“Folks here ain’t got no work ethic, they gotta get over ethic,” Loretta Shine says. She sits across from me eating a steaming plate of turnip greens, fried chicken and cornbread. A glass of ice tea sweats on the table next to her. When she starts talking like this, talking bad about Memphis, I know what comes next.

“Them gals at work, the only time they do any work is when the boss comes. ‘Til then, they sit around, acting like they don’t know how to do nothing, waiting on somebody else to do it,” she pauses to take a gulp of tea.

I am rolling dull silverware in thin paper napkins and securing them with sticky green tabs. The doors at The Joint open in twenty minutes and I am in a hurry to get the dining room set up. The Joint the only grown-folks club in Memphis that’s open during the week; people come early and often.

“Guess who that somebody else is?”

“It must be you.” I say, concentrating on my work. I hear this conversation every time I see Loretta. I know as much about her co-workers as I do mine.

“Girl let me tell you what that Malika did today,” she shoves a forkful in her mouth and keeps talking. “You know she’s the ringleader, what she does, everybody else do.”

Like Loretta, this was my second job, one meant to help pull those ends together that don’t quite meet. Her main job is in medical billing at one of those offices behind Baptist hospital, not far from the medical office where I work. My co-workers are boring, older white women, who attend suburban churches and have their grandchildren visit on Sunday afternoons. Loretta’s office is filled with young women, who are long on ambition, short on opportunities and scrambling to get ahead the best way they know how.

“That cow sat around all day long, making weekend plans with her girls on the phone and didn’t send out one bill.” Her bite of cornbread left a yellow, crumbly moustache around her mouth.

“But when Mr. Johnson comes out, she’s all grinning up in his face, leaning over, showing off her ‘you know what’.”

Malika is Loretta’s work nemesis, her constant competition for the scant promotions our kind of job offers. Although Loretta has more experience, Malika has what counts: long, shapely legs, a high tight bosom and a waistline thin enough to show off her assets. She’s the opposite of dumpy, light-skinned Loretta, who dresses to hide her chubby midsection and short thick legs. Loretta has to cover her acne scars with a ton of Fashion Fair and it still ain’t enough. People have asked me before, if we are related.

“Yeah, looks like she’s going for that new position,” I say. We are behind on silverware because yesterday’s shift, Loretta included, neglected roll any. We need a hundred to open and I am halfway there.

“Position, she don’t know nothing about no position. The only one she know is wrapping her legs around—,” Loretta turns and looks over her shoulder. Miss Glenda, the owner’s mother stands behind her. At nearly six feet tall, she casts a large shadow.

“Hey girl,” Loretta addresses Miss Glenda in a sugary-soft tone. I call it her “Miss Glenda” voice.

The Joint isn’t the best club in town for no reason; they serve home-cooking on the weekends. Miss Glenda makes hot wings and cheese sticks Tuesday through Thursday, but on Friday and Saturdays, she fries chicken, bakes macaroni and cheese, boils greens and beans. Real food, real cooking. The Joint is closed on Sundays because that’s the Lord’s Day.

“How you doing baby?” Miss Glenda squeezes Loretta’s shoulder under her large hand.

“Blessed. Blessed and satisfied. How bout you?”

“Cain’t complain, cain’t complain at all, won’t do no good, no how,” she doesn’t even glance at me. “How them greens? They was a little bitter, but I put a dab of sugar in ‘em right before I took ‘em off,” Miss Glenda says.

“They good, Miss Glenda. Not too bitter, not too sweet. Perfect, the way you always fixes ‘em,” Loretta flashes a gold-tooth smile.

Miss Glenda pulls out a chair and sits next to Loretta. They huddle together like two school girls and start talking about church. The conversation excludes me. I made the mistake of asking Miss Glenda about God and starving African children or His absence during the horror of American slavery; she hasn’t said much to me since.

“You missed a good one on Sunday,” Miss Glenda said, rapping her knuckles on the tabletop. “Pastor sure laid it out. Stepped on a lot of toes, but when I left, I felt lifted.” Although they were both Baptists, they went to different churches, visiting each other’s from time to time.

“I bet some folk needed it.” Loretta said. She wiped her mouth with a napkin and glanced at me. “How was the choir? Ya’ll got a good choir.”

“They was right on time,” Miss Glenda raised one hand in the air and bowed her jheri curled head. “Every song they sang touched me in my heart. Like they knew what I needed. Brought tears to my eyes.”

I’m from Knoxville, on the other side of the state. Our church is Neyland Stadium, the one hundred and four thousand seat sanctuary that’s home to the Tennessee Vols. Each Saturday in the fall, folks congregate at the stadium or gather around their televisions to worship the Big Orange. Crowded church pews were as unfamiliar to me as the crush of orange-clad pilgrims that flocked to our city on those weekends. My family found salvation at the altar of the Big Orange and Schlitz Malt Liquor beer.

“Tell you what,” Miss Glenda smacks the table with a large open hand. “I got a sweet potato pie in the back. How bout you taste it and tell me what you think,” she says to Loretta and starts to stand.

“Girl, don’t trouble yourself,” Loretta puts her up her hand to stop her. “I know what one look like. I’ll bring you back a piece too.” More sugar drips from her mouth.

I almost tell her I don’t like sweet potato pie, but realize she is not talking to me. I think of things to say to Miss Glenda, but before I can open my mouth, she gets up and goes to unlock the door to let another waitress, Doris, in. They pause at the bar; Doris lights a cigarette and offers Miss Glenda one. They smoke and talk until Loretta comes out of the kitchen with the pie.

“Here we go,” Loretta says. She sets two pieces of potato pie on the table, each topped with whipped cream and surrounded by squiggles of yellow and orange.

“Beautiful,” Miss Glenda says. “I believe you missed your calling Miss Loretta.” Soon church talk turns to gossip, the beauty shop kind and I try to ignore them.

Back home, Memphis is considered a dangerous place, a place where prostitutes climb into unsuspecting cars at stoplights; where a person would slit your throat over a dollar, a place as dark and dangerous as its inhabitants. In between the tales of horror, I heard something else: Memphis was as black as Knoxville was white; a place where I would be in the majority.

I got here as fast as I could; taking a scholarship at Memphis State to study Biology. My parents still worry about me, calling each time they hear about a sensational Memphis crime on that side of the state.

“Hey,” I broke into their conversation, interrupting talk about who wore what at the club last weekend.

“I’m fixing to set up the tables and run the vacuum.”

Miss Glenda and Loretta eyeball me like they’d rather me go do it and not talk about it. I take my seventy pieces of silverware and head for the tables.

Salt and pepper shakers lay on their sides with their contents spilled, mixing with the sticky residue of last night’s drinks. Crumbs dot the floor under each table, dried cheese sticks and bare chicken bones lay under some. Last night’s crew must have left right after the customers.

I wash off the sticky tables, vacuum the crumbly floor, and refill the condiments. I am stocking up the ice machines and restacking the soft drink stands when the first customers trickle in.

“I got it,” Loretta jumps up and takes the five top, an after work crowd, they are usually the early birds, coming straight from their offices.

I try for the next one, but Miss Glenda calls me back to where she sits.

“You ain’t finished the silverware yet,” she says and points to a tangle of forks, knives and spoons.

“I’m not the only one here Miss Glenda. I rolled seventy pieces and nobody rolled any last night. Or restocked any or cleaned anything.”

“Well they’re too busy now,” she nods toward the main dining room where two more groups are waiting to be seated.

“Be right there,” she says in a cheery voice. She turns to me with a dark look. “Just do it. Okay. I don’t have time to argue. Work is work and there will be plenty of tables tonight.”

She towers over me like she’s waiting for me to say something. When I don’t, she puts out her cigarette and walks to the hostess stand. Loretta and Doris split the first six tables while I finish stocking the dining room.

After the shift I am too tired to count out and have to do it three times to get it right while Miss Glenda’s son sighs like I am an idiot. Hunger drives me to the kitchen and I find some greens swimming in pot liquor at the bottom of a black pot. I eat that with left over macaroni and cheese. Miss Glenda fries the chicken to order.

Loretta sits two tables from me, smoking and talking to Doris and the other waitresses. I’m not too tired to see that she has a large stack of money in front of her that is twice the size of mine. Their conversation drifts toward me; apparently most of them had a better night than mine. They leave without saying good-night or even offering to help set up for tomorrow night. I remember the get over ethic as they walk out the door and leave me eating in the dark.