Captive Dreams

by Michael Flynn

  “A regular daisy?”

  “A daisy,” she repeated. “Like in the song. Gals was going out to work in them days. So they made a song about it. Now, let me see…” She pouted and stared closed-eyed at the sky. “How did that go?” She began to sing in a cracked, quavery voice.

  “My daughter’s as fine a young girl as you’ll meet

  In your travels day in and day out;

  But she’s getting high-toned and she’s putting on airs

  Since she has been working about…

  When she comes home at night from her office,

  She walks in with a swag like a fighter;

  And she says to her ma, ‘Look at elegant me!’

  Since my daughter plays on the typewriter.

  She says she’s a ‘regular daisy,’

  Uses slang ’til my poor heart is sore;

  She now warbles snatches from operas

  Where she used to sing ‘Peggy O Moore.’

  Now the red on her nails looks ignited;

  She’s bleached her hair ’til it’s lighter.

  Now perhaps I should always be mad at the man

  That taught her to play the typewriter.

  She cries in her sleep, ‘Your letter’s to hand.’

  She calls her old father, ‘esquire’;

  And the neighbors they shout

  When my daughter turns out,

  ‘There goes Bridget Typewriter Maguire.’”

  When Mae was done, she laughed again and wiped tears from her eyes. “Law’s sake,” she said. “Girls a-working in the offices. I remember what a stir-up that was. Folks said secretarial was man’s work, and women couldn’t be good typewriters, no how. There was another song, Everybody Works But Father, about how if women was to go to work, all the men would be out of jobs. Heh-heh. I swan! It weren’t long afore one gal in four had herself a ‘position,’ like they used to say; and folks my age complained how the youngsters were ‘going to pot.’” She shook her head and chuckled.

  “I always did find those kids more to my taste,” she went on. “There was something about ’em; some spark that I liked. They knew how to have fun without that ragged edge that the next batch had. And they had, I don’t know, call it a dream. They were out to change the world. They sure weren’t wishy-washy like the other folks my age. ‘Middle aged,’ that’s what the kids back then called us. We were ‘Professor Tweetzers’ and ‘Miss Nancys’ and ‘goo-goos’. And to tell you the truth, Doc, I thought they pegged it right. People my age grew up trying to imitate their parents; until they saw how much more fun the kids were having. Then they tried to be just like their kids. Heh-heh.”

  I grunted something noncommittal. Middle-aged crazy, just like my uncle Larry. “I suppose there were a lot of ‘mid-life crises’ back then, too,” I ventured. Uncle Larry had gone heavy into love beads and incense, radical politics. He grew a moustache and wore bell-bottoms. The whole hippie scene. Walked out on his wife for a young “chick” and thought it was all “groovy.” I remember how pathetic those thirtysomething wannabes seemed to us in college.

  Dad, now, he never had an “identity crisis.” He always knew exactly who he was. He had gone off to Europe and saved the world and then came back home and rebuilt it. Uncle Larry was too young to save the world in the Forties, and too old to save it in the Sixties. He was part of that bewildered, silent generation sandwiched between the heroes and the prophets.

  “Neurasthenia,” Mae said. “We called it neurasthenia back then. Seems everyone I knew was getting divorced or having an attack of ‘the nerves.’ Even the president was down in the mullygrubs when he was younger. Nervous breakdown. That’s what you call it nowadays, isn’t it? Now, T. R. There was a man with sand in him. Him and that ‘strenuous life’ he always preached about. Why, he’d fight a circle saw. Saw him that time in Milwaukee. Shot in the chest, and he still gave a stem-winder of a speech before he let them take him off. Did you know he got me in trouble one time?”

  “Who, Teddy Roosevelt? How?”

  “T.R., he was a-hunting and come on a bear cub; but he wouldn’t shoot the poor thing because it wasn’t the manly thing to do. So, some sharper started making stuffed animal dolls and called ’em Teddy’s Bear. I given one to my neighbor child as a present.” Mae slapped her knee. “Well, her ma had herself a conniption fit, ’cause the experts all said how animal dolls would give young ’uns the nightmares. And the other president who had the neurasthenia.” Mae scowled and waved a hand in front of her face. “Oh, I know who it was,” she said in an irritated voice. “That college professor. What was his name?”

  “Wilson,” I suggested, “Woodrow Wilson.”

  “That’s the one. I think he was always jealous of T.R. He wouldn’t let him take the Rough Riders into the Great War.”

  I started to make some comment, but Mae’s mouth dropped open. “The war…?” she whispered. “The war! Oh, Mister…” Her face crumpled. “Oh, Mister! You’re too old!” She covered her face and began to weep.

  She felt in her sleeves for a handkerchief; then wiped her eyes and looked at me. “I forgot,” she said. “I forgot. It was the war. Mister went away to the war. That’s why he never come back. He never run out on me, at all. He would have come back after it was over, if he’d still been alive. He would have.”

  “I’m sure he would have,” I said awkwardly.

  “I told him he was too old for that sort of thing; but he just laughed and said it was a good cause and they needed men like him to spunk up the young ’uns. So he marched away one day and someone he never met before shot him dead and I don’t even know when and where it happened.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, at a loss for anything else to say. A good cause? The War to End All Wars, nearly forgotten now; its players, comic-opera Ruritanians on herky-jerky black and white newsreels. The last war begun in innocence.

  Her hands had twisted the handkerchief into a knot. She fussed with it, straightened it out on her lap, smoothed it with her hand. In a quiet voice, she said, “Tell me, doc. Tell me. Why do they have wars?”

  I shook my head. Was there ever a good reason? To make the world safe for democracy? To stop the death camps? To free the slaves? Maybe. Those were better reasons than cheap oil. But up close, no matter what the reason, it was husbands and sons and brothers who never came home.

  Oh, them golden slippers, Oh, them golden slippers,

  Golden slippers I’m gonna wear, Because they look so neat;

  Oh, them golden slippers, Oh, them golden slippers,

  Golden slippers I’m gonna wear To walk them golden streets.

  ***

  Ever since our late evening encounter, Consuela had begun wearing blouses, skirts and robes around the house instead of her nurse’s whites. The colors were bright, even garish; the patterns, blocky and intricate. The costumes made the woman more open, less mysterious. It was as if, having once seen her deshabille, a barrier had come down. She had begun teaching Dee-dee to play the cane flute. Sometimes I heard them in the evening, the notes drifting down from above stairs, lingering in the air. Was it a signal, I wondered? I sensed that the relationship between Consuela and myself had changed; but in what direction, I did not know.

  Dee-dee should have been in school. She should have been in fifth grade; and she should have come home on the school bus, full of laughter and bursting to tell us what she had learned that day. Brenda and I should have helped her with her homework, nursed her bruises, and hugged her when she cried. That was the natural order of things.

  But Dee-dee lived in her room; played in the dark. She studied at home, tutored by Consuela or myself or by private instructors we sometimes hired. School and other children were far away. She was a prisoner, half of her mother’s strained disapproval, half of her own withdrawal. Save for Consuela and myself and a few, brief contacts with Brenda, she had no other person in her short, bounded life. Who could dream what scenarios her dolls performed in the silence of her room?

  I
found the two of them at the kitchen table, Consuela with her inevitable cocoa, Dee-dee with a glass of milk and a stack of Graham crackers. There were cracker crumbs scattered across the Formica and a ring of white across Dee-dee’s lip.

  I beamed at her. “The princess has come down from her tower once more!”

  She tucked her head in a little. “It’s all right, isn’t it?”

  I kissed her on the forehead. How sparse her hair had grown! “Of course, it is!”

  I settled myself across the table from Consuela. She was wearing an ivory blouse with a square-cut neck bordered by red stitching in the shape of flowers. “Thank you, nurse,” I said. “She should be downstairs more often.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  Was there a hint of disapproval there? A slight drawing together of the lips? I wanted to make excuses for Brenda. It was not that Brenda made Dee-dee stay in her room, but that she never made her leave. It was Deirdre who stayed always by herself. “So, what did you do today, Dee-dee?”

  “Oh, nothing. I read my schoolbooks. Watched TV. I helped Connie bake a cake.”

  “Did you? Sounds like a pretty busy day to me.”

  She and Consuela shared a grin with each other. “We played ball, a little, until I got tired. And then we played word games. I see something…blue! What is it?”

  “The sky?”

  “I can’t see the sky from here. It’s long and thin.”

  “Hmm. Long, thin and blue. Spaghetti with blueberry sauce?”

  Dee-dee laughed. “No, silly. It has a knot in it.”

  “Hmm. I can’t imagine what it could be.” I straightened my tie and Dee-dee laughed again. I looked down at the tie and gave a mock start. “Wait! Long, thin, blue and a knot…It’s my belt!”

  “No! It’s your tie!”

  “My tie? Why…” I gave her a look of total amazement. “Why, you’re absolutely, positively right. Now, why didn’t I see that. It was right under my nose. Imagine missing something right under your nose!”

  We played a few more rounds of “I see something” and then Dee-dee wandered back to the family room and settled on the floor in front of the TV. I watched her for a while as she stared at the pictures flickering there. I thought of how little time was left before cartoons would play unwatched.

  Consuela placed a cup of coffee in front of me. I sipped from it absently while I sorted through the day’s mail stacked on the table. “Brenda will be coming home on Monday,” I said. Consuela already knew that and I knew that she knew, so I don’t know why I said it.

  But why Monday? Why not Friday? Why spend another weekend in Washington with Walther Crowe? I could think of any number of reasons, I could.

  “Deirdre will be happy to have her mother back,” Consuela said in flat tones. I was looking at the envelopes, so I did not see her face. I knew what she meant, though. No more flute lessons; no more games downstairs. I reached across the table and placed my hand atop one of hers. It was warm, probably from holding the cocoa mug.

  “Deirdre’s mother never left,” I said.

  Consuela looked away. “I am only her nurse.”

  “You take care of her. That’s more…” I caught myself. I had started to say that that was more than Brenda did; but there were some things that husbands did not say about their wives to other women. I noticed, however, that Consuela had not pulled her hand away from mine.

  I released her hand. “Say, here’s a letter from the National Archives.” I said with forced heartiness, dancing away from the sudden abyss that had yawned open before me. Too many lives had been ruined by reading invitations where none were written.

  Consuela stood and turned away, taking her cup to the sink. I slit the envelope open with my index finger and pulled out the yellow flimsy. Veteran: Holloway, Green. Branch of Service: Infantry (Co. H, 5th Tennessee). Years of Service: 1918 or 1919. It was the order form I had sent to the Military Service Records department after Mae’s earlier recollection of her husband. As I unfolded it, Consuela came and stood beside me, reading over my shoulder. Somehow, it was not uncomfortable.

  We were unable to complete your request as written.

  We found additional pension and military service files of the same name (or similar variations).

  The enclosed records are those which best match the information provided. Please resubmit, if these are not the desired files.

  I grunted and paged through the sheets. Company muster rolls. A Memorandum of Prisoner of War Records: Paroled and exchanged at Cumberland Gap, Sept. 5/62.

  The last page was a white photocopy of a form printed in an old-fashioned typeface. Casualty Sheet. The blanks were penned in by an elegant Spencerian hand. Name, Green Holloway. Rank, Private. Company “H”, Regiment 5". Division, 3". Corps, 23". Arm, Inf. State, Tenn.

  Nature of casualty, Bullet wound of chest (fatal).

  Place of casualty, Resaca, Ga.

  Date of casualty, May 14, 1864, the regiment being in action that date.

  Jno. T. Henry, Clerk.

  I tossed the sheets to the kitchen table. “These can’t be right,” I said.

  Consuela picked them up. “What is wrong?”

  “Right name, wrong war. These are for a Green Holloway who died in the Civil War.”

  Consuela raised an eyebrow. “And who served in the same company as your patient’s husband?”

  “State militia regiments were raised locally, and the same families served in them, generation after generation. Green here was probably ‘Mister’s’ grandfather. Back then children were often given their parents’ or grandparents’ names.” I took the photocopies from Consuela and stuffed them back in the envelope. “Well, there was a waste of ten dollars.” I dropped the envelope on the table.

  Dee-dee called from the family room. “What’s this big book you brought home?”

  “The Encyclopedia of Song,” I said over my shoulder. “It’s to help me with a patient I have.”

  “The old lady who hears music?”

  I turned in my chair. “Yes. Did Connie tell you about her?”

  Dee-dee nodded. “I wish I could hear music like that. You wouldn’t need headphones or a Walkman, would you?”

  I remembered that Mae had had two very unhappy recollections in one day. “No,” I said, “but you don’t get to pick the station, either.”

  Later that evening, after Dee-dee had been tucked away, I spread my index cards and sheets of paper over the kitchen table, and arranged the tape recorder on my left where I could replay it as needed. The song encyclopedia lay in front of me, open to its index. A pot of coffee stood ready on my right.

  Consuela no longer retreated to her own room after dinner. When I looked up from my work I could see her, relaxed on the sofa in the family room, quietly reading a book. Her shoes off, her legs tucked up underneath her, the way some women sit curled up. I watched her silently for a while. So serene, like a jaguar indolent upon a tree limb. She appeared unaware of my regard, and I bent again over my work before she looked up.

  I soon verified that Mae’s latest recollections were from the Gay Nineties. The earliest one, Ta-Ra-Ra Boom-der-ay, had been written in 1890, and the others dated from the same era. Good-bye, Dolly Gray had been a favorite of the soldiers going off to fight in the Philippine “insurrection,” while Hot Time in the Old Town had been the Rough Riders’ “theme song.” Mae’s version of America the Beautiful, I discovered, was the original 1895 lyrics. Apparently, Katherine Lee Bates had written the song as much for protest as for patriotism.

  When I had finished the cataloguing, I closed the songbook, leaned back in my chair and stretched my arms over my head. Consuela looked up at the motion and I smiled at her and she smiled back. I checked my watch. “Almost bedtime,” I said. Consuela said nothing, but nodded slightly.

  Middle-aged?

  The thought struck me like a discordant note and I turned back to my work. I ran the tape back and forth until I found what I was looking for. Yes. Mae had said that the “y
oung folks” at the turn of the century had called her age-mates “middle-aged.” So Mae must have already been mature by then. How was that possible? At most, she might have been a teenager, one of the “young folks,” herself.

  Unless she had looked old for her age.

  God! I stabbed the shut-off button with my forefinger.

  After a moment, I ran the tape through again, listening for Mae’s descriptions of her peers and her younger contemporaries. “Wishy-washy.” Folks her age had been wishy-washy. Yet, in an earlier session, she had described her age-mates as moralistic. I flipped through my written notes until I found it.

  Yes, just as I remembered. But, psychologically, that made no sense. Irresolute twenty-somethings do not mature into forty-something moralists. The irresolute become the two-sides-to-every-question types; the mediators, the compromisers, the peace-makers. The ones both sides despise—and miss desperately when they are gone. The moralists are no-compromise world-savers. They preach “prohibition,” not “temperance.”

  The wild youth Mae remembered from the Ragtime Era and the Mauve Decade—the hard-edged “newsies”—those were the young Hemingways, Bogies and Mae Wests; the “Blood-and-Guts” Pattons and the “Give-’em-Hell” Harrys. The Lost Generation, they had been called. The idealistic, young teeners and twentysomethings of the Gay Nineties that Mae found so simpatico were the young FDR, W.E.B. DuBois and Jane Addams. The generation of “missionaries” out to save the world. They had all been “the kids” to her. But that would put Mae into the even older, Progressive Generation, a contemporary of T.R. and Edison and Booker T. Washington.

  I drummed my pencil against the tabletop. That would make her a hundred and twenty years old, or thereabout. That wasn’t possible, was it? I pushed myself from the table and went to the bookcase in the family room.