The Crazyladies of Pearl Street (25 page)

When I came back into our kitchen I had a plan... of sorts. Soon Mother was back in bed, braced up by pillows, and we were playing pinochle on the covers while Anne-Marie, dressmaker-to-the-stars, sat at the foot of the bed, murmuring soothing assurances to a movie actress who needed something really spectacular to wear to the Oscar Awards. Mother's rages were always brief. I think she knew how stomach-wrenching they were for us because afterwards she always tried to be lighthearted and fun. That night she told us about some of the wild stunts she had got up to when she was a kid, and Anne-Marie and I laughed harder than the stories deserved, because we were so relieved.

After Mother and Anne-Marie were asleep, I borrowed my sister's crayons and drew a sign on a piece of cardboard box. I was going into the transportation business in conjunction with a grocery that had just opened in a long-empty store two blocks down the street.

The spanking new red-and-gold sign above the grocery read: The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company, a name that evoked books about the South Seas: cruel planters and vengeful natives, tall-masted sailing ships and sad-eyed captains who had gone to the East to forget. The new A&P was the product of a brief Depression-years experiment with small A&Ps that the company called 'neighborhood stores'. Their prices were only slightly lower than in cornerstores, but you were allowed to walk around and pick out your own cans and fruit and everything, which was a novelty at that time. Also, there were intriguing new foods, like maple syrup that came in a can shaped like a log cabin. You poured it out of the chimney and when it was empty you could use the cabin as a toy or a bank. And there were three kinds of coffee that they let you grind for yourself in machines, choosing between drip grind, percolator grind, and 'regular' (whatever that was). The newly ground coffee gave off so delicious an aroma that you closed your eyes and just breathed it in. The most expensive coffee was called Bokar, a name redolent of Africa so it was right that the bag should be black; the middle-priced one, Red Dot, came in a yellow bag with a red dot; we always bought the cheapest coffee, Eight O'Clock, which came in a red bag. I used to wonder if the Bokar could possibly taste as good as it smelled. But no coffee tastes as good as it smells: an apt metaphor for the gap between anticipation and realization. The new store's cheaper prices and wider selection attracted everyone for blocks around, but you couldn't charge things there so, in the end, Mr Kane's slate won out over the A&P's novelty and economy, and like other experimental 'neighborhood' A&Ps around the nation, it closed within the year.

The morning after our Emerson blew its tube, I was standing outside the miniature A&P with my sister's battered old cart and a cardboard sign with bold red crayon letters informing shoppers of my willingness to bring their groceries home for 5¢. That first day and the next, half a dozen old ladies used my services. I walked them home, pulling their bags of groceries in Anne-Marie's cart and chatting in the polite, cheerful way I thought likely to inspire them to tip me a couple of cents in addition to my nickel, but none did. Every one of those women lived blocks and blocks away from the A&P, and I had to lug their bags to apartments on the upper floors, leaving the cart in the first-floor hallway so nobody would steal it. I couldn't believe the rotten luck of every single one of my customers being an old woman who lived far from the A&P and on an upper story of her building, and each of them too cheap to give a friendly, smiling guy a tip. What were the odds? It took me a while to work out that this wasn't a matter of bad luck. Only women who were so poor they couldn't afford to tip would shop blocks away from their homes to save a few pennies; and only those who lived on the upper floors would be willing to part with a nickel to have their stuff carted home and carried up to their door. Still, after two days I had put thirty cents into the Dream Bank towards the tube, even if my sister did complain bitterly that I'd worn her red crayon down to a nub making my sign, so she couldn't make any red clothes for her paper dolls, just when red was all the rage, and her movie star customers were complaining that—

Oh, shut up, why don't you?

You shut up!

Copycat, eat my hat!

Oh, shut up!

No, you shut up!

(From the bedroom) Both of you shut up, for Christ's sake!

The third morning I arrived at the A&P bright and early to find another boy standing there with a wagon and sign—a bigger boy with a bigger wagon and a bigger sign. And he wasn't even from our block! Well, we had words. He said he had as much right as I did to be there because I didn't own the sidewalk, so just who the hell did I think I—

I got two solid shots in before he knew he was in a fight, then we really went to Fistcity, rolling around on the pavement, him mostly on top because he was bigger, but me getting in some pretty good face-shots from below. The manager of the A&P came out and snatched us around by our collars for a while, then he said that if we didn't behave ourselves he'd send for the cops. When I tried to explain that I had been there first, he told me that he'd seen me start the fight. Of course I started the fight! A smaller kid has to get his shots in first or he doesn't stand a chance! Jeez! But I promised not to fight any more, so this copycat interloper and I ended up standing on opposite sides of the store's door, glowering at each other until some old lady came out carrying groceries, then we'd try to out-smile and out-nice each other. I was at a disadvantage because my smile was sort of one-sided from a split lip. It was a scorcher of a day, and the time passed slowly standing there in the sun, especially since I got only one customer, and that only because this other kid was away on a delivery. I could read what was going on in the women's heads. They didn't like having to pick one kid and leave the other behind, so some of them carried their own bags home, and others chose this bigger kid because they didn't want to make a skinny little kid lug those bags all that distance. Yeah, sure! Give money to the big healthy kid, and let the skinny little one go without! That makes lots of sense, you stupid old...!

That night I walked home dragging the wagon behind me, too tired and disheartened to remember to avoid the shortcut through the back alley. I knew I should go straight home, but I wanted desperately to play some kind of story game for a little while because without my nightly dose of radio, there was no narrative narcotic to rinse away daily life and refresh my soul. Then too, I wasn't all that eager to arrive home with a split lip and only a nickel to show for a day's work. I was always better at playing the modest winner than the brave loser.

There was only one lamp post in the back alley, and its grainy light fell at an acute angle over the facades of abandoned stables, emphasizing textures and leaving pockets of felted shadow in entranceways... a perfect setting for scary games. I slipped into a space between a shed and a stable, one side of my face lit and the other in shadow, knowing how scary I must look as I whispered to my companion that there had to be a rational explanation for the case he called The Murders in the Back Alley. There just had to be! I wouldn't be a bit surprised to learn that Professor Moriarty had a hand in this, Watson. (A blend of clipped speech and Peter Lorre nasality did for my English accent.) I told the good doctor that the only way to discover the insane killer was for me to expose myself to the same dangers that those poor, bloody, axe-chopped, heads-ripped-off, faces-bashed-in women had met when they—

—I nearly pissed myself when that sharp tap-tap-tap on the window made my voice squeak and sent Dr Watson vanishing into the darkness, leaving me to face the danger alone. I looked up to see Mrs McGivney beckoning to me, and her husband in the other window, both silhouetted by the soft gaslight of their parlor. I knew I should have gone straight home! Drawing a peeved sigh, I inserted a mental bookmark into my game so I could remember where I was, when I got back to it, and I trudged to the end of the alley, around past my own stoop where I stashed Anne-Marie's wagon in the hall, then down to 232, and up its stairs, the air getting thicker and hotter with every floor I climbed. It was really hot in the McGivney apartment so high up, close to the lead roof, and their gas lighting made it hotter yet. That was the only time in my life I experienced the effect of gaslight, which was softer than electric light and didn't seem to descend from the ornate gas fixtures on the wall, but rather to glow from within things and people, a golden radiance.

With an edge of grievance to her voice, Mrs McGivney asked where I'd been the last few days. I explained that our radio had blown a tube and I had been trying to earn money to replace it, but she made a tight little nasal sound, dismissing my excuse, so I rather curtly asked what it was she wanted me to do for her. It was late and Mr Kane's grocery was closed. But it turned out that she just wanted to give me a glass of milk and some of those cookies that 'all boys love so much'. I didn't tell her that this particular boy would rather be allowed to pursue his game than be dragged up there to spend time with a boring old lady and a zombie. Instead, I sat across from her and nibbled grumpily. But she just smiled at me, then looked over at her husband and sighed with satisfaction, as though everything was all right again, now that we were all back together.

I noticed that when she drank her milk she looked into the glass, like little kids do. And that's when it struck me that she was strangely young. She had white hair, sure, but her skin was smooth and her eyes bright. It was as if, living as she did on the edge of life, without hopes or fears, work or play, nothing had eroded and aged her, so she had remained eternally young and oddly... ghostlike.

As I left, she pressed a nickel into my hand. I protested that I hadn't done anything to earn it, but she just squeezed my hand closed around it, so I left thinking how nice people can be more trouble than mean ones, because you can't fight back against nice people.

I found my mother and sister sitting on our front stoop to get a breath of cool evening air, and I joined them. When Mother asked what had happened to my lip, I shrugged it off and changed the subject by telling them about the McGivneys. Mother was surprised to discover that there was a Mr McGivney, and Anne-Marie rubbed the goose bumps that rose on her arms at the thought of my sitting in the same room as a crazy man who just stared out the window all the time. I told her he wasn't crazy, only sort of... well, damaged, but she said that damaged people were just as scary as crazy ones, maybe even more, and she didn't care how many nickels they gave me. Mother said I shouldn't accept money unless I did some chore to earn it. It was like accepting handouts, and we LaPointes didn't do that. But she was glad I'd made some new friends, and she was sure I'd be a big help to these lonely old people. I almost told her that I resented being made to feel responsible for them, but I didn't. I was afraid she'd realize how often I felt the same resentment about being responsible for getting us off Pearl Street some day.

The next morning, there was a third boy outside the A&P, and he had a brand-new cart and a sign with professional-looking lettering that offered to carry groceries for 4¢. You could tell from his clothes that he wasn't poor, just a regular kid, lucky enough to have a new cart and somebody—probably a father—to help him paint his sign and to advise him about undercutting the competition. I could see right off that offering to carry the groceries for four cents was a smart scam because most of the women would give him a nickel, and wouldn't ask for their penny change back because that would make them seem stingy; so he would get the job by underbidding us, but he'd end up making as much as we did. I'll bet his father was a car salesman or a con man or a stock broker... one of those people who make their livings by selling the sizzle, rather than the steak. Well, I drew this new kid aside and explained that there wasn't enough business for two kids—forget three—and this had been my idea in the first place. Then I put on my most sincere expression and told him that I was very, very worried about him, and worried about how his mother would feel if he came home with no front teeth and his fancy wagon all kicked in and— But out of the corner of my eye I could see the manager watching me from within the store, so I just pointed at the middle of the rich kid's chest and skewered him with squinted-up eyes, which on my block meant 'You're standing real close to the edge, pal!' then I swaggered back to my battered old cart.

But he stayed, and I didn't get a single customer that day, bracketed as I was by a bigger competitor and a more attractive one. I stuck it out until the A&P closed that night. But I didn't bother to come back again. What was the use?

That Friday our weekly $7.27 welfare check came, so we were able to buy the tube, although it meant having potato soup every night that week and the next. That evening I stood in front of the Emerson in a state of deepest soul-comfort, my head bowed, my eyes half-closed, totally absorbed in the exciting adventures of Jack Armstrong, and the Green Hornet, and the Lone Ranger, Masked Rider of the Plains. The world was in its orbit again.

After my sister and I did the supper dishes, the three of us sat in the front room, listening to Friday night's run of mystery programs. We always turned off the lights and listened in the dark, with only the faint orange glow of the radio's dial because that made the stories deliciously spooky, such programs as The Inner Sanctum with its heavy door that creaked open and a darkly evil voice that said, “Good evening, friends.” And there was Lights Out, Suspense, The House of Mystery and on Sunday nights at seven-thirty, The Whistler, “...who walks by night and knows many things. He knows strange tales hidden in the hearts of men and women who have stepped into the shadows. Yes, he knows the nameless terrors of which they dare not speak!” The Whistler's tales were told from a unique and effective narrative point of view: he spoke directly to the villain of the piece in a curling, feline voice with a little echo in it, as though he were the person's conscience, saying things like, “You thought you would get away with it, didn't you, James Townsend? You were so cunning, so careful. But you forgot just one thing...”? HYPERLINK “file:///C:\\Documents%20and%20Settings\\Administrator\\Impostazioni%20locali\\Temp\\Rar$EX00.266\\Trevanian%20-%20The%20Crazyladies%20of%20Pearl%20Street.htm” \l “note21#note21” ??[21]?