Face the Winter Naked

by Bonnie Turner

  "Paper, mister?"

  Daniel startled and looked up into the face of a boy not much older than Earl, his eldest after the one that died. There wasn't an ounce of flesh to spare on this child's cheeks, nor the skinny hand that shoved a newspaper under his nose. Smokey eyes beneath sweeping lashes lay deep in their sockets, full of pain and hunger. Eyes too old for their age. What had they seen already in their young life? Did the youngster have a home? It was hard to tell by the sober expression on the dirty face peering at Daniel from beneath a floppy newsboy cap of faded gray linen much like his own.

  Daniel shook his head "no."

  "Five cents." Pushing the paper at him.

  "If I had an extra nickel, I'd buy me a hunk of bread or cheese, not more bad news of a country going to hell. Thanks anyway."

  Daniel's heart ached as he watched the boy return to his shelter in a nearby doorway. The kid's shoes were in worse shape than his own, the whole front ends scuffed out and bare toes sticking through. If I had me a lot of nickels, I'd give you some for gravy and biscuits and a pair of shoes.

  Rested now, he rose and wandered the brick streets, picking his way over streetcar tracks and between a few parked cars. There was no banjo man when he found the Dixie Deli at 6th and Pine, just some younger men and a few more ragged street urchins like the paperboy. He thought of going inside for a sandwich, but decided to save his pennies. A customer stepped around him as if he were a pile of steaming dog shit.

  At 7th and Market stood the American Hotel, where he and LaDaisy had spent their first night of married life. His heart ached as he gazed up at the sturdy building and tried to recall the name of the fancy restaurant inside. His carpenter's sharp eye remembered the rare, quiet beauty of the wood on the paneled walls, polished till it shone. The Rat Cellar? His new wife had giggled. "It's Ratheskeller, silly."

  Two blocks north of the American, at 9th and St. Charles Streets, the eighteen stories of the Mayfair Hotel stood proudly anchored to the earth, as he remembered.

  Rounding a corner at Washington Avenue, he saw a line of people snaking along the sidewalk across the street for more than a block, and crossing over and making another line on the other side. A bread- or soup-line. Daniel thought about joining them, but the line moved slowly and his feet hurt too much to stand for long.

  People left the building with loaves of bread under their arms. A man and a small boy crossed the street and approached him.

  "Better get yours before it runs out." The man indicated the loaf. "This is all there is between my family and starvation. Seven children."

  Daniel started to speak, but glanced at the child and thought better of it. Guess it never occurred to him to keep his trousers buttoned.

  "Someone else can have my share," he said, touching the bill of his cap. "Good day, sir."

  Continuing on, Daniel peered through shop windows littered with signs: Beefsteak Sandwich. $4.00. Another advertised links of baloney. But the original price of $0.25 a pound had been crossed out. The owner would be desperate to sell the lunch meat before it spoiled, but the price would go up anyway. Other signs said "Out of Business," or "Closed."

  He had no idea where to search for George. Maybe he'd expected the old man to be sitting on a curb somewhere with his head in his hands. He finally realized he might never see his friend again. Should've ask him for an address.

  At one corner, he rummaged through an overflowing trash can, looking for nothing in particular. He twisted the cap off a can of Cloverine salve and saw it hadn't been used. When he raised it to his nose and sniffed, the mild menthol scent spoke to him of home. He dropped it in his pack.

  After roaming the streets a while longer, he headed back the way he'd come.

  He stopped to rest by a group of tar-paper shacks, but kept his distance from the sordid variety of vagrants. He was not one of them.

  One man caught a sheet of an old yellowed newspaper the wind blew past his hideout. He reminded Daniel of Clay, and he hated the man on sight, without reason.

  The reason came a moment later when the man got up and read from an article.

  "Hey, listen to this crap! 'These unhappy times call for the building of plans. That build from the bottom up and not from the top down. That put their faith once more in the forgotten man at the bottom of the economic pyramid.'" He waved the paper in the air. "What does the rich bastard know about living on the bottom of the heap?"

  "Shut your trap!" someone yelled. "That's Mr. Roosevelt's speech."

  "Yeah?"

  "Look at the date. It's from back in April."

  The reader glanced at the masthead and shrugged. "So?"

  "So I wiped my ass with it after taking a big crap last night."

  Daniel chuckled. "Is that right?"

  "Yeah, and that petrified asshole's rubbing his nose in it."

  The scoffer dropped the paper; the wind sailed it down the street.

  "Why didn't you tell me?"

  "Why should I? You saying stuff about Mr. Roosevelt don't set well with some folks. Go on, beat it!"

  This was no place to be caught on a dark night. The squabble increased in volume as one man yelled at another, and still another chimed in with his two cents. If they didn't come to blows, it would be a miracle.

  After he left the bums, Daniel traveled west to 18th and Market and stood outside Union Station, watching people enter and emerge from the building with heavy luggage. It was here he and LaDaisy had boarded a passenger train for home.

  Knowing he could not return to those blissful days, he left the shacks, the grit and grime of the city, sucking in fresh air the farther away he got from the smokestacks. He moved southwest toward farms, cows, chickens, and plowed fields with new potatoes already in white blossom.

  Toward noon, Daniel stopped to rest his hot feet and smear a dab of Cloverine on his calluses. He stopped often to adjust his pack, his tools, and the banjo, their weight about to crush the life out of him.

  A mile or so farther, he came smack-dab upon a cornfield, whereupon he climbed the fence and strolled with head high between the rows of rustling green stalks as though he owned them. The plants were chin high, with small, immature ears already spinning silk. He found a few ears of soft baby kernels, glanced over his shoulder, then twisted off half a dozen tender ears and quickly shucked them. Shaking off any hidden bugs, he devoured the corn, cobs and all.

  An old truck rumbled by as he started walking again, throwing dust in his eyes. He removed his cap, wiped his face with the back of his hand, put the cap back on. The air was hot. Sweat rolled down his sides. The sun kept disappearing behind the clouds. His forecast of rain appeared to be in the offing.

  Gnats swarmed before his face. Perhaps they devoured the thoughts from his restless mind. Thoughts turning dark like the sky. Not exactly thoughts, but great drag-you-down feelings. Premonitions. Storm feelings. Full moon feelings, too, though there hadn't been a full moon last night. He felt a splatter of rain on his face. Just a drop or two, not even enough to settle the dust. But the clouds remained, promising more, teasing him with thoughts of blessed relief.

  He saw his grandfather Timothy walking behind a span of mules in a ragged, suffering condition, wearing patched bib overalls, but proud doing honest work. Daniel himself had been just a wee lad at the time. But the fact of the simple life had impressed him deeply. Now he wondered: if Grandpa Tomelin's way of living had made such an impression on young Daniel, then why was the older Daniel wearing out his poor feet going nowhere along a country road, leaving his family farther and farther behind with each step? It was no way to live. A man needed soil to plant his feet in.

  Daniel trudged over hill and dale, through clouds of insects, blistering heat. Breathing dust and wiping sweat. Stumbling over stones in the road, his feet aching so much he could almost cry. He rested often to catch his breath and sort out his feelings. He considered the farmer who unknowingly had fed him corn. Was it stealing to swipe food when your body was chewing on itself? When the ti
me came for reckoning with God, he had a reasonable argument.

  Well, Lord, you designed my body to run on food. It's like my old truck can't run without gas. What's a man to do? Sit by the side of the road and let his arms and legs rust off?

  The truck reminded him of home; everything reminded him of home.

  Damn politicians. What do they care about children going to bed hungry? Or the sacrifice of parents wringing twenty-one meals from the seventy-five cents meant for coal to heat the house?

  By God, he'd not have his babies crying or begging for food. With him out of the way, LaDaisy's mother would surely see they were fed. If he knew Vera Baker, she'd enjoy rubbing it in when he came home.

  Earl had just turned six, old enough for school if his mother could afford to send him. Catherine was four, and little Bobby twenty-one months, not yet housebroke when his daddy left.

  Daniel wondered if his kids would someday forgive him for leaving them and their mama, never mind part of the reason was so he wouldn't make another baby. The last thing he wanted was for LaDaisy to carry another youngin' when she had barely enough to feed herself. At twenty-five, she'd already had more than her share of troubles. Married at sixteen, she hadn't even reached her seventeenth birthday before their first child came along, and died less than two years later.

  Well, she'd get help faster without him moping around and scaring his family half to death when he woke screaming from a nightmare.

  He hauled his weary body over to a small stream running parallel with the road and set his pack on the ground. He noticed the wide cracks in the rock-hard soil; rain kept promising, but rain wouldn't come.

  Finding a shady spot, he slipped out of the banjo strap, laid the instrument next to his pack and sat with his back against the bark of a black walnut tree. His load was becoming heavier and heavier to bear. The only thing keeping him going was the thought of earning enough money to pay the back rent on their little house and to finish off the doctor for Bobby's birth.

  That bastard brother-in-law of his was mean enough to take the rent out of Daniel's hide. But LaDaisy would probably find it easier making promises she couldn't keep.

  Tears came, and when they'd flowed out of his heart, he dried the salt from his lashes and picked up George's old banjo and looked it over. The bridge had been broken and glued back together. He could whittle another if he found the right wood. Part of the tailpiece had chipped off. The strings looked about to break. The metal rim around the head was dented, like old George himself.

  He patted the instrument affectionately. It seemed unlikely George could be mended. When a man got busted, you couldn't just run out and buy him a new string or mend his frets.

  He tuned the banjo and played a few chords, stopped to adjust the pegs and played again. Now the sound came nearly perfect as he sang about his grandmother.

  "Oh she fed my daddy turnips / made him peel and made him slice. / She made him eat them dadgum things all through the night. / But daddy don't hate turnips now. / He loves 'em boiled and fried. / I'll never understand it if I live until I die."

  The music was sweet, the words filled with homesickness. When he was done singing for George, he sang for his children. He sang for his wife. He sang for a past too far gone to make a difference anymore. He sang for two hours, making up verses and stopping to dry tears with his shirttail.

  When the fifth string sprang loose and hit him in the chin, he laid the banjo aside and threw the string in the gunnysack. He brought out the catcher's mitt, sniffed the soft old leather and held it to his chest, remembering Frankie. From his bib pocket he took his penknife and a sharpened crochet hook, and examined his unfinished walnut-wood carving with a critical eye: a three-inch-long chain with movable links, each barely an eighth of an inch long.

  Daniel had tested his woodworking talent early in life. When his first child was born, he built a cradle. As babies arrived one after the other, each claimed the cradle for his own.

  Then, after Bobby's birth, the sheriff's wife, Fannie Gudgell, stopped by to see LaDaisy about buying tickets to a flower show, and when she tiptoed into the bedroom to see the new baby, she saw the cradle and offered him fifty bucks to build one for her own expected child. Daniel fancied the idea of earning so much money at one time. But he told the woman flat out, the cradle was a one-of-a-kind piece of furniture made for his own offspring.

  "I'll mend your screen door or fix the busted boards in your back steps. But the cradle is a special kind of love I built for my own kids."

  "You'll wish you'd made each of your children one when it's time to settle your estate," the disappointed woman had replied. "They'll scrap like wildcats over that furniture. Mark my words."

  Daniel told her he didn't plan on being around to help settle his estate. Besides, when his kids got done with the cradle, it wouldn't be fit for kindling.

  "I reckon when I'm gone, they can fight over it if they have a mind to. If they do, then I wasn't no account for a daddy in the first place if I didn't teach 'em better."

  He thought that was the end of it. But Fannie wouldn't take no for an answer and pestered him at every turn. He was sick and tired of her persistence, and half afraid to upset the sheriff's wife for fear it'd come back on him. He sure didn't need an enemy who wore a gun and holster on his belt. What could he do? The darn woman was possessed with that cradle.

  Then one day, after he'd painted her back porch railings, she led him out to her gardening shed behind the house and showed him some beautiful pine lumber. Nice, smooth boards just waiting for a carpenter's talented hands.

  "This is for you," she exclaimed. "I even bought nails and screws."

  "Now wait just a minute, Mrs. Gudgell. Didn't I say I wasn't building a cradle?" He could not take his eyes off the wood, and his hands itched to create a work of art.

  She smiled. "You like it, don't you, Mr. Tomelin? I can see it in your eyes."

  Daniel shook his head. "Now see here ... this is a dirty trick." How did she know he was a sucker for a nice piece of wood?

  He glanced quickly at her swollen waist, thinking he'd better hurry up and get the thing built before little sheriff junior arrived, which looked like it could be any minute. What would LaDaisy think after he insisted he'd never build the woman a cradle? The way women gossiped, he was surprised she never found out. But he felt like a skunk for keeping it from her.

  He whittled contentedly. Trimmed. Picked. He gently gouged the wood, imparting a delicate shape and curve to a tiny link. Thoughts of LaDaisy forced themselves into his mind. He reckoned she'd consider their marriage over, since he wasn't there to claim his half. He closed his eyes and held her in his arms, brushed his lips against her soft, kissable mouth. Next, he sat in the rocker holding his little girl as his wife sat sewing on the davenport …

  … Catherine settled herself on his bony knees. "Tell me a story, Daddy!"

  He stuck his nose in the fine blond curls freshly washed with homemade lye soap and soft water from the rain barrel.

  "Did you eat your pap, little mouse? I can't tell you a story 'less you ate your pap."

  LaDaisy looked up from the sock she was darning.

  "Pap's the only thing she does eat, Daniel. I'll swan, she's thin as a broom. Mama says she ain't healthy."

  "Your mama's right, LaDaisy. Your mama ain't healthy."

  "Oh, that ain't what she meant. She meant Catherine."

  Daniel poked a special spot over the child's ribs till she squealed.

  "Thin as a broom you say? Why, shucks, Mother, then you must sweep the kitchen clean with her."

  He brushed the hair away from his daughter's ears. Yes, she had inherited a small crease in the right earlobe, passed from generation to generation in the Tomelin family.

  LaDaisy looked up.

  "Mama's coming by later." She stretched a sock over the wooden darning egg and wove the needle back and forth across the hole in tiny, neat stitches.

  Daniel hugged his daughter, then stood her on the floor
and straightened the cotton shift over her bloomers. The story forgotten for now, the girl scampered off. He rose slowly. Stretched. Removed his cap. Rubbed his head. Replaced the cap ...

  ... refolded his pocketknife. Replaced it in his bib pocket. The wood-carving went into a matchbox with a whittled acorn and a miniature outhouse with a hinged door and a seat with two holes.

  He sighed, and allowed his thoughts to fall in the invisible muck.

  Chapter 6

  Daniel's cousin Rose kept the older children overnight. Mary was sound asleep, the house quiet for a change. After the late breast feedings, LaDaisy had put Bobby to bed and dropped exhausted into the four-poster she'd shared with Daniel since their marriage.

  But tired as she was, she could not fall asleep. Her mind replayed past events, but she found no reason Daniel would leave his family. It seemed he'd simply dropped off the earth.

  Maybe he got hit on the head and has amnesia. Sometimes she thought if he showed his face again, she'd do more than cause amnesia. She missed him, but there were times she felt like knocking his brains out. What on earth had possessed him to leave? Most of the time, she hurt so badly she couldn't think.

  Her restless mind suddenly remembered something. She jumped out of bed, grabbed the flashlight from the night table to save electricity and not wake the baby, and hurried to the dresser to find the skeleton key in the top drawer. Crossing the room in her bare feet, she hesitated before Daniel's private closet. This was where he stored things he didn't want the kids into.

  She'd never thought to look in here all the months he'd been gone. The closet was full of junk, and she'd be damned if she was going to clean it out. She inserted the long brass key in the keyhole and opened the door. Standing in one corner was Daniel's 12-gauge shotgun. She'd always hated the sight of the weapon. But its appearance now called to mind a gruesome idea she'd refused to consider.