Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

I’m Pink Lady Apple Yeggs and my friend, and brother-in-law, Deviled Yeggs suggested that I record each project that I set up in the hopes of reforming the people who continue to work for Lily the Pink Enterprises.  If for no other reason, it would show how God is at work.

I was watching Kanok out of the corner of my eye.  I had to look through some financial reports that Tommie Tat (officially my comptroller, Thomasina Tatiana Tutor-Tarrant) had dumped on my desk, very unceremoniously.  Almost out of my peripheral vision, I caught the door to the front hall opening.

I laughed, “If I live and breathe, Francis Packer, come on in.  You give me an excuse to not look at numbers for a while.”

Francis sat in the visitor’s chair and waved a hand.  “My questions may not take long.”

Kanok saw that we had a visitor.  She brought Francis her teddy bear.  Francis said, “Aren’t you such a cutie pie.  What’s your name?”

Kanok smiled and said, “Kanok.  This Teddy BEAR.”  Then she pointed at me.  “This Mommie Pa-Tinkie!”

Francis said, “Yes, she is Mommie to a lot of people.  And you can call me, Fannie.”

Kanok ran back to the play area.  Kanok walked ever so briefly.  Ever since, she runs everywhere.  She falls more often than if she just walked, but I guess a girl must do what a girl does.

I smiled, “Francis, I may be a Mommie to a lot of ladies, but you are one of the few that is older than I am.  I apologize for not having you in my office before now, and now it is you barging in without an appointment.”

Francis said, “But you have an open-door policy.  Since the door was closed, I thought you had simply made a mistake.”  Francis smiled, trying to act innocent.

I laughed, ‘Come on now, old friend.  I leave the door closed to keep Kanok corralled a little.  Joon is staying in the nursery today.  He likes being with the other babies.  He is getting old enough to sit up and observe his surroundings.  Once he is running around like Kanok, and I will have a third in the crib, this office may get very busy.  But since you have been here from nearly the beginning and you have never come by, you must have a good reason.  And please accept my apology for not inviting you in to talk.”

Francis looked at the floor.  “You pointed to the problem.  I am older than you are.  I am so grateful that you have given me a job that puts money into Social Security, and you provide a place for me to live.  But that place is predicated on me working here, and I might want to retire in a few years.  I have cross trained everyone on my shift.  Any one of them could take over my job.  Several ladies drool at the prospect of sitting at the controls of the cider house for eight hours.  But I do not think that if I retired soon that I would have enough to live on my own outside Lily the Pink.”

I smiled, “Francis …”

Francis said, “Please, call me Fannie.  My friends do, but some of the ladies have been calling me Granny lately.”

I chuckled, “Okay, Fannie, you can keep your apartment after you retire, but would you like to do something else, maybe parttime, to ease into retirement?”

Kanok ran back over to Fannie and gave her a doll, but she took her teddy bear back to the play area.  Kanok and Fannie whispered secrets to each other.

Fannie shrugged, “I don’t know, Mommie Tinkie.  I only know two things after running away from home.  I am sure you have heard this from other ladies, but I could not find work at sixteen, nearly seventeen, without a high school diploma and without parental consent.  I worked the streets until a pimp pulled me off the streets.  I worked for him until Baldwyn gave him an offer to leave town.  I heard Baldwyn killed a few of the pimps.  Mine was lucky, I guess.  I think he moved to Stout County.  But when he left, I came here, but I had been a call girl for over ten years.  I had my own apartment, but the pimp got most of the money.  You put me to work making cider right off.  I learned the hard way, while you and Gwen did not quite have all the procedures down.  You relied on me to take notes as we did the scale up from a pot on the kitchen stove to vats in the cider house.  You probably did not even know I never finished high school.”  I gasped.  “Don’t worry, I got my G.E.D.  And I guess I gravitated into the control pulpit job.  And as I got older, I grew out of the normal prostitute role.  Baldwyn cast me as the mother figure and then the granny figure.  I was afraid that if I did not have some use for Baldwyn, he would have gotten rid of me, so I was willing to portray any role.”

I swallowed hard, “I have not heard of that viewpoint from the prostitute side of things.  Maybe others had that same fear, but as you can see now, we are keeping everyone employed with no prostitution on the side.  I could have easily doubled your hours if Baldwyn was tired of you.”

Fannie groaned, “But would Baldwyn have let that happen?”

I sighed, “I see your point.  Baldwyn was rather headstrong, brain weak, but headstrong.”  My cellphone rang.  It was Tommie Tat.  I asked, “Fannie, can I take this call, I will be quick.”

Kanok ran over to give Fannie a building block and take the doll back.  Again, Kanok and Fannie whispered some secrets.  While I was on the phone, Fannie would ask her a question and then Kanok would get something else to show Fannie.

After Thomasina had her meltdown on how important and time-critical these numbers were, I said, “Tommie, I know the importance, but when you come into my office for a consultation, I give you my undivided attention.  This call has interrupted one such consultation.  That takes precedence.  I will get to these numbers.  I understand you are training Amara, and she is just starting her college work in accounting.  I know the numbers must be double checked and you are busy.  You will have my answer by tomorrow morning, even if I have to stay up.  …  Yes, and the doctor wants me to take a nap, but some crazy comptroller keeps bugging me for a double check of the numbers, and is that not the definition of what a comptroller does?  Sorry, that sounded snippy.  Tomorrow morning unless you want to stay up with me tonight.  …  Okay, Comptroller, I will see you then.  Bye-Bye, Sweetie.”

I laughed, “Fannie, you are playing Kanok’s favorite game, Hospitality.  I see a lot of parties in our future.  Kanok is good at being a hostess.”

Fannie asked, “But what about stranger danger?”

I was still laughing, “Not Kanok.  She has never met a stranger – strange people, but not strangers.  Umm.  But Fannie, why did you run away from home?”

Fannie sighed, “Mommie Tinkie, I am the oldest of sixteen children.  We lived on the north side of Tracy before it became the Middle Class neighborhoods that it is today.  I guess my Dad made enough to be middle class, but with sixteen children, we barely squeaked by.  I went to bed hungry often.  And by the time I was seven years old, I became Mommy to the rest of the children.  Mom was either pregnant or too tired keeping up with the ones that were starting to go to school, like me.  After about ten years of being Mommy, I quit.  I swore I would never have children of my own, and now I wish I had not made that oath.  I could be a real granny by now, not just a pretend granny to these young ladies who work here.”

Kanok came over and handed Fannie two more blocks.  This time, Kanok did not whisper, “Gannie Fannie!”  Kanok then kissed Fannie on the knee.

I laughed, “Either you have said Granny a few times too often, or you were just adopted.”

Fannie shook her head, “Kanok is just too much.  She is always saying things that surprise you.”

I then had a rare lapse in my concentration.  I asked, “Fannie Packer, are you related to Al Packer?  He was a witness in a homicide a couple of months ago.”

Fannie groaned, “What is that twerp up to now?  I changed his diapers, and he always demanded my undivided attention.  I hope he at least got arrested.”

I laughed, “From what Poached told me about investigating the crime scene, he cuffed Al and threw him into a patrol car, but there was no reason to arrest him once they had gathered all the evidence.  So, a few hours wearing cuffs, but no official arrest.  And the reason for Poached being rough with him is exactly what you said.  His stuff was important, and a homicide investigation would have to wait.  What a small world.”

I smiled, “I have already paid you a stipend for being the instructor on your shift, but how about working as a babysitter, parttime.  You could become Kanok’s real Grannie Fannie.  If you could get her to say ‘Mommie Pinkie’ I would give you a sizable bonus.  What I have just seen here is you going back to those mothering skills that have been suppressed for decades.  Even parttime, that would earn your place to stay here, but I do not want any of the older ladies thinking that I am kicking them out when they retire.  Besides housing the people from Washington state for a while and always having mission people here, I added the extra apartment complex.  If everyone retired and then all the new hires wanted apartments here, we’d have to build, but Zuzka is already shifting into a master planner.  She is taking a course in that at the university.”

Then I leaned across the desk, “And Fannie, you rarely miss Vespers, but I do not see you going to church.  Want to talk about that?”

Fannie smiled, “Yes and No.  You and Joseph and Rev C.S.L. all make sense, but I did not grow up in a church family.  This is all new to me.  Joseph asked me if I wanted to talk about it, and I brushed him off.  I’d be more comfortable with you, Pink.”

I smiled, “The gospel has been preached clearly in our vesper’s services.  What is your hangup?”

Fannie looked me square in the eyes and said, “It just seems too good to be true.  Am I a sinner?  Oh, yes, other than not killing anyone, I have done all those other things, and some many, many… too many times to count.  And what Jesus said about hating your neighbor or calling your neighbor a fool, that is just like murder.  Then, my sins are in the millions or billions, but God wipes the slate clean if I just say a prayer?”

I shook my head, “Nope, you have to mean the words.  Saying the prayer is only important because a smart person put all those things in there.  You admit that you are a sinner.”  Fannie nodded.  “You realize that there is no way to God except through Jesus.”  Fannie nodded, with tears in her eyes.  “And then, you surrender control of your life over to God, and let Jesus come into your heart.”

Fannie bowed her head and whispered, “God, I trust you to do a better job controlling my life than I ever did.  I have already nearly doubled the life expectancy of a prostitute.  You must have some reason for me to still be around.  Jesus come into my heart and start cleaning up the place.  Amen.”

I had walked around my desk and I was standing next to Fannie.  “Those words work just as good.  Welcome to the family, Granny Fannie.”  Fannie stood up, crying.  I gave her a hug.

Kanok ran over and hugged Fannie’s leg, “Gannie Fannie!”

Tommie Tat walked in.  “I caught the end of that.  I love you, Granny Fannie.  You were always a rock I could use to cry on, and when times get hard, you can count on me to be there.  And Pink, if anyone is going to work late tonight, it is me.”

I winked, “I think my consultation is over, but Kanok may not think so.  While Fannie gets to know Kanok a little better, the two of us can knock out those numbers faster than either of us alone.  I would be playing with Kanok instead of taking a nap anyway.  I hope the new one on the way understands that.”

Credits

My wife was the second oldest, oldest girl, and she was babysitting at six.  Her father was an accountant, but with nine children, money was tight, and my wife often spoke of going to bed hungry, although none of her siblings remember that.  It may have only been my wife that was listening when her father talked about tightening their belts, and my wife took that literally.  The youngest of my wife’s sisters told me after she passed that she had just lost her second Mommie.  Large families often do that kind of thing, but is it fair for the one that is overworked?  But my wife still felt the responsibility of being there for family even after she was in the Air Force, not wanting to be assigned too far away.