Cuyahoga Page 17

  ON THE FIRST DAY OF 1838  THE TWIN CITIES OF THE CUYAHOGA WILL BECOME ONE  THE GREAT METROPOLIS OF THE NORTHWEST  THE TRUE HEART OF THE REPUBLIC  ONE GREATER CLEVELAND

  A polite huzzah. No cusses of dissent. Dog were no longer with us to protest. All else who had backed NONE swallowed their contempt to spit another day at some other mortal affront.

  Frawley gnawed the air for a while longer about limitless prospects and inevitable prosperity. But I did not mind him any once Big arrived to the festivity, hidying me with a slap on the back. He looked a far cry from this morning. His hair were brushed out and shining like brass, and his smile rode atop the reddest neckerchief I ever seen. He had taken some of his fortune to Handerson and Panderson for a proper set of readymade clothes, and the new getup rustled like straw as he moved. He were back in his power for the first time in a year. What a medicine is money.

  But Big’s coming into fortune had not repaired his reputation. Soreness lingered over the bustings-up – undone feats – nuisancing – theft of dogs. As we laughed at each other’s dandyism and lifted a sugar-sling, I marked mean eyes cast Big’s way. Myself I did not feel the puppy bite over silver or Cloe or anything else. My inside goblins were behaved for the occasion. I wanted to congratulate Big on his betrothal, but Cloe had swore me to secrets about it, and I kept honest. I were out of that habit, but I had not lost it entirely. Strange that Big himself did not mention his own banns.

  I did not see Cloe or any of the little Stileses, or Mrs Tab, or Mr Job – sick at our last meeting. Perhaps the whole homeplace had taken ill. Or perhaps they did not want anything to do with Tom Tod’s celebration.

  * * *

  Tom shone worse than Big’s hair – like he had won five fortunes. He wore a boiling white suit, and I swear his pox scars had done themselves up into handsome patterns and curlicues. For a moment I felt a gift of omens and I saw the future of Tom Tod. He would fatten up into a Mr Clark – a great white hog, chewing brandied dollars all day, atop a hill, alone except for his servants and silver.

  For now he were only atop the wagon with Mayor Frawley, who were finally running out of words—

  And now I have said my few thoughts  I should like us to hear from our benefactor  who stood us to this celebration  To the sugar-slings and cakes and merriment  Before we set to husking  let us give Tom Tod our EARS

  Groans gone up at Frawley’s comedy, then cheers for white Tom.

  Hidy to you all Ohio  Thank you to our eminent mayor for saying all the boring bits

  Laughter and a badger frown.

  I will not challenge him at prattling  I will only say the rules of the husking  The man who shucks the most in a half hour wins the stakes  A forty-dollar horse  and the honor of representing Ohio at the formal ceremony of union on the first day of 1838  at the center of Clark’s bridge

  Robust cheers.

  One last bit  For each red ear a man finds, he wins a kiss from the maid of his choosing

  Further hooting and a rush for the heap of corn. Big did not budge and I stayed with him. Normally a derby or contest of any type would fry Big’s blood. But coming into expectations seemed to have banked his appetites. He looked peaceful almost.

  * * *

  You have never laughed until you saw a husking bee. Men yanking and twisting like they had a thousand fleas – dashing to gather more ears – fighting each other over corn. See Alvo Farley with a spooked-horse eye and Eli Frewly’s bald head shining with sweat. YL Honey, his blasted arm still in bandages, ripping at ears with his handsome kreosoted teeth. Kerm Basket, older brother of Katie – and Richard Fish – Bill Gutkint – Lem Freeley – a dozen more. Tom Tod himself jumped into the bee, but he were only playing. He mostly watched and guffawed. When he did shuck an ear, it were somehow always a red one. He made a show of surprise before eyeing up maids like merchandise and finally taking his kiss.

  Every husking bee I ever seen followed the same story. At first the gladiators keep to their own husking. But if you see a rival is badly outhusking you, clobber him to slow him some. And then when you and your rival see that a third man is pulling ahead, then you join to clobber that fellow. And then you are clobbered yourself. And so on until corn is forgotten in favor of a general rastle. This one gone the usual way – it was Eli going for Alvo that started it. Then the two of them grabbed up Richard Fish – and then Kerm – and Lem – and a fracas commenced. Before ten minutes had passed, only YL and Tom still husked. Tom was roostering around collecting his kisses mostly.

  That were how singled-handed YL Honey outhusked twenty men. After the counting-up, Mayor Frawley went to raise up YL’s hand like he were a champion rastler but only found the stump wrist – which he raised anyway.

  * * *

  In the midst of backslapping and recalling the choicest moments of the brawl – Kerm had bitten Alvo on the seat of his pants – Tom Tod come over to Big and myself. Red corn were falling out of his pockets and his pineapple cheeks glowed with kisses.

  Friends, I am glad to see you here  Medium and Big  celebrated Sons of Ohio  soon to be Sons of Cleveland  let us anoint the occasion and celebrate your fortune Big  I hear the great Columbian eagle has made a nest in your purse

  Big grinned, half sheep half wolf. I drew a ladle of sugar-sling and we passed it around.

  We drank to Big.

  I put up a toast to Tom, the emperor of kisses.

  We drank to Tom.

  I considered it were time to drink to Meed, but Tom said we ought to drink a second time to Big and his engagement to Miss Cloe Inches, that Tom would trade all these red ears and a hundred more for the affections of Miss Inches  but you have conquered her heart  A drink  To your luck in love

  Big froze with the drinking spoon at his mouth – a good amount of sling poured down his chin. He did not stop to wipe before bolting the barn in the direction of home.

  The first drips of dawn brought Big back to the grocery. Even in the thin light, I could see his pride were dimmed again – his eyes red and his head hung low. It were not hard to detect who had battered him so.

  He spoke uncommonly quiet and slow.

  When Tom told me  I rushed for the homeplace and ran the whole mile  I found Cloe at the stove boiling sap to make a specific for Mr Job’s ague

  Sugar mixed with clear corn liquor remedies most any illness.

  And I dashed in the door to embrace her  And she smacked me across the eyes with the spoon

  I could not help an inside smile.

  I do not recommend sap for eyes  I hollered a fair amount  Cloe knelt to dab at my face with her apron  and made apologies  Only that I had startled her  I forgave her  even though my eyes did hurt awful bad

  I had mistook Big’s red eyes for heartache, not scalding.

  I forgave her and said that Tom Tod had spilled her secret  And that I could not contain my joy  That I knew the Lord had sent three hundred dollars for reasons past my knowing

  I did not ask how, if a thing were past knowing, he could know it.

  She gone quiet a ways and stood up and turned her back to me  I thought she were weeping with too much happiness  and I went to finally get that embrace  and she caught me in the ribs  I fell over into the stove and spilled the sugar and scorched myself further  Cloe did not rush to help me  To pat out the sparks on my new clothes  I looked up and saw she had put on her school teaching face

  She said Big  Tom has played a cruelty on you  I will not marry you

  and I said but I have got true prospects now I have got three hundred dollars

  And she said I were not waiting for any prospects  I have answered you true from the first

  And I finally known she meant it  But I only had a moment to consider it before she hollered at Asa  Asa had let himself in the door and licked up all the sugar

  My inside smile died
at an instant. Too much sugar would put the bloat on an ox.

  I were too sorry to much mind Asa  but Cloe would not listen to another word from me  Banished me to the barn attic  And I gone up to our roost and stared at my money  And asked it what to do with myself  Before any too long I heard an awful groaning from below  It were poor Asa  his belly all stretched out and aching

  I went down into the barn and the whole household were at Asa’s side  Even Mr Job wrapped in his sickclothes  They done what they could  Cloe cut into Asa’s paunch and put in a quill  The gas come rushing out and made a sound just like a whistle  I went back to my bed hopeful that Asa were saved  Hearing his cheerful tune  but—

  My heart turned to wood.

  I am sorry Meed  Asa is dead  I know how you loved that ox  I am sorry

  A wood heart will pump wood blood and soon enough you are wood all over.

  I did not wish to breakfast with Asa’s killer. But I had a wood tongue and could not speak.

  After a long silence I said it were cruel of Tom to lie so  As far as Big known, Tom had only played a vicious trick on him.

  Big said Tom has good as murdered Asa

  Even with wood brains, I known that evil luck had killed Asa and that Big and Tom were innocent. But I still felt enough contempt to drown them both – with a ladle left over for myself.

  I only said Asa will have a coffin

  Big agreed it were right and fitting.

  I were not sure how to tailor a coffin that size.

  * * *

  We sat in grief for Asa even as the idlers and loafers arrived to drink the day away. Big stayed and stared at the wall – at a bill posted amid Dog’s library of rusted swords.

  Steam Line on the Lakes,

  Comprising the following Boats:

  ROBERT FULTON,

  DE WIT CLINTON,

  CHARLES TOWNSEND,

  PENNSYLVANIA,

  SHELDON THOMPSON

  NEW YORK,

  UNITED STATES

  One Steam Freight Boat will leave Buffalo every day for Detroit and the intermediate Ports.

  One Steam Freight Boat will leave Buffalo every 10 days for Chicago and intermediate Ports.

  After some time I realized that Big were waiting for Tom.

  * * *

  In general Tom Tod were not innocent of much. But he were innocent on the matter of Cloe’s untruth. It is not always our sins we catch hell for. At the bee Tom had truly meant to congratulate Big. So it came as a great surprise when – before Tom could say hidy – Big grabbed him by the shirt and pinned him to Dog’s rusty wall.

  Are you pleased with your comedy?

  Tom squirmed a great deal but did not lose his style.  Hello Big I hardly noticed you

  You sent me to Cloe to make an ass out of myself

  You were an ass already  but  I do not question her choice of bridegroom

  She does not mean to marry me

  Tom were stumped some and writhed at the old weapons poking his back.  I will not call a woman a liar

  For a spell they only breathed at each other. If Big had let go of Tom, the eyeballs of every creature in the grocery would have held him in place. Even the stove fires seemed to stare at the two rivals, who were briefly beyond the use of language.

  Big spoke first, through clenched teeth. I will set you down from here  You will gather all your dandy s___  and board the next Buffalo boat  Choose east or west  Only that you stay gone from Ohio

  Or what?

  Or I will remove your white teeth through your asshole

  Tom smiled, like he were embarrassed by his own handsome teeth. If it were another man’s ass I would pay to see it  But I must decline your invitation  Out of a love of liberty

  We must rastle then  And the whipped one will leave

  It is no match between us  It is not sporting  We ought to have a race instead

  I swear I heard noses sniff around the room, tickled by the prospect of spectacle.

  Big went right along, still snorting and snarling. However you like I will beat you

  Tom did not have a ready answer. He swung his eyes around looking for one – until he seen the notice for Steam Line on the Lakes.

  Boats  We will race boats  We will race steamboats

  I haven’t got a steamboat and neither have you

  We are both men of means

  Big wrung his lips some  You can have a steamboat  I will swim and beat you  and after you can keep on your boat and  f___ off  to wherever you like  Anywhere but here

  Tom jumped to agree to Big’s stakes.  And if you lose you will do the same

  The whole assembly of drunks and cats and stoves was holding their breath, and at that moment Dog’s voice come up from the cellar. If either of you had a private appendage half as long as your f___ing tongue you would make a man’s wager  The loser roasted and eaten by the champion

  The talk were so wild that no one minded the speaker’s being dead. Until Barse asked if that weren’t Dog talking from the world beyond.

  No  it were me  I said.  You heard me

  Barse puzzled for a moment.  That ain’t legal Meed  A derby can’t have murder in it

  Winter again.

  To tell the story of Miss Sarabeth Strang you have got to know the story of Alonzo and Mary Bribb. If in that story you said Mr Alonzo sharpened his tongue with a strop, no one would debate you. If you went on to say that his Mrs Mary drank lye just to spit it at Mr Alonzo, no one would dissent. The Bribbs was the meanest two people in the history of Ohio, and it only made sense that they was married to each other. No one else could stand them.

  So you could not fault Miss Sarabeth Strang for being shy of marriage. She were the Bribbs’ domestic helpmeet and had seen their misery at close examination. Perhaps she considered that matrimony were the cause of their misery – and that to marry would make a Bribb of a person. But Sarabeth did not run off when Mr Burge Ramsey asked her hand. She only curtsied and gave a murmur no one knew for yes or no. Sarabeth generally kept quiet – not even a humming of hymns as she stitched or swept. It were figured that murmur meant she were amenable to Burge’s offer, and Sarabeth did not indicate to the contrary. Burge Ramsey were not handsome or rich or clever or particularly reliable, but he were Christian and sober.

  But no one can tell you any how their married life gone because on the night before the wedding supper Miss Sarabeth Strang turned to air. On the morning she was to wed, her mattress were empty as the grave.

  Just like Carl Swarthout and Hiram Spurgeon, you would have to hunt down Sarabeth Strang to know the truth. But the general belief is that freedom spoke to her louder than comfort – she rathered to escape marriage altogether than to risk becoming a Bribb. In honor of her choice, we made a Webster’s word of her name – to STRANG were to cut your own road through life’s woods.

  * * *

  Our Cloe had run off a dozen times or more – to every corner of the state and places not on maps – different skins and skies. But she would always come back and say what her odyssey meant, what she seen, how folks done elsewhere. She always returned to tell us the story – shown us a handful of Ruth’s barley from the fields of Judah.

  On the day after the husking bee, Cloe Inches run off again. I would tell you a story on why she did it, if I had it to tell. But Cloe has got sole proprietorship of the matter. If you want to make a Webster’s word of Cloe Inches, go find her yourself.

  A contention. The national character favors MOTION above nearly everything else.

  We have only put eagles and Geo Washington everywhere because you cannot draw MOTION. We are drunk for MOTION – to brag six days to Louisville and a day to Detroit and direct from Newyork et c To move, toward every compass point, always.

  * * *

  A second contention regarding CHANCE. If a matter exists, we will ma
ke bets on it.

  The principal bet is business – sell a notion for more than you bought it. Prime lots or horseflesh. Speculations and expectations et c. But there are a thousand breeds of CHANCE. We bet on vegetable growing – chopping wood – all different types of rastling – climbing – marbles – foot races – horse races – roach races. Races put MOTION and CHANCE in angel harmony. Steamboat races are best of all.

  * * *

  We are guilty of nothing but our nature. They cannot hang us for that. There is not enough rope.

  * * *

  From the moment I met Tom Tod he were forever pulling notions from his pockets. Hard and soft money, watches, perfume water, marbles, penknives, silk kerchiefs, lucifer sticks. On the third day of December he topped himself and found a steamboat, bought from Buffalo sailors too skinned to pay for repair. His Radish were aged and somewhat on the runt side, but with a week of work from hired hands she were miles more boat than Big had.

  A committee of competition – the grocery drunks and Mayor Frawley – convened and chose the lazy turnings of the river for a race way. The curves would even the odds between a steam engine and a man, and most important, folks along the banks could have a close view of the hilarity. From the northmost slip at Main-street around the first bend – past Big’s ruined bridge at Centre-street – around Irish town bend and concluding at Mr Clark’s bridge – a distance of one mile. Tom and Big agreed cheerfully and set the racing for a week before the New Year’s wedding – so that the loser would never spend a second of 1838 in the new city.

  That meant three weeks’ more jawing. Not a word wasted on another topic – Big vs. Tom held the entirety of public interest. Not even the merger of cities were enough to turn heads.