Milwaukee Noir

by Tim Hennessy

  “Oh, come on. Let me make it up to you by taking you out. You’ve worked hard all day. One drink—a soft drink, okay? And we’ll listen to a little music, and I’ll bring you right back here to pick up your truck.”

  My lies were stacking up, but the guilt about them evaporated the second I brought to mind images of Carlos standing in front of his mother in makeup and a dress.

  Ronnie’s resistance dissolved into something like sympathy. I smiled. He was going to say yes out of sheer pity for my wicked, queer soul.

  “Sure,” he said. “A soda and, let’s say, a half hour of blues.” He reached a comradely hand out to my shoulder and turned me toward my car. “I guess we’re taking the Toyota. I seem to be parked in.”

  * * *

  Mamie’s was only four blocks away, and it was a beautiful evening. There really wasn’t any reason to drive, except that Ronnie was a car salesman—he didn’t walk anywhere—and I needed somewhere semiprivate to punch him in the face.

  I did just that. I’m left-handed so even from the driver’s seat I had enough clearance to take a good swing. He fell back against the passenger door, stunned. I clicked the driver-

  controlled locks.

  “Marta?” He put a hand up to his cheek.

  “That’s for Carlos.” I pulled out the 442. “This is for Carlos too.” I reached over the seat and grabbed the duffel bag and threw it at him. “Open it.”

  He unzipped the bag mechanically, keeping his eye on the gun.

  “Put it on.”

  Ronnie pulled out the dress I had picked for him—a frilly low-cut party dress in lavender.

  “Oh, come on, Marta. You can’t be serious.”

  I moved the gun closer to his nose. “I’m pretty fucking serious right now, Ronnie. Put it on.” When he hesitated, I tapped the gun to his temple and said, “The color will bring out your eyes.”

  He started to pull the dress on over his work clothes.

  “No,” I said, “the man outfit comes off first.”

  “Marta . . .”

  “Do it.”

  He did, and it took everything I had to keep my gun sighted on him as he flailed his way out of his shirt and pants and into the dress.

  “There’s shoes in there too.” Matching lavender satin pumps, women’s size twelve. I’d found them at a bridal shop near Southridge.

  As he bent to put the shoes on, I pressed the mouth of the gun to the back of his sweaty neck. A surge of murder ran through me, but I let him straighten up. I needed to complete the job as planned.

  “Happy now?” he asked, gesturing at the getup.

  “Nope. There’s more in there.”

  He dug into the bag again, bringing out a tube of lipstick and one of mascara, and a case containing a selection of eye shadows and blushes. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

  I raised an eyebrow and heard his breath snag.

  “This is . . .” he began.

  “This is Friday night, Ronnie. And you’re just getting beautiful.”

  He fumbled with the lipstick first, tingeing the blond whiskers around his mouth a ruby red.

  “¡Wátchale, primo!” I flicked down the passenger-side visor and opened the mirror. “Have a little self-respect.”

  His hands shook as he drew the wand from the mascara tube. He looked at me as if I might help him, but I just sat there, taking in his nervousness, the black cross-hatched mess he made of his eyelids.

  “Good thing you can cover that with shadow.”

  The car filled up with the smell of his sweat. I enjoyed it, the scent of his fear. The pits of his sleeveless dress were stained deep purple.

  He chose a pale shade of blue for his lids then moved on to the cheeks, rouging them like a doll. When he was done, he tossed the lot back into the bag and looked at me. He bit his lower lip.

  “Don’t do that. You’ll ruin your lipstick.” I gestured with the gun. “Put your hands up on the dashboard.”

  He followed my instructions, and I started the car. The drive to Mamie’s took less than two minutes, though it felt like years. The small gun was heavy in my hand. In the parking lot I told him, “We’re going to slide out of the car on my side. Then we’re walking into Mamie’s, and you’re going to act natural.”

  “What’s natural about this, Marta? Please?” His voice had melted down to a damp whimper, a luscious sound as good as the whiskey I was looking forward to ordering.

  “Just be yourself, Ronnie.” I spat the words into his face and opened my door. I pulled him out of the car. The shame seemed to lighten him. Although he had fifty pounds on me, at least, he slid out like a baby.

  I pressed the gun into his side, burying it in the frills of his dress, and led him inside.

  The bar was packed. The band hadn’t started yet, but the crowd was doing its best to warm the place up. Drunks spilled aside as we moved into the center of the room and the people around us noticed Ronnie and grew quiet.

  An asthmatic dude in a Brewers T-shirt elbowed his way through to a spot four feet from us. “Ronnie?” he asked, half laughing, his brown eyes pinched in curiosity. “It’s Matt. From church? Why are you—”

  I cut him off: “It’s a church fundraiser. Didn’t you hear about it, Matt?” I pressed the gun farther into Ronnie’s ribs as he squirmed. “Ronnie’s dressed up like this to share in the humiliation that Jesus felt at the hands of His persecutors.”

  Matt gave a skeptical nod.

  I felt hot with the ridiculousness of the situation, of this story I was spinning, yet I went all in. “We’re going to pass the hat around the bar, for donations for the church missions. You should take a picture for the newsletter, okay?”

  Matt looked doubtful, but he reached into his pocket for his phone. Obediently, he took several pictures.

  “I’m going to throw up,” Ronnie muttered.

  “Good,” I whispered in his ear.

  He wasn’t lying. He puked right then, all over his fancy dress.

  I pocketed the gun and drew out my phone. I snapped a few photos of Ronnie as he wiped the vomit from the corners of his mouth, his eyes cursing me.

  “Well, my job is done here,” I said cheerfully, and patted Ronnie on the back as I left.

  I was going to have to leave town for a few days. I had a suitcase in the trunk.

  * * *

  I stopped by the liquor store for a bottle of whiskey, since I didn’t get that drink at Mamie’s after all. In the parking lot, I scrolled through the photos. Ronnie looked miserable, slump-shouldered and stained. I don’t think Matt entirely bought the church-mission-fundraiser story, but at least he saw Ronnie and took pictures. Ronnie would suffer, knowing that the pictures existed at all, whether they got submitted to the church’s newsletter or not. And God, I was sure, saw Ronnie’s suffering and saw that it was good.

  Or I did, anyway. Ronnie’s suffering was good.

  Before I texted the photo to Carlos, I opened the bottle and took a nice swig. I doubted he would respond, but a minute later I got a reply.

  Ur going 2 need 2 explain that

  1st explain this: why did u go along with Ronnie n Pamela dressing u up like that?

  A long pause, ten minutes during which I slugged back a couple more shots. Then:

  I thought if I did it she wd see

  See what?

  how ridiculous I looked

  I thought about Consuelo’s pale, worn face.

  She saw it. I don’t know if that was exactly true, but it was the best I could do.

  why did u do that? Carlos texted.

  2 Ronnie? 2 make him feel the same way they made u feel

  He will NEVER EVER feel the way I do

  My head spun. I had failed Carlos again. The whiskey and the lingering smell of Ronnie’s sweat in the cramped space made me sick to my stomach. I opened the car door and puked onto the asphalt.

  I thought it would make u happy, I texted when I recovered.

  u don’t understand anything, do u?
>
  I ignored that. I just wanted the whole episode to be over. My hands twitched on the steering wheel, giving me the urge to drive and just keep driving.

  u on yr way back to the Stan?

  yep, next 2sday. Got the weekend off tho

  Ima come see u—send me the address and I’ll b there.

  No, don’t do that.

  I wanted to ask why not, but I knew there were a hundred legitimate reasons he didn’t want to see me right then. Me, being the most likely reason.

  I let it go. I washed out my mouth with whiskey, and I drove.

  ALL DRESSED IN RED

  by Vida Cross

  Franklin Heights

  While sitting on her porch with her sister, Ms. Lora knew she smelled death when she caught a whiff of the scent from her sweater. It was a raspberry color with smooth wool sleeves and a cowl neck. She admired the wool cowl neck, but when she fiddled with the woven ridges, she got a whiff of dust and dime-store eau de toilette. Walgreens parfum. Lavender.

  This sweater once belonged to an older white woman with white-yellow hair. The hint of a mothball smell suggested the woman had stopped dressing in regular clothes, so maybe the sweater had sat in a drawer or a see-through plastic bag made for comforters.

  Ms. Lora had bought the sweater secondhand from the Immaculate Heart of Mary’s basement store. The store was under the Immaculate Heart of Mary’s community room. The community room was on the first floor, and the second to tenth floors were senior citizen apartments. Ms. Lora shopped at the secondhand store. It was called the Immaculate Heart of Mary’s Clothing Boutique. Most of the items that lined the store’s movable metal clothing rods came from Immaculate Heart of Mary’s senior residents. Ms. Lora knew that some of the clothes were delivered to the boutique upon someone’s death.

  She shopped at the boutique with her sister, Ms. Abby. They arrived every Monday, because Monday was half-price day, and the store clerk greeted them with a fake smile: very bright, very cheerful. The store clerk always said, “Hellooo, Ms. Lora. Good morning, Ms. Abby.”

  The two women would mumble a “Hello” or “Hey.” Sometimes, the store clerk thought she heard “Bitch” or even “Tart.”

  Ms. Lora and Ms. Abby were always first at the door. The store opened at nine a.m. They arrived at eight thirty a.m. or eight fifteen a.m. and sat on the two brick walls that lined the pathway to the entrance of the basement’s double doors.

  To get to the doors from their car, they would wheel their walkers down the pathway. The driveway was on a decline or an incline depending on which way you were going. The sisters walked and rolled slowly down the driveway to the boutique.

  Ms. Abby was stooped over. She had a bad back and big hips: a big round rear end that may have once pleased the boys. Now, she could barely pull her hiney along with her.

  Ms. Lora was thin and wiry. She could walk without a walker but preferred one for the driveway’s hill.

  Once inside the store, the two ladies would crowd the aisles. One sister would take one aisle, and the other sister would take another. They would rest their shopping carts in front of their walkers, and behind those two items they would stand (in Ms. Abby’s case, she was always bent forward). The ladies would move back and forth and up and down the aisle, and by the time another customer came their way, a sister would move to the end of the aisle to block the person’s entrance.

  They came from Franklin Heights, Milwaukee, Burleigh, the 53206 zip code. They lived in and owned a duplex. They had inherited the space, and each could have had her own apartment, but they decided to share the lower unit. The upper unit sat empty. They were retired postal workers, and the ladies had a routine. They woke at seven a.m. every day. Ms. Lora washed and began coffee by seven thirty a.m. Every day she said, “Abby, you want coffee?”

  Every day Abby said, “Yeah,” as she shuffled to the bathroom. The ladies didn’t talk much. They had all day, all week, all year to say more.

  The bedrooms in the apartment were almost Jack and Jill. Two rooms were joined by a short hallway and a bath. The hallway led to each room and the kitchen. By eight a.m. the ladies were either sitting on their porch or off to the boutique or holding their own clothing sale in their yard.

  They watched television together for lunch and dinner. Most days, they observed things and said, “See that?”

  “Umm-humm.”

  They were in bed by eight p.m. By nine p.m. they heard gunshots. Every night. The shots ended by nine p.m., and Ms. Lora would call to Ms. Abby, “Abby? You ah-ight?”

  “Yeah.”

  They beautified their home with flowers. Their front lawn was covered in annuals during the summer. Their home was a deep mossy green on the second floor’s exterior and a mustard yellow on the bottom. They liked their lives, although things could be better.

  Their parents had been the first blacks to move to the block in 1976. Quickly, it had become all black. By 1985, the neighborhood had become drug infested. But they liked their home. Liked their neighbors. Nodded hello to some. Said “See that” about others. They watched the cops drive quickly down the block. One police officer was driving so fast one day he ran over a child. That was 1996. Ms. Lora and Ms. Abby sat on their porch and yelled, “See that?” to each other.

  They traveled to the boutique because there were no secondhand stores in their area. There were no supermarkets. No furniture stores. No coffee shops. No clothing stores. No auto supply stores. No malls. No McDonald’s. No pharmacies. No sit-down restaurants. No nothin’. Although there were plenty of churches all around, the ladies were not dedicated to a church. They listened to Sunday worship on the radio every Sunday. On Sundays after two p.m., during the summer months, they sold clothes in their backyard.

  So, they traveled to the southern suburbs of St. Francis, Wisconsin, to Immaculate Heart of Mary’s Catholic Church once a week to shop, and they traveled there once a month to eat.

  When they shopped at the boutique, they often picked things up for their yard sale. Ms. Abby would hold a shirt up and say, “Jimmy?”

  “Yep. He’ll love that.”

  Their carts were always piled high. When they moved to check out, the clerk would pick up an item, check the price tag, find a beige square with the price of three dollars crossed out and 50 cents written beneath the original number.

  The clerk could never stop herself from laying an item down with a heavy hand. Her rings and bracelets and palms would hit the counter whenever she had to punch in fifty cents for a three-dollar shirt.

  The clerk would never forget the time she called her manager over to look at the tags. He bustled past the three of them and, waving his hands, said, “Ring it up, Sheryl. Hello, Ms. Lora and Ms. Abby. Will you be joining us for pancake breakfast?” He was afraid of them: shaking.

  Immaculate Heart of Mary’s pancake breakfast was an all-you-can-eat affair. Immaculate Heart hosted one on the first Saturday of every month. For three dollars a person, from seven a.m. to one p.m., Ms. Abby and Ms. Lora ate pancakes for breakfast and lunch.

  Ms. Abby and Ms. Lora knew the room well. A big rectangle. The elder men and women who could walk well sat in the back and allowed the people who walked with some difficulty to sit closer to the door and closer to the serving tables. Ms. Lora and Ms. Abby sat in the middle. They didn’t belong. They lived in Franklin Heights, Milwaukee: a city neighborhood that no Immaculate Heart residents cared to visit. Most Immaculate Heart residents were white, a few were Asian, and a few were Latino. None were black. Ms. Lora and Ms. Abby wore red, square-shaped dresses every time they came for the pancake breakfast. They stood out.

  Immaculate Heart residents found it awkward. They had held a meeting to inquire about Ms. Abby and Ms. Lora. Many residents attended. One resident, who seemed to be the most vocal, Jeb Turnwall, spoke over the chatter to say, “We just want to know if they are safe.”

  Who could answer that question? Not management. No one had really spoken to them.

  The chatter would con
tinue, and then Jeb would speak up again and say, in an exasperated tone, “Are they dangerous?”

  Again, no one knew.

  Jeb Turnwall knew Franklin Heights. He had frequented the area for prostitutes. When he was younger, he loved going up there and driving down a dark street until a black shadow popped out. For ten or twenty dollars, he could be satisfied. But he was too old now. Couldn’t drive well. Plus, there was that time with the one girl who had pulled a gun on him for all his money. He had paid her ten dollars. He had five twenties left. So he knocked the gun out of her hand, slapped her, picked up the gun, and shot her in the head. It took all of five minutes. He shot her two more times in her face and, sitting the unregistered gun on top of her, he walked out of the alley to his car and never returned. But that was way back. When? 1990? 1993? He didn’t remember. Jeb had owned a small convenience store with his wife (who’d passed away). He shot deer during deer season and told himself it was all the same.

  Now, at the Immaculate Heart of Mary’s meeting, management said, “We’ll just let them come to the pancake breakfast, but keep an eye on them.”

  And that would have been it but for Mrs. Billy Green: a devout Christian who had seen her alcoholic husband die of a seizure. She said, “I think they are possessed.”

  And that’s where the rumor began.

  And it would have remained a rumor, but Pauline Fortis told Ms. Lora and Ms. Abby about the meeting. Pauline thought it would get them to stop coming to the pancake breakfast. It didn’t. In fact, Ms. Abby told Pauline Fortis that she and her sister did have special powers. Ms. Abby would not say what kind of powers.

  So, on Saturdays during the pancake breakfasts, the residents would watch the two sisters. They had even come up with some notion of what Ms. Abby and Ms. Lora’s powers were. Jeb said that he figured that when Ms. Abby got up to walk, she moved slowly around the room as if she were playing Duck, Duck, Goose. Jeb noticed she just walked bent over to the rhythm of Duck, Duck, Goose. Jeb said, “If she stops in front of you, you’re it.” He reminded everyone of Josephina Kennell. One day, Josephina sat wearing her purple cowl-neck sweater, then Ms. Abby walked and stood in front of her. Some months later, Josephina was gone.