Home Town

I come from a place that, along with the surrounding area, is known as “Horsecreek Valley” or “Midland Valley” or, more often than not, just “The Valley.” My actual home is located outside the strict geographical definition of the term, but, nonetheless, the reference includes where I was raised as a kid. The “Valley” is the area on both sides of a five-mile stretch of highway about ten miles west of Aiken, South Carolina. It is in fact a valley, split into halves by this highway. The area is supported economically by textile manufacturing; there are five mills on or near this five-mile stretch of road.

The mills have had an adverse effect on the people of the Valley. The people who work in the mills usually do so as a last resort, when they have no other place to go. And although the mills are the main source of wages for most of the folks who live here, it by no means allows for their self-improvement. These people are trapped. They cannot quit their jobs because of the personal financial risk. They have no chance to move out of their near-poverty because there is no other work they can do with their limited education.

One of the favorite bumper sticker slogans of the supervisors and chieftains of the companies is “With textiles a career comes with every job.” Although this may be true to a certain extent, its application is very limited. Most of the old people have been doing exactly what they are are doing now for the past thirty-five or forty years. Their only benefits being seniority ( which has little true value), a very inadequate insurance program, a stock-purchasing program (invest in your owner), and no pension plan. A one-week vacation is included when the mills shut down for cleaning; you get paid that week if you’ve been with the company long enough. They even work Christmas Day, if necessary (depending on orders). The employees are complacent with their situation, lacking the initiative to change.

The local high school is a main source of labor for the mills. Many of the high school students go to school in the morning and go to work in the evenings. Many of these students drop out of school because they think they are making a substantial salary, often not heeding their mill-working parents’ advice to stay in school. This is not an issue for the employer-the drop-out is a lifetime asset for the mill. The culture encourages the proliferation of the mills. As long as the people have low standards and goals they will stay satisfied with what they have.

The local high school is a microcosm of the mill town. My principal was recently quoted as saying, “Nowadays we marry ’em, then teach ’em. We’re the only high school I know of that has to have a midwife at graduation.” The older people have a strong voice in the activities and programs that take place at the school. As a result of the elder’s cultural frustrations with sexual issues, the school has not been able to initiate any sex education classes or birth control counseling. The students are the ones who get punished in the end, with the mills eating up the new labor caused by students dropping out of school due to unwanted pregnancies.

I have worked in these mills and the effect they have is most depressing. I went to school from early morning until 3 and worked part time in the mill. My grades suffered, but I had money. With the money I fixed up my car and worked to fit in with everyone else at school. The summer after high school and before college, I worked full time. It was then that I realized the position people were in. A lot of the people I worked with had been in the mills more than ten years. Most had dropped out of high school and some had even dropped out of grammar school. All were bored with their work, although most would stick it out until retirement. A large proportion of the workers are black. Most of the white workers complain to each other (not to the blacks) that the blacks are taking over the textile industry. All of the people seem to try to forget the position they are in and joke and gossip about insignificant things. The mill officials try to motivate employees by offering weekly coffee and doughnuts for those folks who show up on time and stay the whole shift. In this environment, this appears to mean something to these folks. When I first came into the mills they had just initiated this program. Supervisors brought in the doughnuts and made the coffee for the workers. By the time I left, supervisors were handing out quarters for the employees to get their own coffee and doughnuts from the company vending machines. The workers never raised a brow in reaction to this most insulting gesture. It seemed as if the supervisors and bosses were never to be questioned and everything they thought said and did was sacrosanct.

The company had just started an orientation program when I began working full time. It was managed by Fran Tarkenton Enterprises, and consisted of short propaganda courses telling the new workers how great it was to be working for such a great company. They bribed you to come to meetings by holding a lottery for a small pot of money. I was so irritated by the company’s inaction to really help the people that I never showed up after the first few meetings. I wasn’t so concerned about myself as for the people who accepted the bullshit as fact.

The people in the mills have been programmed by the companies to believe what they want them to believe. Most of the people are afraid to talk about unions, thinking their jobs are in jeopardy if the are caught doing so. This belief stems from a statement in the employee handbook. The mill states it policies toward unions in the handbook. They do not like them and the mill itself believes the people are well off without them. This is enough to satisfy the people that they should not talk, although they make the lowest wages for comparable work in other occupations and although they cannot afford to buy the very cloth they make. The people are apparently satisfied. As a result, the mill culture is very depressing – similar to a Faulkner novel or “The Last Picture Show.”

When the mills came to the valley a few decades ago, they built the “mill towns.” The mill realized that the type of labor they were promoting and seeking would not be conducive to private ownership. In order to overcome this problem, the mills build a mill town, a collection of very cheap, low-rent houses. Many of these houses remain standing today. And each house looks like the other. These houses are comparable to the people. They people work to sustain their existence. They know nothing else. They are all alike. Just like the houses. Their children will later make up the working force. The schools will provide a good source of labor for the mills.

As a result of the mills the townspeople are trapped. As a result of the people, the mills will continue. The mills will always be. Always be unless a nation-wide economic collapse occurs. Then everyone will be in the same boat. But until then the mill workers wives will always be trying to stretch their income while their husbands are spending theirs in the massage parlors and beer joints that also line “The Valley’s” main roads. The people will always be.

An Untitled Epitaph

As evening falls on the valley, the slowly setting sun brings with it a quietness and solitude that is remarkable when compared with other times of day. Astrologers insist that planets and the moon affect people; the sun does that here, for when the sun begins its journey down the people turn friendly and laugh. This evening is not excepted; the people are exchanging jokes and tales on neighbors’ porches and workers home from eight-hour hells stretch their legs by cleaning their yards. The roads are almost desolate except for a few straggling cars; the rush to get home has ended and everyone is glad it has. Later, the quiet solitude will ease into death as people lock up and go to bed.

This death of night is resurrected at midnight, for that is when the mill shift will change. When the whistle blows, people, those awake or awakened in their beds, are reminded that the quietude of their hometown is false; the unconscious drone of machinery lurks in the background. This drone recedes from consciousness only because of its constant familiarity.

The whistle breaks this unconscious drone of the valley – it, too, ends another kind of hell, different from the five o’clock white-collar hell. The mill-workers are unleashed from their machines to do as they please. The time clock eats the line of time cards as the workers leave the fluorescent light for the dark cool. The walk fast, almost run, to the parking lot and their cars. The dislodge the dirty earplugs from their ears and let them hang from their grimy necks. Old fat ladies waddle along, while tall, lightly bearded men puff cigarettes. Black workers with their linty kinked hair jive along with their bros and sisters. All these people laugh to release the tension built up by the cranky machines – tension released by their own release. The cars begin to start – everyone racing them to make them run better, sooner. The fast cars, the ones with the mags and the elevated rear ends and young drivers, make it to the street first, the older cars with the older drivers being content with last. Everyone’s glad to get out and go home.

Joe’s hand hurt. The pain quickens as he reaches for his time card that proves his existence to the payroll office. He punches out and turns to the exit. The way out is formed by a path bordered on both sides by machines called “spinners.” Joe tries to forget these machines and tries to block out the cascading shower of sound around him. His hand pains him and makes the spinners’ presence even more obtrusive – these spinners smashed up his hand four months ago. They continue to smash his soul. The door leads outside, back in again in sixteen hours.

The short walk home is what Joe considers to be the only good thing about his job. After the heat and noise of the mill, the cool cools his sweat and the quiet settles his nerves. It usually gives him time to think about good things. But not so tonight. The good things won’t come – they are drowned out by the pain of his hand and the pain in his soul. He begins his trek home.

The walk home is a short distance – about five blocks. Autumn has set in and as a result the roads are filled with leaves. A slight rustle is caused by the wind. The moon is full and illuminates the way. Joe notices the moon’s reflection in the windows and chrome of the cars he passes as he walks.

What Joe does think about tonight is why it is that nothing works out for him. His state of existence has fallen to its lowest level and it seems that it won’t be long before he’s dragging the bottom. The mill makes up a major part of his life; when he’s there he ceases to function as a human and becomes a machine. When he’s out, each minute gone is another minute closer to going back in. He is seriously dreading every tomorrow that comes – is it worth it?

Joe feels like he has been cheated; he doesn’t know how, he just feels it. The feeling is that of something having a disheartening hold on his soul; a quiet complex machine hidden by the dark. The paranoia increases as he thinks back to his childhood.

When he was twelve, he remembers his sixth grade class went to see that great spectacle of human ingenuity – the cotton mill. He remembers how important he felt, for the annual event was a privilege only the sixth graders had. The class had had to wear coats and ties and nice dresses. The mill impressed him, he thought, splendidly. The noise and confusion overwhelmed him. Seeing machines doing tasks he had never imagined them able to do aroused his curiosity. He had never forgotten that.

He didn’t hesitate to apply for a job there when he quit school three years later. He had majestically weighed all the advantages and disadvantages like he had been taught – the mill came out ahead in his judgment. Why the hell not? No more school and plenty of money.

It went OK for a good, long time, but it had changed at some point. When – he couldn’t decide. The smashed hand made him realize that he no longer counted. Perhaps, he thought, when that had happened…maybe sooner. The machines were at least better off than he was – they didn’t have to feel the pain.

Another thought rose to his consciousness – the pep talk that he has received as a new worker. The people had told him he was an important part of their company. That had made him feel good. He felt disgusted now, the hatred for himself had replaced the elation of importance.

The light from his house brought back the reality. The reality of the gray clapboard lumber sides of the house, illuminated by the light, frightened him. All of the houses, his and his neighbors, seemed defenseless, like someone could come in and steal the lives away. The light was a symbol of hope for him, if it had not been burning, something might have been wrong at the house. It reminded him of a sermon he’d once heard about the guiding light of God. Maybe that’s what caused him to relate hope with the porch light.

The weathered wood steps creaked a familiar creak under Joe’s weight. Joe opened the door into another dark quiet. The screen door slammed and he hoped he hadn’t awakened his wife – he didn’t want to have to contend with her now. Their impotent life together was another thing that disgusted Joe. It didn’t help the pain.

Joe came inside and shut the door. He walked over to a chair and sat down. A night light burned, casting its weak light about the floor and walls. Huge geometric shadows lay everywhere. The quiet was broken every second by the tick of a clock from a far room. He could distinguish the fireplace across the room, outlined by the light.

Joe sat perfectly still. All of the thoughts had led to confusion in his mind. The confusion was aggravated by his hand. He saw himself as nothing and nothing he or anybody else could do would change that. There just was no other way of looking at it. Joe felt he must make a decision – he knew he would. Slowly he raised himself from the chair. The pain quickened. He made five light steps across the room to the mantle above the fireplace. Finding what he was looking for, he sat down on the hearth and cocked the thirty-eight. After placing the gun to his mouth, he releases the trigger.

Joe’s wife startles in her sleep – she awakens from a pleasant dream. The moon casts shadows of moving trees on the curtains. The clock breaks the silence every second…