Hoosier Daddy

by Ann McMan

  I blinked. “You were a college professor?”

  “Hard to believe, isn’t it?”

  “Holy shit.” I was stunned. “Where?”

  She shrugged. “In New York.”

  “State or city?”

  “State.”

  “Where?” I held up a hand. “And please don’t say ‘guess.’ ”

  She smiled. “Cornell.”

  “Good god.”

  “Don’t act so shocked. It wasn’t that big of a deal.”

  “Why’d you quit?”

  “Teaching?”

  I nodded.

  “After my father’s death, I wanted to do something that I thought would really make things better for factory workers. You may not realize that the UAW has a pretty robust scholarship program for children of union members.”

  I shook my head.

  “I got lots of help and financial support from our Region 9 local, and that enabled me to go on to grad school right after college.” El gave a wry-sounding laugh. “But I still had to borrow tons of money, and I’ll be working to pay off all those loans for a very long time.”

  I was still trying to make sense of everything she’d just shared with me. “So you were a college professor? At Cornell?”

  El frowned at me. “Why is that so hard to believe? Do I drool or something?”

  “No,” I added quickly. “It’s not that. It’s just . . .”

  “Just what?”

  “I don’t know.” I shrugged. “I just don’t understand why you would leave a dream job like that to become . . .”

  “An agitator?” she asked.

  “Well.” I shrugged again. “Yeah.”

  “I hate to destroy the romanticized view you obviously have of my sojourn in academe, but trust me . . . life in Ithaca was far from idyllic.”

  “What happened?”

  “Lots of things.” She seemed to consider them all for a moment or two. “Failed aspirations. Failed relationships. Take your pick.”

  “So you ran away?”

  “I prefer to think that I moved on toward something better.”

  I felt like a jerk for making such a stupid comment. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound so judgmental.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “No.” I laid a hand on her forearm. “It’s not. I’m sorry.”

  She didn’t reply. We stood there in silence, with my hand still resting on her arm. I could hear Fritz off in the distance, barking at something. It sounded like he was running—probably chasing one of Ermaline’s stray cats. She had about a dozen of them at last count, all living beneath a rusted-out, Leer commercial truck cap that reposed proudly on the scrap heap they called a front lawn.

  El heard it, too. “Is that Fritz?”

  I nodded.

  “Do you need to check it out?” she asked.

  “No. I just need to be ready with the Neosporin if he comes back with cat scratches on his nose.”

  She smiled. “I wish all of our problems could be solved that easily.”

  “Well, maybe you can be a golden retriever in the next life?”

  “It’s an idea with some merit.”

  I smiled but didn’t say anything. El noticed me staring at her.

  “What?” she asked.

  “It’s nothing,” I replied.

  She rolled her eyes. “I haven’t known you all that long, but I think I can tell when you’ve got something on your mind.”

  I shrugged.

  “Come on,” she said. “Give it up.”

  “It’s stupid.”

  “Stupid?”

  I nodded.

  “Friday Jill, I feel pretty confident that whatever it is you’re reluctant to share won’t rise to the level of stupid, as I define it.”

  I was intrigued by that idea. “You have a stupid scale?”

  “Of course. Doesn’t everyone?”

  “Um. No. What kinds of things make your list?”

  “Oh, that’s easy. I’ll give you the short version.” She started to tick things off. “Skinny jeans; Zeppo Marx; peanut butter and jelly in the same jar; Justin Bieber with or without his shirt; people who say OMG; any cable show about bass fishing; three-fifths of the nation’s factory workers who believe that labor unions are unnecessary—and the other two-fifths who think they are; any woman who exchanges text messages with Anthony Weiner, including Huma Abedin; the on-air talent at the Fox News Channel, except Sally Kohn; and the entire North Carolina legislature—no exceptions.”

  “That’s your short list?”

  She nodded.

  I was amazed. “Mine is nowhere near that long.”

  El seemed amused. “So what were you not going to say to me because it was stupid?”

  “It was just an impulse.”

  “Sometimes impulses can be good things.”

  “You think so?”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  Right then, about a dozen impulses roared to the surface. I wondered if I should give in to a few of them and see if El would think they were good ideas. I decided just to come clean instead.

  “I was going to say that I hate for you to leave when we’re just starting to get to know each other.”

  El looked out across the silver rows of corn that were starting to fade into the disappearing landscape. The night seemed to be getting brighter and darker all at the same time.

  “I don’t think that’s stupid at all,” she said. Her voice sounded different. Smaller. Like it was vanishing, too.

  “You don’t?” I asked.

  She shook her head.

  “I wish we had more time,” I added.

  “Me, too.”

  “I wish we’d met sooner. In another place and time. Before I made so many wrong turns.”

  “Why do you sound like you don’t like your life?”

  “Because right now, I don’t.”

  “But, Friday Jill,” El moved a step closer to me, “right now is all we have.”

  I looked down at her. It wasn’t fair. I wanted a thousand—a million— right nows. I wanted enough right nows to last until I was too old or too crazy to care that there were no more to be had. I opened my mouth to try and explain that to El, but she quickly found a way to prevent me from saying anything. She felt sweet and safe, and I knew that I would never want to let go of her. We stood together in the dying light, surrounded by the chattering of the fall bugs and Fritz’s distant bark. The roaring in my ears grew louder and, soon, I couldn’t hear anything but the thump of my own beating heart.

  El pulled away. I reached for her, but she laid a hand against my chest. She said something, but I couldn’t understand her. The noise in my head was too great.

  “Someone’s coming,” she repeated. Her voice was like a whisper.

  “Oh.” I dropped my hands. They were shaking.

  I gradually became aware of a dull, pounding noise and turned around to see Fritz loping toward us. A moment later, Grammy materialized from the darkness behind him. She stood illuminated by a sea of tiny, yellow flashes. Lightning bugs . . . hundreds of them. When had they come out?

  “Are you two out here waiting on next year’s batch?” she called out.

  I had no idea how long we’d been gone. I looked at El, then back at Grammy. “Is the pie ready?”

  “Been ready. Come on. It’s a lot cooler on the porch.” She turned around and receded back into the night.

  “She’s lying,” I said.

  El looked at me.

  “It’s not cooler there,” I explained.

  She smiled and took my hand. “Let’s go try it, anyway.”

  I didn’t argue with her. We slowly walked back toward the house with Fritz in tow.

  Nothing had been settled between us, but even the gloomiest outcome seemed brighter when it got served up with a fresh, hot slice of Grammy’s rhubarb pie.

  Chapter 6

  “You better get back to the warehouse quick.” T-Bomb was out of breath from running halfway across
the plant to find me. “Luanne is hoppin’ mad about some missing air filters—even though I told her they’d been backordered from that plant in Litchfield for two weeks now, cause of all the flooding and power outages up that way after them tornadoes last month. But she went stormin’ back there anyway, and now she’s about to get unhinged all over Earl Junior.”

  She was talking so fast that I was having a hard time keeping up.

  “Slow down.” I put a hand on her shoulder. Her t-shirt was damp and sticking to her skin. T-Bomb worked in a section of the plant where the AC had been on the blink for most of the month. And today was already one for the record books—ninety-two degrees in the shade, and it was barely ten a.m. “Take a deep breath. Why’s Luanne going after Earl Junior?”

  “I told you. It’s them damn air filters. She went back there to tell Earl Junior that he needed to figure something out pronto, and damn if she didn’t find half a truckload of the dern things stashed behind some scrap carburetors. They wasn’t tagged or nothin’. And when she showed them to Earl Junior, he just stood there, scratching his bits, saying he didn’t know nothing about ’em.” She wiped some sweat off her forehead. “I never seen her this mad. You gotta get back there before she takes a box cutter to him.”

  I sighed. “Where’s Buzz?”

  It wasn’t that I didn’t want to get involved, but management had made it clear to me on more than one occasion that jumping into the middle of disputes like this one was above my pay grade.

  T-Bomb threw up a hand in frustration. “I ain’t seen so much as his shadow since I walked into this damn blast furnace three hours ago.” She narrowed her eyes as she continued to stare at me. “What’s the matter with you? Has that El DeBarge still got your panties all twisted-up in a wad?”

  “What are you talking about?” I fought an impulse to shake out my pant leg.

  “Normally, you’d already be halfway to the warehouse instead of standing here arguing with me.”

  “I am not arguing with you, T-Bomb.

  “Well if this ain’t an argument, then I don’t know what the heck it is.”

  I was trying hard not to lose patience with her. “I told you. I can’t keep getting involved in this stuff. It’s not my job. Besides, you know I can’t leave the line without backup.”

  “Well, it sure as hell needs to be somebody’s job.” She pulled a blue bandana handkerchief out of her back pocket and wiped off her neck. “Fine. When we all have to eat creamed corn for the next month, you can just keep telling yourself that you did right not getting involved.”

  I sighed. “Isn’t your break about over?”

  “Damn.” She glanced down at her watch, and then looked back at me. “Ain’t telling me to get back on the line somebody else’s job, too?”

  “Come on. Don’t be this way.”

  Behind her, I could see Luanne huffing her way toward us. She looked like an angry bolt of paisley.

  “Here comes Luanne,” I said.

  T-Bomb turned around to watch her approach.

  Luanne’s face and neck were bright red. It was clear that she was still seething.

  “Well?” T-Bomb asked. “What happened?”

  “Somebody needs to take a tire iron to that boy.” Luanne looked at me. “He’s nothin’ but a half-wit, and I’m tired of workin’ around his mistakes.”

  “I know, I know.” I tried to get Luanne to stand still for a minute and calm down. She was breathing unevenly, and I didn’t like her pallor. “Why don’t you go sit down in the break room for a few minutes? I’ll cover for you.”

  T-Bomb looked at me. “Who in the hell will cover for you?”

  “I’m about due for my break, too.”

  “Oh . . . so now you can walk away?” She waved her soggy bandana toward the production line behind me. “But five minutes ago, it was none of your business.”

  I sighed. “Don’t be like this, okay? You both know I can’t keep getting involved in this management stuff.”

  Luanne snorted. “Management, my derriere. We ain’t got no management around here, and that’s the problem.”

  I didn’t have any response to that. I could hardly tell them both that maybe they needed to be having this conversation with El and Tony.

  T-Bomb agreed. “If solvin’ our problems is gonna be left up to the likes of Buzz Sheets and Earl Junior, we might as well walk outta here and get jobs passin’ out shoppin’ carts at Walmart.”

  Luanne had moved on. “I got nothin’ more to say about it, so I’ll just say this.” She wagged a stubby finger at me. “You mark my words. If them Ogata people come in here and let these stupid, selfish assholes keep runnin’ things, they’re gonna end up in a world full of hurtin’ with a shitload of lawsuits.” She pulled a pack of Viceroys out of her shirt pocket and smacked it against her palm to force one out. “I’m goin’ outside for a smoke. If Buzz Sheets comes lookin’ for me, you can tell him I said he can kiss me where the sun don’t shine.”

  She turned away and stormed off toward the nearest exit.

  “Well if that don’t beat all.” T-Bomb looked at me. “I hope you’re happy.”

  “Me? What does this have to do with me?”

  She waved a hand. “Nothin’. Nothin’ has anything to do with you. You just stay there all locked up in your own little world, safe from everybody and everything.”

  “That’s not fair—” I began.

  “I don’t want to hear it. You used to be somebody who cared about other people. Now you’re just so damn afraid of making mistakes that you sit there like a hunk of scrap metal.”

  “I care about other people.”

  “Oh, yeah? The Friday I used to know would never just sit back on the sidelines while half the damn plant worked back-to-back shifts with no air conditioning during the hottest days of the summer. The Friday I used to know would never keep her mouth shut when a primo idiot like Earl Junior got promoted ahead of five women who deserved it more—especially when she was one of the five women. The Friday I used to know would never take up with trash like Misty Ann Marks, then run scared from somebody decent like El DeBarge.”

  I was shocked. “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  “T-Bomb . . .”

  “Forget it.” She looked down at her watch. “I got no time for this. I still need this job.”

  She stormed off.

  I watched her go with my mouth hanging open. We’d been best friends for a lot of years, and T-Bomb had always told me the truth. But I’d never seen her as angry or disappointed in me as she seemed to be today. And what was that comment about El supposed to mean? I thought T-Bomb agreed with everybody else that getting involved with El spelled disaster for me.

  All the lights in the plant started blinking. An ear-splitting siren went off and quickly drowned out the ambient rush and rattle of machinery.

  Now what?

  People were yelling at each other and shutting down the lines. Red lights were flashing overhead. I looked toward the emergency exit in time to see a swath of paisley disappear into the sunlight before the big door slammed shut behind it.

  “I need to talk with you.”

  I’d caught up with Joe Sykes in the hallway that led to the front offices.

  He looked down at me. His thinning brown hair was damp and plastered across his forehead like wet pieces of yarn. He did not look happy to see me.

  “Stow it, Fryman.” He held up the palm of his hand. “I know why you’re here, and it’s not going to change anything. She’s fired. End of story.”

  “Look, Joe.” I tried my best to appear calm. “What she did was stupid. But you have to know that she was just angry about those air filters. She was trying to do the right thing—to keep up production and prevent lost time.”

  “Oh, really?” Joe crossed his arms. They looked like ham shanks. “If she cared so much about lost fucking time, why’d she set off the goddamn fire alarm?”

  “I know. It was a mistake, Joe. She made a bad decisi
on. We all do that. But she cares about her work here . . . you know that. She was just mad about Earl Junior misplacing those air filters. You’ve been there. We all have.”

  Joe stood there, glaring at me and breathing through his mouth. I hated that about him. I could see little beads of moisture hanging on the stray hairs that sprouted from the dimple beneath his nose. I forced myself not to look away.

  “She’s trouble. She’s always mouthing off and I’m sick of it.”

  “Then make her cool her heels at home for a week without pay. But don’t fire her, Joe.” I lowered my voice to a whisper. “Not with the competition coming up on Saturday.”

  Joe was a big letch, and he’d had the hots for Luanne’s daughter ever since he first laid eyes on her at last year’s Pork Day celebration. Everybody knew it.

  I could see him waver, so I went in for the kill. “Jailissa’s been working so hard, and she’s got her heart set on winning this year. Luanne’s been working on her costume for weeks.”

  “Her costume?” he asked. “What’s she wearing?” He was practically drooling. It made my skin crawl, but I pressed on.

  “It’s a sight to behold, Joe. White stretch pants with gold tassels and a matching gold tank top. She’s doing her flaming baton routine.” I shook my head. “But this news about her mama will likely take the wind right out of her sails.” I gingerly reached out and touched his hairy forearm. “You can prevent that, Joe. You can give Jailissa this shot at that crown.”

  He sighed. “She’s a good kid. I guess it’s not her fault that her mama’s got a wild hair up her ass.”

  “That’s true, Joe.”

  He let out a long, slow breath. “She’d make a beautiful Pork Queen.” His tone was reverential.

  “She would. It’s her time, Joe.”

  “All right.” He pointed a crooked finger at me. “You tell that bigmouth fat ass that I don’t want to see hide nor hair of her in this plant for the next two weeks.”

  I bit back an expletive. Two weeks without pay was ridiculous, but it was better than no job at all.

  “And if she ever pulls a stunt like this again, there won’t be no discussion.” He leaned toward me. “She’ll be gone. Capisce?”

  I nodded. “You’re a good man, Joe.” I fought an impulse to knee him in the balls. “I’ll make sure she gets the message.”