by Diane Munier
“Hey, look…let’s just have a good time,” he said.
“A good time? The way I see it…if I give it to you…then when I do get married…well, I gave you something…for my husband.”
He knew he should stay quiet. He knew that. “What if I’m the husband…someday…like a long time from now…I mean, you don’t know the future. I don’t. What if someday this works out and I get…going and…”
Holy shit!
Now she laughed a little. Good to see her sense of humor return, but he wasn’t joking; he was full of bullshit. He didn’t want to get married. He had shit to do. He couldn’t even give her what she already had. This was humiliating in a way. He wasn’t worthy to screw her or marry her. And talking had pretty much ruined it. Dames and their yakking over every little thing. Most shit wasn’t worth being put into words. Most worked out.
“Don’t be mad,” she said.
“I’m not mad,” he lied. “I’m…frustrated or some shit.”
“Jules…just forget it. Forget I brought it up.”
Brought what up? She was making shit up, pulling it out of the air.
“Leave well enough alone, you know?” he said.
Bobby came over with a beer and handed it to Jules. Then he gave him a smoke and lit it. He was like the angel Gabriel.
He walked away without saying a word. See? Perfect.
He was smoking. “You want me?” he said.
“Yes,” she answered quickly.
“Here I am.” He took a drag and looked away from her. But her hand was on his, and she took the cigarette and took a pull.
“Let’s just let it happen…see where it goes.” He blew his smoke into that big sky.
“I just thought you should know…I’m waiting…for marriage. That way…if it’s too much…well, you should know now.”
He picked up her hand and kissed her knuckles. She wanted to put the cigarette in his mouth, so he allowed it and he pulled. Then he took it from her. “You shouldn’t smoke. It’ll stunt your growth.”
She smiled. “Am I going to be enough for you, Jules?”
He looked over his shoulder and spit a piece of tobacco, then back at her. “That what this is? You think you’re not enough?”
She shrugged, pulling at a clover.
“I’ll tell you what…you find a four-leaf clover in the next two minutes…it’s a sign. We’re gonna end up together. But not without that clover…so get busy.”
She got on her knees and lost no time sorting through. But no sooner had she made her first move than she held one. “Oh my God,” she whispered, falling onto her sweet ass. She looked at him and slowly held up her hand. There between her fingers was a damn four-leaf clover.
He swallowed when he saw it, took it from her and examined it just to make sure.
Damn. This was like from God or something. They were meant.
Chapter 18
Jules was stuffed, his hard stomach ready to pop. He practically fell into the backseat of the Buick and sat back, rubbing his middle. Those girls could cook. Damn.
Then it came like it did…the ghosts…the camps…Jews. “Don’t feed them,” they were told. There were people, rear of the line, who would help them. So they hung on the fences, those skinnies, and they waved, some barely able to raise their arms. They waved to the liberators.
It was so hard…impossible to ignore the emaciation. Easier to ignore orders. Some guys fed them…and some of those survivors died.
After all that, it wasn’t the horrific cruelty of the camps that killed some of them…but the kindness that came after. Food given with compassion…was death.
Jules couldn’t eat like he had today and not think of them. So maybe he wouldn’t keep fighting it. If those ghosts wanted to follow his every move…it was one way they could live…in his mind…standing…staring. He’d done what he could. Hell on wheels.
But they didn’t talk about it—the monkeys. There was nowhere to go to talk about it. Nobody wanted to hear about the war. People were sick to death of it. It was a time to live.
He wondered if he’d be able to catch up. To life. To Isbe…the man she wanted. The husband she’d saved herself for. He’d had the guts to say it might be him. He couldn’t believe his own nerve. But already…he couldn’t bear to think he might lose her. The feel of her lips was still on his from those goodnight kisses. When he was with her…she made him feel like anything could happen. As soon as he left her…the ghosts.
And she wondered if she was enough? She was the good meal…a feast. She might kill him. But that didn’t stop the wanting.
The clover…damn. A sign from God? It was a one-in-ten-thousand shot. He knew that from the army. They bet on that kind of shit. And nobody, no time, just looked down and found one as quickly as she had. That was some kind of divine deal; that’s what he knew.
He sighed as Bobby and Audie got in and slammed their doors, rocking his full gut.
They’d left because the girls had thrown them out. They had to work come morning. They were solid citizens…those girls.
The monkeys understood duty, but as they were now, they were ready to go all night. They would. But they’d pulled it in and said a reluctant farewell.
“Hey, pull around the block,” Jules said. He was revived; he was wired.
Audie drove along the trees that lined the back of Isbe’s house. “Pull up there and stop,” Jules directed from the backseat.
Audie skimmed the curb and hit the brake. “Jughead…let’s call it a night,” he whined.
Jules had never seen Audie so worried about blowing it with a dame. He got out of the backseat and stood there looking. He could see a house through the woods. He went in there, between two pin oaks. Bobby followed. They walked a hundred yards with the ground sloping downward. There was a small creek, narrow enough that a wide step would cross it. On the other side the ground sloped up, bordering the yards to the houses on Isbe’s street.
Isbe’s house was down aways. The two men walked in that direction, and they were soon standing in the trees behind her yard.
“They live on the bright side,” Jules said low, his hands on his hips. Isbe’s house was lit up like a Christmas tree, the screen door closed, but the heavy door open, a welcome to any bastard around…the radio on the patio still played. Francis’s house was shut up tight.
“Those girls…” Bobby said. “I told Dorie to lock up. Look at this shit.”
Bobby pointed out the cigarette butts that littered the ground. Someone had stood here, in this very spot…many times before.
Jules ran his shoe over some of the debris. “Camels.” He squatted and looked the nearest ones over. They weren’t that old.
He straightened up and looked at Isbe’s house again. Anyone could stand here and watch. Three beautiful girls who believed in the goodness of their fellow men. He’d welcomed the privacy of Isbe’s yard for his own selfish reasons, but this was too private.
Audie came along, asking what the hell was going on in his loud-as-hell whisper.
Jules pointed to the trash mixed into the mud, and Audie got quiet.
“Go show up on their porch—scare some sense into them,” Audie said, the gorilla Jules knew, willing to risk Francis’s wrath if need be.
“Nah,” Jules said. He’d been doing some recon, planning for the future, the near future hopefully, looking for a way he could get to her house without leaving the Buick in front.
But tonight, when they’d already said goodbye, how to explain he’d been in these woods? He was standing right where this unknown freak had stood. She wouldn’t like it—him creeping in her trees.
He motioned the others to follow. They piled back into the Buick.
“Drive back to her house,” Julius told Audie.
“You gonna tell them?” Audie said to him in the mirror.
“I’m gonna tell them to close that door and make sure it’s locked,” Jules said, not liking to explain every little thing when it was obvious.
Audie drove around, and Jules had his door open before Audie came to a full stop. He heard Bobby behind him. He went up to the door and knocked. Just like he thought, it whipped right open, Little Bits standing there in her buttoned-up robe, her hair carefully arranged in a hairnet, her toothbrush in her hand, her eyes going wide and her mouth popping open.
“Did you know it was us?” Bobby said over Jules’s shoulder.
She shook her head.
“You should ask before you open the door,” Bobby said, pushing past Jules to go to her.
Jules said, “Where’s Isbe?”
He heard her on the stairs and Dorie widened the door, seemed to notice the toothbrush in her hand. She quickly stuck it in her pocket.
“What’s the matter?” Isbe asked, wearing her robe like before. She had a sash tied tightly around her small waist. She had these curves, same ones he’d had his hands on all day. He pushed past Dorie and the baboon so he could get closer to her.
“We were just noticing how this place sets up, the woods back there and no houses in front. We got it in mind you might not have locked the back door,” Jules said.
Isbe held her hairbrush, and her beautiful hair was so long and glossy he had to put his hands in his pockets so he wouldn’t reach out to touch it.
“Really?” Isbe asked, seeming doubtful they’d returned just for this.
“We couldn’t remember if you girls locked up,” Jules said again, and he hated repeating.
Isbe’s lips formed the “wh” for “what,” was his guess, and she shook her head a little. “Did my dad put you up to this?”
“Don’t know him,” Jules said quick, intending to add, “You didn’t introduce us…remember?” but he didn’t tag all of that on the end.
“Okay, fellas, what is this really?” Isbe asked, folding her arms.
“Really?” Jules said while Dorie and Bobby stared at each other, seeming to have forgotten the important issue with the door. Bobby peeled the hairnet off of Dorie’s head and stuck it in his pocket, and she was swatting at his hands and laughing.
“I didn’t realize there’s no houses over there,” Jules said, ignoring the baboon and his girl.
“So?” Isbe asked with a smile, stepping closer to him, taking him by the front of his shirt.
“So, that’s a perfect place for peepers,” he said, conscious of her hands. But Bobby’s antics with Dorie were making him mad. He wasn’t kidding around here.
“Jules…I grew up here. And you know I can lock my door. Do it every night.” She kind of sang this before rising on her tiptoes and kissing him on the mouth.
“What about right now? Is it locked right now?” he asked, trying to keep to the mission and so glad he came back here to feel her sweet, warm lips again.
But now she was scowling a little. She smelled so damn good he leaned closer just to breathe.
“Jules, I already have one copper in my life,” she said, and kissed him one more time real quick.
He grabbed her then, his hands moving on her upper arms. “Humor me?”
She swallowed. “Rodger Dodger.” She saluted, then smiled.
Oh, she was cute. “Still got that clover?” he said, ignoring Bobby’s snort.
“Yeah,” she said. “I put it under my pillow.”
He was pleased. “You think it will turn into money?”
She was almost up against him now; then she was, and his arms were around her. Audie beeped the horn.
Bobby moved toward the kitchen holding Dorie’s hand. That one was on his heels giggling and chattering. Jules craned his neck to see him locking that back door, but Dorie wanted to go out to turn off the radio, and they were messing around.
“I don’t want to scare you,” Jules said, low-voiced, attention all on Isbe, “but you girls alone…”
“Oh,” Isbe groaned, “I get it all the time, Jules. We’re sensible.”
“You ever see anything…call the cops,” he said, “then you call me. I got a phone in my building. No, forget that; you call Audie, and he’ll get right over here. He’s got a phone in his house. You call Audie. Get the number from Francis. You got a weapon in here?”
She was looking at him like she was losing patience. Audie beeped again.
“Stop worrying about us.” She had one brow raised. So cute.
“You close your curtains at night—upstairs? You careful about that? Just because there’s no house back there…if someone wanted…they could stand back there—you got to think of this.” He was touching her hair now, her face.
“Jules,” she whispered, “we’re fine, you big lug.”
“Yeah,” he whispered. “Let’s keep it that way.”
Bobby went by and tugged on him, telling him, “Say goodnight.”
Jules kissed her once more and let go of her. Like before, he didn’t want to leave her. What was this?
“I’ll dream about you,” she said as he pulled away. His last view of her was in that robe, hair like silk, sweet and girlish, eyes rich and deep, her hand still outstretched toward him.
Dorie said goodnight to Bobby and, with some hesitation, they closed the door as Jules cleared the threshold and backed away.
Bobby was laughing to himself.
“Don’t talk,” Jules said back.
They got in the car and with Audie grousing around, they drove off.
Sunday night went quickly. Jules slept like a rock. He got up early Monday morning and assessed the damage in his mirror. He still looked like a punk. Isbe was right to ignore him at Tillman’s. She’d protected him—from himself. He didn’t like that; it felt weak, but he understood.
His clothes were dirty, so he finished gathering his laundry into the duffel and hiked it down to the gal who ran the cleaners. She asked about his face in her bad English, pointing at her own cheek, and he laughed and didn’t even try to explain. Some Irish fooks, that was all. Not worth talking about.
He bought a paper and a cup of coffee at the diner and sat in a booth looking through the want ads. Bobby came in. Their buildings weren’t far apart, and this diner was between both. He’d cleaned up too, but he still looked for shit.
Bobby sat across from him, and the waitress brought another cup and the pot, filled Jules’s, filled Bobby’s. He ordered two eggs, scrambled, and bacon. Jules wasn’t hungry for anything yet; then he was, and said, “Give me the same as him.” He loved fresh eggs after all the powdered ones they’d eaten.
“I’m going over to Fifth and looking at that appliance store,” Jules said. He’d had all that radio school.
“I’m gonna see my uncle. Sure you don’t want to come?”
“Nah. We don’t have cards. You see what he can do for you.”
“You think Unci Cabhan will come through?” he said.
Jules shrugged. “You know what I think? You got a better chance on your own. Meantime…it’s nice havin’ wheels.”
Bobby laughed and poured some of his coffee on his saucer and sipped.
“Why the hell you always do that? I thought the army cured you of that tea party shit,” Jules said.
Bobby laughed some before sipping again, noisily too. When he was done, he said, “Dorie says we got to clean up the language.”
“Oh yeah? Little Bird says that?”
“She says it hurts her ears.” He looked into his cup, grinning like a dick.
“I thought we had cleaned it up,” Jules said, eyes back on the paper.
“You and Audie should listen to yourselves,” Bobby said, and Jules checked to see if this baboon was serious.
“Apeshit…you hear your own self?” Jules asked.
“I’m doing better. We need to leave all the ‘shits’ out.”
“Yeah. We do.” He wiped over his face. “But Audie’s got the ride.”
They laughed then.
“You get the speech too?” Jules asked.
“On what we won’t be doing? I heard.”
“Ain’t been told ‘no’ in a while,” Jules sai
d.
“These girls—they’re different than our usuals,” Bobby noted. “And that clover…chimp-pansy, you’re gonna end up married.”
“The hell? That’s you,” Jules said. “Where’s that hairnet right now? It’s in your pocket, ain’t it, you stupid baboon?”
Bobby smiled but flushed red, and that hadn’t happened in a while.
“It is,” Jules grinned.
“Eff you,” Bobby said, on edge.
“Kinda handy with those effs. Better watch it. I turn you upside down right now, I could shake that net out.”
“You sound like the gorilla.”
“Yeah? Changing the subject? You moog,” Jules said. “Pee-drinker.”
But look who was changing the subject. That clover… under her pillow. Waiting on some Irish tooth fairy. He could sneak in there and take it and leave a ring. Now that would be some real leprechaun shit.
“Jules?” Bobby said, sharp.
“What?”
“You’re moonin’.”
“You’re outta your mind.”
The waitress brought their breakfasts then.
Chapter 19
“The warehouse is full of them,” Lou Sanger was saying to Jules as he rolled back one side of the big red double doors to the massive brick building in the downtown Chicago neighborhood.
Inside the dark cavern was an appliance graveyard. They moved around a few versions of wringer washing machines, Maytags, Uptons, and even a couple remnants of Mighty Thors, to where a small city of broken radios were piled like building blocks.
He followed Lou through the stacks for a few minutes.
“I can get some of these working,” Jules said.
“You think?”
“I’ll use the ones too busted for parts. Let me see what I can do.”
“You get some of these working and sell them on your own time, split the money with me, but don’t tell Sal,” the short, stout, dark-haired man said in between chomps on his stinking Cigarillo.
Sal was Lou’s brother. The two of them owned the appliance store where Jules had gone looking for work. But Sal was more of a silent partner. That’s what Lou said. Sal only showed up to do the books and rant and rave. Didn’t sound too silent to Jules.