My Notorious Life (6 page)

I bolted away with this news to my sister where she sat on the lap of the blue-eyed lady, and pulled her by the sleeve. —Let’s get out of here. We’re going back on the train.

—No, Axie, Dutch said to me, cheery as Christmas. —Mrs. Ambrose will take me home, where I will be their little daughter. The father will buy me a pony.

And then Horehound held up my brother Joe like a prize turkey, showing him off to a ruddy man with a brown mustache. —Meet your son Joe, she says to him.

—He’s not your son! I shouted. —You can’t have him.

—And who are you? said the ruddy man.

—That’s his sister, said Horehound, frowning. —I was thinking . . . Chester—?

—I told you one is all, said her husband. —And the sister’s known as a hellion.

Events were transpiring all around me, an avalanche of catastrophe. I looked from Joe to Dutch, back and forth to the adults smiling away. —No, no, no, I said. —You can’t take them separate or without me. We are all three Muldoons.

—Trust me, said Mr. Dix. —There’s no one here able to take the three of you.

—Let’s GO, Dutchie, I said. —Mam said keep us all together.

But Dutch was ready to cry. —My new mama says I shall have a china dolly. Please Axie I ain’t going back on that train one more minute.

—Then we are separated! I cried.

A look of honest surprise came on her face. —But maybe you’ll get a china doll of your own! Seven years old and bribed away from me. The two Ambroses looked at us, sorrowful again, apologizing. The wife took Dutch by the hand and began whispering poison into her ear. I scowled at her and stuck out my tongue.

—Gracious! the evil kidnapper said.

I tried to drag Dutch off but was distracted by the terrible sight of Horehound heading toward the door with Joe in her arms. —Stop, I cried, torn between them, and scrambled after my brother through the crowd. —Joe Muldoon!

—Oh there you are, said Horehound. She took Joe’s hand and made him wave.

—Say bye-bye, she said, in a baby voice. Joe reached his arms for me.

—Joe!

—Now, now, says Horehound, —you’ll see him when we bring him to church on Sundays and you’ll see him plenty.

—NO! I tried to kick her as she shrieked and pulled Joe away.

—You must do what’s right for your brother, said the frazzled Mrs. Dix, while her husband held me back by the shoulders. —Say goodbye now, Axie.

—Joe, I said, panicked. I kissed his forehead, stroked the dark hair off it. He lifted his miniature hand and I grasped it.

—AxieDutch, he said, very tired. But he did not fight when the Horehounds strode out the door and off toward their wagon. I watched as he was handed up onto the bench, and they drove off waving.

—We must be going now ourselves, said that crab Mrs. Hough. —Come with Mother. I threw off her claws in a frenzy and ran back to save Dutch at least. We would get Joe back and get on the train home. But no. There my sister was with those Ambroses, holding their hands.

—Say your farewells, her pretty kidnapper said, looking guilty as the criminal she was. My sister put her arms around me now.

—Stay with me, I whispered, and hung on. They peeled her off. They held me back and led her away. She seemed deranged with confusion, glassy with fright.

—Dutch! But there she was outside already, framed in the doorway. The sunlight glinted off her black hair like a sign she was anointed, then she was gone.

In the doorway of the church I stood with my hand lifted in a stopped wave as my brother and sister was driven away by strangers. Then the crab Mrs. Hough led me toward her sorry-looking wagon though I kicked and twisted out of her grip.

—Get off me, I said, and flailed with my satchel. —I WILL NOT GO.

—Well then I will not take you, said Mrs. Hough, and huffed away.

—You’ve done it now, said Mrs. Dix.

—You’re in a terrible predicament, said her husband. —Your only choice is to come on the train with us to the next town, and see if we can find you a placement.

—I will take the girl, said a voice in a quaver.

We looked at the emptying church, and there sitting quietly coughing in the front pew was a white-haired woman with apple cheeks and hair like spun glass on top of her head. Her name was Henrietta Temple, and she was the Reverend’s wife.

—Let this young lady board with me for a time, she said to the Dixes. —If we can’t find her a placement here in Rockford, she can ride back with you when you come through this way again.

It was the least miserable of my options, and so I was glad to let the Dix leave without me. They rounded up the four or five unchosen orphans, Mag among them.

—Goodbye Mag, I said. —Write to me.

—I will, she said, but I known she lied for she did not know how.

When she and the Dix was gone I went with trembly old Mrs. Temple around to a white house in back of the church with my little suitcase in hand. As we went, she was wracked by coughing so it was plain I was farmed out to a consumptive. She showed me to a narrow room by the kitchen, so deluxe with its own bed, a washstand, and white curtains in the one window, made of dotted swiss. It was all just for me.

—You can be our guest here for the time being.

—Maybe you wouldn’t mind having my sister and brother here neither, I said, enthusiastic. —We’d all share the one bed, no complaints.

Mrs. Temple’s eyes ducked away from me. —We can’t take in every orphan that comes our way. As much as I would like to.

—Are your children grown?

Mrs. Temple looked sadly at me. —I always wanted a kitchen full of youngsters. But God had other plans for me.

I wish I’d of known Mrs. Temple during the troubles of her younger days, for I’d have prescribed her raspberry tea and black cohosh root and a regimen with egg whites, and she’d not long have remained barren. She was a kind woman. She patted my knee and gave me lemonade, but she could not take me permanent.

That night in my private room I slept alone for the first time in my born days and wrapped the Mrs. Reverend’s white piqué coverlet over my raw thumb and suckled it for comfort. At thirteen years of age, I was no better than a baby, and with the knuckles of my thumb pressed against the taste of dread in my mouth, I fell asleep.

T
he next morning, Mrs. Temple put a fat book down beside me at the kitchen table. —The Book of Psalms. Start copying where you like, and fill the page. She gave me a pencil and paper. I copied the letters with great effort while Mrs. T. coughed and mended socks and didn’t care that I had not more than five spotty years of school before my father lost his balance and died and we children was sent out to beg. —Read aloud, said she.

—I am poured out like water, I read, halting and bad, —and all my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax. Yea dogs are all round about me. A company of evildoers encircle me.

—Keep going.

—Save me from the mouth of the lion, my life from the power of the dog.

—Very good.

—What is that? What happened about the dogs? The whole story excited my interest very much.

—It’s a Psalm of David! she said, smiling like we were talking about sunny days. —It’s about a man hunted and hounded and forced to flee into the wilderness. Copy the whole verse.

The hounded man and me had much in common, but writing him out was grim hard work and Mrs. Reverend was a stickler for me to finish. My pencil wore to a stub.

—Considering your deficiencies and deprivations, said Mrs. Temple brightly, —you are not a bad pupil.

The heat came to my face and despite her backhanded praise I was proud. —When can I see my sister Dutch and brother Joe?

—On Sunday Mrs. Trow comes to church with the boy. And your sister’s family the Ambroses come regularly too.

—They are not her family. We ain’t orphans.

—I see, dear, said Mrs. Temple. But she did not see. All week, she drilled me in spelling and reading. She brushed my hair and petted me, taught me fancy sewing and the words to Shall We Gather at the River. On Sunday at last she tied an enormous white ribbon in my hair with big loops like the ears of a rabbit. —Oh you do look sweet! She put her pale spongy arms around me, smelling of tea roses, and we went over to church. I skipped up the steps in a lather to see my brother and sister.

When Dutch arrived, she was a stranger in a new dress, her hair done in corkscrews. —Axie! she cried. —I miss you.

—What have they done to your hair?

—Mother curls it with a curling iron.

She might as well have taken that same hot iron to my eyeballs, calling this pretender Mother.

—I got my own room, Dutch blathered on, —and a doll with glass eyes and a music box that plays Oh My Dear Old Augustine. Last night we made ice cream!

My heart grew a green algae of jealousy.

—Sure, me and Joe would like to come along with you for dat, I said.

—For THAT you mean, said somebody, interrupting. —Not DAT.

Mrs. Ambrose had come up behind us smiling while correcting my speech.

—Dutch darling, says she, very frosty, —you found Axie Muldoon.

—Could my sister and our Joe come for ice cream? Dutch inquired her. —It ain’t much trouble for you and Father.

—ISN’T much trouble, Dutch dear, said the false blue-eyed mother.

—I knew it! my sister cried. —It ain’t no trouble, so yiz can come after church!

The Ambrose woman was wincing in dismay. —No, I meant ISN’T any trouble, not AIN’T. I was not suggesting . . .

But now we sisters was distracted by the sight of our own Joe across the yard aloft in the arms of the Horehound, who was showing him off. —Joe! We ran to him, but when he saw us he put his head down on the Horehound’s shoulder and hid his face. I put my arms out for him, but he would not come to me and clung on to her baggy neck.

—Joe, I said. —Pat a cake. I clapped hands and sang about the Baker’s Man till he peeked at me from under her bonnet strings and gave me his half-cocked smile.

—You remember Axie? said Horehound to Joe as she handed him to my arms.

As if he could forget his own sister. She was all syrup to my face, so generous to let me play with my own Joe, except now we had church to endure, and Reverend Temple began his sermon about the judgment soon to be upon us poor SINNERS.

—Let NOT those who live a life of poverty and distress FLATTER themselves that in their SORRY lot they shall escape the judgment of God. The Rev. thundered on, talking about ME. —Thus saith the Lord, although I have cast them far off and SCATTERED them, yet will I be to them as a sanctuary. O my hearer, make the Lord thy habitation.

I did not see how the Lord could be a proper habitation at all, so when church was over, I proposed to Dutch again to get me and Joe into her new home.

—But is it true you hit Mrs. Hough with your satchel? asked my sister.

—No, only with my fists and boots. I thracked the c**p out of her.

—Oh Axie, you must not curse, my mother says.

—She ain’t your mam, and I’ll curse when I want, and thrack that person you call your mother just like I did old crab Mrs. Hough for trying to steal me.

—My mama says you’re wicked and it’s best I don’t think of you Axie! my sister wailed. —It’s best I be their little girl alone. Every day I miss you, but they say I’m not to mention nothing of it.

—No, you are a MULDOON, never forget, descended from the Kings of Lurg.

—But what will I do? she cried, hysterical. —I am called Dutch Ambrose now.

*  *  *

The next Sunday neither the Ambroses nor the Horehounds came to church.

—Must be they’ve caught a summer cold, Mrs. Temple said. —Maybe next week.

But they did not come next week, nor the next. I known it was because I said AIN’T. Because I cursed. Because I hit Mrs. Hough and bit that old man. My heart was like wax, melted down into hard drops. In my little room, Mrs. Temple sat on the lip of the bed and took my raw hand all red from my nightmares troubling it.

—Axie, you must not think of them, she said, and patted my hair. Her voice was soft, but the words she spoke were hard stale crusts with no comfort.

—Why can’t I stay here with you?

—I am very old, and I am not well. Best to move on. We are meant to accept and rejoice in His wisdom. The Lord works in his strange ways.

His ways were not only strange but downright perverse, as far as I could see. Still, in case there was something to it, I tried my best with the prayers.
Lord hold us young Muldoons in the palm of Your hand and carry us home to our Mam.

*  *  *

That summer Mrs. Temple occupied me around the church and the kitchen when she did not have me at my letters. For hours in the garden I pulled pigweed and Spanish nettles from the squash plants. I wrote out the Psalms of David till my hand cramped and my head buzzed with the words I Am Poured Out Like Water and All My Bones Are Out of Joint. There was no one to talk to. No one who showed up to say, Oh come and be my little daughter, I will corkscrew your hair.

On a dull August day, full of self-pity, I was out by the road kicking dust, when there along walking barefoot, his pants too short by half, was a rough-looking boy. When he got up close, I seen it was Bulldog Charlie from the train.