Let's go For Broke

by Mary Lasswell

  Miss Tinkham beckoned to Mrs. Feeley and Mrs. Rasmussen and they huddled. “Of course, it’s not ours to sell, but even so, we have hit pay dirt: I know his face from the papers. Just hold tight!”

  “I have told you it isn’t for sale, but a lease might be arranged,” Miss Tinkham said. “We have a…well, one might almost say Shopper’s World at our place down under this freeway at Five Points. If you care to come to see us at your leisure, we might be able to work something out, but this majestic conveyance is not being offered for sale.”

  “You’ve got to sell it to me.” The man was grim.

  “I beg your pardon!” Miss Tinkham had left her lorgnette home in her haste to be off to the marts of commerce and she regretted it now.

  “You heard what she said.” Bim put in his two cents.

  Before the new arrival could reply, a stocky motorcycle policeman approached the group, ticket book in hand.

  He elbowed the men aside.

  “How,” he said grimly, “did this vehicle get here?”

  “We pulled it, since we had no other motive power,” Miss Tinkham said.

  “Do you realize that you have blocked traffic on the freeway for one hour?”

  “We are not on the freeway,” Miss Tinkham said with dignity. “We were most meticulous about pulling into a repair zone, as you can see.”

  “Yeah, but you’re creating a nuisance. A dozen lives could have been lost with people stopping short to look at this rig. They’re bumper to bumper now.” He turned and stomped back to the highway, blowing his whistle angrily, signaling the cars to move on at a faster speed.

  He pushed his cap from his forehead as he came back: “I don’t know how I’ll work it, but I’m gonna take you in.”

  “You mean we’re bound over?” Mrs. Feeley thrust her face up into his. “What for?”

  “It’s against the law to sell on the freeway. Peddling is not allowed from any kind of vehicle. Panel trucks, hucksters’ wagons, vans, trailers, pushcarts, wheelbarrows, ice-cream bicycles, motor scooters: all against the law. Prohibited. I’ll call in for a police car. You’re going with me.”

  “These folks didn’t do anything.” James spoke up in his quiet, assured voice. “These…guys, here, wanted the vases, but she didn’t sell. The man here wanted the hearse, but it isn’t for sale at any price. The old fellow was standing by the edge of the highway, and a man bought a bucket of fishing worms from him, that’s all.”

  “These er…decorators,” Miss Tinkham said, “did reimburse us for one squab that their Dalmation ate and the four others he unfitted for human consumption. You couldn’t call that exactly selling.”

  “Humph!” the second decorator sniffed. “I should say not! More like armed robbery!”

  “Look, pardner,” Jesse stepped up, “one more word outa you and I’ll beat you the way you’d beat a drum.”

  The decorators departed.

  The police officer was testing the wheels of the hearse, pulling and shoving to see if it would roll.

  “Don’t worry,” he said, “you’ll get your property back, because I am going to post a guard over it, but I’ve got to take you in. This is a clear violation of the law.”

  “No need to get spastic about it, Officer,” Bim said blandly. “We’ll roll the hearse an’ essetra fight up on our truck and follow you on into the station house.”

  “That’s most gracious of you,” Miss Tinkham smiled at him, “if you are sure it won’t inconvenience you and your friends.”

  “We’ll just go along for the ride,” James said, “just to make sure the Gestapo here doesn’t try anything fancy.”

  “Sure,” Jesse cried. “We got two painter’s planks in the truck.” He placed them from the tailgate of the truck to the ground. “C’mon, fellas.”

  Bim and James took hold of the shafts and walked the planks. Jesse got behind and Old-Timer helped. “Give it a pushoncito,” Jesse shouted, and Miss Tinkham had to smile, wondering how anyone could give a big-little-push.

  “It’s an oxymoron,” she whispered to Mrs. Feeley.

  “We hadn’t orta call ’em names when they’re helpin’ out so good,” was the reply.

  No time to go into the fine points of the English language, Miss Tinkham decided. Just climb aboard, trust in God, and American youth.

  “Us intellectuals gotta stick together,” Bim said as he boosted Miss Tinkham into the truck. “You could tell I was one, couldn’t you?”

  Chapter 10

  A GRAY-HAIRED police captain presided at the desk behind the railing in the station house. Mrs. Feeley and her friends sat down until they were called.

  “My toenails sure feel long right about now,” Mrs. Rasmussen whispered.

  “We were almost hauled in in New Jersey,” Miss Tinkham said, “but this looks like the real thing. I feel a great deal better for the presence of our new-found friends.”

  The captain signaled for the group to come up to the desk.

  “Peddling, er, selling on the freeway, is it?” he said.

  “So the officer says,” Miss Tinkham replied softly.

  The captain was thumbing through the book as though not sure of the amount of the fine. The arresting officer muttered something in his ear and the captain said: “Fifty dollars and costs.”

  The silence was so intense that a dollar bill could have been heard to drop on a feather bed.

  Reflex action caused Miss Tinkham to put up her hand: “If it please Your Honor, so long as we have to be booked and pay the fine, would you mind showing us the place in the ordinance where it prohibits selling from a hearse?”

  Miss Tinkham thought she could hear the seats squeak in back of her as their three new friends relaxed.

  The captain looked at the motorcycle policeman. They bent over the book together breathing noisily and shuffling through page after page. The captain ran his finger painstakingly down line after line, getting redder in the face by the minute.

  Finally, he picked up the phone and dialed a number.

  “We got a gang for selling on the freeway from a hearse, Judge. Don’t that come under pushcarts an’ wheelbarrows?” He listened to the voice at the other end of the line for several minutes. Then he asked Miss Tinkham: “Is it converted?”

  “We didn’t know it was heathen,” she said.

  “Save the vor-de-ville,” he snapped. “Has it got a engine in it?”

  “No,” Miss Tinkham said.

  “Then it was a horse-drawn vehicle,” he said into the phone.

  “No, sir,” Miss Tinkham replied. “We drew the vehicle by the shafts ourselves.”

  “They pulled it,” the captain said into the telephone. “Sure it don’t come under wheelbarrows an’ pushcarts? I know there’s bound to be a law against it.” He listened for a few minutes more and Miss Tinkham thought she heard laughter at the other end of the wire. The captain slammed the receiver down angrily:

  “He says it is illegal to leave a dead horse on the beach. It is against the law to clean fish in the streets, but there has been, to date, no mention of anybody selling anything from a hearse. The question hasn’t arose.” He drew his shaggy brows down. “I am instructed not to book you, but to dismiss you with a sharp warning not to do it again.”

  The ladies bowed and their friends rose behind them.

  “May I inquire,” Miss Tinkham said, “the name of this Paragon of Justice, this un-Minotaur? Election time will soon be here, you know.”

  “The name is John P. Grogan,” the captain snapped. “Clear out.”

  “Don’t have to tell me twicet.” Mrs. Feeley bounced out.

  “That was keen, you asking him if there was anything pacific in the book about selling from a hearse,” Bim said as they reached the truck.

  “Thank you, my dear,” Miss Tinkham said. “It has to be ‘so nominated in the bond,’ I believe. Let us not tarry long in this place. What really had me worried was the fact that any minute it might dawn on him that we were selling without a license
.”

  Jesse started the truck with a roar and backed it out expertly.

  “Vámonos!” Miss Tinkham said. “Let’s go!”

  “Fuímonos,” Jesse laughed. “We done went!”

  “Me for a brew!” Bim shouted. “Let’s go to the Club and take the folks.”

  “What club?” Miss Tinkham asked.

  “V.F.W.” James said. “It’s not far. We were on our way there when we saw you and stopped.”

  “Shouldn’t we take the hearse home first?” Miss Tinkham said.

  “Please!” Bim pleaded, “the fellows at the Club will get a big charge out of it. They’ll help us take you home, an’ essetra. Nothing will happen to the hearse. We promise.”

  “I could sure use a brew,” Mrs. Feeley said.

  “We’d orta buy the beer for you fellas, carryin’ our hearse an’ all,” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

  “We were just pleasuring ourselves,” James said. “You’ll like our club. The food’s nothing to write home about, but the beer is cold.”

  “We accept.” Miss Tinkham capitulated gracefully when she saw the nice green lawn and big roomy clubhouse with the lovely neon sign. “We have earned a small, genteel spree, I think.”

  The Veterans of Foreign Wars Club was furnished with comfortable lounging chairs and stout tables, with no unnecessary clutter to get in the way of the serious business of life, the consumption of liquid refreshment.

  “They have Bingo Fridays,” James said as the bartender brought icy cold schooners of draught beer. The three ladies and little N. Carnation each sat between a man and tried to restrain the unseemly eagerness of their swallowing. The afternoon had been hot, long, and not without its hazards.

  “The beer has little splinters o’ ice in it.” Mrs. Feeley beamed.

  “Beer snow cones,” Bim laughed.

  “We really must get better acquainted,” Miss Tinkham said as she turned to Bim. “And how many little children have you at home, young man?”

  “Aw, lady, don’t start talkin’ dirty!” he laughed. “Let’s just enjoy the beer.”

  “Bim’s a culture-vulture,” James said. “He reads and studies all the time. Any kind of self-improvement, that’s for Bim.”

  “History!” Bim declared, “that’s what I like. ’Specially about the Silver War when the South succeeded from the Union! That an’ Roman history is my favorite. All that debutchery! And vestigial virgins lighting fires all over the place! Those were the days.”

  “You have read Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” Miss Tinkham said.

  Bim got out his notebook: “I will have by tomorrow night.”

  “It will take several nights,” she said. “Tell us something about your pugilistic career.”

  “I started out fighting when I was nothing but a little cracker-butted kid. Then the Salivation Army started a Youth Center and I was in business. Entered every bout I could get into. Then I went off to the South Pacific to shoot Japs. Funny part is, nobody told me they were going to shoot back at me! But I got back in one piece and went to work for the Company here and been buddies with these two ever since.”

  Jesse and N. Carnation were talking softly and steadily in Spanish.

  “We are so glad to have you to interpret for us,” Miss Tinkham said. “Our Spanish leaves much to be desired. There are many things we should like to know about her.”

  “It’s a pretty common story,” Jesse said. “People who can’t speak English have a hard time making a living. This laundry where she works, now she tells me they pay her a lot less than the going rate. They tell her she is afraid of the immigration officers and the Border patrols, and in exchange for letting her work out of sight in the back room, they pay her just about anything they want to. It’s rotten.”

  The bartender came up with another tray of beers and a bowl of peanuts.

  “Bring us some cheese and crackers,” James said. “We are having such a good visit, we didn’t notice we were hungry.”

  Mrs. Rasmussen got up and moved over beside James shyly: “Ain’t nothin’ to fruit pies but gawp an’ swallow. You’ll be wantin’ your supper.”

  Mrs. Feeley and Bim were discussing the late great Gentleman Jim Corbett. From time to time he tried to get an expression out of Old-Timer, but had to be satisfied with nods.

  Miss Tinkham was delighted to think that they had the Club practically to themselves. She judged the crowd would come later on. This was her chance to get all the information she could about N. Carnation’s life while Jesse was at hand.

  “Is she an American citizen?” she asked the young Mexican.

  “She says no, but she is married to an American soldier.”

  “How did that happen? And where?” Miss Tinkham asked.

  “She says when the American soldiers came after Pancho Villa to catch him,” the young man said, “he married her with the padre. His name was Hines or Heinz, something like that.”

  “She has mentioned ‘mi Heinz’ several times,” Miss Tinkham said, wrinkling her brow. “I am trying to remember when American soldiers were in Mexico…the only time I can think of offhand was the Pershing Expedition after Villa in the early years of World War One, before the United States entered into it. I can certainly look it up if we can get to a library. The troops went in after Villa raided Columbus, New Mexico, I think. It’s all so vague and dim, but we’ll clear it up. Ask her how she got to this country.”

  N. Carnation smiled faintly as she talked to Jesse.

  “Her Heinz was a mule skinner, she says, and he transferred over to driving a truck when they used the very first trucks the Army had. He hid her in his truck, after they were married, and brought her as far as the town of Palomas on the Mexican side of the Border all the way from her home village of San Gerónimo.”

  “Soldiers never change much, do they?” Miss Tinkham smiled. “She would have to have permission to enter the country even if she was his legal wife and dependent. I think when on service in any foreign country a man has to have permission from his commanding officer to marry a native. Ask her where she entered—”

  “She came in at Columbus, New Mexico. Heinz brought her in himself. She says she remembers because she got very sick from being vaccinated.”

  “She has a marriage certificate of some kind?” Miss Tinkham asked.

  She noticed that N. Carnation shook her head.

  “She says,” Jesse replied, “that Heinz took it with him. He went with his troops to El Paso and she followed with a Mexican family. They only stayed a few days and went off somewhere, she says, and she never heard from him again. She lived with different families and worked the best she could. Being illiterate poor people, they were not much help to her. She finally came to California with a group of migrant workers to work in the orange groves.”

  “If she was married by the priest, there is bound to be a record of it in Mexico,” Miss Tinkham mused.

  “Oh, I believe she was married all right. But what good would it do? How can she find out where Heinz is after all these years? And it won’t make her an American citizen,” Jesse said.

  “I’m not so sure, Jesse,” Miss Tinkham said softly. “At least we have something to go on. But we’ve got to get her away from that laundry somehow. She must be in terror all the time.”

  “It’s an old, old story,” Jesse said. “Some of them work at night, on the sly, and the employers take rotten advantage of them.”

  “As soon as our various shops start producing, we will have transportation. Then we can start doing something effective about her situation.”

  “I’ve got my car,” Jesse said, “and I’ll drive you anywhere you want to go after work or on the weekend. She says you gave her a place to live and treat her like she was an old friend.”

  “Tell her whether we have much or little, she is welcome to share it.”

  Miss Tinkham knew that N. Carnation understood by the look on her face.

  “Time we was puttin’ the hearse to bed,
ain’t it?” Mrs. Feeley stood up.

  “We have enjoyed the party,” Miss Tinkham said, “but we don’t want to interfere with your plans for the evening. And since we are forced to impose on you for a lift home…”

  “We don’t have to do anything before eight o’clock tomorrow morning,” James said.

  “Not every day we get to visit with cultured persons like you,” Bim said.

  When the group started out the front door, Miss Tinkham spied the little piano and could not resist a handful of notes in passing.

  “Now you can’t get away with that!” Bim pulled up the piano bench and some chairs. “This calls for beer.”

  Mrs. Feeley and Mrs. Rasmussen could see they were in for a session. They started looking for the Ladies’ Room and took N. Carnation with them.

  The sound of the piano brought a group in from outdoors, still commenting on the hearse on the truck.

  “She plays swell, like Liberace,” Bim said.

  “It won’t sound that way when you get the piano tuned,” Miss Tinkham said as she started “Waltzing Matilda” so they could all sing.

  Nobody seemed to bother with introductions. They just accepted the music gratefully and unquestioningly. When they stopped to catch their breath, Bim said: “I’ll bet you could do those traumatic readings to musical accompaniment.”

  “It’s been a long, long time,” Miss Tinkham smiled, “but one of my war horses used to be ‘A fool there was and he made his prayer to a rag, a bone, and a hank of hair.’”

  “Blondes,” James said. “A dime a dozen.”

  “We really must go.” Miss Tinkham rose and her friends followed. The group urged them to stay but the pianist always liked to quit while she was ahead.

  Jesse and James took Mrs. Feeley in the front seat with them and all the others piled in the back of the truck, shouting directions. They stopped at a roadside stand and the boys bought six racks of barbecued spareribs and a huge sack of buns. Mrs. Rasmussen bought a case of cold beer over the protests of the young men.