Роберт Батлер - The Ironworkers' Hayride

She looks at me. “Well, dog my cats,” she says. “What a sweet thing to say, Milton.”

And now, having been seized by one thing to say, the ink bottle in my head instantly spills all over the ledger — I’m not afraid to put it in these terms — I am who I am — and I figure I’m in an even worse predicament, since I’ve raised her expectations.

But Minnie seems happy to pick things up. Of course she deserves a vote, she tells me, and she goes on for a time about how women would have busted the trusts even quicker than Roosevelt and Taft — it was only this year — what a great year, though, it was, she says — that Standard Oil was finally dissolved and the tobacco trust was broken up, but even at that, look what’s happening now, she says, the banks in New York are trying to monopolize the nation’s credit. And Minnie is talking like sixty and I sort of settle back and let her words just carry me along about oil and railroads and steel and big corporations, and this should be working up my feelings for numbers and business and all, but that’s not what’s happening, the wagons have started up and I’m giving myself over to the stars above and the flow of Minnie’s voice and her words are like music to me, like a fugue by Bach or something that you just take in and it shuts down all the unnecessary functions of your brain except the part that hears the music. I even feel like humming with her as she talks. Then Minnie finally has to nudge me a bit. I realize that her words have worked around to me. “You’re going to cast your ballot in October, right Milton? For the woman’s vote in California?”

“Of course,” I say.

“Grand,” she says. “Just grand.” She stops talking and looks at me closely. I look at her closely. The moon is full and Minnie is bright white, like she’s made of alabaster. “I’m sorry,” she says.

“Why?” I say.

“I’ve harangued you in the hay,” she says.

She seems sincerely regretful. Even in the moonlight I can read that in her face. I want to reach out and touch her, perhaps take her hand, though my own hands go rigid in panic at the thought of it. But I find I have words. “No,” I say. “You’ve educated me.”

Minnie sort of rolls her eyes. I think in pleasure.

“You’ve exhorted me,” I say.

Her eyes focus hard on me now. She leans a little in my direction and her voice pitches low. “Thank you for saying so, Milton.”

Then a choir begins to sing.

For a moment, strangely, it all seems to be happening just in my head. But the voices coarsen and the music is not Bach. In fact the sound is all around me in the wagons. The others on the hayride are singing. Shine on, shine on harvest moon up in the sky. I ain’t had no lovin’ since January, February, June, or July.

This is true, certainly. And you can tote up all my Januarys, Februarys, and so forth through the whole year. For all my years. Even just counting the ones since I hit adolescence, that’s better than a hundred months. I can work up an exact sum tomorrow if I want. Now things go a little sour in my head. I realize that, given my ineptness at the lovin’ and spoonin’ and all, I’ll be adding this present month of July to the tally in spite of this hayride.

The voices roll into a verse. I can’t see why a boy should sigh, when by his side is the girl he loves so true.

I look at Minnie. She’s not singing along, but she’s smiling into the wagon, and then she lays her head back on the hay. So do I. And of course I sigh. Shine on, shine on harvest moon.

Minnie and I lie there and listen, side by side, the moon shining over us and the stars as well, no more talk being necessary, and it’s just grand, even as the singing ironmen and their girls move on to other songs, first to Whoop, whoop, whoop, make a noise like a hoop and roll away, and then Oh you spearmint kiddo with the Wrigley eyes , not really catching the mood I’m in, but that’s still okay, I’m beside Minnie lovely Minnie with the leg of willow, and they do go on to sing I’d love to live in loveland with a girl like you and there’s a lot about turtle doves and hearts beating in tune and babbling brooks and that’s more like it and I’m definitely thinking about Minnie though I’m not touching her and I’m not looking at her and she might as well be a distant memory, for all that. And so she soon will be, I realize. This is my only chance with her and we are sliding along in the night and the time is ticking by and I’m acting like she’s not even there and now they’re singing, Waltz me around again, Willie, around, around, around. The music is dreamy, it’s peaches and creamy, O don’t let my feet touch the ground.

I sit up at once. It sounds like Minnie beseeching me. Waltz me, Milton, don’t let my feet touch the ground. That’s what I would need to do. I see myself sweeping her up and it makes no difference what her legs are made of, with me she need never touch the ground.

“Are you all right?” Minnie’s voice slips in under the last chorus of the song. I look at her. She’s sitting up, too. I feel like a ship on an ocean of joy — I just want to holler out loud, “Ship ahoy!” And she turns her head to the wagon and she opens her mouth and sings with the others, Waltz me around again, Willie, around, around, around. I can’t take my eyes off her. There’s straw caught in her hair and I want very much to lift my hand and take it out, but I’m as paralyzed as ever. Then everyone is laughing and applauding themselves and the music is over and Minnie turns her face back to me.

And she winks.

I have, of course, no earthly idea what she means by this, exactly. But I dare now to think that I’m pretty much okay for the moment. With this very progressive girl. With this girl who would bust the trusts and still has it in her to wink. The madness of speech comes upon me again. “I’m going to vote in October,” I say, apropos of nothing but the chaos in my head. So I add, “Like I said before.” Which needs further explanation. “For women to vote,” I say and I try to lock my jaw shut.

Miraculously, she seems to understand, even though I don’t. She leans close. “You’re right,” she says. “That’s just the way to waltz me around and around, Willie.”

I’m glad my jaw is still locked because I’m about to impulsively correct her about my name. But I stay quiet long enough to get what she means. How clever she has made me out to be. Then, inspired, I wink.

She smiles and turns away. “Aren’t you feeling a little bit chilled?” she says.

“No,” I say. I am, in fact, feeling quite flushed.

Probably from the rapid disintegration of my brain cells. I turn to see what Minnie is seeing, and several other couples are opening their blankets and disappearing under them.

“Yes,” I say.

Minnie looks at me and of course I’m driven to explanations. “The valley gets chilly,” I say. “It’s all the orchards,” I say. “I think they, somehow, the fruit trees, absorb the heat perhaps, to make it chilly. There’s no real statistics on that, however. It’s probably just Northern California. The climate, you know.” I stop myself at last. I’m breathless from this madness.

“So you’re chilly?” she says.

“Yes,” I say.

She reaches beside her and gently sets the flowers on the hay. She flashes open the blanket and lifts it and it settles over the two of us up to our shoulders and she says, “How’s that?” and I say, “Fine.”

We lie back to watch the night sky. We do that for a while, not saying anything, and we’re still not touching at all, except maybe just barely along the upper arms, though that might just be my imagination.