Scared shitless was one of my father’s favorite statements. He had every right to be frightened on more than one occasion as he was a Chicago fire fighter. He was a small man, but unlike short men he didn’t have a mean streak. Dad was easygoing, kind to strangers, and though he wasn’t over the top enthusiastic about me, he never shouted and rarely hit me.
I was small too and with mouse brown hair and a less than stellar complexion; I wasn’t the crowd favorite. The crowd favorite was Mercy McGowen. Mercy was George McGowen’s third child. All of his daughters (three girls, five boys, all good Catholics unlike me) were beautiful, but there was something about Mercy. I dreamed that she would one day become a nun and leave the rest of us plain girls alone.
My Dad was a widower. I never knew my mother as she died in childbirth; my birth. I regret not knowing her, but from the picture I have she seemed a nervous, bony type of woman who may have died of nervous prostration. Married to a firefighter, pregnant, living in Chicago, none of it seemed conducive to the wide-eyed and stiff portrait I have of her as a young girl.
Shall I say God spared her? No, God and I have an agreement, I don’t blame Him for things such as my mother’s death; He shows me some compassion when I have no patience with those around me.
It was one of those nights when the firefighters were all about my Dad’s table and the talk was loud, so loud I couldn’t really make out what they were saying and my head ached. There was no point in trying to pick up around the men of Station 45, I just went upstairs, closed the door to my garret bedroom and tried to sleep.
That’s when Mercy tapped on my window.
Did I mention that I had the garret bedroom? That would be the third floor. That fact did not escape me as I peered out my dormer window and saw the beautiful face of Mercy McGowen tapping at my window. We weren’t even friends. Perhaps that is why she chose my window.
I sat up in bed and watched her. Her gigantic violet eyes were looking into the room, but I can’t think she was seeing anything. She tapped. Tapped again and then smiled in on me. It was then I heard my father’s far away voice downstairs and with the roaring laughter of the men around his table. “Scared me shitless, I thought I was a goner.”
Then there was a loud pounding at our front door. The shouting downstairs dropped to a rumble, then a mumble, and then a shuffling silence. The face at my garret window looked frightfully pale. She seemed to glance around, stuck her tongue out at me and was gone.
I was transfixed in my cot. Where did she go? More importantly how did she stand outside my window? A quick thudding up the stairs interrupted my frozen state.
“Beatrice?”
“I’m here.”
“Beatrice! Child, where are you?”
“Here” I tried to stay calm because Dad had a turn for the melodramatic.
“Child, the neighbor just stated you were standing outside your window!”
“No, I’ve been in bed.”
“Then what the hell? It was Miss Crenshaw, the old Calvinist, so I know she wasn’t drunk.”
“Perhaps her age is catching up.” I’ve heard women say that in Church.
My Dad looked puzzled and then walked to my window. He tugged at the sash, but I latched it before going to bed. He peered outside and shrugged.
“Why wasn’t Mr. McGowen here this evening?”
“Eh? What? McGowen? Ah, that girl of his Mercy; she’s poorly.”
I’ll regret my next words for as long as I live. I finally discovered why my father kept me at arm’s length.
“I expect she is dead,” I said
“Nonsense Beatrice, stop that! That’s why you have no friends, child. Women shouldn’t talk like that.” He returned to his friends, and the laughter resumed.
Mercy McGowen’s funeral was a solemn occasion, and my life commenced.