Sweat

August 4, 2000. In the news, Republican presidential candidate George Bush begins a campaign trail across the Midwest. Cynthia, sitting alone at a table in the bar, tells Stan she’d rather be on a cruise on the Panama Canal. Stan replies that that’s a good way to spend a birthday and asks if Cynthia is alright. She confides in him that she was hoping her friends would show up, but Stan reminds her that they don’t have much of a choice. Cynthia reminisces about how she felt special and accomplished when she first started at Olstead’s—but now that she’s gotten the managerial job she always coveted, she’s been wracked with guilt over watching her friends be locked out.

Cynthia wonders if the plant gave her the promotion on purpose so that she’d have to take the heat of the lockout, and she regretfully admits that she needs the money. She’d thought that the floor workers would take the deal they were offered. Stan reminds her that it’s their friends who are locked out—many people in town wouldn’t even want him serving Cynthia. Cynthia tells him to drop the attitude. She had to lock out her own son, so she fully understands the gravity of the situation. However, she also thinks that getting Chris out of Olstead’s could be a silver lining.

Sensing how distraught Cynthia is, Stan reassures her that it’s not her fault—many of Stan’s customers are in Cynthia’s position as other local plants institute layoffs and lockouts. He bitterly comments that politicians have no idea what’s going on in the world, which is why he isn’t voting. Cynthia agrees, and she suggests that maybe Freddy Brunner wasn’t so crazy to burn his house down.

Just then, Tracey and Jessie enter the bar. The mood immediately darkens; Tracey accuses Cynthia of being a traitor, and Jessie asks Cynthia how it feels to betray her friends. Cynthia reminds them that they could have taken the deal, but Tracey says she’d rather be locked out and dependent upon union handouts than give up everything she’s worked for. Cynthia replies that she didn’t make the policy, but Tracey won’t hear of it—she accuses Cynthia of not being on their side. She tells Cynthia how humiliating it is to be locked out, and Cynthia sympathizes but explains that she’s in a difficult position.

Still, Tracey refuses to hear Cynthia out and scoffs at the idea of taking the deal. She tells Cynthia about the crowds lining up for handouts at the union office and admits that she feels lost without her job. Tracey has always been a hard worker, and now she wakes up with nowhere to go and is hesitant to spend any money or even to leave the house. She asks Cynthia why she even came to the bar, and Cynthia reminds Tracey that it’s her birthday.

Tracey begins to reminisce about their trip to Atlantic City with Brucie and Hank for Cynthia’s 25th birthday, when a drunken Cynthia viciously dug her nails into the fake breasts of a woman who was flirting with Brucie at the casino. This is the feisty friend Tracey misses—the friend who fought for what she loves. However, Cynthia tells Tracey and Jessie that she’s been taking orders from idiotic or racist supervisors since she was 19—now that she’s finally gotten a break, she can’t give up the opportunity. Tracey asks Cynthia if they’re supposed to feel sorry for her, and Cynthia replies that she didn’t expect them to understand—Tracey and Jessie don’t know what it’s like to be in her shoes. Although they think she’s being selfish, Cynthia believes that her job will enable her to keep fighting on behalf of her friends.