After the Fog

by Kathleen Shoop

  “Now get on out there and have a drink, Rosie. On me. I’m great. Thought I took a heart attack, but as soon as I laid down and napped, I got back to normal.”

  A wall-shattering crash made Skinny and Rose leap. The storage room door had flown open. Rose thought something had exploded, and headed, cautiously that way. Skinny tried to grab her hand and pull her back, but Rose wiggled loose from his grip. Laughter and the sound of cards being shuffled drew Rose closer. Once she could see into the space, she peered at a circular table, five men, cigars in mouth, cards in hand, drinks on the table and floosies draped around the room.

  Rose smoothed her hair, staring. She couldn’t rip her gaze from the women—their dyed flaxen hair, beet-red lips and curve hugging clothing. She nearly overlooked one of the men.

  Rose’s heart thumped so hard she grabbed her chest.

  Buzzy. Sitting there, cards fanned in his paws. He flipped her that patronizing grin, some vixen on his lap. Rose couldn’t believe what she was seeing, her eyes focusing on who was standing behind him. Dottie Shaginaw?

  “Buzzy Pavlesic!” Rose bellowed and cut across the floor to the doorway. At the threshold, she stopped short. Two other men were familiar, Mr. Adamchek, the man she had a run-in with at Isaly’s that day, and Mr. Saltz, the neighbor man who abused his poor missus. The look of the third man made her recoil; that guy and two others, she’d never seen before.

  They sat like fat pigs, their hands working their cards without looking down. They were too busy smirking at Rose, gambling away their incomes without a thought for their loved ones.

  She felt enraged and disappointed at the same time.

  Rose stepped toward the doorway, ready to rip Buzzy from his seat and drag him home to explain to Sara Clara and the rest of them what he’d been up to, but Adamchek lifted his ripped, booted foot and kicked the door shut on her nose.

  Rose reached up and pounded on it, hearing a lock slide closed and laughter erupt behind it. She leaned her forehead against the door; all her dreams for a new home were disappearing on the other side of it. And Sara Clara—Rose felt instant regret for how hard she’d been on her since they’d moved north.

  Was this why Sara Clara could only get out of bed every other day, was so frightened all the time? Most likely Sara Clara had no idea what Buzzy was doing, just that he wasn’t where he should be. Rose pounded on the storage room door again, but no one answered and she felt the angry blood, numb her limbs.

  A gruff voice called her name from the doorway. A barrel-chested, crew-cutted man appeared with forearms that told the tale of his years working up from a laborer to wire-puller, to boss in the mill. Jack Dunley shook Rose’s hand and slapped her between the shoulder blades. Skinny pushed up off the cot and lumbered out the door, taking his spot behind the bar.

  Rose tensed and looked back toward the door that hid Buzzy. There was no way in. It wasn’t like this was the only spot in town where men were drinking and gambling away their livelihoods. Skinny wouldn’t make them open it. She would deal with Buzzy later.

  Jack guided her toward the bar and pulled out a stool. He patted the round seat. “Get on up there, Missy. Yunz could use a stiff one.”

  Rose should have left; she had too much work waiting for her, a daughter to handle, a secretive husband, and a wayward son. “Written all over my face, is it?”

  “I just know the feeling, is all, I’m saying,” Jack said.

  Again, she thought of laundry, dusting, cleaning her instruments, Henry, John, Magdalena. “I could use a stiff one.”

  “Sometimes you just need a goddamn drink.” Jack pushed his fist into the air. “Skinny, my man! Two shots, two beers. Yesterday.”

  Jack scratched his five o’clock shadow. Rose hated the sandpaper sound it made. It reminded her of the orphanage. She backed away.

  His hands flew into the air like he was signaling a touchdown, his eyes bugging out. “Goddammit, just sit, Rose.” He pushed her onto the barstool.

  Jack took her bag and set it below the bar. Rose ignored the impulse to snatch it off the floor and educate him on the appropriate places and ways a nurse’s bag could be set down. But, Jack slapped her on the back again, smacking her will to do the proper things right out of her. He slid onto the stool beside her and she grimaced. Skinny sent two shots and two glasses of beer careening down the bar. She needed this, to lose herself, to forget, for just a minute. That’s all.

  Rose tossed back the Old Granddad and followed it with sixteen ounces of Iron City. She cleared her throat and ordered a glass of water from Skinny. He slid a glass of tap water into her waiting hand. Jack lit a cigarette and offered Rose one. She declined with a wave.

  Within seconds her body warmed to the alcohol and her blood fizzled inside her veins like it was coming to life for the first time. What bag on what germ-ridden floor?

  “So. Yunz guys okay for money?”

  Rose closed her eyes. She knew everyone would know about Henry’s firing, but she forgot how quickly word would spread. Jack would definitely know, being on the inside of mill operations, and all, but still. She wasn’t one to discuss money, ever.

  “Money? Rose?”

  Rose faced him head on, she leaned her elbow on the bar. It slid off. She righted herself and cleared her throat before putting her other hand on her hip.

  “Do you talk to your fellow uppity-ups at the mill like that? Yunz this, yunz that? That how you speak when you’re in the pristine white offices that somehow manage to sport fine white, wool carpets even as thick smoke swirls around the fibers, feet stomping the debris into the rug, but it still somehow stays white. You say shit like “Yunz” in those rooms?”

  Jack pursed his lips and threw his hands signaling a touchdown again before turning back to the bar. “Christ Almighty, just having a little small-talk here, Rosie. Just a little fucking small talk.”

  “Does Sax Fifth Avenue tell Kaufmann’s their business? You’re being nebby like everyone else in this town. Can’t a person lose her savings to her husband’s poor judgment without the whole town having a take on it?”

  “People yammering already?”

  Rose shrugged. “Haven’t actually heard anything, but I can feel the talk as though the lines of communications coursed right through my very own veins.”

  Rose downed her water and shifted on her stool, relaxing. She lifted her hand and signaled to Skinny who delivered another shot and beer for each of them.

  She turned to face Jack. “So, is Henry done for in this town? You’re a boss. Isn’t there something you can do with all the power the union has these days? Management can’t just fire a fella like they did Henry? Just for sticking up for another fella?”

  Jack squinted at Rose. “Yer a tender-hearted soul, ain’t ya?” Jack said.

  “I just like to see what’s right, done. That’s all.”

  He stared at Rose as though he had no idea what she was talking about.

  “Same old song and dance. People don’t want to hear shit about anything that paints the mill as imperfect. Even the union.” He took a gulp of his drink, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Won’t do us no good if the mills are shut down. We’re part of the ‘Arsenal of Democracy’ and it’s bad if a pusher is late back to his post after chatting up the nurse in the hospital while she cleaned the slag off his heel.”

  He scratched his forehead, shook his head. “Bonaroti called all ten fellas on city council and expects us to meet and decide to close down the mills until this fog clears. Imagine that. Millions in product and machinery down the shitter? Can’t shut down a goddamn blast furnace because it’s a little foggy. Has anyone seen London or San Francisco? Half the world’s foggy—”

  “Hold it.” Rose held her hand up to Jack. “Back up to the man being late due to slag, chatting up a nurse? Henry? He was chatting up Dottie? That slag on his heel? That was no small injury. Not debilitating, but in need of looking at. I mean, Henry’s a lot of things, but he’s no chatterbox. You think he was chatti
ng up Dottie instead of working? That’s why he got fired?”

  Jack’s jaw fell in surprise. “Just why the hell do you think Henry got fired?”

  “Well, sticking up for a colored fella of course.” Rose saw Jack’s expression. “What? That’s not the reason?”

  Jack moved his head in a figure eight like he was trying to shake the truth out of his skull. “I’m not saying a word. The past is the past, we all make mistakes, er, right? Henry’s a good egg, that one…”

  Rose’s faculties were fully numbed; she was having trouble processing Jack’s words. His mouth moved, shaping words, his eyebrows rising and falling, but nothing made sense. She kept telling herself to remember his words that she would sort through them later because something was not right.

  “But I’ll see what I can do for Henry,” Jack said. “The rest of it? Well, come on, everyday is foggy around here. So what it’s lasted all day and into the night this week? Makes it more Halloweeny. You can’t buy that kind of atmosphere. Hell, if it’s like this on Friday we’ll have the best Halloween parade in history!” Jack threw back his shot.

  Rose’s mind wandered as though it were schlepping through the fog. What exactly was coming out of those mills? If the steel and coatings made in the zinc mill were strong enough to build up the entire country then maybe what the byproducts were made of weren’t healthy.

  And, what the hell would any of that mean for Henry? Another lie? Could there be more to the story? No, Jack was rambling, and Rose was tipsy, exhausted, blind-sided by the discovery of her first daughter and the pregnancy of her second, by Buzzy, Johnny’s attitude. For once Rose pushed a problem off her shoulders instead of taking it on.

  “Like you said,” Rose said. “The mill put us on the map. It’s a trade-off. But if one person dies, I’m gonna bang on doors with Bonaroti. People apparently think I’m a neb-nose anyhow. I mean I tell people how to wipe their asses and scrub their hands, how to save money and hide it from irresponsible husbands, what’s wrong with telling people they’re being poisoned by the very mill that pays their bills? I’m not saying shut ‘er down, but people should be privy to the information.”

  “I agree with part of that,” Jack said, raising his beer.

  “The mills allow us to try to save my salary for a home,” Rose said and meant it. “A real home—a home with forced air, where soot isn’t the first thing I see when I wake or leave the house would be indescribable, don’t you think?”

  Jack raised his eyebrows at Rose.

  “But,” she said, “the mills, think of where things were twenty years ago—double, twelve-hour shifts, men dropping like flies at the age of forty. Things have changed; we get a fair shake now. But, the kids. There’s so much more to the world than what’s here. Somewhere there’s cleanliness.”

  “Ah, the burden of technology and its trappings,” Jack said. “Can’t have the good without the bad. Would yunz leave your family? As much as I see hints of discontent in our little discussion here tonight, I know yunz are one of us, one with the mill; you understand they wouldn’t hurt us; they’re our little gift from God. Every material involved in making steel comes right from God’s own earth.”

  Rose lifted her mug of beer into the air. “Gift from God!” Rose wasn’t so sure about that, but she was losing her willingness to argue.

  Jack joined her in the toast.

  “Well, how’s this for crazy” he said. “Unk’s oldest pal from grade-school—Larry, uh, what’s-his-face barreled through town, stopped in here on his way down to the burgh and couldn’t stop chirping about your other uncle’s money that’s hid in yunz guy’s house. So, maybe you’re closer to that home of yours than you think.”

  Rose bent over the bar laughing so hard her cheeks hurt. Whatever Jack was drinking to make him so optimistic, she needed more of. She slapped the bar and ordered another bourbon shot. This was the third person who’d mentioned this hidden money to her in a few days. Before that, she’d heard gossip about it, but if there was anything Rose knew, it was every inch of that house and there was nothing hidden there except more dirt than was imaginable.

  “Well, if you measured wealth in filth then maybe Larry’s right, we’re sitting on a goldmine.”

  Rose could tell her words were melding together like iron meeting heat, but she couldn’t stop rambling. She’d never so much as breathed a smidgeon about her former life. She never wanted to, never had to once she’d left the orphanage for Mayview, until now. Out poured her stories of cold oatmeal breakfasts, meat sandwiches made from what fell onto the floor first and often, nothing but bread for dinner.

  Jack’s jaw went slack, his eyes bright with interest in Rose’s story. “That’s a tale if I ever heard one. Must love having all that family around, now. Dinner on the table every night. Hang up the nursing bag and enjoy your family.”

  “Nahhhh,” Rose’s words lost their life, and fell flat against the bar she couldn’t quit staring at. “I’d die. Without nursing. It’s who I am. Hen doesn’t need me. The kids don’t. Nursing? There’s always some helpless schlep who needs an ass-wiping lesson or nine.”

  Jack looked into his beer. “Henry’s one lucky fella to have someone who carries her weight and then some, but youthful and lovely and smart and lovely.”

  Rose felt the right side of her mouth pull into a half-smile. She was enjoying the conversation that felt more like commiseration. There was comfort in the fact neither would remember what they’d said. And sitting there with him, she felt a flutter of attraction.

  She was too drunk to move, for good and for bad she was stuck there. Rose giggled into her beer. The booze swelled her mood and she forgot all that had been bothering her as she spun around on the barstool, feeling like she was on a carnival ride, wishing all but her nursing life would spin away like a top.

  * * *

  It couldn’t be her.

  Henry whipped his head around to see, and shook his head. What was Rose still doing there? He ducked behind the coat rack and surveyed the room. He spread a brown wool coat away from a black one that smelled of body odor and peered past the wooden pole that held the whole thing up.

  Rose. Her back was to him, then her profile, spinning on the stool. She threw her head back laughing like she didn’t have a care in the world, like she was being photographed for Life Magazine or some shit. She leaned over her beer, gulping it while lifting her hand to signal for another. Henry’s friend Jack sat with Rose, enraptured, swimming in her hilarity.

  Henry squinted through the coats. Rose was not the type to linger and socialize after a call. Buzzy had told Henry over the phone that Rose had been unable to get into the back room and he would be trapped there until she was gone. Not that he could leave, anyhow. The men who were going to break his legs didn’t think it was smart to let him wander since Buzzy owed them seven hundred dollars.

  Henry nearly stepped forward to spill the whole thing to Rose, to simply tell her the truth and make Buzzy, make all of them just own up to their deceit and start things over. But, Rose had been through too much that day. Did he really need to pile on more trouble? He was chicken-shit, he knew it. Maybe if Dottie hadn’t been involved he could come clean, but not then, not there.

  Rose laughed out loud, bending forward, nearly into Jack’s lap. Her laughter was unladylike and he had loved it from the first time he heard it. When had he heard it last?

  Rose straightened and hiccupped, laughing harder. Jack was enjoying her, his hard, barrel-belly quaking. Henry’s stomach tightened. Not with fear or dread, but full, black jealousy. Maybe he wouldn’t have felt threatened if he hadn’t put such mileage between him and Rose. He’d never felt jealous.

  The first time Henry met Rose she was drunk. But sweetly so. She knew who Henry was, a pitcher for the Pirates, but unlike most women—those who were awed by him—Rose was charmed, not enamored. She regaled his teammates with tales of nursing, and for the first time, the fellas weren’t telling their stories of baseball glory. This chestnut-h
aired, long-legged, intelligent woman mesmerized them. She was an equal. And she knew it. A woman like that was the kind of woman Henry could marry.

  He glanced at his watch. He needed to get to Buzzy before he was dismembered. He’d have to deal later with his envy over watching Jack share such a delightful time with Rose. He’d just have to go into the storage room through the back of the bar instead of through the front.

  Henry turned and exited the bar, his breathing labored by the air. He moved slowly along the sidewalk, inching along the wall to get to the back of the building, remembering his first night with Rose—the night they married, and had sex for the first time. There was no coy, shyness on Rose’s part, no “help me through this, I’ve never done it,” act. And, when it was over, she left. Had a sandwich in the kitchen. Not with a pout and shame splashed across her face or weighing on her posture. She just had a bite then went to work.

  Leaving Henry, utterly, somehow sadly in love. Rose was not a woman who thought she drew her first breath upon the arrival of her prince. No, this woman did not need anyone but herself and for Henry that was as intoxicating as a woman could be.

  Henry did not have time to reminisce. Twenty years had brought problems and right then, his problem was Buzzy. Henry reached the back room door and pounded until a large man, his bloated fingers clutching a baseball, let Henry in. Henry watched as the man lobbed the ball into the air, spinning it, its autographs melting into a blur as he did.

  Henry shook his head. In the cramped room of stale booze and broken souls, Henry saw once and for all, that his brother would sell anything for gambling, even the baseball Henry had gotten signed by every one of his Pittsburgh Pirate teammates. Even that.

  * * *