My Crooked Family

by James Lincoln Collier

  He gave me another look. “How come you’re not fourteen? I thought you were. How old are you?”

  “Thirteen.”

  It didn’t surprise me any that Pa wanted me to quit school and go to work. But Ma would be dead set against it. In a way I wouldn’t mind quitting, for I was tired of school, and if I had a job I’d have a little money of my own to show for it, so I’d be free to go around to the saloons and the dance halls when I felt like it. Of course Pa would take as much of my wages as he could, but I figured I’d be able to hang on to some of it. And if things got too bad, if I had a job I could leave home and take a room somewhere. Most of the kids quit sooner or later, once they got to be fourteen. Charley O’Neill stuck it out until he was fifteen. Finally he got tired of the kid’s stuff, he said. It was time he became a grown-up and did a man’s job. When you got down to it, a lot of kids didn’t wait until they were fourteen to quit school. Some quit at twelve, thirteen. If the truant officer found them he’d march them back to school. But if the pa was dead or had run off, and the ma was working, sometimes the older one had to stay home to look after the little ones, and maybe do piece work as well. When you got into a case like that, it didn’t matter if you were ten or twelve or whatever: you had to stay home.

  But Ma wasn’t going to let me quit school if she could help it. If you stuck it out at school and got your diploma, you could get an office job instead of going to work in construction or in a sweatshop. According to Ma, if you worked in an office you could move up, the way Grandpa did. Grandpa was born on a farm in Ohio. He didn’t get much schooling; nobody did in those days, he said. But he studied on his own, nights after the chores were done, and learned to read and write and figure. He came into the city when it wasn’t much more than an overgrown town and worked his way up. I could see that was what I ought to do, too—stick it out in school for another three years, then get a job in an office and work my way up. But all of that seemed an awful long way off. Three more years of trying to keep the Assyrians and Etruscans and Egyptians straight seemed like forever, and how long after that would it take to work my way up? How could anyone plan that far ahead? Maybe it was better just to try to get along day by day.

  “When’ll you be fourteen? Your birthday’s in June, isn’t it?”

  “May twenty-seventh.”

  “I thought it was around there. Well, you better think about it. Now don’t bother me, I’m busy.”

  I went out to the living room and sat there holding my ancient history book, trying to get myself to study, but I hadn’t got started when Pa called out, “Roger, come here.” I went into the kitchen. He handed me an envelope. “I want you to deliver this. Know where the Arcadian Gardens is?”

  “Yes.” The Arcadian Gardens was a big casino garden where they had dancing and sold beer.

  “There’s a fella there they call Russell. Give it to him. Don’t give it to no one else. If he isn’t there bring it back to me. He’s usually in the office out towards the back.” I took the letter and stuck it under my shirt. I was glad to get out of studying ancient history.

  The Arcadian Gardens was over on Whittaker—a big one-story place with a fancy front full of curves and phony turrets that was supposed to look Turkish or something. I’d never been inside before. When I got close I saw that the front door was open and an old fella with big yellow teeth was mopping up inside. I went in. Being as it was afternoon nobody was around except the mopper. It was just a big room with a bar over to one side, and on the other side a bandstand with a piano and a snare drum sitting there. On the back wall were glass doors that let out onto the outside part—lots of tables and chairs, another bandstand with a roof over it, and a space in front of it for dancing.

  The mopper stopped mopping. “You looking for somebody, kid?”

  “I’m looking for Russell.”

  He took it as an excuse to have a rest. “What do you want with him?” He took out a tobacco pouch and rolled a cigarette.

  “I’ve got a message for him.”

  “Gimme it. I’ll give it to him.” He lit the cigarette and tossed the match into the mop bucket.

  “I’m not supposed to give it to anybody. I’m supposed to give it to him direct.”

  “He don’t like visitors.”

  I knew better than to disobey Pa. “I can’t give it to anybody else.”

  The old man spit into the mop bucket. “It’s your funeral. He’s back there.”

  He pointed towards a little door by the bandstand. I went on back. There was a frosted glass window in the door with MANAGER lettered on it in gold. I knocked on the glass. A voice said, “That you, Penrose? What took you so long?”

  Penrose. I froze, so startled I couldn’t speak for a minute. “No, sir. I have a message from Bill Hardy.”

  “Slide it under the door.”

  “Are you Russell?”

  “Who do you think I am?”

  “Pa said to give it only to Russell.”

  “Pa?” For a minute there was silence. Then the door opened halfway and a man put his head out.

  It was the man in the homburg. I jumped back. “You? You’re Russell?”

  “I have to be somebody, don’t I? Come on in.”

  I was just so surprised I couldn’t think. What did Pa have to do with Circus and the man in the homburg and their bunch? Was he in with them? Did Pa know I was in on the thing all along? I stood there with my mouth open and nothing coming out of it.

  “Don’t stand there with your mouth open like a goldfish,” he said. “Come on in.” He stood back and I went in. The office was plain and small—a desk at the back, couple of filing cabinets, old safe, coat tree, little sofa.

  He shut the door behind me. “Let’s see the message.” I took the letter out of my shirt. He went over to the desk, sat down in the swivel chair, and leaned back, making the chair squeak. He opened the letter and began to read it, and I stood there in front of the desk looking around at things so as not to stare at him. He finished reading the letter, folded it up, and put it into his jacket pocket. Then he leaned forward, so that the chair squeaked again, and sat there with his hands on the desk looking at me. Finally he said, “Since you’re here, we might as well have a chat. Sit down.”

  I sat down on the edge of the sofa, feeling mighty strange. I had a feeling that I was part of something, that I’d been part of it for a while without even knowing it.

  Russell went on staring at me. “Circus tells me he discussed our newest little adventure with you.”

  “Yes, sir.” It was one thing to tell Circus I didn’t want to join in on it; it would be a lot harder to say no to Russell. “He brought it up with me.”

  “Circus said you was of two minds about it.”

  How could I put it so it wouldn’t seem like I was getting uppity with him? “Well, sir, I wouldn’t have minded if... that fella hadn’t . . . got shot. I might have felt different.”

  “Circus gave you your money, didn’t he? Fifty dollars?”

  “Yes, sir. I bought myself some new pants.” I wished now I had them on.

  “Good,” he said. “A young man with your quality oughtn’t to go around with patches on his pants. You’re too good for that.”

  My quality? Oh boy, did it make me feel good to hear him say that. Nobody’d ever told me I had quality before. “I’m going to buy some shirts, too, as soon as—when I get a chance.” I resolved I’d buy a shirt whether I could think up an excuse or not.

  Russell looked up at the ceiling, thinking. “Now about that fella who got shot, Roger. Don’t let that bother you. That didn’t have anything to do with our bunch. We don’t go in for things like that. You see, another bunch had got wind of our little escapade and was waiting for us outside. As you can imagine there was a lot of noise. It woke that poor fella up and he come down with a gun. Somebody from the other bunch saw him standing in the doorway with the light behind him and couldn’t resist the temptation. It didn’t have anything to do with us.”

 
; “Oh. Well, I’m glad to hear that.” I hoped it was true. It seemed like it might be.

  “So, now that you’re satisfied we didn’t have anything to do with that unfortunate event, you’ll come in on the new scheme.”

  “Well.” There were so many mysteries in it, but I didn’t know if I was allowed to ask questions.

  He watched me. “What’s the problem, Roger?”

  “Well. There’s Pa. Did you tell him about. . . that I was in on it?”

  “No. Of course not. Why should I?”

  “Well, seeing as you’re his friend and all.”

  “Friend?” he said. “No, I wouldn’t say that. Not a friend. Oh, I know him from around. Everybody does. But I wouldn’t say we was close.”

  “Well, what I don’t understand then, is why you asked me to come in on it.”

  He shrugged. “It didn’t have anything to do with your pa. Nothing at all. It was because of Circus. He come around and said he’d run into a likely young fella—smart, nervy kid, who wasn’t above picking up a dollar that happened to be laying around. That’s how it come about. Your pa didn’t come into it at all.”

  “What was that note about, then?”

  He gazed at me for a minute. I could tell that he liked to gaze that way, to put you off. “You know, Roger, if you mean to succeed at the trade, you’ll have to learn not to ask so many questions. I thought Circus straightened you out on that.”

  Why couldn’t I ever learn to keep my mouth shut? “I guess I’m too curious.”

  “It doesn’t pay to be curious.”

  “I’m sorry.” I should be more like Pa. You couldn’t ever get anything out of him.

  “So. It’s a deal?”

  I was kind of boxed in. He’d knocked down my main excuse, about that fella getting shot. “Well, I don’t know, sir. I’ll be honest, I was pretty scared last time.”

  He nodded. “Of course you was scared. Any normal person would be. I get nerved up myself in these affairs. But you got to figure the payoffs worth it. Besides, it’s a good thing to be nervous when you got this kind of business to hand —it keeps you on your toes.”

  “Maybe you could get somebody else. Circus said there were a lot of boys around who’d jump at the chance.”

  “That may be so, Roger. But you’re the boy we want. You did so good last time we know we can count on you.” He looked up at the ceiling again, for a minute. “You know, Roger, I wasn’t much different from you when I was a kid. I went around with patches on my knickers and my elbows shoving out through my sweater.”

  “I’m planning on getting some new duds.”

  He went on staring at the ceiling. “My pa come over from the old country when he was around twenty. Czech. Cabinet maker. There was two older than me, sisters. Pa died when I was eight. After that the family went to pieces. My older sister went out to Chicago with some fella who dumped her out there. My younger sister, who was only a couple of years older than me, went to the bad before she was fourteen. I know what it’s like to steal a bucket of rice for dinner.” Now he looked at me. “Only with me it wasn’t rice. It was sweet stuff out of the pastry shops. I was nuts for sweets.”

  “How did you know I stole—took that rice? Did Circus Penrose tell you?”

  “You’d be surprised how much I know about you, Roger.” I was surprised all right. But it felt kind of good that he was keeping track of me. “I only tried to steal that once. Mostly we have regular meals.”

  He went back to looking at the ceiling. “Oh, I’m sure of it. Mostly. I bet you had a lot of dinners when the main dish was spuds.” He looked at me again. “You and me, Roger, we started at the bottom. Twelve years old and I was sweeping out a saloon for my meals and sleeping in the storeroom on burlap sacks. I climbed out of that. You’ll climb off the bottom, too. But you got to grab the opportunity when it comes up.”

  The whole thing gave me a funny feeling. It wasn’t just this job he was talking about. He was offering me a place to be. Something to be part of. “I have to think about it.”

  “Don’t take too long. We got to know in a couple of days.”

  I wished I knew what it was. But I knew better than to ask.

  9

  A COUPLE OF DAYS LATER, instead of going home right from school, I went over to Morris Bros. and stood looking in the window at the shirts. Six or seven of them were pinned up on a board— striped ones, ones with different material for the pockets and collars, polka-dot ones. They all looked so good I couldn’t decide which one I liked best. But what kind of an excuse could I come up with to explain where I’d got the money for a shirt?

  I went on home thinking about it. What was the use of making fifty dollars if you couldn’t spend it? When I got home Lulu and Ma were there. Lulu had on a new dress. It was a plain dress, not a whore’s type: Ma would never let Lulu have one of those. It was blue-and-white striped, with puffy sleeves and a bow that tied in the back. Lulu looked real pretty in it. She stood in the middle of the kitchen with Ma and Pa looking at her, mighty proud of herself. “Look, Roger,” she said. “Look what I can do.” She twirled around, and the dress spun up to her knees.

  Ma frowned. “I hope you don’t intend to do that in public, Lulu.”

  “Why not?” she said. “It makes me look cute.”

  “It’s immodest,” Ma said. “At your age you don’t need to worry about looking cute.”

  “She needs some good-looking shoes to go with the dress,” Pa said.

  “I couldn’t afford any,” Ma said.

  “I’ll get the money,” Pa said. “I want her to look decent.” I wished he would say something about me looking decent, too, but I knew he wouldn’t.

  Lulu twirled again. “Look, Roger.”

  “Where on earth did you learn that?” Ma said.

  Lulu went on twirling. “Some dancers came to school and did it.”

  “What could they have been thinking of?” Ma said.

  “It was some Balkan folk dancers,” I said. “They were part of a show they had.”

  “Let her alone,” Pa said. “She’s just a kid.”

  Lulu stopped twirling. “I’m going over to Minnie’s house and show her.” She rushed out.

  It was making me mad that Lulu was getting new clothes and I wasn’t. Right then and there I resolved to go over to Morris Bros. and buy a shirt. I’d worry about the excuse afterwards. “I’m going over to the O’Neills’,” I said. I went on out of the apartment, down the stairs, and onto the street. Lulu was standing at the bottom of the stoop with a funny look on her face. “I thought you were going over to Minnie’s.”

  “I was. Only some man came along and started asking me about Pa.”

  “Pa? What did he want to know?”

  “If Pa was better and was up and walking around.”

  “Was he a sort of tall skinny fella with red hair, wearing fancy clothes?”

  “He had on yellow pants.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Was Pa up and around and all that,” she said.

  “I mean exactly.”

  “How can I remember all that stuff, Roger? He just wanted to know if Pa was up and around.”

  “Try to remember,” I said.

  “I can’t. Stop bothering me about it.”

  I thought for a minute. “How did he know who you were?”

  “He asked if I knew the Hardys and I said who I was.”

  What was Circus up to? I didn’t like it. I didn’t like the way they kept mingling into our business.

  Should I tell Pa? What did Pa know about Circus Penrose? Circus said that he’d never laid eyes on Pa, but that didn’t mean anything. Pa knew Russell, so he might know Circus. The thing was, if I told Pa about it, a whole lot of other stuff might come out. It was too risky.

  But suppose something bad happened to Pa because I didn’t warn him? And then suppose Pa found out afterwards that I’d known something all along and hadn’t told him? What should I do?

  I decided to stop th
inking about it and go on over to Morris Bros. “Don’t talk to strangers anymore, Lulu. If they start asking you questions, say you’re not allowed to talk to strangers and walk away.”

  “He wasn’t a stranger. He said he was a friend of yours.”

  “Well he is, sort of. But he was a stranger to you.”

  I started off for Morris Bros., thinking about it all. When you came down to it, Russell was offering me a much better proposition than Pa was. Pa’s idea was I should quit school and go to work so’s he could take my wages. Where was the good in that for me? If I went along with Russell I’d get something out of it for myself. I was beginning to see that there was an awful lot of money in these things—not just fifty dollars but hundreds. If they’d given me fifty dollars for the last job, they were bound to give me more for this one—a hundred at least and maybe more.

  But it was certain to be risky. It almost seemed like they wanted it to be risky—they wouldn’t be interested in it if it wasn’t. Somebody might be killed again, and I’d have to go through that terrible feeling again. Maybe Ma was right—I ought to stick it out in school and not go to the wrong.

  I got to Morris Bros. and stood there looking at the shirts. They were beautiful, all bright and sparkly, clean and new and folded just so. I wondered what kind Circus would buy. Right away I saw there wasn’t any good in that, for Circus had every kind of shirt. Each time I saw him he had on a different one—striped ones, polka-dot ones, ones that was blue with pink cuffs and collar. Maybe someday I’d have a whole mess of shirts, too.

  It was awful hard to decide, for I would have been glad to have any of them. I wanted them all. But I knew I couldn’t.

  Finally I decided on one that was red-and-white candy stripes. I went in and got measured, and walked out five minutes later with my shirt. I decided I wouldn’t wear it until I could wear my yellow pants too. Maybe on Sunday I’d put on my new shirt, my yellow pants, and go out to the Arcadian Gardens and stand around having a beer and looking at the people. Boy, I’d really love doing that.