Paper Lantern: Love Stories (14 page)

It goes from fall, when you start to see your breath in the morning, to Indian summer, and the
szmata
’s laundry is back on the line. I think,
This is the last time I’ll see those beautiful sheets
, like it’s laundry not the falling leaves that’s the last look of summer. It’ll be May before you can hang out wash again. What’ll life be then? I think of Frank singing at the window the first time she hung her wash and that question that woke me up.
Ever wonder what it must feel like to sleep on sheets like that
?

Frank, I wouldn’t even know where to buy them for you.

The owl on the attic windowsill stares across the alley like we’re under surveillance. I could swear once he blinked at me. The pigeons are gone, maybe to some bell tower—St. Paul’s down the block, or St. Pius on Ashland. Think they feel homeless? A pigeon’s instinct is to return, right? Do they send a dove like Noah did to check if it’s safe yet? In dreams I hear the owl going, Oh! Oh! Oh! like Lorraine James. Since I got off them meds, it takes a couple drinks to self-medicate myself to sleep. More than a couple some nights.

Night sweats, trouble sleeping—I’m too young to be going through the Change, and what do I have to feel guilty about? Maybe that’s why Frank goes out at night, maybe he really has insomnia from feeling guilty, maybe what he done haunts his dreams. But that gives the sumnabitch credit for a conscience. A man with a conscience wouldn’t a brought her an owl. It’s like I’ve become his goddamn missing conscience.

One Saturday I feel the time’s right to go back to the library. It’s windy, paper flying. I’m not dressed warm enough and stop in church. Not St. Paul’s. The priest there’s a drunk—drinks at the Deuces on money he skims off bingo. I go to St. Pius. I heard they got this young kumbaya priest there who got tortured in Latin America for trying to liberate the poor. People say his scars from torture bleed on Good Friday. Supposedly it’s always crowded when he gives Communion, but today he’s hearing confession and hardly anyone’s there—a couple old ladies in black mantillas like mourners, one praying like moaning. What sins could an old lady commit to deserve a penance like that? I’ve got nothing but a Kleenex I bobby-pin to cover my head.

Been a long time since I was in church. I was a daily communicant till high school. Wasn’t I stopped believing, just that I grew boobs. I always prayed to the Black Madonna. Sometimes I could swear she’d wink at me, which is why I didn’t take the owl blinking too seriously. The Virgin’s not like
black
. Her face got sooty when the infidels burned the churches. But her icon wouldn’t burn, and the miracle drove the infidels outta Poland—or something like that. She’s Queen of Poland, like the Virgin of Guadalupe is of Mexico. You know, Mexicans and Poles got a lot in common—the Virgin, drinking, lame polka music, a weakness for the color gold. When the parish went Latino, St. Pius traded in the Black Madonna for the Virgin of Guadalupe. I light a candle to her anyway. I’m worried I forgot how to confess, but as soon as the priest slides open his curtain, the words say themselves.

Bless me Father for I have sinned. My last confession was … a long time ago.

Welcome home, my child, the priest—his name’s Father Julio—says in this gentle voice with a smile in it.

My child
makes me think,
I’m probably older than him
. He’s wearing aftershave. I’m not fond of aftershave on a man, but this scent I want to breathe in. I’ve smelled it somewhere before.

I’m not sure where to begin, I say.

He asks, What brought you back today?

I think my husband killed someone.

What?

I think my husband killed a black man.

You aren’t sure? Why do you think that? Did he tell you?

The sumnabitch ain’t about to tell me. He’s shtupping the widow next door. Did I need him to tell me that?

Father Julio doesn’t say anything. I listen to his breathing. Finally, he asks, Do you have a troubled marriage? The smile’s gone from his voice.

You think I made up he killed someone? I can prove it. Only, if I do, does that make me an accomplice? What’s a worse sin: not wanting to know, or knowing and not doing anything about it?

To be human, he says, is to have feelings that can be confused and troubling, feelings that make us ashamed or guilty, but feelings aren’t sins. Which doesn’t mean it isn’t good sometimes to tell them. You can tell me anything you need to say.

I already told you, my husband killed someone.

But you’re not sure, and even if he did, you can’t confess for him. He has to ask for forgiveness himself.

Would you forgive him?

When the Lord forgave all sins, he made an exception for none. Let’s talk about you. You’re going through a crisis. What will bring you inner peace?

So you’re saying if I knelt here and said I killed someone, like slit his throat while he was passed out, you’d forgive me.

It’s God who forgives. I can only help you find his voice in your heart.

But you give penance. I heard the old lady before me crying her eyes out over hers. What would my penance be?

I think you are already doing penance. You haven’t told me yet for what. It’s not more penance you want.

What do I want?

The Bible tells us,
He who forgives an offense seeks love
. That includes forgiving yourself. In Luke, Jesus says of Mary Magdalene:
Her many sins are forgiven for she loved much
.

Love? What do you mean by love, Father Julio? You ever loved anyone besides Jesus? You ever been married? You ever lost a child?

You’re grieving, he says. I’m sorry, I didn’t realize … wait, please, don’t go …

But I’m gone. Confession’s not how I remembered. The priest never wore aftershave that made me want to taste it. I can hear bullshit about love across the bar most any night at the Deuces.

Someone opened the church doors like they’re getting ready for a funeral, and the wind off Ashland’s blowing out the candle racks. All the people who dropped a coin, lit a vigil light, and made a wish—it’s up in smoke. The old lady kneeling before the Virgin beats her fist against her chest, repeating,
Lo siento, lo siento
, like she speaks in echoes. I walk back to the Deuces trying to think of the name of that aftershave.

Why you wearing a Kleenex? Frank asks when I come in. He’s behind the bar with a clipboard, doing inventory. How’s the horseradish holding out? We need more kraut?

I’m through cooking, I tell him.

You know, I was thinking, he says like he didn’t hear me, you were right, Rosie. This place could use a face-lift. Something to perk up business.

I said, I’m through cooking, Frank.

No problemo, Rosie, given the menu’s down to hot dogs and kraut. I can handle dogs and kraut. You rest. You tried to come back too fast. I’ll get the place fixed up nice, you’ll see.

Rest? While the sumnabitch is playing the martyr working the bar and kitchen both, I’m upstairs like Sherlock Holmes. The gun he stole was brand-new—you can smell once they been fired, right? I buy a heavy-duty cop flashlight and search the closets top to bottom, frisk every hanging coat, dig through every dresser drawer, check under the beds, even in Harriet’s room. I leave his porch office for last. I can feel that owl watching through the drizzle from across the alley. I go through the file cabinets, desk drawers, the mess on Frank’s desk—catalogues, bills he ain’t paid, receipts he ain’t filed, overdue notices from bill collectors, threats from the bank he ain’t mentioned. Makes me wonder where he’s stashed our money and how he’s spending it. He’d be the kinda sumnabitch with a offshore bank account. There gotta be a record cause the sumnabitch saves every receipt—probably hid somewhere’s a receipt for the goddamn owl. I go through the grungy boxes of railroad junk. There’s nowhere I ain’t looked but a little metal toolbox he keeps locked. It’s too small for the props and porn and feels too light for a gun. When I give it a shake to hear if there’s rattling, it pops open, and notebooks fall out. Not bankbooks, little spiral notebooks he scribbles his great thoughts in. They’re full of drawings of trains, each page’s a boxcar with words on it like a long line of graffiti going by:
DON’T
 …
GO
 …
MR. MOJO
 …
B&O
 …
BEAUTY
 …
&
 …
OBLIVION
 …
HESHEMEHOPELESS
 … I especially remember that one. Maybe it’s like a code, otherwise why hide such senseless crap? Two days of searching with nothing to show for it but
HESHEMEHOPELESS
. You know, that could be the name for a horse—Heshemehopeless, a long shot.

At least now I know his stash ain’t upstairs. He wouldn’t risk keeping it in the bar. There’s the basement, which I avoid as a rule, but the next night he’s out, I go down there with the flashlight—the basement light’s burned out—and a sponge mop. The mop’s not much of a weapon, but better than nothing cause I got ratophobia, and the one time I was down there I saw the dried-out carcass of a huge rat with his snout crushed in a trap.

It’s more a cellar—musty, stacked with cases of empties and wooden beer barrels stamped with names of local breweries that went under before I was born—Atlas Prager, Yusay Pilsen, Edelweiss. Piles of cobwebbed junk Verman left behind: three-legged barstools, spittoons, a cracked
GO-GO SOX
pinball machine, bushels of coal from before the furnace was converted. Finding anything down there’s
HESHEMEHOPELESS
, you know, but I figure Frank would keep it all in a suitcase so that’s what I’m looking for, shining the light, poking with the mop, when the basement door opens.

I’m fucking armed, Frank says from the top of the stairs in his raspy voice. Who’s fucking down there?

Don’t f-ing shoot, I say.

Jesus! Rosie, what you doing down there?

We’re aiming our flashlights at each other. He’s wearing his Buffalo Frank Novak fringed jacket, too light for this time of year, and holding the Little League bat he keeps under the bar like a blackjack.

I thought you had a gun, I say.

Jesus, you scared me. I thought you were some thieving crackhead. If I had a gun I might have put a cap in your dope-fiend ass. What you doing down there? Mopping up? What you looking for?

Whatta you think I’ll find?

Frank flicks his flashlight off.

Maybe where they buried Jimmy Hoffa, he says. Or Verman’s rodent droppings collection. Or hey, how about the last remaining bottle of Edelweiss bock in the universe! Want some help looking?

My flashlight blinks out. I’m standing in the dark, pounding the batteries against my palm, but the piece of shit won’t stay on. Frank flicks his on again, shines it in my face, up and down my body, then along the stairs.

Careful, he says, these steep old stairs are killers.

I climb up slow. He’s at the bar, still holding the bat, staring at me funny. So, Rosie, he goes, I got a question.

What’s that, Frank?

You remember hearing the Edelweiss beer song when you were a kid?

Before my time, I say, and suddenly I’m exhausted.

Before mine, too, Frank says, but somehow I remember hearing it. Bet you remember the Oscar Meyer wiener jingle:
Acquire the desire to buy Oscar Meyer …
How much you think the guy inspired to rhyme
Meyer
and
desire
made off that? Frank asks, and pours hisself a shot.

Don’t drink up all the profits, I tell him, and start upstairs to bed.

He goes,
Na zdrowie!

It’s flannel nightgown weather. I get the feather tick from the closet. Funny how many winters I took that feather tick down and don’t remember. But I remember that night, how even with the mothball smell of the feather tick, I could still smell the musty basement in my hair. But I was too tired to run a bath. I lay there thinking I shoulda found something, if not the gun or stolen goods or the porn,
something
—bankbooks, insurance policies … He’s socked it all away somewhere—a safety deposit box, a storage locker …

The
clonk
of trousers full of keys and coins hitting the floor wakes me. The mattress sags, and reeking of whiskey and kerosene, Frank that sumnabitch slides in on what was his side before he started sleeping on the porch.

Ah! he goes, the homey scent of mothballs when a chill’s in the air. How about sharing some covers?

I’m turned away from him and make like I’m asleep.

I remembered the song, he says, then in his hoarse voice sings:
Drink Edelweiss, it tastes so nice, it tastes so nice, drink Edelweiss.
Catchy, huh?

I don’t say anything.

Hey, he goes, it can’t all be “Wild Horses.” You notice how in one song,
Edelweiss
gets rhymed with
nice
, and in the other,
Oscar Meyer
rhymes with
desire
. Think it’s just coincidence that the beer that’s
nice
goes bankrupt, but the wiener that people
desire
makes a fortune?

I lie still, and outta nowhere the name of the scent the priest wears comes to me—sandalwood.

No comment? Frank asks. Sorry to bore you. All right, then what would you guess is the number of times people the wide world over did it to that song?—“Wild Horses,” not “Drink Edelweiss.” When’s the last time we listened to it?

The whole time he’s talking, he’s pressing closer against my back, running his hands over my hips, down my legs, over my boobs.

Of all the songs ever written, which one do you think people fucked to the most? he whispers. And don’t try telling me it’s M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E.

I can feel him hard through my flannel nightgown.

Take those titties out. Still like it rough? he asks, and I remember he’d clamp plastic clothespins on them. He tugs up my nightgown, rakes his fingernails across my ass, then slaps it so I cry out.

That wake you up?

The handprint’s burning. There’s more coming, but he’s holding back, which makes my body tremble waiting for what’s next, and I already know once it starts I won’t care about the gun or
HESHEMEHOPELESS
or the four deuces I’m holding.