I said: “O.K., then we ask.”
“And the answer, Joan, is no.”
Liz cut in: “No, Bianca, on this we don’t ask you, we tell you. Did you hear what I said?”
Bianca was looking furious, but I could see her sense of affront warring with her native preference to give in when pressed. Liz must have seen it, too, and pressed harder.
“O.K., then, we strike. As of right now, if you say we have to wear those velveteens in this heat, we’re on strike. We’re going to letter us up some signs and parade up and down in front. And we’ll wear these when we do it.”
“But those hot pants’ll get wrinkles in them,” Bianca said. “All pointing front and center and down. They won’t be decent.”
“Wrinkles are good for business. Wrinkles like you say we’ll have.” Liz went on: “Anyhow we won’t have wrinkles, Bianca, these pants are made out of chambray-chambray the shirting material, made on purpose not to get wrinkles.” She pulled out the label on her extra pair. “Hey, these are Burlington pants. Wake up-Burlington wouldn’t make wrinkles.”
It gave her the excuse she needed, to save face: “Then-I guess it’s O.K.”
“Then, Bianca,” I told her, “we graciously call the strike off.”
“O.K., Joan.”
She kissed me, and Liz gave a little cheer, and that was the end of the matter.
So I thought.
I guess it was 11:30 that night, when Tom came in with his friends, three other guys and two girls, the men all young and rugged and both the women beauties, and all of them half crocked when they got there. Liz had overflow business, and Bianca gave them to me, putting them in a booth, which made a pretty tight fit. It was so tight that Tom had to push one girl in just a little bit tighter before wedging in himself, on the left side of the booth as I faced it, which of course put him next to me, one leg jutting out into the aisle, when I stood in to serve. He grinned naughtily at me, in a way clearly meant to make my heart race, and it annoyed me that, being a rather handsome grin, it did, just a little. Then they all began ordering doubles-bourbon and ginger ale, I suppose the worst combination ever, not only to make them all drunker, but also to make them sick. However, Bianca said go along, give them what they wanted. “He’s an old friend, Tom Barclay is, so don’t hurt his feelings, please.” I tried to imagine how this young buck with the rakish grin could be an old friend of a woman Bianca’s age, and I suppose it showed in my face because Bianca said, “His father was a regular here from the time my husband built the place. Tom’s grown up here.”
He didn’t seem to have grown up too much, judging by the way he was carrying on with his friends. But Liz got in the act, saying how nice he was, “except of course when slopped, but even then no worse than somebody else. Who is nice slopped?”
“I couldn’t think of anyone.”
Serving drinks to the slopped is no work to write home about, no matter how nice when sober. The girls got louder and louder, and the guys more personal with me, meaning they said things no one should say, to any girl any time anywhere. But Tom, being next to the aisle and to me, didn’t confine it to saying. He also did some doing, pawing me over whenever I came to the table, especially around the bottom, which he patted a number of times. I fixed that by stepping away, and no great harm was done. But then, as I was reaching across to pour one of the girls her drink, he put his hand on my leg, on my bare leg, above the knee on the inside, and began sliding it up. You can see now why I’ve gone into such detail, about the hot pants, the silk panties underneath, and how loose they both were. I’m trying to say I all but turned to ice, and reacted automatically: I clamped both legs together, so his hand couldn’t move, and at the same time turned away, on my heel or something. But that pulled his hand around too, and I suppose threw him off balance, because all in the same split second, there he was on the floor, pulled out of the booth when I turned. Then, in a flash, there was Liz. And then, there was Bianca. It was she, not me, who saw what the fall had done to him-reacted on his stomach, so he was holding on to his mouth, gulping and gagging and trying not to throw up on the floor. And I was standing back, his hand off me at last, wondering what I should do.
It was one of his friends, sliding out of the booth, who got him to his feet and began rushing him back to the men’s room, growling into his ear: “Not here, Tommy, not here! Hold it! Hold it three more steps, and then let it come, the whole goddam bellyful!”
He got to the men’s room without letting go in the lounge, and after a long moment of silence, somebody laughed and conversation went on. Bianca, for once in her life, showed some spine, and said to the bunch at the table: “You’ve all had enough. When you’ve drunk out, you can get. I said get, I mean get the hell out.”
She came, stood by me, and waited while Jake went back in the men’s room. He came out and came over. “We’re in luck,” he reported. “He let go all right, five and a half gallons-but in the toilet. He flushed it, and not none went on the floor.”
He went back to the bar.
The friend came out of the men’s room, and rejoined his other two friends and the girls.
Then at last, here came Tom.
He started for the booth, but changed his mind and sat at a table, the same one Mr. White sat at, every day when he came. I brought him a cup of hot coffee from the kitchen, black, and said: “Maybe this will help.”
“You bet,” he whispered. “Thanks.”
He sipped it, flinched at how hot it was, then sipped again. He kept on sipping until it was all gone, then wiped his mouth with a cocktail napkin. He took out a pocket comb and combed his hair, and then picked up the napkin again and wiped his face, where it was covered with sweat. “Feel better now,” he said with a smile more subdued than the grin he’d given me before, but no less handsome, and don’t think he didn’t know it.
“Wouldn’t you like a little more coffee?” I said.
“No, I’m O.K. now.”
“You sure you are?”
“Oh yeah. I feel good now.”
“Then in that case-”
I stood off and let go at his cheek with one hand, I guess on my right-hand side, then with my other hand on his right-on his left and his right. Then I let go all over again, as he half stood and tried to grab my hand. But I yanked them clear and kept on slapping, with everything I had. The guy who had gone to the men’s room with him came diving over and grabbed me, “wrapping me up” as it’s called, but I jerked loose and let him have it too, so he staggered and fell. Then I turned back to Tom, and really went to finish him off, and trying to duck me he fell too, beside his friend on the floor. By then, as Liz told me later, the whole place was in an uproar, with Bianca grabbing at me, and Jake grabbing at me, everyone grabbing at me, trying to make me lay off. Of course, with Tom on the floor, I had to lay off, and did. But it was some seconds before I realized what Bianca was saying, as she kept backing away from me, where I must have made a swipe at her too. “You’re fired!” she kept screaming at me. “You’re fired! — now get out, you get out of here! Didn’t you hear me? I said get out!”
By that time I’d come to my senses, a blend of indignation on the one hand and shame on the other; that, and rage at myself for losing my temper and, with it, the job I needed so badly. I’d told myself I’d do anything to get my son back-but one drunk’s wandering hands had been enough to make me a liar. I cursed my temper as I headed back to the locker room.
I’d come to work in my uniform, but I’d worn a spring coat to hide it, and I had left some other clothes in my locker besides-the denim pants that I’d worn that first day, and a plain white linen top. I was there, peeling off, when Liz appeared, and she began taking her uniform off too. “She’s not doing it to you, baby! You hear what I said? I told her-told her to her face she’s not. So we’re both out, same like. It’s how it always winds up, these goddam jobs in a ginmill, but tomorrow we’ll look up another.”