by Steven Clark
The Saint Louisans
A NOVEL
STEVEN CLARK
Copyright © 2016 by Steven Clark
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Walrus Publishing
Walrus Publishing is an imprint of Amphorae Publishing Group, LLC.
4168 Hartford Street
Saint Louis, MO 63116
Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without written permission from the publisher. For information, contact us through our webpage at www.amphoraepublishing.com.
Publisher’s Note: this book is a work of the imagination. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. While some of the characters and incidents portrayed here can be found in historical accounts, they have been altered and rearranged by the author to suit the strict purposes of storytelling. the book should be read solely as a work of fiction.
Fonts: Luminari, Avenir, & Adobe Caslon Bold
Cover by Kristina Blank Makansi
Cover art from Shutterstock
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016945532
ISBN: 9781940442037
To Ann
The Saint Louisans
1
Remembrance of Things Ominous
In February of 1983, I passed Tom Williams on the way to his grave.
As Tennessee Williams, he was one of St. Louis’s most famous residents, but he didn’t want to be buried in what he called the city of St. Pollution. Tom wanted his ashes scattered over the Gulf of Mexico, but sterner heads prevailed, so Tom’s ghost and those of his family no doubt quarrel unto eternity.
This memory tugged at me as I waited at the intersection. A funeral cortège held up traffic and became a river of interruption as cortèges do, as Tom’s did. It had happened during the false spring, when St. Louis is balmy and sunny in a hummingbird’s minute; then, winter returns like one of God’s unpaid bills. 1983 had my share of them. My second marriage crumbled, and I’d been diagnosed with cancer of the cervix. Endler, my sandal-wearing buddy in the lab, had given me the news one day before I left the nurse’s station after shift change.
Doc Kusser did the operation. I still hear his concerned voice. You realize you can never have children again? My indifference puzzled him, but with my kids Pierce and Jama, I’d done my bit to keep humanity trucking on. I went under the knife, and the cancer was routed. For now, I thought; it’s always for now.
North of Page Boulevard block after block of ruined and abandoned buildings sat like tumors on the former Grande Prairie, the common fields of colonial St. Louis. Brown weeds pushed through concrete as the eyes of broken windows gaped like a blind man’s empty sockets. Wasted tenements with arson-scorched brick tattooed with graffiti marking the territorial droppings of gangs crumbled alongside dilapidated chop suey joints and stores with bars over their windows and doors. St. Louis in 2004 was not the St. Louis of my childhood, when I dreamed of becoming Veiled Prophet Queen and being crowned in its court of love and beauty. At least 2004 boasted the Year of Discovery, the bicentennial when Lewis and Clark left St. Louis to explore the West. But the modest celebration over those intrepid explorers was nothing compared to the party St. Louis used to throw for the Veiled Prophet. Ah, the good old days. I am getting old.
My cell phone rang. “Hello?”
“Lee?”
“Yes?”
A gentle sigh I’d gotten to know. “This is Joyce Sachs. We had the funeral yesterday, and I wanted to say how grateful we are. You did a great job with Mom.”
“She was a very wonderful woman.”
Silence for a moment, then heavy breathing. “Yes, Lee. She was. You were a real angel.”
“I just did my job, but as a hospice nurse, caring for people like your mother is a privilege. Makes the job worthwhile.”
“We’re sending cards out to everyone, and … we just want to say thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” I paused, recalling Myrtle’s sad kindness. “She was a good person.”
I clicked off and put the phone on the seat next to me. As I waited for the last of the cars from the cortège approach the intersection, I thought about my chosen profession. Nurses are people who help you get better or help you die. I am the latter. Joyce had called me a “real angel.” And I guess if I am, I’m an angel of death.
I wonder if Tom Williams had an angel of death at his bedside. The year 1983 had been bad for both of us, for Tom and me. And now, for some reason that gnawing angst came flooding back. As I headed to meet Saul, I couldn’t help wondering if it was a premonition. But of what?
I drove down Kingshighway, north of Holy Corners. That’s what we call a cluster of churches. The squared steeple of St. John’s is ringleader for a huddle of pillared faces, some abandoned, standing in place like huge pieces on a board in endless check. It’s our Gateway Arch to the North side and its generational blight. Scarred telephone poles and dusty shop windows were plastered with stickers and handbills proclaiming JUNETEENETH TOWNE! FOR THE PEOPLE! like a revival. Juneteenth is June 19th, 1865, when the slaves were emancipated, and Juneteenth Towne is the latest plan to save the North side. Past Holy Corners, a few shops guarantee payday loans, fried rice, and only the best pawned goods.
I parked on a side street in front of the mansion Saul was restoring, a beachhead of gentrification on a street once begat in Victorian propriety, but now a gutted row of flats whose bricks are scattered on weeded lawns like missing teeth.
I locked my car, glad it joined the herd of worker’s trucks and the rusting Chevy where a bored security guard lounged behind the wheel.
Saul Lowenstein has a benign face with well-earned lines on his forehead, softly creased like Brooks Brothers trousers. Usually he wears his tie loosened and sleeves rolled up as if he was a pol in the August primaries mixing it up with the home folks. His hair is a gentle wave of black curls, his nose aquiline; he’s a leading man type, the sort old ladies whisper to one another that he doesn’t look Jewish at all. Saul is a king in exile, and for the last three years, he has been my lover.
Saul told me this mansion had been built by Ernst Jansson, much in demand by St. Louisans of the World’s Fair era; ornate, stately woodwork was his signature. From the main hallway came the tramping boots of one of Saul’s favorite carpenters, and he offered me an orange hard hat with a faded Cardinal’s decal on one side. He whistled, and Saul’s smiling face appeared in the hall.
“Come watch Mr. Blandings build his dream house,” he said with a laugh.
I joined Saul as a trio of men hammered on a new roof. Roofs are always the first things to go, the new lumber a skin graft over the ribs of the frame. Saul tapped the wall.
“The structural damage wasn’t that bad. She’s held up. How about the fireplace?”
“Beautiful,” I said. And it was—an elegant marble piece with ends that curled like imperial jelly rolls. Many houses get stripped for parts: fireplaces, copper tubing, and glass. I looked up at the second story landing to see it crowned with two swans in stained glass, its smoky amber and blue lit up by a blade of sunlight cleaving the landing.
“We were lucky those survived.” He motioned to the swans. “There’s a booming black market in stained glass. Don’t know how that glass got here. Most stained glass windows are a trademark of the south side. Had a house that lost two last week.”
I nodded. “Headed out of town?”
Saul nodded. “Most likely.” In St. Louis, if a merchant purchases goods off the street, there has to be a photo and thumb print of the seller. Some sellers just keep hot goods under cover until they fi
nd an out-of-town buyer.
“This is in a great location,” he said. “At the corner is a new apartment complex, and if Hizzoner okays that redevelopment for that commercial block, we’ll save another square.”
I nodded at the dismal row of shops across the street, forcing myself to see them in Saul’s hopeful eyes: revived, well lighted, and vibrant.
Metallic buzzing came from above. Sawdust fell on our hardhats like khaki snow as Saul inspected the door frame.
Other men obsess over sports or hunting, Saul’s passion is architecture. He restores buildings throughout the city, and this latest project is a mock-gothic morsel for the hardwood floor and gentrification set with a marble fireplace to die for. The owners are the Siegfied and Roy of Midwestern restaurateurs, and their tapas bar, a real hotspot on Euclid a few blocks south, is always crowded.
Saul quietly sees himself as a Robin Hood of the city, stealing old mansions from blight to give (or hopefully sell at a tidy profit) to those who will appreciate them. There’s more than enough potential projects to keep him going until his frontal baldness goes full crown. He looked at the nearest wall.
“The foundation’s solid. They built them to last.”
“My dad used to say that about certain dames.”
Saul’s laughter was immediate and hearty as he looked me over. “He did a great job with you. Good frame. Solid legs. A graceful, well-designed face.”
“Oh sure,” I said, “perfect cover girl for Architectural Digest. Can’t wait to try on a plywood bikini.” Usually people say I look like Cybill Shepherd: a cozy, attractive blonde who might have modeled at one time. I didn’t. I’m not, as the desperate say in singles ads, Rubenesque, but there are sags and a bit of a tummy. “So, why am I here?”
He led me to the crop of overgrown straw that was once a yard. He turned toward me, his face somber. “Someone wants you. It’s business. Yes. That kind.”
“A patient requested me? Who?”
“Margot Desouche.”
I raised an eyebrow. Like their fellows the Choteaus, Gratiots, Soulards, Cerres and others, the Desouches are one of the city’s founding families, from back when St. Louis was a French outpost. Desouche Pere made his fortune in the fur trade, and his progeny are old money. Margot Desouche is a grand dame whom no one sees without an invitation. Now I had one. Indeed, a royal command. “What’s the illness?”
“Cancer. Pancreatic.”
I nodded. Terminal. “She asked for me?”
Saul shrugged and removed his hat. “You know how much I’ve been meeting with her to talk about the mansion. There’s going to be a catfight over the estate. She said you must help.”
I frowned. “Let’s back up here. Help her and the mansion? I’m just a nurse. We’re talking about cancer. The mansion is your department.”
“It’s weird, but she spoke to me and said she wants you. That’s what she said. Will you see her?”
So, the premonition of Tom’s funeral cortège was a warning. Of what, I had no idea. “Of course I’ll see her.”
2
Herstory
Margot Desouche. Why would she request me? The thought kept preying on my mind. As the matriarch of one of the oldest and wealthiest families in St. Louis, she could have the best live-in nursing care available. To someone born in Dubourg, Missouri, a decaying lead-mining town teetering on the frontier of the South, the thought of spending time with the grand dame of the St. Louis monied class was intriguing, if not a bit nerve wracking. Especially since she represented the one thing that captured my childhood imagination and had never quite let go—the mysterious magic of the Veiled Prophet Ball.
As a little girl raised in Dubourg, Missouri, the Veiled Prophet Ball might as well have been Cinderella’s ball, but still I couldn’t stop fantasizing about it. Girls from Dubourg, situated where the fingertips of the Ozarks with their wooded ridges, jutting rocks, and meandering streams stretched into Missouri, didn’t go to fancy débutante balls at glamorous hotels, didn’t greet their escorts in velvet-voiced whispers perfected by fine educations and elocution lessons, and weren’t seated high on pedestals and paraded through city streets while adoring (or not) citizens watched from sidewalks. No, girls from Dubourg held court in the back seats of cars and boasted voices that twanged like banjos. We had the obligatory middle names like Mary Ann, Lindy Lou, and Nancy Jane—or Cindy Lee, in my case—in abundance. We came in as many flavors of Baptists as Darwin had species: First Baptists, Second Baptists, Southern Baptists, Free Will Baptists. We didn’t just get washed in the blood of the lamb, we got our choice of rinse cycles.
Dubourg had been a dying town before I’d been born. The lead mines played out in the mid-sixties. What jobs there were existed up in ‘Sant Lewis’. Like a stream of ants going for the goodies, Highway 67 teemed with pickups and vans headed north to the plant … any plant. Lena May Sikes, my mother, had been ahead of that trend. In 1950, she moved to St. Louis from a county nestled by Dubourg and got a job at the counter of Katz’s drugstore, whose black feline face revolved on neon signs throughout St. Louis in that era of prosperity, smokestack industries, and sturdy foundation garments for the fairer sex.
One night when Lena May was slinging hash at the fountain, an Air Force captain with Van Johnson looks breezed in and ordered an ice cream soda. One thing led to another, and Ike Taylor married Lena May, and I was begotten. When I was little, we lived on air force bases, and my earliest memories are of shoebox-like officer’s quarters, deserts and mountains, vast open skies with the contrails of jets drawing lines in the sky. I remember clapping my hands over my ears as fighters boomed in the blue above me, breaking the sound barrier like celestial cannons.
To this day, memories of my father flash in and out like summer fireflies. In his khaki uniform, he bends down to me as the radio plays “How Much is That Doggie in the Window?” He reads the sports page while the funnies are a carpet of word balloons and exaggerated faces on the floor. He tosses a ball to me. For my fifth birthday, Dad said, “Come on Cindy Lee, let’s go see daddy’s office.” I wore my white party dress, excited as he drove past the saluting guard and parked his convertible in front of his F-86 Sabre jet.
As Mom pointed the camera and snapped the photos, Dad lifted me out of the car, carried me up, and set me in the cockpit. I remember the smile on his face as I squiggled in his seat. A snug fit for him, but for me a roomy throne smelling of masculinity and machine. Dad took out a dime-store tiara and set it on my head.
“I’m a queen!” I remember cheering.
“You bet, little girl. You’re daddy’s queen. Queen of the skies.”
“Hey,” Lena May called, “let’s get a picture.”
“Sure,” he beamed down at her, “then we’ll have cake.”
A month later, he kissed me and Mom before leaving to catch a flight for an overseas assignment. He never came back. Ike Taylor, my handsome, brave daddy was shot down near the Russian border in one of those tremors in an otherwise cold war. The mourning period was brief. I was sent to my room early while friends of my mother … mostly men … came over. Behind closed doors I heard low conversation, tinkling glasses, then silence, followed by sighs.
Four weeks later I was in St. Louis wearing my gray coat and patent leather shoes as my mother herded me past the bustle of Union Station to catch her train to Los Angeles.
“Why are you leaving me?” I didn’t cry, but I was definitely frightened.
“I got to find someplace good for us, sweetie. After I get settled in L.A., I’ll send for you.”
She kept looking ahead as we pressed through the crowd.
In that last whisper of the fifties, Union Station seemed like a great cave full of flowing crowds of people. Men and women wore long overcoats while black porters pulled carts of luggage, much like their fathers and grandfathers must have hustled goods on the levee in the previous century. Portraits of rail magnates looked down like mustachioed gods. While the cavern smelled of coal and iron, the int
ercom’s gravel voice heralded destinations that made my heart thump: Chicago, New York, San Francisco. Mom wore the checked coat she had bought at Famous-Barr.
“See,” she said, “you’ll stay with the Taylors. Daddy’s family. They’ll take real good care of you.”
“Yeah, but Mommy—”
“Hey,” she beamed, “there they are.”
Ahead of us loomed the Taylor clan, a dour gaggle of kin whose dark features contrasted with my fair skin and blonde hair. They resembled the Seven Dwarfs. Not physically, since they towered over me like annoyed trees, but facially, with large noses, sunken cheeks, jowls, and dumpy frames made for cartoons. There was Aunt Wanda (Sneezy), Uncle Heinie (Grumpy), and I could go on, but you get the picture.
“Don’t you be scared honey,” she smiled, “soon as I get settled in I’ll send for you, and it’ll be hunky-dory.”
Grumpy stepped forward. “Lena,” he nodded.
“Heinie,” my mother said. “Well, here’s Cindy Lee.”
“Yeah, hmm.”
Mom and the Dwarfs led me into Harvey’s Restaurant, still serviced by the famous Harvey Girls. Mom bought me a hot fudge sundae as a bon voyage treat, and while I ate, the adults made small talk while puffing unfiltered cigarettes. Conversation between Mom and the Seven Dwarfs was short, wary, in Joe Friday style. When the boarding call for Los Angeles came, Mom took a deep breath as if she was ready to spring off a diving board into fresh, new waters. She bent down, make-up thick and provocative.
“It’s gonna be okay, Cindy Lee. Wish me luck, sweetie.”
Once on board, she blew us all a kiss from the window of the departing train. This sweetie didn’t see her until five years and two husbands later.
I spent the night in Dopey’s, I mean Aunt Tillie’s, flat. After grumbling about “all the colored” moving in, I was sent to a cold, mildew-scented guest room. Behind a cracked door, low voices warned careful … she might hear you. That Lena May … dumping her on us … Ike never picked ’em right … him a flyboy … always was bad blood … kid don’t look like a Taylor … keep it down!