by Elyse Lortz
“‘Morality is only moral when it is voluntary’ Besides, you’re one to talk, how did you get the taxi?”
“I assure you I was entirely within the law. I borrowed it from a friend—yes, I do have friends—who just asked that I return it before four this afternoon. Had you continued your plight for another hour and a half, you would have made a liar out of me.”
“You? A liar?” I chuckled. “Now there’s a hell of confession.”
“Really, Lawrence, you’re language.”
“Sorry. So, are you having fun?” I could easily hear Keane’s quiet and—heaven forbid—undignified groan.
“Less than a week in the country and you have already adapted to the American slaughtering of the English language.”
“I was born here, remember. Fine. Are you enjoying yourself?”
“Quite, but I would do so even more if we got out of this cramped piece of abused machinery.” I peered out the dripping window once more. There was still nothing but faded murk played by a smattering of watery bricks and clutter melting into the bleary outer walls. Every natural color had faded and darkened into the final smears of an artist’s paint as thick globs of the world refracted through the window and ran slowly along the glass. It was as if the entire world was melting into the palm of my hand, leaving nothing but drab streaks of grey and the dull tedium of little pellets berating the taxi’s metal frame.
“Where would we go?” I said. “There isn’t seriously a restaurant or pub out there. Is there?” Keane chuckled, a deep, rich sound that echoed effortlessly through his chest. It was a sound I had come to love just as much as I had learned to despise. I was aware of the final wisps of a cigarette and a brief tap to my arm before I was once more hurled outward into the finality of a soggy world.
CHAPTER TEN
Summer 1916—Palermo, Italy
“BRENDAN, YOU ARE A man among men.” Young Seaman Fingal O’Malley roared as his hand slammed down on the Irishman’s back, nearly throwing him from the chair.
“It’s true.” James Harrison nodded, downing half his drink. “You are a braver man than I to let a girl as good as that get away. If I could get a dame half that pretty to beg me to love her, I could march back on that damn boat one hell of a happy man.” The celebrated seaman pinned between the two men could hardly agree.
“It was the principle of the thing.” Brendan Keane stated, rubbing his hand over the red scruff on his jaw, though it had darkened toward more of a chestnut brown, rather than a heated fire. Harrison again slammed his hand onto the red and white checkered tablecloth.
“Principle, shminciple. I’ve never seen you happier than when you had a girl on your arm.”
“Or when ya were kissing her in the back of a cab. Brendan, me boyo, you are a master in the art of women.” The young man cradled his drink between his hands.
“Master or not, I still let her go.”
“Didn’t take long for her to find another though. She must have seen half a dozen men this past week.” James Harrison finished his liquor and patted the front of his uniform. “C’mon, fellas. Let’s get something to settle in our stomachs.” The seaman was just about to order when a well-dressed couple entered the restaurant. The man was, without a doubt, Italian. His coal black hair and mustache were immaculately groomed and, though he was not nearly so tall as the present threesome, he was not short either.
But it was the woman on his arm that had young Keane’s full attention as she sauntered past. The floral dress she wore clung excessively to every curve and dip in her figure. He wished he could disappear. He wanted nothing more than turn to ash and flit away on the billowing winds. But there was no such luck. She passed, making a special effort to sway so close to Keane he could easily have been intoxicated on her perfume, had the liquor in his hands not already finished the task.
“Why, Brendan, isn’t this a surprise. Are you and your little friends on a search for ladies.” She turned to O’Malley and Harrison, raising her voice enough to call the attention of some unfortunate customers at the nearby tables. “You might as well leave this one behind, boys. He hasn’t got the nerve to go out of the starting gate.” Keane’s face burned and his blue eyes turned to the grey of flint. The spark was struck and the flame raged.
“How dare you.” He growled. “I’m as much a man as all the men in this room, and perhaps more so. You asked something immoral; something I dare not supply out of respect and—God help me—love for you. I see now what you are, Natasha Barra, and I am quite relieved I was able to scrape together the dignity you so obviously lack.” Before the woman could find some feminine retort, Keane was pinned backwards over the table with the Italian soldier’s hand strangling his collar while the other was pulled back in a solid fist. Down the mass of fingers came, slamming into his face with a heavy crack.
And then there was darkness.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
In January of 1920, three years before I was born, the government of the United States passed an amendment that prohibited the consumption, trade, or sale of alcoholic goods. If I lived to be a hundred, I would do so without ever having understood why a democracy would dare tempt fate. The 18th Amendment was passed.
And all hell broke loose.
In those thirteen years, the first decade of my life, legends were made. Unlike those great heroes like Lawrence of Arabia or the Red Baron, these were the shadows with automatic weapons slung over their shoulders and a fat cigar dripping from fowl mouths. As Keane led me down the alley and through a door pressed far into the wall, I recognised the establishment to be one of those created by the men in the pin-stripped suits. Time (and the 21st Amendment) had caused the place to be one of fresh legal liquor and calm jazz wafting about our heads as thick as the tobacco smoke. It reeked of color, and yet was not completely unappealing to the eye. A woman, dressed in a costume I felt better tailored to fit Shirly Temple, took Keane’s coat and hat before leading us to a small table near the stage. The place was no bigger than a large living room. Each table was within arm’s distance from another without enough of one certain type of chair to fill the room. Instead there were three floral—and damnably eccentric—garden chairs, several wooden ones that folded at the seat, and even a handful of armchairs that had seen most anything from air raids to moth brigades. The tablecloths were patched together from fabrics not related by blood, nor nationality. Had someone welcomed me to Wonderland, rather than dropping to a fit of hysterics, I might have asked whether the Mad Hatter would be available for tea.
“Keane, you never told me we were going to a speakeasy.” I hissed over the slurred roar of music. My companion chuckled as he began to light one of his infamous cigarettes.
“As they say, noise is a language used all over the world.” I shook my head in mock shock.
“You wound me. I rather like this song, even if the drummer is half a beat off.”
“You noticed that as well, eh? ‘As practice makes perfect, I cannot but make progress’.”
“Van Gogh, wasn’t it?” Keane nodded, taking a long, calm draw of his cigarette. The quotation, while practical, also bore the bitter taste of irony as the poor drummer fell further and further away from the rest of the band. Within another few minutes, I feared the set’s throbbing would rapidly slip from generally amusing to unbearable, and I most certainly did not want to spend the night in jail for pummeling him over the head with those blasted drumsticks. A glance at Keane; however, and I was not convinced it would be I who did the violent deed. His brow had furrowed deeply toward his Roman nose as he took a tentative sip of the strong liquor. I did the same and my throat was immediately in flames.
“Good God,” I gasped, slamming the mismatched glass onto the table with enough violence a bit of the clear liquid leapt over the rim. “What is that stuff? Petrol?”
“I believe it was called ‘bathtub gin’.” Keane muttered, staring down at the offending drink. “Though why they would serve the damn stuff is beyond me. Nostalgia perhaps?”
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“Who would even want to drink it? And don’t even think about giving me that desperate times mean desperate measures talk. I thought all this had gone out in the thirties.” As if he found an answer, my companion took a gulp of the dreaded gin, held it in his mouth, and swallowed. The creases in his forehead immediately disappeared.
“Come now, Lawrence, it isn’t so bad as all that. It just takes a bit of patience.” My laugh entered into the world as a half-hearted wheeze, lungs still burning from the legendary alcohol.
“Just mind you don’t get too comfortable with the stuff. You’re driving.”
“Indeed.” Keane grumbled and shoved the glass further towards the center of the table. In a matter of seconds, a fresh cigarette was between his fingers. I watched as he dragged his eyes lazily over the collections of individuals spread across the small room. There were perhaps two or three characters tossing back the gin like it was water and glancing over their shoulders constantly, but, for the majority, they were those intolerable young things on the endless search for frivolity without thought of cost.
I could have been—could be—one of them if I wished. I could go about without a worry in the world, but what sort of world would that be? Would I be living, or merely wallowing in the pit of existence? Would I be me, or merely some vague idea of myself? And what would Keane think? Not that I really gave a damn of his opinion, of course, but there was always some satisfaction in his approval, just as there was great pain in his disappointment.
WHEN THE MUSIC BECAME discombobulated enough that no amount of hard liquor could ease the pain throbbing through our ears, Keane found his coat and led me out into the remainder of the world. The rain had stopped, having its signature in the long puddles strewn about the streets. What had once been hot had cooled into the blissful chill of a passing spring, bringing too those recent memories of Ireland; the lush, green landscape, rolling hills, rigid stones, and a rose garden just outside a little cottage. I might have been born an American, but I was by no means an ethnocentric.
Keane and I reached the taxi with a half hour left to return it to his friend. I clambered into the passenger seat while he settled himself behind the wheel, his tall frame accommodated by the vehicle’s bulky size. Nothing was said as he drove along the busy streets, and it was not until we were climbing into his rented car that I recalled my brief excursion to the book shop.
“Here.” I thrust the paper-wrapped parcel to his chest and waited with baited breath as the twine gradually gave way with his gentle tuggs. An eyebrow immediately climbed high on his forehead.
“Poetry?” I grinned.
“Come now, Keane, don’t look so dubious. It’s not as though you have a hatred for the art of the verse. I dog-eared the page I thought you might enjoy.”
“Dog eared!” He roared in mock fury. “I would have thought, of all the literary people in the world, you would show more respect for an author’s work.” I watched impatiently as his sharp, blue eyes flickered over the page. As if suddenly possessed, a dark anger erupted shamelessly over his features before falling away as deep barks of laughter shot to the surface.
What stubborn things a man can be;
A dog, a mule, an ass need be.
What priggish things on rainy days,
When sun shan’t show it’s ragged rays.
And seamen be the worse of these,
For they no not a woman still
Who’s made not of wood
And flesh, not sail.
What ill-gotten goats those men so be
When days arise without the sea.
But none are quite so hellish
As the bright ones with a mind
And though they bluster
And temper still
They’re a hell of a find.
So patience still, oh lass and lady
And throw them not to sea
For without men we’d have no problems
And oh what a world it would be.
And oh what a world it would be.
“WHERE THE HELL IS SHE!” James Harrison shouted, waving his script viciously through the air like a sabre while pressing his other hand into his stomach. Keane stared down at the raving director from the stage.
“Belay that, James. No doubt she will be here momentarily.”
“No doubt? Brendan, we’ve been waiting thirty minutes! What does that woman think she is? A princess?” From what I had seen of Miss Daniel Smith, Harrison wasn’t far from the truth. The older woman standing near Keane—a Mrs. Bernice Klein—edged forward.
“Calm down, James. Remember your ulcer.” I expected Harrison to roar something entirely masculine, damning his ulcer or some other such nonsense, when the doors at the theatre entrance screamed open before slamming with a heavy thud. The director whirled around.
“And where the hell were you?” Miss Smith sashayed forward, tilting her head slightly.
“What do you mean?”
“Rehearsal began at seven sharp. It is now—” Harrison glanced at his wristwatch. “—seven thirty-one.” The young woman’s face puckered as she planted her hands on her hips.
“Well, if you’re gonna treat me that way, I might as well leave.”
“Daniel, dear, don’t be ridiculous. Of course we want you here.” Mrs. Klein cooed from her perch on the stage’s edge. (Come to think of it, with those spectacles on, she really did look rather like an old owl.) Miss Smith smirked and sauntered down the aisle.
“That’s better. Now, what part are we doing?” Harrison, who had at least gained some composure in this time, stood stiffly in front of Keane.
“Act two.” The young woman’s face immediately returned to its unappealing scowl.
“But I don’t like act two. It’s boring, and that old man can’t act.” When it at last registered that the ‘old man’ was Keane, I was infuriated. Surely he had ten times the talent of this poor excuse of a woman. Again Mrs. Klein took up her halo and smiled.
“Don’t worry, dear, we’ll get it done quick and you can leave.”
‘Quick’ was not the word for it. Excruciatingly long, yes. Each line that passed through Daniel Smith’s lips was so dreadfully wrong for the part of Eliza Doolittle. Where there ought to have been inflections, there was none. Nor was there any emotion aside from a boredom completely uncharacteristic to the young flower girl. Harrison was constantly having to stop the rehearsal, debate some inconsequential nonsense with the delusional actress, before sending the three back to their places, each time Miss Smith looking paler than before. When at last Mrs. Klein—who had stepped in as Colonel Pickering, as the other gentleman actor was unable to attend that morning—at last said her starting line for the millionth time, I was teetering on the brink of insanity, and Keane looked no better as they reached what was what I thought to be the true epitome of Henry Higgins. His already deep and rich baritone dropped to the most thrillingly beautiful low tones that wavered just above a whisper and yet still carried the power and dignity of an entire civilized nation.
“‘By George, Eliza, the streets will be strewn with the bodies of men shooting themselves for your sake before I’ve done with you.’”
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” The young woman shrieked, swinging her arm back with her fist leveled directly at Keane’s head while the other hand allowed her pristine script to tumble to the wooden boards. “You old fool, you messed up the line again!” My companion pulled his shoulders back as his eyes froze grey.
“I assure you I followed Shaw word for word.” Miss Smith’s pale features whitened still as her body began to shake.
“You did NOT! You made a mistake! You—you—” Keane appeared fortified against any slanderous insult, his chin raised high as no doubt he had done in the navy when entering into the thick of a storm. The sharp crease of his lapels shone gold with vallour and no salt of earth’s stale minds dared embed itself into his polished shoes.
He was a man.
He was a sailor.
Keane was not; however, prepared for the woman to collapse into his arms.
PART TWO
Life is but an inspired series of events,
That just happen to end and one’s own inconvenience.
-Brendan Keane
CHAPTER TWELVE
KEANE WAS KNEELING by her in seconds, his fingers gingerly lifting her eyelids before pressing deeply into the middle of her wrists. Her pale face had faded to near transparency, and even beneath the smears of villainous lipstick, splotches of icy blue appeared. Keane turned to Harrison, who was clutching his abdominon.
“For God’s sake, James. Get an ambulance out here.” As the man staggered off toward the miniscule office behind the stage, my companion rapidly clasped his hands, one over the other, and began pushing into the woman’s chest hard and fast.
(One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six . . .)
Keane threw his lean body forward with every count.
( . . . Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen. Sixteen . . .)
The woman’s neck jerked forward, but still there was no sign of impending life.
( . . . Twenty-six. Twenty-seven. Twenty-eight . . . )
I moved myself nearer to the woman’s head. Good God, did I really have to do this.
( . . . THIRTY.)
My fingers pinched deftly over her cold, horrid nose and, eyes clenched shut, I began to lean forward and commit myself to the creation of artificial respiratory functions to bring life back into this poor excuse of a human. A slight gurgling taunted my ears just as my face dove rapidly downwards.
“Lawrence!” I never knew if it was the sharp exclamation of words or the sudden hand on my arm that snatched me back from the woman’s limp figure. In either case, I quickly found myself sprawled out on my back with my head laying against the stage and Keane bending over me with his handkerchief pressed to my mouth. Rarely demonstrative man that he was, the tips of my ears burned.