Railroad Man

by Alle Wells

  When the tale was over, Flo stirred and looked down the dark country road. “Where we going anyway?”

  “We’re going to my home in Lawrenceville.”

  “Oh. I never been there. Is it nice?”

  “Very nice, you’ll like it.” I squeezed her closer and asked, “How old are you, Flo?”

  “Hum, nearly sixteen, I think. Ma said I didn’t get a birth certificate. Ma liked the 4th of July, fireworks and all, so she made my birthday then.”

  She was sixteen or less? It was a blow I wasn’t expecting. She seemed so worldly at the speakeasy. She said she had been around. Now, to find out that she was just a babe without a decent home or family. I hadn’t been duped as I first thought that fated night; I had blinders on. Fuzzy feelings and fairy tales aside, I knew that Flo and I needed some preparation before facing Mother. I pulled over and parked under a big oak tree.

  Flo sat up, skittish and wide-eyed. “What’s going on? Where’s this place?”

  “Shh,” I said softly. “Everything is fine. We just need to get to know each other a little.”

  Flo grabbed the door handle, ready to run. She looked through the glass into the darkness and decided to take her chances with me. I reached for her and spoke softly as if I were soothing a skittish colt.

  “No-no, not like that. Come on, Little Kitten, you’re not afraid of your prince charming now, are you? We just need to talk a little bit, that’s all. You said that you are nearly sixteen. Does that mean that you are fifteen?”

  Flo ran her hand over the cowhide, watching her circling hand as she spoke. “Well, I guess. Ma never talked much about that. I mean how old I was and all.”

  “So you could be sixteen, right?”

  She nodded. “I s’pose so.”

  I placed my princely hands gently on her tiny shoulders. “Okay, let’s say you’re sixteen and I’m twenty-four. That’s a good combination for a Prince and Princess, right?”

  Flo agreed, bobbing her head.

  “Flo, I’m going to take care of you. Nobody is ever going to hit you again. You’re going to have plenty to eat, a warm bed, and all the pretty dresses you’ll ever want. Your baby is my baby. That baby will have the best life money can buy in today’s world. Now, does that make you feel better?”

  She was like a child fascinated by the cowhide. She avoided my eyes, but I could see that I had Flo’s full attention. Not only was she pretty but there was a spark about her. Even though her speech was plain, I could tell that she was intelligent.

  “Have you been to school?”

  “A little bit when it wasn’t too cold.”

  “How far along did you get in school?”

  “I went sometimes ’til Pa and Ma left three years ago. How about you? Did you go to school?”

  I held my patience as if talking to a small child, not the mother of my unborn child. “Yes. I finished school a couple of years ago.”

  “Geez! You must know a lot.”

  I brushed a golden curl behind her ear, not believing that she could have dazzled me so in the dark speakeasy. I kissed her cheek, and she didn’t flinch.

  “You’ll know a lot too, Flo. Just wait and see. Your life will be different from here on out. You’ll see.”

  Flo nodded out on my shoulder soon after I pulled back onto the road. Poor little kitten, I thought. The car seat was likely the most comfortable place she’d ever slept.

  Chapter V

  Lawrenceville

  1934

  The morning sun peeked over the trees, and my thoughts turned to Mother. Dealing with Bert was a breeze compared to facing Mother. I practiced the words I would say to her a dozen times in my mind. Mother’s love was so strong that it weighed heavily on me at times. All my life, I tried to please her and protect her from any wrongdoing I chose to pursue. I felt a tight squeeze on my heart and dreaded seeing the disappointment in her eyes.

  I let the car coast quietly in neutral down the drive. Mother and Miss Sara walked through the yard pulling a child’s wagon loaded with a tub of green beans. They stopped and stared. I could see the wondering look in their eyes as I drove the car to the barn shelter.

  Flo snuggled deeper into the cowhide as I slid out of the seat. I left the door cracked so I wouldn’t make a sound. My rumpled suit of clothes was a tale-tell sign of a long, rough night. I placed the fedora on my head and straightened my tie. Trying to look presentable that morning was long gone. My body felt as stiff as my clothes were wrinkled, in spite of my youth. Mother and Miss Sara were moving the tub of beans onto the porch when I walked up to them.

  Miss Sara’s face crinkled and her eyes squinted at the sight of me. “Law, boy, what you been into? You look like somethin’ the cat drug up.” I wrapped a hand around the nape of her soft neck and pulled her into an embrace. The old woman giggled and pushed me away. I heard her laughing to herself as she walked off.

  Mother sat in her favorite rocker on the porch getting ready to snap beans from a pan in her lap. Her fingers snapped and threw the beans faster than my tired eyes could follow them. I sat on the top step. I knew that she waited for an explanation. The events of the previous night weighed on me like a prison sentence. Part of me wished that I had ignored Jack’s telegram and his warning. Part of me wished I could turn back the clock to before I met Flo. I watched a family of Purple Martins fly over the boxes set on poles near the farm pond. Their curved wings and forked tails circled in unison. I cherished the brief moment before I shared the news with Mother that would change our lives forever.

  “Is something the matter, Son?” Mother asked, pretending to concentrate on her work.

  I sighed and moved closer, sitting at her feet. “I don’t hardly know how to answer that question, Meme.”

  Mother chuckled. “My gracious! You haven’t called me that in years.”

  I nodded. “I know. Did you ever wish you could go back and undo something?”

  Mother’s soft look hardened. “You’re scaring me, Mickey. What’s wrong?”

  “Mother, there’s a girl asleep in my car. She’s six months with child, my child. She came from Cabbagetown. She has no family to speak of. An ill-fitting dress and a few necessities in a dingy pillowcase are her only possessions. From what I gather, her background and education are sparse. The short of it is that she’s my responsibility now, and she’s going to need a lot of help.”

  The rocker stopped as time seemed to before Mother spoke barely above a whisper.

  “Oh my, does this girl have a name?”

  “As far as I can tell, her name is Flo Smith.”

  Mother spoke with tight lips. “Is that child she’s carrying yours?”

  I nodded.

  Mother eyes looked past me at the circling birds. I knew this was her way of thinking through the puzzles in life, as it was mine. “It appears that you don’t know her very well. Are you sure that the child is yours?”

  I squirmed a little at the question. Mother and I never talked about such matters. I nodded at the tub of beans. “I’m pretty sure. She’s so young. I didn’t know until last night that she was so young.”

  “How young?” she asked.

  The words popped from my lips, sounding almost disrespectful. “We’ll say sixteen.”

  “Well, there’s only one thing to do. She’s your responsibility now. You go see Willie Chalmers tomorrow and arrange for an immediate ceremony.”

  She gave me a hard eye and said, “You’re a good boy, Mickey. But when you make your bed hard, you have to lie in it. Do you love her?”

  My eyes sought out the iridescent birds that had flown into their coop. I shook my head. “I hardly know her. She’s pretty as a peach and sweet like that, too, sometimes. I have compassion for her but not true love.”

  A loud scream cut through the quiet summer morning. Knowing that it had to be Flo, I feared the worst. I bolted off the porch, wondering if she was hurt or if the baby was coming. Mother followed no more than two steps behind to the car parked by the barn.
Sophia and Sadie ran from behind the house, already halfway there. Flo tumbled out of the car door and fell against me. She buried herself into my chest, looking around at Lewis with eyes as big as saucers.

  Lewis extended his neck and looked back at Flo. He enlarged his eyes by raising his eyebrows and turned his mouth down, scaring her even more. He scratched his bald head with the brim of his straw hat and got so tickled he doubled over. Lewis had one of those infectious laughs—nhee, nhee-ee—that ended on a high note and begged to be repeated. Sadie looked at Lewis and me and then at Flo. She couldn’t resist the temptation to join in. Sadie and Lewis held each other up, bursting at the seams until tears ran down their cheeks. Mother and Sophia stifled spurts and spatters in spite of themselves. It looked like everyone was having a grand old time except me and a terrified Flo.

  More baffled than amused, I carried Flo to the house. I couldn’t imagine what made her act that way. I laid her on the guest room bed, dampened a cloth at the wash basin pitcher, and dabbed her pale, red-splotched face. I spoke gently to calm her shivering body.

  “Flo, what made you act that way?”

  She ran her hand over the chenille bedcover, watching the knotted fabric spring up between her fingers. “I’ve always been afraid of them.”

  “You mean colored people like Lewis?”

  She nodded. “Ma told me stories about how the darkies set their house afire. She was expecting at the time just like me now. She said the whole city was on fire, and it was all because of them. After Ma and Pa left for California, I used to dream about them running from the darkies and the fire. I would wake up scared, wondering if they’d come after me.

  “A little while ago, I woke up in the car and didn’t know where I was. He was at the window looking at me. I got scared. I remembered Ma’s stories, how she ran from them and the burning house with me in her belly. I didn’t know what he was going to do to me.”

  Poor little kitten, I thought. So misled and confused. I cuddled Flo in my arms and told her what I knew about the Great Atlanta Fire in 1917.

  “Ah, Little Kitten, your mother only told you part of the story, possibly the only part she knew herself. The fire started in a warehouse on Decatur Street. It wasn’t started by anyone in particular.”

  The story caught Flo’s full attention. Her pretty face set flatly on mine.

  “I’m sure that it was very frightening to your mother in her —. Flo, do you know what this means? If your mother was carrying you during the Great Fire – let’s see, that would have been May, and you said that your birthday is in July – then you’re just shy of your seventeenth birthday!”

  “Ya don’t say! Well, ain’t that somethin’?”

  Flo snuggled into me. “Mick, you’re so smart. I’m glad you rescued me from the darkie and figured out how old I am. So you think Ma lied to me?”

  “No, I don’t think your mother would lie, but sometimes people get history jumbled up in their brains. There were race riots and fires years before the Great Fire. Maybe she got them confused. But what matters now is that you understand that the man you saw today would never hurt you. His name is Lewis Graham and his wife is Miss Sara. Flo, these people love me and I love them. They are like family to me. In my family, we don’t call each other names.”

  Flo pulled away. “Oh. Is he mad at me?”

  Looking at her, I took back the regrets I’d given into earlier that day. She was pretty as a peach and just as sweet. And now that I knew that she was nearly seventeen, I felt like her prince again. I couldn’t help but smile.

  “No, Little Kitten, he’s as kind as you are sweet. I’ve never seen him angry.”

  I sat with her until she slept. I watched her with sore eyes that had no time for rest. I left Flo to join my mother and sisters for breakfast. Halfway down the hall, I picked up pieces of the conversation from the kitchen.

  I heard Mother’s voice. “Maybe we shouldn’t have laughed at the poor thing.”

  Sadie broke in, “Oh, Mother. She was falling out of the car, barefoot and pregnant, screaming like a banshee. Who wouldn’t laugh?”

  “Well, just be sensitive to your brother’s feelings.”

  Silence fell over the table when I poked my head in the doorway and took my place at the table.

  “Can I get you a cup of coffee, Son?”

  “Thank you, Mother.”

  “How is she?”

  The rising steam from the coffee cup cleared my sinuses. “She’s scared and confused.”

  Sadie repeated the question that people would ask me for years to come. “Mickey, how in the world did you get mixed up with a girl like that?”

  I stabbed a piece of ham on the platter. “People look a little different on a cold, lonely night in the city than they do out here in broad daylight.”

  The talk died down long enough for me to enjoy my breakfast. I washed away my weariness with country ham, red-eye gravy, grits, and biscuits. Mother stirred cream into her coffee and laid out the day’s schedule.

  “Sophia, I want you to get started making Flo some decent dresses. You’ll find plenty of cloth in the armoire. Just measure her across the shoulders, a princess cut should allow enough room. Short sleeves, solid dark colors, a white Peter Pan collar should set it off nicely, I think. That should do for now.

  “Sadie, bake a cake and put together a nice dinner we can eat on the lawn. I don’t expect there’s much need to make a big to-do over it. Mickey’s going into Lawrenceville to see Justice Chalmers about performing the ceremony here tomorrow. And Mickey, tell little Flo to get herself together because tomorrow she’s going to be a married woman.”

  Sadie shook her head at the eggs on her plate and stifled a laugh. “That girl has a lot to learn about living in the country!”

  Mother huffed, “She has a lot to learn about respecting her elders.”

  I wanted to defend Flo’s actions at the barn. But I already had too many things to explain that day and not enough willing ears to listen. My actions had caused great turmoil in our household, and I doubted that it would end any time soon.

  Sophia measured Flo’s shoulders and made her wedding dress according to Mother’s instructions. Sophia loved clothes and was fast with a needle. Considering Flo’s condition, I thought Mother’s idea for the dress was appropriate. Flo thought differently.

  Sophia ran the tape measure across the finished dress. “There, that seems to be just about right.”

  Flo stood in front of the full-length oval mirror with a childlike scowl on her face.

  “This is the biggest dress I ever seen,” she said, pulling at the stiff white collar. “This collar thingy scratches. Can’t you take it off?”

  Sophia spoke softly, “I don’t know. Mother suggested the Peter Pan collar; I don’t think we should change it.”

  Flo turned to Sophia. “Do you do everything your mama says?”

  “Everyone in this house does as Mother says,” Sophia replied and turned back to her work.

  ***

  I hardly remember the ceremony under the pin oaks in Mother’s front yard. I left for Atlanta that afternoon not long after we said our wedding vows. Flo had no choice but to settle in and obey Mother’s rules in her house. No one expected her to help with household chores because of her delicate condition, and Mother appointed Sophia to take charge of Flo’s education.

  Sophia’s gentle disposition and patience made her the perfect teacher. She coached Flo daily in numeration, reading, and speech. Mother insisted that she concentrate on speech and diction so that Flo wouldn’t embarrass the family every time she opened her mouth. Sophia confirmed my notion that Flo possessed a keen mind. Finding that Flo showed little interest in classical and religious readings, Sophia switched to the Atlanta Journal and the Saturday Evening Post to hold her attention.

  Mother gave us the guest room near the kitchen because it provided the most privacy. My first memory of marriage was Flo’s body snuggled next to mine. Flo’s sensuality sent electrical charges thr
ough me even in her condition. I respected her condition and held back my desire.

  ***

  Our first child, a boy, was born unexpectedly two months later while I was away on a weekly run. I returned that Friday morning to find Mother pacing the hallway floor, cradling my son in her arms. She dipped a sachet made of cheesecloth in Carnation Milk and pressed it to his lips. The baby squirmed and made weak choking noises unlike crying, more like gasping for air. Mother was fit to be tied. She handed the baby to Miss Sara and explained that Flo had a real hard time giving birth.

  “At first, Sara and I weren’t sure if the baby was coming or if she was just cramping like some women do. Lewis hitched a ride into Lawrenceville and brought Doc James. Doc said that she was so small; he doubted that she or the child would make it. But, thank goodness, they did. He weighs only three pounds. He won’t eat.”