The Night Watchman

by Louise Erdrich

  Log Jam 26

  As the train pulled into Fargo, Wood Mountain wanted Patrice to write down the two addresses.

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re a baby. I mean, not streetwise. This way I have a trail in case you get lost.”

  “I can find my way.”

  “In the bush, sure. You and your cramp bark.”

  “I have been in town.”

  “A city, Pixie.”

  “What do you know about it?”

  “More than you. Once, I visited my sister. And I’ve had fights down there.”

  “Did you win any?”

  “No.”

  “Well. You should have. Okay, here is where I’m going.”

  Pixie—Patrice—wrote the addresses on a scrap of newspaper. She didn’t tell him about the emergency address. Bernadette was his half sister. Wood Mountain pocketed the bit of paper. As he rose, he looked down at her. Without thinking, like it was natural, he tried out the smile he practiced in the shaving mirror. Oh, and she responded, didn’t she? Looked at him wonderingly. He felt her eyes on him as he turned around. Watching as he walked down the aisle of the train and out the door. . . .

  And she was thinking, What was that? That smile? Like he saw it on some cheap movie poster. A smile like the dough in her lunch bucket—sad and raw. Not even half baked. Patrice settled back into her seat and took out the syrup bucket. She ate several pinches of the pemmican, looking out the window into downtown Fargo. The Empire Tavern. She saw Wood Mountain walking along. Swinging his duffel bag. If he walked into the bar she’d never speak to him again. He walked past.

  Okay, maybe sometime, she thought as the train pulled out.

  She slept so hard the pattern on the seat’s upholstery bit into her cheek. When she woke, and put her fingers to her face, she could feel the dimples from the harsh cloth. They had come a long way and were passing through St. Cloud. In no time at all now they would be in Minneapolis. The wiry lady had claimed the seat beside Patrice. Now she was using narrow silver needles to knit a white froth of yarn into a weblike blanket for a baby. The delicate folds streamed down and puddled in her lap. Patrice looked away from her, but the lady noticed that her seatmate was awake and introduced herself.

  “Bitty.”

  “Patrice.”

  “What takes you to the Cities?”

  “I’m looking for my sister, and her baby.”

  “Ohhh?” Bitty’s face quivered as she talked. She was a flat emaciated woman. Her scalp showed through colorless wisps of hair. Her lips were pale and thin. “How is your sister? And her baby? I supposed you’re going to visit the new baby.”

  The woman anxiously pursed her lips and squinted at her needles.

  “Not exactly. She’s lost. I mean, we haven’t heard from her. And I’ve never met the baby. I’m worried something has happened.”

  “Oh my goodness no, no, no! I hope nothing to the baby!”

  The woman’s needles continued to switch back and forth. The insectlike clicking intensified. Suddenly the woman turned to her, with an air of delivering a solution to the problem. “I’m going to pray for your sister.”

  “Thank you,” said Patrice.

  The woman closed her eyes but continued on without missing a stitch. Her clay-colored lips moved. A sweetness played across her features. Patrice turned away and shut her eyes to sop up the remnants of sleep. When she turned back, the woman was still praying and knitting. The blanket was even longer. Patrice nearly spoke, but the woman’s lips were still moving, and her murmur was intense, nearly audible. Patrice turned away again and stared out the window. The flat lush fields were left behind and replaced by stands of oak and sandy pastures with milk cows grazing. In the distance, to one side, she could see a clump of tall brown structures. Abruptly, the back lots of tumbled houses and then brick warehouses lined the tracks. The pace slowed to a mild rocking and the size of the buildings increased. Soon taller buildings reared to either side of the tracks. Once, another train blurred past, inches away, like in a dream. At last, they slowed to a creeping pace and entered a structure of shadows and tall pillars where the train hissed to a stop.

  “Here,” said the woman, opening her eyes.

  She rolled up the filmy blanket and handed it to Patrice.

  “This is for your sister’s baby.”

  The little woman slipped into the aisle.

  “Thank you!” Patrice called, but the little woman did not turn around. Patrice held the blanket to her face for a moment. It had a null scent—it didn’t even smell of yarn. No, wait, there was something. A sort of powdery private sadness. The woman had lost a baby, Patrice thought. But the blanket felt like an insurance that she would find Vera and her baby. She pulled her makeshift suitcase from the rack over her seat and stuffed the good-omen baby blanket inside. Then she followed the other passengers along the aisle.

  Patrice stepped down onto the platform and followed a sign to the main ticketing and waiting area. There were benches, like church pews but with intermittent armrests. The wood was solid, warmed and stained by so many people sitting. She sat down too. She remembered her lipstick, and applied a fresh coat with help from her compact mirror. People looked up, as they always do when a woman applies lipstick in public. Sometimes, Patrice did this as a test, or as a way of checking behind her, if she felt threatened. This time she looked into the mirror just to gather her determination. This was bound to happen. She was bound not to have foreseen something. What came next. How was she going to get from the train station to the address? She had supposed she could walk. Miles were nothing to her. But now she had seen enough of the size of the city to know it was more than miles. It was street after confusingly similar street. She needed advice. Maybe one of the women at the ticket window. She put away the lipstick and walked over to the window.

  “Take a cab, dear. Just wait outside on one of those benches.”

  A taxicab, of course! Like in magazine stories. Patrice went through tall handsome doors, fitted with brass, and sat down on a bench near the curb. A car pulled up. She showed the address to the driver and asked how much it would cost to go there.

  “Nothing,” said the driver. “I’m going there anyway.”

  “No,” she said. “I will pay you something.”

  “We’ll see. Special price for a pretty lady.”

  She opened the door to get into the backseat.

  “Sit up front, why don’t you?” said the driver.

  “No, thanks,” she said. She was positive that she remembered the backseat from a magazine story. She would not be fooled. The man got out of the car and put her bag on the car’s backseat. He opened the passenger door for her and ushered her into the car. All of this happened in a matter of seconds. He was a broad brown-haired freckled man with freckled hands. His suit was rumpled and baggy, and he seemed in a hurry. She sat in the front seat. He had that sharp smell, like Barnes, but also different, like he’d had a drink already. She wished that she’d taken a different cab. And it surprised her a little that he wore a suit and tie. He hadn’t let up talking for a moment and was driving forcefully along, taking turns with great swings of his arms, sweating although the day was cool.

  “You’re from where? Never heard of it. What’s your friend look like? What was she wearing last time you saw her? Say she has a baby, huh? And you’re from where? Never heard of it. There’s lots to do here. You’ll like it here. You want a job? There’s jobs. I can get you a job right now. You have to know the right people. I know the right people. A cabdriver? No, I’m not a cabdriver. I drive people around but I’m not a cabdriver. Here. I gotta stop here and see a fellow. You come in with me. Sit down, take a load off. No? Well I don’t take no for an answer. Come on. I’ll getcha going.”

  They had stopped in a zone that said No Parking at Any Time.

  “I’m Earl. They call me Freckle Face. And that thing’s for other people,” he said when she pointed at the sign.

  He got out, barged around to h
er side of the car, opened the door, and tried to coax her out. Letters of looping unlighted neon were fixed above a door. Log Jam 26. The place looked like a bar to Patrice.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, knowing she’d made a mistake. “I don’t go into bars.”

  “Me neither! This place isn’t a bar. No. It’s a camera shop.”

  Patrice turned around, leaned into the backseat, and tugged her suitcase into her arms. She stood up beside the car holding the suitcase.

  “I’m going now. How much do I owe you?”

  “You don’t owe me nothing.”

  His arm went around her and he tried to propel her forward. He would have had no luck except that another man, skinny with a black ducktail, was there suddenly. They held her elbows as she gripped the suitcase to her chest and together the two men swept her across the sidewalk. Through the doors. There was a grimy lobby, red carpeting. A dim space full of tables and chairs. A lazy muttering all around.

  “Where’s the cameras?” cried Patrice.

  In the center of the club, a lighted tank of water. Huge and glowing, it cast a false greenish light on the surrounding tables. All of this passed by as in a panic she was whisked across the main floor, where she thought she’d better stay. There was a mirrored wall reflecting bottles of liquor. A dark corridor like a trap. How had she found the scum so fast?

  Patrice crumpled to the floor in a stubborn heap. The men tried to pull her up, but she made herself extremely heavy. Wood Mountain hadn’t told her how to deal with scum, just that she must find them. She forced the weight of her body to cling to the floor. “Let me go!” she yelled. With that yell, she triggered something in herself. An unguessed-of force. She reared up, swung her bag at the ducktail man. Connected. He bent over, grunting. A man drinking at the bar slid off his stool, walked crisply over to the scene. He was wearing a gray jacket and gray tie. His face was lean, yellowed, his eyes shadowed with sickness, glittering under the gray fedora he hadn’t taken off even to drink his drink. His pants drooped around his skinny legs.

  “What’s wrong with her?”

  “She’s sick.”

  “I am not! They’re trying to kidnap me!”

  “That true, Earl? She seems like a nice girl. What is your motive here?”

  “Trying to give her the job!”

  “Well, let her sit down, have a drink, like in a regular place. Talk it over. Don’t just drag her in. What’s wrong with you?”

  “It’s how we got Babe the other time.”

  “You just dragged Hilda in here? You guys are apes.”

  Freckle Face let go of Patrice’s arms, brushing them lightly as if in apology. Or to remove his behavior.

  “It’s unbecoming, how you just dragged her in here,” said the drinking man. He nodded down to Patrice. “I’m sorry, miss.”

  “I don’t suppose she would have come in here by herself,” said Freckle Face. “It’s not a clean place.”

  “It is a clean place,” said the man in the gray suit.

  “If you say so. But we need somebody tonight. And look at this girl. Don’t she look like a waterjack?”

  “Just Babe’s size,” said the dark skinny man. “For the outfit.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “That’s about enough,” said Patrice. She stepped forward, tried to gather her wits, disguise her shaking. Again, she found that her own actions built up her own boldness. She slammed away the men’s hands, spoke loudly. “I’m here looking for my sister. I have to get back home in one week. He told me this was a camera store. I don’t go to bars. I don’t like men who go to bars. I want to go to a certain address. Find my sister. She’s in trouble.”

  “She’s an Indian too?” the skinny little man wondered.

  “Jeezus. The average IQ intellect around here is about thirty,” said the man in the beautiful hat. “Of course she’s an Indian, Dinky, she’s her sister.”

  “Well I didn’t know,” said Dinky.

  “Camera store?” The jaundiced man raised the brim of his hat. Freckle Face shrugged.

  “I’m Jack Malloy,” said the man. He held his hand out. Patrice took it. The hand was cold and dry. Patrice was startled and looked more closely at him. He was definitely ill. Or maybe cold hands warm heart. Vera would have said that.

  “Come. Sit down. Have a drink.”

  “I don’t drink. I want to go to Bloomington Avenue.”

  “Why the hell you want to go over there?” asked Dinky. “It’s all Indians.”

  “You just beat the dummy record,” Jack said. “Get out of here. We have a lovely Indian princess we are trying to give a job to and you keep insulting her. Look, miss, you can have a soda pop. Billy in the back will make you a hamburger sandwich. On the house. All you have to do is listen to the job description.

  “You are an Indian lady, right?” he said to Patrice. “Because you are a tad light, but . . .”

  “From my father.”

  “Ah. The daughter of a chieftain?”

  Chief Firewater, thought Patrice. She looked around the place. There were small windows, like portholes, and some tables underneath. She was hungry.

  “If we can sit next to the door under one of those round windows, I will listen,” she said. “And I want that hamburger sandwich.”

  “Absolutely. After you,” said Jack, flourishing his arm. She walked to the table by the window and sat down on a little black chair. The table was painted deep purple and the surface was sticky. She put the suitcase on the chair beside her. Jack sat down across from her, a drink in his hand.

  “Your traveling case is charming,” he said. “Rustic.” He gestured at the bartender.

  “The refreshments are coming,” he went on. “As well as my apologies. They know not what they do.”

  “I think they do know,” said Patrice.

  “Incompletely though,” said Jack.

  The bartender brought an orange Nehi soda, ice-cold, and set it down beside a glass of ice.

  “So here’s the thing.” Jack hunched toward her. “This place changed owners last year, see. Before, it was an underwater theme. Mermaid Palace. Lots of shells and fish. The big tank. A trained mermaid worked shows in the tank.”

  “Trained mermaid?”

  “Yeah. Wore a glitter tail. The guy who bought this place, W. W. Pank, made his money off timber so as a tribute to north-woods industry he decided on a lumbering theme. Thus, Log Jam. 26 is just a number. There is a Paul Bunyan type of theme to the drinks and such. The menu. We’re still making changes with the décor. And of course the tank, which is what the place is known for. You heard of Babe?”

  “No.”

  “Paul’s blue ox. She hauls his logs. She’s his sidekick. So that’s the outfit. Babe.”

  “Outfit for what?”

  “Instead of a mermaid outfit, a Babe outfit. Hilda used to wear the outfit, do the underwater tricks. Ox tricks. People love it, come from miles around, all through the city and beyond. They love the waterjack. I’m surprised she has such a following already, but there you have it. And shame on me. I have not even asked your name.”

  “Doris,” said Patrice.

  “Doris what?”

  Patrice blanked out for a moment.

  “Doris Barnes,” she said.

  “Do you have an Indian name? Is it respectful to ask? Or perhaps it is a secret?”

  “A secret,” said Patrice.

  “As it should be. However, I could see you as . . . say . . . Princess Waterfall.”

  “No.”

  “Well, Doris. Have you any interest in the job?”

  “Swimming around in an ox costume? No.”

  “You haven’t even asked the salary.”

  “I don’t care about the salary.”

  “Fifty dollars per night. Plus you keep all of your tips every other night.”

  Patrice was silent. Counting the tips, which she couldn’t estimate, it was more than she made each week at the jewel bearing plant. For one night’s
work.

  “I don’t really want to,” she said.

  “Would you like to see the outfit anyway?”

  “For a laugh,” said Patrice.

  “Then come with me.”

  A chubby florid man set a platter before her. Arranged upon it was a hamburger, with sides of lettuce, pickles, fried potatoes, and coleslaw.

  “Mind if I eat first?”

  Jack smiled—his teeth were long, brown, broken. She wished that she hadn’t seen his teeth. But then she took a bite of the hamburger and forgot. Briskly, neatly, efficiently, she devoured everything on the platter. She wiped the tips of her fingers on a purple napkin.

  “Impressive,” said Jack. “Pretty soon everything will be lumberjack—the napkins black and red checks and so on.”

  He thought a moment, observed her meticulously cleaned plate, and said, “Of course, you would also be served dinner after the show.”

  “All right, let’s see the outfit,” said Patrice. “But I want the lights turned on in that hallway.”

  “Whatever you say,” said Jack.

  She picked up her suitcase and walked beside Jack, who greeted those he passed with a sardonic twitch of his mouth. He walked down the hall, up a narrow stairway. Opened a door.

  “Your dressing room.”

  Patrice peered in from the doorway. An ordinary room with a maroon-gray-swirled linoleum floor. There was a built-in dressing table with a mirror with lights around it. Bottles of foundation makeup and a messy array of lipsticks.

  “Waterproof,” said Jack, flourishing his hand at the litter.

  The dressing-table chair was flecked with old white paint and had a stained pink flowered seat cushion. Jack walked over to open a deep closet. Removed a cloth bag from a large box, and unzipped it to reveal the outfit. There was a blue rubber wet suit with white hooves painted at the ends of the hands and feet. Two large white disks with scarlet centers were where the breasts would be. Patrice flinched. Was that a dark shadow between the cow legs? She looked away. Jack held the outfit reverently in his arms. In a hushed voice he asked if she would try it on. She stayed in the doorway.