Page 10 Scribulus Winter Issue GOLDA By Frank McQuown I went out and lay down on the front lawn. The grass was seared in brown patches. The wind felt cool on my face. I gazed up into the sky. A wisp of cloud drifted like trailing lace in the blue. It took shape and became an angel in a filmy white gown. The angel looked down at me, with smiling gray-green eyes and curved, coral lips . . . "Golda" . . . Never was a name so beautiful. I murmured it over to myself. I felt a sweet, mysterious feeling inside of me. A low whistle brought me to a sitting position. Robert Mathews stood by the fence. "It's four o'clock," he whispered. I nodded and climbed over the gate. We scooted along the fence and raced past the rows of box-like houses; crossed the mill-race bridge; passed the stores and the Jap pool hall, and so came, at last, to the post office. Beyond the post office gleamed the white fronts of the men's dormitories, and farther on, the green roof of the club house. A hill separated the club house from Shacktown. A narrow trail led back of the dormitories. It was this trail that held our fascinated eyes, as we crouched unobserved under the concrete culvert near the gas filling station. The five o'clock siren sounded from the huge smelter on the hill. My heart began pounding. She almost always came along the trail at five o'clock. She had pretty gay-colored dresses, gray-green eyes and long fringed lashes, covered with shiny black beads. She had coral lips and pretty white hands with gleaming red finger nails. Her hair was the color of the copper that came from the refinery, only much redder, and it lay in little rings under her wide plumey hat. Her slippers were shiny and black with slender heels that made a clicking noise when she walked. We did not know why she had to come along the trail at five o'clock. For that was when the day-shift men came down from the "plant" to the dormitories. Some of them were tough bullies. Thy didn't have respect for a lady. They would shout to her "Hi, Golda!" as nervy as anything. And they forgot to tip their hats. But she was such a lady, she made out as though she didn't mind. She would stop and talk to them, and I guess she felt sorry for them. Once, though, when she saw Curley, the cop, she hurried along with her eyes down, and she didn't speak to Bush, or Nick, or Slim, or any of the fellas that time. Bob said we ought to have a decent cop. Curley was all right, but if Golda didn't like him, our parents oughta' elect a new cop . . . Once we saw Golda riding in a long, black, shiny car. Jim Coppas was driving. Jim Coppas was rich. He had a bunch of stores and things. Bob said if a guy is rich he doesn't need to be white for a girl to fall for him. I felt bad that day. I felt like I was going to have the flu. And then I thought that maybe Jim Coppas was Golda's chauffeur. Like the Super's wife. Only the Super's wife has Al for her chauffeur, and Al is a Swede. Anyway, after I thought of the chauffeur idea, I felt better . . . Well, this day we hid in the culvert, and, after a while, Golda came along the trail, swinging a pretty red parasol and walking on her toes like a dancer, because her heels were so high and spindley. She had on a slinky, shiny dress the color of Mom's coral beads, and it clung to her in a way that you somehow thought of the sleek satiny wethers of Uncle Fred's thoroughbred racers. Her skin was creamy, and her cheeks and lips and finger nails were the color of her dress. Her gray-green eyes were wide and bright, and the long lashes curled in two's and three's where the little black beads sparkled on them. Bob and I held our breaths as we watched her; and it somehow seemed that she was too beautiful. You wanted to close your eyes for a minute, but you couldn't. You just coudn't tear them away from her, no matter how hard you tried. Winter Issue Scribulus Page 11 As she passed our hiding place and went on down the street, we got a whiff of perfume that I'll bet was made in Paris, maybe, or Vienna. It was different and not cheap like the kind Charley Handel sells at the drug store . . . After she passed by and we couldn't see her any more, we sat there talking and whispering of the duels and things like Robin Hood and Richard the Lion Hearted did in the olden days, with bows and arrows, or else swords. Bob's Grandpa had a sword a million miles long and as sharp as a snake's tooth. It was hanging on the wall in Bob's house. Some day he was going to take it down, he said, and fight a duel. We were so interested in talking that "we did not se her come back. But pretty soon there she was, looking right at us, for we had crawled out of the cement culvert and were sitting on the edge of the bank. I choked up and couldn't say a word; my tongue got dry and there was a tight ball in my chest. "Why, hello-o-o, Keeds," she said, smiling first at Bob and then at me. "I theenk you're 'fraid of Golda. Yes-s-s? No-o? You theenk Golda is bad girl? No-o?" Her voice was sort of low and husky like a cello; it was like beautiful music, like "Amar-ylis." She was beautiful, too. She made you think of clouds, and valentines, and rainbows ; Miss Smith, the teacher, was pretty but it was like plum puddings, and red wool sweaters, and geraniums. And then we were carrying her parcels and walking along beside her. We were tongue-tied and a little afraid at this sudden answer to our prayers. It had seemed like this just couldn't happen. It was like a dream. She hummed a gay little tune as we walked along and seemed to have forgotten we were with her. The ore "wash" in the big flume above our heads boomed and hissed; the smell of the water and the rotting swamp weeds was awful; so was the dry tailings dust, but we didn't notice them. Finally Bob said, "Gee, you're beautiful!" He gave me a dig with his elbow. That meant "Speak up!". So I said, "How could anybody be afraid of an angel ?" She laughed, and said, "I theenk you're v-e-r-y fine keeds, too. You're beeg and brave. Golda like for to walk with beeg, brave keeds." When she said this my cheeks burned. My chest got all trembly inside. Bob looked up at her. His ears were red and his eyes were big as anything. "Buzz Carr knows a girl named Golda, but she's not sweet like you are. We haven't ever seen her. She lives over there." Bob pointed with his thumb toward Shacktown. "Yes," I added, "they call her 'Shacktown Golda.' You're not Shacktown, are you? There must be two 'Goldas'." There was silence for a long time. Finaly she said, "I guess you're right. There are two 'Goldas'." Her voice was sad and all choked-up like she was going to cry, or maybe she had a cold. I felt so light and happy. Not because she was near crying, but because now I knew. There must be two 'Goldas.' We felt like we were old friends now. The three of us shared a secret a deep, deep secret. It was the kind of secret you never, ever talk about. You just know it's there ... It was growing dark. The trail dwindled into a dim white line that stretched away to the blinking lights of a dozen or so frame cottages on the rim-edge of the town. We had never been there. The railroad tracks were a sort of dividing line between upper and lower town. I began to feel as though I were a hero in a book. This was fun; it was adventure. I knew my mother would not approve, but a wicked thing somewhere inside of me kept gloating and saying, "Go on cow-ardy you daren't you daren't" . . . The moon had come up. We stopped in the path to look at it. That is, Golda did. We looked at her. We were too happy to talk. After a while a change came over her face. She looked back over the trail along which we had come. Three men were visible in the moonlight. They were talking in loud voices and swaying. I think they were drunk. "Hi, Golda!" One of them shouted. Golda stiffened and her face seemed to change. She said, "You keeds beat it now, queek." And then she laughed. It wasn't a pretty laugh this time. It has a sound in it like she was crying inside, sort of a heart Continued on page 22