by Tom Powers
I didn’t know much about religion, see? Of course I had heard a lot about it as a kid, first with Catholics and after that with Lutherans, but I didn’t pay much attention. Oh, I enjoyed getting confirmed and taking my first communion, I remember having a wreath and a veil and white slippers. Willie had a white taffeta bow on his arm and a rose with asparagus pinned upside down on his coat. With the Lutherans I mostly remember the picnics. Ma was a Catholic but Pop was a Lutheran. So he had to join the Catholics to get Ma, but that was the last time he went to either church—except once. So we was both religions, I guess.
But then when I grew up I met this young man that was so serious about religion.
He was a Presbyterian minister, and I hadn’t ever met any ministers so I got interested like I say. But after starting to tell me one night in a park about predestination, he kept burying his face in my neck instead of telling me more, and it seemed like his hands were predestinated to do a lot of exploring. So I quit seeing him and I never got to be a Presbyterian.
But anyway I remembered the word as I got my chips from Mulloy and went to the roulette wheel. Roulette is a game where a little ball jumps around in a round deep wheel with sides to keep it from jumping out. The wheel’s a lot of numbers and things on it and it turns. But it stops turning after a while and then the man takes a little hoe and scrapes in some of your little pile of chips and then they do that all over again until it’s all gone and the game is over.
Roulette is different from stories about roulette. In stories about roulette, people put their last white chip on the red and then see an old friend and turn to say hello, and when they turn back, they can’t see over the pile of chips that has grown up where they put that last white chip. But roulette is more like I told you.
While I was doing it, one of Mulloy’s slickers with a white bat wing and fixed up to look like society—but he had too much oil on his hair so it didn’t work—came up and tried to help me in case I really was society. But I put him off of me by saying, “Please, if you want to be nice, go and help Mrs. Palmer, she’s simply losing thousands.” He got pretty excited.
“Which Mrs. Palmer?” he says.
“As if you didn’t know,” I says, and he went off to ask somebody.
Names out of that brown roto section of the Sunday papers make boys like him jump like a flea had bit ’em where it would do the most good.
Well, when I had lost about half of my chips, a real society boy eased over to me.
“Hi,” he says.
And so, “Hi,” I says, right back at him.
“Pretty smart,” he says, “the way you got rid of that stooge of Mulloy’s,” he says.
I looked him over. Maybe he wasn’t a brown roto, after all, but he sure was a good imitation. Tie just enough mussed, handkerchief clean and good linen, but it was just stuffed in his pocket, not measured so the four points stood in a row like those little houses Pop used to build near a factory, all exactly alike.
I used to say to Pop when I’d get away from the beauty parlor and take sandwiches and a bottle of beer for him and a bottle of Coke for me, and we’d sit on one of those little porches and eat our lunch together, “Gee, Pop, I wish we could live in one of these, don’t you, instead of with Uncle Ulrich and Aunt Helga?”
“I sure do,” he’d say, and we’d sit there, smelling the new wood and the fresh dirt, and Pop smoking his old corncob, and we’d be pretty happy. But I kept thinking about how we needed to get Willie away from the butcher shop, which he was going back to as soon as his trial was over in Champagne. He told Ma he had missed her so bad he just couldn’t go on working up in Chicago….
But anyway, this kid’s handkerchief wasn’t like that row of little houses, see?
“You seem to be losing a lot of your chips,” he says.
“What of it?” I says. “My father can buy me some more.” And he just looked at me and laughed.
“That’s a pretty coat,” he says.
“Yes,” I says.
“India,” he says.
“Yes,” I says, and he kept right on looking at me.
“You don’t wear any makeup,” he says.
“Neither do you,” I says, and he laughed again and suddenly he looked quick at the green cloth with squares and numbers painted on it and red and black and a lot of other stuff, and he reached out and took a mess of blue chips off of the little hoe the man was pushing ’em with, and I had won.
And then I saw Pimples. He was watching me, so I made up to the society kid. He laughed a lot at what I said and he seemed to think I was a lot of fun. He kept his hands on top of the table, too, so I went on talking and playing, and Pimples went on watching.
So I says to this boy, “Keep an eye on my chips,” I says, “I’ll be back.” I started for the Ladies’ and passed by Pimples. And I saw the ring.
It was too big for him—the ring, I mean. He had to cramp his other fingers against it to keep it from falling right off.
Of course I didn’t know, then, that it wasn’t a ring made for a human finger at all. That’s why the gentleman had had it hung on a chain around his neck, the very chain that I had paid Moe five bucks for and could feel in my pocket right that minute.
I stopped as I passed him. “I see you ain’t bad hurt, Pimples,” I says.
“What do you mean?” he says, quiet. He was drunk. “Where’d you get to?”
“I had to go to a doctor,” I says. “I cut my knees on that bottle, but when I got back,” I says, “and saw your pals, I kind of got the idea they had ditched you,” I says. “And though they didn’t say so, I got the idea they had messed you up some and sent you off,” I says. “I’m glad you ain’t no worse hurt than what you are.” Then I went on to where I had started to go to.
When I came back, I skirted around a table where some people were doing something with some playing cards in a little box, and then back to the roulette and my boy friend.
He didn’t know I was behind him at first and he won quite a lot of blue chips.
“You’re doing pretty good,” I says.
“You got to watch the spins,” he says. “This is no joint to look the other way when he’s paying off. Who’s your fat boyfriend?” he says, without looking up.
“He’s no friend of mine,” I says, “just a hoodlum I know.”
“I’m glad you’ve come down to earth,” he says. “I saw you come down the street a while ago and join us at the door. You’re all right, but you’re funny,” he says.
“Why?” I says.
“Never mind,” he says, “but you ought not to leave your chips with strangers,” he says, “not in this place, anyway.”
“I choose my strangers,” I says.
“Thanks,” he says.
Just then Pimples put his fat hands on my shoulders.
“How’re you doing?” he says, and looking at this kid, his little eyes got even littler.
“This is my friend Pimples,” I says. “What’s your name?”
“Wens,” he says. Nobody said anything more until I had lost that pile of blues.
“Your money?” says Pimples, suspicious.
“His,” I says.
“Have a drink,” Pimples says.
“Don’t mind if I do,” I says. “See you later, Mr. Wens,” and me and Pimples goes toward the bar.
“Hey,” says Mr. Wens, “what if I should lose all this?”
“Never mind,” I says over my shoulder, “your father will give you some more.” And we left him.
“I never seen you around this dump before,” Pimples said.
“I just started,” I says and we kept walking past the people at the tables.
When we got to the bar I was scared. I told you that I don’t drink beer but what I didn’t tell you is that I can’t drink nothing at all. I often wondered why I don’t do a lot of things. Other people do ’em, but when it’s me, it either makes me sick or I just wouldn’t want to. Drinking, or with men, or like that. It ain’t that I said
on the Bible that I wouldn’t, like people do. I’ve talked about it, whether I would or ever will, or not. All of the girls I ever worked with didn’t seem to talk of much else and either said, “Oh, you’re sure nuts,” or “Look at this fur coat,” or like that till you are sure ashamed to let on you didn’t, for fear they’ll think maybe you’re feeling you’re better than them.
Well, there was a crowd around the bar and Pimples says, “What’s all this so-and-so about me being let out by them stumble bums?”
“Somebody might hear us,” I says. “I guess you don’t want people to know you got kicked around.”
“I never,” he says pretty loud, and two little pink spots come out on his greenish-white face and his little pig eyes looked like he was going to cry. “I blacked the Beaver’s eye and I poked Yanci in the mouth and I took it away from ’em, didn’t I? Look there, I got it, ain’t I?”
“Don’t talk here,” I says, “it’s too crowded and we can’t get no service. I better go back to my friend.”
“No, wait, listen for Chrissake,” and I saw he wanted to talk about it. I knew he was worried about getting kicked out. They’re all like kids, these boys—at least around each other, that is. Who is leader and who ain’t, they’ll shoot and stab over that. I’ve seen it, often.
“Listen,” he says, “I gotta talk to you. Come on up.”
I said I couldn’t leave my friend, but he was determined.
So, “Listen,” I says, “you’re just trying to fool me. I bet that’s a fine ring you swiped off of somebody. Lemme see.”
“Nuts,” he says, “it’s just a phony, like them giant’s rings they sell in the circus for a dime. I don’t know nothing about no jewelry jobs. You know me, I work on alcohol, exclusive, me and my guys.”
“Your guys?” I says.
“Sure,” he says.
“That ain’t what they say,” I says.
“Listen,” he says, “I’m drunk,” he says. “I never rightly looked at you before, but when I get a dirty deal, like that squirt Yanci trying to take this off of me, right there in Butch’s place before everybody, I get my feelings hurt. And when I get like this I gotta have somebody be nice to me, see? I got a room here, see? Come on up.”
“And be nice to you?”
“Sure, I’ll treat you right, what do you want?”
“What’ll you gimme?”
“As much as that mush you was rouletting with. Don’t stand there looking big eyed, come on up, for Chrissake.”
“Come up and what?”
“And be nice to me, you dope.”
He didn’t know about the butterflies. I was just standing still for a minute and they turned into eagles.
“What are you stalling for? Want the dough first? No soap. I work strictly C.O.D. What’s the matter, you think I ain’t got the dough? Look.” And he showed a roll.
“I don’t want your money. I like jewelry,” I says. “Will you give me the ring if I’m nice to you, like you said?”
“Listen,” he says. We were going by the switchboard, and I could hear the girl saying, “I’m sorry, but Mr. Grossi can’t be disturbed.”
Pimples was still talking.
“This is a phony, see? And I gotta keep it to show those mugs that when I’m boss, they can’t even pick up a Lincoln penny without asking my permission.”
“I know,” I says, “but if they was to gang up on you to take it back off of you, wouldn’t it be better to be able to say, I gave it to a girl? That’s why I want it. If I’m going to be your girl, maybe I want to let them see I got it from the boss, like they do in the movies.”
“Say!” he says. “You ain’t so dumb at that,” and he started into the elevator.
“Is it a bargain?” I says.
“Come on in the elevator,” he says. “We’ll talk upstairs.”
But I just stood there and the elevator girl looked at me half asleep. Then when he stood in it and me outside she turned and grinned right in his fat face. It’s funny how easy these small-time bad men can be tripped up.
“Okay,” he says quick, “get in,” and I did.
His room was like all the rooms in Mulloy’s, I guess—bed, chairs, bureau, one window propped open by a red-edged black Bible that was pushed out of shape because the window cord had broke.
Poor Pop, he was rigging new cords on the parlor window at Aunt Helga’s when they came and told him what had happened at the butcher shop. And he sure looked sick when he came into the beauty parlor, still carrying a piece of that window rope. And then him and me hurrying to the shop, thinking what this would do to Ma. Because Ma couldn’t never think that Willie was really responsible. I guess she saw Willie as just a little boy. But he was over six feet and ought to have had sense enough to know, in the first place, that the doctor would never believe he had brought Darlene there for somebody else. I guess we ought to have known something was wrong with Ma, from the way she was with Willie. If we had read it all, somewhere, we would have said, “That woman’s getting crazy.” She sure was right about poor Willie for once, and I hope that’s some comfort to her, up there on the hill. But of course nobody can tell what she’s thinking, sitting there. If she’s thinking at all, that is. Maybe that’s what we were afraid of, Pop and me, hurrying along to the butcher shop that day, me with the buffer still in my hand and Pop carrying that old piece of frayed window rope. Just like the one that must have broken in this window, here at Mulloy’s.
Pimples hadn’t done more than switch on the light in the ceiling when I quit breathing. There I stood in the middle of the floor while he slammed the door. My heart stopped, and two words kept hitting against my forehead from the inside of my head, “No telephone, no telephone.”
There had to be one, but there wasn’t. I just stood there with my back to him—which a half-witted baby ought to have known enough not to do. But I was brought out of it with a bang, I can tell you. For I was grabbed, tight, from the back.
First I saw the ring on his left hand coming around my left side, and then I saw his right hand coming around my right shoulder. And I thought, “His sleeves is rolled up.” And then I thought, “No, they couldn’t be rolled up that high.” And then I knew he had taken his coat off and his shirt, too—and his undershirt, if he had one—and then he was all over me and I was bent back.
He started kissing me, soft and wet, and suddenly he smelled like a sweating horse. I thought, “Here it comes. Manners or not, I’m going to be sick, right now.” And I was.
He had a bathroom all right and he must have been glad to see me go in it. When the door was shut I had a minute to think. I remembered what I had meant to do. Of course I hadn’t thought it all out, but it would have been a pretty good thing in the movies. Like Mata Hari, that lady that they shot in the long black cape because she couldn’t stick to one flag to spy for.
“What am I going to do?” I says, and I saw there was no bolt on the door and no key, either.
You see, what I had planned was this. I thought I’d get up here, let him tell me all his troubles about the gang, and then when he got ready for me to be nice to him, I’d take the phone off of the hook. And when the boys came up I’d play them off against each other.
Oh, yes, I sure had been pretty smart to think up such a nice movie. I must have seen myself, like Ginger Rogers, trailing my white satins down the steps with the ring in my hand and laughing back over my shoulders, while the four punks held Pimples, struggling and kicking, back up there by the banisters in the upper hall.
“You certainly planned to be clever,” I says to myself. “Well, sister, now’s your chance.”
“Hurry up,” he yelled through the door, and I went to the bathroom window for a breath of air and to look out. It was as black as the alley out back of the café. I turned my back to the window and leaned against the wall.
When I heard a knock on the outside hall door, I kept quiet to listen. And I heard Pimples say, “What do you want?”
I couldn’t hear what w
as being said out in the hall. Then after a minute the bathroom door busted open and Pimples says, “Stay in here, see? Don’t open your goddamned trap or I’ll close it for keeps.” And he shut the door again.
I couldn’t bear the thought of standing there in that bright bathroom with who knows who looking in, so I switched off the light and stood there in the dark, listening while Pimples opened the outer door.
It feels funny when you’re in a little strange bathroom standing in the black dark, as if all the whole world had died, and you had died, and you was all alone.
Poor Willie, that’s how he must have felt at that last minute with that black cap over his eyes, or whatever they do. I felt like him, and I felt sorry to think he had had to go through it even after all the bad things he had done. But I always knew it had been mostly Uncle Ulrich that had made Willie bad, though I didn’t believe Willie when he said on the stand at Dr. Harwood’s trial that it was Uncle Ulrich that got him to take the little McComber girl to Dr. Harwood. But at the end in that death house Willie surely must have thought, “This time it ain’t my fault.”
“But this,” I says to myself in the little bathroom, “this is my fault.” And I stood there with my hand on the wet marble washstand behind me. “I got myself into this and I got nobody but myself to blame.” And that was when it first came over me that somebody else, besides me, was in that dark bathroom. Something sure was in there. It didn’t take hold of me. It just touched my elbow and stayed there.
I didn’t move or yell. And then the butterflies began to act up in my stomach again. But I didn’t feel sick because I had already been that—good thing, too.
When he spoke close to my ear, cold chills went up my arm and right on up the back of my neck. It was sure just like those horror pictures.
“Keep still,” he mumbled.
