Kathy Little Bird (8 page)

He described himself as an entrepreneur, travelling between Canada and the States, selling the ponies he raised here for American dollars across the border.

“I’ve never been in the States.” Then I found myself saying, “But I’m planning on going.”

“You’ll like it. Americans are free and easy, not formal and tied in knots. And the cities—big-time, glittering, exciting. You’d fit right in.”

“I would?”

“A girl with your looks? I’ll say. It doesn’t seem right to waste it on the cows. When are you thinking of going?”

“Well, I’d like to go soon.”

He peered at me intently, and his eyes were not all one color, but many. His face too was never in repose for long at a time. Ideas, thoughts, schemes chased across it. Smiling broadly, he said, “Just remember, I’ve room for one more in my wagon.”

I laughed too. And that was the end of it. At least I thought that was the end of it.

Jack talked about the Big Apple and Chi. I didn’t realize at first they were New York and Chicago. You had to know them pretty well to call them by their nicknames. The Loop, that was downtown Chicago, right on Lake Michigan, with a zoo and fancy hotels, and apartments with doormen, and glamorous restaurants.

In the next breath—Broadway. “They have human signs walking up and down the street.”

“No,” I said in amazement.

“I kid you not. Those old Bowery bums are paid maybe fifty cents to walk around advertising Coca-Cola and Philip Morris.”

“But that’s awful. It takes a person’s dignity away to be a signboard.”

“It means a bowl of soup, a cup of coffee, or more likely a spot of gin.”

Of all the places he’d seen, Broadway made the biggest impression. The names of stars were outlined in bulbs that flashed on at night and lit up the world of entertainment. Cabs came and went, disgorging theater parties. “Talk about handsome couples. But most of those sophisticated women couldn’t hold a candle to you.”

I didn’t know how to handle compliments. I felt exhilarated, as though I wasn’t me, but the exotic beauty he seemed to think I was. Odd how it had apparently escaped everyone’s observation but his. I wished I had worn my best dress. But one doesn’t wear a best dress to the store. Besides, how could
I have known I’d meet this attractive, well-traveled gentleman?

It wasn’t his polish alone that intrigued me; it was an unexpected quality about him. Other people, at least the ones I knew, were dull by comparison. You more or less knew how they’d react and what they’d say. But Jack’s mind darted nimbly from subject to subject. One minute I saw the lights of Broadway and the next rubbed shoulders with crowds in the subway.

The only time I had been in a crowd was when Abram took me to the Mennonite Easter party. There were tables set up behind the church and people greeted one another joyously with, “He is risen.” The response: “He is indeed risen.” With this accomplished they were free to inquire after absent relatives, exchange recipes, eat crumble cake, and wander toward the improvised stage where children recited poems and the fourth grade had prepared an elocution exercise.

There was a wonderful display of painted eggs. Abram, whispering they symbolized life, bought one for me, with a blue and gold lily emblazoned on it. I felt a shiver of excitement like when we exchanged shadows. I remembered capering around the edge of his. He’d stood before mine with outflung arms reciting psalms. It was impressive.

Of course the Mennonite Easter wasn’t to be compared with Jack Sullivan’s Times Square on New Year’s Eve. “You wouldn’t believe the crowd, people jam-packed against you, you couldn’t get your hand to your face. There was some clown blowing one of those party favors at my neck and I couldn’t free my hand to brush it aside.”

I was so fascinated by these tales of a wider world that it somewhat belatedly occurred to me how long I had sat over the sarsaparilla soda. I should have been back an hour ago. I should be in the middle of dinner preparation and here I was, listening to snatches of big-city life. “I have to be going,” I said, jumping up.

Jack Sullivan in his turn, got to his feet. “But not like this, so fast. I have to see you again. Can it be this evening? There’s a barn dance…”

“No, I couldn’t possibly. Perhaps another time.”

“Time,” he lamented, “is what I don’t have much of.”

“Maybe tomorrow, for a few minutes. A short walk?”

“I’ll be there, wherever ‘there’ is.”

“It would be better if you didn’t come to the house. My stepfather is very strict. How about here—seven-thirty?”

“I’ll reserve the table,” he laughed.

We shook hands on it and his fingers didn’t want to let mine go. As soon as I was out of earshot I began to sing him. I sang his red hair. I sang the places he’d been. I even sang his eyes, disparate, with many colors. Jack Sullivan was fun to sing. A wild Irish ballad was what I devised, a cross between “The Kerry Dancing” and “Kathleen Mavourneen.”

I’d never known anyone like Jack Sullivan. He was such an alert, alive person. I wasn’t sure if he was good-looking. His features were a tad too sharp, but he had a dimple in his chin, his eyes danced with fun, and he was brimming over with wonderful tales. And he thought I was pretty. On that splendid note I brought my song to a loud crescendo.

One of the things I would do when I got home would be
to look at my face in the mirror and try to see what Jack Sullivan saw. I’d wear my other dress tomorrow. I remembered Mum letting the hem down. And I’d brush my hair out.

When I got home there were the dishes I’d left from lunch piled in the sink. Mum would never start a meal until her kitchen was spotless, but I worked around the mess, putting away the things from the flour sack. I cut thick slices of brown bread and cheese, put the vegetables on the stove, rinsed the lettuce and tore it into a salad. I recommenced the singing, only now it was in my head.

The next day it seemed to me time was out of kilter, slow and draggy, then unexpectedly speeding up. It was that way with everything. I’d been singing Jack Sullivan in my head, when abruptly it changed to a song of freedom. I kept humming it, picturing myself on the road. Was that Abram by my side? The song said yes, but red curly hair and green eyes kept intruding. I decided Jack Sullivan
was
good-looking, and that I had exaggerated the sharpness of his features.

I’d been wise not to let Jack come to the house. Jellet left for the pub, but Morrie was sure to tell tales, and then, as Mum used to say, “the fat’s in the fire.”

I waited until the boys were outside shooting baskets before changing into my best dress. It was a warm evening, but I prudently put my coat on over it. Before leaving the house I scrutinized my face in the bathoom mirror. If I’d been designing it I would have done it differently. The nose could be straighter, the lower lip not so full and pouty, the hair would look better with a wave. And the dark eyes, just like Mum’s, were disturbingly at odds with the rest of my face.

Oh well. I slipped a small hand mirror into my pocket and took out the lipstick hidden behind an empty aspirin bottle and never used. I’d have to apply it well out of sight of my brothers. I ran down the porch steps and called to them that I was going for a walk. They paid no attention. But they would have if they’d seen me in my best dress.

Safely around the bend by the mailbox, I got out the mirror and lipstick, and followed the curve of my mouth. The mirror was too small for an overall effect, but judged piecemeal it looked fine. I took off my coat and laid it over the rural mailbox for picking up on my way back.

I
HAD
never stolen out to meet a boy in my life. I didn’t count Abram; there was nothing illicit about meeting Abram, nothing exciting. It was generally during the day, dusting off our plans for breaking free. But now I was meeting a stranger. And my heart skipped a few beats.

I knew perfectly well that I was not behaving as Mum would have wanted. This was definitely not what a proper, well-brought-up young lady would do. Jellet kept me in a straitjacket, and I was busting out. After all, Mum, by my count, had been married three times: a Mohawk with the crazy name of Crazy Dancer, my father von Kerll, and Jellet.

She’d married Jellet on account of me. And if she were here, she’d know I had to go my own way, be my own person.

Jack Sullivan, who are you? Will you be important in my life? At the moment I couldn’t recall exactly what he looked
like, except for the hair. I liked red hair, and it would be nice to have someone in my life who didn’t wear overalls.

When I reached the drugstore, Jack Sullivan was waiting for me at the same table. He got up when he saw me, just as in the movies.

“Hi,” he said, “I’m glad to see you. I was afraid you wouldn’t come.”

“I said I would, didn’t I?”

“I thought maybe you’d change your mind.”

I sat down and looked over the menu, although I had made up my mind to order a chocolate malt.

Jack Sullivan told me I was looking very pretty. Again, just like the movies.

“You know,” he added, “you brought me luck. I sold two of my ponies this afternoon.”

“You did?”

“Yep, I bought me a car and exchanged the wagon for a horse trailer.”

“You work fast, don’t you?”

“It was you. You brought me luck.”

“Do you really think that?”

“I do. We Irish believe in luck, especially good luck. One horse I might have expected to sell, but two of them—that’s luck, pure and simple.”

When we finished our malts he took me out front and there was the car, a maroon Ford. I walked around it, with him pointing out its best features. “I checked the motor, it runs quiet. And the upholstery’s in good condition, no tears.”

He opened the door, and I leaned in and ran my hand across the back of the front seat. “Hop in,” he said.

“Where’s the horse trailer?”

“That’s what I’m going to show you.”

I got in.

Never go with a stranger.

Jack Sullivan was a stranger. I shivered slightly. I was dipping a toe into the world. Soon I would breast the full current, taste it completely. I was alive with a sense that freedom was at my fingertips.

Nothing was impossible. I was Kathy von Kerll, who was strong and young and vibrant, and Jack Sullivan knew it. That is, he knew as much as a stranger can know something like that.

I listened to the sound of his voice without listening to the words. I liked his voice: fluent, pleasant, full of wit and laughter, rushing on and on. How that man could talk! I was used to silent men. Jellet never spoke, except to criticize or invent some new chore. Even Abram was rather silent. In his case it came from the difficulty of putting thoughts into words. He was particular about this; he liked them to fit exactly. But Jack used words to beguile you into seeing his particular slice of world. This consisted of his car, his horse trailer, the deal he had just pulled off, and his two remaining horses. And all these good things, he concluded, were the result of him being Jack Sullivan and meeting me.

He explained the route to financial success, generating a picture of a man of prospects. “It’s predicated on the capital
at your disposal, your stake. Take me, for instance, I started with nothing and parlayed it into something. Now that I have something, watch my dust!”

I liked the way he drove. He kicked up a lot of dust here too. One arm on the steering wheel, the other around me. He was daring a cow to wander from a break in the fence and appear in front of us, or for a gully in the road to break an axle. I knew these things wouldn’t happen, because he led a charmed life. A daring, ambitious life. “All I have to do is whistle for things, and they come to me,” he said, and I believed him.

Suddenly he swerved off the road and stopped on a dime. We were in a field, a field that was different from the surrounding fields in that it held a horse trailer. He jumped out of the car to show me. Old and rusty, the paint chipped and scratched. I had to repress my disappointment.

Jack saw it as the quintessence of horse trailers and the shaggy ponies tethered beside it as narrow-in-the-forelock, high-stepping, sleek thoroughbreds with fortunes riding on them. He’d had the better of the bargain, and his enthusiasm was infectious.

“Where will you be going?” I asked.

“I’ll cross into Montana, hit the small towns. I did good business in Minnesota. I’ll definitely take in Wisconsin and Illinois, work my way over to upper New York State. I’ll hit Broadway again in the fall.”

He lifted me to the rear of the trailer, where I sat with my legs dangling. When he swung up beside me, the ponies raised their heads to look. They whinnied a sad, plaintive tone.
Their big bulging eyes regarded us softly. The horses wanted to get going.

Jack was sitting close, almost on top of me. And he positioned me in his arms for a long kiss. It was different from the kind Abram and I had experimented with. This kiss was wetter because Jack used his tongue. I didn’t like it as well as Abram’s kissing. But I suppose this was the way it was done in the Big Apple and in Chi.

Jack Sullivan had roving hands. Abram never tried the things he tried. I knew I had to allow Jack certain familiarities because I saw he expected it. When he moved on a girl it was with a practiced technique. There were no hesitations; he knew how to cup my breasts and stroke and get me in the mood.