by Denise Dietz
“I want a drink,” she rasped, “a real drink.”
“After what just happened you want more grog? You’re bonkers.”
“I’m getting out of here. Lend me something to wear.”
“Are you serious? How tall are you? I’m six-three.”
“Give me a shirt, you Aussie rat. The bar sign says shirts and shoes. It doesn’t say anything about pants. I’m gonna’ find my Duke.”
“That’s what we have to talk about. Sit down, Anissa. Coffee or tea?”
“Tequila.”
“Coffee or tea?”
“I don’t care!”
Randy returned from the kitchen with a tray that contained Brie cheese, summer sausage, and two steaming mugs. Huddled against the couch cushion, Anissa glared at him.
“Listen carefully,” he said, “and if you still want to find your cowboy after I’m finished, I’ll lend you some gear. Okay?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Not really. You’re going to bloody well listen, even if I have to toss you back into the shower like some damn boomerang. Anissa, that Duke person paid Kathleen Kaye to sleep with you. She’s a high-class pimp.”
“Kathleen? My landlady? You’re crazy.”
“I didn’t think you knew.”
“Are you saying I’m a whore?”
“No. But Kathleen runs a kind of whorehouse. She finds some poor lost soul and rents her a room.”
“You’re out of your mind! I’ve never been introduced to anybody by Kath—”
“That’s not the way it works. You choose your partners, but Kathleen tells them where to find you. She collects a non-refundable deposit, plus more money afterwards. ‘First you get laid, then Kathleen gets paid.’ It’s the worst kept, best known secret in town.”
“I don’t believe you,” Anissa said.
Yes, I do, she thought. It must be true. Why would Randy make it up?
She recalled the last few months. Her partners had always found her at the Unicorn. There’d been very little verbal sparring, no tentative body language. The men bought her drinks and took her back to her room, never theirs. She suddenly realized that most of them hadn’t even asked her address.
“It’s true,” she said. “I’m so stupid.”
“No, darlin’. It’s not your fault. Kathleen usually rents to kids who hope to star in movies. She keeps the rent very low.”
“True. Once I told her I was thinking about leaving because Jacob . . . because the Senator . . . she chopped thirty dollars off my rent. I couldn’t leave.”
“She doesn’t need rent money. That’s a bonus. She bails up the men.”
Between bursts of uncontrollable laughter, Anissa said, “It’s so fuh-funny, Randy. Jacob . . . Aunt Theresa . . . strict upbringing. I feel like I’m stuck inside some Looney-Tunes cartoon.”
“Calm down or you’ll get sick again.”
“I c-can’t. You d-don’t understand.” Abruptly, her wild laughter ended on a painful sob. Randy pulled her into his lap and held her tight. “I swore I’d never cry again,” she wailed.
“We all make promises we can’t keep.”
Anissa gave him a tremulous smile, then quoted a long passage about broken vows.
“Those are Crissy’s lines! You not only watch Children of the Night, you memorize the alfy dialogue.”
“I watch all the soaps. It’s hereditary. Why does everyone call you Randy? Children’s credits list you as Stuart McNeal.”
“It’s a long story. I’ll confess if you eat your tucker and spend the rest of the night here. You can’t go back to Kathleen’s. Your cowboy might be lurking. I did promise I’d drive you to the Unicorn.”
“No, thanks.” Anissa shuddered. “Look, I’m drinking my tea. Why are you called Randy?”
“I was born in Queensland. My dad was a fair-dinkum Ocker, what you’d call a hillbilly, or maybe a redneck. When I was thirteen we moved here.” Randy inflected his voice with a deeper accent. “Dad would introduce me to his drinking mates. ‘This is my son Stuart,’ he would say, ‘a randy little bugger if ever I saw one.’ The name stuck. My dad’s not a violent man but he beat the hell out of me once. He was crying and calling me a drongo—a born loser. He couldn’t call me a fag, you see. In his part of the world, fag is another word for cigarette.”
“Randy, I’m so sorry.”
“Well, we all have our problems. I didn’t mean to grizzle . . . complain. I’ve learned to deal with Dad and he likes to watch me on the telly. Mum brags about me to her friends. Have you finished your tucker?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want to go to bed now?”
“Yes, please.”
“Good on yer,” said Randy, taking her by the hand. “This is my bedroom. You already know where the loo is.” He tossed her a black silk pajama top. Stepping from his jeans, he donned the bottoms. “Do you really watch my soap every day?” he asked, crawling into bed, staking a claim on the left side.
While she buttoned her pajama top, Anissa responded with one of Randy’s monologues, accurately mimicking his accent.
He whistled. “Can you always pull lines out of a hat like that?”
“I have a great memory, like a sponge. Test me. Give me a movie. One of your favorites.”
“Casablanca.”
“That’s too easy,” she said, plumping a pillow and joining him on the bed. “What lines do you want? Ingrid says, ‘Kiss me, kiss me, as if it were the last time.’ If that doesn’t turn you on, you randy bugger, there’s the part where Bogey says, ‘Remember, this gun is pointed at your heart,’ and Claude Rains says, ‘That is my least vulnerable spot.’ ”
“Amazing. I thought you were going to quote the famous play-it-again-Sam line.”
“Actually, Bogart never says that.”
“You are incredible, Anissa, and I’m not talking tits. I think I’ll introduce you to Maxine Graham. She’s a bitch, but a very powerful bitch.”
“Who’s Maxine Graham?”
“I thought you read the soap credits. She’s my bloody producer. Maxine would flog her own mother for higher ratings.”
“She’d beat up her mother?”
“Sorry. In Australia, flog means sell or hock. I’ll have to make you a list.”
“Flog. Loo. Tucker. Drongo. I won’t flunk this foreign language course, I promise.” Playfully, she ruffled his tawny, sun-streaked hair. “Are you saying that I can get a part on a soap opera?”
“Absolutely. You’re a beaut, Anissa. Do you know how much you sounded like Bergman, Bogart and Claude Rains, when you did their lines? And with that retentive memory you could learn pages of dialogue overnight. You’d be a ripper, as we used to say in the Outback.”
“Me on a soap opera? What an incongruous twist of fate.”
“How so?”
“It’s a long story and all that ‘tucker’ made me sleepy. Take my word for it, okay?”
“Okay. Good-night, angel.”
She caught her breath at the pet nickname. If Randy can deal with his problems, she thought, I can deal with mine. I’m not going to be a loser—a drongo.
“Come closer,” he murmured. “I can’t have sex with women but I sure like to cuddle ’em.”
She nestled against his warm chest and smiled at the irony of Anissa Stern Cartier performing on a soap opera. She heard the echo of her mother’s words: That’s why you have to tune in tomorrow.
Chapter Seven
Flushing, New York
No matter which way she turned her head, Valerie Florentino could hear a man singing in her ears.
“Turn off the radio!” she screamed.
“It’s a record,” said the nurse, cradling Valerie’s shoulders with one arm. “Kismet. And it’s the third time we’ve heard it. I wish Doc had given you a Caesar salad. Come on, Miz Florentino, huff and puff like the big bad wolf.”
“A lady doesn’t huff and puff.” From her new vantage point, Valerie could see her sheet-draped toes. “What do you me
an, Caesar salad?”
“That’s what we nurses call a Cesarean section.”
“Why won’t the doctor just knock me out, like he did last time?”
“Because you went into early labor and it’s safer for the baby. You want a healthy baby, don’t you?”
At this point, Valerie didn’t give a rat’s ass if she produced a healthy baby, a healthy watermelon, a healthy bowling ball, or Mickey-fucking-Mouse.
The record came to an end. Then it began again.
“Pant like a thirsty dog,” said the nurse.
“A lady doesn’t pant.”
“Push, dearie,” the obstetrician said. Other doctors might enjoy listening to classical music. He preferred show tunes.
“If I push,” Valerie wailed, “I’ll soil my undies and a lady doesn’t soil—”
“You’re not wearing undies.” Through his mouth-mask the doctor sang about a stranger in paradise.
“Shut the fuck up!” Valerie screamed.
Baby Girl Florentino was born on June 1, 1954. She huffed, puffed, panted, and wept at the injustice of entering the world prematurely. Then she sucked her thumb.
“I’m calling her Marilyn Monroe Bradley Florentino,” Valerie told the nurse. “My movie magazine says today is Marilyn Monroe’s birthday. If Andrew doesn’t like it, he can lump it.”
The nurse held up the tiny infant. “Little Maryl sure has herself a full head of red hair. You probably had gas the whole eight months you were pregnant.”
Valerie squeezed her eyes shut, unwilling to admit that the nurse was right. A lady didn’t have gas. And even if she did, she didn’t discharge it. Then she remembered the news that had sent her into early labor.
Gas! Fumes! Explosion! Dear Jesus!
* * * * *
While Marilyn Monroe Bradley Florentino’s new-born bottom was being spanked, her father hurried home. Not wanting Val to become suspicious, he hadn’t packed a suitcase. Stupidly, idiotically, he had left his bus ticket where he’d hidden it—in the pocket of his ratty brown bathrobe.
“Stupid idiot,” he muttered, unlocking the door and stepping into a brief hallway. He and Val leased an apartment within walking distance of Flushing’s IRT subway. Partially subsidized by Val’s parents, the apartment had high ceilings, low rent, and cockroaches.
Val and Andrew Jr. were gone. Shopping for groceries?
Tonight was Hamburger Delight—chopped meat, lumpy mashed potatoes and canned peas. Tomorrow they’d dine on leftover burgers, disguised as tacos. The next day, chicken. The day after, leftover chicken with “oodles of noodles.” The next day, Tuna Delight. The day after that, soup; a big pot, filled with leftovers from the previous five days—hamburger, chicken, tuna, noodles, and in all likelihood, roaches. Val usually dumped beans into the soup, and beans, especially baked beans, bore a striking resemblance to roaches.
On the seventh day, God created Val’s parents. Andrew never could remember what he ate at the Bradley residence since every week his father-in-law would say, “You a famous artist yet, son?” But the way he said “son,” it sounded like asshole.
The roaches must have sensed his arrival because Andrew didn’t hear the sound of their scratchy skitters. They were playing hide-and-seek, search-and-stomp.
He halted to admire his hand-painted mural, on the wall of what their landlord had the nerve to call a second bedroom. Above crib and tiny dresser, Mickey, Minnie, Goofy and Pluto scampered through a field of smiling daisies and daffodils. Andrew joked that Disney spies would discover his mural and sue the shit out of him for infringement of copyright laws. Well, they could sue till doomsday but they’d never collect anything except Val, Andrew Jr., second-hand furniture and roaches.
Maybe after they discovered his talent, he’d be hired as a Disney animator.
Andrew’s laugh was mostly snort. Up until today he had worked as a proof-reader for Candid Confessions, a magazine he privately called “Spill Your Guts.” The head honcho had promised that Andrew would eventually rise to the position of illustrator. Sooner or later, he’d draw men kissing women and men screwing women, even though they didn’t actually show that, but everybody knew.
Sooner or later meant when hell froze over or the Pope turned Jewish.
Impatient with unfulfilled promises, bored with his marriage, Andrew had given two week’s notice and bought his one-way bus ticket.
As Andrew focused on Minnie Mouse, he pictured his wife. She’d been an eager virgin rather than a reluctant virgin. First they’d necked and petted on the front seat of her daddy’s car. Then, wet and woozy, she’d screamed, “Do it, do it, do it now, Andy!”
“Don’t call me Andy,” he’d said.
Afterwards, she’d puked cheap wine all over her daddy’s dashboard and he had fled. Any other red-blooded American boy would have done the same, right?
“You’re a bad boy, Andy,” his mother had crooned, swinging a broom handle like a baseball bat.
Andrew heard a phlegm-filled harrumph.
Cops? Had Disney sicced the cops on him?
Cigarette smoke overpowered the scent of roach spray. Following his nose, Andrew saw his neighbor sitting at the spindly-legged kitchen table.
“Hi, Bud.” Andrew always called his neighbors Bud and Hon because he never could remember their names. Hon looked like Dagwood’s Blondie while Bud looked like Buffalo Bob on that Howdy Doody puppet show.
“Good evening, Florentino. Your wife’s at the hospital. She had a phone call. Harrumph.” Bud cleared his throat and lit another Camel. “Her father’s car was smashed to smithereens by a moving van. Her parents are dead.”
Andrew assumed an expression of pious solemnity, but his heart soared. No more famous artist bullshit.
“Your wife went into early labor,” Bud continued, “so I called an ambulance. My missus has your little boy at our place. She gave him milk and cookies and now they’re watching that puppet show on our new television set. When your children get bigger, they can join the Peanut Gallery.” Bud blew smoke rings toward an empty roach trap.
Jesus! Children! This morning Andrew had one wife, one son, and two in-laws. Now he had one wife, two kids, and a couple of dead in-laws.
Thank God he had left his bus ticket in the pocket of his ratty bathrobe. An agnostic, Andrew had never really believed in a benevolent God. But he did now.
* * * * *
Mr. and Mrs. Bradley’s last will and testament left Valerie a Great Neck, Long Island house, mortgage paid, and an insurance policy that totaled fifty thousand dollars. Valerie inherited her mother’s diamond ring, too, but they couldn’t find Mrs. Bradley’s finger in the wreck.
Witnesses claimed the Bradley’s Chevy had run a stop sign. Andrew wanted to sue the moving company anyway.
“That won’t bring Momma and Daddy back,” Val said. “A million dollars won’t bring them back from the dead.”
Andrew wondered if that was really true.
Val wasted three thousand dollars on a funeral. Andrew had the feeling she was pissed because it was a beautiful summer day, not one hint of rain. At the gravesite, the minister kept pressing a handkerchief against his nose, probably because Drew had dirtied his diaper.
“Your son is sitting in his own shit,” Andrew whispered. “Change him.”
“I’ll do it after the service.”
“What kind of mother are you?” Andrew wheeled Drew’s stroller toward a waiting limousine, retrieved a diaper bag, handed the driver ten bucks, then returned in time to hear the minister’s amen and catch Val before she hit the ground.
“How can you say shit at a funeral?” Still in his arms, Valerie sagged against Andrew’s chest, squeezed her eyes shut, and panted like a thirsty dog.
It was their last intimate moment.
The Florentinos moved to Great Neck. Andrew burned his bus ticket. He bought art supplies and a drafting table, then cleared out the downstairs sewing room. There, he created his own original comic strip, which he called Chien. The main c
haracter was a shaggy, unclipped poodle. Mingling with a cast of animals, Chien strutted through panel after panel, barking philosophical “dogma.”
For six years—from 1954 to 1960—the Florentinos lived off the Bradley’s insurance policy. And for the first time in his life, Andrew didn’t need sex. All his get-up-and-go went into creating Chien.
A few newspapers bought his strip and he soon attracted a cult following. Chien was a “left-pawed liberal” who opposed his right-winged friend, an ostrich named Barry Silverwater.
Screw Disney!
Viva la Chien!
* * * * *
Marilyn Monroe Bradley Florentino was not a beautiful child. Her hair was unmanageable—a curly, carroty flame that her mother tried to subdue into a couple of Pipi Longstocking braids. Maryl’s eyes tilted at the corners but were a plain brown. Not dark or golden or greenish-brown. Just brown—like mud.
Her brother’s eyes were black—two perfect chips of polished onyx.
Maryl’s pointy-chinned face had the look of a scruffy cat trying to hide behind a blade of grass.
Her brother was beautiful.
From early childhood strangers were always touching Drew to determine if he was real, not some life-size doll, and as a result he grew painfully shy. Only thirteen months separated brother and sister. Since Maryl’s hyperactivity and Drew’s diffidence alienated playmates, they became best friends.
Naturally, Andrew gave them boxes of crayons.
Maryl loved the slick sticks that smelled like candles. Daddy handed Drew a coloring book filled with the outlines of Mickey and Minnie Mouse, then handed her Donald, Daisy, Huey, Louie, and what’s-his-name.
“Soon you kids will be coloring Chien and sleeping on Barry Silverwater sheets,” Daddy said. “Anything’s possible. After all, Kennedy promised to put a man on the moon—if he can get the Pope to volunteer, ha-ha.”
Maryl’s fingers flew across the pages, creating free-form blotches. “Jackson Pollock on Mary-wanna,” said Daddy.
