Bingo

by Rita Mae Brown

  Regina brazenly wore a pink coat and top boots. As Master of Foxhounds she could do what she wanted, although traditionally pink coats were worn only by men who have earned their hunt colors. Regina’s one rebellion caused chatter whenever people from other hunt clubs beheld her. I loved it and thought she looked sexy, kind of like when Marlene Dietrich wore a top hat and tails. The mixture of sultry femininity with masculine attire is a high-voltage combination.

  Regina rode before me, even though as course designer she shouldn’t have. We figured Ursie could eat a fig. Let Regina have her moment in the sun or under the fluorescent lights.

  My turn came next and my throat tightened. Kenny pricked up his ears and trotted out. I cut my teeth on two-and-a-half-foot jumps; actually, it was more like extraction. By this time, theoretically, I knew what to do. Well, I made it around and looked ridiculous. I quickly untacked Kenny after my turn, whipped off my jacket, and hurried back to my post.

  A few luncheon drinks enlivened the crowd. Verna got cute on the P. A. system. Ursie swanned about. A perfect day. A perfect show. Mr. Pierre, Michelle, Diz, and I, physically weary, became punch-drunk. We laughed at everything. One of the lessons a show like this teaches you is that the hunt seat is not superficially acquired. There’s a lot to laugh at.

  We were down to the last class and the biggest, Green Working Hunter. Green referred to the horse, not the rider. It was a coveted class because people wanted to take their young horses and get in the ribbons. If selling the horse was a future goal, those ribbons would be important.

  By now, happily filthy, our little fence crew leaned behind its protective enclosure. Eleven green hunters cantered by us. A fence was chipped here or there, a rail down, but so far so good. The twelfth horse, Tallulah, groomed to perfection, was ridden by Harmony. Harmony’s hands, soft and responsive, nudged up on the animal’s neck as they cleared the first fence. Ursie commanded the center box in the audience. From out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw movement by the far wall of the ring.

  “What’s that?” Mr. Pierre pointed.

  Michelle, with her twenty-twenty vision, laconically said, “Looks like a skunk to me.”

  “It is a skunk.” Diz began laughing, which set off the rest of us.

  The animal had endured as much of this show as she could possibly take and had decided to emerge from her carefully concealed hole to put a stop to it. She scolded. She sat up on her hind legs. Harmony didn’t see her. The horse did and refused the fence. Properly taught by Muffin Barnes, Harmony collected the horse, got into a rhythm, made a small half-circle, and again approached the jump. Dutifully, the horse approached the jump, again perceived the mephitic animal on the other side. Harmony sailed over the jump. The horse didn’t. The chestnut mare wheeled and thundered around the ring. By now the audience had spied the source of excitement. The field crew tore out to Harmony. Apart from her pride she was fine. Harmony beat a hasty retreat. The horse continued to circle the ring. Ursie held her hands over her eyes like a visor and grasped the situation.

  “Nickel, get that skunk out of the ring!”

  This order displeased me but I had an idea. “Lolly, Pewter, come here.” Pewter rushed into the ring, caught sight of the skunk in full regalia, and rushed right back, the craven coward. Lolly, having encountered this type of creature before, merely stood next to Mother and wagged her tail in cheery encouragement. She had no intention of helping me.

  The horse walked up to me. She’d tired of her escapade.

  “Tallulah, good girl.” What else do you call a flaming chestnut mare? Tallulah let me lead her to Diz, who walked her into the schooling area.

  By now Ursie was fit to be tied—or as Mother would say, “All beshit and forty miles from water.”

  “Do your job!” Ursie bellowed at me, her antique-rose lipstick framing her cavernous mouth.

  I moved toward the skunk, who wisely scampered away and, as I carefully pursued from a distance, decided to circle the ring. Her tour was accompanied by flicks of her terrible tail but no action as yet.

  “Can’t you do anything right!” Ursie vaulted into the ring and as she did, the skunk returned to her nest. Ursie, sweating, stumped up next to me. “There, that takes care of that! Honest to God, you tick me off. Standing here in the middle of the ring. Doing nothing. We’re behind schedule. Do you hear me? Behind schedule! I want this show to run like clockwork!”

  Mr. Pierre came alongside me, and Michelle took up a position on the other side.

  “Ursie, that’ll do.” Mr. Pierre’s voice conveyed the message that she ought to lay off.

  “Oh, shut up, you silly faggot!”

  Before we could recover to reply, the skunk made a reappearance, this time with four little heads sticking out of the hole. She turned, gave a signal, and the skunklets followed. By now Ursie no longer teetered on the brink of hysteria—she plummeted over the edge. Up to her ankles in loam and horse droppings, she made a beeline for the skunk. The stands cheered the skunk, not Ursie. The skunk stood her ground and shooed her babies back into the nest. She waited with cool precision for the arrival of this rabid human.

  Ursula Yost received a blast at close range and fell on her knees screaming, “I’m blind! I’m blind!”

  Momma skunk, with dignity, sauntered back to her hole and disappeared.

  I was laughing so hard I feared all my mother’s potty training would go out the window. Diz sat in the turf, tears rolling down his cheeks as he screamed with laughter. I glanced up in the stands. Mother and Aunt Louise were propping one another up as their sides heaved with wrenching howls. Ed had his arms around both of them and the three of them leaned like the Tower of Pisa. I hoped Aunt Wheeze wouldn’t break a hip if they went over.

  I noted that Ursula’s two darlings made no effort to rescue their mother. Foaming at the mouth, Ursie crawled around the ring on all fours. She was unintelligible but I heard a reference to Braille.

  Finally the fence crew pulled themselves together. We jogged over to Ursie. Our eyes watered from the potent perfume. I hauled her up.

  She could see enough to snarl at me, “Get your hands off me. I never want you to touch me—you—you—”

  I let her drop. Mr. Pierre and Diz picked her back up. They turned their faces from her but the aroma was not to be escaped. Michelle reached into her shirt pocket and wiped Ursie’s eyes with a red farmer’s hanky.

  Ursie, half sobbing, half growling, lunged at me. “You’re behind this, Nickel Smith, I know you are.”

  Michelle, in a firm, gentle voice, said to Ursie: “Jesus loves you but the rest of us think you’re an asshole.”

  Out of the mouths of babes. Mr. Pierre and Diz nearly dropped their unwanted burden again. The laughter made them weak.

  Michelle Saunders had learned more at the Clarion than how to churn out good copy.

  40

  REFLECTIONS ON MARTIN LUTHER

  SUNDAY … 3 MAY

  The message of Christian forgiveness fell upon deaf ears. The pastor droned on. I avoided Mother’s eye because we’d giggle. She’d make references to yesterday’s debacle and that would set me off. Also, Carolyn Chapman, impeccably dressed and sitting in the pew ahead of us, had forgotten to take two curlers out of the back of her hair. We couldn’t look at the pastor without looking at her. That would set us off again. Her husband, Ken, must have been half asleep this morning. You’d think he would have seen the pink sausage-shaped rollers.

  Mother and I endured the eternal sermon with downcast eyes. Perhaps our retinas would suffer the reverse of the damage done to Michelangelo’s eyes as he painted the Sistine Chapel. He suffered for art. I suffered for hair curlers.

  Oh, well, since suffering is such an important part of Christianity, some people feel it their duty to spread it around. Those people manage to run huge TV evangelical empires. There’s a delicious perversity in having people send in contributions to be told that, one, we are by nature sinful and unclean; two, we’re going to die any minute n
ow so get ready; three, some of us (read in: those who don’t send money) are going straight to hell.

  If I went to hell I’d know they had lowered their standards. Actually, I rarely thought of hell. Where there is no faith, devils are a necessity. Despite my faults I had faith, planted and nurtured by Mom and Dad until today it was unshakable. Therefore, why talk about it?

  Our pastor sure could talk, but to his credit, he didn’t pound on hellfire and abuse. His topics were drier: church dogma. I was proud of Martin Luther nailing his ninety-five theses to the door of the Palast Church in Wittenberg on October 31, 1517, but why refight the battle every seven days? Thank you, Martin Luther, but I need something I can live by today. The selling of indulgences by the Catholic Church did not rivet my attention.

  Mother teased me. She said I was a lukewarm Lutheran. What I really was lukewarm about was organized religion. As soon as the followers of Christ collected money and erected edifices to God—to their egos is closer to the truth—troubles began. Still I went to church. Being with Mother and listening to Bach is not a bad combination. Then, too, a church is a place for faith to gather and therefore is joyful, but a church won’t save you. What you do in this life will save you.

  It seemed to me that there were millions of Americans not doing a damn thing with their lives except servicing their greed. The wages of sin appear to be success. Christ’s message would be easier to embrace if we didn’t see the shysters, con men, and power brokers ever advancing up the ladder of proud capitalism and political office.

  When I was young and knew everything, I used to think the beauty of Christianity is that no one is in danger of practicing it. It’s too austere and difficult.

  Now I believe that no matter how austere and difficult, it’s better than the alternative and we’ve got to try to love thy neighbor as thyself.

  So far, no halo shines over my head. Maybe I was better off not being Saint Nickel, but then I was slipping and sliding with the rest of the human race and I was preparing to bring another soul into this confusing conflagration called life.

  41

  BLUE MONDAY

  MONDAY … 4 MAY

  After working out, Lolly, Pewter, and I drove over to the barn. Kenny, glad to see me despite my poor performance the day before yesterday, endured a bright early morning ride. The dew covered the grass like a wet blanket, which made it heaven for Lolly because the scent was down low.

  Following my brisk ride I repaired to the tennis courts, where I encountered ladies who do not work. I forget about those kinds of women. They tend to be a generation older than I, and they’ve made a simple, straightforward bargain with their men: You work in the outside world and I’ll raise the children and keep a good home. Those that hadn’t gotten dumped for younger women seemed quite content as they scurried around the courts. An oddity about this type of woman is how preoccupied she seems with her femininity. Here they were banging away at the tennis ball, hair frosted to a woman and wearing fetching designer tennis togs as well as those awful socks with the pompons on the back. I had trouble taking them seriously. They spoke in voices a half-octave higher than their normal range and they were relentlessly upbeat. I felt suffocated in their presence.

  I was being unfair and I knew it. After I squashed three of them in a row, two sets apiece, I left. On the one hand I respected them for keeping their end of the bargain. On the other hand, couldn’t they talk about something other than their tennis games, their children, and one another?

  It wasn’t until I parked behind the Clarion building and beheld the silent press that I realized I was homesick for the paper and I had taken some of my unrecognized misery out on the “gal group.” They were no different from the corporate clones who dressed alike and spoke exhaustively about business, the stock market, and sports.

  My loss preyed on me. Every day of my life since college I was surrounded by the events of the world. War, famine, pestilence, political power struggles, the arts, and fascinating stories about individuals chugged out of the AP wire. I covered local car accidents, the rare murder, tax and zoning battles, fiftieth anniversaries, and high school sports. Everybody covered everything at the Clarion. I was used to living in the center of events and now I’d been banished to the tundra.

  I wanted to parade by the old Bon Ton and peek inside but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I went over to the Curl ’n Twirl instead. Mother was getting a manicure.

  “Hi, Mom.”

  She turned and smiled. “Hi back at you.” She raised her voice. “Mr. Pierre, my one and only child is here.”

  “Be out in a minute, Juts.”

  “What’s he doing?” I asked.

  “Ordering a new color line from the supplier. There’re going to be a lot of cool blondes this spring and summer.”

  “Want to have lunch with me?”

  “Thanks, honey, but Ed and I are going antiquing.”

  “You never cared about antiques before.”

  “I didn’t say I cared about them, only that we’re going out looking.”

  “Are you going to study Eastern religions too? Omm.” I hummed the mantra.

  “I most certainly am not. Anyway, Ed’s just curious. He likes to know about things. He’s not some religious nut. Wheezie, per usual, overstates things.”

  “I’m glad to hear Ed has a curious mind. He doesn’t talk enough for me to know he has much of a mind at all.”

  “What an ugly thing to say.” Mother jerked her hand, causing Kim Spangler to mess up her nail.

  “Julia, put your hand back here,” Kim demanded.

  “Sorry.” Mother put her hand down. “Ed’s not a chatterbox. He belongs to the older breed of men, quiet and strong. Just the way I like them.”

  “He’d have to be quiet around you.”

  “What’s wrong with you? You’re a whistling bitch this morning.” Mother frowned.

  “I guess I am. I apologize.”

  Mr. Pierre emerged from the back room, escorted the salesman to the door, and then greeted me. “Divina!”

  Georgette rolled her eyes.”Nickel?”

  “If you’ve got any compliments to give me, give them to me in English.”

  He appraised me shrewdly, “That kind of day, is it? Darling, you’re at sea because you’re not working. Now my appointment book is busy, busy, busy, but how about if I take you to dinner tomorrow night? Better yet, I’ll cook.”

  “That’s a deal.”

  “We have things to talk about.” His voice carried hidden meanings.

  Mother glanced up at me. “Is that it? The paper? Poor baby, no wonder you’re out of sorts.”

  I sat in the chair next to her. “Well—yeah.”

  Louise swept through the door. Lolly, Goodyear, and Pewter surrounded her. She gave everyone a pat and then pushed me out of the seat.

  “You’re too young to sit down. I need a breather. I ran over here as fast as I could.” In the background I heard a siren. I started for the door. “Don’t bother,” Louise said. “Mildred Foster ran off the road. She’s languishing on the sidewalk of Baltimore Street.”

  “Bet you ran her off the road,” Mother teased.

  “Well, I did but it was quite by accident. Mildred never looks where she’s going. But that’s not why I hurried here. I heard on good authority that when they got Ursie Yost to the hospital, Trixie Shellenberger had to sedate her. Still haven’t gotten the smell off her either.” A wicked grin spread over Louise’s carefully scrubbed face.

  We allowed ourselves a laugh at Ursie’s expense. David Wheeler, looking very official, came through the door.

  “Here for a wash and dry?” Mr. Pierre’s voice was singsong.

  “No, I am here for Mrs. Trumbull.”

  Without batting an eye, my aunt pointed a finger at me. “She did it. She’s driving the third Chrysler, you know.”

  “I was nowhere near Baltimore Street!”

  David towered over Louise. “Mildred saw you. Now let’s get this settled as pa
inlessly as possible.”

  “Mildred can’t see two feet in front of her face!” Louise spat. “That’s why she’s parked on the sidewalk. She doesn’t look where she’s going.”

  “How would you know she’s on the sidewalk if you weren’t there? Come on.”

  Louise let out a wail.

  “Aunt Wheezie, I’ll come with you.”

  I spent two hours straightening out Louise’s mess. Mildred Foster was no picnic either. If this was how I was going to spend my time, I needed to find a job fast.

  42

  FATE

  TUESDAY … 5 MAY

  I repeated my format of yesterday. I worked out, rode Kenny, and played tennis. Today I felt more inclined to like the pompon girls. I crammed my time with errands which ate up most of the day and then I descended upon Mr. Pierre’s for dinner. He grilled lobster and I stuffed myself with this new treat.

  Afterwards we sat at opposite ends of his huge 1930s sofa, our feet just touching, shoes on the floor. After a fabulous meal, catching up on gossip, making predictions for our friends’ futures, he tactfully inquired as to my health.

  “Great. Those old wives’ tales about pregnancy are true. I’m chock-full of endorphins. My body feels wonderful.”

  “What about the rest of you?”

  “Wretched about the paper. It would be easier if I could hate Diz, or even Charles for selling it in the first place, but I can’t.”

  “Fate. Be patient. I absolutely believe that everything happens for a purpose and you will come out of this ahead.”

  “Do you really believe that?”

  “I do and it’s a source of comfort to me.” He inhaled. “Plus, ma cherie, I’ve seen it happen. I’ve seen good things come out of bad and I’ve seen miracles.”

  “Name me one miracle.” I smiled and pushed his foot with mine.

  “You.”