High Time (2 page)

‘You have, of course, birth certificates?’ he asked solemnly.

‘What good’s birth certificates?’ Mrs. Feeley asked.

‘They prove that you actually were born, where you were born, and, most important of all, when you were born,’ he explained.

‘Gawd, any damn fool can see we was born!’ Mrs. Feeley nudged Miss Tinkham, and the ladies snickered.

‘Yeah,’ Mrs. Rasmussen said gravely. ‘Most of us don’t remembers where we was born: we was too young!’

The manager opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out. Mrs. Feeley filled the blank space for him.

‘An’ ’long as you’re askin’ damn fool questions, you had oughta ask
why
we was born! It’s a lot more interestin’ an’ entertainin’ than just where an’ when! Although, by the looks o’ you, I expeck you was a incubator chick yourself! C’mon, ladies, it’s plain to see we’re not wanted here! Airplanes, indeed! It had oughta be a blimp factory, for they sure got plenty o’ hot-air to blow ’em up with!’ She turned and strode out, followed by her friends. Not, however, before Mrs. Rasmussen turned, crossed her eyes, and stuck out her tongue at the personnel manager.

Nobody spoke for several minutes; the ladies just sort of slouched along the walls of the factory until they came to the place where the truck was parked. ‘Anybody’d think we had one foot in the grave, to hear him!’ Mrs. Feeley snorted.

‘Ridiculous!’ Miss Tinkham agreed, examining her face in a small mirror. ‘I shall certainly report this indignity in a personal letter to Mrs. Roosevelt.’

‘Have a bite?’ Mrs. Rasmussen said, dragging out one of the loaves.

‘Could I be mistaken, or is that a beer sign down there?’ Remarkably keen eyesight Miss Tinkham had on occasion.

‘Yeah! An’ I’m gonna go get us some!’ Mrs. Rasmussen said, clambering down the other side of the truck. In her haste she almost stepped on a squat, swarthy woman in overalls who was sitting on the running board of the truck eating a flaccid white-bread sandwich.

‘An’ you think you got trouble!’ the woman said morosely.

‘Well, if we ain’t, who the hell has?’ Mrs. Feeley asked, sticking her head out over the side of the truck to get a look at the speaker.

‘I’m afraid I haven’t the honor of your acquaintance,’ Miss Tinkham began, seething inwardly because she had left her lorgnette at home.

‘You can drop your vi’lets, lady! I was just borryin’ the side o’ the truck here—I’m Lily.’

‘Well, you look like you’d just lost your last friend,’ Mrs. Feeley conceded.

‘Jeez! You’d cry, too, if you was about to lose the best job you ever had!’

‘Our trouble ain’t losin’ no job; it’s gettin’ one!’ Mrs. Rasmussen said glumly.

Miss Tinkham related the run-in they had had with the personnel manager, ably assisted by Mrs. Feeley and Mrs. Rasmussen.

‘It’s un-American! Refusing us our inalienable right to seek and find work! It’s against the Atlantic Charter—outrageous and intolerable!’ Miss Tinkham wound up.

‘You tell ’em, Miss Tinkham!’ Mrs. Feeley shouted.

‘Yeah,’ Mrs. Rasmussen seconded dourly.

‘You all related?’ Lily asked, intrigued by the solid front the ladies presented to the world.

Mrs. Feeley explained briefly and with color the exact relationship that existed at Noah’s Ark, adding that anyone with half an eye could see that kinfolks couldn’t possibly get on that well.

Mrs. Rasmussen returned to the painful issue like a tongue to a sore tooth.

‘What’d you mean when you said could you only keep your job here?’ she asked. ‘They ain’t gonna fire you?’

‘Naw! Nothin’ like that!’ Lily replied. ‘I’m one o’ their top ’lectric drill-press operators; I’m the delegate to the Union. It’s my kids!’

‘What about ’em?’ Mrs. Rasmussen asked.

‘My kid sister was takin’ care of ’em for me, an’ if she ain’t went an’ joined them Wacs! She’s leavin’ tomorra an’ you can’t get no help for love or money! An’ their old man off in the Solomons! An’ me slavin’ to feed ’em! An’ makin’ money an’ can’t spend it! I’m screwin’ up my nerve to ask the foreman for time off right now so’s I can spend a coupla days tryin’ to get ’em into a day-nursery or give ’em to the Sisters or somethin’! The Wacs she’s gotta join! It’s them uneyforms!’ Lily lamented.

‘Yeup! Whole damn town’s wacky: khaki wacky!’ Mrs. Feeley agreed.
‘Wouldn’t be so bad if it was only one, but on account o’ them bein’ twins, people backs off from ’em—figgers it’s double trouble!’ Lily knew the woes of a mother.

‘How old are they?’ Miss Tinkham asked politely.

‘Six months,’ their mother said.

‘Boys or girls?’ Mrs. Rasmussen queried.

‘Boys: Franklin and Winston!’

‘Such charming and appropriate names! Right in tune with the times!’ Miss Tinkham glowed.

Mrs. Feeley and Mrs. Rasmussen looked at each other, then at Miss Tinkham. She had a dreamy look on her face.

‘Let me see,’ she mused, ‘I am trying to recall the exact words Mrs. Feeley used yesterday in defining sacrifice: Sacrifice is making yourself do something you hate like hell!’

‘I don’t foller you,’ Mrs. Rasmussen said.

‘I do! I’m ’way ahead of her!’ Mrs. Feeley chirped.

Mrs. Rasmussen was beginning to catch on.

‘Does it counts the same if we relieves a woman, ’stead of a man?’ she asked.

‘Remember the column heading you contributed, Mrs. Rasmussen—“The next best thing”?’ Miss Tinkham reminded.

‘Well, I can tell you it’s sure lots harder’n drillin’ holes or packin’ fish, an’ smells worse!’ Mrs. Rasmussen was recalling bygone days with her unsavory grandchildren.

‘It’d sure be a sacrifice, all right!’ Mrs. Feeley admitted.

‘Assuming, of course, that we would be capable of undertaking the care and feeding of infants!’ Miss Tinkham amended.

Lily was beginning to get the drift. Her face bright—‘Boy, oh boy! I’d sure make it worth your while! I’d pay good! An’ bring the formula all ready to last ’em through the day—and the diaper-man could still pick up the dirty ones at my house! Would fifteen dollars a week be okay?’

The ladies looked at each other. No one said a word. Fifteen dollars a week! Better than sixty dollars a month without ever setting foot outside their home! Not to mention the sacrifice.

‘Well, I’ll tell you,’ Mrs. Feeley announced, ‘we’ll go home an’ drink it over—you stop by on your way home for the answer!’

After making sure of the exact location of the Ark, Lily said: ‘Then I’ll not ask for no time off till I talk to youse tonight!’

The ladies nodded solemnly and drove off toward Island Avenue. At the junk-yard they climbed out and entered the house, each occupied with her own thoughts.

Miss Tinkham got out the chart for war service and painstakingly erased the notation of the night before. Then she printed sadly: ‘Rejected.’

‘At least we cannot be accused by our consciences of not making the effort,’ she said ruefully. Under the first column heading of most important ways to win the war, she wrote a third line: Are you relieving a man or woman for work in a vital industry?

‘They’ll sure be a mess, do we take ’em!’ Mrs. Rasmussen knew what she was talking about.

‘Yeup. We’ll sure be tied down for real,’ Mrs. Feeley agreed. ‘But what the hell? Them fellers on Bataan woulda been plenty willin’ to swap jobs with us, don’t you reckon?’ Mrs. Feeley was selling herself a bill of goods. ‘Yeah. Lily’d come after ’em at six sharp—then we’d be shed of ’em for the evenin’ at least.’ Mrs. Rasmussen finally capitulated.

‘Then I may write “Yes” in the column?’ Miss Tinkham asked.

‘All in favor, say I?’ Mrs. Rasmussen remembered some of the parliamentary law she had heard about at Citizenship class years ago.

‘I do!’ Mrs. Feeley chirped, matrimonially.

’Unanimously carried!’ Miss Tinkham cried. ‘Suffer little children to come unto me!’

‘Suffer is right!’ Mrs. Rasmussen sniffed.

‘Guess we’ll have a beer while we can,’ Mrs. Feeley remarked. ‘The place’ll be such a boar’s nest with them twins howlin’ an’ smellin’ that we won’t be able to enjoy a bottle in peace.’

At six o’clock Lily came up the walk with a hopeful expression.

‘What time will you bring ’em?’ Mrs. Feeley demanded.

‘I gotta be there at eight. Is seven-thirty too early?’ she asked, well pleased at the prospect.

‘That ain’t the question! This ain’t bein’ done to accommodate us, you understand! If you pass here at seven-thirty, that’s the time you gotta drop ’em off! We can’t have no dead-headin’! No extra trips just to bring the boogers over here to be took care of!’ Mrs. Feeley was an authority on the gasoline situation.

‘Okay!’ Lily grinned. ‘I’ll bring the formula, an’ the boiled water, an’ the orange juice, an’ the Pablum.’

Miss Tinkham looked at her friends and they wondered if they had bitten off more than they could chew.

‘You’ll pick ’em up prompt o’ nights?’ Mrs. Rasmussen reminded. ‘No stoppin’ for a short beer on the way!’ The trio seemed to overlook the fact that Franklin and Winston, rosy balls of suet, were more than a mere nuisance to their mother.

‘Swear to God! Cross my heart! I’ll not leave youse stuck with ’em! I kinda like bathin’ ’em at the end o’ the day. Sometimes I take ’em right in the tub with me. They’re awful slippery, but they sure love the water!’

‘Well, their namesakes spend enough time on it,’ Mrs. Feeley remarked.

Lily was fumbling in her pocket.

‘I don’t wanna insult youse or nothin’: but I wanna give five dollars now to bind the bargain. I’ll just owe that much less at the end o’ the week!’

Mrs. Feeley took the fin and handed it to Mrs. Rasmussen.

‘Okay, Lily. Bring ’em in the mornin’! Don’t you forget: this is strickly at your own risk! We ain’t responsible for nothin’ but keepin’ ’em fed an’ changed an’ from swallowin’ safety-pins!’ Mrs. Feeley admonished.

Lily nodded and departed hastily before the ladies should change their minds.

The ladies looked at each other, poured fresh beer, and sat down. Mrs. Rasmussen fingered the five-dollar bill.

Mrs. Feeley looked at the money and remarked: ‘Once them twins is installed here, we’ll be so wore out we won’t be good for nothin’! So let’s go out tonight an’ pitch a bitch!’

‘
M
IGHT’S
WELL
make a night of it!’ Mrs. Feeley remarked over her shoulder as the three friends entered the Pacific Gardens about midnight. The huge pleasure dome housed a large bar, enormous dance-floor, and a bowling alley.

‘Might’s well be drunk as the way we are,’ Mrs. Rasmussen agreed.

‘But what a change the war has brought,’ Miss Tinkham lamented, referring to the women clad in slacks and the men without coats. And she ruffled the frills of her beaded georgette dress smugly. She did not notice any of the other ladies wearing capes to match their frocks, but they were not exactly what one could call the dressy type anyway.

‘Yeup! This town sure ain’t what it used to be,’ Mrs Feeley agreed. ‘Was a classy bunch in these joints a few years back, but they sure ain’t nothin’ but rat-races now! Hardly no reg’lar Navy!’

‘You know what? Most o’ them guys is feather merchants an’ merchant marines. I kin tell is they Danish or Swedes!’ Mrs. Rasmussen volunteered.

‘After all, dear ladies,’ Miss Tinkham said kindly, ‘the important thing is not whether they are regular Navy or not: what counts is whether they are regular fellows or not!’ The ladies were about to air their views on the Naval Reserve when Mrs. Feeley noticed something out of order in a corner.

‘Hey! Looky there! That guy’s abusin’ that girl somethin’ fierce!’ She pointed to a booth near-by where a short, swarthy man with pock marks was threatening a buxom platinum blonde with his fist. They could not hear what he was saying, but he obviously was not making love to her. Mrs. Feeley scented a shakedown.

The bully took her by the wrist and began twisting her arm. Such brutality was more than the residents of Noah’s Ark could bear. With one accord they rose, taking their beer with them, and walked over to the booth where the miserable girl sat.

‘Ain’t he gettin’ a mite too familiar, girlie?’ Mrs. Feeley asked.

‘Look, Toots! Don’t come buttin’ in where you ain’t wanted!’ the man said menacingly.

‘I don’t believe I have the pleasure of your acquaintance!’ Mrs. Feeley replied coolly, doubling up her fist and bringing it around in front of her where he could see it.

‘An’ you’ll let it rest right there if you know what’s good for you!’ he growled. ‘Just go ahead an’ peddle your papers!’ Here he made the mistake of shoving her.

The silence was so thick it could have been sliced. Mrs. Rasmussen and Miss Tinkham looked at each other. Then they looked at the man. He had actually laid a hand on Mrs. Feeley.

‘Did you see what I seen, Miss Tinkham, dear?’ Mrs. Rasmussen was the first to break the silence.

‘I am
afraid I did,’ Miss Tinkham replied sadly.

With one accord the ladies set their beer-mugs on the table. Then, with a movement like greased lightning, they seized the flabbergasted man by the ankles, turned him upside-down, and began to bang his head against the floor. Mrs. Feeley had recovered sufficiently from the outrage to grab him by the seat of the pants with both hands. The ladies used him like an old-fashioned churn-dasher for the space of some three minutes. He wriggled and roared, but to no avail. All at once a triumphant shriek split the air, Mrs. Feeley was the author of it and she deigned to turn loose her grip on his pants.