CHICKEN: Was this before you went to the drugstore for the peroxide bottle?

MYRTLE: This was before—pour me a little whiskey in this cup!— before I learned the scoop!

CHICKEN: What do you think is the scoop, Miss Myrtle Turtle?

MYRTLE: The hardness of people. There’s very few soft-hearted people, them that are, they work at a bad disadvantage. I was just too soft-hearted for my own good, so you can imagine what happened.

CHICKEN: No. I can’t imagine.

MYRTLE: The man that managed the dry-goods store in Biloxi kept walking by me and every time that he did, he would touch my body. First on my arm, he would just pinch my arm a little, and then on my shoulders and, accidentally like, he would feel my breasts. Finally he would come up behind me and put a hand on my hips. I told my girlfriend. I told my girlfriend about it . . .

CHICKEN: What did your girlfriend say?

MYRTLE: Honey, she said, just pretend you don’t notice.

CHICKEN: Ha ha!

MYRTLE: Just try and ignore it and he will quit after a while. But not Charlie, not him!

CHICKEN: So Charlie had the hots for you?

LOT [from above]: Myrtle!

MYRTLE: Yeah, coming, coming!

CHICKEN: Let him holler. It might strengthen his lungs.

MYRTLE: I don’t like to be hollered at. I’ll come up there when I’m ready. No, my girlfriend didn’t understand Charlie . . . He pinched me harder and hung around me longer all the time. What could I do? Pretend like I didn’t notice? How could I help but notice with black and blue marks on my body where he pinched me?

CHICKEN [squeezing her shoulder]: How hard did he pinch you? This hard?

MYRTLE: Ow!—Yes, that hard. I talked to my girlfriend about it. We roomed together. She gave me lots of advice and all of it bad. Honey, she said, just take him aside and have a sincere conversation. Tell him that you’re not used to that sort of treatment. Tell him that you have had a decent upbringing and you are religious!

CHICKEN: Tell him to shut the spiritchel gates on the body?

MYRTLE: Ah, something like that. I took her advice about it. I walked in his office at the back of the store. I even remember the hour. It was lunch-hour one Saturday afternoon in the middle of summer.

CHICKEN: —July? The month of July?

MYRTLE: Two days after the Fourth!

CHICKEN: Aw. Too late for firecrackers . . .

LOT: Myrtle! Myrtle!

MYRTLE: Shut up! Don’t holler at me!

CHICKEN: That’s the ticket. Show him who wears the pants!

MYRTLE: I’m through taking orders from people. —Yes, I went in his office and soon as I walked in the door he pulled the shade down. I should of walked right back out.

CHICKEN: Should of but didn’t.

MYRTLE: That’s right. Should of but didn’t.

CHICKEN: Uh-huh . . .