Stork Bite

by Simonds, L. K.

  “A juke joint. Do you know what a juke joint is?”

  Mae shook her head. She leaned heavily on his arm with a fresh bottle of beer dangling from one hand.

  “We’ll go over there sometime,” he said. “Just not tonight.”

  The radio broadcast static through the open door of the dark hangar. Jax led Mae to the Sixteen and opened the passenger door. He held her hand as she slid into the seat.

  “Put the top down, will you?” she asked.

  “Sure thing.”

  Jax backed the convertible out of the hangar and got out to close up. Mae waited in the car, eyes closed, holding her bottle of beer to her forehead. She did not open her eyes again until he pulled to the curb in front of her uncle’s house. The stop roused her, and she sat up.

  “Thank you, Jax.”

  “Yes’m.” He got out and opened her door. “Just leave the beer. I’ll take care of it.” She handed him the bottle and let him take her hand to help her out.

  “Oh, your scarf,” she said. “I can wash it and bring it to you Monday.”

  “It’s yours, Lady Sheik. Remember? A souvenir of your flight.”

  She smiled. “Thanks. Thank you.”

  Jax walked her up the steps to the porch, and Mae opened the screen door. “See you Monday?” she said.

  “Yes’m”

  Mae gave him a little wave before going inside. He hoped that damned Vida Cole was asleep.

  Jax got in the car and sat a while, thinking about the evening. He reached for the half-emptied bottle of beer and took a swill. It tasted good, like he imagined Mae would’ve tasted if he’d been able to kiss her goodnight. He started the Sixteen and pulled away. The streets of Shreveport were empty all the way to the Traffic Street Bridge, where Jax slowed and threw the empty bottle as hard as he could. It hit one of the bridge’s iron beams and shattered. He shrugged and pressed the accelerator. The Sixteen roared across the Red River into Bossier, where Jax would pick up the highway to Lake Bistineau.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Little Becca was just shy of her second birthday when her sister Adele came knocking at the door to enter the world. Thomas was worried. Everything about Becca’s infancy had been easy. She followed the Murphy boy into the world, took hold of his hand, and never let go. But little Adele was going to be on her own, without another baby to grab on to. “I have not found a wet nurse,” he wrote to Cargie’s mother, “and it doesn’t look like I will.”

  He had scoured Mooretown, bringing his daytime lady friends into his confidence so they could hunt for mothers-to-be and mothers with infants, a subject too indelicate for Thomas to ask around about himself.

  “Don’t worry none,” Mrs. Pittman wrote back. “We gots options. Be there before August.” Thomas had halfway expected Cargie’s mother to write something along the line of, “Hasn’t my daughter got bookkeeping out of her system yet?” But Rebecca Pittman knew Cargie as well as he did, and she seemed to have accepted her daughter’s choices.

  Bill Cole and Cargie were planning to open a second, larger Cole’s Dry Cleaning and Laundry across the river in Bossier City in anticipation of all the new business from the army airfield. Downtown Bossier businesses were failing every month because of the Depression, and Mr. Cole had asked Cargie to give up a Sunday afternoon or two to scout locations. “The army won’t even break ground until next year, but he’s chomping at the bit to buy something,” Cargie told Thomas.

  “Why’s he in such a rush?” Thomas asked.

  “He’s afraid prices’ll go up when the army starts building.”

  Cargie sat on the bed and bent sideways past her belly to lace up her everyday shoes. She straightened suddenly and said, “Whew. Got to come up for air.”

  Thomas knelt and laced her shoes for her.

  “Thank you, honey,” Cargie laid her palm on his close-cropped head. “You’re getting some gray up there, Mr. Barre.”

  “It’s all these cares and worries I’m toting around.”

  “Go on now.”

  Thomas got to his feet then grasped Cargie’s hand and pulled her up.

  They won’t,” Cargie said.

  “Who won’t?”

  “Prices. They won’t go up. Not for a while.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Speculators are scarce as hen’s teeth. They all ran off with their tails between their legs.”

  Thomas and Becca walked Cargie to the streetcar stop, where she caught a car to the dry cleaners. Afterward, Thomas carried Becca to Lydie’s house to spend the afternoon with Rudy.

  On the way home, Thomas passed the Bishop place. Roshe Bishop sat on the front porch with a younger man. During the week, while Roshe worked at the refinery, Thomas did many small jobs around the house for Gertie Bishop, who returned the favor by giving him vegetables and herbs from her garden. According to Gertie, Roshe worked every hour of overtime he could lay hold of, and he was always too tired to tend to things around the house that needed fixing.

  Thomas stopped and said, “Afternoon, Mr. Bishop.”

  “It surely is,” said Roshe.

  Thomas looked at the other man and touched the brim of his hat. “Thomas Barre.”

  The young man dipped his chin but did not offer a name. “This here’s my baby brother,” Roshe said. “He over from Mississippi lookin’ for work.”

  “Is the refinery hiring?”

  “No sir.”

  “Glass factory?”

  Roshe shook his head and spat off the side of the porch. “Ain’t no place hirin’, seem like.”

  “Hard times everywhere,” said Thomas.

  “I reckon that’s right.”

  “Been working on a little house for my mother-in-law.”

  “I seen it.”

  “Could use a hand. Somebody can handle a hammer and saw.”

  The brother looked up, interested. “How much it pay?” he asked.

  “I reckon a hard worker would be worth, oh, I don’t know, a couple of dollars a day. One dollar for half a day, such as today.”

  “You workin’ on Sunday?” Roshe asked.

  “Reckon it ain’t right, but I’m kinda under the gun.”

  “I done give the Lord enough days of rest,” said the young man. “Don’t reckon he’s got a right to begrudge me workin’ a Sunday or two.” He stood and stepped over the sprawled legs of his brother.

  “Alrighty then,” said Thomas. “What’s your name, son?”

  “Elijah,” the boy said.

  Thomas tipped his hat to Roshe and said, “Enjoy your afternoon, sir.”

  “I’ll come along directly and see what’s what,” said Roshe.

  That evening over a supper of leftover potato salad and ham sandwiches, Thomas told Cargie that Elijah had worked like a mule. “A young fella like that ought to have work,” he said.

  Cargie fed Becca pinches of ham dipped in tomato catsup. Becca loved catsup, and Thomas had more than once caught her trying to climb onto the table and get the bottle. “I’ll ask Mr. Reynolds if anybody’s hiring when I go to the bank on Friday,” Cargie said. “He knows every business on the Avenue.”

  By the following weekend, Elijah had a job as a derrick man with the new oil company, the one whose office Mr. Reynolds had shown to Cargie. Thomas lost his helper, but he gained a friend in Roshe. “Gonna round up the fellas and help you build your house,” Roshe said.

  “I’ll feed ‘em all the barbeque they can eat. Their families too,” said Thomas.

  The following Sunday after church, a dozen Mooretown men showed up with their hammers and saws and their wives and children. The women brought side dishes.

  “This could be the start of something new,” Thomas told Cargie.

  Cargie frowned at the crowd in her backyard. “We’ll see how the work goes after their bellies are full,” she said.

  But as soon as dinner was eaten, the men jumped up and went to work, and they did not let up until it was too dark to see. By then, the framed walls were
covered with shiplap and the house was capped with a fine tin roof.

  Thomas was cleaning the barbeque pit after everyone had gone home. He heard a noise, and he peered into the darkness beyond the dim yellow light thrown out by the porch lamp. Standing near the corner of the house was the biggest dog he had ever seen, so utterly starved that Thomas did not see how it was alive. The huge head hung low, and the mangy hide clung to its skeleton as if the skin were ready to shed in ribbons like drying velvet coming off a buck’s antlers. “Mercy,” he said aloud.

  He went inside to get his old pistol and put an end to the animal’s misery. But instead of getting the gun, he found himself at the stove scrambling eggs in bacon grease. He emptied the eggs onto an old platter and carried it outside. The dog had reared up onto the barbeque pit and was licking the grill, but it shuffled away at the sound of the screen door. Thomas stepped off the porch and placed the platter on the grass. Then he sat down on the step to wait.

  The dog paced back and forth just beyond the light, energized by the smell of food.

  “Come. Eat,” Thomas said softly.

  The dog lifted its head.

  “Come on now. You got nothing to lose.”

  The animal worked up courage in fits and starts, stepping into the light, turning back, stepping in again. Slowly, painfully slowly, it made its way to the platter. Thomas watched it nibble tentatively and then take great bites. The eggs were not enough to sate the dog, but that would have to come with time. In Thomas’s estimation, it was enough for a first meal.

  “You may be dead already,” he told the dog. “But I’m willing to give it a try if you are.” The dog sat and looked toward him, but it did not meet his eye. It ran its tongue around its mouth.

  “Who are you talking to?” Cargie said from behind the screen door.

  He pointed toward the dog. “Near starved,” he said.

  “Did you feed him?”

  “Yes’m.”

  “Reckon you got yourself a dog.”

  Thomas was not sure if his wife approved or if she saw dogs as threats, as many folks did, especially an animal as enormous as this one. Would Cargie worry about Becca playing in the yard with it around? Thomas had not thought this through. He should have gotten the gun. “I was gonna shoot it—put it out of its misery,” he said. “But next thing I knew, I was scrambling eggs. What do you think? Bad idea?”

  “Let’s give him a chance. Everybody ought to have a chance, even a half-dead dog. I’ll get an old blanket to put down there beside the porch.”

  “Thank you, honey. I’ll find a clean bucket and put out some water.”

  “You’re a good man, Thomas.”

  When Thomas saw the dog in full light the next morning, he was certain it would not survive. It curled in a tight, frowsy ring on the blanket Cargie had put down beside the porch and did not move when Thomas opened the screen door and walked out into the warm sunshine. But when he said, “Good morning,” the dog’s head came up, and its tail thumped hopefully.

  A week passed before the skittish stray allowed Thomas to touch him. Thomas discovered the dog was male when he greased the animal’s dry, patchy hide with Crisco while the dog stood patiently. When Thomas had finished, he took the animal’s face in both his hands and looked steadily into the yellow eyes. The dog shifted his gaze back and forth, avoiding eye contact.

  “You are Lazarus,” Thomas said. The dog tried to pull back, but Thomas held fast. “What say you, Lazarus?” he said. “Can I trust you around my baby girl?” The dog pulled harder, but he did not growl or try to bite. Satisfied, Thomas released him, and Lazarus backed away and shook his head. “Don’t worry, big fella,” Thomas said. “You’re doing fine.”

  Chapter Thirty

  By September, the Centenary football team practiced on the field every day, and Mae often walked from Uncle Bill’s store to the campus, where she sat in the empty grandstand and watched the afternoon drills. The boys, outfitted in their numbered jerseys and leather helmets, charged back and forth with gusto, despite the sweltering heat.

  Mae had never been to a college football game, but watching those practices made her look forward to the Gents battling it out against Hendrix on the Saturday after the fall term began. Uncle Bill had already bought their tickets and an extra ticket for Mae’s father, who planned to take the train to Shreveport Friday afternoon if he could get away.

  Buster wanted to come—badly—but his stubbornness wouldn’t let him. He told Mae that missing a day and a half of work to watch a football game was foolish. He emphasized “foolish” so pointedly that Mae was sure he was punishing her for her own foolishness. She had not made even one trip home to see him since Sissy’s wedding. She could have, and she should have. Mae had no good reason for not taking the train home every weekend and spending Sunday with her fiancé. Why, then, had she not?

  Buster loved football. Mae had endured many afternoons of boredom while Buster and her father were glued to the radio, hanging on the announcer’s rapid blow-by-blow. Big moves on the field either stood them on their feet with shouts of victory or pushed them, groaning, deep into their chairs. They participated in the games with the happy enthusiasm men reserved for their activities with one another. In these fraternal moments, Buster was animated and all in. Football uncapped his emotional fount in ways Mae never could. When the game was over, Buster again became the person he was with Mae. Levelheaded. Protective. Patronizing.

  Oftentimes after a game, Mae engaged Buster in activities she knew he hated, such as making him drive her to Miss Viola’s Dress Shop in Gainesville, where Mae tried on everything Miss Viola had, sometimes more than once. She asked Buster’s opinion about one dress, then another, and then the first again, until he was in agony. This she did simply to be mean, as payback for Buster being so much happier listening to a football game than he ever was doing anything with her.

  If Mae could have articulated her most extraordinary recollection of the Fourth of July celebration at the airfield—the magical memory that warmed her as thoroughly as a bottle of malaria medicine—it would have been the camaraderie with which Hollister, Ned, and Jax welcomed her. They had opened the sweet communion of their fellowship to her as if she were their equal. Their generosity was as utterly intoxicating as flying in an airplane, or her first taste of gin, or dancing with a handsome black man.

  Nevertheless, sitting in the grandstand watching the college boys train, Mae felt a pang for Buster, squeezed as he was into the narrow path of his own sensibilities. Buster would never attend college, even though he was a promising athlete?big and fast. It never would have occurred to him to try to make his way onto a college gridiron because he believed his lot in life—husband, father, breadwinner—left no room for chasing foolish dreams. Not that he would have permitted himself to dream them in the first place. Buster participated in the games via radio on Saturday afternoons because that was all he had. Deep down, Mae knew that Buster believed he had given her every other day of his week, even though she had not asked for them.

  A dark-haired young woman made her way up the bleachers. Mae recognized the summer dress she wore. Mae had seen it during her last shopping trip to Selber Brothers and fallen in love with it instantly, but it had been a little too pricey to justify to her father. The girl’s wide-brimmed hat hid her face as she took the steps in ivory Mary Jane shoes without a scuffmark on them. She carried a matching pocketbook under her arm. When she reached Mae’s row, she looked up and smiled.

  Her black hair was bobbed. Her eyes were dark brown, and her eyelashes were longer and thicker than the best mascara could bring off. The girl’s skin, though fair enough, carried smoky undertones, as if her forbears had spent their days in the sun and passed to her its absorbed radiance.

  “Hi,” Mae said.

  “Hi. Mind if I sit with you?”

  Mae moved her pocketbook into her lap, and the girl sat beside her. “Miriam Landau,” she said.

  “I’m Mae Compton.”

  Miri
am pointed to the field. “Coach is working them hard. That’s my twin brother, there. Number forty-nine. Micah, but everybody calls him Mike.”

  “I’ve been watching number forty-nine. He’s fast. I haven’t seen anybody catch him.”

  “Only his girlfriend.”

  They both laughed.

  Miriam glanced at Mae’s hand. “So you’re engaged? Is your fiancé on the team?”

  Mae held out her left hand and looked at the ring. “No. I mean, yes, I’m engaged, but he’s back home in Whitesboro.”

  “I don’t know it,” said Miriam.

  “Whitesboro, Texas. It’s a little-bitty town up by the Oklahoma border.”

  “Are you coming to school here?”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “Wow. That’s brave.”

  “It feels a little too brave right now. Buster—my fiancé—isn’t happy with me.”

  “Most girls start college and then get engaged. Well, truthfully, a lot of girls come to school to find a husband. Not me. Not you, obviously, but a lot of girls. So. Wow. What’s your major?”

  “Commerce.”

  “Even braver. I’m music. Junior year.”

  “What instrument?”

  “Piano. And voice. I think of my voice as an instrument. I’m very serious about music. No time to try and catch a husband. He’ll have to catch me.”

  “That’s the spirit.” Mae was genuinely impressed and thought that she and Miriam might become great friends.

  They watched the boys run laps. Coach ran behind the team, barking at stragglers like a sheepdog keeping his herd together. The Shreveport Journal had run a story about Centenary’s head coach, who in less than a decade had transformed the Gents into a winning team the town could brag about. A photograph accompanied the story, in which Coach Homer Norton wore a stylish woolen sweater and looked like an ivy leaguer. As far as Mae was concerned, Coach was as dashing and sophisticated as a movie star.

  “Have you met anyone yet?” asked Miriam.

  “Not here. Not at the school, I mean. There’s a guy who works at my uncle’s dry cleaning store, and I’ve met a couple of his friends.”