“How are you going to explain me? It’s going to be confusing to the younger ones. Hell it will be confusing to everyone.”
“I know, let’s tell them you’re my new friend I met at the hospital where I volunteer, that you just started volunteering today.”
And that’s what we did. I enjoyed being with my grandchildren and great grandchildren but there was one great grandson who looked so much like my son, Seth, that it broke my heart. He was only two and he crawled into my lap and stayed there the whole time.
CHAPTER 15
Josie and I talked well into the night and slept late the next morning. She was fixing breakfast when I got up. I had slept like a log.
“Hi, mom,” she said when she saw me. “I have an idea. Here, let me pour you some coffee. Sit down right here. Okay, here’s my idea. Let’s go back down there in front of the club where you disappeared and see if we can re-create the same conditions and maybe try to send you back.”
“I appreciate it, honey, but how are we going to create the same conditions. I don’t think that just by going down there, we can reverse what’s been done, do you?”
“I don’t know, but we have to try something.”
It had been around two in the afternoon when I had faded out in front of Joe and so we walked over to Royal Street to look at some of the art galleries in order to kill time. In the window of one of the galleries, I saw a painting of a young girl of about age 16 wearing a long white gown and standing in front of a huge daisy. The card said it was a self-portrait.
“Look at this, Josie. Can you imagine someone that young painting like that?” I asked as I studied the portrait.
“It’s beautiful,” She said and then looked at her watch, “We need to get over to the club, mom. It’s almost two.”
I tried to remember exactly where I had been standing and tried to position myself in the same place. Ronnie was inside and came over and asked if we wanted a table and Josie explained what we were trying to do.
He started to walk off and then stopped and paused and then kept going and walked behind the bar. I watched him and when I looked back at Josie, she was fading. I was going to reach out to her but I couldn’t move. I was glued to the spot.
This time it was as if I was in a whirlpool and I was being dragged down. Things were moving too fast and then I blacked out.
“Mary, Mary Surratt!” someone was screaming and I opened my eyes and looked down at myself. I was barefoot and wearing an ugly gray shift with nothing under it.
It was quite dark in there and I noticed that there were other women in the room with me. The floor and walls were concrete. A thin layer of straw had been spread out over the floor and we were all sitting on the straw.
One thin old woman, with skin that looked like leather, pointed at me, “He’s calling you, Mary. You best get up and go over to the bar.” It was then that I noticed that I was in some sort of prison.
“Mary, get your ass over here,” The man, who turned out to be a prison guard, yelled again. “Don’t make me have to come drag you out.” He was looking right at me.
As I stood up he began unlocking the door. When I got to the door he had it open and he turned me around and tied my hands behind my back with a rope.
In all the times I had moved through time, I had never ended up as someone else, especially someone famous. I remembered reading about Mary Surratt in a history book once, in the first life I could remember.
Mary Surratt was the first woman executed by the federal government for treason, in 1865. She had been convicted of supplying the gun for John Wilkes Booth, the man who killed President Lincoln.
The guard led me outside and up some wooden steps to a platform and I saw a noose at the top of the platform. This must be the day that Mary was hung, I thought to myself. There was a crowd of people and some were having a picnic. There were even children there ready to watch the execution.
I had a loud roaring in my ears and couldn’t hear what anyone was saying but I noticed a man walking beside us with an open Bible in his hands and his lips were moving.
I had a hard time getting up the stairs, I was shaking so badly. When he put a black bag over my head and then the noose around my neck, I almost died of a heart attack.
Suddenly, without warning, I felt the floor beneath my feet open up and the pressure on my neck was incredible. I cannot describe the pain and the struggle to breathe. It felt like it lasted a good three minutes and was a very long three minutes. I felt the muscles in my arms and legs spasm and both my bladder and bowels released the waste from my body and I was no more.
CHAPTER 16
“Iuga, Iuga,” Was the first thing I heard when I woke up on a busy street. It wasn’t a human voice, but more mechanical. As I tried to focus on what was making the noise, I realized I was sitting in the middle of a busy street and the sound was coming from an old model T automobile. The street was made of bricks.
A man stopped the car and got out and started toward me. He was wearing a white suit with a black dress shirt and pink tie. His pants were baggy, with pleats in the front. He had pitch black hair that was parted in the middle and slicked back on each side.
He held his hand out to help me up and I noticed his eyes were as black as his hair.
“Where and when am I?” I asked and he laughed. He had even white teeth.
He led me back to this car and kept his arm around me, “You are, or were, in the middle of the main drag in downtown Chicago,” He said as he helped me into the passenger seat.
I held out my hand, “I’m Ashley.”
He frowned at my outstretched hand like he didn’t know what to do with it.
“So you do know your name. I’m Al, by the way.”
To try and figure out the year I was in, I asked, “What kind of car is this?”
“This,” He said as he patted the dashboard, “Is a Pierce Arrow.”
“What year?”
“A brand new 1930,” he said and seemed to swell up like a rooster, sticking his chest out.
“So, this is 1930?”
He looked over at me and frowned, “You have amnesia, doll? This is a 1930 car, but the year we’re in is November, 1929. I just said this is a brand new car.”
“Yeah I have amnesia,” I decided to say this right there on the spot. I decided it would give me a good reason for not knowing much. “Since I know my name, it must be partial amnesia,” I said.
He looked at my clothes, “That looks like prison garb you’re wearing. The gray is not flattering on you. We’ll have to get you some decent clothes right away. You think you escaped from prison?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know anything.”
“That’s the other thing, see. You don’t sound like you’re from around here. You sound like you’re from the South, maybe Alabama.
“I’m going to take you over to my lady friend’s house and see if she can loan you something to wear. You look to be about the same size. Then she can take you shopping. Her name’s Rita. I think you’ll like her but don’t get her mad at you. She’s a red head and has a temper to match.”
“This is her bungalow here,” He said as he pulled up in front of a small brick house. “I bought it for her.”
I knew from my history classes in high school that the stock market crashed in October of 1929, which started the depression. But he was living like he had plenty of money. Therefore, I concluded, he must be a gangster.
Al had his own key to the bungalow and let us in. Rita was a tall willowy woman wearing a knee length low wasted cream-colored dress with pearls sewn on the bodice. She had a head band around her forehead with a feather sticking out the top and was smoking a pink cigarette in a long holder.
Her hair was cut the same length all the way around and was straight. Her hair was dark brown and she had brown eyes and she was very pretty.
When Al introduced us, she looked amused as she looked me up and down. When she got close to me, her nose twitched like she smelled something bad. I d
id smell horrible.
“I found her in the street,” Al was explaining. “I almost ran over her. She has amnesia except she remembers her name, for some reason. You got something she can wear? And then I want you to take her shopping,” He said as he reached into his front pocket and pulled out a roll of bills.
She laughed, “We need to get her some shoes too and probably underwear. I’ll have Pippin draw a bath for her.” She continued to hold out her hand as Al pulled bill after bill off the roll and handed them to her.
He kissed her goodbye and nodded to me and left. She looked like an excited kid in a candy shop as she took my hand and led me into the kitchen. A large black woman with kind eyes was sitting on a stool drinking a cup of coffee.
Rita introduced us and then said, “Pippin, she needs a bath. Will you be so kind as to draw her one?” Pippin went into a pantry off the kitchen and brought out an aluminum tub and began filling a kettle on the stove with water.
It took quite awhile for her to heat enough water for the tub and she told me to help myself to the coffee. I stood at the kitchen counter and drank my coffee while I watched her. When she had enough water in the tub, she turned to me, “Take off that thing you have on. I’m going to throw it away. Miss Rita will give you something to wear.” When I took off my shift she averted her eyes as she picked it up with two fingers and went outside with it.
I lowered myself into the water. It felt wonderful but I didn’t see any washrags or soap. She was soon back and went back into the pantry and came out with a bar of lye soap. It burned my skin but I was so grateful for the bath I didn’t mind.
I felt so tired that I almost fell asleep in the tub. Pippin nudged me with a large white towel and she held it for me as I got out of the tub. Rita came in at that time and told me to follow her. We went down a short hall to her bedroom.
Her bedroom was adorable. She had a red satin comforter on the bed with pillows in every bright color imaginable. The lamps had shades made of glass beads in colors to match the pillows. Everything in there was color.
She opened a small closet and brought out a bright green dress with a pleated skirt and lighter green lace on the bodice. She gave me green silk stockings and garters that were nothing but cloth covered rubber band looking circles that she showed me how to use. “You roll the top of the stockings onto the garter, just above my knees,” she said.
I snickered as I remembered the movie, Splendour In The Grass, and the bad girl Jenny wearing her stockings like this.
“Well it’s a hell of a lot better than what you were wearing,” Rita said as she mistook my laughing as though I was making fun of her clothes.
“No, I’m sorry to laugh. I think this outfit is beautiful. I’m really grateful to you.”
We walked to town and window shopped for awhile. I loved the clothes of this era but you needed to be flat-chested for them to work. If you had boobs, the beads didn’t hang straight.
Rita had a driver who drove us downtown to shop. He was blocky looking with a nose that looked like it had been broken several times.
We went to expensive stores and Rita spent like she had all the money in the world. The guy with the nose followed us and made many trips to the car to unload the packages. I kept telling Rita I didn’t need anything else and she finally stopped buying. “I might keep some of these for myself anyway,” She said.
We went to lunch at a small café in the middle of the small boutiques where we had been shopping. Then Rita suggested we window shop for awhile.
We were looking in one window when I thought I saw Irene in the store. I ran inside and she wasn’t there. I ran back outside and thought I saw her again. I looked behind me and she wasn’t there.
“What in the hell are you doing?” Rita asked.
“Look,” I said and pointed.
She looked in the window and back at me, “What?”
That’s when I realized I was the only one seeing Irene. Then I noticed she was moving her mouth and I stepped closer to try to hear her. The whole time, Rita was demanding that I tell her what was going on.
I walked close to the window, close enough to put my hand on it and Irene put hers on the window too. As soon as our hands lined up with each other on the glass, I felt an electrical shock and I heard the words in my mind, “Go back to New Orleans.”
Just as quickly as it had appeared, the image of Irene faded and everything went black for me. I woke up on a sofa in an expensive dress shop with a cold cloth on my forehead.
“Don’t sit up just yet, Ashley,” Rita was saying.
“I have to get back to New Orleans,” I said as I sat up.
A lady in a black dress with a high collar handed me a glass of water and Rita asked me if I was from New Orleans and if I had started remembering things.
“Not everything,” I replied. “But I believe I need to go to New Orleans.”
“But, Ashley, You said back to New Orleans.”
“Did I? Oh I didn’t realize that.” Which was a lie but it was the best I could do.
We continued to shop for hours and Rita bought so many clothes I wondered where she was going to put them. I wouldn’t let her buy me anything and it was during supper that night, which they called dinner, that Rita asked Al if I could ride with him on his run to New Orleans the next day.
He looked at me and asked, “Do you know what kind of run she’s talking about?”
I laughed because I never did understand why they thought prohibition was a good idea during the 1920s. “I assumed it was a bootleg run,” I replied.
He threw back his head and laughed, “It’s not going to bother you to ride with me, knowing I will be breaking the law?”
“It was a stupid law, anyway,” I said and then I asked a question I had suspected all along. “By the way, your last name wouldn’t be Capone, would it?”
He had been shoveling pot roast and mashed potatoes in his mouth. Now he put his fork and knife down and pointed his finger at me, “You know things. I’ve read about people like you.” He slapped the table and it made such a loud noise, I jumped.
“Yeah, go to New Orleans with me, Ashley. You can probably help me with the law if I get stopped. You want to go too, Rita?”
It was settled, we would all leave right after supper. I helped Rita and Pippin clean up the kitchen and then she packed a bag for herself and Al and a small one for me. She had decided to keep most of the clothes from our shopping spree for herself.
Al had left while we were cleaning up saying he was going to change cars. When he pulled up outside he was driving a flat black old model-T ford.
It was a very frightening trip for me. Al drove most of the way without his headlights turned on. Rita slept most of the way, leaning her head on Al’s shoulder. I was too scared to sleep.
CHAPTER 17
We went around a hairpin turn on the two lane blacktop and a police car was sitting in the middle of the road. Al slammed on brakes and turned his wheel to the left so that we skidded almost against the cop car on the side I was sitting on.
There were two cops, one with a big beer belly and one rail skinny. The one with the belly hitched his pants up in the back and left the front under his belly.
“Something wrong with y’all’s lights, son?” He drawled and I realized we were no long in the North.
I spoke up without looking at the other two, “It’s my fault, officer. I dared him to see if he could drive through here with no lights. I know it was stupid and dangerous and I’m sorry.”
“You wouldn’t be Al Capon, by any chance, would you?” He asked looking at Al.
“Yes sir, that’s my name.”
“You’re out of your territory, aren’t you, Mr. Capone? What are you doing down here?”
“He’s taking me back home to New Orleans,” I spoke up again. “I was in Chicago visiting with Al and Rita and now they’re taking me home. They also wanted to see New Orleans. They’ve never been there before.”
He eyed me suspiciously
, “Uh, huh, never been there before. Well since I don’t have a search warrant, I can’t search the car, and we all know what’s in there. So I’ll just charge you a $100 fine,” He said holding out his hand.
Al got out of the car and they walked around the back where he opened the trunk and took something out and handed to the cop. He then peeled off some bills from the roll and handed them to him. The cop put the bills in his front pocket and the bottle under his shirt, got in his car and left.
“Does that happen often?” I asked
He smiled and winked at me, “All the time.”
New Orleans looked really different in the 1920s. The buildings in the French Quarter looked newer and the only music I heard was Jazz. The strippers didn’t take off as much, but seemed to do it with more class. Most of the clubs were known as speakeasies and honkytonks.
Al and Rita seemed to know a lot of people and introduced me to Billy Holiday. There was a photographer taking pictures in the club we were in and Rita and I had our picture made with Billy Holiday and the owner framed it and put it on the wall with other famous people. I was hoping Joe would see it in the future and know where I was.
Later in the evening, while Al was sitting at a table with some mafia-looking men, Rita and I sat at another table and ordered bourbon and listened to Billy Holiday sing. I got chills listening to her.
The next morning Rita and Al said goodbye and Al gave me a roll of bills to live on for awhile, and kissed my cheek.
After they left, I wandered the streets in the French Quarter aimlessly. I didn’t have any ideas about getting back to Joe. Suddenly, everything felt so hopeless I sat down on a park bench and cried.
I had walked to the river front and didn’t realize it until I heard jazz coming from a riverboat. When it pulled up to the dock, I saw a sign aboard advertising for a female singer. I got on board and asked a big black man, who was sitting on the deck, who I would see about the job.
TIME AND TIME AGAIN The sequel to 3037 Page 5