WEEK ONE
It’s my first night of welding school. I’m standing in a simulated shop with twenty-three men. We’re all in our twenties, all go-getters who’ve taken the initiative to learn some skills to get better jobs.
But they’re all standing in a huddle as far away from me as they can get; unified in a wordless pact to freeze me out. It’s clear that they resent my intrusion—playing with fire is a macho way to spend your Thursday night but the badass factor drops down to zero if there’s a pussy in the posse who’s trying to pretend she’s one of the guys.
It probably would have helped if I’d come in looking a little more butch, but this was the ‘80s and not the ‘90s so there wasn’t yet any flannel in my closet. Instead, I’d shown up in tight black jeans with ankle zippers, a pink off the shoulder sweatshirt and Doc Martens instead of workboots. My spiral-permed hair was teased so high that it scraped the roof of my car when I drove, head-banging to Motley Crue or Def Leppard and vogueing to Madonna or David Bowie or Prince. I looked like a complete twit and anyone hoping to gain alpha male status in that room would lose that chance if he even said hello to me.
Our instructor, Steve, a heavyset foreman at a machine shop over by the river, has tried to get rid of me by sending me to a class across the hall called Ms. Under the Hood, where women who look like me learn how to do things like change their oil. He looks bewildered and then upset to discover that yes; there is someone with the last name Borcherts, first initial J, on our class roster.
But now it’s time to get busy, so Steve explains the steps involved in oxyacetylene welding and as the inherent danger becomes apparent, my classmates start sneaking fearful glances at me as if they think I’m the twit most likely to blow us all up.
First, you set two metal plates on a flat surface with the edges touching. You light the torch and melt both plates at the seam while, with your other hand, you slide a piece of welding rod under the torch and work your way down the plates, fusing them together.
Now, this is what happens when you’re actually good at it, which it turns out everyone else in the room is. I, on the other hand, keep burning holes through the plates because the smallest pair of work gloves I could find are so huge that they’re falling off my hands, the rough, cheap suede twisting and catching on itself, causing the rod to get stuck in the folds. The few weld beads I do manage are lumpy and uneven, weakening the joints rather than strengthening them.
Steve comes over to help. But then, I lean down too close to the torch and I accidentally set my bangs on fire.
“Good god!” Steve yells, smacking me on the forehead to put out the little flames. I stumble back and look up to see everyone laughing at me as I pull myself upright, my bangs still smoking. Steve frowns at me, hands on his hips, his mustache quivering, breathing heavily. “All that hairspray! Your whole head could have exploded!”
I look at the floor.
“Look at me,” he demands, so I do, and he says, “I don’t think you’re going to make it through this class.”
I look back down at the floor. “I need the money,” I mutter. “I work at a steel fabricating shop and I’m trying to get a promotion.”
“Listen,” he continues, “you’re not”—he pauses—“ugly—and even though you’re ditzy, you’re not a complete idiot, so have you thought about maybe finding a nice guy so that you don’t have to put yourself through this?”
I am not about to tell this dick that I’d be overjoyed to have a partner paying my way through life. But right now, that isn’t going to happen for me. See, I already have a live-in boyfriend but he isn’t bringing home his paychecks. And I’m pretty sure he’s cheating on me.
***
When I get home, my boyfriend Dan, who works nights, is not there. But I want to cheer myself up, so I play Girls Just Want to Have Fun while I stand in front of the mirror and trim the burnt ends off my bangs, trying to make myself look sexy for when Dan does get home. But when I scoop the singed hair into the little wastebasket in between the sink and the bathtub, I discover packaging in the trash and I realize that he won’t be coming home at all tonight. He’s bought new underwear and I know it’s not for me.
WEEK TWO
It starts pouring rain while I’m parking my car at class and so, to protect my sky-high hair, I grab a plastic bag from a deli that a co-worker left in my back seat and pull it over my head. I do remember to yank it off when I run into the classroom, but when everyone looks up, they burst out laughing.
I don’t know if they’re laughing at me because my makeup’s a mess or if they think that just as a person, I’m a joke, but I can feel my face start to flush so I spin on my heel, walk into the bathroom by the door, lock myself in and take a deep breath. I look up in the mirror over the sink and discover that my makeup is mostly just fine but there are a couple of white plastic forks stuck in my bangs.
Out on the floor, one of the acetylene tanks runs dry and instead of asking any one of the guys to replace it, Steve makes me do it. Empty, they weigh fifty pounds. I am sure everyone can see my hair flopping around from across the room and that they all know I’m struggling to drag the new tank back to the workstation. But no one stops what they’re doing or offers to help.
***
Dandoesn’t come home all night. Again. I’ve been listening to Close to Me by The Cure all week because I’m starting to enjoy being tragic.
I know he’s avoiding me, because he waits to come home until after I’ve left for work. But I want to make a last-ditch effort to save our relationship, so I come home for lunch, which I never do. He’s asleep in our bed.
I climb on top of him and wake him up.
“Hi,” he says, looking a little confused but not entirely unhappy. He throws one arm over his eyes—which are bloodshot—but peeks out at me a little, and puts his other arm around my shoulders, which I take as a good sign.
I lick his ear. “Can you please just start coming home at night?” I whisper. “For me?”
“No,” he says, and twists away so that both his arms are drawn up under his chin and he’s no longer looking at me.
***
WEEK THREE
When I walk into class, the star welder, a tall farm boy from DeKalb named Chip, to whom Steve has already offered a job, takes one look at my hot pink leg warmers and pale pink, high-top Reeboks and says, “Really, you should apply to the Pittsburgh Conservatory of Dance.”
I glare at him.
Someone else jumps in with, “Hey, at least he wasn’t suggesting you go strip at Zanzibar.”
Since I have not seen Flashdance, I have no idea that they’re referencing a female welder who dances; I just assume they’ve decided I’m a failure and are offering condescending career options.
But I am determined to make this work. Tonight, we start on arc welding, which takes place in booths with darkened windows, and as we walk into that area and I pull my hair back from my face into a series of clips, I tell myself that if I can transform myself into someone with welding skills, I can also summon up the magic to fix everything else that is falling apart in my life. If I can earn some self-esteem, maybe people like Dan will treat me better.
Arc welding is easier than oxyacetylene in that the electric current and welding wire come through the same stinger so you only use one hand—you melt and fuse in one step.
But because a huge flash of light and sparks shower up when you make contact, you need to wear a welding hood with a drop-down eye shield so that you don’t blind yourself. And because the eye shield darkens everything, you can’t drop it till right before you strike your arc on the metal plates.
When it’s my turn, I line up the plates, aim the stinger and lean forward to drop the shield, but because my mind isn’t really on it or maybe because it’s all I can think of, my focus is too intense and the shield gets stuck on my hair clips and hangs there as I strike the arc. A searing pain knifes into my eyes as an explosion lights up in my face. I scream and drop the stinger as Steve runs in.
“I feel like someone just shot me in the face with pepper spray,” I sob.
He yanks me out of the booth, hands me a pair of sunglasses and some Visine and tells me to wait in the corner until I can see well enough to call someone to drive me home.
I don’t have anyone, so I have to take a cab.
***
At home, I find a note from Dan on the kitchen counter and that makes me happy until I read it and discover that he wants me to loan him twenty dollars.
He wants me to loan him twenty dollars so that he can take some other girl out? As deluded as I have been about the possibility of somehow salvaging this relationship, even I realize that he’s crossed a line here. And for the first time, I don’t do what he asks.
WEEK FOUR
My grandmother—who has been in and out of a coma for a month—dies, which means that I have to go to Florida for the funeral. While I am sad, I am simultaneously relieved that this interferes with my ability to go to welding school.
Once I start adjusting to her death, I start wishing that she could die every week till welding school is over so that I never have to go back. I’ve burned holes through plates, set my bangs on fire and flash-burned my eyes. I have yet to be able to make a weld that holds. My classmates make fun of me, my instructor is trying to force me to quit.
And yes, I realized that I could just drop out. But I couldn’t, you know? Dropping out would mean that I’d given up, I’d failed. If I had a Really Good Excuse not to go every week, it would just mean that the timing wasn’t right.
***
On my way back from the funeral, With or Without You by U2 is playing in the cab and the closer I get to home, the more anxious I get and it occurs to me that if we break up and I have to move, I am not going to miss this house. I’ve never been happy here.
WEEK FIVE
Three things happen of significance.
- I give up and flatten my hair into a do-rag.
- At break, Chip, the snotty ringleader, actually comes over and asks me where I was the week before. At first I think it’s because my giant bangs are gone but then he says, “We thought you weren’t coming back,” and I realize that they were feeling guilty about having driven me away.
- It turns out I’m actually pretty good at arc welding. Working with an electric current instead of feeder rod, I produce some smooth, beautiful welds.
“These are yours?” Steve asks and high fives me when I say yes. He pulls me aside at the end of the night.
“I was worried about you from the get-go,” he says, “which is why I’ve been rough on you. You go to work in a weld shop; they’re going to ride you hard like that, too.
“But the fact that you try every week, that you keep coming back — the others see that you don’t give up and they respect that.”
***
But as I’m driving home, I realize that same thing is not true in relationships. The fact that you stay just means that no matter how much you don’t like the way you’re being treated, you’re still showing up, so there’s no reason for anyone to change. By keeping myself in the game, I’ve agreed to play by Dan’s rules, which don’t include respect.
And part of me starts to know that I can choose what to put my energy into and that maybe it’s better if I keep that focus on changing myself instead of trying to make someone else love me again when really, it’s over.
And so I pack a suitcase. And as I get into my car and drive off to my new life, I put in my Talking Heads tape. The first song that plays is Once in a Lifetime, but as David Byrne starts chanting, “Same as it ever was,” over and over again, I rewind the tape and listen instead to This Must Be the Place.
WEEK SIX
First things first: The new me gets a new haircut to go with the new attitude—an asymmetrical chin-length bob.
Then I head to my last class, where we have to take both a multiple choice written final—which I know I’ll ace—and a practical exam, which I’m not so sure about. I am thrilled when I finish and Steve gives me a thumbs up. He offers me a job when I shake his hand on my way out the door.
***
I don’t take the job but I do get the promotion at work. My boss throws a New Year’s Eve party and when he opens the door, I can hear Walking on Sunshine by Katrina and the Waves playing inside and I stroll in with my new haircut and a new dress like I own that room. When you learn to walk through fire and to shape something strong and beautiful and new from the chaotic and disparate elements, the possibilities are endless.
And I know now that I can go it alone. But I’m forging better bonds, so I won’t have to. And I want to celebrate those bonds. And so, as the countdown begins, I grab the hands of those around me because I can’t wait for the New Year to begin.
Julia Borcherts is a 2nd Story company member, a co-founder and co-host of Reading Under the Influence and The Chicago Way lit series, a fiction writing instructor at Columbia College Chicago, a theater columnist for RedEye and a frequent contributor to Time Out Chicago magazine and the Windy City Times.