Original Sins (47 page)

He talked some junk the other night about “the strength of Southern working people being based on their connection with the soil.” If they didn't like how they was being treated on the job, they'd quit—because they could grow food in their gardens and hunt in their woods.

“When's the last time you shot a deer, Raymond?” Raymond had always had all these big theories that didn't have nothing to do with what he actually did.

“Yeah, you're right, baby brother. But I've come home to stay now.” Jed tried to act glad. “But anyway, what I'm saying is that we don't have to be lackeys to no Yankee capitalists.”

“What's that—lackeys?”

“Servants.”

“Shoot,” Jed said, spitting into the stone fireplace. “I don't know bout you, buddy, but I ain't nobody's servant”

Raymond glanced up from the stick he was whittling on. “That's what you think.”

“All right, whose then?”

“The shareholders of Arnold Fiber Corporation.”

“Shit, man, I ain't serving no shareholders. I don't even
know
no shareholders.”

“You know Prince, don't you? And that guy from New York. What's his name—Mackay? They put money into the mill and then get back a share of the profits without doing any work.”

“Prince and Mackay work damn hard.”

“Well, that's debatable. But lots of shareholders don't. They sit on their asses in New York City yacht clubs and get checks in the mail.”

“Naw, you're lying.” He'd looked up to Raymond when they were kids, but it seemed like Jed had grown up, taken on marriage and a family and responsibilities, and Raymond was still just a jerky snotnosed kid who told fibs about half the time. But Jed was never sure which half.

“It's the truth, Jed. I swear it.”

“Don't hardly seem fair.” “That's what I been trying to tell you.”

Jed thought this over on the drive home and decided it was so unlikely Mr. Prince would do his workers that way that it couldn't possibly be true. Though he did wonder if Raymond wasn't maybe connected up with them union people and down here to stir up trouble, just like he'd been doing all his life. He began watching Raymond around the mill, but he was acting so normal-like and eager to fit in that Jed began to feel guilty about being suspicious of his own brother. But rumors was circulating that the union was making another try. Their efforts came in waves, like locusts. The first time was in the thirties. One of his father's stories concerned the mill men dragging the organizers out of their boarding house and carting them to the town line, singing “Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow.”

In the fifties an organizer disguised as an insurance salesman had leafleted the mill and started setting up an organizing committee. His father and some others began driving down to the Howard Johnson Motel every night and shining their high beams through the organizer's window and throwing pebbles, to keep him awake and nervous all night. He didn't take the hint, so they came at him in the mill parking lot one afternoon with tire irons and crowbars. While he jumped in his car and locked the doors and revved his engine, they let the air out of his tires.

“He looked so scared,” his father would relate with a grin, “I have to laugh even now. You know, Yankees is scared to death of the South to start with. They get fed so many tales about us savages down here. You kindly hate to disappoint them.”

As he got out of the Chevy, Jed straightened his tie. Mackay was requiring all supervisory personnel to wear dress shirts and ties now under their coveralls. At first, his father insisted he'd gotten along just fine for thirty-five years without wearing no goddam tie to get caught in a roller and strangle him to death. But Mr. Prince took him aside, and he'd been wearing one ever since. Jed actually liked wearing one. Seemed like he got more respect from his workers.

Jed nodded and waved to people as he walked from the locker room through the breaking and carding rooms to the spinning room, where he was assisting the foreman Mr. Meaker. He'd been assigned to several months in almost all the rooms by now. It looked likely he'd be foreman of his own room before long. One night a week he went to foreman class, where you learned how to handle your workers. He knew that some who'd been at the mill for a long time resented him. They sometimes made jokes about how they wished they could have married the boss's daughter. That may have been partly why he was given this special treatment. But it was also that his father had been there thirty-five years and was a strong company man. Also, a lot of the workers was women, and of course you couldn't have no woman running a room. Although some of them sure acted like they owned the place—Mabel Pritchard, for one. Now there was a ball-breaker for you. Even if she had taught him Sunday School when he was six. Yesterday she'd disputed a plan he'd come up with for staggering breaks. He'd called her over.

“Seems like you think you run this place, Mrs. Pritchard.”

“I don't have no ambitions to run nothing but my own life, Mr. Tatro. But I do aim to do that.” She had real thin frizzy red hair, kind of like Sally's pubic hair.

“I wonder do you realize who's in charge of this here room, Mrs. Pritchard.”

“I realize you and Mr. Meaker is running this room. Now you tell me what you want done regarding the spinning of thread, Mr. Tatro, and I'll do hit.”

If she'd been a man, he'd of busted her in her smart mouth. (This was what he was learning how not to do in foreman class. The teacher told him he had to learn how to control his “gunslinger mentality.” Jed had been flattered. He didn't see it was necessarily something that should be got rid of.) The way she threw her head back and glared at him as she talked. Ranks of bossy women marched through his brain—his mother, Ruby, Kathryn, Emily, Betty Boobs, twelve years of schoolteachers and Sunday School teachers. He felt almost like a helpless little boy again. But no goddam woman was going to tell him what to do now that he was a grown man, and almost a foreman. Women! Like Coach Clancy said: They was good for two things, and one was to get your meals on the table.

He was just glad he'd played ball in high school and learned how to grit his teeth and eat some crow and get the job done. Like Coach Clancy said, you had to direct your anger into constructive channels. “Go out on that ball field and bust some heads. Or take your girl into the woods and fuck the cunt out of her. But I don't want to see no fists flying between my athletes.”

Besides, you couldn't hit no woman. “Now you get on back over there, Mrs. Pritchard, and you do your job,” he said in a choked voice, his face flaming red.

“Let me tell you something, Mr. Tatro: that was exactly what I was a-doing when you interrupted me.”

Their eyes locked. She called herself a woman. Shit, he'd have to see her cunt first to believe it. More and more he saw how lucky he was to have Sally. She never disagreed with him, always tried to please him. Some nights he'd come home growling like a grizzly and she'd set him down, and rub his neck and shoulders, and turn on the TV, and bring him his supper. She'd bathe the kids and bring them to him, all clean and powdered, to kiss goodnight. And once they was asleep, she'd lead him to their bed, and he'd roll into the warmth of her arms, while she whispered how much she loved him. He sometimes had to act all tough and mean at work so bitches like Mrs. Pritchard didn't think they could take over. But Sally let him be what he really was underneath—firm but fair, and a little bit shy. She gave him the strength to get up the next morning and go back to the mill.

People was all the time saying how easy he had it just watching other people work. The truth was that doing the work was easy. Getting people to do it right was what was hard. All his sympathies was with the foremen and supervisors and managers. Trash like Mrs. Pritchard left it all behind them when they punched the clock and walked out the door. But management took their problems home. He was getting used to this kind of responsibility, had to if he was going to be a foreman.

He waved across the room to Betty Boobs, who'd just arrived. She'd put on some weight since marrying Hank right after high school. Even those green coveralls couldn't conceal her huge tits. She used to be a good time, but he'd reformed since marrying Sally and didn't run around on her anymore, although Sally pretended not to believe it and pouted if he stopped off for a beer after work. Even to go to Raymond's the other night, he'd had to bring Raymond in from the car to verify his story. Raymond had looked at them like they was crazy. But poor old Raymond had probably never been in love himself. It made Jed feel good to have Sally worrying over him, and sometimes he dawdled in the locker room and parking lot to keep her guessing. She got real sexy on such nights and would sometimes even blow him. It was a funny thing: He loved that when it was actually going on. It was damn nice just to lie back and let
it
happen. But after it was over with, he'd feel terrible and jump up and smoke cigarettes and be mean to her and refuse to hold her. He couldn't stand knowing she'd seen him all helpless on his back and whimpering like that. And he couldn't stand the idea of her performing on him like some kind of high-paid hooker.

Every now and then him and Betty Boobs exchanged a look that indicated neither had forgotten their good times. It was strange having her married to his best friend. Did she talk to Hank about how he screwed? What did she tell him? That he was pretty good at it? Or not? Was he or wasn't he, he often asked himself. As he gazed at Betty, bursting out of her coveralls, he wished he could get Sally to show more enthusiasm, like Betty used to. Screwing Sally was like screwing a corpse. He studied the V where Betty's coverall legs joined. Her cunt had a way of tightening around you so you wondered if you'd ever get out again. Both Hank and him had pushed their dicks time after time into that dark tight slimy hole. His breathing quickened.

He felt ashamed. He was a married man now. Betty was his best friend's wife. What he'd been thinking was sinful. As for wishing Sally would behave as Betty had … In high school Betty had been nothing but a whore. That was a horrible thing to think about your own wife—particularly such a sweet girl, who was so good to their children. Sally was a saint. He was a monster to be having such lustful thoughts about her.

In the lunchroom he sat with Hank and Betty. He generally made a point of not getting too chummy with his workers. At first his father scolded him: “You've known these people all your life. You work with them, you live with them, you put your pants on the same way as them every morning. What you want to go being so snooty for?” But in foreman class they told him to be careful that way, not to let your workers lose sight of who's boss. They hadn't had no foreman class when his father had got into it all, so his father didn't know all the modern ways.

Jed looked at Hank and Betty with sympathy. He could afford to have Sally not work. It had taken his father up until a couple of years ago to be able to let his mother quit. Hank and Betty couldn't even afford one child yet, and here he already had him his two.

His mouth full of bologna sandwich, he said, “Some people are saying them organizers is back in town.” Hank didn't reply. “They better have a better disguise than last time.” He laughed. Hank smiled. “Some folks you got to kill before they
get
the idea they're not wanted. You take a Yankee: You have to spell things out for him like he was a little kid or something.”

“Maybe some folks around here wants them,” Betty said. Hank looked alarmed.

Jed was surprised, both at her sentiment and also at the fact that she expressed it. Sally generally had enough sense to let the men do the talking on topics she didn't know nothing about.

“They wouldn't be hanging around without they think they got a chance. Shoot, I can see why some folks is interested,” she added.

“They talk more money and pensions. Sure, they promise you whatever you want. But what do you actually get? You get to buy diamond rings for a bunch of Yankee gangsters.” Jed waited for agreement. “Am I right?”

Hank looked at him. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

“You calling me a liar?”

“No, I ain't. But there might be more to it than that.”

“Listen, I figure if I do my job, I get me my raises. If I don't deserve them, they won't give them to me. And if I don't deserve them, I don't want them. Prince is fair. I don't question his decisions.” He'd been to foreman school and understood these things. It was up to him to explain them to Hank, if he could just keep his temper like they taught him.

Hank snorted. “Prince ain't running this show no more, buddy. He done cashed in his chips.”

“He's in here every day, ain't he?”

“Yeah, but he ain't calling the shots no more.”

“You ain't interested in joining up with no union?”

“Naw, I don't know. I'm just thinking is all.”

“Yeah, well, you may just think yourself right out of a job.”

“Are you threatening me, Tatro, or what? Cause if you is, you can just take your father-in-law's job and stuff it.”

“Now just cool down. I was referring to the strike at that radio factory in Dunmore in the fifties. Shut the whole place down when the union come in.”

“Yeah?”

“Shoot, yeah. You talk pension funds and health benefits. What you really talking is unemployment.” Jed could tell Hank was impressed, and he was pleased with himself for keeping cool and helping him understand how unions worked. He glanced around the lunchroom and saw Raymond sitting at a corner table talking intently to Mrs. Pritchard.

After lunch a consultant from the home office, whatever that was, appeared with a man who had a stopwatch and wanted to time how long it took to remove full bobbins from spindles. Raymond's were almost full, so Jed and the men went over to his machine. Raymond had already called a cart. When Raymond switched off the machine, the man switched on his watch. Raymond looked at him, then went over and leaned against the wall, his foot propped up. He reached inside his coveralls pocket and pulled out a foil pouch of tobacco and some rolling papers. With great care he rolled himself a tight cigarette. He offered it to Jed, who looked at him. Then he offered it to the men, who stood dumbfounded, watching the second hand sweep around the dial. Raymond lit up and inhaled deeply.