The Last County Fair

The next morning I was on my way to downtown Chesterton to meet Jenny. I drove slowly through the quiet empty streets. Leaves were already turning brown and yellow and lawns were strewn with the fallen. It had been an unusually hot, dry summer. The pallid earth was crisp and scorched. The grass, once green, was stunted, broken. Dust swirled in the gutters. Cars parked at the curbs were spotted with splashed dirt. The very air itself felt parched, poisoned by August’s putrefaction.

The night before, on the Castle Rock Road, under the stars, where I parked the Buick outside the Xenophon, I held Jenny close to me. While I had repeated my words of admiration, my insistence that I loved being with her, to which she had responded with confirmation that she greatly admired me, I was still bothered that her eager acceptance of my love was specifically conditioned upon the requirement that I avoid any confrontation with Ricky. She meant it all right. It wasn’t an occasion to discuss it, we were so busy doing other things, but at last she asked, or rather instructed me, to promise that I would restrain myself, even if Ricky threatened me with physical punishment. I had my doubts but my desire for Jenny buried them. I wanted Jenny, not later. Now! If it entailed a fight with Ricky so be it.

At the Chesterton County Courthouse I pulled into the rear parking lot, got out and hurried up the high front steps where Jenny was to meet me at nine o’clock. It was a few minutes before nine. Jenny wasn’t there, so I sat down on the steps to wait for her bus. A brilliant ray of sunshine lit up the round tower that capped the bright stone building. I thought how much it looked like the Richland courthouse with which I was familiar. For the first time I wondered where Jenny and I would live. I presumed we would look for an apartment. Jenny had insisted that my one-bedroom abode, which was close to Richland’s downtown, wouldn’t do. She was open to the suggestion that she should enroll in Richland University. I started thinking how much Ricky and I were alike. I was an only child, and so was he. We both had it all planned, he to become rich in farming and marketing, I to become a famous reporter, eventually to have a regular column of my own. Ricky planned to marry Jenny to provide the merging of their families. I would marry Jenny to live happily ever after.

A bus pulled up to the curb. I helped Jenny as she stepped gingerly onto the sidewalk. Her delightful beauty was enhanced by a pink frock that was tucked under the bodice high about her waist.

“Been waiting long?” she asked.

“No, not long. It gave me time to think.”

“You haven’t changed your mind?” she asked with detectable alarm.

“Oh, no! Have you?”

“No, I love you, Art.”

“And I love you, Jenny.”

Jenny held my hand as we mounted a flight of marble stairs to the second floor, turned right down the hall. “You’re sure?” Jenny asked me.

“I’m positive. Why are we here, Jenny?”

“To see Miss Herkimer. You know, the county nurse I told you about. The one who visit’s the migrant camp now and then. I see her for checkups, there being a chance I catch something from the workers there. Just routine. My mother would have a fit if she knew. Our secret, Mark.”

“Sure, okay.”

In the County Health Department office Miss Herkimer, adorned in a white nurse’s attire, rose from behind her desk. She gave Jenny a warm embrace.

Jenny introduced me. “I would like you to meet my friend, Art James. He’s covering the fair for the Richland Star.” She tightened her grip on my left arm and looked up at me admiringly. “He’s a reporter with the Star.”

“A friend of Jenny is a friend of mine,” Miss Herkimer said as we shook hands. She was about forty, I guess, although her hair had a hint of gray in it. She was rather heavy, but strong-looking.

“Jenny told me about the help you have been to the migrants,” I said.

“They need all the help we can give them,” she said. Jenny and I sat down in small armless chairs in front of the desk. “One poor girl there is going to have a baby,” the nurse said with a sigh. “She should be in the hospital now. The diet she is on! Potatoes mostly. She never sees a piece of meat. Expectant mothers should be on a diet that builds their strength.”

“Will she be able to get a bed in the hospital?” I asked.

“I’ve reserved one for the end of September.”

“That’s wonderful,” Jenny exclaimed. “Beulah was so disappointed we couldn’t show movies last night.”

“You saw her?”

“Art and I went there yesterday afternoon.”

“Did they install the diesel engine yet?”

“Not yet,” Jenny said.

“Why a diesel engine?” I asked.