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IRONING, IRONING Nellie Wong FORTILLIE OLSEN Like a drunken fool I pick out the wrinkled linen shirt, the foam-green dress, the black, long-sleeved T and I drink ice cold glasses oflemon tea as the temperature lingers at 90 plus degrees When I ironed as a 12-year-old, I listened to the radio. Imogene Coca and Sid Caesar battled in their boisterous humor, the Lone Ranger and his faithful companion, Tonto, rode in clouds ofdust but I liked his real name better, Jay Silverheels. "The Inner Sanctum," "The Whistler," and Jack Benny with his arms akimbo, with his sidekick Rochester. I can see Tallulah Bankhead, her heavily mascaraed eyes, I hear her deep-throated voice and smell her cigarette breath These radio characters were good company as I ironed and ironed my father's pants, my mother's dresses, my sisters' blouses and my own pajama tops and bottoms that Ma Ma sewed just for me. No, these were not PJ's for sleeping I felt ashamed because I was a girl and had to wear pants which were not in style I wanted to wear flower-print dresses [Meridians:/eminism, race, transnationalism 2002, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 122-4]©2002 by Wesleyan University Press. All rights reserved. with crisp, peter-pan collars like my sisters and girl friends but couldn't because my eczema had a field day with ripe, red hives blossoming on my skin conquering the body that I thought I owned. When I was young, I thought that ironing was drudgery, only the work that poor Chinese or Black girls did not for pin money, but for money, period. When I ironed at midnight, Bah Bah fried his golden pork chops in a wrought-iron pan and drank his V.O. in our kitchen. He already worked a long day and evening at our Great China Restaurant and we became companions, father and daughter, staples in the kitchen using our hands to cook and iron, silent with our unexpressed dreams. "Marriage, hmphh!" blurted Bah Bah one night, and I said nothing, I only ironed and ironed, thinking the hissing ofthe steam iron was noisy enough for the both ofus. Now I practically dance as I iron because I've had so much practice retrieving from my woven Japanese basket the postcard reproduction ofa painting called "Iraners" by Jacob Lawrence who now resides with the world's dead painters. In the painting, three Black women, tall and angular in white cotton cloche hats and sleeveless white dresses, hunker down with heavy black irons. They had no steam irons, just their muscles and grit finishing up some mistresses' blouses, aprons and tablecloths. IRONING, IRONING I23 They dig and lift, push and slide and lift again, their thoughts submerged into the irons as their fingers maneuver on the ironing boards as expertly as ice skaters on a rink. These ironers (this word has dignity) ironed on hot nights, cold mornings, doing the work their white employers paid them little to do. Jacob Lawrence didn't paint the ironers' eyes, their noses, their mouths. I don't know ifthey are smiling or gossiping, ifthey are worried about the day's meager wages, ifthere was enough milk or cereal for their children. Technology cannot give us digital ironing, Who'd want it? You mean flicking a switch, pointing the arrow at an icon and your ironing's done? Astronauts swallowing pills for honey-baked ham and chocolate eclairs? Ironing is honest work, ironing is what Ma Ma's brother-in-law from China did, a handsome laundryman we addressed as Ah Chenk with his own laundry at the mouth ofthe Stockton St. Tunnel entering Chinatown. Here, Chinese men ironed and pressed white linens, men's dress shirts, women's dresses, even rich folks' underwear. I probably will never stop ironing even though it's smart to look wrinkled these days. Savoring the rhythm, the honesty, on this, the hottest night ofthe year, I stand here, ironing, ironing. 124 NELLIE WONG ...

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