Passage

She began to get a snack for Clovis. He soon came into the kitchen, grimy-faced and big-eyed; sleepy-headed, but not good sleepy like a man after a day’s work. Fidgety – some part of him never wanting to go to bed because it was morning – and short-worded when he asked why Reuben was so late starting to school. She never knew what to feed him when he got home from work – food that was neither breakfast, dinner, nor supper. Today, she fixed pork chops, eggs, fried potatoes, and toast. He ate right well, through his lunch, when she opened the box, looked as if it had hardly been touched.
Finished with his food, he leaned back smokinga cigarette, and seemed in such good humor that she tried her often asked but seldom answered question, “How was it?” risking short words, some story of trouble with the foreman or the union steward, or worse, news of a wildcat strike or walkout in some other department that could tomorrow put him out of work. But it was worth the chance that he might tell something of what the people about him had said or done.
Today, though he looked more tired than usual, he smiled at her question nad gave a little headshake. “Boy, did I work, an I mean work. A body ud think I broke th danged machines th way that big-headed Polock foreman was allus on my neck. They ain’t made to take that high production quota they put on Monday. An most a th dad-blamed fools that runs em has stood around an done nothen so long they cain’t take it neither. An that dumb Polock foreman must in Hitler’s pay – th way he fixed th hands around.”
“Wotta yu mean, Pop?” It was Enoch, who, still on the afternoon shift at school, seldom bothered to get out of bed until his friend Mike came calling.
“Oh,” Clovis said, pushing his chair back and corssing his legs, “if he don’t like a feller’s looks he puts him on a job he thinks he cain’t do. He’s like th Dalys an all th rest a these foreigners – he hates everything an everybody that ain’t just like hissef. An does he hate niggers! Calls em shines, an gives em th meanest jobs. Last night he put a spindly yaller gal, smart-looken too, on one a them bad kind a presses that works with a food treadle, an alley’s allus th chance that if you git too tired er sleepy you’ll tramp that treadle while you’ve got yer hands under (Arnow 343-44).

Home | Passage | Works Cited