My Crooked Family

by James Lincoln Collier

  5

  MA AND LULU WERE HOME when I got there. Lulu was curled down in the busted easy chair. She looked up when I came in. “Guess what, Roger? We went up to Grandma’s. She gave me ice cream and cake and a book and let me play the talking machine all I wanted to, only all they have is Caruso, but it isn’t so boring if you keep changing the speed so his voice goes up and down.”

  Ma must have gone up there to tell them about Pa and try to get some money. I wished I hadn’t missed out on that. “Did you get seconds?”

  “Sure. Grandma said I could have thirds, but Ma wouldn’t let me because it would spoil my appetite for supper. Only we don’t have any supper.”

  I went into the kitchen. Ma was sitting at the kitchen table with a glass half full in front of her. I looked at her. I hoped she wouldn’t get drunk.

  “Don’t look at me like that, Roger,” she said. “I’ve had a bad day.”

  “Did Grandma give you any money?”

  “No. She said she wasn’t going to give me any until I left your pa. She said your grandpa finally convinced her. How can I leave your pa when he’s half dead in the infirmary? I couldn’t do a thing like that. No decent woman would. They don’t understand your pa. All they see is his faults, they refuse to see his good points. It’s all because he grew up on a farm and didn’t get any culture. I’m so sick of hearing about culture. What do they know about culture? Your grandpa has spent all of life putting out the classified telephone book. Just because they own some Caruso records and have a box at the symphony they think they’ve got culture. Your pa is a gentleman by nature even if he doesn’t speak perfect English. He never had the advantages. Good manners aren’t only about knowing which fork to use for the salad or how to eat soup. Good manners come from the heart.”

  I’d heard her on this track before. “Did you have a fight with Grandma?”

  She sipped her drink. She was going to get drunk—she always did when she had a fight with Grandma. “We had words, Roger. I will not allow them to say those things about your pa. They don’t understand about him. There’s greatness to that man. He’s never had a chance. When he was twenty he was a wonderful song and dance man. He and Ted Wright were headed for the top. But then I came along and we had children and he couldn’t travel anymore. He stuck with us. A lot of men wouldn’t have done that. He could have been on the top—the very top. But he gave it all up for us. How can I leave him now?”

  That was the way she looked at it when she had a fight with Grandma. When she had a fight with Pa it was a different story—how he couldn’t get along with anybody, fought with B. F. Keith, insulted Proctor to his face, was blacklisted in half the theaters in the United States. I didn’t know what the truth was, for it all happened when I was too young to remember.

  “Ma, have we got any supper?”

  She took another sip of her drink. “Lulu doesn’t need any. She stuffed herself all afternoon at Grandma’s. I don’t feel like eating anything, not with all this. Bring me my purse and you can get yourself a sandwich at the Greek’s.”

  I remembered finishing off the bread. Lulu was bound to be hungry by and by. She never stayed stuffed for long. I brought Ma her purse. She opened it and fumbled around in it until she came up with two bits. “Get yourself a sandwich and a soda pop.”

  “What about Lulu?”

  She snapped the purse shut. I wish I’d taken a look in it before I gave it to her. I figured she had a little more money than just that quarter but was saving it for booze. “She doesn’t need anything more to eat.”

  “I’m hungry,” I said. “I’m going down to the Greek’s.”

  I didn’t want to hang around there and watch Ma get drunk, and I didn’t want to be there when Lulu got over feeling stuffed and started hollering for supper with Ma too drunk to do anything. Once she started drinking it was liable to go on for a few days, or even a week, until she got to the point where she wouldn’t even bother to get out of bed. When she got to that point Pa would get disgusted with her and wouldn’t come home for two or three days. Me and Lulu would have to take care of ourselves, although sometimes Mrs. O’Brien would come up with some soup for Ma and she’d feed us. Then one day we’d come home from school and there Ma would be, ironing Pa’s shirts and cooking supper like it had never happened. That was the queerest part—that it was like it had never happened. After that she’d be all right for a while, and if Pa came up with some money things wouldn’t be too bad.

  But she’d started in again and I just wanted to get out of there. I knew it wasn’t right of me to leave Lulu alone with her. I knew I ought to figure out a way to get her something to eat. But I just wanted to get out of there.

  I went on downstairs. It was only five o’clock and still pretty light. I didn’t want to go to the Greek’s yet, for once I’d eaten my supper I wouldn’t have anything to look forward to. So I went around to the vacant lot at the end of Swaine Street where they were playing baseball and watched for a while, thinking about Circus’s proposition. It was going to be the kind of thing you could get into real trouble for, I was sure of that.

  A couple of kids I knew from school were in the game, and they asked me to play left field, for they were short-handed. “I have to do an errand for Ma,” I said. The truth was, I was all tangled up thinking about Circus’s job and didn’t feel like playing.

  I ought to do what Circus wanted, even if it scared me. Being scared was no excuse for anything. If you didn’t do things because they scared you, you’d never do anything. I ought to do it. Pa wasn’t going to be good for anything for a while, and neither was Ma if she went on drinking, especially as Grandma wasn’t going to give her any more money. It would be a mighty good thing if I could pick up a few dollars. How much would it be? I didn’t know that, either, but it wouldn’t be just a half a buck or even a couple of bucks. It would be more than that—enough to take care of me and Lulu for a while.

  Then something came to me: Circus was always saying how he wanted to give me a helping hand. Maybe I could get him to cough up a half a buck so I could get Lulu some supper. With a half a buck I could buy enough potatoes and fatback to last for a couple of nights. You put the fatback in the skillet and cooked it until you got a nice bunch of hot grease. Then you peeled the potatoes, sliced them in, and kept turning them with a fork until they were the color of gold. They were mighty good, especially if you loaded them up with salt and pepper—all hot and crisp, with chunks of fatback to go along with them. Fried bread was good, too, but not as good as potatoes fried with fatback. I loved stuff like that. I cooked it a lot.

  Circus said he would be at Stein’s. It was one of the biggest jitney dance halls in the District. I’d never been there, but Charley O’Neill used to go. You could get in for nothing, but you had to pay to dance with the girls. I didn’t know how to dance so there was never any reason for me to go. Charley O’Neill was a good dancer—at least he said he was. He could do the Buzzard Lope, the Turkey Trot, and other ones. Charley said he would teach me, but he never got around to it.

  I started off for Stein’s. It was after six now, and the lights were coming on. That was one thing you could say about the neighborhood: there was always plenty of light at night—electric streetlights along the sidewalk, gas lights in the honky-tonks, light streaming out of the windows of the parlor houses, and lights from the dance halls that had their names spelled out in light bulbs. It was bright as day around there at night.

  Some of the honky-tonks never shut down. You could have taken the doors off them for all it mattered. The Golden Eagle was like that. About eight o’clock in the morning they swept up the sawdust and cigarette butts, shoveled it into burlap bags, and put down a new layer of sawdust. That was the only way you could tell one day from the next in places like the Golden Eagle.

  The dance halls generally shut down at two or three in the morning, for by that time the girls were dog-tired and could hardly stand up, much less dance. They wouldn’t open again until evening.

/>   Then, along about six or seven the next night, things started up again when the men started coming off from work. By six the tonks would be filling up, and you’d hear ragtime bouncing out of them. By seven the bands would be banging and slamming in the dance halls, and the young fellas would be standing around outside gassing with each other and counting their change. By eight o’clock you’d see the swells coming along in their motor cars, heading for the fancy places like Berg’s, where they served steaks and lobsters, and they had dancing girls and a dirty show.

  By now music was coming out of the tonks. I walked slowly along, not being in any rush. Circus wouldn’t be at Stein’s yet, I figured. So I killed a little time strolling around, and then I went on over to Sixth and down to Wheeler. Stein’s was upstairs over a row of stores—variety store, fruit and vegetable store, cobbler’s shop. The stores were closed at night, so it didn’t matter about the noise from the dance hall upstairs.

  A bunch of fellas were standing around at the bottom of the stairs that went up to Stein’s. It made me nervous to think about going up there with all of them looking at me and wondering if I was too young to be going up there. Maybe I should wait downstairs until Circus came along.

  But that was being a Nervous Nelly. Besides, Circus might be upstairs already. So I went over to the stairs and slipped through the bunch standing there. Two or three of them gave me a look, but nobody said anything. Even though Charley O’Neill had told me what it was like, I didn’t really know and was curious. People were going up ahead of me and pushing past me coming down. Once a fella came down with his arm around a girl, which made it a pretty tight squeeze.

  Then I got there. The place was divided in half by a low rail fence. On one side was the dance floor, with chairs around the walls where the girls who weren’t dancing could rest. There was a bandstand at the back end of the dance floor where a little four-piece outfit was banging away— cornet, violin, piano, and snare drum. They were playing “Chinatown, My Chinatown,” and making a big racket. Still, there were a dozen couples out there jigging away to it, having a fine time for themselves.

  The bar room took up the other half of the place. There wasn’t much to it—a few tables with chairs around it and a long bar against the far wall. It was already pretty full. For a minute I stood at the door looking around for Circus. But I didn’t see him, so I slipped over to the wall at one end of the bar room where I wouldn’t be noticeable.

  I thought about buying a beer. I wasn’t sure they’d sell me any. They weren’t supposed to— I was too young. But around there nobody paid much attention to those kind of laws. To be honest, I never drank anything much. Sometimes Charley O’Neill would give me some of his beer. I didn’t much like the taste of it, but I always drank it so as not to look like a Nelly. And once me and Lulu swiped some of Ma’s whiskey. It tasted awful, and we never tried it again. When you got down to it, I wasn’t much in favor of liquor, not with what it did to Ma. So it wasn’t that I wanted a beer. I just figured that if I was holding on to a mug I’d look more like I belonged there. But if I paid a dime for a beer, there went my sandwich. So I decided to chance it. I folded my arms across my chest, lounged against the wall, and looked at the girls, like I was used to it.

  A lot of the girls were pretty young. A couple of them didn’t look any older than me. I wished I knew how to dance. I’d like to cuddle up close with one of them, the way the fellas who were dancing were. I’ll bet it felt mighty nice to hold a girl close and feel her up against your chest and your stomach. If I’d known how to dance, maybe I’d have spent my quarter on it and skipped supper. It might have been worth it.

  Then I saw Circus come up the top of the stairs. He was dressed mighty fine—bottle-green trousers, yellow shirt with white polka dots, pink kerchief around his neck, black derby hat tipped back on his head. I looked down at my own clothes—nothing but a pair of patched knickers and a sweater with holes in both elbows. I began to blush. I never thought about my clothes much. I just put them on in the morning and took them off at night, and every once in a while Ma took them away and washed them. Now I realized that most of the fellas at Stein’s had got themselves done up pretty nice: shine on their shoes, crease in their pants, derby hats, hair slicked back, no patches, no holes. I could feel myself go hot and start to sweat. Why didn’t I at least comb my hair and rub up my shoes with a piece of newspaper or something? It might have helped a little. I could have worn my other sweater too. It had holes in the elbows, but Ma had patched them one time when she quit drinking for a while and was trying to take care of us.

  But I couldn’t worry about it anymore, for Circus had spotted me and was strolling towards me through the crowd. He came up and eyed me up and down. “Well there, Sport,” he said. “I thought you might come to it. I said to myself, This here is a smart kid and he’ll know a good proposition when he sees it. He’ll tell hisself that Circus is a good sort of fella, who wouldn’t lead nobody on the wrong track. I expect that’s just what you told yourself.”

  “Well, I haven’t decided,” I said. “I have to know what it is first.”

  He pushed his lips out so that the toothpick dangled down. Then he took it out of his mouth. “Well, yes,” he said. “That’s just what you would want. You would think just that way, for you’re young and inexperienced, and don’t have no idea of how these things are done. I can see that. But no harm done. A fella’s got to get his start somewhere. Nobody’s born knowing everything. I wasn’t and you wasn’t and President Taft hisself wasn’t. But you’re a smart kid. I knew that the minute I saw you. I said, Circus, that’s a smart one there, you’d better get to know him. And being as you’re smart, you’re bound to get the idea of things pretty quick.”

  “All I want to know is what I’m supposed to do.”

  “You see? You’re doing it again.” He put the toothpick back in his mouth. “But I can see your point, for there would be advantages in knowing the whole story. That way, if you’re bored sometime and don’t have nothing better to do, you can recite it all out to your ma and pa and your little sister whatsername, and the postman when he comes around, and the ice man when he comes, too. Oh, a story like that is just the ticket to liven up a conversation.”

  I felt pretty stupid. But still, the idea of getting into something without knowing what it was scared me. “I get the idea of that, Circus,” I said. “I can see it. But how can I agree to do it if I don’t know what it is?”

  “Trust. You just put your trust in Circus and you’ll come up smelling like roses. You’ll make real money, get yourself some new duds, and catch yourself a little girlie. Nice pair of checked trousers, striped shirt, derby hat. Throw those patched knickers into the garbage pail. Why, you ain’t fit for polite company dressed that way. No little girlie would give you a second look.”

  That hit home all right. I was dressed like some poor orphan out of a movie. Why did I have to look like that? Why couldn’t I have a pair of yellow trousers with a crease like a knife and a derby hat to tip back on my head? And an easy chair you could sit in without sinking down to the floor, and a good hot supper every night, and a Parcheesi set and curtains in the windows?

  “Listen, Circus, you got a half a buck I could borrow for a couple of days?”

  He looked at me, thinking. Then he said, “You know, Rog, if you was to go in on this scheme, you wouldn’t have to be worrying about borrowing half dollars no more.”

  I was stuck, that was clear. “Circus, if I was to come in on it, would you lend me the money?”

  He laughed. “Why, Rog, I’ll do better than that.” He reached into his back pocket, took out a roll of bills, licked a finger, and slipped a dollar bill from the roll. “Here you are, Sport. It’s yours. And there’s a lot more where that come from if you play your cards right.”

  I reached my hand out for the dollar, and then I stopped, for if I took it I’d seal the deal. I thought of Lulu, and a pair of yellow pants with a crease in them like a knife, and I took the bill and
shoved it into my back pocket. “Thanks,” I said. Now I’d done it. A strange feeling came over me, scared but kind of happy too. It was going to be risky, that was clear enough. But I thought that if it worked out, and I didn’t mess up someway, I’d have something for myself for a change.

  Circus put his arm around my shoulder and bent down close to my ear. “Thursday night at ten o’clock you be standing at the corner of Eighteenth and Rickerts,” he kind of hissed. “A fella’ll come along and ask you the time. You tell him you don’t know as your watch was stole. You just follow along after him, keeping quiet and looking easy.”

  He straightened up and looked around to see if anybody was watching. When he was satisfied that nobody was, he bent down again. “You be blame sure you don’t say nothing to nobody, or you’ll end up in the infirmary alongside your pa.” He didn’t have to say that to me, for I knew it already.

  I was feeling pretty nervous, and I decided to get out of there. Besides, Lulu would have gotten over being stuffed and would be starting to whine and moan. I ran on out of there, and down to a grocery store that stayed open late. I bought a couple of pounds of potatoes, a loaf of bread, a half pound of fatback, and a couple of onions—onions were good in fried potatoes, too. Then I went home. Lulu was curled up down inside the easy chair. “Did you bring something to eat, Roger? I’m so hungry I can’t stand it.”

  “I got some potatoes and fatback.”

  She uncurled herself from the easy chair in a leap like a cat and landed on the floor. “Oh quick, gimme a potato, Roger.”

  “You can’t eat them raw.”

  “I don’t care,” she said. She put her arms around herself and began to shiver. “Gimme one, please, Roger.”

  “They’ll give you stomach cramps, Lulu. Remember?”

  “No they won’t. I promise.”