Lady (16 page)

We had no car, but there were others who didn't either, and they didn't have Lady Harleigh across the Green with her Minerva, and anyway the trolley ran right past. We received an allowance, which we earned by doing chores, but of soup kitchens and bread lines and alphabetized relief programs we were ignorant, except what we heard on the radio or read in the papers or saw in the movies. We all knew what we wanted to be when we grew up, which was to be better than our antecedents, to build taller and wider, to fly higher and faster, to make more money and be more famous, and at all costs to get out of Pequot Landing.

Lying there, looking up at the stars, I wondered if any of us would ever get to do what we thought we wanted to, and I was conscious of yearnings I couldn't define, vague yet distressing, and the realization of how hard it was to grow up, and what an unnatural process it seemed. I couldn't wait for it to happen, and I wished for a way to make it happen more quickly, to be grown and away, away from Ma and Nonnie and Ag, away from our house with its tan papered walls and katty-cornered furniture, away from Pequot Landing. What I didn't realize then, and perhaps never thought about until much later, until Blue Ferguson was dead, and my brother Lew, when all the war casualties were counted and we really were grown, was that we were living in a time of peace, and that that was a most valuable thing.

Then, after Hermitage Island, August came and went, September was here, summer had gone, and it was back to school again. I was in the sixth grade that fall, and Miss Grimes, the principal, was my teacher. Next year I would go on to junior high, and I would not be sorry to see the last of the Chester Welles Grammar School, a Gothic pile of dirty red brick, slate-roofed, with floors so heavily varnished you could skate on them; a hall of lower learning, with the constant clatter of shoes, the smell of damp woolens in the cloakrooms, the heavy cardboard reading charts, where knowledge came at the end of a pointer and punishment at the end of a razor strop.

Nor would I be sorry to leave Miss Grimes, the terror of any schoolboy. How often had I been sent to her office in disciplinary matters to be importantly adjudicated and then summarily dealt with. Oh, the rulers struck on the hand, my small one fiercely gripped by her large one, she grimly frowning as she whacked my palm with a worn, heavy ruler inscribed with an advertisement for the local hardware store. Oh, the wicked leather shaving strop she wielded with such mastery, for Miss Grimes knew full well that "This was what such a boy needed," and what Miss Grimes knew to be true was readily conveyed by the handiest and most thorough means.

Though her tenure at the Chester Welles Grammar School continued for many years after I left, and though I would occasionally see her about town, I do not recall ever seeing her smile, and if she saw me, it was with a dubious expression, as if to say, "There's
that
boy, thorn of my flesh." I have not missed Miss Grimes,

That fall, the Italians invaded Ethiopia, and I was given an assignment in Current Events dealing with this subject. At the library, I got from Miss Shedd (Lady had kept her promise, and we all saw the librarian often these days) everything she could find that pertained, and history-laden I made my way home one afternoon where I found Nancy in the kitchen.

That September, after Nonnie had gone away to normal school, Nancy came to us. Nancy was a Negro who had been at Meadowland, the institution where Rabbit Hornaday's mother was. Though we knew Nancy had been in some kind of trouble, we quickly accepted her as the person she came to be, a friend and helper. No one ever questioned the private facts of her previous difficulties, but it had been arranged for her to come to us so that Ma could continue at the Sunbeam Laundry, where she had been made a superintendent and did not have to work on the mangle anymore.

There were a number of these so-called "wayward" girls placed in homes around town. Having fallen foul of various petty charges of immorality or delinquency, they had been sent to Meadowland for rehabilitation, and were "paroled" to whatever kitchens required their services and could afford their nominal upkeep. They were all good-hearted girls, not overly bright, perhaps, but willing and honest. They lived in cramped, unattractive attic quarters, froze in the winter, roasted in the summer, shared the bathroom, and worked twelve hours or more a day. But if you gave a little love or affection to them they returned it in the fullest measure. Nancy did all the things Nonnie had done, and more, and faster, if more noisily, but within a week she had established proprietary rights over all our family and was a familiar sight around the Green.

"Woody, you boys haven't got such big feets, why you make so much noise with 'em?" she demanded as I came in the kitchen door with my library research.

"It's my boots -- they clump."

"Then unclump 'em."

"Okay."

"You take your Iradol-A? No, you didn't. You take your Iradol-A."

Nancy was a nonbeliever in castor oil, our most common winter household remedy, and had convinced Ma that Iradol-A, a thick, molasses-like syrup with a terrible taste, was a better tonic for us, and as we had quickly discovered, what Nancy said usually went. I took my Iradol-A, then made my usual peanut-butter and Marshmallow Fluff sandwich, and carried it with a glass of milk into the living room to get my French horn, since I was due at Mr. Auerbach's at four. Nancy followed -- she never missed an opportunity to talk with someone -- and as I ate my sandwich, sorting through my music for the
Poet and Peasant Overture
, she interrupted herself to peer out the window.

"Men's diggin'," she observed, watching the WPA men at their labors. Shortly after school had begun, an interesting form of activity had developed around the Green, as workers came with trucks and equipment to dig a trench for the new sewer line. Lady had made her influence felt at Town Meetings, and, the Spragues and No-Relation Welles notwithstanding, the town fathers had voted to replace the irksome septic tanks, thus defeating P.J. and Spouse, who had been, most people thought, properly squelched; and it was generally felt that poor old sleepy Pequot Landing was showing a little progressive spirit, at least in the matter of public sewage.

"Who's that one over there?" Nancy was still peering out the window, and I went to look.

"That's Dumb Dora. She's --" I tapped my head with a peanut-buttered finger. Dora Hornaday was lollygagging around in the Piersons' driveway, looking vacantly upward as if expecting to see a zeppelin go over.

"That's the one's mother's at Meadowland? She's a holy terror that one. Rambunctious. I seen her take after one of the girls with a butcher knife. That's her crazy kid, huh? And she's got another one -- stomped rabbits, I heard." Nancy went to see what mischief Kerney was into; I took my music and horn, and left by the front door. I heard a motor starting up, and as I came down the walk the Pilgrim Market truck pulled out from the Piersons' driveway. Blue waved, then turned his wheel quickly, and was only missed by the narrowest gauge as Gert Flagler's Chevy careened around the roadway and she slewed into her drive. In another moment there was a shattering crash. I raced to peek through a hole in the fence, to see the front end of the car sticking out the back end of the garage.

"God damn it -- that was the gas pedal!" Gert's exasperated voice boomed from inside. "I thought it was the brake." Miss Berry came to a window, then, commiserating, coaxed Gert into the house.

I crossed the Green, and next door to Lady's, Mrs. Pierson came out on her porch with a parrot cage and hung it on a hook to air. Mrs. Pierson was nice, but a little strange. Her husband traveled on business a good deal of the time, but she never went anywhere or did anything. Her face was forever pale under the heavy make-up she always painted on, and her hair, a variety of reddish hues, looked, Mrs. Sparrow declared, like an Italian sunset. She lounged around all day in a Japanese kimono, and Mr. Pierson complained that she was always forgetting her lighted cigarettes, which would sometimes roll onto a tabletop, scorching it, or making burns in the rug beside the davenport.

As I passed, Mrs. Pierson came out again with a pan of water which she slid into the parrot cage. I heard her call, not to me, but to Dora, who was lurking under the heavy screen of firs that almost engulfed the house. Dora ducked around back; Mrs. Pierson made the parrot talk, then went back inside.

When I got to the Center, I saw Elthea Griffin coming out of Miss Jocelyn-Marie's Gift and Novelty Shoppe. Wearing her muskrat coat, she was decked out with beads and bracelets, and she sashayed through the doorway on her spike heels, clutching an enormous box of candy. Seeing me, she struck a pose, throwing her arms wide, snapping the fingers of her free hand, and singing, "Ah'm gonna
sit
right
down
and
write
mah
self
a
let
-ter -- and make believe it came from
yoo-o-o-ou
!" She gave out with her marvelous laugh, and lifted the lid of the candy box and let me poke around for a nougat. I took a couple and she gave me a swift kiss, plunked the lid back on, and went into the drugstore.

"God in heaven, don't that boy know that woman's black?" Porter Sprague was, as usual, bending Mr. Pellegrino's ear. I tried to get past, but Mr. Sprague buttonholed me. "Listen, son, you got the wrong idea -- that gal's a nigger, don'tcha know that?"

I stepped by, saying nothing as I headed for the corner of Church Street.

"Folks'll be calling you a nigger-lover, if you don't watch it," Mr. Sprague tossed after me. I ducked my head and started to run.

I hated his saying that word. Nobody used it much, except talking about some of the Knobb Street gang. Everyone liked Andy Cleves and his wife, who ran the Noble Patriot, and I knew that while the word was used a lot down South, in Pequot it didn't sound right, particularly when talking about my friend Elthea. I couldn't imagine anyone using it about her, or about Jesse.

On Church Street I saw Dora up ahead of me, and by the time I'd gotten to the freight depot she was already on the platform, swinging her legs and throwing rocks into the rail bed as the train whistle sounded down the track.

The striped wigwag arm began moving, and the red light blinked. The train came around the curve, her stack puffing clumps of black smoke. I fished out a penny and laid it on the track, while the engineer tooted for all he was worth to get me out of the way, which I did only at the last possible moment. Forced to slow down, he glared at me as he went over the crossing, but he should have been used to it: there wasn't a boy in town who wouldn't try to slow the freights if he had his wits about him.

"Hey!" Dora Hornaday piped at me, tossing rocks from the freight platform across the street. She wagged her head and beckoned. Steadying my horn under my arm and balancing myself on a rail, I footed my way in her direction, but not coming too close: Dora had a good aim and was often indiscriminate in its employ.

"Hello, Dora," I ventured, "what's happening?"

"About what?" She swung her legs and chuckled as if she'd gotten off a good one.

"Okay, Dora." I reversed my path on the tracks and started in the other direction.

"Hey -- c'mere." I edged toward her again. "Which one're you?"

"I'm Woody."

"Woody-poody." Lank, straw-colored hair hung down in her eyes, and she brushed it away absently as she studied me. Several years older than I, she was a big girl with thin arms and legs and large hands and feet. "This is Lala." She stood a curly-haired doll on her knee and made it bow.

"Shirley Temple," I said.

"Lala -- where's Agnes?"

"She's at the library."

"She's WPA."

She said it as if there were something wrong with Ag's earning money by re-binding library books. I started off again.

"I know somethin' you don't know," she chanted. I stopped. She sucked a finger and winked, her smile revealing long, irregular teeth.

"So?" I sneered, daring her. "What do you know?"

She brushed a trickle of saliva from her mouth with the doll's head and leaned her face on top of it. "I'm not going to tell."

"Okay, Dora, so long."

"Wait -- I'll tell. I'll tell just you." She glanced over her shoulder to see if the stationman was within earshot. "Hand me that stone," she ordered. I picked up the stone and put it in her hand. She licked it and held it out into the light. "Sparkly," she said as the wetness evaporated.

"There's mica in it," I explained. "What did you want to tell me?"

"About the parrot lady -- you know --" She put one hand on her hip, the other behind her head, and wiggled like Mae West.

"Mrs. Pierson?"

"Know what she does?"

"Nope."

"Want to know?"

"Sure."

"I'm not going to tell." She licked the stone again.

"Okay, Dora."

This time I really went. Who cared what she knew. I had gotten a short distance away when the stone struck my back.

"Dora!"

A woman appeared on the porch of a little house set back from the depot. This was Rabbit's aunt, and she was a shouter. "How many times do I have to tell you not to throw rocks! Your ribbon's all undone. You come in here!"

Dora paid no attention. Leaving her doll, she jumped down between the tracks and came after me. "This is what the parrot lady does." I knew well enough that she was speaking of Mrs. Pierson, whom she'd obviously been spying on, but I stared uncomprehendingly as she made a rapid pantomime of inserting an index finger in the closed O of her other hand. "This is what she does, see, like this. She does it with --"

But before I could learn who Mrs. Pierson did it with, the aunt came rushing onto the tracks. She fetched Dora a smack and yanked her off toward the house. Wondering about the obscene pantomime all the way up to Valley Hill Road, I was ten minutes late for my lesson, and Mr. Auerbach told me my heart wasn't in the French horn. Mr. Auerbach was right

Though all the Pequot Landing weather prophets were predicting record snows for winter, and Jesse's corns were substantial corroboration, autumn showed no signs of proving them right; the weather continued mild for the most part, and the leaves turned slowly. We decided that Ma must have been really striking it rich at the Sunbeam Laundry, because now, in addition to our music lessons, and Nonnie's tuition, she announced that we were to be enrolled in Miss Lee's dancing class. Ag received the news with a terrified look and quickly retreated to her room, and we saw little of her for the next few days. Though we heard strange dumpings and hangings around in there, nobody investigated; Ag's room, which she'd taken over from Nonnie, was sacrosanct, and you didn't intrude without a proper invitation. What the noises were, nobody knew, but then, suddenly, the door would be flung open, and Ag would go dashing across the Green to Lady's house, where she'd stay for an hour or two. Then she'd return, calmed and docile, retire to her room again, and cut out pictures of Joan Crawford, whom she'd just seen being soignée in
No More Ladies
. Not so soignée herself, Ag resumed her bumpings and hangings behind the closed bedroom door. Still, I had an idea I knew what all the racket was about