Winsom by Kelli Dianne Rule

Winsom by Kelli Dianne Rule

Bradenton, Florida, 1997

Hart’s desk shook.

 “Hey, my coffee!” Hart sprang forward and lifted the mug, wiping the bottom and sides with his other hand, but it had already done its damage. He watched the lukewarm brown liquid spread and absorb into his mess of numbers and charts. His pencil holder, a Campbell’s can, fell over too.

“The hell, Winnie. What’s wrong with you?”

“I’m not wearing this,” Winnie said. Her hand was flat on his desk and when she brought it up, Hart saw her nametag. “That’s not what I go by. I told you, so you know it.”

He put his mug down, leaned over and picked it up. The white letters were raised like Braille on top of a shiny black bar that was stuck a little cock-eyed on the plastic and it read: WINSOM S.

“Well that’s your name ain’t it?”

“I don’t go by it and I’m not wearing it so you’re gonna have to get me a new one.”

“Look, a computer spits these out.” Hart tossed it toward her.

She picked it up and threw it back, as hard as you can throw a cheap piece of plastic.

“This’s made with a label maker.”

“Well anyhow, corporate sends ‘em. And if that’s what you put on your paperwork then that’s what -”

“I told you I don’t go by it. It’s Winnie. So change it or I ain’t wearing it.”

Hart sighed. “I don’t have anything to change it with. That one took three weeks to get here as it is. Just wear it for now. Can’t have customers calling you ‘hey you.’ He looked at her for a beat, then sat back down and started waving some papers to dry them. “Or, ‘hey you with the cursive on your neck’.”

Winnie grabbed a roll of masking tape that Hart was using as a paperweight. She took a Sharpie from her apron. Wrote WINNIE S., tore it off, and stuck it on the nametag.

“Was that so hard,” she said.

“Looks cheap,” he said.

“Like y’all with my wage,” she said. With that, she turned and left Hart’s office.

& & &

Hart watched her leave, then got up to close his door. He didn’t even want to hire her at first – she had no experience on a register – but there was something about her. Something he wanted to keep close. To figure out. When she introduced herself as Winnie he had to stop himself from saying ‘the Pooh?’. He’d have to be content with calling her Pooh in his head. It was too clever to just let go. Underneath those tattoos, he thought she was as cute and roly-poly as that silly old bear and looked to him as sweet as a bowl of honey.

& & &

WINNIE S. was born Winsom Short in 1978 in a poor little Florida cracker town not an hour from where she lived now. She battled through a slew of nicknames from the middle-class kids that were meant to keep her in her place, the ones that stuck being ‘Lose-Some’ and later, ‘Shorty’, which was funny (to them) because she was the first one in her grade to grow tall. She thought she had won the war with Winnie until folks, even adults, started calling her Pooh-Bear. She tried Win but that invited a slew of sleazy men to start conversations with variations on “So, what have I won?” So she went back to Winnie but not before she toughened up her look. A few tattoos in “don’t fuck with me” places and almost-buzzed hair. Men’s jeans all ripped up and Doc’s high tops. Looking hard was her last and best defense and even then on some days it wasn’t enough.

She had to wear tan pants and a light yellow polo for work. Had to smile and make chit-chat and ask people if they found everything they needed and she had to keep being cheery even when they just grunted (or, in one case, chewed a fingernail off and spat it down on the conveyor) in reply. Six days a week from 6-3 she was without her full suit of armor. It was a lot to keep up with so she kept as quiet as she was able when she was there and when she wasn’t she took every opportunity to let her rage fly.

& & &

Hart made his rounds. His job didn’t demand much. He put all the hard stuff on his assistant manager so that left him with a lot of time to walk around pretending to look important, print out and pretend to analyze sales numbers and trends, and leaf through his secret stack of Hustlers.

He stood across the aisle from Pooh’s register. He liked this Pooh, the one that smiled nice and caused customers to momentarily forget their prejudices about a girl as butch looking as she the second she let loose with that old Florida charm. Southern charm technically, but not like Georgia southern. Not plantation and cotillion southern. Florida southern had some dirt on it. Made people feel like they could be themselves.

Some folks, he noticed, went out of their way to go through her line. Even moms and old ladies. The men customers, though, who waited for her four people back when there were other registers completely open, stuck in his craw. She was his little bear, he thought. Bought and paid for at $6.25 an hour.

& & &

Winnie saw Hart lingering again and wanted to stab him in both eyes with the pencil she kept behind her ear. He must have been forty years old; he was balding and she knew he had a couple kids from the pictures in his office but he didn’t know anything about their momma. Never saw any woman come in to kiss his cheek and hand him a packed lunch. Or maybe he had a woman who was just bad at being a woman.

Winnie never had a boyfriend. She thought she did once but it turned out to be a prank. That scared her off for good. She didn’t mind too much. She’d never been that interested in sex. Lately, she’d been getting more attention from the women. The stocky boy-looking women with voices like chain-smoking truck drivers for sure, but also housewives. Pretty ones, too. She got winks and hands with press-on nails that lingered too long when she passed them pens to write their checks.

That was all well and good and helped the time fly by but Winnie just wanted to be alone.

& & &

Hart was looking through a Hustler and almost had put an O-shaped fist down his pants when Winnie walked in. Technically she knocked but it didn’t count if you opened the door at the same time. She knew what he was doing but gave him the professional courtesy to pretend not to notice. He’d already thrown the magazine under his desk.

“Having trouble with the register tape again.”

“Okay, just close the line and go straighten up in produce and I’ll come look at it in a minute. After I’m done making a few corporate calls.”

“Sure,” she said.

Hart watched the door close and started up again. He decided he didn’t need the magazine. He’d have to open his fly for this one. Almost getting caught by his Pooh-Bear was a rush.

& & &

Winnie didn’t go to produce. How could she arrange carrots and stack zucchini after what she saw. She went to the bakery instead. An old lady named Kit was icing cakes. Winnie liked to watch the icing come out of the little nozzle on the end of the bag. Kit had a different bag for every color and she lined them up in front of her in ROY G. BIV order. Right now she was piping little white scallops on the edge of a big sheet cake. It had light pink flowers and written in thin gel in the center was ‘Congradulations on your new baby girl.” Winnie didn’t point out the spelling mistake. The customer probably wouldn’t notice. Kit might want to start all over again. And for that, the old bat would make her pay.

Kit didn’t look up when she said “Kid, why you always lurkin’, you gone make me nervous n’ mess up.”

Kit was one of the rare few at the store who didn’t seem to like Winnie no matter how much she turned on the charm. That just made Winnie try harder. She knew she should probably just let it be but she couldn’t help herself. She liked Kit and desperately wanted – needed even – the sentiment to be returned.

“Sorry Kit, I just like how you do it. I don’t know how you do. That takes skill. How long did it take you to learn?”

Kit softened a tad in the shoulders but still didn’t look up from her piping. “I been doin’ cakes and such twenty years, longer’n you been on this planet.”

“Maybe you could show me a little.”

Kit scoffed. “You mean teach you? And put me out of a job? You know they beggin’ me to retire. My seniority costs ‘em too much. No way, kid. Git on back to your clickity-clackin’ up there in line.”

“My tape’s messed up. I have to wait for Hart to fix it.”

“Well just git somewhere else then. Lord almighty you dense. Cain’t see when someone’s busy. That ink there’s traveled up to your big dumb boy-lookin’ head.”

Winnie thought it was funny when Kit got mad. Those mean words coming out of that little old lady, with her fat pearl earrings, mascara on her eyelids and bluish hair all up in a net. It was something unexpected. Winnie was so hungry for the unexpected.

& & &

Hart found Winnie in the back sitting on the edge of a pallet of Cheerios next to the walk-in freezer. That looked like a good idea. Florida was hot even indoors.

She was smoking which wasn’t allowed, but jerking off in the office probably wasn’t allowed either, so he let it go.

“Got one for me?” He said.

“Shit.” She was about to grind it out on the concrete but Hart said not to.

“Seriously. Let me have one of those.”

Winnie reached into her backpack and pulled one out and tossed it to him. She wasn’t about to risk even grazing his hands. It fell next to his scuffed-up rubber shoe.

“And a light?”

“Out of matches.” She just didn’t want him hanging around.

“Well let me light it with yours.”

No way, she thought. That would be even worse. “Hang on,” she said. She dug in her backpack again and pulled out a transparent pink lighter and threw that at his feet, too.

“You know, you could be a little nicer to me. I know you’re capable. I see you all nice and friendly to everyone else when you’re on the register.”

“I’m doing my job. I’m on break now so I can be how I want.”

“Most people are nice to their bosses all the time.”

“Look at me. Do I look like most people?” She took a deep drag. “Do I look like I give a shit?”

Hart felt his pulse quicken. He loved when Pooh got fiery. If she got to a certain point, he thought, maybe she’d need a way to get rid of all that energy. Maybe he’d start looking good to her or something. Toward the back of the warehouse was a pallet of flour. That would be soft, like a bed. Or they could just do it standing up.

“What?” he said. He hadn’t been listening.

“I said let me be. I’m thinking.”

“What could you possibly be thinking about?” Me, maybe? He thought that but didn’t say it.

“Har-har,” Winnie said. “Maybe I’m thinking about stabbing you with this pencil if you don’t let me have my break in peace.”

Hart didn’t know what to say. He thought that statement probably crossed a line but no employee had ever talked to him like that so it just made him go dumb. He thought about walking away but that would give her the upper hand and he’d probably never get it back. She’d just keep disrespecting him and then everyone would and he’d lose all his authority. And then the store would go to Hell, and he’d be blamed, and fired, and then what? Have to ask his brother for a job at the hardware counter again? Make keys and pretend to know what mulch was best and recoil hoses that people uncoiled because they needed to know how long they were and didn’t or couldn’t read the label?

Winnie couldn’t believe she let that fly, but at the same time she felt justified because he was always staring at her and she had caught him with a dirty magazine and she had just had it. This was the kind of man who needed to be put in his place and she didn’t know any other way to do it except threaten to stab him.

Hart was still thinking. There was only so much he could do if Pooh had seen him with the Hustler. If she told corporate that would be all she wrote. He’d be canned. And it would be way more embarrassing and way more immediate than being canned for a store gone to Hell. But maybe she didn’t see him.

He thought some more.

Even if she did, look at her. They wouldn’t just take her word for it.

He decided to risk it.

“Get your fucking ass up off them Cheerios. I told you to fix the produce. And I’m writing you up for smoking.”

She was done with her cigarette.

“I’m not smoking no more. And good luck proving it. Those security cameras have been dead since I got here.”

He looked up. She was right. The little red light wasn’t flashing. God damnit, did it ever end with this place?

“And you can’t say ‘fucking’ to me,” she said. She went to get up and when she bent down to grab her backpack Hart took both his hands and pushed her hard onto the pallet. She sailed through the cereal boxes and landed with her whole body face-first.

She screamed. Hart ran.

& & &

Winnie’s shock didn’t last long. It’s not like she’d never been pushed down before. She just thought the bullying would end after school. But now she knew. It would never ever end.

She got up and adjusted herself. There might be some bruises later but she wasn’t hurt. Her name tag had come off the magnet backing and was on the floor. The tape had come off, too. WINSOM S. stared up at her. In her mind she heard a swell of prepubescent voices chanting ‘Lose-Some, Lose-Some, Lose-Some, Lose-Some.’ She kicked the name tag and it glided under the pallet. But the voices didn’t stop.

& & &

Hart didn’t know what to do so he went back to his office. The lock was broken so he just closed the door and put the lost-and-found box up against it. It looked like it was only full of jackets and umbrellas so he took his three sales achievement trophies off the shelf and threw them in there. Then he put his bowling ball bag on top of those. It might work. At the very least it would slow her down if she tried to come in and kick his ass.

Or maybe she’d call the cops. If she didn’t call the cops, she’d have him by the balls here. The best thing he could hope for was that she’d just quit and forget about it and never come back.

He stayed in his office until the assistant manager turned the lights off. After a half-hour of hearing nothing but the sound of little mice feet on top of the ceiling tiles, he opened his door. He creeped to his truck and drove home. There was a soft rain.

& & &

His face flushed when he saw Pooh’s bike chained up outside the store the next morning. “Goddamit,” he said out loud. He thought about turning back, calling in sick. He felt sick so it wasn’t a lie. But then he caught Pooh’s eye when the automatic doors opened as she walked by on the inside. She turned her head and kept walking. He waited ten seconds and walked in. He went straight to his office.

He opened the door. Pooh was in there, sitting at his desk. She had yellow plastic dishwashing gloves on and had taken his Hustlers out of his drawer and spread them all out in front of her.

“P-Winnie,” he said. He caught himself but she noticed. That he was about to call her another one of those nicknames that refused to die made her see a deeper shade of red. She imagined him calling her that to his bowling buddies. To other co-workers. To himself, in his head. She got up from the chair and took off the gloves and tossed them on top of the magazines. Then she started talking.

“Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to pay me ten dollars an hour starting today and Kit’s going to teach me how to ice cakes and I’m going to do that all day and I’m never going back on the register, even if you’re shorthanded. That’s not gonna be my fucking problem, it’s gonna be your fucking problem. You’re going to let me take home that expired-next-day food and those dented cans you always make me throw out. You’re going to let me smoke in the warehouse. You’re not going to give me shit about how many bathroom breaks I take. You’re going to let me have paid sick days when I’m on the rag. You’re going to give me a two-week paid vacation every year. You’re going to get me a fucking name tag that says WINNIE S. on it by tomorrow, I don’t care if you have to go to Staples and pay a rush charge out your own pocket. And you’re never going to talk to me again or look at me again. And in six months you’re going to promote me to assistant manager on paper but I’m not going to do anything other than ice cakes and you’re going to bump my pay again to fifteen with whatever bonuses those assistant managers get. And did I say – I’ll say it again. You’re never going to talk to me again or look at me again or think those nasty thoughts about me again that I know you’re thinking. See this ink?”

Winnie pulled down the polo collar to reveal the whole tattoo. He had never known what it said because he could only see the tail end of one letter that peeked out from her shirt. He had asked her what it said a ton of times but she’d never say. In one fantasy, he imagined it said his name.

But it didn’t, of course. He had to squint. He read it aloud. “I want to believe.” Below the script was a little flying saucer.

“Believe it,” Winnie said.

“Winnie…” his voice was high and whiny, like a dog that just got smacked. “I can’t do all that. Hell, people will think we’re -”

“What? That you’re doing me favors because we’re fuckin’ or something? Dream on, loser. No one’s believing that. They’re believing I’m getting what I’m due because I work hard. Because the customers like me. Because they come in my line on purpose and when they have to wait in line they grab more shit off the impulse buy rack and I make your dumb ass a lot of extra money with those gross big York’s and Old Farmer’s Almanacs. So this is what’s happening or I am taking you down. And if the law won’t help I swear to god I will bash your head in with that ball and I’ll laugh all the way to prison.”

With that, she walked out. Before she got to the door she pushed him. Hard.

& & &

Kit walked out and never came back when Hart told her she had to train Winnie. Before she left she squeezed out onto the floor all the icing from all the bags in her little rainbow set-up and spit on every cake in the display cooler. Hart just let her. “You go, girl,” Winnie thought. Winnie told Hart she wasn’t cleaning it up. So he did.

With no one to train her, Winnie had to learn herself. There was a dusty manual on the bottom shelf behind her counter. It looked like it was printed before she was born. It would have to do.

She learned on the fly because she had to replace the ones Kit spat on and on top of that they had special orders coming in every day. For the first couple months her cakes looked like crap and Hart fielded a lot of complaints and processed a lot of refunds but there was nothing he could do about it. At least she knew how to spell congratulations.

& & &

Hart got himself fired five years later and corporate promoted Winnie because she was the only assistant manager left after Hart had to let the other guy go because he couldn’t afford to keep two assistant managers on the payroll. Winnie didn’t know why he was fired but she could probably take a guess or ten. It was immediate. He didn’t even have time to clean out his office.

When Winnie went in there to do it, she put on gloves again. She opened all his desk drawers, ready to be grossed out, but there was nothing in there but file folders. No Hustlers, no box of tissues or stiff socks. She didn’t know why, but she felt a twinge of something like pity but not quite. He wouldn’t have had an opportunity to take them. They just weren’t there. She wondered when he stopped bringing them in and if she had anything to do with it.

When her name tag was updated with her new title she had them change her name, too.

WIN-SOME, it said.

This was it. The variation she’d be sticking with. She felt like she’d earned it.

* * * * THE END * * * *
Copyright Kelli Dianne Rule 2024