Trick Baby

  Her note was thrilling. But how could she be old enough to call me a boy? She was beautiful and tender looking. I thought maybe I had been blinded to the creeping signs of age in the first explosion of her platinum and rose dazzle.

  I stared at her elbow and the back of her neck. Her skin was smooth and taut like on a young girl. After the second show the Goddess and her looped husband got up from their table to leave. She narrowed her eyes and wickedly parted her lips as she passed me.

  Shortly after they left, I took the school marm to a Creole gumbo joint on Sixty-first Street. I was crazy about the rich stew of lobster, shrimp, chicken and okra, when I had drunk heavily.

  I liked it almost as much as roast beef or macaroni and cheese. But I liked nothing better than a filet steak with a crisp tossed salad and heavily buttered crescent rolls.

  It was four A.M. when I led the school marm down the hall to my bedroom. I heard Blue’s bedsprings creaking rhythmically. I wondered if he were riding a penitentiary filly that would need a Felix fix down the stretch.

  The school teacher, whose name was Denise, I think, gave me the usual bewhiskered con that this was her first time to lay a guy on such short notice.

  She had the agility of an arthritic elephant and a dull dogma for routine position and movement. To rescue the situation I tried to imagine that she was the Goddess. But it was no use. I had squandered an evening on a pretty dud.

  I fell asleep on her ample bosom as she was expounding her theory of education for the exceptional child.

  I woke up with a scorching sun searing my leaden eyeballs. Denise was spanking my cheek like she’d caught me in her classroom with a slimy finger.

  It was eight A.M. and she had a date with a train going back to Philly at ten. I struggled up and went to the bathroom. I toothbrushed the stale rum stink from my mouth and stared at myself in the cabinet mirror.

  I looked like a slender Santa Claus with my red nose and the pink splotches on my cheek bones. My face was puffy like Phala’s used to be. I felt lousy. I’d have to stop drinking so much.

  I went to the phone and called a cab for Denise. I just wasn’t up to the trip to her Loop hotel for her bags and then to the train station.

  I gave her a double sawbuck when her cab came. She gave me her address and phone number in Philly. She made me promise I’d keep in touch. I walked her to the front door and kissed her goodbye on the forehead.

  I got the Sunday Tribune off the porch and went to the bathroom and sat on the stool. I read half the paper.

  I was washing my hands when I remembered the slip of paper in my pajama pocket with Denise’s address and phone number on it. I threw it into the toilet bowl and watched it swirl into the sewer.

  I decided I wouldn’t call the Goddess right away like an overeager sucker. It was a long wait for Monday to come.

  The Goddess’s phone number had a River Forest exchange. I wondered if she’d ever seen Phala going to her domestic job out there.

  At eleven o’clock I went to a Sixty-first Street dentist and got my cavity filled. I got home about noon. It was one P.M. when I put the call through to Camille. Her throaty voice answered, “Hello.” I said, “Mrs. Costain, this is Johnny O’Brien. Can you talk?”

  She laughed and said, “Johnny, I can always talk. I have a private phone in my private bedroom. And please Johnny, don’t call me Mrs. Costain. I don’t want to be reminded more than is necessary. I’m sure you can find something more romantic to call me. Has stark daylight robbed you of your sweet touch?”

  I said, “Camille, angel, I wish I was in that bedroom with you. I’d shower your pretty ears with sweet-talk and then devour you.”

  She moaned, “Oh! You precious boy. Cannibals have always made me delirious with joy. Beautiful young white cannibals, that is.”

  I said, “Camille, I’m not a boy, I’m a man. Can’t you look at me and tell? There isn’t a lot of difference in our ages. But you talk like you’ve been around a thousand years. I’ll make a deal with you. Don’t call me a boy, and I won’t call you Mrs. Costain.”

  She said, “Agreed, Johnny. Now tell me something about yourself. Where do you live? What do you do for a living?”

  I said, “I live in the Sixties on the Southside of Chicago. I’m a skip tracer for a discount firm that buys delinquent accounts from commercial businesses.

  “I’m a twenty-two-year-old orphan with no wife, no family. Does my address and background disqualify me, Darling? Now tell me about yourself.”

  She said, “Of course not. My family lived in Cicero before Daddy founded a bearing manufacturing firm in Chicago and moved Mother and me to River Forest.

  “My husband and I share this house with Daddy who is still active as president of his company. Mother died shortly after we moved from Cicero. My husband is an executive in the firm.

  “Johnny, it must be terribly dismal to live in your neighborhood. I understand that almost all of the respectable whites have moved out. And all of those once fine neighborhoods have given way to coon rot.

  “Oh, Johnny, if we’re going to be friends, why not get a small apartment elsewhere? Say near the Northside of Chicago. I just get cold chills thinking about you living in the midst of those savage niggers.

  “Johnny, you don’t go about that Southside making love to those disease-ridden coon girls do you? I couldn’t stand for you to touch me if I thought you did.”

  I loosened my tie and mopped my brow.

  I said, “Camille, I’m afraid those things you said about black people are not true. I know for a fact that most of the rundown houses on the Southside were like that when the whites moved out.

  “The black girls don’t have a monopoly on disease. There are people all over Chicago with disease. All blacks aren’t bad. Just like all whites aren’t good. My best friend is black. I didn’t know you hated black people. I could be black, then you’d hate me. Maybe it was a mistake to call you.”

  There was a long pause.

  Then she bubbled, “Oh you emotional Irish bunny. I don’t hate coo—I mean black people. I don’t really hate anybody. But in my circle it’s always been so unfashionable to accept them as associates. They seem so stupid and unsanitary looking. I guess it’s not that I hate them. Perhaps I’m terrified at the prospect of loving them. So, forgive me, and I promise not to malign your precious blacks again.

  “Oh, my heavens! It’s almost two. I’m going to be late for my appointment with the hairdresser. You were wonderful to call me. You can’t know how much I need you. But let me miss you until I’m bursting inside. I’ll try very hard not to call you.

  “Johnny, wait and call me when there’s a rainstorm. Wherever I am, I’ll race home to get your call, day or night. And I’ll rush to you wherever you are. Bye, bye, my gorgeous Irish dream.”

  I hung up and sat there on the living room couch and wondered how soon it would rain. She had strange ideas. But then a Goddess had to be different from ordinary broads.

  I wasn’t too upset and angry about her nasty attitude toward my race. I’d sex her exquisite ears off the tender lesbian way and be so sweet to her she’d fall hard for me. Then I’d change her and make her realize how wrong she had been about us.

  I couldn’t tell Blue about her or expose him to her until she was hooked and had taken the racial cure.

  For almost two weeks I watched the sky and the weather reports. No rain.

  On the nineteenth of July, Blue and I were coming from the Loop. It was close to six P.M. We’d ripped off two fat smack marks. We pulled up at Morris’s Eat Shop on Forty-seventh Street for a steak.

  We had gotten out of Blue’s Caddie and were on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant. I felt strong sudden rain pelt my face.

  I lost my appetite and ordered soup. I went to the phone and called the Goddess. There was no answer. I looked out the window and hoped that the driving sheets of rain wouldn’t stop falling until I got my mouth on her.

  14

  THE TORTURER
br />   Blue and I left Morris’s Eat Shop at six-thirty P.M. It had been the hottest day in ten years. We headed south down Cottage Grove Avenue toward home.

  I felt the Caddie lurch through the battering gantlet of rain and thunder. I gazed at the raindrops bombarding the windshield like platinum bullets. I thought about Camille’s hair. At Fifty-fifth Street a florist’s neon sign glittered feebly through the wet murk.

  I said, “Blue, stop at the florist shop.”

  He turned his head quickly toward me and gave me an odd look as he pulled to the curb. I walked unbowed through the lightning and whipping rain into the shop. I selected three dozen light pink roses, the color of Camille’s skin. I walked back to the Caddie and got in.

  Blue pulled away from the curb and said, “Love must come to us all, I guess. You must have run into one of those grabby, suction pussies.”

  I laughed and said, “Believe it or not, I’ve never touched her. Blue, she’s so beautiful. It’s like she’s from another world. You’ll meet her in due time. Drop me off at the Pershing Hotel. I’ll take a cab home after my date.”

  He was silent until we got to the curb in front of the Pershing at the corner of Sixty-fourth Street and Cottage Grove Avenue. I moved across the seat to get out.

  Then he said, “Folks, don’t get carried away too fast. Your eyes have a funny glassy look. Remember no matter how beautiful a broad is, she’s got to take a crap like any other broad. And she’s got to douche her cat, or she’ll stink like a bag of dead skunks. There’s no basic difference in any broad. Ugly broads are like gaiter snakes. Beautiful broads are like rattlers. I found that out.”

  I rushed into the hotel lobby. I went to the phone booth and called Camille. Still, I got no answer. I sat in a chair and thumbed through an old issue of Ebony Magazine.

  I sat there in my soggy blue tropical suit for fifteen long minutes. I went back to the phone. No answer. I was getting worried. Had she decided to dump me even before we started?

  I called home to find out if she’d called there. Blue said she hadn’t. I gave him the booth phone number so she could reach me. I started pacing the lobby with the roses in my hand.

  I was really upset. I loosened my tie and called her again. I went into the hotel cocktail lounge and drank two double shots of rum. I called her again and listened to her phone ring a dozen times.

  I wanted to walk out of there and throw the roses in the gutter and forget Camille. But I just couldn’t slough off a Goddess like that.

  I was sweaty and disgusted when I dialed her number the sixth time. She picked up on the fourth ring. The sound of her lilting contralto voice soothed arid cooled me.

  She said, “Oh! Darling, we’ve suffered through the first five times you called, haven’t we? Please tell me where you are. I need you so much.”

  I said, “I’m at the Pershing Hotel at Sixty-fourth and Cottage Grove Avenue on the Southside. I’ll register as Mr. and Mrs. Jack Flanagan. Camille, tell me why you cliff-hanged us this way?”

  She said, “Oh, you unsophisticated bunny. Pristine desire is forged in the crucible of torture. Aren’t you aware that the purest joy is in great anxiety relieved? Only peasants seek security in the passions of the heart. Camille’s going to take you in hand, so to speak, and teach her Irish dream to find exquisite joy in the evanescent maiming of the soul. I’ll be there as fast as my white Jaguar can run.”

  She hung up. I went to the desk and got the best room in the house for overnight. I took the elevator to the third floor. I walked down the corridor to room three-fifteen, I think. It was freshly decorated in sparkling beige and green.

  I took off my soggy clothes and hung them on a chair. I put the roses in the bathroom wash basin. I flicked on a huge fan. I sat at the window and looked down through the curtain of rain at the intersection of Sixty-fourth Street and Cottage Grove Avenue.

  Camille’s white Jaguar would eventually flash across it. I wondered how long it would take her to drive from River Forest.

  Then I remembered her screwy ideas about desire and mental suffering. I thought that perhaps I should have rented the room for a week. Right after I gave her the racial cure, I’d start chipping away her goofy ideas about romantic torture.

  At eight-thirty, I realized I couldn’t greet Camille in my shorts like an unrefined, eager sucker. I called the desk and had a bellhop take my suit for a pressing. I took a shower and lay across the bed waiting for my suit and the Goddess.

  At nine P.M., the bellhop brought my suit. I dressed, and sat by the window tingling for her. At ten-fifteen, I saw a white Jaguar dart across the intersection. Five minutes later the phone rang. It was the desk clerk. Mrs. Flanagan was at the desk.

  I mumbled, “Have her come up.”

  I took the latch off the door and sat on the green velvet sofa in phony composure. I looked at the door through the dresser mirror and listened to the frantic boom inside my chest. It was like hours before I heard her gentle knock on the door.

  “Come in,” I said and got to my feet.

  I saw the door opening. Then she exploded in the mirror like a pastel bomb. For a long moment she stood there. Her magnificent grey eyes gazed into mine.

  I stood mutely in the radiance. She was wearing an iridescent, flame-red, satin-sheened raincoat that clung to her voluptuous curves like an extra skin. Her shining hair framed her angel face like a platinum halo.

  I rushed to her and lifted her into my arms. She moaned and trembled as I kissed and sucked and nibbled at her lips, her face, her ears and her throat.

  She purred, “Oh! You are a cannibal, aren’t you? But please, if mommy’s beautiful cannibal eats her clothes, he’ll get the worst tummyache there ever was. Yes, he will.”

  I lowered her feet to the carpet. I took her hand and led her to the side of the bed. I peeled off the raincoat. She was wearing a red brassiere and matching lace panties.

  She looked like confection standing there in her calf-high white leather boots and scarlet, pouty mouth half open. She sat down on the side of the bed. I knelt and took her boots off. She lay back on the bed and wiggled a toe inside my ear.

  I caressed her tiny feet against my lips. I remembered Celeste, the lesbian, and Midge. I feather stroked my tongue across the pink toetips.

  I looked up into her slumberous eyes, almost closed. I kissed and gnawed at her feet, her ankles, her legs, her knees. I gazed at the thick platinum forest glinting through the sheer red panties.

  She squealed joyously and rolled away. She flicked off the nightstand light. She glowed in the dim light from the street lamp. I went to the phone and ordered a jeroboam of Mumms.

  She went to the window while I was calling. She raised the window. She stood there wide-legged, arms folded, staring out at the storm-lashed night. I walked over and stood behind her. I kissed her shoulders. She moved close to the window. Then something stupid escaped my mouth.

  I said, “It’s a nasty night isn’t it? Let’s lie down and make love.”

  She whirled around and glared at me. Her tiny hands were tight balls pressed against her bosom.

  She almost whispered, “You dreadful insensitive savage. Can you be so stupidly blind and deaf to the ineffable beauty and mystique of the lightning, the thunder and the rain. And then in that same aura of peasant oblivion aspire to be the lover of Camille Costain?”

  I was wounded too deeply for anger. My head roared with anguish. I barely heard the knocking at the door. I loosened my tie and staggered to it. I opened the door and took the icebucket, champagne and long-stemmed glasses.

  I gave him money. I don’t know how much. I put the tray on the nightstand and sat on the sofa. I heard Camille in the bathroom. I glanced at the bed.

  I couldn’t believe my eyes. Her red panties and brassiere were on the bed. But I wasn’t too elated. I had to be careful to avoid her cruel angles. In fact I wasn’t sure any more that I could change her.

  The panties and brassiere could be a cruel tease. And she’d probably come out
of the bathroom and put them on. Then she’d put the boots and coat on and leave me thrilled, holding Jim Dandy in my hands.

  I got to my feet and looked at the door. If I left her now, she’d really get one of her screwy bangs to find me gone after she’d made the pantie and brassiere play. But for some reason, my feet just wouldn’t take me through that door to give her that big painful thrill.

  I guess Jim Dandy couldn’t forget she was a Goddess. I was standing there having a hot debate with him, when she came out of the bathroom. Her face was sweet and beautiful again.

  She walked to me on tiptoe and smiled up at me. I went over Jim Dandy’s head and took the offensive. I moved away. I went to the nightstand and popped the cork on the champagne.

  I filled two glasses and walked back to her. I remembered a jazzy line I’d heard in a movie. A cruel guy had kissed off a lovesick broad. I gave her the glass of bubbly and touched the rim of my glass against hers.

  I said, “We smiled at the first hello. Let’s laugh now at the last goodbye.”

  She looked at me with wide, stricken eyes.

  She said softly, “I’ve been horrid to you. You can’t forgive me, and I don’t blame you. I felt like a champion ass when I saw those lovely pink roses. Yes, you’re so right. This poor fool has lost her dream.”

  She took a dainty sip and averted her eyes. She was so beautiful, so innocently childlike standing there.

  I said, “You’re wonderful when you’re sweet like this. Why must you be an in-again, out-again Finnegan? What’s wrong with you, Darling?”

  She sighed and said, I’ve known adorable men all over the world. But with you, I’m afraid. I’m certain that I’m falling madly in love with you. I suppose that, deep inside, I’m fighting desperately against it. So please forgive me. Be patient, and try to understand. Don’t leave me. Make love to me. Please give me another chance.”

  Tears welled in her sad eyes. What could I do? I forgot that Blue had told me the con was made for everybody. How could a dazzled twenty-two-year-old hustler from Thirty-ninth Street suspect that a Goddess could play the con for him?