Plainsong (Plainsong #1)(10)

No.

Do you know where he is now?

Not for sure, the girl said. He was talking about going to Denver. He knew somebody in Denver.

Maggie Jones studied her for a time. The girl looked tired and sad, the blanket wrapped about her shoulders as though she were some survivor of a train wreck or flood, the sad remnant from some disaster that had passed through and done its damage and gone on. Maggie stood up and collected their cups and emptied the remains of tea into the kitchen sink. She stood at the counter looking at the girl.

But honey, she said, talking a little heatedly now. For God’s sake. Did you not know any better?

About what?

Well, did you not use any protection at all?

Yes, the girl said. He did. But it broke on him a couple of times. At least he said it did. He told me that. Afterward when I got home I used hot salt water. But it didn’t do any good.

What do you mean you used hot salt water?

I squirted it inside myself.

Didn’t that burn?

Yes.

I see. And now you want to keep it.

The girl looked at her quickly, startled.

Because you don’t have to, Maggie said. I’ll go with you and help you speak to a doctor. If that’s what you want.

The girl turned away from the table and faced the window. The glass reflected the room back on itself. Beyond were the neighbors’ dark houses.

I want to keep it, she said, still facing out, speaking softly, steadily.

You’re certain?

Yes, she said. She turned back. Her eyes appeared very large and dark, unblinking.

But if you change your mind.

I know.

All right, Maggie said. I think we better get you to bed.

The girl rose from the kitchen table. Thank you, Mrs. Jones, she said. I want to thank you for being so kind to me. I didn’t know what else I was going to do.

Maggie Jones put her arms around the girl. Oh, honey, she said. I do feel sorry for you. You’re going to have such a hard time. You just don’t know it yet.

They stood hugging in the kitchen.

After a while Maggie said, But you know my father’s here too. I don’t know how he’s going to understand this. He’s an old man. But you’re welcome to stay here. We’ll just have to see.

They left the kitchen. She found the girl a long flannel nightgown and made up a bed in the living room on the couch. The girl lay down.

Good night, Mrs. Jones.

Good night, honey.

The girl settled deeper into the blankets. Maggie went back to her own bedroom and after a while the girl went to sleep.

Then in the night she woke when she heard someone coughing in the next room. She looked around in the unfamiliar darkness. The strange room, the things in it. A clock running somewhere. She sat up. But now she couldn’t hear anything else. After a time she lay back down. She was almost asleep again when she heard him get up out of bed and enter the bathroom. She could hear him urinating. The toilet flushed. Afterward he came out and stood in the doorway looking at her. An old man with white hair, wearing baggy striped pajamas. He cleared his throat. He scratched himself along his skinny flank, his pajamas moving. He stood watching her. Then he shuffled back down the hall to bed. Only gradually did she fall back to sleep.





Ike and Bobby.

Saturdays they collected. They rose early and delivered the papers and came back home and went out to the barn where they fed the horses and afterward the mewling moiling cats and the dog and then returned to the house and washed up at the kitchen sink and ate breakfast with their father and then went out again. They made their collections together. It was better that way. They carried a book with tear-off tabs dated for the months and weeks and a canvas bag with a drawstring for the money.

They began on Main Street, collecting at the places of business before they became busy and crowded with the Saturday trade, before the townspeople would come downtown and the farm and ranch people would drive in from the country, buying things for the week and passing the time, neighborly. They started at Nexey’s Lumberyard beside the railroad tracks and collected from Don Nexey himself, who was kind to them and had a bald head which shone like sculpted marble under the low tin-shaded lights above the front counter. Then they went next door to Schmidt’s Barber Shop and stood their bikes against the brick storefront under the spiraling red and white barber pole.

When they entered the shop Harvey Schmidt was employing scissors on the hair of a man seated in the chair with a thin striped cloth pinned about his neck. There were black curls caught in the folds of the cloth like scraps of sewing. Sitting along the wall were another man and a boy, reading magazines and waiting. They looked up together when the two boys came in. The boys closed the door and stood just inside the room.

What do you two want? Harvey Schmidt said. He said this or something like it every Saturday.

Collecting for the paper, Ike said.

Collecting for the paper, he said. I don’t think I’m even going to pay you. It’s nothing, only bad news. What do you think of that?

They didn’t say anything. The boy sitting against the wall was watching them from behind his magazine. He was an older boy from the grade school.

Pay them, Harvey, the man in the barber’s chair said. You can afford to stop for a minute.

I’m considering, Harvey said, whether I’m even going to. He combed out the hair above the man’s ear, drawing it away from his head, and cut it cleanly with the scissors and then combed it flat again. He looked at the two boys. Who cuts you boys’ hair now?