I look back at my own decades of work and wonder if change will ever come:
1) Syria Mosque: At 13, I worked as a banquet waitress for the Shriners---the men so drunk by the time they got to us that they didn’t even attempt to veil their stares. Once, a man older than my grandfather didn’t notice when I poured hot coffee down his back. We had to serve them by reaching over, keeping our bodies away to avoid the “accidental” brushes of their hands, and elbows, even their noses. Like the monkeys they looked like, they voraciously ate their tiny lukewarm iceberg lettuce salads, wilted under deep orange-colored dressing, which we had put on the table more than an hour before. They grinned at each other and none of them noticed how awful those salads were, either.
2) Moxley’s Drugstore---a location famous for a scene in “Silence of the Lambs” –--- We made the orange juice in big, 2-gallon tubs. When I would shake it my boobs would shake, too; I couldn’t help my body from kinda, sorta doing the twist. The regulars would order OJ again and again; it took me months to realize why and when I did I was simply sad: I was 15.
3) Stop-N-Go, a local convenience store where I quit after two shifts, ‘nuf said; 4) Mr. Hoagie, where I quit after I told the owner I couldn’t wipe the tables down with the filthy rag we had to pull out of a filthy bucket of water. I dramatically threw a rag on the floor and walked out of a dining room filled with customers, only to remember that I had to call my Dad to get a ride home;
5) Ponderosa Steakhouse, for two weeks. One day this guy, Mike, who I had been dating for a few weeks but was now avoiding, showed up. He was a slobbery dog kisser and I wanted nothing more to do with him, even though he looked very much like Leif Garret. I saw him before he saw me and did what anyone in those circumstances would do—I ran and hid in the salad bar room.
My manager Paul came in after me and I thought I was fired. Instead, he said, “Follow me.” He showed me how to get out the emergency exit without setting off alarms. He said, “Debbie told that guy Mike that you weren’t here, so you have to disappear for awhile.” He paused a beat, then said, “So, you won’t tell anyone if I fire this up?” He reached in his pocket, produced a joint, lit it, inhaled, locking eyes with me the whole time.
When the joint was down to a tiny roach he said, “Come here,” and led me to the corner of the building, to this space against an air conditioning unit, and said, “See if his car is still here.” I stood against the unit, looked for Mike’s car, and Paul stood behind me, pushing his boner up against me. He kept me smashed against the air conditioner unit and blew the last of the joint and I just stayed quiet, watching the cars on the highway, scanning the parking lot.
6) Kennywood Amusement park---later used as the decrepit park in “Adventureland:” I worked as a sweeperette. Humiliating as it was to walk around sweeping up other people’s remnants of fun, like ice cream sticks and straw wrappers, I was grateful that no one ever threw up in my area; 4) Kennywood, Part II: I moved up to rides, and counted the rotations on “The Monster,” again and again, in order to not let anyone barf in my jurisdiction. After work, we would go to a bar we called “the teen canteen,” because they served us eighteen-year olds. The owners of Kennywood, brothers, men in their thirties, would come into the bar, quietly tell some of us girls to meet them outside. They would lead us back across the street and unlock a gate to the quiet, dark amusement park. We’d swim in the log flume, take swigs off the cheap wine they brought in. They never made more of a move on any of us; it was enough for them to hang out, see us in our wet shirts, get us drunk.
7) Playmore Bowling: The local kids hung out there, played the video games; its front steps are where I had my first cigarette. I worked the snack stand, so I poured nacho “cheese” on tortilla chips, baked frozen Super Pretzels in a big toaster oven.
One night the manager, Rick, invited me into the bar after I closed the snack stand at 10 o’clock. He told the bartender to make me a drink. I was seventeen.
Pretty soon, only Rick, the bartender and I were left, and Rick suggested we play poker. After a hand or two, I started feeling really sleepy and Rick let me know he had put a Qualude in my drink.
So, things get hazy here, as you might expect, but this part, I remember: My parents were away for the weekend, and even though I was sixteen, my older brother Jerry was in charge of me.
When I didn’t get home by 10:15, he waited until 11:30 and then came looking. He found me in a corner booth, playing strip poker. I pulled my jeans back on, my brother yelled at the guys. I didn’t tell Jerry that I didn’t remember being asked to play strip poker or what Rick had done. I never thanked him for showing up when he did; I should have.
Then 8) The Limited; 8) American Eagle Outfitters; where a manager told me he wouldn’t mind if I danced while I folded sweaters 9) Montgomery Ward’s shoe dept. 10) the gym at WVU: 11) G. S. Outfitters, Morgantown, WV: where the owners allowed me to get so drunk I had my first blackout; 12) A survey place at a mall: 13) Liberty Mutual Insurance Company: 14) Teaching: I started as a TA, then an adjunct, helped run events at the college, did development work. I generally busted ass. Meanwhile I had three kids and became widowed. I worked at this University for ten years when I was offered a non-tenure track full-time position with benefits. All I had ever wanted, from about fourth grade, was to read for a living, and here I was, getting to do it. The dept. head---let’s call him Joe--- had to bring up my promotion to the rest of the dept. at a meeting I wasn’t invited to. A faculty member friend let me know that when the promotion was announced, another faculty member said, in a stage whisper, “Is she fucking Joe?” My friend told me because she thought this was hysterical.
I cried for three days and barely left the house. His putting those three words out into the world wiped everything out, every bit of hard work I had ever done. I moved on, of course, I got the full-time position. I left for another University within the year. Those words had turned me right back into a teenager shaking the orange juice, a boner pushed against her, stoned in her panties in a bowling alley, wondering what happened, and how, and why.