If I Knew You Were Going to Be This Beautiful, I Never Would Have Let You Go

by Judy Chicurel

  “It’s not like we’re going out or anything,” I said. “It’s just—I don’t know, man. I don’t know what it is. The whole Mitch thing, you know?”

  Liz nodded. Her face had lost weight since the abortion. She looked thinner, older, and was working a lot of hours at the dealership, “saving up enough so I can finally split, man, get out of that fucking house.”

  “Go for it, man,” she said now, her gaze cool and knowing. “But don’t be stupid. Go on the Pill, it’s practically foolproof. You want me to go with you? There’s the clinic over in East Cliff, we can go before school starts, have lunch at Cookie’s—”

  “Liz, man, slow it down,” I said, looking around to make sure no one had heard. I wanted to tell her. I wanted to tell her, but I couldn’t because she did have a big mouth, which was why Nanny and I held back from her, why she still thought Nanny was a virgin, why she never knew that when Nanny was stoned enough on ludes she still did it with Voodoo on his stained sheets beneath the Jimi Hendrix poster, and that she felt doubly dirty, balling someone she didn’t love, with the Electric Ladyland album playing in the background and Jimi and his flaming penis hanging over the bed. But neither Liz or Nanny knew that I planned to make love to Luke that very night, in one of the empty rooms at The Starlight Hotel, and that I was prepared through the rhythms of my body and the box of rubbers I’d bought two days ago, since I didn’t have time for clinics and pills. I hadn’t told either of them that I wanted Luke’s honey-colored baby inside me someday, that sometimes, when I thought about it while lying awake at night, I put my hands on my stomach, imagining its shape.

  But not now. I didn’t want it now, when things with Luke were first beginning. I didn’t want to end up like my mother, having to make that kind of choice before I was ready. I wondered had she been careful or careless; did the rubber break, or had she been so carried away by passion she just didn’t care? I wondered if she ever thought about me on my birthday, or wanted to forget the day I was born because it made her sad, or angry, or if she never gave it a second thought. I knew who I was, though. I knew if I carried Luke’s baby around for nine months and had to give it up, I’d give it a second thought. I’d think about it until it drove me crazy.

  Liz was gazing at me, smirking. “You and fucking Luke McCallister. Wouldn’t that be something, man. Wouldn’t that be a trip and a half.” There was love in her eyes, and something else, but I turned away from it and began walking closer to the shoreline.

  Billy faced everybody and coughed a few times. Luke stood farther apart, holding the small silver urn. He’d asked if I’d wanted to ride back over to Farrell’s to pick up the ashes; I’d wanted to get out of my shift at work but I had already gotten this weekend off, both Friday and Saturday, and didn’t want to push my luck. “It’s cool,” Luke said. “I think the cat’s afraid of me, but hey, fuck him if he can’t take a joke.” I wanted to kiss him right there, in front of the A&P, where he’d come looking for me. I smiled, but I felt a small clutch of something when I looked into his eyes. I saw the shadow of the strain there, as if he was trying really hard and unsure that his efforts were succeeding. And then he smiled and the shadow was gone.

  “Okay, man,” Billy said loudly. “We want to do this while it’s still light out, so we can see what we’re doing. So let’s—let’s get going.” Billy was usually the best speaker, a natural master of ceremonies, but he was standing awkwardly in the sand, looking like he’d lost something. His voice sounded too high. I looked around at everyone, waiting. We wanted it to be beautiful, but it was strange, not having the priest, the organ. The limousine out front, waiting for the coffin.

  Then Billy turned to me. “Katie, man, how about you say a few words, start the ball rolling?” And I saw Liz’s eyes slide over, saw that something in them that made me turn away. I stepped forward. I was wearing my cream-colored peasant shirt and most faded jeans. I had washed my hair with Herbal Essence and the juice of half a lemon. I wore mascara and Bonne Bell Musk Oil on my wrists, my throat. Between my legs. I looked out at everyone. Some people were mildly high; out of deference to the occasion, it had been informally decided that hard drugs would wait until after the ceremony. Even Bennie Esposito’s eyes weren’t yet at half-mast. I looked out at my friends and wanted to feel sad, but I felt something else instead.

  “We all know why we’re here tonight,” I said. “I can hear Mitch now, telling me, ‘Keep it short and sweet, sugar, I got a drink to catch over at the lounge.’” There was laughter in the crowd. In back of me the shadows were lengthening in the sand. “If anyone has a memory to share or something you’d like to say . . . just say it, man. We can go down the line.” I cleared my throat. I spoke too quickly, talking about that day in the bar with the construction workers. I didn’t tell about why I’d wanted to speak to Mitch, or what Len had said about the screaming. I just told how he’d handled the construction workers, how they’d done a turnaround at the end. “It wasn’t just because of his leg,” I said. “It was because of Mitch. You know how he was, no bullshit. One of those guys even chipped in for tonight. Told us to get some bagpipes.” More laughter. There were bagpipes at practically all the funerals at St. Timothy’s, somebody’s uncle from Knights of Columbus dressed in a kilt, playing “Danny Boy.” I was starting to feel choked up. “Good-bye, Mitch. I loved you, and I’ll miss you.” I stepped back and turned to look at the ocean. It was all right to cry. A friend was dead, and other friends were close by.

  Almost everyone took a turn. A lot of shared memories: the last joint smoked; the last shot bought. A day at the track. Mitch singing along to the jukebox in a surprisingly clear tenor, belting out “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.” The books that lined the windowsill of his room, Hemingway and Steinbeck and Richard Brautigan and Kurt Vonnegut. “Mitch, baby,” Bennie murmured, swaying lightly on his feet from force of habit; he hadn’t stood up straight in a long time. “He always came in the store, he’d tell me, ‘Hello, beautiful,’ like it was my name,” Angie said, her voice quavering. “No disrespect, I dug him like everyone else did,” Voodoo said, when it was his turn. “But I’m gonna give a quote from Jimi that sounds exactly like what Mitch would have said if he was here: ‘It’s funny how most people love the dead. Once you’re dead, you’re made for life.’”

  Billy went last. He took a crumpled piece of paper from the pocket of his jeans, saying, “I remembered this from when we did Shakespeare in school, man. Can’t remember which play, but I felt it was right on for this—for Mitch.” He read, “‘Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince; and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.’” I stared at Billy, but he was still looking down at the piece of paper, putting it back in his pocket. I was thinking how life went on and on and for weeks and months on end nothing ever seemed to change, and then suddenly people would amaze you.

  Everyone fell silent, and we thought we were done, but then Mitch’s wife stepped into the line, hesitantly, and said, “Is it—if it’s not too late.” She cleared her throat nervously. “I have something, but if it is too late, that’s fine, I don’t want—” She threw her arms out, as if she could draw meaning from the air without having to speak. “I don’t want to intrude,” she finally said, looking around the circle, trying to find our eyes.

  No one spoke at first. Everyone had heard the story of her first reaction to Mitch’s death. But she’d been a part of his life that none of us had known. She was already retreating, her ankles sinking backward in the sand, and I stepped forward and said, “No, it’s—it’s cool, it’s fine, please . . . please. Go ahead.”

  She stepped forward again, standing between Conor and Raven, hugging her shawl tighter around her shoulders. “It’s a poem he liked,” she said. “He liked it very much, and it seemed to fit the occasion. It’s called ‘The Valedictory,’ by José Rizal, but it’s also known as ‘Mi último adiós.’ Mitch used to call it ‘Crown ’n’ Deep.’” She cleared her throat and began:r />
  Land I adore, farewell. . . .

  Our forfeited garden of Eden,

  Joyous I yield up for thee my sad life

  And were it far brighter,

  Young or rose-strewn, still would I give it.

  Vision I followed from afar,

  Desire that spurred on and consumed me,

  Beautiful it is to fall,

  That the vision may rise to fulfillment.

  Little will matter, my country,

  That thou shouldst forget me.

  I shall be speech in thy ears, fragrance and color,

  Light and shout and loved song

  O crown and deep of my sorrows,

  I am leaving all with thee, my friends, my love,

  Where I go are no tyrants. . . .

  She trailed off and bowed her head. You could hear weeping in the crowd. Something about the words, the high, sure timbre of her voice, had been deeply affecting, and she was right. It was totally fitting. I heard someone murmur, “Beautiful, man,” and then Luke turned and climbed up on the jetties and began walking out to the farthest point, where the waves licked the sides of the rocks and all you could hear was the surf pounding. The rest of us followed. He opened the urn, took a handful of ashes, stared out for a long moment at light pouring down from behind a pink cloud, and threw the ashes into the roiling water. He turned and handed me the urn. We looked at each other, unsmiling. I took a small handful of ashes and flung them into the ocean. One by one, everybody took a turn, except Bennie, who had held out as long as he could and now could barely hold his head up and nobody wanted him dropping the urn. “So long, pal,” Conor murmured, gently tossing his ashes into the ocean. Mitch’s wife was last. She took the urn and tipped it upside down so that the remaining ashes rained into the wind until the urn was empty. She stared out at the horizon, a slight smile playing on her lips, and began walking back down the jetties, balancing carefully on the jagged rocks.

  Slowly, everybody filed off the jetties, jumping down to the wet shoreline. I looked backward, once, but it was too dark to see anything. Someone in the crowd began singing “Dead Flowers,” off the Stones’ Sticky Fingers album, and soon everyone was taking it up: “Send me dead flowers to my wedding / And I won’t forget to put roses on your grave . . .” It had started softly, then dipped and swelled until we were one voice practically shouting the words, raucously, joyously, in peculiar but definite harmony, as we made our way off the beach toward the bright lights of the lounge at The Starlight Hotel.

  • • •

  That was a beautiful poem,” Nanny said. We were jammed up in the ladies’ room, which had only two stalls. Rosemary, Mitch’s wife, was examining her face in the mirror as she washed her hands. It was hard to pinpoint her looks; at first glance on the beach, with her long dress and flyaway shawl, she looked like she could have been one of the girls from the Dunes, and I was surprised because I had never pictured Mitch with a Dunes girl. But now, even in this dim lighting, the hard lines around her mouth were evident. She looked around for paper towels to dry her hands and of course couldn’t find any; the holder was always empty. We usually dried our hands with toilet paper, but the stalls were both full, so she began shaking her hands to dry them. She stood facing us and smiled. “There are other, longer versions, but that one was from the Tillie Olsen story ‘Hey Sailor, What Ship?’ From Tell Me a Riddle. Have you read it?”

  “Never heard of it,” Liz said.

  “Mitch loved it,” Rosemary said. “He used to like for me to read it at night, before we went to bed.” She stopped shaking her hands and crossed her arms so that they held her elbows. The fringes of her shawl hung down to her waist. She was telling us something, but I wasn’t sure what. There were things she might have known, but she didn’t know how girls from the Trunk could be when it came to outsiders. Nanny had only been trying to be polite under the circumstances.

  “Yeah, Mitch used to tell some great stories,” Rita said into the stony silence. Her voice sounded very loud in the tiny bathroom. Her face was slack from drinking. She hadn’t liked the way Raven had been glancing at Rosemary. “Never told us he had a wife, though. Must have slipped his mind.”

  Rosemary was lighting a clove cigarette. She crossed her ankles and leaned back against the wall, exhaling. “Really,” she said, her voice bright with interest. “Did he tell you the one about how he built a fort out of beer cans in the living room and refused to come out, even to use the bathroom? Or how he made a pyramid of empty whiskey bottles in the dining room and shot them up, one by one, with his trusty Colt 1911? And how one of the bullets went through the open window and almost hit a two-year-old sitting in a stroller?” She spoke with the same low, musical lilt she had while reciting the poem on the beach. “Have you ever tried cleaning shit out of a shag carpet?”

  It was dead quiet in the bathroom. The stalls were empty, but none of us moved. It was as if our bladders had frozen.

  Liz shrugged. “For better or worse, man.”

  Rosemary looked down and shook her head. The same small smile played on her lips. She took a drag from the cigarette and then ran the butt under cold water. She threw it in the overflowing trash can and turned to leave. She turned back once, though, with her hand on the doorknob. “He wanted to go,” she said. “He enlisted, he wasn’t drafted.” She looked at all of us, her eyes like low-beam searchlights. Then she hugged the shawl closer to her body and went through the door, closing it quietly behind her.

  • • •

  The night wore on, like so many other nights, but different. A long table had been set up against the wall with a buffet of deli cold-cut platters, plastic dishes of pickles and coleslaw, aluminum-foiled pans of baked ziti and tossed salad, and a platter of party cookies tied in orange cellophane from Renzi’s Bakery. Maybe because of the food no one seemed quite as wasted as usual, except for Bennie of course, who was passed out underneath the pool table. Toward midnight, there were more shot glasses lining the bar and Len rigged the jukebox to play a long Rolling Stones riff. Everyone was dancing up a storm. I danced with Billy and Conor and Liz and Nanny and Voodoo and even Len came out from behind the bar, to great cheering, and boogied down to “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” and “Brown Sugar.” Rosemary had been sitting most of the night in a corner of the bar, primly sipping cranberry juice, but Cha-Cha and Conor surrounded her and soon she was downing tequila shots and laughing hysterically at anything anyone said. Now Ray Mackey was twirling her around the dance floor. She was a very good dancer. I wondered if she and Mitch had gone out dancing before he lost his leg, to clubs, maybe, or divey bars with good jukeboxes, or maybe they just danced around their living room while people passing by peered into their windows and watched. Now I knew what Len had meant when he said he kept expecting Mitch to show up; every time I looked at the corner of the bar by the jukebox, I kept expecting to see him sitting there, talking, laughing, his amazing eyes taking everything in until the booze made the click happen and he zoned out to his own private hemisphere.

  Looking around the lounge was like looking at one of those freeze-frame photographs. People were laughing and singing and dancing and, whenever there was a jukebox lull, raising their glasses in a toast to Mitch. His wife, Rosemary, was weaving toward the door that led to the rooms above the lounge, surrounded by Ray and Raven and Cha-Cha, her arms around Rita, who’d decided to love her after many shots of tequila. Rosemary turned in the doorway and her shawl slid to the floor as she lowered her head and held out her arms and announced, “Now I am home, and you are my family.” Everyone applauded and she blew a kiss to the crowd and then she was gone, floating up the stairs to her dead husband’s bed. Raven and Cha-Cha went out to the piazza to smoke a joint. Nanny and Voodoo were wrapped around each other, their eyes closed, their lips locked, as though they were alone someplace, a desert maybe, trying to stay warm. Outside, Rita was getting sick in the clump of sea grass behind the
patio. Angie had left long ago, and now Desi, wearing a lopsided smile, was making his unsteady way home to the rooms above Eddy’s, probably dreaming of unbuttoning a thousand tiny buttons on a sky-blue sweater. Liz was swaying against the bar with a happy look on her face, maybe thinking about the pile of dog shit she’d left on the driver’s seat of Cory’s Triumph TR6 on Tuesday night. Billy and Conor had run out of money and were begging Len to let them run a tab. Ray Mackey was sitting outside at an abandoned table on the patio, his head resting on his arms, a lit cigarette falling from his fingers. I looked around and felt like crying, not from being sad but because everything went by so quickly and I wanted it back, even my days of being an outsider, trying so hard to belong. Even the days of longing for Luke, because they had all led up to this, this night, so thick with stars and music and ashes. I wanted it to last, but it was late and soon the lounge would be closing. And some little bit of something would be lost, even though we’d probably be here again on another night very soon.

  I felt a light touch on my arm and turned to see Luke standing next to me. He’d been drinking as long as everyone else had, maybe doing other things, too, but his eyes looked clear. “That was cool, what you said on the beach,” he said. “That was very cool, man. He would have liked that.” He put his hand underneath my elbow.

  “Yeah, I think he would have,” I said. Over Luke’s shoulder, I watched the photo freeze-frame one more time and then the picture became clear and fluid and all the colors came together and for that exact moment, I had the feeling that everything would be all right. That even after the music stopped, we’d all still go on dancing.

  EIGHTEEN

  if i knew you were going to be this beautiful, i never would have let you go

  Steps from the ocean!” “Waterfront views!” That was how the ad in the local yellow pages described The Starlight Hotel, that late great fleabag that enjoyed its real heyday during the twenties and thirties, before everything went to hell. Oh, it was never like the grand palaces that lined the boardwalk farther uptown, with their stained glass windows facing the water, the sounds of their orchestras drifting out over the ocean. No, The Starlight Hotel was the crown jewel of the honky-tonk part of town, a pink stucco building that stood out from the weathered bungalows that lined Comanche Street, jalousied windows covered with sateen awnings, tasseled umbrellas shielding the cocktail tables on the small piazza, where people of interest came in taxis under cover of darkness and never signed their real names to the register. It was a discreet location where bellboys could be bribed to bring back a bottle of gin fresh off the boats during the Prohibition years, where (local legend had it) Starr Ames, the silent-screen actress, ended her life after Franco Giselli told her she had been a Goddamned fool to think that he, a practicing Catholic with six kids, would ever leave his family for an over-the-hill hussy such as herself. They found Starr in the bathtub, eyes staring up at the tin ceiling, polished toes peeking out from the bloodied water, palms lank but curiously turned upward, as though waiting for a fortune-teller to come along and read her life line. It was this faded tragedy that started The Starlight Hotel’s slow decline, so that by the seventies, like the rest of Elephant Beach, it stood drenched in decay, the stucco walls flaked and chipped under coats of white paint used to deflect the sun, sateen awnings shredded or sold, jalousied windows missing panes, art deco screens scratched and shattered, and the once festive piazza now a weed-choked vacant lot with a few rusted patio tables that once held gaily striped umbrellas. It was said that even the ghost of Starr Ames, glamour gal of the silent stage and screen, done in by talkies and brandy Alexanders, wouldn’t deign to haunt the penthouse on the top floor, where she’d taken her final bath; it chose, instead, to walk the shoreline in bare feet, holding a pair of Ferragamos in one hand and a white fox fur (a gift from Franco Giselli) in the other, singing at the top of her lungs, “I got something, something, something, for my baby and he for me, / We got something, something, something, yeah! / My baby and me.”