I finished dressing and got the Buick’s ignition key from the dresser top. Somehow I made it to the desk with the key. I stood there weakly with my luggage in my hand, a fifth of Scotch in a paper sack.
The clerk checked his ledger and said, “Mr. Flanagan, your rental is paid up until tomorrow afternoon. Have a pleasant trip and a Merry Christmas. Come back to see us soon.”
I went through a rear door to the Buick. It was shapeless and almost buried under a fleecy shroud of snow. I used the flat side of the paper sack to scrape clear the front and back windows.
I got in and tried to turn over the engine. There was only a dull clicking sound. I was so tired and sick. Shouldn’t I lie down out there and rest beneath the friendly winking stars?
A car with inferno headlamps groaned into a parking space beside me. I walked away to Fifty-fifth street and flagged down a cab.
On the way to the train station I lay down on the back seat and closed my eyes. I was going home. I was glad. And that’s the guaranteed truth.
22
SISTER FRANKLIN SNARES THE ELUSIVE EAR OF GOD
I stood shaking on the sidewalk as the Chicago cab revved its motor and pulled away. The pink house glimmered through a haze of tears. I moved my ponderous feet up the walk.
I saw Blue open the front door. He ran through the gray dawn light toward me. Whirling inky clods zoomed at me. The bottom of the earth dropped away beneath my feet.
I plunged down, down, down. I had died. That was it. And the undertaker was beside me pumping embalming fluid into my arm with a rubber tube attached to a bottle above me. He was smiling down at me. Blue must have bought one of the more expensive funerals for me.
He said, “We’ve been worried about you. Congratulations, I think you’re going to make it.”
What corkscrew undertaking con was this? What was the slick bastard’s angle?
I said, “Where am I? I want out of here. Don’t worry, you won’t have to refund the dough.”
He said, “You’re very weak. I can’t hear you. Don’t try to speak anymore.”
I tried to shout the same words.
He replied, “Oh, you’re in St. Luke’s Hospital. I’m Doctor Winston. You’re still very ill. You need considerable rehabilitation.
“You can thank your amazing constitution that you’re alive. You’ve survived an almost hopeless bout with pulmonary pneumonia, among other lesser complications. But you’re going to be all right. Rest and let me do all the worrying.”
I lay there flat on my back. Blue flew to Cleveland and drove the Buick back. Blue and Sister Franklin visited me twice a day, every day. Sister Franklin prayed away most of the visiting hours.
Old man Pocket came with them several times. Each time before he left, he said, “Why don’t you stop playing the con and get out of that bed?”
I’d laugh feebly and thumb my nose at him. Blue took me home on the Twenty-ninth of January, Nineteen Forty-six.
Blue had a small Christmas tree in my bedroom with a dozen gifts for Christmas and my birthday, which had passed on January fifteenth.
I had a Longines watch, new robe, and several sets of silk pastel pajamas.
Doctor Winston had mentioned other lesser complications. I had one of them still with me. My need for alcohol. I had been given paregoric and other drugs in the hospital.
I was dried out. But a puffy, peculiar tension inflated my chest when my mind played around with the poisonous recent past. I was certain that a drink would ease it. I was very weak. I felt like all the blood had been drained out of me.
Sister Franklin was staying in Midge’s room. She was going to be my nurse and a land of spiritual adviser until I got well.
Doctor Winston had given Blue quite a briefing on me. Two hours after I got home Blue sat on the side of my bed.
I said, “Blue, I’ve been lying here thinking about Phala. Is she really all right? You had a funny look when I asked you about her in the hospital. I can’t remember when I’ve been out to visit her. I know her kidneys were in bad shape. Is she all right?”
He looked straight into my eyes and said, “You are imagining things, Folks. Sure she’s all right. They’re taking fine care of her out there. Don’t pressure your mind. Forget about Phala. Forget that white broad. Forget Cleveland. Forget everything but getting well.
“We’re concerned with now, and the future, and you. Your croaker has given me a complete rundown on your condition. I know what you need and what you don’t need.
“The worst thing that you don’t need is juice in any form. The croaker wanted to send you away for a cure. But I figured that no place is better for you than right here at home with me. The croaker pulled my coat to all the angles of treatment.
“I’m going to be your doctor and Sister Franklin is going to be your nurse. She talks about being your spiritual guide, too. But if her praying makes you jumpy, tell me, and I’ll put the damper on it.
“Between the two of us and you, you’re going to get well and strong again. We can’t do it without you. It’s going to be a sonuvabitching rocky road ahead. You’ve got to want to get well. You’ve got to want us to help you get well.
“You’ve got to con yourself that you’re through with the juice even when your asshole is twitching for a slug of juice. Let’s shake hands on the proposition and kick the damn thing off.”
I grinned and shook his hand. I lay there feeling spent and nervous.
I thought, “I wonder if the Goddess is still in Cleveland. There is no reason to think about her, sucker. She could climb into this bed with you, and you’d only be able to gaze at her.
“I wonder how Mother Jackson’s love life is going? I wish I had just a little Scotch stashed here in the house so I could taper off right along with Blue’s treatment.”
I answered myself:
“Now you poor silly bastard. You’ve got to stay away from the sauce altogether. Do all the Niggers in the world have to piss on you and kick your stupid ass to convince you?
“Goddamn, the sauce made you a cruddy sonuvabitch. You didn’t bathe your lousy ass or even brush your teeth for weeks in Cleveland. Two things you can’t ever touch again, you brainless idiot. Guess what they are?
I came back with:
“Well, what the fuck are you hesitating for, boy? Shout it loud and clear.”
“All right, I will. Number one is old demon whiskey. Number two is that mother-fucking old Goddess bitch and her ineffably hot, sweet international pussy. Right?”
“Right! You got to find yourself a safe broad to bang. You know, something you deserve, like the ugliest, blackest broad in Chicago. You’re a bum, Johnny O’Brien. You’re lucky if you can score for even a broad like that. Maybe you ought to send for Mother Jackson. He’s half had you anyway. A bum has to settle for what he can get.”
I had the last word:
“So, Sister Franklin is going to try to catch the ear of God to bring me around. That will be a miracle. She doesn’t know the snobbish, cold-hearted jerk won’t even listen. But I’ll play the percentages. I won’t tip her off that it’s hopeless.
“Maybe just accidentally he’ll slip up and let her through. I need help, and I’ll go along with even a long shot like that. What have I got to lose?”
I heard a rattling sound in the hall. Blue came in with Sister Franklin. She put a tray on the nightstand and propped me up in bed. She set the tray in my lap. There was a small portion of finely grated Swiss steak with macaroni and cheese on a small plate.
A tall glass filled with a pale cloudy liquid was on the tray. After I had eaten most of my favorite food, Blue put the glass to my mouth. I tasted the briny liquid. I shoved Blue’s hand away. I said, “What is that awful stuff?”
He pressed the glass back to my mouth and said, “Drink all of it. It’s part of the treatment. It’s just plain salt and water.”
Somehow I got all of it down. But it was trying to bubble up from my sick churning stomach. Supper and another glass of the foul-
tasting stuff came in on the tray. It made me even sicker than the first dose.
At nine that first night every nerve end was raw. Sister Franklin came in and got on her knees and prayed for me. I twisted and turned and rolled on the bed in agony. I pleaded with Sister Franklin to get me something to drink. She just kept praying until Blue got in at midnight. He rushed to my room.
I wailed, “Blue, please get me a drink. Please, just a small one to push me past this thing I’m going through.”
He turned and went down the hall. A moment later I heard the lid of his car trunk bang shut in the driveway. He came into the bedroom with a fifth of Scotch and a water glass in his hand. He filled the glass with Scotch and put it in my shaky hand.
I looked up at him and said, “Blue, you’re a real pal to do this for me.”
He smiled when I raised the glass to my mouth. Just the odor of it almost jerked my guts up my throat. I swallowed a mouthful. I became deathly sick.
Nauseous spasms tore through me. Blue took the glass from me. I was shaking and retching. I wanted to die. Then Blue was putting a pill in my mouth. I felt the cool rim of a glass on my cracked parched lips.
The last thing I remembered is the top of Sister Franklin’s head bowed deeply in prayer at the side of my bed. The following weeks were grim battlefields of time. My racked mind and body fought harder with each passing week against a slick and cruel enemy.
New strength seeped into my whole being. Living color washed away the dead gray pallor in my face right after my appetite returned. Many times I had the urge to slip away to Sixty-third Street for a drink. Each time I’d remember the nightmare in Cleveland. And my legs wouldn’t obey the urge.
Spring slipped her bright warm throat from winter’s bleak noose on April third. I put on my clothes and went to the backyard. I sat there in the warm noon sun.
The new grass and flowers were so much greener and more vivid than I remembered them. I felt wonderful. I thought, I’m strong enough now to visit Phala. I could go today when Blue gets back this afternoon from playing the smack with Pocket. I think I’ll call out there.
I went to the phone and called the sanitarium. “How is Phala O’Brien?” I asked.
I heard the faint rustle of paper.
Then the soft voice of the broad on the other end said, “How long has the patient been here?”
I said, “For years.”
She said, “Please hold on.”
I heard muffled conversation and more rustling of paper. Then she came back on the line.
She said, “I’m awfully sorry, but Mrs. O’Brien passed away the fifth of December last. Are you a relative?”
The receiver fell from my hand. I threw myself to the floor and sobbed in great aching gasps like a dying animal. I jackknifed my legs and rolled about the room. I banged my head against the furniture and tore my shirt to shreds.
I cursed, “God, You heartless, sneaky, dirty Sonuvabitch. I hate You! You hear! You hear! You hear me, You deaf peckerwood Bastard! God, I hate You! You hear!”
Sister Franklin came running from her room weeping. She threw herself on top of me and locked her arms around me. I cursed Blue for lying to me. Sister Franklin didn’t stop praying until I stopped cursing.
Finally, I got to my feet. I went to the bathroom and doused my bruised head with cold water. I came back and sat on the side of my bed in a trance with my eyes closed.
I swayed from side to side with one brutal question tearing through my mind. “Where were you, bum, when Phala died? Where were you, bum, when Phala died?”
I was still sitting there when Blue came home. I heard Sister Franklin whispering to him in the hall. He came and stood before me. I glared up at him. I started to open my mouth.
He pushed his palms through the air toward me and said, “Now, Folks, before you say a word, I’ve got a fair question I want you to answer in your own mind. Then call me and we’ll talk.
“Folks, if I had been the one who was cracked up and almost dead, would you have been thoughtless or cruel enough to tell me that Midge was dead? Would you have pushed me off the brink that way? Think about it, Folks. You can have only one answer.”
He turned and walked away. I realized almost immediately that it was right not to tell me. I was glad I hadn’t said the things I started to say. I followed him to his bedroom.
I said, “Blue, you’re right. It wasn’t your fault that I wasn’t in town when she died. Where is she?”
He said, “I had her cremated. I remembered that you told me after your first visit to the sanitarium, she wanted it that way. I spent close to a grand and a half with a private investigator to locate you. But you had vanished without a trace that he could hook onto.
“Now, take a sleeping pill and get yourself together. You can’t stop living because Phala’s gone. What the hell, you’re about in shape for the spring con.”
I took the sleeping pill and fell asleep with the same brutal question raging in my head. Where were you when Phala died?
It was June twentieth, Nineteen Forty-six, and Sister Franklin was busy packing her things. I looked and felt better than I had in two years. My appetite was fine. And I never touched a drop of alcohol. I met the acid test of Blue’s unlocked liquor cabinet.
Sister Franklin praised and thanked the Lord for my recovery. She was certain that all the credit was His. I just didn’t know about that. I gave her the platinum and ruby necklace that I had bought for the Goddess. She gave me a final prayer and she was gone.
Blue drove her home. When he got back, I was eating a steak in the kitchen. He sat down and drummed his knuckles against the table.
He said, “Sister Franklin babbled all the way home about how God answered her prayers and made you whole. How about it? Are you a believer now?”
I gave him a level look and said, “Blue, I’m not going into the streets to preach the Gospel. But I believe that if there is a God, then that little black old lady got His ear with pure faith. Maybe she’s the only black person He’s ever listened to.
“Maybe He saved me to reward her blind faith. It’s a Helluva mystery. I just don’t know. I’ll tell you one thing. From now on I’m going with the odds that He does exist. I’m never going to curse Him again. Want to hear a secret? I can’t be sure He heard me, but I copped out to Him and asked Him to forgive me for cursing Him.”
23
THE FLEETING YEARS
For the rest of the year Blue and I never ran out of fat cream puff marks. We both got new Cadillacs. I stayed away from the sauce. My favorite drink was Seven-Up.
Twice a week I’d go to Aunt Lula’s whorehouse in Indiana Harbor. I was smart now. I had found out it was better to rent a broad’s machinery for awhile than to romance her.
By November I had given Blue the fifteen hundred he spent to cremate Phala. Plus the fifteen hundred he spent on the search for me when I was going through the Cleveland nightmare.
Christmas, I was lounging on my bed listening to the radio. The phone rang. I picked up and said, “Hello.”
Nobody answered. But in the background I heard the sexy voice of a broad torching Cole Porter’s Night and Day. “And this torment won’t be through until you let me spend my life making love to you, night and day. Day and night deep in the heart of me there’s oh, such a hungry yearning burning—”
I thought I heard someone breathing on the other end just before the line closed. I spun my radio dial quickly to find out if the broad I’d heard was on radio. She wasn’t.
It was a record. I remembered hearing the same song sung by the same voice when I was waiting the year before to give Blue the bad news about the Buster Bang Bang play. That call was screwy like this one.
Then I had thought it was the Goddess horsing around. Was it the Goddess who had just called? I reached for the phone. My hand froze on it. I remembered she was one of the poisons I had to leave alone.
I lay there with my heart pounding. I didn’t know what I’d do if she called and I heard her
contralto voice. I knocked the receiver off the cradle and fell into fitful sleep.
The years galloped by. Our luck held up in the street. Felix the Fixer fixed only two beefs for us. One in the Spring of Nineteen Forty-nine and the other in Nineteen Fifty-four.
Livin’ Swell was a big dope wholesaler. Bigger even than his former boss, Butcher Knife Brown. Midge was a destroyed hag with an H habit. A Spanish whore stabbed Precious Jimmy through the heart. Sister Franklin died of old age.
Old man Mule got fifty years in Joliet prison for sodomy against an eight-year-old girl. Dot Murray the cop was naturally still around scaring grifters shitless.
The Vicksburg Kid, who turned Blue out on the grift in Mississippi, came through Chicago in Nineteen Fifty-seven and looked Blue up. He was a tiny, charming old guy with the most alert blue eyes I’d ever seen.
He stayed in Midge’s room for several days. He and Blue drank and talked together until the wee hours about the con and the good old days.
We talked about the Kid for days after he left for his con operation in Montreal. I missed his yarns about the humorous marks he had played for.
In Nineteen Fifty-eight, Blue and I went to old man Pocket’s funeral. We both cried. He had been a lovable old man. He’d died in a hotel room punching into a young girl from big foot country. He just hadn’t been up to the job.
His pump couldn’t stand the gaff. But I’m sure he died happy. Too bad he got that old. But then, we were all getting older and wiser, I thought. Blue’s hair was completely white in the spring of Nineteen Fifty-nine.
My sorrow about Phala had dulled. But I still got a twinge when I thought about her.
My own yellow hair was generously sprinkled with gray. I was thirty-five years old. Blue was sixty-seven. We were both twenty-five to thirty pounds heavier than we’d been in the mid-Forties.
Aunt Lula had a wild new girl. Her name was Roxie. She was the biggest freak I’d laid since Black Kate. She was a pretty, yellow girl who was glamorous with green eye shadow and glitter dust in her hair. Many times I got home from dates with her and found some of the sparkling dots in my navel. She swore she loved me. Couldn’t we shack up? But I remembered the Goddess.