By Amanda McCoy
I must first decide to speak. That is where the journey begins: the decision to open up and say something—something about my life and my needs and my inner ambition, goals, desires. And when I think “OK, it’s time to speak, it’s my time” I face the dilemma. What if I am not heard, not wanted, not received and perceived with my true intent? What if society’s expectation of me is not met? What if my expectations are not met? What then?
I come from this town, this town like many other towns, cities, nameless, but not useless, often unmarked locations. This industrial town. This manufacturing economy. This hard working tradition that is oftentimes coated in a sticky, black grease that marks the shoes and cars and the insides of laundry machines. The smell of fiberglass and the itchy, crystallized cotton candy on a stick; deep-fried and dripping with that grease. I want to eat it, but I know it’s dangerous. Well, who doesn’t like cotton candy? The pure sugar rush, the name on the green, embossed paycheck that satisfies my hunger, but only shortly, with no substance.
The tradition is to get your foot in the door at age 18, maybe 20, and ride that nameless, numbered wave until the wrinkled, white hair breaks. Get your kids in, get your nephews in, even enlist your grandchildren, because that is way to make it in this town. Plant your roots and stay in one place. Don’t worry, you will weather the storm as long as you keep your mouth shut and do what you are told. And, after all, your name is on that paycheck. You have a 401K and health benefits—even vision and dental—and you are paying taxes. You are the apple of the social eye.
But, in one bite, and without hesitation, I can be stripped to the core—seeds bared and hanging, some fallen to the dusty floor and swept under the cushioned mat that is meant to relieve the pressure of long hours of standing, but that really makes my calves burn and my feet itch under the stressful, rate-standardized, part-per-hour, nose-to-the-grindstone, soul-crushing toil. I spoke. I spoke about ways to make this process better, easier, and more efficient, but I spoke to soon. My name was on the paycheck, but to them I was only a number. An uneducated, unfiltered lackey, and, at all costs, not to be taken seriously. And, I am a woman, whose opinion should be dismissed, or stolen and labeled with a man’s title for a man to reap the recognition and promotion. A woman, ripe with ambition and invention, sucked into the man’s world and the man’s ways and forced to negotiate my happiness, and/or lack thereof, in accordance to the man’s rules.
Well, go ahead and lay me off then, and take my three-years’ pension; and my name on the paycheck, off now. Close your doors and let the office take the severance package and leave the numbered and nameless to survive, or not. Who cares? The GM has his Chevy Silverado and his wife has the Black Raven colored Cadillac CTS Sport Sedan and his son drives the ATV around their hundred-acre woods shooting squirrels for fun. While I sit at home and wait for the utilities to be shut off and for my decade-old Ford Taurus to be repossessed. Who care? I can’t afford the gas anyway.
Maybe I can scrape together the money for some beer, or a bottle of liquor. Maybe that will make me feel better. That is the social response to disappointment, so I must participate. But, what if that’s not enough? What if it’s too much and I waste my time, days, weeks, years numbing the bitterness? And what if I become so embittered that alcohol is no longer enough? I need pills and needles and dealers and untraceable phone numbers and crude violence. And I look around the town and it’s available and I am absorbed into the downward spiral and suffocated, lungs full of smoke and CO2 until I am dead and full of formaldehyde and thrown in a box, left to ferment, and hopefully to decay in a timely manner. Or maybe I will be burned to ashes and spread over this town, so no one can help but to breathe in my failure.
But, I am a woman. I tasted success when I saw my name on that paycheck. I was teased and then addicted to the power. And I know that I have the agency, glazed with the tough, black grease, to speak again.
So, I apply to the regional campus of the state university. So what if I graduated from high school ten years ago? So what if I have two children in diapers and I’m not married? I’ve got nothing to lose, and, would you look at that, I got accepted. They want me. They want to teach me. And I can already see my name on that piece of paper.
Maybe I want to be a teacher. I can read and write, and do arithmetic. I take the courses and learn the pedagogies and work in the classrooms, but I see the teachers who feel just as I did, nameless and under-acknowledged, under-compensated, unjustly subject to the revolving national standards. Test scores too low—you’re fired. You need supplies—you pay out of pocket. Teachers are altruistic, ever-sacrificing heroes. I am too greasy to be teacher; at least for now.
I take test after test, and write paper after paper, research, calculate, study, homework, projects presentations, speeches, poems, essays, short stories. My family sacrifices. My children have come to understand that mommy mustn’t be disturbed in the evenings while she is doing homework, even though they haven’t seen her all day and they are craving some attention, affection. Those poor babies. Those wet and dripping little tears. So, I open the door and move my work outside so we can be a family. Who cares if it takes double the time because I have to take breaks to tend to cut knees and hungry bellies and thirsty arms that need hugs from mama?
And then I have an idea and a community that has implemented a resource to bridge my family and academics. A Child Development Center right on campus. Thank goodness. We can all leave together in the morning and at least spend some family time in the car, eating, joking, singing and dancing, at least with our arms. And I can see those little faces in the rearview mirror, and their hair, touched with the sun and shining like haloes. The gap toothed grins and the rosy red lips sipping up their orange juice. So what if it gets spilled on the floor right beside the ground in bubble gum and melted crayon? At least I remembered the blankies and pillows and the baby doll and the magnetized, connecting Thomas the Tank Engine rail cars, and the extra clothes and sunscreen and umbrella and my backpack. Oh yeah, my schoolwork too. Everything in one car load. And now, my kids are inspired to learn as we ride along in the four-door classroom. They want to go to school because mama goes to school. They want me to read to them and they want to read and write and count and add and create. And I am inspired and I can write stories and poems and essays about them and us: our family—my family.
I have worked hard at learning and I have been an excellent student. 3.8 GPA, Magna Cum Laude, Bachelor’s Degree. On the way to buy toilet paper in bulk we hear an advertisement on the radio for a local job fair. I turn the car around and head home to change into business-casual attire and to print off plenty of résumés. I pull in and park and I look in the mirror and fix my hair and apply a fresh coat of clear lipstick, just for moisture. I lock the car and take a deep breath—cigarette smoke. I look up and there is a small group of people standing in a circle outside of the entrance puffing away, t-shirts and jeans. I am dressed business-casual. Uh-Oh. When I enter the building I am asked to fill out a worksheet describing my career goals and my expectations for the career fair. I sit at a table with men wearing hats and cut-off t-shirts, wiry armpit hair peeking out, and cruddy, grease-stained jeans. There are a few women present with orange, bleach dyed hair with three- to four-inch dark roots. Their mouths are stained and ringed in red and they talk very loudly.
I turn in my worksheet, ashamed that I admitted that I hope to write a book someday. I am told to make my way around the lined tables. Good luck. The first table is for a child care agency: “Oh, I’m sorry, we are not hiring. We are just informing you of our services should you need childcare” they say. Ok, thank you. The next spot is advertising enrollment into the regional campus of the state university: “I’m sorry. We don’t have any positions available. We are informing and enrolling students” they say. Ok, I already attended, thank you. The next couple booths say they are looking for light industrial: name on the paycheck, numbed soul. The next booth is for a photography company: “Congratulations on your college success, but we are looking for people who have experience with the Photoshop program” they say. “I used Photoshop in one of my visual rhetoric classes,” I say. “Well, we want employees who are proficient or above-average users and you probably don’t qualify” they say. I filled out an application and submitted a résumé anyway. I haven’t heard anything from them.
There were more booths for technical colleges and temporary staffing companies looking for light-industrial workers and companies looking for RN’s and LPN’s and STNA’s. Uh-Oh. I am none of those. I am a greasy B.A. of English. Did I make a mistake? I thought this was a career fair. I can’t seem to find anyone interested in giving me a career. So, I leave the career fair letdown and feeling like I had made a mistake, a wrong choice somewhere: in my studies? in my decision to turn the car around and head to the career fair? The bulk toilet paper adventure would have been more fruitful. At least I would have been in the car with my kids. And I would have brought home something of actual use.
When I got home I checked my e-mail and received a bulletin from the college career advisor letting me know that was an internship opening at the local radio station, in my town. Of course I applied immediately. Twenty-five hours per week and an opportunity to learn about “all aspects of radio.” Some type of experience to put on my résumé so that a potential employer will find me an asset to their company. So then weeks of stress waiting for a phone call, then I got one for the interview. A friendly atmosphere and welcoming employees situated in a familiar neighborhood. That part went well, but then another week-and-a-half spent waiting, then all hope flushed with the bulk toilet paper.
And then the phone rings. It’s not a light industrial company, it’s not the photography company, it’s the radio station! Holy smokes, I got the internship?!? And here I am, over the moon that I have been given a chance to work in my town. Taking a step toward my happiness.