Shiloh and Other Stories (7 page)

For her birthday, Sharon’s parents gave her a Toni doll that
took my breath away. It had a bolero sundress, lace-edged panties and slip, and white shoes and socks—an outfit as fine as any of Lunetta’s. It came with a Play Wave, including plastic spin curlers and Toni Creme Rinse. The doll’s magic nylon hair was supposed to grow softer in texture the more you gave it permanent waves. Feeling self-conscious in my new playsuit, I sat quietly at the party, longing to give that doll a permanent.

Eventually, even though I had hardly opened my mouth, someone laughed at my accent. I had said the unfortunate word “hair” again, in reference to the doll.

Sharon said, “
She
’s from Kentucky.”

Growing bold and inspired, I said, “Well, we don’t have any reds in Kentucky.”

Some of the children laughed, and Sharon took me aside and told me a secret, making me cross my heart and hope to die. “I know who’s a red,” she told me in a whisper. “My father knows him.”

“Who?”

“One of the men your uncle rides with to work. The one who drives the car on Thursdays. He’s a red and I can prove it.”

Before I could find out more, it was my turn to pin the tail on the donkey. Sharon’s mother blindfolded me and spun me around. The children were squealing, and I could feel them shrinking from me. When I took the blindfold off, I was dizzy. I had pinned the donkey’s tail on the wallpaper, in the center of a large yellow flower.

That evening Betsy Lou went out with a boy named Sam, the one with the car, and Lunetta came to play canasta with the adults. During
Cavalcade of Stars
, I could hear them in the kitchen, accusing each other of hiding reds, when they meant hearts and diamonds. They laughed so loudly I sometimes missed some of Jack Carter’s jokes. The wrestling came on afterward, but my uncle did not notice, so I turned off the television and looked at a magazine. I spent a long time trying to write the last line to a Fab jingle so that I could win a television set and five hundred dollars a month for life. I knew that life in Kentucky would be unbearable without a television.

Between hands, Uncle Boone and Lunetta got into an argument.
My uncle claimed there were more reds teaching school than making cars, and Lunetta said it was just the opposite.

“They’re firing schoolteachers too,” he said to Lunetta.

“Don’t look at
me
,” she said. “I signed the loyalty oath.”

“Hush your mouth, Boone,” said Aunt Mozelle.

“I know who a red is,” I said suddenly, coming to the table.

They all looked at me and I explained what Sharon had told me. Too late, I remembered my promise not to tell.

“Don’t let anybody hear you say that,” said Lunetta. “Your uncle would lose his job. If they even
think
you know somebody that knows somebody, you can get in trouble.”

“You better not say anything, hon,” said Uncle Boone.

“Peggy, it’s past your bedtime,” my mother said.

“What did
I
do?”

“Talk gets around,” said Lunetta. “There’s sympathizers even in the woodwork.”

The next day, after a disturbing night in which my guardian angel did nothing to protect me from my terrible secret, I was glum and cranky, and for the first time I refused Aunt Mozelle’s waffles.

“Are you burnt out on them?” she asked me.

“No, I just ain’t hungry.”

“She played too hard at the birthday party,” Mama said knowingly to my aunt.

When Lunetta arrived and Mama told her I had played too hard at the birthday party, I burst into tears.

“It’s nobody’s business if I played too hard,” I cried. “Besides,” I shrieked at Mama, “you don’t feel good at breakfast either. You always say you can’t keep anything down.”

“Don’t be ugly,” my mother said sharply. To the others, she said apologetically, “I reckon sooner or later she was bound to show out.”

It was Sunday, and the heat wave continued. We all sat on the porch, looking at the Sunday papers. Betsy Lou was reading
Pleasant Valley
by Louis Bromfield. Uncle Boone read the Sunday comics aloud to himself. Actually, he was trying to get my attention, for I sat in a corner, determined to ignore everyone. Uncle
Boone read “Abbie an’ Slats,” “The Gumps,” and “Little Orphan Annie.” He pretended he was Milton Berle as he read them, but I wouldn’t laugh.

Lunetta and Uncle Boone seemed to have forgotten their argument. Lunetta had dressed up for church, but the man she planned to go with had gone to visit his mother’s grave instead.

“That man sure did love his mother,” she said.

“Why don’t you go to church anyway?” asked Betsy Lou. “You’re all dressed up.”

“I just don’t have it in me,” said Lunetta. She was wearing a shell-tucked summer shantung dress and raffia T-strap sandals.

“Ain’t you hot in that outfit?” asked my aunt. “We’re burning up.”

“I guess so.” Lunetta seemed gloomy and distracted. I almost forgave her for upsetting me about the sympathizers, but then she launched into a complicated story about a baby-sitter who got double-crossed. “This woman baby-sat for her best friend, who was divorced and had two little babies. And come to find out, the friend was going out on dates with the woman’s own husband!”

“If that don’t beat all,” said Mama, her eyes wide. She was drinking her second cup of coffee.

“No telling how long that could have kept up,” said my aunt.

“It made a big divorce case,” Lunetta said.

“I never saw so many divorce cases,” said Mama.

“Would you divorce somebody if you found out they were a Communist?” Lunetta asked.

“I don’t know as I would,” said Aunt Mozelle. “Depends.”

“
I
would,” said Mama.

“I probably would,” said Lunetta. “How about you, Boone?”

“If I found out Mozelle was a red?” Boone asked, grinning. “I’d probably string her up and tickle her feet till she hollered uncle.”

“Oh, Boone,” Lunetta said with a laugh. “I know you’d stick up for Mozelle, no matter what.”

They sat around that morning talking like this, good-naturedly. In the light of day, the reds were only jokes after all,
like the comics. I had decided to eat a bowl of Pep cereal, and “Some Enchanted Evening” was playing on the radio. Suddenly everything changed, as if a black storm had appeared to break the heat wave. My mother gave out a loud whoop and clutched her stomach in pain.

“Where does it hurt?” my aunt cried, grabbing at Mama.

Mama was too much in pain to speak. Her face was distorted, her sharp-pointed lips stretched out like a slingshot. My aunt helped her to the bathroom, and a short while later, my aunt and uncle flew away with her in a taxi. Mama had straightened up enough to say that the pain had subsided, but she looked scared, and the blood had drained from her face. I said nothing to her, not even good-bye.

Betsy Lou, left alone with me, said, “I hope she hasn’t got polio.”

“Only children get polio,” I said, trembling. “She don’t have polio.”

The telephone rang, and Betsy Lou chattered excitedly, telling one of her boyfriends what had happened. Alone and frightened, I sat on the porch, hugging a fat pile of newspapers and gazing at the street. I could see Sharon Belletieri, skating a block away with two other girls. She was wearing a blue playsuit. She and her friends reminded me of those privileged children in the Peanut Gallery on
Howdy Doody
.

To keep from thinking, I began searching the newspaper for something to put in Aunt Mozelle’s scrapbook, but at first nothing seemed so horrible as what had just happened. Some babies had turned blue from a diaper dye, but that story didn’t impress me. Then I found an item about a haunted house, and my heart began to race. A priest claimed that mysterious disturbances in a house in Wisconsin were the work of an angelic spirit watching over an eight-year-old boy. Cryptic messages were found on bits of paper in the boy’s room. The spirit manifestation had occurred fifteen times. I found my aunt’s scissors and cut out the story.

Within two hours, my aunt and uncle returned, with broad smiles on their faces, but I knew they were pretending.

“She’s just fine,” said Aunt Mozelle. “We’ll take you to see her
afterwhile, but right now they gave her something to make her sleep and take away the pain.”

“She’ll get to come home in the morning,” said my uncle.

He had brought ice cream, and while he went to the kitchen to dish it out, I showed my aunt the clipping I had found. I helped her put it in her scrapbook.

“Life sure is strange,” I said.

“Didn’t I tell you?” she said. “Now, don’t you worry about your mama, hon. She’s going to be all right.”

—

Later that day, my aunt and uncle stood in the corridor of the hospital while I visited my mother. The hospital was large and gray and steaming with the heat. Mama lay against a mound of pillows, smiling weakly.

“
I
’m the one that showed out,” she said, looking ashamed. She took my hand and made me sit on the bed next to her. “You
were
going to have a little brother or sister,” she said. “But I was mistaken.”

“What happened to it?”

“I lost it. That happens sometimes.”

When I looked at her blankly, she tried to explain that there wasn’t
really
a baby, as there was when she had Johnny two years before.

She said, “You know how sometimes one or two of the chicken eggs don’t hatch? The baby chick just won’t take hold. That’s what happened.”

It occurred to me to ask what the baby’s name would have been.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I’m trying to tell you there wasn’t really a baby. I didn’t know about it, anyway.”

“You didn’t even know there was a baby?”

“No. I didn’t know about it till I lost it.”

She tried to laugh, but she was weak, and she seemed as confused as I was. She squeezed my hand and closed her eyes for a moment. Then she said, “Boone says the buses will start up this week. You could go with your aunt to Detroit and see the big buildings.”

“Without you?”

“The doctor said I should rest up before we go back. But you go ahead. Mozelle will take you.” She smiled at me sleepily. “I wanted to go so bad—just to see those big fancy store windows. And I wanted to see your face when you saw the city.”

—

That evening,
Toast of the Town
was on television, and then Fred Waring, and
Garroway at Large
. I was lost among the screen phantoms—the magic acts, puppets, jokes, clowns, dancers, singers, wisecracking announcers. My aunt and uncle laughed uproariously. Uncle Boone was drinking beer, something I had not seen him do, and the room stank with the smoke of his Old Golds. Now and then I was aware of all of us sitting there together, laughing in the dim light from the television, while my mother was in the hospital. Even Betsy Lou was watching with us. Later, I went to the guest room and sat on the large bed, trying to concentrate on finishing the Fab jingle.

I heard my aunt calling to me excitedly. I was missing something on the television screen. I had left because the news was on.

“Pictures of Detroit!” she cried. “Come quick. You can see the big buildings.”

I raced into the living room in time to see some faint, dark shapes, hiding behind the snow, like a forest in winter, and then the image faded into the snow.

“Mozelle can take you into Detroit in a day or two,” my uncle said. “The buses is starting up again.”

“I don’t want to go,” I said.

“You don’t want to miss the chance,” said my aunt.

“Yes, I do.”

That night, alone in the pine-and-cedar room, I saw everything clearly, like the sharpened images that floated on the television screen. My mother had said an egg didn’t hatch,
but I knew better. The reds had stolen the baby. They took things. They were after my aunt’s copper-bottomed pans. They stole the butter. They wanted my uncle’s job. They were invisible, like the guardian angel, although they might wear disguises. You didn’t know who might be a red. You never knew when you might lose a baby that you didn’t know you had. I understood it all. I hadn’t trusted my guardian angel, and so he had failed to protect me. During the night, I hit upon a last line to the Fab jingle, but when I awoke I saw how silly and inappropriate it was. It was going over and over in my mind:
Red soap makes the world go round
.

—

On the bus home a few days later, I slept with my head in my mother’s lap, and she dozed with her head propped against my seat back. She was no longer sick, but we were both tired and we swayed, unresisting, with the rhythms of the bus. When the bus stopped in Fort Wayne, Indiana, at midnight, I suddenly woke up, and at the sight of an unfamiliar place, I felt—with a new surge of clarity—the mystery of travel, the vastness of the world, the strangeness of life. My own life was a curiosity, an item for a scrapbook. I wondered what my mother would tell my father about the baby she had lost. She had been holding me tightly against her stomach as though she feared she might lose me too.

I had refused to let them take me into Detroit. At the bus station, Aunt Mozelle had hugged me and said, “Maybe next time you come we can go to Detroit.”

“If there
is
a next time,” Mama said. “This may be her only chance, but she had to be contrary.”

“I didn’t want to miss
Wax Wackies
and
Judy Splinters
,” I said, protesting.

“We’ll have a car next time you come,” said my uncle. “If they don’t fire everybody,” he added with a laugh.

“If that happens, y’all can always come back to Kentucky and help us get a crop out,” Mama told him.

The next afternoon, we got off the bus on the highway at the intersection with our road. Our house was half a mile away. The
bus driver got our suitcases out of the bus for us, and then drove on down the highway. My father was supposed to meet us, but he was not there.

“I better not carry this suitcase,” said Mama. “My insides might drop.”