Prioritize, Then, By God, Stick To It
Close the door gently, behind you.
Secret kiss.
Kiss of death.
So its Monday.
All’s fair in love and war.
Whos’ fault was it?
Consciousness of guilt presumed?
Two trains on wrong tracks.
Stupidity?
Just bad luck?
Shit happens.
So I’m watching football on their movie sized TV in my new friend Benny’s’ living room while his hot wife brings snacks.
The plush, rich leather sofa has the smell of money and new. The guy is a bit of a wimp and she knows she’s a stunner and has me over a barrel. Hey, I’m just saying. She moves wondrously in her jeans, barefoot, pretty, little feet, pink toenails, a half sleeve teddy tank top revealing toned arms. Hair swept up with several unruly wisps flying about her pretty neck and ears, creating a comely glow about her impossibly cute face.
The volume was kept so that people could talk without screaming, either Mariah or Beyoncé, I wasn’t sure, singing Christmas songs.
Those shiny, brightly colored Christmas candies were in small bowls all around the living room.
The biggest Christmas tree I’ve ever seen, all lit up, fills a third of the large living room, gift wrapped gifts piled to overflowing under the real tree. The smell of cinnamon apple fills the comfy home.
But it’s her telling smile. No, not secretive, as that would be too obvious. Her smile is right in front of her husband. Somehow she’s signaling me, challenging, daring me, right in front of her hubby. How do women do that? Boggling, to put it mildly. Am I crossing a line with this observation? I think not.
This occurrence is as common as rain in Seattle. She’s hot. Does she feel ignored, neglected, bored, and find something about me appealing? Of course against all my sharpest instincts, I’m doing everything in my sorry repertoire to egg her on. Warnings buzzing in my head, but then I can’t help myself.
Why not? Best friend? Well no, not really. We just got to know each other a couple weeks ago at the factory. The guy’s factory reputation has it he gets his jollies by bedding every willing female he can find. Bars are where this develops for him. The lonely girl, single or married, over does the drinking and this guy finds it a rather simple thing to convince her to take him home. No, he doesn’t do the ladies any harm. No weirdness and kinky abusive stuff. At least that I know of. He just can’t get enough sex. Maybe his wife has turned off towards him. Happens.
His job as an administrative supervisor provides a decent salary, so he’s happy throwing bits away on the bar flies around town. Oh, hell the real story is they say he, or his folks, could buy part of town.. I mean, why the hell not anyway?
Then the poop hit the fan for him. When rumor had it his wife caught him, details were never clear. The girls in the office said he’d not come to work for several days. Wow! That’s a shit storm best avoided. Benny was well liked around the company. Rumor had it he was the son of a prominent family from Chicago who had a big stake in Lancorp, the plant where we worked was the Peoria branch. In other words, if Benny decided he liked you, it was possible doors could open for you.
I didn’t care. All I knew was that I worked my ass off, volunteering for extra tasks, attending all the companies’ functions and events. One big thing that must have gotten someone’s attention was that I almost single-handedly convinced the key people who were behind the unionizing push to back down. Would have cost the owners millions had it gotten in. Could’ve killed the business. Because of my efforts, everybody received a small raise that wasn’t scheduled, more days off, and sick day benefits. This threw the tide against a union.
So this was my first visit to Benny’s’ place. He’d said he was going to grill steaks on his porch and that some other people would show up. A friendship in its nascent phase? This was as common as corn in the central Illinois. The implicit understanding is he was scoping me out for an administrative position.
My seven years at the plant didn’t go unnoticed, not bragging but never being late, meeting and exceeding my quotas, volunteering to lead ad hoc work project teams, along with having completed the two-year administration study program our company has established through the university all helps, not always, but this time it has.
Benny and Lucy's’ friends seemed like nice people, too. Benny's’ lively mother joined the gathering and fit right in with the younger set and light chatter. The beer, rum and tequila were good and a large pizza sized egg and potato omelet snack his stunning wife had prepared were great. She called it a Spanish tort. The food wasn’t typical football game snacks, rather purposely designed to appeal to a slightly more refined palate.
Maybe it wasn’t my choice but hell I didn’t care there were enough Dorito chips and dip to sink a ship.
A delicious Waldorf salad and delicious mayo dressing were just terrific. Yeah, I know what that is. A variety of snacks filled several silver platters. As a teenager when I worked in family restaurants, we used to jokingly call them horses doovers…The almond, grape jam cheese ball was almost gone too. Fruit cake sat there like a deflated football, untouched. There was a cake like, white thing, and next to it a small bowl of jam and little toast pieces and a small honey pourer. Somehow, it all went together.
‘Oh dear, Bobby, you do know what Camembert is hon?’ Not quite a question but close. ‘here let me fix one for you.’ Benny’s wife snuck up on me, placing a light hand on my shoulder. Her eyes sparkled. At moments an accent I was trying to place slipped out. She placed some of the white stuff on a small piece of toast she called Melba on a small plate with some black raspberry jam, a few drops of honey, with a tiny fork and linen napkin, handing it to me with a smile that could’ve melted ice. She said conspiratorially ‘ if you absolutely love it then you owe me, you hear?’ A devilish chuckle. ‘If you need anything else.’ Her dark, sultry eyes spoke volumes, the words hung. ‘Just yell at me. Anytime.’
She laughed, slowly uncurled her legs and joined her gaggle of girlfriends.
A rather typical social gathering in a newish middle class neighborhood. Homes are traditionally two story affairs on ample grass lawns. One tall leafless Maple with a few stubborn yellowed leaves hanging on and twisting in the wind stood in the middle. Two or three-car garages lined the street. They decked the comfortable home out with Christmas lights and décor inside and out, as were all the homes along the pristine driveways that meandered organically throughout this neighborhood. Children on bikes and scooters yelled out in delight as they raced on the sidewalk.
Two fresh faced, smiling, ‘tweens, a boy and a girl were introduced to me. Hello and they were off running. Looked like sweet kids dressed in matching red Christmas sweaters, picked out by mom no doubt, for the occasion.
Upon arriving at their house, I noticed something, realizing it was the silence. The noise of the city didn’t reach them.
My new friend told me his other guests didn’t work at the plant where he and I did. He explained that the men and two women were factory supervisors and mid- level admin people at the big Cat plant twenty miles from here. The wives all had the look of living lives in which material things were not an obstacle, as in more financially stressed households.
This group’s higher salaries were more than enough to lift them clear from what was my world. A higher and much more comfortable income bracket. The women were reliving and joking about a recent Christmas shopping weekend trip they’d just taken to Chicago. Their laughing, though not demeaning, reference to their rather plebeian mode of transportation from Peoria to Chicago. The train, in fact, was so easy because then finding impossible parking wasn’t necessary. The women in my world rarely had the kind of cash to consider Christmas time shopping sprees to the Windy City.
My new friend Benny, who wasn’t my floor boss, had singled me out on the work floor several months before for a possible promotion. He’d seen my production figures, asked about me, and so the guy was friendly. He assured me I had the stuff for management. My response to his comments was positive and interested. Sure, I could use a salary boost, a big boost. As far as being promoted above my current fellow workers, some of them buddies didn’t concern me in the least. Hell, any of them would’ve jumped at the same opportunity.
Like in the military. Once you were promoted; you didn’t moan and groan that now you’ll be ordering guys around who had been your equal buddies. Step up and do the job.
So yeah, I was going along. Today’s gathering was, I think, Bennys’ way of getting me to see that the management class was pretty good, the guys were just regular people. Sure, mostly, they were laid back, seemed pretty normal to me. I’d just never hung out with this group. Sort of like Afghanistan; me and my men didn’t go to the same club as the officers when back on base for R&R.
The only thing I’d pick up on was these guys were conditioned to a better life, the clothes they wore, sockless deck shoes, top clothes brands, thick, European pilots’ watches, all top drawer. Not judging, just saying. Hell, that’s what I’d like to have too!
One guy named Bobby G, I guess that’s how to spell his name. They called him just like that, couldn’t stop talking about his brand new, fully decked out Bass Tracker fishing boat. These things for those that don’t know are the top of the line in bass fishing rigs running into the many thousands of dollars. Hell, my olive green, two-man, flat bottom jon boat cost me a painful $400. I was just barely able to pull off the cash for a measly, fifteen horse Mariner.
Took me another year before I could add the smallest, electric Minn Kota trolling motor. Piece by piece accumulating shit that these guys could just run out and buy today. These guys had boats that sported twin sixties! There wasn’t a lake in Illinois you couldn’t own with that much get around power. State-of-the-art trailers pulled their rigs behind shiny, brand new F150s pretty much to wherever they felt like going.
Sure, I’d like a piece of that! Who wouldn’t? I’m currently single and the administrative salary would do me wonders. Maybe even time to move up and out, so to speak, get another place to live. I needed to start thinking long term, maybe taking a serious girlfriend, nearing thirty now, and time was flying. The ladies still turned to watch me go by.
I realized yet again after another failed relationship that I was one of those guys whose destiny was to never settle down, wife, family. My last girlfriend told me over and over that I was selfish and that I’d never change. In a momentary funk I’d slipped back into self analysis again. Fear of commitment, incapable of carrying my part of a serious relationship. Hell yeah, maybe I was selfish. My shrink after getting back suggested these things.
I thought the shrink was full of shit. I’d of given my life on any day for my guys on patrol, no hesitation.
I was sitting on their sofa watching the game. Some of the other guys were watching, too. Benny was out on the smoky patio joined by the others, all wore jackets against the year ends chill, laughing it up and sharing stories.
Suddenly somebody flopped down beside me on the couch.
‘Try these Bobby’ Lucy held a tray almost under my nose with cheese and saltines topped with an olive. ‘Just made ‘em.’ Benny’s wife was back. She was watching me intently. The energy was unmistakable. Her legs snuggled up underneath her, as only women can do. Must be the curves or skeletal structure. Were I to sit like that, something would break, besides drawing untoward attention. I could just see pretty painted toes peeking out from under her thigh.
‘Oh wow, thanks, Lucy, right? God, I hope I got that right. My memory for names sucks.’ Stupid thing to say. I grabbed two snacks and popped one into my mouth. Lucy stayed right where she was.
With one hand she reached expertly up to where her hair was tied and undid the tie causing her rich, brown hair to tumble down. With an eye-catching swirling back and forth of her head caused her hair to settle about her face and just passed her shoulders. The rich aroma of freshly washed hair came over me. Damned if that didn’t catch my absolute and hopeless attention. I was bit.
Here I was in another guy’s house and completely losing it over his wife. I don’t care how much ‘come hither’ she was clearly applying. Remembering I had to respect boundaries.
‘Benny tells me you work at the Lancorp plant too, I guess you’re on a different shift or something?’ Lucy looked into my eyes, her parted lips, the hint of a smile, the way she blew away a pesky strand of light brown hair from her eyes was mesmerizing. Which, of course, she knew. She was clearly leaning into me, enough so that for just a moment I worried others might see the new guy moving on Benny’s girl.
Bennys’ wife.
‘Oh yeah, but Benny’s on the administrative staff, really in another part of the compound, but yeah we started talking and he invited me to come catch the game. You have a beautiful home Lucy. I saw one hell of a fishing boat in your drive. Do you fish?’
‘You better believe it, mister! It’s all about bait casting for me, no spinning reels, damn straight.’ Her laughter was throaty though sweet, confident. She placed a hand on my arm, next to a big shrapnel scar. ‘Wow, that must have hurt’. She kept her hand on me just beyond that space of time that crosses over from being friendly though unremarkable to hinting at something else.
‘Uh, yeah, it’s a souvenir from Helmand Province in Afghanistan.’ Without thinking, I covered the scar with my other hand.
‘Jesus, that must have been hell Bobby, I can’t imagine.’ I wanted to say you’d be right. Instead, I said: ‘It just happened, I was luckier than some.’ Her eyes showed concern, and I found I could settle my gaze upon her beautiful face and relax. Something about her just gave me a sense of peace, hard to describe. Her perfume, where had I smelled it before, like lemony, mint, this woman was a dream come true, for Benny.
I wanted to quickly move the subject from the war. Talking about the war was something I tried to avoid with those who do not know really what goes on over there. It can drag down a conversation. ‘So you’re not from around here, right Lucy? I’d swear I’m picking up an accent but just can’t place it’.
‘You’d be right, I’m originally from Atlanta, but after so many years my southern drawl is all but gone.’ Again that smile, sly and secret, like accusing me of surface play, avoiding. She’d then glance away and suddenly it was like she was looking at something far away, then return her gaze to me.
I felt like I’d won the lottery, hell I would’ve sat here all afternoon with Lucy. Her skin was an olive, maybe cinnamon mixture, wasn’t sure, perfect, looked so smooth. Not a word needed to be exchanged, either. I imagined running my hand through her shiny, long hair. I also imagined her without her t-shirt, but then just as quickly, mentally, slapped myself back on track. Like a reset.
Just then Benny, with an apron and wielding a BBQ fork, popped his head in and called to everyone about hot dogs and sausages, sweet corn and navy beans. For the briefest of moments I’d gone through an ‘oh shit!’ moment.
‘Hey Bobby, come on out, grab yourself another beer, want you to meet someone.’ I started to get up off the couch and Lucy winked and said, under her breath, ‘you get yourself back here soon you hear?’ She laughed the devils laugh.
With plate in hand, standing near the fire, meat sizzling on the grill, Benny introduced me to a guy named Jack, the plant’s assistant manager. Some said that Jack was the guy who really ran the plant, the go-to guy to get things done.
I’d, of course, seen him around the plant. We’d met during the union trouble. He spent most of his time in the offices, but I knew who he was. ‘So Benny told me he’s filled you in a little about taking over the first shift supervisor in Bloomington, right?’ My look of surprise caused him to quickly rewind and try again. ‘Or actually Bobby, why don’t you tell me what Benny has filled you in on?’
‘Oh sure, well, just that there’s an opening in the administrative staff. I didn’t know what or where, though, which is fine. I know he was just seeing what my interest level might be. This was a week ago then he invited me to catch the game with him today. That’s about it, Jack, and here I am.’
The small talk went on for several minutes. Not helping was Lucy cruising by as if on cue of some unseen program. Her secret smile was almost enough to erase my train of thought. The short of it was Lancorp was offering me an administrative slot that had just recently opened up in Bloomington. The guy that needed replacing got cancer and was entering the full battery of long-term treatments. It was a full-time job with an opportunity for growth.
At one point in our conversation, Jack put a hand on my shoulder and said. ‘Hey Bobby, why don’t you and me go over to that corner and we can talk more about what this entails? The more you know, the better you can make a decision.’
Jack filled me in on what starting salary was and in so many sentences filled in what my role would be. Basically supervising first shift at the Bloomington plant. He added that the Bloomington GM would soon leave to Pittsburgh, which would cause a future shifting of top management personnel, and that, yes, I could very possibly factor into that.
My life was about to change.
He certainly got my attention. Ideally, I’d move from here in Peoria to Bloomington, but no one had required this. The drive was an hour long drive. I quickly started going over the plusses and minuses of moving or staying and making the daily drive. I’d have to do a month long orientation in Pittsburg before starting in Bloomington.
I’d already made up my mind as we shook hands and Jack went back to where some of the guys were arguing sports.
&&&
I excused myself and headed inside to use the john. Lucy was doing something in the kitchen. Just as I was entering the bathroom, she spotted me.
As I stepped out, there she was. Before I could even take a step, she reached up with both hands behind my neck and pulled me in and kissed me. I broke away, just in time to spot someone’s wife entering through the patio doors. Wide-eyed and mouth dropped open, watching us. She promptly whirled around and headed out the patio doors to the pool area.
&&&
Monday at Lancorp started out like any other day. But not for long. A lady from the office found me on the floor. With averted eyes, a hint of sympathy? Handed me an office envelope. ‘Hey Bobby’ was all she said.
