It was a relief to settle Becky on her own feet and we sauntered along at her pace, a drunken, tottering pace, more one step forward, two sideways and an oops! reeling backwards. Even so, we waited for about twenty minutes for Sister by the fountain before she joined us with a look of consternation clouding her usual sunny expression. “Damn,” she said under her breath as she joined us on the bench. “Damn, damn, damn.” She was rummaging around in her purse distractedly and finally snapped it shut and slapped it down beside her on the bench with a long sigh.
“Not such good news, I guess?”
“Not so’s you’d notice,” she said in a flat voice. “George has a couple of calls to make and then he’ll call back. I have to wait again down here. The thing that bothers me is that I might get blackballed.”
“Blackballed?” I’d never heard the expression.
“You know, they could fix it someway so’s I couldn’t work. Not work in Phoenix, anyway. Or even Arizona.” She sat a long moment and then suddenly slapped me on the thigh. “You poor baby,” she laughed. “You haven’t got the faintest notion of what I’m talking about, have you?”
“Not muckin’ fuch.”
She hooted. “I haven’t heard that since I was your age. People still say that?”
“Not too muckin’ fuch.” We both laughed. She was recovering her good humor after whatever bad news she’d received. I automatically checked on Becky—she was sitting on the grass, determinedly pulling it up by the handsfull and tossing it into her hair. She was fine.
“OK. Here’s what happened. Step by step.” She clasped her hands in her lap, her beautiful long fingers with the perfectly manicured nails digging slightly into the skin on the backs of her hands. “First. To be able to work in a place that serves food and drink you have to have a doctor’s certificate … a certificate that says you don’t have some disease … er … oh, T.B. or something like that. See? Well, if you don’t have that certificate, you don’t work. And that certificate—more like a permit, really—can be re … re … ”
“Revoked?”
“That’s it. And mine has been.”
“Are you sick?”
“Heavens, no, honey. Fit as a fiddle.” She opened her arms wide as if to show that she was whole and healthy. “It was all a big mistake. All a joke. Just a silly joke.” She stood up and crossed her arms across her chest. “A damned stupid joke. Only I sure ain’t the one laughin’.” I sat waiting for her to go on. She took a pace or two toward Becky who clapped her hands and called, “Sissy, sissy, sissy,” as Sister waved and smiled at her. She came back and plopped herself down beside me again and took a deep breath. “Listen, honey, you’re old enough to know these things and I care too much about you not to tell the truth. But I’d just as soon you’d soft-peddle the facts when you talk about it with Aunt Milly. She’s one person in this world I’ve been trying to impress—and be as good as—ever since she was my first-grade teacher.” She put her arm over the back of the bench and hugged me. “And you’re next.” She pulled me in close to her and lowered her voice. “Well, as you can imagine, working in a bar where everybody’s drinkin’ and having a good time, well, there’s bound to be some pretty rough talk. You know … oh, some guy’ll get a load on and start making passes. You know.”
“Looking like you, you’d have to carry a club.”
“On some Saturday nights, I’ve wished I had one.” She leaned her head against mine and talked softly. “So. Last week … no, more’n that now. Lawsey, goin’ on two weeks. I’ve got to get back to work, for heaven’s sake and George just sits on his duff.” She straightened up and sighed. “Back to what happened. We’d had a big night. Lot of people. I had my pockets so full of tips I was walkin’ bowlegged. There was one table that stayed on and on and on. I’d cleared all the others, polished them a dozen times. Subtle-like, you know. All but saying, ‘Yoo-hoo, y’all. Time to go beddy-bye’, but they just set. The bartender—you remember Jim. Well, he’s still a card. He’d done everything he could think of to get rid of them. He’d even made up some silly jokes like ‘well, folks, almost time to open up the bar for tomorrow’ and stuff like that. They just set on. They was two men and a pretty good lookin’ young woman.”
“Aren’t there regular hours? When you have to close up?”
“Not in hotels. Not like the Tucson. You see, there’s all night room service, course that doesn’t have anything to do with us in the bar, but if the folks are staying there, we can’t hardly kick ’em out. Anyway, I had to go to the little girls’ room and when I was there washin’ my hands and straighten’ my hair, the girl comes in … from the table. She’s friendly—we’d been talking back and forth all evening naturally when I’d bring drinks and clear up ashtrays and things—and she didn’t head for a booth, she was just sort of primping in front of the mirror and as I was leavin’ she said, ‘Ginny—that’s what you said your name was, didn’t you? Ginny? Well, listen, honey, one of the guys—you know the one, he’s been oglin’ you all night, the dark one?—well, he’s really got the hots for you. He said he’d give a crisp new twenty dollar bill for an hour or so with you.”
“What’d he mean by that?”
Sister pulled back in disbelief. “I thought you were old enough to hear this story. Now I wonder.”
“Oh, now I see. He was offering money to have a date with you.”
“A date?” Sister rolled her eyes. “Yeah. That’s close enough. Anyway, I just smiled at her as I opened the door and said, ‘Honey, I’m so tired I wouldn’t spend an hour with anybody for under a crisp new hundred.’ And went on back to the bar. I told Jim what she’d said and we had a good laugh. Maybe we overdid the laughin’ a bit, because they was watchin’ us and all of a sudden just got up, paid in a kinda’ surly way and left. I guess they knew we’as laughin’ at them. Anyway, I cleared up that last table in a flash, grabbed my purse and was outside in front of the hotel in a matter of minutes.”
“Why were they surly to you?”
“Too much to drink for one thing and the fact that I’d refused his … his … request, shall we say, for a date?” She laughed at some joke I didn’t understand. “Oh, and Tots! I forgot to tell you. I got a car. It’s a tin lizzie from the word go—when it goes. Makes your Model-A look like a Packard. Anyway, I was scramblin’ around in my purse for the keys to the old jalopy—parked just up behind the hotel—when I bumped into him.”
“To who … whom?”
“The dark guy at the table. The one who wanted a date. Blam! Right into him. Right in the middle of the sidewalk. I stepped back and he was holding something in his hand. Leather, looked like a wallet or something and then he said, “You’re under arrest.’ He flipped the leather thing open and there was a badge—looked bigger’n a headlight. ‘O’Neil,’ he says, real tough. ‘City Police. Vice Squad. You’re under arrest for offering yourself for one hundred dollars. This lady here’s the witness. Soliciting in a public place.’ ” She sat back, her forehead glistening with sweat, the hand that reached up to wipe it trembled.
“Vice Squad? What in the world is that?” I was lost. “Arrested? You? Soliciting …” That word was a Phoenix word. I’d first heard it there. When? It was way back when Junior and I were trying to start a lawn-mowing business. All those signs on the houses saying “No Soliciting”. Then Junior explained that soliciting was like prostitution. Was Sister saying she’d been arrested for prostitution? That was the same a being a whore. I must have misunderstood. “You said it had been just a joke.”
“Jokes can backfire.” She looked drained and pale. She’d been booked on charges of soliciting. Her name was down on official ledgers. She was going to have to appear in court unless George could have the charges proved false. But in the meantime she couldn’t work and the idea of appearing before a judge for any charge turned her to jelly. “It’s a right old mess, Tots.” I reached over and took her by the hand. “If the charge sticks, that means goodbye Phoenix. I won’t be able to work there ever again
.” She squeezed my hand so hard it hurt. “And just because… some bastard with a badge decides he wants to make trouble. You got the badge, you got all the rights.” I’d never seen her look so dejected. “If I’d only been staying at the hotel that night. But the next day was my night off and …” Something of her old gaiety came back when she laughed, “As my papa—your ex-uncle Jesse—used to say, ‘That’s hindsight and hindsight ain’t nothin’ finally but lookin’ up your own behind and that’s just a dark hole that won’t tell you nothin’.’” We laughed again.
“But what does George say when you talk to him?”
“Oh, you know. ‘We’re doing everything we can.’ ‘I’ve got a friend at the court house that’ll …’ ‘I know the judge.’ Or, ‘If I knew the judge …’ In other words, nada, nada, nada. Just the big run-around.”
“But surely the girl with the officers will say that it was all a joke.”
“Oh, honey, honey, honey. Don’t you see? She’s in it with them. They probably got something on her so she has to do what they say. That’s how those guys work. She’s probably on the game herself. She’s not going to do anything to get in trouble with those bastards … they’re all kooky anyway. They probably wanted us two girls to be together. Everybody says the Vice Squad’s all screwed up—most of ’em queers probably.”
“Queers?”
“Sure. Queers. Don’t like woman anyway. Want to cause us poor workin’ girls as much trouble as possible. Queer, goin’ in for nutty sex.”
“Like Roy?”
“Like who?” Her head swung so violently around toward me, one of her combs came out. I reached down on the ground to pick it up.
“Like Roy. I mean like he …” I handed her the comb as I looked into her horrified eyes. Oh God! I’d said the wrong thing. I thought we were supposed to be able to say anything to each other. She’d said so when she’d started her story. What made me mention Roy? And why was she so … scandalized?
“You mean like he does what?” Her voice was hard and demanding. Her eyes so searching and questioning that I had to look away. And just as well. Becky was not only covered in grass, she was covered in what was unmistakably shit. Just whose, was anybody’s guess. I jumped up and ran for her.
“Oh good God! Look at her! I think she’s eating dog turds!” I was brushing the disgusting stuff off her hands and cheeks. She seemed covered in it and was distinctly delighted with herself. “I’ve got to get her home.” I looked over my shoulder. Sister was standing right behind me, still looking pale and trembly but now with an overlay of confusion and disbelief.
“But, wait, Tots. Tell me. What did you mean? Has he ever … Roy? Queer? Don’t go yet!” I had Becky in my arms and was starting to run across the lawn toward home, “Wait! I don’t understand …”
“I’ll explain later. Got to get this demon cleaned up. She could get sick.” I was off and glad to be. That had just slipped out. I was only trying to understand her story. After all, Roy was part of the family now. I thought Sister and I could talk about anything but apparently there were things you couldn’t talk to anybody about. I should have known that. That was the secret part. I couldn’t confide even to Sister. She’d been as shocked as if I’d suggested Roy had done something worse than murder. Was it really that bad? I’d been ashamed, and frightened at what we’d done, but to see those same feelings reflected in Sister’s eyes magnified them to unimaginable proportions. She could talk to me about being booked as a whore, but say queer and Roy in the same breath and she’s horrified. I’d heard that whores do whatever you pay them to do. Would they suck cocks? If they did, wouldn’t that make them queer? Everybody says that cocksuckers are queers.
As I bounced along with my filthy charge, one thing was coming clear; sexual terrain generally was just too vast, it covered too many possibilities. It had too many hidden pitfalls, boundaries and barriers that I didn’t comprehend. This subject was out of bounds, while that one was OK—up to a point, but no further. That you could laugh at, the other deplore. I knew it was idiotic of me to try to understand it. It was clearly uncharted territory. You had to sort of work out your own rules to suit yourself. It was a jungle—this sexual country—with no real signs, no paths clearly marked. Not even the taboos were listed someplace where you could read them. The permissible activities seemed to carry all sorts of qualifiers—you can “if”; according to; with jurisdiction and permits from; with age, sex, marital and social status of the partners considered, calculated, collated, correlated before anything could be taken into account. Mostly it seemed to me to boil down to: Do it but don’t get caught. Above all, don’t talk about it.
When the Model-A pulled up in front of the house at lunch time, Mom’s little darling was smelling and looking like a rose. She tottered down the steep walkway to be grabbed up by Mom with me close behind her.
“He seems a bit better today,” Mom said. “They’ve got the temperature under control—well, they understand its pattern—and they know what it isn’t. The old process of elimination. We can thank our lucky stars that it isn’t polio. Not meningitis. Diphtheria. Or… oh, I can’t keep track of them all, but anyway they keep testing him for everything so at least they’re doing that much.”
“But can’t they give you any positive idea?”
“That’s just it,” she said wearily. “They’re lost. They don’t know.”
I could feel Mom’s attitude changing hour by hour. She was pulling back, deeply into a shell. Even when she held Becky—as she was doing now—she held her like a warrior holding a shield. She was fending off the enemy—unnamed, but everywhere—with Becky’s tiny body. She seemed to be pulling her suffering in on top of herself, trying to hide it by swallowing it. The swallowed suffering offered no sustenance so that she wound up eating herself from the inside. As the doctors became more vague and unspecific, she did too.
Neither Roy nor Sister came home for lunch—Aunt Dell said she thought Roy had inspection jobs at a couple of ranches and had no idea when he would be back. Sis was probably lunching with her new friends at the Del Rey.
Being Saturday, visiting hours at the hospital were more relaxed so Mom took advantage of the later hours by lying down with Becky for a much needed rest. Dad relaxed nervously by washing the car out behind the house and barking orders at me to fetch and carry and then complaining about my performance. I was making a particular effort to be efficient but he didn’t seem to notice. Dad was having his own form of pulling back, of withdrawal, at least as it concerned me. I was aware that he hadn’t really looked at me in some time. Not just today. It was something that had been sneaking up on me—the realization, I mean—that along with ignoring me he spoke to me unnecessarily harshly. His rough manner and toughness were all a part of his personality, but lately the way he spoke to me bordered on the rude and offensive. Like the other night when he’d told me to get mixes and another time, the beer. He hadn’t bothered to look at me then and his tone was insultingly off-hand. I’d put it down to booze, but now, sober, he was brusque and continued to avoid my eye. Something in his manner reminded me of Mrs. Webster. She’d made no bones about not liking me. Could a father actively dislike his own son? Dad’s behavior toward me made me realize that it was certainly a possibility. With that thought firmly lodged, it occurred to me that it wouldn’t take much for the feeling to be reciprocated.
Another awareness was scratching its way to the surface. I didn’t belong here with him and the car. This was something he and Junior did together. I was in the wrong place. It should be Junior here and me up there in the hospital. That’s the way it should have been. Ought to be. A new guilt struck me squarely between the eyes; the guilt of being healthy. I was an affront to Dad—scrawny, small for my age, dancing and singing and interested in anything but sports was shamelessly thriving while Junior, the great athlete, the prize physical specimen was laid low. Mysteriously and infuriatingly low, dragging all Dad’s dreams down with him. The immensity of the unfairness of it as it must a
ppear to Dad hit me like a blow. That must be what was the matter. That must be the explanation for his manner to me, that was why he found it difficult to even look at me. Things had gone wildly haywire. The wrong one had been struck down.
Dad ought to relax and quit worrying. Junior would be all right. If Dad basically disliked me, we’d just have to adjust to the fact. Where Dad had gone really wrong was to let his pride—and his pride was his shame, his flaw, his stubborn ignorant pride—cause him to make the unforgivable error of leaving California. He was probably just furious with himself and taking it out on me. After all, baseball players were known to come trotting out of the Ozark mountains fully uniformed and cleated. Maybe the dream was still alive. As soon as Junior was well, the light would come back to Dad’s eyes.
“Shit,” he muttered, patting his shirt pockets with no light at all in his eyes. “Out of cigarettes.” He rattled change around in his pants pocket. He flipped a quarter in my direction without actually watching where it went and said, “Get a coupla packs a Wings,” then turned on his heel and headed toward the kitchen door.
I trotted down the drive, careful not to slip on the wet incline and continued to trot to the corner store. Coming out of the shop, I stopped to pocket the change when a car came to a screeching stop in front of me at the curb, causing me to jump back startled. It was Roy, leaning across the seat, opening the door.
“Git in,” he said in a tone not unlike the tone Dad had been using to me.
“I’ve got to get the cigarettes back up to …”
“Git in! Goddamnit.”
I obeyed. He cut the wheel hard to the left and sped away from the store in the opposite direction from the house. Roaring down the street, like a hot-rod driver, he made a left turn at the second street practically on two wheels, just missing a red light at the corner of Caliente where he made another two-wheeled turn, this time to the right and headed out this main road north toward Phoenix. He was driving like a madman, but a madman in total control. His steely eyes were reptilian slits, darting in all directions from rear-view mirror to side mirror to the left and to the right. It was like being in a getaway car—it had that same feel of danger about it. Roy himself epitomized danger. He was as taut and knotted as if he had just pulled off a heist or had kidnapped me. The latter not far from the truth.
In Tall Cotton Page 36