Mother went upstairs as soon as Chuck left; I went out back.
Two years earlier Father had indulged us in a luxury many of our church members felt was sinfully wasteful: two outhouses, one for the boys and one for us girls, just like at school. In fact we truly needed them. That day I was delighted to find the girls’ privy empty. I flipped the bar to lock, and checked up.
Some blood, not much. No problems. Slightly sore, nothing more.
So I sighed with relief and peed and reassembled myself, and went back to the house, picking up a piece of stove wood for the kitchen as I passed the wood pile—a toll each of us paid for each trip out back.
I dropped off the wood and stopped in the wash shed adjoining the kitchen, washed my hands and sniffed them. Clean. Just my guilty conscience. I went to the clinic, stopping only to tousle Lucille’s strawberry hair and pat her bottom. Lucy was three, I think—yes, she was born in ’94, the year after Father and I went to Chicago. She was a little doll, always merry. I decided that I wanted one just like her…but not this year. But soon. I was feeling very female.
I reached the clinic just as Mrs. Altschuler was leaving. I spoke politely; she looked at me and said, “Audrey, you’ve been out in the sun without a sunbonnet again. Don’t you know any better than that?”
I thanked her for her interest in my welfare and went on in. According to Father all she suffered from was constipation and lack of exercise…but she showed up at least twice a month and had not, since the first of the year, paid a single penny. Father was a strong man, firm-minded, but not good at collecting money from people who owed it to him.
Father entered her visit in his book and looked up. “I’m taking your bishop, young lady.”
“Sure you don’t want to change your mind, sir?”
“No. I may be wrong but I’m certain. Why? Have I made a mistake?”
“I think so, sir. Mate in four moves.”
“Eh?” Father stood up, went over to his chess table. “Show me.”
“Shall we simply play it out? I may be mistaken.”
“Grrummph! You’ll be the death of me, girl.” He studied the board, I then went back to his desk. “This will interest you. This morning’s mail. From Mr. Clemens—”
“Oh, my!”
I remember especially one paragraph:
“I agree with you and the Bard, sir; let’s hang them. Hanging its lawyers might not correct all of this country’s woes but it would be lots of fun and could do no harm to anyone.
“Elsewhere I have noted that the Congress is the only distinct criminal class this country has. It cannot be mere coincidence that 97 percent of Congress are lawyers.”
Mr. Clemens added that his lecture agency had scheduled him for Kansas City next winter. “I recall that four years ago we failed of rendezvous in Chicago by a week. Is it possible that you will be in K.C. January tenth, next?”
“Oh, Father! Could we?”
“School will be in session.”
“Father, you know that I made up all time lost by going to Chicago. You know, too, that I am first among the girls in my class…and could be first including the boys if you hadn’t cautioned me about the inadvisability of appearing too smart. But what you may not have noticed is that I have enough credits and could have graduated—”
“—with Tom’s class last week. I noticed. We’ll work on it. Deus volent and the crick don’t rise. Did you get what you wanted in Butler?”
“I got what I wanted. But not in Butler.”
“Eh?”
“I did it, Father. I am no longer virgin.”
His eyebrows shot up. “You have managed to surprise me.”
“Truly, Father?” (I didn’t want him to be angry with me…and I thought that he had implied long back that he would not be.)
“Truly. Because I thought that you had managed it last Christmas vacation. I have been waiting the past six months, hoping that you would decide to trust me with it.”
“Sir, I didn’t even consider keeping it from you. I depend on you.”
“Thank you. Mmm, Maureen, freshly deflowered, you should be examined. Shall I call your mother?”
“Oh! Does Mother have to know?”
“Eventually, yes. But you need not have her examining you if it frets you—”
“It does!”
“In that case I’ll take you over to see Dr. Chadwick.”
“Father, why must I see Dr. Chadwick? It is a natural event, I was not hurt, and I feel no need.”
We had a polite argument. Father pointed out that an ethical doctor did not treat members of his own family, especially his womenfolk. I answered that I was aware of that…but that I needed no treatment. And back and forth.
After a bit, having made sure that mother was upstairs for her nap, Father took me into the surgery, locked the door, and helped me up onto the table, and I found myself in much the position for examination that I had been in earlier for Charles, except that this time I had removed only my bloomers.
I suddenly realized that I had become excited.
I tried to suppress it and hoped that Father would not notice it. Even at fifteen I was not naïve about my unusual and possibly unhealthy relation with my father. As early as twelve I had had the desert-isle daydream with my father as the other castaway.
But I also knew how strong the taboo was from the Bible, from classic literature, and from myth. And I remembered all too well how Father quit letting me sit on his lap, had stopped it completely and utterly, once I reached menarche.
Father put on a pair of rubber gloves. This was something he had started as a result of the Chicago trip…which had not been to allow Maureen to enjoy the Columbian Exposition but to permit Father to attend school at Northwestern University in Evanston in order to get up to date on Professeur Pasteur’s germ theories.
Father had always been strong for soap and water, but he had had no science to back up his attitudes. His preceptor, Dr. Phillips, had started practice in 1850, and (so said Father) regarded the rumors from France as “just what you could expect from a bunch of Frogs.”
After Father returned from Evanston, nothing ever again could be clean enough to suit him. He started using rubber gloves and iodine, and boiling and sometimes burning used instruments, especially anything used with lockjaw.
Those impersonal clammy rubber gloves cooled me down…but I was embarrassed to realize that I was quite wet.
I ignored it, Father ignored it. Shortly he helped me down and turned away to strip off his gloves while I got back into my bloomers. Once I was “decent” he unlocked and opened the door. “Healthy, normal woman,” he said gruffly. “You should have no trouble bearing offspring. I recommend that you refrain from intercourse for a few days. I conclude that you used a French purse. Correct?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. If you will continue to use them…every time!…and are discreet about your public conduct, you should have no serious problems. Hmm—Do you feel up to another buggy ride?”
“Why, certainly, sir. Is there any reason why I should not?”
“No. Word came in that Jonnie Mae Igo’s latest baby is ailing; I promised to try to get out there today. Will you ask Frank to hitch up Daisy?”
It was a long drive. Father took me along to tell me about Ira Howard and the Foundation. I listened, unable to believe my ears…save that Father, the only utterly dependable source of information, was telling me.
After a long stretch I at last spoke up. “Father, I think I see. How does this differ from prostitution? Or does it?”
CHAPTER
FOUR
The Worm in the Apple
Father let Daisy amble on quite a piece before he answered, “I suppose it is prostitution, if you want to stretch the definition to cover it. It does involve payment, not for intercourse per se, but for the result of that intercourse, a baby. The Howard Foundation will not pay you to marry a man on their list, nor is he paid for marrying you. In fact you are never paid
; he is paid…for every baby you bear, sired by him.”
I listened and found myself humiliated by these arrangements. I was never one of those women demanding the vote…but fair is fair! Somebody was going to inseminate me…then, when I groaned and moaned the way Mother does and gave birth to a baby, he got paid. I fumed to myself.
“It still sounds like whoring, Father, from where I sit. What’s the going rate? How much does my hypocritical, hypothetical husband get paid for each set of my labor pains and one smelly baby?”
“No set price.”
“What? Mon papa, that is a hell of a way to run a business. I lie down and spread my legs, by contract. Nine months later my husband is paid…five dollars? Fifty cents? This is not a good bet. I think I would be better off to move to Kansas City and walk the streets.”
“Maureen. Behave yourself.”
I took a deep breath, and held it. Then I lowered my voice an octave, the way I had been practicing lately. (I had promised myself never to let my voice get shrill.) “I’m sorry, sir. I guess I’m just another vaporish ex-virgin—I had thought I was more grown up.” I sighed. “But it does seem crass.”
“Yes, perhaps ‘crass’ is le mot juste. But let me tell you how it works. No one will ask you to marry anyone. If you consent, your mother and I will submit your name to the Foundation, along with a questionnaire that I will help you fill out. In return they will send you a list of young men. Each man on that list will be what is called an ‘eligible bachelor’—eligible quite aside from the Foundation and its money.
“He will be young, not more than ten years older than you are, but more likely about your age—”
“Fifteen?” I was amazed. Shocked.
“Simmer down, flame top. Your name is not yet on the list. I’m telling you this now because it is not fair not to let you know about the Howard Foundation option once you have graduated to functioning woman. But you’re still too young to marry.”
“In this state I can marry at twelve. With your permission.”
“You have my permission to marry at twelve. If you can manage it.”
“Father, you’re impossible.”
“No, merely improbable. He’ll be young but older than fifteen. He will be of good health and of good reputation. He will be of adequate education—”
“He had better be able to speak French, or he won’t fit into this family.” The Thebes school system offered French and German; Edward had-picked French, then Audrey also, because both Father and Mother had studied French, and made a habit of shifting to French when they wanted to talk privately in front of us. Audrey and Edward established a precedent; we all followed. I started on French before I could take it in school; I did not like having words talked in front of me that I did not understand.
This precedent affected my whole life—but, again, that’s another story.
“You can teach him French—including that French kissing you asked me about. Now this faceless stranger who ruined our Nell—Can he kiss?”
“Gorgeously!”
“Good. Was he sweet to you, Maureen?”
“Quite sweet. A bit timid but he’ll get over that, I think. Uh, Father, it wasn’t as much fun as I think it could be. And will be, next time.”
“Or maybe the time after that. What you’re saying is that today’s trial run was not as satisfying as masturbation. Correct?”
“Well, yes, that is what I meant. It was over too fast. He—Goodness, you know who drove me to Butler. Chuck. Charles Perkins. He’s sweet, cher papa, but…he knows less about it than I do.”
“So I would expect. I taught you, and you were an apt student.”
“Did you teach Audrey…before she got married?”
“Your mother taught her.”
“So? I suspect that you taught me more. Uh, was Audrey’s marriage sponsored by the Howard Foundation? Is that how she met Jerome?”
“That is a question never asked, Maureen. It would be polite not even to speculate.”
“Well, excuse my bare face!”
“I won’t excuse your naked manners. I never discuss your private affairs with your siblings; you should not ask me about theirs.”
I suddenly felt the curb bit. “I’m sorry, sir. This is all new to me.”
“Yes. This young man—these young men—will all be acceptable prospects…or, if I don’t approve of one, I’ll tell you why and not permit him in my house. But in addition to everything else, each one will have four living grandparents.”
“What’s special about that? I not only have four living grandparents but also eight living great-grandparents. Have I not?”
“Yes. Although Grampaw McFee is a waste of space. If he had died at ninety-five he would have been better off. But that is what this is all about, dear daughter; Ira Howard wanted his fortune used to extend human life. The Foundation trustees have chosen to treat it as if it were a stock breeding problem. Do you recall the papers on Loafer, and the reason I paid a high price for him? Or the papers on Clytemnestra? You have long life in your ancestry, Maureen, all branches. If you marry a young man on the list, your children will have long life in all their branches.”
Father turned in his seat and looked me in the eye. “But nobody—nobody!—is asking you to do anything. If you authorize me to submit your name—not today but let’s say next year—it simply means that you will have six or eight or ten or more additional suitors to choose from, instead of being effectively limited to the few young men near your age in Lyle County. If you decide to marry Charles Perkins, I won’t say a word. He’s healthy, he’s well behaved. And he’s not my cup of tea. But he may be yours.”
(He was not my cup of tea, either, Papa. I guess I was just using him. But I’d promised him a return match…so I would have to.)
“Father, suppose we hold off until next year?”
“I think that is sound judgment, Maureen. In the meantime, don’t get pregnant and try not to get caught. Oh, by the way—If you submit your name and a young man on the list comes along, if you wish, you can try him out on the parlor sofa.” He smiled. “More convenient and safer than the judges’ stand.”
“Mother would have heart failure!”
“No, she would not. Because that is exactly the arrangement her mother provided for her…and that is why Edward was officially a premature baby. Because it is stupid to go the Howard route, then find out after you’re committed by marriage vows that the two of you are infertile with each other.”
I had no answer. Mother…my mother who thought “breast” was a dirty word and that “belly” was outright profanity… Mother with her bloomers off, bouncing her bawdy buttocks on Grandma Pfeiffer’s sofa, making a baby out of wedlock, while Grandma and Grandpa pretended not to know what was going on! It was easier to believe in virgin birth and transubstantiation and resurrection and Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. We are strangers, all of us, family most of all.
Shortly we pulled into the Jackson Igo place, eighty acres, mostly rocks and hills, a shack and a sorry barn. Mr. Igo cropped it a bit but it didn’t seem possible that the place supported him and his thin, tired wife and his swarm of dirty children. Mostly Jackson Igo cleaned cesspools and built privies.
Some of those children and half a dozen dogs gathered round our buggy; one boy ran shouting into the house. Presently Mr. Igo came out. Father called out, “Jackson!”
“Yeah, Doc.”
“Get these dogs away from my rig.”
“They ain’t no harm.”
“Do it. I won’t have them jumping up on me.”
“Jest as you say, Doc. Cleveland! Jefferson! Get them hounds! Take ’em around back.”
The order was carried out; Father got down with a quiet word over his shoulder, “Stay in the buggy.”
Father was inside their shack only a short time, which suited me, as the oldest boy, Caleb, my age or near it, was pestering me to get down and come see a new litter of pigs. I knew him from school, where he had attended fifth grade for s
ome years. He was, in my opinion, a likely candidate for lynching if some father did not kill him first. I had to tell him to get away from Daisy and quit bothering her; he was causing her to toss her head and back away from him. I took the whip out of its socket to point up my words.
I was glad to see Father reappear.
He climbed into the buggy without a word. I clucked to Daisy and we got out of there. Father was frowning like a thunder cloud, so I kept quiet.
A quarter of a mile down the road he said, “Please pull over onto the grass,” so I did, and said to Daisy, “Whoa, girl,” and waited.
“Thank you, Maureen. Will you help me wash, please?”
“Certainly, sir.” This buggy, used for his country calls and specially built by the carriage wrights who built his racing sulkies, had a larger baggage space in back, with a rain cover. In it were carried a number of items that Father might need on a call but which did not belong in his black bag. One was a coal oil can with a spout, filled with water, and a tin basin, and soap and toweling.
This time he wanted me to pour water over his hands. Then he soaped them; I rinsed them by pouring. He shook them dry; then washed them all over again in the basin and dried them after shaking, on clean toweling.
He sighed. “That’s better. I did not sit down in there, I did not touch anything I could avoid touching. Maureen, remember that bathtub we used in Chicago?”
“I certainly do!” The World’s Fair had been an endless wonder and I’ll never forget my first view of the Lake and my first ride on a railroad train up high in the air…but I dreamed about that tub, all white enamel, and hot water up to my chin. I could be seduced for a hot bath. They say every woman has her price. That’s mine.
“Mrs. Malloy charged us two bits for each bath. This minute I would happily pay her two dollars. Maureen, I need glycerine and rose water. In my bag. Please.”
Father compounded this lotion himself and it was intended primarily for chapped hands. Right now he needed it to soothe his hands against the strong lye soap he had just used.