Ms. Etta's Fast House

by McGlothin, Victor

  The broad-built gray-haired man with even dusky skin exited the automobile thirty yards from the burial pavilion and lead the way. Sue clung tightly to Delbert’s arm as he made his way toward the casket, marveling at how many people appeared to pay their last respects. Adorned in dark suits and classically tailored mourning attire, a horde of colored women and men migrated closer to the plot of land where a previously virtual unknown was to be laid to rest.

  The sun-drenched skyline was overshadowed by the disastrous occasion. Murmurings persisted as the mourners and meddlers discussed the gloomy details which lead each of them to that place. Rumblings of Willie B.’s release from jail had just begun to surface. He was beside himself for ruining three lives, M.K.’s, his loving wife’s and his own. The Metropolitan Police Department retracted his training credits, closing the door for a position within the force. Adding to that, Willie B.’s biggest regret was knowing his wife’s body had been prepared at the family mortuary. Helen was stored there for three days while he was incarcerated and his father was faced with the daunting task of embalming his own daughter-in-law.

  Willie B. roamed the streets since his release because there was no place for him to hide his shame. In every bar he entered, someone was reading about the crazed mortician’s son who shot up Ms. Etta’s Fast House in a jealous rage, ending the lives of two respected members of the community. During his search to find solace and a medium to exorcise his guilt, Willie B. sat on a stack of worn tires behind an old service station on the edge of town. After drowning his sorrows with a bottle of cheap liquor, he’d set out again, fueled this time by an undeniable yearning for closure.

  Pastor Jacobs opened the funeral program and exhaled a heartfelt sigh. He had the privilege of facilitating over Helen’s christening. He watched her develop into an upstanding young lady and later he presided over her wedding to the man who ultimately ended her life. It wasn’t a long stretch imagining his daughter Sue lying still and void inside of the expensive hand-carved coffin ready to be lowered into the ground behind him. He kept that in mind when reciting his opening address.

  “Welcome, one and all to the final send-off for our beloved daughter, sister, and friend Helen Medford Bernard. She was a wonderful child, who blossomed into a beautiful, kind woman and nonetheless was taken from our midst far too soon.” Someone in the back wailed loudly, as if on cue, so it went virtually unnoticed by the minister.

  When several women screamed simultaneously, in mass hysterics, he peered up from his notes. “Oh, my God!” the pastor exclaimed. The crowd gasped when a man came traipsing through it, weaving about in a policeman’s parade uniform and white gloves. Like an epidemic, women began to faint one after the other while a number of men ducked for cover. So inebriated he could hardly stand, Willie B. pointed a loaded revolver toward the minister as he marched closer to the podium.

  “I ain’t gonna say this but once!” he shouted. “Don’t try and stop me.”

  “Son, this isn’t the way,” an elderly man reprimanded from the sidelines.

  “Shut the hell up, Daddy,” the gunman barked, his quick temper not yet running its course. “I’ve listened to your mouth long enough and I’m tired of hearing it. If you don’t want to see tomorrow, then just keep on flapping your trap.” “All right then, I’m glad to see y’all come out to say so long to my Helen. She’s the apple of my eye and ...” Willie B. was becoming overwhelmed. “And I want to see her one last time, then I’ll be on my way.” He motioned with the gun barrel for his old man to unlock the coffin lid. As ordered, his father whipped out a key and inserted it into a small metal clasp, but he refused to do his son’s bidding past that point. “Still stubborn as a mule, I see. Get on out the way!” he shouted. The mortician stepped away from the mound, fearing what would happen when his irrational son saw his wife’s corpse.

  Willie B. waved the gun at the audience erratically. “Stay back! This is my wife! Mine! I got the right to say goodbye proper.” With the pistol secured in his left hand, he heaved the lid open. The lid rocked back as the weight shifted on the leather belts used to secure and lower the casket. A ghastly roar resounded from the crowd. “Shut up!” hollered Willie B. in response. “I can’t hear myself think with all that damned noise going on back yonder.” Angry and out of sorts, he pivoted on the soles of his new shoes to face the remnants of his wife. He stuck his hand inside of his coat pocket and came out with a poorly folded sheet of stationary paper. Tears began fleeing from his tired eyes.

  “I wrote you a poem, baby,” he cried, sniffling intermittently. “I know how you was always after me to put something down. See, I done it.” He held the paper near the dead woman’s face to confirm it to her while the audience gawked in total disbelief. “It goes like this, Helen. ‘You was the world to me. I lost you and I lost my way. I don’t want to live without you another day.’” It seemed as if he was going to continue reading, but he decided to plant a tender kiss on her rouge colored lips instead.

  Willie B.’s father closed his eyes when his son turned the gun on himself and squeezed the trigger. The deafening blast reverberated as the crowd was shocked into silence. Willie’s body jerked forward, falling on top of Helen. The leather straps beneath the casket gave way, sending both husband and wife plunging into the newly dug hole.

  30

  SECONDHAND HEARTACHE

  “You’re saying he jumped in the box?” Clarisse asked for the fifth time after Etta painted the horrifying picture for her on the following day. Clarisse’s face scrunched into a prune-like contortion just thinking about it. She swayed in the beauty salon chair from side to side as Etta fiddled about in her purse. “You know I’ve heard people say they wanted to follow loved ones to the grave, but I ain’t ever heard of nobody actually pulling it off.”

  “It was more like he threw himself in it, but what a sight, girl,” Etta recalled, as she passed Clarisse an opened pack of smokes. “Then, it was just like that newspaper said, folks started screaming and knocking each over trying to get out of the way. It was a holy mess. I feel so sorry for that poor woman. Nobody deserves to be laid to rest like that. Plain pitiful.”

  “They always said that undertaker’s son wasn’t right in the head. Ain’t no doubt about that now.”

  Etta took a long drag from her cigarette and frowned with a faraway reflective gaze in her eyes. “Naw, naw, it ain’t.”

  The newspaper recounted the event from beginning to end for those who didn’t attend the funeral. It was the Comet’s first edition in three days that didn’t have Baltimore’s arrest and impending trial as the headline. Albert Hummel felt like a heel when he called Etta to share Baltimore’s refusal to let Penny testify on his behalf. Against his client’s wishes, Albert deliberated pushing her into it regardless, but Etta laid down the law. She enlightened him as to how close Baltimore felt to the girl and that he wasn’t to become the first man to use Penny after she’d broken free of her father’s tyrannical prison.

  Furthermore, the detectives Albert employed to snoop around came back scratching their heads. No one they interviewed was willing to provide information that remotely benefited Baltimore. The neighbors on the same floor, who did open their doors, had mixed emotions regarding why the white woman was in the room but weren’t willing to offer testimony under oath. Back to square one, Etta forked over the attorney’s two-thousand dollar fee and came up empty as a bottomless washtub. It wasn’t until Penny reappeared in front of the shop, with two grown men, after making a run for boxed lunches that she saw a glimpse of light at the end of a very dim tunnel.

  “Who is that Penny’s got with her?” Clarisse asked cautiously, as she stared at them through the glass door. She was particularly interested in the tall dark one. He had a brick-layer’s physique which was more to her liking than the shorter man’s less impressive frame. However, she did loops over his light colored eyes once she saw them up close.

  Etta sat up on her perch and then squinted in their direction. “Is that ... it sure is
, those boys from Kay Cee.” Etta eased down off her seat and met the fellows as they approached, in step with Penny. “Pudge, Dank, what in the blue blazes are y’all doing back here from Kansas City?”

  “Hey, Etta, ma’am,” Pudge said, greeting both ladies simultaneously. “We didn’t get back ’cause we never left. Baltimore convinced us to take it easy before rushing off for home. We’ve been taking in the sights, so to speak,” he added, with a sneaky wink so Penny wouldn’t catch on to their conversation.

  “I hope you didn’t get nothing on you,” she teased. “Fellas, meet Madame Clarisse. This is her shop, so mind your manners.”

  Dank tipped his brown derby-styled hat and smiled cordially. Clarisse caught it and threw him back an even bigger one for his troubles. “Madame? I sho’ like the sound of that.”

  “Boys, it’s so nice to make your acquaintance. Bright eyes, muscles, it’s too bad I missed you the last time around,” Clarisse flirted shamelessly. “We’s right fond of showing off the sights we got around here.”

  Dank quickly glanced in Etta’s direction. She just shrugged her shoulders with a look on her face that said go at your own risk. “Don’t mind if I do see what’s what. Come to think of it, I thought you might be with the neighborhood tourism society. We got to discuss some things with Etta, then I’m available to see what new attractions might be opening up,” Dank said with a sly grin.

  Penny smacked her lips loudly, interrupting their flirting and reminding them that business waited in the wings. “Ms. Etta, how long you gonna let them carry on that way? Madame Clarisse likes the man and his eyes are wide open for her too, even I can see that. Now, let’s talk about how they can help Mistah Baltimore. That is why they’s standing here after all,” she huffed, growing increasingly annoyed. “Well?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Pudge said respectfully, to boost the young woman’s ego.

  All of a sudden, Dank was in a hurry to get that Baltimore business over and done with too. With any luck, he could help straighten out his pal’s affairs and do a lot of good for his own situation in the meantime. Pudge had known Baltimore long before introducing him to Dank, so their roots ran much deeper. He was anxious to get the ball rolling.

  “Me and Dank was ready to sail on down the railroad line when these four white boys took the bench next to us at Union Station,” Pudge eagerly explained. “They looked to be real rough around the edges, you know, like farm hands. They were whispering but I heard every word just fine. Said they was gonna set fire to the jailhouse to get at the ‘nigger rapist’ the cops got locked up for putting it to a white woman against her will. Hell, since that didn’t have nothing to do with me, I kept to my own. Then another fella showed up. A law man, they called Tin-man or Tazz-man or some such strange name like that. Anyway, they pointed to this story in the colored newspaper. When they hustled off, leaving the daily rag where they’d huddled, I wanted to know whose goose they was about to cook. And damned if it wasn’t Baltimore’s name right there on the front page.”

  Etta knew outside instigators meant trouble in the worst way. They were known to storm in, bring the Negro community worlds of hurt and then they’d disappear into the night without being held accountable for the havoc caused. “We’d better act fast, then,” Etta asserted firmly. Her demeanor was solid as steel when she apprised them of what Penny had observed through the apartment window. Clarisse chewed on what she’d heard, then rolled her eyes and pursed her lips in opposition. Etta took note but forged ahead, despite her inclination to defend what Baltimore had done. The details involving Dinah’s untimely disappearance were sketchy, she told them, adding that it didn’t look good for Baltimore unless someone found the woman alive and willing to stand up for the truth, if not for him. Next, Etta informed everyone of what she’d gathered about Baltimore’s relationship with Dixie, and his flat-out unwavering stance against including Penny formally. Albert’s detectives couldn’t get anywhere with their canvass for potential witnesses either, so they were left with a big pile of nothing, more than enough to go around.

  Pudge slapped his soft hands together as he was struck with an idea. “Etta, did you say that lawyer fella sent white detectives over to grill colored tenants about a colored man getting in the sack with a white woman?” And just like that, it occurred to Etta that not all of the stones had been sufficiently overturned.

  Dank stared at his newly purchased wristwatch then at Clarisse. “It won’t take long getting them to spill it to us,” he boasted assuredly. “We can get kinda persuasive if need be. Ain’t that right, Pudge?”

  “Uh-huh, downright charming,” he replied, with a raised brow.

  For ten dollars, the local mail carrier spit out the names and door numbers of every tenant on Baltimore’s floor when the K.C. Detective Agency sent their only gumshoes out later that afternoon. Pudge distracted the unfortunate and unsuspecting soul who had found himself staring down a forty-four caliber cannon when Dank cornered him in the side stairwell to have a meeting of the minds. Another ten spot changed hands after the mailman dropped nuggets of information about the residents, including secrets they’d rather be kept hidden from public scrutiny.

  Three of the tenants on the list Pudge had scribbled down in a small tablet warranted discussion before ascending to the third floor. They didn’t want to run the risk of calling on someone who’d put the city cops on them and stall their investigation. The first person they approached was Rosa Lee Teacart, a forty-year-old woman receiving monthly checks from Topeka, Kansas under the name of Marla Speeks. The fellows didn’t have to guess that she was on the lam; the mailman threw that one in free of charge because she wouldn’t let him rest his hooves at her place without leaving something she could spend on the dresser. Knowing that she was a woman with money on her mind, more than most, gave Pudge a few angles to shake her down. He convinced Dank to hold off on any strong-arm tactics unless it was absolutely necessary, because they’d hate to rough up the wrong person who could corroborate Baltimore’s claims.

  The number on the center of Rosa Lee Teacart’s door was made of cheap black tape. The corners had turned up, making them hard to read in the dimly lit hallway. “That does say three-fourteen, don’t it?” Dank asked, as he reached forward to smooth out the numbers with his long fingers.

  “Looks to be the one,” answered Pudge, mostly guessing. “Baltimore wasn’t putting on the Ritz. I was almost mad at him for sticking us in that dive motel, but he stayed low budget too.” He glanced down the corridor in both directions before getting Dank to knock. “The coast is clear. Go ahead and beat on it some.” Before Dank wrapped against the wood, they heard someone approaching from the other side. “Save it, she’s opening up,” Pudge whispered.

  Dank backed off and assumed an authoritative position directly behind his smaller counterpart in the event whoever opened the door tried to dismiss his partner’s nonthreatening stature. Pudge wouldn’t have admitted it but the world seemed a good deal more manageable with a former prize-fighter backing his play.

  “Uh ...” was all the woman got out before laying eyes on gloom and doom blocking her path. Her mouth flew wide open a millisecond before losing her breath. The woman was exactly what they expected, a chameleon who altered her appearance as often as she changed her wigs. The dress she’d undoubted wrestled with in order to get it zipped was a dark shade purple and made from shiny synthetic material that clung to her generous hips and breasts like cellophane. She wasn’t exactly a large woman but two more hot-buttered biscuits would have easily qualified her. Dank surveyed her body with his piercing eyes, wondering why their mail-carrying informant refused her demands to cough up a couple of bucks. Her silky cinnamon-brown skin, cute button nose, thick legs and full lips had the money in his pocket fighting to get out.

  When she noticed how the big fellow was sizing her up for durability, she began inching backwards slowly, flicking glances at the doorknob. Pudge stuck his foot inside her apartment so she couldn’t shut them out. “Don’t fret,
Rosa Lee, we just need to talk to you about the man them white police dragged off,” he told her, in a straightforward voice. “We can do this inside, nice and quiet-like, or standing here for busybodies to listen in, if you want people to know your business, Marla Speeks.” The way he used her alternate name made the woman shudder. “If we wanted to harm you, you’d have never seen it coming until it was too late to matter,” he explained, to ease her into the gear he wanted to drive in.

  “O.K.,” she said, with reluctance and a dead-eyed glare at Dank.

  “Don’t worry about me,” he said, reading her thoughts. “If it comes to that, you’ll get more out of it than I will. And, I pay in advance.” There wasn’t any reason to deny she’d made extra money when times called for acts of ingenuity in order to get by, so she let his lewd comment pass without addressing it. Besides, rent was due and her pocketbook was light.

  “Come on in, then,” she muttered. “It’s not like I have a choice from where I stand. And since we’s all chummy, I’d rather go by Marla. It’s been a long time since I heard somebody call my name.” She invited them in and then pulled the door closed afterwards. Her small domicile was an exact copy of all the others in the hall, but she’d done a lot of work making it her own. Decently framed country landscapes hung against dingy walls on the sides. One of them wasn’t half bad, actually. An eggshell-colored sofa sat in the middle of the front half of the room while a metal framed bed occupied most of the back side. The kitchenette area was small, but the elegant hand-painted flower vases placed here and there gave the apartment a smile they didn’t expect to find. Everything in the room was a reflection of who she was, a woman on the run with an unquenchable desire to enjoy the secondhand slice of life she’d carved out for herself.