The Amazing Adventures of Aaron Broom

by A. E. Hotchner

  The store door opened and a beefy man in a black suit with a diamond stickpin on his tie and a badge on a chain around his neck came out and the Post-Dispatch man said, “Hello, Lieutenant. Jack Carmen of the Dispatch.”

  “How’s it hanging, Jack?” the lieutenant said.

  “Not too wobbly,” the reporter said. “Whatcha got for me?”

  “To quote?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “It’s Fitsgibbons with an s, forget the z, okay?”

  “You bet. It’s the copy desk screwed up. Who was the stiff they wheeled outa here?”

  “One of the salespeople—Dempsey by name. His shot hit the front window and the perp’s hit Dempsey’s right eye, a bull’s-eye, all right.”

  “Dempsey fired first?”

  “Yup. The perp had his gun out for show while he scooped up the swag—”

  “Was that one of the J brothers just arrived?”

  “Crusty bastard.”

  “Did he have any—”

  “Nothing to tell me except letting me know that he was aces at city hall and we better catch the shooter who did this or heads will fall, mine included.”

  “How about the guy hustled outa here in handcuffs?”

  “Watch salesman—or so he says. The perp came in on his tail. Foreigner. They’ll keep him overnight and try to hold him as a material.”

  “Courtroom four?”

  “Yup.”

  A black Lincoln driven by a uniformed cop, St. Louis police logo on its door, drove up and the lieutenant got in.

  “Thanks, Lieutenant,” Jack said.

  “Remember about the s,” the lieutenant said through the window as the Lincoln pulled away.

  I tugged on his seersucker and the reporter looked down at me. “Where is courtroom four?”

  “Criminal Courts Building,” he said as he put his notebook in his pocket and started to go.

  I gave his jacket another tug. “What’s a material?”

  He kept going, in a hurry. I guess to tell the Post-Dispatch what the lieutenant had just told him.

  * * *

  —

  ME BEING right there in front of the J & J store, I thought about the Bulova case on the other side of the door. Maybe the door cop would let me in to explain who I was and how I would take care of the case, but then again without the Ford how would I take the sample case anywhere. And on top of that I would have to deal with Mr. Jankman and hearing how crusty he’d been with a police lieutenant, I could imagine how snotty he’d be with a scruffy twelve-year-old kid, so I chickened out and got on an Olive streetcar heading uptown.

  Happening 4

  When I got to the door of our apartment, 12B, I came smack up against an official police notice tacked on the door:

  TAKE NOTICE

  City of St. Louis

  Premises under police control until further notice

  13th Precinct

  I tried my key in the door. Sure enough, didn’t work. My heart sunk pretty bad. The two rooms, bathroom, kitchen, and In-A-Dor of 12B was a godsend jump up from the shabby one-room 303 of the Westgate Hotel, no kitchen, toilet down at the end of the hall, but now I was worse off than at the Westgate since I had no parents and nowhere to go for the night. Although I couldn’t think my way into some place I might bed down, I did think of someone who might be able to help me out with the Ford, if it was still there in the alley—Vernon, the super who lived in a basement room at the Tremont. Also, he might have been there when the cops came to lock us out of 12B. Anyway he was always very nice to me and I often hung out with him when I came home from school and mom was in the sanitarium and my father was out peddling whatever he was out peddling. One day I came home from school with my face banged up from being knocked around by Tony Razzolo, a big bully who somehow had it in for me. Maybe because I was at the top of my class and he was at the bottom. That particular time I came home with my face swolled up and my lip bloody, Vernon had me come into his place and he washed my face with a cloth dipped in alcohol which hurt so much tears popped out of my eyes.

  When he was much younger Vernon had been a prizefighter and there were pictures all over the walls of his super-neat room of him in prizefighting poses. He said if I wanted he would give me a lesson on how to not get beat up.

  “But he’s way bigger ’n me and his hands are the size of tennis rackets.”

  “Big don’t matter if you can’t land with ’em. I’m gonna teach you how to make ’em miss.”

  And he sure did. He’d have an after-school snack ready, piece of corn bread, say, and then he’d put on those old cracked boxing gloves of his.

  “Most everyone don’t know fiddly-poop about prizefighting and they aim all their punches at the other guy’s jaw, big roundhouse wallops, but no matter how big he is and strong as Herkalees it don’t do him no good ’less it lands and it won’t hit nothin’ long as what he’s aimin’ at keeps movin’. So that’s what you’re g’wanta do. Bad guy comes at you, fists all doubled up, you’s bobbin’ your head this way and that, feet doin’ a little shuffle, left, right, in, out, all of you movin’ this way and that, no matter what part’a you he thros at you’re not receivin’ it, and I guarantee you this, all his haymaker punches whistling thoo the air and hittin’ nothin’ wear him down faster’n him runnin’ ten times round the track. So that’s what we’re gonna practice. If your head had been swivlin’ and your feet doin’ the heeby-jeeby shuffle, that there Tony would’ve landed nothin’.”

  Vernon was a very good teacher and it didn’t take me long to pick up the swivel and the shuffle, and the next time Tony started to pick on me to show off in front of pretty Edna Coyle he was trying to impress, I stood up to his insults, gave as good as I got, and he came at me with his fists ready, my head-swivels and quick heeby-jeebies made him miss and every time he missed I juked to the side and hit him in the breadbasket and that made him holler and double over and give up on fighting.

  After that he never once bothered me again. In fact, Edna Coyle walked with me between classes and didn’t give Tony the time of day.

  * * *

  —

  EVEN THOUGH there were scars on Vernon’s face from when he was a prizefighter—the scars sort of stood out lighter than his dark skin—and one of his ears was kind of squished, he had a wonderful smile and he laughed a lot and that made him nice to look at. It also helped that he seemed to like everyone and everyone liked him.

  I went down the steps and knocked on his door. I was glad to hear radio music, which meant he was there.

  “Hello, lad, come right on in.” He mostly called me lad or sonny boy. “I been aspecting you. Sit you down over there and tell me what your daddy done that got the po-lice here, pokin’ all over your ’partment and lock you out.”

  I told him how the day went and how the cops arrested my father and how the case of watches was left in the jewelry store and how the Ford had to be rescued from the alley though it might not be there anymore.

  “I was wondering, Vernon,” I said, “if you would go down to Olive with me to where Scruggs is and drive it out of that alley before the pleviners find it.”

  “I sure would but truth is I don’t know how to drive an automobile…let me think…yep, my cousin Arthur do—he used to drive Peverly Dairy afore they laid him off ’cause the ’Pression. Don’t know if’n he still has a phone—we ain’t communercated for a spell, but I’ll try him out.”

  He went to his telephone and dialed a number. His face lit up when he got an answer.

  “Hey, Pickles, it’s the big V, happy I can still get your ear. How come you able ’ford a telephone?…Oh, once a week? You and Maybelle able to get by all right?…Oh, I’m okay—Tremont chizzled me down some ’cause we got lots of vacancies plus lots no pays ’n slow pays but Tiger ’n me stretches it out.”

  Ti
ger was an old collie and something else. “Listen, Pickles, got a favor to ask. Lad here from 12B they got some trouble needs his papa’s Ford picked up down on Olive across Scruggs before the finance get it, would you go drive it for him? Pay you back the car fare…To where?…Well, any place be safe for a spell. Damn nice o’ you, Pickles. I’ll be owin’ you one. Meet you front of Scruggs.”

  I thanked Vernon and hoped this might be the one good thing happening that day.

  “We best get goin’,” Vernon said as he reached for the old cap he always wore, but then he interrupted himself. “You hungry, lad? When’s the last time you had somethin’ to eat?”

  “There was a bag of pretzels in the Ford.”

  “In other words, you’s hungry.”

  “Oh, not to worry,” I told him. “I’m not used to eating regular. What’s important’s rescuing the Ford.”

  Vernon had taken a covered dish from an overhead shelf. “Made this sweet potato pie this mornin’,” he said. He cut a large slice for me. It looked wonderful and made me realize how hungry I was. I took it with thanks. Said I’d eat it on the way and we started out the door to catch the number nine streetcar. It was a wonder he could cook up a dish as good as that from his old beat-up smoky stove.

  Happening 5

  The sidewalk was busy since Scruggs stayed open till nine Thursday nights. Vernon said that cousin Arthur tended to be on the small side and that it might not be easy spotting him. The busted window at J & J Jewelers had been boarded up and the two cops who stood on guard kept rubberneckers moving.

  Cousin Arthur showed up and gave Vernon a friendly wallop on his arm followed by a hug around his waist, which was about as far up as he could get since, as Vernon had said, Arthur tended small and Vernon tended very large. Arthur and I said howdy-do and shook hands, mine with some remains of sweet potato pie on it.

  “Just where’s this Ford?” Arthur asked.

  I pointed to the alley.

  “Right smack across from the cops,” Vernon said with a shake of his head.

  “Yeah,” Arthur said. “Two black gents lookin’ like us revin’ up a Ford at night might throw a little suspicion their way.”

  “Oh, I’ll vouch for you—not to worry.”

  “They want to see papers—you got papers?”

  “What kind of papers?”

  “Like who the owner?”

  “My father has all that.”

  “So they ask where your papa and you say in jail because he was in that jewelry store today when that man got killed,” Vernon said, shaking his head again.

  “And I be the one with my hands on the wheel,” Arthur said.

  “Okay, listen,” I said, “tell you what.” I handed the key to Arthur. “You and Vernon go get in the Ford and while you start it up I’ll be across the street getting the cops’ attention. You’ll drive to the back of Scruggs where the trucks make deliveries and I’ll catch up with you there.”

  “How you gonna deal with them cops?”

  “Don’t know yet but I’ll think of something.”

  Arthur looked at the key in his hand, not convinced.

  Vernon said, “Arthur’s been in and out the clink a lot. What’s it been, Pickles? Four times?”

  “Five. First when we was in Little Rock. Wasn’t nothin’ but vittles for Maybelle and the kids.”

  “And the Jack Daniel’s?”

  “That needy medicine for me.”

  I started across the street, my brain busy on how I’m going to get the cops looking at me and not at the Ford poking its bent nose out of the alley. I was stepping up on the sidewalk when a man came running my way, a woman running after him yelling, “Stop him! Thief! My bag! My bag! Thief! Thief!” As the man came running by me I did what any red-blooded American boy would do—I stuck out my foot and the man tangled with my Ked and went zippety-kerplop, the purloined bag skidding into the gutter. (I learned that swell word “purloined” from Mr. Edgar Allan Poe, of whom I am a colossal fan, along with Mr. Jules Verne, Mr. Mark Twain, Mr. Guy de Maupassant, Mr. Charles Dickens to name a few.)

  As the two cops were busy pulling the thief out of the gutter, I saw the Ford coming onto Olive, headed toward the back of Scruggs. All full of thanks, the lady got hold of her bag, but when one of the cops said to the other, go get the kid’s name, I thought that would be a good time to go hook up with Bertha.

  * * *

  —

  “SO, LAD, where you plan spend the night?” Vernon asked. We were sitting in the back of the Ford.

  “Haven’t had time to think about that,” I said to him.

  “Thought you said he lived at the Tremont?” Arthur said from behind the wheel.

  “Yeah, he do, but the po-lice lock it up and ’sides there was a woman come around lookin’ for him…” He started to fish an old stuffed-up billfold out of his pocket.

  “You must have a lot of valuables to own a fancy wallet like that,” I said.

  “Mrs. Van Hurst, 9B, give it to me when her hubby passed…oh, here it is.” He pulled out a card. “Freda Muller, Juvenile Welfare, telephone number to call when you showed up. Said important I call her. Mean looker. Dressed all in black, top to bottom.”

  “No, you don’t,” I said. “They stash me in one of those juvenile dumps, how I’m going to see about my father getting out?”

  “I could let you bed down in one of our vacants—God knows we got enough o’ them—but the owner, Mr. Birdswell, who’s tighter’n a cheap collar, always preachin’ no pay, no stay. He find you freebee in one a his furnished vacants, he skin your rabbit ass.”

  “How about you got a relative or some friend?” Arthur said. “I can drop you off.”

  My mother’s family did live in St. Louis until my grandfather, a short Hungarian with a bristly mustache and an even bristlier personality, burned down his restaurant for the insurance, but the cheapie arson guy botched the job and burned down the entire block of stores, and Grandpa, Grandma (who did the cooking), and my mother’s two sisters got out of St. Louis just before the police came looking for them.

  We had no other relatives and the Depression got rid of the few friends we did have. What with all that had been happening I hadn’t had time to think about what to do now that I was homeless.

  “They’s a city place on Cherokee got homeless beds,” Arthur said, reading my mind.

  “They only take kids who’re with they’s parents, dummy,” Vernon said. “ ’Sides he check in there this Freda woman gonna nab him. She got the looks o’ someone you don’t want lookin’ for you.”

  We were on Lindell going alongside Forest Park. I told Arthur to pull over, that the park was as good a place as any to spend the night.

  “You watch out,” Vernon said. “I hear they’s gangs steal things while you sleepin’.”

  “Like what?”

  “Food, clothes, shoes—”

  “These busted Keds?” I held up my right foot. The broken laces were double-knotted and the Keds marker was hanging half off. “Welcome to them.”

  I got out of the Ford, spoke to Arthur through the driver’s window, asked him where he was going to hide the Ford.

  “Friend a mine’s got a used-parts place,” he said. “There’s a whole mountain of tires, hide it behind ’em.”

  “What about at night when no one’s there? Is it safe?”

  “Well, he got chain link, barb wire, and three Rottweilers,” he said, putting the Ford in first and taking off.

  Happening 6

  Forest Park was my second home, or maybe I should say my first because when you’ve lived all of you in a one-room scruffy place like we did at the Westgate, that smells old and sour—well, the park with its tennis courts, ball fields, basketball hoops, art museum, Muny opera, terrific zoo, fountains, all that stuff is pretty much like rescuing you from drownin
g. So it was only natural to think about the good ol’ park, but what I did not have in mind for sleeping was the hard slats of a park bench where someone could steal off you. No, what I did have in mind were the tennis courts where I knew there was an open shed where old nets, brooms, liners, and such were stored. All the valuable stuff like rackets, balls, visors, sweatbands, etcetera were kept in the main place that was locked at night.

  One more important thing about me and the shed, it taught me how to play tennis. Really. The wall at the back of the shed had a white line painted across it, exactly the height of the tennis net on the court. And that is where hour after hour, day after day I would hit an old tennis ball that would come bouncing back to me. My style was not as classy as the kids who could afford lessons, but I would beat them in twelve-and-under tournaments.

  The other thing makes me give credit to the wall was throwing a baseball. Not the real leather baseball that wouldn’t bounce back, but the practice kind of hard rubber, exact same size, given to me by Mr. Plagg, the baseball coach at Kennard, the grammar school I just graduated from now that I’m about to start junior high. He said I had “potential” and that for my age I threw a nice little curve, which almost no kids my age are able to do.

  As I started to make myself some kind of bed to sleep on, I was thinking of Mr. Plagg who wasn’t at the school anymore because there wasn’t any money for his salary. In fact, not for any baseball at all. Or basketball. Or track. Or football. Or field hockey, which was a girl thing that I don’t really care about.