by Stan Hayes
“I’m not sure. Larry could do it pretty simply, if he sued on grounds of desertion. But I haven’t pushed it. Doesn’t seem to make much difference, day to day.”
His hand twitched slightly as he topped off their glasses, “Well, I’m gonna make an offer on the Wheeler place anyway. Low enough so that if they take it, I won’t lose anything in the long run. I’m sick of that shack I’ve been renting, and I’m sure you are, too. They say it’s been vacant for six months. Maybe I’ll get lucky; they’ll sell at my price, and you’ll change your mind.”
“Maybe I’ll get lucky and you’ll think about what I said. I liked my life all right before you came into it, Mose; I like it a lot better with you in it. I just don’t want to change it so drastically. And right now it seems like you’re looking through me.”
“No,” he said. “I’m tryin’ to see inside you.”
She touched his cheek. “You’re quite a guy, Moses Kubielski- the most man I’ve ever met, and I love being your lover. Just please, please understand that I have to be who I am.”
“Looks to me as though I don’t have a lotta choice. I honestly thought you’d be pleased. I’ll work on bein’ a better listener, if you promise me that there’s no more big surprises.”
“None,” she said. “I think that we’ve both just been hearing what it suited us to hear. For me, having you show up when I was starving for a taste of life from the world outside of Bisque was an incredible stroke of luck. Talking about New York with someone, least of all you, who’d lived there. When I want- no, I need to go back. I just chose to give myself up to it , and I’m glad I did. I hope you are.”
“Sure I am. For me, though, you were- and are- like no one I ever dared hope to meet, much less be my lover. I know you want to make a name for yourself as an artist; I just don’t know why. But I’m gonna enjoy it, and try to understand how much your art means to you, and how that’s gotta take you back to New York, sooner or later. At least I understand that an artist who wants ta build a reputation needs ta be where there’s a lotta people who care about art- and who’ll buy it. And I guess we’ll make sense outa this situation, sooner or later.”
“Maybe you should start with this. Just how many people get to do something they like, let alone love, for a living? And when you’ve answered that one, you need to bear in mind that this isn’t sump’m I want to do. I have to do it. As I work on these pieces, I’m sculpting myself a new soul- well, maybe just grafting on a little more weight to the one I’ve got- and New York’s a part of it. Ands you’d never go back there; to live, I mean.”
“Never say never, baby; it’s scary to think about what I might do where you’re concerned.”
“I didn’t realize that this place had a barn,” said Serena as they approached it.
“You can’t see it from the road,” said Moses, “as long as leaves’re on the trees.”
“I guess they must’ve had a horse or two. Anybody ever tell you anything about the Wheelers?”
“Not much beyond their bein’ from Atlanta.”
“That’s pretty much it. Daddy said Wheeler was in real estate; had some big ideas about buildin’ estates and sellin’ ’em to his horsey friends in Atlanta. He made Daddy an offer on my grandparents’ place, but he turned him down. Anyhow, this place is as far as the big plans took ’im. Turned out he was eaten up with cancer. Soon as he died, she high-tailed it back to the city. You thinkin’ about boardin’ some nags of your own in here?”
“No, baby,” he said, unlocking the door and inviting her in with a sweep of his arm. “Shovelin’ shit and bailin’ hay? No, thank you. I thought I’d turn it into a gym.”
“A gym?”
“Sure. A gym. It’s already heated; see? They obviously wanted to keep their hay-burners comfortable. Once I get the stalls and stuff outa here, there’ll be plenty of room for a ring, and lots left over for a speed bag, heavy bag, weight bench and a squat rack. Hell, I might even put in a steam room.”
“All that in here? It won’t be cheap. I didn’t realize you still took boxing so seriously.”
“How serious do I have to be to wanta stay in some kinda shape? It’s perfect.”
“You’re already in pretty good shape, as far as I’ve been able to tell,” she said, reaching out to squeeze both his upper arms. I don’t want you wearin’ me out.”
“Yes you do,” he said, pulling her to him.
It’s my day to recite the poem. She Was a Phantom of Delight. Miz Barton has us going by rows; I’m in the middle of the second row. The first row went yesterday. Today, she’s starting with Diana Bishop, then Dolores Bishop and then it’ll be my turn. I know it pretty well, but I’m still scared.
Mose moved last month. He bought a house way out of town, after Lee Street turns into the Polktown highway. It’s a nice place; kind of big for just him, but he said they don’t build houses for just one person to live in. Anyway, it has a nice pond out front that Mose says has catfish in it. Mom and I went out to see it; Mr. Wheeler, the man who built it, died, and his wife moved away, but their furniture was still in it. Mose said if Mom said okay that I could come spend the night when he got settled. Mom said sure, but not on school nights. She likes Mose a lot. But he was my friend first. Sometimes I call him Uncle Mose; just to myself. He wouldn’t be scared of a goddam poem. There’s the bell; here we go.
“Good morning, everyone,” she says. Miz Barton’s pretty nice. I’m glad I got in her class instead of Miz James’s. She’s old. Somebody said she taught English to Stonewall Jackson. “Let’s get started with our recitations. Are you ready, Diana?”
“Yes ma’am, I guess.”
“Well, come up and let us hear your version of Mr. Wordsworth’s wonderful poem.”
Diana stood up. Like always, she and her sister were dressed just alike. Today they had on light blue, short-sleeved sweaters and white wool skirts that made their perky little butts look too good to be true. They always look really good, but somehow they’re scary, too. She walked slowly up to the front of the room and turned around, right beside Miz Barton’s desk. She looked out over our heads. She took a deep breath and started. “She was a phantom of delight…” And stopped. Then she looked up at the ceiling, closed her eyes and screamed “Fuuuuuck!” She just stood there, very still, with her eyes still closed. The room was really quiet. I don’t think anybody could believe they’d just heard “fuck” in a classroom. And loud.
“Diana!” said Miz Barton; she’d jumped up from her desk, one hand over her mouth. She didn’t answer her. She just stood there, her closed eyes looking up over our heads. “What’s wrong, Diana?”
“Miz Barton?” Dolores said to her.
“Yes, Dolores?”
“Could we try it together?”
“Together?”
“Yes’m. We know it. But we learned it together, and we’ll do it much better if we can do it together.”
“Hm,” she said. I don’t think she could believe “Fuck” had been said in her room either. “Well, this is an individual exercise. But I’m going to let you girls do it together today. You’ll have to do it individually later for your grade, but come on up and join your sister. There are six more people that have to be heard during this class period.”
And Dolores did. Taking a deep breath, they started.
“She was a phantom of delight
When first she gleamed upon my sight;
A lovely apparition, sent
To be a moment’s ornament;”
…and right on to the end. They went straight through without missing a single word, and the way they said the words, you really wanted to hear the next line, and the next. You felt like you knew the woman that the poem told about. When they were finished, the room was real quiet. Nobody, including Miz Barton, could believe how good they were. Finally she said, “That was extraordinary, girls; just extraordinary. I’m going to change the rules of this assignment. Not only will I allow this recitation from two students, but if any of the rest
of you would like to recite in pairs, that’ll be fine, too. Of course, any pairs will share the same grade.”
Since nobody else seemed to want to do the poem in pairs, she pretty soon got back to me. “Jacob Mason; are you ready?”
“Yes’m.” I decided to pretend that I had a twin, and that he was up there with me. I didn’t do as well as the Bishop girls, but you know what? I think it helped. And we’ll always remember the day Diana Bishop hollered “Fuck.”
“Good morning,” said Moses, stopping between the fenders of black and blue Buicks.
Ted Foster, his back facing Moses, stood over a narrow table on whose top was a stack of sales brochures, holding one of them in his right hand. He turned toward him, gently slapping the brochure against his leg. “Good morning,” he responded. “How are you?”
“Fine, fine,” said Moses, as they approached each other. “Haven’t seen you for awhile,” he said as they shook hands. Mose Kubielski.”
The everyday salesman’s smile with which Foster had met him faded, then returned, his eyes widening in recognition behind his hornrimmed glasses. “Oh, yes,” he said, “Yes, of course. How’ve you been?”
“Fine, thanks. Are you the man to see about a new Buick?”
“Yes, indeed;” said Foster. “At least about the one or two that we have available. Did you have a particular model in mind?”
“Anything that you have’ll be smaller than my trade-in. I like Buicks, and mine has been a good one, but I’d just like something new.”
“Oh yes,” Foster said, “I think I know your car; the white Series 90, isn’t it? That is a lot of car.”
“Right. 1941 model. Fairly low mileage for a five-year-old car. What do you have that’s ready to go?”
“We-ell,” Foster said, his eyes scanning the embossed tin of the showroom’s ceiling, “the fact of the matter is, I have exactly one car that I could work with you on immediately. Lots of people are still driving their old prewar cars, and the factory’s doing everything it can to catch up with the demand, but just about every car we get’s been sold for months before we get it.”
“What is it?” Moses asked.
“That green Roadmaster Estate Wagon up front. Close to the size of what you’re driving now; all Buick, in other words. All that wood on the sides really looks rich, doesn’t it? Thought it’d appeal to somebody by now, but I guess it’s just too much car for most of our customers. The factory put every accessory they had on this one, including leather upholstery; they sort of forced this one on us. Now, I don’t know if you’d be interested…”
“Could I drive it?”
“Yes, indeed,” Foster said. “When would you like to…”
“No time like the present,” said Moses, “if that’s convenient for you.”
“Af’noon,” grunted the man, sharp, dark eyes riveting Ted Foster from deep within folds of fat.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Bishop,” said Foster, moving quickly from the back of the showroom to meet the man’s plodding steps. “How’s the beef business?”
“Steady as ever, I reckon, Mr. Foster. That your white car outside?”
“As a matter of fact, it is. A Series 90 limousine. Just took it in on a trade this morning.”
“What’re you askin’ for it?”
“Well, I don’t really know. Haven’t had time to get it back in the shop yet. Would you be interested in the car?”
Bishop looked steadily at the bespectacled Foster, shaking his big Stetson-hatted head slowly from side to side. “Now, what the hell do you think I’m doin’ in here? You say my new car won’t be here ’til January. You gimme a good price, and I’ll drive this over the holidays and ’til my new one shows up. You can go ahead and take my old car in and get it ready to sell.”
Yes, you fat shit, Foster thought, since you’ll go four hundred pounds if you go an ounce, it’ll take awhile to respring that old wagon, the way it’s broken down on the driver’s side. And I stole that white car this morning. “Why don’t you take the car for a spin, Mr. Bishop, and make sure you like it. If you do, it’s yours for nine-fifty.”
Bishop glanced out the window at the white car, and back at Ted Foster. “That’s a deal,” he said after a brief pause. “If she drives OK.”
“Excuse me for a minute; I’ll get the keys.”
Bishop extended a massive hairy hand to take the keys from Foster. “Much obliged.” His business concluded, he turned to move slowly between the Buicks toward the front door, like a cargo ship loaded to the gunwales in a strong current. As he did, Foster withdrew to a discreet position in the back of the showroom to watch Bishop’s process of mounting the white car. This job, he thought, may not always be that much fun, but today’s a definite exception.
The Bishop twins were up early. Slipping into their customary weekend attire of identical riding outfits, they tiptoed past their parents’ locked bedroom door and made their way to the front porch. The white car sat serenely on the fine gravel driveway next to the house, which overlooked rolling green pasture land on all sides of its hilltop location.
“OK,” said Diana. “Push.” Dolores, her feet braced against the base of the back seat, pushed against the back of the front seat. The push broke the wide gray seat loose from the full-back position on its track and carried it some ten inches forward to full-forward, where it stopped with a solid thump. Diana’s nine-year-old legs, long for her age, could now reach the clutch and brake pedals. “There,” she said, peering over the top of the dashboard at pale blue morning sky and sawing the steering wheel an inch or two in either direction. “Come on up; where d’ya wanna go?”
“Let’s go to Atlanta,” said Dolores, “An’ get some city boys.”
“Here we go…brrrrmm, brrrrmm, brrrrmm” hummed Diana, pretend-driving the white car out of the yard. She drives real smooth, doesn’t she?”
“Oh yeah,” giggled Dolores. “Hey! Watch out for that truck!”
“I’m passin’ ‘im; he’s only doin’ 50. This thang’s got pickup!”
“Yeah, pass ’im; see if she’ll hit 100 down th’ hill!”
“Yeah, we’re flyin’ now- I’m floorboardin’ it! Look down there- we’re way up here now!”
“Diana!!”
“What?”
“The engine! It’s losing power!”
“I know- I’ll hafta land it in that field over there. Gotta keep my airspeed. Hang on, we’re goin’ in!” Dropping her hands from the white car’s wheel, Diana wrapped her arms around her sister, who did the same. The girls sat on the gray wool seat, their teeth chattering as they muttered back and forth to each other in German.
Recognizing Moses’ head above the swinging doors, Ribeye pulled a Red Cap from the cooler, decapped it and slid it down the bar to intersect his path. Taking a deep swig, Moses sat, his mind on Winston Churchill. Happy birthday, you sly old fucker, he thought, lifting the bottle a couple of inches in mute salute. Seventy-two today; that’s six you owe me, and the hell of it is you’ll never know it’s me you owe, or why. “Hey Rib!”
“Whut?”
“Have one on me. It’s Churchill’s birthday.”
“Who’s birfday?”
“Churchill. Winston Churchill. Remember him?”
“Oh. Winston. Th’ Englishman. Lend-Lease. He ain’t dead?”
“Nope; just neglected. Saved his people, and they threw ’im out. Cast their lot with th’ fuckin’ Laborites. Still in Parliament, though.”
“Well, that ain’tsa bad, then. Gittin’ lil’ old, ain’tee?
“Seventy-two today.”
“Gettin’on down th’ piike. Hey.”
“What?”
“You ain’t related to ’im, ahya?”
Moses grinned into the middle distance. “No. I just like ’im. Stared Hitler in th’ eye ’til he blinked. Except for him, they’d be speakin’ German in England, right now.”
“Good thang we won. Ain’ no way I could learnta talk enny ’a that shit. Hey. Been meanin’ ta a
sk you sump’m. If you don’ miind.”
“What’s that?”
“Whassit liike bein’ a Jew, anyway?”
“Where? Here?”
Ribeye paused, looking at him. Then he said “Hell yeah, here. Thass where ya be, ain’t it? Here?”
Moses barely suppressed a laugh. “Yeah, I’m here, for sure. I just thought you might’ve meant New York, or someplace else where there’s a big Jewish community.”
Ribeye’s tic-like shake of his head suggested that he wasn’t up to thinking about large Jewish communities right then. “Naw, I mean jus’ in general. Y’all havin’ a differnt God, and eatin’ differnt food, an’ all. Mus’ be tough.”
This time Moses couldn’t hide his grin. “Lemme ask you sump’m.”
“Whut?”
“When’s the last time you went to church? Not countin’ funerals and weddings.”
After a couple of seconds’ look at the ceiling, Ribeye said, “Sometime back when I ’us a kid.”
“Same for me. And I eat everything you do, includin’ this pickled swine you got up here in th’ jugs. Because I’m not what they call a practicin’ Jew. Don’t know if you consider yourself a practicin’ Christian or not, but it seems to me that we get through life pretty much the same.”
Pondering this, Ribeye paused, then said “They’s one big differnce.”
“What’s that?”
“Ain’t nobidy at yo’ house on Sunday mornin’ givin’ you hell about it.”
Moses raised his Red Cap in sincere appreciation of that fact. “Well, here’s to Winnie, one more time. Bet he don’t go much anymore, either.”
Chapter XI. Take a Tater & Wait
“…take an old, cold tater & wait" -Little Jimmy Dickens
“Say hello to the Wincycle,” said Moses, as they walked out the hotel’s front door into the sunlight of a warm spring morning to view Skeeter’s handiwork, which sat, so shiny it seemed to be vibrating at a very high frequency, in the loading zone. The old Harley warrior had metamorphosed into postwar dude, sporting the ivory-and-red livery that Moses had specified. What he’d first imagined, however, was far less than Skeeter had delivered. The painted surfaces were deep and glasslike in their smoothness; the engine’s crankcases and cylinder heads were polished to a sheen that those of no new Harley had ever enjoyed. The spotlights’ red lenses matched the red trim perfectly, as did the sidecar’s leather spare tire cover, a large ivory “Winston Theatre” scripted slantingly over its full diameter. The sidecar’s upholstery repeated the deep, rich red; a large chrome-plated siren was embedded in the front fender.
