Tea Cups & Tiger Claws
Read Tea Cups & Tiger Claws Online
Authors: Timothy Patrick
2013 Timothy Patrick
All Rights Reserved
ISBN: 0989354415
ISBN 13: 978-0-9893544-1-7
Library of Congress Control Number: 2013908773
Country Scribbler, Santa Rosa Valley, CA
Thank you to my manuscript readers: Joe Willcutt read it in a day, and my eighty-five year old father, Orville Patrick, read it in three months. Joe, your feat was impressive but I’ve got to give the nod to Pop, mostly because three months was a record for him…and because he’s my dad. Thank you to Michael Phillips, my friend, flight instructor, and part-time “shrink,” who read the book and started passing it around to his friends and family. Michael, your enthusiasm meant a great deal to me. Rick Roswell and Paula Gail not only read a hefty manuscript from a total stranger, they also followed it up with useful feedback. Thank you. The following friends and family read for me and/or brightened my writing solitude with an occasional email or phone call: Kathy Slavin, Karen Waterman, Kristi Dedic, Kelley Waterman-Patrick, Valerie Powell, and Suzanne Riedinger. Thank you all. Special thanks to my son, Taylor, and my daughter, Alina, who willingly helped me tame various wayward paragraphs.
My biggest gratitude is rightfully saved for my wife, Martina Patrick. She has turned my dream into our dream, and I couldn’t have a better partner.
It started in 1916 when the newspapermen came to town to write stories about a local scamp who’d given birth to identical triplets. Truthfully, the whole thing didn’t look like much more than a new swatch on an old quilt, but they came anyway. Maybe it had something to do with all the gloomy headlines:
German Zeppelins Bomb Paris; Summer Olympics Canceled; Special Dispatch From The Trenches Of World War.
Gloom doesn’t sell. That’s what the newspapermen said. Scandal and depravity sell, and if those commodities can’t be found, out comes the human interest rainbow slapped across the dreary landscape of the front page. In this case the rainbow took the form of sixteen-year-old Ermel Sue Railer and her three baby girls. Her cornpone husband, Jeb, told wild stories and took a good picture, as did Ermel—when she covered her buck teeth—and her birthing of the first identical triplets born in the U.S. in over a year made for a story that promised to sell at least a few newspapers and magazines. Reporters, photographers, and sketch artists hopped into the town of Prospect Park, California like penguins at breeding time.
Of course the
Town Council didn’t care for any of this. The fact that Jeb and Ermel lived there at all made the town look bad enough. Now the whole world knew about them and about their ratty home down on Pine Street. They lived in a development named Yucatan Downs, derisively known as Yucky D, which consisted of two-bedroom shacks surrounding a dirty courtyard where chickens, dogs, and neglected children scurried amongst broken down wagons and a couple of precariously leaning outhouses. The place had originally been a work camp, thrown up years earlier to temporarily house the carpenters who’d built the first mansions on the hill, but instead of getting torn down, a clever speculator slapped on the exotic name and filled it full of undesirables.
Other than the
disgrace of having Prospect Park’s good name lumped in with the likes of Jeb and Ermel Railer, the articles in faraway magazines and newspapers didn’t cause any real damage; readers of the New York Times Sunday Magazine might’ve been captivated by the miracle of identical triplets but they didn’t hop a train to come see for themselves. In neighboring cities they did. Cooing, gushing baby lovers from miles around invaded Prospect Park and clogged the downtown streets with wagons and noisy mules. They chugged up the hill in smoky model T’s to ogle the mansions. They guffawed and said howdy and showered the town with the lowbrow familiarity of a bean picker on pay day.
Despite these aggravations,
the good people of Prospect Park weathered the storm with their usual dignity. These things needed to be kept in perspective. The city of Santa Marcela had been plagued for decades by a whole colony of Railers. Prospect Park, on the other hand, had one little nest. All things considered, the good people seemed to be fortunate.
~~~
Ermel didn’t mind the steady stream of tearful women who took turns hovering over the bassinets, especially when they tucked quarters and half dollars into her hand. And when she sat for the artists, surrounded by babies, she kept an eye on Jeb to make sure he didn’t pocket any of the envelopes that some of the rich folks left behind. Along with the usual Bible tract, these envelopes often contained folding money of ones, fives, and even tens; folding money that soon put her into a lavender hobble skirt and shirtwaist and lace up boots. All in all, Ermel Railer found motherhood to her liking.
One
afternoon two weeks after the birth, after the hubbub had died down, when sleepless nights and boiled diapers began introducing Ermel to a world of motherhood that didn’t include little envelopes filled with cash, a stern looking man with perfectly oiled gray hair knocked on the door. He wore a chauffeur’s uniform, and Ermel easily pegged him for just another uppity servant.
“The duchess wishes to see the babies,” he said, slowly and precisely, like someone who wants to be understood so he doesn’t have to be around any longer than necessary.
“Then tell her to come in,” said Ermel.
“She has instructed that the babies are to be brought to her in the motorcar one at a time, ten minutes each.”
Ermel
’s toothless mother, Gurty, who’d moved in to lend a hand, laughed contemptuously from the bedroom.
“You tell
Princess What’s-Her-Name,” said Ermel, “that this ain’t no café, and she can’t order up my babies like a plate of pork chops.”
He stared scornfully
. Then he took a small envelope from his vest pocket and handed it to her.
“Wait here,”
grumbled Ermel, as she hurried to the bedroom that she and Jeb shared with the babies.
“How much she give?” asked Gurty
.
“Ten dollars.”
“She better.”
Ermel flung
off the dress she’d been wearing and put on the new hobble skirt and shirtwaist. From a shiny red box she then lifted a giant hat with a wide brim and peacock feathers jutting out the back. She carefully put on the hat and tucked a few loose strands of black hair behind her ear. Then, after tracing red lipstick across her mouth, she admired herself in the mirror. Nobody showed up Ermel Railer, not even a duchess. She walked confidently to the front door.
“Mrs. Railer, you seem to be forgetting something
,” said the man.
Ermel looked down at her outfit and said
, “No, I got everything.”
“The baby, Mrs. Railer.”
“Oh yes. How silly of me.”
When
Ermel saw the long, gray motorcar parked on the street, she placed the name: the Duchess of Sarlione, who used to be Jeannie Brynmar before she got herself a royal title by marrying a penniless Italian duke. A few of the local heiresses had gotten titles like that, but this one stood out because she came back from Europe with the title—for a price—but not the duke, and because she wrapped herself in pure white ermine and rode around town in a Rolls Royce Silver Ghost.
“You are to address
the duchess as ‘Your Grace.’ Do you understand?” said the chauffeur as they approached the car.
“
I think I know how to greet my visitors thank you.”
After opening the
motorcar’s back door, the chauffeur said, “Your Grace, this is Mrs. Railer.”
“Hello Mrs. Railer.”
Ermel looked in and saw a picture right out of McCalls. The big brown eyes, perfect white skin, glossy red lips, and stylishly short hair looked like they belonged to an expensive porcelain doll that people like Ermel didn’t dare touch. Then her natural defiance kicked in and she said, “Hello lady. I like your motorcar. Might get one myself…now that I’m in the magazines and all.”
“This must be your baby daughter…one of them anyway,”
said the duchess with a small, sad laugh. “Please get in.” She reached out and pulled down a jump seat. Ermel tried to step up to the running board but got hobbled by her hobble skirt, so she hiked it above her knees, and climbed in, baby and all, hitting her hat on the convertible top and knocking it catawampus across her head. She finally wiggled into the seat, which faced the duchess, and self-consciously put herself back together. The chauffeur closed the door.
“
Can I hold her?”
“You paid your money didn’t you?
Sure you can hold her.”
The
duchess bit her lip and took the baby. She had tears in her eyes. The lady who had fur coats and servants and a motorcar that cost more than a house, cried over a baby.
“What’s her name?”
“Uh…uh…Abigail.”
“Hello Abigail
.”
For the next ten minutes
the duchess touched the baby, smelled the baby, hugged the baby, and rocked the baby. She did everything except change the baby’s diaper. And every time the baby made a goo-goo sound, she rejoiced as if the kid had just graduated medical school. Ermel alternated between eyeballing the Rolls Royce, the ermine coat, and the duchess, who seemed to be off her nut.
As
she handed back the baby, a leg popped through the swaddling blanket. Unable to resist, the duchess grabbed the little foot and pressed it to her face. Then she noticed a tag tied to the ankle. She looked at it and then looked at Ermel. “It says Judith,” she said.
“Then it must be Judith.”
The duchess kept staring.
“
We swap names all the time. They don’t know no better. Except for Dorthea. We don’t swap her name on account of her pale blue eyes.”
“
Pale blue eyes? Aren’t they identical triplets?”
“
Yeah…I’m not sure how all that stuff works. They all got blue eyes but Dorthea’s are kinda like steel blue. The doctor says she got an infection that caused her eyes to come out different than the others.”
“But she can see…there isn’t
anything wrong with her eyesight, is there?”
“Nah, there ain’t nothing wrong…except if you stare at ‘em too long it kinda puts you in a trance.”
“Really! Bring me Dorthea next!”
As
Ermel walked back to the house to exchange one baby for another, she saw her next door neighbor, Mrs. Krawiec, staring out her window. And in the next house over she saw Mrs. Duda, and her teenage daughter Aniela, staring out their window. Ermel looked back over her shoulder, across the street. Even there, in the normal houses, she saw eyes glued to windows, and she realized none of them had ever said two words to a real live duchess or sat in a duchess’s Rolls Royce. Ermel walked proudly back to her house.
Later, after
Jeb came home from a night of spending the contents of one of the envelopes, she told him about the duchess. Of course he blew his top. “Our babies are good enough for her to slobber over, and you’re good enough for her to order around like a slave, but our house ain’t good enough for her highness to step foot into?” Nobody blustered better than Jeb Railer. He badmouthed the people on the hill in general, and cussed one family in particular: the Newfields. That’s what Ermel liked about him. That’s why she married him. And because of his handsome face…and she got pregnant.
So
Jeb ranted and raved and made her promise to stick it to the duchess if she came around again. When Ermel showed Jeb the envelope, he calmed down and fell asleep grumbling.
The
duchess did come around again—two days in a row. On the first of those days everything went as before: the uppity chauffeur knocked, Gurty sneered, Ermel carted babies back and forth, and the neighbors got bug-eyed. The next day, though, things changed.
“Hello Mrs. Railer,” said the duchess. “I
t’s me again. I hope you don’t mind another visit.”
Ermel
tried to look put out as she climbed into the motorcar.
The duchess held out
something in her hand and said, “I brought you a little present.”
The two ladies exchanged
bundles. The duchess went to mush over the squirming one and Ermel expectantly unfolded the other.
“It’s
a satin and chiffon evening dress,” said the duchess, between fits of adult baby talk. “I think it will look great on you. It’s by Lucile.”
“
Oh…yes…Lucile,” said Ermel.
She
gently stroked the silky material. The duchess gently stroked the baby’s downy head. Ermel pressed the cool satin to her face. The duchess pressed the baby’s pure face to hers. Ermel hugged the dress. The duchess hugged the baby.
T
hanks in no small part to Ermel waiving the dress around like a crazy flagman as she walked back to the house, this time the neighbors didn’t try to control themselves. They came poking around before the big car’s smoky exhaust even had a chance to clear. The two Polack ladies, Krawiec and Duda, pretended to be just passing by but quickly small-talked their way into Ermel’s house. Vera Snyder, the white trash from across the courtyard who stole clothes pins from the neighbors, came in looking for a match to light her cigarette, which the Polacks thought scandalous, but not enough to make them leave. A Mrs. Barnes, from across the street, who’d never said boo to anyone at Yucky D, came over with a gift. Ermel tossed it onto the bed and concentrated on getting into the new dress.
The
visitors surrounded the bassinets, paid their respects to the babies, and then followed like hound dogs when Ermel sashayed into the kitchen wearing the black and white dress. She stopped next to Gurty, who sat at the kitchen table, and held a sleeve out to her visitors. “It’s a gift from the duchess,” she said. “You may touch it if you want.” The Polack ladies wiped their hands on their aprons and held their breaths as they ran the shiny fabric between their sausage fingers. “It’s satin. Made from silk,” explained Ermel. “And looky here at the bow. It feels like velvet.” Mrs. Barnes, too dignified to fawn but too curious to abstain, touched the fabric also. Only Vera, who loudly puffed a cigarette in the back, ignored the offer.
“It’s by Lucile,” said Ermel.
“Oh yes. Lucile,” said Mrs. Barnes. Mrs. Krawiec looked confused and whispered into Mrs. Duda’s ear. She got a jab in the ribs by way of a response.
Ermel had never commanded such attention in her short and unspectacular life. She withdrew the sleeve and watched everyone’s eyes follow the simple
movement with rapturous attention. She danced around the kitchen like a ballerina, watching their facial expressions rise and fall with every bend of the knee. She watched as they hypnotically shuffled toward her like moths to the fire, following, turning, inching closer, until they had her deliciously cornered.