In the Field of Wheat

2/17/2010


IN THE FIELD OF WHEAT

by

LIZ POPE





Standing in the wheat fields outside of Learchester, the wheat kissed by the sun until the stalks have turned golden wave methodically in the breeze. Laney looking off in to the distance; imagines a life with out the stress of living. When she came to Learchester she thought she could create a new identity for herself. She never realized that the life she once led would always be beckoning her back.

Sensing her lack of enthusiasm for her current situation she decides to lie down in the middle of the wheat field. She let the sun flood her senses and warm her thoughts. The sun seems to have a dizzying effect on her body and as she opens her eyes to stable herself she is shocked to see that her surroundings are not those that she just left, but those of a tavern, with low lighting that disguises even the most repulsive clientele.

The smell of stale beer and cheap whiskey floods her body and she cringes and the realization of where she is. The name of this dreary and loathsome establishment is Loose Change, this is a place where your money can buy you anything and people come to hide when they are low on their luck. It is a place with cheap drinks, loose women, and an air of secrecy. From time to time Laney imagined what it would be like to leave this place, but this is the only home she has ever known and the man in the corner is the only positive male figure in her life. His name is Tibias, but most people know him as “Hey Barkeep”.

He hired Laney when she was 10. If you ask him he will tell you that the only reason that he gave her a chance is because she would have died of starvation if he had not fed her. Tibias has said on many occasions, “She was like a stray cat, once you feed and educate them they just keep coming back, and I thought that it would be cheaper to make her work for her food and education, and my wife – God rest her soul-- would have killed me if I had let a starving child wonder the streets.” So, he took her in and 8 years later here she stands in the corner, concealed in the shadows.

Laney is trying to figure out how she got back here. The last thing she remembers is lying down in the fields of wheat, and now she is in the one place she thought she would never see or even think of again in her life. While she is thinking, many more memories clutter her mind. See that man in the corner, the one with out any hair and a long grey beard? His name is Ernie, and he is the crazy old man that likes to hear songs from his days at sea. He would pay Laney a silver piece if she would sing for him; she was only 10 at the time. Ernie would sing along with her and their voices together would make you heart break. There is nothing more gut wrenching than listening to two people sing about despair who know what despair truly feels like.

Ernie used to be the Captain of the Star Gazer; it was the finest ship that sailed out of Dover. The story is he used to be the most eligible bachelor in the city, until he met his wife and fell madly in love. It is told that their love was the kind that you only hope to find, but one day on her way to meet him, at the dock, she was ran over by a carriage. She died shortly after being carried home. Ernie was never the same. He retired from his position as Captain, and came to reside in that old lumpy chair.

The man to his left is McKickerson. He took a liking to Laney, he said in his thick, almost undecipherable baroque “This girl with the eyes like the ocean, reminds me of my little girl back in Ireland”. When he would talk to Laney he would ask questions about her life before she came to live at the Loose Change, and she would just sit quietly at his feet while she polished his boots. For this task he would pay her half a bronze piece per shoe. Sometimes other patrons would look at him like he was crazy because he seemed to talk to himself, due to the fact she would never answer any questions, but he would always ask them.

He would say, “Where do you come from?” and silence would follow. Other questions would pertain to her family, her life before this place, her skills, her likes and dislikes, and what she liked to do when she was not working. Laney never said a word to him other than, “Thank you.” Laney knew why he asked all of these questions. He lost his daughter 4 years ago. She would have been the same age as Laney. She died when she went out to play and many days later they found her body compacted in the peat marsh that bordered the small town he came from in Ireland. After her accident Mr. McKickerson left his heart and soul back in his small remote town and set out to deaden his hurting heart. He asked these questions to try and imagine what his daughter’s life might have turned out to be like.

Laney soon realized that these men would pay an unassuming girl to do all of the things that took to much effort for them to do. She soon started to make the patrons beds, wash and fold their clothes, get them drinks, go to the market for them, and just sit and listen while the talked about their lives before the Loose Change. By the time she was 13 she had acquired what most girls her age only dreamed of; she had saved a small fortune and she had her freedom and education. Most of the girls her age still “belonged” to their fathers and they had no money of their own to speak of. A life at the Loose Change might not be an ideal setting for a girl to grow up in, but this situation beat any that she came from before.

In her small room at the top of the tavern is where Laney spent her free time. She wrote in a journal, which is the only luxury that she allowed herself to own, she mended her clothes and the clothes of the men downstairs, and she would also drift lazily off into imaginative and fanciful day dreams about her future. These are the things that she would do in secrecy.

To her the Loose Change was a place where she could build her dreams into tangible and reachable goals. It was also a place of drunkenness, gambling, sex, and despair. She learned more than any girl her age needed to know about men and their sexual preferences. Throughout the years she had seen what goes on behind closed doors. Most of these encounters where by mistake, but she soon seemed to get the idea that men liked women with small waists and plentiful breasts. They also admired beautiful clothes in the latest fashions and clean hair that was fixed and fragrant. She took this knowledge and used it as a weapon against the same men that taught her. She would say to her self as she stared into the mirror, “They are the ones that taught me and they are the ones that will help me hone my skill.” She some times thought how deviant it was to use the men’s knowledge against them, but she thought that any skill had to be repeatedly instilled and practiced to become unthinkably innate.

The tavern also taught her more than the books and Tibias could teach her about math and languages. She learned the ins and outs of the male behavior. By the time she was 16 she could work any man that came through the swinging double doors of the Loose Change. She could get the men to buy her presents or a pint. She could get them to tell her stories of their lives outside of the dingy and depressing walls that encased them.

Laney’s most notable accomplishment seemed to be the innumerable times Neil Downs had asked her to marry him. He owned the whole left side of Main Street. The men that sat around the fire would bet how long it would take Neil to get on his knees and beg for Laney’s favor. Laney was shocked right out of her stockings the first time Neil Downs showed an interest in her because he was one of the most influential men she had ever heard of. He owned property, ran 8 businesses in town, and had a house that could rival any in the providence. She could not place what she had that was so attractive to Neil, even though she had money no one else knew about it.

All the patrons thought she unwisely spent it on new clothes and fancy trinkets, but what they forgot is that they all supplied her with these things. She would hide her money in the floor board underneath her night stand. It was to heavy for her to move without making a dragging noise that could be heard through out the tavern, so every night before going to bed Laney would tell Tibias that she was going to sweep her room and go to sleep, but this was all a rouse to hide the money and no one was any wiser about what went on in her fortress.

One morning Laney woke to a knock at her door. She was startled no one ever came up to her room. She did not want who ever was at the door to think that they needed to come in to wake her, so in what seemed like a squeek she let out a sound or so she thought. Another knock came and this time Laney replied, “Just hold your damn horses I got to get dressed.” As she stood in the middle of her room with her blanket wrapped around her and her hair all a mess trying to find something that would suffice as clothes at the moment Laney realized that she had not asked who was at her door this early in the morning.

“Who is there and what do you want?” Laney asked.
Tibias replied, “There is a gentleman downstairs that says it is important that he speaks with you right away. He even paid me 5 gold pieces to come up here to get you. Put on clothes and get your ass downstairs right now.”

Laney was left stunned with the unforgotten sheet around her on the floor, she stood naked in the middle of her room with the sun light hitting her back warming her skin, while she contemplated who could possibly be downstairs waiting on her. She quickly found her dress from the night before on the back of the high back chair in the corner of her reading nook. She dressed with and absent mind and when she hit the second landing of the stair case she realized that she did not have on shoes and she had to run back up the 28 stairs to get them. She could not meet someone important enough to carry around 5 gold pieces in bare feet.

When she reached the landing she noticed a man at the edge of the bar. This was not the type of man to ever step foot in such and establishment. His clothes were made of silk dyed in the most vibrant colors. These clothes showed wealth and dignity. All she could think about was what he must think of her. She had on a frock in a light pink and yellow check. It was not her best dress, but it worked in the tavern. She absently touched her braided hair as she waited on the gentleman to speak. Once Tibias introduced Laney the man approached and greeted her formally.
“Miss I am from the House of Downs, you have been cordially invited to the Midsummer’s Night Eve Ball.” said the man.
Laney in a high pitched shaky voice asked, “Who has invited me?”
“Lord Neil Downs III and his family. You are to be picked up at 6:45 on Saturday evening.”
Laney eyed the man saying, “What if I decide that I wont go?”
I will be here to escort you to the main house and I am sure that you will be ready at 6:45.” stated the man.
As he was leaving he turned and looked at Laney with a piercing glare, “I almost forgot to tell you that you also need to be ready to go into London today at high noon. There will be a carriage here to pick you up and there is a warning to not be late.”
As he walked out of the swinging doors, Laney put a hand out to steady herself on the bar as she did she slipped down the side of the door frame and landed on the floor in a state of utter shock.
Tibias rushed over to her and tilted back her head to pour a shot of whiskey down her throat to kick her back into reality. Laney muttered, “I can’t believe that this is happening.” She stood up and walked to the fire and warmed her hands. As she warmed her hands she looked into the fire for what seemed like hours, but in reality it was only 7 minutes. She realized that all of her education and savings paid off. She knew that you did not have to sleep with a man to get what you wanted you just needed to play a part. And each part was different for everyman. Lord Downs needed a woman to reject him and make him fight, but every time he walked through those doors it was Laney who was fighting. She fought the urge to say yes every time he asked her to marry him. She fought every urge to run and kiss him and even the urges to allow him into her fortress. She finally felt like the woman she thought she could become.

The night of the ball is the last night she fought her urges and the first night she understood her true power, but with every piece of knowledge she gained was one piece of the woman she thought she might become. She still has her money in a secret hiding place, but the money does not hold the same meaning, but now it holds memories of the men that made her life turn out to be what it is. The money is the songs, the looks, the stories, the clothes, and the follies of all the men that came into her life and helped shape her into the Lady of Downs.

Every now and then in the wheat fields outside of town the Lady of Downs can become Laney. She can be a carefree woman who has come to value the moments when she can remember the one place she always wanted to forget. She can remember the stale beer, cheap whiskey, and the men that were as much a part of her life as they were fixtures in the tavern.

As she lays in the wheat she thinks back to the days when the Loose Change was a dingy and dismal place to be and now when people walk by they look at it as a place of hope. It is the place that an alley cat became a Lady.