What is a wish, really? In the 500 miles that stretched from Cheyenne to Omaha, we tossed out all sorts of ideas. Billi said that they weren't necessarily magical. After all, what was an encore? The wish of the many given by one. An unexpected pleasure. Something they couldn't provide on their own. I said a furlough was like that, especially when given when least deserving. Teardrop dismissed each theory as it appeared, "Wishes is soft peoples' way of dealing with worry. A fad that's never gone out of style. Castles never will float in air!" Wilfred wrote in his book all across Wyoming and now Nebraska, and none of us touched our cards. What were we afraid of?

Billi was again looking into her glass. She twirled it and gurgled, suddenly distraught, "No!" In a flash she ripped the glass from its string and threw it down; it did not break. She turned fantastically pale and shot out of her seat. "Why have you locked this door? Why have you locked me in!" she screamed. The door wasn't locked, and she twisted the handle in panic, finally ripping open the door, escaping in a flight of sobs. Neither Wilfred or I moved to see what she had seen.

Teardrop picked up the glass. "That's Billi's glass," I said. She said, "I have a right." But she did not look.

Wilfred then twirled his glass round. His face collapsed. He looked upward as if to ask 'Why show me this?' I peered into it; all I could see was a small farmhouse. I put my hand on his shoulder.

Teardrop held her ornament, "I'm not afraid to look, if that's what you're thinking." She became unusually serious. "It's just that, sometimes." She gave the glass a spin. "I know there's nothing to see. Can't be no happy scenes cus I've never been happy. And for the rest, I don't need a little glass to remind me." I listened. Her voice became different, softer, thready. She let her shoulders down. "If you want truth, it's this: I was born in Omaha. My mother named me Tahira. That's the only thing I have of her, and the only thing I know of her. She left me in a basket somewhere. I had about twenty foster parents, each worse than the last. I dropped out in the 9th grade. Ain't never looked back either. I get by." She did not want us to see her cry, and so grabbed her jacket and said, "I'm going for a smoke." As she went out the door Billi was coming back in, both so intent on their sorrows that they didn't even notice the hard knock when their shoulders collided.

I did not want to chase after her, but felt certain that Teardrop was going to hop off the first chance she got. And so, when she returned, I jumped up. "Hey, kid!"

We all slept at different times, and as we neared Omaha we found ourselves all around the table, the cards still untouched. "This is just bogus," Teardrop said. "Here, I'll show you how." And she tore her card, halving it and then ripping it again and again. Then she brushed the little pieces of it onto the floor. "Bogus!" Billi then just blurted out, "I wish you hadn't done that!" In that instant, I felt something thrusting my feet, as if in front of a giant turbine. Everyone must have felt the same thing, for we all looked under the table. Then something hit the window of our cabin with a tink; it sounded the way a BB does. Probably just a stone thrown up. When we returned attention to the table Teardrop's card was no longer on the floor in pieces; it was in her hand, whole. She screamed, as if stung by a bee. Then she tried to fling the card away. It wouldn't leave her hand. She thrashed violently, but it remained between her fingers. "Get it off!" She gripped it in her teeth. And then it was again in pieces. She went to the window, opened it, and let the bits fly out into the Nebraska countryside. Billi slid her card into the narrow rail below the window, where it fell down into the panel of the cabin, "Guess that leaves me with none."

Teardrop, who had shown far too much emotion, marched out of the cabin. This time I followed. But not soon enough. I could not find her. I walked through every car on the train. Then I went into the caboose. Empty. I stepped onto the rear platform, where I'd seen the sightless man. And there, crouched by an anglehedge, holding the rail, was Teardrop.

She looked up, "You think there really ever was such a person, Hattie Clapsaddle?"

"I suppose."

"What did he mean 'most virtuous' woman?"

"It's self explanatory, I think."

"No one ever explained it to me."

"I think it means she was untainted."

"Once," she began, "I was hitching round the northwest. A couple a guys took me out to one of those islands off the coast. Hardly anybody on'm. All rainy. Everything soppy and overgrown. There was a bike in a tree. I don't mean hanging in the limbs. It was embedded in the trunk, huge trunk. Like a birth defect. About ten feet up. Some kid had leaned it against the tree one day and just never came back. The tree grew up around it and then engulfed it. The bike was all rusted, its front wheel sticking out one side of the tree, its back the other. Nobody could've faked anything like that. It was part of the tree! Probably took twenty years to grow like that. Where was that kid? Why'd he never go back? It was the saddest, most loneliest thing I ever seen."

"I can imagine."

"No, you can't."

"Well, if I try-"

She saw me staring. "I learned how to wrap like this from a boxer I knew. A guy I never, you know, went out with. He was just a friend. About every week I make a new wrap. It's the only thing I steal: the tape. I swear."

"Why do you do that?"

"Makes me feel more secure. Want me to show you how?"

"Sure." She took out a jackknife. I slid the blade under the layers of dirty white and cut away last week's tape. I did not remark on the long scars underneath. She gave me a roll of the white adhesive. She instructed me. And she guided my hand as expertly as any DI as I wound the tape round her wrists and hands.

"Not bad for an amateur," she said.

"Do you have a home?"

"Wherever I hang my hat."

"You don't have a hat."

"If that's what you want to call it-I live in Ottawa. Just like Omaha."

I crinkled my eyes.

"Ya know, starts with an O, ends with a A. I'm just back for-have friends in Wyoming."

"For what?"

"Ya know, I don't take money."

"I never thought that."

"In the summer I catch butterflies. I sell them to a company that does butterfly releases for weddings. Winters I sharpen skates on the Rideau Canal. I'll go back to any warm shack, but I don't-there's no money."

"I never thought that!"

"That lady, she's a singer?"

"Yeah, up there with Dylan. She was on the cover of Rolling Stone."

"I wrote a song once. Wanna hear it?"

"Sure!"

She stepped onto the bottom rung of the rail. "Sometimes I wish I could flyŠlike a bird up in the sky. Sometimes I feel like freedom is near. Sometimes I feel like freedom is near!"

Now that was one song I had heard before, but did not let on. She sang on. She had a stupendously good voice. The wind picked up considerably. She sang more loudly, overcoming the wind. We were entering greater Omaha. "Do you know what's just over that rise?"

"No, what?"

"Boys Town! Ya know, Father Flannigan and all."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Have you ever read Paul Gallico?"

"No."

"You should read more." She stepped up onto the rail itself, and sang with abandon.

"What are going to do?"

"Sing!"

"No, I mean, come down from there." We were approaching a long trestle bridge. I saw its sign: Big Papillion Creek Bridge. The train was slowing as we entered the city.

"What's regret feel like?" she shouted over the wind.

"Like a sword going down your throat. Like a croquet ball forever in your gut. Being afraid of anything good happening."

Teardrop stood high on the rail and the train was out over the bridge. It must have been a hundred feet to the water below. She swung her arms free and began singing again. Just then the door to the caboose flew open and Billi raced through it. "I knew it! What is she doing?"

I yelled, "Enough." Billi shouted, "Come offa that this instant!"

She shouted, "OK." And turned. I stepped back and then she jumped. Billi went to her knees, howling. And all I could do was watch her tumble. Perhaps she thought she was going to glide, but her body had struck the side of the trestle and went into a terrible spin. Billi was howling. I screamed, "Teardrop!" as if my desperation alone could bring her back to the rail. "I wishŠ.I wishŠ I wish!" And then, as she was about to strike the rocks below, I yelled, "Wish that Billi had her wish back!"

When I returned to the cabin I found her new wristwrap, uncut; it looked like a papier-mâché casting, a smooth little tunnel for her tiny wrists. A mouse couldn't have wriggled out of that tight wrap. Billi's pack was gone, too, as was her guitar case. In place of the lyrics on the railroad poster was an illustration of the golden spike. Other than the wristwrap, there was no evidence that either had ever existed. I tried to explain to Wilfred, who seemed to understand better than I.

We stepped out into Burlington Station, the two us, to walk around as the train took on fuel and water. It was teeming with holiday rushers. We saw more than a few soldiers there, reuniting with loved ones. That made me all the more homesick. I bumped into a sailor. "Oh, sorry, partner," I said. Both of us were jostled back and forth by the throng. He looked familiar. He had a bad limp. He slapped me on the back. An older woman, likely his mother, stood with him. And they both stood on their tiptoes when someone they were waiting to see appeared.

They shouted, "Over here!" I did not get a glimpse of whoever it was that was obviously making their way closer. The excitement of the pair grew. The man's mother had been holding a child that I had not noticed. And she held the child up high, "Mommy's back, Mommy's back!" In the child's arms was a stuffed animal, a snow goose with exquisite stitching and a dark pink beak. The sailor embraced the woman, who was probably about my age, mighty freckled. He swung her around, the fringe of her jacket swirling in air. Then I lost them in the rush.

Rather than fight the mob, Wilfred and I went back aboard the train. I was running faces through my mind as Wilfred, sitting across from me, seemed immersed in some good humor. It almost seemed he was laughing at me. When the train's departure whistle blew I jumped from my seat with the shock of recognition. I raced to the station-side window and thrust it open. The man, his mother, wife and daughter were walking along the platform, pushing a carriage. I yelled out, "Hey, sailor!" He looked up. "Come again?" I shouted once more, "What's your name?" He took off his name pin, and tossed it to me, saying, "No more gigs for me!" He was almost hysterical with laughter, "I was just discharged!" The train moved out of the station and they were gone. And in my hand I held the nametag: "Charles. A. Callico."




The next and final chapter, "One Blind Dog, One White Dove," will be published in the Dec. 24 issue of The Citizen and posted at this web site.