West With Giraffes(9)

As I waited for the giraffes to hit the road, I spent the afternoons snitching food from anybody but the country grocer, and I spent the nights huddled on the deserted depot’s platform fighting off sleep for fear of my nightmare. Since leaving home, the hours awake in the dark alone with my thoughts hadn’t been much better than my haunted sleep. My mind would wander back to the sights of my family’s graves and the sounds of my ma’s and baby sister’s gasps as the dust pneumonia slowly strangled them dead. There was no waking up from that.

Lying under the stars that first night at the depot, though, I wasn’t seeing graves and hearing death rattles. I was seeing the wondrous sights and sounds of Red and the giraffes. Even then, I knew I was probably better off never seeing Red again since I’d punched the reporter. Telling myself it was to protect my Californy plan, though, I wished I could visit the giraffes. As I lay there thinking about it, sleepless but less lonely, I kept feeling them snuffling my hair and nibbling at my pocket, unaware the giraffes were already working their giraffe magic on me far beyond my orphaned-boy scheme for them.

By the next afternoon, I’d swiped a shirt from a clothesline to fend off nightly skeeters before I returned to the depot. Once there, the time passed slow. I swatted flies and shifted with the wind as the bloated cow ripened. I watched the guard chew and spit. I watched trucks come and go. That was it.

Until Red appeared. Alone—and driving. Badly.

Bouncing that fancy Packard over the tracks, she jerked to a grinding halt, all but stripping the gears. For the longest time, she stared toward the gate with a far-off look, not even taking a picture, and I drank in the fiery sight of her doing it, my insides turning to mush with each red curl she pushed off her face.

When she finally got out to take photos by the gate, I found myself peeking in the Packard’s open window. I’d have said I was scrounging for food if caught, but that wasn’t why. I wanted more. More of her. I’d have been happy with only a whiff of her eau de toilette in the air, but there on the seat was a brand-new notepad.

When she drove away without noticing it was gone, I hunkered down, notepad in hand, beside the tree trunk and opened it. Stuck inside the front page was a fresh news clipping, written by Lionel Abraham Lowe, “Mr. Big Reporter”:



The next page was filled with her scribbled notes:

Hurricane sea survival miracle . . . Manhattan floods afire . . . Cycle cops . . . NY and NJ.

Normal truck . . . custom-built bed.

Putrid bloated cow . . . guernsey.

Bronx Zoo vet . . . why?

Tall, gaunt, battered, handsome boy with a nice uppercut . . . who?

First CA giraffes. First female zoo director.

First USA cross-country. Lincoln or Lee Highway . . . how?

12 days to figure.

Red had mentioned me. Even better, she’d called me handsome—nobody’d ever done that before. Hoping for more, I turned the page, but there was nothing else until the very last page, where she’d started a list:

THINGS I’M DOING BEFORE I DIE

- Meet:

- Margaret Bourke-White

- Amelia Earhart

- Eleanor Roosevelt

- Belle Benchley

- Touch a giraffe

- See the world, starting with Africa

- Speak French

- Learn to drive

- Have a daughter

- See my photos in Life magazine

It looked like what people nowadays call a bucket list, as in things to do before kicking the bucket. I’d soon find out, though, that was not the half of it.

The next day she came back, and when she wasn’t looking, I dropped the notepad back into the Packard window. Her smile when she found it was pure glory.

After that, waiting for her to appear kept me at the depot as much as waiting on the giraffes. The daily sight of her turned my depot nights fighting off nightmares and dark Panhandle memories into hours of recalling her instead. I’d start with her hair, memorizing every fiery curl. I’d study the memory of her smile, the widow’s peak on her forehead, each freckle on her nose, the curve of her face and figure, savoring every little detail from silky white shirt to tailored trousers and two-tone shoes, even the camera she clutched like a lover, until I’d stop and drown for a while in the memory of her hazel-eyed gaze. Then, as the nights wore on, I began imagining how I might kiss her. Besotted as I was, I wasn’t fool enough to think I’d ever kiss Red for real. For all I knew I’d never get that close to her again. Yet I whiled away untroubled hours working on it all—how I’d place my hand on the back of those flaming curls. How I’d lace my fingers through their thick strands. How I’d either come in slow and sweet and tender or sweep her up planting a big one on her, fearless and lusty, like a full-grown man. I’m not ashamed to admit that it’s warming up a scribbling old man right now as I remember the remembering. And when I’d feel myself getting sleepy huddled there on the depot’s platform, I’d start over.

But nobody can run from sleep forever. After a few nights, despite all my efforts, I nodded off—and the familiar old nightmare came.

Hush-a-bye Don’t you cry Go to sleep, little baby.

“It’s time I made a man outa you!”

“Woody Nickel, tell me what happened out there and tell me now!”

Brown-apple eyes stare . . . the rifle fires . . .

and rushing waters roar . . .

. . . “Li’l one, who you talking to?”