Folly (6 page)

“Maybe she will.”

“Maybe,” Lenore said, without conviction. She had a momentary flash of her mother getting ready for work in the mornings back when she was younger. She could see the crisp, white uniform suspended in that short period of staying-clean-time before the ketchup and mustard stains of midday. “It's not that I don't want to see her work. It's just that she doesn't understand how people like her willing to do it ruins the whole thing for those women on strike. And she'll be dumped right out when they do go back. I told her that. She says, ‘Oh, no, they won't dump me. They don't want them women back. That Mr. Blossom told me, once the women went out on them that way, no way they'd
ever
take 'em back.'”

“Reckon she'll find out,” Sabrina said. “One thing for sure, you can't tell her nothing. My ma says when it comes to work, you gotta take everybody on her own terms, because how hungry you are makes a lot of difference.”

“Your ma sounds nice,” Lenore said.

“She's okay.”

Lenore tried to picture Sabrina's mother but couldn't. Her imagination was blank and she didn't understand the vacancy there. She felt uneasy, as she had when she'd watched Peters staring at Sabrina, so she went back to thinking about her own mother.

8.

Folly walked the picket line beside Effie, wearing a placard across her front that said: WOMEN OF VICTORY MILLS UNITE. A young woman across from her going the opposite way wore one saying: WE DEMAND HUMAN WORKING CONDITIONS. It was the middle of May and hot, and Folly passed the word back to slow the pace. “I hope we don't have to be here all summer,” Effie said.

“Damn tooting,” Folly said.

“I don't see how we could.”

“What?”

“Stay out that long.”

“Depends on what we get,” Folly said.

“You think we'll get something?” Effie's tone was wistful.

“We better.”

“Why should they give us anything? I mean here we are messing up their schedule, aggravating them and all. I bet they're damn mad.”

Folly looked slowly around at Effie, stared as if she were in a trance. For a moment Effie's words sat on her brain, and she held the idea that they were crazy to be doing this—just plain stupid, foolish, dumb, crazy. Then she broke the spell and spoke sharply to Effie. “Hey, look at what we do in there. You know how many garments we turn out every shift? They need us.
Us.
You and me. They got to give us something to get us back.”

“Looks like they practically got the whole place filled up with them scabs so it ain't no skin off their backs,” Effie said.

“How many of them you think is meeting production at eighty-five?” Folly had found her anger again and stayed with it. “I bet they got half them machines all balled up with threads. They probably got
a triple crew working on repairs. They're gonna have more seconds than firsts coming out of that place. Not everyone you pick up off the street can sew, you know.”

“I reckon,” Effie said.

They walked for a while in silence, pacing in a long oval so that there was no beginning or end to the line. Folly liked watching how the line grew in front of her just after she had rounded the turn, then feeling the sense of the line extending longer and longer behind her, while woman after woman passed through her frame going the other way. As a child, she had taken a train trip with her mother once and watched the backs of the houses passing her by. She had felt privileged then for this glimpse of life away from home. Now she felt privileged to be part of this march of proud women. She looked at each face for the brief second it passed her and each seemed so definite, strong and clear. She knew that others were afraid, as she was, as Effie was, but their fury had triumphed and was shining on their faces. The mill stood in the background with its closed front, windows from the original construction bricked over. They were in the foreground, where they should be, the basis of operation of the mill, walking in the sunshine, beaming to each other, experiencing the power of their unity.

Folly glanced up to the manager's office windows, but with the glare of the sun, she couldn't tell if anyone was watching them from there. She could feel the eyes of Fartblossom and Big Sam, though, from wherever they were perched, glaring, and she imagined them puffing and fuming, if they had gotten over their disbelief. She couldn't see anyone at the other set of windows which were in the lunch room, either. From the perspective of walking the picket line, the building looked more like a prison than she had ever realized before. She tried to picture it inside, what was going on, which scab was at her machine. She wondered would she get it back when the strike was over? Although they all looked alike, everyone knew that her own machine was slightly different from every other one, and once a woman was used to hers, she could work better on it than if she had to keep switching around. Folly felt very protective of her machine, that and the fact that her place was right across the aisle from Martha's, which made her job a whole lot more enjoyable than it would be otherwise. She passed Martha going by in the picket line. Martha smiled with her eyes, and Folly nodded in return. She could tell Martha shared her excitement, and even though they were still riding high, she knew the next layer down was worry and was glad they were meeting with the guy from the union that afternoon.

Folly made the turn again and saw Fartblossom standing in the road, a few feet back from the line, watching her and waiting. She straightened up taller and looked directly ahead at Emily's back. When her part of the line approached where he was standing, he stepped forward. “Can I talk with you a minute?”

“I'm walking,” Folly said. “You'll have to walk too.” She never missed a step. Neither did the women right behind her who were next beside him. He stepped back again. He had papers in his hand. It seemed like it took hours for Folly to get all the way around again, but it must have only been a couple of minutes. He was still there. This time he stepped up, saying, “I've got an injunction for you here,” and when Folly kept walking, he fell into step beside her. Effie looked as if she were about to swallow her tongue.

“What's that?” Folly asked.

“It's a court injunction that says you can't picket here. So you better call in these here women if you don't want them getting hauled off to jail.” Women passing them were hiding their snickers at the way Folly had Fartblossom walking the picket line.

“It ain't no private road,” she said.

“You're not just out for a walk.”

“I am if I say I am.” It sounded to her like one of Mary Lou's smart ass comments, but it stopped Fartblossom for a minute.

“I'd advise you to read them papers.” He indicated the envelope he had handed her. He was finished, but they were on the wrong side of the road, so he stayed in formation and walked beside her until she came back around to the mill side, the pride of the women surrounding him so strong it didn't require any concrete form to be felt. Then he veered off and went up the hill.

Fartblossom didn't realize how good his timing was. He couldn't have known that they all had to break for the meeting with the union man in a half hour anyway. Folly passed the word: “Fifteen minutes 'til we break,” and stuck the envelope in her pants pocket without opening it. She knew she was taking a chance on him sending in the cops before the fifteen minutes was up, but she wasn't about to walk off right behind the man.

She read the injunction out loud to Martha as they drove to the firehouse. It prohibited them from picketing
en masse
and allowed for only two pickets at a time.

“You know what they'll try to do to two women alone on that road, don't you?” Martha asked.

“What?”

“Run 'em over.” Martha was spitting fury. “What a bunch of chickenshits we're dealing with.”

“You got it.” Folly said, but her attention had left Martha and the injunction. They had driven up to the block the firehouse was on and parked across the street, catty-corner from the building. Her eyes followed the gaze of the other women arriving before them, who couldn't avoid the figure of the lone man, standing on the hot asphalt, passing leaflets to anyone who ventured within arm's reach.

“Must be him,” Martha said.

“Yeah.” Neither of them made a move to get out of the car.

The first thing Folly noticed was that he was short and soft, easy to beat up if Fartblossom wanted to put someone onto him. The next thing she noticed was that he was wearing the kind of pants they made in the factory—dark green poly. He wore a light green, short-sleeved shirt, no tie, and most of his head was bald. The fringe that was left was grey. She figured him for early fifties. He looked downright relaxed passing out those leaflets while all she could feel was nervous—no telling who might drive by and put him out of commission before he ever got to tell them what the union had to offer.

“What do you think?” she asked Martha.

“He looks okay.”

“A little spongy,” Folly said.

“Come on, now, let's not pick him apart before we meet him.” Martha slammed her shoulder hard into the stubborn car door and sprung it open. She got out, hoping this would go well, that this man wouldn't be a jerk. She liked the way he looked.

When he handed her a leaflet, she introduced herself and he turned to face her broadly, shook her hand and spoke warmly. He had started without a welcome, but was glad of one now. He asked her questions about the women: what experiences they had with unions, and how the picketing was going. She told him that the women, herself included, didn't know beans about the union, beyond that it might mean trouble, which was what they were in pretty deep already. She told him about the injunction and introduced him to Folly, who let him read the papers, which he did very intently while Folly got the meeting started.

Someone had rolled out a cart of fold-up chairs and Folly stood on the riser they used for a stage at the firehouse and looked out at a lot of familiar women opening the chairs and seating themselves. The building had a high roof and concrete walls which made the metal of the chairs chatter against the echoing of conversation and greetings. This
noise which normally would be driving her crazy, seemed almost joyous, though Folly's spirits had been somewhat checked by the injunction.

When the first lull came, she started. She thanked everybody for coming and told them how good it had felt, being out there that morning on the picket line with all of them. They let out a long, vigorous cheer for their picket line. Then she explained what Fartblossom had handed her.

“Why?” Shirley called out.

“Don't ask me,” Folly said. “It's the best thing for them. Keeps us separated.”

“But I mean why does a court give it to them?” Shirley moaned.

“Now there's a good question. How many people you suppose there are in this town can afford to buy theirselves a judge?” Folly saw several nods of understanding.

Mabel, a large, Black woman, who was standing in the back, asked with a level voice, “Can we do anything about it?” Folly didn't know her. Nor did she know how to answer her. She realized how little any of them knew about legal matters, and while she wanted this union man's place in the meeting to be limited to what he was supposed to be there for, she ended up suggesting that perhaps they could ask that question of Mr. Jarvis after he talked. Then she introduced him and went down and took the seat he'd been sitting in next to Martha, while he went up and announced he liked to be informal, call him Jesse, please.

Soft, spongy and informal, Folly thought, then decided to give him a chance. He was either nervous or hot, she could tell by the way the sweat circles around his armpits were growing. He started out telling the history of the union, but he didn't stay with that long. He seemed to sense the girls getting antsy. “You can read more about the union in that leaflet,” he said, “but let's get right down to business.” Folly looked around toward the back, saw the Black woman who had asked the question nod. She pointed her out to Martha. “Mabel,” Martha whispered. “In some ways you've already done the hardest thing,” Jesse said. “You've all gone out over something you agree on. You've all acted as one unit, and you are, right this very minute, showing the management down there at the mill, how valuable you are to them, by your absence.” He spoke slowly, pausing to let his words settle before he added on. Folly liked hearing the deep, calm tones of his voice. It was good to have someone who wasn't all stirred up inside the way the rest of them were. “It isn't going to be easy from here on out.” She saw the faces of the women giving recognition to their worry. “They're not going to want to negotiate with you, whether you're in a union or
whether you try to simply negotiate with them as individuals. In the best of worlds for them, they'd like to control you completely. They'd like to say jump and see you jump. But you've already showed them you won't do that. The best chance you have to make yourselves heard is if you can stick together. And that's what the union is about.”

Getting preachy, Folly thought, but just then he threw it open to questions. A bunch of hands went up at once, and he called on Gilda. “Say we voted the union, then what would happen?”

“Then we represent you as a collective bargaining unit. You decide what you're willing to settle for and you elect a couple of representatives from amongst yourselves, and they go in along with me and sit down and negotiate a contract with the management.” He made it all sound very simple, almost dreamy, though he certainly did not seem to intend to delude them, and he was not at all heavy duty. Folly realized she had half expected someone who would run all over them, talking like a Fuller Brush Man.

Mabel spoke. “Sir, I beg your pardon, but what if the management ain't willin' to give nothin'? Which if you knew them, you'd understand why I ask the question.”

“It's an important question,” Jesse said. “There are ways in which they maintain the upper hand, the position of power, such as, they own the mill, they opened it, and they could close it. But you've begun to force them to recognize your power, too. They're counting their losses right now. How many dollars for every day they don't have you working? And that's usually the motivation for negotiating. Sometimes it means staying out on strike long enough to get them to see the light.”

The top of Jesse's head was shiny and there were beads of sweat on his upper lip. Folly thought about if they didn't have someone like him to help them out, what would they do, where would they start to try to negotiate? At the same time as she could look around and see the energy in their faces and feel pride in what they had done so far, she came up against a blank trying to go the next step.

“There are other possibilities,” Jesse was explaining. “If an impasse is reached, and the two sides seem to have no chance of coming to agreement, the contract can be given over to binding arbitration, in which case an outside agent makes the final decisions which both parties, yourselves and the management, are then bound to accept.” One question followed another and Jesse went on in the same quiet, factual manner until he had explained the whole process that would go on if they chose to join the union—them signing up until there were enough committed to petition the National Labor Relations Board with a request to hold
an election, then the election: what would be on the ballot, the rules by which it would be held.