Maude Brown's Baby (6 page)

Jake dozed for a while, then turned to his newspaper. “Well look at this,” he said, slapping the page with the back of his hand. “Pershing is adding twenty thousand more names to the Army’s casualty list. He says they’re all ‘slight’ injuries that were just too trivial to mention before. I’ll bet all those wounds weren’t trivial to the boys who got them.”

“General Pershing must have had a good reaso
n,” Donald said. Jake glanced sideways at him, turned the page and continued reading.

On a stretch of dirt road adjacent to the tracks, a man paced the trolley on his Indian Model
O light twin. Donald knew the bright red motorcycle from a magazine ad, but he’d never seen one on the road. The lightness of the little two-cylinder made up for its lack of power. He was surprised at the speed. The Indian was keeping up with the trolley, which had to be going at least thirty-five miles per hour.

Dust billowed
from the ground, rolled briefly around the rear fender, boiled up and finally drifted away in the air, unable to keep up. The rider raised himself up, knees bent like a jockey, absorbing each new bump with his arms and his legs. Donald watched for more than a mile, imagining himself roaming the county in tall boots, gauntlets, goggles and of course, a dashing leather helmet. Someday, someday.

Jake brought him
back.

“Hey, here’s Enoch’s first story about the labor shortage on the seawall.”

It took Donald a few seconds to remember where he was.

“The extension to the fort?”

“That’s what Elton was supposed to shoot. I’ll get out there tomorrow and ask around.” Jake read on. “Says here the project has only half the workers it needs.”

“Elton did go to the seawall,” Donald said quietly.

“What?”

“There were four exposed sheets in his bag and two more in the camera. I had time to process the negatives before you picked me up.”

“What did he get?”             

“The first four
are what you’d expect; a foreman looking at people pouring concrete. There’s a shot of workers around the pile driver and a good angle of the steel forms on the gulf side of the wall.”

“And the other two?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Let’s see,” Jake said, stuffing his newspaper in the space between the seats as Donald recovered the envelope from his bag. Jake to
ok all six negatives and moved across to use the west-facing window as a light box.

Each translucent four-by-five-inch
celluloid sheet was thin and stiff as an average postcard. Jake checked first to see which side of the film carried the emulsion, then pressed that side to the window glass.

“You can tell who’s
the foreman,” he called. “He’s the only one not working.”

Donald waited. Jake raised the fifth negative to th
e glass, leaned closer, then dropped back into his seat. He stared across at Donald.              

“This wasn’t taken at the seawall.”

“I know.” Donald swung his knees into the ai
sle and leaned toward Jake. “That’s one of two that were still in the camera.”

Jake squinted again at the last negative, holding it firmly against the glass. He lowered his voice so that only Donald could hear. “Looks like I was right about Elton having a lady friend in Galveston. I can’t tell who she is from this, but she has a nice figure.”

Overcome with curiosity, a boy lunged from behind for Donald’s side, but his mother held him back.

“I think both shots were taken in the same room,” Donald added. He watched as Jake lowered the negative from the window and raised the last one of the set.

“Wow!” Jake said, “Elton sure didn’t take these for the newspaper.”

“What’s a nega
tive?” asked the boy. His mother apologized and tried to pry her son’s hands from the back of Donald’s seat.

He turned to face the child.

“A photographic negative is what we use to make pictures.”

“How does it work?”

Donald heard Jake groan.

“Photographers start with a thin piece of celluloid or glass that’s coated on one side with special chemicals. Those chemicals have to always be kept in the dark, because even a little bit of light changes them. You see, the photographic emulsion
… ”

“Is that magic?”

Donald smiled, seeing himself in the child. He glanced across the aisle, but Jake was back at the window, intent on the negatives.

“I asked someone that very question once,” Donald said. The boy’s face brightened. “Yes, it looks like magic, but it’s just chemistry. You see, the
photographic emulsion contains … ”

“But what does a negative do?” the boy pressed.

Donald sighed. Jake cupped one hand to his ear in mock attention. Donald refused the bait.

“Do you ever put your hand in front of a lamp to make shadow puppets on the wall?”

“Oh, yes!” the boy said, “I make up stories for them!”

“Why are your puppets always dark?”

“Because they block the light?”

“Right. And why is the area around them bright?

“Because the light from the lamp is shining on the wall?”

“Right again,” Donald said. He heard Jake moan, but ignored him.

“Cameras are like that. The film inside a camera remembers what is light and what is dark. The film becomes the negative we use to make prints of our pictures. You see, the photographic emulsion is …”

“Is there a lamp inside the camera?”

“No.” Donald smiled at the boy. “The light comes from outside. Can you remember what a camera looks like?”

“Sort of a box?”

“There’s a round piece of glass on the front, like my eyeglasses here.” Donald tapped the side of his frames. “That part is the lens. Inside is a mechanism called a shutter, and that determines how much light reaches the emulsion. Then the chemicals … ”

“The shutter, is that what clicks when you push the button?”

“Yes! That sound is the shutter opening and closing very fast to let in a tiny bit of light. If you were a camera, it would be like holding your eyes tightly closed, then suddenly opening and closing them again.”

The boy blinked several times.

“Like the shutters on our windows at home!” he said, loud enough for other passengers to hear. Some turned
and smiled, although one man huffed and snapped the newspaper he was trying to read.

The boy’s eyes opened wide. “And that light shines on the film inside the camera!”

“Exactly so!”

Now the boy was beaming, and so was his mother. “Excuse me,” Donald said as he slid into the seat next to Jake.

It was twilight by the time the Interurban reached the 21
st
Street station. Despite the cool front, Galveston’s humid salt air made it clear that summer was not over. Jake and Donald began walking. Ten minutes later they reached the oyster shell driveway of a two-story carriage house. A tidy Craftsman bungalow stood next door. The structures were joined by a wide arbor that opened onto a large garden behind the main house.

From the driveway,
Donald could see what had once been a flower garden. Now the surviving rose and lantana bushes tended themselves, and the remaining beds were given over to vegetables and fruit.

“Clara Barnes rents rooms here,” Jake explained
as he knocked on the carriage house door. “She lives in the main house and lets tenants use her kitchen.” Donald imagined an elderly widow, living off the rent.

“Foots!” squealed the woman who opened the door. “Foots!” called another from down the hall. She waited her turn to hug Jake, then asked, “Who's your friend?”

“Ladies, this is Mister Donald Brown, soon to be the second best news photographer in Houston. Don, meet Miss Rebecca Simpson and Miss Jennifer Lane.”

“Nice to meet you, Miss Simpson,” Donald said, tipping his cap.

“Please, call me Rebecca.”

“Thanks. And n
ice to meet you, too, Jen … uh, Miss Lane.”

“Jenny
is my name,” she said, “but at the club they call me Gin.”

“Imagine that,” Jake said. “Ladies, all I’ve had to eat tonight is a ham sandwich and an apple. Suppose we head to Black’s for some real food. Don, are you going?”

“Thanks. I’ll stay here.” He was hungry, but the thought of an evening listening to Jake impress his friends left him suddenly tired.

“Ladies, you’ve got ten minutes.” Jake watched admiringly from be
low as Jenny and Rebecca jiggled to the top of the stairs.

“I thought we came to Galveston to look for Elton,” Donald said a bit harshly after the women had closed the doors to their rooms. Jake turned, a faint smile fading from his lips.

“Don, from what I saw in those two negatives, I’m sure now that Elton’s just on another binge. Hell, we might find him tonight, passed out in one of the clubs.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“You sure you’re not coming with us? You don’t know what you’re missing. These gals can show you a good time.”

“I’ll take your word for it. Where’s our room?”

“In the back near the bathroom. Take my stuff when you go.”

Donald lugged the bags down the hall, dropped Jake’s just inside the door, then pressed the button to turn on the electric light. Their room was surprisingly large. A small desk with a two-bulb banker’s lamp separated the twin beds. Open windows on three sides allowed a welcome breeze thr
ough the screens, although weeds brushed against the one in back.

He set his own bag on the nearest chair and looked around. More lace and
frill than necessary, but the room had a comfortable chair and several shelves of books. A thick tome,
Modern Methods on Nursing,
was open on the desk. Beside it, a simple white vase overflowed with holly leaves and freshly cut lantana.

Donald stooped to peer into a photo on the desk. It showed a toddler perched sidesaddle on a pony, a black man in uniform holding the reins. He set his glasses aside and lifted the
picture close. The girl, perhaps three years old, wore a white dress with a dark ribbon around her waist and another in her hair. She smiled confidently at the camera, but the groomsman stood in profile, stiff as a hitching post.

Laughter from the front room announced that “Foots” and his friends were about to leave.

“Will you be all right?” Jenny called to Donald. “Clara will be home soon, but we use her kitchen. The back door is open. We all buy food, so help yourself to whatever you find.”

More laughter. “Don’t wait up, my man,” Jake sa
id as he closed the front door.

`
Donald savored the silence. He found his glasses, took his journal and a pencil from his bag, then went next door to check the icebox.

“Oh, boy!” he said aloud to the apple pie and milk.

Donald had just taken the last bite of pie when the front door opened, then
slammed shut. He chewed quickly so he could swallow and call out, but the intruder spoke first.

“OUCH!” sai
d a female voice, then, “… Ah … Ah … OUCH!” He heard something small hit the floor.

“Hello?” he called.

Silence in the front room.

“Hello? Mrs. Barnes?”

“Yes?” Clara said as Donald emerged from the kitchen, using his sleeve to wipe milk from his chin. Clara stood by the umbrella stand, straw hat dangling from the back of her neck and one hair comb lying on the floor. Her arms were pinned behind her, both sleeves tangled in the jacket she’d been wearing over her white blouse.

“Are you the overnight guest?”

“One of them,” Donald said. “Jake took Rebecca and Jennifer to get something to eat. I’m Don … Donald Brown.”

“
Miss Clara Barnes. Pleased to meet you Mr. Brown.”

H
ostess and houseguest stood firm; Clara contemplating the athletic man with goggle eyes, and Donald transfixed by the slight, windblown young woman bent double, arms fast behind her as if tied with a rope.

“OUCH!” she
cried again, jerking her chin to her chest. A second hair comb thumped to the floor, landing near the first.

“May I help?” Donald said, gathering his wits.

“Please! My neck! Something is sticking me. Will you see if you can find it?”

“Of course!” Donald said
, sounding more certain than he felt.

“Here,” he said, first removing the hat from her shoulders, then freeing her arms and hanging the jacket and hat on a stand by the door. Clara gathered her hair from her neck and bent forward. Donald mov
ed to her side, arching one arm over the top of her head, the other hovering just above her neck. When Clara flinched, her shoulder pressed briefly against Donald’s chest. He caught the scent of lavender.

“Do hurry, Mr. Brown. T
his really hurts!”