“The Mishap!”
(A story that takes place in the summer of 1965,
Told in the fall of 1978 by Otis Wilde Mather and the Author)
Part Two/Chapter Two
Of Two
When the shadow of Cantina’s blouse appeared though the window of Shannon’s second floor apartment, reflecting in the wall mirror-the curtains pulled back and tied to their sides, it was between five and six o’clock and then I was, and I saw Shannon was checking out his gold watch. It was his Grandfather’s (so he told everyone), and cherished it as if it was part of his Grandfather’s tomb or crypt, he had been waiting for his daughter (Catherine O’Day; nicknamed, Cantina).
“I give it to you Cantina,” he told her-she, now standing in his apartment, “not that you need to remember what time it is of the day, but that you might remember me, now and then, when you got a free moment, after I’m gone, instead of trying to change the world. And I think we all think we can at one time or another, or would like to. And to our dismay, we only find out how much of a pretense or illusion we live in, our so called philosophers and some clergy and most of our politicians, how they’ve force-fed us garbage all these years. The dead haunt the earth you know, and the living got to live with the dead.”
I was leaning against the small television set, in back of the kitchen wall; he had his television on that there small kitchen table, where he watched it. I don’t rightly think common folk try to outright listen to another’s conversation, not deliberately that is, but it was obvious, and he was listening to his watch tick, and he didn’t have to be obvious for too long, and he gave it to her, and as you’d expect, that life long unbroken line of the golden watch-which went from Grandfather to grandson, to daughter, with the light-sun rays reflecting its polished gold, became her family jewels for her to hand down to whomever, somewhere down the line.
It all seems to me, most always those-near, unexpected, idle habits you acquire-one on top of the other-that they are the ones that cause the most itching, and that you most likely will regret somewhere along the line. It is what wears a man down, a father that is-likened to Christ crucified, by and by, it wasn’t the cross that got to him I do believe, that killed him so quick, nope, it was those beatings he done took, Yessum, they done beat the life out of him, little by little, day by day. And so as soon as I heard Cantina say it, I began to wonder how long it would take to wear Shannon down to near nothin’.
“Father,” she said. And I saw she was starting to sweat. And I was thinking, ‘All right, get to it, and say it-girl. Go on and stop thinkin’ ’bout sayin’ it and jest say it.’ And she said it, “I’m Pregnant!” Thinking it might have been a thousand other things, but not that, not at fifteen-years old anyhow.
The voice that gave her life was stunned.
“Mother thinks I committed incest with you!” was the second whopper of the evening, I done heard.
“Your mother can be cunning, and composed, both at the same time, she wants to know who did it so she blames me so you say, no…it’s, whoever it is,” said Shannon.
“Mother said, ‘let your father have it!”‘ Cantina exclaimed.
Shannon stood in the middle of the window looking down on Wabasha Street, fixing his collar, her shiny rosy cheeks had a little stream of water on them, each connecting to each other at her chin. He wiped them dry with the cuff of his white shirt.
“You cutting out of school next year?” he asked.
“If I don’t have to, I wont!” she replied. “Do you want to know who it is?” she asked her father.
He looked at his watch, the gold watch she was now holding. “In one minute, it will have a chime; it was manufactured in August of 1910. I didn’t know it was that old until I had a clock smith check it out. Incidentally, I know who it is, it’s that Bolton Bmes, right?” He didn’t look up at her; he was still looking at the watch, his mouth shapeless. She put the watch into her purse, and I quietly sat down on one of the wooden chairs in the kitchen.
Shannon moved about, as I listened through the open doorway in the kitchen. The door to the hallway was open, and he walked towards it.
“Bolton’s parents sent him to California, I think until this matter is settled, and they went with him,” said Cantina.
Shannon went out into the hallway. The door closed. I could hear him walking down the stairs. I moved to the side, and saw him through the kitchen window-drew back the curtains. I reckon I done told myself at that moment, if the boy wants to be a slut, let him be. But I think she felt ashamed to have to tell her paw she was no longer a virgin. Men, dont think of it that way I know, but somewhere along the line, we invented virginity, and its value attached to it. And I didn’t know what to do or say, and she was in a state of which only her paw could make heads or tails out of it. And I said to myself back then: why couldn’t it have been something else. Why didn’t she have better sense, and I called the boy a dirty slut again. And after about fifteen-minutes, Shannon came upstairs with a big bag of White Castle Hamburgers, from that there café up the block- that looked like a white castle, unhurried.
Then I came into the living room, sat down with the two. First he watched me with one eye, and then it went over to Cantina, his heart pumping fast, and his pulse rapid-I could sense it. This frigate quietness, stayed in the air for another thirty-minutes. And then he started to talk, and it was as if all the bells in all the churches in all of St. Paul, Minnesota started ringing at once, “You needn’t explain to your mother you haven’t committed incest, she knows better. However this works out, she will be there and I will be there, whenever you need us. If we just could have done something beforehand that would have been better, but we people cannot do anything that dreadful as to kill the child, no abortions please: remember tomorrow will come, and what seemed dreadful today will pass.” And I said to Cantina, “Your father’s right.” The next minute, she was looking out the window, eating a hamburger.
It all became quiet again; and I could hear the watch in her purse tick on. “Otis,” Shannon said to me. “If Cantina decides to move in my apartment, and not stay at home, you’ll have to find another place to camp out.” And then she left.
I bathed and shaved, and the water made my fingers look like sponges, and I had my underwear and socks and shirt laid out on the sofa, and I looked at the clock, it was a quarter after seven. I stopped and listened to what Shannon was saying, talking aloud, to him-self, I expect. Then I put my new shirt on. And I said to Shannon, “Well, you didn’t…say the wrong thing, not sure if it’s a blessing or a curse for Cantina though.”
“I couldn’t say it any other way,” he said.
“What’s the matter, abortions are the thing nowadays!” I commented.
“I wasn’t thinking along those lines, I’m no saint, but I’m no killer, perhaps too proud at times.”
“I’m going out to get drunk, you coming along?” I asked Shannon.
I stepped in front of the window, everything was shadowy now. “There now, just look, what if she decides to get an abortion? You know her mother’s going to talk her into it.”
“Yes, perhaps so,” he said.
“And all those social workers, parade around as if it’s a right nowadays and they don’t let you into the clinics if they think you’re going to talk the kid out of it. I mean you can support the kid, but nowadays the kid has rights, and they’ll even pay for the abortion; then what you goin’ to do?” I asked.
I looked in back of me, I didn’t see Shannon anywhere, he was on the phone, talking to an abortion clinic, and then he came to me, “You’re right, her mother can allow it without my consent, that’s Minnesota for yaw!”
A Month Later
Shannon had found out his daughter was going to have an abortion, the clinic had called him up, told him, they had to notify him by law, and therefore, their duty was complete, other than letting him know the abortion would take place at 1:00 p.m., sharp today; acting as if it was an execution, of which it was for Shannon.
“Let me talk to my daughter,” asked Shannon, knowing the clock was ticking. But she refused. And Otis, he was by Shannon’s side inside his apartment. And Otis thought about how a person’s body at times wants to shut down, hide, the muscles in the legs weaken, and the head on the neck gets heavy, too heavy to hold up-and he sensed Shannon was in that state, and he could almost hear that gold watch ticking, he gave his daughter, and I suppose all the sounds in the world were for that moment, shut away. They wouldn’t even tell him what clinic it was, and they had called him, one hour before the execution. It was like a big clock in his head. He looked out his window; his eye saw Otis as a blur sitting on his sofa.
“Would you mind, telling me when it’s one o’clock?” asked Shannon.
“Why, all right,” Otis said.
“No, don’t tell me,” he said, “please, just let me know…” then he looked at the clock, and it was one minute past, then looked at me again, and said, “Well, it’s not the unpardonable sin, thank God!”
About the Story
“Fool about a Cow,” is told in the voices of Mabel O’Day (and occasionally the author). Here is three relatives’ obsession with Shannon O’Day’s drinking: Gus (Shannon’s older brother), Mabel O’Day (Shannon’s sister in law, who is also Gus’ wife) and Shannon’s wife…Gertrude O’Day. The time is, Thanksgiving weekend, 1949, and Gertrude is with child. As the weekend progresses, however, there is not much hope in persuading Shannon to give up his first love–drinking, whereupon, they all get drunk together, now all self-absorbed in doing something stupid, at Shannon’s suggestion-which is, to milk the neighbor’s cow dry as a joke (Mrs. Stanley). But as life would have it, it turns out to be much more than that.
Here we see the thoughts, voices and memories, of the story tellers, telling the story in 1978 (looking backwards), of what took place one long-winded weekend in 1949. Sitting on the porch, is Mabel and Otis, at her farmhouse, twenty miles outside of St. Paul, Minnesota, both reminiscing, in a daydreaming mode, both of different time periods.
((Of Light Humor) (The author’s last story written in 2009, and half on the first day of 2010))
See Dennis’ web site: http://dennissiluk.tripod.com