Looking for Hope

By Dawn DeWinter

Chapter 7 – Kermesse the Frog

Dawn spent her third night in Ohio in Jim’s little trailer – along with Bill, Frodo and Mortimer.  They were at the little pond in the well-kept park.  With a mixture of anger and relief, the three “men” had hailed Dawn’s return and welcomed Jim to their expedition.  Curious as to whether Jim was male, female or other, Bill and Frodo joined Mortimer in spying on Dawn while she made love with her new companion. 

“Extraordinary!” Bill said.  “Yes, quite remarkable,” agreed Frodo. “Why I never!” said Mortimer who added, speaking for all three:  “I had no idea that anyone could have sex that way. It’s almost like Dawn is drilling for oil, the way her sucker rod goes up and down.” 

Mortimer felt more alive than in years.  It had truly been exciting to see Dawn used as a barbell.  He decided that he might be still straight after all because the sight of Jim’s breasts gleaming with perspiration had made him tingle all over.  That night Mortimer actually touched himself as he lay in bed.  Jim was on his mind – and in his groin.

Frodo also was aroused.  He readily agreed to wear a bra for the first time.  By the time they’d had sex for the fourth time that night, the bra contained two expensive breast forms, and Frodo had also agreed to lipstick and eyeshade, again two firsts for him.  Frodo lost track of who did what to whom, and how often.  He didn’t realize that he’d spread his legs thrice to Bill’s once. 

The next morning Frodo absent-mindedly wore his lipstick and eyeshade to breakfast at a nearby café.  Fortunately, no one noticed, for all eyes were on Dawn, who was wearing spiked four-inch heels with an Alice in Wonderland dress and talking ever louder and faster as the caffeine coursed through her system.  A couple of local toughs wanted to “pulverize the pervert”, but quickly headed for the exit after Jim ripped a chair from its floor bolts for use as a weapon. 

Everyone was impressed, except the owner of the café and Mortimer who had to pay for damages.  Dawn was more than impressed.  She was developing quite a crush on Jim; indeed, Dawn hadn’t felt so much like a giddy schoolgirl in at least six months. 

Kentucky flew by quickly.  They were still in three separate vehicles, so there wasn’t much conversation or sex taking place.  Dawn couldn’t quite fathom why they couldn’t all crowd into the Chevy (which she shared only with Mortimer), but she reckoned it was the “American Way” for there to be almost as many vehicles as people. 

Bored.  That’s what she was.  So Dawn turned on the radio.  Naturally, with Nashville, Tennessee already showing up on the highway signs, she got country music.  As she sang along, Dawn had a brainstorm.  “I know where Hope is,” she hooted to Mortimer, awakening him from his slumber. “She’s in Nashville!  She’s got to be there along with all the other hopefuls.”

Mortimer needed some convincing; after all, Dawn had been insisting that Hope would be found in a town called Hope.  That didn’t sound at all like Nashville.  So Dawn had to explain that Hope had once admitted to a passion for country and western music.  “Hope told me that one of the best nights she’s ever had in her entire life was spent listening to C&W at the Jack Rose Restaurant.  Now, I ask you, Mortimer, where are we more likely to find a restaurant with live country music than in Nashville?  Hope has got to be in Nashville.”

“I don’t know, Dawn.  Does Nashville even have a mighty river?”

“Of course.  I think Nashville is on the south bank of the Mississippi. But that’s not the only evidence I have for concluding that Hope must be in the home of country music.  Just think, Mortimer, of the songs they record in Nashville:  They’re all about hope.  And there’s one song in particular.  It’s by Lee Ann Womack.  Maybe it’s the song that told Alan – that’s my friend’s birth name, remember? – to call himself Hope.  I know that Lee Ann is one of his favorites.  Now let me see how did her song, “I Hope You Dance” go?

She actually knew the words, proving to Mortimer yet again that Dawn was clever enough to be a game show contestant.  “I’m in the presence of genius,” Mortimer sighed as Dawn began to sing in basso falsetto: “I hope you dance. Time is a wheel in constant motion always, rolling us along.  I hope you dance.  Tell me who wants to look back on their years and wonder, where the years have gone.  I hope you dance.” 

“I see what you mean,” Mortimer said.  “That’s Hope’s message to us all – that we should live our lives to the full, as though there is no tomorrow.  We must dance and play.  We must not cower in our rooms.  I’ve done so much hiding from life.  I want to dance the jitterbug from now on.”

“Huh?” Dawn, perplexed, scratched her head.  “Mortimer, I’m afraid you’ve got Hope all wrong.  She liked that song because it has a beat and you can dance to it.  The song doesn’t have any message.  After all, it’s not intellectual music like rap.  It’s just white noise.”

“Oh, I see.”  But he didn’t.

The white Rabbit and the Jeep followed the Chevy to Opryland on the eastern ring road of Nashville where the travelers eventually found an inn willing to take them in.  After a quick meal at a bar where Randy Travis had once waited tables – which was, for Dawn, proof that everyone could realize their hopes in Music City – they set out for downtown and Broadway, the heart of the music scene. 

As they walked up and down Broadway asking after Alan and Hope, Dawn felt closer to success than at any time since she’d fallen down the manhole.  She was sure that Hope had once mentioned Broadway in an e-mail, and here they were – on Broadway!  And there was even a mighty river to the east.  It turned out to be the Cumberland River.  They had to be close!

Dawn noticed that her Alice outfit was occasioning few remarks, and only one or two people gave her a hostile look.  She seemed to fit into the scene.  However, she didn’t appreciate being singled out by a beer-soaked, gravelly-voiced singer in one of the bars they entered.  “And what do we have here?” the man with the fifty dollar Stetson and hundred dollar boots asked.  “It looks like the youngest member of a family act.  Another Carter Family, I’ll bet.  Welcome, sweetheart.  But I do fear it’s taken your family too long to get to Nashville.  You’ve got to be the oldest kid I’ve ever seen!”

Dawn made the mistake of accepting the microphone.  Her voice broke on the fourth bar she sang.  Everyone started hooting, even Jim, Bill and Frodo.  She fled when she heard a gravelly voice comment, “Sweetheart, I do think your voice has cracked.  That’s one of the perils of menopause.” 

Dawn ran for two blocks before she calmed down enough to realize that she’d actually done fairly well.  Usually, her voice cracked on the second or third bar.  “I’m improving,” she said out loud.

“At what do you improve yourself?” asked a voice softly from the darkness. 

“At singing,” Dawn replied to the shadows.

“Zat’s good.  To sing well is a good zing in Nashville, USA.”

“You’ve got such a young voice.  You can’t be much more than a child.  Do come out of the shadows, dear.  I want to see what you look like.”

“I look like a scout who is a girl,” said the shapely brunette who came into view under the streetlight.  Yes indeed, she did look like a girl scout in her uniform of various shades of green, including a ruffle around her neck and a pleated skirt.  Dawn guessed her to be about sixteen years old.  She was quite beautiful, save for her eyes; they popped out like a frog’s.  

“We scouts, we collect money for a trip to … Iowa.”

“Iowa?  What a coincidence!  I have several friends in that state.  Do you know Demi James or Jo Smith?  No?  Well, I guess they would be a couple years younger than you.”

“But mademoiselle, I have never been to Iowa.  Zat’s why we scouts have need of money – to render a visit in Iowa.”

“So how can I help?  What are you selling to raise money?”

“Condoms.  Zey sell best on zis street.  It’s a wicked place.”

Dawn was genuinely shocked.  What had the world come to?  Imagine – a girl scout being sent out into the night to sell condoms to raise money for a trip!  “I’ve got a duty to protect this innocent child,” Dawn told herself.  “I’ve got to get her off the street before something happens to her.”

“Look, I think I can help you out.  But first I need to know your name,” Dawn said. “Mine’s Dawn.  What’s yours?”

“I am called Kermesse.  Zat’s my name. It’s French.  Je suis française.” ¨

“Sorry,” Dawn replied. “I don’t parlay much French.  Spaniard is the language I know best.  Are you one of those Cajuns from Louisville?” 

“I come from France.  I am student here on exchange.  And it is necessary zat I go to Iowa.  Desire you a condom?”

To protect the girl a white lie was in order:  “I don’t have any money (which was true enough) but I know someone with lots of money who uses several condoms a night.  His name is Mortimer.  Let’s go find him as I know he’ll buy your entire basket.”

“D’accord.  I go wit you.”  As they walked along, Dawn noticed that Kermesse was almost hopping along with joy.  Plainly, she was hopeful of finding a patron. 

Mortimer wasn’t buying.  Indeed, he showed an uncharacteristic flash of temper.  “It’s an outrage,” he said, “sending young girls out to sell condoms.  I insist that we report the girl scouts to the police.”  Bill and Frodo agreed.  Jim wanted to form a posse to hunt down the troop leader in order to hand her over to the authorities that very night.

“Oh, it is not necessary to do zat,” Kermesse protested. “Trouble I must not have.  I go now.”

As she started to slink away, Jim suddenly asked, “Anyone here know any girl scouts with green uniforms?  I don’t think this girl is even in the girl scouts.  What are you, girl, you some kind of hustler?  You can drop that phony Frenchie accent.  I’m not buying it anymore.”

Kermesse started to cry.  “You have divined the verity:  I am not a scout.  But I come from France.  I adjure it.  I am carrying my school uniform.  The school makes me so sad.  I must evade it.  It is necessary that I voyage to Iowa.”

Dawn wrapped her arms around Kermesse holding her tight to her breasts.  The girl almost smothered; yet she felt oddly comforted.  She was even willing to tell the whole truth.  Gasping for breath, she admitted that the condoms had been her own idea.  It was a way, she said, of looking for someone, anyone, probably a dirty old man, generous enough to pay her passage to Ottumwa, Iowa.

Ottumwa?  It rang a bell with Dawn.  She’d written the biography of a boy who was going to an all-girl’s school there.  Barely fifteen, he’d changed his name from Kyle to Demi, and was even now in the process of changing his sex as well, which was of course the reason for the biographical treatment.  “Why Ottumwa?” Dawn asked, and sure enough it was to enroll in Demi’s school, The Amazonian School for Girls.

“Maintenant, I go to Miss Fish’s Military Academy.  It is not a gentle place.  I do not find it sympathetic, not at all.  They beat me with a … belt,” she wept. “I want to inscribe myself in the school for Amazonians.  I hear that it is the most amusing school for girls in America.”

“And so it is,” agreed Dawn.  “I’ve seen it myself.  It’s a wonderful school for girls and boys who want to be girls.  Tell me truthfully, Kermesse.  Which are you?  Girl or boy?”

Kermesse looked at Dawn in frank amazement.  “A girl naturally.  Who has ever heard of the other?”  She was surprised to see Mortimer look at Dawn look at Jim look at Frodo look at Bill.  “Er,” Bill said, “it’s a crazy, mixed-up world.  Boys will be girls, and girls will be boys.  That doesn’t bother you, does it, Kermesse?”

“No, I believe not.  There are many strange and marvelous things in America.  It is a brave new world.  There is so much novelty here.  In France, we are more traditional.”

“Even when Paris is burning?” asked Bill.

“I do not understand,” Kermesse replied.  Bill wasn’t surprised.  She was little more than a child, with a lot to learn about the TG world.  And boy, would she ever get an education if she traveled with them to Iowa!  But that was Dawn’s decree.  There was no way, she declared, that they could let such a sweet young thing peddle her … way across several states.  Frodo backed Dawn to the hilt, as he speculated on whether Kermesse would be willing to go to bed with a cute young guy who liked to wear women’s lingerie.  Neither Bill nor Jim fancied the way their “girlfriends” were eying the French girl. What plans did Frodo and Dawn have for their own baguettes?

As Kermesse was in more of a hurry to escape Nashville than to reach Ottumwa, she agreed to accompany our hearty band on their journey of Hope when they set out for Memphis the following morning. 

She hid in Jim’s trailer, however, while Dawn did some last minute shopping at Wal-Mart.  Dawn had decided that she needed more than an Alice costume and a maid’s outfit to complete the trip.  She wanted something less conspicuous, something that would blend into any streetscape. 

An American Flag jumper caught her eye.  Made of blue denim, it featured an embroidered patchwork American flag, big red star accented front pockets, and embroidered patchwork star embellishments near the hem and middle back.  It came in three different lengths; Dawn naturally chose the mini to show off her legs.  It was the sheer patriotism of the outfit that turned Dawn on – that and the low price made possible by the use of cheap foreign labor.  Dawn also bought some ruby red sneakers to finish off her two outdoor ensembles.

Thus attired, Dawn was ready for the road.  “Here I come America,” she shouted to startled pedestrians.  “I am going down the road looking for Hope.  And this being America, I just know that everything’s going to work out all right.”  Kermesse agreed:  “Dawn, you will find Hope.  There is no way zat she is dead or has abandoned your jolly country.  We will find her, as you say, in Ar-kansas in a small town where your ancient President Clinton proved zat any boy can hope to be president some day, even if his family is poor and his parents divorced.”

“But can any girl?” asked Dawn. 

“Mais oui, certainly yes.  It is even possible in America zat someone like you, Mademoiselle Dawn, will be president one day.” 

Dawn shuddered at the thought:  The novelist laureate of America – now that was a job worth having.  But president?  “No way,” Dawn said to herself.  “I live for sex and everyone knows that a president has to do without it.  I couldn’t live without sex for four years.”  This sort of negative thinking didn’t do Dawn justice, because she had already twice proven her ability to go without sex for four years!

Thanks to Kermesse, Dawn was going to have sex on the highway to Memphis.  The teen took over the wheel of the Chevy, which meant that Dawn could be alone with Jim in the Jeep Cherokee.  

Dawn was just about to have a snooze in Jim’s lap when she caught a glimpse of the exit sign for Jackson, Tennessee and the home of Casey Jones, the legendary locomotive engineer who’d given his life in to prevent a train wreck.  Jones was a hero.  America had many such heroes, Dawn reflected.  They gave their life so that others might live.  Their courage and selflessness were, she decided, the true hope for humanity.  They heard the fire-bell in the night, and they rushed to put out the flames that others simply watched in nervous excitement or empty punditry.

On the way back to the Interstate from Casey Jones’s home and gift shop, Dawn somehow got them lost.  All three vehicles found themselves on a dusty country lane passing by shacks that had never seen better days.  The lane first descended then dead-ended at a towering oak tree under which sheltered the shabbiest hovel yet.  From it could be heard an unholy racket. 

About one hundred yards from the shack, Dawn signaled to the caravan to stop.  She wanted to know who was “man” enough among them to knock on its door to ask for direction.  “Ask for directions?  A real man never does that,” scoffed Bill.  There was no way he was going to admit to being lost.  Nor would Mortimer or Frodo.  Jim was undecided.  While predisposed to ask for help, she had to admit that somehow her clothing (all male) held her back.  As they couldn’t send Kermesse, a young girl, into possible danger, it fell to Dawn to entreat the hillbillies in the hovel in the Hollow for help. 

She wondered how they’d respond to the sight of Dawn at their door.  Not well, it first appeared, for an iron frying pan went hurtling past her head.  She ducked as a colander headed for her face.  “Well, I never!” harrumphed Dawn.  She’d heard that “rural folk didn’t cotton to strangers in these here parts” but she had no idea until now that they actually tried to brain them with kitchenware.  She was just about to retreat gracefully – actually, to turn tail and run for her life – when she caught sight of a dark-haired, teenaged boy squatting in a playpen.  He was stark naked except for a baby bonnet, cloth diapers, and a pacifier on which he was sucking with all his might. 

As Dawn successfully ducked another incoming projectile, it suddenly dawned on her that she had stumbled on a scene of utter, total perversion.  This young boy – he didn’t look a day older than fourteen – was being deliberately, fiendishly, infantilized by someone – presumably by the monsters who were tossing their kitchen at her.  She didn’t know why he was being maltreated, but she was determined to rescue him.  The “baby” boy appealed to her maternal instinct.  She wanted to hold him in her arms and say, “Little boy, don’t you fret.  Mother Dawn is here.  Thanks to me, you’ve got hope for a normal life.” 

Dawn should perhaps have fought her maternal impulse.  After all, mother’s work is not always pleasant, especially when a willful child refuses to be toilet-trained.  Dawn didn’t yet know it – but she was planning on adding to the caravan of Hope the worst little pig in all of Tennessee.  Things would never smell the same again.  

Continued in Chapter 8 – Pig and Petroleum