So that was how Liz and I began working for the Maddoxes.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I worked mostly for Doris Maddox. She had light freckles, and eyebrows and eyelashes that were completely white, and she kept her mousy blond hair in a short ponytail. She was a few years younger than Mom and was the sort of woman Mom would have said could be quite pretty if she’d just fix herself up a little, but she wore a faded cotton housedress and walked on the backs of her bedroom slippers like it was too much trouble to get them all the way on her feet.
In addition to her daughter, Cindy, Doris had two boys—a toddler, Jerry Jr., and Randy, the baby. She was pregnant with her fourth child and spent most of her time sitting on the couch, watching TV—game shows in the morning, soap operas in the afternoon—while smoking Salems, drinking RC Colas, and nursing Randy. When Mr. Maddox was in the room, Doris said very little, but once he’d left, she became more talkative, mostly complaining about the morons on the game shows or the sluts in the stories, as she called the soap operas. She also complained about Mr. Maddox, how he was always telling her what to do and staying out all hours with God knows who.
Doris had me take care of Randy when she wasn’t nursing him, and also look after Jerry Jr., who was three. My duties included changing their Pampers and heating Randy’s little jars of Gerber baby food and Jerry Jr.’s SpaghettiOs—that and baloney-and-cheese sandwiches were all he would eat—as well as running to the store for Doris’s RCs and Salems. I also washed and folded the clothes, cleaned the bathroom, and mopped the floors. Doris told me I was a good, hard worker because I was willing to get down on my hands and knees to scrub. “Most whites just won’t do that, you know.”
Mr. Maddox was infatuated with the latest gadgets and high-tech gizmos and the house was full of trash compactors, air sanitizers, vacuum cleaners, popcorn poppers, transistor radios, and hi-fi systems. Most of the boxes throughout the house contained appliances, though a lot had never been opened. The family had two dishwashers because Mr. Maddox had decided that was more efficient. You could be using one set of dishes while the other was being washed, he said, then load the empty washer and take the clean dishes from the other washer right to the table without having to waste time putting them away in the cupboard.
Mr. Maddox was always thinking like that. He’d figure out more efficient and improved ways of doing things, then order everybody to do it his new way. That was why he’d been hired at the mill, he told us, to increase efficiency. He’d had to kick some butt to do it, but he’d kicked the butt, and it had gotten done.
Mr. Maddox was fascinated by the law. He subscribed to several newspapers and clipped out articles about lawsuits, bankruptcies, swindles, and foreclosures. His side dealings included buying up and renting out old millhouses. He had several houses on one street and was trying to get the town to change its name to Maddox Avenue. He also had a business loaning money to millworkers who needed to get to the next paycheck, and from time to time, he said, he was forced to take legal action against people who owed him money or were trying to stiff him or thought they could play him for a fool.
A lot of Mr. Maddox’s business dealings required meetings. While I stayed at the house helping out Doris, Liz accompanied Mr. Maddox in the black Le Mans to collect rents and take meetings at bars, coffee shops, and offices, where he introduced her as his personal assistant, Liz Holladay of the Holladay family. Liz carried his briefcase, passed him documents when he asked for them, and took notes. Back at the house, she would file paperwork, call to set up his appointments, and answer Mr. Maddox’s phone. He told her to tell everyone who called that he was in a meeting, so he could dodge the people he didn’t want to talk to and impress those he did.
We never worked regular hours. Instead, Mr. Maddox would tell us when he’d need us next. And we never received regular pay. Mr. Maddox paid us what he thought we deserved depending on how hard we’d worked that day. Liz thought we should be paid by the hour, but Mr. Maddox said in his experience, that encouraged laziness, and people were more motivated to work hard if they were paid by the job.
Mr. Maddox also bought us clothes. We showed up for work one morning, and he presented each of us with a pale blue dress, saying they were a bonus. A week later, he actually took Liz to the store and had her try on several outfits before choosing the one he liked best.
We didn’t have to wear the pale blue dresses every day, only when Mr. Maddox told us to. I didn’t particularly like the dress, which felt like a uniform. I would rather have gotten my bonus in cash, but Mr. Maddox said since I was working in his house and Liz was representing him in meetings with his business associates, we needed to dress in a way that he felt was appropriate. And, he added, the cost of the clothes was more than any cash bonus he would have given us, so we were coming out ahead. “I’m doing you a big favor here,” he said.