ROSIE THE RIVETER

by Cindi Barton and Holly Rennick

FIRST AUTHOR'S NOTES

We contribute this slice of heritage to National Women's History Month.  (Whoops!  NWHM was in March.  Well, for the one next year.)

There were eighteen million Rosie the Riveters, two of whom were Alice Jean Crowder and Diane Stapleton Estes and they welded, not riveted.  They welded very well, thank you, according to the Kaiser Shipbuilding inspection tallies.  In terms of rivets (if you're a literal male), we had Rose Bonavita who drove a record 3,345 into a torpedo bomber in 1943.  A Rosie really named Rose!

History says that World War II was won by American industrial might.  (Should we have said "Herstory"?  Considering Ms. Bonavita, "Herstoria"?  Vocabulary got complicated after the Rosies burned their bras and the US got licked in Viet Nam.)

Give the picture at http://www.asstr.org/files/Authors/Holly_Rennick/Rosies.jpg a gander.

   Rosie on the left, in her polka-dot bandana, flexes her muscle in the "We Can Do It" 1943 poster.  And do it she did, once she got to California.

   Rosie on the right is Norman Rockwell's Saturday Evening Post cover.  Think she got that satisfied in an afternoon of peening rivets?  Dr. Freud!  We got one for you!

If these two Rosies had just been building war machines, they would have had to wear hardhats. 

SECOND AUTHOR'S NOTES

See if you can find the "play within the play".  I didn't invent the structure.  I think Shakespeare did.

NEW HIRE #1

   Richmond Kaiser Shipyard Welding Crew #138: Calvin McKee, chief, Dennis Selfridge, Alice Jean Crowder and Warner Marti -- Kaiser's best burners, we boasted.  Our hardhats had 138 over a big V for victory.  I'm Alice Jean.  I bring in more take-home pay than my husband Stan who's a rigger.  

But Calvin got on with General Electric's sub division, and Dennis had the seniority.  Myself, I'd started later in the shipbuilding trade, leaving college for the War effort.  I'd been studying for the stage, since I have some talent.  (Well, OK, I was having some grade problems, too.)  But now welding for two years, I was getting to be an old hand.  Hell, it got me to California, same as if I'd opted for the cinema.

Stan, the first rigger I ever met, swept me off my feet by the Golden Gate and got me in what looked to be the family way, so we got married.  Turns out to have been a false alarm, but we'd already tied the knot.

   Welding Crew #138: Dennis Selfridge, chief, Alice Jean Crowder, Warner Marti and one new hire -- Kaiser Shipbuilding's best burners, we hoped.

"So this must be Chester Estes," I judged when I saw Personnel escorting the gangly new-hire into Shipway 11.  LeeAnne in Personnel had tipped me that the new one was single; it's interesting how new hires get classified.  Her understanding was that this one learned to weld on the farm.  Kaiser gets us from all over.

Watching the new hire reminded me my first day, but twenty times more, me being a woman.  Poor guy.  Males want so hard to impress.  Dumped into the scurry, he's thinking he made a bad job choice.  My first day, I'd known the Bette Davis bit.  Hi there, fellas!  Worked like a charm.

I just hadn't realized why Stan had driven me to see the Bay lights from the far docks.  I just wasn't used to brandy, I guess, but maybe at the same time I was ready to live a little.  Welcome to California!

I hoped this new one would give it a couple of years; it can take a while, but you get to like it.  Me, I'd chosen Kaiser for the wrong reason -- the overtime.  Now I'd found a better reason to punch in, welding real ships, proving that us dolls can do it faster, even.

I was pleased that the guys made a point of formally introducing themselves to Chester, the new one.  And after a few jokes, he'd quit refolding his goggles (men like their hands occupied) and was discussing which Yankees were likely to enlist in which Armed Force.  Those service teams could whomp the Majors these days, he said.

Women tend to get acquainted in terms of what we like, the soaps, for example.  Men, by what they think.  It's good to have something in common besides ironwork.

Chester hailed from Oklahoma, went to the Baptist Church, was in tractor sales before the War, ruefully conceding that welding was harder, "but sure beats commissions."

I circumspectly sleuthed two crucial items: he wasn't a fag and admitted to no spouse.  Most gals just check the latter, but I'd known a boy in school who wore his sister's clothes.  Secondary positives included that he smoked, enjoyed dancing (not competitively, he wanted to be clear) and had good manners.  A potential negative seemed to be the seriousness with which he took baseball.  On the other hand, he could have liked the bottle too much, a sure-fire Monday-morning problem for the rest of us.

Then Dennis got a transfer to Kaiser Vancouver and crew chief goes by seniority.

   Welding Crew #138: Alice Jean Crowder, chief, Warner Marti, Chester Estes and another new hire -- Kaiser Shipbuilding's best burners, I wondered.

I was glad I'd worked my way up, Heliarc in glove, so to speak.  Chiefs need to earn their respect, especially woman ones.

NEW HIRE #2

And our new welder was another woman!  Another Rosie the Riveter to the public, still a broad to most guys in Richmond.  But to hell with that!   Because I was now a "Chief Broad" whose beads stayed tight.  It just takes that little bit of extra heat and not pulling the rod away too fast.  (I'm talking welding technology.)

But another gal?  I was as doubtful about this new one, Diane Stapleton, her name, as were Warner and Chester.  Could she carry her weight?  She seemed to have the biceps, I agreed.  Be trusted not to burn the guy on her right?  Hell, would she do her part cleaning up?

I could tell from her union book that she'd apprenticed in Kansas City and she probably knew her theory.  Rosies usually do.  And for $1.05 an hour, 40 hours plus, two-week paid vacation, sick leave, Rosies move to yards where there's more water than ever flowed in the Missouri.  Did the same, myself.

   Welding Crew #138: Alice Jean Crowder, chief, Warner Marti, Chester Estes and Diane Stapleton -- Kaiser Shipyard's first half-and-half burners.

I was pleased to have an unattached gal on board (thank you, LeeAnne in Personnel) for Chester's sake.  I didn't foresee romance right off (this Diane seemed too pretty), but something to think about.  Plus, single Sallies make better friends -- no raised-eyebrow, "Oh, my husband wouldn't want me to, but it's your business."  Plus, as the three of us noted first day, this one could submerge arc as fast as anybody could feed her electrodes.

Crew chiefs need to watch things.

Diane and Chester exchanged greetings at the gate, I observed, and chatted over lunch when a bench was free.  Maybe there was hope for Cupid, but after a month I'd suggest a little faster.  There's a War going on, you know?

I'd been a virgin when I arrived, too.  I could tell that about Diane just from her giggle.  Shoot!  If I'd taken the bus to Hollywood and traded mine off smarter, I'd not be in these coveralls.  But I'd not be making big ships.

I was, I'll admit, a little glad that Warner wasn't the one making eyes at Diane (if that's what Chester thought he was doing.  It takes a little action, too.).  I liked Warner to pal around with.

BARN DANCE

Knowing that Chester danced gave me the inspiration.  "Third Friday every month, 7:30, they open up Store Shed 19 for a country hoedown, just like what we got drug to when we were kids on the farm."  Casually (I hoped), I added as an afterthought, "I'll ask around and see who else is going."

When Diane laughed, "Barn dance?" I guessed it was at the idea of stepping out with string-bean Chester, not alternate left and righting.  No, really.  She'd love to go, though she admitted to only a city girl's idea of barn dancing.  Chester knew how, I assured.  When I promised there'd be no cows or hogs, I had to add that it was a joke.

A barn dance is about as safe as a social can be.  You're in the arms of a different fella every 30 seconds.  Even still, I pulled Diane aside, "You get everything pretty in your room, honey, the other girls ready to slip away for a soda, just in case."  It doesn't hurt to be prepared, even if you're not that kind of girl.  She didn't see it my way, but knew I was trying to be helpful.

On Monday, "Kept those knees together, honey?"  Rosies can ask.

"Alice Jean, you're just awful!" cuffing me like I was a single girl myself.  "And even if I loved him, while do-si-doing?"

Several weeks passed and Chester needed a shove  "There's another barn dance and Diane's been rehearsing her Whoo Hoos," I prodded.  Hardly Hollywood script, but this wasn't Bogart and Bergman.

Diane followed my pointers a little better, making Chester wrap her breast in the swings.  He didn't pull her into him as a smoothie might, she reported, so she turned sideways to help.  Smart chick, I told her.  Walking out to the street, she'd taken his arm.

She shared his cigarette like I told her ("Pop it out of his mouth, take a deep drag and tease him with it when you put it back in."), but didn't ditch her girdle, my other suggestion.  At least she was getting a little more modern.  (Shoot.  If I'd have worn my girdle to see the Bay lights, I'd probably not be married.)

But still no follow-up from Chester, just a "Had us a really nice time."

Why was Chester so chicken?  Being a Baptist?  Full church nursery, so those folks know how.  Okie babies have Okie daddies, so it wasn't where he was from.  Warner said lots of Okie babies are due to Route 66, but still thought Chester's problem was just shyness.

*****

"Chester?" interrupting his small-talk about union scale while we were hauling gas cylinders.  "Diane a good dancer?"

"She's swell.  Better'n me and she just started."

"Ever get, you know, those little romantic thoughts?"

"About her?  Well sure, but not for real.  I'm not her type."

I pursued, "Why not?"

"Oh, you know, she's real pretty."

"That's a reason?"

"Well, I mean, I'm not maybe that experienced with girls.  I can josh with you 'cause you're married, but, you know..."

"You ever made a little whoopee?"  Chiefs ask what's on their mind.

"Not exactly.  I'm sort of slow on the draw, maybe."

You've done it exactly or you've never done it at all.  Heavens to Betsy!  Me plus two virgins plus Warner, who I didn't want to ask outright.

ASSISTANT CREW CHIEF

As I mentioned earlier, there was no payoff to me for finding Warner a lady-friend.  I tried to help, but not like I was thinking of Chester as a project.  Warner called me his "bossy sister" when I tipped him off about the knockout receptionist in Security.  He looked her over, but she was already taken, he decided.

No wonder Warner and Chester are single!

I told Warner that I'd check with Casting.  (Get it?  We had a foundry at Kaiser, but I meant "casting" like for a play.)  I could always swing a joke about plays with Warner because he and I were both in the Kaiser Players.  Just bit parts, but fun.  It's so strange: put  a guy on stage and he assumes a new personality: Warner the butler, Warner the shopkeeper, Warner the guard.  I'd usually get a role involving a great costume.  We'd do each other's makeup, usually.  And, shoot, if it's a tight costume, you ask whoever's handy to help you into it.  Stan wasn't much into theater, so I told him it was pretty much like Shakespeare and he went out with his mates instead.

How many companies provide their workers a stage with actual curtains?  I mean, we welded the superstructure, but it was on company time.

"What's your score on that audition?" I'd ask when a bleached bombshell from Inventory sauntered by where we were securing gun mounts.  "You wear coveralls, I wear a skirt," her ass more or less advertised, but I didn't take it personally.  "Shoot, bud," I told Warner.  "If I let on that some crane-man was a good looker, you wouldn't be telling Stanley, would you?"

"And get my nose smashed for my effort?" he agreed.

"'Course a friendly girl wouldn't need to look as far as the cranes.  That's why I never talk work at home," I assured, brushing back my partner's wayward lick of hair.  "No sense getting Stan all agitated about somebody on my crew."  But he missed my thought.

Warner lived on the same bus line, Number 14.  If it were raining at quitting time and I forgot my umbrella, we could dash for the 14 under his.  He didn't mind me clutching his arm to jump a puddle.  Such a "gallient", my French word to sound better, though I'd expect a Frenchy to have less of a pot belly.  I'd hold on afterwards if I didn't see Stan or any of the guys from my husband's crew.

Jointly securing deck-plate, Warner could usually see some underwear under my coveralls, particularly if the second button came undone.  I liked watching him struggle.  At least he didn't try the old "Alice Jean, help me move this angle iron" lure.  If I caught him eyeballing too much, my "Need some air down there," got us both off the hook.  Needed some air further down, too, but didn't tell him.

Warner could now and then at least have made a pass!  Just for fun, me being a girl and all.  Probably best where nobody else could see -- maybe where Provisioning stocks the kapok life vests.  Wanda in Inventory has the key.  Rosies pretty much run this place, actually.

"Hey Warner?  You ever do Shakespeare?"

"Merchant of Venice.  I was the Jew."

"Romeo and Juliet?  We could practice lines while we worked, even.  Don't move, OK.  I'm coming up the ladder behind you.  Squish in and I'll slip right over your back."  The more it's public, the less anybody sees.

But he never figured it out, ole' pal-o-mine Warner.

Nothing wrong with Stan on the home front, but our shifts usually didn't even agree.

*****

But back to the rest of the crew.  "Hey, Warner?" pulling him aside him at pee break.  They just do it over the side if I'm not looking, but with me the chief, he was heading toward the head.  "I need some advice.  Crew chief type help, crew chief and next crew chief type, you know."

He was listening.  Maybe I was pregnant.

I started right in.  "Chester and Diane.  You think they'd have fun together?"  Warner looked surprised, but hearing no objection from him, I continued.  "Something for us to think about, anyway."  Still no reaction.  "So here's my plan, just for kicks.  We'll stage it so they'll get romantic."

Warner's switch clicked.  "I thought you were already, that dance stuff."

"Died in Scene 2."  I looked around.  "I mean where they'll get real romantic, if you get the gist."

Warner looked around, too.  "Real romantic?"

"Maybe more than spooning.  Get them to hoochie coochie," bumping my hip against my partner's.

"Well it's not my business, but how you'd do that?" he wondered.

"That's what we're planning.  If it takes two to do the act, maybe it takes two more to set the scene.  An actress and an actor like us Kaiser Players."

"To do what act?"  Men are so literal, and here he missed it!

"Get them thinking that they better get married.  They'd be as happy as turtledoves, rent a little bungalow"

"We can't do that!"  Warner looked perplexed, but only till I goosed him and made him jump.

"Actress part," I grinned in explanation.  "But Stan's not into drama like you and me," strategically bending over to move his welding rod.  "So you got cast in sort of Stan's role, except we were in his car."

I kept fiddling with the rod as long as Warner had the balls to enjoy it.

USS GEORGE D. PRENTICE

Kaiser's slipping one Liberty Ship per day meant that no deck on the USS George D. Prentice stayed the same for long.  If we wanted use of the George D's quarters, we hadn't much more than a day between when Cleanup swept out the grime and Outfitting bolted down the mirrors, even while George D's deployment crew was getting off the train at Oakland Station.

Diane and Chester should have been suspicious of the work order.  Welding Crew #138 to the George D. Prentice for "strut stabilization".  Fanny in Scheduling had freed us from traceability that day.  We'd reappear in one of Kaiser's 27-shipways tomorrow.  Rosies help Rosies.

"Don't explain much, if anybody asks," I directed my three.  "We're fixing a screw-up that Contracting doesn't want public.  Stuff's there."

Transport ran us out to the moored George D.  "Pick up at shift," I requested.  We made our way up the gangway and into the corridors of the almost-ready-to-sail transport.

"Well hell's bells!" I bellowed, peering behind the radio room firewall.  "Someone got to it, did our job."

"You're kidding," exclaimed Warner on cue.  "Went and did it for us!  Fat City!  Stuck out here till shift change."  He paused for effect.  "And guess what's in my pocket?"

"Oh no we don't, mister," my crew chief role, relieving him of his flask which I thoughtfully hefted.  "Well there's just a swig apiece, not enough to make any difference if we're killing time."

I'd put up with no drinking, even for the little charade I'd planned, but was hoping that Diane and Chester's intoxication would exceed anything spirit-produced.  It's just good to always have the fallback, "It must have been the booze."

"We can be the Admirals," I ruled, exploring the superstructure and ending up in the captain's quarters.  "Let's kick off our boots, though, so we don't track around."  None us liked our steel toes.  "Socks too," as if it were an afterthought.  "And ditch these damn hardhats."

We speculated where the captain might want to hide his inflatable companion, me mentioning the possibility with a little wiggle.

Then I looked at Warner, our ad-lib thespian talent primed.  The Kaiser Players, stage center!

"Hey, you two?" to Diane and Chester.  "Mind waiting while Warner and me go next door?" to their quizzical looks.  "Chester?  Diane was wondering if that Air Corps ball team's got enough pitchers?"

"We got time," brightened Chester before Diane could correct.

"Got some old business to attend to," added Warner, taking my arm.  The two of us exited and noisily entered the adjoining cabin, loudly snapping the lock from the inside.

"Don't worry, Alice Jean.  We got a steel wall between," loudly assured Warner about the thin-gage partition.  In a downtown theater, the set designers would make a wall at center stage, but so the audience sees both sides.  It's tricky.

I waltzed Warner to the center of the first mate's domain, Warner's back to the wall shared with the captain.  Holes drilled in the partition squared where a mirror would hang.  Maybe a mirror on both sides, I decided -- bolt, mirror, wall, mirror, nut.  Stage design's more tricky.

I stood facing Warner and the drill holes.  And now our lines.

"Oh, Warner," I stage-whispered.  "Nobody must ever know."

"Alone at last," he declared, a bit stiffly, but acting takes warm-up, just like baseball.

Not to my surprise, one, then another, of the drill holes darkened, an eyeball to the far side.

"Just one last time," in the breathy voice I'd been working on in college.  "I may never see you again," added for somber measure.  My leading man was quick enough to catch the cue.  Maybe he was being sent to a secret project for the War effort.

Of course the scene called for a kiss.  I'd known that from the start, but hadn't explained as much to Warner.  He deduced my direction, though, when I tilted my head sidewise and puckered.

Actually, he was pretty good at it.  For acting, of course.  Maybe he once had a steady, I wondered.

"Just one more," he winked, as they couldn't see his face.

Why not?  The other two weren't going to fall for just a stolen peck.  This time he pulled me to him, too abruptly for a romantic comedy, but surely convincing from over his shoulder.  I'd no idea that he kissed so wonderfully, actually.

"Mmmmm!" for that special effect.

"Alice Jean," he broke away.  "You're precious to me," making as to put his hand on my heart.  He'd not, of course, but they'd think so.

"I'll miss you so," I stalled, wondering if Diane and Chester had perhaps taken hands.

"I want you," he confessed most convincingly and then, to my surprise, fingered my coverall top button.

"No, don't," I reproached.  This just needs to be suggestive, I wanted to whisper.

"Remember when Stan had the month of night shifts, Alice Jean?  Those tub baths?"  For on-the-fly dialog, he was pretty good.

"How 'bout in the back seat of Bus 14. us missing our stops?"  I could pen a few lines, myself, but didn't get any more delivered because he was opening my coverall top.

No way, Buster Brown!  I'd still a hand on each of his shoulders to hold him in a view-blocking position.

I didn't mind so much about my coveralls, but I hoped it might look like only a touch, not a fondle.  In fact, he was acting as if it were a regular thing with me.  In welding, you reach across your partner all the time, so it wasn't that he'd not felt me before, but in welding, you're reaching past your partner.

"You know I love 'em," he winked again, flipping open my buttons, one after another, me wordless.  "Remember that old davenport in 'Charlie's Aunt' they parked behind the set for Scene 3.  What'd we have?  Maybe four minutes till your entry?"  What a fibber!

"Remember in the lifeboat, there under the canvas, when the War Department inspector walked by?" my stage persona trying to regain the spotlight with a fast line.

"Shoot!" came back Warner.  "He could see you wiggling, but they told him the chick's the best welder we got."  He was going for the laugh, but I saw it as a compliment.

It wasn't even as if I really cared about the others seeing my bra, but I'd have wanted it to be only in passing.  It didn't matter as much, Warner seeing it, as he saw it accidentally every day.  This was too impromptu, however.

I thought it time to end our performance, but he closed to kiss again, this one long and deep.  Playing the part of the maiden was so engrossing that I scarcely felt him reach around to unhook me.  I knew it, I guess, but I just thought it was for pretend.

I was surprised, though, when he lifted my bra free, my nipples hard from the drama.  Diane would be thinking that I was this way because of the temperature.  I didn't think Warner had seen my nipples before, though they said that some of the guys in Carpentry had made this place to spy on the Ladies Dressing Room.  At least with Warner's paws over me, I was a little covered.  In the Ladies Dressing room, we'd spend extra time reaching behind our heads to fix our hair, but with our bras still on.

I wondered if Chester had slipped his hand onto Diane's breast.  From the darkened drill holes, I knew where they stood -- close enough.

I wasn't sure if I'd best pull away, exposing my chest, or let Warner shield me until we could sidestep.  I opted for the latter, as indeed, he was holding me as would my Romeo.  Maybe not on stage, though.

"Take off my top, darling," Warner suggested, and as it bought us a bit more stage time, I undid his buttons, pulled down his top down and his jersey up.  He had a hairy chest, and even with his belly, looked strong as hell.

"Say yes, Alice Jean," he murmured, and taking the cue, I complied before he again claimed my lips.

The scene was progressing further than I'd scripted.  Diane and Chester would assume the worst as to where our tongues were, I realized.  They couldn't see my resistance.  But then, we're just doing our parts.  I giggled when I lost the fencing match.

Warner rotated me to provide better view of my breasts to the audience, but I wiggled back for modesty's sake.

But doing the kissing convincingly, I couldn't stop Warner from dropping my coveralls, leaving nothing above my knees but a lifted bra and white panties.  (I wouldn't want it to appear that I'd dressed up; nobody wears girdles under coveralls.)  I pictured Diane on the other side, no girdle to keep her from sensing Chester's hesitant admission.

As tripping would ruin our hoped-for effect, I stepped out of my cuffs.

My costuming lost even my covering-nothing bra with another tug.  Warner was now grinning far in excess of what the passionate lover in our play should do, but our audience couldn't see his mouth.

My face they could watch, appropriately overwhelmed for the scripted role, though in the script, my demeanor would be more illusional.  Playing your part in just panties doesn't leave much to illusion.

I pictured Diane on the other side, likewise bare breasted, her coveralls falling to the floor.

"Let's love like we did on the anchor winch." Warner acting like the chief was a little too much!

"But..."

And with that he pulled off his trousers and shorts, exposing a surprisingly realistic erection.  A surprisingly big one, compared to Stan's, anyway.  Squeezing down crawlspaces with our tools and everything, sure, I'd slid over Warner's crotch a few times, but never long enough to make it do anything.  If he'd groped me, I'd have given him a what-for after we'd gotten to a place we could talk.

"No, Warner," I protested, making sure he remained faced away from the voyeurs.  Showing them his backside wasn't proper, but his front was worse.  We couldn't have them knowing how erectly he was enacting the man's part.  In drama, we'd say, "really up for his role", but it's more figurative.

It was harder for him, I realized, having to play his character buck naked, than for me, retaining at least my panties.

But so much for that advantage.  "Oh, darling," was his brief ad lib after pulling them off.  We girls sort of knew that some carpenters might be watching in the Ladies Dressing Room, but having your welding partner stare down there is more personal.

But at least he'd shifted his hips nicely to block the drill hole view.  My naked-top part wasn't OK, absolutely not, but my naked bottom might be almost lewd.  Especially when his penis keeps brushing against my hair.  (Did I mention that it was a large one?)  If I hadn't steadied it, I fear it would have flopped to the side and the others might have seen.

What if somebody besides Diane and Chester should be peeking?  Thank God I'd called for pick-up at the end of the day!  Since I'd gotten married, nobody but Stan had made it this far, but with Stan, it was sort of his right.  Some might say responsibility, even.

With a swoop, Warner was on his knees, feigning to caress my breasts, his cheek suggesting interest in even lower.  Just as I couldn't help seeing Warner's ready erection, he couldn't help noting where my legs meet.  Everybody's meet somewhere, I justified.  Besides, he probably grew up with a sister or two.  Even still, he did a super job at acting interested.

To minimize the drill-hole view of my pubic region, I too droped to my knees.

"Our final time," he grandly remorsed, folding his knees in front and pulling me forward onto his lap.  Given our orientation to the wall, I had little alternative but to scoot as bidden.  At least with our privates concealed, we could deceive.  If ever I had to explain the sham to Diane, she'd know I'd done nothing for real, a married woman, their chief.

But when Warner pulled me downward, his penis wasn't turned away and he'd not realized his mistake!  But then I shouldn't be critical; he must have been working like the devil to keep it looking like it wanted to do something.

"But Warner..." I protested, but against the smother of his kiss, I wasn't loud enough for him to hear.

I guess he didn't realize the alignment until he felt me slip around him.  For me, anyway, I wasn't sure until I felt him inside.  Wow!

I'd descended a bit further, I judged, than required for dramatic suggestion.  My being a bit more slippery than foreseen may have been part of the problem as well.  And somehow we'd started a bit faster than a director might want for a well-paced scene.

"We shouldn't..." more loudly.  I suspected that I was a little too much into the enactment to be directing.  Anyway, he was already all the way.

"..be doing this during working hours," he stole the punch of the cheap one-liner.

"But this isn't the way..." I argued, picturing Stan's repertoire, me flat on my back or frontwards over the side of  the mattress.  I smoke Luckies too, but not during sex.

"Sure is!"  Warner bounced me, making my trying to get off look like trying to get on.  Maybe they'll think we've not actually connected, just doing it on the outside, I hoped.  I resented how unwieldy my breasts must look to our observers.

It was getting too confusing, the acting and the not acting, knowing when to bounce for stage effect, when to bounce for my own effect.

His grunts and grimace were classic enough for a real climax.  Maybe his flush wasn't necessary (the others just seeing the back of his head), but an actor appreciates the other's intensity, something to play against.  Every starlet needs a supporting performer.

As the drill holes saw my face straight on, I had no option but to perform my best dramatic crescendo.  It wasn't hard, as in a proximate sense, he was rubbing realistically.  Actually, I just let the mood define things.  Did they know I'm this good an actress?  The audience had liked me in comedies, especially ones by Thornton Wilder, but I'd never done an orgasm with the Kaiser Players.

Acting can be as lovely as reality.  More so, sometimes.  Give the mental part your full and the rest of you follows.

And in our romantic scene, Warner and I naked together, every line was better than the one before!  A playwright, of course, doesn't script romance as distinct dialog.  Rather, he relies on the performers' art in the non-articulate.  I forget which I expressions I chose, but I doesn't matter because they change with performances.

Wow, oh wow!  I just wished they'd hung that mirror so I could have watched myself.

As we caught our breaths (acting takes as much work as real life), I noted the non-prop semen dripping from me.  Looked like soldering flux.  The others couldn't see the proof, but surely sensed that Warner had done a superb job opposite me.

"Good job, Alice Jean.  I hope we finally made that baby."  I couldn't believe he'd invent such a line!

I couldn't believe how off-track had wandered my script for this half of the wall.

Looking to the wall, I caught the drill holes change from dark to light, and not a minute later came sounds from the captain's side.  Passionate sounds, the same as we'd delivered.  Warner and I had played our roles convincingly.  My heartbeat told me that, even without the sounds.

Plays can get good reviews even when the cast muffs some of the script.  Critics like spontaneity.

I wanted to use a drill hole myself, but decided that it was different.  Diane, being a virgin, wouldn't be nearly so professional, though in a salary sense, we in Kaiser Players were technically still amateurs.

I gave my co-star a kiss (not play-acted since nobody was watching), and leaned back, my heels still round his hips.  As the first mate's deck was cold, I used my coveralls to make my pillow and his coveralls our floor-covering.

And somehow in the leaning back, in the pillow placement, in Warner climbing on board, we'd rotated 90, so that our sides, not his back, faced the wall.  Diane and Chester wouldn't be checking for a while, but when they did the eyeball, we'd be better blocked.  "Stage-positioned for viewable presentation" -- I studied acting in college.

As nice as Warner is as a guy, his hairy butt shouldn't be bouncing like a basketball between the audience and me.

I wasn't pleased about the semen, but don't cry over spilt milk.

I kept my eye on the drill holes, ready to encore.  After all, Welding Crew #138 had the rest of the afternoon.

And you never know!  After this war's done, there might be movie opportunities opening up.   Maybe in the little studios in the Tenderloin District?  The ones where I wouldn't have to give up my welding job.

*****

Sure enough, our one act did the trick for Diane and Chester.  (Get it?  One-act play and the you-know-what act.)  Wedding on an anchored transport newly outfitted to Win the War.  Bride, groom, best man and matron of honor -- Welding Crew #138.  The other crews stood with torches raised, aisle alit with flames of blue.

I told Warner he had to give the bride a real kiss, even if he had to sneak it in the galley.  I guess he did, because she came out giggly, redoing her little pearl buttons and winked at me, Rosie to Rosie.

And Warner did leave Kaiser.  He couldn't say where, but where he was heading they said he'd never know what he was fabricating.  He did know that they'd checked his gas tungsten credential, what they'd want for magnesium, stainless and aluminium.

   Welding Crew #138: Alice Jean Crowder, chief, Chester Estes, Diane Estes and one new hire -- Kaiser Shipyard's best burners.

A great thing about Kaiser, of course, is that they we have our own hospital.  Diane was in the bed next to mine, girls born not a day off from nine months after the USS George D. Prentice.  Mine's as cute as a kitten and has that wayward lick of hair.  Stan never would have noticed Warner's because Kaiser makes welders wear hardhats.

Diane and I both wanted to name ours Rosie, so she and Chester settled on Rosemary and I opted for Rosalyn.

END

ENDNOTES

At its peak, the Kaiser Richmond workforce was 27 percent female.  And for these broads to make warships, Kaiser had to turn a profit.  Accounting looked at our Rosies, the cost of maternity wards and the lost productivity and made its recommendation to Employee Benefits.  In providing birth control to married and single, Kaiser Permanente was on its way to becoming America's most successful HMO.

And having briefly mentioned America's second favorite pastime in the story, did you know about the All-American Girls' Baseball League started in 1943?  The Rockford Peaches, Kalamazoo Lassies and Grand Rapids Chicks kept the Midwest buying hot dogs.  Rivet gun, welding torch, catcher's mitt -- Rosies doing their part.   Mayonnaise on that, sir?

Next time you're in the Bay area, visit the Rosie the Riveter World War II Home Front National Historical Park in Richmond.  And tip your hardhat, Jennifer.

HOLLY ON THE WEB

Wherever you found this story on the web, thank you to the server.  My problem is that I've no systematic way to update the various servers.  As literary errors (or just poor word usages) are made known to me, I'll repair that which is salvageable on http://www.asstr.org/~Holly_Rennick/.  My website's not much graphically, I admit, but HTML isn't my native language.

You can contact me via the site's message form, that HTML code by the smart people at ASSTR.

I won't be changing the story significantly, so if you didn't like it before, that much will remain the same.  But if you did like it, an update may read a bit more cleanly.

   Holly
