Backstab

by Elaine Viets

  There was an old woman with frizzy pink hair and a navy-blue dress with rhinestone buttons kneeling by the casket. She said to me, “He looks so young.” But he didn’t. To me, Burt looked so dead. As I peered down into the casket, I saw a bottle of Bud tucked in there, just above his elbow, with a Burt’s Bar opener and a bag of Rold Gold pretzels. One of his kids must have done that. That’s when I began to cry. I tried to stop, because I wasn’t family and I didn’t want to make a scene.

  I did notice that Burt was smiling, and it looked fairly natural for a dead person. I knew why he was smiling, too. Burt bought the Grand Funeral Plan Special back in 1956, when he was a thirty-year-old man with a young family. The plan was two hundred dollars, or two dollars a week for almost two years. Then Burt had the ultimate revenge. He proceeded to live for another forty years, until two hundred dollars hardly paid the light bill for his wake. It was the final triumph for a frugal South Sider like Burt.

  I got up from the kneeler and saw Ralph come into the room. He was late, but he was dressed in his most subdued outfit—clean rehabber duds. He wore jeans and a jeans jacket and a fresh white T-shirt. There was a folding ruler sticking out of his back pocket and an inhaler in his front pocket. He looked sick and sweaty and paler than Burt.

  “You look awful,” I said, tactfully.

  Ralph sounded worse. He started in with a hacking cough that ended with a wheeze.

  “Are you going to the doctor?”

  “It’s just a cold,” he gasped, as he reached for his inhaler.

  Why do guys hate doctors? I knew it was hopeless to argue with any man about going to one, but Ralph sounded really sick. “Please say you’re staying home tomorrow.”

  “I can’t,” he said. “I’m trying to finish a house on Utah Place by March first.”

  I was worried about Ralph. I knew he was taking out the ceilings at the Utah house. Breathing plaster dust was bad for him, even when he wore a face mask.

  “At least let me get you a square meal,” I said.

  “Just a drink to cut the dust,” he said.

  We couldn’t go to Burt’s, his favorite hangout. Burt’s was closed for the funeral, a black wreath on the door. Instead we went to the Cat’s Meow, a little neighborhood tavern. The Cat’s Meow was famous for its collection of cats. The bar had hundreds of cat statues: in plaster, plastic, and china. There was a big tiger with a real dried fish in its mouth on the back bar, a cat clock on the wall, and the bar’s centerpiece: a painting on velvet of the Pink Panther sitting on the pot. The jukebox was playing something loud and just a little bit country-sad, but customers were laughing and talking. We found two stools at the far end of the bar. Gladys came over to take our order. “You two look like a load of old coal,” she said. “Where you been?”

  We told her we’d been to Burt’s wake. “A darn shame,” she said. “Burt was a good man. I’m sorry, too. Drinks are on me.” We both wimped it with club sodas.

  We didn’t stay long. Poor Ralph was sick and wheezy and needed his sleep. He kept reaching for his inhaler. I gave him the bad news about our story on the female impersonators. “Hadley killed it,” I told him.

  “Why?”

  “Hadley claimed it would offend the black community because of Chocolate Suicide.”

  Ralph rolled his eyes. He’d heard all my Hadley stories. He read a printout of the unpublished column while he played with the straw in his club soda. In four places, he laughed when he read it. I kept count. “You did a good job,” he said when he finished the last page. “Your story was funny, but you took the girls seriously. It’s the Gazette’s loss.”

  It was our loss, too. But there was no point in saying so. Ralph left. I followed him outside, and drove home in the dreary midnight cold. As I unlocked the door to my place, I heard the phone ringing, then the answering machine catch it. By the time I dropped my purse and flipped on the light, my voice stopped apologizing because I wasn’t able to come to the phone, and I heard the caller: “Francesca, it’s me, Ralph. Listen, I forgot to ask you something tonight. Guess my brain’s not working too well.”

  It wasn’t. His message was long and rambling. Ralph, who had been so tired and quiet in the bar, had gotten his second wind. Now he wanted to talk. His message droned on: “I know for sure you know this guy ’cause you work with him, except work doesn’t really describe what he does, does it? At least that’s what you always say, ha-ha. Anyway, I’m pretty sure you can tell me if I should do this. Come on, Francesca, pick up. I know you’re there.”

  I was. But it was after midnight. I didn’t want to talk. I wanted to sleep. I’d track down Ralph tomorrow, after Burt’s funeral. I went to bed and slept with the light on all night. It didn’t keep the dreams away. I still heard the dripping, dripping, dripping.

  Burt’s funeral was the next day. It was chilly and rainy, but I couldn’t feel any more miserable than I already did. At the funeral Mass, Burt’s six children and fourteen grandchildren sat in the front pews. They were an impressive achievement. His friends filled the church, all the way to the back pews. Burt had had a rich life.

  I sat through the Mass in a kind of trance, until I heard the priest say, “The Mass is ended, go in peace.” The congregation began to sing:

  May the angels lead you into paradise;

  May the martyrs come to welcome you

  And take you to the holy city….

  May the choir of angels welcome you.

  Where Lazarus is poor no longer,

  May you have eternal rest.

  I tried to imagine Burt, in a clean apron and a white shirt and tie, being led into heaven by angels. I wondered if eternal rest would suit him. Burt always enjoyed working.

  At the grave site, it was cold and damp, but the rain stopped for a little while. The family sat on folding chairs under a white canopy. The rest of us stood behind them. The priest said some prayers. The service seemed so dignified and comforting, I wished I could believe it. The final prayer seemed a warning to people like me:

  “By dying you opened the gates of life for those who believe in you. Do not let our brother be parted from you, but by your glorious power give him light, joy, and peace in heaven, where you live forever and ever.”

  Amen. The prayer was full of hope, but I was thinking of another funeral. There was no hope at that one. No one knew what to say or do, or how to feel. Very few of my parents’ friends were at the graveside. The ones who were looked sick and shell-shocked. It was mostly strangers, reporters and photographers, trying to get a look at the two caskets and at me.

  Burt’s funeral was different. I saw real sorrow on people’s faces. They would miss Burt. I knew I would. The rain had started up again while the priest was praying. I could hear it on the canopy overhead. Dripping, dripping, dripping.

  I woke up from a nightmare I couldn’t quite remember. My mouth felt dusty as an old doormat and someone had wiped their feet on my tongue. I’d had another bad night after Burt’s funeral. I was tired, but I didn’t sleep much. When I finally did fall asleep, I had bloody dreams mixed with real images of Burt’s body bag and blood-puddled kitchen. At 7:00 A.M. I finally gave up and got up, took a shower and went to my office. I’m not talking about the City Gazette. I have a desk and a phone at the newspaper. I stop by regularly to pick up my mail and irritate my editor, Charlie. Sometimes, I even write a column on the paper’s computer. But it’s not really a place to work—not the kind of work I do.

  My real office is Uncle Bob’s Pancake House. I have breakfast there five or six days a week. My readers know that’s where to look for me. They come by to tell me stories or leave messages or packages. I love the big old brown booths and the yellow paper place mats that double as menus.

  I tried to keep my readers away from the Gazette. God forbid if they should try to get through the miserable CG phone system—I lost a lot of good stories until I finally paid for and put in my own answering machine at the Gazette. And bad things happened to good people who actually talke
d to a CG reporter or editor. Most were rude, and proud of it. I still remember Jasper, a vile-tempered city desk reporter, barking on the phone at a hapless reader, “Lady, I don’t give a damn about your so-called hot tip. What are you calling me for?” She hung up in tears. He bragged about it.

  My editor Charlie begrudged the time I spent at Uncle Bob’s. No matter how many stories I brought back from there, he still thought I was goofing off. He didn’t mind if the male reporters spent the afternoon at a bar. But Charlie didn’t think big-city columnists should hang around pancake houses. He called my time there “schmoozing.” He didn’t understand how much work it took to get people to relax and talk—or how hard it was for me to be charming, or sometimes just civil, to the constant parade of strangers who stopped at my table with their stories, comments, criticisms, and complaints. There were mornings when I felt surly and impatient and I had to work hard to hide it. You don’t get columns by being snippy and difficult.

  Because Uncle Bob’s was my office, I kept it separate from my home life. I almost never brought Lyle here, though he loved the Uncle Bob’s omelets smothered with ketchup and onions. Besides, we never got through a meal at Uncle Bob’s without someone stopping by to talk with me.

  If you write a city column, Uncle Bob’s is the perfect place to keep an unofficial office. For one thing, a lot of City Hall types eat there: lawyers from the Prosecutor’s office, aides from the Mayor’s office, aldermen, city workers, clerks. You can hear some interesting things going on in the next booth. I got one of my best columns because I heard a street department worker complaining that during the snowstorms they had orders to shovel the Mayor’s street first, before they cleared anything else.

  For another thing, Uncle Bob’s always had an interesting mix of city life. Some of the clientele wore tattoos that didn’t wash off. Members of local crime families cut deals in the window booths, while the waitresses poured coffee and tried not to listen. There were cops and the people they arrested, salespeople, theater people, church people, and anyone else who needed a grease fix.

  You did not go to Uncle Bob’s for high-fiber, low-fat food. Uncle Bob’s served pancakes any way you could think of, and a few ways you couldn’t, like pancake-and-egg sandwiches. But some time ago I started ordering one egg scrambled and one piece of wheat toast. That became my usual, although the cooks hated it. Especially Tom, a handsome man the color of his own coffee. “You eat like an old lady,” Tom chided me, and tried to tempt me with a plate of Belgian waffles or his special fluffy three-egg omelet. But I stuck to my guns, and my usual.

  For regulars, Uncle Bob’s followed the routine of the best Midwest coffee shops. When my car pulled into the lot, Tom the Cook waved hello out the kitchen window, then dropped my egg on the griddle. By the time I had my coat off and was sitting down at the booth, Marlene had the plate in front of me. Uncle Bob’s waitresses were not named Nedra or Heather and they were not waitressing to get through grad school or acting classes. They were pros, quick with the coffeepot and the snappy comeback.

  Marlene was a generous woman—she was made along generous lines and she was generous to her friends and customers. She was strong, too. She never used a tray. She could balance six full platters on her arms, an accomplishment that fascinated me. She also managed another balancing act: she could balance a job, night school, and the duties of a single parent. Her ex walked out years ago and left her with a two-year-old girl. When her daughter was eight, Marlene felt she could leave the child with her grandmother three nights a week. She went back to school, and now she was finishing her junior year—with honors. I didn’t know how she did any of it, but I admired her.

  When Marlene and I first met, we regarded each other warily. We weren’t sure we liked each other. After six months, we discovered we had the same slightly warped sense of humor, although hers was a lot quicker in the morning than mine. I am not a morning person. She razzes me about this all the time. Even at seven thirty her complexion looked rosy and her black curls looked crisp.

  “Your usual,” Marlene said, pouring me a cup of decaf coffee and setting my scrawny egg down in front of me. “Yum, yum,” she said sarcastically. “I don’t know why you bother to order something like that. Any idiot could make it at home.”

  “Not this idiot,” I said. “I come here because I like the way the staff treats me. At any other restaurant they fawn all over me, which is bad for my character. Anyone looking for me?”

  “Yeah, Roberta left a message that she’d stop by this morning. She has a story for you. And speaking of sucking up, are you going to order any real food after you eat that scrawny egg, or are you just going to sit there and suck up coffee?”

  “I’ll suck coffee,” I said.

  I might even get to finish breakfast before Roberta arrived. I did a lot of interviewing at Uncle Bob’s. I wrote a column that either was funny or spilled some city secret, and for either kind, people needed to feel comfortable. At Uncle Bob’s, the booths were as soothing as a grandmother’s lap. The food was comfortable, too. Diners never had to ask “What’s that?” at Uncle Bob’s. This was homey food, either sugary or fried, or both. Besides, the prices were so cheap I could afford to pick up the tab even with my stingy CG expense account.

  I was still staring at my cooling coffee when Roberta came in. I waved to her to join me. “I’d hoped you’d be here,” she said, sliding in the seat.

  “Her body is,” said Marlene, pouring more coffee. “I can’t vouch for her mind.”

  Roberta had given me several stories at Uncle Bob’s. She looked like an ordinary woman with home-permed hair, an unstylish blue wool coat, and a knobby knit cap. You could find a dozen like her at Hampton Village Shopping Center. But to me, Roberta was one in a million. I thought she was one of the bravest women I knew. Three years ago, Roberta was a home-maker. Jim, her muscular, balding husband, worked in construction. She enjoyed staying home with their two young children, a three-year-old boy and a girl in grade school. She liked the PTA and her volunteer work. She sewed, worked in the garden, and made crafts. I used to tease her that she was a throwback to 1956, but her contentment was obvious.

  Then one night Roberta came home from a PTA meeting to find her husband of twelve years packing his suitcases. Jim said he wanted a divorce. He was leaving her for another woman. Roberta had no idea that Jim was seeing someone else. Jim said his wife-elect wanted children and he really couldn’t afford child support for their two if he started a new family. He was leaving Roberta the house and two thousand dollars in the bank. That was it. Jim walked out. Roberta was dismissed. Fired from their marriage. Their children didn’t exist.

  The waitresses at Uncle Bob’s found Roberta a good lawyer—the same one they’d used for their divorces. He pursued Jim for two years, from state to state and court date to court date, until Jim understood he had some responsibility to his first family. Jim paid his child support sporadically, and not until the judge placed him in contempt. But he paid. Meanwhile, Roberta got a job working at a discount store. If she made twelve thousand dollars a year, I’d be surprised. But she kept the house spotless and her children beautifully dressed. Roberta haunted the garage sales and resale shops to buy them the same brands their classmates wore.

  She was never bitter. She never bored you with nasty stories about her ex. She set about methodically building a new life. The effort took its toll. She gained eighty pounds. She weighed close to two hundred now. Roberta was sensitive about her weight. She didn’t buy herself pretty things or go out. Her friends thought it was some sort of self-imposed mourning for her exhusband. They also thought he wasn’t worth it.

  Finally two Uncle Bob’s waitresses, Jean and Sue, persuaded Roberta to go out with them. Saturday, they’d gone to McGurk’s, an Irish bar in Soulard. That was an old redbrick neighborhood deep in the city, known for its restaurants and bars.

  “I haven’t been out much since Jim left,” Roberta told me. “I had quite a night. I’ll tell you my story if you wo
n’t use my name.”

  I agreed. Roberta ordered blueberry pancakes and ham, and Marlene took my plate. While Roberta talked, I took notes on the back of my Uncle Bob’s place mat.

  “I didn’t feel like going out,” she said. “I never do. But Jean and Sue wanted me to hear the Irish band. I got my mother to watch the kids. When we got to McGurk’s and I heard the music and saw the Saturday-night crowd, I started feeling pretty good. Maybe my friends were right—I shut myself in the house too much.

  “While I was listening to the band, my friends wandered off. Jean went to the bathroom. Sue went to the bar to get our drinks. I was standing there by myself having a good time. Then this big, fat redneck walked up to me and said, ‘You know, if you dropped a little of that weight, you’d be able to get you a man.’ ”

  I looked at Roberta. I couldn’t believe anyone would be so rude. Her face stayed blank. “What did you say?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” Roberta said. “I could have kicked myself. I should have kicked him. But instead I just let myself be insulted. I know I’m heavy, but this guy was no Chippendale. He had a huge beer belly. His stomach hung out the front of his jeans. His underwear hung out the back.”

  “A skink!” I said. “That’s what we used to call guys whose underwear showed.”