Buster Midnight's Cafe (13 page)

The only one who didn’t seem excited was Buster. If he wasn’t so big, you wouldn’t have noticed him at all dressed in his old gray sweater and the baggy brown pants he bought for high school graduation. He never dressed up unless he was around May Anna. Even when he was in the ring practicing, he wore just a ratty pair of black trunks and an undershirt. Buster laughed when little kids went up to his sparring partners and asked, “Can I have your autograph, Mr. Midnight?” Buster didn’t care that they mistook other boxers for him or about giving autographs, but I think it disappointed Toney that nobody ever asked him for one. Whippy Bird says that was the reason he carried around the tortoiseshell fountain pen with the gold nib that leaked blue ink all over his shirt.

The championship fight was the most exciting day I remember in Butte, even bigger than when Franklin Delano Roosevelt or Marion Street came to town. There were flags on every street post and bunting stretched across the street and BUSTER MIDNIGHT CHAMPION signs every time you turned around. Most of the stores and restaurants had life-size pictures of Buster in his famous crouch that they hung in the windows. Some of the restaurants even named dishes for Buster, like the Buster Burger—100 percent pure beef. “Tough meat is what they mean,” Whippy Bird said.

May Anna took the train all the way to New York and had a private compartment, and when she ate in the diner people asked for her autograph, too. Though she didn’t visit the training camp, she sent Buster telegrams almost every day and even called him long-distance. She gave interviews about how she was Buster’s number-one fan and planned her filming schedule around that fight. I think she loved Buster more during that time than she ever did.

She sent Pig Face two hundred and fifty dollars to light candles for Buster, which she said ought to buy enough candles to burn down half of Butte. She didn’t believe burning candles would do Buster any good, but she wanted to rub it in to Pig Face that Buster was going to be the champion. What was more, she didn’t send the money to Father Joseph Stenner. She sent it to Father Pig Face Stenner.

Whippy Bird and Chick and little Moon came to our house to listen to the fight on the new RCA with the picture of the little dog on the side. Pink bought it especially for the occasion and chose the one with the biggest speaker so you could hear it all over the house. After a while though, we decided to go uptown to the newspaper office and listen to the fight with everybody else who gathered outside.

It was so crowded me and Whippy Bird each held one of Moon’s little hands so he wouldn’t get lost. Moon was only five years old, but being sharp like he is, he knew what was going on. He waved a little flag that had a picture of Buster on it, and kept yelling, “Bust him, Uncle Buster!” We thought that was so cute, me and Whippy Bird yelled it, too.

Chick bought us all beer and popcorn and tamales from the hot tamale man, except for Moon, who got a box of Cracker Jack, which was a disappointment to him since the prize was a bracelet made of tin. I told Moon I’d trade him the bracelet for a little toy car at the five-and-dime next time I was uptown. I wore that bracelet a few times, but the paint chipped off. Now it’s in my memory box, a souvenir of Buster’s big fight.

You’d think with all those people yelling, those hookers drunk, and those kids pushing, you wouldn’t be able to hear the fight, but the newspaper had big speakers all over the front of the building that boomed so loud you could hear them clear up to Centerville. Whippy Bird said we should have sat on the front porch and listened to the fight. I said if we were going to do that, we should stay inside and listen on the new RCA. I think Pink was disappointed that we didn’t stay home and listen, though he had just as good a time as the rest of us.

Everybody knows Buster beat Clay Tom Baker, so I’m not going to tell about it. You can look it up in the history books if you want a round-by-round account. It was a tough fight, all right. Buster developed a cauliflower ear on his right side from getting it ripped open. He got in a couple of good punches himself. Still, he didn’t have a knockout, which was what we were hoping for. Me and Whippy Bird were both making deals with God for that. Buster won by a decision, and when the radio announcer said Buster was the new champ, we all went wild. Me and Whippy Bird screamed so loud, we were hoarse the next two days.

Afterward, we went down to the Rocky Mountain Cafe to celebrate. Whippy Bird wanted to take Moon home first, but I said it was a night to remember. Moon always gave me the credit for letting him stay up that night. He surely paid me back for the favor, and then some.

Chick and Pink were so excited they ordered martinis for all of us then a bottle of champagne to go with our chili. I handed Moon a silver dollar and told him to put it in the slot machine for me and I’d split the winnings with him, which means I must have been drunk because I am usually very careful with my money.

We just couldn’t lose that night. First Buster won the champion-ship, then damned if Moon didn’t hit the jackpot of sixty dollars. I gave him half the winnings, and Whippy Bird told him never to play the slots again because it would be downhill from there. She gave Moon a dollar, then used the rest to start a college fund for him. The next day, just for the hell of it, Pink and I went out and bought a Plymouth station wagon with wood sides that we’d been saving for.

Me and Whippy Bird never could get over the fact we’d won so much money at the Rocky Mountain Cafe, and on that night of all nights. She always called the Buster Midnight championship fight the night Effa Commander won the jackpot.

Since both Pink and Chick worked on the Hill in an industry that was essential to the war, they figured they wouldn’t have to join up. In fact, the government sent men who refused to fight for America up to Butte to work in the mines. Pink and Chick talked for a long time about whether they ought to enlist, explaining to me and Whippy Bird it wasn’t right to leave us alone if they didn’t have to, especially with little Moon to take care of and a baby on the way. My baby. I was pregnant, and Pink wanted to be there because he was afraid I’d get sick again. I wanted him, too, though this time around I was sure I’d be all right. So far, all the signs were good.

At first, me and Whippy Bird were glad they weren’t going, but we knew they would sooner or later no matter how much they said they wouldn’t, so we talked it over on the day me and Whippy Bird took Moon up to Hennessy’s to buy him a snowsuit.

After we finished shopping, we went to the Creamery Cafe to buy Moon hot chocolate and a piece of apple pie. “Chick says he’d never join the army and leave me,” Whippy Bird said. She wiped off Moon’s hot-chocolate mustache. “Baby, you want another marshmal-low?”

“I’m not a baby,” Moon said.

“Of course you’re not,” Whippy Bird said. “Pretty soon you’re going to be the man of the family.”

I put down my fork, and me and Whippy Bird looked at each other.

“Well, he’s likely to be. They want to go, you know,” she said. “In the worst way. Both of them. It’s not the way of Butte boys to hide out from a war. I guess I’ve made up my mind they’re going to do it.”

“Has Chick told you that?” I asked her.

“No. What about Pink?”

I shook my head. “But I know Pink. He wants to go. He’s just afraid for the baby.”

“For you, you mean. He’s scared to death something will happen, and you’ll be there all by yourself.”

“Well, I won’t,” I said. “You had a baby. I can, too.”

“That is surely true,” Whippy Bird added. “Besides, you’ve got me.” She didn’t have to say that. The surest thing in the world was that I could count on her. Then Whippy Bird came up with an idea that was so obvious I don’t know why we never thought of it before. “You know, Effa Commander, we could live together. You’ve got two extra bedrooms in your house. Moon and I could move in, and we’d split the rent. That way we’d both save money and I’d be right there if you needed me.”

It was the right solution, we all agreed after we talked it over. At first, though, Pink wasn’t so sure. “If anything happened … ,” he said.

“Oh, fooey. What’s going to happen? I’ll have two people to watch out for me instead of one. Whippy Bird and Moon.”

Pink nodded. “That would relieve my mind, all right.” I knew Pink had a vision of me lying dead on the bedroom floor, so I put my head on his shoulder and told him I’d rather have him there, but his country needed him, too. I was scared to have a baby without Pink, but I couldn’t stand in the way of him fighting for our country.

Chick said, if Whippy Bird was staying with me, he could be sure she didn’t step.

“What do you mean?” Whippy Bird said right back to him. “I’ll have a livein maid to tend Moon so I can be free as a bird.”

“A dead bird, if I catch you,” Chick said, and we all laughed because Whippy Bird never loved anybody as much as she loved Chick. She was the most loyal person I ever knew. Chick knew that, too.

The boys didn’t give us time to think it over and back out. The very next day Pink and Chick joined the army. They figured if they signed up together, they might stay together so they could look out for each other. Raise hell together, you mean, Whippy Bird said. Die together, too, I thought, but I kept that to myself. Later on, of course, me and Whippy Bird talked about it. She’d thought that, too: if they didn’t enlist together, there might be a chance of at least one of them coming home.

We were too excited then to talk about anybody getting killed though I knew in my heart I was as scared for Pink going to war as I was for me having a baby without him. The boys said they’d be back in a year, when the war was over. That’s what they all said. All the men in Butte were joining up to fight the Germans and the Japs, and it got so you saw more military uniforms around town than hard hats. The depot was packed day and night with soldiers getting on trains and people saying good-bye. Every time we went out for dinner, there was somebody giving a toast to a boy who was leaving to fight for his country.

We had a big party for Pink and Chick at our house the night before they left. May Anna couldn’t come, of course, but she sent a telegram saying:
WITH PINK CHICK NARMY AMERICA SAFE STOP SO IS BUTTE STOP LOVEANDKISSES MAK.
Buster and Toney came, of course, and I’ve never seen four grown men so drunk in my life. It’s a wonder the boys got on the train in the morning.

Buster told me he and Toney ought to be going instead of Pink and Chick since they were single men. Later, the newspapers said Buster was a slacker. They wrote he pulled strings and got a deferment because he was the champion. Somebody in the United States Congress said there ought to be an investigation. What nobody ever knew was that Buster tried to enlist, but he was turned down for flat feet and being deaf in one ear, courtesy of Clay Tom Baker in the championship fight. He was so ashamed, he never told anybody but us.

Buster was down-at-the-mouth when Pink and Chick left. We knew he wanted to be on that train with them. He stood on the platform for a long time after the train pulled out, until Moon said, “Come on, Uncle Buster.” Then he hit big old Buster with a little tiny Buster Midnight punch.

Buster said, “Hey, bub, don’t you mess with me!” Then he bopped Moon on top of his head and picked him up and carried him to the car. Moon always did know how to cheer people up.

Nobody had the right to criticize Buster because he did everything he could for the boys in uniform. He gave exhibition matches to raise money for war relief, he taught boxing to the soldiers, and he went all over Europe to entertain the troops. Toney said some of the places Buster went were just as dangerous as the front lines. There was no doubt about it. Buster was as patriotic as Pink or Chick or me and Whippy Bird. Or Marion Street, who risked her life to entertain the troops at the battlefront.

With that easy pregnancy, I never thought anything could go wrong. I worked at Gamer’s until my legs swelled up, then I quit and laid around the house getting fat. Whippy Bird wouldn’t let me do any work. She sent me out to sit on the steps to watch Moon play while she cleaned the house. Other times I stretched out in a big chair reading magazines and listening to the radio. I could spend a whole day answering one of Pink’s letters if I wanted to. The boys wrote us every single week from Camp Carson in Colorado, where they were stationed.

Whippy Bird made over her maternity clothes for me since she could sew. She’s so short, they looked funny on me when I first tried them on, so she let down the hems and added ruffles. She even tried fixing all the meals, though I decided there was no reason for her to take on that responsibility, too. It gave me something to occupy my mind, and that was when I developed my special interest in cooking. When Whippy Bird came home at night I surprised her with a Hoover pudding or a hard-times cake, which was a good wartime dessert because it didn’t use butter or sugar.

Whippy Bird worked as a typist at the Anaconda office while I watched Moon. I dressed him in his Hennessy’s snowsuit every day so we could go for a walk. It was white with little ears on the hood, and when he put it on he looked like a rabbit. We called him Moon Bunny when he wore it. I bought him red mittens to go with it in case Moon got lost in the snow. If we couldn’t see him in that white suit, we’d surely see those red mittens. We sent May Anna a picture of Moon in the snowsuit, and she wrote back that his new name should be Franklin Delano Rabbit. Whippy Bird always warned me to be careful when I was out with Moon. She was afraid I’d fall down on the ice and hurt the baby. “Hell, Whippy Bird. This baby is not made of glass,” I said. But maybe it was. Maybe it was.

The baby came early. We were sitting down to dinner when I told Whippy Bird it was time. There weren’t any little contractions, just pushing pains that told me we better hurry. Whippy Bird was as cool as could be. She told me to get my things while she ran Moon next door and warmed up the Jackpot. It was snowing hard, a regular Butte blizzard. Colder than hell, and snow coming down so fast you couldn’t see anything outside. But the Jackpot was as warm as toast. That car always did have a good heater. Whippy Bird looked at the storm coming down and said, “You want me to call a cab instead, Effa Commander?”

No time, I told her. So she pointed the Jackpot toward the hospital, zipped in and out of the cars, ran a red light, and got us there in fine shape. I said Whippy Bird should have signed up as an ambulance driver during the war because she always got where she was going.

And none too soon. The minute we arrived they rushed me into the delivery room. The pains lasted only thirty minutes, then I was holding that tiny girl in my arms. She was so pretty with her sprouts of straw-colored hair like Pink’s and her tiny pointed ears. Whippy Bird said she had better cheekbones than the famous actress Marion Street.

If the baby was a girl, me and Pink decided to name her Gladys after his mother, who died when he was a boy. I was explaining this to Whippy Bird when she put her finger in the baby’s tiny hand. The baby squeezed that finger so hard it left nail marks. Whippy Bird looked at the marks on her hand and the baby’s little tongue going in and out of her mouth and said, “Why, Effa Commander, she’s as sassy as a jaybird.”

That’s when the name hit me, just like the name Marion Street hit me and Whippy Bird that day we were helping out May Anna. “No,” I said to Whippy Bird, “her name’s not Gladys. It’s Maybird. Her name’s Maybird.”

“Oh,” Whippy Bird said. “Oh, Effa Commander.” She hugged me, and I could see the tears in her eyes.

“My two best friends,” I said.

“It’s the prettiest name I ever heard,” Whippy Bird said, and I had to agree.

“Do you think May Anna will mind?”

“Mind? She’ll send her mink diapers.”

When I woke up later, there was a big spray of gardenias in the ward that the other mothers thought came from Pink. When I saw them, though, I knew May Anna sent them. Whippy Bird didn’t have to tell me the name on the card.

“I see you went home and called May Anna,” I said. “Did you get Pink?”

“Pink!” Whippy Bird said. “Pink must be drunk under some table by now. Probably Chick’s with him.” She laughed. “I never heard a man so happy when I called him. The first thing he asked about was you. He didn’t even ask was it a boy or a girl. He said how’s Effa Commander, and I could tell he was holding his breath. When I told him you were all right, and he had a little girl, he started to cry. He said you could name her anything you wanted to, and he didn’t like Gladys anyway.

I never liked Gladys either. I was afraid he’d say Maybird was a silly name, but Whippy Bird said anybody who’d gone through life with the name of Pink shouldn’t be too critical.

After she got Pink, Whippy Bird tracked down May Anna at the studio, where she told the telephone operator it was a family emergency, which it was, I guess, us being the only family May Anna had left. Whippy Bird informed May Anna I wanted both of them to be the godmother and that the baby was named half for her. May Anna said she never was so honored in her life even though later on they named airplanes and even an aircraft carrier after her.

While Whippy Bird was telling me about the phone calls, a delivery boy came over from Hennessy’s with a present wrapped in white paper with a pink bow that had a duck on it. Inside there was enough tissue paper to last us through Christmas and wrapped in it was a bed jacket. It was a whole lot of lace on a little bit of silk.

“May Anna,” I said, then both me and Whippy Bird giggled.

“Do you suppose she remembers what winter’s like in Butte?” Whippy Bird asked.

“Or how cold houses are in Centerville?” But it was nice of her and I put it on over my flannel nightgown.

Then Whippy Bird gave me her present. It was a Sunbonnet Sue baby quilt she’d made by hand, not even using the sewing machine. There were nine little Sues, and they all had embroidered faces. Whippy Bird said she had a feeling it would be a girl. But she made one with boys, too, just in case. What got me was when she did it, with me around all the time. “I’ll make her one with Maybirds for her first birthday,” Whippy Bird said when she saw how much I liked it.

Of course, there never was a first birthday, but at least we had that happy time to dream about it. Maybird wasn’t more than three or four days old when the doctor said there was something wrong. He thought little Maybird’s lungs hadn’t developed enough, and she couldn’t get air.

It wasn’t right, I told Whippy Bird. I accepted the will of God when we lost that first baby because we didn’t ever have a chance to love it. But I loved Maybird. Whippy Bird told me we should be grateful for whatever time we had with that precious child. She said it was better to have Maybird for just a few days than not to have her at all. Like she always did, Whippy Bird helped ease the pain.

Whippy Bird telegraphed May Anna to let her know Maybird wasn’t going to live long. May Anna called the hospital and had me moved into a private room. She told Whippy Bird it wasn’t fair to me to be around the other mothers. May Anna knew me and Pink would be too proud to let her pay, just like she was too proud to take money from Ma long ago, so she told Whippy Bird to say the hospital had the extra room available and moved me in for nothing. I didn’t know May Anna paid the bill until much, much later.

It was the sorrow of my life that Pink never saw his little baby girl, never held her in his great big hand. He could have, she was that small. At the end, they let me hold the baby for her last minutes. The doctor brought her in to my bed, and Whippy Bird sat there next to me with the nurse at the window. I’d forgotten about that nurse. They were shorthanded because of the war, but she stayed with me while Maybird Varscoe expired. The baby was breathing one minute and not breathing the next. The nurse let me hold her a little while longer, then she took her out of my arms like she was still a sweet living thing and said, “God has taken her, Mrs. Varscoe.”