The Fallen Curtain Left My Red Lock Beneath The Seats

The curtain came down at four seventeen on a Tuesday. By four forty, Douglas Creel had decided I was the reason.

He met me outside the auditorium at West Branch High on Joliet's west side. The bus lane smelled of wet leaves. An ambulance stood beside the doors, though the girl inside it was sitting up.

"You skipped your checks," he said. "Now look."

I was a forty-four-year-old Black woman with broad shoulders, deep brown skin, and short silver-threaded twists tucked beneath a faded blue work cap.

My name was Imani Redd. I rigged theater fly systems. I hung battens, checked lifting lines, and made sure things above a stage stayed above it until someone meant to bring them down.

I checked every knot twice while humming lullabies. After each check, I put a pencil dot on my paper card. Two dots meant my hands and eyes had both done their jobs.

Douglas hated those cards.

"Everything's on our server," he always said. "You make extra work."

Douglas Creel was a fifty-seven-year-old white man with a red neck, a smooth silver comb-over, and a brass key ring clipped to his belt.

He shook those keys whenever someone else knew an answer.

Now he shook them at me.

"The district paid you twelve thousand four hundred dollars for maintenance. Where did it go?"

He turned toward the adults gathering at the door.

"She took our maintenance money and never did the work."

"Into the work listed on six invoices."

"Then why did our curtain fall?"

"Let me see it."

He spread his arms across the door.

Behind him, a black curtain lay in a heap across the front rows. One end of its overhead batten had dropped. A lifting line hung loose above the stage. A girl in a green sweatshirt stared at the wreck through the open doors.

"June," someone called. "Your mother's here."

She stepped back before I could speak.

I had finished the school's scheduled inspection on Friday. The old curtain hoist had passed its load test. Its upper limit switch had stopped the lift where it should. I had written the motor's serial number on my card.

On Monday, I returned for my weight dolly.

That was when I saw the replacement motor.

Douglas had stood beside its open carton while Edwin Bell, a district maintenance worker, set out tools.

"The show opens next week," Douglas had said. "Put it in."

"This changes the system I inspected," I told him. "You need the right controls and another test."

"It's a motor, Imani."

"It's a suspended load over children."

I had shut off the hoist's disconnect, put my red lock through it, and hung a DO NOT OPERATE tag. I gave the front office a written hold notice and emailed Douglas a copy.

My Monday visit had gone into my closeout video, too.

I filmed serial plates, test weights, and my hands on each control. For thirty-eight dollars a month, my liability insurer stored those files outside my own computer. Each upload got a receipt with the time it reached their system.

The agreement let me request my originals whenever I needed them.

Douglas knew about the school's video folder. He did not know about that agreement.

At the auditorium door, I looked down.

My red lock lay under a seat. Its shackle had been cut.

"Don't touch that," I said.

"Don't give orders in my building."

The principal came out carrying a list of students. Her name was Anne Mercer. Her hand shook against the paper.

"June has a sprained wrist," she said. "The others are being checked."

"My lock was cut," I told her.

Douglas stepped between us.

"Her paperwork says the system passed. We need to find out whether any inspection happened at all."

I felt that sentence land on every adult near the door.

Anne looked at my cap, my boots, the dusty knees of my work pants.

"Please leave the grounds until we sort this out."

"Preserve the lock. The motor, too."

"We'll handle it," Douglas said.

By dinner, my unpaid balance of $3,180 was frozen. A message from district purchasing called my vendor account suspended. A community theater put a $2,600 job on hold after someone forwarded the school's notice.

I sat at my kitchen table with cold beans and rice beside me.

My inspection cards filled a little gray box. I laid Friday's card under the lamp. There were two dots beside every line.

For a moment, I could not hum.

Then I opened my insurance agreement and found the number for claims.

"This is Imani Redd," I said. "I need a claim opened, and I need my stored files kept exactly as they are."

The investigator called twenty minutes later.

"Tamsin Wu," she said. "I've placed a hold on your archive. There's something you should know."

I picked up my pencil.

"The district has filed a claim against you for ninety-two thousand dollars."