The Night Watchman(61)
And the ladies who gossiped about her or made fun of her mother’s hands, she wanted them to fear her. And the men, arrogant and looking her up and down, giving her a wink. Those men. They would turn their heads as though she’d slapped them. And Bucky. He could drop like he was shot.
Patrice had begun her walk down the front steps of the school in a trance. Nobody bowed. None of that happened. People yelled and clapped and everyone was nice. Except Valentine. Who from that day forward was unreliable as a friend. Yes, Patrice thought, she should have made Valentine bow down, and stay down, and stop trying to embarrass her.
As the royalty made its way into the crowd and people turned toward one another to make plans, Gringo, the horse Superintendent Tosk sat upon looking splendid, gave a loud trumpet blare and lunged toward Teacher’s Pet. Tosk grappled for the reins. The horse beneath Grace Pipestone nickered, enticingly. They were on the other side of the crowd, surrounded by people and cars.
Teacher’s Pet craned backward, tried to stall, gave Gringo the come-hither. Grace kicked her filly, made a quick evasive maneuver, and trotted to the other side of Juggie’s DeSoto. Juggie, still in hobo tatters, jumped over and snatched at Gringo’s halter, but missed. Teacher’s Pet wheeled around and Juggie saw that the mare was in heat, her vulva popped out, flaring and shutting.
Barnes, passing behind the horse, stopped and stood rooted in fear. He’d never seen anything like it. He waved his arms and ran for Wood Mountain. Juggie ran toward the horse, the rider, and yelled.
“Grace, get off! She’s winking!”
Maybe Grace didn’t hear, or maybe she did and wanted to get the horse away from people. Grace made a break out of the crowd, toward the schoolyard, or tried to. Teacher’s Pet wouldn’t go. She sashayed. Winked her vulva at Gringo. Wouldn’t run until Grace used the decorative wheels of her spurs. Then Teacher’s Pet charged away and Gringo’s ears went up. Superintendent Tosk tugged Gringo’s reins, eyes round with alarm, but the stallion tossed his head, gave an outraged squawk, and lighted out after Teacher’s Pet, who was now running full on toward the schoolyard swings—thick wooden planks gently drifting on steel chains hung from a fifteen-foot-high iron crossbar. Grace steered her mare straight between the swings, but Tosk, sawing and shrieking, ran his stallion straight into a swing. It caught Gringo like a snare at the base of his noble throat. The horse reared, twisting the chain around him, folding Superintendent Tosk into the package, breaking the spines of eagle feathers, nearly hanging himself. Louis flung a blanket over Gringo’s head and quickly untangled the superintendent. Grace slid off Teacher’s Pet. As soon as the chains were gone, Gringo jumped up, cleared the teeter-totter in a bound, and galloped along the margin of the running track after Teacher’s Pet, who ambled into the scruff of woods that divided the school grounds from a field of hay.
Later, that night, there was a Homecoming promenade and dance. All of the couples, as dressed up as possible, stood in line to take a turn around the darkened gym. Each couple was plucked from the gloom by Mr. Jarvis’s spotlight. Anybody could come to the dance, it wasn’t just for high school students. People came to sit at the back tables and eat juneberry pies, table buns and jelly, squares of Juggie Blue’s caramel sheet cake. They drank from bowls of punch set up alongside the desserts and watched the parade of couples.
Thomas and Rose stood against the wall, sipping on a mixture of juices sparked up with ginger ale. The Homecoming king and queen led off, two fiddlers playing a catchy Michif march. The spotlight cast a wavering patch where Sharlo appeared. Her crown, topped by a silver star, caught what light there was and she seemed to float along as she advanced. Perhaps she wasn’t even touching the floor. That’s what Thomas thought, disoriented, watching her move magically along through the gloom. She was one of the star beings, given, for her time on earth, human shape and form.
Then Angus and Eddy began to play in earnest and the couples broke off, swinging their arms and legs, shifting left and right, swapping hands and sometimes cuddling in a cha-cha, for a moment, right there on the floor. Between dances, Grace Pipestone took up the guitar, as did Wood Mountain. The old people sat watching at the back tables, nibbling from the pie table and drinking coffee. The music shifted between wild reels and bop. At last, to the shock of the old people, Mr. Jarvis announced that he would use a loudspeaker system to play some records loud enough to dance to, and for the first time a scratchy version of “Night Train,” by Jimmy Forrest, was broadcast around the gym. It was wildly popular, played over and over, and Angus and Eddy soon took it up, live, with variations. Nobody wanted to dance to anything else for the rest of the night.
When the dance was over, Mr. Jarvis wiped his record off and stored it in its cardboard envelope. He reverently blew on his record needle, secured it, unplugged and latched his record player case gently shut. He picked it up and carried it out. He’d paid his own money for the spotlight and it went home with him.
Barnes was the last one out of the school. He lingered for no reason, still a bit crushed that Patrice hadn’t come to the dance. Tears had burned behind his eyes earlier on, when he realized she wouldn’t show up. Tears again! What was happening to him as a man? Barnes had quickly walked over to Patrice’s friend Valentine and asked her to dance. She had a slim waist and agreed with everything he said.
Valentine was still there when he came through the front door.