Run For Home by Jeremy Nathan Marks

Janna was a downtown parking garage attendant who hadn’t ended up in the job, she’d chosen it. The world was her oyster, as people in her class were fond of saying. But Janna’s pearls were Impalas, Chargers, and the occasional Studebaker or Nash Rambler. She loved working underground in a damp and dark space smelling of water, iron, mold, and motor oil. Janna liked a dirty job.

Her mother didn’t understand this. ‘You don’t need to work, so why do you work?’ she kept asking. ‘If you’re going to actually work, why do something that’s bound to ruin your looks?’  

Janna found this funny at first. But since some version of the conversation happened each day, she no longer laughed.

‘I just don’t understand your need to work.’

‘It’s not a need, mother. It’s a want.’

‘Why on earth would you want to work? You’re not a man.’

Every morning, Janna took the El down the lakeshore to the loop, where she occupied a booth in which she issued stubs and took payments. She also parked and moved cars. Janna did this eight hours a day, five days a week, and had never been happier.

‘Don’t tell me you’re interested in cars?’

‘Not particularly.’

‘Then why work with them?’

‘I don’t work with them. I work alone.’

‘Don’t be smart. Why don’t you sell furs instead?’

‘Furs?’

‘Yes.’

‘I don’t want to sell furs. I don’t even like fur.’

‘What’s to like? You said you want to work.’

‘I don’t want to sell anything.’

Janna’s mother sipped her chilled white wine and started directing her questions to herself. ‘Can women sell furs? Are they allowed?’ She went to the big windows and watched closely a group of yachts out on Lake Michigan. They looked like bathtub toys in the distance.

‘Jan. What if you sold real estate? I’m pretty sure women can do that.’

‘I don’t want to sell real estate.’

‘But you could.’

Janna went to the fridge and pulled the tab on a beer.

‘My God!’ her mother gasped.

‘What? Did a friend’s yacht sink?’

‘A woman shouldn’t sell anything!’

Janna looked quizzically at her mother.

‘A woman who sells is selling herself, and that’s immoral.’ She thought about this statement a moment then looked askance at the beer in Janna’s hand. ‘Are you trying to gain weight?’

‘I like beer.’

‘When have you ever had beer? Surely, no friends of yours ever drank it.’

‘They do now.’

‘Who drinks it?’

Janna stood beside her mother. Lake Michigan was brilliant blue under a cloudless sky. ‘A dead lake,’ she thought out loud.

‘What?’

‘The lake. It’s dead.’

‘Oh, that.’ Her mother studied the yachts. ‘You should have Frank take you out on his boat.’

Janna sipped her beer.

‘It’s so dark in garages, isn’t it?’

‘You’ve never been in one?’

‘No. Why would I ever?’

‘You’ve never even been interested in seeing one?’

‘You know what’s interesting? Your father hasn’t taken me out once this year. I might have to ask Frank if you won’t.’

‘I haven’t talked to Frank in years.’

‘Frank is an excellent sailor.’

‘Give him my regards.’ Janna downed her beer and headed for the door.

‘Where are you going?’

‘I don’t know.’

But Janna did know. There was a bar near the garage where she knew the bartender. Even though the bar wasn’t far from the Loop, it felt like a bungalow belt establishment. No suits ever drank there. When she walked in, the Sox were on television, and two men were having a conversation in a language Janna thought was Polish. It was a quiet conversation. She hailed her friend Jeff, who was bartending the afternoon shift.

‘Beer or something stronger?’ he asked her.

‘I just had a beer.’

‘Alright.’ Jeff turned around and pulled a bottle with no label off the shelf. He poured something into a shot glass and slid it in front of her.

‘What’s this?’

‘A Chicago handshake.’

‘Ooh. I’ve heard about this.’

‘Tell me.’

‘They drink them in East Chicago.’

‘You trying to hurt my feelings?’

‘Tell me something: can women sell furs?’

‘Is that the set up to a dirty joke?’

Janna downed the shot and made a face.

‘Our finest.’

‘What’s in that?’

‘Depends on who you ask. This one asshole told me that since it tastes like the air you breathe in a grapefruit grove, the drink must be made of grapefruit droppings. Another guy said he was pretty sure a handshake is fermented printer’s ink.’

Janna concentrated on her tongue for a moment. ‘Graphite,’ she said. ‘That’s what it is.’

‘Like pencil lead?’

‘No. 2 pencil shavings. I’m sure of it.’

‘You could write an entrance exam with your tongue.’

Jeff poured himself a handshake and studied the glass. ‘Huh,’ he said. ‘I think the answer to number seven is C.’

The roar of a southside crowd escaped from the television. Janna turned and saw Dick Allen touch home, doff his cap, and wave to the stands. The two men who’d been talking in Polish were silent.

‘Bieg do domu?’ Jeff asked.

‘Nie,’ one of the men said. ‘Homer,’ and he pointed at the screen.

‘I can’t speak Polish worth a shit,’ Jeff said and downed his shot. ‘God, that’s like a grove of muskmelons growing smack in the middle of Union Carbide.’

‘You never gave me an answer. Can women sell furs?’

‘Women can do what women can do. Why furs? Why not cars?’

‘Cars? What make?’

‘Any make and model. Anything Detroit.’

‘How about Japanese or German?’

‘Anything.’

‘My mother thinks women can’t sell anything. She thinks that when a woman sells, she’s selling herself. That makes it dirty. I guess women can sell, it’s just that they shouldn’t.’

‘She’s pretty philosophical.’

‘She thinks I’m wrecking my looks for minimum wage. She says that if I’m going to work, I should be selling furs not parking cars. But she also thinks I shouldn’t be working.’ Janna spun her shot glass on the bar. ‘I’m confused. Is she saying the only things I should be doing are the things I shouldn’t be doing? I mean, I should be selling furs because it’s better for my complexion. But I shouldn’t be selling furs because it would make me a loose woman.’  

‘My mother walks everywhere.’

‘Mine has a chauffeur.’

‘Really.’

‘She does.’

‘Jesus. My old man thinks women shouldn’t accept rides from any man not her husband.’

‘Not even a cab driver?’

‘Especially not a cab driver.’

‘Your father sounds like my mother. Does your mother drive?’

‘No. Pop’s got the one car and says women have some kind of congenital defect making them unable to operate machines with steering wheels.’

‘You should tell him I park cars all day.’

‘He’d say that’s great, so long as you’s not driving them.’

‘What do you say? Can women drive cars?’

‘Women can do what women can do.’ Jeff poured her another handshake. ‘Drink this so Allen gets up and runs for home again.’

‘Runs for home.’

‘Yeah. I think that’s what I said to those guys.’ He sniffed the handshake. ‘Musk melons ripening on the killing floor. Here.’

‘If my mother knew I was drinking this she’d tell me I’m working overtime to wreck my looks.’

‘This stuff only destroys you on the inside.’

‘So, I can’t have kids if I drink this?’

Jeff looked thoughtful. ‘Bieg do domu,’ he said.

‘That’s Polish?’

One of the men down the bar turned and said, ‘It something. But Polish? Not when it comes out his mouth.’

‘Homer,’ Jeff said and the two men laughed.

*

Janna left the bar about an hour after sundown.

‘I leave you to your kingdom,’ she said, gesturing to the two Polish men. No one had come in all afternoon.

‘Wait till the social services checks show up next week,’ Jeff said. ‘Then I’ll have to do my job.’

He offered to call her a cab, but Janna said she had no money for a tip and preferred to walk. One of the Polish men said something and Jeff shook his head.

‘He says, “There goes the neighborhood.” I think he means well.’

‘What do I say to him: Bieg do domu?’

‘Proszę.’

One of the men shook his head and winked at Janna. ‘You know more Polish than he.’

On her brisk walk to the loop to catch an El, Janna scanned the streets, wondering whether all her underground parking work had given her above ground smarts. She doubted it. Despite the fine weather, the street was quiet. A man sat on a stoop and drank something out of a paper bag and once she heard some music from an open window. There were no cabs.

At home, Janna found her mother where she’d left her, seated in front of the window. The sky still held some light and the yachts on the lake glowed from their deck and cabin lamps. She poured herself a glass of milk and sat with her mother.

‘I wish we had one of those.’

‘We do, mom.’

‘Your father’s not taken me out on it and it’s already summer.’

‘You’ve not been sitting here staring this whole time, have you?’

‘I’ve done some things today.’

‘Did you find out whether I can sell furs?’

‘What?’

‘Never mind.’

‘Smart ass.’

‘I was talking to someone who told me I could sell them and real estate if I wanted to. He said I can do absolutely anything.’

‘Is he good looking at least?’ Her mother closed her eyes and seemed to fall asleep.

‘No,’ Janna said quietly.

She squinted until the lights of the yachts blurred and melted into the water. The group of boats was close enough together to seem like a convoy. Janna wondered whether the people on board could feel her eyelids squeezing them tightly, until sky and water pressed the entire party into pancakes.

I could sink all their boats, she thought.

Jeremy Nathan Marks lives in the Great Lakes Region of North America (on the non-Rust Belt side). He works in adult education and the skilled trades.