Fort Momma

By Al Gowan

Praise for stories in FORT MOMMA: "Surprise and delight lurk in every paragraph of DEFROSTING HOWARD, a well-crafted story written in a clear, strong voice."
-Vicki Hendricks fiction editor of QUIXOTE QUARTERLY, and author of five novels including MIAMI PURITY, IGUANA LOVE and SKY BLUES "REAL TIME is an humorous insight into the computer anxiety of the early eighties."
-Dan Wakefield guest editor of PLOUGHSHARES and author of sixteen books including best selling novels STARTING OVER and GOING ALL THE WAY, and non-fiction books NEW YORK IN THE 1950'S and RETURNING. With deepest gratitude to the editors who published my stories:
Dan Wakefield, PLOUGHSHARES, 1981 (REAL TIME)
Michael Ishii, PAINTED HILLS REVIEW, 1993 (THE DEPRESSION)
J.H.E. Paine, TENNESSEE QUARTERLY, 1993 (CURLEY'S PICTURE)
Vicki Hendricks, QUIXOTE QUARTERLY, 1994 (DEFROSTING HOWARD) Reviews on Al Gowan's last novel ZAMORA'S TATTOO "Marks the debut of a new American novelist of insight, intelligence, style and sensitivity. Al Gowan is a writer with something to say that's fresh and provocative and he says it in a voice that is utterly, uniquely his own."
-Gerald Gross, EDITORS ON EDITING "A dangerous and startling novel full of wit and grace. Al Gowan is a writer who takes delight in revealing the struggles of his people"
-Melanie Rae Thon, SWEET HEARTS, IONA MOON, GIRLS IN THE GRASS, METEORS IN AUGUST and FIRST, BODY.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Aug 17, 2003
• ISBN: 9781462073863

Al Gowan

Al Gowan lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts with his wife Susan. ZAMORA?S TATTOO, his most recent novel, is set in 1987 Spain. His previous novel, SANTIAGO RAG was set in 1898 Cuba during the Spanish-Cuban-American War. He is currently at work on a novel about an influential design couple whose collaboration began at the German Bauhaus in 1922.

Book preview

Fort Momma

All Rights Reserved © 2003 by Al Gowan

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ISBN: 0-595-29020-5 (pbk)

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ISBN: 978-1-4620-7386-3 (eBook)

Contents

Foreword

Acknowledgements

Maiden Voyage

Defrosting Howard

Space

Real Time

Fort Momma

Curley’s Picture

And The Angels Sing

The Depression

They Blind The Canaries

The Calm Of The Arab World

A Week In The Country

Lazarus

Closing The Cuckold Canteen

Wings

Half An Hour In Heaven

For Lila Chalpin

Poet, critic and friend

Foreword

The stores in this collection were selected from forty stories, written over a twenty-five year period. Some have appeared in literary magazines and are so noted, including the year of publication.

Al Gowan

Cambridge, Massachusetts July 2003

Acknowledgements

With gratitude to the editors who found one of my stories in their pile, and published it.

Dan Wakefield, Ploughshares, Cambridge, Massachusetts 1981 REAL TIME

Michael Ishii, Painted Hills Review, Davis, California 1993 THE DEPRESSION

J.H.E. Paine, Tennessee Quarterly, Nashville, Tennessee, 1993 CURLEY’S PICTURE

Vicki Hendricks, (Quixote (Quarterly, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, 1994 DEFROSTING HOWARD

MAIDEN VOYAGE

Her deep steam whistle blasted and the silver boat slid from under the Jefferson Barracks Bridge, a hundred feet below the limestone bluff where Mazie Krebs waited with a bottle of Dom Perignon and a slice offoie gras. Mazie had created every detail of the streamlined giant, the rounded bow that seemed to inhale the eddies of the broad Mississippi, the sheathing of metal over the huge side wheels as smooth as the rear fender skirts of the 1940 Lincoln Zephyr in which she sat. She spent most of her salary on the convertible, but she had learned while traveling the vaudeville circuit with her mother to value objects of transport. Mazie’s riverboat and her car were equally curvaceous. The S.S. Admiral and the woman who designed her were a study in contrast. Mazie Krebs was five foot four. She had large, dark eyes, and a taut, dancer’s figure.

The whistle blast had interrupted her pencil sketch of the Admiral in an improbable stand on her stern in downtown St. Louis, six feet taller than the Bell Telephone building.

Mazie closed her sketchbook and gripped the cold champagne bottle between her knees. She loosened the wire, then heard the pop as bubbles foamed down the neck of the bottle onto her bare legs and the maroon leather car seat. Tempted to drink straight from the bottle, she composed herself, pulled a monogrammed pewter flute from her glove compartment and poured. Condensation collected on the flute while the foam settled. After one lady-like sip, letting the flavor settle under her tongue, Mazie downed the glass. Soon the Admiral would follow the channel almost against the bluff and disappear from her view. She spread some of the paté onto a cracker.

Captain John Streckfus had invited her on today’s trial run, but Mazie Krebs, a girl from south St. Louis, had always followed her instincts. After a brief time at Washington University’s Fine Arts department, she forfeited her scholarship to become a fashion illustrator for Famous-Barr department store. Several years later, she started her own syndicated but short-lived comic strip, Cindy of the Hotel Royale. Cindy, a brunette like Mazie, was one of the few funny paper heroines of the roaring twenties to work for a living. Mazie soon took another job with the Taylor-Rebholtz advertising display company, which had Strekfus Steamers as a client. She worked on their account before going to Chicago to design for the 1933 Chicago World’s fair. When Joseph Strekfus, president of the company, visited the fair, he saw Mazie’s modern work and hired her to design the interior of the President. Although the President was the first river steamer built entirely of steel, her contours were from the days of Mark Twain. Only inside could Mazie use round glass, powder blue leather, and chrome. The result was a gingerbread boat with a chrome and glass soul. But the vessel enabled the Strekfus family to make enough money during the Depression to eventually build the Admiral. Streamlining promised a future that would be gleaming and clean, an escape from the drudgery of the thirties. Mazie was an inspired disciple.

She had not been tough enough with the President commission. The engineers and builders were sickeningly condescending, despite her experience in Chicago. Her grandparents spoke German, and she had studied French in high school so Mazie could read European design magazines. But she had been too busy with the President to attend the 1933 Exposition Universelle in Paris. How she longed to see to see the rounded façade of Henri Van de Velde’s Belgium Pavilion with her own eyes.

Mazie pronounced the names of two St. Louis boulevards Choteau and Gravois like a Parisian.

No, she told the slightly disappointed Captain, she would wait for the Admiral’s maiden voyage in two weeks. She was having a special dress made and such things were not to be rushed.

Although forty-two, Mazie was usually thought to be in her late twenties. But these past months finishing the Admiral had taken a toll. She had worked at night, never rising before eleven. She visited the dry-dock in the late afternoon after the workmen had left. That way, she could inspect without interference the finishing touches on the quilted doors of the great Blue Ballroom, the curved chromium fittings of the Art Deco glamour room, and the round mirrors in the three powder rooms she had named after movie stars Sonja Henie, Greta Garbo, and Deanna Durbin. All her designs and instructions for change were written or drawn, with detailed notes for the workmen. She signed her work M. Krebs and used the rubber stamp of president Joseph Strekfus’s signature under it.

The S.S. Admiral was her piece de resistance, worth every ounce of effort. Now, with just two weeks to prepare, she would get a facial, and redo her limp hair. As she finished her third glass of champagne, the tightness in her shoulders eased and she hiccupped.

She deposited a peach on the linen napkin across her lap. She cut the peach into precise wedges, admiring the color she sometimes specified for interiors, and then chewed thoughtfully. As the breeze picked up and dark nimbus clouds blew in from the west, she smelled the coming rain. Mazie looked at the aviator’s watch that curved around the top of her wrist. By now Captain Strekfus should have reached the mouth of the Merimec River where he would bring the Admiral around for her slow, return upstream to the dock beside Eads Bridge.

As she was packing her picnic basket into the trunk of her white convertible, she heard the Admiral’s whistle blast. Either the Captain had shortened his run, or he was running at full steam to impress the inspectors. She walked to the edge of the bluff and looked down. Like a massive toy, the Admiral chuffed by under her, and she could hear the hiss of the steam drivers like the blowing of a great whale. Then she caught a movement beside the angled jack staff on the lookout bridge. It was Ray Maxwell waving to her, dapper as usual, in a tan, double-breasted suit. Beside him stood Captain Strekfus and a young woman in a white dress, Marie Kantjanis, who had been selected as Queen of the inaugural voyage. Ray waved his hat in a slow signal. Just then the stream whistle blew when it had no cause to. The girl jumped and threw her arms around Ray’s neck. It was one of his cheap tricks, and Mazie felt her cheeks go hot.

She found herself side-arming the champagne bottle and watched it arc and shatter on the afterdeck. The scared girl ran into the pilothouse.

Mazie strode to her car and closed the top, got in, and pushed back her hair. She jammed the key into the ignition, stepped on the starter, and felt the V8 gurgle to life. As she hit the gas, the convertible spun gravel and picked up speed.

She could have brained somebody, Ray exclaimed. His discarded cigarette sparked across the deck. Captain John Strekfus, a stocky man, stared at the puddle of champagne, then nudged the broken bottle with his white shoe, examining his deck for damage. Ray shook his head. What’s eating that woman, anyway?

Strekfus pulled a kerchief from his blazer pocket. As he cleaned his glasses, he squinted at the approaching storm.

Ray spread his arms behind him along the rail. His wide tie fluttered in the wind.

Strekfus stared up at the bluff, now receding off the port stern. I think my flagship has just been christened, he chuckled. And ahead of time.

Listen, Mazie is driving me nuts, Ray blurted. I told her we’d play her up plenty big as the designer. I showed her the layout of the plaque we are having made with her in the citation. Told her we’ll mount it on the damned bulkhead, if she wants.

The Captain stared over his glasses at the brash, young President of the Advertising Club of St. Louis. And her reaction?

Ray Maxwell took a deep breath. She changed the typeface from a nice script to sans serif.

* * * *

On Wednesday afternoon, June 12, the fifth consecutive day of high humidity and scorching heat, Ray Maxwell dressed as cicadas screamed in the trees outside his open window. That was bad news for a man who would spend the next twelve hours in a wool suit. But once Ray got to the Washington Street Dock, he would hold court at the bar on the air-conditioned B deck of the Admiral.

This affair with the St. Louis social set was to be an evening cruise. Wednesday was chosen because the rapid German invasion of Europe had cast a pall on celebrations. Besides, even the coal yards, grain elevators, and chemical plants on the grimy East St. Louis side of the Mississippi looked romantic at night. Ray’s agency had decided to award the first ticket to an eleven-year old boy. Sprays of orchids grown in Forest Park’s Jewel Box would adorn the head tables. And Ray

Maxwell would have the first dance with the beautiful, twenty-year-old Marie Kantjanis.

Captain Strekfus met Mazie at the gangplank. A large gray boa was draped over her peach dress with shoulder pads. A vertical arrangement of small flowers crowned her head. Miss Krebs, he said, offering her his arm as the flash bulbs snapped, you look like your own daughter.

Merci, mon Capitan, Mazie smiled. But if I had a daughter, I would forbid her to wear this dress. Strekfus led her along the main deck, past the untried merry-go-round and the partially installed coin-operated games, and a wooden cow, which would eventually dispense chocolate milk.

Not many kids tonight, the Captain explained. But this deck will be crammed with them come the weekend. Except for the two giant rods that turned the side wheels, Mazie didn’t much care for the eclectic amusement deck. She had left that part of the design to a series of local vendors who knew how to cater to the tastes of children.

They went up the stairs. Strekfus pushed back the double blue doors, and they stepped into the cool ballroom. On the bandstand, Ken Moore and his eighteen Haymakers were playing a run through of I Only Have Eyes for You. The music echoed in the vast oval dance floor.

As Strekfus led her to the Captain’s table, someone touched her shoulder.

Hi, Maze. Buddy Aufberg, a reporter for the St. Louis Star Times held a bottle of Griesedieck in one hand and an orchid in the other. Buddy offered the orchid, which he had plucked from a table arrangement. She rose up on her toes to kiss him on the cheek. Listen, sweetie, he said, "I can’t stay for that dance you promised me.