Pilgrims

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Pilgrims Page 20

by Elizabeth Gilbert

could simply take it over? He would think: Imagine what all my

  kids could do with all the room in that big house.

  On this morning, he parked his Chrysler across the road

  from the house, which had not changed as far as he could

  see. He had stopped in Stamford to fill the tank with gas and

  had purchased a bottle of aspirin at a convenience store there.

  Christ, his back hurt! How was he supposed to go back to the

  docks in only two days? Honestly, how?

  Jimmy opened the bottle and ate a handful of aspirins —

  chewed and swallowed without water. It was a well-known fact

  that a chewed aspirin, while disgusting to the taste, would act

  faster than a whole aspirin, which would sit intact and useless

  for some time in a person’s stomach acid. He ate several aspirins

  and he thought about his wedding night. He was just nineteen

  years old then, and Gina was even younger.

  She had asked him on their wedding night, “How many kids

  do you want to have, Jimmy?”

  He’d said, “Your boobs will get bigger whenever you’re preg-

  nant, right?”

  “I think so.”

  “Then I’ll take ten or eleven kids, Gina,” he had said.

  In fact, they ended up having six, which was ridiculous

  enough. Six kids! And Jimmy in the produce business! What

  had they been thinking? They’d had three boys and three girls.

  The girls had Italian names and the boys had Irish names, a

  cornball little gimmick that was Jimmy’s idea. Six kids!

  172 ✦

  At the Bronx Terminal Vegetable Market

  The pain in Jimmy’s back, which had started as stiffness and

  turned to cramps, was stoked up even higher now. It was a

  terrible pain, localized at the point of his recent surgery, empha-

  sized periodically by a hot pulse that shook his body like a sob.

  He emptied some more of the aspirins from the bottle into his

  palm and he looked at the big house. He thought about his

  grandfather who had shot through the engine of a company

  coal truck, and he thought about his uncle who’d got assassi-

  nated by company detectives for organizing, and he thought

  about the black lung. He thought about his doctors and about

  Joseph D. DiCello and about the mushroom man and about

  Hector the Haitian distributor and about his brother Patrick,

  who he rarely saw anymore at all because Connecticut was

  so far.

  He chewed the aspirins and counted the windows of the

  great house across the road. Jimmy Moran had never thought to

  count the windows before. He worked the bits of aspirin out of

  his teeth with his tongue and counted thirty-two windows.

  Thirty-two windows that he could see, just from the road! He

  thought and thought and then he spoke.

  “Even for me, with six kids and a wife . . .” Jimmy supposed

  aloud. “Even for me, with six kids and a wife, it must be a sin to

  have such a house. That must be it.”

  Jimmy Moran thought and thought, but this was the best he

  could figure. This was all he could come up with.

  “Even for me,” he said again, “it must be a sin.”

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  173

  The Famous

  Torn and Restored Lit

  Cigarette Trick

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  hungary, Richard Hoffman’s family had been the

  In manufacturers of Hoffman’s Rose Water, a product which

  was used at the time for both cosmetic and medicinal pur-

  poses. Hoffman’s mother drank the rose water for her indiges-

  tion, and his father used it to scent and cool his groin after

  exercise. The servants rinsed the Hoffmans’ table linens in a

  cold bath infused with rose water such that even the kitchen

  would be perfumed. The cook mixed a dash of it into her

  sweetbread batter. For evening events, Budapest ladies wore

  expensive imported colognes, but Hoffman’s Rose Water was a

  staple product of daytime hygiene for all women, as requisite as

  soap. Hungarian men could be married for decades without

  ever realizing that the natural smell of their wives’ skin was not,

  in fact, a refined scent of blooming roses.

  Richard Hoffman’s father was a perfect gentleman, but his

  mother slapped the servants. His paternal grandfather had been

  a drunk and a brawler, and his maternal grandfather had been a

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  p i l g r i m s

  Bavarian boar hunter, trampled to death at the age of ninety

  by his own horses. After her husband died of consumption,

  Hoffman’s mother transferred the entirety of the family’s for-

  tune into the hands of a handsome Russian charlatan named

  Katanovsky, a common conjurer and a necromancer who prom-

  ised Madame Hoffman audiences with the dead. As for Rich-

  ard Hoffman himself, he moved to America, where he mur-

  dered two people.

  Hoffman immigrated to Pittsburgh during World War II and

  worked as a busboy for over a decade. He had a terrible, humili-

  ating way of speaking with customers.

  “I am from Hungary!” he would bark. “Are you Hungary, too?

  If you Hungary, you in the right place!”

  For years he spoke such garbage, even after he had learned

  excellent English, and could be mistaken for a native-born

  steelworker. With this ritual degradation he was tipped gener-

  ously, and saved enough money to buy a supper club called the

  Pharaoh’s Palace, featuring a nightly magic act, a comic, and

  some showgirls. It was very popular with gamblers and the

  newly rich.

  When Hoffman was in his late forties, he permitted a young

  man named Ace Douglas to audition for a role as a supporting

  magician. Ace had no nightclub experience, no professional

  photos or references, but he had a beautiful voice over the

  telephone, and Hoffman granted him an audience.

  On the afternoon of the audition, Ace arrived in a tuxedo.

  His shoes had a wealthy gleam, and he took his cigarettes from

  a silver case, etched with his clean initials. He was a slim,

  attractive man with fair brown hair. When he was not smiling,

  he looked like a matinee idol, and when he was smiling, he

  looked like a friendly lifeguard. Either way, he seemed alto-

  gether too affable to perform good magic (Hoffman’s other

  magicians cultivated an intentional menace), but his act was

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  The Famous Torn and Restored Lit Cigarette Trick wonderful and entertaining, and he was unsullied by the often

  stupid fashions of magic at the time. (Ace didn’t claim to be

  descended from a vampire, for instance, or empowered with

  secrets from the tomb of Ramses, or to have been kidnaped by

  Gypsies as a child, or raised by missionaries in the mysterious

  Orient.) He didn’t even have a female assistant, unlike Hoff-

  man’s other magicians, who knew that some bounce in fishnets

  could save any sloppy act. What’s more, Ace had the good sense

  and class not to call himself the Great anything or the Mag-

  nificent anybody.

  Onstage, with his smooth hair and white gloves, Ace
r />   Douglas had the sexual ease of Sinatra.

  There was an older waitress known as Big Sandra at the

  Pharaoh’s Palace on the afternoon of Ace Douglas’s audition,

  setting up the cocktail bar. She watched the act for a few min-

  utes, then approached Hoffman, and whispered in his ear, “At

  night, when I’m all alone in my bed, I sometimes think about

  men.”

  “I bet you do, Sandra,” said Hoffman.

  She was always talking like this. She was a fantastic, dirty

  woman, and he had actually had sex with her a few times.

  She whispered, “And when I get to thinking about men,

  Hoffman, I think about a man exactly like that.”

  “You like him?” Hoffman asked.

  “Oh, my.”

  “You think the ladies will like him?”

  “Oh, my,” said Big Sandra, fanning herself daintily. “Heav-

  ens, yes.”

  Hoffman fired his other two magicians within the hour.

  After that, Ace Douglas worked every night that the Phar-

  aoh’s Palace was open. He was the highest paid performer in

  Pittsburgh. This was not during a decade when nice young

  women generally came to bars unescorted, but the Pharaoh’s

  Palace became a place where nice women — extremely attrac-

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  tive young single nice women — would come with their best

  girlfriends and their best dresses to watch the Ace Douglas

  magic show. And men would come to the Pharaoh’s Palace to

  watch the nice young women and to buy them expensive cock-

  tails.

  Hoffman had his own table at the back of the restaurant,

  and after the magic show was over, he and Ace Douglas would

  entertain young ladies there. The girls would blindfold Ace,

  and Hoffman would choose an object on the table for him to

  identify.

  “It’s a fork,” Ace would say. “It’s a gold cigarette lighter.”

  The more suspicious girls would open their purses and seek

  unusual objects — family photographs, prescription medicine, a

  traffic ticket — all of which Ace would describe easily. The girls

  would laugh, and doubt his blindfold, and cover his eyes with

  their damp hands. They had names like Lettie and Pearl and

  Siggie and Donna. They all loved dancing, and they all tended

  to keep their nice fur wraps with them at the table, out of pride.

  Hoffman would introduce them to eligible or otherwise inter-

  ested businessmen. Ace Douglas would escort the nice young

  ladies to the parking lot late at night, listening politely as they

  spoke up to him, resting his hand reassuringly on the small of

  their backs if they wavered.

  At the end of every evening, Hoffman would say sadly, “Me

  and Ace, we see so many girls come and go . . .”

  Ace Douglas could turn a pearl necklace into a white glove

  and a cigarette lighter into a candle. He could produce a silk

  scarf from a lady’s hairpin. But his finest trick was in 1959, when

  he produced his little sister from a convent school and offered

  her to Richard Hoffman in marriage.

  Her name was Angela. She had been a volleyball champion

  in the convent school, and she had legs like a movie star’s legs,

  and a very pretty laugh. She was ten days pregnant on her

  178 ✦

  The Famous Torn and Restored Lit Cigarette Trick wedding day, although she and Hoffman had known each other

  for only two weeks. Shortly thereafter, Angela had a daughter,

  and they named her Esther. Throughout the early 1960s, they

  all prospered happily.

  Esther turned eight years old, and the Hoffmans celebrated her

  birthday with a special party at the Pharaoh’s Palace. That

  night, there was a thief sitting in the cocktail lounge.

  He didn’t look like a thief. He was dressed well enough, and

  he was served without any trouble. The thief drank a few marti-

  nis. Then, in the middle of the magic show, he leaped over the

  bar, kicked the bartender away, punched the cash register open,

  and ran out of the Pharaoh’s Palace with his hands full of tens

  and twenties.

  The customers were screaming, and Hoffman heard it from

  the kitchen. He chased the thief into the parking lot and caught

  him by the hair.

  “You steal from me?” he yelled. “You fucking steal from me?”

  “Back off, pal,” the thief said. The thief ’s name was George

  Purcell, and he was drunk.

  “You fucking steal from me?” Hoffman yelled.

  He shoved George Purcell into the side of a yellow Buick.

  Some of the customers had come outside, and were watching

  from the doorway of the restaurant. Ace Douglas came out, too.

  He walked past the customers, into the parking lot, and lit a

  cigarette. Ace Douglas watched as Hoffman lifted the thief by

  his shirt and threw him against the hood of a Cadillac.

  “Back off me!” Purcell said.

  “You fucking steal from me?”

  “You ripped my shirt!” Purcell cried, aghast. He was looking

  down at his ripped shirt when Hoffman shoved him into the

  side of the yellow Buick again.

  Ace Douglas said, “Richard? Could you take it easy?” (The

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  p i l g r i m s

  Buick was his, and it was new. Hoffman was steadily pounding

  George Purcell’s head into the door.) “Richard? Excuse me?

  Excuse me, Richard. Please don’t damage my car, Richard.”

  Hoffman dropped the thief to the ground and sat on his

  chest. He caught his breath and smiled. “Don’t ever,” he ex-

  plained, “ever. Don’t ever steal from me.”

  Still sitting on Purcell’s chest, he calmly picked up the tens

  and twenties that had fallen on the asphalt and handed them to

  Ace Douglas. Then he slid his hand into Purcell’s back pocket

  and pulled out a wallet, which he opened. He took nine dollars

  from the wallet, because that was all the money he found there.

  Purcell was indignant.

  “That’s my money!” he shouted. “You can’t take my money!”

  “Your money?” Hoffman slapped Purcell’s head. “Your

  money? Your fucking money?”

  Ace Douglas tapped Hoffman’s shoulder lightly and said,

  “Richard? Excuse me? Let’s just wait for the police, okay? How

  about it, Richard?”

  “Your money?” Hoffman was slapping Purcell in the face

  now with the wallet. “You fucking steal from me, you have no

  money! You fucking steal from me, I own all your money!”

  “Aw, Jesus,” Purcell said. “Quit it, will ya? Leave me alone,

  will ya?”

  “Let him be,” Ace Douglas said.

  “Your money? I own all your money!” Hoffman bellowed. “I

  own you! You fucking steal from me, I own your fucking shoes! ”

  Hoffman lifted Purcell’s leg and pulled off one of his shoes. It

  was a nice brown leather wingtip. He hit Purcell with it once in

  the face and tore off the other shoe. He beat on Purcell a few

  times with that shoe until he lost his appetite for it. Then he just

  sat on Purcell’s chest for a while, catching his breath, hugging
<
br />   the shoes and rocking in a sad way.

  “Aw, Jesus,” Purcell groaned. His lip was bleeding.

  “Let’s get up now, Richard,” Ace suggested.

  180 ✦

  The Famous Torn and Restored Lit Cigarette Trick After some time, Hoffman jumped off Purcell and walked

  back into the Pharaoh’s Palace, carrying the thief ’s shoes. His

  tuxedo was torn in one knee, and his shirt was hanging loose.

  The customers backed against the walls of the restaurant and let

  him pass. He went into the kitchen and threw Purcell’s shoes

  into one of the big garbage cans next to the potwashing sinks.

  He went into his office and shut the door.

  The potwasher was a young Cuban fellow named Manuel.

  He picked George Purcell’s brown wingtips out of the garbage

  can and held one of them up against the bottom of his own foot.

  It seemed to be a good match, so he took off his own shoes and

  put on Purcell’s. Manuel’s shoes were plastic sandals, and these

  he threw away. A little later, Manuel watched with satisfaction

  as the chef dumped a vat of cold gravy on top of the sandals, and

  when he went back to washing pots, he whistled to himself a

  little song of good luck.

  A policeman arrived. He handcuffed George Purcell and

  brought him into Hoffman’s office. Ace Douglas followed

  them.

  “You want to press charges?” the cop asked.

  “No,” Hoffman said. “Forget about it.”

  “You don’t press charges, I have to let him go.”

  “Let him go.”

  “This man says you took his shoes.”

  “He’s a criminal. He came in my restaurant with no shoes.”

  “He took my shoes,” Purcell said. His shirt collar was soaked

  with blood.

  “He never had no shoes on. Look at him. No shoes on his

  feet.”

  “You took my money and my goddamn shoes, you animal.

  Twenty-dollar shoes!”

  “Get this stealing man out of my restaurant, please,” Hoff-

  man said.

  “Officer?” Ace Douglas said. “Excuse me, but I was here the

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  whole time, and this man never did have any shoes on. He’s a

  derelict, sir.”

  “But I’m wearing dress socks!” Purcell shouted. “Look at me!

  Look at me!”

  Hoffman stood up and walked out of his office. The cop

  followed Hoffman, leading George Purcell. Ace Douglas

  trailed behind. On his way through the restaurant, Hoffman

 

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