The Unhuman Condition by Richard Levesque

Author:Richard Levesque [Levesque, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Richard Levesque
Published: 2018-01-25T22:00:00+00:00

* * * * *

Lespeth felt some surprise the next morning when she did not see Ethel in her normal spot at the sewing machine station across from her in the wardrobe department at Paramount. Her friend’s absence gave her a sense of uneasiness, and she found herself wondering if something more hadn’t happened on Friday night.

Before heading to the commissary on her break, she asked Mrs. Pritchard if Ethel had called in sick. The supervisor gave Lespeth a sour look, as though Ethel’s absence were somehow Lespeth’s fault, and said, “She did. Know anything about it?”

“No, ma’am. Just curious,” Lespeth answered.

By the time she was back at the Portsmouth that evening with her shoes off and the Herald spread before her, she had all but forgotten Ethel and her absence from work. As a result, she jumped when someone knocked on her door and was taken completely aback when she opened it to find Ethel standing in the hallway. Lespeth let Ethel stand there for only a moment before ushering her into the room. Ethel looked a wreck. Her hair was unkempt, her make-up smeared. While both eyes were red and puffy from crying, the left eye was surrounded by a large, dark bruise that Lespeth had come to know as a “black eye” from her consumption of newspaper articles. Furthermore, she gave off a scent that Lespeth had come to associate with human distress.

“Ethel!” she said once she had drawn her friend inside and closed the door. “What happened?”

“Oh, Lizzie,” was all Ethel managed before the tears began. She leaned forward, putting her hands on Lespeth’s shoulders and touching her forehead to Lespeth’s bosom while she sobbed. Nervous about such proximity to another woman—lest the unnaturalness of her breasts become obvious—Lespeth nevertheless did the natural thing and put her arms around her friend, holding her close while she cried.

After a while, Ethel took a few deep breaths and the sobbing stopped. She drew her face back, pulled a handkerchief from her purse, and wiped at her nose and eyes. “I’m sorry,” she managed to say. “God, I must be a mess.”

“It’s all right,” Lespeth said. She took Ethel’s hand and led her to the chair. “Please,” she said, and Ethel sat down. Lespeth looked at her friend for a moment as Ethel tried to muster a pathetic smile. Then she said, “Carl?”

Ethel nodded.

“When? Was it…after we left on Friday? Was he mad because Jimmy and I left like that?”

“No,” Ethel said. “It wasn’t Friday night. Although he was plenty sore that you took off like that. Not ‘cause he wanted you and Jimmy to stay or anything. More like because he was mad you left anyway after he said you wouldn’t have the guts.”

“So what happened?”

Ethel sighed. “We stayed there for a while. It was okay, but then there was some trouble around midnight. Did you notice that big group in the middle of the room?”

Lespeth remembered the two tables joined together and the old tattooed man who had looked at her so strangely when she and Jimmy were making their exit.

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