The Rib From Which I Remake the World

by Ed Kurtz

  Stu pursed his lips and shrugged.

  “They don’t, though. You ever been to the city, Jojo?”

  “I bet on the horses at Oaklawn once in a while.”

  “Well, okay—but I mean a big city. A real city. I mean St. Louie or, hell, or Chicago.”

  “Nope,” Jojo answered, nodding his thanks to Stu as his soda materialized on the counter. “Can’t say that I have.”

  “Shee-it, boy. Folks run around like motorized freckles in places like that, always on the run like the hounds of hell was nippin’ at their heels. Now, that’s no way to live, is it?”

  “I reckon not,” Jojo said. He tipped the glass to his mouth and drank greedily. The sugar shocked his system, but it felt good.

  “The simple things,” Finn said again. “Yes, sir.”

  “Say,” Jojo began, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. “When were you ever in Chicago, Finn?”

  “Well, I wasn’t ever. But I seen a hundred pictures at the Palace, haven’t I?”

  “Yeah, sure,” Jojo said with a smirk. “I saw Roxie Hart myself a couple of times.”

  “Sure, sure,” Finn said with a broad grin and a snicker.

  “How about what they’ve got going now?”

  “Who, the Palace?”

  “Yeah. Something called Motherhood Too Soon. They say it’s a roadshow.”

  “Sounds . . . licentious.”

  “News to you?”

  “News to me, my friend.”

  Jojo finished off his soda and popped a cigarette in his mouth. Finn was quick with a match to light it. He lit his own off the same flame.

  “Bunch of them checked into the hotel last night. Late last night. Odd folks. One of them dressed like a doctor, and a leggy gal looked like she’s got ice water instead of blood.”

  “Got yourself a circus, sounds like.”

  “All three rings of it.”

  “Gunna give ’em the boot?”

  “Got no reason to. Not yet, anyhow.”

  “Life of a hotel copper,” Finn said.

  Jojo nodded and groaned. “Not a cop anymore, Finn.”

  “Same difference, ya ask me. You just don’t get tossed out for hitting the whiz now like you woulda been under Ernie.”

  Jojo wrinkled his nose at that. Ernie Rich was a tough boss all right—a lot of folks called him Chief S.O.B. when he wasn’t in the room, since the B rhymed with his given name—but hooch had nothing to do with Jojo’s dismissal, or anything else for that matter. He found himself resenting Finn for bringing it up.

  For his part, Finn just chuckled and slapped Jojo on the back. He nearly drove Jojo right over the counter with the force of it.

  “Boy howdy, do you worry too much! The face on you!”

  “Yeah, sure,” Jojo grumbled. “I know—Jojo the dog-faced boy.”

  “We-ell . . .” Finn drawled. “You know that ain’t what I meant. . . .”

  “Hell, Finn . . . it don’t mean nothing.”

  “Well, I didn’t mean . . .”

  “Skip it,” Jojo half-growled. “I just came by for the air, but I don’t reckon it’s any cooler in here than it is out in the sun. Guess I’d better dig into a better foxhole.”

  Finn wiped his face with the sleeve of his shirt and turned a nasty grimace on Stu, who seemed to be sleeping standing up.

  “Damn your eyes, Stu—how come that fan ain’t on?”

  Stu snapped his head up and mumbled a protracted “Hu-uh-uhn?”

  Jojo rose from the stool and smoothed his suit down the front with his hands. It didn’t do much good.

  “Ah, now, you’re leaving sore,” Finn complained.

  “Do me a favour,” Jojo said, ignoring the rest of it. “You see or hear anything from them roadshow people, drop in on me and let me know about it, huh?”

  “Sure, Jo. I’ll do that.”

  “Keep it under your hat—”

  “—of course, of course—”

  “—but keep your ear to the ground.”

  “I’ll send ya a smoke signal,” Finn offered with a wet grin. “Me good brave.”

  “Just be a discrete brave, savvy?”

  “Natch.”

  Jojo gave a weak salute and headed for the door. The jangling bell overhead and the rush of hot, stagnant air in his face drowned out the sound of Finn bawling out poor Stu over the fan some more. The only shade to be seen was the tiny dark square on the sidewalk, the wobbling shadow of the shingle above. Everything else was hit hard by the late morning sun, bright and hot and unforgiving. Jojo blinked the sweat out of his eyes and touched the tips of his fingers to his face, suddenly self-conscious that he hadn’t shaved yet that morning. He didn’t think it showed, but he could practically feel the shadow forming over his face, darkening his otherwise pallid Scotch-Irish skin. He gritted his teeth and shook it off—like a dog shakes off water.

  “Christ on a crutch,” he muttered, just loud enough to be heard by a passing woman with blue hair and a shrivelled face. She shot a remonstrative look at Jojo, who presented an exaggerated smile and removed his hat in response.

  “Good morning, ma’am.”

  The shrivelled woman grunted a hurumph in reply and tottered on by. Again, Jojo ran his fingers over his face, his cheeks and chin, his forehead and temples and the sides of his nose.

  Woof, woof, he thought bitterly.

  Jojo slogged on, up Franklin to Main, where the glaring bright Palace marquee reappeared, still shimmering in the liquid heat like a mirage in the Sahara. The black block letters remained unchanged, and as Jojo drew nearer—almost involuntarily, as if drawn by unseen forces—he became aware of the developing throng of people under the theatre’s triangular awning, forming a jagged, misshapen sort of queue that extended the length of the white brick edifice. Jojo paused diagonal from the box office on the other side of the street. He didn’t try to count the heads, but he guessed there must have been thirty-five or forty people milling up in front of the place. And it was a good two hours before the first show, according the obnoxious sandwich board by the curb.

  For a low-rent hygiene picture?

  He drifted up the sidewalk until he was directly across from the crowd, squinting in the brightness at the sweating faces floating along the line. He recognized quite a lot of them—one didn’t serve on a small town’s police force for as long as he did without getting familiar with the citizenry. And they were all women, or girls, from the first in line to the last. At first, Jojo assumed it was because of the war, but there was no dearth of serviceable young men in Litchfield. The only one Jojo could think of who had left to enlist was Eddie Manning, and that would still leave a few Toms, Dicks, and Harrys for the Wednesday matinee.

  Then he took a more measured gander at the sandwich board and realized what was up—women and “hi-school” girls only, it said. He saw plenty of both: Tammy Hoff and Maggie Parker and Maggie’s sister Lula (or was it Lola?) who’d caused so much trouble between the Barnes boys back in ’39, trouble that ended up with a shooting and only three legs between both brothers. Jojo guessed Maggie’s sister already knew plenty about the shocking facts of life, yet here she was alongside so many other anxious and mildly distressed-looking women, waiting for her turn to come inside and see what the hubbub was all about.

  Curious.

  Jojo noted the time for the next show—the men’s show—and continued down Main for several blocks more until he reached the intersection with Lynch Street, where he hung a left and kept walking.

  Tuck Arnold’s hardware shop wasn’t far. And Georgia May Bagby was about due for her lunch hour any minute now.

  Georgia lay on her side with her legs angled up, fanning herself with a tattered magazine that had Clark Gable on the front. Her chest sparkled in the shafts of sunlight spilling in through the blinds, each bead of sweat a tin
y diamond to accent the ample cleavage swelling out from the top of her baby blue slip.

  For his part, Jojo sat in the wicker chair by the dresser, smoking one of Georgia’s cigarettes—Debs, which each came with a slightly emasculating rose tip. He’d taken off his coat and hat, but remained otherwise dressed, watching the fulsome blonde with detached semi-interest like a sleepy insurance salesman watching a stag film at a convention.

  “You didn’t come for me, then,” she said. It wasn’t a question.

  “Sure, I did.”

  “But not for . . . that. This, I mean.”

  She swept the magazine along the length of her body, straightening her legs as she did so, as though she were the latest luxurious model on the showroom floor. Jojo grinned.

  “No, I’m afraid not.”

  “Hot, though,” she said, resuming her fanning. “Glad I took off the dress all the same. I don’t know how you stand that awful suit this time of year.”

  “It’s the uniform.”

  “Everyone’s got one, haven’t they?”

  “More or less. Like belly buttons and assholes.”

  Georgia’s face flushed pink and she frowned.

  “But I’ll bet you wore a suit when you were a little boy. I’ll bet you were born in a damn suit. No short pants for wee little Jojo, nossir.”

  He just sucked at the red-filtered cigarette in lieu of response. It was nearly done, and he was already considering firing up another.

  “You got anything to drink around here?”

  “Rotgut,” she said with disdain. “A guy left it here a month ago, untouched. Brought it in a brown paper bag, figuring on getting tight, but he was so nervous I guess he forgot all about it.”

  “Nothing else?”

  Georgia shrugged.

  In the kitchen, she brought out a pair of dusty-looking rocks glasses and set them on either side of the bottle. Crab Orchard whiskey, according to the label. Jojo screwed his mouth up to one side and filled the glasses.

  “No, honey,” Georgia objected. “None for me.”

  “Two for me, then.”

  After his first swallow he noticed the lipstick on the edge of the glass. He didn’t mind, not much. He had another swallow and made a face. It was awful stuff.

  “Told you,” she gloated.

  “If he’d been a gent, he’d have brought something nicer.”

  “Sure, or flowers. And told me I reminded him of his dear old mother.”

  “I’d like to meet the mother who reminds anyone of you.”

  “Play nice,” she warned with a wagging finger, “or mama spank.”

  Jojo snickered. He’d never been on the receiving end of a Georgia May spanking, but he’d done plenty else with the girl who sported the worst reputation in Litchfield. Most folks, when they spoke in low, conspiratorial tones about her, freely called Georgia a whore—even the fabled Whore of Babylon, once or twice within Jojo’s earshot—but he’d never seen any hard evidence of that. When at last the time had come for Sheriff Rice to appease the bible-beating busybodies and introduce a formal investigation into the matter, it was Deputy George Walker who drove out to the dilapidated Bagby house four and half miles south of town on Jackson Hole Road. The lady hadn’t been pleased to find a policeman at her door and unleashed a blue streak of curses that would make a sailor blush to hear them, and yet they weren’t long in getting into bed and dampening the dirty sheets with enough sweat for eight hours of vicious lovemaking rather than the thirty minutes it took them.

  No charge, deputy, she’d snarled afterwards, and Jojo didn’t think he’d ever laughed so hard in all his life. He told her when he left she was like an old mountain road, and when she gave him a puzzled look he explained how they both had dangerous curves. Then they both laughed. And Jojo was back within a week, and many times more besides.

  It got old, but never sour. It just stopped in a natural sort of way. He’d met Sarah, who was substantially more than a turn in the sheets, and who would soon be the locus of the unravelling of his life. But through it all Georgia remained constant, a brick. They never screwed anymore, but Jojo was glad for what turned into something considerably better—a fellow outsider, a friend in sin. And also the first person since Beth to learn of Jojo’s terrible, shame-making secret, the primary source of his lifelong self-loathing, half of the handle he’d carried since childhood when he began sprouting thick chestnut-coloured hair from the top of his head to the toes on his feet.

  “Well, you’re not saying much, and you didn’t come for a poke.” Georgia changed her mind and tipped the fuller glass against her full bottom lip. “Were you wanting to try the sugar treatment again?”

  “Nah,” he said, absently rubbing his forehead. “I could use a fresh shave, though.”

  “That’ll have to be on your own time, sweets,” she said. “I still need to get back to Tuck’s. It’s not as though anybody else would take me on if he tossed me into the street, you know.”

  “I’ve told you before I could get you on at the hotel.”

  “And I’ve told you a hotel is the last place for a girl with appetites like mine. I’d be tarred and feathered inside a month.”

  “You should leave for greener pastures. A bigger town.”

  “Sure, a place I could disappear into, like the invisible man. And then what? I’d forget myself, be dead before I was dead. And where would you be? How many friends you got left, Jo?”

  “Hell, maybe I’d go with you.”

  “Yeah, and we’d open a restaurant together. You’d run the kitchen while I took orders.”

  “Christ,” Jojo rasped, lighting another of her smokes. “That doesn’t sound half bad.”

  “Sounds like a dream, because that’s what it is. You shoulda left the day the walls started coming down around you, and me? Well, shit . . . I shoulda never come here in the first damn place. But it’s too late for old-timers like us, Jojo. We’re part of the foundations now. The town whore and the washed-up drunk ex-cop who stuck it to a . . .”

  She trailed off, her lips still fighting to form the word but no breath the push it out. Jojo sighed heavily and finished off the glass.

  “She wasn’t such a bad kid,” he said at length, sotto voce.

  “I didn’t mean . . .”

  “Forget it.”

  “Hell, I never met even met her. And you know I ain’t prejudiced.”

  “Sounds like the hit record this week. I keep hearing it everywhere I go.”

  “Who’s a whore got to hate? I’m lower than them.”

  “I said forget it.”

  They were both quiet for a spell, just breathing and smoking and listening to the clock tick. After a while, Georgia rose from the rickety kitchen table and vanished into the back room to get dressed. She looked a bit rumpled to Jojo, but he guessed she usually did. They were a rumpled pair, she and him.

  “You go on ahead,” he said while he refilled his glass. “I’d better catch some shut-eye. Taking in a picture before work tonight.”

  “What, that garbage Russ Cavanaugh’s got showing this week? Doesn’t seem like something you’d enjoy.”

  “It’s air conditioned,” he answered. Then, after a moment: “And Irene Dunne’s not in it.”

  “I’d hope not, for her sake.”

  “The hell with her. Listen, you get on to work. Just see that I’m up by half past six, will you?”

  “Aye, aye, captain.”

  He gave a mock salute and drank deeply of the rotgut whiskey. Georgia opened the door, and she paused halfway through.

  “Oh, and Jojo? There’s a razor and some shaving soap in the washroom. You’re starting to show a little.”

  With a sad, knowing smile, she went out and shut the door. Jojo listened to her steps crossing the short distance of the front porch, tapping down the stairs and diminishing i
nto silence before he heard the roar of her engine. He killed the glass and groaned in disgust, at the foul hooch and at himself.

  He rose, found himself a bit dizzy, and decided to sleep it off before shaving. He wouldn’t want to demolish his hairline, which was always the toughest part. Besides, his face sported enough white marks from the nicks and slices he’d given himself over the years from shaving cold sober, including the long pink line that ran the length of the left side of his nose. Knife-fight, he always explained. You should see the other guy.

  With a grunt and a warm flash of shame, Jojo staggered into Georgia’s bedroom and was asleep in his clothes almost as soon as his head touched the pillow.

  It smelled like her.

  Chapter Four

  By early evening, the world had been cooking in the heat of the day on high, and though the worst of the sun’s punishment was past for now, the result lingered on.

  And though the kitchen was by far the hottest room in the house, at least in summertime, Theodora found herself standing over the stove all the same, getting hotter by the minute. She’d drawn nearly every curtain in the house and switched off all the lights so that only what remained of the late afternoon light illumined her work, which was enough for now. Miracle of miracles, the pilot light kept on for a change—she hadn’t had to relight it even once—and the potatoes were bouncing in the roiling water. In the oven, the ham spewed a nutty aroma from the peanut butter glaze she’d slathered on it, something new she opted to try from a list of low-point recipes printed in last weekend’s Sunday paper. Rationing was tough, but she was getting better all the time at making the most of it. She only hoped Russ wouldn’t scoff at her efforts. After all, everybody had to do their part. There was a war on.

  Theodora pulled open a drawer and extracted a long fork with which to test the potatoes, but the jangling telephone on the wall had other ideas about that. She set the fork on the counter and hurried over to catch it before the caller gave up. She picked up on the fourth ring.

  She barely got through the quick two syllables of hello before a throaty voice with a high Southern twang cut right into it.

  “Gimme Russell Cavanaugh and do it quick,” the man on the line said breathlessly. “It’s an emergency, and I ain’t kiddin’ about that, neither.”