Hi Guy!
Well, another day another doughnut. Did I tell you a big movie star was on board? Henry Fonda. Oh, yah, I guess I did. That was a couple of months ago, time goes so slow you forget what was what when, and even that you’re not sure of. You civvies think you got it bad being rationed only two pounds of meat a week, a few eggs, and half a cup of sugar. Well, let me tell you, there’s nothing worse than being a swab jockey floating around on ten million square miles of fiat blue ocean with every Jap sub and Zero in the world hunting you. I tell you, I’d rather be some island-bound gob any day than a swab jockey. At least the gobs only have to worry about getting it from the air, us out here, we get the shaft from both directions, above and below. I’m going so crazy, every time I go to the head I think I see Jap subs coming up in the toilet. I’m afraid to even look in the damn thing without seeing a periscope come up out of it. There’s no peace in this mans Navy, what with the Japs to worry about and the Shitter saying I’m next. I haven’t slept for weeks. Oh, I fake it like I am, in case the Shitter makes his move. Boy, something terrible happened last night. A guy I know, went through boot camp with him right after Pearl Harbor, just a great guy, really. He got one of the Shitters threatening notes; he was under the gun. So he camped out on his bunk like me, refusing to go to chow, even to the head. Then pow, out of nowhere, he can’t stand it anymore and goes to take a leak, then runs back and there it is, bigger than life, a whole hot brown pile of it on his bunk. What a stink! You won’t believe this, but guys talking the other night said there was a Shitter last month on one of the tubs in the Atlantic. Nobody knew who it was for months, but when they figured it out he was thrown overboard. That’s how they handle Shitters in the Atlantic. Last night a petty officer went overboard on the carrier. Now I know that happens all the time in wartime, thousand guys locked on a ship together. But this was strange. We had good weather last night, yet nobody saw him go over or heard screaming. The scuttlebutt is if there are no more hot piles then somebody got the real Shitter. But every guy on board still suspects every other guy. Me, I’m still going to stay awake all night, I’m scared as hell.
Take care guy,
Your brother, Marvin
P.S. Don’t forget to save your Coke caps. Ten zillion make one aircraft carrier. Have you planted your V-garden yet? Vitamins for victory!
28
Flores Street was thick with people and howling with the sounds of Friday night. Fabulous color from neon signs cracked and jumped through the air over crowded sidewalks like freak summer lightning hopping over a cornfield. Radios blared a babble of Latin and American rhythms from open windows of apartments stacked four high above small shops. Irregular lines of Zoots in baggy suits slouched against shop windows, as if laying claim to all the merchandise displayed in mountains of enticement behind them. Tidepools of teenage girls in tight black skirts and sweaters, silver crosses swinging between the golden skin of their budding breasts, swirled around corner street lamps, the strong light outlining their rouged young faces. From the middle of the block the girls appeared to Younger like flittering black moths in the moonlight, intoxicated by their blossoming youth. As Younger passed the girls, they lowered their voices, the soft sounds of their Spanish words turning to swift whispers of anger, hissing like steam in Younger’s ears.
“¡Ese! Say ¡gabacho, macho!”
A gang of Zoots leaning against the Signal Gasoline Station pumps on the corner moved onto the sidewalk to block Younger. He navigated through speeding and honking cars at the intersection. The Zoots laughed, shouted and spit their words in Spanish and English from all directions at Younger. The words, more than the threatening stance of the Zoots, stopped Younger cold.
“Hey, macho mon! Where you go, mon? You got the hot date with the loca girlfriend?”
“Ese, say dude, you copped her cherry yet? You getting mushy with her cookie?”
The Zoots moved around Younger, screening out the wild laughter from their black-outfitted girlfriends beneath street lamps.
“You been making some hotcha ouchimagooga? Ahhhhwiiieee!”
One of the Zoots leaned in front of Younger, the leer on his face wide as the lapels on his chartreuse sport coat. “How you face yourself in the morning time, mon? Taking the advantage on a loca like her? Do you confess much to the padre, chico? Is that why you go to the confessions so much? You be telling the priest, ‘Bless me, padre, for I have sinned. My poor little muchacha has a pair of maracas no bigger than pigeon’s eggs!’”
The laughter of the Zoots came up like a net, stretched and pulled tightly over Younger’s face.
“Ese, you getting Cruz a job?”
The laughter stopped. The anger silently surrounded Younger, real and powerful. Instead of an invisible net, it was like a knife at his throat. From behind the gas pumps a tall Zoot swaggered out, the bottom of his long red coat scraping the knees of his yellow slacks, his hand coolly swinging a length of gold watch chain looping from his vest pocket almost to the dirty sidewalk. Even in the shadow of the floppy brimmed hat Younger recognized the Zoot leader immediately. He was Venegas Delgado, cousin to six of the Zoots about to stand trial for shooting the two FBI agents. The elaborate draping of Delgado’s Zoot suit could not hide his pitifully thin body. He had the look of a starving animal. Delgado walked with the pained determination of a ninety-year-old man, not a twenty-two-year-old.
“Hey, big gabacho macho, you wanna buy a Zoot, a tacuche?” The sneer on Delgado’s face left no doubt as to the vicious intentions in his voice. “We fix you up good. Hepcat alterations while you wait, all first-class trapos, dynamite jive garras to make you look bute alalba, kool, keen, kleen, and kee-rect.” Delgado tugged at the arrowed tip of Younger’s tie. “How can you have no pride? You’re in the Barrio, chico, not Westwood. You got to be tricking yourself out like a bato, get yourself up in tramados, some pants with stuff-cuffs, reet-pleats, look like a Zoot, walk like a Zoot, talk like a Zoot. Isn’t that it, gabacho? You want to pass, look like a carnal, a brother?”
The knot of Younger’s tie tightened around his neck. Behind the gas pumps another Zoot casually spun a four-pronged tire iron on the blacktop like a child’s giant jack, the iron bar wobbling and falling over with a clank.
“Wait, Delgado.” Younger tried to talk normally, as if the tie wasn’t choking him. “You were at the hearing. You heard my testimony. I said I didn’t see who shot the FBI guys. I said I never saw a Zoot with a gun in his hand.”
Delgado yanked the tie. “Watcha! Look here you give secret testimony.”
“I’ve given other testimony, sure. But I always say the same stuff. I didn’t see your cousins, or anybody else that night, actually shoot the FBI agents.”
“Ese, you think we don’t know what you are up to in the Barrio?” Delgado jerked the tie, pulling Younger against his bony chest. “Let me tell you! We batos know you, gabacho, and want you to stay out of the Barrio. No talking to our gente.”
“I’ve still got business here, with the church, with the CYO boys.” The stiffness of a billyclub beneath Delgado’s pants zipper pressed insistently against Younger’s leg. Younger knew most of the Zoots around him had a club hidden inside a special pocket sewn into their pants legs.
“Watcha, look here you don’t understand the deal.” Delgado’s fist yanked Younger’s tie so hard it cut off his breath. “Ese, we don’t want you here, that’s the deal, get it? It’s a straight black-and-blue deal, understand? You hang around asking more questions and we kick your keester. The batos are going to beat you black and blue from top to bottom till you won’t know which end is up, till you talking from your ass and shitting from your mouth. ¿Comprende?”
“Comprendo.”
Delgado shoved Younger away and walked back into the shadow of the gas pumps. The rest of the Zoots belligerently opened up a narrow path for Younger, making him brush against their hidden billyclubs as he continued to the next corner and crossed the street quickly, afraid to look back. By the time h
e walked the remaining five blocks to Kathleen’s apartment, his suit was soaked through with sweat. He rang the buzzer at her door and ran up the steps. She was way above him, at the top of the winding staircase, a candle in her hand, the flame playing around her red curls. He ran faster, afraid he wouldn’t be able to reach her before something terrifying happened. She seemed so far above him.
“Oh, Nathan, you look a wreck!”
He stood before her, panting, wanting to take hold of her fragile body, press its softness against him, protect her. He gulped at the air like a floundering fish helpless on the bottom of a boat. He caught his breath and smiled weakly. “I’m sorry to be late.”
She reached out her pale white hand, placing the coolness of her fingers affectionately on his hot cheek. “You look just a wreck, poor boy, come with me. Were you in an accident?”
He followed her obediently into the candlelit cavern of her living room, sinking heavily in one of the fat chairs. “No, no accident. I just couldn’t find a cab. You know how it is, Friday night, all the sailors have liberty, impossible, really.”
Kathleen set the candle carefully on the dining table. “You mean you walked all that way?”
“Ran all that way.”
“Poor boy, you look so sad. Would you like a Coke?”
“Swell.” Younger followed Kathleen into the kitchen. She opened the icebox door and reached for two bottles of Coke, exposing on the metal rack her breathalator and the hypodermic needle next to vials of adrenalin. She uncapped the bottles and handed him one, placing the glass tip of her own to her lips, a slight brown foam from the cool liquid tracing down from the corner of her lips as she drank.
“Now.” Kathleen took Younger’s arm and led him back into the living room. “We must talk about our experiment. Did you bring the plant?”
“Yes.” Younger settled back into the fat chair across from Kathleen, pulling a bulging paper sack from his coat pocket. “It’s all here, nice and dried out.”
“Oh, good.” Kathleen pressed her knees together. “It should make a perfect tea.”
“Perfect.”
“I’m so excited, Nathan.” She placed her hands carefully around the Coke bottle like it was a prayer book. “I’ve had the most terrible asthma attack today. I had to use the breathalator again. I used up all the medicine in it. I thought I’d die. Something is getting to me in this city, just choking me up. I feel like I have water in my lungs. Like I’m underwater, drowning. Just awful, this feeling of suffocation. I can’t tell you”—she laid her cool hand on his knee—“how heavenly kind you are to come over here tonight just so I could try our witch’s tea. I’m so desperate all the time. I must try everything. When I called you earlier I was just praying you wouldn’t let me down. That you would come over and help me.”
“Maybe it’s the ragweed.”
“You mean what is causing the congestion?”
“Yes, it’s in the hills all around here, drying up and dying this time of year. Maybe the smell of it blows down into the city every day from the mountains.”
“Yes, maybe that’s it.” Kathleen leaned back wearily in the chair. “That’s why I want to leave this city, go to the Grand Canyon.”
“Why don’t you just do it? You’re going to die of asthma if you don’t.”
Kathleen pushed herself upright, a slight arc in her back beneath her thin shoulders. “Nathan, you know I couldn’t possibly do that. You know I have my mission to accomplish.”
“Yes, of course, I forgot.”
“I could never leave now. Things are going so well for my Latin Bureau, never been better.” She looked at him affectionately, like a mother promising a small boy his birthday present. “Next week the Voice is going to make an appearance here in the Barrio.”
“That soon?”
“That soon, Nathan. He’s been promising for months. Can you believe how exciting? You’re finally going to meet him. I’ve promised that for so long. I’ve told him all about you. We don’t have too many Catholic converts, you know.” Kathleen winked mischievously, a clear animal light in her eye.
“Kathleen, I don’t believe I’m much of a catch for you. I’ve never been much of a strict Catholic.” Younger winked back. “I’m afraid you could convert me to the Hitler Youth. You’re the most persuasive woman I’ve ever met. Persuasive and,” he rolled the empty Coke bottle between his palms; all he wanted to do was reach out and touch her, “beautiful.”
Kathleen’s bright red lips shaped into a sly smile. “I’m too skinny to be beautiful, Nathan. I’ve been sick ever since I was a little girl with rheumatic fever and asthma. You can flatter me, but I know the truth of the matter. Most men want a woman who has lots of curves and dimpled cheeks, like Betty Grable or Barbara Carr.”
“I’m not most men, Kathleen.”
“No, you most certainly are not.” She rose quietly. The candlelight made her look even thinner, more refined. The flickering light traced an expression of strength on her lips, the strength of one who has accepted gracefully the absolute vulnerability of her position in the universe. “You are always so heavenly kind to me.”
“I’ll make the tea.” Younger stood up before her. Everything in his nature surrendered to her. Her slightness dominated him, holding him off; he was afraid to touch her.
“You make the tea, Nathan.” She rested a hand on her heart. “I’ll go into the bedroom and lie down for a few moments. After my attack this morning I feel like a truck has run over my chest.”
“Do you need some help?” Younger took her arm to steady her.
“No, thank you. You just make your magic witch’s tea, maybe that will be the big help I need.” She disappeared down the hall through the murky light into the bedroom.
“Swell.” Younger spoke the word aloud to himself as much as to Kathleen, who could no longer hear him. “I’ll whip up the magic brew.” He clapped his hands together in preparation and went into the kitchen, striking a match and exploding a puff of gas from the stove pilot into a high flame beneath a pan of water. He shook the dried twigs carefully out onto the table, making two little neat piles. “I don’t know whether I should put the twigs into the cups, then let them steep in water for twenty minutes, or dump all the twigs into the boiling water in the pan. What do you think?” Younger shouted over his shoulder out of the kitchen doorway. Kathleen did not answer. She either couldn’t hear him or had fallen asleep. “What I’ll do,” he mumbled to himself, scooping together the two neat piles and dumping them into the water boiling up to the top of the pan, “is just let the whole thing simmer for twenty minutes, then pour it out.” He covered the pan and turned down the heat, guarding the situation closely so the water wouldn’t become too hot and boil out onto the stove. A yellowish steam hissed from beneath the lid of the pan, puffing like a small angry geyser, filling the room with an odd and overpowering aroma, sickly sweet, reminiscent of the last breath of ether taken anxiously in before a patient on an operating table blacks out into a swirling, heady pool and drowns. Younger bent over the brackish steam and took a deep breath; it made him cough. He turned off the flame and meticulously poured two cups of the dark, almost purplish brew, carrying them back through the dimly lit hall to Kathleen’s bedroom. He stood outside her door; it was closed. “Kathleen, would you like to come out now?” The water was so hot in the cups that the heat coming down through the china saucers began to burn his hands. “Kathleen, it’s ready. The witch’s magic tea.” She still did not answer. He knocked softly, thinking she was asleep. Not a sound came from the other side of the door. He pushed it quietly open with his foot. He had never seen the inside of her bedroom before. A bright candle on top of a dresser reflected its faltering light against a high mirror, like a torch held at the mouth of a vast cave. He pushed the door further. Next to the dark dresser the flutter of a curtain moved silently from fingers of a soft breeze prodding from the open window behind. The lacy edge of the curtain barely touched the back of a chair, not disturbing the fluffy orange
ball of a curled cat, its eyes two giant rubies in the candlelight, watching Younger impassively from the chair.
“Oh, my God!” Younger dropped the teacups, knocking the door all the way open. The cat jumped without a sound through the window. Kathleen was sprawled across the bed, one leg bent beneath the length of her dress, a hand draped from her forehead across her eyes as if she had fallen back in a dead faint. Younger pushed her hand back. Her eyes were clamped closed, her face gone totally white, drained of all blood. “Kathleen! Talk to me! Wake up!” He slapped her face. “Kathleen!” He locked his hand around her wrist, feeling for a pulse, but only the wild beat of his own excited blood echoed at him. He put his arms around her, pulling her limp body roughly to him, attempting madly to squeeze life back into her, trying to will her back into the real world. He let her fall back on the bed. He knew what he had to do. He jumped up and ran down the hall, tripping over the fat chairs in the living room, throwing the door of the icebox open in the kitchen. He saw the hypodermic needle, its glass-vial plunger filled with clear liquid. He grabbed the syringe and ran back to the bedroom, slamming shut the window in case the cat tried to slip back in. He knelt over Kathleen, the syringe of adrenalin clutched in his hand like a knife. There was not the slightest sign of life on her lips. She looked dead.
For a moment he was completely stunned, gazing at her spread across the bed, her face whiter than the sheet beneath her. He ripped her dress open, pulling it down over one shoulder and grabbing the soft flesh above the elbow of her limp arm, sticking the needle into her. His thumb drove the plunger down, the adrenalin screaming in his own body as adrenalin in the vial leaped out of the needle into the throbbing bulge of blue vein. Kathleen’s eyes opened, rolling backward, bulging with terror, her lips barely parting, wordless, breathless. Younger jerked the needle out, throwing the empty syringe across the room. A sudden burst of blood oozed from the needle puncture in Kathleen’s arm, spreading quickly, rolling down the sheet. Younger bent the arm into itself, locked up like a folded bird’s wing, stopping the bleeding. He slapped at Kathleen’s face, trying to get her eyes to open again, trying to get her to breathe. He tried to think, tried to recall what he had read in a Civil Defense manual about what to do for a shocked bomb victim. He thought maybe the adrenalin wasn’t in her, maybe he had made a mistake, maybe he would have to shoot her with another dose in the heart. Suddenly he saw the page of the Defense manual in his mind clear as day. He knew what to do. When someone can’t breathe, when someone is dying, massage the heart, press on it, knead it, pound it, anything, get it pumping. He cupped his hand over the stiff white cloth of her brassiere, pressing down on the soft cone of her small breast, trying to get rhythm, trying to sense the life in her. He felt a slight beat coming up beneath the pressure of his hand. He leaned the full weight of his body against his hand over her heart, pressing up and down, again and again, feeling the beat coming stronger, then fading, then surging back, pounding, faster and faster. A cry escaped from her lips, drew them back in agony, followed by a rush of air, softening her mouth, almost as if she had gone beyond pain to pleasure. Her eyes were on him, no longer terrified, filled with a strange and powerful wonder, like a newborn child looking at its mother for the first time. It was a gaze devoid of all desire and envy, a plea of pure vulnerability.
Zoot-Suit Murders Page 16