Shoe Factory
Delma tripped right over herself and she fell hard.
She’s a big lady anyways, way over six-foot.
Her glasses went flying and she landed on her back.
There wasn’t nothing on the floor for her to slip on, so I don’t really know why she landed on her back.
But damn if she didn’t. And right away she goes to moaning.
Oh God it hurts.
You got my glasses, Annie?
Just leave me alone…leave me alone.
Don’t touch my arm…oh, my arm hurts.
Oh, God…it hurts.
I panicked, got my cold wash rag out of my lunch cooler to put to her forehead,
while Paula went running and screaming for the factory nurse.
I didn’t want to make too much of a fuss.
Sometimes when someone falls
they feel so embarrassed,
they go to moaning just to justify the commotion.
Then here comes about a dozen or more people
all millin’ around while Delma turns red
and Barb, the floor boss everyone hates
(but she’s always been real nice to me)
comes over and tells everyone
Get back to work, people!
But it’s break time by now anyway,
so there’s not much she can do to make us mind.
Soon enough Gladys and her blonde beehive are on the scene,
with Beverly and Bernice waddling not far behind.
They got cold packs with them and start asking a bunch of questions
while Delma just moans and tries to tell them where it hurts.
I’m sitting on a glue bucket listening in on all the racket.
It happened by my rougher, and there’s nowhere else to go.
Gladys rushes off for a wheelchair and Delma gets carted out the cafeteria door
where her husband is supposed to pick her up.
Her arm is all swollen up
like a poison pup,
is what Bernice said.
Delma came back with her arm in a cast.
She tried to work.
As a floor boss, all she does is walk around making sure we’re roughing the shoes right.
But she said her Tylenol made her dizzy, so she’s been gone for almost a month.
Carol Ann says Delma’s bringing a lawsuit against the company.
But they already paid her bills and she got workman’s comp
so I don’t know what all she’s suing for.
Carol Ann says she heard Delma wants me to testify for her because I saw it all.
I don’t know what I could say
except that she fell.
II. Ed & Stacey
Ed wears the same polyester pants to work every day.
When it gets hot he rolls them up,
But goes into the bathroom to do it
because the extra material’s all folded up inside.
He wears long tube socks,
with stripes at the top,
and short brown suede boots.
He’s only about 22. He thinks he’s
real cool.
He drives a rusted-out gold Chrysler
with dice hanging from the rearview mirror
(naturally)
And can’t help but leave the gravel parking lot by peeling out.
Bill and Danny told me one day
Ed went up to the MFA to buy feed
and he was wearing a dress.
It wasn’t no joke either. That dude is messed up.
Even Ed’s brother, Stacey, says Ed’s got dresses hanging in his closet.
And that’s big news in Jonesburg.
Whenever I have to ask Ed about overstock,
he pretends not to hear, says,
Do what now, hon?
sort of syrupy and touchy-feely with my arm.
He’s this way with almost everyone.
Ed and his brother Stacey both give me the creepers.
Stacey asks me this same question
every single time
I pass him in the 120-degree warehouse
Hot enough for ya?
And
every single time
I have to hear his goofy laugh afterwards.
Even after I tell him to shut up,
he laughs.
Dumb motherfucker.
Rumor’s that Stacey and Ed’s mom and dad are second cousins.
I’m not saying it’s true
but how else can you explain those two?
III. Charlie
Charlie works up in the loft of the warehouse.
It’s the hottest place in the factory.
He wears the same clothes for a week at a time.
Whenever you go upstairs
You know to breathe in hard on the trip up --
It’s not just going to be hot at the top,
but smelly too.
I pick my loft orders in the morning,
before it gets bad.
I used to feel sad for Charlie, watching him walking to and from work,
(he lives way outside of town),
But Danny says Charlie blows his whole paycheck on beer
and has a slew of kids at home.
So I don’t feel as sorry for him like I used to.
Bernice told me Charlie’s wife died last summer.
Charlie never called the police or no one.
He waited a couple a days and put her dead body in the car with a blanket over it,
then drove her to Kansas where all her kin were.
Bernice is a lot of things, but she ain’t a liar.
IV. Pauline
My grandma started working at the shoe factory again.
She wants me to go out and eat lunch with her in her hot old car
every day.
She tries to make me eat all the extra food she brings and
every day
she tells me
every thing
she ate the day before because she is
always
on a diet and
never
loses any weight.
One day
Will walked by while we were sitting in her car.
That damned Indian.
I asked her what’s wrong with Will?
And she goes to telling me this big long story about how Will
was going out with Mary Conrad’s daughter, Brenda
until Ellen, the factory owner’s daughter, started working in the office.
Well he dropped Brenda just like that.
She snaps her fingers.
Started shacking up with Ellen.
That damned fat Indian.
And I want to ask her
What the hell does being an Indian have to do with it?
Wasn’t your dad part Indian?
But I know she’d just get mad
and try to make me eat the rest of her grapes.
