The Cape Ann

by Faith Sullivan

  “I can’t think with that noise,” Papa said. Then to me, “Go on in the living room.”

  “Can’t I watch? I’m trying to learn.”

  “Poker’s no game for a kid,” he said. “Get in the living room.”

  I sidled a couple of steps away and stopped crunching the jawbreaker. The only excitement in that house was at the dining room table. But when Papa started to get up out of his chair, I backed away. I didn’t want him getting mad in front of the other men.

  There was one magazine in the living room, something from the Knights of Columbus. I read as much as I could, which was most of it, but found not one interesting item. And there were no colored pictures. It had very few pictures of any kind.

  In the dining room, the men pounded their fists on the table and swore at one another, and laughed loud enough to be heard across the street. Mr. Wendel dropped out for one hand and went to the kitchen to pour fresh drinks. I heard him call to Papa, “You drinking bourbon, Willie?”

  “Yeah, that’ll do,” Papa answered, “if you haven’t got something better.” Then he laughed the way people do at phrases that are some key part of an old, shared joke.

  I closed my eyes and fell asleep, dreaming that Papa left without me, that he forgot I was sleeping on the couch. I was panic-stricken. The four men at the poker table didn’t know who I was or where I lived. I knew who I was and where I lived but not how to get there. When I explained that I lived in the depot, they laughed and said I was mistaken, nobody lived in a depot.

  “Go back to sleep,” they told me. “When you wake up, maybe you’ll know where you live.”

  Well, I thought, I’m not going to stay here all night. Mama will give me a good licking if she makes breakfast and I’m not there. And what about the nuns? They’ll be waiting for me at eight o’clock for first communion instruction and I won’t be there. And hadn’t they said the first day, “You’d better be pretty sick if you’re going to miss instruction. Jesus is going to be upset if you don’t at least have pneumonia.”

  Then I dreamed that I sneaked out the front door. It was black and cold outside. Pulling my robe around me, I turned right and headed south. Mama had taught me directions and told me that the depot was on the south side of town. If I kept walking down this street, headed south, I would come to the railroad tracks and then I would know where I was.

  After several blocks I began to wonder, shouldn’t I see the tracks soon? I thought I knew what the streets in Harvester looked like, but these streets looked like streets in some other town.

  Then, behind me but not far behind, I heard a sound which turned my heart to a cold little stone. A black dog, as big as a pony, skulked at my heels, whipping the backs of my legs with his snarling and sending me flying headlong down the street. When I came to a corner, I didn’t stop to look both ways but hurtled ahead.

  Now the sidewalk disappeared and I was stumbling down a rutted path between deserted, crumbling houses. And what was this—snow? Drifts of it were in my path. The giant black dog would tear me to pieces and eat me. And I would go to hell because I hadn’t made my first confession yet.

  The dog was at my shoulder. “Oh, my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended thee,” I prayed. “And I detest all my sins…”

  But it was only a hand at my shoulder, shaking me. “Lark, Lark.” It was Herbie Wendel. “We’re having homemade turtle soup. Would you like some?”

  I was filled with such relief, I had to go to the bathroom. When I emerged, Mr. Wendel handed me Donald’s cereal bowl filled with steaming turtle soup. Little rabbits danced around the outside of the bowl. I was glad to have it in my hands because I was shivering. The house had grown cold while I slept.

  Papa wasn’t at the poker table. “Where’s my papa?”

  “He’ll be right back. He had to go out for a few minutes. Sit down here on the couch and have your soup. I’ll bring you some crackers.”

  So Papa had left. It was almost like my dream. Where had he gone? It must be very late. Where would you go at this time of night? Mr. Wendel returned with a plate of soda crackers, which he set on the couch beside me.

  “Do you like the soup?” he inquired.

  I nodded.

  “I made it myself.”

  “Really?” I’d never heard of a man cooking. None of them in our family did.

  “Caught this big old snapper out in Sioux Woman Lake. Fishing for bullheads and landed this instead. Donald’s ma doesn’t like to clean turtle, so I’m in the habit of making the soup.”

  “It’s good,” I assured him. “When do you think my papa’ll be back?”

  “Any minute.” He patted my knee and returned to the dining room.

  A few minutes later, Papa came through the door carrying a brown paper bag. “Damned old fool charged an arm and a leg,” he told the others. Then, noticing me eating soup, “What’re you doing up?”

  “Mr. Wendel gave me some turtle soup he made himself. Where did you go?”

  “Out. You haven’t been pestering Herbie, have you?”

  “No. What time is it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What does your watch say?”

  “None of your business, Miss Nosy.”

  “Did you call Mama?”

  He didn’t answer, but headed toward the kitchen with the bag. I finished my soup, which was as good as Campbell’s. Setting the empty bowl and the cracker plate on the floor, I lay down again and once more fell asleep, this time slumbering deeply and not waking till Papa carried me out to the truck. The sky was light. The first gold peeped through the trees and between the houses on our left. The cab smelled of whiskey.

  When we were close to the depot, Papa turned off the engine and we coasted into the little parking lot. Before we climbed out of the pickup, Papa whispered, “We’ve got to be real quiet. We don’t want to wake your ma. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” I whispered, noticing that Papa’s face was red, and his eyes, too. Did they hurt? Suddenly I remembered something. “Who took care of the late freight train?” I asked, worried that he’d forgotten.

  “Art took care of it,” he rasped impatiently. “Now keep quiet. I’ll come around and open the door. Just wait.”

  He lifted me down to the gravel, and we tiptoed toward the platform, stones crunching softly beneath our feet. As we rounded the corner of the depot, a pair of grackles, loud and angry, flew down, lit on the semaphore, and starting yawking at us.

  “Goddamn,” Papa whispered under his breath, turning the door knob slowly, stealthily, and pushing the door open just enough for us to slip through.

  At the kitchen table, Mama sat waiting.

  4

  “GO TO BED, LARK,” Mama directed in a too-calm voice, never taking her eyes from Papa, who was at the stove checking the coffee pot, feigning innocence, stalling.

  When Mama was preparing to fight, she sent me to the crib. There was no way, without solid walls and real doors, that she could prevent me from hearing every word, but whatever small distance the crib could provide, I was to enjoy.

  “Wait a minute,” Mama said, grabbing my arm as I passed. “What’s in your hair?”

  “My hair?” Sure enough there was an awful messy feeling lump in my hair. The jawbreaker bubble gum Mr. Wendel had given me.

  “For God’s sake, Willie,” Mama spat.

  “It’s not my fault,” Papa told her, foraging in the refrigerator.

  Mama shoved me along toward the bedroom.

  Removing my chenille robe and hanging it over the end of the crib, I climbed in. The house plans were still scattered on the Three Pigs quilt. Piling them at the foot of the crib with #127—The Cape Ann on top, I lay down, pulling the quilt tightly around me.

  In the kitchen, Mama exploded. “Where in hell have you been, Willie?”

  “You know where.”

  “Until five-thirty in the morning?”

  Papa didn’t answer.

  “What kind of man keeps a child out
all night while he gets drunk and loses his money?”

  “I’m not drunk.”

  “You’re not sober.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Arlene, the kid was fine. She had a good time.”

  “You’re the biggest liar in St. Bridget County, Willie.”

  “Who do you think you’re talking to?”

  “I’m talking to somebody who takes a six-year-old that’s got to be at first communion instruction at eight o’clock this morning out to a stranger’s house, keeps her there till five-thirty A.M., and then says she had a good time.”

  “Herbie Wendel’s not a stranger.”

  “Where was Vera Wendel while this was going on?”

  “At her folks.”

  “Why didn’t you leave a note so I’d at least know where you were? I could have come and got Lark after bridge club.”

  “That’s why I didn’t. You’d have flounced in there and made a scene. I wanted to have a good time for a change.”

  “I don’t notice you denying yourself. And you’re damned right I’d have flounced in and had a word with a husband who’s too damned stubborn to call a high school girl to stay with his daughter, but drags her off to poker like she was the same trash he is.”

  A chair fell over, and Mama screamed, “Keep your hands off me, Willie.” Then there was the cruel “thung” of a fist landing. I climbed out of the crib and ran to the kitchen. Mama was bent over the table and Papa was standing over her, his fist raised to hit her again. Mama grabbed the Heinz ketchup bottle from the table and swung around, catching Papa in the ribs. He fell back against the stove, and Mama grabbed a butcher knife from the drain board. She was a formidable fighter.

  “Come near me and I’ll kill you, Willie.”

  Papa moaned, “You broke my ribs.”

  “Good,” Mama whispered, breathing heavily. “Get out of here.”

  Holding his ribs, Papa shuffled to the door. When he had left, Mama stood for a long minute with the ketchup bottle in one hand and the butcher knife in the other.

  I hurried back to the crib. It was because of me that Mama and Papa had fought. If Papa had wanted me to tell her I had a wonderful time at Herbie Wendel’s, he should have explained on the way home. Was I supposed to know without him telling me? Would most first graders? How did other children keep their mama and papa from fighting?

  It was harder to be six than to be five or four. Before four nothing was hard except not wetting your pants and not spilling things.

  Before I could fall into dreams, Mama was waking me up. Time to get ready for catechism class. I wasn’t going to have my first communion for a year. I didn’t see why we had to start so far ahead. It was one more thing that made six harder than five.

  Most of the children in my instruction class couldn’t even read the Baltimore Catechism book that prepared us for the sacraments. We were only first graders. But the nuns said our mamas could teach us the words we didn’t know. It was their responsibility as Catholic mothers. Mama didn’t mind teaching me the words. Not only was she a Catholic mother, but she was also the mother of a future college student; she was concerned that I know every kind of word so that there wouldn’t be a lot of surprises when I started reading college books.

  Mama had washed her face and changed into a cotton dress, but I didn’t think she’d been to bed. She was slow moving and short tempered. Her hair wasn’t combed, and she wore no lipstick. Normally the first thing she did after washing her face was put on lipstick and comb her hair.

  Turning my back and pulling on clean underpants, I asked, “Are you afraid Papa won’t come back?”

  “No,” she said. “He’ll come back. You’re not afraid, are you?”

  “No,” I lied. One more lie to add to the inventory of sins I was keeping on a pad I had hidden away. If I didn’t keep track, I’d never remember them all when I got in the confessional next year.

  The nuns had suggested that if we were afraid we’d forget something when we knelt in that dim little closet, we should take with us a list of our sins. We were not to write anything on the paper but sins. The rest of the ritual must be memorized. And no forgetting!

  That very night, asking Mama for a tablet for catechism class, I’d begun my sorry record, which I hid in the bottom drawer of a doll chest that had been Mama’s when she was a child.

  “Have you got your lesson memorized?” Mama inquired, heading me toward the kitchen. There was water heating in the tea kettle, and she poured some into an enamel basin in the sink, then added a little cold from the single faucet.

  “I think so.”

  Soaping a cloth, Mama scrubbed my ears, and after that my face and neck, rubbing me half raw. “A bath tonight,” she said, slipping a favorite dress over my head. She always let me wear one of my favorites to instruction. “For luck,” she said. This was a red one with little white polka dots and a white collar. Mama had starched it within an inch of its life. I liked the skirt to stand out stiff. It made me feel like I might be able to tap dance. Mama tied the sash in a perfect bow at my back, then fetched my shoes and socks and handed them to me.

  “Come in the living room.” She carried in a chair from the kitchen and, when I had pulled on my shoes and socks, she motioned me to sit on it. Slipping a comb with big teeth from her pocket, she grabbed my Baltimore Catechism from the sideboard and handed it to me.

  “Look at that while I get the gum out of your hair.” From her glum, resigned tone, I knew it wasn’t going to be easy.

  I’d gotten gum in my hair before but never such a wad. I only hoped she wouldn’t have to cut all the hair off that side of my head. She worked for several minutes with the big-toothed comb, then, grunting in disgust, went to the bedroom for the brush and scissors.

  I was in tears from the pain and from the anticipated disgrace of arriving at instruction with half a head of hair. It was impossible to concentrate on the catechism book while Mama yanked my head around as though she were pulling weeds.

  At length she said, “Look at that,” and held out her hand to show a great, nasty straw pile of hair and gum.

  I put my hand to the side of my head. There was some hair still there. Mama finished brushing what was left, then fastened it back with bobby pins and little red bows. I fled to the bedroom for a look in the mirror. Thank God for a clever mama.

  While I downed a bowl of puffed wheat, a dish towel tied around my neck to protect my dress, Mama sat down at the kitchen table. “How many men were at Herbie Wendel’s?” she asked coolly, as if she didn’t really care.

  “Counting Papa, five.”

  “Who were they?” In front of whose wives would she have to hold up her head, pretending that Papa’s losses were unimportant?

  “Mr. Wendel, Mr. Grubb, Mr. Navarin, and Mr. Nelson.”

  “Axel Nelson?” she said with some distaste.

  “Yes.”

  “Did you watch them play poker?”

  “Not very long. Papa told me to go in the living room. He said poker wasn’t a game for kids.”

  With her index finger, Mama traced the flower design in the oilcloth. “So you don’t know if your papa lost money?”

  I shook my head.

  The way to St. Boniface Catholic Church was straight and simple. You went out to First Avenue, which ran past the depot, turned right, and kept going. It was also easy to find Main Street, which ran perpendicular to First. You just walked two blocks toward the Catholic church, and there it was.

  Outside, on First Avenue, the morning was sunny and warm and intimately buzzing. Inside St. Boniface, it was dark and chilly and echoing. A few stragglers from daily Mass, mostly old ladies in battered black hats and cotton lisle hose, were leaving the pews. They remained after Mass, saying rosaries and lighting candles. Now and then there was one making her way through the Stations of the Cross. Long after instruction class had assembled and begun lessons, the old woman would be tiptoeing from station to station, denying herself the smell of May blowing in off the prairie and
the pleasant sensation of a toasty sidewalk beneath the soles of her chunky black shoes. Could I ever hope to be as devout and self-denying as that?

  Seven of the nine would-be communicants were already gathered in the back pew, squirming and poking one another, when I genuflected and pushed Delmore Preuss over. He gave me a kick in the calf and resumed picking his nose. Sally Wheeler, my best friend in first grade, was seated toward the middle of the pew. Sally had thick, black hair which her mother braided into two long plaits that fell over her shoulders in front. Next to having short, blond curls like Katherine Albers, having long, black braids was best. Sally dropped the braid on which she had been chewing and waved to me.

  Mrs. Wheeler, like Mama, was a convert. This had created a special bond between Sally and me. Sister Mary Clair and Sister Mary Frances saved the most difficult catechism questions for us. They also reprimanded us more often than the other children, although, really, no one got off lightly. Putting our heads together, Sally and I concluded that because our mothers were converts, the sisters had doubts about our ability to be A-plus Catholics. Our only hope, as they likely saw it, was indoctrination of the sternest, most rigorous kind.

  At our mamas’ urging, Sally and I studied catechism together on Friday afternoons after Miss Hagen dismissed first grade. One week at Sally’s house, the next at mine.

  Mrs. Wheeler, Sally’s mama, was a pretty, fragile-looking woman who spoke softly and regarded everything with great intensity, as if the true meaning and value of things were eluding her or somehow being kept from her, and she must discover it. Sometimes she waylaid Sally and me for half an hour in the kitchen as she set out milk and cookies, inquiring persistently into the character and respective merits of Fig Newtons and Mallomars.

  At four-thirty she walked me to Main Street, explaining that I must stay on it until Truska’s Grocery and then turn right onto First. I could easily have found my own way, but Mrs. Wheeler needed to do this. She needed to carry everything out thoroughly and properly, no matter how cumbersome or ritualistic it became. It was her burden and duty to dot all the world’s undotted i’s.