Seeing America

by Nancy Crocker

  “What’d you do that for?” Henry asked.

  I tried to answer and gagged instead.

  He grabbed the chamber pot and shoved it under my chin, and the smell of stale piss just about turned me inside out. When there was nothing left to bring up, I laid back on the bed, exhausted.

  Henry pawed at the buttons on my shirt.

  “What the hell? Get off me!” My voice was so weak I didn’t even convince myself.

  “I’m not sleepin’ in the same room with puke clothes,” he said.

  And that was it for me until I woke up in the dark.

  I looked over and saw Henry sitting at the small table in the corner with a kerosene lamp and a look on his face like he was studying something.

  “Hey.” I tried to sit and gave up the effort. My ribs were sore and my stomach muscles knotted. “I must’ve slept a couple hours, huh?”

  “Try twenty-four.”

  That got me up. “Huh? You saying this is Wednesday?” I wobbled over and looked out the window. “Wednesday night?”

  “Yep.” Henry had some kind of game board spread out and covered with little black and white pieces I couldn’t quite make out.

  “But”—I felt panicked—“we didn’t check on the auto.”

  “I did. Still no axle.”

  “But you should’ve gotten me up anyway. I needed to—”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know. But I sure as hell didn’t mean to—”

  “Oh, relax.” Henry was reading some small print on what looked like the lid of a box. “You slept off a bad belly, and the world kept turnin’ without you.”

  Great. I was alone and unnecessary.

  Remembering my lonesome walk back from Evangeline’s reminded me I hadn’t told Henry. So I did. I told him about walking out and about Rae Ann. I told him about Paul and his new clothes and how he looked right at home and like a daddy to Evangeline’s little girl. I said I could see him staying on, making his own family here.

  “And you got lovesick. That’s what happened to you.”

  “Oh, don’t—” I started. Then I thought about everybody belonging somewhere but me.

  Lovesick made as much sense as anything else. I shut my mouth. A few minutes later, I shut my eyes.

  The next morning, Henry was sitting right where I’d seen him last. He had game pieces all over the table and still looked like he was studying. “Oh, good,” he said. “You’re awake. Come on.”

  “What is that?”

  A game called Go was what it was. Henry said he’d gone into the drugstore looking for a jigsaw puzzle to work on in our room and found this instead. It was nothing like checkers or cards or anything we were used to. We spent all morning reading the rules and arguing about what they meant.

  After dinner, we walked to the Ford dealership to learn nothing new, and when we got back, Henry took such a long time in the outhouse I was able to sit and read the game’s instructions again. They made a lot more sense without him helping. By the time he came in, I was raring to play.

  I beat him four straight times. Each game, he’d change tactics. One time he’d be on the attack and try to keep me from claiming any territory. The next time, he’d spend the whole game in retreat, trying to run away from my game pieces. All I had to do was the opposite of him to win.

  He didn’t get mad, though. He seemed to think every time I won was nothing more than dumb luck, and he was always the first to suggest another game. I have to admit I welcomed any opportunity for Henry to make me feel smart. I’d been feeling a little short in that department.

  After supper, we walked by the saloon, but angry voices trying to outshout one another made us turn away. The fight. Of course. We went back to the room and picked up our own contest. I was more than happy to stay off the streets.

  Friday morning, July 1, we played one game of Go after breakfast and decided to walk out to the Ford place to work up an appetite for another meal. With nothing much to do and nowhere pleasant to go, meals were starting to count for more than fuel. They were a way to parcel out the day.

  The man whose name we’d never asked brightened a little when we walked in. “Come in! Come in,” he said. “Axle came in yesterday after you were in. Had no way to get ahold of you.”

  “So the car’s ready?” I said.

  “No, not quite, not quite. But it should be by closing time.”

  We both let out war whoops, and the man seemed pretty pleased his own self.

  We headed toward the door, and then I had a thought. “How much is it gonna run?”

  The man acted like he hadn’t thought about it yet, and I figured that was trouble. “Well, let’s see.” He opened his desk drawer for a pencil, licked the lead, and set in ciphering on a tablet.

  “Looks like”—he peered at us and glanced down like he was making sure—“two hundred and sixty-one oughta get it.”

  Henry whistled through his teeth. “What’d Paul pay for the whole thing? Eight hundred?”

  “Nine something,” I answered.

  “Damn.” Henry scratched his head. “Figure he’s got that much left?”

  “Cash on the barrel head,” the dealer leveled at us. “You’re not getting near that machine until I’m paid in full.”

  “You will be. You will be.” Henry waved a hand. “Don’t get your drawers in a knot.”

  I yanked him outside.

  After discussing our options, we walked out to Evangeline’s to tell Paul the good news and the bad. I’m sure Henry wanted to see the house too.

  “Damn” was also Paul’s assessment. Then he told the little girl real quick, “Don’t repeat that, Rae, okay? Your mama will have my hide.”

  Henry and I carried on a whole conversation in one look between us.

  Paul started pacing. “I don’t have it. Not with me, I mean.”

  “I do,” Henry told him. “Don’t worry about it, Paul. Like I told Johnson here, we’ll all spend till it runs out, and then we can all work.”

  “No, I won’t have that,” Paul said. “I set something up with Sam back home just in case. Rae Ann, will you stay here and be a good girl if I go in to the Western Union office for a while?”

  “Yes, Paul.” She worshipped him, you could tell.

  We three were a quarter mile away from the house before I had a thought. “Paul, how long’s it gonna take for Sam to get your message and wire money back?”

  “I don’t know. I’d guess tomorrow.”

  Henry stopped in his tracks. “Tomorrow,” he declared. “But the car’s gonna be ready today!”

  Paul’s expression didn’t change. “That doesn’t mean we have to leave today, does it?”

  “Paul, we been ready to leave for days!” Henry emptied his lungs. “This hasn’t been the best place to hang around—not that you’d know it, out there in the hills playin’ house.”

  Paul walked faster, and we stepped to catch up.

  “I can’t leave without saying good-bye, and Evangeline won’t be back until morning.”

  Henry dropped back a step to look at me, his face asking, What do we do now?

  I wanted out of Denver too. And I knew that with anybody else, I’d have been raising holy hell, but still and all . . . I just looked at Henry and shrugged.

  He said, “Well, I suppose it won’t kill us to stay one more night.” But he looked like there was an acorn-sized rock in one of his shoes.

  I said, “If we stay out of public places, it won’t kill us. Probably.”

  “What are you two talking about?” Paul asked. His mind seemed to come back from somewhere.

  “Fights breakin’ out all over town,” I explained.

  “What’s going on?”

  “What’s goin’ on? The prizefight. Remember?” Henry looked as astonished as I was. “The championship? Fourth of July? Monday?”

  “People are all worked up about it. It’s all anybody’s talkin’ about, everywhere we go.”

  “To tell you the truth,” Paul s
aid, “I kind of forgot about it.”

  “Well, nobody else did,” I said. “I can guarantee that. Leastwise, not in Denver. I sure as hell don’t want to be here Monday night.”

  Henry nodded.

  Paul nodded too. “It makes sense in a crazy kind of way, though. The more illogical a fool’s position, the more passionate he’s likely to be about hanging on to it.”

  Henry said, “I don’t know what in Jesus’ name you just said, but people here are ready to beat the hell out of one another.”

  We’d made it to the heart of town, and we steered Paul toward the Western Union office. He sent a message for Sam, care of Charlie’s in Wakenda, and I realized that by nightfall, the whole town would know we needed money. I guessed we’d find out when we got back whether we’d been branded heroes or buffoons.

  Outside, Henry and I started out on what felt like our constitutional, walking to the Ford dealership. Paul stopped after a few steps. “Evangeline’s is that way.” He pointed to the west.

  “Yes, Paul.” I tried to be patient. “But the Ford dealership is this way, and we at least need to let the man know our plans. Tomorrow’s Saturday, and after that comes Sunday. We’re gonna have to make some kind of arrangements to get the Ford whether he’s open when your money comes or not.”

  “I can pay today and get the car. Then we can take off as soon as your wire comes,” Henry threw in.

  “No,” Paul said. “I mean, I don’t want you paying for it. That’s final. I’ll pay for it myself.” His voice was telling me money wasn’t the issue at all.

  Henry scuffed his boot on the sidewalk and worked at a splinter. “Paul? It’s a loan, okay? We can’t go anywhere else till your wire comes now anyway, right? But we may as well get the auto if it’s ready.”

  Paul looked like his gut was twisted, but he said, “Okay.”

  The scene at the dealership was a distant echo of the day Paul bought the Model T. I counted out two hundred sixty-one dollars and handed it over to Paul. He paid, I put his hand in position to sign the papers, and there were handshakes all around.

  The man walked us out back. “Looks brand-new, doesn’t she?”

  The Ford had been washed and polished after it was fixed, and all traces of Kansas and quicksand were gone. It seemed wrong somehow. I ran my hand over a front fender and could feel slight little pockmarks—so small I couldn’t see them—and somehow that was satisfying. The Model T shouldn’t be exactly the same after a month away from home either.

  We drove Paul out to Evangeline’s and told him we’d be back for him noon sharp on Saturday. He gave a glum nod and went inside.

  On the way back to town, Henry said, “What do you make of him stayin’ out there all week? I mean, it’d be one thing if she was there with him all the time, but Jesus . . .”

  “I expect it’s the closest he’s ever come to family.”

  “Well, yeah, but . . .” I knew he was picturing Evangeline the same way I was.

  “I know. I expect that complicates things.” I didn’t want to repeat what Paul had said to me about how Evangeline’s work barely registered on the spectrum of his troubles. It seemed like we’d talked about him enough behind his back already. We were quiet the rest of the ride.

  Back in our room, we were halfway through a game of Go when we heard loud voices in the street outside. Pow! pow! pow! came a sound like when the Model T expressed an opinion. We bumped into each other, pulling back the curtain to look.

  A man the color of chocolate laid facedown with his head in a pool of blood still spreading. Four white men stood some ten feet away, one of them holding a pistol. A colored woman stepped off the sidewalk to go to the man shot, and the one with the gun shouted. When she looked, he aimed at her, then pointed the gun up and fired into the air. She gathered her skirts and ran without ever making a noise. We watched as the four men milled around talking and finally walked off in pairs. The black man laid there, bleeding.

  “Christ.” I’m not sure which of us said it.

  We stumbled over to our chairs, and I wiped my hands over my face.

  Henry knee-walked back to the window and looked out again. “I can’t believe it. Gone. Already. Nothin’ but a big stain.” He turned, and we looked at one another a long time.

  We tried, but we never could pick up the thread of the game again. “I don’t understand,” Henry finally said. He pushed his chair back from the table. “I mean, not just tonight, but that boy outside the picture show. People walkin’ on him like he was sawdust instead of a human being.”

  I snorted. “You’re the one who drove the colored man and his wife off the sidewalk in Waverly. Scared the hell out of those two men in Topeka too. What do you call that?”

  He waved a hand. “Aw, hell, I was just havin’ fun. Plus, I didn’t know any better.”

  “Well, I expect that’s your answer,” I said. “A lot of people don’t seem to know any better.”

  He went on like I hadn’t said anything. “You know, I keep thinkin’ about the Heversons. When I asked them what they thought about the fight and had to explain to them it was a chance to prove white over black and all that, all they kept saying was ‘Why?’ I didn’t understand then at all what they meant, but now I do. They meant, why does anybody have to prove anything? Why can’t everybody just treat other people the way they want to be treated their own self?” He was so serious, like it was something new he’d made up on his own.

  “Well,” I said, “I believe that’s just exactly what’s known as the Golden Rule. Preachers talk about it all the time, Henry. And those who want to listen, do. Those who don’t, well—”

  He shook his head. “But that’s wrappin’ it up in God and hidin’ it inside a church. All I’m talkin’ about is, why do people keep harpin’ on all the ways we’re different instead of payin’ attention to everything that’s the same?”

  Henry had been surprising me just about every day. He was like some kind of bush that had lived in the shade all these years and finally found sunlight or something. I couldn’t help thinking that if he’d had a different situation growing up, he might have become a great man.

  Hell, he still might, I thought. I should have told him that. I didn’t.

  The rooming house we were staying in wasn’t fancy enough to have a dining room. But the owner, Mrs. Stockwell, lived there all the time, so I knew there’d be a kitchen. I went down and knocked on her door and ended up paying twice what it would have cost anywhere else for enough food to get us through supper and breakfast. It was worth it.

  The next morning, the street was filled with people going about their Saturday business. You couldn’t even see anymore where the black man had died.

  Close to noon, we told Mrs. Stockwell we wouldn’t be back and we headed out with our stuff to pick up Paul, sticking to little side streets as much as possible.

  He was as happy to see us as he would have been to see the undertaker, but he came along. On the trip into town, he only spoke once. “Rae Ann’s got a fever.”

  I guess Henry didn’t know what to say to that either.

  The Western Union man counted out three hundred dollars in twenties and tens and laid them on the counter. Henry picked up the pile and counted out two hundred sixty, handed that to me, and put the rest in Paul’s hand. I shrugged and ignored the man’s raised eyebrows.

  We walked out into the noonday heat, and Henry said, “So that’s that. Eight days, and we can finally leave this hole.”

  “Rae Ann’s got a fever,” Paul said again.

  Henry looked off somewhere like he was counting to ten.

  I cleared my throat. “Paul? Are you fixin’ to stay?”

  “No! Well, I mean, not . . . I can’t—”

  “Yes, you can.” My heart picked up its pace. “I can’t say I want you to, but that’s for selfish reasons. Henry and I can take the train back home, if that’s what you really want to do.”

  Paul wrestled with this.

  Henry said, “Hell, f
or that matter, we can take the Ford on to Yellowstone and bring it back and then take the train home.”

  “No! You can’t.” Paul didn’t have to think that one over.

  I said, “Why not?”

  Henry asked, “You don’t trust us? After everything?”

  “Of course I do, but Yellowstone . . . I mean, that was the goal, that was the whole purpose—”

  “No, it wasn’t.” I recognized it as truth when I said it.

  Paul turned toward the west. “Yes, but giving that up . . . Well, it would feel like giving up, period.”

  A man on a strawberry roan galloped by whipping its hindquarters like he was on the lam or going to be soon.

  Henry’s face was so hard it looked brittle.

  “So. What do you wanna do, Paul?” I asked.

  “Rae Ann’s got a fever.”

  “Yeah, we know,” Henry said. “Can we go now?”

  Paul sounded dazed. “One more night.”

  “Holy shit!”

  “I don’t believe you!”

  “What the hell!”

  “Paul, we gotta get outta here! Now!”

  We came at him from both sides.

  He held up a hand. “Just one more, I swear. Let me take care of Rae tonight, and I promise tomorrow . . . Well, Evangeline doesn’t work on Sundays. She can take care of her then.”

  Henry’s eyes went wide. “Paul, what’s gonna happen when she gets sick next week? Next month? Next year?”

  Paul swallowed. “I won’t know about it. I won’t know to worry about her. I won’t feel like I’m leaving when she needs me.”

  “Paul, we gave up our room,” I tried. “Saturday night, I doubt we can get it back.”

  “Come camp out. It’s nice weather,” Paul said. “Look, you want to get out of town, right? But you got no place in particular you want to get to, do you? You keep saying Denver’s ready to boil over. You think Cheyenne’s going to be any better right now?”

  He had us there.

  “One more night, fellows. Please. For a little girl who spends too much time alone as it is.”