Although not exactly plastic... nylon offered an almost pure
case study of the domestication process to which Americans
submitted plastics after the war was won.
— Jeffrey Meikle, American Plastic: A Cultural History
New York World’s Fair, 1939 She drops her hands to her sides in unison with the Lady of Chemistry, who spins seven feet above the floor on an oversized lazy Susan. In a single practiced motion, the plastic-clad angel lifts her skirt just enough to give the public a fleeting glimpse of what they’ve been clamoring for. Stooping to finger the baggy rayon that covers her knees, Bridgette marvels at how the full- fashioned thermoplastic hose embrace the patella, how the unfaltering superpolymer seam caresses the back of the thigh. Her husband envisions her garter belt: red, white, and blue, with hand-stitched peek-a-boo eyelets. Adorned with cellophane bows and semi-precious Lucite jewels, the Lady smiles and waves, swishes the hem of her rayon skirt, and clicks the Pyralin heels of her patent leather shoes as the platform turns to greet the crowds. The honeymoon is everything the newlyweds could have imagined. Bridgette melts with desire. Her husband is extruded. Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1943 Hoping to put a dent in the roughly 4,000 pairs of stockings needed to land a single B-29 Superfortress safely, Bridgette donates all but one of the fourteen pairs of nylon hose from the top drawer of her dresser. She rolls that single remaining pair into a careful ball and slides it into the back corner of the oak drawer, behind her socks. She imagines her husband, the bombardier, in his dress best: ballistic nylon flak jacket cinched tight at the sides, nylon socks, and rot-proof nylon shoelaces, his carefully packed nylon parachute within arm’s reach. She worries him groundward towards some Pacific island, where he sleeps soundly on a nylon hammock, shrouded in nylon mosquito netting, inside of a nylon tent. In the solitude of her master bath, after a long day’s work drilling submarine torpedo tubes at the machine shop on the south side, Bridgette paints her legs with pancake makeup, applies a charcoal seam up the back of her leg with an eyebrow pencil, and brushes her teeth with a nylon bristled toothbrush before heading out to dinner. Wisconsin Avenue, Milwaukee, 1945 Eight days after Japan’s surrender, nylon stockings went back into production. Bridgette was fourth in line outside of Gimbels the day they went on sale. Osseo, Wisconsin, 1969 From the rust colored couch in her living room, with her bare feet planted in the Berber carpet, Bridgette watches quietly on her dusty black and white as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin squeeze through the open hatch of the LEM. She watches the war rage in Vietnam during the commercial breaks. She watches as the pair plant an unwavering nylon flag in the dusty soil. The phone rings. It’s her only son calling to let her know he’s arrived safely in Canada.
Drew Dillhunt | Mudlark No. 39 (2010)
Contents | Plastic #7 (Other: Cellophane)