by Ed Gorman
“I should be able to hit him if I want to,” he said.
“Yes,” I said, “that’s one of your inalienable rights. Punching kids who weigh forty pounds less than you do.”
“He hates Catholics.”
“Or at least his parents do.”
“Huh?”
“Never mind.”
His moon face tightened into a sneer. “You mind if I go now, your royal highness?”
“Always a pleasure to see you, Flannagan.”
There are some people you just don’t want on your side.
As I climbed into my ragtop and headed home, I tried not to think about some of the feelings that Jack Kennedy seemed to stir up. Otherwise reasonable, decent people still had their bias toward Catholics in office. William Jennings Bryan always said that he wished he hadn’t run for president because it taught him just how deep anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish bias ran in this country. Things had improved since then but, as with Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, even respectable ministers felt safe in talking about Kennedy as a stalking horse for the pope.
Then there were the unrespectable people-the Klan, the Nazi sympathizers left over from the American Bundt days of the big war, the small-town radio ministers, the pamphleteers of every description. There’d been an article in Time magazine a few years back noting that any fund-raising letter or pamphlet with the word “Jew,” “Communist,” “Catholic,” or
“Negro” in its headline would earn twice as much money as a letter or pamphlet without. Judging by the entertainment shows on the tube, everything was just okey-dokey here in the land of Lincoln. But we knew better, didn’t we?
Eight
I parked in back of my apartment house, meaning to wash my car the way I usually did on late Saturday afternoons. Mrs. Goldman had a nice two-stall garage with a hose.
I was about halfway to the house when I heard the music. It wasn’t all that loud but it was an odd choice for Mrs. Goldman. Miles
Davis. I wondered when she’d gotten interested in jazz. She liked Broadway tunes and singers like Patti Page and Kay Starr.
I had just reached the stairs that run up the back and lead to my apartment when I realized that the music was coming from my place, not Mrs. Goldman’s.
The windows were open and so, partially, was the back door. I went inside.
She sat in the big leather armchair. She wore a white blouse that displayed her lovely breasts discreetly, a pair of dark blue shorts that did equally nice things for her long legs, and a pair of white tennis shoes.
She had a tanned, tight body and that impish damned face that could go sentimental on you all of a sudden and make you sad. I’d never had a crush on a married woman before and I didn’t want to now. But here she was in my apartment. There was a half-full bottle of JandBut scotch and a Peter Pan peanut-butter glass sitting on the arm of the chair.
“You bastard,” she said from the couch, where she was reclining.
“Nice to see you too, Kylie.”
“You’re late,” she said, all hot accusation.
“Late for what?”
“For our job interview.” She was slurring her words but I’ll spare you the drunk dialect.
“Kylie, did you by any chance drink half of that bottle of scotch?”
“What half bottle of scotch?”
“The one next to your hand.”
“My hand?”
She was in fine shape. A drinker she was not.
I’d seen her get snockered once on two beers. The toll the scotch took had to be devastating.
“So where were you?”
“Working, actually,” I said.
“Working actually? Who’s actually?” Then she grinned, looking pretty damned cute. “I told a funny.”
“Yes, you did.”
“You’re late.”
“You said that. But I didn’t realize we had an appointment.”
She shook her head. She was so loaded she had to squint one eye to see me. There were probably multiple me’s, the way I’d be perceived by a fly. “Job interview.”
“What job interview are we talking about?”
“We aren’t talking about a job interview.
I am talking about a job interview.”
“All right.” I went over and sat down on the couch and got a Lucky going. “And what job interview would that be?”
“I want to hire you to kill my husband.”
“Well, that sounds reasonable enough. What’s the pay?”
“I could give you a hundred down. And a hundred more later on. When I get my paycheck.”
“Well, I do have a gun, I guess.”
She squinted again. Her head was rotating as if on a track of ball bearings. “You got any bullets?”
“A few.”
“How many’s a few?”
“Probably a couple dozen.”
“Good, ‘cause I want you to shoot him at least that many times.” Then, “Where’s that damned bottle?”
“I think it got on a bus and went to Cleveland in self-defense.”
She either didn’t hear-or didn’t care to hear-my joke.
“There it is.”
Watching her pour a drink was like watching a high-wire act. There was a lot of danger. It did things to your bowels and heart and the palms of your hands. Somehow she managed to get it poured without (a) cracking the glass when the neck of the bottle slammed against the rim, (but) spilling any on the chair, or (can) spilling any on herself.
“Then I want you to set him on fire.”
“Shoot him first. Then set him on fire.
Got it.”
“He’s a jerk. I just can’t believe how much of a jerk.”
“You know, Miles Davis may not be the best music for you to be listening to right now,” I said.
“I need to be sad.”
“Well, ole Miles’ll help you get there.”
“Who you want to hear? Frankie Avalon?”
“Why don’t I just turn it off?”
I got up and turned it off and then went over to the refrigerator. “You had anything to eat lately?”
“Last night.”
“You haven’t eaten since last night?”
“Too mad to eat.” And again her head rolled free on the ball bearings. “That jerk.” Then she belched. It was a cute little belch. “Excuse me.”
“How about a bologna sandwich?”
“Didn’t I just say excuse me?”
“Yes, you did. And you are excused. Now how about I fix you a bologna sandwich?”
“With ketchup?”
“If you want some.”
“I’m not all that hungry.”
“You need some food. Believe me.”
“The first place you should shoot him is right in the crotch.”
“Poetic justice, eh?”
“Damn right.”
I made her a bologna sandwich.
She said, as I was making it, her head rolling around more violently than ever, “What happened to Ray Charles?”
“You weren’t listening to Ray Charles. You were listening to Miles Davis.” We liked a lot of the same jazz records.
“I was not. I was listening to Ray Charles.
“Green Dolphin Street.””
“You were listening to Miles Davis, and “Green Dolphin Street” is Tony
Bennett, anyway.”
I served her a sandwich on a saucer. “Sit up.”
“Why?”
“So you can digest this better.”
“What happened to Dakota Staton?”
Dakota being a jazz singer we both liked very much.
I decided not to go back through it. “I turned off the music.”
She stared-through a fly’s eye again, no doubt -at her sandwich, looking as if nobody’d ever before put such a thing in front of her. “Did I tell you you should shoot him in the crotch?”
“Duly noted.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means, y
es, you told me, and yes, I’ll remember it.”
“What’s this?”
“A bologna sandwich.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You need to eat. Now, c’mon.”
Her head wobbled and she glanced up at me.
“How come you’re so short?”
“How come you’re so drunk?”
“Shoot him in the crotch twice.”
“Eat.”
“We should get some grenades, is what we should get.”
She ate.
Two bites. Then, “You know what I found in his billfold?”
“What?”
“Picture of her.”
“I’m sorry.”
“He carries a picture of her around with him.”
“C’mon, just eat.”
“Just like she’s his wife or something.”
“Eat.”
She ate, all right. About six, seven bites alt. Then it-anda lot of the scotch-came right back up. Luckily I got her to the john in time.
There was a fan going in the bedroom window. I positioned her as comfortably as possible on the bed and then let my three cats Tasha, Crystal, and Tess-well, technically, a friend of mine named Samantha left them with me when she went to Hollywood hoping to find gold and glamour-situate themselves around her.
The next four hours were pretty boring so let’s just say that I watched some Tv, I fixed myself a couple of burgers, I fed the cats, and I looked in on Kylie every once in a while. I felt bad for her. Having chased the beautiful Pamela Forrest all those years, I knew all about heartbreak. Or at least I fancied I did. Me and Robert Ryan. But actually never having been married… wow, your mate comes home and admits that he’s seeing somebody else-which is what I guessed had happened-t was head-in-the-oven time.
The heat broke around nine. Kylie got up and went in the john. She wasn’t in there very long.
I got a glimpse of her when she came out.
She was walking that stiff-armed way Boris Karloff always does when he plays
Frankenstein’s monster. She went right back to bed.
I barely heard the knock. The fan was kicking out and the Tv was on. I wouldn’t have noticed the door at all if Tess hadn’t trotted over there. She’s kind of a watch cat.
She can’t bark but if you come in and she’s got her doubts about you, she bites you on the ankle.
He let himself in. And Tess bit him on the ankle.
“Hey!” he said.
He was tall and blond and handsome, I suppose, but in a preppy way I’ve always resented. Or been jealous of. Take your pick.
The one and only Chad Burke.
“What’s with your cat? She bit me.”
“She’s discriminating.”
He said, “She here?”
“Yeah.”
He looked around. “Where?”
“Bedroom.”
I’d gotten up and walked over to him. He started toward me now. Angry. “You didn’t screw her, did you?”
“No,” I said. “And I guess you didn’t, either. Your new girlfriend wouldn’t like that, would she?”
The anger vanished as quickly as it had appeared.
He ran a long, artistic hand through his curly blond hair. He looked miserable. “All I asked her for was a little time. I didn’t say I’d leave her. I just said I needed to work through it. She made a big deal of it.”
“Gee, how insensitive of her.”
“I told her when I married her, writers are pretty messed-up people. Being creative isn’t easy. You know, like actors.”
I decided not to tell him that (a) he wasn’t a writer but a grad school dabbler, (but) that even if he was a real writer it didn’t give him any license to cheat on his wife, and (can) everybody knew that most actors were morons anyway.
He said, “You really didn’t screw her?”
“I really didn’t screw her.”
“That’s what I figured she’d do. You know, go out and sleep with you. She likes you.”
“She did want to hire me to kill you. But that was for money. She didn’t mention anything about sex.”
He didn’t smile.
“That’d just make things worse,” he said, “she goes out and starts grudge-screwing people.”
“But it’s all right if you nail your student?”
“That’s different. That doesn’t have anything to do with spite. I’m half in love with her.”
“Ah. Now I get the distinction.”
He glared at me. “I’m not asking for your approval, McCain. I could give a shit what you think about me. Now, I’ve got my car out back and I’m going to go in there and get her and take her home. And you’re not going to stop me.”
“She’s your wife, Chad. But let me tell you something.”
He waved me off. “Believe me,
I’ve heard it all already. All day long I’ve heard it. She called her folks and they called my folks. All I’ve done all day is argue with people. And try and justify myself. What can I say? Diane is good for my writing.
I’m just more creative when she’s in my life.”
And then he got a little more intimate.
Male-to-male. “And she’s not the prude Kylie is. I mean, this is a terrible thing to say but Kylie isn’t so hot in the sack.”
I hit him. Right in the mouth. And he hit me. Right in the mouth. I wasn’t tough but then neither was he. What he was was tall. So I kept pounding him in the stomach and in the ribs. And he kept pounding me on the top and the sides of the head.
The cats all scattered, howling. We knocked a floor lamp over, then a table lamp.
And that’s when Kylie came out, sweet in her mussed hair and wrinkled clothes, her little-girl fist grinding sleep out of her eyes. “Is this a dream?”
“It sure isn’t a dream,” Chad said.
“Some friends you’ve got. He hit me.”
She surveyed the living and kitchen areas.
“God, you guys broke stuff. That’s what woke me up.” Then, “You okay, McCain?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“I see.” Chad pouted. “You ask about him but you don’t ask about me. I just happen to be your husband.”
And a writer, too, Chad. Don’t forget you’re a deeply tormented writer.
This time when Tess went to the door, it was the inside one. I expected I knew who it was.
I opened it and there she stood, the best-looking landlady in the universe. Tall, graceful, gray subtly streaking her long, dark hair, mid-fifties. Mrs. Goldman. One beautiful babe. “Are you all right, Sam? I heard all this commotion and-” She looked behind me to where Kylie and Chad stood. “Oh, hello.
I’m Kate Goldman.”
Chad said, “He attacked me.”
Mrs. Goldman smiled. “You’re an awful lot bigger than he is.”
“And for what it’s worth, McCain,” Chad said, “I’m not so sure I believe you about you and Kylie.” Then, to Kylie: “Will you get your damned shoes on so we can get out of here?” Then, to me: “And if I find out you weren’t telling me the truth, McCain, you’re going to be damned sorry, believe me.”
Kylie went on her groggy, uncertain way.
Got her tennis shoes on untied and came back to the living room. “I’m sorry, McCain.” Then she gave me a peck on the cheek.
“You kiss him right in front of me?” Chad said. He looked at Mrs. Goldman. “Did you see that? Right in front of her own husband, she kisses him!”
“Yes,” Mrs. Goldman said. “I was shocked.”
He frowned. He had quite a frown. “I should’ve known you’d be just like him.”
“Chad’s folks bought him a new car,”
Kylie said brightly. “Maybe I’ll get lucky and puke all over it.”
As they left, Tess bit him on the ankle again. He tried to kick her but she was too quick for him.
The air was unsettled, like a battleground in the aftermath.
“Gosh, I sure hope to see a lot
more of him, McCain.”
“You no doubt will. He’s going to be famous.”
“Oh?”
“He’s a writer. Just ask him.”
“That poor girl. I see her at temple every once in a while in Iowa City. But I’ve never really gotten to know her. How could she have married a jerk like that?”
Kate Goldman’s husband, who was by all accounts a very nice guy, died several years ago. Mrs. Goldman now dated men from the synagogue in Iowa City. I was personally pulling for this history teacher at City High.
One night on the porch downstairs he’d told me about his time in Italy during the war and then we ended up talking about paperback writers. His two favorites were David Goodis and Day Keene. I was hoping he’d run for president some day.
“Gosh,” Mrs. Goldman said, “I really like your new friend here, Sam.” She fanned herself with a slender hand. She wore a crisp pink blouse and black walking shorts and black flats. If Lauren Bacall had any luck, she’d end up looking just like Kate Goldman when she got older. “This place is a mess.”
“Yeah, I’m sorry.”
“I’m sure it wasn’t your fault.”
I got the broom and dustpan and we got busy.
Afterward, I poured us each a beer and we sat around and talked about Dick Nixon coming to town and how Jack Kennedy was holding up, and then we talked local news, her wanting to know all about my visit to Muldaur’s church. “Boy, I sure wouldn’t handle any of those snakes.”
A summer storm started right after Mrs.
Goldman left, August heat lightning stalking the sky like huge electric spiders. It got hotter and even more humid for a time and then it got much cooler suddenly. I lay on my bed with a beer and a cigarette reading a collection of Irwin Shaw short stories. The rain came around ten o’clock, a Biblical rain. In the valley where the city park was the sewers would flood and some of the park benches and picnic tables would float a few yards away, and at the next city council meeting somebody would stand up and suggest that we chain the benches and the tables to nearby trees so this catastrophe would never be visited upon us again.
Whenever the call came-in that state that is neither sleep nor waking-I was standing at the altar and a guy in a funny religious hat and a lot of funny religious capes and vestments was reading from one of Kenny Thibodeau’s racy novels-I think the title was Lesbo Lawyers-and saying, “I now pronounce you husband and wives.” And there I stood with the beautiful Pamela Forrest and the fetching Mary Travers and-“Hullo.”