Hide Deep Sarah

Sarah didn’t seem to care what I ordered. Cereal or cabbage soup: it was all the same to her. She was the waitress and she wanted to take my order. I told her I’d like a little more peace and friendship in the world but she ignored that and focused on items listed on the menu. I joined her and together we constructed the outlines of a meal. It wasn’t anything special but if I wanted something special, I wouldn’t have come to the local café. Besides, she had other things on her mind.

She was remembering the dreams she had when she was growing up. “You can be anything you want to be,” her mother had told her. “A doctor, a lawyer, a teacher, anything. You just set your mind to it and you can be anything you want to be.”

Her mother hadn’t told her about early pregnancy and the bias that existed against single young mothers (although she was sure her mother knew about them.) She hadn’t told Sarah about the welfare trap and how hard it was to get out of it. She hadn’t told her about men who love you as long as you’re young and vibrant but leave you the moment your body starts to change from the life growing within. (She knew her mother knew about them, too.) Her mother had talked to her about dreams, not reality.

There were a lot of things her mother hadn’t told her. But that wasn’t her mother’s fault. Nobody had told her either and she hadn’t thought to ask. Now here she was. Twenty-nine years old, working whatever hours she could get for minimum wage, hoping the welfare people wouldn’t find out.

She had other things on her mind that were more important than what I was going to have for dinner. Like how she was going to pay the rent; or buy the groceries; or who she was going to get to look after her daughter tomorrow; or how to keep the social worker from taking her kid again; or how to repel the advances of the boss without losing her job. Now that was a skill that she had learned early: how to let the boss feel like he was getting his thrills without actually having to give in to him and still be employed tomorrow. It required the right balance of clothes, attitude and behaviour. She could to it, she’d been doing it for years now but, god, it pissed her off. Sometimes, working in the restaurant, she felt more like the menu than the one who explained it to customers.

She’d heard the Prime Minister on the radio the other day, talking about “a just society with equality for all”. To her it sounded like the ramblings of a lunatic born with a silver spoon up his butt. She wondered if he had ever had to compromise his dignity the way she did every day.

“Bloody unlikely,” she thought as the guy who had ordered the daily special tried to pat her thigh. She managed to spill just a little of his coffee so that he jumped back. Not enough so that he could complain. She’d learned to make it look unintentional; but she’d learned to make it work.

She moved to clear a table vacated by a group of women out for the evening. The guys in the corner watch her bend over and nudge each other with knowing winks. She knew they were watching but there was nothing she could do about it.

People signal to her from all sides as they find they have wants or needs that she can fulfil. Some call just because they can. Others, just to watch her walk. Still others because they like it that she has to serve them. For the briefest of moments it gives them a sense of power and control. She responds as she can. Occasionally there is someone who treats her like she was human. Those she’s the most cautious of. They’re the ones who can really hurt you. Just when you start to feel like a real person, they turn around and treat you like a thing. She didn’t need that again.

Time had taught her well. In a world like this you lived in a protective shield – if you were smart. She didn’t learn that from her mother. She learned it from life. Bury yourself deep. Wander through the world with a layer between your inner and outer self. Sure you can be anything you want to be: if you get a head start, if all the cards fall right and if you don’t do anything outside of that which the world finds acceptable. Especially if you’re a young single mother, because then you often stop being a person. You become something else.

To the welfare office you’re a statistic. If you’re lucky. Otherwise you’re a case to be watched for cheating; monitored like a bottle of milk that might go sour without notice. Probably irresponsible. Likely unfit to parent. A problem to be solved like a high school algebra puzzle. One of “them”.

To the landlord you’re a risk. After all, who knows what kind of deviant behaviour you’re capable of? And that kid of yours. Everyone knows that single parent welfare kids cause more damage and trouble that the kids from two parent families where the dad works. Just ask her landlord. She’s a risk all right. He explained that to her really clearly when he rented her the apartment. He reminds her regularly. But for the right favors, he’s willing to take the risk, as long as his wife doesn’t know about it.

To many of the men she meets she’s an easy target. After all, if she got pregnant and didn’t get married she must be interested in every man who has a desire for her. Like every man knows: only easy girls get pregnant. And if she lets them know she isn’t interested that only proves their point: they were too good for her anyway.

In this land of “justice and equality for all”, some people seem to have more equality than others. As for justice; she realized long ago that it’s a legal concept for those who can afford it “not a human concept for people who have, for whatever reason, stepped outside of the parameters of acceptability. She’d read that book ““all animals are equal”, it said. “It’s just that pigs are more equal that the others”.

It’s not an easy world to live in, this world where everyone has the same opportunity as everyone else; where you can be whatever you want to be; where life is yours for the taking; where everything comes to those who work for it. What a load of crap.

She wandered through the restaurant thinking about other things: like what she was going to teach her daughter as she grew up. She thought about what her mother had taught her, “you can be anything you want to be.” Sure you can. If you’re the Prime Minister’s friend. Otherwise you can be whatever you can wrestle from life. You can be whatever you can get. She knew what she’d teach her daughter.

“Fight for yourself. Don’t get pissed off when the social services worker tells you that you shouldn’t be so angry or reminds you to be a good role model for your kid. Learn to spill the coffee. Live in the real world, not in your dreams. Don’t let your guard down. Hide deep.”