No Stoplight on That Corner

By Thomas Elson

They were inside each other’s mind,
and at each other’s funeral,
or would have been, were they able.

ONCE UPON A TIME
in the tiny town of Goodland, a bomb exploded without warning –
A wall of dust fell onto the town, two inches of dirt shrouded the area,
killed thirty-seven people – countless others
succumbed to pneumonia and malnutrition, the winds
spread dust, stripped rich topsoil from swathes of wheat and corn,
ruined main street commerce for years.

The entire region – shriveled and dried – covered with heavy dust, but none more so than
this town with its 2,600 souls that considered itself at the epicenter

Goodland featured cattycorner walking, a weekly newspaper no one read except for the advertisements and coupons, segregated movie theaters and swimming pools.
A town in which a whisper could lead to a friendly nickname, a scowl, or an epithet.

A few years later as the town was emerging
two young women arrived their lives in front of them. Gayle and Pauline, of whom people said were mirror images one unto the other.

Gayle - recently widowed from a much older man –
gifted with an immaculate eye for fashion at a time when
there was very little of that in this rural state.
A mystical figure – tall, elegant, independent – she
captivated Pauline from the moment they were introduced.

Pauline an overlooked middle child amongst eleven others,
and a newly-degreed Registered Nurse from Vanderbilt University.

Together they socialized with the more established elements of
this rural town.

It took only a few years for them to outgrow Goodland and move south to Berdan – with
its rising middle class,
its new Army Air Corps base,
producing oil fields,
premium prices for cattle and wheat, and
the tallest building in western part of the state – the Hotel Webster – the only
building in town with not one, but two elevators.

Berdan featured cattycorner walking, a weekly newspaper no one read except for the advertisements and coupons, segregated movie theaters and swimming pools.
A town in which a whisper could lead to a friendly nickname, a scowl, or an epithet.

Gayle set up an exclusive women’s clothing shop
At an intersection with no stoplight –
the southwest corner of Main and Second.

Pauline became the county public health nurse with
offices on the northeast corner of the same intersection.

Together they socialized with the older elements of the town, and
together they grew within their chosen fields.

Within two years, Pauline married the eldest son of the owner of the Hotel Webster. They married secretly in Santa Fe – at that time married women could not be employed by the state.

Within three years, a son was born. Predicted to be a golden child, he would become tarnished like his father.

Shortly after her son’s first birthday, Pauline introduced her youngest brother to Gayle.
Within a few months, they were living together across the street from the Catholic church.
Within two years, a young Hungarian priest married them on a Saturday afternoon when the conservative pastor was out of town – at that time, a Catholic could not marry a non-Catholic, and Gayle was not buying into magical water and mystical incense. Plus, Pauline’s brother needed to be able to tell his father he was married in the church.

Pauline and Gayle lived in Berdan until
the highway moved,
the strip-center motels arrived,
the Army Air Corps base closed,
fast food joints littered the new highway, and
the town’s focus shifted from growth to survival

Pauline moved with her son and husband to the state’s largest town and began working in the state’s largest hospital.

When Gayle’s business declined, she moved with her husband to Russell, a small town surrounded by oilfields and a rising middle class.

The two visited, stayed close, but never as close as they had been when they met in Goodland.

They never spoke of their earlier times.
Each remained the mirror image of the other; and
there is still no stoplight on that corner.