R. P. Singletary

Cw: self-harm (implied), fitting in when you don't look the same (or feel the same), race and gender and family relations, language as link and/or barrier, PARENTAL EXPECTATIONS EMBODIED, etc. 

“CAMOU counts (OR, parental expectations embodied)”

ALL IN CAMOU (to hide some think) and in their common brogue (all the same the world to know): Told 'em made no difference TO HER to her. Not how much earlier they done waked up: At four, five, six? Not how much more politer they might talk it up: Yes ma'am, yes'm, hut-two three-; it's HUP. Not even what they done et or not et for breakfast, dinnah, suppah. Never mind none of it. She didn't reckon enough to care. Wouldn't, couldn't. They all spoke the same language, didn't they: w o r k 

“Can't--make--me” 

Outnumbered. Numb. 

Some of the guys laughed too hard like they meant more of it than their joke let on. “Can't. Make. Me.” 

She uttered the words maybe a dozen times more before 12's noon knock-off. She the boss, them her rules and while today they worked for her – at present, she reminded – that could directly change faster than any wind. 

“Still stormy season, ya know?” 

She lifted her heavy, pretty arm and pointed out into the high-highest heavens, their darkest corner's dark, the constant direction of old Charleston down river far, where they all knew it to always be from (even the newest, quick-study arrivals to a nation, them who'd joined up on the team already knowing hard work, machinery skill, and decent English just not hers, her old guys' particular accent, accident of lazy tongue, but they'd learn fast to make do or more, why hired her team): one, the baddest of rains forever and still rose up from a southeast; two, the worst of winds wept up from that ever-swirling Cooper River; three, its flow keen for new blood but four, more salty-sea tea-tannic than cold-copper's tonic elemental. That be in look! taste, touch, or sniff. And sniff and 

“Storm!” 

Shoving the telltale mix of cool-humid air to make her silly point, fast gaming the good boys as she'd been tough-taught to lead with humored ease, them men all on her lady watch, Papa's priss and she the straight man among them. She didn't mean or love a word of it, her harshness. She closed her camouflage-covered truck door like a lady, happy the last to knock off as all gone they couldn't hear her humming, the kind country music, didn't give the right kinda damn, and let her truth sing and show out for once in a hairy moon, but she wasn't that smart to hide, just lovable and human. Didn't believe a stitch of her own talk. Not a sentence, a sound, a slur of speech, no never a thing racist or misandrist. She loved her some men, though not in that particular way, all shades of skin, slick, ticker inclusive. She grew tired of having to talk the words to accomplish the simplest of stuff. Every hour on every job with all them fellas. Not like her Papa done. When he still there to run things like a man. 

On her twelfth birthday, her Papa bought her a little camouflage neckerchief, thought it cute, a girly girl dressed a boy, and she played along, always anything to please that pop, all through high school and later, and she joked for years ever since, in and out of deer, duck, and turkey season: “My favorite color.” Closet full, some come to see. 

It was all anyone could remember having seen draped across her back or neck, flesh or hair, the blended colors of murky green and woodsy brown hiding her now-older body and said same head, protecting. From southerly heat all twelve months and then some in this section. Hell, the guys spotted even a little camou around her ankles when her pants legs crept up, her hopping on the big boy of machines. Some days, the men of her crew couldn't recall the exact color of boss-lady's tresses to joke about a dye job. She kept it all covered up and hidden under the camou hunting caps. Longtimers recognized the hats. They been the boss-lady's daddy's, and they let it drop whenever a newbie would ask too personal, but don't call her boss-lady, the older ones would shake out the word with a pointed dirty finger.

Boss, 

yeah that always a red-letter, A-plus, A-OK, fine to the Miss nickname, but no sir, not no lady, not nary a mention of woman or mama or babies, definitely not baby around her, cuz it would send her into a hissy or a tizzy or whatever state of mind or being that funk they hoped to live out their own lives long and hard without seeing another single time cast upon her. It tried to scratch out their eyes that once. A new boy called her “Miss” Robustier. At least he studied up on the Huguenot part, pronounced the surname the weird way the family did, but the “Miss” handle part canceled out everything or tried to, a bad check returning again and again to blimey. Boss sent him packing, boy never recovered, don't think he lasted a full week at his next two jobs. Awful stuff what she said to him, bruises deeper than bone. (He belonged elsewheres for his own sake and that of his family.) 

ALMOST HOME, she switched channels on the radio. She wanted pink. Lace, sweet things to match the sweet tea she drank with the guys every meal and snack, although she didn't really like iced tea. She liked hot coffee with extra fresh full cream and plenty of brown sugar, it best be all finely granulated like on Tea-Day afternoons. Her Granny had served it that way when they hosted tea parties on days not so hot, and her Papa would knock off early, stop by, and lift his sun-burnt, crusty pinky to please his little girl. Even back then she preferred coffee in her fancy London cup, and she loved the fancy. 

Amid the WOODED WONDER of her home alone in the pines, she stripped off the green overalls, touching them like a recalled sin or hungry wart, either wanting, always worthy of more caress. Reconsidering no, not all that dirty in this light, their colored whorls wore well the wear all these years. A good purchase mighty long ago, Papa would've been proud, and of her nails too, her hands mostly shell-pink glow despite the work's hard week, her sole righty pinky a touch of camou color indulged in dirt, a cake of land all her own! Her face girled a tea-time grimace admiring memory, Granny gone, boding beauty of self come evening, Papa put to bed eternal, she sat long in the truck's cab, in the driver's seat of Papa's very own, the good old pickup, those legacies as well now all hers too, to live with too and do with as want come day or play and she knew how, she felt him, her Papa approving, smiling back at her in the broken mirror's reflection never needing any repair to fix-- She the boss most of the day at his built-up business inherited, this month a good six near-to-Sabbath days full on never to climb upon or fall under any big machine not one on her team, no new boys to train in how, twelve weeks' time since that last one untoward gone; she wished him well and done made it right, his third-next job guaranteed by not four but five pleased calls to Papa's cousin one, two counties over. 

She put the soured clothes in the hamper, what really a big plastic tub her friend bought at the new mega-store on the bypass clear out on the other side of town unfrequented. She didn't drive down that way much, no need, no business there for her. She hoped her friend would stop back by there, that store, tonight on her way home, maybe with some more essential things: a steak or chicken or two beer or wine. Really didn't care, she easy enough to please, as was her friend, the reason among others they clicked. 

Thoughts of liquid hurried. She had coffee for the rest of their weekend. Beer, she hoped for more beer. She ran the shower and watered the drain. It felt so good. The shower's flow already hot like her own down and away, back to the river. She was not tired from the day, but 

from life's lingering heat unrelenting, and she moved slow even for a November Thursday not Thanksgiving. Her friend had swept up their room, she saw, put in a new pane of glass over the bed, life resuming after last week's hurricane blown back through on a last-minute veer, not much damage to the sheds at home or any equipment broke up at work. “Thank God, it turned back.” Through the shower's steam, she could also see the cleaned bed in the other room, but without any mirror in the shower, bedroom or bath-, she could not see she'd be better off avoiding both beer and barbecue that night (or another size of lingerie necessity, that her friend would never mind), but maybe then for her two more reasons given to skip annual family get together in two unending weeks. 

Dripping dry, she saw more evidence her friend been there again on errands needing her way: a left-open bedroom closet door, laid-out pinkest pair of nighties, their floral spread of bed unfolding. Pink, girly pink, her only color in all that room, what they today shared, oddly connecting – she inhaled – to back when every scent of sense out in the clear, God's country land smelling of linen pretty, and denimed Papa sat soiled atop the big brown, tan, and yellow machines, yellow Papa's bestest in his own uncolored world and word illiterate, Papa manning the work as best he could without a wife, in his own way, team's times and colors, all creeds now hers and hers and hers, and theirs. Not two but one this time, in feeling neither fleeting. 

THE END