THE WAIT
Penetrating a windshield blotched with decalcomanias of every tourist attraction from Luray Caverns to Silver Springs, Miriam read the road sign.
“It’s Babylon, Georgia, Momma. Can’t we stop?”
“Sure, sweetie. Anything you want to do.” The little, round, brindle woman took off her sunglasses. “After all, it’s your trip.”
“I know, Momma, I know. All I want is a popsicle, not the Grand Tour.”
“Don’t be fresh.”
They were on their way home again, after Miriam’s graduation trip through the South. (Momma had planned it for years, and had taken two months off, right in the middle of the summer, too, and they’d left right after high school commencement ceremonies. “Mr. Margulies said I could have the whole summer, because I’ve been with him and Mr. Kent for so long,” she had said. “Isn’t it wonderful to be going somewhere together, dear?” Miriam had sighed, thinking of her crowd meeting in drugstores and in movies and eating melted ice cream in the park all through the good, hot summer. “Yes,” she’d said.)
Today they’d gotten off 301, somehow, and had driven dusty Georgia miles without seeing another car or another person, except for a Negro driving a tractor down the softening asphalt road, and two kids walking into a seemingly deserted country store. Now they drove slowly into a town, empty because it was two o’clock and the sun was shimmering in the streets. They had to stop, Miriam knew, on the pretext of wanting something cold to drink. They had to reassure themselves that there were other people in the town, in Georgia, in the world.
In the sleeping square, a man lay. He raised himself on his elbows when he saw the car, and beckoned to Miriam, grinning.
“Momma, see that place? Would you mind if I worked in a place like that?” They drove past the drugstore, a chrome palace with big front windows.
“Oh, Miriam, don’t start that again. How many times do I have to tell you, I don’t want you working in a drugstore when we get back.” Her mother made a pass at a parking place, drove once again around the square. “What do you think I sent you to high school for? I want you to go to Katie Gibbs this summer, and get a good job in the fall. What kind of boyfriends do you think you can meet jerking sodas? You know, I don’t want you to work for the rest of your life. All you have to do is get a good job, and you’ll meet some nice boy, maybe from your office, and get married, and never have to work again.” She parked the car and got out, fanning herself. They stood under the trees, arguing.
“Momma, even if I did want to meet your nice people, I wouldn’t have a thing to wear. The girl settled into the groove of the old argument. “I want some pretty clothes and I want to get a car. I know a place where you only have to pay forty dollars a month. I’ll be getting thirty-five a week at the drugstore—”
“And spending it all on yourself, I suppose. How many times do I have to explain, nice people don’t work in places like that. Here I’ve supported you, fed you, dressed you, ever since your father died, and now, when I want you to have a nice future, you want to throw it out of the window for a couple of fancy dresses.” Her lips quivered. “Here I am practically dead on my feet, giving you a nice trip, and a chance to learn typing and shorthand and have a nice future—”
“Oh, Momma.” The girl kicked at the sidewalk and sighed. She said the thing that would stop the argument. “I’m sorry. I’ll like it, I guess, when I get started.”
Round, soft, jiggling and determined, her mother moved ahead of her, trotting in too-high heels, skirting the square. “The main thing, sweetie, is to be a good girl. If boys see you behind a soda fountain, they’re liable to get the wrong idea. They may think they can get away with something, and try to take advantage. . . .”
In the square across the street, lying on a pallet in the sun, a young boy watched them. He called out.
“. . . Don’t pay any attention to him,” the mother said. “. . . and if boys know you’re a good girl, one day you’ll meet one who will want to marry you. Maybe a big businessman, or a banker, if you have a good steno job. But if he thinks he can take advantage,” her eyes were suddenly crafty, “he’ll never marry you. You just pay attention. Don’t ever let boys get away with anything. Like when you’re on a date, do you ever—”
“Oh, Momma,” Miriam cried, insulted.
“I’m sorry, sweetie, but I do so want you to be a good girl. Are you listening to me, Miriam?”
“Momma, that lady seems to be calling me. That one lying over there in the park. What do you suppose she wants?”
“I don’t know. Well, don’t just stand there. She looks like a nice woman. Go over and see if you can help her. Guess she’s sunbathing, but it does look funny, almost like she’s in bed. Ask her, Mirry. Go on!”
“Will you move me into the shade?” The woman, obviously one of the leading matrons of the town, was lying on a thin mattress. The shadow of the tree she was under had shifted with the sun, leaving her in the heat.
Awkwardly, Miriam tugged at the ends of the thin mattress, got it into the shade.
“And my water and medicine bottle too, please?”
“Yes ma’am. Is there anything the matter, ma’am?”
“Well.” The woman ticked the familiar recital off on her fingers: “It started with cramps and—you know—lady-trouble. Thing is, now my head burns all the time and I’ve got a pain in my left side, not burning, you know, but just sort of tingling.”
“Oh, that’s too bad.”
“Well, has your mother there ever had that kind of trouble? What did the doctor prescribe? What would you do for my kind of trouble? Do you know anybody who’s had anything like it? That pain, it starts up around my ribs, and goes down, sort of zig-zag . . .”
Miriam bolted.
“Momma, I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want a popsicle. Let’s get out of here, please. Momma?”
“If you don’t mind, sweetie, I want a coke.” Her mother dropped on a bench. “I don’t feel so good. My head . . .”
They went into the drugstore. Behind the chrome and plate glass, it was like every drugstore they’d seen in every small town along the east coast, cool and dim and a little dingy in the back. They sat at one of the small, round wooden tables, and a dispirited waitress brought them their order.
“What did Stanny and Bernice say when you told them you were going on a big tour?” Miriam’s mother shipped at her coke, breathing hard.
“Oh, they thought it was all right.”
“Well, I certainly hope you tell them all about it when we get back. It’s not every young girl gets a chance to see all the historical monuments. I bet Bernice has never been to Manassas.”
“I guess not, Momma.”
“I guess Stanny and that Mrs. Fyle will be pretty impressed when you get back and tell ‘em where all we’ve been. I bet that Mrs. Fyle could never get Toby to go anywhere with her. Of course, they’ve never been as close as we’ve been.”
“I guess not, Momma.” The girl sucked and sucked at the bottom half of her popsicle, to keep it from dripping on her dress.
In the back of the store, a young woman in dirty white shorts held onto her little son’s hand and talked to the waitress. The baby, about two, sat on the floor in gray, dusty diapers.
“Your birthday’s coming pretty soon, isn’t it?” She dropped the baby’s hand.
“Yeah. Oh, you ought to see my white dress. Golly, Anne, hope I won’t have to Wait too long. Anne, what was it like?”
The young woman looked away from her, with the veiled face of the married, who do not talk about such things.
“Myla went last week, and she only had to stay for a couple of days. Don’t tell anybody, because of course she’s going to marry Harry next week, but she wishes she could see Him again. . . .”
The young woman moved a foot, accidentally hit the baby. He snuffled and she helped him onto her lap, gurgling at him. In the front of the store, Miriam heard the baby and jumped. “Momma, come on. We’ll never get
to Richmond by night. We’ve already lost our way twice!” Her mother, dabbling her straws in the ice at the bottom of her paper cup, roused herself. They dropped two nickels on the counter and left.
They skirted the square again, ignoring the three people who lay on the grass motioning and calling to them with a sudden urgency. Miriam got into the car.
“Momma, come on! Momma!” Her mother was still standing at the door by the driver’s seat, hanging onto the handle. Miriam slid across the front seat to open the door for her. She gave the handle an impatient twist and then started as she saw her mother’s upper body and face slip past the window in a slow fall to the pavement. “Oh, I knew we never should have come!” It was an agonized, vexed groan. Red-faced and furious, she got out of the car, ran around to help her mother.
On their pallets in the park, the sick people perked up. Men and women were coming from everywhere. Cars pulled up and stopped and more people came. Kneeling on the pavement, Miriam managed to tug her mother into a prone position. She fanned her, and talked to her, and when she saw she wasn’t going to wake up or move, she looked at the faces above her in sudden terror.
“Oh, please help me. We’re alone here. She’ll be all right, I think, once we get her inside. She’s never fainted before. Please, someone get a doctor.” The faces looked interested, but nobody moved. Almost crying, Miriam said, “Oh, no, never mind. Just help me get her to the car. If she isn’t all right in a few miles, I’ll take her to a doctor.” Then, frantically, “I just want to get out of here!”
“Why, honey, you don’t need to do that. Don’t you worry.” A shambling, balding, pleasant man in his forties knelt beside her and put his hand on her shoulder. “We’ll have her diagnosed and started on a cure in no time. Can you tell me what’s been her trouble?”
“Not so far, Doctor.”
“I’m not a doctor, honey.”
“Not so far,” she said dazedly, “except she’s been awfully hot.” (Two women in the background nodded at each other knowingly.) “I thought it was the weather, but I guess it’s fever.” (The crowd was waiting.) “And she has an open place on her foot—got it while we were sight-seeing in Tallahassee.”
“Well, honey, maybe we’d better look at it.” The shoe came off and when it did, the men and women moved even closer, clucking and whispering about the wet, raw sore.
“If we could just get back to Queens,” Miriam said. “If we could just get home, I know everything would be all right.”
“Why, we’ll have her diagnosed before you know it.” The shambling man got up from his knees. “Anybody here had anything like this recently?” The men and women conferred in whispers.
“Well,” one man said, “Harry Parkins’ daughter had a fever like that; turned out to be pneumonia, but she never had nothin’ like that on her foot. I reckon she ought to have antibiotics for that fever.”
“Why, I had somethin’ like that on my arm.” A woman amputee was talking. “Wouldn’t go away and wouldn’t go away. Said I woulda died, if they hadn’t of done this.” She waved the stump.
“We don’t want to do anything like that yet. Might not even be the same thing,” the bald man said. “Anybody else?”
“Might be tetanus.”
“Could be typhoid, but I don’t think so.”
“Bet it’s some sort of staflococcus infection.”
“Well,” the bald man said, “since we don’t seem to be able to prescribe just now, guess we’d better put her on the square. Call your friends when you get home tonight, folks, and see if any of them know about it; if not, we’ll just have to depend on tourists.”
“All right, Herman.”
“B’by, Herman.”
“See ya, Herman.”
“G’by.”
The mother, who had come to during the dialogue and listened with terrified fascination, gulped a potion and a glass of water the druggist had brought from across the street. From the furniture store came the messenger boy with a thin mattress. Someone else brought a couple of sheets, and the remainder of the crowd carried her into the square and put her down not far from the woman who had the lady-trouble.
When Miriam last saw her mother, she was talking drowsily to the woman, almost ready to let the drug take her completely.
Frightened but glad to be away from the smell of sickness, Miriam followed Herman Clark down a side street. “You can come home with me, honey,” he said. “I’ve got a daughter just about your age, and you’ll be well taken care of until that mother of yours gets well.” Miriam smiled, reassured, used to following her elders. “Guess you’re wondering about our little system,” Clark said, hustling her into his car. “What with specialization and all, doctors got so they were knowin’ so little, askin’ so much, chargin’ so much. Here in Babylon, we found we don’t really need ‘em. Practically everybody in this town has been sick one way or another, and what with the way women like to talk about their operations, we’ve learned a lot about treatment. We don’t need doctors any more. We just benefit by other people’s experience.”
“Experience?” None of this was real, Miriam was sure, but Clark had the authoritative air of a long-time parent, and she knew parents were always right.
“Why, yes. If you had chicken pox, and were out where everybody in town could see you, pretty soon somebody’d come along who had had it. They’d tell you what you had, and tell you what they did to get rid of it. Wouldn’t even have to pay a doctor to write the prescription. Why, I used Silas Lapham’s old nerve tonic on my wife when she had her bad spell. She’s fine now; didn’t cost us a cent except for the tonic. This way, if you’re sick, we put you in the square, and you stay there until somebody happens by who’s had your symptoms; then you just try his cure. Usually works fine. If not, somebody else’ll be by. Course, we can’t let any of the sick folks leave the square until they’re well; don’t want anybody else catchin’ it.”
“How long will it take?”
“Well, we’ll try some of the stuff Maysie Campbell used— and Gilyard Pinckney’s penicillin prescription. If that doesn’t work, we may have to wait till a tourist happens through.”
“But what makes the tourists ask and suggest?”
“Have to. It’s the law. You come on home with me, honey, and we’ll try to get your mother well.”
~ * ~
Miriam met Clark’s wife and Clark’s family. For the first week, she wouldn’t unpack her suitcases. She was sure they’d be leaving soon, if she could just hold out. They tried Asa Whitleaf’s tonic on her mother, and doctored her foot with the salve Harmon Johnson gave his youngest when she had boils. They gave her Gilyard Pinckney’s penicillin prescription.
“She doesn’t seem much better,” Miriam said to Clark one day. “Maybe if I could get her to Richmond or Atlanta to the hospital—”
“We couldn’t let her out of Babylon until she’s well, honey. Might carry it to other cities. Besides, if we cure her, she won’t send county health nurses back, trying to change our methods. And it might be bad for her to travel. You’ll get to like it here, hon.”
That night Miriam unpacked. Monday she got a job clerking in the dime store.
“You’re the new one, huh?” The girl behind the jewelry counter moved over to her, friendly, interested. “You Waited yet? No, I guess not. You look too young yet.”
“No, I’ve never waited on people. This is my first job,” Miriam said confidentially.
“I didn’t mean that kind of wait,” the girl said with some scorn. Then, seemingly irrelevantly, “You’re from a pretty big town, I hear. Probably already laid with boys and everything. Won’t have to Wait.”
“What do you mean? I never have. Never! I’m a good girl!” Almost sobbing, Miriam ran back to the manager’s office. She was put in the candy department, several counters away. That night she stayed up late with a road map and a flashlight, figuring, figuring.
The next day, the no visitors sign was taken down from the tree in the park, and Miriam
went to see her mother.
“I feel terrible, sweetie, you having to work in the dime store while I’m out here under these nice trees. Now you just remember all I told you, and don’t let any of these town boys get fresh with you. Just because you have to work in the dime store doesn’t mean you aren’t a nice girl, and as soon as I can, I’m going to get you out of that job. Oh, I wish I was up and around.”
“Poor Momma.” Miriam smoothed the sheets and put a pile of movie magazines down by her mother’s pillow. “How can you stand lying out here all day?”
“It isn’t so bad, really. And y’know, that Whitleaf woman seems to know a little something about my trouble. I haven’t really felt right since you were nine.”
“Momma, I think we ought to get out of here. Things aren’t right—”
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