Nighttime in our (not) house. Kids Luke and Vixie along with husband Peter and I are trying to agree on a video to watch out of the selection stacked in a cubbyhole recessed into the top of our coffee table. Finally we settle on a ballet. We watch it in the bright glare of two lamps that flank the couch.
And then
Our friend John C. from Little Rock is working in a small family (not HIS family) business. It has vaguely to do with insurance or something similar; there is no manufactured product involved. His walnut-paneled office is on the second floor of the house-sized brick company headquarters building. I go to visit him, and we chat.
Now, after having moved away from Little Rock for a while, he has moved back and resumed his job. He thinks I’d like a job with this company and has arranged for me to meet the extended family; they’re having a company meeting today in a (cafeteria? conference center?). We have to cross a very narrow channel (about twenty feet wide) on a passenger ferry. The water is fast and rough. I’ve lived here such a long time; why is it I’ve only crossed this channel once before? The ferry is nowhere in sight. We wait with other passengers, confident that it will show up.
Inside the conference center, the family members and employees mill around talking in a room filled with rectangular tables and chairs. John introduces me to a few people. They are mostly older men in gray business suits. Everyone is glad to see John again; they like him a lot, so they are amiable with me. They all find chairs as lunch is served. There is no chair for me, no food tray…an attractive woman my age with short, dark hair (who is in charge of one branch of the company) makes apologetic noises about my not being included in the meal. One young man ebulliently states, “She can only come on board in partnership with another person already here, and we don’t have any open people now. That’s the way we always hire–with one other person.” Everyone else nods silently. John is a little embarrassed at having put me in this situation. He hasn’t seen these folks since he moved away and didn’t know there were no openings right now. I’m OK with this. I can tell from the pale, boiled chickens on the plates (and the other bland food everyone is eating at this catered meal) that this company is a little too conservative for me.
I’m walking down the outside staircase on my way home when a few of the men, who have finished early, come out the door of the banquet room. A man in his late sixties passes me on the stairs, eating a piece of bread and butter with sugar sprinkled on top. One of the younger men jeers, “Sugar on your bread? That’s a kid’s snack!” The man next to me replies, “I don’t care.” I nudge him and tell him confidentially, “I’ve been eating sugared bread ever since I can remember.” He smiles.
The company meeting is far behind me now (both in space and time) as I walk. I’m approaching a long cinderblock wall painted pastel yellow on one side. Against that side is a slow-moving conveyor belt, piled randomly with stacks of boxes; other stacks sit here and there on the floor. A metal track with three red rubber hand grips dangling from it is mounted six feet above the belt. Two ten-year-old boys, one black and one white, jump from the end of the belt nearest me, grasping the handles and gliding along the track as far as they can. When they drop off, some people working near the far end of the belt laugh and call, “Can’t you make it any farther than that?” I watch as they try it a couple more times, going further with each attempt. After each boy’s final ride he shouts, “I can!” Then I climb up onto the end of the belt table, grab the hand grips and push off, raising my feet up to avoid the stacked boxes as I cruise past.
The last leg of my trip home is along the top of a long eight-foot-high fence rail. It’s about the width of a shoe box and painted off-white. It tilts downhill at times, following the terrain, angling sharply to avoid obstacles like bright blue-painted apartment complexes. I’m almost back to the ferry now.
*****
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