Seeing America

by Nancy Crocker

I saw a cloud of dust moving our way and pretended to watch it while I thought what to do.

  Finally, the cloud revealed a team and wagon. A man who looked to be a farmer reined in his horses once he got within hollering distance. “You boys need a ride somewhere?” He took off his hat and sopped at his brow with a red bandanna.

  Paul stared off toward the horizon. I fixed Henry in my sights and answered, “Naw, thanks. We got it.”

  I won. Henry looked away.

  The farmer lifted his right pointer finger in a wave, then steered his team around the crippled Ford.

  Paul spoke, first time since we’d stopped. “What happened?”

  Henry leaned into his face and screamed, “Rock!”

  Paul nearly stumbled backward.

  Henry debated every step it took to get the wheel off and change the tire and tube. “Are you sure you know what you’re doin’? That don’t look like it’s supposed to fit that way. Did you read the instruction book on how to do this, or you jes’ makin’ it up as you go along?”

  I was ready to use the crowbar on him too.

  Paul stopped pacing after a while and came over where we squatted. He bent down. “What can I do to help?”

  “Describe the damn countryside, why don’t ya?” Henry bellowed.

  Paul retreated to his pacing grounds.

  When the work was finished, I went to get him. “Come on. We’re good to go.” I hoped I meant it.

  Paul climbed into the backseat without a word. Henry shrugged and jumped in up front. The two miles to Waverly passed with nobody talking.

  I had been to the blacksmith shop there once with my dad, and Lewis Staton remembered me. He dropped what he was working on and ambled over. “Hey, John, when’d ya get this?”

  “I didn’t. It’s his.” I jerked my head in Paul’s direction.

  A gaggle of kids down the street made a beeline for us.

  “Well, mighty fine-lookin’ machine ya got.” Lewis draped his ham-sized forearms across the frame next to my elbow. “What y’all doin’ today?”

  “Had a flat tire and wondered could you fix it. I mean, the inner tube and casing. You know.”

  Paul spoke up. “The outer casing has to be sent back to the manufacturer for repair.”

  I had a vague notion of having read that to him from the instruction manual and kicked myself for forgetting.

  A couple kids had climbed onto the toolbox, and I waved them away like flies.

  Lewis undraped himself from the car. “Oh, now, then, I can at least take a look at patchin’ that tube, and you can send the other off later. This’ll be enough to get you all home.”

  “Ain’t goin’ home. Not for a long, long time,” Henry chimed in. “We’ll be needin’ that spare, sir.” I wouldn’t have suspected there was a sir in him.

  I shooed two other children off the front fender.

  Lewis said, “Well, bring the tube on in anyway, and if you really need a spare, I think Hardin’s got some up the street.” He motioned us to follow him into the shop.

  “I’ll stay here,” Paul said, sounding woeful.

  I grabbed the spent tube off the backseat and told Henry, “I’ll take this in. You ride herd.” I nodded at the children.

  I wasn’t quite to the shop door when I heard, “Scram! Beat it!” and the dull sound of bare feet pounding dirt.

  Three minutes later, I was back. “Okay, here’s the situation. Ol’ man Wilcox just showed up wonderin’ why his harness rig ain’t done, so Lewis has got to finish that first. We should go find a spot on the river bluff and eat some dinner, then come back.”

  “Eat what dinner?” Henry asked.

  “Well, uh, dried beef and biscuits I got. I mean, that Mary Albrecht brought by last night—”

  “Oh, she brought you a package too?” Henry’s smile looked as sweet as pokeberries and just as poison. “I ate mine last night.”

  I studied his face for a sign he was lying.

  “Give me gas, though.”

  And then I was reeling away, gagging.

  Paul stepped out of the car and several feet away. “I’ll go with you, John.”

  Henry caught up to us half a block away. “Can’t you guys take a joke?” His elbow in my ribs just about got his nose broken.

  We climbed a dirt path on the edge of town and found a spot I believe would have made Adam and Eve jealous. Flat white rock overhanging the riverbed a hundred feet below, trees leafed out all around us and covering the bottomland bank on the other side. It was the kind of sight that could turn a nonbeliever around.

  I dealt out half a dozen biscuits and a dozen strips of jerky. It was barely enough to keep us going but as tasty as a feast in the open air. Not ungodly hot and too early for mosquitoes—the best time of year, no doubt about it.

  Between bites, I tried to do justice to the view for Paul. I told him how bright and clean the new leaves look in spring and that squirrels were building nests right above our heads, skittering up the tree trunks with mouths full of last year’s leaves. I told him the river looked swollen after the spring rains. I reported on a steamboat chugging by, pushing an empty barge. A hawk circled over something on the other bank, and I did my best to describe how they sweep the sky and catch the wind to soar without moving their wings.

  Henry just grunted every once in a while. I pretended I didn’t hear.

  I ran out of food and something to say, both at the same time. I unfolded my legs to stand up and stretch, then took one more long look around and felt like I’d been fed more than the little I’d eaten. “Gentlemen? Time to head out.”

  On our way back to the smith’s shop, Henry and I walked on the sidewalk two abreast with Paul behind us, and we met a colored man and woman coming our direction. There was plenty of room for them to pass, but Henry deliberately angled over and walked straight toward them. They both stepped off the curb into the dirt street and looked away.

  I turned to ask Henry what the hell he was doing, but his face shone with the bright smile of an accomplishment and stopped me at an unspoken What the hell?

  I thought about somebody doing that to Sam and his wife, and it shamed me all the way red not to speak up. But it didn’t feel like a good time to start up something new, either. I shook my head.

  We picked up the patched inner tube, and Paul handed Lewis the five cents he asked for.

  Lewis nodded up the street. “Hardin’s is right up there. Post office is in the same storefront. I’m sure he’s got something he’ll sell you to put the casing in.”

  I told Henry to stay and mind the Model T.

  Paul and I walked on, him following my footfalls on the wooden sidewalk. When we got away a piece, I said, “Look, Paul, I’m sorry about Henry. He’s a jackass, but he’ll back off once he figures out we won’t take his bait.”

  “I find him interesting, actually. Don’t you?”

  Interesting was way down my list of words to describe Henry. “Huh?”

  “Everything about him is so . . . exposed. He doesn’t hold anything back, does he?”

  “No. I guess that’s one way of lookin’ at it.” I studied Paul’s face, as unreadable as usual.

  We came back to find Henry behind the wheel of the Model T, holding court with some locals. “So I says to the ol’ man, I says, you never bought me nothin’ before and—” He slapped the front panel of the car before he looked up and saw us coming. The lie froze halfway out of his mouth.

  I walked to the front of the Ford. “You wanna set the spark and throttle?”

  After three turns of the crank, the motor caught.

  Paul headed for the backseat.

  I grabbed his arm. “Naw, you sit up front this turn. I’ll sit in back.”

  We waited. Henry released the parking brake, floundered with the pedals, and killed the engine. The car lurched forward and nearly hit one of the men on the sidewalk.

  I climbed out with the crank and asked, “Brake back on?” before I stepped in front.

  Henr
y looked sheepish and set it.

  Once the motor was running again, I got back in and waited. It didn’t take long.

  “Okay, what do I do?” Henry asked in a loud whisper.

  “What say?” I called.

  My payment was seeing the two men smirk at each other and start away.

  At first it was fits and starts, but before long we were out on the open road, on our way for sure now, just us and the dirt and the newly planted cornfields. I felt like singing. “Casey Jones” seemed to fit the moment. I sang it top to bottom, the quality of my voice making up for an occasional innocence of the words—I’m sure of it.

  Paul said, “How about ‘Meet Me in St. Louis’?”

  I obliged. “Meet me in St. Louie, Louie. Meet me at the fair.”

  He joined in halfway through. We finished out the chorus as loud as it gets and got a standing ovation from a cow in the barnyard we were passing.

  Henry took his eyes off the road for half a second. “Oh, yeah, you were there when they had the fair, weren’t ya? Too bad you can’t tell us about it.”

  “What do you want to know?” Paul asked. “I went. Several days.”

  “I wanna know what it looked like.”

  “It was beautiful.”

  “Oh, bullshit,” Henry shot back. “Like you know the difference between beautiful and cow flop.”

  Paul acted like he hadn’t heard. “There was Festival Hall, and the Cascades in front of it—all these different tiers of gigantic fountains—and the whole thing was strung with electrified lights, so at night it was like a fairyland. They set up exhibits of different civilizations from around the world, and you could talk to the natives and see how they lived, and there was a scandal with the Igorot people from the Philippines stealing dogs from nearby neighborhoods for food—”

  “Sounds beautiful, all right.” Henry snorted.

  I leaned forward to hear better.

  “And they had the Olympic Games there. Footraces and jumps and javelin throws, and there was this huge contraption they called the Ferris wheel you could ride on. Maybe you heard about the one they had in Chicago a few years back. You sat in something made like a big basket and went up and around and could look out over the entire city, and—”

  “How do you know?” Henry interrupted.

  “How do I know? You mean about the fair?”

  Henry didn’t answer.

  “Or how do I know about anything?” Paul thought for a minute. “Trust, I suppose. When it comes down to it, I have to trust what people tell me. What about you? Don’t you know about things you haven’t seen?”

  Henry humphed. I love it when a person with no answer pretends it’s the question that’s stupid.

  We were quiet the rest of the way to Dover.

  As we came into town, I said, “How about some real food?”

  They jumped on that like ducks on a June bug.

  We meandered through the streets until I spotted a storefront cafe and told Henry to pull over.

  A bell above the door tinkled when we walked in.

  A motherly type stuck her head out of the kitchen and called out, “What y’all want?” in a tone as unmotherly as all get-out. She didn’t like our looks, would be my guess.

  “Well, food! Whaddaya think?” Henry snorted.

  I jumped in. “Dinner, I mean supper—whatever you want to call it, ma’am.” The clock above the kitchen door read four thirty.

  “Well . . .” She was still taking our measure. “We’re all out of dinner specials, and I just got supper on, so—”

  “We’re travelers, ma’am.” I offered up my best smile. “And we’ll be happy to eat whatever you can dish up.”

  Henry flopped into a chair and hoisted his boots onto one opposite.

  The woman said, “If you’ll take what I can scrounge up, fine, but take your feet off the furniture and mind yourselves. This ain’t a saloon.”

  I yanked the chair from under Henry’s feet. “Paul, you sit here, and I’ll sit to your left.” I called toward the back, “Ma’am? You got someplace we can wash our hands?”

  She shouted without coming out. “Shoulda thought of that before. This ain’t a hotel.”

  Henry’s smile was pure evil. “Well, she’s real clear on all the things this place ain’t. We oughta eat and then tell her we won’t pay ’cause this ain’t much of a restaurant either.”

  Paul and I ignored him.

  The woman came out carrying three plates and dealt them out. “Milk or water?” Once we’d answered, she disappeared.

  Paul was groping the table with both hands.

  Before I could offer help, Henry said, “What the hell you doin’?” through a mouthful of food.

  Paul asked, “Where’s my silverware?”

  Henry guffawed and lost a wad of what he was chewing. “You eat a sandwich with a knife and fork? Boy, them St. Louis manners is somethin’!”

  “He didn’t know, okay?” I hissed.

  Paul felt for his food and started eating.

  The woman came with our drinks.

  Henry told her, “Mighty tasty ham, ma’am.”

  She snorted and went back to work.

  “Mine’s roast beef,” Paul said.

  “So’s his,” I said.

  Paul was the last to finish.

  The woman appeared like magic as he chewed his last bite. “Seventy-five cents,” she told us.

  A quarter seemed like a lot for just a sandwich, but there wasn’t much to do about it since we’d already eaten them. Paul and I started fishing in our pockets.

  “Rich boy’s payin’.” Henry nodded toward Paul.

  “No, he isn’t,” I told him. “Fork over two bits.”

  Henry went all wide-eyed. “Well, now, that wasn’t part a the deal.”

  “Sure it was. You didn’t ask, that’s all.” Two quarters on the table and three of us waiting.

  “Aw, hell.” Henry took a twenty-five-cent piece from his shirt pocket.

  The woman wiped the three coins off the table into her hand and took her leave.

  “But I ain’t goin’ dutch on no fancy hotels and such.”

  I stood and pushed my chair in. “We’ll shove you off that bridge when we come to it.”

  As we were on our way out, the woman stuck her head out the kitchen door to see what Paul was laughing about.

  Henry drove the next stint too. I called out an oak tree with four separate trunks that made it look like it was being pulled in all directions at once. I called out wheat fields and cornfields and crows and doves and a cloud shaped like a buffalo. Henry kept his mouth blessedly shut.

  The town of Lexington came into view, and I told Paul the two things I knew about it: there was a Confederate cannonball still lodged in one wall of the courthouse on the town square, and my dad had stayed at a boarding house nearby one time on a trip to Kansas City.

  We were barely into town when Henry hollered, “Tavern!” He veered over to a stop so hard it threw Paul and me forward.

  I rubbed my elbow while deciding I liked the looks of the place none too much. “I don’t think this is the best—”

  “Who said you deserved the best? Hell’s bells!” Henry laughed. He jumped out of the car and bounded onto the sidewalk. “You two be as big a sissies as you want. But you ain’t goin’ nowhere else.” He waved the Ford’s crank high over his head and went inside, cackling.

  I twisted sideways in the seat. “Paul—”

  “I know.” He opened the back door. “If you can’t beat ’em . . .”

  When my eyes adjusted to the dark inside, Henry was already at a table with a shot and a beer.

  Paul pressed something into my hand. Under his breath he said, “A beer. And whatever you want.” He folded my hand into a fist around the money.

  I was almost to the bar when I realized I’d left him standing alone.

  Henry’s voice rang out, “Oh, Master Bricken! Come join me for tea, won’t you?”

  I was starting t
o hate that laugh of his.

  There were only two other customers in the place, I was happy to see.

  Paul threaded his way through the chairs and tables with Henry offering what might pass for encouragement. “A little to the left!” Crash. “Now, that there was a chair. I’d step over it if I was you.” And so on.

  The barkeep nodded in their direction. “He blind?”

  “Which one?” I said and was sorry before I got to the question mark.

  “Now, look here.” He was a bear of a man and growled like one. “You ain’t from around here, are you?”

  I shook my head.

  “Well, let me tell you—we don’t need no smart boys.” He nodded toward Henry. “No troublemakers neither.”

  “Yessir. I’m sorry.” I laid Paul’s dollar on the bar. “Hang on to this, please. I’m sure we’ll have more.” I picked up the bottles. “And, yessir, he’s blind. The other one’s just stupid.”

  The big man’s face cracked into a grin.

  Henry and Paul were talking baseball when I joined them. How they’d gotten started on that, I couldn’t feature. But it was one subject Henry knew something about, and there was no end to Paul’s questions.

  “Naw, naw, naw,” Henry told him. “If a outfielder catches the ball on the fly, it don’t matter if it’s fair or foul. It’s a out just the same.”

  I sat back and listened with a seed of hope.

  We were on our third round when Paul said, “Uh, guys? I . . . um . . . need to go.”

  Henry said, “Why, go where?” with a fake innocence that told me it was way too early to pronounce him tamed.

  “Okay, Paul. I gotta go myself.” I stood and caught the barkeep’s eye. “Out back?” I asked, and he nodded.

  The outhouse was twenty yards from the back door. After I peeked inside, I told Paul, “It’s a two holer. We can both go in.”

  We did our business and buttoned up. When I opened the door, I came face-to-face with two men and some kind of hammer falling from the sky.

  Next thing I knew, I was sitting on the ground rubbing a knot on the side of my head, and it had somehow gotten dark outside.

  I heard moaning sounds close by and crawled over to find Henry staring at a sticky mess in his hands. He’d wiped at the wreck that had once been his nose, and his hands were covered in blood.