He’d whoop me when I was little, usually ’cause of what he called my “goddamn disrespectful mouth,” them three words said as one slur. He hit me like he’d never stop, then one day when I was about eight or nine he just stopped, like something grabbed his hand, held his fist and he never hit me again after that, not once, I never knew why. You remember the things from childhood that scare you and I’ll never forget that.
I never knew him to pick me up when I was a kid, “Not his way, but he loves you all the same,” Mom would say, but as he aged I grew bitter at the loss of something never there, and when he did try and hug me like he saw the other old people around him do when I visited as an adult, I pulled back. We tried unsuccessfully a few times to patch things, but re-sew it over and over, you always can see the tear. Dad was never one of those dads that supposedly went out for a pack of smokes and never came home. No, he didn’t abandon his family when things got messed up, but he’d sure as hell expect that we’d adjust to him. “I got to go to work, you know, so be quiet and don’t get upset when I miss your game or raise a hand at your mother,” he’d say. Mom one time created this big deal where as a kid I was supposed to watch him shave, some father-son thing, but as soon as she left the bathroom he just said, “I shave every morning, don’t see what the big goddamn deal is,” so I just went back to Mom in the kitchen. He left his mark on me like a thumbprint pressed into wet plaster, but I never knew how when we never even talked.
My mom was named something else, but everyone called her Sissy, after her being the only sister in a big family of brothers. That summer between junior and senior year I remember a lot, but it was only after my mom started getting on the bus with me that it started to make sense to me as an adult. It seemed there was always more between her and Dad than I could see, like they played parts called “Mom” and “Dad” in front of me, but were different people with each other. Mom said Dad loved her and that was important for me to know, but that it was a Midwest kind of thing where he loved her almost enough to tell her.
It occurred to me that maybe Mom had it right, or at least saw it all coming sort of unconsciously. She waitressed at the Lenny’s, now part of a big nationwide chain of diners, but the place used to be Anthony’s Café, where food came in “baskets” or as “platters,” and old guys sat at the counter bent over coffee like bowed tree limbs. It was owned by Big Tony, then his son Little Tony, who died, and his own son who wasn’t named Tony sold it to the Lenny’s company, which is now owned by Dubai investors who can’t find Ohio on a map. A thing owning a thing. Before it was sold, the Tony’s used to put up hand-written signs all over the place, saying things like NO CHECKS with the NO in red and underlined twice or WE DON’T LOOK IN YOUR MOUTH, SO YOU DON’T LOOK IN OUR KITCHEN. Waitresses said “Here you go,” dropping off food, and asked, “Still working on it?” midway, and “Any room for dessert?” at the end, which was what good service was in a place like that. Didn’t call people “Honey,” that was just at the Waffle Houses further south. Mom waitressed, mostly for tips, serving meals to people who paid using dollars they earned selling shoes made in Sri Lanka to people who made a living being personal trainers to other people who earned their living buying and selling bonds and stocks. Nobody made nothing, except maybe the cooks who broke eggs for omelets. Poultry was always big in this part of Ohio.
MOM REMEMBERED SOME things to me on the bus:
“I invited Lori and Stan over next weekend, Ray. I figured we could play cards or something.”
“That’d be fine,” said Ray.
Ray was my dad—Mom called him Ray when they talked and I wasn’t around.
“By the way, Sissy, what the hell happened to the grass out front? It’s all torn up.”
“I think Earl and his friends were tossing around the football, might have got a little rough I guess.”
“I spend too much time on that lawn for him to just rip it up like that.”
“Well, we’re raising a boy, not grass.”
“Got bad news at the factory today.”
That’s when I walked through. Dad shot me a look, like I shouldn’t have come in right then.
“How’s that, Ray?”
“Seems that foreman job they was talking about, they’re gonna give it to some guy they’re gonna bring in from Columbus.”
“Well, maybe next round, Ray. You know, as long as Earl’s here now, I know he had something he wanted to talk to us—”
“Mom—”
“He wants to talk more about that football scholarship. Maybe go to college. He talked to me about it a lot last night, Ray.”
“Football’s one thing but school’s another, huh Earl?” said Dad, his mouth now full of food mixed with beer from the bottle that I swear was sewn onto his hand at meals. It was then that I stomped out, making each wooden step on the staircase moan as I hit them hard, all the way up. There were days that Mom and Dad must have thought stomping on the floor was the only way we had left to communicate, like cave men or something. That house did have solid floors, though.
Just Mom and Dad down there now.
“You thought about what we were talking about last night?” asked Dad.
“You mean me quittin’ my job?”
“Uh-huh. I figured you’d, um, you know, want more time to yourself,” Dad said, “that’s all. I talked to Stan yesterday afternoon while you were out. His wife just quit her job.”
“And that’s what you’d want me to do, just so you’d feel better? Ray, I told you when I took that job it was because I had to. People keep worrying about the factory, and you heard the house on the end just went to the bank. Them people been living there for fifteen years and now it’s like one of those old sad movies around here. I keep seein’ men with suits knock on a door, and then nothing good happens to a family.”
“Well, we could have another yard sale, sell off some of this junk you bought,” said Dad.
“Ray, nobody wanted the broken stereo or the crock pot or the things from the garage that went with the old car. We sold some of Earl’s baby stuff to those out-of-towners only because they thought they was funny old things. For that $15 I lost the Golden Books I read to him over and over them nights you worked double shifts while the factory still had overtime for you. Was that worth that $15? ’cause everythin’ else that was sold was just neighbors being polite, pawing through what we had and touching everything and then buying a Tupperware for ten cents ’cause it was cheaper than saying no. I ended up buyin’ stuff from them two weeks later just keepin’ relations. Some people even stole stuff when I went inside. That how you wanna live now?”
“Dammit Sissy, stop nagging me—”
“Ray, it’s changing.”
“Sissy—”
“You know the refrigerator is making a wheezing sound and even on sale at Sears they’re expensive. Wages at the factory keep going down for ya’ll, them saying we have to share the sacrifice to keep the company afloat. I even heard of a family sleeping nights in their car now over in Gibbsville, kids in the back seat while the old man tries to get some sleep for work the next day. That for us, Ray?”
“I think we’re a ways from being like Gibbsville and all that Sissy. Factory been here in Reeve a long time, and I’m one of the senior men on shift. Settle yourself down and stop worrying. Makes you get wrinkles. Hell, my father raised a family outta that factory. We make glass at that factory Sissy, we aren’t made of it you know. I’ll always have something.”
For a long time I never understood economics, just lopping it in with the math I hated in high school. When was we ever going to use this stuff, we’d say, plodding through the equations. I remember those words and I remember the hours in the classrooms and how hot it always seemed, but I could not figure out how long one side of a triangle is knowing the other dimensions and other than Muley asking me how high a flag was once when we took a field trip to Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan, and me knowing the answer had something to do with measuring the shadow. I
told Muley I didn’t know and who cared anyway how tall the flag pole was, stupid question.
The joke’s on you, Mr. Donovan, we really never did need to use that math stuff. How many hours me and Muley sat in there, staring out the window at spring passing us by, waiting for them classes to end. School didn’t mean much to us ’cause we all knew the future. We’d work in the factory here in Reeve like our daddy done because that was the way of it. Nobody’s dad made that much more or less than everyone else’s dad. There was no 99 percent in Reeve then, as we was all one hundred percent 99 percent. But it worked. Muley had an above ground pool and the summer before my old man bought a new Buick LeSabre. Things were right the way they were between the factory and the men. They needed each other. It was a kind of team.
As I got older and more unemployed though, I came to understand that economics was less about math and more about people, and how we lived. The economic word “flexibility” came in my lifetime to be a stand-in for lower pay and fewer benefits. The system had been in place for my grandpa and my dad: Put something into the factory and get something back from the factory. Giving and getting were intimately related. There are rich men and working men, and rich men always have more but working men have enough. It was like a contract, and we saw it every day in Reeve. Like a marriage, it wasn’t always good and I ain’t romanticizing it. Some men left hands and fingers in those machines like my dad did, and both sides might cheat a bit on the other. But it worked well enough, and well enough was about what most of us wanted.
This used to be a country that talked about dreams with a straight face. Now we keep the old myth alive that America is some special good place, but in fact we’re just like some mean old man, reduced to feeling good about himself by yelling at the kids. In Reeve, that was Mr. Voriski. He’d always be upset about anyone stepping on his grass, or a ball bouncing into his yard. Sometimes he’d come out shouting with a baseball bat, or, in some versions, a shotgun (though repeated by generations of high school kids, no one ever actually saw a gun, but many older brothers’ friends did). Nobody respected old man Voriski, even after we found out he was a war refugee or was some survivor of something or another. We stayed off his lawn because he had that baseball bat, nothing more. What’s so surprising is how quickly it all changed. America went from big empty space to king of the world in a handful of generations. The generations that lived this dream we keep hearing about could fit at a weekend family reunion, but we keep talking about them like they lasted longer than the dinosaurs.
MOM ON THE bus with me:
Your dad always said he loved you, but that he left the parenting work to me. He’d bring home the money we needed, do some chores on Saturday and fall asleep on the couch every Sunday afternoon, and consider that his obligations were fulfilled. He never once took you to the dentist, went to a parent-teacher conference or watched you try on new school clothes. It had worked for us for a long time, that system, and me having to go to work was not an easy thing, especially me working as a waitress where the neighbors could see. Even though I hadn’t been at it long, some days it felt like I was doing it since coffee was a dime. “You done Sissy? Goin’ home?” people would say to me and I’d answer “Yep, gotta get supper on the table.” I carried a lot of food around those days.
We’d been married long enough that a whole world could pass between us in a look. You were upstairs in your room with the door slammed shut forever. I knew we would not see you again until you got hungry, so I stopped talking and started to give him that kinda smile. You’re old enough to know these things now, Earl honey. At first he gave me back that look that reminded me of when I married him. So I hopped into your dad’s lap, and he faked being surprised by my weight on him. I kissed him on the lips.
“Remember,” I said to him, “that summer after we just got married, before Earl was born, we’d spend all day Sundays in bed? We’d just be there, taking time to read the funny papers in between, the rest of the newspaper spread over the bed like a blanket. Next thing we’d know it’d be dark and dinner time? One Sunday all we ate the whole day was Pop Tarts and pretzels, kissin’ the crumbs off each other.”
Your dad wasn’t smiling no more. His gaze was somewhere across the room.
“C’mon,” I said, gesturing upstairs. Earl won’t notice.”
Your dad did not say anything, just looked away, then back at me. I ignored him, then stood up as I began to understand. “Don’t it change?” I said. Then there was a long pause as I looked harder at him. He snapped his glance back towards me, but I turned away and got up to rattle the coffee pot around. I went and just set a bowl and spoon in front of him and turned back to the stove. Times like that I looked at your father like the mom with the town’s slow kid watching the other boys and girls run and play around the pool. Wasn’t nice. Wasn’t womanly. Wasn’t manly.
After that, I went on to see Lori, your dad’s friend Stan’s wife that afternoon, wanting out of that house.
“Stan says you’re gonna quit your job,” Lori said. “He heard Ray is gonna ask you to quit. I tell you, me and Stan have gotten along much better since I left work. At first we figured the extra money would be nice, but then Stan and I started fighting all the time and it wasn’t worth it to me. He kept telling me all this crap about how his mother never had to work. Well, I told him his father worked for the old R.H. Reeve Company factory, but that didn’t faze him one bit. So I quit. It’s better now, better I guess. Anyways, how’s Earl? I saw him the other day. He came by looking for Rob.”
“He did?”
“Yeah, ’cept, Rob was still working. He’s still getting over losing that scholarship chance to play at Ohio State. Making decent starting money at the factory though, so it ain’t all bad.”
We was taking a walk, and Lori caught the toe of her shoe on an uneven section of the sidewalk.
“Sissy, you keep a secret?”
“Sure, a’ course Lori.”
“Um, you and Ray thinkin’ of another kid?”
“No. I mean, no, not just right now. Ray, see, well, it’s not easy to say, but…”
“Sissy, I’m late.”
“Really? You and Stan happy about that?”
“I’m thinking we are. I mean, sure, we are.”
“You alright Lori?”
“I’m okay.”
“Lori, does Stan yell at you?”
“Like when he’s mad about dinner?”
“No, no, like just because he’s mad about something but you can’t figure what it is.”
“Sometimes. Sometimes he’s just angry. Something gets angry inside of him. Like bad food or something grumbling in there. Just angry. Ya know Sissy?”
“I do. I do know.”
YOUR DAD AND I went to where I worked, for dinner, ’cause I got an employee discount. He was trying to make nice with me that night and knew going out to eat would help. We started well enough being just polite but finished the meal in silence. Sometimes after you been married a while you just run out of things to say, need to rest up. That’s okay. The waitress brought over the check. Your Dad inspected it, then put it back down on the table. I picked up the check and re-added it out of waitressin’ habit, my lips moving slowly as I concentrated. I reached into my purse for the money and handed it to your dad like he liked me to do. I was trying too to make nice.
“Well, thanks for a fine meal,” he said, winking at the waitress behind the register. “Just like home.” She smiled and counted out change. Your dad pocketed it, walked out, and we had to argue again.
“But you work there.”
“Ray, please.”
Your dad handed me the change. I walked in and put a tip on the table, avoiding the other waitresses as I passed through the room, wishing I was a ghost. I was hoping they thought he’d just forgot it but they probably just remembered the last time when he must’ve forgot too. But I stayed quiet about it, like I thought a real ghost might.
I REMEMBERED, SITTING there on the bus, that my dad
came up to my room that night, after they’d come home.
“Your mother says we should have a talk about this football scholarship business. I don’t know really what to say. Chances of you getting it coming out of Reeve are pretty slim, so don’t get your hopes up. Look what happened to Rob, ending up at the factory and all after failing tryouts at Ohio State. You should get something to fall back on. Your mother’s gonna quit her job soon and it wouldn’t hurt you to start contributing to this house.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Yeah, I know you know. You heard all this a thousand times from me.”
That all counted as a typical kind of conversation, and his last words as almost an apology, for, I don’t know, him being him. He was always short with me, a lot of times cutting off just about anything, saying, “Well, I’m tired, just got back from work” or “Got to go to work now.” I don’t know he’d have had anything to say at all without that job.
THE FACTORY WAS a hard breathing place. It was where almost every man worked, it was Reeve’s biography and we all knew it, even the men who could not talk about much of what they thought. Sometimes people forget that even though you speak with an accent you don’t think with one, and most of Reeve’s men did their share of thinking about that factory. It was that factory that made Reeve until the late 20th century, and then unmade it throughout the rest. It sat near the river, but the two no longer mattered to one another, grown apart people said like in a divorce. Reeve in fact was built near—because of—a river, like Detroit, like Pittsburgh, like Louisville, even Chicago, which was in the right place but needed a different river so they just dug one. Things were different in those days, people more willing to do things like make the Chicago River flow the other way because they needed that. The rivers then were needed for transportation of raw materials like iron from the Northeast and for shipping finished goods down the Mississippi. The rivers provided power, and water to cool the factory machines. Now, a town existing because of a river seemed as out of place as a typewriter, a phone with a cord, a two-parent family.
Ghosts of Tom Joad Page 3
