Kathy Little Bird by Nancy Freedman, Benedict Freedman Page B

see if he would drive off.
    He did.
    My spirits suddenly rebounded and I inquired when the next bus was due. There was time for a giant Coke and to play the jukebox.
    On the way back I sat behind the driver. The bus made some rural stops. People got in who he knew and called by their first names.
    “What is Martha like?” I asked, inching forward.
    “She’s a good sort. On her way to see her daughter four stops on. Now that young woman is no better than she should be. She’s got a kid too. Martha tries to be there when the little girl gets home from school. There’s lots of trouble in this world, missy.”
    “I know. You can let me off at the stop closest to the police station.”
    I walked down the main street, entered the building, and went up to the officer on duty. I gave my name and stated I was a witness to the stabbing on Hope Street.
    “Is the man dead?” I asked.
    “He’s dead all right.”
    “I thought he was.”
    I was brought in to see the sergeant, who was warming a pot of coffee. He offered me a cup and we sat with the desk between us, drinking the hot dark brew.
    The sergeant looked at me curiously. “How come you want to testify?”
    “I didn’t see anyone telling it as it was. They’re all friends of the guy who did the stabbing.”
    “Yeah.” Then drawled, “He’s got friends everywhere.”
    Did he mean here on the police force? I looked at him for confirmation, and he smiled over the rim of his Styrofoam cup.
    “Of course,” he went on, “all you need say to get the old bum off is that he just happened along.”
    “That’s how it was,” I assured him.
    “In that case…” He rummaged in a drawer and brought out a printed form. “Fill this out, sign it, and we’ll turn him loose right now.”
    I brought my hands together. “Oh, could we?” Then I attended to the affidavit. The sergeant looked it over, nodded, and led the way through a back room and down a short corridor with cells on either side. “There he is. Hardly worth bothering your pretty head about.” My man was stretched out snoring lustily under a thin gray blanket. He started at our approach, opened his eyes, and looked at us in alarm.
    “It’s all right,” the sergeant said. “I’m letting you go. This young lady was present at the brawl. I have her sworn statement that you just happened along.”
    “Did you have to wake me out of a beauty sleep to tell me something I already know?” the old man grumbled.
    “This young lady did you a big favor, friend.”
    “Hmmm,” was the response.
    No one thanked me, especially not the old tramp, but I felt good and started humming a Cree victory song.
    When we got back to the front office there was Jack, breezy as ever. “Hi, sweetie,” he said casually as I came in. “Ready to go?”
    “The man was dead,” I said to him.
    “Kind of thought he was. Leastways, he wasn’t looking too healthy.”
    I don’t know if I’d expected Jack to be there. Or what I would have done if he wasn’t.

    I T was back to the good life.
    That’s what Jack called it. And for him I guess it was. I was pulling down a couple of hundred weekly singing what he wanted me to sing and what the audience wanted to hear. And he was drinking it up.
    Don’t get me wrong. I loved performing, and singing three or four nights a week was great experience. The first time a drunk followed me on stage and started caterwauling into the mike, I didn’t know what to do. But I learned under fire, incorporating him into the act and setting him the task of beating time. The audience went for this and even liked the fact that he couldn’t get it right. It added a comedic touch to my number.
    No, I never tired of performing. But it looked as though Jack was right about the Indian songs; they just didn’t go over, even as encores. I put them aside. Later, I told myself, because I still believed there was an audience out there. At the same time I knew instinctively that singing other people’s songs and