3
By this time James
was beginning to think his uncle had forgotten him. James had been
sitting in the restaurant for two hours now, looking and watching
out the rain-streaked window, and he was beginning to feel like a
little boy kept indoors by a spring downpour.
Every ten minutes or
so the hostess would come around and ask if he wanted another
spafizz but James would only shake his head and smile
bleakly.
Then he would turn
resolutely back to the window, expecting his uncle to be there
suddenly, like a gift left on a doorstep.
It was while he was
watching that he saw the girl across the street trip on the
boardwalk and go falling to her knees in the mud. Her parasol went
flying into the path of a wagon. The horses trampled right over it.
The girl, not one to take such a slight politely, raised her tiny
fist and shook it in the direction of the retreating wagon.
Several of the older
male customers inside the restaurant had also watched this little
nickelodeon adventure played out in the rain and mud. They rubbed
their muttonchops and patted the plump bellies they’d covered with
silk vests and pointed to the girl.
One man said, “It’s
that young whore Liz.”
Looking into the
street again, James saw that it was indeed the girl he’d spent much
of last night with.
Another stout man
laughed. “A little mud never hurt a girl like that.”
Liz obliged her
oglers by starting to stand up, mud clinging to her hands and arms
and the whole of her skirt, and promptly falling right back down to
her knees.
The men in the
restaurant began poking each other and pointing out of the window
as if they were spectators at a particularly funny play.
“Too bad she doesn’t
put on a show when you go up to see her,” one man laughed.
James, disliking the
meanness and arrogance of the men, got up from his chair and
started running down the aisle to the door. He tromped hard on one
man’s shoes as he fled out the door, stomping down directly on the
instep. This was the man who’d referred to Liz as a “young whore.”
The man cursed James and shook a fat fist in the boy’s
direction.
The rain pelted him
immediately. It was a cold rain and hard. It was also difficult to
see through.
He waded out into the
street that had become a vast mud puddle. He sank in halfway to his
knees. The mud made faint sucking sounds as he raised and lowered
his feet.
He noticed that
several people stood on the boardwalk under the overhang pointing
to Liz and smirking much as the men in the restaurant had. It was
obvious they knew who she was and what she was and would make no
move to help her. The women twirling their parasols and peering out
from beneath their picture hats looked particularly mean.
The street was so
swampy it took him two full minutes to reach her. By this time she
had fallen over yet again, and now even her face was
mud-spattered.
She didn’t recognize
him at first. She was obviously angry and hurt and ashamed and so
instead of thanking this helpful stranger, she tried to slap
him.
The people along the
boardwalk started laughing again.
James took the hand
she meant to slap him with and said, “Don’t you remember me,
Liz?”
There in the
drenching rain, there in the echoes of the crowd’s harsh laughter,
she narrowed her eyes and looked more closely at him. “You’re the
kid from last night.”
He noted how she said
that. She had not called him by name. There had been no warmth or
even surprise in her voice. She was simply identifying him.
He said, above the
rain, “I had a nice time last night.”
She shook her head.
“Kid, just help me get out of here, will you?”
But he felt hurt.
“Didn’t you have a nice time?”
Now she shouted above
the rain. “Maybe you didn’t notice but they’re starting to laugh at
you, too.”
“Let them,” he said.
“I just want to know if you had a good time last night.”
“I had a great
time.”
“You don’t sound as
if you mean that, Liz.”
There in the rain,
them both shouting, both soaked and mud-mired, she leaned over and
kissed him on the cheek and said, “You know something, kid? You
really are a kid. A sweet one.”
The crowd found this
even more wonderful entertainment. A few of them even
applauded.
“Will you help me get
across the street to the boardwalk?” Liz said.
He slid his arm in
hers. “I’d be proud to.”
She smiled at him
uncertainly. “You haven’t been drinking again today, have you,
kid?”
He smiled back. “Not
so far.”
***
They walked across
the street, step by inching step. By now James was mud-soaked,
too.
Once, she fell and he
had to help her up. Once, he fell and she had to help him up. The
crowd loved it.
“They really make me
mad,” James said as they drew near the boardwalk.
“Why?”
“Because of how they
treat you.”
She stopped and
stared at him through the silver rain. “Kid, I’m a whore. How do
you expect them to treat me?”
“You should have more
pride in yourself than that.”
She squeezed his arm
and smiled again.
Now he smiled. “And
stop calling me kid. I’m nearly two years older than you.”
So they resumed their
walk.
Now it was apparent
they were going to make it without further incident, the crowd
began to disperse. Their entertainment was over.
When they finally
reached the protection of the overhang, she began to look herself
over, shaking her head. “No wonder they was laughin’.”
“Why?”
“I ain’t real pretty
on the best of days. Lookin’ like this…” She shook her head again.
Her hair was formed against her head like the sculpted hair of a
statue.
“Who said you aren’t
pretty?”
She had been scraping
mud from her skirts. She stopped and looked up at him. “Kid, I
don’t think I can take any more of your chivalry.”
“But Liz, I’m just
trying to be-”
“I know what you’re
trying to be!” she said. She glanced over at two townsmen standing
there watching her. Smirking. “Kid, sometimes being nice hurts
worse than anything else. Because I’m not used to people being nice
to me.”
And he saw then in
her tears and heard in the stricken sound of her voice the pain and
dread she tried not to acknowledge.
“Kid, just go be nice
to somebody else, all right?”
And then she left,
her footsteps sharp against the wood of the boardwalk, a muddy
little farm girl aging too quickly in the harsh city.
“Don’t worry, son,”
one of the onlookers said. “There’s plenty more back at that house
where she came from.”
James felt as if he
wanted to take a swing at the guy, but it was just then that a male
voice shouted his name through the rain, and he turned to see,
standing in front of the restaurant his uncle Septemus.
Septemus was waving
for James to cross the muddy street again.
Huddling into his
soaked clothes, ready to feel the cold steady rain on his head and
back again, James set forth across the swampy street.