by Jo Barney
Chapter Six
Mildred’s Kleenex had been white, not pink.
I sit at the desk, the contents of the WHY? envelope again spread in front of me. I know only one thing for sure, that Art had spent some hours in a tavern and sometimes talked to the barman. That depressed white-bearded man on the end stool convinced me of the truth of the scene. Art, down in the mouth, as usual not talking much, fit right in.
Except for the few times over the years when he did talk to me, when I could feel a change in his climate, an emotional barometer rising, showing a high-pressure front coming in, widening his eyes, words flowing out of him. “How about this?” he asked one night, his newspaper finished and folded in his lap. “Us buying a fishing boat, living on the coast, getting rich on crabs selling for two bucks a pound? We’d only work during the R months, have time to travel somewhere warm.” I didn’t say much, just wondered how far this dream would soar before it burst in the chill of reality, like the others. He didn’t mention a fishing boat again.
The question now, as I poke through the bits of debris in front of me, is where did that idea, and a few others over the years, come from? I don’t know. Didn’t back then either.
It wasn’t that Art never dreamed. He, at the beginning, had dreams and he shared them with me. Right after we got married, his first dream was to buy the gas station he worked at. The old owner wasn’t about to spend a lot of time getting dirty, and he let Art do most of the changing of oil, cleaning windshields, pumping gas, replacing windshield wipers and repairing flats. Mr. Jensen sat behind the cash register, counting out bills, handing back change, and sometimes offering credit to friends, the transactions recorded on a pad with carbon copies for the borrowers. On slow days, he would walk over to the café for a cup of coffee, and if he were feeling generous, he’d bring back a donut to Art.
The two men had a relationship based on need: each needed the other despite the fact that Mr. Jensen was a member of St. Rose’s, and Art had been confirmed in Trinity Lutheran church two blocks farther on. They didn’t talk religion, but sometimes the old man hinted that he might like to retire, relax at his cabin on Fishhook Lake. So Art started saving money, socking it away a little at a time, despite the costs of having a son and a wife.
Then one day a black De Soto pulled in under the station’s canopy. Two men got out, told Art, “Fill’er up” and went around the corner to use the restroom. When they came back, Art was washing the windshield. “Three dollars, fifteen cents,” he told them, rag in one hand, receipt in the other.
“’Fraid not. Take us inside to the cash register.” One of them tucked his hand into a bulging pocket.
Mr. Jensen had gone down to the café, and Art was alone. He led the men inside, trying to figure out what to do. Later, he explained that all he could come up with was the tire iron leaning against the doorframe. As he passed it, he grabbed the awkward thing and swung it at the first man. He missed. Afterward, he had only a vague memory of the metal rod heading in his direction.
When Mr. Jensen returned, a maple bar stored in a paper bag for the afternoon, he found Art bleeding and unconscious, and the till empty. He called the police, who took Art to the hospital for stitches in his cheek. He was lucky that day, but the next day Mr. Jensen fired Art.
“He thought I could have saved the money,” Art said as he nursed a beer that evening, black strings from fifteen stitches waving on his cheek. “It’s over,” he added. “We need to get out of here, find somewhere else, out West, maybe in Oregon. I heard from Tony that the shipyards might be still hiring.”
So we left, following a shipyard dream. except the war had ended, and the only ship he worked on was one being torn apart in a ship scrapping yard. That yard closed too. The next dream involved plastic, a new postwar miracle. Someone told Art that a local factory was making plastic containers with lids for all kinds of stuff, mostly food, and the machinery did it all. All a worker had to do was to make sure the machines kept going, and the best part was that the owner wanted to move to California and was looking for a good man to take over, once he’d gotten trained. The problem was, after two weeks Art began coughing up green goop, couldn’t catch his breath, red eyes watering. After three weeks of hacking, he took a day off and went to a doctor who told him the plastic fumes were making him asthmatic. He’d have to quit or he’d get sicker, maybe die.
Art’s dreams always ended before they ever took hold. The gas station dream, the shipyard dream, the plastic factory dream, the RV-around-the-country dream, and who knows what else. He took a job as a mailman in a nearby suburb, the only dream that involved a government retirement fund. That dream came true.
I don’t recall having any dreams of my own. Empty of dreams, for a long time. Uncomfortable thoughts like this must be part of mourning, if that’s what I’m doing.
I need to get busy, stop making myself feel so unexpectedly sad. I pick up another pocket clue. This matchbook advertises Boo’s Soul, Louisiana BBQ. I’d read about this place somewhere, probably in the Oregonian’s reviews. Sounds black, in the north part of town. I haven’t had a need to go into that area much, except for the time I got lost going over the wrong bridge and had to stop and ask a woman waiting to cross the street the way to where I was going. She was pleasant, sent me on in the right direction.
I decide I’ll go to this Boo’s for a drink or something. However, I don’t know how to get to Boo’s. I find the ad and trace the route on a map from the glove box in the car.
At each corner, I am honked at. My car is obviously moving too slowly. Finally I see the sign and a parking spot at the same time. The restaurant’s windows shine yellow in the gray afternoon. I can smell the barbecued ribs and the smoke that pours out of the black drum next to the front door. Art came here? Art, who wouldn’t eat anything that required his fingers to bring the food to his mouth, even chicken wings? I get out of my car, am careful to lock the doors, squint through the windows of the restaurant. I’m not the only white person. I lower my shoulders, take a breath. As I walk in, a woman, her cheerful voice reassuring me, asks if I have come for dinner. That’s when I notice the long bar off to my right, lined with active-eyed men and smiling women. I’d be better off on the food side of the place.
“Yes, dinner, please.”
I’m led through a labyrinth of wooden tables and smiling people wiping their lips with wads of paper napkins. The heady smell of barbeque sauce is as thick as the laughter around me. We arrive at a table in a far corner, next to what I am sure is the restroom, its door swinging in my direction. “Is there another?” I ask, and the waitress tells me she has a table in the bar. “That’s fine.” I will be drowned by a booming rhythmic beat that I’m assuming must be music. Better than by a flushing toilet.
When I sit down, several men glance over their shoulders at me and then go back to their drinks. I realize I should have brought a book or something to read. Instead I find a pen in my pocket and unfold the paper napkin in front of me, glad to have something to turn my eyes to.
I write. In this foreign place I may uncover a clue to a mystery I never felt, did not grasp, some scrap of truth that will lead me to a man I never met.
Poetic, I think, and I am pleased with my words. I fold the napkin, tuck it into my pocket, and discover the waitress standing at my elbow.
“Oh.” I haven’t even looked at the menu. “Which ribs do you like best?”
She points to the third item on the handwritten list. “My favorite,” she says, and I suspect she says this to every clueless white person who asks.
“Okay. And a glass of dry white wine.”
“We’ve got chablis. That’s pretty dry. Or we’ve got merlot. Red. And we’ve got different beers. Right here.” She points to the menu.
“Beer.” I can’t remember what kind Mildred and I drank. “Something pale yellow.”
I look around the room as the waitress inserts her pad behind her belt and makes her way to the bar. A man turns on his stool and dips his
head at me. My new buddy Mildred would have batted her eyelashes at him. I feel my cheeks heat up. I look down at the pen beside my plate and wish I hadn’t put away the napkin.
“That gentleman just bought you this beer.” The waitress is back. I notice her nametag, MiKaela, as she settles a glass in front of me.
“Man?” But I know which man. Now he’s wagging a finger at me.
By the time the ribs arrive, our eyes have met enough times to warn me that he’ll make his way to the empty chair beside me. I eat quickly. And when I push my plate away, finished, he is sitting across from me.
He’s very attractive. I surprise myself. I’ve not often allowed myself to consider a black man’s looks. His gray hair, clipped close to his scalp, frames smooth, brown cheeks, his green eyes seem lit from inside.
“Don’t see many women like you here.”
“Old white women?”
“Handsome white women,” he answers. “My-age women.”
An ancient, long-forgotten stirring flutters deep in my body. “I’m Edith,” I decide to admit.
“I’m Seth. And you are a handsome woman, Edith. A pleasure to sit by.”
No one has ever told me I am handsome. Handsome isn’t sexy. Handsome is…strong. Or forthright. Or determined. Well, I can be determined. I take a deep breath, douse the churn of adrenaline or hormones, whatever, and get to work. “I wonder if you knew my husband,” I say. My finger rubs against my wedding ring. Force of habit, still wearing it. Probably can’t get it past my knuckle without lotion.
“Maybe. Name?”
“Art Finlay. He came here once in a while, I’m pretty sure.”
“And you are looking for him?”
“He’s dead. And yes, I’m looking for him. Tall, belly, balding dark hair, scar on his left cheek, not social, used to visit at least one bar regularly, and maybe this place.” I take out the matchbook cover, tap on it as if it will open, reveal the secret.
“Don’t believe I know him. Maybe MiKaela?” He motions to the waitress, and she makes her way to us. Her hand brushes the row of braids at her temple and then touches on the man’s shoulder, the gesture easy and familiar.
“What’s up, Seth?”
“This here nice woman is looking to find out if her husband came here once in a while. She’s trying to find out…about his movements. Let’s see if we can help her a little. What’s his name, Edith?”
“Art. Six feet, close to two fifty, roundish in that way that old guys get.” I glance at Seth. “Some guys. Fringe of dark hair.”
“Black man?” MiKaela checks with Seth; he nods an okay. I am realizing the advantages of being a harmless-looking old woman, handsome as she may be. I should join the CIA, maybe.
“No, don’t remember him.” MiKaela, busy serving up ribs for hours every night, will never remember a nondescript, aging white guy who probably frowned at his ribs as he scraped the meat off them with a fork and knife, the unsteady fork held in his left hand as if he’d been raised in a foreign country, the knife like a scalpel. “One thing about him,” I add. “A small scar here.” I touch my cheek. “And his hands shook when he held something. Especially his left hand. Got worse as he got older. Spilled coffee sometimes and used a spoon a lot.”
“We get that sometimes. One lady comes in alone and sits in that table you didn’t like, facing the wall. We help her get her napkin tucked in around her neck, another one for her lap. Must be hard…”
Then I remember the old photo, find it in my purse, and hand it to the waitress.
“Yeah, a guy who looks a little like this came in once in a while, like you describe. Spilled his drink into his lap one night, got mad, wouldn’t let me help him, just ordered another drink. That could’ve been who you’re looking for.”
I can picture it. “Was he with someone? When he came in?” Or later, like myself sitting here with a stranger named Seth.
“He said he was meeting someone. I figured that’s why he got so mad over his wet pants. It was a while ago, more than a month or so ago.” MiKaela shifts the dishes in her hands and heads toward the kitchen.
“Well, that’s that.” I drain the last of the beer, crush a pile of paper napkins after I wipe my hands, and push back my chair. “At least I know he came here once, maybe more. I just don’t know why. Art didn’t like ribs.” The plate in front of me is stacked with clean bones. I twist and reach for my coat hanging on the back of my chair. “Thanks for the beer, Seth.”
“He did meet someone here.” Seth’s words stop my arm halfway into its sleeve, leave me hanging as I wait for what’s coming next. “I remember that night. I was about to leave. Your husband, his angry voice, you know, attracted my attention. And I wasn’t the only one looking and others’ attention.”
Seth stretches an arm across my shoulders, helps straighten my coat.
“He met a young woman. They didn’t talk very much, just ate. She left before he did. She was lovely, black, with hair that sprang in corkscrews around her face, onto her shoulders. She looked like a schoolgirl out with her father, a little bored, hungry. I noticed her because she reminded me of someone I once knew.”
“A whore? The schoolgirl, that is?”
“No, but they did some business—an envelope passed between them before she left.” Seth leans back in his chair. “So, have you found your husband?”
His voice makes my stomach do that thing again, but it could have been the ribs.
I stand and survey the first man who has ever told me I am handsome. “Thank you, Seth. Piece of him, maybe.” Then, without warning, my hand brings out the pen in my pocket, tears a piece off the napkin, writes my name and phone number. “In case you remember anything else.”
He takes the scrap, folds it, slips it into his jacket pocket. “Goodnight, handsome lady. It’s Seth Benjamin.” He grins at me. At me.
Chapter Seven
“So, how are you, Edith? I tried to call last night, but you weren’t home.” Kathleen’s question sounds like an accusation.
“I went out for a while,” I say. None of your business, I’d like to add. “Had ribs, honey-hot ribs. Ever have them?” I’m brushing my hair, looking into the bathroom mirror again, listening to the phone with one hand and ear, and trying to see a handsome woman. Her neck isn’t too bad, especially when she raises her head; her hair is longer than usual, since she has not visited the Love Yourself salon for a couple of months. Curls wind under her ears, into her collar.
When did I decide I had to keep it short, old-lady short? About the time I stopped wearing a bra, I guess. No good news down there.
“Hello? Are you still there?”
“Yes. Just preoccupied with my toilette.” I’ve read that phrase somewhere. It doesn’t stop Kathleen for a second.
“Edith. You sound…strange. Should I come by, bring a couple of blueberry scones from the bakery?” She doesn’t wait for an answer. “Yes, I will. Put the pot on. I’ll be there in ten minutes. Can’t wait to hear about the ribs.” The ribs are on my mind, too. Not the ribs but the word that accompanied them. Handsome. Not quite, my mirror answers.
I decide. It’s time to resurrect myself, give the dead man a rest. I’ll get a haircut, but it will be a spiky, held together with “product,” like Marie tried to describe an appointment or two ago, and the hair will be a pale blond. I’ll need to do something about pinking up my cheeks, too, and deal with the dark circles I can see when I take off my glasses and get close to the mirror. And of course, the boobs.
When the doorbell rings, the coffee is ready, and so am I. Ready for whatever this almost-relative of mine is about to try to do for me. I can’t relate to her do-for-others kind of outlook. Not anymore, at least. I’d started out that way, of course: doing, doing, doing, not noticing in the process that no one was doing for me. Not when I needed it, anyway. That thought makes me hesitate a moment, my hand reaching out at the sound of the bell, an almost-forgotten scene inserting itself between my fingers and the doorknob.
A
t one point a month after Brian was born, I considered smothering him. I had a plan involving the new mattress and feather pillows and a heavy quilt with which I would suffocate him and then myself, a thought not appropriate at the moment because the pain in my breasts was keeping me from doing anything more than holding my son across my knees, aiming a tender a teat at him. My terribly angry son kept pushing away from me as if I were offering him cyanide. Perhaps I was, my milk contaminated by whatever was going on inside me. He howled for his real mother, the warm, milky one he’d gotten used to, but any touch on my nipples—his lips, my own fingers—sent excruciating daggers through my body. “Latch on, damn it!” I hissed as I squeezed his hot, red cheeks. We were huddled under heavy bedclothes, it was 2 a.m., and I couldn’t take motherhood a moment longer.
My wails joined Brian’s, and Art, even then his back facing me, turned over and mumbled, “Jesus Christ, can’t you shut him up? I have to go to work in three hours.” He grabbed a blanket and lurched into the front room and the sofa there.
That scene was what saved Brian. And maybe me. The problem wasn’t about having a baby, really. It was about having a husband.
My doctor gave me a pill, his nurse showed me how to pump milk, and I bought a bottle with a nipple Brian liked more than mine after I poked a bigger hole in the rubber with a hot needle. The pain in my breasts subsided. Brian began sleeping through the night. I still woke up, though, and lay listening to the snores of the man to whom I’d committed my life in a careless moment, and with whom I had quickly fallen out of love. Those nights, if I hadn’t had a sleeping baby in the next room, I might have run away. For Brian’s sake, I kept on being the Doer who spent her hours doing for a thankless husband because of love for her son. And Brian turned out to be a perfect child, happy, eager to learn, play with his trucks, turn pages of the picture books we read together, his squeals of laughter offering me asylum from the war between his parents.
