Weekend Manager
It was that peaceful time of night when the tobacco came out with the fireflies. Sitting on the open side of the porch, Cal took out his pouch and started rolling a spliff. I used my pinky to tamp down the remains of a pipe some guy had left at our place. Jessie and Amber tossed a loose pack of cigarettes back and forth. This was July, 2014. We were young and irresponsible.
We shared the downstairs of a duplex, just around the corner from my parents (who lived in an old brick house, the likes of which I was realizing I’d never be able to afford) and down the street from the Henry Clay Estate.
Technically our place was only meant for two tenants. I occupied the extra room you had to walk through to get to the back part of the duplex. As a result we each paid only $300 in rent. True, my room didn’t offer much privacy because Cal and Amber were always walking in and out to get to their room in the back, but it was filled with sunlight in the mornings. I could roll out of bed at 9 a.m. and only be five minutes late to work at the estate. I was the weekend manager. A little slip-up now and then wouldn’t hurt. I held the keys to the house, the garden, the carriage house, the office, the basement, and the museum shop, where I would sit until the first visitors came to poke around at the replica dueling pistols or inquire about a tour.
It was hot enough that we were sweating even in the blue of the evening, swaying on the porch swing and creaking back and forth on the rocking chair. Amber had two dark, damp patches on her tank top under her chest. She was shaped like a gourd, had thick, tattooed arms, and her shiny hair was messed into a permanent bun. Even for better tips at the bar she never took it out of that lazy pile atop her head.
They’d downed shots and beers with their regulars already, Jessie at the restaurant over in Midway and Amber at the microbrewery. By the time they got off work they had several drinks tucked away, and I hastened to catch up with a heavy pour of wine. We stuck candles in old bottles on the porch and tuned the radio to Bluegrass Night.
My fingers smelled like barbecue every time I brushed the hair out of my face. The wine I was drinking was Two Buck Chuck, out of my glass goblet, the one I’d gotten with an Anthropologie gift card, etchings tracing the cup. The glass came in a set of six but somehow or other we’d ended up smashing them all. That made this goblet my last chance to feel fancy.
“Remember that guy I was seeing who knocked one of these over? And didn’t even apologize or clean it up or anything?”
“Yeah, then his fat ass broke another one the next night,” said Amber. “I wasn’t very impressed with that guy, gotta say. Wasn’t his name, like, Jeremy?”
Cal lit his cigarette with a grin. “I know why you liked that guy.”
“It was actually pretty small.”
Cal blew smoke out the side of his mouth. “He wore glasses.”
“He was cute.”
“This guy was boring. Didn’t he work in banking or something? Completely average dude. And all he had to do was wear these glasses to cover up how much of a basic bro he was. And you went for it.” He turned to Amber. “I should use that strategy to get chicks.”
“You said basic,” said Amber, her bun flopping on top of her head. “When they make glasses that cover up being a pinko commie you might have something.”
“Jeremy was a dud,” I sighed. “I think you’re right about the glasses. They threw off his misogyny somehow. He wasn’t a banker, though. He did accounting or something in the office for his dad’s big-time farm equipment company.”
“Yuck,” said Jessie. “That’s worse.”
“Jeremy was actively mourning his frat days,” I said. “Like he didn’t know what to do with himself now that he wasn’t in a frat. He was basically living life in a lost, forlorn haze, wondering what happened to all the keggers.”
“Little miss Southern sorority,” Jessie flicked my hair. “You’re one to talk.”
“I was in sec-ret soc-i-e-ties,” I corrected her. “Not a sorority.”
“Much cooler.”
“Taught me how to do this,” I chugged the rest of the Two Buck Chuck from the bottle, then took her drink and downed it—grabbed the next—downed all their drinks in succession without taking a breath.
“So basically a regular Saturday night for you?” said Amber.
“Again, yuck,” said Jessie.
I caught up on air as I felt the night starting to pull together. “What they really made us do,” I said, “was chug a fifth of bourbon and then a fifth of Mad Dog or some other gross ass chaser, and any time we took a break from chugging, we had to run around in circles while they screamed at us until we puked.”
“Good god,” said Amber. “At least you were vomming it up I guess.”
“But first they kidnapped us, blindfolded, and drove us out to a cabin in the middle of the woods, and the whole time we were in the car they made us each chug a forty and finish a joint.”
“Hell yeah,” said Cal.
“Then when we got out of the car, they spun us around blindfolded, and brought us onto the cabin deck and made us each smoke a blunt. And then after we had puked all over the yard they gave us those firecracker snacks with the weed in them. That was one of the societies, anyway. Some of them didn’t involve any drugs.”
“What other degrading shit did you have to do?” Cal said.
“Honestly the guys’ societies were a lot more hardcore. Like in Blowers they started snorting a mountain of cocaine at 5 a.m. Then they’d gargoyle squat on top of the kegs and have to fight off anyone who wanted a drink.”
“And thus the senatorial class is formed.”
“This explains why you’re always pushing alcohol on us,” said Jessie. “I thought it was Southern hospitality but turns out you’re just hazing us.”
“Speaking of which.” I opened the rest of the bourbon and poured some into their empty glasses. “Drink, sluts.”
“Aren’t those the kids you nanny?” Cal said, pointing at a little boy on his trike and another being strollered by his parents. They called and waved at me across the street and I waved back, watching approvingly at the boys I took care of during the week, my main job, patched together with nights waitressing at the sushi place, and my weekend job giving tours and managing docents at the estate.
“Could you give her a raise? She’s behind on the rent!” Cal fake yelled.
“Oh shut up, that was two months ago.”
“I can’t believe you work three jobs and are still hand-to-mouth.”
“Yeah, it’s called shitty shifts and below minimum wage.” During the week I barely had time between jobs to wash my face, tie my shoes, or throw my greasy work apron in the wash.
Jessie said, “It’s kind of hard to accept that I graduated from college magna cum laude and I’m still working the same kinds of jobs I worked before.”
“That’s because you went to EKU.” Cal was the only one with a career path. He split his time between his PhD and running a friend’s campsite out by the Gorge.
“You’re a fucking dick,” Jessie said, actually mad.
“It doesn’t matter anyway,” Cal told her. “You’ll probably end up becoming a partner at the brewery and making bank that way. Or you could just marry the old rich movie guy who’s always flirting with you at work.”
“You mean Sam Shepard?”
“Right.”
When we’d finished the bourbon we gathered around the fridge to clean out the leftovers everyone had brought home from work. We usually did leftovers up right, baked back to perfection, and served up in our mismatched antique dishes so you’d never guess they came home in styrofoam. Untouched customer sendbacks or an experimental roll from the sushi chef along with half a bottle of sake. Tonight we just grabbed whatever was closest and ate it cold, with our hands: fancy french fries and the remnants of steak au poivre. Amber dumped some taquitos in the microwave and we licked our paws like raccoons in the fluorescent kitchen light.
“So do you think you could still do it?” Cal said.
“Huh.”
“The secret society drinking shit?”
“Yeah, Cal,” I said. “I’m only 24, college wasn’t that long ago for me.” I liked to give Cal and Amber shit about being older. With her strong features she looked eternally young, but Cal was half bald on the top of his head, his scraggly blonde hair giving him a look like an old alley cat that had been in brawls a time or two.
“Should we get some Mad Dog and see?”
“Fuck no,” I said. “I’ll do it if you all do it.”
“I’m already so wasted,” said Amber. “I know my limits. I’ll be the referee.”
Jessie said, “Well I’m on adderall, so I can drink forever and not get drunk.”
We walked down to the liquor store but they were closed, so we backtracked. Then Cal, who was more stoned than drunk, steered my car through the drive-thru on campus, where we loaded up on vodka and Mad Dog, the Banana Red kind.
“Shit,” said Jessie, turning around from the front seat. “We forgot the forties. And blindfolds. Everyone pretend you’re blindfolded. Go.”
We each started chugging our fifths of vodka, straight and warm like we were back in high school, the high school that was named for Henry Clay, who was now my employer if you thought about it. Jessie turned up the radio. A Beyoncé anthem was playing. I stuck my arms freely out the window. It was like my mom said: I had the whole world ahead of me. Cal whipped tightly around the corners until we were home.
Back in our yard, we stood in a circle chugging the fifths, giggling and drooling in between. The vodka daggered through my chest, and the too-sweet taste of Mad Dog clung to the sides of my cheeks.
“Okay bitches, now spin around,” Amber yelled. She used her rape whistle to keep us in check.
“Not with my stomach,” Jessie said. “Let’s just sit.”
Cal handed me back my car keys.
“Why do you have so many keys?” he asked. “You’re like a fucking janitor.”
“It’s for the Henry Clay Estate.”
“Can’t believe they trust you with a fancy job like that,” he said.
“I’m extremely trustworthy, I’ll have you know.” I poked a finger into his forehead, almost missing it. “I happen to love history. I wear pencil skirts when I work there, okay? Pencil skirts!”
“Uh huh.”
“They promoted me from volunteer to manager like that.”
“Yeah, but you’re like the weekend manager.”
“That’s manager, dumbass.”
“But like, on the weekends. Not the real one.”
“Hey! Do I have the keys or not?” I jangled the key ring.
Cal held the smoke in from ripping his bowl, then let it all out. “So technically you could go in there right now and shit?”
“I mean, yeah, but there’s like alarms.”
“But you could disable the alarms cause you’re the weekend manager.”
“I know the codes, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Should we do it?”
“Do what?”
Jessie squealed. “You could give us your tour!”
“I certainly want a free tour.”
“Y’all are stupid,” Amber said.
“At least disarm it so we can get up close to the windows and see some ghosts.”
“Are there ghosts?” Amber said.
“Oh my god, duh there are ghosts,” I said.
“Let’s go look in the windows.”
“Fine, but don’t I don’t want to hear any more shit once we’re there. I take this job very seriously. It’s very,” I burped, “expensive, there.”
We walked down the street, my keys clinking, to the manicured acres that made up the estate, with its freshly wood-chipped walking trails lined with ancient, looming ash trees, and no bus stop from the inner city. When we got to the park I realized I fiercely had to pee but didn’t want the mosquitoes to devour me in the brush. Cal and the girls were talking about something. I didn’t hear because I was thinking about Kelsey, the full-time manager of the estate, who loved her husband and corgis and probably church. For some reason she liked me, and I was counting on her recommendation for whatever I did next, hopefully something more lucrative and far, far away.
We passed the ice cellars and the cafe and approached the house, stately in red brick with long Italianate windows. A miniature jockey statuette in front to hitch your carriage to.
“Okay, one minute,” I said, unlocking the office door and disarming the code. I had to try twice, racing the rudely persistent beeps. “Okay. Be careful and don’t touch the windows when you’re looking in.” I brought my voice to a hush. “The glass…is very…delicate.”
“Can we see your office?” said Jessie. They slipped through the door behind me and tiptoed in.
“There’s nothing really to see,” I said. “Computers. Folders.”
“Where do you start the tour?” said Cal.
“Right there, past the office door, in the main foyer.”
“Should we crack it and see if there are any ghosts?”
“Shhh, fuggit! There are, I already told you.”
“Shit, I’m scared,” Amber said, but moved toward the connecting door to peek inside.
“Do you think you could give the tour drunk?” said Jessie.
“I mean I basically have before, or I was still drunk from the night before. Then my hangover hit and that was way worse.”
“Why were you so drunk?”
“That was after the night I hooked up with the Brazilian exchange student who I later saw had a girlfriend on Facebook,” I sighed. “The one who said I was so delicious.”
“Alright, what’s the spiel you give in the foyer?”
“I can’t give it right now, I need my visual references.”
“So should we go in there?”
“Okay fine, just don’t turn on any lights.”
Cal creaked open the door. The familiar cold, musty smell of historic interior wood paneling beckoned me in. A fog-like haze seemed to hang in the dark house, slipping and escaping around corners like a reptile just as your eyes were adjusting.
“You’re standing…in the home…of the Great Compromiser, or at least, the same exact floor plan. The actual house that Henry Clay and his family lived in succumbed to an earthquake thanks to sandy bricks used in the design, so these walls were built up later by his son in a style that was considered, I don’t know, cooler to the new generation, although the basement is the same, and many of the furniture and belongings were original to Mr. Clay and Lucretia Hart Clay, his wife.”
Amber and Jessie looked about in the dark at the striped wallpaper, jeweled lamp, and portraits lining the walls. Cal flicked a lighter and looked at the birthplace painting.
“Clay was born in 1777 to a Virginia farmer, one of 17 children. His father died when he was only four and he inherited his first slaves at that tender age. When his mother and stepfather moved to what is now Kentucky, he stayed behind to study law under John Wythe. He would become one of the most important statesmen in American history.”
Jessie took a swig of vodka and handed me the bottle.
“Here. You’re doing too good,” she said.
I took a sip and shrugged. “I just say this same shit over and over.”
“What’s upstairs?” Cal said, already ascending.
“Don’t go up there,” I said, following him. “We should leave now.”
Amber and Jessie followed behind.
“This is one of Clay’s campaign portraits,” I said at the top of the stairs. “The politician’s favorite likeness of himself. It’s life sized; he was an incredible six feet tall, very rare for his time. In one corner you can see a ship, representing the ship of state. It basically meant the seas were calm and he was going to be a great leader. To keep the North and South united and stave off civil war.”
“We could literally have a slumber party in here,” said Jessie, walking through to the primary bedroom.
“We could…”
Cal was playing with Henry Clay’s top hat case.
“Don’t touch that thing, it’s basically disintegrating.”
“I didn’t know he was a Freemason.”
“What’s in here?”
“This is the dressing room, with his washing basin, and…stuff. This is where I talk about the enslaved African Americans that lived here. In particular, the Dupuis family—”
“This bed is so uncomfortable,” Amber called from the other room. “Jesus, what did they use in these mattresses?”
“Hey. Get off of there. That quilt was handstitched for Clay by the ladies of his campaign.”
As I clambered back into Clay’s bedroom to create order I felt a violence tearing through me. No, it was vomit. I clutched my stomach as I hurled a sick spew across the room, spraying Banana Red onto the soft, musty, mid-19th-century carpet. Swaying, now spitting, over a wretched mass of taquitos, Mad Dog, and chunks of sushi, I regained my balance.
“Holy shit,” Cal said, coming to my side. “Are you okay?”
I could hear Jessie on the phone in the other room, inviting more people over.
“Oh fuck,” Amber said, her eyes half closed, drawing herself under the quilt into Clay’s bed. Not with your muddy shoes, I tried to say.
Jessie rushed to turn on the light and knocked over the marble bust of Clay at age 70, the same ripe age as when he was baptized into the Episcopal faith, yes, right here in this very home, sculpted from life, with his furrowed eyebrows and wild hair, splitting as it crashed to the floor.
I didn’t know if I said Fuck, or who was saying Fuck. That was a priceless carving, a remarkably accurate likeness, I started to say, but felt another swell of vodka Mad Dog coming up through my tract. I opened Clay’s original travel chest and puked forcefully into it. Cal lumbered onto the bed and squeezed Amber’s face, seeing if she would wake up.
The pee I had been holding in all this time started to come out, so I went to the corner of the room and let the warm urine flow down out from my jean shorts, seeping through the glossy wooden planks in the floor. Cal was unsuccessfully trying to pull Amber, who was snoring, out of the bed, tearing the quilt and knocking over a glass case containing loaned artifacts in the process. Jessie walked into the room, face bright green and queasy, saying something about being scared of the dolls in the nursery room. When she smelled the vomitous air and saw me clenched over the spew she covered her mouth, gagging, and turned over the ledge of the stairs, bellowing and puking like a hose over the richly furnished downstairs foyer, tastefully decorated in the height of American fashion.
Nora Chesnut is a writer and editor for sustainable brands through her copy studio, Mossy Copy, in Austin, TX. Currently an MFA student at Texas State, she also holds a bachelor's in English from Sewanee and a master's in the same from NYU.