Ruth Erlene McKinney and Franklin D. Roosevelt
Continued from Home Page
Ruth couldn't help laughing out loud. Laughing caused
a stitch in her sides. "Lordy, I hope he hasn't been drinking any of that hooch that's giving so many folks Jake
Leg,"
Agnes, a short,
stocky middle aged woman came out of her apartment carrying a black lunch pail and a thermos bottle. Her beige cloth
coat was new and it matched her felt hat and handbag. She put her things on the table, bent to pick up Ruth's book,
and then went back to turn the key in her door.
"Oh
my, Ruthie. Your hair looks so lovely. Lord, I'd give up my place in hell to have complexion like yours.
Did that husband of yours even notice?"
Ruth
blushed. Mack hadn't said anything about it, if he even noticed her hair. "I love that coat, Agnes.
After the baby comes, would you let me borrow it to make a pattern from it?"
"Sure, baby." Agnes said as she tucked the thermos under her arm and picked up
her purse and the lunch pail. "I left the radio turned up loud to keep you company, Ruth. Is there anything
you need from the store while I'm out?"
"If
you happen to find a million dollars and a boxcar full of change . . . no, I can think of a lot of things I'd like to have,
but there's nothing I really need. Thanks for asking though." Ruth looked up at Agnes. "That hat
suits you perfectly," Ruth said.
"I
have to get a move on, honey." Agnes handed Ruth the key to her apartment, and then turned to grasp the handrail before
going down the steps.
"If
you happen to see Mack or the Doctor, Agnes, tell them I'm ready."
From the sidewalk Agnes shouted: "I'll stop by old man Jennings' Blue Front Café.
If they're looking for whiskey, that's where they'd go."
Ruth watched Agnes as she waddled away. She felt lonelier than ever now and anxiety
clutched at her stomach. She cradled her belly in her clasped hands and felt the baby kick and squirm.
She glanced at the novel she'd been reading for the past
several days in fits and starts. It was Dashiell Hammett's "The Glass Key." She picked up the book,
but didn't open it.
The locomotive
tooted its whistle and was backing the train of freight cars towards the passenger cars. Steel wheels screeched on the
tracks, couplings clanged and a great cloud of black smoke rose from the stack obscuring Shields' grain elevators and Ruth's
view of the new green in the trees and the sight of fields sprouting east of the town.
Ruth struggled to get to her feet. Only by pressing down on the table was she able
to stand upright. She was ravenous again, and thirsty. She went into her apartment and turned on the gas burner
under the pot oatmeal she'd cooked earlier. She added half a glassful of water to the pot and drank the rest.
It was difficult to stir the glutinous mess, at first. But when the water got steamy she clapped a lid on the pot and
turned off the heat. A few minutes later she dished up the hot oatmeal and sat at her small, rectangular drop-leaf table
to eat it. From the bowl on the table Ruth spooned dark molasses on the cereal.
Ruth propped her book against the napkin holder she borrowed from Agnes when she first moved
in; it looked like the kind they have on the tables and counter of the Blue Front Café, and Ruth suspected that Agnes
might well have pilfered it. Ruth knew that Agnes' dislike of the Blue Front Café and it's owners and clientele
stemmed from Mr. Parker's frequent patronage; Mr. Parker was not only a devotee of their famous chili, he also had his pocket
flask filled from the jug of mixed bonded whiskies kept under the counter.
Were it not for Mack's attraction to the Blue Front Café, Ruth might have thought
it comical for grown men and women to be so sneaky. She glanced at the book, started to open it where the marker was
placed, changed her mind and laid it aside. She had enjoyed the Maltese Falcon, but the characters in the Glass Key
were more villainous, more cynical, and there was too much dialogue and all of it in the jargon of gangsters; she had read
the first two chapters and hadn't come a cross a single sympathetic character.
This realization led her mind back to the Blue Front Café and some of its characters.
Ruth had only been in the place one time with Vivian Shields. Ruth was sixteen at the time and she had come into town
with Vivian to shop for material and a pattern for a dress to wear for her graduation. After buying the goods for her
dress, Vivian had led her into the Blue Front ostensibly for cokes and chili, but when the huge, balding owner came to take
their order, Vivian introduced him to the girl.
"Frank,
meet Ruth Erlene. She's Papa Calhoun's girl, lives across the street from me."
Ruth had not yet slipped into the booth and was standing there on the checkered tiles, when
Frank "Big Boy" Jennings grabbed her in a bear hug and lifted her off her feet.
"Put me down!" Ruth shouted. The man put her down and backed away from her.
"I'm sorry, Ruth Erlene. I really am."
Without waiting for Vivian, Ruth ran from the store.
She'd never been so frightened in her life. Why would a perfect stranger do such a thing? She had no answer.
Vivian had no answer for her either, but Ruth suspected that the woman knew; she just wasn't telling. As they walked
back to Vivian's house the woman simply said that she had made several dresses for Frank's wife, Leona Wright.
"I thought you called him 'Jennings'"
"Sometimes," Vivian began slowly, "A woman
marries but keeps her own name. Indian women I've known tend to keep their names; it has something to do with their
rights, or with money, I'm not really sure. Leona Wright has her own farm north of town, some kids by a previous marriage
and an income from gas wells on her tribal lands. She put up the money for the café after Frank came back from
California stone broke. I'm sure Frank didn't mean to scare you like he did, honey. That's just his way."
Vivian laughed, and then she added: Frank's from Arkansas by way of Fort Worth. In other words, he's a big old
cowboy trying to become a businessman. Before he went out to California, Frank ran a livery stable and traded horses,
which was something he was good at. But the cars put him out of business. He's got a good heart, but he's a rough
old boy."
Sitting at her
table a glance at her book reminded her of rumors she'd heard about some bandits called the "Jennings Gang." The
gang, led by Al and Frank Jennings had robbed a train. There was a joke about them: they used too much dynamite to blow
the doors off the baggage car and blew the thing to smithereens so all they got for their trouble was a stalk of bananas,
a demijohn of whiskey and seven years breaking rocks in the penitentiary up in Reno. Not long after his parole from
prison, Al Jennings had the gall to run for Governor when the Territory became a State in the Union. She wondered whether
"Big Boy" Frank Jennings was the same man as the legendary bungling train robber.
Ruth was still laughing when she heard the heavy tread of several men climbing the stairs.
Ruth didn't get up from her chair when one of the men knocked.
Her water had broken and her skirt, the chair and the floor were sopping wet. "The door's open!" she hollered.
Someone on the landing set a glass jug on the table outside,
and then Mack walked into the room followed by Doctor Barnes. Mack tried to kiss her, but Ruth turned her head away;
she could smell the whiskey on his breath from two feet away. "Get out! Leave me alone! You make me
sick!" Ruth shouted at her husband. Mack retreated and closed the door.
Doctor Barnes, exhausted from climbing the stairs, eased himself into the wooden rocking
chair with its back to the open window. It was obvious to Ruth that the doctor had also been drinking; she hoped he
was sober enough to do his job without killing her or her baby.
"Ruth Erlene, first thing you've got to do is get out of those wet clothes and wash
yourself up real good, and then get into bed. Afraid I ain't going to be much help until I catch my breath. Are
you having pains?"
Ruth
filled a galvanized pail with hot water and carried it and a bar of soap into the tiny cubicle that served as a bathroom.
After washing herself, she wrapped a towel around her waist and was getting into the bed when the first pain doubled her up.
Sweat beads popped out on her forehead as she sat on the edge of the mattress.
"I can't raise my legs up." Ruth said.
"Sure you can. Just wait a minute and it'll ease up a mite." Barnes said
in his skeptical tone of voice. "You're a big, healthy girl, Ruth. Now, quit acting like a baby and get in
the bed."
One of the men
on the porch said: "Mack, she's going to be alright. Pour me some more of that stuff." After a pause,
Ruth heard the man say: "I've known Doc Barnes thirty year about. He's delivered all but two of my kids, the two
that was born in Texas before we crossed the river. Why, come to think on it, Doc Barnes even delivered Ruth Erlene
herself. Did you know that?"
Before
Mack could answer the voice of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt blared from Agnes' radio and both men fell silent.
From the bed inside the apartment
and through the red fog of her pain, the noise of the Parker's radio failed to drown out the conversation Mack was having
with the stranger out on the landing. Their words made no sense to her. And then the sound of the President's
voice came to her in undulating waves like the pains.
Roosevelt's Yankee voice irritated Ruth; she complained about it to Doctor Barnes, who still sat in
the creaky rocker, rolling himself a cigarette, seemingly oblivious to her pain. Doc Barnes had been so reassuring and
calm when Mack ushered him into their apartment.
"Ruth
Erlene," he had said, "You've got no cause to fret so. I'm here. I'll deliver your baby just like I
delivered you, dear. There's no cause for you to be afraid. You're a strong, healthy girl, Ruthie and your baby's
going to be just fine. What are you going to name it if it's a girl, Ruth?"
"Claude is Mack's real name. I wanted to name a girl, if it is one, Claudette.
It would have been both after Mack and my favorite actress, Claudette Colbert. But Mack's mother's name is Laura, so
that's what we decided . . . Owwww!"
"Now,
that wasn't so hard, was it?" Doctor Barnes said, holding up the baby girl. He laid the infant on her breast while
he cut the cord, and then took it from her to clean it up.
When the doctor handed Ruth Erlene the baby again it was swaddled.
She put its tiny mouth against her nipple and it began to suck.
"Reach under my mattress Doctor. Your money's under there."
Barnes retrieved nine crumpled dollar bills, smoothed them
out, folded them and put them in his trouser pocket. "You're a dollar short, Ruth Erlene. I'll bet I can
guess where that dollar went."
Like
an echo, President Roosevelt's voice filled the air. He was saying:
". . . . I can assure you, my friends,
that it is safer to keep your money in a reopened bank than it is to keep it under the mattress. . . . It has been wonderful
to me to catch the note of confidence from all over the country. . . . Let us unite in banishing fear."
"I'll drink to that," Doc Barnes said as he picked
up the demijohn and drank from it.
©
Ronald D. McKinney 12/5/06 11:06:13 PM
Frank "Big Boy" Jennings' Tale
