by John Okas
“Sir Harry!”
He takes Gloria by the hand and they go shopping at Baumgarten’s department store. He lets her give vent to her childish extravagance and is on hand the day of the delivery to help her assemble her room within a room on the third story. Four double mattresses with extra padding go on the floor with eight satin down comforters and ninety-nine fine pillows. Four tall, extra-wide wardrobes make perfect corner pieces, and give Glory plenty of closet space, with drawers and shelves to hold her ribbons and bows, rags and riches, books, dolls, stuffed animals, water colors, midnight lamps and flashlights.
From his days as sheik of the City by the Bay, the playboy understands the game of tent-making: you need everything in easy reach for a camp to be inviolate.
The last ingredient is curtains, almost one hundred yards of red, gold, black, and purple silk and velvet, fabrics which have a few decades to go before they are as cosy as the moth-eaten rose velvet portieres she used to cover her nest downstairs. Still, when they are finished, it’s a splendid tent, a colorful festooned pavilion with flaps that flutter like butterfly wings.
Gloria applauds politely. “Thank you, thank you, Daddy-o.”
Fine, she thinks, certainly it makes being up on the third floor more bearable. The tent is most excellent, yet it is but an imitation of her Mummy’s tomb. And the rooms here cannot rival the extended suite her mother now has all to herself. Those luxuries downstairs, everything her mother has, including her husband, seem more desirable than ever. Where there is a will there is a way. But willful Glory’s way is to enjoy what she has, as best she can, and have faith that better accommodations will be forthcoming if she has the patience to let destiny do the trick.
A Good Morning Little School Girl
As summer days dwindle down to a priceless few, the soon-to-be-six girl tries to save herself from the first grade, acting queasy, weaseling her way with words, but to no avail. Laudette says, “How often do I have to tell you, Baby? Those arguments could get you out of sandbox, but from now on it’s not up to us. On the Freeway, death and taxes are not the only things that are certain. You’ve got your mandatory education to face. And if you don’t go they’ll put the whole bunch of us in jail: me, your mother, Sir Harry. You wouldn’t want that now, would you?”
Like her Daddy-o Gloria doesn’t believe any old nonsense just because somebody says it. “Oh, Lawdy, that’s stupid. Just tell that old SCUBA school you changed your mind and you’re going to send me to some other school. How are they going to know if I stay right here covered up in my tent? The school police won’t even know I exist.”
“They know. They check birth certificates.”
“Lawdy, they have to know about me first before they know whose birth certificate they have to check. Even Mummy doesn’t know whether I was born in Zion Beehive, Beantown Bay, or the Bay Area. And it’s a free country, isn’t it? How are they going to know who goes where?”
Stymied Laudette shakes her head with exasperation. “School people know because they’ve been to school,” she explains through a clenched jaw. “And you don’t know because you haven’t been there yet.”
All things pass. Inevitably, the day dawns when Laudette puts Gloria in the uniform and packs her off to Saint Bernard’s with an admonition to make her proud and enough lunch for four, fine pastries and other treats, which she instructs Gloria to offer to the other girls. Delivered into the hands of Headmistress Twinkler, Gloria does her best to overcome her need to express herself as an individual and toe the line in her SCUBA gear. A good morning little schoolgirl, she minds her manners, until it’s time to act rich and bored, a prerequisite, as she understands it, for clicking with the city’s finest young ladies. Her teachers see tan Gloria as mysterious, her mates find her a bit frightening. They distrust her niceness. In fact, her graciousness and generosity in the lunch room cause rumors of her malignancy. Mary Ella has some nut cakes from Gloria and reports a stomach ache for three days. Thalia says the Black girl has an evil eye and that looking at her straight on is to be avoided like the creamed spinach in the cafeteria. In time she becomes the cause of a sorority among them. Those in favor of not being her friend, the in-crowd, stand clear and whisper about her, the outsider, even as they chew on a piece of Laudette’s chocolate fudge. No matter what chatter goes on behind her back, Gloria remains civil. Her jocund expression says she knows it all. There is something of the raven in her spit-shine sparkle, her audaciousness, and the elegant, jazzy way she moves her legs and taps her toes as she goes down the hall. The truth is, she doesn’t care whether she is accepted or not; and in a circle where being accepted is considered the most important thing, her indifference is like the kiss of death.
As the years pass, her appearance, more than anything, is responsible for her position as class misfit. She is far and away the tallest, most graceful, and mature girl in her class. By grade five, the other girls, everyone as vain as she is rich, see Gloria’s natural beauty, intelligence, and refinement and hate her for it.
The teachers feel riddled by her contempt. Clearly, she has great intelligence but her grades follow her tongue-in-cheek sociability and show average lights, barely a Bee student. She could have grades close to one hundred percent, but she is content to settle for eighty. On tests she enters the incorrect answers with studied regularity. The pattern of every fifth one being wrong announces the point like cuckoo clockwork. Most disturbing, every wrong answer she gives orally is accompanied by the ingenuous smile that says she knows better.
To Glory everyone at school seems blind, stupid, and half-asleep. It is her flaw and her forte that she has no patience or compassion. It wouldn’t be right, she reasons, if she let the witless alter her understanding that she is smarter than they.
The Missing Meat
And as Gloria grows in body, so does she grow in curiosity and inquisitiveness. At nine she is full of wonder why her mother’s accounts of the past don’t jibe. Through the years the coven of women meets every Friday night. They wouldn’t miss a week for the world. She sees that her mother, for all her study of metaphysics and grandiose notions about spiritual progress, has a conscience that is far from crystal. And Sarah, while her practices help put her at peace with Corn Dog, still lacks the light of truth when the focus comes close to home. She goes through hell every time Glory gets after her to fill in the hole in the family history.
“Mummy, say again, how did my real Daddy die?”
“Well, I—uh—I wasn’t there so I don’t—uh—know all the details, but as I—uh—told you, he was killed in a tragic boating accident.”
What’s the difference, the split pea thinks, between a boat and a cable car?
The good listener notes the gloom and hesitations, the scurrying and stammering, the beating around the bush. There is some big secret that concerns her real father. And she stickles Sarah for the facts.
“I don’t remember much before you married Daddy-o, but I do remember living very high up in a tall building,” she prompts. She does not really remember, but has seen a postcard among some old photographs.
“Only nineteen stories, dear. That was the Golden Gate Hotel in the City by the Bay.”
“Was my father dead or alive when we lived there.”
“I think I just told you, didn’t I? Daddy died before you were born.”
Clearly uncomfortable, Sarah takes a deep breath and sighs to herself, how many times do I have to go over this? “Now, Gloria Beatrice, you must excuse Mummy. It’s her nap time.”
But Gloria won’t ignore it. She wants her mother to tell the truth. Sarah’s evasive answers succeed only in arousing Gloria’s interest, not dispelling it. Sarah’s descriptions of her own father vary. As for Gloria’s father, she always speaks highly of him, but the details are inconsistent. Sometimes he lived with her out west, and sometimes in the east. Sometimes Gloria’s father got along with her grandfather, best of boating buddies, other times they were at odds.
Part of the pea would love to
come clean and be done with it, but she never forgets how the truth shocked her father. Sarah recalls that after the revelation of her love for Corn Dog and her pregnancy, the Reverend Bookkeeper blacklisted her and never spoke to her again. She fears the same will happen and break the tenuous bonds she has with Gloria. She would not blame Gloria if she disowned her, but she shudders to think what life would be like with both links to her family, past and future generations, broken. After all, Gloria and she are on the blacklist together. What isolation it would mean to be blacklisted from the blacklist!
Complaining of a headache, Sarah goes upstairs, and into her bedroom, leaving the Bee no choice but to bug Laudette for answers. When she promised Sarah to keep her secret about Corn Dog, Glory was just a babbling babe. The baby- sitter never considered that someday it might mean she would be grilled by a young woman with a large vocabulary, a ruthless need to know, and an arsenal of surprise tactics. Still the big sitter refuses to discuss this subject. When Gloria brings up the hotel, Laudette just wiggles her eyes in ways that are supposed to tip Gloria off that her mother is a little peculiar. Follow-up questions get Gloria nowhere; Laudette stays mum.
Meanwhile Sarah lies in bed saying “cheese”, but no sooner does she settle down and find a bit of relief than there is a knock on the door: it is Gloria, the relentless young inquisitor. “Just one more question, Mummy. Where is Bay City? In the Bay State or the Beehive?”
The spotted peach, because she can never remember which story is which, must come up with more lies to make the contradictions seem consistent. She says, “N-N-Neither. I met your father when I was in Beehive College which is in the Bay State. Bay City is out west, where we went after he died.”
“Was he rich?”
“Er, he was very handsome, and, yes, his family had money.” And then, not wanting to give Gloria the wrong impression, she says, “He wasn’t that interested in being powerful and rich. He wanted to be an artist, you see. That’s why I loved him. But he didn’t get along much with his own family. His father disapproved of him because he would rather stay at home and paint and plant flowers in the garden than be a proper Duke, powerful in the ways of the world, with insider-trading connections in the stock market, a great polo player, a cad with the ladies, that sort of thing. I was my father’s little princess and he wanted nothing but the best for me. When he found out I was dating a Duke he was afraid that I would be taken advantage of because the Dukes were almighty, up there with God and the Cabbages in Beantown society. I told him that Cornie was not that way, that we were happy just to be in love. But Grandpa pushed me into pushing your father into marrying me. It wasn’t until after we were married that Grandpa saw your father for who he really was, and liked him less because he was not the scoundrel he expected him to be.”
“But I’ve heard you say Grandpa was good man, too.”
“Oh, yes, basically he was. But people are funny, not all one way or the other. My father could be understanding about some things and very difficult about others.”
“And then what happened?”
“I’ve told you, haven’t I? One day, about a month before you were born, Grandpa invited your father to go sailing. October is the best month for it. Your father had no interest in boats and would have rather been clipping his clematis, but he agreed to go to improve the strain in the family. They went out together for a little Sunday afternoon at sea. There was a sudden squall and both were lost and never found again.”
What a tangled web of lies! Sarah sheds a tear, but Gloria doesn’t miss a single bluff. She’s heard so many different variations she is sure Mummy is just faking her way through again. “Maybe Grandpa killed my father?” she hints.
“No, I don’t think so.”
“And we were always rich?”
“Well, not you and I. Just after I lost Grandpa and your father, I lost my money in the market crash.”
“What about when we lived in the big hotel? If you lost it all in the crash just before I was born and we weren’t rich anymore, how did we live there?”
“Did I say ‘all’? Well, I meant ‘almost all’. There was still a little left over. We could still get by like nice people. And then I worked. That’s when I changed my name from Duke back to Black. My maiden name was my professional name. At the time, it didn’t seem right that yours and my last names were different. I meant no disrespect to your father, but it was easier if you became a Black too.”
Gloria does not think that different name will change the truth. “What did you do?” she asks.
“I was a model for artists.”
“Artists like my Daddy?” Gloria can see that her mama’s good looking. “Were the artists rich?”
“Not all,” Sarah lies. “It’s as hard for most artists to keep a regular job as it is for them to sell work.”
The Bee goes in for another sting. “Mummy, was my real Daddy really your husband before I was born? Did he live with you and visit you in your bed the way Daddy-o sometimes does?”
Damn it, Sarah thinks, your father was an artist, a traveller killed in a travel accident, what more truth do you want? Will you leave me alone? Her eyes glaze over, but she cannot escape. “It was a long time ago, Baby. It made me so very blue when your daddy died that I don’t really remember too much about the old days.”
The Thirteenth Wheel
Of course, although she doesn’t know it, and even though all the while she maintains that she’s on a different road entirely, Laudette Lord is the coven’s thirteenth wheel. While she doesn’t roll along with the fruits and nuts, she goes where they go, like a spare tire in the trunk.
Even though Laudette has more than an idea about what goes on in that bed, knows the Hairy Tuna is more than an extension of the women’s nutty obsessions, that he exists in fact, she refuses to admit he is a “Higher Power”; she certainly would not classify him as a god. The presence summoned to the second story bedroom strikes her as more than a little unholy. But, as she has watched Sarah suffer since the day they met, if getting an earful of that monkey’s blue stories gives Sarah’s tortured soul any sort of relief, the sitter is willing to abide in peaceful coexistence with it.
As much as I hate to admit it, she thinks, that old hoot owl Keinar was absolutely right: goodness is relative: Sugar’s gotten steadily better and has kept Sir Harry happy since those meetings started.
Not that she doesn’t scold herself … Laudette Lord! The mental pause must be getting to you at last! Winking when the means are questionable means the ends may not be as good as they look. These meetings are commerce with the devil himself. You were in there and you know what they’re all about. And you don’t do anything to stop them?
That monkey may well be the devil, his advocate argues back, but if you love Sugar and you hate to see her suffer, go along with Keinar and her crew and deal with that devil. Going to meetings helps Sugar. If the Father in Heaven loves us and forgives us, as Emanual swore in The Good Book he does, then I’m sure he doesn’t want to see one of his children wasting away from guilt and remorse. What’s done is done. I stood by Sugar when she was a lady of the hour, and, so long as Baby is not directly affected, I can look the other way now.
Whatever mild admonishments the sitter makes concerning the Purple Sage and the fruits and nuts, they are in the spirit of what she feels is her duty as a God-fearing woman.
One brisk Saturday morning, early January nineteen thirty-nine, Sarah comes down for coffee and donuts with Laudette. “While Corn Dog might not be Corn Dog anymore,” she says, “his spirit moves on, not just in Glory, but in the Light. The loss was mine, I know he’s in a happier state. He doesn’t have to live with how worthless I am, as I do. I feel he forgives me, he wouldn’t be there in the Light if he didn’t, so I can forgive myself. Yes, my account with him is clear. When my time comes I will go happily.”
“Amen, Sugar. I don’t know when I’ve ever heard you make more sense. The Prince of Peace wasn’t just whistling to keep himself from being a
fraid when he went to his cross. No doubt he was feeling the same easy come, easy going feeling too, forgiving us for our sins.”
“Yes, I almost feel at peace …”
“Now, Sugar, I don’t like the sound of that. You better tell me what you mean by ‘almost’.”
“Knowing your death is no death is not exactly the same as knowing your life is no life.”
“Now you’re talking nonsense again.”
“One day at a time, I’m getting over the hurt about what happened to Corn Dog, but I keep thinking that Gloria is the party I really injured.” Now the pea splits. Suddenly bursting into tears, she sobs into the sitter’s big breast, confessing. “No, Miss Lord, things are not all right at all. Sometimes I think things in my mind have never been worse. Glory wants to know the truth about what happened. Last night at the meeting I broke down and, with Sister Klare’s help, said what I haven’t been able to bring myself to say to anyone but you.”
“You told everything?”
“Yes. Finally. ‘Look what I’ve done,’ I said, ‘deprived my daughter of her father! Should I tell her or not?’ And Sister Klare told me under no circumstances should I burden Gloria with the wrong I’ve done. ‘Don’t force your sin on the little sister the way your father forced his salvation on you,’ she said. ‘You might very well pass the split along to her. What she doesn’t know can’t hurt her, but what she learns could crack her up.’ She also said I should be thankful for being split, that my low self-esteem, and the empty, hungry feeling I have inside are the sources of my power. My weakness is what keeps the positive poles stretching toward me.”
“Positive poles?”
“She means men and male spirits. Hole-fillers. Opposites attract, you know. Sister Klare said this string of strong characters are attracted to me because I am morally weak. And that is my strength. My lack of truthfulness invites the Light, she said, and keeps Lord Z coming back for more.”