Pursuit Of The Cygnus Thief

Chapter 23 - Get A Load Of Me

Chapter 23

"Get A Load Of Me"

Friday, May 25, 1956

They knew my fathers'schedule, they also knew Matilda to be on vacation, the eleven most eligible young women in Assumption pursued John Woodstock, they brought blankets and thought little of their intrusion into my backyard and even less of my presence. I came home that afternoon to find that Johns' admirers had abandoned their smart Sundays' best for the brighter, tighter skirts and more generously scooped necklines of Fridays'unsurpassed. As the sole attraction, John diligently worked in the dry desert heat sawing cedar planks as a tinny slice of heavy, echoic saxophone aired from a nearby transistor radio. I'd just arrived when Mary Blodgett strode over and offered John a bottle of Reddys' Pop, he smiled beautifully, shifted well into Marys' space, reached for the wet cold bottle, and made me wish that I was a little older. The women on the blankets cursed themselves for being beaten to the punch, held their hands in front of their brows against the sun and hoped John couldn't see how upset they were. Sweaty and clad in her tightest, brightest and most pointy Galina rushed toward John and Mary, she'd ditched school to compete with the 'spinster brigade' on their level, to make her preordained match with John obvious. Galina had it figured-out, her parents would excuse her truancy because the billboard photo-shoot was imminent and skin that resembled a bruised banana was not photogenic. Galina closed in, she supplanted Mary Blodgett, said something to John about 'old chickens' then invited him to 'come get a soda or something' from her. Her intonation and the way Galina sluggishly wagged her tongue across her lips afterward made her intent hard to dispute. In reaction, Johns' head dipped slightly to one side, he squinted in the harsh sunlight as he spoke.

"Say, what's the matter with you anyways? Only pigs throw themselves at men like that. Didn't anybody teach you right? Huh? Well guess what jail bait, not every poor slob wants what you got. Don't you come around here if you can't act like a lady."

The words, however choice, however much they might have seemed deserved, were not the kind anyone used on Galina Markham yet John had wielded them and they were terrible, his words drove a freshly leveled Galina from my backyard toward her mother's car in a hurry. I glanced at Mary Blodgett, I'd expected to see a woman aglow in a ray of triumph, instead Mary seemed more diminished by John's bluntness than Galina. The other women looked on and exchanged glances, some smiled while others shook their heads in approval and muttered encouragement to John. I went after Galina and coaxed her into the house where we could cool off and talk while Matilda was still away.

We sat at the kitchen table, my memory of Matilda's attack suddenly surfaced on a liquid time-line. It seemed that it had always happened, that it would happen, when I closed my eyes the pictures rolled forward like a film already in progress. I felt far worse when images of Mr. Abel rocketed through those of Matilda, when both their faces loomed behind my eyelids together, Mr. Abel's long fingers jammed in my mouth, the wind knocked from my lungs, Matilda with nothing on beneath her bathrobe. Even if I hadn't felt so embarrassed, I couldn't have told Galina about it; she hadn't believed me about Mr. Abel and she had no tolerance for anything to do with Matilda.

"I'll talk with John." I said. It helped to concentrate on Galina's problems when she was around, it never bored her and my own problems usually tended to ebb for a time.

"Oh, it's all right. I get it you see." Galina staunched tears from the outer corners of her eyes with one of the embroidered handkerchiefs she'd given me for my birthday. I gave her two ice cubes, she held both to her closed eyelids, with less than twenty-four hours before the photo-shoot, Galina knew that she had to either resolve any facial puffiness or produce ruinous photographs.

"No. John was rude." I got up, looked through the window over the kitchen sink, saw that with his mind spoken and his soda sipped, John had returned to work but Mary, who had seemed the front runner before Galinas' emergence and obvious dismissal, was gone.