The Midnight Cool Read online

  Back home, Billy was the youngest of the pack. The older boys would dare, Go on in there and see if you can figure out the answer to her riddle. If you can solve the riddle, you’ll live forever. But beware. If you get a stiff one while you’re in there, you’ll go blind.

  The riddle itself was maddeningly simple: Was she holding herself open to let in a man? Or to let out a baby?

  They would wriggle in and wriggle out, one by one, and then creep behind the fuchsia bushes that bore red swollen flowers that looked like scrotums, slick themselves with spit, and beat out the stiff ones they did not dare reveal to the others. Staring up at the blue island sky and the flowers like red cocks and balls, still terrified by those blank goggle eyes, indifferent and furious, and the clawlike fingers at either side of her cunt. Ripping it open. To take in a cock or push out a baby none could say. Wondering when they would go blind.

  That October day in the cold rain on the Battery, Billy is disappointed. There is nothing about this statue that makes you stiff. Nothing that made you want to sneak behind the scarlet-hung fuchsia bushes. Nothing that would make you go blind. No mystery. In fact, the statue doesn’t even look like a woman. It looks like a man, a man in a bedsheet.

  The dull rain makes everything gray, the color of the dead horse’s nostrils. Nothing to see anyway, except all the other souls there trying to see something too. The fireworks have been canceled due to the weather. After a while, the crowd breaks up, and everyone just goes home.

  That night Billy goes back out to the edge of the water, alone, because he wants to see the statue’s light. In the foggy, heavy air, it is another disappointment, more of a weak glowworm than a torch.

  There had been a cluster of dignitaries out on the island for the unveiling, but they had been no more than faceless specks. From the Battery they had hardly seemed human, especially from the midst of that teeming crowd, all those faces, tired faces and fat faces, faces with mouths like gashes, brown-eyed faces and shrewd faces and broken faces and bitter faces and pretty ones too. He is still getting used to it, all the faces, all the lives. He saw more people in his first five minutes in New York City than he had in his whole life before. Saw his first colored man too, curled up asleep in a doorway like a downtrodden dog. There had been no colored men out on the island for the statue’s unveiling, of course, and no women either. If he had been in charge he would have let the whole crowd onto the island. Women and babies and newspaper boys and colored folks, anyone who wanted to come. Tired, fat, shrewd, broken, bitter, or pretty, anyone. All of them. He would have packed them in, shoulder to shoulder. He would have had music, and dancing, and beer. No one would have noticed the rain.

  When he leaves New York six years later, the statue is still bright copper. By the time Maura arrives, she will tell him later, it has already turned green. She was told at home that it was the color of the moon, and when she sees that it is green it is like a bad joke, this Monster of Liberty, and then someone gets sick on her. At this moment Billy is working in the Neversink mine, slowly killing himself in Lackawanna, Pennsylvania, still caught between the pit and the snare. Hacking up black phlegm all night. The little mules that pull the coal carts go blind after a year down there, and he figures he will too. One breaks her leg and he has to lead her out to the woods and tie a stick of dynamite to her and run. Cheaper than a bullet, the boss explained.

  Billy understands at that moment, running from the sound of the terrible explosion of muleflesh, that he is as expendable as the mule.

  Still he goes into the mine, down in the morning, up at night. Down in the morning, up at night. More black phlegm. Half a day off on Sunday morning, and if you don’t go to church, they look at you funny. Buy your bread at the company store. The honeycombed underground rooms. A hive of men, like ants, like termites, chipping away at the rock. Irishmen, who had every one been promised the same riches he had. Germans too, and Italians, and Slavs and Russians and Poles. Same promise, different language, all now coughing up the same black phlegm. A man falls through from the seam above one day, just crashes right through the ceiling into the seam Billy is working. Breaks his back, though it doesn’t kill him. And when someone rushes over and asks where the hell he came from, he is so confused and stunned, he says, automatically, County Galway. Then, I can’t die, I’ll lose my job.

  By this time Billy has long since quit thinking about the statue, or New York, or even of home. Or faces or fireworks or dancing or beer. Or freedom or love or hope or riches. All he thinks about and dreams about and sees when he closes his eyes at night is the dead black thing worth more than all this and his life and the Galway man’s life and that mule’s life put together. Coal.

  Money Matters

  Money Matters

  by Leland Hatcher

  The Richfield Gazette

  Citizens of Richfield, I am ashamed.

  I am deeply ashamed of the colored citizens of this town. They call themselves men, and demand certain rights. But they are not men if they cannot assume responsibility.

  I am referring to the letter published in this paper last week, suggesting that a Negro need not be included in the draft. That he “will not fight for democracy, until democracy is proven not a sham.” The author of that letter ought to be ashamed, and we all must be ashamed. It is a black mark on our town—on our state—on our country—that it was even printed.

  We have carried Ham’s race for generations. We have shouldered his burdens, fed him, clothed him. This country has given him everything he has. Now she asks something of him in return. Our nation is at war. No man can now sit back and allow others to take care of him. Those days are done. No colored man can now expect to be carried—if he can call himself a man.

  Bluing

  A week after the parade, Billy and Charles were out hunting mules when Billy announced they were going to Ernestine’s so that he could pick up more medicine. It was out of their way but Charles did not protest. All week he had stumbled around like a moonblind horse, consumed by the memory of Catherine in the springhouse. His shock and excitement and terror and elation had fused into one single thought: would she let him do it again?

  Ernestine was on her porch sorting through a bag of dried blossoms, shucking the stems into the fold of the newspaper spread in her lap. It was open to Leland Hatcher’s column.

  Billy pointed to it. Sometimes I think they ought to just give the Hatchet a soapbox on Court Square.

  Ernestine said nothing, just sucked her eyetooth. She finished her job and then folded the paper and brushed off her skirt.

  My son wrote that letter he’s in such a state about, she said. Wrote it the day he closed the laundry and enlisted. I do believe Mister Hatcher missed the point.

  After she went inside and got the medicine she asked Billy to take a look at her mule’s hoof, which that morning had been punctured by a nail that she could not get out herself. He was in the side yard, wearing a fly suit she had made for him out of burlap sacks. Ridiculous, like a mule in a tea cozy, but Charles knew just by looking at him that underneath it he was as fine as Billy had described him to be.

  She bent down to show Billy the nail. Charles leaned against the fence and studied her tiny frame. She was not at all what he had expected. He certainly could not imagine Leland Hatcher sitting down across from this frail bird in men’s shoes, trusting her power to reach his wife on the other side. Hatcher did not seem like the kind of man who would believe such hocus-pocus. Let alone from a poor old colored woman.

  Say, he said to Ernestine when she stood up. What sort of men do you get up here, wanting their fortunes read?

  Oh, she said. All kinds. She looked down at Billy. Be gentle with him please, Mister Monday.

  The mule had leaned his weight against Billy. He pushed him off, rebalancing himself.

  Fine. If you tell him to be gentle with me.

  And when you get people up here, wanting to talk to the dead, Charles pressed, why is it they come?

  She reached un
der a seam of the suit and stroked the mule’s neck while Billy went to work at the nail with his knife. Gazed thoughtfully up the road for a while before she answered.

  Who knows what goes on in a man’s heart. All kinds of people show up at my door. All walks of life. But it’s the unhappy ones need to get in touch with their dead. The ones who can’t sleep at night.

  And what do you tell them?

  Tell them? Why, I’m just the medium. It just comes through me.

  Sure, Charles said shortly. He wanted to know, one way or another, if Hatcher really did come up here. He wanted to know one true thing about Leland Hatcher that would help him understand the man, one fact he could hang his hat on. If he understood Hatcher, maybe he would understand Catherine. He had not seen her all week. He had no idea what she thought about what happened in the springhouse. Everything moved so quickly these days. Everyone was busy. But busy was better than sitting around waiting. No one knew what was coming.

  The mule flinched. Billy grunted. Nearly had it that time.

  I appreciate you being gentle with him, Mister Monday, Ernestine said. She put her hand on the animal’s shoulder. I never know what the spirits are gonna say, she said quietly. I’ll tell you what they all ask for, though. All the living. All them come wanting to ask for forgiveness.

  Just then with another grunt Billy got the nail out. He straightened and held it out to her, triumphant. Then he opened his tobacco and took out a pinch and knelt back down to pack the wound with it.

  Ernestine, still holding the nail, looked over at Charles.

  I do like your friend Mister Monday, she said to him. He’s an honest fellow. A lot of men ain’t so honest. One fellow in particular, he comes to me, wanting to speak to his departed wife. He ain’t such an honest fellow, this one. Him? I charge two dollars a sitting. Twice what I charge other people.

  That’s awfully crooked, Billy said, standing up.

  She looked down the road. He can afford it. Believe me.

  That’s a fast hustle, Charles said.

  Oh, I don’t keep it.

  What do you mean?

  There’s a girl in Chicago with a baby who needs it. She made it all the way up there when she got out of here. But now her baby’s sick, and the brother she lives with is sick and can’t work. I send it to her.

  She clucked her tongue and shook her head, studying the tip of the nail.

  Two dollars a sitting. It do add up.

  Billy reached out and took his bottle of medicine off the fence post. Looked at Charles and winked. Then he cocked his eyebrow at the old woman.

  Crooked, he said. Awfully crooked.

  She turned her back to them, fussing over the mule.

  Oh, I’m so crooked they’re gonna have to bury me with a corkscrew. I’m as crooked as my old mule Robespierre. But it’s a crooked world. You been all around it. You ought to know.

  She turned and pointed the nail at the bottle in Billy’s hand.

  And you ought to know that ain’t medicine.

  Billy looked down. Sure it is.

  It ain’t nothing but a little bit of bluing in some well water. And here I’ve been charging you fifty cents a dose.

  Rain

  Charles went and found Catherine that evening. She was manning the Red Cross booth outside the theater. But it had begun to rain, a warm soft rain, and no one was on the street.

  What he had discovered on Freedman’s Hill had burned in him all day. He wanted to tell her. He wanted it to bring them together.

  Her cheeks colored when she looked up and saw him. Which made his do the same. They stared at each other a moment, awkward. He wanted to put his arms around her, but she was so out of reach behind the heavy wooden front of the booth. He cursed it silently.

  I gotta tell you something, Catherine, he began. It’s true. Your father goes to see a woman up on Freedman’s Hill. She pretends she’s got a direct line to heaven. Like Joan of Arc hearing God. Like that song ‘Hello Central Give Me Heaven.’ Like she could just pick up a telephone.

  Her look of triumph caught him off guard.

  I was right! she said, knocking her counter, her white Red Cross hat jouncing a little.

  Well there’s more, he said. He told her what Ernestine was doing, sending Hatcher’s money to the girl. Catherine listened with her teeth hooked on her lip. Her eyes were on two cardinals in a puddle in the middle of the street. Her brow was furrowed, as if she was trying to sort it out.

  I see, she said simply.

  Charles wondered if he should have kept this part from her. It did seem awfully crooked. Riding back down Freedman’s Hill, Billy had laughed about it. He said, Old Ernestine, she’s just like the fellow in the joke, making money pulling cars out of the ditches. At night she digs the ditches.

  Catherine was still looking at the cardinals, which were fighting now, hopping around the edge of the puddle. She was so far away behind that booth. He could not read her face. The rain slapped the awning above them.

  I’m awful sorry to be the one to tell you. There’s so many cheats in this world, Cat.

  She was quiet for a long time, watching the birds. Finally she looked at him. What does he want to know, my father? What does he ask my mother?

  He thought about Ernestine saying that they all came wanting to speak to the dead for the same reason.

  Forgiveness, he said.

  I see, she said again, but quietly. She looked back at the puddle. Look at those birds. I sometimes envy them, the birds. They have no idea about the war.

  He took a step closer. His chest hit the edge of the booth. I gotta know something. Do you wish we hadn’t done it—in the springhouse?

  Now she looked him straight in the eye. No, she said slowly. I’m glad we did.

  His blood surged. We could do it again, you know.

  She smiled at him then, broadly, showing the gap, and shook her head.

  Well we could.

  Her smile went away and her face set with resolve.

  I’ll tell you why I’m glad, Charles. It helped me to realize what I need to do. I was confused that day. I was so stirred by all those men signing up to fight, I wanted to act too, to do something bold. Something brave. Like—like Joan of Arc.

  She told him about a girl she knew who was going to nursing school in Nashville. They taught you everything you needed to know double time. Then you could go over as a war nurse, work in Paris, maybe even at the Front. She wanted to go too. To Nashville, and then to France.

  She waved at the booth. Standing here, all day—it’s all I can do, but in the end it’s so small. Does it even make a whit of difference? I haven’t heard from Edmund in a month. I have no idea where he is. I can roll bandages until I’m blue in the face. But if I want to make a real difference, what can I do? I’ve got to go. My father is right about one thing. My body is not a weapon. I’ve got to quit thinking like a child. She knocked the counter in front of her. We all do.

  The passion in her voice made him think of her that first day in the Everbright garden, all fired up about Black Tom Island. And of her as Joan of Arc with her eyes on a distant horizon. Slowly it settled on him what she was saying, that she wanted to go away. And the thought of this, as desperate as it made him, also stirred him. Stirred him the way the flags on East Main did, or ‘The Star-Spangled Banner,’ or when enlisted men sang ‘Over There.’ It made him want do something bold too. To act.

  You’re some girl, Catherine.

  Well it’s a long way away. First I’ve got to do the impossible. Convince my father.

  Another girl in a white uniform came flying around the corner through the rain, late to relieve Catherine from her post.

  I’ve got to run, Catherine said. I’m late. I’ve got to go teach a bandage-making class. She looked at him over her shoulder, going into the theater to change her clothes, and watching her, he felt that this was it, that she was already gone.

  It’s not just do your bit, these days, she called, as if from a distant shore.
Right, Charles? It’s do your all.

  Red Paint

  On July 20, the draft was published in the Richfield paper, and something shifted in the air. There was more excitement in town that day than the day in April when war was declared.

  Charles looked at the newspaper, the columns and columns of names.

  What would you do, Billy? If you were of age, and if they called you up?

  Ah, they’d never take me. I got flat feet and a case of the heaves.

  But what would you do? If they told you you had to fight?

  Those boys are better men than me.

  But what would you do? If you had to choose?

  Billy was quiet for a while.

  Those boys.

  The next morning, Kuntz woke to find a can of red paint had been splashed across his front porch. go home, krout written on the wall. He laughed about it before the sale.

  I set up Gus with a scrub brush and a can of paint. If there’s anything that boy can do, it is scrub and paint.

  He waved his hand. His diamond horseshoe flashed.

  I’d like to find whoever did it.

  Someone made a fist and shook it. Give him a piece of your mind?

  No! A spelling lesson.

  Food

  use less

  buy local

  use less meat and wheat

  serve only what you can eat

  don’t waste it

  wheatless—meatless—sugarless days

  women of america—join the fight—victory begins in the kitchen

  Wheatless and Meatless

  Up in the Barrens, buying mules. Choking heat. Dust whirling above the road, along with black thick clouds of gnats. The corn on the hills chest high. Boys darted out from the fields—blat! blat! blat!—and swept their crude wooden machine guns across the road.