Compromise with Sin Page 19

  Bernard’s unruly eyebrows lifted.

  “Besides being the child elocutionist she’ll be a piano soloist.” He grinned.

  A bolt of lightning caused the lights to flicker.

  “Not a fit night for man nor beast,” Frank said.

  Thunder cracked and rumbled.

  “Marie okay?” Bernard asked.

  “She could sleep through Armageddon.”

  “You still get a kick out of being a nomad?” Bernard asked.

  “Not like at first. Novelty wore off. One town’s just like another, one hotel room—but it got me away from Riverview Inn. My prison. Promised my father I’d keep it going.”

  Bernard reached for his beer, but Frank placed a hand on his forearm, leaned forward, and fixed his eyes on his companion’s. “Listen to me, Bernard. Never enter into a deathbed promise unless you’re the one dying.”

  Frank released his grip and took a swig of beer. “But I’ll tell you, this nomad life will be my claim to fame. The Chautauqua Darling and the Whirlwind Maid. Just in time, too. That Hoover guy, all he’s got is a bag-on-a-stick, but one crackerjack marketing scheme. Do you know my own wife got invited to a Hoover party?”

  “Did you let her go?”

  “Hell, no!” Frank watched Bernard go in and out of focus. He looked away and sighed. “A man’s got to have a claim to fame. You show me a man who just says, ‘Dear Lord, all I want from life is enough to get by on,’ and I’ll show you some sorry wretch who just got off the boat and hasn’t yet gotten religion American-style. You can’t live in these times, in this great nation without getting bit by ambition. Well, I’ve cast my fortune with my little girl and my grand invention.” He raised his mug. “To The Chautauqua Darling and the Whirlwind Maid!” The mugs clinked and beer sloshed. Bernard attempted to mop the table with his handkerchief.

  As Frank watched, a sentimental feeling washed over him. He would miss Bernard, as true a friend as there ever was. “Let me tell you something, Bernard. Louise thinks the Whirlwind Maid is a lark. What she doesn’t know is I lost my shirt on some risky railroad investments. The Inn provides a decent livelihood but not for much longer. Riverbend is becoming the industrial sister city to Smithville, and Burlington is planning to close our depot. So I’m forced to take the Whirlwind Maid to the cities, challenge Hoover.”

  “You’ll leave Louise running the Inn?”

  “She’s managed while I’ve been gone. Haven’t told her yet.” Frank held up two fingers, and the barkeep brought another round. The two friends sat in silence, looking down at the table.

  Frank downed his whiskey. “Not long till we play the hometown, then in a few more weeks the season ends. How about you?”

  “Forty-eight more days, to be exact.” Bernard grinned. “Mrs. Science can’t wait for Mr. Science to come home and work his magic.”

  Laughing, Frank reared back so far his chair teetered. “You old coot. You’re too old to get it up.”

  “You should be so lucky you get to be my age.”

  “Bullshit! Don’t give me that crap.” Frank waved his arm to shoo away the bullshit and knocked over an empty glass. He fumbled, one hand sabotaging the other, until he set it upright. “Expect me to believe Mrs. Science sits at home waiting for your old pecker?”

  Bernard’s mood soured. His shoulders rose and fell with heavy drunken breaths. He glared at Frank. “Let me tell you something, my friend. I never gave my wife the clap.”

  Frank worked the words around in his head until, in a flash of brilliance that swelled his confidence, said, “She’s the one gave you the clap.” He laughed.

  Bernard shook his head and swigged his beer.

  Frank mulled over Bernard’s words, still unable to make sense of them. “You’re drunk. You talk nonsense.”

  “I’m not drunk,” Bernard said. “You’re the one who’s drunk.”

  “What’d you say—who has the clap?”

  “Never mind,” Bernard said. “Got to take a leak.”

  Bernard left. When he returned he set a worn deck of cards on the table.

  “Hey, I’ve got better cards than that.” Frank reached in his pocket and produced a deck of Whirlwind Maid cards. He shuffled, let Bernard cut, and dealt a hand of gin rummy.

  Bernard drew a card from the deck.

  “What was that about the clap?” Frank asked. “Something about the clap.”

  Bernard discarded the two of diamonds. “Never mind. Your turn.”

  “No, I remember. You insulted my wife.”

  “I said I never gave my wife the clap.”

  Frank’s temper flared. “Yeah? Me neither.”

  Bernard leaned forward and spoke in a hoarse whisper, “You did, and you know it.”

  “You’re crazy. You old coot. Who listens to a crazy old coot?”

  Bernard’s nostrils flared, and his bushy eyebrows met over the bridge of his nose. “This close,” he said, holding his thumb and index finger less than an inch apart, “this old coot is this close to a medical degree. You infected your missus and your daughter, I hate to say.”

  “Whoa, whoa, now,” Frank said. “Leave Marie out of this.”

  Pulling his drunken frame upright, his chin jutting like a professor too full of himself, Bernard enunciated: “Ophthalmia neonatorum.”

  “Speak English,” Frank said.

  “Babies’ sore eyes. Marie’s blindness.”

  “Baby’s sore eyes?” The words swirled in Frank’s brain until they coalesced into a hazy scene of a hot summer afternoon. The nursery, the air thick with baby smells.

  Bernard nodded. “From the mother. From her comes Neisseria gonorrhoeae bacteria that infects the baby’s eyes.”

  Frank struggled to connect what Bernard was saying with memories of Louise flopping about, delirious, him not knowing if she would live or die. His baby girl’s eyes oozing pus. Dr. Foster saying something like “baby has sore eyes.” What did all of this have to do with the clap?

  “I don’t have the clap.” Frank pushed against the table to stand. It wobbled, sending glasses crashing to the floor. He gripped Bernard by his jacket lapels and pulled him up out of the chair. He took a swing which barely grazed Bernard’s chin.

  The men in the saloon stopped what they were doing and edged closer to watch.

  Bernard’s shove sent Frank reeling back. He landed on one hip and elbow. When he saw Bernard’s extended hand, he took it and rose clumsily to his feet. He looked at the gawkers. “What are you staring at?” He sat down and put his head in his hands.

  Clues Frank had been dodging for years had wormed their way deep into his being where they had waited for just this moment to erupt into consciousness: supposedly fathering a baby in spite of a limp dick, Marie’s black hair “straight as a little Indian’s,” and something between Louise and Yonder that he couldn’t quite fathom. Anger burst in his gut. It propelled him out of his chair and sent him careening between tables like a man on fire.

  “Watch it, fella,’” a man said.

  Frank bumped him and sent beer sloshing onto the table.

  He got to the wall telephone in the lobby. He steadied himself with one hand on the wall, knocked the receiver off the hook, and let it dangle while he turned the crank. He had to repeat his directions several times to the operator. He waited. “Answer the goddamn phone, Louise.”

  Upon hearing her voice he shouted over the words of the operator who was trying to ascertain if Mrs. Morrissey would accept charges for the call. “Tell Yonder he’s a dead Indian.”

  “Yes, operator. Frank, you’re drunk. It’s nearly three o’clock. Where’s Marie?”

  “I’ll blow his brains out.”

  “You’re drunk. Go to bed.”

  Frank watched Bernard’s blurred outline move closer and the domino players advance and recede, their arms suspended in play. Teetering, he leaned against the wall. “Ought to kill you, too. Filthy whore.”

  “Where’s Marie?” Louise’s voice became shrill with panic. �
�Who’s looking after Marie?”

  “I’m coming home. I’ll tear that Indian limb from—”

  “Where is Marie?” Louise shouted.

  “Sleeping.”

  “Listen to me, Frank. Are you there? Stay where you are. Yonder already left for San Diego. I didn’t have the heart to tell you before now. Now get to bed. You’ll see how foolish this is in the morning.”

  Frank pushed away Bernard’s hand reaching for the phone. “I’ll hunt him down. He’s a dead Indian. I’m coming home.”

  “You’re not going anywhere,” Bernard said. “You’re going to bed.”

  Frank shouted, “I’m coming home.”

  Bernard elbowed Frank in the ribs and seized the receiver. “Don’t worry yourself, Louise. I’ve got him.”

  “I’m coming to get him!” Frank didn’t have the strength to resist Bernard who gripped him by the shoulders.

  “Come on,” Bernard said. “Sleep it off.”

  Both men stumbled up the stairs. Inside Frank’s room, Bernard turned on the light. Marie was sleeping soundly. Bernard shoved Frank onto the other bed. Frank tried to get up but fell back down and slapped at Bernard’s hands removing his shoes. Suddenly everything went black.

  The urge to pee roused Frank well before dawn. With one foot he dragged out the pot from under his bed and relieved himself in a long, satisfying stream. But something gnawed at the edges of his brain. The fight with Bernard. Yonder. That bastard.

  He put on his shoes, fumbled with the laces, and left them untied. Throwing off Marie’s covers, he shook her awake, and yanked her to her feet. “Come on.”

  “Father, what’s wrong?”

  Taking her hand he led her down the stairs and past the unattended desk.

  “You scare me!” She was crying now.

  Frank shouldered the front door, which did not budge. “Goddam son of a bitch!” He jerked the door which yielded and sent him staggering backwards. He recovered and lunged forward, dragging Marie out into the driving rain.

  When they reached the gravel drive, Marie cried, “Ouch, my feet!”

  Realizing his daughter was barefoot, Frank picked her up and carried her the rest of the way to the truck.

  “Where are we going?”

  “It’s going to be okay.” He shoved her into the truck. He climbed in on the driver’s side and reached behind the seat until he felt the rifle’s cold barrel. From under the seat he retrieved a bottle of whisky. Wet and chilled, he took a long drink and thrust the bottle at Marie. “Hold this.”

  He put the truck in gear, and it lurched forward. Even hunched over the steering wheel, his face nearly against the windshield, he had difficulty seeing the road through the rain and darkness. A shadowy form did not show itself to be a mailbox until he bore down on it. “Damn!”

  His sudden swerves caused Marie to flop against him like a rag doll. He grabbed the bottle. A fence. He slammed on the brakes and instinctively threw his arm across Marie to keep her from hitting the windshield. The truck stopped just short of the fence. He looked at the bottle in his hand, congratulated himself on not having spilled a drop, and took a drink. As he steered the truck back onto the road, he thought to switch on the headlamps.

  Marie was still crying. “Where are we going?”

  “We’re going home, Junior.” Junior. As soon as he said the word, it struck him that his beloved daughter was not his.

  “But we can’t, the show. The rain’s coming in. I’m cold.”

  Without slowing down, he wriggled out of his jacket and draped it over Marie. He noticed her straight black hair. Like a little Indian. “I’ll kill him, so help me, he’s a dead Indian.”

  “Father, you scare me.”

  “Ioway, my foot.”

  Marie whimpered. “I want my mother.”

  Over the next couple of hours, events and snatches of conversation played over and over in Frank’s mind. She tricked me. Yonder, the story about her Ioway great-grandmother, baby’s sore eyes, the clap. That whore. I should kill her, too.

  Shortly after dawn the truck engine died. Frank tried to start it again without success. Out of gas. Marie had fallen asleep against him. He propped her up with one hand as he got out of the truck, and while rain pelted his head and back he eased her down onto the seat without awakening her. He retrieved a gas can from the back of the truck. Standing in water that covered his shoes, he emptied the can into the tank.

  Marie was still asleep when he got back into the truck. He reeked of gasoline, his wet clothes clung to his body, and he shivered and slapped himself to try to get warm. His hands stiffened on the steering wheel. He tipped the bottle but had long since drained the last drops. Stopping the truck, he got out and stood in the rain as he felt under the seat, hoping against hope to find another bottle. Empty-handed, he climbed back into the truck.

  He looked at Marie sleeping peacefully as though she were home in her own bed instead of slumped on the truck seat in her wet nightgown with rain pelting her. She was my pride and joy, my claim to immortality. What if Bernard didn’t know what he was talking about?

  To save time, he turned off the paved road to Lincoln onto the dirt road toward Sprague. It was all he could do to hold the truck on the road as it sashayed in the mud.

  Marie awakened. “Where are we? Why is the truck slip-sliding?”

  “Going home, Junior, going home.”

  “Why are we slip-sliding?”

  “Mud. Pretend we’re in that song.” He began to sing, “’She’ll be comin’ round the mountain when she comes. She’ll be comin’ round the mountain when she comes.’ Come on, sing with me, Junior.”

  Together they sang, “’She’ll be driving six white horses . . .’”

  Frank saw the bridge railing and hit the brakes. As the truck veered to the right, he threw his arm across Marie’s body.

  When she hung up the phone after talking with Frank, Louise fought the impulse to dash to Yonder’s quarters in the carriage house to warn him. She dared not risk being seen by some guest. The warning could wait. It would take maybe six hours for Frank to get home, fewer only if he drove like a madman. Her overriding concern was Marie’s welfare. Please, Frank, don’t drag Marie into this.

  Maybe he would not come at all. Bernard sounded confident he had the situation under control. Maybe Frank had forgotten to take the rifle with him. She checked the closet where he kept it, knowing what she’d find. No rifle. What to tell Yonder?

  The night grew heavy. Every muscle urged her to action, but there was nothing to do except wait. And wrestle with her thoughts. She prayed out loud, “Please, God, don’t let Marie suffer any more for my sin. Don’t let her know Frank isn’t her father. Don’t destroy their precious bond.”

  Come daylight when Frank sobered up, he would see how ridiculous his assumption was. What ever gave him the idea? Could she convince him he was wrong? She had to.

  Sitting on the sofa, she drifted into restless sleep. Her father appeared, brandishing a stick and cursing her, “daughter of the devil.” Unbearable heat. Standing at the edge of a pit, the flames of hell lapping closer and closer. Something struck her temple, perhaps her father’s stick. The wound opened as a portal through which her trapped secrets escaped, and she floated safely above the flames. She awakened, drenched in perspiration, to sun streaming in her window. Momentarily she felt free. But then she remembered Frank’s call.

  She swabbed her face and neck with a cool washrag. With any luck, Bernard had put Frank to bed, and he had slept it off and forgotten about Yonder. But if not?

  It occurred to her to call the hotel. Without drying off she went to Frank’s desk and found his itinerary. She held her breath, lifted the telephone receiver, and asked the long distance operator to connect her with the Wayfarer Hotel. When the clerk answered, Louise said, “This is Mrs. Francis Morrissey. I’m calling to inquire if Mr. Morrissey and our daughter are still guests of the hotel.”

  “No and good riddance. They hightailed it last night w
ithout paying their bill. We’ll be holding their things until we collect.”

  “I understand. Mr. Morrissey and I are in the hotel business, too. Send me the bill, and I shall handle payment promptly.”

  Louise hung up the telephone. She smoothed her hair and applied powder with a trembling hand, trying to conceal the dark pouches under her eyes. Best not to let her appearance suggest something was wrong. After donning a crisp blue and white dress, she went to the Inn’s dining room where she acknowledged breakfast patrons with her most cheerful “Good morning.”

  In a corner of the Inn’s kitchen, out of the cook’s way, she fried bacon and eggs to make sandwiches for Yonder to take with him. But no sooner had she put the sandwiches in a bag than she remembered the bacon still on the grill. She remade the sandwiches and placed them in the bag.

  Entering the dining room, she saw Yonder eating breakfast at his usual table. The thought of telling him he must leave brought a lump to her throat. She approached him and said, “Come with me.”

  “What’s happening?”

  She led him through the kitchen and out the back door. Once outside, she thrust the bag at him. “You’ll need these.”

  He took the bag and looked inside. “I don’t understand. Are you all right?”

  She struggled to find the words. How had it come to this? How can I banish him from the family that had welcomed him as one of its own? “You have to leave. Hurry so you can make the eight-forty train. I shall send your things later.”

  The screen door banged. One of the housekeeping girls came out carrying a trash bin. Louise babbled about Yonder needing to check out a noise the car was making. Once the girl was well out of earshot and emptying the trash into the incinerator, Louise took a deep breath. “Your life is in danger. Frank’s on his way home. He telephoned last night, drunk, shouting like a madman.” She struggled for the right words. “Yonder, it’s my fault. . . . He threatened to kill you.”

  “Frank couldn’t—”

  She swiped at tears that flowed down her cheeks. “Listen to me. You can’t take the chance.”

  “You’re not making sense, Louise.”