Buster Midnight's Cafe

by Dallas, Sandra

  “Your eyes still look like glory holes,” I told her after I kissed her. “Big enough for a kid to fall into. How come I always think about you and glory holes?”

  “If it hadn’t been for you, I’d be at the bottom of one right now,” May Anna whispered.

  “Or China,” Whippy Bird said.

  May Anna smiled again. The nurse sffushed us, but the doctor shook his head. “It can’t do her any harm to talk to them for a few minutes,” he said.

  “I never went to China, did I? I always wanted to. The closest I came was Shanghai Operative. “

  That was one of May Anna’s gun moll movies.

  “There were lots of places you never made it to, like back to Butte,” Whippy Bird said. “When you get well and come back to Butte, Moon O’Reilly will be the most popular boy in the entire “I think we ought to get the cafe open first then we can talk about it,” I told Buster, trying to buy time. My mind surely wasn’t working.

  “I think we ought to talk about it now, babe,” he said.

  So I went to sit next to him on the porch steps and put down my bowl of rose hips. It was the old yelloware bowl, the one with the brown stripe that I got for a quarter at the secondhand store on North Main. I held my hands together in my lap while I thought how to explain it. “The truth is, Buster …” I stopped for a minute wondering if it was my business to say what I needed to. Then I decided it was my business, since Buster had asked me to marry him. “The truth is, Buster, you will always love May Anna Kovaks.”

  “And the truth is, Effa Commander, you will always love Pink Varscoe. But both of them are dead. There isn’t any May Anna anymore. I knew that when I went to prison. She’s Marion Street now. That’s why I told her I didn’t want to see her again. I didn’t love who she’d turned into. She wasn’t a little girl falling into glory holes and getting hit with tomatoes anymore. Me and May Anna had some good times, and so did you and Pink. But we have to go on, just like I had to stop being a fighter and go into the restaurant business.

  “I don’t want you to think you’re second choice to May Anna because you’re not. I’m not asking you to marry me because May Anna turned me down. The old Buster wanted to marry May Anna. This here’s a new Buster, and he loves you. You’re the strongest and finest person I know. You always stuck by me, and you never expected anything from me. I think me and you can have a fine life together, Effa Commander.”

  noticed it was probably the first time since she was twelve she wasn’t wearing nail polish. “Come close,” she whispered to me and Whippy Bird. The nurse brought folding chairs, and we sat down on either side of the bed. We still had our coats on.

  “Did Buster tell you?” she asked me.

  “Tell me what?”

  “What happened that night with John Reide.”

  “We never talked about it. It’s none of my business.” I didn’t want May Anna to talk about it either. Not now.

  “Buster’s loyal, all right. I should have married him when I had the chance. I wish I had. You’re a lucky girl, Effa Commander.” She gave me a tiny squeeze with her hand. “Buster’s lucky, too.”

  I heard somebody move behind me and turned to see Eddie standing there. There were tears in his eyes. I wanted him to go away. Then I thought, no, he had a right to be there, too. He cared about May Anna just like me and Whippy Bird did, even though he wasn’t as close to her as we were. I didn’t like him because he hadn’t done anything for Buster during the trial. Still, he helped save May Anna’s career, and we owed him for that.

  “You mustn’t talk anymore,” the doctor said. He was standing next to May Anna with a needle in his hand.

  “No,” May Anna said. “Why do you think I stayed alive so long? I have to say this.”

  “Honey, there’s nothing you have to say,” I told her. I could see there was pain all over May Anna, and I wanted her to have that shot. The picture of Mrs. Kovaks dying in the fourplex came back to my mind, and for a second I thought about my own mother and how she made Mrs. Kovaks custard and beef tea. I wondered if anybody had fixed that for May Anna.

  She took a deep breath like she was gathering strength to go on. “Buster didn’t kill John Reide. I did. Buster covered up for me.” She sank back in the pillow and closed her eyes.

  Her words rolled over me. I was stunned. Whippy Bird’s face froze in shock. After what seemed like forever, Whippy Bird turned to me, and I saw tears streaming down her face—for Buster and May Anna and maybe for me, too. “What happened, May Anna?” she asked for both of us.

  May Anna didn’t answer right away. She’d spent so much of her strength saying what she had to that all she could do for a minute was open and close her eyes. Behind me, I heard the doctor whisper something, but I couldn’t make out the words. The nurse went into May Anna’s bathroom and turned on the faucet then came back and handed me a glass of water. I shook my head but didn’t look at her. I kept staring at May Anna, waiting for her to speak.

  At last May Anna said, “John and I had a fight. I shot him. Then I called Buster, and when he came, I gave the performance of my life. I should have won an Oscar for it.” Her lips turned up just a little. “You know how I can cry when I want to. So Buster confessed. I knew he would. I didn’t have to ask him. He always looked out for me.”

  I was so weak I grabbed the edge of the bed with both hands to keep from falling off the chair. May Anna had ruined Buster in the prime of his career. On purpose. That good man gave up his life’s work for her, sacrificed his reputation, and went to prison for something he didn’t do. She had done a terrible thing. Terrible.

  Whippy Bird was waiting for me to speak, but the words didn’t come. We were all silent for a long time. Only the nurse moved. She straightened May Anna’s pillows and brushed a strand of hair off her forehead.

  Whippy Bird whispered at last, “Effa Commander … say something.” I knew how upset Whippy Bird was when she turned to me for words.

  Still, I didn’t know what to say. All I could do was think that the person Buster had loved most in the world almost destroyed him—and for no better reason than to keep on being a movie star. Then I told myself, Effa Commander, you can’t let a dying woman know what an awful thing she did. Besides, it wasn’t my place to say it to her. What happened was between Buster and May Anna. If Buster didn’t hold it against her, how could I?

  When I was in control of myself again, I took her hand. “It was Buster’s decision, May Anna. It’s over.”

  “No, it’s not,” May Anna said. “There’s an envelope for you. I wrote it all out last week. The attorney signed it, so it’s legal. I want you to tell the newspapers. It’s time I made it up to Buster. Please, Effa Commander, let me do right by Buster.” There were tears in her eyes, maybe the first real tears of her life. I could feel just the slightest pressure from her hand, so I squeezed back. While I did, I thought that May Anna Kovaks had made a bad mistake, but she surely had some kind of courage. She waited for us in pain, and she was willing to ruin the legend of Marion Street to make things up to Buster.

  “You’re a good person, May Anna,” I said. “I’ll do the right thing.”

  May Anna closed her eyes then shivered as the pain shot through her. I could see she needed the medicine fast and motioned for the doctor to give her a shot. In a minute she was asleep. Peaceful.

  Eddie walked over to the bed and kissed May Anna on the cheek. Then he left. Me and Whippy Bird got up and took off our coats. “Does she still know we’re here?” Whippy Bird asked the doctor.

  “I don’t know. She might. You can sit with her if you like. Sometimes we think voices penetrate.”

  So me and Whippy Bird sat by May Anna’s bed all that day and through the night, one of us on each side, holding her hands. We talked to her about Jackfish and laughed when we remembered the April Fools’ Day joke. “I never heard you crack up the way you did that day, May Anna.” Whippy Bird shook her head. “Me and Effa Commander were sure a pair of damn fools, all right.”

>   We remembered the raft, too, telling May Anna if she hadn’t gotten a tomato in the face, Buster never would have become a famous boxer.

  Once Whippy Bird asked the nurse, “Would you be so kind as to bring us some coffee?” Then we both burst out laughing. After that we cried for a long, long time.

  We talked about the movie stars we saw at May Anna’s party, though we didn’t mention John Reide. I said, “May Anna, do you know because of you, me and Whippy Bird got to meet some of the most famous people in the world? Why if it wasn’t for you, we’d be just two Butte nobodies.”

  “We still are,” Whippy Bird said.

  The doctor laughed. “That sounds like something Marion would say. You girls must have had a good time together. You’re three of a kind.”

  “We surely are,” I said. “We were the Unholy Three.”

  “She was going to be a nun once—-before she decided to become a movie star,” Whippy Bird told him. Then she looked at May Anna. “I wonder what would have happened if you’d gone ahead and become a nun.”

  “Buster McKnight would have slit his throat. You surely saved his soul when you turned out,” I said.

  “And yours, too, Effa Commander,” Whippy Bird added.

  “She’ll see Pink and Chick before we do,” I told Whippy Bird at about three in the morning.

  “She’ll meet Maybird, too,” said Whippy Bird. It made me smile to think she would get to meet my little girl.

  In the morning, May Anna died.

  We didn’t stay for the service. It was Marion Street’s funeral, not May Anna’s. We didn’t want to see flashbulbs go off and crazy people cry and grab flowers for keepsakes. It was bad enough with the people who came to the house or called. Reporters mostly. Louella Parsons wrote that “the heavens burn brighter tonight because one of Hollywood’s shining stars has joined them.”

  “That’s a bunch of crap,” Whippy Bird said, and she surely was right.

  We wanted May Anna to be buried in Butte, next to her mother, but Eddie said she told him to cremate her and spread the ashes over a field of white lilies not far from her house.

  May Anna’s lawyer wanted us to stay and listen to the will since she left us something, but we said we weren’t gold diggers. We came to be with May Anna in her final hour. So the lawyer sent us the things May Anna left us, which included the stuff I already told you about and some of her better jewelry, and fifty thousand dollars each, which was enough to live on for the rest of our lives. She also canceled the loan on the cafe. Even though she was the bookkeeper, Whippy Bird never knew Toney got the money from May Anna. He told us he had friends from Buster’s boxing days who wanted to invest in the place. If we’d thought about it, though, we’d have figured out he went straight to May Anna.

  Before we left, Eddie asked me what I planned to do about the letter May Anna wrote. I said I would talk it over with Buster before I sent it to the newspapers. Eddie told us he didn’t know anything about May Anna doing the shooting until she wrote the letter. Still, he hoped we would not throw mud on a legend now that May Anna was dead. I told Whippy Bird he was in love with May Anna, and she said so what else is new.

  Father Pig Face gave a service for May Anna only an hour after we got back to Butte. Toney was running the restaurant, so Buster met us at the train and told us about it. He refused to go. He said he still wanted to bust Pig Face after all those years. May Anna didn’t have many friends left in Butte, so me and Whippy Bird decided we ought to be there. She had a lot of fans in Butte, though, because the church was jammed.

  It wasn’t a funeral. It was just a memory service with Pig Face talking about May Anna and how much joy she gave the world. I thought he laid it on a little thick about him growing up with her and being good friends, which we knew they weren’t. Whippy Bird said that was all right because priests had an in with God, and it might do May Anna some good. He looked truly sad when he talked about her, which Whippy Bird said he had reason to be since May Anna wouldn’t be sending him any more money for candles. There were plenty of candles lit for May Anna that day. I thought Pig Face was responsible. Whippy Bird said that might be so since he could light them for free.

  Buster being the loyal person he was waited for me on the steps until the service ended. He and Pig Face nodded at each other, but they didn’t shake hands. It looked to me like Pig Face was still afraid of him.

  “I didn’t bring the Jackpot. I thought maybe you’d like to walk home,” Buster said. It was winter, but the sun was out, shining so bright it made your eyes sting. We said good-bye to Whippy Bird, and Buster waved to Nell Nolan. Then we walked down North Main. It was the first time I’d been alone with Buster since I got back.

  “How did Pig Face get his name?” I asked.

  “You ever look at him?” Buster said, and we laughed. It surely was easy being married to Buster, I thought as we walked along. We both liked to walk, and our strides matched.

  “May Anna was awake when we got there,” I said.

  Buster nodded.

  “We had a chance to say good-bye.”

  “That’s good.”

  “She talked, too.” I stopped by a cribbing that held back the hill on Woolman Street and looked up at Buster. “May Anna told me. She told me she killed John Reide, not you. It was her deathbed confession.”

  Buster looked at the headframes on the Hill. After a minute, he rubbed his hand across his forehead, and I saw his eyes were red, so I looked away.

  “She wrote it all down,” I continued. “It’s in a letter in my purse. She told me to tell the newspapers.” He didn’t reply. Then he took my arm, and we walked on. “It’s what she wanted. Now’s the time to tell the truth. That’s what May Anna said.”

  Whatever went through Buster’s mind just then, he didn’t tell me. He put his arm around me and squeezed so hard I thought he’d bust me in half. It was cold, and we walked the last few blocks as fast as we could. When we got home, Buster put three logs in the fireplace and lit them then he sat down in the easy chair. I hung up our coats and perched on the footstool next to him. For the first time since I left Butte, I felt warm, and it wasn’t just because of the fire.

  I opened my pocketbook and took out the letter. It was addressed to me. “Me and Whippy Bird read it about a dozen times,” I said, handing it to Buster. “The lawyer wrote it all down, just the way May Anna told us.”

  Buster let the envelope sit in his lap while he stared into the fire. “You want a drink?” I asked, but he shook his head. “May Anna’s a good person. She loved you. She proved it when she wrote that letter.” Maybe I should have been jealous, but I wasn’t. May Anna was dead, and I could surely share Buster with her memory.

  We sat by that fire a long time, maybe an hour. The flames died down, so I wadded up some newspaper and lit it with a match. After it caught, I added more logs. Outside, it turned dark and a thick snow started blowing against the house. After a while, I went to the window to watch the lights come on all over the Hill. Then I turned on the lamp and sat down on the arm of Buster’s easy chair. “Read it, Buster,” I said, picking up the envelope from his lap and handing it to him.

  Buster sighed then took the letter out of the envelope and looked at it for a few minutes until he could focus on the words. First, he read it slowly, then he read it again. The fire flared up as pitch seeped from a log, and out of the corner of my eye I saw the flame light up Buster’s face. He was still the handsomest man I ever knew. At last he folded the letter and put it back in the envelope.

  “Babe,” Buster said at last, “May Anna lied.” He tore the letter in half and threw both pieces into the fire.

  CHAPTER

  17

  I finished this book without the inspiration of Whippy Bird. She passed on in the spring, just before the roses bloomed at the house on West Broadway I bought with some of my inherited money from May Anna. The day I signed the papers, I told Whippy Bird I surely wished May Anna knew she’d bought me a house on West Broadway.
r />   “She knows,” Whippy Bird said. That was thirty-five years ago.

  One of the last things Whippy Bird told me before she crossed over was: “You have a mission, Effa Commander, and it is to polish a golden Hollywood legend that Hunter Harper tarnished. Even if I’m not here to push you. You have a responsibility to finish the book.” Once more, she was right.

  After his book came out I never looked at Hunter Harper without wanting to lob an ore chunk at his pea brain for writing down that he had investigated and discovered Marion Street committed the murder of John Reide, and Buster covered it up. Besides being wrong, that was not a major scoop on his part anyway because the story was Hollywood gossip for years after May Anna died—courtesy of the nurse at her deathbed or maybe the attorney. Still, after Hunter Harper’s book came out, People magazine and Parade and all the others picked up the story and printed it. That was why me and Whippy Bird thought it was important to write the true facts and why I finished the book even without the help of my lifetime friend, Whippy Bird O’Reilly McKnight.

  “It was May Anna’s goodness that made her tell us she killed that man,” Whippy Bird said once.

  “And Buster’s goodness that he didn’t let us believe it,” I said.

  “She was willing to sacrifice her world reputation for our friendship. And for love of Buster, too.”

  “I guess in the end, there’s nothing that matters more than friends. But you and me always knew that, Whippy Bird,” I told her.

  It was the cancer. Whippy Bird was brave as she always was. She never complained even when her hair fell out from the chemo and she couldn’t eat. Moon’s oldest boy, Bumbo, brought her marijuana cigarettes to make her feel better, and me and Whippy Bird Sat in her bedroom and smoked them until we both felt fine. I said since I gave up tobacco cigarettes with Whippy Bird, it made sense to start smoking dope with her.

  “Funny, isn’t it, you losing your two best friends from cancer, even though I’ve lived twice as long as May Anna,” Whippy Bird said. “We’re both going out on cotton sheets, too. I never did understand why they wouldn’t let May Anna die on satin. I always wondered, were May Anna’s cotton sheets round like her bed?”