Kathy Little Bird (12 page)

“What’s the idea?” Jack demanded later. “You had them eating out of your hand. Then you start with that no-tune Indian stuff.”

“You think it has no tune?”

“And no rhythm. To get right down to it, it’s not music. It sounds like wolves howling in the night.”

“Yes, yes! That’s part of it, the wolves. But also the trees bending in the wind. And someone crying, far far away—”

“It’s not music, and that’s that. You want to kill your career before it gets started?”

I didn’t argue, but I was beginning not to pay much attention to what Jack said.

The hundred bucks in his pocket put him in a good mood, and he didn’t stay mad. We splurged and went to a class motel. There was perfumed soap, shampoo, and a hair dryer on
the wall. We lay between clean sheets and Jack renewed his plans for my career. Suddenly I seemed a better bet than ponies.

“Did you ever wow them. We’ll make a million on you. Two million. Maybe more. We’ll invest it too.”

I let him talk. And there’s no one who could come through in that department like Jack Sullivan. He spoke of how I would climb on the charts. He spoke of the Grammys, of the Grand Ole Opry. There would be recordings in my future, contracts, deejays—maybe movies.

I listened until he fell asleep. But I couldn’t sleep. I relived every note I’d sung that evening, going over the phrasing, changing the chords, adding a run, holding a final note. It had been like the evening at the Eight Bells, until I improvised the wind-band. I felt them slip away then, stiffen up, resist the alien modulations and the old, old way of looking at the world. They didn’t like to be reminded that there once was a world without trailers and jet planes and TV, a world that still existed on the Canadian prairies, and that would outlast their supersonic age.

Why couldn’t they hear the wonder in the Cree songs? Why did they stand outside and refuse to enter? Was it because they’d never scuffed their feet in the dust of the road leading to the res, hadn’t sat and smoked with Elk Woman, hadn’t looked into the eyes of an old shaman who was my grandfather?

This is what I had to give them, that no one else could. Only I could bring them a breathing world.

A
S
we junketed east Jack kept the car radio tuned to music stations, insisting I memorize the Peggy Lee repertoire. But in the long stretches between towns there was nothing but static. That’s when I went inside myself, recalling that many times I’d been able to call Mum out of her illness with the Cree songs. There’d been interest in her face as her hands pressed the intricate rhythms into the bedclothes. Being Cree, she had them in her blood. Abram was Mennonite through and through, yet when I sang them to him he said, “It comes at you unexpected and sort of grabs you.”

That proved anyone could like the music. Anyone but Jack and the people in the bar. Somewhere there was an audience for it, there had to be. Jack had his way in most things,
but when it came to music I wouldn’t give in. I decided to try it again when I got a chance.

By this time Jack thought we could cross to the American side. He avoided the traffic of the main route through Winnipeg and chose a small station with a single Mountie reading the Sunday supplement, who glanced at our papers and turned to Sports. The U.S. border patrol was more efficient. They asked us to open our bags and rummaged through them for about thirty seconds. Presto! we were in the States. You couldn’t tell the difference except that the roads were better. Jack told me Americans pronounce
out
like
ow.

We headed for Grand Forks and Fargo. Our routine was for Jack to park somewhere and leave me in the car while he went into the establishments and struck a deal. I could honestly say that I was a hit on both sides of the border.

Jack claimed it wasn’t so much my singing as me. I knew what he meant; there was a magnetism between me and the audience, a connection that snapped, crackled, and popped.

For the first time we had money, ate regular, and I was able to buy myself a pair of shoes. An eyelet blouse, I decided, was in my future, and a tight-fitting pair of jeans. We had reached a new plateau, and I think it was a plateau for Jack too. In fact he’d never had it so good. I was better than ponies. Motels and all that went with them—showers, soaps, shampoos, perfumes, hair dryers, and coffee in the room—were now our way of life.

It was interesting how quickly we adjusted to the new lifestyle. The only trouble was Jack was able to drink more,
and he did. I was the one who generally drove back to the motel with a morose and disoriented husband beside me. His gambling was more serious now, the stakes higher, the bets more outrageous. I thought of Loki the Trickster more than once.

One thing that fascinated Jack was my name, von Kerll. He claimed that a
von
before any Kraut name, German or Austrian, was like the English
sir.
It’s the mark of the aristocracy.

Jack was full of questions about my father, and got me to tell him all I knew of him.

“He grew up at his grandmother’s place, a beautiful old home on the Bodensee.”

“A beautiful old home,” he repeated musingly. “Could it be a castle?”

“Could be,” I said, remembering my childhood fantasies.

“But don’t you want to know? Aren’t you curious?”

“Why should I be? He deserted my Mum and me, why should I care about him?”

“He may be rich.”

“So what if he’s rich. I don’t want anything from him.”

“But if your parents were legally married…”

“Oh, they were. I have the license.”

Jack pulled over, stopped the car, and made me dig it out then and there. He read it carefully, word for word. When he looked up it was with a triumphant expression. “Don’t you see, you could be entitled to something. We could have hit on a sweet grubstake.”

“You’re dreaming, Jack,” I said sharply. That’s one thing
I disliked about him; he was always looking out for number one.

Of course there were things I liked about him. If we passed a sign, even a hand-lettered one, advertising a rodeo, barn dance, outdoor concert, or county fair, he’d immediately scrap our plans to be somewhere or other by dinner, turn off, and drive a hundred miles out of our way. That’s what made it an adventure being married to him.

I saw it first and exclaimed, “Look, a fair!”

“How many miles?” he asked, but he really didn’t care; he turned off.

It was a lovely fair, tents and a band with plenty of brass. There were rides and sideshows, a two-headed cow and the body of an alien in a large jar. The body was green and reminded me of the bloated carcass of a pig. We rode the water chute and slid to a splash landing. We flew an airplane in circles. We lay on a wheel that turned upside down and whirled around until sparks flew. We felt our way through the house of mirrors, flattening our grotesque faces as we bumped into ourselves. We laughed the whole time and I got a stitch in my side. “I have to catch my breath,” I said, and felt in my purse for Kleenex.

That’s when I discovered our money was gone. All of it.

“Pickpockets!” Jack wailed. “They work every crowd. I should have kept the money. I don’t know what we’ll do.”

I knew. I undid my shoelace, tied it across my forehead and started to sing. Instead of
moon, toon, spoon
…a wild Indian railing preceded the first note. It was the chance I’d been looking for.

It caught their attention all right. But when I launched into the body of the song, the crowds walked past us, sometimes dropping a dime into my open guitar case.

“What the hell’s come over you? Give them what they want.”

But I continued the dissonant Cree invocation. After an hour there was enough change for gas, so I stopped and looked around for Jack. He’d gone off to a corner bench to sulk.

During the drive back he lectured me about sticking to what I did well and forgetting that weird Indian business. The longer he talked, the more determined I became. That’s when he guessed. “Have you got Indian blood, or what?”

“My mum.”

“Damn,” he said, “that’s just like you, Austrian royalty on one side and a redskin on the other.” Then after a pause, “Well, all the more reason not to sing those outlandish, heathen songs. Do you want the whole world to know you’re an Indian?”

“Yes.”

We weren’t close after that.

T
HEN
came an evening when I started to actively dislike my husband. It was closing time at one of those honkytonks, and the crowd spilled outside but were milling around, still talking, when an argument broke out. It was over a debt that one guy owed another. Before anyone knew what was happening, a knife was palmed and the next minute stuck in this fellow’s ribs. He crumpled up on the sidewalk.

There was a lot of blood. Someone said he was dead. An old tramp who was shuffling by was the only one to get down on his knees and try to help. The old man put his fingertips on the wounded man’s carotid and bent to listen to his chest.

At this point police and ambulance arrived. I felt Jack’s fingers dig into my arm. “Come on,” he mouthed, and started to back me out of there.

An officer was going through the crowd, notebook in hand, taking names and addresses. As I watched, they placed the vagrant under arrest.

“Wait,” I said to Jack. “He didn’t do it.”

“Shut up.” Jack increased his pressure on my arm.

“Take your hands off me, Jack Sullivan.”

Instead he hauled me backward toward the car.

“All right, all right,” I said, giving up and going with him.

On the way back to the motel I started to think of Abram. Abram would have given his name to the officer. Abram would testify for the old man who had no one to stand up for him, no one in that crowd anyway. They were pals of the guy who had done the murder—because I was pretty sure the guy on the ground was dead.

“Why didn’t you want me to give my name to the police?” I asked Jack.

“Honey, you
never
give your name to the police.”

“But they’ll pin it on that poor old man who had nothing to do with it.”

“And that’s not your concern, now is it?”

I didn’t say anything, but again I compared him with
Abram, and I knew for a hard fact that I should have stayed in Alberta and waited for Abram.

“What are you so quiet about?” Jack asked.

“Nothing.”

I told Jack I had a headache and spent that night on the far side of the bed. I didn’t sleep; I kept thinking of the old man, and of Abram.

The next day, as we drove along, my mind kept reverting to the incident—that’s what Jack called it, an incident. I called it murder.

“What will they do to him?”

“What?”

“The vagrant? Will they execute him?”

“Will you stop it with that guy? He’ll go to prison, and have three squares a day, which is more than he has now.”

“It isn’t right,” I muttered.

“Kathy, will you for Pete’s sake leave it lay?”

“I always thought the guilty were punished, and the innocent went free. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.”

Jack pursed up his mouth. He looked mean. I didn’t like him much anymore. I twiddled dials hunting for a country music station and began to sing along with Loretta Lynn, but my heart wasn’t in it.

We stopped for hamburgers and an order of fries.

“How many minutes does it take to electrocute a person?’

“Oh for God’s sake!” He clapped money down on the table and got up.

“I’m not finished.”

“Put it in a doggie bag. Wrap it in a napkin. I’m out of here.”

I continued chewing.

“Well,” he said, leaning over me, “are you coming?”

I continued chewing.

“All right, let’s have it. What’s going on with you? And don’t tell me it’s that damn bum.”

“Abram always said you do what you have to do to live with yourself.”

“Abram? Who the devil is Abram?”

“You know, my friend—who saw us off.”

“What’s he got to do with it?”

“He always said—”

“Yeah. Okay. I know what he said. So what?”

“So I’m going back to the police station.”

“Now see here, Kathy—”

“I’m going back,” I repeated.

“Well, I’m not.”

“That’s okay. I’ll take the bus.”

“I’m not giving you money for the bus.”

“You don’t need to, I’ve got my own money.”

“You been holding out on me?”

“They’re tips. I figured the tips were mine.”

“Now see here, Kathy—”

“I don’t want to hear any lectures.”

“No lectures. I’m giving you a last chance to be reasonable. We don’t even know for sure the guy was dead.”

“He was dead.”

“How do you know?”

“I could tell.”

Jack rolled his eyes heavenward, only there was a ceiling in the way. He wrote a number on a matchbook. “That’s where I’ll be. Call me when you come to your senses.”

I watched through the window as he got in the car, slammed the door, backed out, and—I waited to see if he would drive off.

He did.

My spirits suddenly rebounded and I inquired when the next bus was due. There was time for a giant Coke and to play the jukebox.