A Good American

by Alex George

  The man studied Frederick. He was well over six and a half feet tall. A scar ran across his right cheek, casting his face in a shadow of violence. The bruised ribbons of torn tissue had grafted themselves back together in an uneven crest of ugliness, a scabbed exclamation mark. His hands were calloused slabs of leathered flesh. Long, thick fingers were interrupted by knuckles the size of walnuts.

  “Where are you from?” asked the man, also in German.

  “Hanover.”

  “And what brings you here?”

  “We’re just passing through,” said Frederick. He pointed behind him. “The horses need water.”

  The man nodded. “Where are you headed?”

  Before Frederick could answer, there was a loud scream from inside the carriage.

  Hours later, Frederick was pacing up and down a corridor, listening to Jette’s labor from behind a closed door. The man Frederick had spoken to earlier that day sat nearby, calmly smoking a cigarette. His name was Johann Kliever. They were in his house.

  “I don’t like this,” said Frederick, for the seventh time.

  Kliever stretched his long legs out in front of him and studied his boots, which were caked in yellow dust. “He’s a good doctor,” he said simply.

  After their conversation on the street had been interrupted, Frederick and Kliever had carried Jette from the carriage to the bed where she now lay. Childs had refused to help, complaining instead about the mess caused by Jette’s broken waters. The doctor had appeared at the house a few minutes later. Since then, the bedroom door had remained shut.

  Another howl of agony echoed through the house. Soon afterward the doctor, Mathias Becker, appeared in the corridor. He was a short, rotund man with an anxious manner about him. His shirtsleeves were rolled up, and his face was red.

  “Herr Meisenheimer?” he said in German, wiping his hands on a towel as he spoke.

  Frederick stepped forward. “Yes?”

  “Your wife’s labor is progressing, but slowly. The baby seems determined to take its time.”

  “Can I see her?” asked Frederick eagerly.

  “You will have to do more than that.” The doctor looked at his watch. “I must go home, at least for a while. A tired physician is of no use to your wife, I can assure you. I will return in the morning. If anything happens in the meantime, Kliever knows where to find me. I can be here in five minutes.”

  “I see,” said Frederick.

  “Don’t worry,” said the doctor. “I doubt much will happen for a while yet. She may even sleep a little. Encourage her to do so. She will need all her strength tomorrow.” He shook Frederick’s hand. “I will see you in the morning, and then we will meet this new baby of yours.” With a brief nod he turned and went down the stairs.

  Frederick opened the bedroom door. The curtains had been drawn against the night that was closing in. Jette lay on a narrow bed in the middle of the room. Her eyes were closed. The only other furniture was a wooden chest of drawers, on top of which sat a large terra-cotta angel.

  “Jette?”

  On hearing his voice, Jette’s eyes opened. Frederick squatted down beside her. He could see the exhaustion and fright in her face.

  “Where have you been?” she whispered.

  Frederick reached for her hand. “I was outside all along.”

  “If you leave me again, I’ll kill you,” she told him.

  “But there was nothing I could—”

  Frederick’s reply froze in his throat as Jette’s face contorted into a mask of pain. A low sob escaped her. The scream that followed knocked the world off its axis, obliterating reason. Shocked beyond words, Frederick watched the contraction pass.

  “I won’t ever leave you,” he said.

  They clung to each other then, not saying a word.

  As the night drew on, Jette’s contractions became worse. They had a terrible rhythm all of their own, a ghastly pulse of agony.

  In the calm between contractions, Frederick and Jette tried to sleep. At about three o’clock in the morning, Frederick was drifting in and out of exhausted slumber when Jette’s hand landed on his shoulder. He struggled to his feet. Jette’s mouth was stretched open in a silent scream. When the pain subsided, her eyes met his. “The baby’s coming,” she whispered.

  “But it’s not—The doctor said—He’s not—”

  Jette grunted, a noise whose quiet ferocity was more unnerving than the howls that had gone before. Her eyes narrowed, then closed. Another grunt. Then a whole series of them, short, harsh, utterly terrifying.

  “Wake Kliever,” she gasped. “Tell him to fetch—”

  She got no further, silenced by another wave of pain. A minute later, Frederick was back by her side. Down the corridor, Kliever was pulling on his trousers. Jette’s chest rose and fell violently, breath rasping in and out of her. The noise filled the room. Frederick suddenly understood that there would be no time to wait for the doctor. He went to the end of the bed and peered nervously between Jette’s open legs.

  “Frederick,” moaned Jette. “Stop staring and come here.”

  Abashed, Frederick scuttled around to her side. It occurred to him that he had never seen her so determined, so afraid, or so beautiful.

  “What is it?” she hissed through clenched teeth. “What’s wrong?”

  He bent down toward her. “I was just thinking how beautiful you looked.”

  The punch was impressive, both accurate and strong. Jette’s fist caught her husband squarely on the jaw. It was an absolute peach of a shot, and it propelled him backward into the chest of drawers. The impact sent the terra-cotta angel crashing to the ground. Frederick lay sprawled across the floor, his jaw stinging. Before he had the chance to wonder what he had done to deserve such a mighty wallop, Jette let out a last cry, filled with a world of agony and hope, and her body went limp. Then the room filled with a high-pitched mewl.

  It was the first note of millions that my father would sing.

  Dr. Becker arrived a few minutes after the birth. He had gently taken the child out of Frederick’s trembling hands and cut his umbilical cord. After a brief inspection he declared him healthy, if a little on the small side. After the sun had risen and the first day of my father’s life had begun in earnest, Jette lay propped up in her bed, the new baby in her arms. Kliever and his wife gathered around to inspect the child. Frederick stood next to Jette, gazing in awe at the tiny sleeping bundle of creased flesh. One hand rested on his wife’s shoulder. The other gingerly rubbed his chin. The terra-cotta angel was lying forgotten on the bedroom floor. One of its wings had broken off when it hit the ground. It lay a few inches away from the rest of the body, alone and dislocated, a misshapen heart.

  “A beautiful baby boy,” Anna Kliever said, smiling.

  Kliever nodded approvingly. “What will you call him?”

  Jette thought about Joseph and Reina Wall, and wondered what would have happened without their kind and timely intervention. She reached up and felt for Frederick’s hand. Her fingers closed around his. “We’ll call him Joseph,” she said.

  Just then there was a knock on the bedroom door. Dr. Becker and Childs stood side by side in the corridor. Becker beckoned Frederick out of the bedroom.

  “Herr Meisenheimer,” began the doctor. “How is your new family?”

  Frederick blinked through his exhaustion. “Tired,” he said.

  “Splendid,” said Becker. He looked at his shoes for a moment. “Mr. Childs here has been asking when you will be able to continue your journey. He tells me that he is required to return to St. Louis in two days.”

  “I see.”

  “Your son is very small and weak, Herr Meisenheimer. He must be properly looked after.” The doctor paused. “If I could insist upon it, I would have you all stay here, for several days at least. Your wife needs
to recover from her labor, and your son is too young for the rigors of a long journey.”

  Frederick nodded. “Yes. I understand.”

  “If you do as I suggest, Mr. Childs can return to St. Louis today.”

  The driver’s small, bloodshot eyes shifted between the men as he listened to them speak in German, a sullen scowl of incomprehension on his thin lips. Frederick sighed. “Well, then, I suppose we should wish him a safe journey home.”

  Dr. Becker nodded, and turned and spoke to Childs in English. The driver listened in silence, and then walked away without giving them another glance.

  The two men stood alone in the corridor for a moment.

  “Doctor?” said Frederick.

  “Yes, Herr Meisenheimer?”

  “Where are we?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I mean, what is the name of this town?”

  A smile spread across the doctor’s face. “Didn’t you know? You’re in Beatrice, Missouri.”

  SEVEN

  That evening, when both mother and child were asleep, Johann Kliever and Frederick walked through the streets of Beatrice to the Nick-Nack Inn, the town’s only tavern. Sawdust covered the floor, belching small tornadoes of beige dust with every footfall. Men hunkered down over tables pockmarked with angry craters. Chairs rocked on uneven legs. A haze of smoke hung low in the air. Kliever strode through the room, nodding at people as he went. As they sat down at an empty table, an old man approached. He was wearing a long black apron tied at the waist and carried a battered metal tray under his arm. In the dim light of the saloon his skin was gray, tissue-thin, and deathlike. His small, pale eyes were sunk deep within the craggy lines of his face.

  “This is Polk,” said Kliever.

  The barman gazed at the floor, saying nothing. Kliever slapped the top of the table with his enormous hand. “Give us two beers and two shots. This man is the proud father of a new baby boy, Polk. We’re here to celebrate.”

  Without a word, Polk turned and wobbled toward the bar at the back of the room. Frederick watched him go. “Is that man all right?” he asked.

  “Polk? He’s so drunk he doesn’t know his own name. But that’s when he’s at his best. He never forgets an order, never gives wrong change. And he won’t say a word to anyone. He’s a machine.”

  Moments later the barman returned and deposited four glasses on the table in front of them without spilling a drop, and then staggered wordlessly back to his post. Kliever raised his glass.

  “To fatherhood,” he said.

  “Heaven help me,” said Frederick, and threw back his drink. He felt the heat of the liquor inside him. “Do you have children?”

  “One son. A baby, too. He’s just a few months old. Stefan.”

  “So you know all about it.”

  “Not really. You would have to ask my wife.”

  “Women’s work?”

  “Perhaps.” Kliever shrugged.

  The two men drank.

  “Have you lived here long?” asked Frederick.

  “Most of my life.” Kliever spoke in a low, gruff voice. His German was perfect, without a trace of an accent. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve and settled his huge frame back in his chair. “My grandfather was from Bavaria. He settled in the Mississippi Delta in 1856. My father and my uncles ran a farm for one of the big cotton families down there. They were good farmers, but they spent most of their time fighting with each other. In the end my father couldn’t stand it anymore, and moved away. I was still young when we left.” Kliever paused. “He died ten years ago. I work the farm he left me.”

  “So you’ve never been to Germany?”

  Kliever shook his head. “I’m an American, born and bred.”

  “But your German is excellent.”

  “That was all we spoke growing up. I only learned English when I got to school.”

  “I suppose I shall need to go back to school myself, then,” mused Frederick, looking around him. In the far corner of the room he noticed a piano covered by a cobwebbed tarpaulin. “Your town seems a fine place.”

  Kliever nodded. “The land is good. Rich soil. And the river does its bit.”

  “The river?”

  “The Missouri River. The longest river in America. Runs right through the town. I’ll show you on the way home.”

  Before Frederick could reply, there was a loud crash from the far end of the room. Kliever got to his feet and beckoned Frederick to follow him. A crowd of people were peering over the bar. Polk’s prostrate body lay across the floor behind the counter, quite still. His eyes were open, staring sightlessly up at the ceiling. A small halo of shattered glass was sprinkled around his head. Frederick looked down in shock at the barman’s crumpled, empty face.

  “He does this every night,” said Kliever. “He’ll be fine by tomorrow. Help me with him, will you?”

  They carried the old man through the back door of the tavern and left him on a mattress behind the building. “He’ll wake up in a few hours and make his way home,” said Kliever as they went back inside. “Won’t remember a thing about it.”

  “What happens now?” asked Frederick.

  “Someone usually volunteers,” said Kliever. He looked at Frederick and scratched his nose.

  Frederick spent the rest of the evening behind the bar. It was a night he would never forget. Men greeted him warmly in German, and soon he was drowning happily in one long conversation. His worries about reaching Rocheport gradually dissipated in the warmth of the Nick-Nack’s friendly welcome.

  Hours later, Kliever and Frederick staggered back to Kliever’s house. Frederick sang arias as they weaved through the empty streets. He gazed up at the sky, so different from home. In Europe the stars hunkered down low across the night, dull and pendulous. Here, though, the heavens were filled with a million dazzling celestial bodies, each one casually brushing up to infinity.

  “I could get to like this place,” he said.

  “It’s home,” said Kliever.

  “Beatrice is a strange name for a town, though.”

  Kliever clapped him on the shoulder. “Come with me,” he said. After a short walk they arrived in the town’s main square, which was dominated by a large redbrick building, hulking and sinister in the shadows cast by the moonlight. It dwarfed the tidy, single-story shop fronts that surrounded it.

  “Church?” guessed Frederick.

  Kliever shook his head. “That’s the Caitlin County Courthouse,” he said. “Beatrice is the county seat. Here. Come and see this.” On the sidewalk in front of the courthouse there was a bronze statue of a middle-aged woman. She had a long nose and a grim expression on her face. The two men gazed up at her. Frederick leaned forward and read the plaque at the foot of the statue. It read beatrice eitzen.

  “Beatrice,” he said softly.

  “Her husband, Nathaniel Eitzen, founded this place,” said Kliever. “They were from South Carolina originally, but Eitzen had an itch he needed to scratch. He came west to seek his fortune. And he brought his wife with him.”

  “Doesn’t look as if she was too happy about it.”

  “Oh, she wasn’t. She missed the sunshine. In fact when they reached southern Indiana, she refused to go another step. She’d had enough. Told her husband to go on without her.”

  “And?”

  “And so he did. He hopped on his horse and drove out of town. Left her in the middle of nowhere. She had no choice but to wait for him to come back.” Kliever yawned. “Anyway, after a week or so, Eitzen started to feel guilty about what he’d done. So he wrote her a letter, asking her to come and join him.” He pointed up at the statue. “But she was as stubborn as he was, and refused. This went on for a couple of months—he’d beg her to come, she’d say no. Every day, of course, he was moving farther west, un
til he arrived here, when he decided that he’d gone far enough. So he established a township, and pretty soon there was a fair-sized group who joined him here.”

  “But not his wife,” guessed Frederick.

  “Not his wife,” agreed Kliever. “That’s when Eitzen had the bright idea to name the town after her, to see if that might tempt her to come.”

  “Did it work?”

  Kliever nodded. “Not even she could resist having a town named after her. Eitzen put on a big parade to welcome her, and had this statue made in her honor. So the carriage pulled into the town, and stopped right about here. Everyone had turned out to welcome her. There was a hush from the crowd as she climbed down from the carriage and looked around. She slowly took it all in. Then she looked up at the statue, went very still, and climbed back into the carriage without another word. The horses started to move off. ‘Wait, wait,’ cried Eitzen. ‘Where are you going?’ ‘Home,’ she shouted out of the window. ‘But why?’ he yelled. And just as the carriage rolled out of the square, his wife shrieked, ‘My nose is too big!’ Last words he ever heard from her. Still, he kept the town’s name, in case she ever came back. But she never did. A minute and a half in this place was enough for her.” Kliever yawned again. “We both need some sleep. Come on. I’ll show you the river. It’s on the way home.”

  A few minutes later, the two men stood at the end of the municipal pier, a perilous edifice of old wood that stretched out into the river. Frederick listened to the water as it coursed beneath his feet, a smooth, strong pulse in the darkness. “This is beautiful,” he said.

  “Tell you what, though,” said Kliever. “The sound of running water always has the same effect on me.” He began to unbutton his flies.

  Frederick felt his own bladder bulge, and did the same thing. As he emptied himself into the Missouri River, Frederick experienced an epiphany of sorts. After a lifetime spent in the city, this alfresco piss was his first true communion with nature. It felt exhilarating.