The club, Perroquet, was so jammed they drove around until finding a parking place two blocks away. Upon entering the club via the password, "Polly wanna cracker," the group was amazed. Men in tuxedos danced with glossy youth or with slightly older women acting like flappers. A black band on a raised dais tooted and thumped. Juts, a born dancer, thought it the best music she'd ever heard. Resplendent in a short silver-gray dress, a white orchid pinned on her left breast, Juts turned many a gentleman's head. It wasn't her clothes that did it, as she supposed, but rather her smile. She looked like a gal who had fun. She fit right in with the decor of this gorgeous club. No cheap joint, it boasted a centerpiece of carefully arranged flowers on each table, the colors offering a further accent to the club's decor. Orrie, overdressed, plopped at the table. Ev swam in deep purple, a flattering shade for her. The men, except for Noe Mojo, didn't own tuxedos but they dressed in their Sunday best and passed. Noe glittered like patent leather in his tuxedo. Being a Japanese American, he knew he must always be perfect because white people stare at you so. He was a man of culture and impeccable manners, and Orrie was nuts about him. In her young life no man had ever treated her with such respect. The crew could figure why Orrie gushed over Noe, but it was a little harder figuring it the other way around. Her open emotion, her unalloyed warmth, knocked him out.
"Wheezie, ain't it the bees' knees?" Orrie gawked.
"Snake's garters, all right." Ev giggled.
"What would you ladies like to drink?" Lionel inquired.
Julia quickly put in her order. "Old Fashioned."
"Me, too," Ev echoed.
"Lionel, I'd like a Pink Lady."
Louise stared silently at the flowers.
"Louise?" Lionel, a tall, willowy fellow, asked.
"Milk," Wheezie said in a soft voice.
"Milk?" Lionel was amazed.
"Are you tilted?" Juts fingered her orchid.
"Julia, you know I never reek of strong waters."
"Brother!" Ev slapped her thigh.
"Really, Evelyn, I don't expect you to understand." Louise threw her head back.
Pearlie, wisely, kept his peace.
"Come on, Louise, this is a celebration," Chessy told her.
"I told Pearlie when we got married, lips that touch alcohol will never touch mine."
Orrie, wanting to kick up her heels, noted, "Well, you order a drink and Pearlie can stay dry."
"I don't think drinking befits a Christian." Louise would need a tent if she kept this up.
"Jesus drank hooch," Julia stated.
Louise, shocked, denied such blasphemy.
"Sure he did," Juts declared.
"That's impossible, Julia. Our good Lord never did anything human."
"He drank wine, Louise. You ain't the only person to ever read the Bible." Julia smacked the table.
The men were getting uneasy. They wanted to drink and they wanted to enjoy themselves. If Louise was going to pull her Saint Catherine number, the night would be a bust.
"Jesus, son of God almighty, didn't guzzle no wine." Angry, Louise lapsed into pre-Immaculata grammar.
"What in goddamned hell do you think he drank at the Last Supper? Coca-Cola?" Julia insisted.
"That's right, Wheezie." Orrie patted her hand.
Ev chimed in. "Yeah. 'Take, eat, this is my body. Take, drink, this is my wine.' "
"Blood," Julia corrected her.
"Isn't that what I said?"
"Well..." Louise was dying to be convinced.
"Sweetheart, we wouldn't want you to cross yourself. Communion is wine. You can have a glass of wine," Pearlie soothed her. "Well..."
Lionel, not a man to lose the moment, snapped his fingers and the waiter promptly arrived at the table. "We'd like two Old Fashioneds, one Pink Lady, one glass of chilled white wine—"
"Red," Louise interrupted him, then whispered to Orrie, "Blood's red."
"Pardon me; a chilled glass of red wine." Lionel knew the men's habits, so he continued: "Two Scotch on the rocks, one bourbon and one devil rum."
"Black and White or Green Stripe on that Scotch, sir?"
"Black and White." Lionel then checked with Chessy, who nodded.
As the waiter disappeared, Lionel informed them the stuff was cut only once here. Particularly fine brands weren't cut at all.
Pearlie asked Louise to dance. Juts sat with Chessy while the other couples danced, too. Chessy was cursed with two left feet. She knew that as soon as the first dance was over she could dance with the other fellows. Returning, Noe invited her to the floor and the two of them put on a show.
The drinks arrived and Chessy paid for them. Lionel protested, "Now, Chessy."
"You get the next round, bub. We can each take a turn except for Pearlie."
"You got to let me catch one fly," Pearlie said.
"Uh-uh." Chessy shook his blond head. "This is on us."
When the dancers returned, Chessy held up his glass. "To Pearlie and Louise's new business. May it thrive."
"Hear, hear." The others agreed and tossed their drinks down.
Louise gulped half her glass and smiled as it burned all the way to her stomach.
Julia hit the dance floor again, this time with Lionel. A dark man watched her with great interest Louise, wishing to become as close to Christ as possible in as short a time, ordered another red wine.
Glasses tinkled, firewater flowed, the night hopped with each hour. The dark man asked Julia to dance. He was an expert partner but there was something about him that she didn't like. After the dance she came back to the table.
"Another Old Fashioned? Did you order that for me, O Sheik?" Juts teased Chessy.
"I figured you'd need it, the way you're carrying on out there." Chessy smiled. He loved to watch Julia dance.
Noe and Orrie gracefully turned and twisted. The band got hotter and hotter. The dark man came back for Julia. She gave Chessy a frown but then got up to dance with him.
Ev gave Lionel, Chessy, Louise and Pearlie the entire plot of Ben Hur which the others hadn't seen. After Ev's lurid descriptions, none of them could wait. Louise wanted to know if they really showed Jesus on the screen. Ev confessed she couldn't remember. The naval battle and the chariot race obscured the finer points of religious sentiment for her. Julia was having trouble with that man on the floor and she started back for the table. As she neared it he grabbed her arm and held her. Chessy noticed this and called out, "Hey, leave her alone."
The man let go and advanced toward Chessy, who was seated. "You married or something?"
"No."
"Then mind your own business," the guy hissed.
"Just a minute, mister. She's my girl." Chessy was halfway to standing.
"Not anymore she ain't." The guy kicked the chair right out from under Chessy and he fell flat on his ass.
"Hey!" Julia slugged him.
In a flash the elegant clothes were forgotten and Perroquet had a brawl on its hands. Whether it was the moon, the booze or the hour, the place boomed like a match to gas.
"Yeck." Ev dove under the table. Orrie and Noe found themselves stranded in the middle of the dance floor, among a sea of fists. Noe, a kendo enthusiast, grabbed the microphone stand and obliterated with great precision anyone who came in his path. Orrie dodged behind him. He'd swing and she'd duck. "You got 'im, honey."
Chessy and Lionel pounded away back to back. Louise was paralyzed on the spot. Ev tried to pull her under the table by the hem of her skirt but she couldn't move her. Julia, never one to duck out, boxed like a bantamweight. She caught one poor sucker right on a glass chin and he keeled over, cold. The dark fellow fought his way to her and grabbed her arm with every intention of hurting her or, worse, carting her out of there. A chair flew by Chessy and Lionel's heads. Julia, one arm pinned by the man's viselike grip, snatched the centerpiece and squashed it on his face. For a moment his grip loosened and she wriggled free. She bent over, stepped on his left foot while she grabbed his right leg, and in one sw
ift motion pulled it as high as it would go and higher. His whole inseam ripped open. Enraged, he punched her on the chest. She wobbled back a step or two but kept her dukes up.
"Don't you dare hit my baby sister!" Louise shrieked. She picked up a broken chair leg and blasted it right over his head. He saw stars.
Julia grabbed Louise's hand. "Come on, Wheeze."
"Ev's under the table."
Without even looking, Julia and Louise reached under the table and yanked Ev out. The three bobbed and weaved for the door.
Noe, wielding his microphone stand, cleared a path • over to Chessy and Lionel. Seeing him coming, Chessy yelled, "Mojo's a man on fire!"
Pearlie, besieged by two once impeccably dressed men, stopped to look and got pasted right on the eye. Noe wiped out all opposition in front of him and Orrie fed him constant information concerning his rear. She seemed glued to his back.
"Come on, fellas, let's get out of here," he ordered. They fell in behind him, Chessy and Lionel fighting a rear-guard action until all were safely out the door.
"Chessy!" Julia ran over.
"Am I glad to see you. I didn't know if you got out the door or not."
Louise growled, "I lost my shoes in that hellhole! Pearlie, you didn't see them, did you? Oh, Pearlie, what happened?"
'Two against one," he mumbled. His eye already was almost closed.
"Poor baby." Louise kissed him.
"Did you see Noe? Douglas Fairbanks couldn'ta done better." Orrie crowed.
Noe still had the microphone stand in his hand.
"I think we'd better get to the cars before the police get to us," Lionel wisely noted. He heard sirens way off.
They ran, limped, scurried for their cars and ducked in as the cops passed. Louise crouched by the side. She hadn't made it in the door. Once the paddy wagons whizzed on, the group howled like hyenas.
"Did ya see that guy I shoveled? Blood and snot all over his face." Pearlie slapped Chessy on the back.
"Ha! You shoulda seen Juts and me. We left that masher hearing birds." Louise beamed.
"Yeah, we knocked his dick up in his watch pocket," Julia roared.
"That's the God's honest truth. I saw them," Lionel concurred.
"Pick one up and knock one down," Julia bragged some more.
"Hell, I'm not traveling anywhere without you. You can protect me." Chessy put his arm around Julia's shoulders. Her dress looked like the guy in Ben Hur who didn't finish the chariot race, this was Ev's impression. In fact, they all had wrecked their clothes.
"I always say never throw the first punch. Throw the last." Louise studied her fingernails.
"We left many an aching breadbasket." Noe chuckled.
"This whole fight is your fault, Julia," Chessy said seriously.
"It was not! That creep wouldn't leave me alone."
"Chessy Smith, how dare you talk to her that way." Now Louise was mad.
"It's your fault because we aren't married," Chessy continued.
"Huh?"
"That's what the man said." Chessy smiled.
"He was three sheets to the wind." Julia shrugged.
"I don't want this to happen again. Do you, boys?" He looked to the other men, who all agreed it was a terrible event.
"Listen to them, will ya?" Julia marshaled her female support. "They only survived because Dempsey's got nothing on us."
"If you'd marry me this would never happen again." Chessy folded his arms.
"You're kidding," Julia said.
"In front of all our friends? I'm serious. Marry me. Besides, honey, with you around I'll never fear for my life."
The group stood, apprehensive, looking at Julia Ellen.
She paused, then slowly drawled, "O.K., Chessy Smith, but when you have a bad day, remember: you asked for it."
May 22, 1980
"Louise, I don't know if that's right." Orrie frowned. Near eighty, she still had fire-engine-red hair and she penciled in her eyebrows a la Marlene Dietrich. With Louise's blue hair and Orrie's red, they made quite a pair.
"Course it's right. Bible goes hard on these people." "One thing I learned living here in Runnymede is don't take your trouble to outsiders," Orrie cautioned.
"This 'Save Our Children' bunch may be outsiders, but they can stir up a rumpus. Then I got Nickel and that high-and-mighty sister of mine where I want them."
"Didn't those fruit people merge with the Ku Klux Klan?"
"Not that I know of." Louise lowered her voice conspiratorially. "Unless they did it in secret."
"Maybe I got them confused with the Nazis."
"Orrie, they're in Germany. What do they have to do here?"
"No, there's an American Nazi Party." Orrie tried to sound like a librarian.
"That makes no sense. We got our own groups. Why imitate them? Besides, they lost the war. If you're going to imitate someone you ought to pick a winner." Louise rested on this political insight.
"Mark my words, Louise Hunsenmeir, you think twice about stirring up a hornet's nest."
"Fiddlesticks. I'll get Nickel all wired, then she'll come across with the money. And who else will sell to her after the news gets out about her being a pinko commie queer, I ask you? Worse, she's not a genuine queer. She likes men, too!"
"Runnymede's always had those kind of people and always will. Everyone knows anyway."
"Knowing and telling are two different things." Louise folded her arms.
"You sure you aren't mad about Nickel not putting you in her last book?" Orrie hit the nail on the head.
"I am not. I most certainly am not. Whatever gave you that idea? I'm relieved I'm not in that filth she writes. How could I hold my head up in this town? The very idea, the very idea, Orrie Tadia Mojo!"
"Thought you didn't read it."
Louise's eyes opened wide. "I didn't say I read it. I heard about it."
"Who told?"
"A reliable source."
"Louise?" Orrie's voice rose.
"None of your business. A girl has to have some secrets." Louise's little round rouge spots glowed even darker. Her Cadillac-red lipstick pulsated like neon.
"What about Julia's half of the money?" Orrie loved talking about money.
"I can't make Nickel pay her half if she don't insist—and doesn't that rub the wrong way! I guess it's just as well; money burns a hole in Juts' pocket."
"Life's short. Let her spend her dollars."
"Seventy-five isn't so short and she's been spending her dollars ever since she was tiny. Clothes. I never saw such a woman. Even now she goes out to Sears-town and gets sundresses, then buys sandals to coordinate."
"My favorite is when she sent away for the mail order tombstones."
"Ha! I'll never forget that."
"God, yes, she went on a frugality binge back in the fifties and ordered up those tombstones and got cement and a caster in the mail. I can still see that woman mixing those damn things up in her basement."
"Dumb Dora, she stirs them up on her cellar floor in a square like she's supposed to, but she didn't put wood underneath them. Two flat tombstones rock hard on her basement floor." Louise puffed up, recalling Julia's mistakes.
Orrie laughed so hard at the retelling, tears came to her made-up eyes.
"You know, she carved her and Chessy's name in them for spite! They're still down there, Orrie."
"No!"
"I swear it. Down there in her basement like giant cow patties." Louise whooped.
"Don't tell me." This was one of Orrie's favorite expressions.
"Know what she did when she heard Nickel was coming?"
"Bought Coca-Cola and made red-beet eggs?"
"She always does that. The best is she ran to every five and dime in town as well as the mall up near Hanover and bought every damn shade of nail polish on God's green earth. I mean it."
"She only has twenty nails. She got more than twenty colors?"
"Twenty! Her vanity looks like a Revlon counter. And at her age. Orrie, I t
ell you, she's got a screw loose."
"She's something else."
Six of One Page 19