-time, he called it. As long as she kept making him money. He paid Brownsville wages but sold his wedding dresses in Philadelphia, got city prices for them, was expanding to New York. Grace's only question was could she afford to keep living that way—everything kept getting more expensive and the only part- time jobs were fast food, Wal- Mart, or the Lowe's supercenter—all of which required her to use her hands and only paid minimum wage. Not to mention you had to wait awhile to get one. Once people got jobs, even crappy ones, they tended to stay in them. Just to try it, the year earlier she'd taken a second job at Wendy's, but she'd only lasted a week.
She would take things as they came—her mother had worked three jobs before getting an aneurysm at fifty- six and Grace, unlike her mother, was determined to live with a little dignity. That did not include coming home soaked in rancid grease, getting bossed around by teenagers for five- fifteen an hour. It was a reasonable thing to ask—a life with a little bit of dignity. She didn't take up much space otherwise.
She came into Brownsville along the river and the road climbed up past the bridges and then she was downtown. It was easy to find parking. The city had once been promising but now it was mostly abandoned, ten- story office buildings and hotels, all empty, brick and stone stained dark by soot. The downtown had a European feel, at least from what she'd seen on the Travel Channel—narrow cobblestone streets winding and dipping, disappearing quickly among the buildings. She liked that. Continuing down the steep hill toward the old warehouse, she passed the Flatiron Building, there was a historical marker on it and she knew there was another one like it in New York City, though she guessed that one wasn't empty.
By one o'clock her hands ached so much she knew she had to stop. Christ, she thought, it's Saturday. We shouldn't be here anyway. But as always she felt guilty and worked slightly longer, more than she should have, waiting until she'd finished both long seams of the dress she was constructing for a bride in Philadelphia. The dress would sell for about four thousand dollars, the mortgage on Grace's trailer for an entire year. Nervous, she walked across the shop floor to tell Steiner, having the feeling, as she occasionally did, that he might tell her to not come back. But Steiner, thin and unseasonably tan in his golf shirt, his few remaining white hairs combed across the top of his head—he looked up from his desk and smiled and said: “Get better soon, Gracie. Thanks for coming in.” He wasn't angry. He was happy they'd all come in on a weekend to get rid of the backlog. Keep making him money, she thought.
Walking back across the shop floor she was already thinking about the hot towel she would wrap around her hands when she got home, how good it would feel, her body began to relax just in anticipation of it and a thought occurred to her: this is what it means to get old, you don't look forward to pleasure so much as easing pain. She said good- bye to the dozen or so women at their workbenches, the old wide- open factory floor with its brick walls painted white for cleanliness, it was a space much larger than they needed, cold, they all ran space heaters under their benches. The material they worked with was expensive, it wasn't like they were sewing blue jeans; only Jenna Herrin and Viola Graff looked up to say good- bye, the others nodded or raised a pinkie. They all knew what the dresses sold for but it didn't do any good to talk about it; most of the work they did could be done for a few dollars a day in South America. Not the same quality, but close enough. It was only that Steiner was too old and lazy to go down there and set up shop.
After taking the freight elevator downstairs, she walked up the narrow street that was permanently in the shadow of the tall empty buildings, finally emerging into the sunlight. By the time she reached the top of the cobblestone hill where she'd parked her car, she was out of breath. At the top of the hill was a big vista, the whole valley was green and full-looking, the gorge, the river cutting between sheer cliffs. She stood a while longer and watched a long tow of barges, a dozen or fourteen of them, pass under the two tall bridges that spanned the gorge. It was a beautiful place to live. But that did not put any more money into her pocket, and besides, Steiner could wake up tomorrow and move his operation somewhere else.
The year previous she'd visited the university across the river at California, talked to a counselor who had figured it would take her four years to get a bachelor's if she went to school at night, that was taking two classes a semester, a load she was not sure she could manage. And how to pay the tuition? You only got loans if you went full- time, and she was falling behind on bills as it was. Snap out of it, she thought. Choose to be happy.
She got into her car and was quickly out of Brownsville, onto the winding road through the woods that separated Brownsville from Buell. She passed a big black bear standing on the ridge overlooking the road, its spring coat full and glossy. It watched lazily as she passed. The bears were definitely coming back, as were the coyotes and deer. They were about the only ones that seemed to be doing well.
As she came into Buell and the wide riverflat, the few old mill buildings still standing, she passed the house she'd grown up in, now abandoned, the windows broken and the shingles blown off the roof. She tried not to look at it. She remembered when the whistle blew and shiftchange clogged the streets with men, their wives, other workers, even twenty years earlier there had been so much life in Buell it was inconceivable, it was impossible to wrap your head around the idea that a place could be destroyed so quickly. She remembered being a teenager and being sure she would leave the Valley, she had not wanted to end up a steelworker's wife—she would move to Pittsburgh or even farther. As a kid, she would get out of school and some days the air was so heavy with soot the streetlights would be on, the middle of the day and all the cars driving around with their headlights. Certain days you couldn't hang your laundry outside for how dirty it would be when it came off the line.
She had planned to leave, that was always the case. But at eighteen she'd come home from her high school graduation and found a new Pinto in the driveway and a book of pay stubs. Whose car is that, she asked her father. Yours, he said. You start at Penn Steel on Monday. Bring your diploma.
Both then and now, she thought, it's some man making half of your decisions. She'd done a year on the rolling line, which was where she met Virgil. Then she was pregnant and they got married. She half- wondered if she'd done it to get out of the mill. Nothing to wonder about, she thought. She'd started going to school right away, first pregnant, then dragging a baby around with her, was nearly through her AA when the layoffs came. Virgil had made it through six rounds but then his number was up. You had to have whiskers to keep a job in those days—at first ten years’ seniority then fifteen. Virgil had five. He had been so proud of that job—doing better than the rest of his family they were hill people, coal- patch people, their father had never worked a day in his life.
Things had been lean. They had waited and waited for the mills to reopen. But the mills just kept laying people off, all up and down the Valley, and then they were closing, and Grace had a young child and that was the end of school for her. There was not a single job to be had. Not two nickels to rub together. Meanwhile Virgil's cousin, who had nine and a half years in the mill and big payments, a nice house with an inground swimming pool, he'd lost his house, his wife, and his daughter on the
same day. The bank changed the locks and his wife took the daughter to Houston and Virgil's cousin broke into his own house and shot himself in the kitchen. Everyone in the Valley had a story like that—it was a horror show. It was when Virgil started talking to his family again. Which was when he began to change, she thought. When he started thinking he wasn't any better than what he came from.
Dark days. Things had not been that bad for a long time now. The trailer had gone into foreclosure but gradually people started picketing the sheriff's sales, deer rifles in the trunks of their cars, and when one of the bankers had come down to insist the sheriff take action, they had turned his Cadillac over and burned it. To keep people from getting shot, the judge put a moratorium on the foreclosures. Eventually it had become the law. So they had managed to keep the trailer, living on what they could get from the food bank and the deer Virgil poached. That was why she couldn't stand the taste of venison. For two years it had been all they ate.
Virgil had done two years of job training to learn robotics but that hadn't gone anywhere—those jobs had never materialized. Then he'd done the stint at the barge- making plant but that had closed as well— most ships and barges were now made in Korea, where the government owned all the industry.
Keeping that trailer might have been a curse, she thought. At least we might have moved somewhere else and started over. But it was hard to make those calculations, figure out where to go. Men went to Houston, New Jersey, Virginia, lived six to a motel room and sent money back to their families, but plenty of them came back in the end. It was better to be poor and broke around your own people.
A hundred fifty thousand unemployed men didn't leave room for the good life but neither she nor Virgil had relatives anyplace else. You needed money if you wanted to move; you had to move if you wanted money. The mill had stayed closed, and then it had stayed closed longer, and eventually most of it was demolished. She remembered when everyone came out to watch the two- hundred- foot- tall and almost brand- new blast furnaces called Dorothy Five and Six get toppled with dynamite charges. It was not long after that that terrorists blew up the World Trade Center. It wasn't logical, but the one reminded her of the other. There were certain places and certain people who mattered a lot more than others. Not a single dime was being spent to rebuild Buell.
At the end of the dirt road she turned in next to their trailer. Virgil had promised he'd be home by two but it was nearly four. He was breaking his promises already. You knew this would happen, she thought. She called the women's shelter in Charleroi to tell them she wouldn't be coming in to volunteer the rest of the week, had a pang of sadness, it was her lifeline to the rest of the world, all sorts of people worked there, a teacher, a pair of lawyers from Pittsburgh, a financial adviser, all women, they would sit around listening to the public radio stations you couldn't get in Buell. That was what she planned to do, if she could ever afford to finish her degree—become a counselor.
Why not, she thought. Even if it takes six or seven years, you could just start now. She went into the kitchen to prepare her heating pad, put the pad into the microwave oven and turned it on. While she waited, she took a pile of newspaper and started a fire in the woodstove, piled kindling on top and one thicker piece. The timer beeped and she went and got her towel from the microwave, scorching hot, she let it cool for half a minute and sat down on the couch and wrapped her hands. It burned at first but a few seconds later the relief came. She leaned her head back and focused on the feeling. It was almost like sex. She felt good all over. She felt herself get sleepy. She knew if she drifted off she would wake up with the towel cold and damp but it was worth it. She thought about Buddy Harris, a strange and guilty thought now that Virgil was back. The K-Y stayed under the bed with Bud, they'd been on and off for years, two different times she had nearly left Virgil for Bud Harris, but in the end she hadn't been able to do it, he was too awkward and quiet and she hadn't been able to imagine a life with him. She wondered if she had used him, poor Bud, though she didn't think so. Ten years ago he'd become chief of police, though, as he was always pointing out, it wasn't like being chief in a real city, there were only six full- time officers, and with all the financial crises, half of them were due to be laid off. At any rate here she was, still thinking about him, she and Virgil had broken up so many times that she'd dated a dozen other men, only somehow she was still thinking about skinny old Bud Harris.
She heard a truck come up the road and pull into the driveway. Virgil came inside. He was drunk, maybe stoned, she could see that. That would suit her purposes. She kissed him on the neck, took his hand and put it between her legs.
“What a good day,” he said.
“What'd you do?”
“Went fishing with Pete McCallister.”
She put the towel aside and laid against him. She rubbed his leg.
“I thought you said you'd be out looking for something,” she said.
“It's a goddamn Saturday,” he said.
“Well, that's what you told me.”
“I forgot what day it was when I said that.”
She shrugged. “I heard U.S. Steel is doing aptitude testing next month. You could put in a call up there.”
“Goddamn hour and a half in traffic each way.”
She could smell the booze on him. “We could move closer in to the city, live in an actual house.”
“We ought to be moving further away. Live a real country life instead of trying to pretend we're gonna move up in the world.”
He looked at her. “What are you laughing about,” he said.
She shook her head and stopped smiling. They looked at each other awhile longer and there was something about his face. She was looking at him and he had a strange look and then she knew.
“What,” he said.
“Virgil,” she said.
“What?”
“The mortgage is due this week, plus it's April and we still owe taxes from two years ago. I'm on a payment plan with the IRS.”
“Danny Hobbes owes me three hundred bucks. We can always make more money.”
It was quiet and she kept rubbing his leg. “Remind me again why you came back,” she said.
“You know I've got money.”
“What about your disability this month?”
“That's what I lent to Danny.”
She nodded.
“What about getting other money from the government.”
“We ain't gonna pass the asset test for welfare. Plus they sign you up for some shit job now so you're fucked if you think you're gonna have time to look for a real job. There's no goddamn point if it don't lead to actual wage-paying employment.”
“You should apply for it anyway,” she said. “Your son isn't working, either.”
“I already looked into it,” he said. “Between the house and my truck we're not even close to qualifying. It's the asset test.”
“Your truck is six years old and I make nine- fifty an hour.”
“Well it's too much,” he said. “You still giving away your time at that shelter thing?”
She looked at him.
“Maybe for a little while you could do something else that paid instead, I mean if you're so worried about all this.”
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
“I was just thinking out loud,” he said. “Don't get all mad, now.”
“We'll get by,” she said. She still had her eyes closed.
He leaned over and kissed her.
“Let's have a drink to get this out of our heads.” He grinned and went out to the truck.
Give him some time, she thought. Be a little more generous. He came back inside brandishing a half- empty bottle of Kentucky Deluxe and, after finding clean glasses, poured one for her and one for him. She wanted to tell him about Billy coming home hurt last night but something stopped her. She took down her shot of whiskey and so did he and then he started kissing her.
Then he unbuckled her jeans and slid them down.
He shook his head. He slipped inside her and she lifted her legs around him. Soon she could feel it building and then she forgot where she was, she was pulling him in and in and trying to get closer, they could not be close enough. He was still going and she hoped the feeling wouldn't end. She felt him get very hard and his whole body went rigid and it started to build up in her again but then he stopped moving. She rubbed his back and he was not looking at her, or at anything, he was just still. She found a comfortable position for her legs and they were like that for a long time. She dozed awhile, had strange thoughts, if Virgil was able to take home some money she'd be able to go back to school, here he was, then she thought you could probably plant the tomatoes soon, take them off the windowsill and get them into the garden, the peppers as well. She decided she could spare a few dollars and plant more herbs this year. Virgil began to move again inside her.
“Let's go to the bed,” she said. “I don't want Billy coming home and seeing us like this.”
She got up and walked to the bedroom; Virgil followed after her carrying the whiskey bottle. Worry about tomorrow's problems tomorrow, she reminded herself. They sat in bed and Virgil took a long pull from the bottle and then another, and then passed it to her.
“Drinking that whiskey like you stole it.”
He mumbled something in response—there was something going on. He didn't look at her; when she reached between his legs again he wasn't interested and then she didn't think she was, either.
“What's going on with you?”
American Rust Page 5