{"id":815,"date":"2021-06-21T09:03:18","date_gmt":"2021-06-21T13:03:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/glendakotchish.com\/dir\/?page_id=815"},"modified":"2021-06-21T09:03:18","modified_gmt":"2021-06-21T13:03:18","slug":"a-simple-fix","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/glendakotchish.com\/dir\/a-simple-fix\/","title":{"rendered":"A Simple Fix"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Whenever she\u2019d let me, I\u2019d help my friend Ava with her job. What else did I have to do on a Saturday night? It was no fun clubbing without her so I\u2019d go over to the Port Spot and hang out in the office while she tended to whatever tiresome event she was managing. Besides, it wasn\u2019t every <\/em>weekend, just most. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have the hots for Ava and one of these days, she\u2019s going to get the picture and I am going to make a breakthrough. I don\u2019t know what\u2019s holding Ava back. Well, I do actually. It\u2019s the two big obstacles. She thinks she\u2019s straight but I know she\u2019s not. I can tell. And then there\u2019s the race thing. She\u2019s white but she doesn\u2019t know she\u2019s hedging on account of that–me being African-American. She needs me to help \u201cfind herself\u201d.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway, Ava did all the event stuff for the Port Spot, a non-profit that had a nice little, historic building in old town. The company rented out office space, cheap, to people starting new businesses and the ballroom, not cheap, for events. The events were the primary source of income for them so everyone was real particular about giving the customer a good experience. You know, the old word-of-mouth referral thing is the best advertising. I personally don\u2019t know how Ava did it–be so nice to all those people–meet all their demands on top of seeing that they didn\u2019t tear up the joint. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like I said, I helped her out whenever she\u2019d let me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After working all day while the customer dinked around with their decorations and shit, she was there pretty much all night too, \u2018til the event was over. Then she cleaned up the place so it would be ready for business the next day.  I asked her why she did this and she\u2019d said the money was good. She got a percentage of what they charged. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHey, it\u2019s perfect. I\u2019m free to go to school during the week and only have to work part of the weekend.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was one Saturday night in September, I was hanging out with Ava. It had been a long night of her catering to some fool with high demands. I\u2019d seen his type before, bossy and real insecure underneath. It was a hard night for Ava and so I was able to talk her into going to an after-hours club for drinks to chill out. Ava was what you\u2019d call \u201cpensive.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s on your mind,\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She looked up at me with those big blue eyes and smiled. \u201cOh just thinking back to when I was a kid–the time my mother took me and my sister to the city. We\u2019d follow her anywhere you know.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOf course you did. You sort of had to–you were only children<\/em> after all.\u201d I\u2019d said. \u201cI hear people say that all the time–only children<\/em>–as though they don\u2019t matter. Or worse yet, \u201cdon\u2019t  treat me like a child\u201d.  Humm?  And how\u2019s that, exactly? As though you\u2019d treat a child with less respect than an adult. And then there\u2019s the people, adults who just can\u2019t get enough respect–like that dude tonight at the Port Spot. He had a major respect issue. And you know what I would have told him, if he pulled that shit on me?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I didn\u2019t wait for Ava to ask me \u201cwhat\u201d. I plowed on. I would have said, \u201cSorry. What is it you want exactly, mother fucker? Just follow the fucking rules and we\u2019ll get along. Don\u2019t expect me to bow down to you.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ava looks at me sort of surprised at my outburst.  \u201cWhat\u2019s that all about?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about what\u2019s his name, your customer tonight. What an ass. How much did you actually make? I hope it was a lot because you earned every penny tonight with mister drama-queen,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHmm, sorry to say but there was a mix up in the fee and he only paid $600. So my percentage was the usual twenty-five percent.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat?\u201d, I said. \u201cYou\u2019re kidding. Who fucked that up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo one really. It\u2019s just he kept telling me that he\u2019d been told he\u2019d get this and that service so I didn\u2019t have much of a choice. It was supposed to be a three hour event.  Every now and then we get a slick one that plays us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo, you rearranged the room twice, and bussed the tables when his incompetent caterer left early. Then you cleaned up the place for a lousy two-hundred dollars?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen he ran out of ice and insisted you go out and replenish his supply–ice that he was suppose to bring–I was about to tell him to shut the fuck up.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThank you for going to get the ice and for not telling him to shut-the-fuck up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou do know what his problem was,\u201d I\u2019d said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes, he was a slick one.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo, he just didn\u2019t like a woman telling him what to do, and a white woman at that. That\u2019s about the size of it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019re kidding?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m not.\u201d I ordered us another round of drinks and asked Ava to continue her story about her trip to the city with her mother. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOh right. That guy triggered an old memory–good looking black-guy, smooth talker.  Anyway my sister and I walked side by side, holding hands, following Mama on the sidewalk into town. I was six. We lived in the country, so going to town was a big adventure. Going alone without my Dad, was Mama\u2019s big adventure. We\u2019d spent the night in a hotel.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur client tonight reminded me of Preacher Dan, my mother\u2019s boyfriend. He had that pretend to be nice and all friendly but underneath he was sleazy and slick. And Preacher Dan couldn\u2019t stop talking either. Always running his mouth. He sure was surprised when he showed up at the hotel expecting to have a nice evening with my Mama and then found me and my sister sitting on the bed in our little dresses and our socks rinsed out and draped over the radiator–drying.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHis big old smile went straight into a grimace. Then he sees Mama and she was just so beautiful and desirable, that he put that smile right back on his face and started yammering away.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat have we here?  You girls look just like your Mama. Did you know that? Cute as a button, yes indeed, cute as a button,\u201d and he rubs his big old hands on top of our heads. We just sit there looking at him and then at Mama.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMama smiles at us and then at her would-be-boyfriend. You see he wasn\u2019t her boyfriend, really. I\u2019d seen him drive by our house a few times. Mama had taken a part-time job at a restaurant but Daddy had made her quit after men kept driving out to our house to get a look at Mama. Dan was the tenacious one. He\u2019d drive out every couple of days.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo what happened between them?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNothing,\u201d Ava laughed.\u00a0 \u201cWe didn\u2019t know what was going on at the time. My sister and I put it all together years later.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPreacher Dan takes us all downstairs to the restaurant and feeds us a nice meal, steak for himself and Mama and burgers for us kids. He had some high-balls but not Mama. She didn\u2019t drink. Mama\u2019s only experience at her job in the restaurant was bussing tables and washing dishes. This was probably her first time actually getting to sit at a table with a tablecloth on it and having a nice meal with people waiting on her. She usually was the one in the back, or after hours–mopping up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSort of like tonight–us mopping up,\u201d I smirked.  Ava gave me a look. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYeah, like us.\u201d Ava sipped her drink. \u201cAnyway, after the meal we went back up to the room. Mama sent us off to the bathroom to brush our teeth and when we finished up and walked into the bedroom, she was fighting off Preacher Dan. Of course my sister and I joined in the fight. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ava paused and made that little frown of hers. \u201cGo on, don\u2019t stop now. What\u2019cha thinkin,\u201d I asked.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHmm,\u201d she said. \u201cIt just occurred to me that Mama and Daddy did an awful lot of fighting but we kids never joined in. We just hid behind the door until it was over. I guess we couldn\u2019t figure out whose side to be on, Mama\u2019s or Daddy\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn the end, old Dan grabs his coat and leaves, slamming the door behind him and yelling at Mama that she was a tease and complaining about having to feed her and her brats and him getting nothing out of it.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ava sipped her drink. It was a beautiful thing to watch. I downed the rest of my drink. \u201cSo why did your mother call him in the first place?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDunno. I guess she trusted him and it was her big adventure. She was pretty young and stuck in the country all day with nothing but her kids and the radio. The next day we checked out of the hotel. I remember us walking up a street, it was steep. Then Daddy\u2019s big blue car pulled up beside us and we got in.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnother big fight?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNope, not a word was said. We drove home and we all went into the house and there\u2019s a brand new TV in the living room. My Mama\u2019s all happy, hugging Daddy. It was better than Christmas.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ava stopped talking and finished off her martini. \u201cWhat a night. I might have to stop doing these events.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo that\u2019s it? A TV fixes the problem?\u201d I was kind of stunned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYep. Simple things. A simple fix.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShe never strayed after that?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNope. Never.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course I agreed with her about quitting her job. A couple hundred bucks, what a rip-off. And I can\u2019t help wondering what Ava\u2019s simple fix might be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(c) Glenda Kotchish<\/p>\n\n\n\n

November 2017<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Whenever she\u2019d let me, I\u2019d help my friend Ava with her job. What else did I have to do on a Saturday night? It was no fun clubbing without her so I\u2019d go over to the Port Spot and hang out in the office while she tended to whatever tiresome event she was managing. Besides, … Continue reading A Simple Fix<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-815","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glendakotchish.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glendakotchish.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glendakotchish.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glendakotchish.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glendakotchish.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=815"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glendakotchish.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/815\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":818,"href":"https:\/\/glendakotchish.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/815\/revisions\/818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glendakotchish.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}