Black and Blue in Baltimore
David Caylor
Benjamin
I was fourteen years old in Baltimore’s Irish slum. It was 1932 and a lot of Baltimore was an Irish slum. Specifically, I was running south down the middle of Bond Street chasing a stray cat I wanted to catch and eat.
“Here kitty, kitty, good kitty!” I yelled, hardly even noticing as I stomped straight through a mud puddle that had been in the same spot in the road all summer long. The cat thought I was only playing and whenever I fell too far behind, it would stop long enough to let me back within ten feet. I knew I would catch it because I was plenty fast, and while running I was actually thinking about the piano music that was coming from someplace, seemingly from out of the sky. After another block the music was out of earshot, and my mind turned to the fact that my uncle had lived on Bond Street before running away, first to Richmond where it was warm, and then to Atlanta where it was even warmer.
“Kitty, good kitty, good baby!” I shouted, and at the same time, in mid-stride, I glanced down my shirt to make sure the Saint Christopher pendant hadn’t fallen off the chain around my neck. “Good baby, come here baby!” I closed to within five feet and when the cat glanced back at me I knew it was time to stop. “Come here, kitty,” I called as sweetly as I could, dropping to one knee and tapping the ground with my fingers. I tricked the cat by pretending to be nice, and when it came up close enough, I grabbed it and stuck it into my briefcase. I was a son of the unemployed and mostly unemployable Paul Gallagher, but always carried my briefcase because it was my favorite thing and I thought it looked really good, besides being useful. It wasn’t much of a cat, all gray and black and not yellow and pretty, and no one would have wanted it for a pet, at least that’s what I hoped.
Betty
I went outside hoping to hear some good news, but when I saw that odd Gallagher boy running down the street with his briefcase, I knew we were still in the depression.
“Kitty, good kitty, good baby!” he screamed out, and I noticed he was chasing a cat. I had always thought he was slow in the head, but after talking to him once or twice I figured out he wasn’t. He was only a little crazy, probably from hunger. “Good baby, come here baby!” he shouted.
The cat was just playing with the boy. He’d never be able to catch it, but I admired his energy anyway. At least he was still able to move.
“Come here, kitty,” he said, stopping to crouch down to the street. The cat stopped, circled a few times and then walked right up to him. He couldn’t have been too crazy if an animal would trust him so easily. He grabbed the cat, held it up in the air for a few seconds and then stuck it into his briefcase.
“Hi Ben, what are you doing?” He jumped back when I called him. Like most people during the times he was wound up tightly and startled easily.
“Oh, I’m just playing with my kitty,” he said. I asked him why he always carried a briefcase. It looked so funny, but it must have held all of his possessions because he never seemed to let go of it. Boys are so peculiar, I thought. They’re all so far from being poised and strong like men. He squinted into the sunlight and said his cat liked to ride in it. I didn’t believe that, but guessed it was possible, or at the least was something he believed. This one has a long way to go.
“I didn’t know you had a cat.”
“It’s right here in my briefcase, so it must be mine,” he said. That was possible as well. It wasn’t as if someone was there arguing about it with him.
“If it’s your cat, what’s his name?” I asked.
“Briefcase,” he said.
“His name is Briefcase?”
“It’s a her and I call her Briefcase because she likes to ride in my briefcase,” he said, turning and swinging the case waist-high through the air. As he spun, his cap dropped off, falling down to the street. His face was dark brown with dirt; his hair was uneven, matted, and so greasy that it wasn’t blond anymore but closer to green. He looked a mess. At the same time he reminded me a bit of Charles Lindbergh. He still had some life left in him, just like Lindbergh. First it had been the war and then the slow- down. Now men were so shell-shocked that they couldn’t get up off their seats, or they were disappearing, running away and leaving me with boys and skeletons.
“When’s the last time you had a bath?” I asked him.
“Umm . . . my pop says that soap and water are too expensive,” he said, picking up his cap to cover himself with it as best he could.
“How are you ever going to get anywhere looking like that?”
“Lady, I’m trying my best but there’s a depression. It’s rough going.” He was only thirteen or fourteen years old but it looked like he had twenty years of dirt on his face. A man wouldn’t go around like that.
Daniel
Hi, I’d wanted to kill someone and get away with it since the Leopold and Loeb trial in 1924. I wasn’t a fussy person, but the choice of victim was very important. For weeks I had seen the same kid over and over, running up, down and across the street, always carrying a briefcase. He probably only carried it to try to look important, as if he had business papers or even love letters from girlfriends. Baltimore was full of kids out running the streets and they all looked alike, with pained expressions, dirty blond or red hair and grayish brown clothes that were either too big or too small for them. They were all a mess . . . height was the only real difference from one to another.
Everything about this one was a little more . . . he was dirtier than the others, his clothes fit him a little worse and were more worn out, and his hair was longer and messier. Somehow he always looked wet, the way a stray dog looks wet, even when he wasn’t. He was dirty and was always getting dirtier. Along with his bleary eyes, smudged up face, arms and shirt, his knickers were now spattered with dark circular grease stains. The stains hadn’t been there before. I would have noticed, not that he bothered to care about any of it.
The bottom line was that he would be a good choice for a murder. I don’t know how I had missed it, but I finally put it together after he ran past the store window for the third time in one morning. I had seen him dozens of times. He was always alone, so there wouldn’t be any friends or parents in my way. Even if he still had parents, they must not have cared about him. A lot of people were letting things go south, but nothing like him. He was pretty far-gone. He doesn’t care about the rules of how people should look or act. He runs around the public streets as if he owns them and undoubtedly talks back to anyone who tries to correct him . . . or else he just stares back at adults with a blank look on his face, daring them.
In Baltimore
I heard someone shout out “Ben,” turned around, and saw a neighborhood easy-touch whose name I wasn’t sure of, but thought was Elizabeth. She stood barefoot in front of the steps of an old tenement building as if she were just waiting for the day to end.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Oh, I’m just playing with my kitty.”
“What do you always have that briefcase for?”
“My cat likes to ride in it.”
“Is that really true?”
“Yes, really.”
“I didn’t know you had a cat,” she said.
“It’s right here in my briefcase, so it must be mine.” Then she stepped closer to take a better look and asked what I called the cat, and all I could think to say was “Briefcase.”
“His name is Briefcase?” she asked.
“It’s a her and I call her Briefcase because she likes to ride in my briefcase.”
It was 11:00 in the morning and I had eaten a handful of raw string beans the previous morning, but nothing since and nothing at all the day before the beans. I hadn’t eaten more than a handful of this or that for months and I wondered if I’d ever get the chance to eat a steak. First the stores had cut off my family’s regular credit, and then our “Friday Credit,” which was only credit to the next coming Friday. A lot of families were losing their regular credit, but almost everyone still had Friday Credit. Shortly after losing all of our credit, one of my brothers started a fire in our tenement room which burned up any food we had at the time, along with our clothes and most of the hair on his own head. He was only able to save one thing - an empty white mailing pouch, which my baby brother now played with like a toy. He would buzz it around like an airplane, or point it at me and say, “Stick ëem up, Benji!”
The fire was the last in a string of things which had me to the point of catching stray cats and frying them in grease drained from whatever mechanical device was handy. I was surprised and glad every morning when the sun came up.
When I turned to start back up the street, the wind kicked up from out of nowhere and blew my cap off, and all the sunlight showed my filthy face and my hair, which was uneven and stuck up at odd angles. I could feel the chunks of stray hair standing up and sort of tickling at my head.
Next she wanted to know when I’d taken a bath.
“Umm . . . my pop says that soap and water are too expensive,” I said, reaching down to the street for my cap.
“How are you ever going to get anywhere looking like that?” she asked. I pulled my cap down as far as it would go onto my head.
“Lady, I’m trying my best but there’s a depression. It’s rough going.” I didn’t think I was all that dirty by depression levels. Everything was dirty in 1932. The city was only picking up a small portion of the garbage in the streets and people had to keep walking around it. There wasn’t any point in complaining about it anymore. The garbage was just one of those things we had to do our best to live with. I didn’t even feel very dirty or sweaty, but maybe it was something that happened so slowly that I hadn’t really noticed, and other Irish kids had recently accused me of being a Greek.
“I’m as Irish as anyone,” I said. “I’m just a little dirty.” Then they wanted me to prove I wasn’t Greek, so I’d had to lick and rub some of the dirt off my forearm.
The thick spots of dried mud on my knickers were bad enough, and worse still were the grease stains, which never went away and made it look like someone had just peed all over my legs.
“You should try to look like Charles Lindbergh,” she said.
“Gee thanks, in a hundred years I never would’ve thought to do that.”
“Well if you weren’t so dirty I’d let you come up and visit me.”
The details of sex confused me. I knew it was the privates touching. How people got into place to get them touching was my biggest question. I also knew that the size of a woman’s honkers meant something, because I’d heard men talking.
“Lady, in the first place, what’s your name? It’s Elizabeth, right?” I asked, and she said her name was Betty, and I’m sure I laughed a little because it was such a funny name. “But that’s a nickname for Elizabeth, isn’t it?”
“No, not for me.”
“Well how old are you then?” I asked.
“Thirty-four.”
“So we can hump if I get cleaned up?” I asked.
“Yes, sure,” she answered. I thought she had been joking, but she answered so plainly and easily that it hadn’t come out of her mouth sounding like a joke or a lie or even a false promise. I was probably the smallest fourteen-year-old in Baltimore and normally girls didn’t have any use for me, but maybe I was a better man than I thought and didn’t have to be so nervous around girls and women.
“For how long do I have to take a bath?” I asked.
“How long does it normally take you?”
“Umm . . . O.K., you caught me. I don’t think I’ve ever taken a bath.”
“God, you’re like a wild animal!” she said and she didn’t mean it in a good way, that I was fast and tough like a tiger.
“I guess so,” I said. “But I’m going to find a place to take a bath and then come back here and then you’ll change your tune.”
I set out to look for a free bath, but first I wanted to hide my briefcase someplace. Carrying it along, with a cat inside, will only slow me down, I thought. I glanced down the alleys off the street looking for a good place to leave it. There was plenty of junk to hide it in or under, but people liked to look through the junk for stuff to sell or burn. I went through one trash barrel, picking around oily rags, the pieces of a broken lamp, newspapers, and worse of all, three inches of old eggshells before deciding to leave the briefcase with a heavyset drunk in one of the alleys.
“Hey, Rummy, wake up!” I shouted. “Wake up! Stop pretending to be dead, I know you’re alive!” I kicked at his hip trying to get his attention. “Wake up! Listen to me!” I kicked him again but not too hard. I was actually only stepping on him. He looked like he had lived a couple of lifetimes in alleys. Not only was he dirty, he was worn down and beaten, with a clear circle of black around his nose and mouth. What happened to get him here? Does he ever get to leave the alley? I stepped on his hip again and when he still wouldn’t wake up, I raised my leg, got ready, and kicked him flush in the left shoulder. I didn’t want to, and it wasn’t my very hardest kick. His eyes slowly opened and he peered out at me.
“What, kid?”
“Listen, I need you to watch my briefcase, and there’s a cat in it.”
“O.K.,” he said.
“I’m going to put it behind you so nobody can swipe it.” I stuffed the briefcase into the small space between his back and the wall. “It’s really important, and I’ll be back in a few hours.” He seemed trustworthy, but it still hurt to leave my case behind. I really wanted to find out about sex though, so I had to risk it. I imagined having sex would somehow make me taller. The first time for anything always changes a person. I just hoped my bad luck didn’t rub off onto her.
I looked up and down the street and around our neighborhood. I didn’t have a cent in my pockets, and couldn’t guess where I could take a bath.
It was smartest to walk south. If nothing else I would eventually hit the water in the bay, and I had already been going south, chasing the cat. There was probably no point in asking anyone if I could use their bathtub. People didn’t let strangers use their bathtubs and even if one might, they would look at me and think they’d never be able to get their tub clean. People sometimes liked to help, but not if it put them out too far. I couldn’t blame them for that.
One idea was to find a shop that sold bathtubs, and then pretend I wanted to buy one and ask if I could try it out. It seemed like a real long shot, but I walked into Fickle&Sons anyway. With no money, I’d never had a reason to go inside, but had always heard they sold everything. Nobody I know can afford to pay for anything, but people still go in and out of the stores everyday, so the stores must still be good for something. When I walked inside, I couldn’t even tell what most things on the shelves were, and I picked up the first thing I saw, a piece of metal that was round on one side, flat on the other and had a wood handle. I couldn’t tell if it would be used to cook, build or clean, or had something to do with animals.
“Can I help you with something?” the man at the counter asked after watching me look around for a minute.
“Yes, my pop’s been saving his relief checks and now he wants to buy a bathtub. He sent me down to try some out.” I knew it sounded crazy, but the craziest stories are sometimes the easiest for people to believe. The man seemed nice and I thought it could go either way.
“You can look at them,” he said. “But, well, you can’t take a bath in here.”
“He won’t buy one unless he’s sure it works,” I said shaking my head. “That’s just the way he is.” The shopkeeper told me I should tell my father to come in and he would talk to him about a bathtub. “How much does a bathtub cost?” I asked.
“About thirty-five dollars,” he said.
“They cost that much and you still don’t let people test them?”
“We can’t have people taking baths in here,” he said. “The tubs aren’t even hooked up.”
“But my dad really wants to buy one, and he expects me to test one,” I said.
“Just get out of here! You’re ruining everything!” he shouted. Maybe I was being a pest, but he wasn’t busy and I wasn’t ruining anything, or breaking or stealing anything. “I said get out!” he shouted again, taking off his spectacles, which he wore on a thick chain like a woman, and pointing them at me.
I went out to the street and sat down. It was almost noon and I hadn’t gotten anywhere. I had only found out for sure that a shop wouldn’t let me test a bathtub, and that was something anyone else would have already known, but most other people had some food in their stomach and could think more clearly than me.
I noticed a very proper and kind looking old lady walking toward me, so I put my head down and made myself start to cry.
“Boo boo hoo, ahhh boo, ahhh hoo.” I cried a little louder as she got closer, “BOO BOO HOO, AHHH BOO HOO!” but I kept my head down, and didn’t look directly at her. I quickly mashed my thumbs into my eyes so they would be red and then looked up. “Boo boo hoo, ahhh boo hoo.” To make myself cry better, I thought about how the Clippers were in sixth place. They were losing to everyone, even the crummy little teams from York and Dover. I could understand losing to Annapolis, but York and Dover? The only good thing was that how we had a new pitcher named Ed Gallagher. He’d started the season a real big leaguer, on the Boston Red Sox, but they dropped him after he lost three games in a row. He landed with the Clippers, and I pretended he was my cousin. Maybe he really is, and even the worst big leaguer ever still has to be a great pitcher, I thought.
“What’s wrong, boy?” she asked.
“Boo boo hoo!” I cried out looking right at her. “I’m from a broken home, boo boo hoo, and, ahh boo, my mommy says pops would come back, if I took a bath, ahhh boo.”
“Your father left you?” she asked.
“Yes, ahh huh,” I said, nodding and wiping my eyes. “He was ashamed of how dirty I am.” I could already imagine her giving me cookies and Coca-Cola after my bath. She’ll probably even wash my clothes and cut my hair, and darn my socks. She’ll love to have someone to take care of and worry about.
“The economy is tearing everything apart,” she said looking down at me as I sat cross-legged on the edge of the street. “I wish Mr. Hoover could figure out how to repair things.”
“Anyway,” I said, acting like I needed to catch my breath, “if I take a bath, boo hoo hoo, things would be better, but no one will let me.”
“I’m sorry about all of this,” she said. The lady looked as if she had two bathtubs. Her clothes, hat and gloves were clean. Even during the bad times there were some people with enough money for new things.
“Can I take a bath at your house?” I asked.
“A free bath? Are you joking, in the middle of a depression? My husband would murder us both if I let you.” I kicked up the tears and started crying again. Sixth place! Babe Ruth grew up right here in Baltimore, and we should have a big league team, or at the least a good bush league team.
“Boo hoo, does he have to know about it?”
“I can’t lie to my husband.”
“Ahhh, we just won’t tell him,” I suggested. She reached down and patted my shoulder to comfort me.
“You seem like a nice boy,” she said. “But I can’t let you have a free bath with our water. Maybe if you pray really hard your father will come back. Would you like me to pray with you?”
“Forget about it lady,” I said snapping out of the crying spell. “Please just go on your way.” And that’s just what she did.
I sighed and gathered my thoughts before standing up and continuing south. Well that plan didn’t work out either, I thought. But it was only a spur of the moment idea anyway.
I wasn’t having any luck on Bond Street so at the next corner I went east onto Lancaster.
*
I came to a church with a wooden sign in the front yard: SAINT MATTHEW’S CATHOLIC PARISH - CLOSED FOR THE DEPRESSION. They might have a tub. I’d broken into at least twenty buildings that year alone, but never a church. I believed going to church was helpful, and my mom always went. But I have to live in the here and now. I didn’t want to get into any serious trouble or hurt anyone’s feelings, but I had to get inside that church. Oh what’s the difference? Mom goes to Saint Anne’s anyway. I was afraid to try at the front door or windows because someone might see me and rush over. Being that I was small, people usually gave me the benefit of the doubt whenever I got caught, but breaking into a church would be hard to explain.
With my head down, I walked to the corner and then cut across the yard to a side door. I grabbed the handle and gathered my strength to pull as hard as possible, hoping for a cheap lock, rusty hinges, or rotten wood, or anything that would break so I could get inside. I glanced around one last time to make sure no one was watching and yanked. It flew open and I shot back, slipped and went skidding across the ground on my side. The thing wasn’t even locked. Did someone really think it wasn’t important to lock a church? I admit, I’m just a street kid, but I don’t normally break into churches. If I will, a lot of other people will, to steal. People are stealing from everywhere, but someone thinks this church will be O.K. unlocked. That’s why us Catholics are so poor, I thought. Most of us don’t know any better. I stood up and saw that my knickers, which were already so dirty, were now also torn open at the knee and shin. I was without my briefcase, had been crying in public, had been yelled at, had torn my only knickers and I still hadn’t gotten any cleaner. Both of my parents had told me that all people had to take the good with the bad. I seemed to take the good with the bad, the awful, criminal, ugly and rotten, but things had to turn for me soon.
There should be a bathtub. Priests get dirty just like anyone else, and have to look good, at least on Sundays. I was sure they wouldn’t put a tub out where people sat, kneeled and prayed so I checked in the rooms around the edges of the building. The first room was totally empty, and looked like it had never been used for anything at all. This would be a really good place for a bathtub, I thought, shaking my head. Everything will be jake if I can just find a bathtub.
I opened another door, and - bingo - there was a small kitchen. I was getting closer. I might as well look for some food, I thought. I snooped through the cupboards and shelves but there wasn’t anything. I shouldn’t even be wasting my time. I still have the cat for later.
Boy, oh boy, the next room had a bathtub. Things are never easy but I usually land on my feet. I started to wet my pants, just out of the excitement, but that was O.K. because it was a bathroom and I was able to go in the toilet. The bathroom was nearly as empty as the kitchen. There weren’t any towels, but I could do without one. But, in the bathtub, down near the drain, there was a thin slice of soap, and for me that would be enough.
I didn’t flush the toilet after peeing because I didn’t want to make any unnecessary noise that might get me caught. Where would I be then? I stripped off my clothes, gently turned up the water and let it run until the tub was filled up almost all the way. The water was so clean and warm. I feel cleaner already. I wasn’t even sure how to get into a tub, and after my problem with the door, I was afraid I’d fall and get hurt, so I gently sat down on the edge with my feet in the water and then carefully slid down. After getting in, I fumbled with the soap, because it was new to me and more slippery than I expected. I considered the soap carefully. It was unnaturally white. Is it supposed to make my skin that clean? That’s impossible!
I also considered my peter carefully. It seemed small but ready. It looked like it could do the job but I hoped she wasn’t expecting some big, giant one. She’ll probably even expect it to be small. I sat back in the tub to rest for a few minutes. It seemed like weeks had passed since I’d been running after the cat with the music playing. There were problems for me almost every day, and most days all I did was look for something to eat and try to keep out of the rain. I never had enough time or energy to chase after women or worry about how I looked or smelled. I’ll have to start thinking about it now that women are starting to like me. Suddenly I couldn’t remember where Betty lived. I’d been chasing around Baltimore all day, all year really, and was drawing a blank. All of the streets and buildings and alleys were running together into one blur in my head. How will I find her? She’ll get excited waiting for me and take up with someone else while I wander around looking for her.
“Wait a minute,” I said to myself, sitting up to think. “I just need to clear my head.” I scrubbed at my stomach with the soap and it came to me - she lived on Bond Street across from an old boarded-up theater. I was about eight blocks away, still somewhere in Fell’s Point near Durham and Lancaster.
I was ready, and wanted to leave before I forgot where she lived again. As I got out of the tub, I realized that my clothes were so dirty - I’d worn them twenty-four hours a day for five weeks straight - that simply putting them back on would cross out much of the bath. There’s no chance I’m putting on one of the altar boy suits. I’d get eaten alive. I’d rather run to Bond Street naked, no matter how small my thing is. Of course my underwear was the most dirty, and seemed even dirtier now that I felt so clean. I dried myself as best I could by shaking first my arms and then each leg, left my underwear and socks on the floor and put on only my shirt, knickers, shoes and cap. I loved the Clippers and whenever I put my cap on, I could imagine the announcer shouting, “Now batting, Benjamin Gallagher!”
The back door to the church had been open, and I left it unlocked when I went back out, because they may have kept it open for some good reason I didn’t know.
It had gotten a bit cloudy during the time I’d been inside the church. I was glad because the sex would seem more grown up if it were darker outside.
I carefully avoided touching anything as I walked through the streets. Normally I picked up everything I came across to see if it was somehow useful or in any way valuable, but that was probably one of he reasons I’d gotten so dirty in the first place.
I got over to Bond Street and walked toward Betty’s tenement house. First I cut across the street to check on my briefcase.
“Hey, Wino! How’s my briefcase?” I shouted down the alley.
“Huh? Yes, good,” he said. I should have brought my underwear and socks along and had the wino watch them. Now I’ll either have to walk back to the church or find another pair. I pushed it out of my mind. I wanted to enjoy myself and forget about the rest.
I had thought Betty would be waiting for me out on the steps, but when I got to her building, I had to go inside and look for her. She hadn’t told me which room was hers, so I walked up and down the hallway a few times.
“Lady! Where are you?” I shouted.
“Which lady, me?” some other lady asked from inside her room.
“No, Betty,” I said. The lady opened her door and stood in the open space, wrapped in a bed sheet. Doesn’t she even have a dress to wear? Even I have a set of clothes, even if they are dirty and sort of torn up.
“I don’t think anybody named Betty lives here,” she said.
“Yes she does,” I said. “You probably even know her. Her face is so-so, but she has really good honkers, and her hair is brown, and the last time I saw her she had on a yellow dress.” The lady told me that didn’t sound familiar.
“Tell me what’s all wrong with her face, maybe then I’ll remember,” she said.
“Well her mouth is too low,” I said. “It’s like her chin is too small. Betty! Where are you?”
“I still don’t remember her,” the lady said. “What color is her hair?”
“Brown. I already said that. Lady! Betty!” I shouted down the hallway. Maybe she really was only kidding around on me, I thought. Usually I’m smart enough to know when that’s happening. I kept shouting her name though, because I didn’t want to give up, and just a second later she walked up from behind me.
“Well, I got a bath,” I said, raising my arms out and above my head to show her I was clean, but she only asked about my briefcase. “Don’t try to change to subject,” I said smiling. “You know why I’m here.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Well are we going to hump out here in the hall or are we going to your room?” I asked.
“It’s down there,” she said, pointing. She had the room at the very end of the hall. It seemed everything was always as far away as possible.
She shoved open the door and we walked into her apartment. It was about twenty feet by twenty feet, with a carpet that covered up about half of the floor, and an electric lamp with a shade in the corner.
“Boy, this place is nice,” I said.
“Ha ha, very funny,” she said, smacking the back of my head and making my cap fly off, but I reached out and somehow caught it before it hit the floor and slapped it back on my head. If only there had been a coach from the Clippers around to see it I’d have been at third base the next afternoon. How are they ever going to catch Dover and get out of last place with Householder third? I wondered. He should still be on the team, but in the outfield. I’m probably as good at third as he is. I wouldn’t hit any 400-foot homers, but I wouldn’t be kicking grounders into left field either.
But I hadn’t been joking about her apartment. It was one entire room and twice the size of the room I lived in with my parents, my aunt, my four brothers and three sisters. I looked around some more and saw a shelf with four books, three glasses, a fork and a spoon, and different sized bowls and a frying pan. The best part of the room was the sink.
“Who else lives here?” I asked.
“Nobody,” she answered.
“You mean you have a private sink? All this stuff is yours?” She didn’t answer me. I couldn’t believe she had all of it to herself.
“You do look cleaner,” she said looking at my face.
“I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. I was confused by the soap at first, but I figured it out.” I took off my cap and threw it across the room and against the wall as hard as I could. “He’s out! And the Clippers top Dover all thanks to Benjamin Gallagher!” I screamed. I undid the first four buttons of my shirt, pulled it off over my head and then dropped it to the floor. There was a pile of rags down in the corner, and when I asked her about them she sighed at me and then told me I could have them. Rags were the sort of thing I always hoped to find.
“Does someone cut your hair with a knife?” she asked.
“No, I use scissors. But it’s hard to get the back of my head right,” I said, and she told me that the rest of it looked bad, too.
When I unhooked my belt and started to lower my pants, I realized she hadn’t taken off any of her clothes.
“Get undressed, it’s not fair that I have to go first.”
“Oh all right.” She sat down on her bed and started to slowly get out of her dress. She seemed worn-out, but she hadn’t been the one chasing around town, breaking into churches and arguing with shopkeepers.
“Come on, hurry up,” I said. She stood up and pulled her dress off over her head in the same way I had taken off my shirt. Her legs and shoulders looked much bigger than I had expected. She kicked off her gray underwear and stood there bare-naked. My eyes darted back and forth from her honkers and her area. I couldn’t wait, and took off my pants.
“Don’t you even have any underpants?” she asked.
“Not right now.” My thing was already standing straight up and I realized that it had been stiff for a long time, since our first conversation on Bond Street.
“God, you’re so skinny,” she said. “I can see all of your ribs. I can even see the bones in your legs.”
“I’m being starved to death by the depression.”
Baltimore, MD
“You should try to look like Charles Lindbergh,” I said. He did look a little like Lindbergh, albeit a small, greasy, poorly fed Lindbergh dressed in rags. It might have been wishful thinking, but to me he also had Lindbergh’s square jaw and his eyes were wonderfully blue. Even so, he was all arms and legs, and reminded me more of a monkey than a man.
“Gee thanks, in a hundred years I never would’ve thought to do that,” he said. Everyone loved Lindbergh. Lindbergh was a classical man, like the men we’d had in the past. Then, without putting any thought behind it, I told him or somehow hinted that I would sleep with him if he were cleaner. I said a lot of things without thinking them through. The way things were, I didn’t see any reason to hold back.
“Lady,” he said, “in the first place, what’s your name? It’s Elizabeth, right?” No one ever seemed to remember my name anymore. How can it be? Only ten years ago men hummed little songs about me, doing everything to get my attention. I’d had so many socials that I’d once been proposed to by two men in the same week, and at another time, three others in one month.
“My name is Betty,” I said.
“But that’s a nickname for Elizabeth, isn’t it?” He looked me up and down, starring at my hips for a moment.
“No, not for me,” I said.
“Well how old are you then?”
“Thirty-four,” I answered before he could offer a guess. He would have said forty-five or fifty. I knew I didn’t look good. There weren’t enough iron and minerals left in my blood. For years I wouldn’t leave home without lipstick and some colored powder. Now that I really needed it, there wasn’t enough money to buy any. My shape was going too. I was getting to be all hips and thighs and not enough up top.
“So we can hump if I get cleaned up?” he asked. I didn’t see any reason not to, and even though he wasn’t my first choice, or even my 101st choice, it would still be something, so I nodded and said “Yes.”
“For how long do I have to take a bath?”
“How long does it normally take you?” I was going to suggest he double the usual length. He mumbled that he couldn’t remember ever taking a bath, and then I really regretted having promised him. I imagined lying with someone who hadn’t washed for so long and thought of his lice crawling around between us. Have I really fallen down this far? I tried to assure myself that he must have had a bath when he was a baby and the economy was still good. I’d give anything to still know John Sills, Bryan Gale or even Timothy McCann, or really any of the men I knew ten years ago.
“God, you’re like a wild animal!”
“I guess so,” he said. “But I’m going to find a place to take a bath and then come back here and then you’ll change your tune.”
He left running back up the street in the direction he had come from, before stopping to turn down an alley. Most likely I won’t see him again. If I do, I do, if I don’t, I don’t, I thought. I can live either way. I had grown up in Glencoe, and had even gone to The Oldsfield School, so I had always known men with starched shirts, slicked hair and New York educations. Is this really me?
After watching him leave I turned back and went inside the building toward my room. I thought I’d better straighten up my things in case he did come back. Well, I don’t really have anything left to straighten up. Little by little I’d sold almost everything for dimes and quarters.
It was only eleven in the morning. I hadn’t even done anything yet but was already exhausted. I was so tired that I couldn’t even really see, but still recognized Nellie Sipe as the figure down the hall. Please, just let me get past her quickly. Quickly. Quickly.
“Nellie, you’re hanging out,” I said, pointing down at her chest. She just shrugged and tucked it back into her dress. She never bothered to wear a bra anymore. She was in the same boat as I, but a bit worse off. Neither of us was really living. I don’t know why I still bothered talking to her. She’d never done anything nice to me and had stolen a Persian immigrant from me the previous year. I also suspected she’d been telling men that I had moved away so she could try to get them for herself.
“So how are you, anyway?” she asked.
“I’m O.K.”
“What ever happened to that Persian with the crew cut and earrings?” she asked, when she damned well knew what had happened. He had fucked her, which must have made him realize Baltimore was a no good place because he promptly returned to Persia.
“I’m not sure, he must have shipped out,” I said.
“That’s too bad,” she said. “I know how much you like immigrants.”
“I don’t like immigrants,” I said.
“Well I sure do.” She didn’t really like them either, she just pretended to because they were the only men she could get. She just wanted me to think she was getting her first choice when she really wanted a Robert or Sean.
“Well since you don’t have anything to do, do you want to come by?” she asked. “I have some tea.” Why on Earth would I want to do that? So I can listen to her talk about herself and how she wants to marry this type or that type of man. I know the truth; she’d marry anyone who asked.
“Oh, I have things to do,” I said.
“Are you still trying to learn that typewriter?” she asked in her smartest voice. “Good God, how long’s that been going on, three months?” It was closer to five. When I had gotten the idea of becoming a secretary into my head, I sold almost everything I still had left and bought a typewriter called a Smith Corona. I had thought it would be a good investment, but hadn’t been able to make it work.
“No, I’m not doing that anymore,” I said.
“Then how come I keep hearing it going tat tat tat?” she said. “Ha ha ha oh ha! What do you do, hit one letter about every ten seconds? Christ that’s too slow!”
“All right Nellie, that’s fine,” I said. I hadn’t imagined people could hear me trying to type.
“Oh don’t get sore with me. You just need to learn you’re not going to become a secretary and you’re not going to get to marry the boss at a company. You’ll never keep any man.”
I pushed my way past her, trying to get back to my room. After a few steps I realized she was following me, getting more insults ready. I didn’t even try to stop myself from turning back toward her, reaching out and ripping her dress open so her boob would be hanging out like it was when I had found her.
“You wench! That’s my favorite!” she screamed, as if that would make me stop when it really inspired me to rip the dress wide open and pull it completely off.
“I’m going to burn this rag!” I said running down the hallway carrying it over my head. I knew I didn’t have any matches, but I would find another way to destroy it.
“Get back here!” she shouted running after me. “You can’t!” I tried to time the chase so that she would be right behind me and I could slam the door of my room on her head or neck, but I got too far in front of her and missed. “Give me my dress back. It’s mine!” she shouted.
“Leave me alone, or I’ll tell everyone how you’re really from right here in Fell’s Point and not Lansdowne!” I shouted through the door. “Go away, now!” She scampered down the hallway and slammed the door to her room shut.
I had her favorite dress. It was pretty well ripped up but I took a knife to it before I lost my nerve. That bitch had to stop talking to me like that and if this trick with the dress would stop her for a week it would be worth my energy. I wadded it up into a ball in the sink and stabbed at it. When the stabbing didn’t do enough damage, I held it up, sliced through it about a dozen times and then tossed the strips into the corner of my room. I hated my room. I’d already lived there for four years and had thought that by then I would have had a red sofa, a table with matching chairs and a set of plates. Not only didn’t I have those things, but I also no longer had any new clothes, my radio, my necklaces, my only ring or my glass vase. My prized possession was now the typewriter and I couldn’t figure it out, but there it sat on the desk as the center of my room.
Three weeks earlier the priest at a nearby church had committed suicide, and I went to the funeral for the food afterward. The church closed down and tried to cover up what had happened, but that was difficult because he hanged himself on the street sign at Lancaster and Durham.
After listening to the speeches, prayers and crying, I walked back to the rectory from the cemetery with all the others expecting ham sandwiches and coffee and was thrilled when I smelled roast beef.
“Oh my God, is it roast beef?” some lady said far too loudly. A lot of people were there only for the food, but the rest of us at least tried to look sad. Not her, she hadn’t even put on any black clothes. “He must have been a real big shot!” She was wearing a bright blue hat, and something that looked like a bathrobe. She did look somewhat sad but only because her clothes and hat were so beat up and ratty. The roast beef was incredible and everyone concentrated so much on the food that no one even spoke as we ate, sitting slumped over our plates, almost guarding our food like dogs. It made for a desperate meal. If only I had gotten married, or even only stayed in Glencoe with my mother, I thought. A lot of people are poor there now too, but it can’t be as bad as the rest of Baltimore.
The morning after the roast beef dinner, I woke up feeling something good might happen. I sat at the typewriter, and with my eyes closed, typed out Betty Evans, Secretary, Baltimore, MD. It was my best typing ever. I did it again: Betty Evans, Secretary, Baltimore, MD. Then: Betty evans Sectaru, Baktinore MD, and then Vetty Evansm Secytary, VAltinmre, MS. I concentrated as best I could and it came out BetyEVanss Sectracy, Balotminre, MD. If I can’t type my own name, how will I ever get someone else’s right? There honestly must be something wrong with me. Maybe learning to typewrite is something that needs to be done early in life.
After cutting up the dress, I sat down at the typewriter to try some more. I hadn’t touched it for two days and hoped the break would help me: Betyy Evans,, Secrtay BalotmoerMd. I put my head down next to the typewriter for a minute and then got into bed to rest.
*
I heard him calling out my name. He’s come back for me. In another few seconds Nellie will run out to try to talk him into her room. I could have just let him go, and if it had been any other woman in the world I would have done just that. Instead, I got onto my feet, slipped on my shoes, slapped my face a couple of times to wake myself up, and walked down the hallway toward his shouting. There was Nellie, right where I’d expected her to be, standing in her doorway about to reach out and yank him into her room.
“Lady! Betty!” he shouted straight up into the air. He looked absurd, leaning back and shouting up at the ceiling.
“I’m right here, stop that shouting,” I said. Nellie saw me and tried to squeeze in between me and the boy, but he ducked around her shoulder, turning away from her and toward me. I was relieved. I didn’t have the strength to get into a tug of war over him.
He turned even closer so I could better see him and said he had taken a bath, and he was cleaner.
“Oh my God! Where’s your briefcase?”
“Don’t try to change the subject,” he said. He was smart. “You know why I’m here.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Well are we going to hump out here in the hall or are we going to your room?” he asked.
“It’s down there,” I said, motioning for him to follow me down the hall. Walking right next to me, he now somehow seemed smaller. I wondered if the soap and water could have stripped an inch of dirt off of him from all directions. He couldn’t have been that dirty. It must be my imagination.
As soon as we got inside my room, he started up with how “nice” it all was. I wasn’t in the mood for it and hit him on the head, just as I’d always done to my younger brothers whenever they talked back. His cap flew off, but he caught it and slapped it back on. He seemed to think it was a pretty impressive trick, but I hadn’t hit him very hard and the cap had hung up in the air.
“Who else lives here?” he asked.
“Nobody.” Who else would, I thought, my butler and children?
“You mean you have a private sink? All this stuff is yours?” Oh it was all mine; I even had the sink in which I could wash out my panties.
“You do look cleaner,” I said.
“I’m pretty happy with how it turned out,” he said, telling me how the soap was confusing and that it took him a few minutes to figure out how to work it. He took the cap back off his head and threw it across the room. “He’s out! And the Clippers top Dover all thanks to Benjamin Gallagher!” How can he be fantasizing about baseball when we’re alone in my room? I couldn’t remember the last time I’d even thought about the Clippers. I’d let go of them years ago.
After taking off his shirt he noticed the scraps of the dress I had cut up.
“Why do you have all those rags?” he asked.
“No reason, it’s a long story. I’m going to throw them out later.”
“Can I have them?”
“What for?”
“I’ll use them for something.” I pictured him wrapping his hands with them when winter came.
“Go ahead, take them,” I said. His chest was absolutely tiny. It made his head look huge; he looked like a crying baby bird. His hair was even funnier now, after the bath.
“Does someone cut your hair with a knife?”
“No, I use scissors,” he said. “But it’s hard to get the back of my head right.”
“You don’t do a very good job on the front or the top either,” I said. It didn’t even look like hair; it looked like long animal fur. He started to take off his pants, but then hesitated. I thought he might be too scared and had changed his mind, but he told me to get undressed. I was out of luck. I had hoped I wouldn’t have to get undressed and could just lift my dress up over my stomach. “Oh all right,” I said, sitting down so I could take off my shoes. He told me to hurry up, and I wanted to get it over with so I pulled off my dress. Normally I would toss it to the floor, or into the sink. Since he was there I stood up to hang it on the doorknob. My panties were so old and dingy that I pulled them off as quickly as possible. He eyed me and looked interested but not wholly impressed.
“Don’t you even have any underpants?” I asked after he pulled off his knickers and stood there completely naked.
“Not right now,” he said. Why not, is he saving them for a special occasion? There hasn’t been anything special for years. He had the smallest dickie I had ever seen, but I didn’t say anything because it was the only one I had seen in ten months.
“God you’re so skinny,” I said. “I can see all of your ribs. I can even see the bones in your legs.”
“I’m being starved to death by the depression,” he said. I slid back down into bed. At least I still have a bed to have sex in, I thought. He stood above me for a few moments. He didn’t have any idea what to do.
“All right, get on top of me,” I said. He kind of let himself fall onto me, face to face. I was too tall for him and he was pressing it up against my stomach so I nudged his shoulders, telling him to move lower. He scooted down and I felt his dickie pop into me, I think. It was too small for me to be certain. He grabbed at my boobs and seemed to laugh. John Sills, Tim McCann, Bryan Gale, Neil McCallister, or was it McAllister or McAlester? Jason Hatcher. Why didn’t I say yes to one of them? I’d be Mrs. Jason Hatcher.
“Oh baby, oh baby, oh baby, I can’t take you anymore,” he said. What is that supposed to mean? “Oh yes, yes, I have to keep going.” I still wasn’t sure if he had it into me. He looked down toward his waist as if he wasn’t sure either. “Go, go!” he gasped. He straightened his back and I finally felt it, but at the most it only tickled. He wiggled a little, and a second later I felt his fluid spit into me. He immediately stopped moving and rested. Even though he was only a boy I reached down and stroked his back for a few minutes. I should really be Mrs. Jason Hatcher, but I’m here.
Chicago, MD
It was true; I admired Leopold and Loeb. I couldn’t help it. It was eight years after their convictions, and I liked them more than ever. Leopold and Loeb hadn’t worked ridiculous jobs or let other people take their frustrations out on them. They exercised their minds, not just their fingers counting back customer’s change, and they didn’t wear a yellow store apron. Why did Fickle&Son-of-a-Bitch make me wear an apron? I wasn’t baking cakes and frosting cookies. Dozens of people walked into the store every day, and the first and last thing they saw was me wearing a yellow apron like a damned woman. Why didn’t the store just make it pink with white lace? How could anyone ever take me seriously?
“Yes, ma’am,” and “Yes, sir,” was all I said most days. “Here’s your change, sir, twenty-nine cents.” It had gone on for eight years. I was already forty-six years old, older than Leopold and Loeb combined when they smashed up Bobby Franks. What am I waiting for? Nothing could be worse than the “yes, sir” routine. I had been trying not to say sir and ma’am, but it kept slipping out. Customers never called me sir.
I knew I had the courage; I just needed to let it out, but working at the store had dulled my nerve. It wasn’t only the apron. It was also the hours that repeated themselves, and in which nothing different ever happened. I had heard every possible question dozens of times.
“How much does this cost?” people asked me, although every item was labeled.
“Where were these bricks made?” and “Where was your lettuce grown?”
“Can I have a nail for free?”
“No,” I would say.
“Why not? It’s just one nail.”
“Even so, I can’t give it away.”
“Can I use your bathroom?” was another one.
“Well, we don’t have one.” People would never believe me, but even if there were a bathroom, they shouldn’t have been asking to use it. It would only be for paying customers.
“Please, I just have to take a leak.”
“We-do-not-have-a-bath-room,” I wanted to say.
Hearing the stupid repetitive questions was bad enough, but in addition to this, people were always coming in and trying to get more credit when they hadn’t put a dime toward their old bill in months.
“I’d like four veal cutlets and these six wine glasses,” a bearded and barrel-chested man recently walked in and said to me. “Please put it on my bill.”
“What’s the name on the bill?” I asked. I knew his name was William Malley, but I made him say it for me. He didn’t know my name.
“Malley,” he told me, and I reached under the counter for the box of account cards.
“You already owe a hundred seventy dollars, and we haven’t gotten anything from you since February,” I said.
“So?” he said, seeming to flex his chest muscles at me, as if I were some sissy.
“The store won’t let me give you any more credit now.” None of these people had ever bothered to save anything. They had been the ones always out throwing money around on women and grand new clothes. They all thought were big shots. Then they’d walk into the store and look at me as if I was a nobody . . . just because my clothes weren’t great and made me seem fat.
“But I’ve been thinking about eating veal all week!”
“I’m sorry sir, but cash only.” The people who were the furthest behind never wanted the basics like bread, potatoes or milk. It was always veal, roast beef, new silverware or a hat.
*
“Excuse me,” a lady said, walking up to the counter carrying a giant box of twenty-four, one foot long, six-inch circumference candles. “I need you to carry these back to my house for me.” She dropped the box onto the counter carelessly, with a thud, right in front of me.
“I’m sorry, what?” I said. I had heard her clear as day, but pretended I hadn’t so I could have another moment to think.
“I need you to carry these to my house.”
“When?” I asked.
“Right now. I’m buying them.”
“Ma’am I can’t do that for you right now, I’m the only person here. I can’t leave.” Frankly (Bobby Franks), she thought she owned people like me because her husband had $25,000 in the bank. I dealt with five of her type everyday. Five by six days week by fifty-two weeks a year for eight years was well over 10,000.
“Aren’t you here to assist the customer?” she asked me.
“Of course I am, but, like I said, I’m the only person here so I can hardly leave.”
“What am I supposed to do, carry them back myself?”
“We might be able to arrange a delivery sometime tomorrow,” I said. “Would that be O.K.?”
“That’s not good enough,” she said to me. She just wouldn’t quit with me. She thought buying $3.00 worth of candles entitled her to the world, or at least what was left of it. People were wondering if the country would collapse. More and more of them seemed to be hoping it would. It would be people like her who would suffer first and suffer the most. All of her paper money would be worthless, and nobody would be afraid of her anymore. She wouldn’t know what to do when it happened.
“It’s all I can do. I can’t just close up the store.”
“I’m a very valuable customer,” she said. “I spend a lot.” There was no doubt about that; she probably spent more on candles and other fancy things than I did on food.
“If you won’t carry these for me, I’ll speak to Mr. Fickle. When will he be back?”
“Ma’am, Mr. Fickle is seventy-four years. He doesn’t come in much anymore.”
“Then I’ll speak to his son,” she said.
“Well, there really isn’t a son. They just made that up.”
“I am going to talk to someone about you,” she said. “What is your name?”
“Daniel Talbot . . .” I said softly. She had probably expected me to be afraid to tell her and just carry the box for her.
“What am I supposed to do?” she asked me, throwing her hands up in exasperation. I wasn’t being difficult just to be difficult. Why couldn’t she understand that I couldn’t close up the store in the middle of the day?
She threw her head back and stomped out of the store. Maybe I should have tried to stop her and work something out, but I didn’t. There wasn’t much she could do, but for a minute I worried that I would get into trouble. It was always possible she would write a letter to Fickle and then exaggerate everything, telling him I had yelled and thrown her out of the store. I knew someone would eventually do that to me, but why did I always worry about that? I already regretted having been so polite to her; Leopold and Loeb wouldn’t have been polite. They would have just ignored her completely, and if pushed said something to make her feel stupid. I’m witty too . . . people just don’t know it.
After she left, I looked down the aisles of the store to make sure no one was around and pulled out my file. My Leopold and Loeb information went on for almost twenty-five pages. There were Chicago newspaper articles and my own notes, including a hand drawn map of the murder site. Years earlier, I had planned on moving to Chicago for a murder. The stock market crash made me give up on that idea. It didn’t seem practical to think I would be able to survive in a new city without a safe job, and I’d never have been able to afford Kenwood, the neighborhood of the murder and where everyone lived. I held onto the map as a souvenir.
I also had pictures of everyone involved - Leopold, Loeb, Bobby Franks, Darrow, Crowe, and John Caverly. Leopold and Loeb were the only people with any life in their eyes. Bobby Franks was only fourteen years old, and he was already fat and lazy. I might be overweight now, but I wasn’t at fourteen, I’d often thought. He looked like he had eaten a pie every day of his life. There was no doubt about that. Then after the pie he would spend all of ten minutes standing on a tennis court, half flipping his racket out at balls a friend hit right to him. After that, he’d sit in the shade with a glass of lemonade.
“That was some of our best tennis yet, Percy,” he would say, bursting with sweat and pride.
I’d tried to look at the case from every possible direction. With the exception of Leopold dropping his glasses, their chief mistake was choosing Bobby Franks. I had figured that out myself. His family was rich and had spoiled him to the core. Someone will miss a kid like that right off, and he was actually Loeb’s cousin. Under any circumstances, police will eventually come around asking. I knew that myself and didn’t understand why Nathan and Dick hadn’t seen it coming. It wouldn’t be a problem for me though, no one would bother looking for my kid. He wasn’t so special or charming. Maybe a few people would think, I haven’t seen Johnny - or whatever his name is - for weeks, but that would be all. Even after the body turned up, how would anyone connect him to me? Everyone in this neighborhood only knew me as the putz at Fickle&Son in the yellow apron. They didn’t imagine me having any thoughts or plans beyond counting back change and stocking jars of coffee.
“Hey, kid, come here,” I would say. He’d look up at me with an expression that was already half-dead. “Do you want a Clark bar?” Candy was the oldest trick in the book, and it had to work to become the oldest trick. With his hunger pains, this one would follow me around for a crust of bread.
“What for?” he would probably ask me, or “What do I have to do for it?” if he was fast.
“Nothing, really. The store I work at has a lot of them but the owner doesn’t want to sell them anymore.”
“Why, is something wrong with them? Are they burned or something?”
“No, but the owner and the man who makes Clark bars got into an argument about Hoover and Roosevelt, so the owner is mad.” That would be a good enough lie to set him at ease. “I’d eat them myself,” I would casually add, “but I’m too old.” I’m sure he would take the candy and eat all of it right there, fast. “We have a whole box of them behind the store.” The kid’s jaw would drop open at that. “We’re going to throw them out tomorrow. Want to go get them?”
“Yes sir, right away.” He would be ecstatic. He’d want to run, afraid someone would find them before we could get back. “What’s the fastest way?” and “How many are in a box?” he’d want to know, walking as fast as he could and having to pull his pants back up over his hips every few steps. While we moved together up the street and toward the store, I would check each alley we passed for people. One or two might have a drunk slumped in it, but not four or five. Baltimore was nothing but alleys; every block had a couple. The kid would think it was the happiest day of his life.
He was probably filled with every type of parasite. The tiny bugs and shit-eating worms would have sapped any strength he had, so it would only take a tap from me to shove him into the alley.
“Don’t,” he would say, but in another second I would have him slammed up against the back brick wall, knocking the wind out of him, and have my knife out. Without any breath he wouldn’t be able to scream for help. “Don’t hurt me, mister,” he’d maybe have the strength to whisper.
Other people get to do what they want, just like that. I should do it too, but I’m always working in the store, waiting for Fickle’s twenty-year-old hot shot Mueller to come in from Glencoe to double-check my arithmetic at the end of every month.
With his hunger, torn up clothes and loneliness, he was having a miserable life so he wouldn’t be very inclined to fight back. In all likelihood, he’d drop the briefcase when hitting the wall. If not, he might try to use it as a shield or maybe even take a swing at me with it. It wouldn’t be a big problem, but I’d need to take it from him and toss it across the alley.
“Please don’t hurt me, mister,” he’d say to me, but after the first stab or cut, he’d be resigned to it and any further fighting would be minimal. After the third or fourth stab to the stomach, the color would drain from his face, and he’d wilt to the ground. The main part would be for me to stay calm, because he’d only be dying and not yet dead. If I turned to run after only stabbing him couple of times, there would be chance he’d live. Then not only would I likely be caught, but I wouldn’t have even killed anyone. Then people would treat the kid like a hero. Everyone in Chicago loved Bobby Franks after he got famous, but what did they know?
I would have to reach down to him and cut his throat so deeply that his tongue would flop out. There would be a lot of blood, but it would have to be done. I’d certainly get some blood on me, but that was why I would be wearing dark clothes. I’m not stupid; in anticipation I had started wearing dark clothes more and more often over the last few months. The customers at the store and anyone I regularly passed on the street were now used to seeing me in a gray shirt and black pants. They would hide the blood well enough, especially after the sun went down. Blood on my face was what I’d have to avoid. There will definitely be some on my hands, but how often do people look at someone else’s hands? I never look down at hands.
I’d walk out of the alley quickly but not in a mad rush. After hitting the street, I’d need the strength to slow down and walk no faster than usual. Even if someone had seen me with him a few minutes earlier, they wouldn’t have paid any particular notice. These street kids were always coming up to people and asking for a quarter, allegedly so they could buy their mother a birthday gift. With things so tight, it wasn’t unusual at all. I would think these kids could bother to remember which people had said no and stop asking them. But the same ones, the kid with the red crewcut who wore a black sweater, the twins who always looked like they’d just been crying, and the Italian one, had all asked me a dozen times each. They were all just wasting their breath. Don’t they even look at me when they ask? Another was the one with bright red lips and curly hair.
“Mister, would you be able to spare twenty-five cents?” he had asked me.
“No.”
“It’s O.K. I’m sorry to be a bother,” he said. Why didn’t he remember me from the last time he’d asked? It had only been a week earlier.
When the dead boy’s body turned up, the police would assume one of the darkies did it. They lived like animals in the alleys.
From there it would be back to my room to destroy my bloody clothes and clean up. Within two weeks I’d tell my boss I was leaving Baltimore to try my luck in Ohio. I’d really be going down to North Carolina, where I would tell people I was from Georgia. I had already worked up a southern accent and some hayseed mannerisms. I’d be in North Carolina, with a reason to live.
Then my plans started to fall to hell - my kid walked into the store. I had picked him out only half of an hour earlier. I couldn’t do it to him in the store; that was out of the question. It had to be done blocks away. After coming into the store, he wouldn’t be a pure and unconnected victim anymore. I had to get him out of the store as fast as possible. I realized he wasn’t holding his briefcase and glanced around the floor for it. The briefcase would make one hell of a clue to leave around. When I couldn’t see it anywhere, I got nervous and froze up, not sure how to handle things.
“Can I help you with something?” I asked. He couldn’t possibly have had any money to spend and normally just speaking to someone without any will get them to leave. I was permitted to throw people out of the store if they didn’t have any money. I had that authority. I moved to my right, down the counter trying to block the view of him, at least partially, from the street through the window. If I can stop anyone from seeing him, he’ll still be perfect.
“Yes, my pop’s been saving his relief checks and now he wants to buy a bathtub. He sent me down to try some out.” I had expected him just to say something short and leave, but instead he was acting like a smart aleck. God damn it, that sneer! I bet he’s already a morphine addict. All he probably ever thinks about is getting loopey and picking up women, as if he’s so great and I’m so boring. He only wanted to kill time until it was dark enough to go out to steal and didn’t care that he was messing up my hopes as he stood there playing with a wood-handled (Kenwood) spade as if it were a toy. I hope his little smile and blue eyes don’t work on me.
“You can look at them, but, well, you can’t take a bath in here,” I said. I knew he had already been in the store too long. At least four people had walked past the store’s front window; at least one of them had surely seen him. Someone would always watch and remember who went in and out of the store. People who wouldn’t notice me enough to smile, or even pay the smallest attention to me would easily remember every detail about the kid.
“Yes, Detective, I saw him in the Fickle&Son store last Wednesday at about 11:30,” someone on the street would say. “He talked to the clerk, the one who always wears a yellow apron, for a few minutes and that was the last I saw of him until his picture was in all the newspapers. He looked so sweet in the pictures.”
“Do you think the clerk might have something to do with the killing?” the detective would say, nodding suggestively.
“Well, I’m not sure, but I guess he might,” the person would say about me, and I’d be in a jail cell by the end of the day.
“He won’t buy one unless he’s sure it works,” the boy said. “That’s just the way he is.”
“Have him come down,” I said. “I’ll show him the bathtubs.” He would have been a perfect victim, but the plan was shot. It wouldn’t be a big problem for me to find another, but in the half-hour between me spotting him and his walking into the store, I’d gotten my heart set on him; me slicing him open and tossing him around like a rag doll, maybe even crushing his skull. Why in the hell won’t anything ever work? I wanted to put my head down on the damned counter and cry and almost did. This boy was filthy, had no clean clothes or money but had bested me just by walking into the store. It wasn’t right to me.
“How much does a bathtub cost?” he asked me.
“About thirty-five dollars.”
“They cost that much, and you still don’t let people test them?” Perhaps he had a point; Fickle guaranteed things, but who wants to drag a bathtub home to then find out it somehow doesn’t work?
“We can’t have people taking baths in here,” I said. “The tubs aren’t even hooked up.”
“But my dad really wants to buy one, and he expects me to test one,” he said. It was possible he was telling me the truth. I knew what it was like to have a father who made strange demands. During my childhood, my father would tell me to bring him a bowl of bread soup, but I could never figure out what that was. I’d smash some bread into a bowl, pour a little bit of hot water onto it and take it to him.
“This isn’t bread soup,” he’d say. “It’s only bread with water.” I’d look at him dumbfounded, go back to the cupboard and throw in some of whatever we might have had around, pepper, a tomato or some onion and take it back to him as silently as possible. “I said bread soup, half-wit!”
“I don’t know what’s in it,” I’d say.
“It’s easy to make. We had it back in Cardiff all the time.”
Eventually I learned to ignore him until he’d get angry and punch me, which would make him forget about the soup.
“Just get out of here!” I said to the boy. “You’re ruining everything.” He just stood there with the same calm look on his face. He couldn’t see any reason to be afraid of me, no one ever could. “I said get out!” He looked up into my eyes, then slowly and unemotionally left the store.
I sulked about my ruined plans for a couple of hours. I acted normally to the handful of customers who came in, quietly answering their questions and taking their money. Whenever nobody was in the store, I paced around thinking. I saw what my mistake had been; after picking out my victim, I should have immediately taken steps to kill him. With the more time that passed, the more likely it became that something would happen to mess things up. If the boy hadn’t walked into the store, something else would have happened. The boy could have gotten arrested that night or left town the next week. If I would have waited a month, someone else might have got him.
It had become very clear to me that to succeed the next time, it was important to strike the moment there was an opportunity, so I hung up my apron, grabbed two Clark bars off the shelf and closed the store for the day. It was two o’clock, and we normally closed at five. It’s close enough, I thought.
It was neither particularly sunny nor cloudy outside. It was just overcast. Clouds would be one thing, but there shouldn’t be all this dust in the air. It had been a long time since I’d seen what two o’clock in the afternoon in the middle of the week looked like. For years I was in the store every day at that time. That’s the sort of thing working the job had done to me. What ever happened to the jobs I’d dreamed of as a kid? I thought, cowboy, inventor, general or judge (Caverly).
I passed the first kid after walking just a few feet up the street. He would have been good enough, but as it happened, we weren’t anywhere near an alley. I was only walking home through Fell’s Point as if it were a normal afternoon, down Bond Street before going west onto Lancaster. There’s no point in going out of my way. If I happen to cross paths with an A-O.K. looking boy near an empty alley, I’ll do it. If I don’t, I’ll do it tomorrow or next week. The timing will be right soon. Hey, how about a grown woman? I thought. No, no, a woman wouldn’t be as good.
Evans
It was a horrible time for people to have to take care of themselves. He had to get up though; it was all so ridiculous for both of us.
“You should get off me now,” I said, to which he groaned, and rolled off and onto his back.
“I can’t believe you have this room all to yourself. It’s just amazing. I can’t believe . . . .”
“Keep going,” I said, meaning that he should leave, but he just slid over a little bit. “You have to get up, put on your clothes, get out of my room, get out of the building, and go home.”
“Can’t I live here with you?” he asked. My God, he’s acting like we’re in love.
“No, of course not. If you want to share a room with a stranger, you should go to Russia. They all live like this there.”
“Russia, really?” he asked climbing out of bed and puffing up his chest the way all men do after they have sex.
“Haven’t you heard of it?”
“Yeah, I’ve heard of it.” He looked down at his penis, which had shrunken to almost nothing. It was maybe two inches long by that time.
“Hurry up and get dressed,” I said. He had to get back to normal, having no food, no money and no girlfriend. I have to get back to normal too, being alone in my room. I looked over at him standing right next to my bed, and suggested to him that he cut off all his hair, because it would be neater and not as crooked.
I shifted off my back and onto my side and watched him pick up his clothes. He started to get dressed, seeming to ignore me. “I can’t get over how skinny you are! Even at your age you should have some muscles.”
“Well you got fucked by me!” he snapped back. “You must be worthless too! Maybe you didn’t go buggy over it, but you weren’t complaining either.”
“All right, you’re not that bad, I guess,” I said, and he wasn’t. If I could have added ten years and seventy pounds to him, he would have been better than most men. But it was 1932, and 1932 was a bad year so I couldn’t.
Talbot
Then I saw this kid walking toward me down the opposite side of the street. He was younger; he looked eleven years old, and didn’t seem to be in as rough of shape as the boy from that morning. He was actually a little chubby, and while I’m sure he was far from clean, he wasn’t a complete mess. His hair was combed, and his clothes weren’t torn up. With his bug eyes and fat face he was far from a thoroughbred, and I really didn’t give a damn if his parents did love him.
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of something flying through the air toward me. I tried to dodge it, but a fraction of a moment later it landed on my cheek, just below my right eye.
“Oh, no!” Now in addition to everything else, I’m going to have a swollen face after this bird or bat or giant bug bites me. Why does everything happen? I winced and tore it from my face, feeling my fingernails scratch into my cheek a little . . . it had only been a leaf, and crumpled to shreds in my hand.
After settling myself down, I walked across the street at the corner, not looking right at him, but also not avoiding looking at him.
“Hey, kid-o,” I said when the two of us closed to within ten feet of each other.
“What?” he asked me.
“Do you want a candy bar?” I held one of them out to him.
“No thanks, I don’t really like Clark bars very much,” he said, to me. What kind of kid wouldn’t want a Clark bar? “Do you have any Hershey’s?”
“Umm . . . no,” I said.
“Thanks anyway. I’ll see around,” he said walking past me.
“Wait, wait a second,” I said, pulling out the second Clark bar. “Would you like two candy bars?”
“Mister, I don’t like Clark bars. If I don’t want one, why would I want two? You’re being dumb.”
I’ve never been entirely sure what happened next. I do remember picking the chubby kid up from around the waist, presumably to drag him into an alley right then and there. Then he must have punched, or somehow kicked me in the jaw. He was so strong for his size and age, and it really hurt. The pain shot through my entire upper body and down to my knees. I dropped the kid and fell onto my rear end. I jumped back up as quickly as possible so no one would notice. I hated it more than ever. The kid didn’t even bother to run away from me, he just continued walking south as if this happened to him every day, not even looking back at me. Also, from their cells in the Joliet Penitentiary, Leopold and Loeb were undoubtedly laughing, howling at me, gasping with laughter.
Gallagher
She sat back down on her bed, laid back, and had me get into bed with her. I got in and grabbed her honkers, one in each hand.
“No, you have to get lower, between my legs,” she said. I fit my penis into her and pushed it in and out.
“Oh baby, oh baby, oh baby, I can’t take you anymore,” I started saying, although I wasn’t sure what that meant. “Oh yes, yes, I have to keep going.” I lifted my stomach and chest up off of her, trying to see my thing go in and out. I finally know what it feels like it. “Go, go!” I put my chest back down and pushed into her as far as I could. I got as much in as possible and finished. In a flash it felt like all my bad days had been O.K., and that all my O.K. days had always been good. After a few more seconds I wilted into her chest and my thing just slipped out. I sighed deeply and rested my head on her chest. I wanted so badly just to rest, and could have slept for days. I imagined waking up and living in the apartment. Anytime I wanted a drink of water I could just go to the sink. I wouldn’t have to sleep on the floor between my brothers, and with my sisters lying across my legs and chest, and with everyone keeping me awake coughing. I’d be sleeping in a bed with a woman. Life still won’t be perfect, I thought. But things would have to be better.
“You should get off me now,” she said.
“Uhhgh.” I rolled off and lay next to her. “I can’t believe you have this room all to yourself. It’s just so amazing. I can’t believe . . . . “
“Keep going,” she said, motioning for me to get farther away. I thought she only wanted to me move, but when I inched over she told me I had to get dressed and leave.“Can’t I live here with you?” I asked.
“No, of course not,” she said. “If you want to share a room with a stranger, you should go to Russia. They all live like this there.”
“Russia, really?” I said getting onto my feet and out of the bed.
“Haven’t you heard of it?” she asked. Of course I’d heard of Russia. I didn’t know where it was, but I knew it had to be someplace and it sure sounded good. She sat up wrapped in her blanket and told me to hurry up. “You know, you should shave your head instead of cutting your own hair.” I raised my hands and felt my head.
“What do you mean?” She turned and pulled a sheet up over herself.
“You’d look better with no hair. There are chunks that are different lengths. The right side is a lot longer than the left. Everything’s lopsided, you should cut it all off and start over.” I pulled my pants up over my peter and hooked the belt. “I can’t get over how skinny you are!” she said. “Even at your age you should have some muscles.”
“Well you got fucked by me!” I shouted back. “You must worthless, too! Maybe you didn’t go buggy over it, but you weren’t complaining either.”
“All right, you’re not that bad, I guess,” she said. I couldn’t believe it: ënot that bad’. The depression was still going on, but if I could take a bath, I could get a haircut and wash my clothes. I deserved to eat real food and not just stray cats. I could trade my briefcase for new underwear and socks. It wasn’t too late to fix myself up, and good things were already happening.
