The Midnight Cool

by Lydia Peelle

  Charles appeared out of the crowd. He was clutching one of the Hatcher fans that were everywhere. He looked like he had seen a ghost.

  They climbed up onto the bandstand and were shown to their chairs by a smiling young girl. They were in the second row, behind a line of men whose heads sat in their collars like eggs in cups.

  In high cotton now, ain’t we, Charlie boy?

  Charles frowned at Billy’s muddy shoes. Thought I told you to get a shoeshine, he said.

  The mayor brought out an old woman. She had set the county record in the number of socks she had knitted to send to soldiers. Leland Hatcher put a button on her and the crowd cheered. They helped her back down the stairs and then she was gone.

  How about that Joan of Arc? someone at the back of the crowd shouted. There was a tightening at Hatcher’s temple, but that was all. He coolly unfolded a piece of paper and began his introduction.

  Billy searched for his pipe, forgetting he had traded it away. Sitting like this was no good for the pain. Nowadays, when he went up to Ernestine’s for more medicine, she had a line of boys at the door, all waiting to get their fortunes read, wanting to know their fates.

  The mayor spoke first, then the president of the draft board, declaring that the day had been 100 percent a success. Then Leland Hatcher got up. Hatcher Boot and Shoe had just hired ten more employees, he announced. And had just taken a government contract to make hobnail shoes for the Army. During the long applause the mayor got back up. He put his hand on Hatcher’s back.

  It just goes to show, he said. An inalienable truth about war is that it is good for business. He went on to introduce Representative Denning, who had come up all the way from Nashville. He told a long story about a hunting trip they had been on together. He managed to say an awful lot about himself and nothing about the representative. Billy looked at Charles. He was hanging on every word.

  Enough hot air up here to float one of them zeppelins, Billy whispered. Charles ignored him.

  He sat back in the stiff chair. He wondered about the raccoons. He imagined them in the brush, on an unfamiliar stretch of the creek. Their tiny hearts still beating wild with fear. He hoped they stayed together. Their chances were just about zero.

  The representative stood up. He had a forelock of white hair and eyes set deep in his skull. He went to the podium and gripped it and glared out at the crowd.

  War! he thundered.

  The word echoed off the courthouse. Wah. Wah. Wah. Every man in the crowd stood up a little straighter.

  Your mayor, ladies and gentleman of Richfield, is wrong. War is not good for business.

  There was a long pause. Billy looked over at the mayor, who was frozen, head cocked, a half smile slowly fading.

  No, no, no, the representative thundered. War is not good for business. War is great for business. War is . . . tops for business.

  Hoots and cheers. The mayor smiled, and leaned over and whispered to Hatcher, who smiled and nodded.

  The representative went on.

  Today we are here to talk about duty. To talk about sacrifice. And honor. And service. Loyalty to this great country. Win the war we will—and win it we must.

  He paused for the swell of applause.

  Because this fight is not just for us. We are fighting for all Western civilization. We are fighting the war that will put an end to fighting. We are fighting for a new world. But I am here today to implore you to cast your gaze on another face of war. I ask each and every one of you—merchants, bankers, farmers, whatever your line of business may be—I ask each one of you to stop and reflect a moment. Ask yourself, have you not felt the effects of this war for years already, in your ledger books? Yes, I am speaking now in dollars and cents, ladies and gentlemen. It is a fact that business is booming in all sectors. Prices are at an all-time high. Commerce moves at a lightning speed. Our farms, our factories, are more prolific than ever. Internationally, the dollar is strong as an ox. Boom times, these are.

  He raised his hand. It trembled a little. He shook his forelock out of his eyes.

  Consider, if you will, the Oregon cherry farmer. These farmers are sending their pits and stems to the factories for use in the poison gases. Pits and stems—what would normally be a waste product—and their children are wearing new shoes because of it. The great modern advancements with which Europe has waged her fight—the airplane, the machine gun, the torpedo, the submarine—most all of these are American inventions. Think of these things and then ask yourself this: When victory comes, to whom will Europe turn when she sets her sights on rebuilding? Whither will she go for her brick, her steel, her glass, to build back up those great cities, to restore peace and unity and harmony to her ravaged lands? It will be American brick, my friends. American steel. American glass. Europe will rise up again on the back of the American eagle. And the final victor that shall emerge? The American dollar!

  The crowd went wild. Billy stood up. Charles grabbed his arm.

  It ain’t through, he whispered.

  I know it ain’t, but I am.

  Billy couldn’t quit thinking about the boy’s hopeless raging eyes when he reached out and took his tobacco in trade for the raccoons. And about the man in New York all those years ago who had told him about the draft riots and said, What would you have done? The rich men could buy their way out of dying for just two hundred dollars. And he thought about Leland Hatcher’s column, way back when they first got to town, putting the price of a man’s life at $54,000. When you took everything away, the speeches and the clothes and the houses and the flower boxes on East Main Street, then man was just a naked animal, wasn’t he, and his life was worth as much as those baby raccoons’. Which was not nothing, and not something, but everything. Beyond a dollar sign. Real and holy.

  Yet here they were, all still applauding. And what they were applauding could be said in one word. Death.

  He didn’t even create a stir. Just walked away. Not a ripple. Representative Denning had sat down and someone else was speaking now and no one except Charles even noticed that he had gotten up. He walked down the stairs at the edge of the grandstand and out along the edge of the massed crowd and down the center of East Main Street, which was strewn with bits of crepe and silk flowers and paper fans, and he went through an alley to Gin’s sweet familiar silhouette. At the sound of his footfall she lifted her head and nickered.

  Come on, Gin. Let’s go home.

  * * *

  After the speeches the crowd slowly broke apart and people streamed towards the booths set up all around the square, Army and Navy recruiting booths, a Red Cross booth, a dozen other charities and organizations. Four men in a string band carried their instruments up onto the grandstand.

  Charles walked out into the throng. The charge in the air held strong. A crackling, sustained surge of unity and purpose. He was consumed by the throb of desire. He wanted to grab every girl he passed and kiss her. They would let him. It was that kind of day.

  After the speeches the mayor had gone down the row on the bandstand and one by one introduced the men engaged in war work. He had said Charles’s and Billy’s names and Charles stood up and the crowd applauded. He knew that it was the finest moment of his life.

  He found Catherine over by the Army recruiting booth. She had changed out of her costume into the sailor blouse and skirt she had been wearing the day he first saw her, nearly a year ago, in the Everbright garden. The Army fellow was letting her try on his recruiter’s armband.

  Charles strode over to them, pushing through the electricity in the air. He knew Catherine felt it, and the Army fellow, damn the skinny sonofabitch, he knew he felt it too. And so did the old lady next to them at the booth of the Richfield Food Preservation Society with her sign that said can preserve pickle and dry. Hell, everyone felt it. It was the beginning of something great, bigger than all of them put together. A day, as Hatcher had said in his introduction of the representative, for the history books.

  He went right to her. Didn’t
say a word, just slipped the armband off of her arm and handed it back to the Army fellow without looking at him and led her away.

  You were something out there, he told her.

  She gave him a funny smile. As if he was in on some big joke. She asked him if he wanted to walk her home.

  Walk you home? His heart leapt. He looked around. Behind them, the Army man glowered. Don’t you think somebody will say something?

  Today? She laughed a little. Today I think we can do anything.

  Together they walked to the edge of the square. The string band had begun to play. ‘Turkey in the Straw.’ Where the people had stood to listen to the speeches, they were now sprawled out on picnic blankets, eating, listening to the music, faces turned to the sun as if enjoying nothing more than the happy freedom of a perfect June afternoon.

  Charles and Catherine kept walking. They did not speak. Out on the Pike a rabbit stopped to watch them, sun filtering through its ears so that they shone red. Then it crossed their path. Charles cleared his throat, which was dry as the road, and greeted it, as Billy always did, to reverse the luck, and she laughed, the silence broken.

  If I didn’t know better, Catherine said, I’d say we were the only two people left in the whole world.

  That’d be fine by me, he said.

  No one could tell us what to do, she said coyly. She looked at him. Or not to do.

  His throat filled.

  She swept her arm towards the hay field they were passing.

  Everything’s different, Charles. Do you feel it? Everything’s different.

  Her sleeve fell back as she gestured, and he stole a look at her bare arm and remembered the wrist cuffs she had worn, half naked and fearless and magnificent astride that magnificent horse.

  Oh, I feel it, he said.

  She said she had been up at the high school with the Red Cross all morning, handing out free sandwiches to the men after they registered. She said that even Wad Taylor had registered, cheerfully, in spite of being crippled. Just to say, I’m in.

  They made me proud to be an American, she said.

  He stared at her arm, covered again by her sleeve, its pale skin forever revealed to him, now and forever burned in his mind—God—Joan of Arc. He wished he could touch the chain mail of her skirt, which had looked so cold and unyielding yet had so faithfully followed the curve of her, as if it were a curtain of silk. He wanted to bite down on it, feel its hardness between his teeth, then, her thigh. He caught the inside of his cheek between his molars. She was right. Today no one could tell them what to do. Or not to do. Could she possibly be thinking what he was thinking?

  They went up the drive. When they stepped up onto the porch the house seemed even bigger than he remembered.

  She opened the door and he took it and held it for her and then followed her into the foyer, where he was struck dumb by the cool smoky air and the grandeur of the place.

  Finally she gave him a little smile and asked what was wrong.

  Oh, just thinking.

  They stood there awkwardly, as if they had never kissed, never touched, never huddled beneath her fur coat, smoking cigarettes. He looked into the dining room, at the portraits Leland Hatcher had bought along with the house, and he felt a miserable flash of the night of the Bone Dry party. He did not want to foul up again. He chose his words carefully.

  You sure made a real pretty picture on that horse.

  Nearly gave my father a heart attack, she said. A smile slowly spread on her face until it was big enough to show the gap. Nearly killed him.

  Well I believe Miss Joan of Arc probably near killed her father too, his daughter one day come to tell him God’s been whispering in her ear.

  Catherine frowned. That’s not the point, she said.

  What ain’t?

  That God spoke to her. It’s what she chose to do about it. She chose to act.

  Her hand raised to her collarbone, hovered, landed there.

  I want to act, she said. Just like all those men did today. I want to meet life head-on. You know what my father said, when he came and found me after the parade? He said, Catherine Roberson Hatcher. Your body is not a weapon. It is not a sword you can simply unsheathe. I was still up on the horse. I just looked down at him until he walked away.

  She was moving closer. She was so close he could feel her breath. The ties of her sailor collar were undone. He could hardly stand it.

  Tell me something, he said. Where’d you get that horse? I don’t think I’m ever going to get that picture of you out of my mind. He put his hand on his forehead. It’s burned in there.

  She lifted her chin and he put his arms around her and kissed her. When he closed his eyes they were all there, all the people, all the faces of the day, and kissing her, he felt as he had when they were applauding him, the applause coursing like love in his blood. He knew from the way she kissed back that she felt the same as he did, charged, still charged with the energy that had connected every person on the square. And he knew she could feel the hard fact of his desire pressing into her.

  She pulled away and looked at him. An invitation, clear as the day.

  Let’s get out of here, she said.

  They walked back outside and around the house, passing the garden, the stable, an old slave cabin. He tripped then, stumbled over a furrow in the ground. She caught him, and they both laughed nervously. She led him to a springhouse at the back side of the property. They went inside. Dark and cool. An old butter churn in the corner, and cobwebs like lace, and shelves of old forgotten preserves. A covered well in the middle of the floor.

  They sat on the bare dirt floor. He brushed away a brittle snakeskin quick as he could, hoping she had not seen it.

  Nice in here, he said. Cool and dark.

  Always is. When I was a girl I used to come in and play with the snakeskins. Once I found one eight feet long.

  He shook his head.

  What?

  You ain’t scared of snakes?

  Why should I be?

  You’re some girl.

  Something landed on the roof. He started.

  Christ!

  Just a bird, she said, laughing.

  A big one, Christ.

  No one’s here, she said. I promise. She laughed again, then got serious. Her voice had a certain gravity, in the close dark space.

  What would you do, Charles, if you heard the voice of God? If He spoke to you?

  Sit up and listen, I suppose.

  His eyes had adjusted. He could see her better now. Beautiful, dark, and pale. He took her wrist gently in his hand, circling the place where the cuff had been. She looked down at it. He moved his other hand to the loose tie of her blouse.

  She said something he didn’t quite hear. He flattened his hand on her chest, feeling the tremor of her heart under it. He moved it lower, slipping his fingers inside her collar. She caught her breath when he did this, but didn’t stop him.

  He kissed her. She kissed him back.

  He pulled her down next to him on the bare dirt floor. He could smell old apples and old milk, so old that the smell was nearly just the smell of dust. Her arms were tight around him. Her flesh was so cool. When he slipped his hand up her skirt he felt her body tense. She reached down and put her hand on his hand, but she did not take it away.

  I’ve never done it before, she whispered.

  I won’t do it to you.

  I want you to. I want to.

  Cat, he said. A fly landed in her hair. He reached up and brushed it away. He put his arms around her and rolled over so that he lay on top of her. He pulled at his pants and her skirt and her drawers impatiently, madly, until he found her and fit himself into her and went as deep as he could. He looked down at her face. Her hair was wild. Her lip was caught up in her teeth. Her eyes flashed fierce as they had on East Main Street.

  Does it hurt? he breathed into her ear. Knowing that even if she asked him to stop he could not.

  She was shaking her head. I’m glad, she was say
ing. I want to. I’m glad.

  The Monster of Liberty

  New York City

  October 28, 1886

  Billy and his pack of boys run slipping and sliding through the rainy wet streets of New York. There is going to be a party. A big one, for the unveiling of the new statue in the harbor.

  It’s a lady in a bedsheet, no joke, says one of the boys.

  You can see her bubbies, another says. He puts his pointer fingers on either side of his chest and waggles them. You can see the nipples from Wall Street.

  How tall would you say it is? Ten stories?

  Jesus. She’s a monster.

  How’d they get it over here from France?

  Put her in a box and shipped her across in steerage. Same as us.

  Under all them bedsheets, you think she has or has not?

  She’s got a cunt so big the whole fleet of the U.S. Navy could pass through it.

  They all sell newspapers, these boys. Sleep in the newspaper office. Billy is the oldest and newest. Not yet three months in New York under his belt.

  Well it’s got to be cold out there in the harbor, ain’t it?

  As a witch’s tit, Billy says, and they all follow him through a hole in a fence.

  In the Battery the crowd is massive, an animal with its own moods and movements. The boys, trying to get as close to the water as possible, shove through. It had been one of the first things Billy learned after arriving in New York, how to shove through a crowd. They skirt a dead horse and weave like a train through the people, the umbrellas, the muddy skirts and boots. Billy slips in a pile of manure. Curses long and loud.

  They push towards the water’s edge. He is hungry to see the statue. In his mind, it is a giant rendition of the goggle-eyed witch, all the way back across the ocean in Ireland, carved in stone deep in the cave on his island’s highest hill. You had to wriggle on your belly with your face inches from the rock ceiling to see her, the witch who howled at you with her hands between her spread legs, tearing open the round hole of her cunt.