by Bel Mooney
“See what I mean?” drawled Sternberg. There was something complacent, almost approving about his expression that irritated me.
“So we assume they sent heavies round in the night to frighten them?”
“Make them quit,” echoed Annelisa.
“Sure,” he said, “and they were damn fools not to.”
“Why?” I said. “Why the hell should they be frightened away, and let their home be demolished, by a load of gangsters who just wanted to make money?”
“Sense,” he said. “Lady, this city was going to hit the big time and most people realised it and got out. They had their places bought up. I mean, most people have their price.”
“These folk didn’t,” Annelisa said softly.
“Yeah, but look at it!” exclaimed Marylinne. “What a way to live. It looks as if the whole hotel is going to crush it. Must be so dark in there.”
Lace shuddered. “Spooky.”
Sternberg shrugged and sauntered on, the girls following automatically. “Stupid bastards,” he grinned, taking one more backward look at the house.
“It’s a real neat little place,” murmured Annelisa, in a dreamy voice, as if she were looking at something else.
When we reached the Boardwalk he stopped, turned round purposefully and confronted us. “Okay, I think we should split up right now. You girls wanna hit the slots, right?” Marylinne and Lace nodded. “Well, why not take Babs and show her how it’s done, and me and Annelisa we’ll go for a beer and meet up with you guys later.”
At that point Annelisa gave me such a look, stared at me with such silent supplication, that I acted without thinking. I took her arm. “No, I don’t want to go inside. You three go and do whatever you want to do, but Annelisa’s already promised to walk along the Boardwalk with me and show me the town. Let’s meet back here in an hour and a half s time.”
“Not here,” said Marylinne, “come along to Resorts and meet us in the Casino Lounge.”
“Fine!” I said, with exaggerated vivacity, to counter Sternberg’s glare, pulling Annelisa away. “Come on, you, I’m going to take some pictures of you with your clothes on for a change!”
We left them behind and turned right along the Boardwalk. The wooden promenade stretched for as far as the eye could see, curving around the slight bay, and dominated by the architectural monstrosities that bore names like Atlantis, Bally’s, Sands, and the rest. In front of the Boardwalk the beach curved wide and almost empty; despite the close heat few people were swimming in the wide swathes of shallow surf. In England the sand would have been packed with bodies and the air full of the cries of children; here, I assumed, everyone was inside gambling, or walking endlessly to and fro along the Boardwalk.
It was packed. Groups of elderly people trailed together, women mostly, in pale pinks and yellows, stomachs encased in polyester bulging shinily beneath drooping breasts. Men wore their checked shirts open, and displayed pale bony knees beneath flapping shorts. White trousers stretched over enormous buttocks; too-tight pale blue shirts creased into rolls. It occurred to me, focusing, that I had never before had so many fat people in one frame.
Good time, holiday time Atlantic City, I thought, America’s Blackpool but with all the lure of losing money. The stretches between the casinos were filled with little shops and fast food joints: every few yards you could eat a jumbo pretzel, an Italian water ice, a pizza, a burger, a bag of pop corn, french fries or a Dip Stix 111 Hot Dog – all this with a shifting noise of hit pop songs, mournful country-and-western guitar, clashing, jingling and shouting. Good time, holiday time Atlantic City, where you can rot your teeth and clog your arteries as well as losing money, and be sure to buy your relatives a present they could not possibly want.
I said that to Annelisa, who grinned. “But I like all this tacky stuff, Babs, you know? When I was a kid my folks would never let me spend money on souvenirs, and I always wanted to real bad. I wanted to wear crazy hats my Mom would have thrown in the trash can, you know?”
I nodded. As soon as she had spoken I saw something silly, harmless and innocent about the scene: the little tram pulling its train of open-top coaches, on which you could dawdle along the length of the Boardwalk for one dollar, seemed something fit for a child’s amusement park – which, in its way, this was. I remembered visiting Blackpool once, a mistake my parents never repeated and about which they complained at each other for the whole week. I must have been thirteen, and gazed in admiration at the teenagers in leather jackets who lounged along, entwined together, wearing black or white cowboy hats emblazoned with the message “Kiss Me Quick”. I wanted one, but when I said so to my mother – not knowing about taste and insecurity – she turned on me so angrily for being “common” that I lay on my bed and cried all evening.
Annelisa had linked my arm. She was humming softly to herself, oblivious to the passers-by who stared at her skin-tight gold lame capri pants and the black low-necked lycra top which revealed a shelf of hard golden breasts. “Oh boy,” she chuckled at last, “you sure did me a favour back there. I had to get away from that guy! David – he’s been acting real mean just lately.”
I asked how. She seemed to hesitate, then tapped her left upper arm gently with her right forefinger. “You saw that bruise this morning? And Miss Zandra being so nosy and all? Well, David comes to pick me up this morning, and pushes his way into my apartment, looking for Billy, I s’pose, and when I tell him to get the hell out so’s I can dress he gets hold of me real hard and says I’m always gonna be his girl. Look, Babs, it’s been four years or more, and I don’t want to know!”
“Why don’t you complain to Anthony?”
She laughed tersely. “You think that would do any good? Forget it! David’s been Anthony’s driver and bodyguard for ten years now, and there’s a lot between them. Anthony’d rather I screwed with David, keeping it, like, under his roof, than relating to anyone outside. He thinks I’ll give away state secrets! Zandra and Anthony, they can’t stand it if one of the girls dates someone they don’t know. At Emperor we’re jes’ one big happy family …” Her voice was tight, then she added abruptly, “Hey, let’s go for a beer.” It was very hot. The sun was struggling to break through the haze and the atmosphere was heavy – made worse by competing smells of frying. Perspiration shone on Annelisa’s face.
When we were seated on high bar stools, two ice-cold bottles of Budweiser placed before us, with frosted glasses that burned to the touch, she relaxed once more. “What shall we do, Babs? You can get a special reading from the fortune tellers for five dollars. Shall we do that? Or we could ride the jitney out to the Marina … Then, ’course, we gotta lose us some money on the slots – or do you play craps?”
“Tell me about this film of yours,” I said.
“Oh that,” she waved a dismissive hand and knocked a full ashtray, so that it skittered across the bar with an ugly clatter. Immediately the bartender wiped up the spilt ash, winking at her. She did not notice. “That’s just nothing. Anyway, it’ll probably never be shown.” The pleasure in her voice amazed me. “But I thought you wanted to be a film star?” I said. “So won’t you be disappointed?”
She was gazing at her glass, swirling the liquid around and around. “No, honest, Babs, it’s just a junky ol’ movie. Just practice, you know?”
“What’s it about?” I asked innocently. She took a deep breath, glanced at me, then looked down again evasively. “Well, see, I’m this Queen on an island, she’s called Penelope but her friends call her Penny. Her husband’s been away for years at some war, he’s called Oddysoos, and, like, all these other guys are hanging in, hoping she’ll marry one of them instead. Then there’s Telly … Telly …”
“Savalas?” I offered.
“No, not him. Her son, Telly … Telly Makus …”
“Telemachus,” I smiled.
“Yeah, that’s what I said. Well, he like hates all the other guys because he really digs his Mom, and … well, that’s it really,” she ended lamely.
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“So is this epic going to be big box office?”
“How would I know? Anyway, like I said, there’s legal problems, so it looks like it won’t be released. Now – what shall we do?”
“What’s it called?” I persisted.
“Oh, it was gonna be Oddysoos, after the husband, who gets back in the end, but now it’s called The Nights of Penelope, after me, see, ’cos I’m really the star. Or that was the last I heard.” She was pulling at her necklace and motioning the bartender to bring her another beer.
We were silent for a few minutes. Then she asked, “How do you like Anthony this time?”
“He’s fine,” I replied. “Does he change?”
“What about Luenbach and Corelli?”
“They seem okay. Do you like them?”
“Uh-huh …” She paused. “Hey, Babs, why don’t you take some pictures of me on the tram? You gotta ride your first Atlantic City tram!”
I asked why she had wanted to know my feelings about Carl. She shrugged. “Oh, I just … I guess I … Uh, you just watch out for him, that’s all. He ain’t all he seems to be, Babs. And those other guys …” she hesitated, then seemed to change her mind. “They just – well, let’s just say they’re really useful to Anthony so he’ll do just about anything to keep them happy.” For a moment she fixed me with a look that was unfathomable, hard and glittering beneath those sweeping sooty false lashes. Then she dropped her eyes once more to the second beer.
“Annelisa – is something the matter?” I asked. But the bartender, a man in his late twenties with a neat moustache, and the easy confidence bestowed by good looks, was standing in front of us, leaning both elbows on the bar, staring at Annelisa with open admiration. “Listen, babe,” he said softly, “what I wanna know is, why you didn’t walk into my life before now?”
I stared at him coldly, but Annelisa was smiling. “I guess I don’t come to these parts too often,” she simpered.
“Lemme tell ya, baby, I could make you come,” he whispered, “and if we’re talking about parts there’s a bulge in my pants right now would blow your mind.” He covered her hand with one of his own.
“Jesus,” I said angrily, “let’s leave.” But Annelisa was in no hurry, nor did she pull her hand away; on the contrary, she smiled and smiled, just as I had seen her do in Florida, with the same fixity of purpose: wanting to please. It was if a hidden button had been pushed, and her body sprang into life, frilling and burgeoning and arching as I watched, shifting its curves and angles into new shapes, different compositions. And the man knew it, leaning there, looking into her eyes; he knew that it was all for him, an involuntary gift.
“Look, me and my friend, we have to go,” she said apologetically.
“Meet me tonight, hey? The Irish Pub – you know it? My name’s Lee, by the way. What’s yours?”
“Anne,” she said, laughing and pulling her hand away, “and we’re staying with people a little way up the coast, so we have to be …”
“God, you’re sexy, Annie. Meet me tonight, huh? I’ll show you a real good time. You won’t get another offer like this, I tell you. I’ll turn you on sumthin’ else. Send you sky high …”
When we were outside the smile was still on her face. “Crazy guy,” was all she said.
Now the stares of people on the Boardwalk repelled me, as she did, with her clattering high-heeled sandals and all-over sheen of wig, make-up, and synthetic clothes. I took out a camera, and hid behind it, snapping people in the distance without bothering to frame carefully, focusing automatically. Anything rather than talk to her. She must have sensed it, for she disappeared for a few minutes, and came back smiling like a little girl, one hand behind her back. “Close your eyes now, Babs, I got you a present!” Feeling foolish, I did as she asked. In my hand was a little box of Salt Water Taffy, with a picture of Atlantic City on its lid. She opened it, took out a sweet, unwrapped it and put it in my mouth, doing the same for herself. And as we strolled on, chewing the sickly toffee, she tucked her arm into mine once more and murmured, “Don’t be mad at me, hon.”
How could I be? We paid our two dollars and rode a little way on the tram, smiling at how easily the walkers could overtake it. We alighted outside the old convention hall, its pinkish-beige stone and stately thirties (I guessed) architecture incongruous now, dwarfed by the fantastic black-and-white ziggurats on either side. Annelisa was puzzled by my mirth, as I read the inscription that spread across its whole length: “A PERMANENT MONUMENT CONCEIVED AS A TRIBUTE TO THE IDEALS OF ATLANTIC CITY BUILT BY ITS CITIZENS AND DEDICATED TO RECREATION SOCIAL PROGRESS AND INDUSTRIAL ACHIEVEMENTS.” The words are clear in my photograph – and the idealistic lists on the squat towers each side of the building, of all that the place would achieve: “Festivities, music, pageantry, drama, athletics, education, art”, and so on.
“It all takes place on the casino floor,” I cried, making a larger-than-life flourish with one hand and imitating the excited gabble of a showman: “See the pageantry and drama of the slot machines; experience the athletic education of shooting craps!”
“You’re crazy, Babs, you know that?” Annelisa said. She was eating an icecream now, not minding that it spread around her mouth a little, and dripped down her hand. I used the telephoto for intense, tight clarity, clearing those dreadful clothes and most of the hair, and caught her smiling with lovely smeared mouth, the eyes looking at me as if truly questioning my sanity. “Y’know,” she mumbled, “I’ve never really met anyone like you before.”
“Annelisa, I’ve never met anyone like you before,” I said, glibly, simply to please her.
For it was not true, I thought at first: of course I had met many like her –
Young whores who flash their teats in sign
Of what they hawk for men’s delight …
Yet it occurred to me that I had not seem them as I was seeing her now, for the first time, in the act of taking that picture, as those questioning eyes stared in at me through the lens. If I had failed to look, how could I have seen – with any accuracy? She, for all her lack of irony, for all her ignorance, all unknowing accused me of blindness. If it is true that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I was able, in that instant of sight, to bestow beauty on Annelisa Kaye (model, centrefold, starlet) knowing that she had never been given it before. Never, in all those pictures taken.
“C’mon, let’s go in here,” she said, after we had walked on for a few minutes. It was one of the hundreds of souvenir shops along the Boardwalk, offering a free decal with each plain tee-shirt, its window crammed with miniature slot machines in various sizes (‘Mini-Jackpot Special $19.50 Really Pays Off), lights and clocks in the shape of dice, other clocks with little red dice instead of numerals, toy roulette wheels, purses described as “loot bags”, dollar clips, and ballpoint pens with transparent barrels, filled with shredded currency, bearing the boast, “I struck it rich in Atlantic City”.
She was laughing; picking things up, putting them down again, giggling and catching her breath, in the little hiccough, calling me over. The man at the till watched her intently, his lips moist, sweat patches under his arms. I followed Annelisa. “Did y’ever see such crazy things?” In her hand she held a mug shaped like a woman’s torso, pearlised white with enormous rose-pink nipples, and “The Perfect Women” printed on its side. “Or, hey, look, what about this one, Babs, to get for your girl, if you was a guy?” That mug was plain white, with an enormous curving salmon-pink cock instead of a handle, and the message, “Thinking of You in Atlantic City”.
She swayed along the aisles in that shop, smiling at me, surrounded by souvenirs. Souvenir: a remembrance. A memory now of something jerky and frenetic in her gait, and her gestures, as though she were a puppet with an unskilled operator; not registered by me then, or perhaps even now a product of my imaginings. I felt at once dazed by and contemptuous of my surroundings, yet I smiled as Annelisa held up this and that, clapping one hand to her mouth like a child caught out. There was the �
��Dolly Parton Special” – a headless china torso lying down, its breasts salt and pepper shakers. A table lighter was shaped like a kneeling woman, breasts protruding, arms clasped behind the back as if pinioned, the lighter mechanism instead of a head. The motif was repeated countless times, the torso on ashtrays, comb cases, cards, coasters, trays, and I suddenly realised the significance of the phrase that was repeated over and over, in gilt lettering: “The Perfect Woman”. Annelisa sidled up to me and whispered, “Hey, Babs, I just thought of something. If a woman’s got no head she can’t give head, and most guys wouldn’t think that was too perfect!” I felt shocked, for no logical reason, but smiled all the more broadly at her joke. “Right!” I said.
There was a rubber breast with a hole in its nipple, shaped so that it would fit over a beer can. The boxes promised that you could “nurse your drink”, offering purchasers two fantasies in one. Other mastectomised lumps of rubber were bells (“Squeeze me and make me ring”), bottle tops (“big sucker”), and novelty dogs’ toys. Long female legs were nut-crackers, letter-racks, knives, cocktail-stirrers, and toothbrushes. Whole naked bodies decorated singlets, tea-towels, posters, and dishes: all similarly crude but voluptuous creatures with big breasts and long hair – all little mirror images of Annelisa Kaye, who swayed and smiled amongst them
She bought nothing for herself. “But I want to get you another present, honey, so when you go back home you think of me. What about this?” Teasing, she held up a pink plastic camera, with changing views of casinos in its viewfinder. I chose a ballpoint pen – the one with the shredded dollars inside its barrel. Cheap pens are always mislaid, and yet that one survives on my desk, still reminding me that I “struck it rich” in Atlantic City.
“They’re not here. C’mon, let’s hit the slots. You never done it before?” I shook my head, and followed Annelisa from the dark, womb-like casino lounge – where a pretty girl in a low-cut cocktail dress sang soft-rock songs to the drinkers as if it were midnight – down the steps to the casino floor. The place seemed bigger than a couple of football pitches, and dazed me with the glitter of lights reflected in hundreds of mirrors, and the constant noise of whirring, clanking and jingling. Wheels spinning, lights flashing, bells ringing, people screaming … row upon row of them sat as if mesmerised in front of the robot-like slot machines: elderly couples, plump housewives, young black women – all clutching cardboard buckets, like outsize icecream cartons, full of dollars and quarters. Jackpots Only, Twin-jacks, Giants, Duo-play, Bonus-Plus, Eight-Reelers, Big Berthas – all revolved their drums to display cherries, plums, bells, oranges, bars, sevens, whilst hundreds of hands reached in unison for hundreds of handles, praying for a win. From the craps tables came the sound of men’s voices wheedling as they blew on the dice in their cupped palm, begging them, “C’mon baby, c’mon baby, give me seven, baby, give me seven, do it for me! …” then shooting with a rattle of dry bones, and groaning, or cheering.