Ghost years, p.6
Ghost Years, page 6
“People don’t believe in God the way they used to.”
June laughed and lit a cigarette. “Why should they?”
Kitty stood up and looked out the living room window.
“When we were girls we thought the nuns knew everything. They didn’t know anything. Neither did we. Dumb Chicago Catholic girls, kept in the dark.”
“Oh, Kitty, don’t be so drastic. They thought they were living pure lives.”
“Tell that to the babies they buried.”
“It’s the priests who should have been buried.”
Both women sipped their Bloody Marys.
“It’s beginning to rain. I’ll drive over to the school and pick up Roy. He didn’t take a hat this morning.”
“It’s no good to always think that things were better in the old days. We just didn’t know better.”
“Do we now?”
Kitty carried her half empty glass into the kitchen, then came out and reached into the hall closet.
“I’ll be back in ten minutes. Make yourself another drink.”
June finished off the one she had, got up and put on her red corduroy jacket.
“I should have worn a raincoat. Remember, Kitty, tomorrow at seven at Pat and Harry’s.”
“If Rudy doesn’t get back tonight from Havana, I may not make it.”
“You can get someone to stay with Roy, can’t you? Aren’t there girls who babysit anymore?”
“I’ll try.”
Driving to Roy’s school Kitty tried to remember the last time she’d gone to church, let alone confession. Damn this rain, she thought. The sun was out in Havana.
Back Street
“Kitty, are you sure?”
“Of what?”
“That it’s safe. That she’s qualified.”
“Dr. Mantel gave me her number, Polly. I trust him.”
“I’d feel better if he were going to do it.”
“You know he can’t.”
“What’s her name again?”
“Flores. Señora Liliana Flores.”
“She’s a foreigner.”
“Mexico. Both of our mothers were foreigners.”
“Europe is different.”
“It’s farther from here than Mexico. Try to relax, we’ll be at her place soon.”
“Did you ever need to do this?”
“No. Even though I knew my marriage wasn’t working, I wanted a child.”
“Roy is a sweet kid. Did you ever see that movie, Back Street Girl, where the girl who’s in trouble changes her mind at the last minute, jumps out of her boyfriend’s car and runs away? Then at the end you see her holding a small child by the hand walking in a park. Taffy Moore played the girl, a short blonde with big boobs, was always trashy, being knocked around by guys.”
Kitty was as nervous as Polly so she drove more slowly than she usually did. The rain had stopped but the sky was black, there were no stars in it. Dr. Mantel said Señora Flores had taken care of a dozen women for him, and who knows how many before she came to Chicago. If there were any sign of danger, Dr. Mantel said, she wouldn’t take a risk just for the money.
“You have all small bills, right?”
“Three twenties, four tens, four fives.”
Kitty turned off Howard Street onto Paulina and parked across the street from Señora Flores’s apartment building. Polly was trembling.
“Take a deep breath, Pol. We can sit here for a few minutes.”
Polly shook her head and got out of the car.
“She’s on the ground floor, you won’t have to walk down any stairs afterwards.”
Señora Flores answered the door herself. She was very short, late middle age with a pleasant face. She smiled at the women as she let them in.
“Bienvenidos,” she said.
Kitty looked around the front room, which was simply but colorfully furnished, clean and neat. The temperature in the apartment was comfortably warm, not overheated.
“How long will this take?” asked Polly.
“Provided all goes well, not very long. It depends on the bleeding.”
Polly took the bills from her purse and handed them to Señora Flores, who accepted them and placed them down on a side table.
“There is fresh coffee on the stove,” she told Kitty. “Please to help yourself.”
She led Polly to another room and closed the door. Kitty sat down on a lace-covered sofa. Coffee would make her more nervous so she didn’t take any. She put a small pillow behind her head, leaned back and fell asleep.
Señora Flores shook her awake gently with a hand on Kitty’s left shoulder.
“Is Polly all right?”
“Yes, there is some blood but not to worry. She will be all right. I will give her some things to take. She is resting for a few minutes.”
“You told her what to do? How to take care of herself?”
Señora Flores nodded her head. “I believe she understands.”
Kitty stood. “I conked out.”
Señora Flores handed her a twenty-dollar bill.
When they arrived at Polly’s house, Kitty asked her if she needed help walking.
“No, Kitty. I’m a little woozy but better than I thought I might feel. Thank you for everything. It was good of you to drive me home.”
“Of course. I wouldn’t have let you take a cab alone. Do you have the bag Señora Flores gave you?”
“Right here.”
“Call me if you need anything, even if it’s the middle of the night.”
By the time Kitty got back to her house the rain had started again. She remembered that when she’d gotten pregnant her mother had asked her if she wanted to do something about it.
Fencing
“You know, Mom, Uncle Buck is a lot like Zorro.”
“You mean the Spanish bandit?”
“Zorro isn’t a bandit, he robs the evil government officials and distributes the money to poor people.”
“Buck isn’t a Spaniard.”
“No, but he looks like one. He’s handsome like Zorro, he has a thin mustache and black hair and knows how to fence. Remember when he taught Johnny McLaughlin and me how to fence in the backyard? His foils and masks are in the black steamer trunk he keeps in our garage.”
“My brother is a dashing guy. He loves you and I’m glad he teaches you things your father didn’t have time to do.”
“Could Dad fence?”
Kitty laughed. “No, of course not. But he could do lots of other things. It’s too bad he died before he had a chance to show you. Buck likes doing things with you.”
“He wants me to go to Cuba with him.”
“You and your dad had good times there. I miss it, too.”
“I’d rather live in Havana than here in Chicago. Chico Fernandez and I used to fence with fishing rods.”
Kitty thought sometimes that she should get married again. Her brother lived in Florida now, so Roy didn’t see him often. A boy needs a father, her mother said. Maybe, but she didn’t need a husband. Not yet, anyway. What if Roy and whomever she married didn’t get along? She didn’t want to think about it.
“How about him?” June DeLisa said to Kitty while they were sipping champagne at Marva Gillespie’s cocktail party.
“What about who?”
“Burt Phillips. He and Diane Cortez are on the outs now.”
“So?”
“He’s always gone for you. And he’s loaded.”
“When Marva introduced him to me, he asked where I bought my clothes. I thought that was weird.”
“What did you say?”
“I asked him where he bought his.”
June DeLisa laughed.
“And he doesn’t in the least resemble Tyrone Power. I didn’t like him.”
“Why Tyrone Power?”
“He plays Zorro, Roy’s favorite.”
“Your brother looks a little like Tyrone Power. Uh oh, here comes Burt Phillips.”
“June,” he said, “you’re looking dangerous, as usual.”
“Hello, Burt. You know Kitty, of course.”
Before he could say anything, Kitty asked him, “What distinguishes a foil from an épée?”
Phillips stared at Kitty for a few seconds, then walked away.
“Kitty,” said June, “you’re too cruel.”
Kitty took a sip of champagne, then said, “Roy wouldn’t like him, either.”
Pops
“When I was a boy I knew a man in London named Aloysius Gonzaga Jones, named after a Roman saint who died of the plague at the end of the sixteenth century. I ran errands for Aloysius around the East India Docks.”
“What kinds of errands?”
“Delivering things to people, small packages, mostly. I didn’t know what was in them. Aloysius always carried a pistol in one of his coat pockets. I told him I wanted a pistol, too, in case someone tried to steal a package from me. I was about nine or ten years old then. ‘When you’re older, Jake,’ he told me. He always called me Jake.”
“Did he ever let you hold the pistol?”
“Once. It was heavy. Aloysius had big hands, huge hands. The gun looked like a baby’s rattle in one of them.”
“So you never carried a gun?”
“No, I’ve never even owned one. There’s only one reason to have a gun, Roy, and I hope you never do.”
Roy’s grandfather, his mother’s father, whom Roy called Pops, ate smoked fish for breakfast every morning. He dressed well, wore three piece suits when he sat down at the table. Pops had been born and lived in London, England, until he was in his early twenties. He came to live in Chicago with his daughter, Kitty, and her son, Roy, when he was in his mid-seventies. Pops’s name was Jack Colby, he was in the wholesale and retail fur business with his brothers Nate and Ike. Another brother, Louis, was the founder and president of the Chicago Furriers Association. In the 1950s, all of them had offices in the State and Lake Building across the street from the Chicago Theater.
From the age of five Roy considered Pops to be his best friend. He told Roy and Roy’s friends stories about his own childhood in London, about growing up poor in the East End on Plumbers Row near the Mile End Road, a market street where Pops and his brothers—there were six of them at that time, two having died before the others emigrated to America—ran errands for the men and women who sold vegetables and fruits from wooden carts. The kids loved Pops’s accounts of the Colby brothers’ adventures with their pals and adversaries such as Top Hat Tom, Black Harry, Dickie Apples and Pears, and Bob the Knifer.
Roy disliked the stink of smoked fish in the morning, which he refused to eat, but Pops always poured Roy a half cup of coffee with cream and two cubes of sugar in it. Sometimes before breakfast Roy would go into Pops’s bathroom with him and pretend to shave with one of his grandfather’s razors without a blade in it, soaping his hairless face and making strokes like Pops did. Pops had diabetes, so he tested his urine every morning, passing some into a glass tube along with a solution that turned the mixture gray, a positive result of his condition. Roy did the same, only the liquid in his test tube turned blue, negative evidence of his not having diabetes.
Pops was mugged late one afternoon when he was on his way home, walking the one block from the bus stop to Kitty’s house. Two young guys wearing leather jackets and burlap caps assaulted him from behind. One grabbed his arms and knocked off his glasses while the other stole Pops’s wallet and pocket watch that he kept on a chain attached to his belt, then they ran off. After Pops got to the house, Roy’s mother called the police. Two officers showed up, filled out a report and said they’d keep an eye out for the muggers. They were never apprehended and neither Pops’s wallet nor pocket watch were recovered.
“I had about thirty dollars in the wallet,” Pops told Roy, “and the watch was only of sentimental value. It was a gift to me from Aloysius Jones on my twelfth birthday.”
“I’m glad they didn’t hurt you,” said Roy.
“I’m an old man, I didn’t resist.”
“If you’d had Aloysius Jones’s pistol you could have shot them.”
Pops shook his head. “No, Roy, they got the drop on me. But if my friend Bob the Knifer were around, he’d hunt them down and get even for me, and maybe get my watch back.”
Roy’s grandmother, Rose, from whom Pops had been divorced for many years, died a year before Pops moved into Kitty’s house, where she had been living. Because Rose always blamed Pops for their break-up, Kitty was cold to him. She took her father in due to his dire heart condition and close relationship with Roy, whose own father had died soon after Roy’s birth.
Shortly before Pops passed away at eighty, he had been relocated by his son, Buck, Kitty’s brother, to a nursing facility near his home in Florida. Buck thought the warm climate would be good for his father, and Kitty did not oppose the move. Roy, however, missed his grandfather terribly, and for a time after he learned of Pops’s death withdrew from his normal routines. He was not eager to play with his friends and often refused to go to school, claiming that he did not feel well. This wound never did fully heal.
Roy felt the loss of Pops for the rest of his life. Years later, when his mother told Roy that she should not have treated her father so badly, that perhaps she had been unduly and wrongfully influenced by her mother, it meant nothing to Roy. The only thing about Pops that Roy did not miss was the smell of smoked fish in the morning.
Sons and Sins of the Prophets
Roy wondered why he had dreams and what they meant. Sometimes entire stories took place in his dreams and other times only parts of stories or appearances by people he knew. He was in some of them, usually in places he didn’t recognize and in situations he could not completely comprehend. Occasionally dead people appeared, members of his family or their friends. Nothing frightening had happened in his dreams, at least not so far.
The day after he had a confusing dream in which Roy himself, at the age he was now—ten and a half—was lost in an unfamiliar city being followed by a strange man, he asked his grandfather, who lived with him and his mother, what he could do to better understand them.
“They’re like movies, Roy. Sometimes they’re good, sometimes bad or mysterious, like the one you had last night. There are lots of books by people who insist they can interpret them, mostly based on events that may be occurring in peoples’ lives, or occurred in their past.”
“Do you have dreams, Pops?”
“Of course, we all do.”
“How can I find out who the strange man was who was following me?”
“What did he look like?”
“He was wearing a suit and tie and a hat like my dad sometimes wears.”
“A fedora.”
“Yeah. He wasn’t very tall, about average. I couldn’t see his face.”
“Did he speak to you?”
“Nobody said anything. I think I heard sounds coming from the streets, cars and streetcars going by.”
“Were you afraid of this stranger?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t come close to me.”
“You’re certain he was following you? Maybe he was just walking in the same direction as you were.”
“I’m sure. In the dream I was sure. But what did it mean?”
Roy’s grandfather had been reading a book which lay open on his lap.
“Take this book I’m reading about a man named Emanuel Swedenborg, a Swedish theologian, scientist and philosopher. He had a dream that Jesus Christ appeared to him and told him to write a book called The Heavenly Doctrine. After that, Swedenborg believed he could visit both heaven and hell and consort with angels and demons. Based on this and other dreams he created a new religion he called Swedenborgianism. He did this two hundred years ago and even today many people believe in his so-called revelations.”
“Do you?”
“No, they’re just stories. I’m curious about him and other men and women who feel the need to tell people how they should behave and live their lives. It’s a type of mania, individuals who get carried away by their delusions. And sometimes it’s a collective mania, such as the Sons of the Prophets written about in the Kabbalah, a mystical text of the Jews. There are always people who are looking for answers. Who created the universe? What will happen to them after they die? When men like Swedenborg or Buddha or Muhammad come along and declare that they have the answers, they acquire followers desperate for a belief system.”
“Jesus, too?”
“Yes, but I don’t think he was so comfortable with it. Believing that he was the son of God, though, once he began proselytizing he couldn’t quit.”
“Were these prophets all good guys?”
Pops laughed. “Swedenborg seems to have been. I suppose more than a few of these self-proclaimed prophets misbehaved at one time or another. Probably more than a few.”
“How did they misbehave?”
“In the usual ways. Coveted and had their way with other men’s wives, pocketed money intended by donors for the church. Listen, Roy, why don’t you write down your dreams? What of them you can remember, anyway. There may be a pattern that we can discern and enable us to figure out what caused them.”
“Do you dream every night?”
“Not every night, no. I did have a dream last night that I remember.”
“What was it?”
“A pretty girl with peach-colored hair asked me if I wanted to take a lick of her ice cream cone.”
“Did you?”
“That part I don’t recall.”
“You like chocolate the best, like me. I’ll bet if it was chocolate, you did.”
Comancheros
“Those black gangs on the South Side got some cool names,” said Paddy Riley. “Egyptian Cobras, Devil’s Disciples, Heaven’s Vampires. We should think up a name like that for our club.”
“We got the Scorpions, that’s good enough,” Winky Wicklow said.
“Scorpions are insects,” said Jimmy Boyle, “not scary like cobras or vampires.”
“You ever been stung by a scorpion?” asked Roy. “You wouldn’t forget it. A kid I knew up in Eagle River almost lost an ear because a scorpion stung him inside it.”
