Chapter Twenty Eight An Opera in Three Acts But with Five Parts
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Yeah, about that … about the divorce. That is, Attorney Jazzy Jinx had furtively and o – so quietly explained to me –– right off –– one huge part of his dissolution of marriage law practice: Jinx stated to me that he absolutely never let such policies as mine … continue to exist. “Uh – uh, Legion. Were the one that you now own on Dr. Edinsmaier to have been, instead, the other way around? Like taken out on your life as the insured –– and not on Herod’s? Why, I would require –– as it would be our right to do so, Legion, at the time of the Discovery procedure where Herod would be, by law, required to let us know he owned such a policy on you –– why, I would require to have it, the entire policy, retired and canceled at time of divorce! O yeah! I would never, never, ever let such a deal continue on. Nope! No! It would have to be voided out!” “No?!” I had asked. “Absolutely never!” Mr. Jinx was forcibly adamant. “O, if my client were stupid enough to say she didn’t care, why the policy, even after the divorce, is still good. Yeah, with almost all of the insurance companies that I know of … it is. And we’ll certainly check with that company anyhow –– on this policy of yours; it doesn’t have to know who’s asking. But, yeah, whoever is the owner of the policy before the divorce –– is still the owner after the divorce. That doesn’t change –– unless … unless at the time of the dissolution, one or the other of the attorneys declares that the policy be made void. Then it has to stop. It does have to be canceled and stopped. And I always look inside the answers given back to me on the preparatory procedures called Discovery and Production of Documents, I always look especially for exactly these sorts of policy deals. And I’d never, never let my client make such a stupid, idiotic move –– as to let it go on, the policy … that is. It would not stand. It would never continue. I would demand to have the policy, where it has been taken out upon my client as the one who is ‘the insured’, I would demand to have it canceled and retired. Ya’ jus’ never know what can happen after a divorce, do ya’? “Well, after? Like what? What do you mean?” I truly hadn’t a clue … right then … what Mr. Jinx meant. “Legion! Leee – gion! Come’n! What do you think can happen?!” Mr. Jazzy Jinx grinned. More or less. “Besides, didn’t you tell me he’s the guy who never locked the front door, let alone, the back door –– before the family went to sleep at night? Well, he’s probably still not lockin’ ‘em, ya’ know, … now that you’re out of the picture, don’tcha think? Ya’ know, like someone could come in and, well, come right on in an’, and … take him out. Ya’ know, whack him. Ya’ just never do know.” “Whoooa! I never thought of that, Mr. Jinx. With the life insurance, I mean. I always did worry, though, about trouble like that with the Boys and me being the ones getting hurt. Because Herry wouldn’t lock the doors an’ at least try to keep us safe.” “But. That isn’t the case here, now is it?! You are not the one insured … Herry Edinsmaier is. And he is not the owner … you are! Therefore, it’s up to Mr. Shindy Scheisser to recommend to your soon – to – be ex that he –– they –– that they demand to retire and cancel the policy! And Herry, if Mr. Scheisser does recommend that, most certainly will demand that then, too, won’t he? But. If they don’t, aaah, … it’s right out there in the Discovery for both of them to see. But if they miss it? Why, it’s yours! Still. You own it and you control it and –– well, for that matter, for as long as you desire, you’re home free with it, Legion. No matter what Herry thinks later! Or, wants done with it. He can’t do a frickin’ thing about it to stop you from having it. So. Well. We’ll just keep quiet. It can work.” “O, they’ll find it. Herry’s a smart guy, and he’s paying that downtown Des Moines attorney of his twice what you charge me, Mr. Jinx. Mr. Scheisser, he’ll … O, he’ll find it for sure. For all that he’s being paid? Why, Herry’d be totally pissed if Scheisser didn’t find it, don’tcha think?” “Well, I know my clients would be! Really, really pissed! That’s what you pay me to find –– after all!” Mr. Jinx was smirking now, a Herry Edinsmaier – smirk! “And if they do find it, why, it’ll just be cancelled and retired as is requested. We’ll make no never mind about it –– as if we just expected that to happen –– and Dr. Edinsmaier’ll be none the wiser about the fact that you and I were ever even wanting him … to miss it!” It had been some small measure of pleasure and fun. In all of that sorrow and sadness before the divorce, every once in awhile just thinking about and pondering on that little bit of possibility. The one that wouldn’t happen for me –– ‘cause Herry’d, for sure, find out about it, wouldn’t he? But, ya’ know, Jury?! He hadn’t! And in all of the fucking mess during and after the immediate dissolution, all of the travel and all of the paperwork and all of the settling of the sale of the ignoble Othello Drive estate and of the bills with Attorney Jazzy Jinx and all of the sleeplessness and all of the tears and the hugs of just Act One Part One alone, there between my lawyer and me –– and my old girlfriend and “Other Mother” Frieda, too –– had been this little snide smirk all our very own: Dr. Herod Edinsmaier had outright fucking missed the life insurance policy –– and I … also outright … owned it! And I, only I, … only Legion True controlled every little friggin’ bit of it! True it was: Herry didn’t know I still had it or owned it: it was my sweet secret from him –– but the delight, the delectation, the little luxury of it all in Herry’s paying out so, so much to someone else, to Shyster Shindy Scheisser, as passive – aggressively forgetful and as narcissistically incompetent as himself –– why, that was still there for us, for Frieda and me. Throughout all of those hours and hours during which I toiled at my various jobs to pay a doctor child support … for babes whom I couldn’t even talk to and the icy cold ones after I crawled home late at night to finally slumber bundled under heaps of comforters in my little Havencourt apartment without so much as its furnace’s pilot light burning. And it was to that confidence of only ours, almost a cryptogram, a cipher that insurance policy was, one that belonged only to us two and was entirely away and utterly out of the range of Heinous Herod’s evil powers, that Frieda was speaking when she had made me her pure and dear offer to spring for the monthly premiums –– if I could not manage them. Frieda never had to, though. I managed. And I made them all. Myself. True it was, too, that I did not own such things as any visits to the dentist yet or even enough gasoline at times for an entire month, but I made all of those premium installments right along with the child support amounts and the monthly $15 toward “retiring” the huge, Herod – induced hospitalization bill … every frickin’ last one of them myself. That, too, to get that done, to succeed at bringing about these payments on my future –– and on my Boys’ –– all on my own, that had been a private goal which I’d set for myself. My own private quest that had to it a helluva lot more substantive depth and meaning than the rich kid – Idaho film’s had had, that was for sure! Especially since this mission of mine included for me the knowledge that Herod hadn’t beaten me down –– completely. Not entirely had he. Not even from the days of the very First Act had he! Let alone, after those times of the SpaChezResort Sixth Floor Hotel and the Ames Tribune article either! It was clear that I –– I –– had not been the one in this particular dissolution of marriage action who had been … Ames’s village idiot here! * * * *
For as much as I so needed the little extra paid to me from the evening and weekend work at the delicatessen and for as much as I, while there, so appreciated knowing and being around Gert, nearly an octogenarian herself as was Frieda Chicken Guthrie who continued, after Al’s going off “home to the angels,” … naaaaw, off to the verms, to come around the deli, too, at dinnertime, I did not treasure at all the treatment there that the other male workers gave to all of us female employees –– of any age. With the exception of only the delicatessen manager, Mr. Jim Shiloh, who was indeed very kind and as egalitarian in his assignments and approach to subordinate workers as I’ve ever seen or myself experienced from any blue – collar, mid – level type, the entire store’s executive manager, about 45 years old, and all of the other men assigned to work in the deli, all of whom were under 30 years of age and many, but not all, of whom were college students, … harassed and discriminated. And only acted their crimes out onto the others of us there in the delicatessen who were female, never to or upon each other. The rumor mill had it that that executive manager himself was, by the company’s HQ folks, transferred in to the Ames store position just a couple years before I had begun work there –– because of his being legally banished from the residential and employment vicinities of two, unrelated women back in his former city of work in western Iowa. And since that court decree of geographical expulsion included almost all of that previous municipality, then in order for this frigging predator to continue in ‘workplace management’ with the supermarket company chain at all, he had had to be moved all the way out of and completely away from that town! Same exact androcentrically ‘accepted’ maneuver –– in ‘business’ –– as to how … predator priestly fucks are from one parish to another, different one … ‘re – arranged.’ Sure, it was only scuttlebutt and lovely, soft, servile and deferent persons are not supposed to judge nor to base lasting viewpoints on speculative guessing, are we DEhumans?! But I, and other women, too, have a radar –– and the Ick Factor with this marauder in motion anywhere around a particular milieu where I was also moving was …, well, massive! And Mr. Executive Manager came cuntily bull – snorting and vulva – sniffing around … me … a lot! Mustachioed Manager Man ordered the same thing, the same fuckly breakfast meal, never paying for it. And, therefore, I fastidiously grilled up for him two eggs over – easy, two strips of bacon extra crispy and prepared two pieces of buttered white bread, untoasted and spread by my hand, never by his, with only strawberry – flavored jelly plus a bowl of Quaker – brand instant oatmeal, two sugar substitutes and not pure sugars, and with only one ounce of the deli’s Half and Half, every single Saturday and every single Sunday morning that he worked –– which was every single morning that I did ... because, of course, I worked every one of the weekends … when he’d had some of them off! O, and a medium coffee, black –– with one refill, too. Which always gave him the opportunity to ever so slightly rub the backs of my right fingers as his gripping hand grazed mine when he gave me back the white, paper cup to replenish ... I loathed the very sight of Mr. Executive Pervert’s coming, always early and almost like clockwork around 6:20 or so on those two mornings, coming around the fresh – produce displays and on over to the delicatessen’s grilling counter. The Worst –– the absolute worst encounters were the not too infrequent mornings when Depraved Fuckface – Dick chose to test the limits of his frotteuristic indecencies and actually entered the deli area through its aluminum half – door swinging it inwardly instead of out the other way so that his torso and trunk covered in the store’s regulation long – sleeved white shirt and black trousers were more or less forced to barely brush my back and buttocks as he squeezed his garbed genitals between me, my administering to my duties over the blazing – hot grill, and the gargantuan butcher’s block tabletop upon which we deli workers prepared the day’s worth of foodstuffs and which was situated just opposite and only inches from my stance at the front of the grill. Like I said –– Ick Factor big time! But. He was the boss, all of the divisions’ bosses’ boss actually. An’ … and I? I needed the money –– so what was I going to do? Say something?! Say something even to Gert –– Gert … whose very pension depended upon this store and her gazillions of years of groveling there in it for her retirement? Rrriiiiight. So NOT! One hot and steamy August Iowa day, and ya’ might know, it was not only its 13th but also a Friday the 13th, along around about 7:10 on that extra morning for which I had even taken off from my Forestry Department as vacation leave from there a couple of days right after the conclusion of the International Agroforestry Conference in order to help out Mr. Shiloh who needed to absent himself from the delicatessen because of sudden, personal family business that arose, I undid the tied bow of my royal blue, full – length apron. And hoisted it with its skinny neckband and all gathered up over my head and slammed it smack down onto the greasy floor just the grill’s side of that specific half – door. I had had it. Had it, I tell ya’. Four of us flunkies were on duty that Friday morning, two women and two men, and the female one other than myself wasn’t Gert but, instead, an early 20s – something woman just moved up to Ames from Atlanta, Georgia, a nice person whom I’d taken a liking to right off. She very soon had introduced me to the superbly exquisite and enchanting aroma known as Love’s Baby Soft cologne. This job at the deli was her sole means of support, so far, except that she had had the lovely good fortune, at least, to be able to live here in Ames with her grandmother. Ms. Georgia was trying to save up to enroll in the practical nurse’s program at the local community college but hadn’t enough yet for even one term’s worth of its tuition. At 6:30, 6:45, 7 o’clock then, folks were stopping in and coming by for their mighty fine and cheap morning meals before heading out into the community for their usual, heavy workdays, of course. I had had this experience many, many times. Men on all manner of central Iowa’s construction crews especially seemed to truly enjoy what I could routinely cook up for them at that hour. And at that price! Of merely a buck or two –– plus all of the great – tasting java one could chug. With no pressure to tip; there was no added cost to the customer for gratuities whatsoever! So except for that no – tipping part, a regular Louise Sawyer I was –– ya’ know –– Louise of Thelma and Louise! I can even say that I actually liked, except for the ungodly time of the early mornings at when I had to get up and get going, I actually and actively liked what I did, that is ... cooking! Of all things! Mehitable’d’ve been soooo proud of me, I am thinking –– if she’d ever known –– which, of course, she never did. But, then again: No! Probably not at all proud of me would my elitist mother have been –– since this work was for menials, a job only for minions, for fuckers far, far down on labor’s pecking order … come to think of it! Actually it was AmTaham who would have been pleased for me –– had he been alive. Never had AmTaham been one to turn up his nose at another’s honest day’s worth of work nor, for that matter, turn down anyone’s effort at good cooking either! I liked my charge though –– because, for one thing, I was damn good, –– hell, I was great at it, and, two, the folks who purchased ‘my product’ seemed genuinely appreciative of what I could do. Every day that I did it! And it was, like my working inside the Forestry Department, a damn worthy product that I, Dr. Legion True, created there, too! So. This specific morning then I had had six sets of eggs and omelets already spread out on the grill with fresh, raw hash browns crisping up and some sausage patties, some links and some bacon strips on the griddle besides a pair of hotcakes. Those other foods, the potatoes and the meats –– they did not require as much care nor as much watchful vigilance as the hens’ eggs and flapjacks, of course, did. The eggs though were especial; one needed to be right on top of their cooking time always, and a decent – enough cook had better not leave unattended the three – dimensional, white and yellow ovals for too damn long a time or she would just have to friggin’ pitch ‘em entirely and start the fuck all over again. In order for the cook to be correct –– as regards to that which had been her customer’s original order on how he wanted his eggs done. Ms. Georgia stood in the back of the delicatessen –– completely away from the cash register and countertop and fully out of its and my view humped over the hot and deep, stainless steel, dual sinks scrubbing therein … the entire lot of pots and pans with their baked – on and now – dried slop messes which had been left piled high there and wholly undone by the young shift workers of the evening before! This particular event, too, occurred all of the time it seemed: that is, the employees from the night before, ISU students for the most part, just left the worst of the worst for those of us who came in to work early the next morning … to do! And, as I have mentioned before, except for Deli Manager Shiloh himself, only we female laborers ever, ever went back there to the double, vat – sized tubs to take on the sometimes hours and hours of scalding spray which the sweaty burden of scouring out these individual vessels and kettles oftentimes required. Baked beans’ and pot – roast containers were killers on the fingernail lacquer. No way with her location and the clamor of the clanging cauldrons and the whooshing water from its splashing sprayer could Ms. Georgia have heard, and therefore known, what along around 7 a.m. was about to happen. A line of customers, all male and mostly young, I’d surmise all of them under 30ish or so, began to materialize at the cash register. I had started already those six breakfasts at least and just clipped into the wire’s line up in front of me a passel more order slips when it became crystal clear to me … and to the other two workers who, in full view of and speaking – voice volume from the ordering countertop, were shaving that next noontime’s supply of sliced ham and turkey and coating the raw pork tenderloins … … that Dr. True, the lone – ranging grill cook, would not be able to verbally attend to the rest of the newest customers, to write down these latest requests and … yet, at the very same time, to keep a truly close lookout on the progress of the eggs’ yolks presently frying on the hot grill. Spatula in right grip and flipping flapjacks and over – easies this way and that but not yet onto flimsy Styrofoam plates, I glanced over my left shoulder at both of the employees and, without a word spoken, swung my head back over to my right side in the very direction of the languishing customers. Both men’s heads were already oriented in my view; they stared straight at me. For at least 10 or 12 seconds I could ‘feel’ them watching me although I set my field of vision again back down just in front of me and at the yolks’ work right there at the grill. But there could be utterly no mistaking my nonverbal gesturing in seeking their help to follow up with the taking down of new orders. The two guys then turned their heads. Both pairs of their eyeballs looked straight at the row of fellows, some of the patrons now beginning to shift their weights from one foot to the other as folks will do when they tire of standing in the same place without respite, without satisfaction or, in this specific store’s delicatessen venue, … without due attention paid to them! But for the particular two of these slackers to leave their individual tasks not at all necessary at 7 in the a.m. to go attend, instead, to the smooth functioning of the deli’s early – morning breakfasting operation, for these two men to step aside to the nearby faucet, to wash up their hands and to go take up a pen at the countertop to receive and write down food orders –– for me? For me, who was not only a pissant, old bitch but had apparently had the impertinence, the absolute arrogance, the uppity brazenness to actually appear to make commands upon them? Let alone, to make said directives to them right in front of all of those other males waiting up at the cash register? Uh – uh. Noooo way were the two sexist machismos going to budge. No way were these two little shits going to show me any respect whatsoever, not to mention, help me out. So they didn’t. They did not. And the eggs burned. All 12 of them. One dozen yolks! Well, not burnt – burned. But definitely the ‘now’– finished style for every single, last one of them had become … over – extra hard ... when absolutely none of those first six customers had ordered his eggs prepared in any way approximating stiffened sheet rock. Indeed, this grizzled grill cook then had had to throw out the lot of them all. And … to altogether begin over again. So I did. With the first several orders then commencing one more time anew on the hot top, … why, Ms. Georgia happened to come around to the front for a bit of a break to her back, her arms and her fingertips. “You know how to do a number 1 and a number 2 and, ah, ah, a 6 and a 10, don’tcha? I think I’ve seen you cook those four breakfasts before, haven’t I?” I looked at her face squarely. She scrutinized the setup on the griddle at that point. Ms. Georgia nodded and with ever the slightest lip – pursing asserted, “Ah – huh. Yeah, I can do those. You bet.” “O goooo – ood. That’s real, real good. Cuz, ah, cuz, I’m gonna, um, … I’m gonna need you to take over here in just a little bit,” and without one more moment’s hesitation, I had that tied bow behind me undone and was reaching to gather up the mostly – still – fresh whole of that supposedly “protective” blue cloth out in front of me with one hand while transferring with the other to Ms. Georgia the wide – plated, stainless steel spatula. The apron flounced onto the floor; and before those two slacker shits could spring over to the cash box area this time to register there with me any kind of complaint they may have been a – harborin’, that same metal half – door was brushing someone’s backside on my own way out of it! And … without another part – time position, thus no little extra coin on the side, to slip right into, I quit! As well, of course, no past – employer recommendation to be forthcoming on my behalf from this grocery store’s supervisory folks toward my application for another such job either! Friday the friggin’ 13th –– and I frickin’ walked out! Times such as those, one wants eyes in the rear or sides of one’s head –– as it’s most exhilarating, I tell ya’, to watch jaws drop as her strolling – saunter out their portal more or less silently shouts back over her shoulders, “Fuck you, Mister!” In this case and on this specific early morning, I was flipping off about three of this establishment’s misters as I sashayed … … those two turkey – fucking grunts still whittling ham and their eerie, creepy store manager, Mr. Big Ick Factor himself, of whom I’d just caught a glimpse parading around the piles of potatoes apparently feeling a hankering coming on for a bowl of Legion’s hot oats or something and almost an hour later than had been Depraved Executive’s usual harassing time, was about to join that line of milling – around men waiting at her countertop … when, |