The Egg and I (29 page)
When we got in the car, Bob said, "That woman! Completely nuts!" But I had an awful foreboding that given time
I
could be like Mrs. Weatherby, without the idiots of course. Where had she come from? Who was Mr. Weatherby? What had happened to him? Mrs. Kettle, when questioned, said, "Nobody knows where she come from. Sharkey says she washed up on a high tide. She's married to the most worthless, drunken Indian in the whole country and he beats her unconscious every Saturday night. She never tells nothing about herself. When she first come over here she put on lots of airs and tried to teach us about music—'the theatah and the dahnse' [Mrs. Kettle waved the stove lifter like a baton and half closed her eyes in great disdain]—but her neighbors wouldn't have none of that stuff and now she just stays home in that dump or takes them kids down to play with the clams." Poor, poor Mrs. Weatherby with nothing in her life but those names, Mary Elizabeth, Pamela Lorraine, John Frederick and Charles Lawrence. How she rolled them around on her tongue, savoring them to the last drop. I tried rolling Anne Elizabeth around on my tongue but it was too plain and easy. I was safe for a little while yet.
My first contact with the "theatah" was the grade school Christmas entertainment which I attended with Mrs. Hicks. The entertainment was notable for a smell of manure which came in with and hovered over the audience like a swarm of insects and a snowflake waltz danced by ten little jet black Indians whose only claim to snowiness was the whites of their eyes.
Our next brush with the entertainment world was "the dahnse." "The dahnse" was a country dance held every Saturday night, week in, week out, year in and year out. Sometimes the dance was twenty-seven miles away; sometimes seventy-five miles over tortuous mountain roads, but everyone attended. The farmers and their wives and families went because they were Grange members and often the different granges sponsored the dances. The farmers and their wives danced, helped with and provided the food, and behaved themselves. The loggers and millworkers went to the dances to get drunk. They wouldn't for a moment have considered dancing and, after standing on the sidelines and shyly watching for a while, they'd go outside, get uproariously drunk, usually manage to get in a fight, and toward morning could be found either asleep in their cars or in an all night restaurant in the nearest town. The Indians danced, drank and fought at the dances. They were also the cause of the ruling that once inside you had to stay or pay again. "This," explained Mrs. Hicks who escorted us to our first dance, "is to keep couples from dancing one dance and then going out to their cars to drink and you-know-what." "No, what?" asked Bob wickedly.
It was late September of the second year before we felt the need or the urge to go to a dance, and even then it was not Bob's idea, but "A dance every two years or so won't spoil you for the simple life," he laughed and told the Hicks we would go with them. Having never been to a country dance in all of my life I didn't know what to wear but when I asked Bob he got his voile and leghorn look, so I wore a suit and my hurty alligator pumps and realized as soon as we arrived that I could have worn anything from a housedress to a crumpled taffeta party dress. Mrs. Hicks had on a blue flowered print, a touch of orange lipstick, stiff dippy waves low on her forehead and lots of bright pink "rooje" scrubbed into her cheeks. Her stockings were deep orange service weight and she had her feet encased in long black patent leather slippers with high heels which made her walk with her behind stuck out. Mr. Hicks wore his town suit, the tightest collar in the world and a remarkable hair-do wherein the hair was parted in the middle, wet down thoroughly, while from each side a small group of front hairs were laid back as though they were to be fastened with barrettes. It gave him a look of careful elegance which was unfortunately marred by a strong smell of Lysol. Mrs. Hicks probably made him put it in his bathwater. Mrs. Hicks was wearing Rawleigh #5 and Lysol. Bob was well-groomed, divinely handsome and a little drunk.
We arrived at the dance hall, a large square building, at 8:30 exactly. There seemed to be hundreds of cars from which people were disembarking while shouting to people in other cars, calling anxiously to children who were climbing on radiators, over fenders and into other cars. There was apparently no system to the parking—you just drove into the yard wherever you could, and turned off the motor. Mrs. Hicks, however, directed Mr. Hicks to a spot at the back of the hall near a side road so that we could leave whenever we wanted to. We walked around to the front past several parked cars where couples were already in the back seat drinking, and up on the porch where the tickets were sold. As soon as Bob had the tickets he gave them to a doorman who stamped PAID in purple ink on the backs of our hands and we went inside. The dance hall was very large and brilliantly lighted; festooned with dusty green and pink crepe paper streamers; heated to approximately 90° and packed with dancers. The orchestra on a raised platform in the center of the hall consisted of a piano, accordion, violin, trumpet and saxophone manned by hard-working sweaty musicians. The music was very loud. Along each of the four walls ran a bench piled high with coats and as I discovered later, sleeping children of various ages. During intermissions I watched mothers shuffle through the coats until they found their child, hurriedly change its diapers and as often as not, whip out a large breast and nurse the baby through the next dance.
We found a vacant place on a bench, took off our coats and folded them, Birdie Hicks scrubbed a great deal more of the "rooje" into her cheeks and we were ready. Bob and I danced the first dance which was one of those double quick hops that are the delight of country dancers. We stood it for a few minutes, then retired to the sidelines. While we watched the twirling and hopping Bob warned me that I was to dance with anyone who asked me as even a faint display of choosiness would brand me as a snob and immediately and irrevocably ruin my social career. As that dance ended Bob wandered over to speak to some of his logger friends and I stood ready to obey his wishes and dance with the first person who asked me. Of course the first person who asked me was a tiny Filipino, Manuel Lizardo, who rolled his r's so that I could barely understand him and was so short I could hardly hear him. He had his trousers pulled up to his armpits and we must have made a striking couple as we danced around the floor, me crouching like a broody hen over Manuel who, with head thrown back and teeth all exposed was entertaining me with witicisms such as "The mussssssss-eeeeek issssssss ssssso loud it sssssounds like barrrrrrrrrrnyarrrrrrd ahn—ee—mahls. Haa-ha-ha-ha-ha! Ho-ho-ho-ho!" After he had stood on his tiptoes and screamed this at me for the fourth time I understood and laughed dutifully. Bob oozed by like an oil slick with a very beautiful, bad-looking Indian girl, plastered so tightly to him that I expected to see the print of her dress rubbed off on his jacket when they disentangled. I tried to catch his eye but he was intent on his work and didn't look up.
As each dance ended the dancers joined hands and marched around and around the floor until the music began again or there was an exchange of partners. By the end of the third straight dance Manuel had lost his smile and given up the wit and I was wondering what every other woman at the dance had which I seemed to lack, when Mr. Hicks came to our rescue. He grabbed me firmly around the waist, leaned forward and strode purposefully around the hall. The result was that I was bending way over backward, doing little running steps on my toes between Mr. Hicks' legs and expecting momentarily to do a back flip over his iron arm. The music stopped at last and I begged to sit out the next dance. Mr. Hicks gallantly offered to sit out with me but was immediately claimed by Birdie's mother who came skipping up in a pink taffeta dress and little dirty white canvas strap slippers. "Can't bear to sit out a single dance—too full of pep!" she tittered, as Mr. Hicks set his vise and strode away. As they passed by the first time I saw that Mother had relaxed like a scarf over the arm, her little fluffy head bobbed spasmodically and the little dirty white canvas slippers made jerky futile attempts to reach the floor.
Cousin June floated by with Manuel and, judging by the teeth and ho, ho, ha, ha, ha, ha's, Greek had met Greek. All around the edge of the floor children danced and rassled and fought and banged into the dancers. Women danced together and sometimes three people would dance together screaming with laughter at their originality. Everyone was having a wonderful time.
Suddenly the music stopped, and the entire crowd and the orchestra surged to one end of the hall where the bad Indian girl and some farmer's wife were pulling each other's hair and smearing each other with richly appropriate epithets such as "Cross-eyed daughter of an egg-raising whore" and "Dirty clam-eating black bitch." The Indian girl was the drunkest so she was put out, the music began again and we danced until supper. Supper, served at midnight in the basement on long tables, consisted of hamburgers, potato salad, cake, ice cream and big mugs of coffee.
After supper I danced twice with Bob and once with a very drunk sailor who called me "a very poor shport" because I refused to let him lower me by the ankles from a window where a pal of his waited with a drink some twenty feet below. "I'm dishappointed in you," he said, blinking and swaying. "I'm sorry," I said, "but my husband is very strict with me." Then I saw Birdie's mother across the room, coiled and waiting for her next partner. I grabbed the sailor and gave him a little shove in her direction. "That little lady over there in the pink dress is just the person you're looking for," I told him. "I know that she'd love to get a drink from your pal."
Whether Mother was lowered out the window to Pal I never knew, for we left while they were still dancing, but I can picture her flipping out the window and up and down between Bluejacket and Pal like a yo-yo on a string. So much pep!
As we started the long drive home Mrs. Hicks began tossing us back bits of gossip picked up at the dance. The last I remember was "and Mrs. Cartwright's son's wife, Helen, lost her mother and then a tube and both ovaries. . . ." I wondered drowsily if she had lost them at the dance and then fell asleep with my nose buried in Bob's shoulder which smelled of cheap Indian perfume.
The most outstanding of all (five) of the social events to which we were invited during our stay in the mountains, was Mrs. Kettle's birthday dinner. We were the only outsiders asked, which was a singular honor; it was a Kettle gathering on Kettle soil and our first introduction to them en masse.
One very hot July morning Mr. Kettle and Elwin drove up to the house, to borrow some egg mash. I invited them in for a cup of coffee but Paw refused. He said, "Thure would like to but you thee itth Mawth birthday tomorrow and Elwin and I are trying to get a little help with the haying tho we will be free to thelebrate. Do you thuppose that Bob could thpare uth a little time?" I said, "Bob is working on the water system and I know he won't be able to help. What about the other boys? Can't they help?" Elwin said, "Haw, haw, haw! Help with the haying? They gotta work in the woods." Paw said, "That's the WAY IT GOETH. THE BOYTH WON'T help and the old lady can't do it all alone." I said, "I thought you and Elwin were going to do the haying." Elwin said defensively, "I gotta get my car fixed before Saturday." Paw said, "Mr. Olson cut our hay last year and Maw raked and stacked it—I wath havin' turrible trouble with my back—but theein ath how tomorra is Mawth birthday we thought we would give a little thupper party for her and we want you folkth to come but she'll be tho buthy she won't have a chance to help with the hayin'."
I repeated again firmly, "I know Bob won't have time to help with the haying."
"Well, thatth too bad," said Paw. "But don't forgit to come to the thupper."
"I won't," I said. "What time?"
"Oh, 'bout four-thirty," said Paw. "And by the way, everybody ith bringin' a little somthin' to the party. You know thort of picnic thtyle."
"I'll bring the birthday cake," I said, which evidently satisfied Paw for he and Elwin took their egg mash and left. (They came up again in September to solicit help with that same hay.)
I was not an expert cake maker but decided to make up in size what it would undoubtedly lack in quality. None of my recipe books contained any directions for anything over two layers so I doubled and tripled and before evening I had the great heavy square foundation layer done.
The next day dawned hazy but warm—a perfect day for a party and a perfect morning to bake the rest of the cake, which by noon was finished and frosted pink, white and blue. It was poisonous but festive looking, and as a final corny touch I lettered HAPPY BIRTHDAY on one side in red cinnamon drops and stuck an American flag on the top. Bob drove to the Crossroads for a pair of silk stockings and a birthday card and on the way back picked up Birdie to stay with the baby. At four o'clock on the dot we loaded the cake and set off. The farther down the mountain we drove the hotter it grew until, by the time we turned into Kettles' yard, it was stifling. The yard was seething with cars, as all of the fifteen children, their husbands, wives, children and in-laws were there. Mrs. Kettle was bright-eyed in a clean pink housedress which was missing the top two buttons in the front so that as she greeted us I noticed that her large white breasts bobbed to the surface like dumplings in a stew. I handed her our present and she kissed me, unwrapped the package and said, "Well thank God, I don't have to wear them damn lizzle stockins no more."
She directed me to put the cake on the front porch where we were to eat. I carried it through the dark front hall and out the never used front door and set it with a thump on the long table of boards on saw horses which had been set up and covered with a pink crepe paper tablecloth anchored with rocks. Almost all of the chicken droppings had been scraped from the floor and railing and the lilac bushes cast cool shadows across the table. Two of the flypaper curls had been suspended from the ceiling and already they were dotted with flies and swayed and quivered as more hit and stuck. The little flag on my cake drooped as the icing grew warm and soft and the HAPPY BIRTHDAY seemed about to slide off at one end, so I moved it farther into the shade before returning to the hot kitchen and the mobs of guests. As I left the porch I noted that, whether we had counted on it or not, the outhouse was going to be noticeably present at supper; so I suggested when I went to the kitchen that someone put up some sort of temporary door across its front. Mrs. Kettle said, "It's a good idea but I don't think you'll get any of the men to do it for you. Go shout at 'em, they're on the back porch."