lori fox, from this has always been a war: the radicalization of a working-class queer, 2022
["One afternoon— very hot, the sun lowering but still fierce, insects buzzing, the smell of sage heavy in the air— I was working in the garden while the last of the house was home hosting a small get-together. She and a handful of women— sir was off somewhere, and their teenaged daughter was away— were sitting in the backyard at a table placed in the shade. There was a bucket of ice on the table, in which a bottle of rosé from one of their wineries, doubtless, was chilling; a glass of it sat in front of each of the women, along with a tray of chese and charcuterie. I hadn't eaten all day and was very hungry. I could smell the salt coming off the olives, the yeasty fragrance of the fresh baguette, the sweetness of the lightly bruised flesh of the grapes.
I had an edger in my hands— a half-moon blade on a long handle, used to cut the sod from around the rims of gardens and patios— and was turning up a length of crabgrass nearby. I leaned it against a tree, wiped the sweat from my face, and as I paused, the woman of the house called my name. She gestured for me to come closer and so I approached the table, although I sensed I shouldn't come right up to it; it was like being summoned by a teacher at school, their desk between them and you. My employer introduced me, said I did fabulous work, and was from the Yukon, a detail I suppose she, like many Southerners, found somehow exotic.
The women were all white, in their mid-to-late forties, pretty, and thin in that difficult-to-maintain WASPY way. They greeted me with stiff politeness. I was under the impression, based the snippets of conversation I had caught, that they all worked in the wineries— in management, of course. My employer went on to explain I was working in the vineyards, as well as for her, and that I spent a lot of time mushroom picking in the backcountry. She listed these facts casually, as if explaining the pedigree of a certain breed of dog. I don't think she was trying to be rude. I think she just found me unusual and thought her friends would find it entertaining.
The women asked me a few questions about myself, and I answered them lightly. No one offered me anything to eat, nor a glass of wine, nor a glass of water.
In the bush, if you invited someone over to your fire, and were all eating or having a beer, but didn't offer them something, this would be considered extremely rude, even an insult. Which, in a way, it was.
Just as I was getting uncomfortable and annoyed with being looked at like a strange zoo animal, one of the women asked me where I was living. She had heard, she said, that it was very difficult for workers to find someplace to live here.
"It is very difficult, yes," I said, before I could stop myself. “I live in a tent on one of the farms, and before that I lived on the logging roads. There needs to be a communal camp for all the workers, so we'd have running water and showers and a place to sleep and cook."
"Oh, well, you know," my employer said quickly, waving one hand in front of her face lightly, as if brushing the idea away. “There's been some talk among the vineyard owners and the farmers of building a camp for the pickers, but it's impossible. Where would we put it that it wouldn't be in the way? It's also far too expensive— and the government won't give us any money for it." She rose, pulling the wine bottle, now empty, from the ice. Her nails were scarlet, freshly painted. “We can't be expected to pay for it ourselves," she added, and then turned, stepping lightly around her chair. She went to the patio window and slid it open, slipped inside, and slid it shut behind her again, presumably to keep the air conditioning in.
I watched her cross her kitchen in her white slingback heels. I watched her place the empty wine bottle on the cool of the real marble counter.
I watched her open her clean stainless-steel fridge full of fruit and meat and cheese, brightly coloured glass bottles of fresh juices, shelves brimming with condiments, and select another bottle of chilled wine from a stack of many bottles of chilled wine.
The remaining women, still seated, looked uncomfortable, although I'm not sure they knew why they were uncomfortable. I have an excellent poker face. I don't think any of the rage— the seething, snapping, rattling rage coiling and uncoiling like a snake in my chest— showed on my face. A wasp had landed on their charcuterie board, was fondling a grape with its thin black legs.
"Excuse me," I said, brushing my dirty hands with their ragged, bitten nails against my tattered Carhartts. I put my hat, which I had taken off, back on, tucking my unwashed hair beneath it, out of my face. I smiled at them, and I knew my smile was not nice. I didn't want it to be nice.
“I must get back to work.”]
