AN OILY MESS

A short story by Jolene Rice

Written for A Writers’ Shindig

Part 1

A job

Cassandra stopped. Rain was seeping through the taped hole in her raincoat. Wiggling her toes inside the boots was squishy. The waterproofing was long gone. In her wildest dreams, she never imagined it would take this long. How many stories floated around back home of Bob or Bill going off to Detroit, getting a factory job and making it big? She had only heard one story about Carl, who couldn’t make the big city dream work. It scared her to death thinking she would end up like Carl. That’s why she stayed, too afraid to go home as a failure. This decision left her penniless, homeless and hopeless.

Looking up, there was a HELP WANTED sign in a window. Her damp hand caressed the last dollar she had to her name. She wouldn’t spend it. Couldn’t. That was the last dollar she had. Even if someone gave her $5.00; this one stayed. It was the last dollar from the last paycheck she’d earned. ‘The last one’, she reminded herself. Her dad would preach to her brother, ‘son, any job is better than no job’. Just now she was beginning to know what he was preaching about. 

A drop of water ran down her back, it shocked her out of the haze she was in. This rain was relentless. Worst of all; it was cold. Cold rain was ushering in months of the white stuff. Bitter cold temperatures. Nights of worry. Nights of being afraid she would freeze to death. Long days of hunger. Even the rats were safe from her knife when it got that cold. All creatures needed warmth.

HELP WANTED. The sign seemed to pulse and glow. She admonished herself, ‘no one will hire me in the shape I’m in. I’m soaked to the bone, and I know I stink’. But the sign kept pulsing and glowing. Beyond the sign was an empty waiting room. No one was anywhere. “Go on. At least we tried,” that still small voice encouraged. Another drop of cold rain rolled down her back. “What the hell? It will get me out of the rain for a minute.” Taking a deep breath for courage, she opened the door, walked over to the sign and removed it from the window. In her hand, it no longer glowed. Or pulsed. It was just a plastic sign. 

A man about her height waddled from behind a curtain covered door. His bald head shone, even in the dim light of the waiting room. He breathed hard, removed a hanky from his pocket and sopped his head. His walk reminded Cassandra of a bow-leggedpenguin. Her mind suddenly filled with the image of a penguin on a horse; complete with a cowboy hat, spurs and chaps with a piece of straw hanging out of its mouth. ‘Crooked as a dog’s hind leg. Funny little man’, she thought. 

The polyester suit he had on was from 1970, at least, and was busting at the seams. ‘No one wore plaid or polyester anymore, did they?

“What you want?” He barked at her. Cassandra jumped, holding up the sign. “Rug! Rug!” he shouted. Pointing a shaky finger at her, “Rug!” She realized she was dripping in the floor. The carpet under her was wet. She did as he requested, moving to the rug. He waddled back through the curtain, returning with towels. It shocked her that he laid the towels on the floor with such care. Even more of a shock, his pants didn’t bust open when he squatted down. 

After raising up, he wiped at his head with the hanky again andas he eyed her up and down. “You need place to stay?” he grunted.

“Maybe,” she answered cautiously. 

“Come.”

Cassandra followed him through the curtain, down a dark hallway to a small dingy room. Four cots were in the room, threewere occupied, with other people stretched out in the floor. He left her standing in the doorway. The empty cot obviously belonged to the lady standing in her personal space. Cassandra’s main thought was that this lady needed to back up off her. 

“He never comes in our personal space.” The woman giggled.

This woman with ‘No personal boundaries’ ushered Cassandrainto the room. “Come, come. He acts like a jerk but he’s really not. Not as long as you work. I’m Sue.” She touched her chest. “Millie,” she continued, pointing at the redhead. “Phyllis and Jackson.” Jackson had his back to the girls. “Jackson is one of our camera operators,” she giggled, as she led Cassandra to a small, equally dirty bathroom. “In the morning, I’ll show you the ropes.” 

Cassandra didn’t get a cot. It didn’t matter. This space was dry. Unless the ceiling caved in, she was content. 

When her nerves settled, her stomach let out a long loud groan. Jackson jumped, then asked, “hungry?” 

“A little.” She admitted. Each of them pulled out something for her to eat, offering their treasures to her. “I only have a dollar,” she blushed.

Jackson snorted. “Who knows when we’ll be hungry.” It wasn’t a question. It was a statement of fact.

At 7 a.m. Millie kicked the bottom of Cassandra’s foot. Millie was carrying towels and soap scraps in her arms. “Come. Lucky you, there’s soap scraps today.” Cassandra thought they weregoing OUTSIDE! In that moment Cassandra was too shocked to ask why they were going outside. She had enough of being outside. When they reached the outer door, a blast of cold wind hit Cassandra in the face, filling her mind with all the reminders of why outside sucked!

Jackson pointed to a shower; “no one really knows who set it up. We just know it works. We are all usually so tired when we get finished for the day; no one has the energy to search for answers.” This shower looked like one Cassandra had seen in a movie once. A girl was showering in a little box outside of abeach house to keep from getting so much sand in the house. Lucky for the house, she guessed, but not for the girl. That was the scene in the movie where the girl was violently murdered. This thought made her shiver and Sue noticed.

Sue yawned and stretched, pulling Cassandra’s attention away from the freezing weather outside for a brief moment. “We should let you pick. The shower in the bathroom is lukewarm,but we all know Mr. Daily watches us.” Sue gave a nervous chuckle, “who showers in their clothes. Right. I guess it’s the price we pay,” she shrugged. “We have all gotten used to cold showers.”

Phyllis gave a sarcastic grunt, “some of us like it.”

“Let him watch,” Cassandra snapped. Almost running away from the cold rain shower. It might feel good in the heat of summer but not today. The last thing she wanted was to be bone cold – AGAIN. Honestly, who really knew? If Mr. Daily wanted to watch them that badly, he might have been camped out on the roof. Cassandra didn’t care if he saw her naked or not. All the things she had done to survive on the streets, a Peeping Tom wasn’t that scary. 

When she walked back into the small room, wrapped in towels, Phyllis giggled. “Mr. Daily got his money’s worth from you. Here,” she handed over a set of blue scrubs. “These are old but clean. They’ll do until you can get different things.”

Cassandra was happy not to be putting on her old, dirty clothes.One of the hardest things for her to do was put her dirty clothes back on once her body was clean. Doing this made her feel dirty all over again. There weren’t many places on the streets to do laundry. 

Cassandra’s new job

The job she had stumbled into was a spa. Her first day was spent observing. There were three sections: a hair salon that included manicuring and pedicuring, a massage parlor, and skin care. She learned really fast that skin care was pimple popping and black head extractions. That would be her job. The skin care section had six chairs; four ladies and one guy were busy working.

Sue cut through the silence. “If we go to any of the sections for service, we get docked a day’s pay. Jackson and I have been here the longest. We let each other cut our hair.” She ran her fingers through her brown bob. “He does good. One of us can cut your hair when you’re ready.” She paused, “if you want to. We do good for self-taught. The only words of warning, if you don’t work, you don’t get paid. The only holidays are Thanksgiving and Christmas. Don’t be mean to the clients. It’s so hard to know where Mr. Daily will draw a line. This guy Ted used to work here, got fired ‘cause a client smacked him on the ass and Tedtold him to keep his hands to himself. Mr. Daily told him be flattered. He had a nice ass for a man.”

“You are beautiful.” Sue told Cassandra. “Don’t be surprised if you get lots of attention. Even from Mr. Daily.”

Cassandra sat with Sue, watching. The person she was working on had just a few blemishes that needed removed. Sue wore a face mask, glasses with a set of magnifiers clipped onto them. On her tray she had gauze, Q-Tip’s, and what for the world to Cassandra looked like a letter opener. On the thumb of Sue’s left glove, she stuck a sticker of a raven. On the thumb of her right glove, she placed a sticker with a name, logo, and phone number. “The stickers are to tell us apart on camera.” She wiggled her right thumb, “and of course advertising the spa.” They never use our names. Sue smiled. “You get to pick your sticker out before you officially start.”

Cassandra watched in silence as Sue worked. First, Sue instructed her client to wash his face. Then Sue tucked a towel under the collar of his shirt. As Sue massaged his face, she hummed a little tune. Cassandra hadn’t heard the song before. When she was finished humming, the cleansing began. Sue used the letter opener to poke a hole in the skin over top of the blackhead. Cassandra was amazed that Sue used her fingers to push the black head out of the pore. There was a little blood but not much. The pustule was then collected off the skin with the letter opener and gently placed on the gloved index finger of Sue’s left hand.  

Cassandra thought she should be repulsed by this. In the moment when she found out what she would be doing, there was a moment of ick. But watching Sue work, that ick was quickly being replaced with curiosity.

If the client you were working with had a bad complexion, you got a camera operator. There were only two. Jackson and a lady.

Millie oiled her client’s faces. Others did nothing, just got to work. Some clients liked to chat while others were quiet. Cassandra didn’t like the oil Millie used. It immediately started soaking through Millie’s gloves. Both the client and Millie were oily messes by the end of the session.

Day 2

Before Cassandra started, Sue showed her sheets of stickers. “We have already chosen our stickers. Pick what you like.” Sue smiled. It didn’t take long; Cassandra picked out a sunshine. As she caressed the sheet with her thumb, a ping of homesickness raced through her. What was her family doing right now? Mom was cooking breakfast. Dad was puttering in the shed. She hadn’t talked to them in a long time. How nice it would be to hear their voices.

Cassandra’s first client was a sixteen-year-old girl. It was all Cassandra could do not to cry. This girl didn’t have a face. She was a pustule with eyes. A woman was berating the girls every step. Cassandra thought it might be the girl’s mother. She wasn’t sure. Living on the streets had taught her not to judge relationships. Here was a young girl with an older female making her life hell. 

“You haven’t been following the doctor’s orders!” The woman yelled at the girl. “You haven’t been taking your pills! How am I going to marry off a pus bag? If you were fat, at least that would give me something to work with!” This woman wanted to sit close to the girl, continuing her assault, but Cassandra wouldn’t let her. 

Once alone with the girl, Cassandra got her to talk. She was taking the medicine. Doing all the skin care regimens Dr. Mac had prescribed. Her face had never gotten this bad.

Jackson rolled over to them and began filming. He made eye contact with Cassandra and mouthed, “You got this.”

Cassandra started at the girl’s forehead and worked her way down. Cassandra felt more confident starting at the hair line. If she did more harm than good, this girl could comb her hair this way or that way to hide a fraction of her face. After her client had washed her face, Cassandra tucked a towel around her client’s shirt collar. She instructed her to remove her earrings. Cassandra didn’t see a necklace. 

Cassandra’s hands shook as she picked up her letter opener. Looking up, Jackson was watching her. He winked. Right, she’s got this. She traced her client’s hair line with her finger.  Then began above the left ear. Her first extraction slid out with ease. As did the second and third. Poke, squeeze. There went four and five. With each extraction, Cassandra became more confident. She felt bad the first time she made a pore bleed. It didn’t last long. A wipe with her cotton ball usually did the trick before moving on. 

In the center of the girl’s forehead was a cluster of inflamed pores. Four of them were massive as compared to the smaller ones Cassandra had been extracting. She poked one, did a little squeeze and nothing happened. With another try, she poked a little deep. The hole started bleeding. Cassandra gave it a good squeeze. She jumped as pus hit the face shield. “That one was juicy.” Jackson commented. “Take off your shield, let me get a shot of that before you clean it off.” Cassandra was thrown a little by his comment. But she figured he knew what he was talking about and did as he had instructed. 

After four hours, her eyes needed a break. “How are you feeling?” Cassandra asked the girl. 

She snubbed, “just wanna cry.”

“Let’s take a break. Go to the bathroom and cry. Wash your face. Maybe even go get something to eat.” The girl gave her a weak smile. “You’re doing great.” Cassandra reassured her. When the girl had left the room, Jackson spoke, “we are getting some really good footage. That one that popped and went airborne was great.”

Cassandra carefully took her gloves off, stretching out her fingers. “My hands are already killing me.” She rolled her shoulders and neck. “I can’t believe how exhausted I feel.” 

“I’ve learned from other techs, this first week is a killer. Don’t worry, your hands and shoulders will get used to this all too quickly.” Jackson smiled. 

“What are you doing with the footage?”

“The really good,” he put great emphasis on the work good. “Stuff gets put on YouTube. You won’t believe the thousands of people that watch these. It’s more exposure for the spa and Dr. Mac.” He noticed Cassandra squeezing her hands. “When we are finished for today, I know where a couple stress balls are. They will do great things for your hands.”

“Thanks, you.” Cassandra was amazed that he noticed anything at all. The one man that had been in her life, other than her dad, noticed nothing other than what was right in front of him.

It hadn’t been fifteen minutes; the older lady and Cassandra’s young client were back. “Why are you up? You’re not done. Now you’re swollen and still gross,” the older lady yelled at the young girl.

“I stopped the session,” Cassandra reported. “You scheduled this session for eight hours and you will get eight hours, but state law says I get an hour for lunch.” Cassandra pointed around the room. “Everyone else is busy.”

“I want to see the time stamp on the video,” the older lady demanded. “I want to make sure I get my eight hours.” Cassandra looked toward Jackson in disbelief; he nodded in acknowledgment. “Why is her face still puffy and gross?” the lady demanded.

Cassandra held up her letter opener. “Our skin is our largest organ. I’m poking holes in it. Of course it’s going to be angry. How would you like it if I poked you?”

“Do your job!” the woman huffed, stomping out of the room.

That evening, the shower was the only place Cassandra was able to be alone. She sat in the floor shower sobbing. Not only for the way that woman, who she assumed was the girl’s mother; treated her. Cassandra assumed that level of destructivelanguage murdered that young girl’s self-esteem. It was so hard being a girl/woman in the first place. To have your parents, especially your mother, not support you, makes it even harder.