Rhoda

by Ellen Gilchrist

  “Come on,” he said. “Get dressed. Pop wants us to catch the horses. Fat Tunney’s here. He’ll help.”

  “I don’t want to catch the damned old horses,” Rhoda said. She trained the magnifying glass on Dudley’s boots, thinking how nice it would be to give him a hotfoot. “I’m busy. Leave me alone.”

  “Come on. He wants us to saddle Dixie so you can go riding with this girl that’s coming over. She’s the banker’s daughter.”

  “I don’t want to go riding. You catch the goddamned old horses if you want to, since you’re his slave. I’m not going back there and get in that goddamn old mud.” Fat Tunney hung his head. He had never known a girl that talked like Rhoda. He had never known any people like the Mannings. They had been there six months. He didn’t know what he did before they moved to Mound City. Every morning he woke up thinking about them and pulled on his clothes and went over to see what they were doing.

  “That’s right, Rhoda,” he said now. “Your daddy said to tell you to hurry up.”

  “Well, I’m not going to,” she said. “And get off the sidewalk. I’m killing ants.”

  “You better come on,” Dudley said. He stood up. He was wearing his bandolier with his extra merit badges. He was going for Eagle Scout. He was trying to be the youngest Eagle Scout in America. “Get dressed,” he said. “Don’t make me tell you again.”

  Rhoda trained the magnifying glass on his leg. “Go to hell, you spy,” she said. “Go back to Germany where you belong. You aren’t even a citizen. You’re a yellow German spy. You’re really a Jap. That’s why your skin’s so yellow.” She was referring to Dudley’s malaria. He had malaria from living in a levee camp when he was small. The Mannings had lived a dangerous life. Everything happened to them but they always recovered. They had too much character to give in to fate.

  “Go back to Germany,” Rhoda continued. “Go salute the Führer. Go salute the Führer’s bathroom.” She cracked up at that, beating her sandals against the sidewalk. “Go to the German bathroom, go to the bathroom with the Japs. Ha, ha, ha, Ha, ha . . .” She was laughing so hard it hurt. Fat Tunney was laughing too but he was trying not to let it show.

  Dudley and Fat Tunney disappeared around the side of the house. Rhoda got up and followed them. At the back of the property was a corral surrounded by a barbed-wire fence. Little scalps of horsehair were stuck here and there in the barbs. Little bloody pieces of Dixie and Cardinal and Straw, the last two named for the colors of Rhoda’s mother’s sorority.

  As Rhoda came up the horses were milling around the water tank, bumping each other’s flanks, slurping water, making noises. Rhoda didn’t trust them. They were different from horses in books, good faithful creatures like Black Beauty or beautiful white stallions running across the plains carrying the mail. These were quarter horses and their only purpose in life was to teach Rhoda and Dudley not to be afraid.

  “Get your jodhpurs on, honey,” her father said. He was sitting on the gate. “Mr. Trumbo is bringing his little girl over here to ride.”

  “I can’t,” she said. “I’m menstruating.”

  “Oh, my God,” he said, and climbed down off the fence, hoping to get to her before she said it again and the boys heard it. “ARIANE,” he screamed toward the house. “ARRIIIIIANNNEEE, get out here and get this child. Who told you that?” he demanded, taking her by the arm. “Who told you a thing like that?” His face was as red as the sun. Rhoda’s mother came running out of the house and across the yard and swooped her up. “Where does she learn those things?” he was saying. “Who told her that? Who told her such a thing?”

  “Sherry Nettleship’s aunt told us all about it,” Rhoda said. “You can’t ever go swimming and blood runs down your legs. And you can’t ride horses or anything like that. I’ve been doing it all morning. There’s blood all over the sidewalk. Go look for yourself.” It was an inspiration. Actually, Rhoda had spilled red Kool-Aid while she was making fire. That was what had drawn the ants. “You can die if you aren’t careful,” she continued. “Anything can happen when you menstruate.”

  Rhoda’s mother took her into the house and put her in the bathtub. She knelt beside the tub looking down at Rhoda’s plump apricot-colored legs, her little precious vagina, her soft round stomach, her navel, where this maddening child had actually been joined to her own body. She dripped water from her hands over Rhoda’s legs. She touched her hair. She allowed her hand to rest on Rhoda’s skull. Ariane Manning loved her children so much it took her breath away to touch them. A little girl, a precious sweet baby girl, her little girl, her daughter.

  “Don’t ever talk about that again,” she said. “We don’t talk about things like that. It is a long, long time before that will happen to you. When the time comes I will tell you what to do. It’s a long way off, a lot of years. I can’t believe Mrs. Nettleship told you a thing like that. I just can’t believe it.”

  “She was drunk,” Rhoda said. “She was drinking bathtub gin. She told us everything about it. She told me and Sherry everything there is to know.”

  “Oh, my God,” Ariane said. “I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe we’re in this town. Oh, my God. I just don’t know. I just don’t know where to start.”

  She took her daughter from the tub and dried her with a blue towel and dressed her in jodhpurs and a white blouse and a little checked vest. She held the boots while Rhoda wiggled her feet into them. She brushed Rhoda’s hair. She dotted her neck with perfume. Stuck a handkerchief in her pocket. She stopped crying. She got a hold on herself.

  When Rhoda got back to the corral the horses were saddled. Dudley and Fat Tunney were just saddling the last one, a large black and white mare named Dixie. They were tightening up the cinches. Dixie was fighting them, puffing up her belly, kicking, carrying on.

  She is the worst horse we have, Rhoda thought. I bet he’s going to make me ride her.

  “Get on Dixie, Sister,” her father called out from his command position astride the gate. “Let the boys have the geldings.”

  “She doesn’t have any gaits,” Rhoda said. “I can’t stand to ride a horse that doesn’t have gaits.”

  “You wouldn’t know what to do with gaits,” Dudley said. “You can hardly even ride.”

  “Shut up all that arguing,” her father said. “Give her a leg up, Fat Tunney. Look out! Here’s our company coming in the back.” Rhoda swung herself up into the saddle. A languid, droopy-looking girl on an Appaloosa was turning into the yard from the road behind the place. Rhoda looked her over. She didn’t look like much. She was barely even holding the reins as the horse came plodding over. Still, she was a banker’s daughter. She might have a playhouse or a chauffeur or anything. “Hello,” Rhoda said, as soon as the girl was near enough to hear. “I’m Rhoda.”

  “Well, I’m Lelia,” the girl said. “I’m supposed to show you where to go.”

  “This is Mr. Trumbo’s daughter,” her father said. “That’s been so nice to me. Now you girls go on and have a ride and when you get back I’ll take us out for ice cream. Use your knees, Sweet Sister. Don’t forget to use your knees.”

  “I can’t feel anything through this saddle. This saddle’s too thick.”

  “Well, don’t complain about everything. Go on, then, you girls get going before it gets too hot.” He climbed down off the fence and took the bridles and led the horses down the path and turned them in the direction of the road. “Ride ’em now,” he said. “Show him who’s boss. Let’s see you ride.”

  Lelia’s Appaloosa began to trot along the path, a nice clean little trot. Rhoda dug her knees into the saddle. She straightened her back. She had a vision of herself riding through the town, her hair flying back from her face, the eyes of the town following her, worshipping and jealous.

  She dug her heels into Dixie’s side. She pulled on the reins. The horse balked. Rhoda tried again. This time she jerked Dixie’s head from side to side. Slapping the reins against her neck. “Get going,” she said. “Come on, you goddamn
old horse.”

  Dixie lowered her head, then rose up on her hind feet and spun in a circle. She hit the ground, then took off for the road. Rhoda clung to the reins, then clung to the mane. The horse jumped a ditch. The saddle moved, then moved again. Rhoda’s head was on a level with Dixie’s thighs. Her eyes were on the road.

  Dixie turned and began to run along the railroad tracks. A man ran out of a house and tried to flag them down. “Let go,” he yelled. “Let go. Let go and fall.”

  Her head hit the tracks. Then hit again. There was grass and steel and sky. Then there were faces.

  Her father was there and Mr. Samuels and they put her into a car and she was going somewhere. For a long time she was going somewhere. Her grandmother seemed to be in the car, opening a suitcase, getting out presents. Her beautiful tall grandfather was there, wearing a gray suit. He was holding her head in his hands. His great blue eyes were sad. He took her into his old wicker rocking chair. He read to her from magazines. He let her smoke his pipe. He gave her money. Many quarters and nickels and dimes. As soon as the store opened she could put them in the slot machine. The slot machine was in the car. It was a Buick with a slot machine. She and her grandmother and grandfather would ride forever sticking money in the slot machine. Nickels poured out onto the seat. They had so many nickels they didn’t know what to do with all of them. They threw them out the windows so the poor people could have some and play their own slot machines. The poor people caught the nickels. They held them up to the light.

  When Rhoda woke up she was in her own bed and her mother was sitting beside her and Doctor Finley was there and her name was in the newspaper.

  Rhoda Katherine Manning, only daughter of Chief Engineer Manning of the U.S. Corps of Engineers, is recovering from a fall she received when the horse she was riding ran away. She received cuts and bruises and is recovering at the Manning home on Maple Street.

  “I’m going to kill that horse,” she said, opening her eyes, lifting her head from the pillow.

  “Your father already beat it half to death,” her mother said. She sighed and looked away.

  “You made me do it,” she said, seeing him standing in the door. “You made me ride it. And Dudley put the saddle on. He did it wrong. He didn’t put the saddle on right.” Dudley was standing at the foot of the bed, looking thin and yellow. “You did it,” she said. “You tried to kill me.”

  “Don’t talk like that, Rhoda,” her mother said. “It was an accident. It wasn’t anybody’s fault.”

  “It was his fault,” she said, sitting up higher. “He and Fat Tunney. They did it. The saddle came off. That’s why I fell. You did it,” she said, looking right at him. “You did it on purpose. You tried to kill me so you can inherit everything.”

  “Come on, son,” her father said. He put his arm around his son and led him from the room. “Let your mother take care of her.”

  “He did it,” she yelled after them. “I almost died. It’s a wonder I’m not dead.”

  “Let me get you some supper,” her mother said. “Everyone in town’s been bringing food. There’s quail with a glass cover and chocolate custard and everything you love.”

  “I dreamed about Dan-Dan,” Rhoda said. She sank back into the pillows, allowing her mother to hold her hands. “I dreamed Dan-Dan and Big Daddy and I were going to sleep in those concrete wigwams where we stayed that other time. Did you tell them yet? Do they know I almost died?”

  “They’re on their way,” her mother said. “They ought to be here soon.”

  “Good,” Rhoda said. “I’ll get them to kill the horse.”

  The Tree Fort

  I have been haunted lately by memories of Seymour, Indiana. A story in a magazine set me off and set me dreaming, of my brother Dudley, and the fort, and the year he lost the eye. A fort made out of Christmas trees, piled four trees high, on the flat ground where the yard ran down to meet the alley. Dudley’s pyramid, a memorial to the light in his left eye.

  The first time I saw the fort was on a Saturday morning in January. I was coming home from my ballet lesson, walking up the alley from Sycamore Street, dragging my ballet shoes behind me by the laces, on the lookout for anything valuable anyone might have thrown away. I had found a hand-painted card shuffler in that alley once. It could happen again at any time.

  I was almost home when I saw the activity in the yard. There were three boys, Dudley and Miles Pennington and Ronnie Breiner. They were standing beside a pile of Christmas trees. Dudley had his hands on his hips. He was wearing his jodhpurs and his hunting vest. His hair was as short as a marine recruit’s. My father kept it cut that way to save him from vanity. Dudley stood in the middle of his friends, a young Douglas MacArthur, mulling over his problem. As I drew nearer I could see the Clifford twins coming down the side yard dragging another tree. It was Epiphany, the sixth of January, the day good Christians throw their trees away. What was Dudley up to and how had he once again hit upon an idea so wonderful, so startling in its power and simplicity, that it was certain to ruin my life for weeks?

  “What are you doing?” I called out, as I crossed the victory garden and made for the pile of trees. “What’s everyone doing?”

  “We’re building a fort,” Dudley said. “Go in the house and get us some water and bring it out here if you want to help.”

  “Get your own hell damn water,” I said, and went on by the trees. “Why are you building a fort?”

  “To have a club. We’re going to have a war with Billy Bob Robbins.”

  “How will we stack them up?” Ronnie Breiner asked. “I don’t see what’s going to keep them up.”

  “Just get them,” Dudley answered. He was slouched over on one hip, wearing all seven of his lanyards. “We’ll get them up. Get us some water, Shorty, if you want to help.” He always called me Shorty. He got the idea from a gangster movie. I ignored him and went on into the house to put my ballet things away. From around the corner on the other side I could see Wayne Shorter and his friends dragging two more trees into the yard. It was eleven-thirty on a Saturday morning, right in the middle of a world war, and once again Dudley had found a way to ruin my life.

  By noon they had a circle of trees piled four trees high and held together with clothesline and two-by-fours. Inside the circle was an enclosed space about as large as a bedroom. They filled that with old sleeping bags and a camouflage tarpaulin. I sat on the back steps and watched the activity. I was eating a sandwich and sucking a baby bottle filled with chocolate milk. My mother had a new baby and I could borrow his baby bottles anytime I wanted to and use them to suck chocolate milk. The milk picked up a wonderful flavor as it passed through the rubber nipple. I bit off a small piece so the milk would flow more easily. I knew they could see me drinking out of the bottle but I didn’t care. It never occurred to me to stop doing something just because someone was looking at me.

  They were dividing up into teams now. One team to hold the fort and the other to attack. Dudley’s team would defend the fort. I see him now, standing on a ladder, sighting down across his arm with a wooden rifle, both eyes still in perfect working order, mowing down the invaders, then charging out in the forefront of his men, shooting as he ran. Coming to meet him from beside the French doors were Billy Bob and his horde of scrawny kids from the new development on the other side of Calvin Boulevard. I sucked my bottle. The January sun beat down on Seymour, Indiana. Inside my little plaid skirt and sweater my hot sweaty little body sucked down the rubber-flavored chocolate milk and watched the battle of the fort proceed.

  When my father came home from the Air Corps base that afternoon he immediately took over rebuilding the fort. He made Dudley and Wayne take down all the two-by-fours and stack them up in a better configuration. “Those goddamn trees could fall on someone and hurt them,” he said. “You boys are going to get me sued.” Then Dudley and Wayne had to labor until dark shoring up the fort and making it safe.

  He did not, however, seem to mind that every dead Christmas tree on
Calvin Boulevard was piled up in our back yard killing the grass, and when mother mentioned it he told her to calm down and leave the boys alone. There’s plenty of grass in the world, he told her, the grass can take care of itself. I had decided to stay out of it. I didn’t even tell her that Billy Bob’s regiment had trampled her roses as they pulled their tanks up from the alley for a surprise attack.

  That night, tired as he was and with his hands red and raw from laboring on the fort in the January weather, Dudley made the first of the rubber guns. He fashioned it from pine, although later the guns would be made of finer woods, cypress and maple and persimmon and even walnut. He made the stock by whittling down a split two-by-four and sanding it for an hour. He was just beginning on the trigger mechanism when mother made him turn out the lights. At that time I was in the habit of sleeping in his room when I got scared. I would pay him three cents a night to sleep in his extra bed or five cents to sleep curled up on the foot of his bed. I was deathly afraid of the dark in those years. I feared the insides of closets and the space beneath my cherry four-poster bed and the goblins that get you if you don’t watch out and angels coming for to carry you home and vampires and mummies and the holy ghost. I would wake from dreams and go running into my parents’ room in the middle of the night when I slept alone. I was pathologically, deathly afraid of the dark, of night and shadow and the wages of sin. So I was sleeping in Dudley’s extra bed when he turned the light back on and went back to work on the rubber gun. He added a carved handle and a trigger made out of a wooden clothespin and then dug around in a dresser drawer for a rubber band and used it to demonstrate for me how the trigger would release the band. “Of course, we’ll have to make better things to shoot,” he said. “We’ll have to cut up old inner tubes.”