High Noon in Winatoba

High Noon in Winatoba(Barbara Mullen) HIGH NOON IN WINATOBA

A Short Story
by
Barbara Mullen


On a Saturday morning in 1952 the strikers gathered near the front entrance of the Bell Telephone Building. Molly squeezed into line with the other excited phone girls as a union man in a Ma Bell sweatshirt shoved a cardboard sign nailed to the end of a wooden stick into her hand. She whipped her sign around to read the list of their demands: secure pensions, higher wages, more bathroom breaks, permission to wear slacks and soda machines in the lunch room. Then a Telephone Workers Union official, a large gray haired man, leaped from the rear of a pickup truck and another group of men, installers and linemen wearing Michigan Bell leather jackets waved at him. “Howdy, Jake. Welcome to the picnic.”

Jake threw his hand in the air forming a victory sign and then yelled at the strikers, “Stop your giggling. Walk more briskly round and round the circle. Keep up the pace.”

One of the linemen started to pass out brown lunch bags and assign times for each girl to take a twenty minute break. While circling as ordered, the operators told worn out jokes and gossiped, mostly about boys they all knew. Finally bored with that, they made up stories about well known cantankerous town folks who were probably going berserk over delays in their service. That got the group to laughing again and Jake hollered, “Knock it off. Now!”

At last it was Molly’s turn for a break. Starved after all that walking and talking she settled down on one of the cement stairs leading to the big bad building. Molly considered this concrete, practically windowless structure to be her very own personal Bastille Prison. Every Saturday and Sunday she disappeared behind its immense brass doors to sit in a straight wooden chair in front of a long blinking switchboard for an eight hour shift. She’d been working on weekends for about a year to pay for her freshman classes at Northern Michigan University. She had voted for the walkout as soon as she heard that union demands would increase her puny salary by ten dollars a week.

Her mouth was now watering to bite into the delicious bologna and mayo sandwich she knew was in her brown bag. She had barely started to remove the cap from her Coke bottle when the first raw egg landed squarely in the middle of her forehead.

“Shit! What was that?” she yelped. A second later ripe tomatoes started flying, exploding on their faces and slapping at their hair. She wiped squished tomatoes from her face with her jacket sleeves and was shaken by what she saw when she opened eyes. More townspeople were fast accumulating on the sidewalk across the street. The mother of one of her best friends wiggled her way to the front of the growing crowd carrying two large Piggly Wiggly grocery bags that Molly figured were packed with fresh ammunition. Folks kept on congregating, maybe forty or fifty by now. Molly’s cranky old high school algebra teacher had just shown up with an egg carton under his arm. Nearby she spotted an old fellow, a Center Street neighbor of theirs, toss his cane to the ground, then lean back against a light post, wind up and zing what looked like a ripe peach straight at her.

She’d been too busy covering her face with her arms, the same as all the other phone girls, to listen to the what people were actually yelling. The first words she made out were, “GODDAM REDS!” from the mouth of a burly unshaven fellow in a red checkered shirt.

Then she heard a dear old friend of her grandmother’s scream a mouthful. “For heavens sake, girls. You want people to think you’re Commies? Go on home where you belong!” She pointed at Molly in particular and bellowed out, “Molly, I’m going to stop at your grandma’s on the way home and tell her exactly what you’re up to.”

Just then, one of the union leaders, a tall man wearing a sparkly union badge on his chest, himself doused with debris, ordered us in a deep base voice: “Okay, everybody, get on your feet and start walking again. We can wash up later. The Winatoba Daily Mining Journal photographer is on his way over to take pictures. So for Christ’s sake, keep marching and try not to cry.”

Molly straightened up and, along with the rest of the strikers, picked up her sign and started circling again. They even smiled for the camera man. As soon as the newspaper people left, Jake, the hefty union leader, climbed to the top of the Telephone Company stairs and bellowed out through a bullhorn: “We’re in this together and we’re going to win! We are supporting you telephone gals cuz next year you’re gonna do the same for us men when we go out. Now, doncha worry. We have a lot of support in town. You’ll see. These crazies across the street don’t give a damn about other people’s problems. Cry babies all of them. Boo-hoo, boo-hoo – they can’t make a phone call for a day.”

The girls laughed and then started to clap.

“Okay, we’ll leave here in half an hour,” Jake shouted through his bullhorn. “Everybody come back to the union hall and we’ll make further plans.” He smiled and winked at the operators. “They’re already making coffee to warm you up at the hall and setting out fresh donuts too.” Then he hollered louder yet: “Good job, women. Proud of you!”

“Women,” Molly savored the brand new word in her head for a full minute, feeling more grown up all of a sudden and excited about doing something that seemed to be important.

Usually having nothing much to say at the dinner table, Molly was dying to tell the family, especially her dad, about her exciting day. Molly’s dad was a proud Republican who loved to explain why Republicanism was good for the common man and how less government and pure capitalism allowed people to succeed to their fullest ability. She had heard his speech so many times she’d memorized it. But this time she was going to tell him how she’d stood up for the common man.

She’d have to wait till dinner though because as soon as her father arrived home he always read his Milwaukee Sentinel newspaper cover to cover undisturbed. He saved his favorite columnists, Westbrook Pegler and William Buckley, till last and usually quoted them later during dinner.

Molly accepted as fact that her dad was an intelligent, honest and principled man. As manager of a woodenware manufacturing company and owner of a popular spirits and deli store, he was one of the most respected people in Winatoba, her 14,000 population town on the shores of Lake Superior. Oh, how she wanted to impress him for a change. She slid into the chair next to him at the dinner table. “You won’t believe how we stood up to the protesters today,” she began before breathlessly reporting every detail of her day down to the last tomato that had dripped from her nose. At the end, she shrieked, “It was stupendous!”

As though waking from a nightmare, her dad, eyes round, complexion ruby red, shot his six foot frame up from his chair. “You were marching out there with that bunch of numbskulls? Is that what you’re telling me?”

“Aren’t you proud of me?” she sputtered. “If the union wins, we’ll all be earning more money….”

“You don’t get more money that way – yelling and hollering in the street. You earn more money with hard work. You keep your nose to the grindstone. How many times must I say that? If your company makes profits from your diligence they’ll reward you with higher wages. The profit is what matters. Profit is what it’s all about. That’s how it works; that’s how it’s supposed to work. The harder you work, the longer hours you put in, the more profit the company makes and the more they can pay you.”

He narrowed his piercing blue eyes and glanced fleetingly around the table, obviously preparing to address everyone, Molly, her older brother, two sisters, two younger brothers and their mother. Their mother hadn’t discussed her own political leanings with her husband since the time she voted for Franklin D. Roosevelt and he hadn’t spoken to her for a month. Molly had been too busy working and studying and having fun with her friends to spend time worrying about politics. Still, she knew one thing for sure, that at that moment no-one at the table would disagree with their father.

Her mother appeared attentive but her brothers and sisters didn’t miss taking a single forkful of meatloaf and mashed potatoes. Her dad ran his fingers through his thick sandy-gray hair and shook his head. He glared down at Molly, “Cripes, haven’t you heard a blasted word I’ve ever said? This is a capitalist nation, not a disgusting COMMUNIST STATE. Let the Russians divide up their wealth and extinguish all personal initiative. They’ll fall on their asses sooner or later. And we won’t. We are Americans! Are you listening, girl?”

Molly nodded that yes she was.

He stepped further back from the table. “Freedom, that’s what our forefathers fought for. Not for some Big Brother Stalin or Khrushchev or whoever to dictate our choices for us… where we work… where we live… what we listen to on the radio… what music we’re allowed to play.” He swallowed hard but kept going. “What kind of art is acceptable…who goes to university. Russian people can’t object to orders. Only Communist Party members and military officers can participate in the government.

“In America we need incentive to invest in industry. Do you and your union want to force companies to pay wages that will bankrupt them? Capitalism is motivated by PROFIT. Profit is what allows healthy businesses to pay higher wages. Not demands by workers to pay wages a company can’t afford.” He sucked in a big breath. “I sure as hell didn’t know you joined the union. You talk to those phone girls tomorrow and tell them to have some pride in themselves.
Romping through the streets like an army of whores!”

He swiped his hand across his forehead. “A daughter of mine!” He gasped before pulling his chair back up to the table and sitting down. “Is this what I’ve worked for? What is our damn world coming to? FDR, income tax, welfare, now this disgrace in my own family?”

He finished his dinner at their now silent table and retired to the living room with his portable radio to listen to conservative broadcaster, Fulton Louis Jr., deliver his half hour commentary on RKO news.

Confused, Molly stayed awake into the wee hours that night asking herself: What should I do? Desert my co-workers and union leaders? I’ve never doubted my father had good sense. I believed he was right about almost everything. Well, everything really. And now I’m not sure what I think. The operators and union men have a point, don’t they? They sure don’t look like Communists. Of course, how would I know what a Communist looked like? I’ve never met one or at least anyone who admitted to being one. So if Communist women aren’t allowed to march around making demands like an army of whores why would the egg-throwers think we were Communists? In fact, I’m pretty sure most of the phone girls don’t know one stinking thing about Communists. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, some of them are Catholics. And I’m almost positive a person can’t be a Catholic and a Communist at the same time.

Still perplexed, Molly woke up with a dreadful headache the next morning. She hadn’t given a thought to whether the strike was right or wrong other than agreeing that she should be paid more. While finishing her oatmeal she decided to visit the union hall to ask a few questions before their early morning picket line. Armed with a list of points her father had made at dinner the evening before, she climbed the well worn steps to the union headquarters above Penney’s Department Store. Trembling a little, she entered the wide open hall with its pictures of clench-fisted laborers plastered on the walls and an immense Power to the Working Man poster hanging above a space heater at the far end of the room.

Two phones rang on Jake’s cluttered desk as she approached the man whose bullhorn had boosted her self-image the day before. “Excuse me,” she said. “Could you answer a few questions for me?”

“Why sure.” He motioned for her to sit down while gulping down a large swallow of his coffee. He leaned back in his chair and set down his mug. “Okay, we start picketing same as yesterday in front of the Bell Building at 8:00.”

“Well, thanks, but that wasn’t my question. Here’s the thing. My dad thinks we’re dead wrong to strike. He says we’re trying to undermine the capitalist system that has made this country great.” Then she read aloud each item on her sheet of paper.

“Huh? Was he one of the protesters across the street yesterday?”

“Oh no. He’s way above that sort of thing.”

“And who is your daddy?”

“Jack Callahan.”

“You mean Callahan, the manager of Wooden Works who has the spirits and deli store?”

“That’s him.”

Jake called out to a man across the room. “Hey, Andy, come over here. You might want to hear this.”

Andy, a blond headed young Swede who had marched alongside the phone girls the day before, bounded over to Jake’s desk. “What’s up?”

Jake looked over at Molly. “What’s your name, young woman?”

“Molly.”

“You see, Andy, Molly’s papa doesn’t like us much. You know, Callahan, Callahan Spirits & Deli Shop on Center Street?” Then Jake turned back to Molly. “Is there anything else your daddy had to say regarding the strike?”

“Well, he says we’re a bunch of commie sympathizers and un-American. And I want you to tell me if he’s wrong.”

“Oh, I’ll be glad to explain that to you,” Jake said, “Then you’ll understand that your daddy’s the one who’s confused. You stick by me today and I’ll answer all your questions, Molly.”

He glanced over at Andy and smiled. “I think we can use this, don’t you?”

“Oh, yeah, most definitely,” Andy answered.

By the end of the afternoon Molly was exhausted, not so much from the picketing and ducking of more eggs and tomatoes as from Jake’s answers to all the questions she hadn’t asked him about the history of unions in the United States. Her best bet when she got home, she figured, was to say she wasn’t feeling well, make a nice big cheese and mustard sandwich and hunker down for the night in her room. She was taken aback however when she saw her dad’s car already parked in their driveway.

Inside the house her father was seated at the dining table with the Daily Mining Journal spread open in front of him.

On her way to the kitchen Molly glanced down at the paper’s headlines that read: “BELL TELEPHONE WORKERS PLAN TO BOYCOTT CALLAHAN STORE." Stunned, she scanned the article quickly over his shoulder. Her dad’s words, the ones she’d given Jake the day before, leaped up off the page.

Her father twisted around in his chair and glared up at her. “Get that girl out of my sight!” he growled at her mother who had dashed into the room from the kitchen.

“Holy Cow!” Molly sputtered. “I told them how you felt about the strike. That’s all. I wanted them to hear your side of the story.”

“Jasus, Girl, unions are the enemy. You wouldn’t walk into the Kremlin and tell the Comrades what you think of their filthy Siberian slave labor camps, would you? Hell, you probably would.”

“You always say if you believe in something, you should say so. I’m pretty sure you’re not shaking in your boots over a boycott by a few telephone workers, are you? How many people in town will pay attention to their little boycott anyway?” Then noting the disbelief in her father’s eyes, Molly made a dash toward the stairs to her room -- forget the cheese sandwich!

When her classes finished the next afternoon Molly ran eight blocks to their spirits shop. Her mother met her at the door with a labored sigh. “Oh, Molly, This isn’t good. I opened the shop as usual at seven and made the coffee and set the honey buns out on the front counter. Only three of our forty or more morning people showed up. Only a few stragglers wandered in this afternoon. We certainly didn’t need two cashiers so I told Mabel to go home.”

Molly’s mother grabbed a clump of her thick auburn hair and twisted it between her fingers. “I hate to tell your father this bad news. Looks like your strikers do have a lot of friends in town after all.”

“Oh, Mom. Dad’s unshakable when it comes to standing up to his beliefs. He’ll ride this out.”

“I guess you’re right.” Her mom released her hair and cupped her hands to her hips. “Sure, I guess he’ll want to show them what the Callahans are made of all right.”

“Sure will.” Molly smiled. “You know how loyal he is to his own opinions. He’ll probably be fighting mad.”

The following day, curious, but apprehensive, Molly trudged down the Front Street hill toward Main Street and the Penney’s building after classes. Worried that the union might be boycotting her along with her father, she crept up the staircase and cautiously opened the door. Carrie, her best operator friend, spotted her and screeched loud enough for everyone inside to hear: “She’s here! She’s here!”

A dozen people rushed toward Molly and started to pump her hand wildly. Jake, who’d stayed at her side the day before filling her ears with union talk, dashed over to her. “Good job,” he said with a wide grin. “You work fast. How did you win over your father in one day?”

“What? I don’t….”

“Imagine him sending us all this stuff, bottles of Jameson’s Irish whiskey, cases of Guinness Stout! And now this….” He swept an arm in the direction of delivery men arriving that moment with bins of ice cream and arms full of cookie boxes. We can sure use this kind of support. Your father apologized on the phone.”

Andy, Jake’s second in command, dashed over to her. “You must have done some speedy talking last night to change your dad’s mind.” He smiled broadly. “If you weren’t underage, girl, I’d give you a big kiss and toast you with a cold beer. Well, damn, we sure thought your pa would stonewall our boycott.”

“So did I, ” Molly said.

“Here’s to our heroine of the day,” Andy announced as his big Swedish frame hauled her over to a table where a dozen phone operators were already devouring chocolate ice cream and sugar cookies. She sat down with them and a moment later Andy set a helping of ice cream and cookies in front of her. Too bewildered to think, she plastered a smile on her face, dug into the ice cream and pretended that nothing about this celebration was the least bit astonishing or just plain crazy.

She took her time walking and thinking on the way home from the hall. I’d have sworn at the foot of the Virgin Mary statue in St. Francis Cathedral that my father would have been the last man standing in any high noon face-off. His staunchness was a given I could rely on. But did I always agree with what he was saying, she wondered. And answered, I don’t know. He never asked my opinion. I suppose I should have made my own judgment about the strike beyond a couple of dollars increase in my salary a week. So, how do I really feel about the strike, she asked herself while lumbering down Center Street. I like my switchboard coworkers, women union members, as Jake calls us. I respect the union men. I’m sure they work harder and longer hours for way less pay than their bosses in the fancy offices on the top floor of the Michigan Bell Bastille and live in their make believe palaces on tree lined streets along the lake.

She sat down on a bench on Center Street to rest and to sort things out. I like being on the side of these workers, she admitted to herself. I want to picket with them in the morning but how do I face my father now? So much that I believed about him seems a lie. He claimed to have the right answers for everything, but he hadn’t. He let me down; in a showdown he hadn’t been as brave as his own words. He was an ordinary man after all, pretending to be more than that.

She brushed away tears that had begun to trickle down her cheeks. Still, I can only imagine how hard it must be for him to think of himself like that, she thought, as the kind of person who hadn't defended his principles when they were under attack. He’d always been such a proud man.

And that moment, she held her head in her hands, and realized. These tears aren’t for me. They are for my father. And I am sorry he had to lose so much in order for me to gain my freedom.