C.J. Hauser - The Crane Wife: A Memoir in Essays

TWENTY - SEVEN LOVE STORIES

I | PUT YOUR BOOTS ON, 1918

Cap Joyce was a cowboy who ran an Arizona dude ranch called the Spur Cross because acting like a cowboy, for tourists, was more lucrative than the actual herding of cattle. He had a trick horse named Patches that could bow, roll over, and nod the answers to math questions. Sometimes Cap stood on Patchess back and played guitar. Then the Great War came. He sold Patches and left his wife in charge of the ranch and went off to fight in France, where he was mustard-gassed, but survived, and was heavily be-medaled for the trouble. He was my great-grandfather.

Cap had been home a week when the ranch hands took him aside and said that his wife had been carrying on with the foreman. They wouldnt have mentioned it, the ranch hands said, except they didnt seem to be stopping.

Cap said, Where is he?

Cap went to the bunks. The foreman was dressing.

You fuck my wife? Cap said.

The man froze. Yes, he said.

Cap said, Put your boots on.

The foreman put on his boots.

Cap shot him dead. He did not bleed much, they say.

II | UNION MAID, 1984

My first kiss was a communist. His name was Jack. He was part of a kids playgroup in New York City. All the mothers were part of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union except for mine. Her involvement remains a mystery.

In the playgroup, the babies crawled over the carpet and the mothers shared pots of coffee and by and large the babies were naked and if they were not naked they were wearing overalls. Good communist babies wear overalls.

Here are some of the things that I wore: a tiny pair of lederhosen (Germany), a real silk kimono with a red bird stitched on the breast (Japan), a rabbit-fur coat with wood fasteners (Russia). My grandparents had been traveling and always sent me, the first grandchild, souvenirs.

There is a picture of this first kiss. Jack, in overalls, is on hands and knees, long black hair in ringlets. I am practically bald, bending toward him, hands planted on the rug. I am wearing a pink velveteen jacket (Paris).

A week later the union ladies said: You cant keep coming if you dress her like that. The week after, my mother brought me to the group in the rabbit-fur coat, not thinking the union ladies were serious. They were.

III | THE LAND OFFICE, 1921

When Cap got out of prison he went to the land office with a mind to start a new ranch in Wyoming. There was a woman at the front desk, a secretary. Her name was Robbie Baker.

Can I help you? she said.

Im going to marry you, Cap said. And I need some land.

That was my great-grandmother.

IV | BEESTING, 1989

Brian Katrumbus could run faster than any boy in kindergarten and had hair like corn silk. It was Valentines Day. A week earlier, when Id been stung by a bee while daydreaming out the window and then cried quietly, not knowing what to do, it was Brian Katrumbus who told the teacher that something was wrong with me. He poked the teacher and said, Something is wrong with her.

Id picked out a very special valentine for Brian Katrumbus. I wore a Band-Aid over my small wound the day I watched him open his envelopes, waiting to see how he would receive my card. But Brian Katrumbus had a system. He ripped open each envelope, and then shook it, so whatever candy was inside tumbled out onto his carpet square.