"Gettin' Down to the Bone" - A True Story

[Medusa]

*reposted from my private journal*

I once took a temp job at the phone company when I lived in Arkansas. I had been unemployed for about 3 weeks after getting laid off after 9-11 and I was pretty desperate for any kind of income.
I received a call from a recruiter on a Friday and started work the next Monday and much to my surprise, was going to be making almost $25 an hour and would have my own office.
Well, let me tell you that after dumping lavs (bathrooms) on Boeing 737s for 5 years and listening to irate passengers tell me they would 'whip my ass' at least 3 times a week, it was a welcome change.

My recruiter told me nothing about my boss other than she was a 'tough cookie' and that I needed to be on my toes. I would be working in the Engineering department doing simple CAD, lots of paperwork, and occasional trips to help measure and log co-location sites around the state. It sounded like boring work to me but the money put stars in my eyes immediately.

When I arrived for my first day of work, I was greeting by a hulking woman in Levi's jeans. She had closely-cropped hair the color of licorice jelly-beans and long, elegant hands. I imagined maybe that she would play the piano or partake in fine needle-work with hands like those.

"Im Phyllis", she barked, as she stuck out her hand and began walking toward an open elevator door. I followed behind her studying her face, the way she walked, the space she commanded. I guess you could say that I had a huge crush on her from the moment I met her. Not in a sexual way, not even in a "I wanna be your lesbo lover" way, but in the way that you can appreciate another woman's power, her strength, and how you can wonder what she looks like when she makes love or sings in church.
I was fucking fascinated by her.

We tip-toed around each other for a few weeks; me not quite knowing my place at my new job and her not knowing that I was a closet dyke and well-accustomed to working in an all-male, all-whiteboy environment from my days at the airport.
We must have taken at least 10 silent car rides around the state before finally, after a month of working together she asked me if I "had any reservations about eating at Sim's".
"Hell no", I said, "as long as we go to the one on Barrow Rd, its the best".
I didnt figure out until we sat down to eat that by asking me if I 'had any reservations', she didnt mean if I was feeling like eating bbq today. What she had meant was 'did I have any reservations about going into a predominately black neighborhood and being the only white person in the restaurant'.

We ordered a bbq chicken each and iced tea.
Phyllis hovered over the table with her 6'1' frame and fussed with the uncomfortable chair. When the chicken came, it was served on a huge platter with a fork and a napkin. We both peered at each other over the birds and eventually Phyllis picked up a fork and began gently slicing meat from the legs and delicately dabbing the sauce on her lips with a paper napkin.
We made small talk, politely like people do when they dont know what else to talk about. Like sitting across from someone at a table and feeling like you are tossing an egg back and forth over a volleyball net. You can see them, you can hear them, but there is that nasty little fragile egg and if you drop it, that shitty mess is yours to clean up.

I fussed with my fork, feeling frustrated with its dainty bullshit in the midst of my beautiful steaming chicken, wanting to tear into it like a mad person, wanting to slather my face with sauce and feel marrow and crunching bones in my mouth. Phyllis speared tiny pieces that would slide haphazardly in sauce before half of them spilled into her lap, slapping them back on a fork with exaggerated flicks before shoving them in her mouth in a pissed-off flourish.
She grunted and sighed. I exhaled into my tea glass.

All at once, Phyllis threw her fork on the table and looked up at me, "Girl, Im gonna have to get down to the bone on this. I cant do these forks anymore." And with that, she picked up what was left of the chicken carcass and began gnawing from the bone.
I was overcome with secret joy and guffawed into a wing as I grabbed mine up like a baseball bat and greedily ate.

Pretty soon, we were both laughing and after that, having the first 'real' conversation that we had had since I began working there.

Phyllis asked me about the airport. I asked her about her family.
I found out that her daughter was an alcoholic and that Phyllis was raising all 5 of her grandchildren by herself. She had divorced her husband some 20 years earlier and still lived in the same house.

I asked her how long she had been at the phone company.
"almost 30 years", she said.
"THIRTY YEARS??" I was fucking astonished.
I had never pegged Phyllis to be 56 years old and I certainly never would have guessed that she had worked her way up from a LINEMAN.

Phyllis told me her story of how she started out digging ditches for the telephone company back in the 70s. How she was the first and only black female lineman in the entire state of Arkansas for the first 10 years of her career. How she endured harrassments on levels you could not even fathom, and how after 30 years she was the Manager of Engineering for our district and it still was the 'same ballgame, but different outfits'.
So for about the bazillionth time in the month I had been working for Phyllis, I was fascinated by this woman and amazed by her story.

I tried to imagine myself in her place. Carving out a place in a sea of white men. Working in the 70s when women were still systematically pushed to the back of the line when it came to employment. What it would mean to work for a company for 30 years. Sometimes I still try to imagine that space in time, because I think it was the first time I had conciously made the decision to think about race and what it meant on a level other than my own.

Phyllis showed me things in my year at the phone company that nobody had been able to show me up until that time and mostly, not since. I learned about business from this woman, about strength, about wathching out for yourself, and mostly about the fact that I had a lot of work to do around race...namely thinking about my own white privelege.

I still think about the phrase that Phyllis used that day at the bbq restraunt. "Get down to the bone".
We got down to the bone with each other that day. We cast aside dainty forks and frilly overtures and we gnawed on each other's lives and smeared the sauce around for good measure. It was one of my most satisfying meals ever.

Now, for me, 'getting down to the bone' signifies a hundred different things...but it always manifests itself the same way. It comes from frustration, from desire, from the part where I eschew common courtesies and bullshit niceties of this world and I grease my face up good on something yummy. Rarely am I dissappointed.

I called Phyllis about 3 years ago. Right before I started working for the State. I wanted to touch base with her and let her know that someone would be calling her for a reference. She asked how I was. I asked how she was. We exchanged niceties. Before hanging up, I told Phyllis that I was about to embarrass her and to just shut up and listen. I told her that she changed my life, that she was one of the most fascinating women I ever met, that I learned so much from her and that I would always remember her.
She barked at me to stop making her weepy and told me to get my ass a good job and settle down, to always remember to watch my ass and to give her a call every now and then to let her know Im ok.

I have been thinking about her for the last 4 days. Im going to call her tomorrow.

I dont know why I wanted to write about Phyllis but I thank her into the universe for the gifts that she gave me.

Phyllis, you cant hear me but 'thanks' for teaching me how to get down to the bone.


angie