A Woman Pulling the Strings

by Rose Camara

Granny was too ugly to whore. At least that’s what the Madam said. The one who hired Granny to cook back in 1919. It was a scuzzy place, all the town’s bent businesses in one shabby two-storey on Mason Street. 

The bar was real divey, serving penny jugs to drunks whose kids were starving. Upstairs, the johns weren’t much better. 

Jim, Granny would tell me—Granny told me everything—It was rough times. Guys coming home shell-shocked, or in pieces. Widows without options. The whole thing. And it made Granny sick, I knew. Her lip would curl when she talked about it. Thank goodness she didn’t live to see Reagan. Her lip would get stuck.

See. Granny’s parents kicked her to the curb when she was thirteen. Too many mouths to feed, they said. Real bastards. 

They just couldn’t stand to look at me anymore, she said. Imagine. 

Granny was so damn good to me. She’d wrap her arms around me like a shield when I cried. A teenage boy bawling in his grandma’s arms in 1963. Granny didn’t care.

Anyway. When Granny was a kid, walking with her ma, she had seen a girl with a cardboard suitcase standing on the doorstep of that same old two-storey on Mason. Her ma said, That could be you, if you’re not careful. So when Granny walked down Mason, a few years later, thirteen and homeless herself, with her dead brother’s drawstring barrack bag, it was the first place she thought to go. Figured she’d been careless too. But didn’t know how.

So. She’s not yet through the door and some bombed funnyman said she was “too ugly to screw”. She marched past him. Stubborn one, Granny. Turned out it was a brothel. The real deal, Granny would say. People fuckin’ with the door open, boots on. Granny cussed a blue streak. 

Course. She’d lived in a two-room shack, heard her folks a time or two, but this, this was something else. Didn’t matter. Granny was tough. 

The Madam grimaced when she saw Granny, said, Can you cook? 

Cooked for six before the war. 

Wasn’t six no more. Brother died in 1918. Near the end. The only one who gave a shit about her. Course.

Anyway. Cook had just quit, so Granny was hired. Told to stay in the kitchen even to sleep, so she didn’t kill the boners. 

Granny told me, It’s always warm in the kitchen, Jim. Smart, she was.

Anyway. Turned out that everyone was running scams. Upstairs and down. In the bar, some scheme, gambling on fake stocks or I don’t know what, a bucket somethin’ they called it. Not sure, not a money guy. The accountant, a real piece of work, Percival, managed the gambling. Upstairs, the usual stuff, stealing from passed-out johns, blackmailing any bigwigs that came slumming. Madam handled that herself.

So. This message boy came round every month, picking up packages. Ate a bowl of soup with bread after meeting the accountant in the office. Looked at Granny funny every time he left. 

Figured he thought I was ugly, she said. He never said much. And I kept my nose in the chowder. She made a mean corn chowder. Good bread too. Fed the whole place. Just the basics. Same stuff I loved when I was a kid. None of this wonder-garbage.

Jim, she’d say, I thought real home-cooking might turn those lowlifes around. Didn’t work in her parents' damn house. An optimist, I guess Granny was. 

Course. Madam got to trusting Granny. No nonsense. Madam let slip that the gambling had to stop. The lawmakers had been makin’ a fuss in the papers. And local bettors were onto the accountant’s scheme, ‘cause the winners were always drifters. Message boy gave ’em cash to pretend to win big and get scarce. Not one regular hit it big.

Granny warned Madam. Percival’s a weak link. He’ll turn on you. Granny said, Once those bettors think there’s a woman pulling the strings, and pulling ’em crooked, everything will burn to the ground. 

Like those Yellowstone fires last year, I figure. And Granny was right, course. ‘Bout men and women. Seen it myself. 

I was saying. Madam and Granny talked it through. They’d push Percival out. Focus on somethin’ new and wholesome. So Granny got to makin’ pancakes. Pancakes and pancakes and pancakes. Fluffy, with real butter—just a touch of fancy. For the bettin’ folks, the drinkin’ folks, and the whorin’ folks. People couldn't stop talking about these things. Word spread. Rich dames, Granny would call ’em, started showing up, to get a taste for themselves. Less and less room for the boozers and bettors. 

Same time. A few bettin’ folks started getting’ sick. People tried to pin it on Granny, said she was poisoning ’em. But nobody upstairs was getting sick, and none of the drinkers, or the dames. Only those that placed bets. And not all at once. It didn’t make much sense. Especially cause the pancakes were outta sight. People couldn’t get enough. 

Anyway. The gamblers got real God-fearing, thought it was some divine warning. Less of ’em every week. Bucket business got real slow and they didn’t need Percival anymore. He got a nice severance. After a couple days in the shitter himself.

Madam kicked it weeks later. Some kind of heart thing. But not before she signed the whole deal over to Granny.

Soon after, Granny married that message boy. Turned out that funny look he was giving her, that was interest. 

Anyway. Granny and Grandpa turned the place into a soup kitchen and halfway house. Vets, girls, widows with no place to go. Nobody had to stay in the kitchen, not even to keep warm. Topping everyone up on love.

And everything straight, Granny said. Nobody dared cross her.

Saturday nights they served pancakes to the fancy crowd. Pancakes paid for the whole operation. All her idea. Course. I never saw the ugly. Not me. 

About the author

Rose Camara (she/her) is an emerging writer, public servant, and recovering lawyer living and working on the Lekwungen people’s territory, known as Victoria, BC, Canada. She writes short fiction and non-fiction and her writing explores themes of health, resilience, and agency. Rose’s work has appeared in Blank Spaces and was shortlisted in Room Magazine’s 2021 Short Forms Contest. Instagram: @rosecamarawrites

About the illustration

The illustration is a photos of sex workers, ca. 1910. Provenance unknown.