Cold Bullets and Hot Babes: Dark Crime Stories

by Arlette Lees

  “That was three years ago! You passed it on to Cousin Virginia, don’t you remember?”

  Mama shifted her generous bulk and let go of her foot. The couch protested with a squeak of broken-down springs. She sighed heavily.

  “Well, I guess we’ll have to do something. Can’t have you looking like the Shanty Irish now can we?” implying our roots were Lace Curtain, maybe Castle if we traced them back to Sligo.

  When I looked at Mama, schlumping on the couch, stuck to the TV, adding another ten pounds every year like interest on a rich man’s bank account, it’s hard to believe she used to be called Irish Rose. Old Man Bulger’s girl is a beauty. That Bulger girl is going places. Her eyes were a pale artificial-looking blue that amazed you at what nature could come up with and she still had shiny dark hair and perfect white skin, so I guess the stories are true.

  Mama gave a deathbed sigh and I knew what was coming.

  “I dreamed of becoming an airline hostess,” she said, as rain began to rattle against the windowpane. There was no escaping the oft-repeated tale so I listened politely like it was the first time, no moaning, no rolling of the eyes.

  “I know, Mama,” I said.

  “When I got pregnant in the eighth grade I told Old Da how Cousin Eddie had forced me. He made me swear on my rosary. Then he told me I had to put ‘unknown’ on the birth certificate where it says father’s name. No need to shame the family. He’d handle it, he said. That Eddie Malone, he was a loose cannon but be was well-liked in the neighborhood. Slander his name said Old Da it could hurt business at The Tammany. Who gives a shit what a bunch of boozers think? Then Father Henry kicked me out of St. Bede’s, and me on the honor roll, when everybody knew about him and Father Devlin. Hypocrites all of them. Never trust anyone in a position of authority. They’re all corrupt.”

  I was supposed to say Whatever happened to Eddie? So I did.

  “The next time I saw Eddie he had a broken nose, two black eyes and a missing tooth right up front. Looked like a pug gone down in the twelfth. That’s the way the Irish took care of business back then. After that Eddie crossed the street whenever he saw me coming, like if he looked at my face he’d turn to stone, like I was the Medusa with a head full of snakes.” She shook her head, her eyes softening, remembering. “Eddie looked just like a young James Cagney, all cocky and full of it. Funny thing is, with a little persuasion be could have had me the right way.” Her blue eyes washed over me. “Dreams are a dangerous thing, Rosemary. Something always comes up.”

  “You’re scaring me Mama. Don’t talk that way.”

  I stopped listening and ran through the study words in my head: sociolinguistic...metasomatism...nidifugous...phlogistic....

  Pompous, pedantic words I’d probably never use. I simply wanted books for college so I could become an English teacher, wear nice clothes, go to the dentist if I had a toothache or to a Jerry Lee Lewis performance with enough money left over for a hamburger and a shake.

  Rain clattered like gravel against the window. I walked across the tattered linoleum and looked into the gathering darkness. Mama was still talking, mostly to herself now.

  “Someday I planned to change my name from Frances to Rosemary but there wasn’t much point anymore so I gave the name to you. Then I sat on the couch, gave you your bottle and gained one hundred and fifty pounds,” like giving me my baby bottle was what did it.

  A flash of lightning x-rayed the bones of the cannery across the tracks. The TV crackled and went dark. “Now look what’s happened?” said Mama. The rain fell steadily, silvering the rails in the light from the factories south of the crossing. She fiddled with the knobs on the front of the t.v. ‘Son-of-a-bitch!”

  I couldn’t help smiling. I shouldn’t be hard on Mama. Between Eddie, Old Da and Father Henry what could you expect? At least she’d escaped the Irish disease when most of her family had gone the way of the drink and the smokes, their livers pale and spongy, lungs plugged up like tenement plumbing. After the autopsy Dr. McBane said he could have tarred the interstate with the sludge in Old Da’s lungs. Sometimes at night I sit by my bedroom window watching the green neon shamrock flicker in the window of The Tammany, expecting Old Da to push through the double doors, the cinder of his Lucky Strike burning like a red eye in the darkness, his pockets full of the night’s receipts. He was always a happy man no matter what and when he died a light went out on Lower Division. The good times were done.

  A freight rumbled through on the far side of our lot and the jelly jars rattled in the kitchen cupboard. Decades of vibrations had loosened the joists beneath my feet, a nail or two pushing through the linoleum to catch a toe. I watched the red lights of the caboose until the train rolled through the almond orchards on the outskirts of town and disappeared around a curve.

  “I love the sound of that old train,” said Mama. Yesterday she’d hated it, forever vacillating between praise and disdain at our location. “Reminds me we live on the right side of the tracks. Yes Ma’am, the last house on the right side of the tracks,” like our house with its chipped paint and sagging porch was a notch above the other rotting structures on Lower Division. “These buildings are all historical. Pretty soon they’ll be on the National Register.”

  Sally’s mom hadn’t seen it that way. Sally who said she’d be my best friend forever and ever. The last time she came to my house her mom had a cat fit.

  “I don’t want you hanging around that Bulger girl. That neighborhood has gone to the dogs. Have you seen what’s become of Frances?” THAT GIRL! THAT NEIGHBORHOOD! FAT PIG! TUB OF LARD!

  Sally pretends she doesn’t know me. If I sit at the same table in the cafeteria she leaves. She thinks she’s better than me even though I’m smarter and get better grades. I could knock her down a peg or two if I thought it was all her fault, tell her that her mom is in bed with Jimmy O’Toole on the nights she’s supposed to play Bingo at the church. But then I’d make trouble for Jimmy whose wife already causes him enough grief.

  Because of Sally’s mom I don’t let people come here anymore. No sleep-overs, no birthday parties, no studying with friends. It’s the Rosemary at school I want people to know. The smart girl. The best speller in the class of ’56.

  Another clap of thunder and the lights go the way of the TV. “Why does this always happen to us?” says Mama.

  Of course the lights are out in the whole neighborhood, even at the cannery until the generators kick in. Mama hoists herself off the couch and goes to her room. I light a candle and study my words late into the night...consanguinity...tourniquet...circumjacent....

  On Saturday morning Mama robbed the cookie jar and we took the cross-town to Robert Hall’s in the new strip mall. I held several dresses up to the mirror. When I saw the ruby red dress with the full skirt and puff sleeves next to my dark hair I knew it was the one. At twelve dollars and fifty cents plus tax it was more expensive than the others but Mama said I could have it provided I also wore it to the prom without complaint. She couldn’t put herself through this shopping business twice in one year.

  Forbidden Planet was playing at the Bijou but the Paradise was closer and Mama’s feet were giving out. We saw The Man Who Knew Too Much. Doris Day was a singer who married James Stewart, a doctor. If I became a teacher I figured my chances of marrying a doctor were as good as hers. He could fix Mama’s bunions and we could move to the other side of town, kill two birds with one stone.

  After we shared a medium popcorn and a small Coke there was just enough money to catch the bus back home. I felt happy about the dress but sad for Mama. She’d have to start saving all over again to fix the TV. We were in for a long stretch of macaroni and cheese dinners.

  At night I dropped into bed whispering my mantras. They’d bring me more luck than my bedtime prayers ever did.... Dear God, make Mama happy...help her lose those extra pounds...make the roof stop leaking...make us rich...bring Old Da back...cypsela...perborate...surveillance....

  “You’re doing well,” said Miss Silverw
ein. “Keep studying. Take another look at hemorrhoid and macedoine.” A cloud of Blue Waltz perfumed the air, her fingernails clean and polished as she turned the pages of the study list.

  “Normotensive. Thromboplastin. Zabaglione. Nobody’s ever heard these words, let alone know what they mean. Are you sure the bee is going to be this hard?”

  “We’ll know soon enough. That’s enough for today. Be sure you have appropriate attire for the competition.”

  I described the red dress.

  “As long as it’s not too fancy. This is a spelling bee not a beauty contest.” She glanced at my shabby saddle shoes. “Look at those tiny feet. They can’t be more than a six.”

  “Five and a half.”

  “Be sure to tell your mother that you need decent shoes to go with the dress.”

  I take my shoes off and carry them when it rains so the stitching won’t go bad but I’d been wearing them the whole school year and they looked like The Wreck of The Hesperus. Besides, saddle shoes don’t go with a party dress and my good Sunday shoes had gone the way of the blue velvet. Even without the movie there’d have been no money for shoes. The competition was about the words not my shoes. I’d make do.

  After school Tommy Nolan helped me run through my words in the quad. The day I won the senior bee his finger-whistle left my ears ringing.

  “I don’t want to see you talking to that Nolan boy,” Mama would say. “He lives on that unpaved road by the packing house. Stay on your own side of the tracks.”

  I ignored her and continued to see Tommy right out in the open. She sounded just like Sally’s mom. I knew what she was thinking, but Tommy was no Eddie Malone.

  It was dark and raining again when Tommy left me in front of my house and disappeared over the railroad tracks. Uncle Pete’s patrol car was parked in front of The Tammany so I walked across the street and pushed through the double doors. Cooney looked up from behind the bar.

  “Well, if it isn’t the spelling bee queen. You made the morning paper, you and the five from the other high schools.”

  “How you doing Cooney?”

  “Same-o, same-o.”

  “Hi baby,” said Uncle Pete, turning toward me on his bar stool. “Come sit,” and he patted the stool next to his. I slid in beside him. I felt more comfortable in the smoky dark interior than I did at home. A couple guys from the packing house were playing pool beneath a green-shaded ceiling fixture, the juke box at the back of the room bubbling red and blue, Green Door playing softly in the background. When I was little Old Da let me play the pinball machine and sleep in the back room until he locked up for the night.

  “That kid’s a minor,” said a butinski at the other end of the bar.

  Uncle Pete spun around, his badge glinting on the front of his blues.

  “Shut your fuckin’ gob or I’ll shut it for you,” he said. “She’s family.” The man went silent, dropped his shot glass into his mug of beer and watched the dark whiskey web through the golden bubbles.

  “Boiler maker?” asked Uncle Pete. I laughed and shook my head. “Well then, finish off my beer. Not enough there to fill a thimble. Cooney, another cold one.”

  I sipped the beer. Before I knew it I’d downed two tall ones.

  “Frances got you tied in knots?”

  I nodded.

  “She’s a wet blanket. Don’t let her get to you. Any time you want to move in with me and Rose, you’re welcome.”

  “Thanks Uncle Pete. I’ll be okay. The walls were beginning to close in, that’s all.”

  An hour later he helped me across the street. I flopped on top of my bed and went down for the count...no dreams...no prayers...no words....

  On the evening of the countywide I came down with the flu. One moment I was burning up. The next I was shivering with chills. Mama took my temperature. Normal. I had a debilitating case of nerves. I washed down two aspirin just in case.

  To make things worse I was obsessing about shoes again. I took thick polish to the black saddle part and made a terrible mess of it. The whiter I made the shoes the dirtier the laces looked, one with a double knot where it had broken. I considered polishing the laces. I had lost my mind. No matter what I did I couldn’t make saddle shoes go with a party dress. And all this time trying to keep the words in my head...ayahuasca...hyaluronidase...reconnaissance....

  No question that the ruby red dress was stunning, the perfect color, the perfect fit. I stood in front of the mirror, refusing to look at my feet. I judged myself 99% okay.

  Mama gave me change for the bus. She had a car and a license but could no longer fit behind the steering wheel. She wasn’t coming with me. Her feet were acting up. More likely she didn’t want to be seen in her slippers and faded muumuu the size of a circus tent. When you’re fat or wear bad clothes people never look deeper to find out who you really are. I was sick with disappointment and giddy with relief. It was one less thing to think about. My head was crowded. I had trouble keeping the words inside...provocateur...conflagration...insouciance....

  I slipped the change in the pocket of my tweed coat. It didn’t go with the party dress but I’d ditch it as soon as I got to Cooley. Mama smiled and looked me up and down, trying hard not to look at my shoes. She hugged me. Her cheek was wet with nervous perspiration, rehearsing what she’d say when I failed. The flu was on me again. A deadly strain.

  I opened the door and froze.

  There stood Miss Silverwein in a gray silk suit and gold earrings, her hand raised to knock, a shoe box under her arm.

  My legs began to collapse beneath me. I blanched.

  “What are you doing here?” It was an accusation.

  She looked surprised. Gave me a questioning look.

  “Who is it, dear?” called Mama.

  All the big words tumbled out of my head, tangling in the dirty, knotted laces of my shoes.

  THAT GIRL! THAT NEIGHBORHOOD! FAT PIG! TUB OF LARD! Those were my words. Those were the ones that stuck. I stood there paralyzed.

  “It’s Rachel Silverwein, Mrs. Bulger, Rosemary’s teacher.”

  She looked past me into the living room with its hopeless linoleum and tattered window shades, the living room where Mama’s fat overflowed the couch cushions like bread dough rising in the oven—sweaty, fat bread dough, and the bunions on her feet as big as walnuts.

  “Well, come on in.”

  Miss Silverwein’s eyes flicked to my face. Catatonic. C-A-T-A-T

  “I wish I could Mrs. Bulger but we’ll be late. Maybe another time.”

  Her arm was firm around my shoulders as she rushed me down the stairs to the car. She opened the passenger door and put the shoe box on my lap when I sat down. She walked briskly around the hood, got in the driver’s seat and felt my forehead.

  “You’re awfully warm, Rosemary.”

  “I’m sick. I’m going to throw up.” I began to cry noiselessly, tears running down my cheeks, no sound except my uneven breathing.

  An ice age passed.

  “What I’ve heard is true then,” said Miss Silverwein, giving me her full attention.

  “What do you mean?” I licked a tear from the corner of my mouth.

  She extended her hands, palms up. “The Irish don’t know how to have a proper cry. Take the Italians or the Jews. They know how to bawl, how to wail, how to really let her rip. You should have heard my mother when she dropped the Passover kugel on the kitchen floor. You’d have thought someone shot her cat.”

  I sputtered a laugh.

  “That’s better. It’s clear I’ve been pushing you too hard. Everyone falls apart before a big competition, releases some of the stress. Really, it’s not such a bad thing.” She handed me her hanky all lacy and sweet with Blue Waltz perfume. I wiped my eyes and took a couple ragged breaths. “You can hang on to it,” she said. “Go head, try on the shoes.”

  Inside the box was a beautiful pair of black leather flats like something Audrey Hepburn would wear. They smelled like the leather seats in Miss Silverwein’s new Pontiac S
trato-Streak. I took off my saddle shoes, pushed them underneath the seat and put on the new ones. They fit like soft kid gloves.

  “Thank you. I love them. I’ll pay you back. I promise. But, I’m sick. I really can’t do this.”

  “Let’s just drive a little then. I’ll take you home anytime you want. Just say the word.” She pulled a u-ey and driving slowly headed in the general direction of Cooley High. She turned her head to the left, her eyes running down the 700 block of Lower Division Street all wet and dreary, a few bums huddled against the side wall of the Stag Hotel For Men. “See that building with the blue and orange awning?”

  “You mean Polly Prim Bakery?”

  “I was raised in the apartment above the store. I played hopscotch on that very sidewalk.”

  “No kidding?” I was stunned. Lower Division? And yet she’d somehow gone from there to here.

  “Sometimes I miss the old neighborhood but time marches on. First you live the life people make for you. Then you move forward and live the life you make for yourself.” She placed her hand on my forehead. “Are you feeling any better?” I nodded. “You’ll be fine, Rosemary. Tonight is a challenge but it’s supposed to be fun. Make the most of it.”

  In the packed auditorium I saw Tommy, Uncle Pete and Aunt Rose, at least a dozen cousins and teachers from all five competing schools. Once I nailed the first word...discompose...the flu had run its course.

  After an hour and a half only two of us were left standing. My final adversary was Wang Lu from Chinatown, the one contestant everyone said could never win. He was a goofy kid, a head shorter than I. He wore sad black pajamas that were worn in the knees, cloth shoes and a bowler hat too big for his head. On our way into the auditorium a bully from Hoover, whom we all hated, gave his pigtail a vicious tug. His broken English was almost indistinguishable from Chinese.

  Most of the words were easier than the ones I’d studied: misjoinder...raconteur...substratum...misspell...erudite...and the dreaded diarrhea. The definitions came easily. But, like Mama said, something always comes up, and this time it was the word uxoricide. Never heard it. Thought I could spell it. Had no idea what it meant.