by Mary Leo
“To the bathroom. I’m fine. I just need to go to the bathroom. Is that all right?”
“I’m coming with you.”
“I’m a big girl now. I know how to wipe.”
He gets up. I glare at him. He sits down. “All right, but keep the door open.”
I get out of bed. On my way to some privacy, I take a pair of panties out of my suitcase and hold them up for his approval. “Do you mind or are you hopeful?”
He doesn’t answer.
Chapter Eight
July 11, 1966
It was early evening and a man had just walked out onto Pauline’s front porch.
“Look,” Sharon said, “that’s him.”
Sure enough, there stood our German sailor, Wolf Dietrich. It was hard for us to contain ourselves. We stopped what we were doing with the tent to watch him. He stood on the steps for a long time, staring mostly, with his mouth hanging open, watching Bobi, Pauline’s retarded son, rock back and forth in front of Sharon’s fence.
Pauline’s fake-brick, two-story boarding house ran the length of Sharon’s side yard. It was a long, skinny brown structure with a mass of windows around each floor, including the basement. It dominated the end of the block. There was no sign hanging from a post to indicate that she rented out rooms. It was just a well-known neighborhood fact.
A four-foot-tall chain-link fence separated the two properties and a wooden fence separated us from the front sidewalk and Bobi. Sharon’s house was a white, wooden two-story about a quarter of the size of Pauline’s.
The sailor stood not more than thirty feet away from us on a tiny cement porch.
“What’s he doing?” Lisa asked.
“I don’t know. Staring,” I answered, wondering why he seemed so fascinated with Bobi. We hid inside our tent and peeked out through the small side mesh window. Our heads touching.
“Maybe he never saw a retarded person before,” Sharon said.
“That’s impossible. He’s a sailor. He’s been everywhere in the world,” Lisa declared.
“That doesn’t mean he’s ever seen anybody retarded before,” I snapped back.
Bobi was severely retarded, at least that’s what Sharon’s mother said, and no one ever questioned it or made fun of him. Bobi was just somebody we were used to. Somebody in the neighborhood. We never knew how old he was, maybe in his early twenties, and we never knew if Bobi was his real name; he couldn’t speak. He was just there, every day, rocking back and forth, one leg in front of the other, staring at his fingers until his mother, Pauline, brought him in for the night. Bobi had a ritual. He would twist his fingers getting them all tangled up with each other, then shake them loose and pound on his forehead, almost as if he were mad at his brain. Maybe he was.
“Look, he’s going over to Bobi,” Sharon whispered, sounding frightened for the sailor as he descended the stairs and walked up to Bobi. Nobody but Pauline ever approached Bobi. We were afraid to get too close to him. Sometimes he’d spit.
The sailor talked to him, bending over a little to get his attention. Bobi looked straight at him and grabbed for his pack of cigarettes. They started playing a game—tossing the pack of cigarettes back and forth. They did this for a long time. Bobi actually caught the pack a few times and then somehow managed to throw it back. We were dumbstruck over Bobi’s reaction to this stranger. Pauline came out on the porch to watch. She was a large Croatian woman, who always wore a cotton print housedress, silk stockings that she rolled in a knot just below her knees and a fine brown hair net to keep her curly, short hair in place. Pauline didn’t talk much, at least not to us kids, but no matter how ornery Bobi was to her, she always had a kind word or gesture for her son.
Pauline seemed as amazed at the whole event as we were. She watched with a sweet look of pleasure on her face. The sailor stopped soon after he saw Pauline. Bobi began to groan like he wanted more. Pauline and the sailor said something to one another, ignoring Bobi’s screams and shook hands. The sailor took off down the street and Bobi pounded on his forehead groaning louder than I had ever heard him before. Pauline took him inside.
“Wow. Did you see that?” Sharon asked, as we slid down and sat on the floor of the tent.
“Yeah, he actually got Bobi to play with him,” Lisa said.
“He must be some kind of miracle worker,” I announced.
“Nobody ever got that close to Bobi before, let alone play catch with him. How did he do that?” Sharon asked with a stunned look on her face.
“I don’t know, but I bet he can do just about anything. We ought to follow him and see where he goes,” I said.
Just then, Sharon’s mother called us in for dinner. Sharon tried to argue, but Lisa was too hungry and took off before we had a chance to convince her to eat later. Lisa did not like to miss a meal, no matter what, and following some guy on an empty stomach was a little too much for us to ask of her.
Dinner consisted of White Castle hamburgers, a pink birthday cake and Neapolitan ice cream, my least favorite, but I ate it anyway. The three of us sat by ourselves in Sharon’s kitchen, while the rest of her family ate in the dining room, which was fine with us.
“Open your presents,” Sharon demanded after she scooped out about a ton of ice cream and passed it over to me.
“Thanks,” I mumbled taking a bite of the chocolate, careful not to mix it up with the strawberry—the flavor I hated the most—the flavor that dominated my plate.
My first present was hidden in a small square box wrapped in last Sunday’s comics. Wrapping paper cost extra money and I was glad that all the money was spent on my gifts rather than the paper.
I ripped it open as quickly as I could and found the prettiest box of soft blue floral stationery with matching envelopes I had ever seen. It was the sheer kind of stationery, the kind for sending overseas.
“Do you like it? The woman in the store said it’s thin enough to send to England and it won’t cost any more. We made sure of that,” Lisa said.
“Oh, it’s beautiful. Thank you,” I said, then the three of us squealed and hugged.
The other box contained a scented pen, to which we all squealed and hugged some more. They couldn’t have given me better presents. Now I was sure to get an answer from Ringo. After all, how could he refuse such a wonderful combination?
We cleaned up the kitchen and went out front to look for Wolf. He wasn’t there, so we went back to our tent. Sharon had brought out the homemade Ouija board. We were anxious to know if Wolf would be our Beatles connection.
Chapter Nine
September 9, 1987
A knock on the motel door wakes me sometime around eight in the morning. “Maid,” a woman yells.
“Go away,” I answer, rolling over, pulling the blankets over my head.
Then, in what seems like two seconds later, there’s another knock on the door. “I don’t need you today. Go away,” I argue, but she knocks again.
Anger takes over. I throw the blankets off and get up. Why can’t they hire people who can understand basic English? Is that so damn hard to do?
My little toe catches the foot of the nightstand. “Shit.” The pain rushes up my leg. The maid knocks again. Persistent. I hobble to the door and grabbing onto the doorknob I swing the door open ready to pounce on the annoying maid.
It’s a man.
The sun is in my eyes. All I can see are feet and an outline of a body. I close the door a little, feeling highly vulnerable. Do men clean the rooms now? But he’s wearing dress shoes. Must be the manager or some kind of front desk man.
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” he says.
“Well, you did. What kind of place is this that I can’t sleep past eight o’clock? I don’t need the room cleaned. I’m leaving today and I believe check-out is twelve-thirty. Now, go away and leave me alone,” I say closing the door. He grabs hold of the door.
“Carly, it’s me, Captain Bob.”
“Who?”
“Captain Bob from Stateville.” I let th
e door swing open, confused as to why the Captain, dressed in street clothes, is standing in my doorway. “When you didn’t come in today I thought I’d drop by and have a talk with you.”
“What time is it?”
“About four. I want to ask you something. Can I come in? It’ll only take a minute.” Before I can react, he moves me aside and walks into my room.
I want him to leave so I can go back to sleep. He probably wants to be in the movie or something. Wants me to send him to Hollywood as the next De Niro, use my connections.
“I don’t know any important Hollywood people. I can’t make you a star,” I say sarcastically.
“No, nothing like that. It’s about Richard Speck.”
It’s as if he punched me in the stomach and took the air out of my lungs. Why would he come to me about Speck?
“Did he escape?”
“No,” he says with a smirk on his face. “I don’t think he’d want to do that. You’ve got the wrong idea about Speck; most people do.”
Captain Bob sits down on a chair next to a small round table by the window. I pick up my jeans off the bed and go into the bathroom.
“Give me a minute,” I tell him and close the bathroom door so I can wash my face, brush my teeth and take a pee.
What the hell does this guy want? Why does he think I want to know anything about Speck? I hate Speck. I want to go home and forget everything about him…go to New York City. Maybe move there. Start over. Get a job as a bartender. I’d make a terrific bartender. All the JD I can hold. Why didn’t I think of this sooner? It’s all Mike’s fault, wanting me to be somebody, have a normal life. Who gives a rat’s ass about a normal life? Not me, that’s for sure.
I walk out of the bathroom with a renewed glow, happy now about my bartending future. Have to get rid of this creep in a hurry. Come up with some excuse. I start packing, hoping he’ll get the message.
“I’m on my way to New York. Sorry we can’t really talk, but I have to leave. Non-refundable tickets,” I tell him without looking his way, wondering if I could really get on a plane tonight.
“That’s too bad. After what happened yesterday, I thought you’d be the one who could stop the bastard.”
“Nothing happened yesterday.” I look over at him. He just glares back. Granite. “Oh you mean when I got sick? That was nothing. Breakfast didn’t agree with me.”
“So, it wasn’t seeing Speck that caused it?”
“No. Why should he have anything to do with me? Was that Speck? Didn’t even recognize him. I thought he was a painter from the last picture I worked on. Richard Speck. How about that.” I shake my head for effect. “Huh! What do ya know.”
“Yeah, he’s made quite a life for himself in prison.”
“You don’t say.”
I’m getting into the packing now, opening drawers, grabbing things off the nightstand, stuffing everything and anything that’s not nailed down into my suitcase. Wanting him to stop talking. Needing him to leave. Wishing I never let him in.
Captain Bob continues, “I thought maybe since you people were in the movies you’d be interested in how a convicted murderer lives in our state institutions, that’s all.”
“Nope. Couldn’t care less. Sorry,” I reply, shrugging my shoulders, feeling the hairs on the back of my neck prickle up.
He stares down at the carpet for a moment. He’s really an attractive man without his tight polyester uniform. Reminds me of my dad, somehow. Maybe it’s the eyes, sincere. I was always a sucker for my dad’s eyes.
“I can get into a lot of trouble for telling you this, but Speck likes his life in prison. A lot of inmates do. Specially the guys who were made trustees. They got it the easiest. The gangs live like they did out on the streets. Run the place. Run each other. Do pretty much what they want, when they want to. The guards don’t have no authority anymore. The gang leaders got the control. Warden’s hands are tied by politicians. Maybe you could do something with that information. Use it somewhere.”
“Sorry, can’t help you. Not the crusader type. I cast extras. Don’t care about the politics of a prison. Go to the media. They get fat on that kind of stuff.”
He’s silent for a moment, then he stands and walks toward the door. I’m relieved. Suddenly he stops, turns and says, “I’d lose my job. Got three kids at home and a wife that has M.S. Can’t take the chance. I thought since your dad was a cop—”
“How do you know that?”
“Warden ran a background on both you and Mike before he let you in.”
My pulse starts to race. “What else do you know?”
“Everything. Where you grew up. Where your mother worked. That your dad was one of the first cops on the scene in the townhouse.”
“So what.” The guy’s starting to get under my skin now. I pull out a cigarette, light it and pour myself a shot of bourbon.
“And that he died a year later from a heart attack.”
I down my liquor. “He had a bad heart. What are you getting at?”
“Your mother died a few years after him.”
I walk straight over to him wanting to slap his fat, ugly face. “Where do you get off coming in here and laying all this shit on me? Who the fuck are you? What do you want from me?”
“Calm down. I’ll go, but I think you want to help me. That you have to help me. That Speck’s eating at you and you can’t stand it. Was that really an accident when you hit that tree a few years ago, or did you have something else in mind?”
“Get the hell out of my room,” I yell and swing open the door. The late afternoon sun breaks through my room like a beacon, falling on him, as if he’s the star of some play walking out on a red carpet with fans ready to applaud his every move. I hate him, just as I hated my father for that last year. They can see through me, know my weakness, know my secret.
“Get out,” I repeat, standing beside the door, crazy from the rage shooting through my veins.
Captain Bob leaves. I slam the door and slide down the front of it, sobbing.
Gotta get out of here. Gotta get to New York City.
My name is Mary Ann Jordan.
I didn’t live at the townhouse, didn’t want to. I lived at home with my family: four brothers, one sister, and a great set of parents. I was in no big hurry to be out on my own, but I did like to spend the night with my friends once in a while. That’s what I was doing at the townhouse that night—a sleep-over with my best friend Suzie. Something we had done a hundred times before.
Suzie and I had spent the day going over plans for her wedding to my brother, Phil. Even looked at Serbian Hall for the reception. It was going to be one of the biggest and finest weddings South Chicago ever saw. We were sure of it; after all, nothing could stop the two of us once we fixed our minds on a goal. Just like nursing. We were determined to be the best. The Florence Nightingales of South Chicago Community. Well, at least we were going to try. In our nursing class, being the best was an ambition we all shared.
There had been something extraordinary about the class of ‘66 right from the start. All of us—we were in tune, in step, in sync with one another. Each helping the other whenever we got stuck. We were never jealous when one of us received praise from a teacher or was rewarded for something special we did. It just gave the rest of us a reason to celebrate, and brother could we ever celebrate. We were the queens of celebration and fun. Sometimes I’d laugh so hard that my cheeks would hurt for days afterward.
We grew up during those three years, sharing the hardships while we “served our time” at the hospital, or worked away from each other for those three miserable months in state institutions, worrying, then calling to make sure each was all right.
Somehow, we felt that the hospital used us for slave labor so they wouldn’t have to hire any more nurses. We would have to do almost everything an RN did but without the pay. One of our responsibilities was to run the floors at night and sometimes, during a crisis, had to turn to each other for help. It was in those times, thos
e days and nights when we found true friendship.
Richard Speck may have taken my life, but he could never take away the love we had for one another. There are some friendships, some memories, some emotions that go on forever and no one person has the power to alter its force.
The three years I spent in the company of my classmates were, perhaps, the happiest years of my life.
Chapter Ten
July 11, 1966
“You know, if Wolf could get our letters to the Beatles before the concert, he could tell them how sincere our love is and I betcha they’ll want to meet us,” Sharon announced while Lisa and I set up the Ouija board in the middle of the tent. The Beatles concert was just a few weeks away, August twelfth, to be exact, and we were all so excited that it was hard not to talk about it twenty-four hours a day. We could only afford balcony tickets for three dollars and seventy-five cents each, but at least our seats were in the front of our section of the balcony.
We put our board on an old coffee table that Sharon’s mother kept in the basement. For sound effects I brought my red and white record player with the 45 stack changer, along with some Peter and Gordon, Jerry and the Pacemakers and Herman’s Hermits. Lisa brought her collection of Beatles singles and Sharon’s dad set up one of those thick black extension cords out of a basement window. We were all set for an evening of British invasion.
“And we could write our letters on my new stationery. It’s so beautiful the lads would be sure and notice it,” I said almost as if I had just had a revelation.
Sharon told us to hold all our thoughts for Ronald, our spiritual connection. We did.
The three of us sat cross-legged around a small cherry-wood coffee table. Each of us stuffed a pillow or blanket under our bottoms for height. We each gently placed an index finger on the Coke bottle cap that sat in the middle of our homemade Ouija board. Ferry Cross the Mersey played in the background as Lisa asked Ronald, “Are you aware of the German sailor who rented a room next door?”
