Cuyahoga Read online

  I would wager you, Dog  a whole penny  that Cleveland and Ohio are destined to wed into a single city one day  and when it happens, you will wonder why you minded  Mr Job said.

  I will be ruined long before then  with no farmers to pour whiskey into  Ruined if I am not already riding in one of your boxes  I have set your swap barrel at the door  Have a drink to grease your wagon wheels

  The hour were just noon but hauling coffins were drying work. Over a sip, Dog and Mr Job lyceumed about Mr Clark’s bridge and just how it were sinning on us, and I read through a news paper.

  In this number of the ARGUS  there were an account of a sea serpent seen at the coast of Maine. I wished there were a drawing of the serpent. You cannot trust a news paper every time. If that serpent were real and cared to visit Ohio I would pay to see it. I knowed Big would relish a chance to rastle such a monster.

  Just as soon as I thunk of Big, my brother thunk himself through the door, bearing Dog’s shoes and a smile like his teeth wanted to bust out and dance.

  From Phi  He held up the shoes like he had hunted them.  Refresh me before you finally drop dead  The shoes flown across the grocery and scattered several cats.

  Drink up you piece of night soil  Dog eagerly tugged on a repaired shoe. I will lose one of these in your ass one sunny day

  Dog and Big relished jawing. Big and everyone else used Dog and Dog’s grocery as a sanitary device – letting out words we could never spill elsewhere.

  Mr Job  Little brother  A jug pull – a glance at my news paper – Big were not much for literature. I have brung my own news

  A few seconds trickled past before Mr Job obliged him with What news have you got Big?

  Mr Clark has promised me work

  God’s grand design revealed said Mr Job.

  What happiness said I.

  Lardhearted f_____ said Dog.

  He has promised me a position and I will have a wage and a prospect and a Cloe

  * * *

  A general congratulations was made and toast raised all around the room. But even as I clapped Big on the back, his mention of Cloe bit me some. We all belonged to each other as brothers and sister. I did not like to imagine Cloe belonging to him alone. He had enough already. I were happy to notice Mr Job’s shroud of silence – of judgment not spoken – was back on him.

  Dog did not wear any shroud. He merrily hissed that – wage and prospect and Cloe aside – Big will never come to night soil  You are no man only a spirit  A chickenpuke fancy  This were a kick aimed right for a bruise.

  But Big only struck up the churchorgan laugh. They will bury you soon enough, but your charms will live forever  A drink to the Dog

  * * *

  The celebratory loafing did not last long before Mr Job announced we had better get home dry or risk a hiding by mother Tab

  The return to day’s light stung our eyes. Cleaner air was welcome though. A hulloa to patient Asa and Agnes, hitched together. A pile of crap behind them told how long we had been at idling. On the ride home the empty wagon clattered merrily.

  * * *

  At the homeplace Mrs Tab come after us again with the corncakes. She must have found our smell suspicious, but she did not withhold our cakes. As we chewed she shared the town talk.

  You just missed Sarahjoe just gone  She has want of a burying box

  I seen her at Handerson and Panderson’s this very morning  She might have had one there

  She wants a large one on account of Mr Clark’s stoutness

  * * *

  I am not a doctor but I am generally expert with noticing. So I will wager an explanation for Mr Clark’s fatal rupture – the brandied fruits done for my brother. Many folks so stricken was known to eat brandied fruits soon before. You will not catch me eating any.

  At hearing the news, I hoped that Mr Clark were faring better than Dives from the Bible. Too much richness takes a body past mending. We said some Christian words for Mr Clark’s soul, and somewhere in the sorrow Big vanished without a word.

  * * *

  After dinner, a peaceful hour around the fire – seven Stiles children studying their marbles – Mrs Tab and Cloe sewing intently – Mr Job reading from the Psalms All they that go down to dust shall bow before Him and none can keep alive his own soul – for me a chew and whittling – Big remained absent.

  * * *

  Just before I bedded down, Big finally come to the roost. His light were dimmed some with drink, though his mouth were burning bright. He were mourning the deceased, except the mourning seemed more to do with his own expectations than Mr Clark’s.

  He unburdened himself of the entire saga of his day. At Dog’s, he had only told the happy part. But now he unfurled his entire beggar’s tour of Ohio city – his humbling – his hearing over and over that he were meant for better work – his brief triumph and sudden fall.

  I allowed he had a worse day than all but Mr Clark.

  I could not even ask Cloe to marry me during the hour I were marriageable

  I did not speak my judgment that Cloe would not have found him any more marriageable. I only put the candle to sleep.

  Straw rustling and the snoring of Asa and Agnes and other creatures below, and great fitful sighs from across the attic.

  Little brother

  It were no use to pretend sleep. Big would talk at a tree stump when the mood come on.

  Big

  Little brother  did you hear what the Dog said today?

  About putting a shoe in your ass

  About I were only a spirit and not a man

  He were just cussing you

  What if he were sneaking truth in cusses?  What if I am only a spirit?  What if I am another Chapman?

  * * *

  We are not too starchy here. It takes a great deal to offend a westerner. But John Appleseed Chapman were past pardoning. He dressed in such rags that you could see through to his privates. His beard were matted up into felt. Even his gifts of apple seed seemed untoward. He wore a chamberpot on his head and I doubt he remembered the last time he went to bed sober.

  Chapman visited us long ago, before any of Big’s feats, before the incident that put the spirit on him, before the west side had more than a few folks. Big and I were small. On account of Chapman’s reputation as the patron of orchards, the settlement of Cleveland put on a celebratory feed. Chapman did not eat a bite – only drank awful amounts. His very presence put an itch on you, like you were dressed in winter clothes at summer. The more we seen of Chapman the more we wanted shut of him. After he got too hospitable toward a young maid, some of the men encouraged him to move along. His scent stayed on for some days.

  Chapman showed that a spirit of the times is not an incorruptible thing. Not hooped with iron. Not immune from rust or rodents. There were others like him. In Lorain, their Large Dutch had turned wild like a night pig – hollering in German about no one known what – robbing farmers. Near Hinckley folks feared to meet Feathers, in his gown made of buzzards – he stole children. Dick of Norwalk lived underwater and ate sailors. Stinking Squirrelcoat of the woods, et c.

  Chapman and all those proved that spirits did have a tendency to go sideways – though Big were surely not as sideways as Chapman. The man had had a democratic use in his prime – spreading the hygienic drink of cider – but by the time of my encounter, he were all chewed up.

  I had thought on Big’s question before he asked it that night. What kind of spirit were Big? When is a spirit’s work finished? What comes after?

  * * *

  It were only the third day of spring but the stoves at Dog’s grocery made an indoors summer. I were already dabbing at my brow before the preacher said a word. But fat Mr Clark did not mind the close air any on account of being dead. The undertaker had gone after him with powders and paint such that he looked like a Philadelphia actor.

  I do not speak ill of the departed when I say Mr Clark had a va
nity. He cared for clothes and niceties – even now he rode on a masterpiece of a coffin by Mr Job, oak polished to pearl. It were a shame to give it to the worms beneath the Monroe-street burying ground. The rich man were vain of attention too, and it carried on past dying. His will said to spread him out in a public place, but not a church, so folks could have refreshment, and better to keep women home. The will went on to say you ought to read the rest of me aloud for any that cared to hear in that same public place, before you even bury him.

  You might recollect certain intemperances from Dog regarding Mr Clark – regarding the deceased having lard for a heart et c. They never was friends or on visiting terms, but Dog never missed a chance to draw custom. So he had offered up his grocery as the public place, and loyal Sarahjoe had draped the room with crepe beforehand, out of Mr Clark’s love of upholstery. It were a sight to see the grocery done up. Sarahjoe had even gone after the cats and tied mourning ribbons around their necks.

  A burial wanted manners – wanted passing by the coffin under Dog’s wall of weapons with your head bare. Substantial folks from both sides of the river was in attendance – mayors Frawley of Ohio and Willey of Cleveland. Factory owners and landlords and merchants and every other man of means. They puffed at pipes and spat tobacco politely, while Dog spidered around pouring whiskey and cussing less than usual.

  The reverence were not all on account of manners. Mr Clark’s will would include his bridge. It was expected that the bridge would become property of the public interest – though which public and which interest remained to be told.

  Before the manners wore out, stout short Mayor Frawley stood up at the front of the grocery to read out the will. He had tobacco crusted at the corners of his mouth and looked already worse off for drink, but he and everyone else were accustomed to that. Frawley was an authentic and original leatherlunged jackass, and suited to his trade. After a short attempt at mourning, the mayor got down to the matter of interest.

  My deeds to lots on the Cleveland side of the river to be sold at auction with proceeds donated to the Methodists

  My deeds to lots on the Ohio side… proceeds donated to the Episcopals

  My furniture and cut glass… proceeds donated to the Congregationalists

  My wagons and livestock… proceeds donated to the Baptists

  Impolite commentary were heard when proceeds from his silver and chinaware were donated to the Catholics, but Mr Clark had spread his bets impartially regarding on salvation. He had greased up every type of Christian. I were half surprised he had not set aside a chamberpot for the Mormons.

  My home is donated to be an orphanage under the direction of Miss Sarahjoseph Fulk

  My clothes to be cut up into garments for the orphans of said orphanage

  This gone on and on. Poorhouse and public school and library and the militia company all come in for buttering. Mr Clark had considered everything down to his shoe buckles. As the recitation dragged, listeners murmured with boredom – cats chased after undone mourning ribbons.

  My bridge at the Columbus road—

  Folks sobered up instant – even tobacco spit halted in flight to hear—

  —and any proceeds from its use will henceforth belong to the city of Cleveland in perpetuity

  * * *

  At the revelation folks looked to Mr Clark’s carcass as if he might sit up in his undertaker-paint and explain. Mayor Frawley cussed some and Dog laughed his dust-laugh before screeching TWO BRIDGES OR NONE to the delight of certain Ohioans.

  Summer.

  There is a plague of rascal teachers in the west. Traveling men with no prospects and no manners and just enough hold of their figures to teach you C-A-T and D-O-G. Some come and stay for a month without spending one day sober. But even if you done all your learning in the worst shouting-school with the rascalest teacher you would see the wrong in TWO BRIDGES OR NONE. You cannot count to two without passing through one. Two makes more than none. If two bridges is preferred to none, then one bridge is halfway as good.

  Unless one bridge offends your pride.

  * * *

  Cloe Inches did not busy herself with church-talk or promenading or temperancing. She did not indulge in anything but whiskey for digestion and to thk thk thk thk at a dozen dozens of tasks every day.

  At the invitation of Mrs Batsab Basket, Cloe once went to the women’s talking society, where they had lyceum debates as they worked at sewing. Afters Cloe dragged me behind the barn so that we could have a pipe – we hid as Mrs Tab would have ruptured to see a female use tobacco.

  Cloe told me that the talking society were worse torture than whipping. I already spent half my life sewing for s___’s sakes  You cannot tell me this were leisure  A blue cloud wrapped her up. I would rather listen to the boring bits of the Bible ten thousand times than another talking society

  * * *

  Cloe Inches were too much of a Stiles to shirk chores, and too much herself to endure the yoke of home life. Something just burned Cloe up inside, and every so often the burning directed her outward behavior. She did not have the holiness, though she went to sermons on Sunday and knew her Bible and prayed. A trouble with Cloe were that she liked to ask questions more than is considered polite. She would lawyer you about the rightness of God’s law and of the Bible lessons. We had plenty of the holiness people in Ohio, and Cloe would press them on why right were right and wrong were wrong. The holiness folks did not care too much for that.

  There is appetites apart from holiness that set a person burning, but finery or flattery did not appeal much to Cloe either. I was never sure exactly what did appeal to her, apart from being left to choose for herself.

  The highest consequence of Cloe’s burning will were that once or twice a year she would run off from home to some other place. A country place or a city place, it did not matter. As long as it were not Ohio city. She would hop aboard an empty wagon headed home from market or talk a farm wife into sharing her horse. Or she would just walk off.

  It is too much to list each escape but some notable instances:

  She run off to the Shakers at North Union Pond and worked in their broom factory.

  She run off to the Toledo swamp and worked at an inn on the roadside.

  She rode on a canal boat to Cincinnati and seen how Germans done.

  She run off to the Mormons at Kirtland.

  * * *

  She would not warn us before she run off, and she never sent word from wherever she gone, but she would always come back before two months were out, wearing the same frock she left in and a sheep’s smile. Like she were sorry for running off and for coming back all in one. She always brung a souvenir from her travels. A cloth cap from the Shakers. A clever wooden box from the Cincinnati Germans. From the Mormons at Kirtland she had a patch of man’s hair with a little bit of skin and gummy blood underneath. I did not ask how she come by that.

  We never much commented on or scolded her running, the better everyone would forget it. We would all say how glad we were to have her home, and before too long she would give us a tale after dinner, before Mr Job took up the good book. The tales had amusement and wonder – Cloe could yarn – in Cincinnati she had seen a man killed by a circus elephant – the departed had been teasing the creature by yanking its ears – it were agreed by all witnesses that the animal acted justly – she said a man’s mashed brains look no different from a pig’s.

  The story of every running-off ended the same way. After she spent her purse she would seek a position, and find herself at the same work she done at the homeplace, stooped over the same washtub or butter churn, working the same bend into her spine. She wanted some other way of using herself up, only she did not know it to say.

  After her return from Kirtland we had a pipe and she shown me her Mormon scalp. There were a gray hair or two among the chestnut color. I could imagine its former owner were sore and sorry to have met Cloe.

  Did they try to put you in a team of wives?

  They did n
ot try twice  Out come a bush of blue smoke.

  You are just like Agnes  She will not work beside another creature

  I mind other creatures less than I mind the yoke

  * * *

  I do not blame Cloe any. Yokes are forever going out of style. Folks bust loose for a garden of reasons – cash or kin or madness. It is an inheritance all the way back to Genesis.

  * * *

  If you only known this country by our decorations you would expect we had eagles falling out of every branch – kept as pets – dined on their eggs all week and their meat on Sundays. The whole nation is tarted up with eagles – flags and banners and broadsides and news papers. Fancy furniture has even got eagles carved into it. Like Columbia did not know how to sign her name and made an eagle mark instead.

  I do not know what moved the national fathers to make eagles the national creature, when we hardly to never see them. Perhaps old Philadelphia and Newyork was plagued with eagles, the sun veiled by flocks of them, the streets whitewashed with their mess. In Ohio the only eagles we seen were in the distance and making in the other direction. There were a justice to the national symbol always absconding.

  Before all the bridge trouble, we crossed the Cuyahoga by ferry. For a penny old Alf Farley would float you over at Centre-street. For a penny more he would take a horse or wagon, and for another penny on top he would sell you a bag of peanuts. It were good to have the peanuts as Alf took his leisure in getting across.

  By the first of June, the late Mr Clark’s bridge were ready. We marked this new crossing not by peanuts but by cakes and band music and promenading back and forth. The two mayors shook hands at the center and pretended there were no bad blood between the cities. It was a fine performance but it did not keep.