No Promises in the Wind (8 page)

“I can make it a point to be there,” Lonnie answered.

“Pete's a pretty good sort of fellow. He'll go out of his way to help someone down on his luck; I've got reason to know that. He's always been a showman; even when he was a kid, he was forever puttin' on some kind of show. That's been his life, and that's all he'll ever do. He'll never get rich at it, though; he's the sort of guy who looks after the other fellow before himself.”

“Not many of that breed left,” Lonnie said thoughtfully.

“You're plenty right there ain't. Now, of course, I don't know Pete's circumstances, but I know that if he has a place or can make one for this boy, hell do it.” She nodded at me. “Tell him Bessie Jenkins recommended you—hell like doin' me a favor.”

The waitress was not a pretty woman, and her voice was not as pleasant as I liked women's voices to be, but she looked and sounded wonderful to me that snowy evening. I tried to tell her how much I appreciated her interest in me.

We slept in the back of the truck that night, wedged in between the big cartons packed there, but well wrapped in the blankets Lonnie carried with him. Cold and hunger had kept me awake many times, but this night it was excitement that kept sleep from me. I stared up in the darkness for hour after hour and tried to think of the future. Nothing was very clear—my goal was vague and undefined. I guess the possibility for survival was all I asked.

I thought the other two were sound asleep, but after a long time Lonnie's voice came out of the dark from the other side of the truck. He seemed to know that I was awake.

“You don't forgive easily, do you, Josh?”

I knew he was thinking of Dad. “No,” I said, “I guess I don't.”

“Haven't you ever made any mistakes yourself?”

“Of course.”

“But you somehow got the idea that men have no right to make mistakes? That it's just a privilege of kids?”

I didn't answer. He was quiet for a long time, and I thought he wasn't going to say anything more which was all right with me. After a while, however, he spoke again.

“Everyone makes mistakes. I made one once, and it's nearly driven me out of my mind at times. My boy—I told you he died five years ago—well, he complained of a bad bellyache one night. His mother wanted to call a doctor, but I thought that it was just a case of a kid eating a little too much or getting hold of something that didn't agree with him. I made him take a big dose of castor oil. My mother had given me that remedy many a time, and I'd always gotten better in a few hours. But it wasn't right for Davy. He had appendicitis. It killed him.”

It wasn't easy to find words. I tried to tell him I was sorry, but I stumbled miserably. I don't think he was paying much attention to what I said anyway. He kind of muttered the next words to himself. He said, “If I met your dad tonight, I'd shake hands with him. And I'd say, ‘Brother, I know just how you feel.'

I could hear him turn so that he was facing the outside of the truck. Neither of us said anything more.

Lonnie
became more and more our friend as the days and long evenings passed. He talked a lot about the possibility of my finding a job. “If this Pete Harris doesn't come through with work for you, we'll see if we can't hit someone else. I know some people down in New Orleans who may be able to give us a lead. Folks are great for music down there—I think we have a pretty good chance of finding something for you.”

When I stopped to think about it, I was surprised at how much I needed the confidence and assurance that Lonnie gave us. I had considered myself pretty well grown up; I was proud that in spite of our hardships I had been able to take care of Joey, had been able to find food to sustain his life and mine. Now, all at once I was conscious of a sense of security that had not been mine since we left home and for many months before; the confidence of having an adult take the position of a father. Not only was the pinch of winter leaving our bodies, allowing us to relax as we left the snow and icy roads of Nebraska, but the worries and tensions that had plagued every waking moment were leaving our minds. All at once, Joey at ten and I at fifteen, had the right to be boys again. It was Lonnie who made the correct turns on the long road; it was Lonnie who was taking the responsibility of finding Pete Harris and the carnival for us; it was Lonnie who said, “Toast and three eggs, over easy, please. Milk for the boys, coffee for me,” when we stopped for breakfast, a decently cooked breakfast unspoiled by begging.

I had not, however, sluffed off all responsibility. On a crumpled piece of paper I carefully set down the amount of money which Lonnie paid for our food at each meal. He asked me once what I was doing, and I told him.

“I'm not worried over the cost of an egg or two and a few hamburgers, Josh,” he said.

“I know you're not. But I'll feel better if I can get a job and pay you back for what you're spending on us.”

He agreed with me. “I think maybe you're right,” he said. “Don't feel you're being pressed, though. Take care of the kid before you start sending money to me.”

I liked the way he spoke of my sending money as if the probability of my getting a job and earning money to pay my debts was a very real one. It was a boost to my wavering optimism.

The first day that we hit warm weather we were on a road down in Texas close to the Arkansas border. Lonnie bought bread and cheese and a bottle of milk, and we ate our noon meal on the grass under a clump of trees. Joey breathed great lungfuls of the soft air with delight; he and Lonnie ran together up the road and back, laughing and panting as they sat down to the picnic lunch I had spread out beside the truck.

When we had eaten, Joey practiced a little on the banjo and Lonnie sang a few songs that were currently being heard on the radio, encouraging Joey to find the right chords for an accompaniment. I listened to them for a while, and then, being well-fed and comfortable in the warm air, I hid my face in the grass and went to sleep.

When I awoke, they were talking quietly together, evidently about me. I heard Lonnie say, “So, I take it you're pretty fond of your big brother, aren't you?”

I think Joey was slightly embarrassed. We never talked much about such things. We left that sort of talk for Kitty and Mom.

Joey hesitated a little. “Yes, I like him. I like him a lot.”

“I have an idea your dad is thinking a lot about you boys these days.”

Joey hesitated even longer before answering. “Yes,” he said finally, “I expect he is. It's been hard to live with Dad since times got so bad and he lost his job. But I can tell you one thing—Dad isn't nearly as bad as Josh thinks he is.”

So, I thought, Joey too! Mom and Lonnie and now, Joey. All with a warm spot for Stefan Grondowski. Well and good. Let them keep their kind feelings for him; I didn't care. Maybe I'd starve in the years ahead, or maybe I'd get a job and be able to do the things I'd dreamed of doing. A lot of maybes, but among them there was one certainty: I would never go back and offer my hand in friendliness to Stefan Grondowski; never would I sit at his table again. Never! I found myself clutching big handfuls of grass as I lay there with the waves of anger running all through me.

But hope got the better of my rage as the big truck counted off the miles and the air grew warmer and the sky brighter with sunlight. We were driving into a new world, a kinder world where Lonnie would help me find a job, where things were going to be right with me for a change. I didn't intend to let thoughts of Dad spoil this new hope for me.

It wasn't long until we entered Louisiana and found ourselves on curving roads so unlike the straight highways of the Midwest. We drove past dozens of beautiful old plantation homes of a kind that I had seen only in moving pictures. We were soon in the bayou country, dark with forests of pine and oak, of magnolia and cypress all draped with shaggy hangings of moss, gray and forlorn-looking. At a cafe where we stopped for lunch, we overheard some men speaking in a foreign tongue as they sat at the counter eating.

“That's mixed-up French,” Lonnie told us. “Cajun talk. You'll hear a lot of it down in these parts.”

I began to feel a little scared. This was a world of warmth and softness, good to feel after the harsh winter we had just left, but it was an alien world of strange trees and marshes, of unfamiliar language. I supposed the carnival would seem alien too, and I wondered how I would dare to ask for a job in a place so strange and, what was more than likely, so unfriendly to a stray kid asking for a job that a dozen local kids may have been wanting. I had heard over and over during the fall and early winter, “We've got kids here too, you know. We have to look after our own. We don't have enough for them and tramp-kids too.” To ask for a job was almost like begging. I hated for Lonnie to see me rejected and humiliated when I begged for work.

Lonnie had to make several inquiries, but finally one evening we came upon it, the carnival we'd driven hundreds of miles to find. We found it lying before us in an open meadow only a few miles out of Baton Rouge. It was in full swing, bright with hundreds of colored light bulbs, noisy with the shouting of barkers and the laughter of children and the blaring music of a merry-go-round which dominated the center of the scene. There was a Ferris wheel, too, with a few children strapped in the seats, and on a circular track there were a half dozen little cars with a great cover of canvas falling in accordion folds over them to give the effect of a giant caterpillar. There were roulette wheels with cheap little prizes attached—chewing gum, candy bars, occasionally a quarter or a half dollar. There were tents where barkers urged us to have our fortunes told. We were invited to see a bearded lady, a man with flippers instead of arms, a wild man from the jungles of Borneo. We passed shooting galleries and booths where the prizes for knocking down a sand-filled dummy were plaster dolls with enormous painted eyes or net stockings filled with candy.

A clown on high stilts staggered toward us and fell in front of Joey. People nearby laughed when Joey tried politely to help the fallen figure and the clown suddenly sprang to his feet and pretended to trounce Joey as if my brother had been responsible for the fall.

We shuffled through the curled wood shavings that covered the ground, inspecting and admiring everything around us. The whole scene made me remember when Dad had taken us to the amusement parks in Chicago long ago when I was little. The memory made me feel very lonely for a minute, but I fought away any such loneliness with a stubborn resolve not to remember anything good about Dad.

After an hour or so we finally found a tent with the name
Pete Harris
painted on a placard above the opening. We went inside and found our man.

He was a short, rather fat man, neither friendly nor unfriendly. He and Lonnie talked quietly together for a time while Joey and I waited at a distance pretending to be interested in the people who passed by. Then Pete Harris called us over to his desk. He told us that the waitress who had given us his name was indeed his cousin. He seemed to like her; I got the impression that he wanted to help us as a favor to her.

It was plain, though, that he was worried. “I don't know,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck with a big handkerchief. “To tell you the truth, I just don't know how long this show is goin' to hang together. Times ain't good for havin' fun. People ain't lettin' go of their money anymore; awful lot of people ain't got any money to let go of. I don't know whether I can afford to take on anybody more or not.”

Lonnie was sympathetic. “I know. Company I haul for is laying off more drivers every week. May feel the axe myself, any time now. I know exactly how tight things are. Still, I wish you would at least hear the boy play. All of us in your cousin's cafe that night last week were kind of amazed at how he got music out of an old piano that was ready for the junk heap.”

Pete Harris kept on mopping his neck and frowning at me. Then he glanced at Joey, and his face relaxed a little. “Hi ya, sport,” he said, and he put his arm around Joey's shoulders in the way that most people reacted to my brother. Then he turned to me again. “All right, come on. Won't cost me anything to hear you play a little. Far as a job goes, though, I just don't know.”

He led the way, and we followed him inside a tent where a piano was shoved in among chairs loaded with a lot of ruffly-looking dresses, a couple of chests with open boxes of powder and hairpins on top of them, and any number of battered suitcases and hatboxes. I glanced at Lonnie and saw that he was anxious. Pete Harris looked tired and skeptical. He motioned me to the piano as if he wanted to get the playing over and be rid of me quickly.

I played a few popular numbers, syncopating them with as much of a flair as I could. I tried to smile and look confident, patting my left foot lightly and swaying a little with the beat of my music. All the time I was thinking, “Give me a chance, Pete Harris; come on, give me a chance.”

He drew his mouth down at the corners when I turned on the bench to face him. He looked at Lonnie rather than at me and nodded. “The kid's not bad,” he said, reaching up to rub his head.

Lonnie sat astride a chair facing the back. He looked nonchalant. I might have felt that he was bored with the whole thing if I hadn't known better. “That's right,” he said. “Josh handles that keyboard pretty well. I have an idea that a lot of people are going to like his music, not only because it's good, but because they like to see a kid doing this sort of thing. Not many kids his age play like that....”

“If times were good, I'd take him in a minute,” Harris said, “but they ain't good. Fact is, they're rotten.” He looked at Joey again. “They've been rotten for you, too, haven't they, sport?”