Night Town

by Cathi Bond

  The glass box shook as somebody tried to force open the folding doors. I shoved back, feet braced against the other side, trying to stop whoever it was from getting in.

  Aunt Anne’s face appeared behind the phone booth glass. I pulled myself up and opened the doors. She put her arms around me and pulled me out, hugging me so tight I could barely breathe. The back of her hand touched my forehead.

  “I’m going to take you to the hospital.”

  I wrenched free, backed up and stumbled over the edge of the curb onto the road, clutching the garbage bag to my chest. “No!”

  I’d run and she knew it. “All right. But you’re coming with me.”

  I lay in a bed of blankets and pillows in the back seat, watching the clouds race by. We’d left the buildings behind, heading into the country. The sky was black and the smell of late summer blew in through the open windows. Fall would soon be here. My back ached. I moaned. Aunt Anne reached over the back seat and gently stoked my hair. Clutching my stomach, I tried to focus on the steady hum of the tires until I fell asleep.

  Someone carried me up a flight of stairs. There was a faint smell of manure and something familiar and I thought that it had to be a man. If it was Granddad, he’d be so disappointed in me. I tried to ask, but was freezing with fever and too tired to open my eyes. Aunt Anne said she was going to call the doctor. A door opened and I was set down on a bed, covered in a blanket and then sleep passed over me again.

  I woke up in Mom’s room in one of her old nightgowns, my skin-and- bone arms exposed to the light. The only contrast to the white was the shameful sight of the red track marks that ran up and down my arms like vicious bites. Aunt Anne and a doctor stood at the end of the bed talking. Every so often he glanced at me and frowned. I crossed my arms and looked around. My running shoes were under the chair.

  “Where are my clothes?” I sat up, alarmed. “I had a garbage bag.”

  “They need to be washed,” Aunt Anne replied.

  “Where’s Granddad?”

  “Out west buying cattle.”

  The doctor opened his black medical bag. “She’s going to need a drip for two days. Once I get you set up, can you manage it?”

  Aunt Anne nodded.

  “What’s wrong with me?” I asked.

  “Pyelonephritis.”

  That’s why my back hurt and the urine burned. An untreated bladder infection had invaded my kidneys. Dad always said how important it was to nip things in the bud, but I’d let it fester. There hadn’t been enough baths and sometimes I sat on freezing concrete stoops for hours waiting for buyers. The cold had passed into my bladder and travelled up to my kidneys. The doctor pulled an IV pouch and plastic tubing out of his bag while Aunt Anne rigged the bed spindle to support it. He sat down beside me and gave me a stern, mean look. His bedside manner was horrible. You were supposed to make the patient feel at ease, no matter who they were or how you felt about them.

  “How long have you been sexually active?”

  “I’m not,” I cried.

  Aunt Anne flushed and looked away.

  “If you’re going to have multiple partners, you’d better use birth control. The next time it could be syphilis. Give me your arm.”

  Then he snatched it –pulling it out like a weed. And there it was. The stabbed-to-death-by-a-million-needles ruined arm. Proof that everything he thought was true –the drug whore was home to leech from her decent family. The doctor stuck in the needle, taped down the tubing, hooked up the drip and told me to stay put for forty-eight hours.

  “After that, take these for another ten days,” he said, setting a bottle of antibiotics on the table. “Do you have any questions?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll walk you out,” Aunt Anne said.

  The door shut behind them, and I lay there lassoed to Mom’s bed, listening to the IV drip, truly wanting to die.

  I rubbed my eyes. Aunt Anne was in the process of removing the IV. Her hair was wrapped up in a kerchief and she wore faded green overalls. A plate of scrambled eggs and toast rested on the bedside table. Two days had passed.

  “Are you hungry?”

  “Yes, please.”

  I sat up, while she placed the plate in my lap. The eggs were delicious. How did I go for all that time without appreciating food?

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Better.” I took another bite. “Thank you.”

  Aunt Anne ripped off the tape and quickly removed the needle, swiftly applying cotton batten and a Band-Aid. I pulled my arm up to hide the marks, but she yanked it back down.

  “What have you done to yourself?”

  My appetite left as shame took its place. I set the plate back on the bedside table.

  “I’ll never do it again.”

  And it was true. I’d never touch speed again. But there was something else, a crucial error that needed correcting.

  “That doctor was wrong.”

  “About what?” she asked.

  “I never had sex with a man.”

  Aunt Anne rolled up the tubing and put the IV bag away. She didn’t know how to respond so she picked up my pillow, pounding it back into shape.

  “That’s your business. I don’t need to know.”

  There it stood –as strong as ever –the unspoken, unbreakable family creed. Everyone expected to stand in their solitary silos, silently bearing their pain all alone, never saying a word about how they truly felt.

  “I have to go down and check on a pregnant heifer. That’s why I brought you here.”

  “You have to believe me. I didn’t have sex.”

  Aunt Anne gently pushed the hair out of my eyes, tucking the strands behind my ears.

  “I believe you,” she said, kissing my forehead. “Now get some rest. We’ll talk about all this later.”

  The door closed, but a little crack appeared in Aunt Anne’s silo, letting out a tiny beam of light.

  It took a good week before I felt well enough to pull on Mom’s housecoat and get out of bed. I wandered down the stairs, through the kitchen and out the back door. Aunt Anne was in the orchard, up on the ladder harvesting apples. Her apron was full.

  “How’s the heifer?”

  “Late, but I don’t want to bother the vet until I’m sure we need him. No point wasting money.”

  Laundry flapped on the line as Aunt Anne climbed down. My jeans danced in the wind with Cope’s red cowboy shirt. There was a tear in the sleeve.

  “I was thinking we’d go into Steadman’s in a few days and buy you a new dress.”

  I spun in a fury. “I am not wearing a dress!”

  Aunt Anne started to laugh. She was teasing me. I laughed back.

  “Here,” she said, kneeling as the apples gently rolled out of her apron and onto the grass. “Put these in the bushel basket.”

  She climbed back up the ladder as I sat down and picked up an apple, sniffing the skin and took a bite. I’d never noticed how sweet and genuine they smelled, so different than the chemical green I tasted after I’d done a hit. Cattle lowed and the air was clean. One of the hired hands was out in the southern pasture combining corn. The remaining golden tassels rippled in the wind. The grass between my fingers felt cool and I let myself breathe. I felt safe.

  “Your mother and I used to pick apples every summer. But most of the trees have been chopped down now.”

  “How come?”

  “People don’t need to preserve as much, what with all the grocery stores.”

  Things were sure different since Mom and Aunt Anne were girls. I thought of Lily and Helen at The Green Door. Things had changed so much.

  “Did you eat apples all winter?

  She nodded.

  “Didn’t you get sick of them?”

  “It’s all we had.”

  Like me and Lily and Gabe living on bologna sandwiches. Aunt Anne dropped another apron full of apples onto the ground. I picked one up and took a bite. My tongue prickled it was so tart. The apples would make delicio
us pies. Aunt Anne climbed back up the ladder in her work pants. Mom always wore a housedress when she worked outdoors.

  “You never wear dresses.”

  “I did.”

  “Why don’t you anymore?”

  “I never liked the way they felt.”

  “Then how come you always made me wear them?”

  “I wore what my mother told me to wear until I was living under my own roof.”

  “I live on my own, so I guess that means I can wear what I want.”

  “I suppose so.”

  I put another apple in the basket.

  “There are other women who don’t wear dresses. It doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with them,” I blurted out.

  “That’s right.”

  “Do you know any?” I wanted to talk about Ginnie and Mary, but I didn’t know where to start.

  Aunt Anne cautiously examined an apple. “Yes. And they were all fine woman, but they didn’t always have the happiest lives. Just because God makes you a certain way doesn’t mean you have to act on it.”

  “What if you want to?”

  She stood on her toes and reached even higher. “Darn, the worms have gotten to this branch.” She snapped it off at the base and several spoiled apples tumbled down.

  “Isabel told me what happened at your school.”

  More shame sliding down my throat as Aunt Anne climbed down.

  “I certainly never supported your father’s idea to put you in a hospital. And neither did Isabel.”

  So Dad was the one who wanted to lock me up.

  “Your father just didn’t know what to do with you. It seemed like the only solution at the time.”

  “And now?”

  “I don’t think you need to worry about that. As you said, you’re on your own and you’re making your own decisions.”

  All by myself.

  “How is he?”

  “Your father? A lot better. His birthday’s coming up.”

  I knew that. He was going to turn forty-five next week. Old.

  “And the boys?”

  “Frank’s determined to be president of the student council and Isabel is teaching him how to debate.”

  I smiled at the thought. Frank would put the entire school on schedules to improve their grades. I placed the last apple in the basket. It was full.

  “And Tedder?”

  “He’s got a little dog.”

  I wanted to be happy for them but I wasn’t. I was jealous for what they had and I didn’t, and I hated myself for feeling that way.

  The next morning Aunt Anne was gone. A note on the kitchen table said that she was in the stall with the heifer. I slipped into a pair of overalls and a flannel shirt. I still wasn’t too steady on my feet, but it felt good to be outside again even though the weather was changing. A strong wind skipped across the yard from the east, blowing chunky tufts of straw and hay. I was wearing a pair of old barn boots. Charlene would get a kick out of this. I wondered what she was doing and hoped her mother kissed her when she opened the door and prayed that her father didn’t beat her up. Maybe they welcomed her back into the family with open arms. But that didn’t seem likely. How could they welcome her home after what she’d done? Parents could never forget the speed and the bikers and the sex. Or maybe Charlene lied and they never found out. A loose piece of sheet metal rattled on the roof of the chicken coop as a rooster scurried by, its feathers blown back into an elaborate red ruffle, clearly annoyed by the weather. I approached the concrete stairs to the pens, walked down and opened the iron hasp. The cattle lowed.

  It took a moment for my eyes to adjust. The pens, built into the thick stone foundation of the barn, were dark and cool. Shapes milled as the herd shifted. A light swung back and forth near the rear. The pregnant heifer must be there. The yearlings stood, watchful behind sturdy white bars and railings, tags stapled onto their ears as I made my way past. Granddad tagged the cattle so he knew how old they were and where they came from. Fat cattle, the ones ready for slaughter, shoved their heads through the bars, eagerly chewing on the feed the hired hand had shoveled into their troughs earlier. They ignored me as I walked by, mindful of one thing, gobbling up mouthful after mouthful of food. For some reason I thought of Lily and the body rub parlour and the men who trudged up the stairs.

  The light was closer. Aunt Anne was in the stall with the pregnant heifer. The heifer couldn’t have been more than a year and her eyes were wild. One of the hired hands was holding the animal’s head. I couldn’t see his face. Aunt Anne’s hand was up the heifer’s bum, taking her temperature. The heifer lowed and kicked.

  “Whoa,” Aunt Anne said, quickly backing away.

  She removed the thermometer and hopped over the railing to read it in the light.

  “I’m going to call the vet,” she said, walking quickly down the concrete walkway. The hired hand kept holding the heifer’s head, talking to her in a soft voice, trying to keep her calm. I climbed up the slats, swinging easily over the side and sat on the top of the railing.

  “Glad to see you’re feeling better,” the man said, stroking the hair between the heifer’s eyes. Her black nose glistened and foamed.

  “Hugh?” I asked, squinting into the dim.

  “Maddy,” he replied, wiping his hands on his pants.

  He looked like a young Granddad. Tall and strong in a worn checkered shirt, green work pants and barn boots. His hair was starting to go as white as Granddad’s and it stood up just as straight.

  “Did you carry me up the stairs?”

  “Uh huh,” he replied.

  “Thanks.”

  I didn’t get down and he didn’t come over. The heifer milled listlessly in the straw, shifting the weight of her baby back and forth on her hooves, trying to find some comfort. Hugh was a grown man, but I didn’t feel like a grown woman. I felt like the same scared little kid standing out on the barn beam years ago.

  “Are you working here?”

  He nodded, hand-feeding the heifer some mash, murmuring, “Shhh girl. Shhhh.”

  We were quiet. I wanted to know if his mother and dad approved of him farming. What about school? His parents had always wanted Hugh to go to university.

  “How long?” I asked.

  “Long enough,” he replied, pulling out a deck of smokes. Hugh lit one and was about to return the pack to his breast pocket when he waved them at me.

  “Want one?”

  The old warning. Never smoke in a barn.

  “Sure,” I replied, hopping down and walking over through the straw and manure.

  He tossed me the pack. I’d never smoked in front of family. My stomach chucked. The nicotine didn’t mix with the penicillin. I took another puff as Hugh took a long draw. The smoke disappeared up into the wooden timbers as he looked at me.

  “Where have you been?”

  “Toronto.”

  “I hate that place.”

  Farmers and cattlemen took it upon themselves to hate everything that came out of the city. What would he think if he knew what I’d been doing? It would certainly shock him.

  “You make yourself any friends?”

  “Some.”

  What would Hugh think of Gabe and Cope?

  “Get a job?”

  Did running speed count?

  “Not really.”

  “Doesn’t sound all that great to me.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “If you say so.”

  He took a final drag as the fire licked down to the filter.

  “Does you being back mean that you’re finished making a spectacle of yourself?”

  The remark struck like a whip. Hugh broke up a bale of hay, kicking straw all over the cattle pen.

  “Granddad’s been worried that you might have damaged yourself.”

  I took a deep drag, reaching out to stroke the heifer. Damaged. So that’s what they thought of me. A piece of perfectly good fruit that had rolled off the table and bruised itself. A cracked vase or a car that had be
en in a head-on collision and didn’t drive quite right anymore. Who would want that? Not my family. They didn’t want anything that was less than perfect. The heifer moved to the other side of the pen. To everyone else I was just a spectacle –a damaged freak. I was stupid to have felt safe. I didn’t belong here. I wasn’t part of this tribe anymore.

  Hugh dropped his cigarette into the pen, the burner fizzling into the dung. There was a clang as the outside door swung open. Aunt Anne returned.

  “The vet’s on call,” she said. “Hugh, you’ll have to stay with her, and when it’s time come and get me. Come on, Maddy. You need some rest.”

  “Good to see you,” Hugh said, pouring some water into the heifer’s trough.

  “You too,” I lied.

  I didn’t want to sleep.

  “Then make yourself useful,” Aunt Anne said, sitting down at the kitchen table. “We’ll make your grandfather some pies.” A big blue bowl full of apples sat before her.

  Rain streamed down the windows, turning the world outside into a wet green blur. The wind picked up speed, moaning as it hurled itself around the house. The sound made me shiver. I opened the cutlery drawer to retrieve the paring knives. Everything was exactly the same: the knives, the forks, the sterling serving spoons and the big butcher knives. A bouquet of spatulas stood in a colourful jar by the sink. All the same bowls lined the cupboards, the bowls that had been there for as long as I could remember. I traced my fingers through the deep cuts in the wooden counters, the cuts Mom and the sisters had made learning how to cook. Everything was the same, everything except me. I handed Aunt Anne a knife and we began shaving long curlicues of red peel away from the fruit.

  “You’re awfully thin.”

  “I’m fine,” I replied, trying to focus on the peel instead of what Hugh had said.

  I had nearly finished four apples when the wind hit the side of the house so hard I jumped.

  “You’re not used to the weather,” Aunt Anne said.

  Was that a criticism?

  “Your grandfather should have a man look at the shutters and the eaves. The house is getting older.”

  Neither of us spoke.

  “How is he?” I asked.

  “Like the house,” she replied.

  Then she went quiet again. Maybe I didn’t have the right to ask about Granddad anymore.