Ethel Sweet was so touched! That Hazel who had a reputation in Horseheads for keeping to herself and avoiding personal remarks and questions at the Blue Moon by simply smiling and saying not a word should suddenly open her heart to Ethel, whose own daughters were grown and gone and didn’t give a damn for their mother they’d always taken for granted.
Except Ethel saw that the young woman was nervous and worried-like. Asked what was wrong and Hazel says she don’t have the right papers to enroll Zacharias in school.
Like what kind of papers, Ethel asked. Birth certificate?
Hazel said yes. Birth certificate for her son but also one for her, too.
What had happened was: Hazel’s birth certificate had burned in the house fire when she was four years old. There was no record of her birth anywhere! The fire had been in some town upstate, Hazel did not even know for certain, for her mother had taken her away to live elsewhere in one town after another in the Chautauqua Valley. And her mother had died when Hazel was nine. And her relatives she lived with had no care for her. She had been told she’d been born on a boat from Europe, in New York harbor, her parents had been immigrants from Poland or maybe Hungary but she had not been told which boat, she wasn’t sure when it had crossed, she had seen no record of her birth. It was like they wished to erase me soon as I was born, Hazel told Ethel. But not complaining-like, only just stating a fact.
And Zacharias’s birth certificate was in the possession of his father unless it too had been lost or willfully destroyed.
Hearing this Ethel said hotly it was ridiculous, a person is alive in front of you she or him was certainly born. Why you’d need a document to prove this fact made no God-damn sense.
Saying hotly, What it is is just damn-fool lawyers. The law. Willie over at the Courthouse thirty-eight years could tell you tales to make you laugh like hell, or throw up you’d be so disgusted. And that goes for the judges, too.
Saying yet more hotly, What it is, Hazel, is men. Shooting off their mouths, and charging for it like you wouldn’t believe-seventy-five dollars an hour some of ‘em charge! If it was up to women, you would not need legal documents for any damn thing from buying or selling a henhouse to making out your own will.
Hazel thanked her for being so understanding. Hazel said she had gone a long time not confiding in another person. It was a thorn in her heart, she had no proof that either Zacharias or her had ever been born. It wasn’t like the old days now, you needed legal documents to make your way. There was no avoiding it. At the Blue Moon she was paid off the books and of course tips are off the books but if she kept on this way she would be retired someday and an old woman with no Social Security payments, not a penny.
Ethel said without thinking, “Oh honey you got to get married. That’s what you got to do, get married.”
And Hazel said biting her lower lip, looking like she wanted to cry and Ethel could’ve bit her own tongue speaking as she’d done, “I can’t. I am already married, I can never be married again.”
Right away then Ethel called her brother Willie. She knew Willie had a generous heart. In Horseheads he had a reputation for being a prickly old bastard liked to boss folks around but that was only toward individuals who rubbed him the wrong way. He was a decent man. Felt sorry for the girl Hazel Jones. And the little boy quiet like a deaf-mute. At the County Hall of Records Willie Judd was the man to see for any kind of document you required. Had access to any kind of document you could name. Birth certificate, wedding certificate, death certificate. Two hundred years of yellowing old wills in faded ink, real estate documents dating back to the 1700s, deeds executed with the Six Nations of the Iroquois. Legal forms of any damn kind you wished. And Willie was a notary public owning his own New York State notary seal.
In this way in spring 1962 Willie Judd took pity on Hazel Jones. Willie was not a man given to ease with others and very rarely to pity, sympathy. It would have to be secret. Invited the young woman to his office in the basement of the courthouse just at 5 P.M. closing time of a weekday to explain her situation to him which she did, carefully writing down for Willie certain facts. As she wrote these, she paused to wipe at her eyes. Her birth name was “Hazel Jones” but her married name of course was a different last name she did not care to say; Zacharias’s last name was not “Jones” of course but the name of her husband she was in terror would find the boy, if his legal name was revealed. That was why, Hazel said, they had always to keep going, to live in different places where they would not be known. But now in Horseheads they hoped for a permanent residence.
Willie brushed aside these details as he’d brush aside a swarm of gnats. Head clerk at the Hall of Records for thirty-eight years plus he was a notary public. Had the power of any damn judge in the U.S. almost. Could draw up any document he damn well wished and to anybody’s eye it would be legal.
So! A few swigs of good malt whiskey and Willie Judd was God-damn inspired.
Drew up surrogate birth certificates for Hazel Jones and her son. Willie’s imagination in full gear. There was a form, Chemung County Courthouse letterhead, allowed for such documents to replicate documents that had existed but had been lost or destroyed. Only in recent decades did you need “certificate of birth” anyway. Old-timers, nobody gave a damn. Like adoption. You’d take in a kid, any-age kid, he was yours, no formal adoption papers, none of that bullshit. Now it would be a matter of public record, she’d have the documents to prove it: Hazel Esther Jones born May 11,
1936 New York harbor, New York parentage unknown.
For Zacharias, he’d had to type in a name for the father. Could not see a way around it. Any suggestions? he asked Hazel and she said all smiling and without thinking-Willie? I mean, William.
William-what?
We could say Judd.
Christ he was pleased by this. Flattered to hell.
But that might make for complications, Willie observed. Maybe it would be wiser to reverse these. Hazel Judd, William Jones. And so, Hazel Jones when married.
Hazel laughed, a wild stricken cry. Her son’s birth certificate would read Zacharias August Jones born November 29, 1956 Port Oriskany New York mother Hazel Jones father William Jones.
Now her own name-her name-would be, not Hazel Jones, but Hazel Judd. Yet only on this stiff sheet of paper with the Chemung County Courthouse letterhead.
Thanking the old man, Hazel burst into tears. No one had been so kind to her in a long long time.
(Nobody was to know. Not Ethel, even. The woman had a mouth on her, she’d blab. She’d be proud of her brother interceding like he’d done on behalf of Hazel Jones, she’d blab and get them into trouble. This way, Hazel has the documents, nobody will challenge them, why’d anybody challenge them?
Each year he lived, Willie Judd came to see there was no clear logic to why things happened as they did. Could’ve just as easy happened some other way.
You typed out a form. You typed out another form. You signed your name. Administered the seal of the State of New York, Notary Public. That’s it.)
At the Blue Moon Café next evening Willie Judd came in earlier than usual for supper and stayed later. Ordered the chicken pot pie which was a Blue Moon special. Sat in Hazel Jones’s row of booths as always elbows on the table gazing smiling at the waitress with his tea-colored eyes. It was raining outside like hell, Willie’d worn his black oilcloth slicker people kidded him made him look like a sea lion. This enormous shiny garment he’d hung at the coatrack dripping wet onto the floor. He would ask Hazel Jones to marry him. He had not married, the only one in the family who had not and why exactly he’d never known. Shy, maybe. Beneath his Willie mask. He’d been damn proud of himself rising to head clerk. Only one of the family till then to graduate from high school. So it was a curse, maybe! Willie was the special son, hadn’t found a girl to marry him like the others had done with lower expectations. Time’s a whirlpool, Christ he was sixty-four. Would retire next birthday. Pensioned off by the county, that was a good thing but melancholy, too. Enough to sober you. He had seen in Hazel’s eyes a certain warmth. A certain promise. She’d made him the father of her son. Hazel was always so sweet and transparent smiling at everybody like who’s it Doris Day but there was a touch-me-not air about the girl, everybody remarked upon. A man had to respect. Bringing Willie a draft ale foaming to the top of the heavy stein and over. Bringing Willie one of the least flyspecked menus with blue moon specials stapled to the front like Willie who’d been coming to the Blue Moon half his lifetime needed to be reminded what to order. And bringing Willie extra butter to smear on his Parker House rolls, and the rolls piping-hot.