Teen Angel (8 page)

“You live here?” Sonny asked as they entered a rundown building with metal sheets over many of the windows on 178th Street and St. Nicholas. Coon City, U.S.A.

“My mother’s been here for over twenty years,” D.B. said as they rode up in the elevator with an angled mirror in one corner so you could see if a murderer crouched holding a knife or gun when it was already too late. “Our apartment is rent-controlled. The landlord keeps trying to have the building condemned but he hasn’t been able to. I think my mother once had a thing with him anyway.”

The lightbulb in the hallway was out so they stood in darkness until D.B.’s mother answered the door. And if Sonny’s eyeballs could have popped out of their sockets like Kodak Brownie flashbulbs, they would have. Her mother was dressed in a turquoise silk kimono loosely sashed around her waist, revealing a black lace slip and the hugest
kazoombas
Sonny had ever seen in her life, not
counting in the movies.
She just couldn’t be D.B.’s mother
. Her kimono had a golden dragon embroidered across the front. And she wore black fishnet stockings, red patent leather spikes.
THIS COULDN’T BE ANYBODY’S MOTHER!
Her hair was long and wild like smoke.
Ava Gardner
. She wore red lipstick and her nails, painted the same color, were three inches long.
Rita Hayworth
. She was someone glamorous and important, not just D.B.’s mother.

“Why don’t you come in …” she said like Elizabeth Taylor in
Butterfield 8
talking to Laurence Harvey. “You must excuse the way I look,” she said, following them into the living room. “I must look terrible.” She ran her hand through her hair.

“No,” Sonny said, star-dazed, as if she was in the presence of a Hollywood goddess. “You’re beautiful.”

D.B. interrupted her. “Ruth, this is Sonny. She’s the new girl I told you about.”

“Oh yes. Hi. Really, I usually do get dressed by this time of day.”

D.B. looked at her. “Yeah, just like yesterday.”

“Well, I’ve been working. Real hard. I’ve been very busy choreographing.”

“What’s that?” Sonny asked, still not able to take her eyes off Ruth.
How could this be D.B.’s mother?

“I used to create dance numbers for nightclubs and theaters.”

“Really? Wow …”

“Oh, that was before your time. I almost had my own show once. Down at the Academy of Music on Fourteenth Street. What happened was the guy who was the backer, the one who had all the dough, pulled out of the deal at the last minute. But I already had my costumes custom-made for my money. I had this one made for me which was for a Mae West-type number where I sang and danced with six guys. It had a violet ostrich boa,” she said, her voice trailing off dreamily. “It was so elegant.”

“Do you still have it?” Sonny asked.

“Sure,” Ruth said. “You don’t just throw something out that cost you a couple bills. At least, I don’t. Do you want to see it?”

Sonny nodded her head eagerly.
Veronica Lake
. Ruth walked out of the room. “Your mother’s gorgeous!” she whispered.

“I guess so,” D.B. said. “Hey, when were you a finalist in the Miss New York City contest?”

“1947!” Ruth called back. “Two years before I had you, kid, and my figure went to pot. I used to look pretty good, though.”

D.B. walked down the long hallway to the bedroom followed by Sonny, who ogled everything.
I can’t believe this!
The walls and floors were covered with sequined masks, black lace fans, plastic fruits and flowers, mirrors, peacock feathers, menus from famous restaurants like Mama Leone’s, framed photographs of theatrical-type people with inscriptions to Ruth. She stood on a stepladder in a closet and had already thrown down several hatboxes.
God!
Then Ruth dragged out a trunk covered with decals from Atlantic City, Miami Beach, even Niagara Falls. “I think this is the one that has the costume,” she said, pulling out another trunk with a black lacquer finish.

This came as close to magic as anything Sonny had ever seen in her life. The trunk reminded her of a pirate’s chest. When Ruth pried open the corroded brass latch with a butter knife, it was full of strands of rhinestone necklaces, pearls, hats with tulle veils, silk scarves of every color, beaded costumes, tortoise shell hair combs. D.B. pulled out the ostrich boa and wrapped it around her neck.
Magic. Sonny could die
.

“Oh!” she squealed with excitement. “Could I try it on!” She opened a few buttons of her shirt and, gathering the feathers in her arms like they were sleeping doves, she wrapped it around herself.
I was meant to be bathed in mink and sable, sprinkled with diamonds
. She imagined herself in a long jeweled gown with a plunging neckline and a cleavage, of course, and white opera gloves that came up to her elbows.
“I’m very sorry. I just don’t have any time for autographs
tonight. Come to the theater tomorrow, darling
.” When Sonny noticed that Ruth and D.B. were watching her curiously as she made faces at herself in the full-length mirror, she became embarrassed. “I look awful,” she said, poking her fingers into her beehive.

“No, you look wonderful in it,” Ruth said. “Doesn’t she, Helen?”

At the sound of her real name, D.B. winced.

“You know,” Ruth said as Sonny continued to stare at her own reflection in amazement. “You resemble that actress, what’s her name, in
The Ten Commandments?
You know, the Egyptian one who goes off with Charlton Heston. You should try wearing your hair loose like her. It would look softer around your face.” She tried to touch Sonny’s hair.

Sonny moved away, shaking her head. “I like it this way,” she said.

“May I?” Ruth asked. She took the ostrich boa from Sonny and wrapped it around her own neck and shoulders several times. “You want to see the kind of dancing I used to do?” she asked Sonny.

“Would I ever!”

“Okay, come on,” she said, taking her hand.

D.B. pulled her in the other direction. “Just a minute,” she said. “Don’t encourage her,” she whispered into her ear after Ruth had already walked down the hallway to the living room.

“Why?”

“You ask too many questions.”

“Are you ready, girls?” Ruth screamed form the living room.

They sat on a faded red velvet couch with a cat that rolled over on its back so Sonny would rub its belly. Ruth searched through a pile of record albums on the floor. D.B. just sat there. “I found it!” Ruth cried out.

Slaughter on Tenth Avenue
. She took the record out of its jacket, which had a photograph of a woman with a knife in her back and blood dripping all over the place, and wiped the dust off with the
sleeve of her kimono. Then she put it on the record player, turning the volume up to its maximum. Ruth kneeled with her head lowered and waited for the music to begin.

On the first note, she leaped to her feet and, flinging her shoes into the hallway, began dancing on her toes around the room. Suddenly there was a loud, rumbling drum sound and Ruth stopped where she stood. She spun around madly, stopping to listen and then eying D.B. and Sonny suspiciously. Clashing horns, drums, cymbals. She raced to the four corners of the room as if in search of help, her body undulating madly. She shimmied so hard that her tits fell right out of her slip. So she stuffed them back in, untied the sash of her kimono and flung it across the room. “Can’t dance in that thing!” she shouted over the music. Sonny looked at D.B. who sat next to her glumly.
I don’t believe any of this
.

Ruth rolled her hips back and forth, swivelling her arms, shoulders, and hips in the sexiest gesture Sonny had ever seen. “God, she’s fantastic!” Sonny whispered. The music continued to grow more frenetic. The fight part had begun. Angry drums pounded, horns blew over them as cymbals crashed. Ruth began grinding harder and harder to each drumbeat. Her body was alive like hundreds of electric eels sparking at each other. “GO! GO! GO!” she screamed, rotating her head so her hair flew around like a furious black fire. Then, suddenly, she dropped to her knees. She had been stabbed. The music took a violent plunge as the victim died and Ruth threw herself on the carpet.

For the next ten minutes, she “died” along with the music, writhing on the carpet, trying desperately to arise. She stood up for several seconds but fell over, dropping to her knees. With all the strength she had left, she crawled, trying to pull the knife out of her back. But she couldn’t. Clasping her hands, she pleaded to the heavens. At last, Ruth died.

Ruth lay with her face against the carpet for several minutes after the music stopped. They could hear the sound of the record needle repeating itself in the blank grooves.

“Is she all right?” Sonny whispered.

“Dunce, it’s part of the act,” D.B. said.

Then Ruth rose like Cleopatra out of the Nile and, tossing the boa over her shoulder, she strutted out of the living room with the feathers trailing after her like a train of admirers.

Sonny was exhausted. The death scene had really gotten to her, how Ruth had wanted to live but then collapsed. And Sonny had the privilege of knowing her. “Your mother’s something else!” she exclaimed. “I’ve never seen anything like it. It was profound.”

D.B. shrugged her shoulders and look annoyed.

“I mean, I could just about see my mother doing that,” Sonny continued. “The only time I ever saw her dance was at my cousin’s bar mitzvah. And that was one of the grossest sights I’ve ever seen. All these women doing the hora to
Hava Negila
and every time they kicked up their legs you could see the tops of their stockings and their thighs jiggling. Oh, and they did the Alley Cat too. But your mother can really dance!” D.B. was silent but Sonny could tell she was furious.

“How was that, girls?” Ruth asked. She mopped her wet forehead with a dishcloth. “God, I haven’t done anything like that in a while.”

“Come off it!” D.B. interrupted. “You did it last week for what’s his name. You got anything for supper?”

D.B. stomped out and walked into the kitchen. In the refrigerator there was a blender with several ounces of orange juice, a container of cottage cheese partially covered with a blue mold, the end piece of a loaf of white bread, and an open bottle of No-Cal.

“I was going to call up Key Food,” Ruth said apologetically, “and have them send some stuff over. Would you like to stay, Sonny?”

“I don’t know if I can,” Sonny said.

But she wanted to. Desperately. She never wanted to leave this magical apartment. This was where she belonged, with these
women who had bosoms like sex goddesses. Not with her creepy mother nagging her all the time about school and her father screaming his head off and breaking things. Mrs. King had probably called besides, and caused trouble already. “I’d really like to …” she said sadly.

“Why don’t you call your mother and ask her,” D.B. said.

They could never understand what her mother was like. How she worried if Sonny was even fifteen minutes late. She was such a nervous person. But Sonny wanted to stay more than she had ever wanted anything.

“Come on,” D.B. said. “If it gets late, you can sleep over and then we can
go
together tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Sonny said, “but I’ll have to call my mother.”

“What would you gals like?” Ruth asked.

“I don’t care,” D.B. said moodily. “Anything’s okay. Sonny, let’s go into the bedroom.”

“All right, darling,” Ruth said, “but don’t complain later that I didn’t ask you.”

As they approached the bedroom, they could hear Ruth’s voice. “Hi, Juan. It’s Ruth. How are you? The kids okay? And the wife? No problems? Good. Listen, send over a pound of turkey roll and some ham too. How’s the cole slaw? Not so hot? Okay, how about the potato salad? Good. Macaroni salad? Okay, make that a pound of potato salad and half a pound of the macaroni. A jumbo bag of potato chips. Some white bread. It doesn’t matter. And a large bottle of No-Cal. Yeah, cola. Okay. And could you send over a two-roll pack of toilet paper. And Pall Malls. Thanks, honey. Oh come on, you know you don’t have to worry with me. Yeah, I’m expecting the check any day.”

“That’s my mother’s idea of doing the shopping,” D.B. said.

“But she can dance!” Sonny said. “She’s an artist. Those stores are full of women who squeeze the tomatoes to make sure they’re ripe, argue with the man behind the deli counter while their kids scream in baby carriages.”

“I hate when Ruth shows off like that.”

“I wish my mother was cool,” Sonny said. “By the way, I better call right now.”

“Okay.” D.B. pointed to a black telephone beside her sister Rita’s bed.

Sonny dialed. Her mother answered the phone on the first ring. “Mom, hi. It’s me, Sonny. No, don’t worry. Everything’s all right. No, I’m not in trouble. I promise. I’m with my friend from school. You don’t know her. Helen,” Sonny said, making a face at D.B. “Anyway, her mother invited me to stay for dinner. I know I have my own home. Please. Just tonight, mom. If it gets late, I’ll sleep over. Mom, come on. Don’t be mean.” She held the receiver several inches from her ear but could still hear her mother carrying on. “Mom, I’m staying. I am. Yes, I am. Okay? No, you can’t talk to her mother! Goodbye.” She hung up the phone. “Damn it! Why does she have to be that way?”

“Your mother giving you a hard time?” D.B. asked as she slipped her sweater off. “I’m roasting to death in this thing. Every mother is a pain.”

D.B. sat on her bed in a white cotton bra that was yellowish from washing. “They really hurt today,” she said, running her hands over her breasts. They were enormous and had these pink nipples which looked like pigs’ faces. “I must be getting my period soon.”

That was a topic of conversation that automatically left her out.
She didn’t even have a comma but, at least, she had a colon!
D.B. was always talking about her swelling tits, expecting her period, and things like that. Sometimes Sonny wished D.B. wouldn’t go on about that stuff.

“You and Miguel still tight?” Sonny asked.

D.B. was occupied squeezing a pimple in her cleavage. “Do you get pimples between your breasts?”