Mother Finds a Body

by Gypsy Rose Lee

  Mother smiled as though she were taking bows at the Met. The smiles were wasted on the doctor.

  He beckoned the two men who had arrived with him. They brought over a large piece of canvas and rolled the body up in it. They tossed the bundle into the back of the truck and climbed in next to it. The sheriff and the doctor got into the front seat.

  “Drop me at the bend,” the sheriff said to the doctor. “I’ll pick up my car there. See you folks later,” he added to Biff and me. With Mother it was a little different. “Get some rest, Mrs. Lee,” he said. “When you feel better, maybe we’ll have a little talk.”

  Mother waved sadly as the truck drove away. Then she turned to me.

  “Well, that’s over,” she said in a businesslike tone. “I told you I’d fix everything, didn’t I?”

  The unbelievable part of it was that Mother really thought she had fixed everything. The bodies were out of our hands, and that is as far as Mother’s mind could travel in one direction.

  As we walked toward the trailer I asked Mother about the package.

  “What package, Louise?” Mother said.

  Biff and Gee Gee were walking ahead of us. I lowered my voice. The package was too small to be another body, but I still didn’t like the way mother was evading the question.

  “The package you put into your apron pocket,” I whispered. “Where is it now?”

  Mother stopped and stared at me. “Do you feel all right, Louise?” she asked. “I really think sometimes that you aren’t as bright as you might be. Package? I never had a package.”

  In her own way Mother had convinced herself that she had nothing in her pocket when she walked toward the grave. There was nothing I could do about it. Nothing but pray, that is.

  I prayed and Mother hummed.

  She found seven four-leaf clovers on the way to the trailer. She was in a happy mood because of it. She kept humming too loudly for me to get a word in edgewise.

  I wanted to ask her about the handkerchief; why she wanted it. I wondered if the sheriff noticed she had one of her own when she asked him for his. I wondered what was in the package Mother had forgotten about. I wondered if there was a drink left in the bottle. Most of all, I wondered that. I wanted one or two, maybe three of four, and I wanted them right away.

  Mamie had set the table, and the teakettle was singing away when we arrived at the trailer. Gee Gee left us at the door. She said she was going to rest for a while. Corny had taken up all the resting room as usual, but Mamie settled the situation nicely.

  “Get up, you lazy lummox,” she said.

  I couldn’t believe my ears. Neither could Biff. Corny not only got up; he left the trailer. With a blanket under his arm he stomped away to a hammock near the shower house.

  Mamie was still mumbling when she joined us under the lean-to tent. “I won’t take any of his lip, that I won’t.” She looked at Mother and her mood changed quickly. “You poor dear,” she said sympathetically. “Here, let me fix you a nice cup of tea. It’ll relax you.”

  Mother allowed herself to be placed in a camp chair. She smiled wanly at Mamie, who puttered around getting the can of milk and the sugar bowl.

  “I couldn’t help but hear Louise on the phone,” Mamie said. “It must have been an awful shock. Just imagine a dead body in your own trailer. Well, I always say, you never know what’s liable to happen next. The way the world is today . . .”

  Mandy looked up from his Racing Form. “Well, one thing is sure. They can’t blame that on Roosevelt.”

  “Can’t blame what?” Biff asked sharply.

  “Alabaster coming in last,” Mady replied. “What didja think?”

  Biff sighed deeply. So did I, for that matter. Sooner or later everyone would have to know about the corpse, but for the time being I was just as pleased to have it later. It was the sheriff’s job to tell anyway, I reasoned.

  Mandy got up to leave, and Biff gave him six dollars.

  “Across the board on Black Night in the sixth at Rockingham,” Biff said.

  A trailerite was taking the bets. I think Mandy could have found a bookie in the Sahara desert. He waved to Mamie. “Wish me luck sweetheart,” he said.

  Mamie wore one of Mother’s gingham dresses. As she moved about it flopped around her thin hips. Mother wore low necks because her throat was full and lovely. Mamie’s neck needed something to cover it. The white organdy ruffle that looked so crisp and dainty on Mother was grotesque on poor Mrs. Smith.

  Biff must have been thinking the same thing.

  “When we go into town for groceries, you come with us, Mamie,” he said. “We gotta get you some dresses. Can’t have the ingénue of the layout going around in hand-me-downs.”

  Mamie turned her head away. I was sure she was crying.

  “You’re all so wonderful to me,” she sobbed. She hurried into the trailer, and Biff drank his tea silently. After a moment he glanced up from the streaming cup.

  “Hell’s bells, I didn’t mean to make her cry. I only . . .”

  “I know, honey.”

  Mamie opened the screen door and called to Mother. Her voice was light and gay. “Dearie! Make some room on the table. I have a surprise for you.”

  Mother moved the tea things listlessly. She seemed to be thinking of something else, something that worried her. Even when Mamie placed the baking dish in front of her, Mother remained pensive. The dish was full of golden-brown biscuits.

  Biff gave them a triple take.

  “I thought they’d go good with the tea,” Mamie said. “I had an awful time with the oven, though. Kept burning on the bottom.” She lifted a biscuit and felt its weight, first in one hand, then the other. “I do hope they aren’t heavy,” she said.

  It was the first time I knew we had an oven. Our meals had been sketchy. Beans, hamburgers, hot dogs, then back to beans again. We hadn’t made a career of the eating business.

  From the expression of Biff’s face I decided there was something in that “The-way-to-a-man’s-heart” dialogue. If biscuits would make his eyes sparkle like that, he was going to have biscuits if I had to make them myself.

  When he was buttering his sixth, I noticed the line of laundry. On a rope stretched from the tent to a tree, four sheer nighties waved invitingly in the breeze. A pair of lacy panties, men’s socks, my new nylons, and a pair of men’s shorts, lavender ones.

  Mamie, watching me, spoke quickly. “I did the dainty things first. Tomorrow I’m getting at the shirts and the heavy stuff.”

  My first reaction was of resentment. I didn’t like having a stranger doing my laundry. Then I felt ashamed and grateful. I hate doing laundry myself.

  Dimples’s voice rose petulantly from the other trailer. She couldn’t find her eyebrow tweezers. “They were right here on the stove,” she said.

  “You pull out one more hair,” Gee Gee said, “and you’ll be balder’n a bat.”

  Mamie rushed into the trailer. She closed the screen door carefully.

  I put all the makeup things in this drawer,” she said. “It’ll take me a little while to learn what belongs to who, but . . .”

  As her voice trailed off I felt Biff look at me.

  “Did I call her an ingénue?” he said softly. “I shoulda called her the leading lady.”

  He was right. Instead of worrying how crowded we were, I was thinking how nice that our family was larger by one.

  Biff ate the last biscuit carefully.

  “This is what I call eating high off the hog,” he said as he swallowed it in two bites.

  Mother sipped her tea. She lit a cubeb and blew out the smoke in tight little gasps.

  “You know,” she said slowly, “I was just thinking.” She took another puff from her asthma cigarette and let us worry for a moment. Mother’s thinking could be troublesome at times.

  “I didn’t want to tell the sheriff until I spoke with you.” The last was directed at Biff: “The way you keep getting things mixed up all the time. I don’t feel that I should, w
ell, trust you.”

  I knew then that whatever Mother had been thinking, it wasn’t good. I prepared myself for the worst, but her next words stunned me.

  “I think that handkerchief the sheriff had in the hat was Cliff’s.”

  Biff gulped.

  “I saw the laundry mark,” Mother said. “I remember it from when we sent out that bundle in San Diego. Remember how I happened to send it out marked Lee by mistake?”

  Hardly by mistake. I thought. Mother had just been protecting my billing. Even on the laundry lists I had to headline. At the time we thought it was amusing when the dry cleaning and the laundry were all marked Mr. G. R. Lee. When the neighbors began calling Biff Mr. Lee, we stopped laughing.

  “There was something else, too,” Mother said.

  Biff leaned back in his chair and took a deep breath. I tried to brace myself, too, but that old feeling tightened across my chest.

  “But,” Mother added mysteriously, “because of your big mouth I’m not going to tell you what it is.” She leaned over her teacup and stared at the matted leaves.

  “Gypsy,” she said.

  I knew that was coming. When Mother called me Gypsy she either wanted me to lay out the cards or read the tea leaves. I was in no mood for making like a fortune-teller. I set my jaw firmly. I had every intention of saying no.

  Mother poked around in her teacup with a pinky. “I think I see something interesting,” she said.

  I crossed my arms and leaned back in my chair.

  “Of course, I can’t read it,” Mother said, “but it certainly looks like a gun to me.”

  In spite of my intentions I was dying to get at the cup. Ever since I had predicted the death of Lolita La Verne at the Old Opera Theater I was convinced I was the white-haired girl of the oracle racket.

  “Well, if that isn’t funny!” Mother chuckled her tongue against her teeth. “Just as plain as day I see the sheriff’s hat, the way it goes up high in back and comes to a point, and everything. It’s uncanny, that’s what it is, uncanny.”

  “Like the hotel without any bathrooms,” Biff mumbled.

  I shot him a quick glance, and he went back to his tea.

  Mother turned her cup upside down on the saucer. She spun the cup three times to the right, then three times to the left.

  “Did you make a wish?” I asked.

  Mother nodded. She was very serious as she handed me the cup.

  I didn’t see the sheriff’s hat. I did see something that could be interpreted as a gun. That is, if they make a gun without a handle. The only guns I was acquainted with were the kind used in sharpshooter acts. The gun in the cup was quite different.

  “I see a journey,” I said. With my fortune-telling I usually start off with a journey. In show business you can’t go wrong seeing a journey.

  “There’s a letter or a legal document, a tall man, and a—a marriage.”

  I looked up in the cup again. It was the first time I had seen a marriage in the tea leaves. Two straight lines side by side. I turned the cup around and looked again. No matter which way I read it, there was marriage in my mother’s cup.

  “A marriage?” Mother looked more serious than ever. “See if you can find any initials.”

  There was one letter near the edge. It was a large D. I didn’t associate it with the marriage. It was too far from the two straight lines. I had an uncomfortable feeling that the letter D meant danger. I handed the cup back to mother and went into the trailer.

  It took me a moment to get used to the gloom after the late-afternoon sunlight. The living room was empty. Mamie and Dimples were talking to Gee Gee in the bedroom. She sat on the foot of the bed, a Turkish towel around her shoulders. Her red hair was combed flat against her head.

  “We’re trying to tell her how good she’d look as a blonde,” Mamie said. She stood, with the toothbrush in hand, ready for the first application of white henna. It was in a saucepan on the bed table.

  “I done it plenty of times,” Mamie said. “All my customers were pleased, too.”

  Gee Gee hesitated. ‘I’d hurt my billings is all,” she said thoughtfully. “Of course, we could change ‘The Red-Haired Dynamo’ to ‘The Blonde Dynamo.’ Or what ya think of ‘The Blonde Bombshell’?”

  Dimples sprawled out at the back of the bed, flicked her ashes indolently on the floor. “It’s been done to death,” she said.

  Mamie listened with a happy grin on her face. She stirred the white henna and added soap flakes until it looked like a snowdrift.

  “My, how I would love to see you girls act on stage,” she said. “When I think you’re all actors and actresses I get so excited. I don’t know what I’m doing. Me, Mamie Smith, traveling with a show troupe! No one in Watova would ever believe it.”

  “Watova?” Dimples stared at her. “Where the hell is that? Europe?”

  “Watova is where I was born,” Mamie said with pride. “My dear husband, Mr. Smith, had a six-hundred-acre farm there. It’s eight miles south of Oologah.”

  Dimples relaxed. “Now I know,” she said.

  “If I ever told them in Watova that I was traveling with a show troupe they’d never believe me.”

  “You said that once.” Dimples was bored with Watova. She yawned loudly.

  Mrs. Smith beamed on her. Yawn or no yawn, Dimples was an actress, and that was enough.

  “I’ll bet you’re a big hit on the stage,” Mamie said. “You must be beautiful when you’re dressed up.”

  Dimples narrowed her eyes. “Are you trying to kid somebody?” she asked.

  Mamie went on gaily. “Don’t you ever get embarrassed taking off your clothes with all those men looking at you?”

  “Say.” Dimples put her hands on her fat hips. “Where do you get that embarrassed business? Why should I get embarrassed? I got a dark blue spot on me all the time ain’t I?”

  Mamie realized she had touched a sore spot with the Queen of Quiver. She tried to cover it up quickly. “I only mean, what do you think about when you’re out there—taking off your dress like?”

  “I ain’t thinking anything,” Dimples replied. “I got a job to do. I let the jerks do the thinking. That’s what they paid their dough for. I’d look cute out there, thinking.” She laughed briefly. “Boy, that’s rich! Me, with a rhinestone in my navel, thinking!”

  Gee Gee had enough of Dimples on the subject of Dimples.

  “Hey,” she said. “We were talking about me. Should I dye or shouldn’t I dye?”

  I had completely forgotten the corpse and the handkerchief and the package. At that moment Gee Gee’s decision seemed more important. She had built up a reputation as “The Red-Haired Dynamo.” To change it at this late date was something that needed consideration.

  Dimples snatched the toothbrush from Mamie’s hand and in one quick motion dipped it into the white henna and spread in on Gee Gee’s head.

  “When in doubt, act,” she said. It was the motto Dimples lived by.

  Mamie left the henna pack on a little too long. Gee Gee emerged as a platinum blonde. Platinum with touches of pink here and there to relieve the monotony.

  Mamie was delighted with her handiwork, but I was glad that Gee Gee didn’t plan on working for a few weeks. Even with her new title, “Platinum Panic,” she’d have a hard time convincing the audience. I didn’t have the heart to suggest that we dye her back to a redhead. I thought it could wait a few days. I did suggest that we needed a nip.

  The boys were only too glad to join us. Corny got the glasses. That was the one job we could depend on him for. If someone paid for the bottle, he would always get the glasses. Mandy got the water chasers. He wasn’t very cheerful. Neither was Biff. They had their my-horse-didn’t-come-in look.

  Biff eyeing Gee Gee’s hair, was generous. “I could go for you myself,” he said.

  “Don’t do me no favors,” Gee Gee replied. “So far I’m the only dame in burlesque that isn’t a sister-in-law of Gyp’s. Let’s keep it clean.”

  Biff
, to change the subject, offered Mamie a drink. I was surprised when she took it. She polished it off like a seasoned trooper.

  “Mmm, tasty,” she said. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Not as sweet as my rhubarb wine, but tasty.”

  Biff urged her to have another. He didn’t have to do much urging. Watova raised a breed of double-fisted drinkers, that was certain.

  Mandy had gone into his specialty; imitations of birds and beasts of the forest. Mamie choked with laughter on her third drink as he did his version of a lonesome cow. The fact that a cow is hardly a beast of the forest didn’t enter into the thing.

  By the time Gee Gee went into her guitar solo, we had a pretty fair-sized audience. The neighbor trailerites kept a safe distance, but they were all there. Biff and Corny almost stopped the show with their scene, “Fluegal Street,” and before we could stop her, Dimples went into her strip. The neighbors didn’t know whether to applaud or to call the cops. One lone voice rang out, “Take it off!”

  That was all Dimples needed. Biff had the courage to stop her. He grabbed Corny’s blanket and put an end to the show. It was a fine party. We forgot to eat dinner. That is always a good way to tell.

  Johnny’s father let us borrow his car and in high spirits we left for the village.

  “This will be one night we don’t forget for a long time,” Biff said as he helped Mother into the back seat. For once in his life, Biff was right.

  9WE MADE THE HAPPY HOUR OUR FIRST STOP. BIFF was driving, so that may have accounted for it. While he parked the car, Mother and I looked up and down the street.

  It was very gay and colorful. The neon signs and the blinking lights reminded me of the Mulberry Street Festival. Most of the saloons had entrances that were more inviting than Fransisco Cullucio’s, but, from the crowds hanging around the entrance, it was evident that he did the biggest business. The faded awning was half-raised. On it hung pennants with NOGALES printed on them and pillowcases with poetry addressed to MY SWEETHEART stamped on the rayon satin.

  I was surprised to see the number of wine parties in the saloon. The Happy Hour didn’t have a beer crowd, even if they did look it. Most of the men were in their shirt sleeves. Many of them wore souvenir hats, Mexican sombreros with little balls hanging from the brims. All the women wore evening gowns.