by Iceberg Slim
It was the first time in my life I’d heard the music of a summer night. I fell asleep on the fresh white pillowcase.
10
A DOLL WITH A LUST FOR DAMES
I awoke and felt the pajama silk plastered to my sweaty chest. I thought I’d heard an angry female voice.
Dawn’s gray drab brush had blotted out the moon’s soft-blue tapestry on the ceiling. For a pounding moment I thought I was back in the concrete swamp on Thirty-ninth Street.
Then I heard Blue’s voice, loud and angry. He said, “Goddammit, Midge, I’m no sucker. If you must lie to me about where you’ve been all night, make up a good one. You know, one that at least a moron would believe. Midge, I’m warning you. You’re going to get that fast little ass of yours in a sling.”
She said, contemptuously, “Blue, everybody knows you aren’t a sucker. Oh, no! You’re a thief, a robber who never gives a poor sucker an even break. You’re sick, Blue, like your con pal, Dirty Red. You wouldn’t know the truth if it walked up and blew your brains out. You lie for a living. Shit, I bet you’re the biggest liar in Chicago.”
Blue shouted, “What the hell do you know? You dumb little broad, you’d starve to death in the gutter if you didn’t have me to love you and take care of you. Now shut up and go to bed before I lose my temper.”
She laughed wildly and said, “I heard you say that word. But I can’t believe you really said it! Love! You never loved Mama or me or anything, except Blue and money.
“If I don’t shut up, what will you do, Blue? Slap hell out of me and make me stand with my face in a corner like you did Mama.
“I’m not Mama, Blue. You wouldn’t put your black paws on me but one time. You’d have to go to sleep sometime. I take an oath on Mama’s grave that I wouldn’t let you wake up.”
There was a long silence.
Then Blue said, “Midge, you don’t realize what you’re saying to your father. Those slimy freaks you hang out with are poisoning your mind against me, aren’t they, baby?
“You’re a good-looking girl. Why not sweetheart around with some nice boy? Stay away from those stinking lesbians and funky sissies. You’ll see how much better off you’ll be.
“We can be happy then. I’m worried about you, little baby. Be sweet and stay at home like you did when Pauline was alive. It’s a crime, baby, to treat me like you do.”
Midge said, “Blue, don’t try to con me into deserting my friends. Sure, I stayed at home with Mama. You seldom did. She loved and needed me. We were all each other had.
“It was a crime that Mama married you and had me. It was a double crime that Mama and my baby sister had to die at her birth. No man will ever mistreat me like you did Mama. So save your breath, Blue. I love girls and girls are mad about me.”
I got up and went into the bathroom. Her connecting door to the bathroom was ajar. I gently pushed it shut.
I heard Blue say softly, “I forgot we have a guest in our happy home. If he heard you—I know you’re proud. All right, Midge, it’s your funeral.
“Those freaks are treacherous and crazy jealous. I hope you don’t wind up in the morgue with your throat cut. Just don’t ever bring those sewer rats into this house.”
I flushed the toilet and went to the beige leather chair at the window. I sat there thinking about what I’d heard. None of it was too clear to me.
Midge had to be out of her mind not to realize how lucky she was to live in a house like this. So Blue made Pauline stand in a corner like a child. That was more comical than brutal. Maybe he had good reasons. It was sure nicer punishment than the bloody beatings some of the guys in the apartment building on Thirty-ninth Street gave their women every weekend.
So Blue conned suckers. It sure as hell was smarter and better than beating a drum for chump change like my old man. It was the guaranteed truth it was better than walking a thousand miles up and down the aisles of a theatre for twelve bucks a week. It was even better than picking pockets and dodging rollers with Lester Gray on the el trains.
I knew why I liked girls and I had the tool to enjoy the fun. But how could Midge, a girl, get down into the deep hot heart of the fun?
That Dirty Red crack puzzled me, too. I wished my old man had been slick like Blue and had stuck around to put Phala and me in a fine house. It was a crying shame Midge didn’t appreciate Blue. In my book Blue was the best thing that could happen to me, Midge or anybody else.
I heard water splashing into the bathtub. Midge was humming in the bathroom to faint radio music. Finally I heard the tub draining.
I went into the bathroom and brushed my teeth and sponged off. I brushed my hair with a clean brush I found in a cabinet drawer. I had taken my laundry off the towel rack when curiosity stuck my eye into Midge’s keyhole. She was naked, sitting in the middle of her bed facing the keyhole.
Her back was arched and her head was down too low to get a glimpse of her face. She was painting her toenails. The sight of her voluptuous body and pouted gold-lipped pussy parched my throat. My hot slippery palms skied on the tile when she raised her wickedly cute face.
In a cat-like spin of her fanny she swung her honey-colored legs to the carpet. A shiny cloud of blue-black hair swirled at her dimpled shoulder blades.
She stood at the dresser mirror and flogged the jet mane with a silver brush. Fingers of morning sun stroked across her heavenly butt and sparkled its twin champagne balloons. I trembled off my knees and sponged off again.
The cunning little devil started to sing. I heard her low sugary voice moaning a hit song. “I want to be loved with inspiration. I want to be loved until I tingle. I want to be kissed—”
I dressed and went down the hall to the back room. I unlatched it and stepped into the backyard. I sat down on a lawn chair and felt the morning breeze cool away my fever. I closed my eyes and wondered how soon I could make her like boys. A happy robin warbled me into a half doze. I heard the back door squeak open.
I half-opened my eyes. Midge was coming toward me wearing tight white toreador pants and a red bandana halter across the peaked jut of her breasts. I closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep.
I felt her hand gently shake my shoulder. I looked up into almond-shaped eyes, black and dreamy behind the silky veil of long curly eyelashes.
We both said, “Good morning” at the same time.
There was a fleeting dazzle of perfect pearl when she smiled and said, “You must be the guest Blue told me about. I’m Midge. Who are you, Mr. Fine, Errol Flynn’s twin brother?”
I said, “No. I’m Johnny—I mean they call me White Folks. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Luscious.”
She sat on the grass beside the chair and looked up into my eyes. She said. “Gee, your eyes make me feel funny. They’re so blue, like pieces of sky. How long have you known my dad?”
I said, “Since yesterday. I’m helping him at the carnival.”
She said, “Do you think I’m pretty?”
I said, “No, not really. I go for boys.”
She said, “You’re jiving me. You heard that argument this morning, didn’t you?”
I said, “Yes, I couldn’t help but hear it. I still say I go for boys. They’ve got what girls wish they had. You should try some good boy-loving before you get to be an ugly old lady.”
She giggled and said, “That’s a crock of crap. I had some for the first time when I was fourteen, right over there by those roses. It was just bloody and painful and no kicks at all.
“Then last year a college boy named Tommy rented a room in that big white house at the end of the block. He was as pretty as a girl.
“One night, he slipped me into his room. I was really crazy about him. And I wanted him to have me. We were doing it when I did a terrible thing. I was so ashamed of myself. Tommy wouldn’t even speak to me after that night.”
I said, “What happened? What did you do?”
She looked away at the sky and said, “I won’t tell you. It’s too awful. Say, listen, I didn’t me
an half of that stuff I said to Blue this morning. I was awfully mad at him.
“I don’t hate him really. I wouldn’t kill him. But I have to talk to him like that to scare him. He’s a big bully and he’d keep my ass on fire if I didn’t bluff him.”
I said, “Were you joking about loving girls? You sure don’t look like that kind of freak to me.”
She wrinkled her cute pug nose and raised her thick black eyebrows. She toyed with a leather thong on her red sandals.
I said, “Are you sweet on girls? Yes or no?”
She said, “Why the hell do I have to tell you how I get my kicks. It’s none of your business.” She got up. She put her hands on her hips and stood wide-legged in front of me. The lustrous mound of jet hair I’d seen at the keyhole lumped the crotch of her pants.
I said, “Forgive me. I guess it’s a hurting thing for a girl to know she hasn’t got enough on the ball to hook a guy. Too bad about you, Midge. But as they say, that’s life.”
The dreamy eyes blazed angrily. She was trembling. She shouted, “You paddy square. You should see me walk down South Parkway. I shake the guys up and make them drool like hungry dogs.
“I go for guys. I go for Errol Flynn, Robert Taylor and Charles Boyer. I like beautiful, classy guys. There are none like that on the Southside.
“So until I find what I want, it’s girls for me. You’re a freak yourself. You said you went for boys.”
I said, “Midge, you need straightening out on a few things. My father was a paddy. But I’m not. I’m from Thirty-ninth Street. There are no squares down there. My old lady was a boot.
“Like you said at first, Midge, I was jiving about going for boys. I go for girls like you with nice, round twisters and big tits. Maybe some night I’ll sleepwalk through the bathroom and prove to you how much I like girls.”
She said, “You better stop talking to your boss’ daughter like that. You ever put a foot inside my room, I’ll split your head open with a high heel. Your blue eyes and yellow hair don’t excite me, flunky.”
I watched the awesome twin balloons twist away from me. She met Blue coming out the back door. He stooped and kissed her on the cheek as she swept by him. He came toward me. I stood up. He was dressed in a gray seersucker suit. I wondered if my jazzy crack to Midge would get me thrown out of Blue’s house.
Blue’s eyes were bloodshot. He said, “Well, Folks, I see you and Midge have met. How do you like her?”
I said, “I like her, but I don’t think she likes me. I made a horny crack about her shape. I think I insulted her. I’m sorry, Blue.”
He threw his head back and laughed. He said, “You work fast, Folks. Forget it. She likes you. She was smiling when she walked away from you.
“Say, kid, I called about your mother. I’ve got bad news for you. She still doesn’t know who she is or anything. We’ve got to get her into a private sanitarium before they commit her to the state joint.
“She’ll never come to herself in that madhouse. Don’t worry, Folks, I’ll pull all the strings this week coming.”
The bad news shook me. My chest felt like it was stuffed with hot lead. I mumbled, “Thanks for everything, Blue.”
He said, “It’s ten o’clock. Midge isn’t in the mood to make breakfast for us. We’ll go to Power’s Restaurant on Forty-seventh Street.”
Forty-seventh Street was quiet when Blue pulled into the curb in front of the cafeteria. We got out of the car and went inside.
We ordered ham and eggs with coffee and toast. Blue gave me an argument but I paid for our orders. We took our trays and sat down at a long table facing the front window.
I hadn’t eaten a meal in a long time. But I wasn’t hungry. I couldn’t get Phala off my mind. I had forced down most of the breakfast when Blue lit a cigar.
He gazed out at the sunny street and said, “It sure is a beautiful day. It just isn’t right that a man forty-seven years old with my grifting talent and experience has to sweat it out with cheap suckers in a flat-joint and give up fifty percent.”
I said, “I wish I had my own flat-joint and could make half of the money you make.”
He said, “Kid, I can understand why you feel like that. But if you had your own flat-joint, do you know where you’d be on the con ladder? You’d be on the bottom.
“Just a short con bum who plays his heart out for a C-note now and then. I’m just a slim cut above a belly-stick. The biggest sucker mistake I ever made was to cut out from the Vicksburg Kid and the long con.”
I said, “Blue, what is the difference between short and long con?”
He looked at his wristwatch and said, “Folks, we play short con in the flat-joint. It’s short con because the play for the sucker is short and we can only trim the sucker for the goddamn scratch in his pocket. He could have a million in the jug. But the flat-joint short con is too weak to touch a deemer of that long green.
“In other words, the mark can’t be put on the send for his scratch in the bank. I didn’t know the difference myself until I met the Vicksburg Kid. He was a white flat-joint operator. When I left Mississippi with him as a belly-stick, I was about your age.”
“When I was twenty, he had become one of the best long con players in the country. He taught me long con and how to rope suckers for a wire store he set up in Denver, Colorado.
“In long con the sucker is given a powerful play to convince him that whatever scratch he has is only a drop in the bucket compared to what he can take off from the long con proposition. In long con the sucker is eager to race away on the send for his money.”
I said, “Gosh! What is a wire store? And what are the things you tell a guy to make him get all his money and bring it back to you?”
He laughed and pushed his huge palms toward me. He said, “Easy now, Folks. You stick with Blue long enough and I’ll teach you all the con you can handle. I like you. But I’m not fattening frogs for snakes.”
We went to the Caddie. My head was in an excited whirl. I had to find out the magic words that would make suckers drop bales of dough into my pockets. I was aching to learn con. And that’s the guaranteed truth.
We played the Hoyne Avenue and Lake Street spot for another week. Our next spot was on Loomis Street neat Roosevelt Road on the Westside.
Pocket and the belly-sticks were friendly and treated me like I was coal black. Believe me, that was wonderful for me. Blue treated me like a son. And that was even more wonderful. The flat-joint pay was good, too. I had over a C-note under the rug in my room.
Blue sure kept his promises. He took me to pick up Phala’s and my things on Thirty-ninth Street. He got Phala into a small private sanitarium run by a Baptist organization.
It was located outside Robbins, Illinois, a short distance from Chicago. I asked Blue about the cost. He said it was a free setup. I found out later that he was footing the hundred and fifty dollar a month bill.
In the first part of September Blue drove me up to see Phala. He waited for me in the parking lot.
A husky female nurse led me across a small fenced park. She stopped beneath the black shadow of a giant weeping willow tree. I saw Phala sitting on a bench in the sunshine ahead. I heard the willow sigh mournfully under the lash of the strong summer breeze.
The nurse said in a low voice, “Speak softly to her and don’t press her for recognition. She’s very disturbed.”
We walked across the manicured jade toward Phala. She was wearing a faded blue smock. She had her head down. There was a new blossom of white hair in the crown of her head.
She was so thin her shinbones were shiny in the sun. We stood in front of her. She didn’t raise her head. She was growling deep inside her throat and rapidly bumping together the tips of her skeletal fingers in her lap.
The nurse said softly, “Phala, honey, you have company. It’s your son, Johnny. Look at the beautiful roses he brought you.”
The nurse nodded her head toward a huddle of patients across the lawn. She whispered in my ear, “I’ll be ove
r there if you want me.”
Phala slowly raised her head and looked up at me. The once radiant brown eyes were gigantic dull blanks in her razor-thin face. I put the bouquet of roses on the bench beside her. For the first time in my life I called her mama.
I said, “Hi, Mama. It’s Johnny. Gee, I’ve missed you.”
She drew away. Her fingers were a blur in her lap as she pounded together her fingertips even more furiously. They made a staccato pulpy sound.
I stooped down and leaned close to her. I thought maybe I could coax at least a shadow of remembrance into the cold vacant eyes. I gazed into them for a long time. But I saw only the ghostly image of the sighing willow tree, swaying behind me. I stood up. I couldn’t stand any more of it.
I felt a tight, aching ball of pity inflate inside my chest. I had to leave her before I broke down. I leaned over and kissed her gently on the mouth.
She giggled, rolled her belly and thrashed her thighs together. I leaped back from her hand streaking for my crotch. Tears rolled down her cheeks.
In a whiny voice she pleaded, “Lemme feel it, huh? Lemme snatch it off, huh? Lemme see it bleed, huh? Lemme mash it, huh? Lemme, huh? Lemme, huh?”
I turned and walked away to the administration building. I looked back. The husky nurse was massaging Phala’s shoulders. Phala’s bony hand was still clawing at the air.
I broke down on the way back to Chicago. I cried longer and harder than I did when Phala fussed at the crow on that bottle of Old Crow whiskey.
Blue patted my shoulder and said, “How is she doing? Did she look bad?”
I said, “She looked terrible and old. It’s a funny thing. I used to laugh when she’d tell me that she wanted to be cremated if she were old and ugly when she died. I thought she’d always be beautiful.”
By the last of September the weather got awful chilly. Fewer and fewer suckers came to the carnival locations to get trimmed in the flat-joints. In October the season closed.
I had close to three bills under the rug. I hadn’t yet walked through the bathroom to Midge’s bedroom. I had lots of opportunities. Blue was out of town three or four days a week playing the smack with Memphis Shorty.
