Wild Stars Seeking Midnight Suns (18 page)

It was plain to see Mr. Evers had a back problem that gave him a gimp leg that made him seem kind of crippled. Least he couldn’t walk smooth and sexy like some of his shipmates. His back was bent a little, real rounded of his shoulders. He was shaped like a slender “S.” His hips pressed forward. He couldn’t move his back from side to side, he had to take a whole step, not lean over sideways. But he didn’t act crippled. And he worked!

I saw loneliness printed on his face, mostly in his sad, unexpectant, eyes.

I let him stay at my house one time, so I could see what kind of man he might be. I learned he had been to prison for something he didn’t do. He was working on the ships to stay away from crooked police. And probably cause he didn’t have no other home. I asked him about his wife. He quietly laughed, and looked at me like I was confused or something. Then he said he didn’t have none.

I told him, “You can’t bring any women here to my house, son. I don’t ’llow that. This is a clean, safe house.”

He gave me that same look again. Said, “I respect you, lady.”

I told him my name. “Ms. Realer, son.” I could have said “Mrs.,” but that takes too long to say. I like “Ms.” cause it’s quick and easy.

He nodded his head and said, “If you need to know, it’s been a long time since I put myself in that position. I had a woman, but she died two years ago with cancer. She understood me. I took care of her.” He lowered his eyes a moment. Then he said, “There’s too much sh . . . stuff out there now. You can’t be sure no more. And I don’t like people, women, thinking they are doing me a favor. I’m a grown man. If I ever just really have to, I’ll wait till I get somewhere I know. Does that settle your mind, Ms. Realer?”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Evers.” He stayed at my house four days and I enjoyed his silences, our talks, and his peace. He paid in advance for when he would return because his ship had a run that would stop here once a month for four or five days.

Emmh! Emmh! Emmh! It’s sad for people to be without anybody in this crowded world. If there just wasn’t so many fools in it, things would be way better for everybody; the fools too!

The next time he came to town and wanted a room from me, I had already decided I didn’t want him staying at my house. I didn’t give his money back. I lied, but I had to. I told him I had relatives coming in, but I knew just the place for him and had already reserved, and paid for, a room for him. Then I took him down to the Oceanview Hotel, and introduced him to Harriet. Told her, “This is the good man I gave you the money for to reserve one of your rooms.”

I turned to Issy (that’s what I had come to call him when he stayed at my house). Said, “Mr. Evers, this is Miss Harriet Long. This is a good hotel. Safe.” Star wrinkled my mind a minute, but I threw the thought out. “I think you will be comfortable here. They gonna feed you, too, good food, so you don’t have to eat at the greasy-spoon cross the street.” I knew he wasn’t interested in going over there anyway; he had already passed it up once.

Since then, Mr. Evers always rented a room at Oceanview. Said he was tired of viewing the ocean, but, “Your hotel is nice and homey, Ms. Harriet.” That’s what he said to Harriet. I was there.

I forgot to tell you, Issy Evers didn’t never hardly look nobody in the face and eyes either. I think he thought he was ugly, well, he kind’a was. Had a scar cross his face from trying to keep somebody from raping him when he was in prison. Stay out of prison if you have to use everything in your brain you can, cause life ain’t never the same, I don’t b’lieve.

Now, I didn’t have no reason or anything for taking him down there, just sometimes your heart tells you to do something. I didn’t need his money. Lord knows, I’m old and I got enough. It ain’t no million dollars or nothing near that, but how much does a person need? You can’t spend it all. That Solomon was right, life is a vanity. Spend all your life doing something like making money and you still got to leave it behind. Cause it can’t buy you life. Besides, I pay attention to my heart; see how it’s beatin and all, and hear what it’s trying to tell me.

He didn’t like lookin at people straight in the face and that desk was in front of Harriet. She didn’t like people to see her body, I don’t really know why; her body did not look crooked. Only she knew the shaking going on inside of her. They could’a passed each other by, just like that.

I told him, “You can come down and talk to Harriet just like you talked to me. She likes to read, too.”

She smiled and frowned at the same time, but at least she smiled. She said, “Yes, come on down. I like to hear stories about the different places you have been. I haven’t been anywhere.” See, she didn’t know him, so she thought she wouldn’t get excited and shake in front of him. She continued, “We’ll call you when your dinner is ready.” She handed him the key. “You got a lucky room, number seven.”

They must’a made friends cause Issy went back to the Oceanview Hotel every time his ship was in port. Sometimes he came by my house to see me.

I forgot about it because I have my own stuff to tend to. But I did drop in on Harriet when I had to pass by. We talk and I watch her fingers make the needle go in, go out, then the machine go up and down. All them stitches and probably one her dreams stuck in em. One time I went, she was making a wedding dress for someone. Someone else’s dream with hers mixed in.

Once, when I was there, Star was going out, and Harriet told her sister, “Why don’t you eat something before you go out? You need some food on your stomach. It’s already cooked, you just need to warm it up and eat it.”

Star looked at me and smiled (she knew her sister loved her and it’s so good to be loved). She went out the door, saying, “She don’t ever go nowhere, Ms. Realer. She’s going to let her shakes hold her down. I told her, life is going to pass you by. But not me! I’m going to get me some life!” She went flying after life like a bird, but never got any farther than across the street. And seem to always come home with her feet draggin.

Well, anyway . . .

Sometimes, if it was evening, me and Harriet would have a little drink. Yes! We drank brandy. Not a lot, just a little. She like to serve it in them little snifters she had bought to go with her romantic dreams. (I know she had em, I think everybody does.)

One time, when we were having a drink, Harriet said to me, “My days go by like hours of sand. Lots of hours. Lots of sand.” Then she stopped talking because Star came in.

Star greeted me and told Harriet, “You ain’t gonna offer me a drink? Just gonna sit up here with Ms. Realer and leave me out!? I am family, and friend, ain’t I?”

Harriet went to get a glass for her. Star called after her, “Don’t get me one of them baby glasses either. Give me a grown-up glass.” But Harriet brought her a snifter anyway.

I took a good look at Star. The children I had known as babies were older now. Certainly. But the years seem to bite and chew up Star’s face; I don’t mean it was a ragged, scarred face, it just looked too used. Like a plastic doll some child had loved and banged around so long, until even the doll looked . . . broken and worn, is all I can say.

Her face was beginning to crease, and dry them creases in place. Not a soft wrinkle, but a crease. In a puffy face that still held some attraction, you could see what once was there. She was thirty-five or thirty-six, younger than Harriet by a year, I b’lieve.

I smiled into her eyes. I cared about her, just thought she didn’t care enough about herself. As she laughed with us, no matter how she tried that empty laughter, if you watched real close you could see the tears sittin in the corner of her eye. Emmmh! Emh! All them men . . . and she still lonely. She thought she was getting love, but it dried up before the sun could hit it. The quivering sighs, the blissful moans, couldn’t outstrip the broken promises, the lies and a couple of times, a black eye.

Well, that’s Star. She is doin what she think is best for her, I guess. Or what she saw her mother do. Get you some education about what is going on in this world. See what’s going on besides what’s across the street. This is a big world! And I don’t care what they say about them computers, you can’t live in one of em!

I told you someone had asked Harriet to make a wedding gown. It was some beautiful white satin. They must’a stole it because you could tell it was expensive, soft and full-bodied, fit for a queen. It looked like it could caress and kiss the skin it touched. Then the wedding must didn’t go on like it was supposed to, and they didn’t want the dress. Least they didn’t never come get it. It hung on Harriet’s rack for about two years. Harriet kept it clean and dust free.

She loved to look at that dress and touch it with her soft, gentle hands. Her needle finger was the only thing that snagged it. After a time, Harriet began to speak of it as hers. Well, it was; she hadn’t been paid for it. Finally she took some of that dress loose and fixed it to fit her own body. Some nights, in her room alone after her work, she would try it on. Careful, careful not to muss it. I saw it, it fell softly and rich on her slightly bent body, and her back liked to straightened out. She felt like the sun or a star in that dress. Like a cloud of beauty.

It was her dream. It was her secret shared only with me. Because there was no groom, you see. She knew Star would have laughed at her; maybe affectionately, but a laugh at ya is a laugh at ya! During this time . . . Star had started sneaking men in the hotel late at night. For money. The prostitutes had convinced her she was a fool for giving it away. They wanted to see her come to be a regular whole whore. Misery really do like company. Well, I don’t think Star was no whore at heart because she didn’t do it often. But she did do it sometimes.

Ms. Poker knew it first, but it didn’t take long for Harriet to find out. She didn’t say anything to her sister because she took care of Star with the hotel money, and it was never enough. And because times were hard and sewing didn’t pay much. And she was working on a new dream of her own.

Harriet had lived in the Oceanview Hotel all her life. Every day, every hour of her life. She wasn’t dreaming of a real man, only an imaginary one. She was sure no real man would want her. But she was dreaming of a house of her own so she could move away from the Oceanview Hotel and the Water’s End Bar.

She told me, “I can still come to work every day, but I want to be . . . more alone. To myself. Have a place that’s just mine. Some peace. Maybe set up a real little shop for sewing. Make a better life for myself.”

Harriet had been saving some of her money over the years. Her share after she shared the hotel income with Star, paid the bills, and Ms. Poker. She didn’t do much more than work, so there you are. For the last ten or fifteen years she had put a little by, steady. She had learned that from her mother.

When I learned that, I set out looking for a little house for Harriet. Was fun to me; I like to do things out the usual, and every woman likes lookin at houses. I found something once or twice I thought she would like, then she would come out to see it. We finally found just the perfect little house for her. It was a ground-floor house with a nice-sized kitchen beside a closed-in porch, two bedrooms, a small dining room, and a living room. Had a picket-fenced-in yard big enough for a few large, strong trees already there, and room for a small garden for Harriet to plant her vegetables. She could even have another dream of hers: two chickens, hens. Two fresh eggs every day!

She put the money down on the house and told me, “Now I can have a nice dog and my cat won’t be petted by strangers all day. Cleopatra [the cat] don’t like that.” We grinned at each other. She said, “I sure got to work hard sewing now, cause I got a house of my own to pay for!” Her eyes teared up when she said that. She was happy and she shook only a little.

Issy Evers came into port round that time, and went to the Oceanview Hotel. He always did now, cause he and Harriet had made up a quiet friendship talkin about the world and books. This time in their little talks, she told him her secret about the little house. Well, it’s all she could talk about. And it happened to be one of Issy’s dreams too. But he had never thought it would come true. Too big a dream, to him. He just thought he would work until he died and he had insurance to bury himself and that would be that.

One day we were sitting and talking round Harriet’s desk. She was talking about her having to work at her sewing harder to pay for the house. You know, like people do, not hinting, just stating facts. Issy must’a gave some thought to that. He asked, “You mean you might not be here much anymore?”

She smiled a little sadly. “Not any more than I have to, but I think I’m going to have to.”

Then he said, “I won’t be here but a few days; can I see your house, Ms. Harriet, please?”

Harriet tried to say no, but I was there and I said, “Sure.” I smiled at both of them, said, “We going over there today, just in a little while. Come on back in a hour or so.” Harriet squirmed and fidgeted, but she didn’t want to start shaking, so she didn’t say anything until he went to his room.

She meant to whisper, but she was agitated so it was loud. “Ms. Realer, why you want to tell him he can go with us? I don’t want to be shaking round nobody. I don’t shake around you cause I know you. And now, he’s going to be there. I don’t know him. He’s just a nice stranger. Now, he’s gonna see me shake.”

I just told her, “Everybody is a stranger till you know em! He been coming here almost a year! And you told me he was a nice man and you liked him.” I added, just for looks, “As a friend. He probably done already seen you shakin. So what?! What’s a little shake? It’s your shake, Harriet. So, so what?”

So we all went; I went with em. This homeless man with nothin but a room anywhere, looked like a hungry kitten as he looked around the yard and the little house. The kitchen had cleaning supplies left around from her steady cleaning work, and she had put a few of her things in some room every time she came.

She was foolin with something and he was just standing there watching her. I was standing there watching them. Finally he asked her, “Are you going to be livin alone here?”