American Dreams (5 page)

Fritzi lapsed into silence. lisa reached across to clasp her hand again.

'How I wish you felt better.'

'Mama, I'm fine.'

'No, no, I see the signs. A generous heart brought you home when your papa was ill, and you've stayed. But I know you're all at sea. Do the amateur dramatics no longer interest you?'

'Truthfully, no.'

'Social work isn't your cup of tea.'

'It was kind of you to introduce me to Jane Addams again. I know she's a great friend, and Hull House helps ever so many poor people. But all the women I met there -- your friends who volunteer with you - they're not my age. They're settled, with different interests.'

'They are old, like me,' lisa said crisply, without self-pity. 'I understand.'

The waiter brought lisa's soup and a basket of rye and black bread.

While Fritzi buttered a thick piece of pumpernickel, her mother said, 'I've thought of ever so many things to suggest to you, some quite outlandish.

Cooking lessons from a French chef, for instance.'

Fritzi eieeled. 'You know I'm a failure at the domestic arts. I couldn't cook a missionary if I were a cannibal.'

lisa took another sip of wine, and a deep breath, and leaped. 'There is something your papa would like, you know. For you to settle down. He longs for a son-in-law, grandchildren.'

Silence again. Fritzi remained motionless with both hands on the stem of her glass. lisa had never pried into her daughter's romantic affairs.

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From scattered hints in letters she knew Fritzi had fallen madly for a young Georgia boy when Mortmain's company played two weeks in Savannah. The boy apparently liked her, but only that. No doubt he thought her fast, a judgment made of all actresses. The boy was from an old family -- an aristocrat, which in lisa's view often equated with snob.

The tone of Fritzi's letters had been sad for months.

lisa's Worry

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A not unfamiliar story, lisa thought. Sometimes after a particular boy was lost, a girl never recovered. Never found another to match the first love, and so withered into spinsterhood. lisa knew at least four middle aged women who'd had that misfortune. People said they were

'disappointed in love.' One was lisa's dear friend Jane Addams who ran the settlement house.

lisa would die a mother's living death of sorrow if Fritzi spent her life alone. Yet she knew of no way to save her daughter. Only Fritzi could do it -- Fritzi and some man who had no name, no identity, nor any real existence except as a shadow in a mother's hopeful imagination.

At last Fritzi spoke. 'Mama, I don't think it will ever happen.'

'Why not? Liebchen, you're a treasure. Is your mind made up against marriage?'

'No, but I know what I am. I'm an actress. I'm cut out for that and very little else. I love acting. That's why--' Sudden spots of color in Fritzi's cheeks prepared lisa for something dire.

'I've decided to go to New York after the first of the year'

'I don't believe it. You would move to that awful place?'

Fritzi took her mother's hand, speaking earnestly. 'You're a smart, cultured woman, Mama. You know perfectly well that theater, real theater, only happens in New York. I refuse to spend my life playing tank towns from Florida to Texas -- or a church hall in Chicago. If I try and fail, so be it. But I have to try.'

Now it was lisa's turn to be silent, while her mind raced. She didn't doubt her daughter's ability to look out for herself, even in such a sinful and crime-ridden place as New York. What alarmed her was the thought of another person in the equation:

'Have you told Papa of this decision?'

'Not yet, but I will soon.'

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'You know he may react badly.'

'Dictatorially, you mean? Mama, I can't alter my life for fear of an argument.'

'I don't ask that. Please think it over, that's all. Think it over very carefully.'

The catch in lisa's voice made Fritzi blink; lisa's panic had shown itself. 'Who knows, perhaps you'll change your mind.'

Fritzi didn't reply, concentrating on her food. The renewed silence left lisa hanging in a state of uncertainty and despair.

24

Dreamers

5 A Dream of Speed

At a coal stop in Maryland, some miles above Baltimore, a railroad man rousted Carl from the southbound freight train. He'd headed south after the first snow whitened the Hudson Valley. In Maryland he found the milder weather he was seeking, though the sun was setting early, casting long, sad shadows.

He walked along dirt roads for a few miles, working up a ravenous appetite. He stopped at a country tavern, a rambling frame building with a dirt yard where stagecoaches must have parked years ago. By the door he noticed buckets of cinders and a heavy shovel, reminders that it might snow in Maryland too.

The tavern was smoky and warm. At the bar he ordered pork roast and a stein of beer, paying with his last forty cents. Two men in double breasted suits leaned on the bar rail, speculating on the outcome of the forthcoming Harry Thaw murder trial in New York. Thaw, a well-connected socialite, had murdered architect Stanford White in the rooftop theater at Madison Square Garden. White had dallied with Thaw's wife, a former showgirl. At a table in the corner, four other men played cards.

Carl wandered to a smaller table, pulled out the chair, sat down heavily without judging the chair's fragility. The old dry wood protested noisily.

Behind the bar, the whale-sized proprietor gave Carl a look. Carl jumped up and examined the chair.

'Nothing broken.'

'Lucky for you. Furniture ain't cheap.'

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Presently he had his food and drink. The loudest of the card players, a lanky man with a blotched nose, kept hectoring the others. Finally an older man folded his hand and threw it down.

'I'm tired of your lip, Innis. We'll play again when you're sober.'

Innis staggered up, overturning his chair. 'Hey, you bastard, you can't quit. You're winning.'

'I'm quitting, Innis. Right now.' The older man gave Innis a hard stare.

Carl sopped up gravy with a piece of oatmeal bread, noting that the older man was a head taller than Innis. Innis didn't challenge him. The older man left.

A Dream of Speed

25

Carl didn't put his head down in time. Innis caught his eye. 'You a card man, mister?'

Carl didn't like Innis's looks and perhaps showed it when he said, 'No.'

'Come on, sit in for a few hands. Straight draw poker.'

'I haven't got any money. I'd like to finish my supper.'

Innis blinked, mean-eyed. 'Ain't got any manners, either.'

One of the other card players tugged Innis's arm. 'For Christ's sake, sit down, you've got to get over it sometime.'

Innis flung off the man's hand. 'I don't know this bozo, and I don't like his lip.' Innis lurched forward, punched Carl's shoulder. 'What you got to say to that?'

Carl was no dime-novel hero like Nick Carter or Frank Merriwell, but his father had taught him to stand up to bullies because they usually went to pieces if you did.

'I say you better not hit me again.'

Innis snickered. Slapped Carl's face lightly. 'Like that?'

Stomach knotting up, Carl pushed his chair back. The proprietor rushed from behind the bar. 'Outside, outside. I don't want no damage.'

Carl spread his hands in a final peace gesture. 'There's no reason we have to--' Innis slammed his fist into Carl's jaw.

Carl windmilled backward, bounced off the wall. Damn stupid bully, he thought as Innis shambled toward him. Before Innis could punch him
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again, Carl caught his shirt in both hands. He yanked Innis sideways. The tavern owner leaped to the door and held it open so Innis could sail through backward, landing on his rear in the dirt.

Carl walked out after him. 'Let's forget it. I've no quarrel with you. Go someplace and dry out.'

Innis crawled up on his knees, wiping his mouth with his cuff. For a moment Carl thought everything was settled; Innis's sickly, dung-eating smile deceived him.

'Well, now,' Innis began, hitching forward on his knees. Too late Carl realized what he intended. Innis's right hand clamped on Carl's ankle and spilled him. Innis jumped up, kicked Carl's ribs twice, grabbed the shovel by the handle.

'Now,' he panted as Carl wobbled to his feet, head buzzing. 'Now, you smart-mouth son of a bitch.'

Carl chopped down with the edge of his right hand, into the V of Innis's left elbow. It loosened his grip. Carl wrested the shovel away. From his side pocket Innis pulled a clasp knife like Carl's, snapped it open. Carl retreated 26

Dreamers

a step. Innis turned sideways and stabbed. Carl swung the shovel like a baseball bat.

At the last second he pulled the swing so he wouldn't kill the man. Even so, the shovel gave off a metallic ring. Innis dropped, his left ear bleeding.

He flopped on his stomach, sighed, and passed out.

The owner and the card players stood in a half circle around Innis while Carl caught his breath and rubbed what felt like a pulled shoulder muscle. The owner emptied a water bucket on the fallen man. Innis licked water from his lips and kept on sleeping.

'He's been mad as hornets for a week,' the owner observed. 'First they fired him at the track, then his old woman locked him out. He's been on a rip ever since. Wouldn't stay around to see him wake up, I was you. I'd move on.'

'Sure, I'm used to that,' Carl said with an odd smile. 'I need work, maybe I could take his place. Where's this track?'

'Baltimore Downs. North edge of the city.'

'Thanks kindly.' Carl turned and limped out of the tavern yard.

He slept that night underneath a bench in a park in a small village, half
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awake with his teeth chattering. The wind blew out of the northwest, smelling of winter.

In the morning he found the Baltimore Downs racetrack. It was a splendid one-mile layout with a big flag-bedecked grandstand, a two story clubhouse, extensive stables and paddock. A groom exercising a filly pointed the way to the office. There a man named Reeves made short work of the interview:

'You want Innis's job? He mucked out the stables, helped the grooms, did whatever else needed doing. You game for that?'

'I'm game for eating once in a while,' Carl said.

Reeves liked that. 'Met Innis, did you?'

Carl touched a purpling bruise on his jaw. 'Unfortunately, yes.'

'Who won?'

'I did.'

Reeves liked that even better. 'Well, the stables are clean and warm. You can sleep in an empty stall till you find a boardinghouse. Start tomorrow morning, six sharp.' As Carl thanked Reeves, he heard the deep growl of a motor.

'Sounds like a gasoline car.'

'Yep. When the ponies aren't running, I've found there's a sporting crowd that will turn out for automobile races. Our track's popular with the drivers, too. Ever seen a race?'

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'I saw the first one run in this country. Thanksgiving day, 1895, in Chicago.'

"The famous race in the snow,' Reeves said with a nod.

'Fifty-four and three-tenths miles. The Duryea brothers won it with their Number 5 in ten hours, twenty-three minutes. Frank Duryea drove the car, only they called them motor wagons then.'

Since that wintry day when a wide-eyed boy had watched horseless carriages slipping and sliding along Michigan Avenue, Carl had carried on a constant if unfulfilled romance with autos. He had seen scores of autos in New York City. Whether they had hissing boilers, buzzing batteries, or sputtering gas engines didn't matter. They all excited him. They were
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machines, and he loved machinery. Autos were no longer jokes, as they had been at first; now they were symbols of power and wealth -- rolling, snorting, smoking marvels of the new century.

Still, not everyone liked them. Dr. Wilson of Princeton had stated publicly that they were frivolous and ostentatious toys only the rich could afford. Thus they promoted unrest, socialism, and anarchy among the poor. Didn't that just prove Wilson was a stuffy old bore?

Of course, autos were as yet far from reliable. Likely as not, you'd see one sitting broken down instead of moving. Wandering a country road in Ohio, he'd come on a butter yellow Stanley mired in a muddy ditch. A farmer with his mule team hitched to the frame struggled to haul it out.

Call volunteered to push on a rear wheel. The farmer prodded his reluctant mules; brown ooze flew out behind the tires. The Stanley regained the road, and Carl's grin shone in his mask of mud.

He often dreamed of sitting behind the wheel of an auto, driving fast.

Back in Indianapolis, where he'd worked for three months earlier this year, the dream had become feverish. He hadn't stepped inside a legitimate theater since he was a boy, but he bought a gallery seat for a musical play called The Vanderbilt Cup. It celebrated the great Long Island road race started in 1904 by the socialite William K Vanderbilt. The show was touring with its original Broadway star, race driver Barney Oldfield.

Oldfield was a former Ohio bike racer who had taken the wheel of an auto for the first time in 1903. He drove Henry Ford's big '999' against the favorite, the 'Bullet', owned by Cleveland auto maker Alexander Winton.

'999' won.

Barney Oldfield wasn't much of an actor, but he gave a convincing performance in the climactic scene in the second act. Two racecars, the Peerless Blue Streak and Barney's Peerless Green Dragon, raced side by 28

Dreamers

side on treadmills while painted scenery flew by behind them. The cars spewed smoke and sparks and blue exhaust flame in a frighteningly realistic way. Barney wore his familiar forest green driving suit, green leather helmet, and goggles. The cast cheered him on. Naturally he won. He was the uncrowned king of fast driving, and he wasn't being paid two thousand a month to lose.

It was the first time Carl had seen Barney Oldfield, who was at the height of his fame. It was also the first and only time he saw what his sister meant about the magic of theater. The stage spectacle thrilled him.