Defiant Heart

by Steere, Marty

  “Hell seems pretty dire,” Mary observed.

  “Oh, I don’t mean Hell in the religious sense,” Sam said, without breaking her concentration. “You know what I’m talking about. You’re losing sight of the really important stuff. You sit around all day reading things that nobody else cares about. In the meantime, life is passing you by. One day, you’re going to wake up, and you’ll be an old maid. And then you’ll say, ‘Hey, why didn’t I listen to Sam when I had the chance?’”

  Mary suppressed a smile. This was one of Sam’s favorite topics. Sam was bound and determined to mold Mary into her image of the modern woman. The fact that Mary would have none of it was a constant source of distraction for Sam.

  “Is this about my not painting my nails?” she asked innocently.

  “It’s not just about that, but it’ll do for starts.”

  Mary, Sam and Gwenda had been friends for as long as Mary could remember. They had just always been together. For Mary, an only child, the two girls had filled the void left after her mother had passed away when Mary was six years old, leaving her alone with a father to whom she had never been very close. The two girls were, for all intents and purposes, her family.

  It wasn’t that Mary didn’t love her father. She did, after a fashion. And she certainly admired and respected him. But, in the ten years since his wife’s death, Jim Dahlgren had never been able to allow himself to show real affection. To anyone. He’d dated a few women, but none had stuck around for long. There had never been one that Mary could get close to. Without Sam and Gwenda, Mary’s would have been a very lonely existence.

  Mary, however, was as different from her two friends as night was from day.

  Sam, the extrovert, was obsessed with her appearance. Her hair was always coiffed in the latest style. She would spend hours on her makeup. With subscriptions to several fashion magazines, she was invariably up on all the hot trends. To Sam, being the perfect young woman took second place to only one thing: Finding the perfect man.

  Gwenda was much more low-keyed, but no less anxious to present the picture of the well-put-together young woman. In Gwenda, Sam had found the ideal acolyte. Ironically, it was Gwenda who’d had the greater success with boys. For the past several months, she had been going steady with Billy Hamilton, one of their classmates and a stand-out on the Jackson High School basketball team.

  To Sam’s mortification, Mary had no interest in fashion. As the daughter of one of the town’s most successful merchants, Mary could easily afford fine clothing. However, she preferred simple outfits. She eschewed fashionable curls and wore her honey blond hair in a simple, tousled style. Lipstick, mascara and the current object of the girls’ attention, nail polish, were items Mary rarely used.

  “Look at yourself,” Sam was saying, the nail polish temporarily forgotten. “You are, by a mile, the prettiest one of us. Yet you do nothing to call attention to your assets.”

  “My assets? Like what?”

  “Like your ass-et,” blurted Gwenda, and she and Sam dissolved into a fit of giggling.

  “Fine,” Mary said, with feigned indignation, “I’ll just leave you kids alone,” and she made a show of returning to her book.

  “No, seriously. And here’s why it’s so important now,” Sam said, lowering her voice and looking suddenly conspiratorial. “I have it on good authority that Vernon and Judy are on the outs.”

  “Really?” asked Gwenda.

  “Finished,” Sam said.

  She and Gwenda turned and looked expectantly at Mary.

  “What?” Mary asked, after a moment.

  “What to you mean, what?” said Gwenda. “We’re talking about King Vernon, here. The hottest thing in three counties.”

  “And he’s available,” added Sam.

  “Then you go after him.”

  “I would if I could,” Sam replied, “but I’m not a blond. Everybody knows the King only likes blonds.”

  “Oh, applesauce,” said Mary, “And, in any event, I don’t give a hoot about Vernon King. Never have.”

  #

  In the weeks following his arrival in Jackson, Jon and his grandmother had settled into an uneasy routine. She was rarely around when he awoke, returning to the house only in the early afternoon. On most days, she would then give piano lessons.

  Mondays were the exception. On those days, his grandmother brought out a pair of folding card tables from her bedroom, carefully arranged chairs around them, and set out refreshments. A group of women descended on the house, and they spent hours playing bridge.

  His grandmother made it clear to Jon that he was not welcome during these activities. Jon would have to go for a walk or retire to his room and read. Despite his vow not to dwell on his situation, there was no avoiding the bitter sting of this rejection.

  Jon and his grandmother ate one meal together, always at 5:00 sharp. They were uncomfortable affairs, his grandmother making no attempt to initiate conversations, her replies to his comments or questions typically short, inviting no follow up. The only time he got any kind of rise from her was the one time he mentioned the work shed.

  “You stay away from that place,” she snapped, her eyes flashing. After a moment, she asked, “You haven’t tried to go in there, have you?”

  Jon shook his head quickly.

  “Good. It’s not a place for you. Just leave it alone.”

  After that, they retreated to their usual awkward silence.

  #

  On the Fourth of July, there was to be a parade down Main Street, followed by a barbeque hosted by the chamber of commerce. Jon had seen flyers advertising the celebration posted about town. On the day of the event, he waited until his grandmother left, then followed a few minutes later.

  Compared to parades Jon had seen in New York, this one was small‌—‌a few classic Model Ts decorated with flowers and crêpe paper, a marching band, and a large float built on a flatbed trailer and towed by a fine set of six white horses, their manes braided with flowers. But what it lacked in volume was more than compensated by the enthusiasm and general merriment of the crowd. The town was decked out in an explosion of red, white and blue. The population seemed to have swelled to a multiple of its size, as families poured in from the surrounding countryside. The parade route was lined with people waving American flags. Young children darted about, laughing and swirling sparklers.

  The barbeque was held in a field just to the north of town. After waiting patiently in line, Jon accepted a hot dog from one of the volunteers manning the grills and, still favoring his bad leg, slowly made his way over to a line of trees. He found a spot next to a large sycamore and sat down in the shade, his back against the uneven bark.

  He was certainly no stranger to crowds of people he didn’t know. He’d been to the city many times with his parents. He and his brother had attended baseball games at Ebbets Field with his father. Two years earlier, his parents had allowed him to accompany his brother, on their own, to the World’s Fair in nearby Flushing Meadows, where the two boys easily mingled with the mass of people that filled the vast grounds. Never in his life, however, had he felt as isolated as he was now, so completely alone. He even found himself yearning for a glimpse of his grandmother.

  His grandmother. She clearly did not like him. From the moment he’d set foot in Jackson, she’d made no secret of her antipathy. Countless times, he had asked himself, Why? Weren’t they family? Didn’t family stick together? Most nights, he’d laid awake in his tiny room, a crushing loneliness constricting his chest. And it had taken a while. But he’d finally come to a rueful conclusion. Here he had been, wallowing in his own self-pity, so willing to lean on the only remaining member of his family that he had, for weeks, overlooked a fundamental truth.

  He was a burden. And a terribly unfair one at that.

  His Grandpa Wilson had passed away several years ago. To make ends meet, his grandmother gave piano lessons. At her age. Then, out of the blue, along came another mouth to feed, a selfish one, contributing
nothing and, in the process, disrupting her life.

  He felt ashamed.

  He was mulling over ways in which he might address the problem when his attention was drawn to a figure in the crowd. It was a young man who stood a head taller than anyone else and was therefore impossible to miss. His back was to Jon. A sleeveless t-shirt revealed muscular shoulders and a thick neck, and his head was covered with light blond curls. He was talking to someone, and, as he did, he gestured and turned slightly. The movement afforded Jon a line of sight to the person with whom he was speaking, and, instead of focusing on the young man, Jon found himself staring at the most beautiful girl he had ever seen in his life.

  #

  “That’s nice of you to ask, Vernon,” Mary said, “but my friends are here, and we’re having a good time.”

  Vernon smiled easily and cocked an eyebrow. “It would just be for a little bit. You know I’m pretty busy these days. We may not get another chance to spend time together.”

  “Well, I think I’ll take that risk.”

  “Suit yourself,” Vernon shrugged with a carefree nonchalance. He looked past Mary and, apparently making eye contact with someone in the crowd, nodded.

  “See you around.” He stepped past her and strolled off, a study in practiced indifference.

  Sam, who had been lingering a short distance away, now came stomping up to Mary.

  “Are you crazy? Vernon King wants to make time with you, and you’re too busy having ‘a good time with your friends’? ‘Oh, I’m terribly sorry, my social calendar is full at the moment. Perhaps you can check back with me later.’ What are you thinking? Are you holding out for Cary Grant? Because I’ve got a breaking news bulletin for you. Cary Grant isn’t coming to Jackson anytime soon. What do I have to do to get some sense into your stubborn head? You can’t play hard to get with the King. He likes you, but he won’t wait around.”

  “Oh, Sam,” Mary said, laughing, “I love your passion. But, in this case, you’re just wrong. I’ve known Vernon all my life. And I can tell you he only likes two things: Basketball and Vernon King, and not necessarily in that order.”

  “But, he’s the King…”

  “And I have no interest in being the queen. Come on, let’s go find Gwenda. Then the two of you can gang up on me.”

  #

  Jon watched the two young women have a spirited conversation, the dark-haired girl waving her arms in dramatic fashion, while the blond laughed gaily. Then the two linked arms, turned, and melded into the crowd. For a moment, he contemplated getting up and following, but realized he had no idea what he would say if he found them. He strained to catch another glimpse of the blond girl, but she and her companion were lost in the multitude.

  Sitting back against the trunk of the tree, he turned his mind to the problem that had been vexing him. How, he asked himself, could he help alleviate the burden he represented? How could he make it up to his grandmother?

  #

  The placard in the window simply read “Help Wanted.” There were no further details. Jon took a deep breath and stepped into the hardware store.

  “Can I help you?” asked the heavyset man behind the counter. Jon swallowed, then took a step forward.

  “I’m here about the job.”

  “Ah,” said the man, amiably. “The owner’s not in now. You wanna check back later?”

  “Sure,” Jon replied. Then he added, “Can you tell me what the job involves?”

  “Cleaning. Stocking. Helping out with the customers when things get busy. It’s not a full time job, but the pay’s decent. The guy who had it before just joined the navy. You know about tools and hardware?”

  Jon hesitated briefly, then admitted, “No, not a lot. But I’m a fast learner and a hard worker.”

  “At least you’re honest,” the big man said. “Say, you’re not from town are you?”

  “I am. I moved here a few weeks ago. I’m living with my grandmother, Marvella Wilson.”

  “You’re Ernie Wilson’s grandson? Well, that’s gotta be worth something. Ernie, he was a regular in here. You know,” he said with a smile, “your granddaddy was something else. If it was broke, he could fix it. I never saw nothing like it. I asked him once how he did it. You know, how he could fix something he never even seen before. He says ‘Walt’‌—‌Walt’s my name‌—‌‘You know how you got to know how something works before you can fix it, right?’ Well, to tell the God’s truth, I didn’t know that then. Course, now I do. So, anyway, he says, ‘I don’t know how it happens, but if I look at something long enough, I can figure out how it works.’ He could just see it. You ever heard of anyone who could do that?”

  Jon shook his head, truthfully.

  “Me neither. It was the damnedest thing. You remember,” he began, then amended, “nah, you’re probably too young to remember, back when refrigerators first started comin’ out.”

  Actually, Jon remembered the old ice box that his family had before they purchased their first refrigerator when Jon was about eight. Before then, the iceman would make deliveries, and Jon had fond recollections of retrieving ice chips from his wagon on hot summer days.

  “Refrigerators was suddenly a hot item. I’d say in one year, half the town went out and bought one. Now you talk about your technical things. Even Ernie had a hard time understanding how they worked. And, of course, they started breaking down, just like everything does.

  “Well, Ernie writes away to the folks at General Electric, and they was nice enough to send him a manual. Seems the guys they trained to fix the things was stretched to the breaking point. So they was happy to have someone learn on his own how to fix ‘em.

  “And then, sure enough, one day, Ernie says to me, ‘I got it now.’ Just like that.”

  At that moment, the front door opened, the tinkling of a small bell announcing the presence of someone new. They both turned as a woman Jon had never seen before entered the store.

  “Oh, hey, Mrs. Cartwright,” Walt called, cheerily.

  “Morning Walt,” she said. Then she turned and strolled up the first aisle.

  “Well,” Walt said, turning back to Jon, “I guess maybe I better let you go. Mr. Dahlgren should be here this afternoon. You wanna come back then?”

  “I will.”

  “OK, see you later. Say, I enjoyed the conversation.”

  That struck Jon as funny. To his recollection, he hadn’t contributed anything to the conversation. “Me too.”

  #

  Jim Dahlgren returned to his hardware store in the late afternoon. As the mayor of Jackson, he would be presiding over the city council meeting later that evening. He had a number of things on his mind, so he didn’t respond when his assistant, Walt, called out, “Hey boss, you’re back early.”

  With a cursory wave of acknowledgement, Dahlgren headed straight for the narrow stairs leading up to the second floor office he maintained above the original section of the store. Before he could ascend, however, Walt said, “Say, I got good news.”

  Dahlgren turned and looked at Walt.

  “I think we maybe found a guy to replace Bobby. You’ll never believe who it is, either. Ernie Wilson’s grandson. We had a nice chat today. He’s a hard worker and a fast learner. And he’s honest,” he added.

  Dahlgren nodded in a distracted way. “Well, tell you what. If you’re happy with him, then it’s fine with me.”

  And with that, Jon had a job.

  #

  To Jon, Dahlgren’s Hardware offered more than mere employment. It was a refuge from the cold environment of his grandmother’s home. And it came with the first person Jon could call a friend in Jackson.

  Walt Gallagher had grown up on a farm, the youngest of eight children, all of whom, with the exception of Walt, were girls. Walt’s father, in turn, had been one of seven children. Walt’s grandfather had fled Ireland with his two half-brothers at the peak of the potato famine in the middle part of the prior century and had settled in Clark County. There were Gallaghers spread thro
ughout Central Indiana. Walt, it seemed, had more relatives than he could possibly count.

  With little interest, and even less aptitude, for farming, Walt had come to work at Dahlgren’s when he was not much older than Jon was now. That was almost twenty years ago. He’d never married, had never been outside the state of Indiana, and, near as Jon could tell, had no regrets.

  The small bell on the front door tinkled, and a stooped, white-haired man entered.

  Walt looked at Jon and winked. “Good morning, Mr. Hardisty,” he bellowed at the top of his lungs.

  “Eh?” said the man, shuffling over to the counter. “Eh?”

  Walt waved a hand in greeting and repeated, “Good morning!”

  “Good morning to you, Walt,” Mr. Hardisty said in response. Then he turned to Jon and observed casually, “I’m deaf as a goddamn post.”

  Jon had no idea how to respond to that, so he simply smiled.

  The man fished around in a canvas sack he was carrying, and, after a moment, produced a flashlight that, with slightly shaking hands, he placed on the counter. “Can’t get this goddamn thing to work,” he announced.

  “Maybe it needs new batteries,” Walt said.

  “Eh?”

  “Batteries,” Walt repeated.

  “Batteries. Yes. Just put a whole new set in. Didn’t help.”

  Walt picked up the flashlight and clicked the on/off button. Sure enough, nothing happened. He unscrewed the back and allowed three dry cell batteries to slide out onto the counter. He and Jon leaned over and looked at them, then at each other. Walt cocked an eyebrow. Slowly, Jon reached out, gripped the middle battery between thumb and forefinger, and deliberately turned it around. He then looked back at Walt and cocked his own eyebrow.

  Walt nodded, then slid the three batteries back into the case and re-screwed the end piece. This time, when he clicked the button, the light came on.