On July 13 I graduate with my Matster's (or Mistress's) Degree in Creative Writing from Goddard College. All Hail! (And all Hell...although not all Hell, just sometimes, as all writers can surmise!)
At Goddard, the graduates present a public reading, each selecting an excerpt from the Thesis s/he wrote - in my case, a book-length memoir: Salvation: A Judge's Memoir of a Mormon Childhood.
Although it has little obvious connectiion to judging or to Mormonism, I selected a part of a chapter - "Ironing," which becomes relvant in light of the whole memoir. Here it is.
(As an exercise, writers might try to create a character by a piece on "How To..." For example, the selection below creates a father and daughter by descriving the task of ironing...)
Ironing
An excerpt from the memoir, Salvation
Katharine English
I turned twelve and established Kathy’s Klassy Ironing Service, thirty-five cents an hour. Half my earnings went to Mom for “food and shelter." In my rickety red wagon, I pulled the neatly pressed and folded garments, piled tidily in a plastic clothes basket, a cardboard box, or the plastic bags my customers used to hold the clothes. Not just clothes: sometimes there were cloth napkins or thin pillowcases, handkerchiefs, and ties — even rags. The shirts and dresses hung on a pole rigged to the wagon, and the wheels spun frantically as I traveled from house to house, first up toward Federal Heights where the richer families lived then further down the Avenues, sometimes into the west side where the colored people and Mexicans sat on the porches and yelled “Whitey!” and “Hey, Sis” at me.
The neighborhood was poor, but there were plenty of customers and so business thrived. One of my regulars was Mabel Jensen, five houses up across First Avenue. She had five children, all less than ten years old, and no husband, so she gave me a lot to do. The clothes were thin-threaded and bare, requiring careful ironing. Some people in Salt Lake City were disapproving about single mothers, but I never held that against her. My mom was divorced, too.
Daddy had been gone four years now. He left suddenly, I didn't know why, after an awful fight with Mom the day before. Standing in the hallway with his suitcase in his hand, he said goodbye. Wrapped around his suitcase, holding it shut, was the belt he used to strap me with when I misbehaved. I sat on the floor and wouldn’t look at him, just ran my fingers over the rough, frayed leather. I felt lost, dead really. His face came close to mine; his aftershave lotion was sweet and spicy. When he tried to hug me, Mom screamed, "Get out! Don't you touch her.” So he left. Things got worse for us.
Sometimes Mabel's basket is filled with dirty clothes, so I have to wash them before I can iron them. I didn’t mind because I got kind of sick of the smell of ironing dirty clothes. They put out a sour, acrid smell, or they were sweet, like rotting fruit. I enjoyed turning her basket of dirty, smelly, disheveled clothes into neatly pressed, fresh-smelling little girls’ dresses, little boys’ summer shirts, even sheets sometimes, but only hers — the doubles.
One week, I found a man’s long-sleeved white shirt in Mabel’s basket. Surprised, I pulled it out and held it up to the light. Sunlight shone through the cloth. I pressed the cool fabric, soft as a breeze, to my cheek. It was linen! The shirt was tightly woven; small, whalebone buttons were sewn with strong silk thread. The seams were double-lock-stitched, holding the pieces firmly together. The collar ended in fine V’s above the collarbone. Such a shirt!
Daddy had several such shirts, which he wore only to Court, the office, and fancy parties. He was the most handsome of all the lawyers in his firm. Once he took me to a fancy dinner and introduced me as his “darling Kathy.” Men bent over and shook my hand. Wives mussed up my hair with a pat.
I turned the shirt over in my hands, explored it closely, and lifted the sleeves to peer at the underarms. Not a single stain on any inch of the shirt, even under the arms! Usually a man’s shirt smelled faintly sweet when the hot iron pressed the old, embedded perspiration, yet this shirt smelled fresh and white as new snow, like the kind Daddy took me to sled on at Park City. I imagined sliding down it, burying my face and feeling the cold flakes on my cheeks.
Daddy hardly sweated at all, even at Saltair, where we would wrestle or play ball on the beach of the Great Salt Lake in the hot sun at summer picnics. As he mowed the lawn, I walked behind him, raking up the grass. No sweat then, either. Daddy had very little hair under his arms or on his chest. He would say, “Beware of men who have too much hair on their chests — they are half wolf!” When I noticed hair coming in under my arms, and on the special hill by my cave, I pored over the Childcraft to read about wolves, afraid I might be one.
I held, and then stroked, Mabel’s man’s luxurious shirt, closed my eyes in its silky calm, and then kissed it. Kissing a shirt. It felt right. Tasting the angel hair on the threads, my tongue tingled with pleasure. I wrapped the arms of the shirt around my neck, pressed the broad front of it tight to my chest, and held one sleeve out in my hand. Then I danced with the shirt. Daddy and I played records and danced fandangos and fox trots; sometimes we went wild like Bolero. Don’t think I didn’t know what this dancing with the shirt was all about. It felt fine to dance with the shirt.
It took me a whole wondrous hour to iron the shirt. A shirt like that must be ironed in a particular way. Here’s how it is done:
Spread a clean towel on the kitchen table and place the shirt on the towel, arms straight down to each side. Boil water, and then cool it in a bowl with ice made from boiled water. Sprinkle this clean water generously over the shirt, on the neck, the chest, and down the arms. Spray the shirt with starch that smells like overripe cherries. Spray heavier at the collar and on the buttonholes. The collar adorns the neck and calls attention to the face, so it must present the close-cropped beard, the angular jowls, the ski-sloped nose. Black eyes are nicely set off by the stiff, bold collar. As for the buttonholes, they hold the entire thing together.
Now, fold both sleeves in over the chest. Then fold the shirt in half, lengthwise, arms inside. Smooth this rectangle down with your hands, stroking it until it is free of wrinkles. Now, roll it up from the bottom to the top in a tight little tube, damp between your hands. This wets the shirt all over and prepares it for the heat of the iron. Squeeze the tube lightly in your hands, squeeze and release, squeeze and release, to press the damp into itself. The soft linen peeks up between your fingers. You will like the feel of these ironing tubes, firm but pliable, safe, like grabbing your pillow at night during a nightmare, when you hang on and escape your dream.
This man's shirt was particularly well-rolled. Holding it to my cheek, I felt the moistness and smelled its yeasty warmth, sparkling and pure. For a while, I sat with the tube in my lap, staring out the window at the helmeted peaks of the Wasatch Mountains. These were the stable father giants guarding the mountain mothers, who were all shoulders and sloping hips. Their foothill children that sleep and play beneath them. Daddy told me these Rocky Mountains were millions of years old and that they would never die. I longed for something.
He loved linen. As a child I began by ironing small items, but, for the longest time, Mom forbade me to do the shirts, afraid I would burn them. Linen is a dangerous cloth, she said. And it is. Easy to scorch, it must be ironed at just the right temperature, which I became expert at finding. Daddy used to tell me, “Little Miss, you should be a judge. You have a fine judicial temperature, not too hot, not too cold. And you're so good at irony.” He chuckled and winked. I clapped my cheeks and curled my toes.
Linen shirts must be sprinkled and stretched out just enough that the iron glides over the threads, slipping back and forth with just the right amount of heat to leave the texture smooth and alive, almost glossy with the pleasure of the press. Too hot is too dry, and the shirt will be lost in the blistering heat of it all. Daddy said love is like that, too. Mom just waved her hands in the air — “You fill that girl’s head.”
Once you begin, you start with the yoke, hardest to reach, sturdy and supportive. If you look closely, you will see that the yoke holds the shirt together, attaching the collar, sleeves, back, and front. It is double-layered for strength, and the two pieces don’t always match perfectly, so the iron wants to wrinkle it, which you must resist with confidence. Your fingers must pull as you iron, shaping it to conform to the needs of the shirt.
Now, lay the sleeve down on the board. Straighten it so the edge of the seam under the arm is pressed toward the back of the shirt. “Men look forward, women press back," Mom taught me to remember, her smile flat because she took a drag on her cigarette. “When you iron the sleeve, make a pure, crisp crease from shoulder to cuff, like a straight line to God.”
Daddy pooh-poohed Mom’s ideas of God and Heaven. He was a Baptist, not a Mormon like we were. When I came home on Sundays, he would lift me up into his lap and teach me Baptist hymns, which we sang together before bedtime. "God of Earth and Outer Space" was my favorite, though Mom hated it. To irritate Mom, he would break into "Jesus showed his nail-scarred hands." She would hiss, “Henry, sing something pleasant!" Daddy would whisper to me, "Well, He did, didn't He?" To please Mom, he’d break into the Baptist "I Stand Amazed." But she would counter with the Mormon “I Stand All Amazed,” and I’d get lost in the ever-loudening musical chaos.
Now, I wasn’t sure about the man who belonged to the shirt I was ironing, but Daddy was the kind of man who liked to get out of his suit coat as soon as possible. For example, when he got home from work he was so happy to see me and so eager to play catch with the mitt and ball, he might not have hung up his jacket. He just tossed it over the back of the chair, or left it in a lump on the floor. “Henry,” Mom yelled, “who do you think I am, your servant?” but we’d be long gone to the backyard. At dusk, he carried me in on his back, my giggles buried in the earthy smell of his starched shirt collar. When I lifted my head in a bounce, my nose filled with the Old Spice scent of his hair.
I imagine that Mabel’s man is a professional, much like Daddy, a man who goes to his office meeting and sys, “Gentlemen, why don’t we get comfortable?” He takes off his coat and the others followed his lead. As he turns to write something on the chalkboard, the junior partners look at each other and cluck their approval of his tidy, wrinkle-free, tuck-perfect shirt. Later, he thanks me for the starchy attention I gave to the back tuck from yoke to seam. “Why, this tuck is exactly one-inch wide the entire length, my girl, and so stiff!” he praises. I do not reveal that I have cut a cardboard strip one-inch wide and wrapped it in the tuck before I imprisoned the folds beneath the hot, waiting iron.
There you have it. Almost done. Easy enough you’d think. But for me, it was a sorrowful thing. My father took all his white shirts with him when he left. I searched the house in vain for one. To wear, to hold, to keep under my pillow.
The hardest part of ironing this shirt was moving the iron back and forth over the front panels, deftly slipping between the whalebone buttons. I remembered how I had stroked my father’s chest in the same rhythmic way as I lay beside him, where I had rested my cheek and heard his heart beat so strong and steady, so fast sometimes. I loved his smooth chest, the chest upon which my own had rested all those times, his arms around me, holding me fitfully, tightly, or peacefully, so I could sleep. “Lullaby and goodnight,” he sang, “with roses bedight.” As Daddy crooned, I dreamt about roses quietly dying.
Daddy also taught me about my own “little buttons,” as he called them, “these two on the mountains, and this special one down in the cave.” He taught me this one night when Mom stormed out of the bedroom, when he came and carried me from my bed to his, when he told me that I was special. When he promised he would never leave me.
By the time I was thirteen, just about a woman, I knew that good things don't last. Fathers didn't stay with you, and there was nothing to do about the sorrow. But right then there was a shirt to iron. I was careful not to cry. Tears are not pure; they stain.
Carefully, lovingly, I finished up the long-sleeved shirt that belonged to Mabel Jensen’s new man. The collar was stately and sturdy, a firm outline of manliness and stability. The body flowed down from the collar, gleaming, smooth, and reliable. The shirt was presented elegantly on the hanger.
But I confess. Before I hung it up, I put it on. I carefully climbed into it, let it enfold me, let the soft, compromising linen wrap me in its warmth, its sweetness, its cleanliness. Looking in the mirror, I was amazed to see that I looked beautiful. My body was bathed in the perfect shirt.
That evening, I slept with the ironed shirt hanging on my bedpost. It rained in the night, so the next morning, after breakfast, I scotch-taped four long sheets of waxed paper together and laid the ironed shirt down on them, the arms smoothed to the sides. Then I taped four more sheets together and completely covered up the shirt. It was fully protected. Only the curved handle of the hanger poked out.
As I loaded the basket of clothes into my red wagon, I felt like I was stuffed up with soggy laundry, piles of it in my chest, clogging my neck, behind my nose. Gloom hung on me and dripped tears. I fixed the shirt on the bar, pulling the waxed paper covering taut, centering the shirt on the pole, making sure it wouldn't fall to the ground, and set off for Mabel Jensen’s house. Despite the drizzling rain, I dawdled, tapping softly in shallow puddles, looking for cross plugs and cracks in the sidewalks, watching a worm in the grass, measuring the steps to Mabel’s house, taking smaller steps to make the measure longer.
“Honey lamb,” Daddy said the day he left, “the sun is always in the sky.” Sometimes I'm not sure about that anymore. But maybe Mabel would introduce me to her new fellow. Maybe he was living there, a new daddy to the children. Maybe I could iron his shirt again, maybe even more shirts. Of course! I was happy and excited now.
I raced hopefully up her steps, holding the shirt high. Randy lugged the basket in and called out, “Ma, Kathy's here.” He turned to me, eyes down. “Drunk,” he muttered then went out the front door, slamming it.
“Don’t slam the fucking door,” Mabel said as she came in from the kitchen, running her hand through her hair. “Hi, Kathy.” She fumbled through her purse. Things fell out — lipstick, a glass case, tissue. “Well, I don’t know where I put the damn wallet,” she said, “I’ll have to pay you later, Okay?”
“I guess so,” I said. “Shall I just keep the shirt until then?” I couldn’t leave it with her. She’d wrinkle it. She’d spill on it.
“What shirt?” she snapped.
“This one. This man’s shirt.” I held it out to her, knowing I must give it away.
She came straight at me, grabbed at the shirt, tore at the waxed paper. The shirt fell from my hands to the floor. I gasped, reached for it. She pushed me away, scooped it up.
“Where the Hell did you get this?” she yelled.
“It was in the ironing basket.” The stuffing in my chest was on fire. My eyes burned.
She gathered the shirt — arms, chest, back, neck — and twisted it like a rope, grunting, her voice scraping in a low scowl. “You told anyone about this?” she accused.
“No. Why would I tell anyone? What’s the matter?”
“Well, don’t you tell anyone, you hear? This was all a mistake.”
“Yes, ma’am. I mean no, ma’am.”
Her foot slipped on her lipstick. She bent down, picked it up, fumbled the lid off, and slashed the shirt until it was streaked in red gashes. Spent, she sat down, and her head fell to her arms.
She was quiet for a moment. I couldn't move.
She lifted her head. “Get out. You wait ’til tomorrow. I’ll pay you then.”
“You don’t have to pay me,” I said and ran from the house.
I didn’t go back for my money. After all, it was just a shirt.
Copyright: Katharine English 2008
