The Roy Stories (25 page)

 

Irredeemable

The Saturday afternoon that Roy and his friends heard about the fire at Our Lady of Abandoned and Irredeemable Boys, they were on their way to see a double feature at the Riviera. The movies were
Rumble on the Docks
and
Don't Knock the Rock
. Roy was eager to see
Don't Knock the Rock
because his favorite singer, Little Richard, was in it performing “Long Tall Sally.” The boys were on foot passing through Greektown when a kid Jimmy Boyle knew named Martin Kenna, whose great-great-Uncle Hinky Dink Kenna had been a strongarm boss before Capone, came up to them and said, “You guys heard Irredeemable Boys burned down?”

It was an overcast, bone-rattlingly windy day in early March. A blizzard was supposedly on the way but the streets were clear of evidence from the last storm almost two weeks before. Neither Roy nor the Viper nor Boyle was wearing a hat; they kept their gloveless hands shoved deep into their coat pockets.

“When?” asked Jimmy.

Martin Kenna's nose was blue. He wore a black watch cap under the hood of his gray parka. His hands were buried in the pockets and Roy bet he had gloves on.

“Real early this morning,” Kenna said, “before it got light out.”

“They know how it started?” Roy asked.

Martin Kenna shook his head. “I ain't heard. Worst part is the main staircase collapsed as the orphans was comin' down it. Bunch of 'em died. Fried up. Don't know how many. You guys goin' to the Riv?”

Jimmy Boyle nodded.

“I thought so. Nick Kilennis said
Don't Knock the Rock
's good but
Rumble on the Docks
is bunk.”

“You goin'?”

“No, I gotta work today at the bakery. See ya.”

“See ya,” said Jimmy.

Kenna walked away and turned the corner onto Clark. The three boys continued toward the theater. Roy wished he'd worn a hat or had a coat with a hood.

“You think somebody torched Irredeemable Boys?” he asked.

“Why'd anybody burn down an orphanage?” said Jimmy.

“For the insurance,” the Viper said. “Or maybe even an orphan was disturbed about bein' mistreated.”

Roy got a kick out of seeing Little Richard do “Long Tall Sally” while he banged on the piano with his right foot, but
Rumble on the Docks
was phony like Martin Kenna said Nick Kilennis had said, with a pretty boy gang leader whose hair never got mussed during a fight. Roy couldn't get the thought of the orphanage fire out of his head, though, and after the show he told Jimmy Boyle and the Viper that he wanted to go by.

“It's a long way,” Jimmy said. “It'll be dark by the time we get there.”

“I got stuff to do,” said the Viper.

Roy walked by himself up Ojibway Boulevard until he came to Terhune, where he turned east toward the lake. Roy kept his head down against the wind as best he could but it didn't do much good. He was freezing and considered giving up but Roy kept walking and when he turned onto Tecumseh Street the wind calmed down.

There were two hook and ladders and a red car parked inside the big iron gates of Our Lady of Abandoned and Irredeemable Boys. The sky was getting dark fast but from the sidewalk Roy could see the black, smoking skeleton of the orphanage. The gates were closed and no people were visible on the grounds. An old man and a woman passed by on the other side of the street but they did not stop or look over.

Roy was about to leave when he saw a white-haired man wearing a long brown overcoat appear from around the other side of the orphanage. The man got into the red car and started it up but did not drive away, just sat in it with the motor running. Then tiny dots of light flashed on and off from the ruins like fireflies. Roy figured it was the men from the hook and ladders looking for sparks and smoldering debris.

The part of the sky right over what was left of Irredeemable Boys was a very dark green while all around it was almost entirely black. For some reason Roy had stopped shivering. Instead of getting colder, the air seemed warmer. Maybe it was about to snow.

 

Sad Stories of the Death of Kings

Roy's friend Magic Frank had a job cleaning up the Tip Top Burlesque House on Saturday and Sunday nights, which, because he began work at three thirty on the following days, was actually Sunday and Monday mornings. According to the law, during business hours patrons and workers at the Tip Top had to be at least eighteen years old and Magic Frank was only sixteen, but since the girlie shows stopped at three the city ordinance did not apply to him. He'd gotten the job through his older brother, Moose, who played poker on Thursday nights with the Tip Top's owner, Herman “Lights Out” Trugen. Moose told Frank that Trugen's nickname derived from his habit of turning out lights to save money on electricity. Trugen, who was in his sixties, supposedly had been pals with the comedic actor W. C. Fields, another famous miser who kept padlocks on his telephones to which only he had the keys. In Berlin, Moose said, Herman Trugen had operated a whorehouse favored by the Nazis, several of whom helped him escape Germany during the Holocaust. Trugen's two sisters and a brother had died in Auschwitz.

Magic Frank did not like to go alone to State and Congress, so on Christmas Eve he asked Roy to accompany him, promising to buy Roy breakfast after he'd finished mopping the theater and taking out the trash. It was already officially Christmas on Sunday night when the boys got to the Tip Top early, at two thirty, in order to catch the last show.

“I thought you couldn't get in until the place was closed,” Roy said.

“I got a key to the back door,” said Magic Frank, “and Trugen don't come in Sundays. The other guys don't care, they just nod or wave and let me sit and watch if I want.”

“What about the strippers?”

“What about 'em?”

“You know any?”

“Not really. By the time I come in, they're dog tired. They mostly just get dressed and leave.”

A cold, sporadic rain pelted the boys as they walked down Dearborn past Van Buren, then turned left on Congress Parkway, where a gust of wind hit them flush in the face.

“Jesus H. Christ!” Frank cried. “As soon as I can, I'm movin' to Miami.”

Magic Frank led Roy down an alley just west of State Street to the rear of the Tip Top and unlocked the back door. Roy followed him through the offices into the theater. The show was on so the boys snuck up a side aisle to the very last row and took seats. Two middle-aged, red-nosed men were on stage.

“Where was you last night, Al?” one asked the other.

“Inna cemetery.”

“A cemetery?”

“That's right, Joe.”

“What were you doin' inna cemetery at night?”

“Buryin' a stiff.”

The dozen or so members of the audience barely acknowledged this stale joke despite an urgent roll on the snare drum and the cymbal crash that punctuated it. To Roy, the comedians looked as beat as the pit band sounded once they began an overture to the last stripper of the night.

“And now, for the delectation not to mention play-zeer of you germs out there,” announced Joe, the fellow who had performed the apocryphal interment, “direct from Paris—that's a burg in southern Illinois—guaranteed to raise your spirits if nothin' else, the proud proprietor of the best breasts in the Middle West, Miss May Flowers!”

May Flowers entered stage left as the duo departed stage right. Draped in a bodice-hugging, floor length, bright yellow gown, she sashayed around out of synch to the pit band's dull rendering of “Night Train.” Her high-piled hair was fiery red.

“Sonny Liston uses this tune to jump rope by,” Roy whispered to Magic Frank.

Before she stripped, Miss Flowers looked to be about forty years old. After her act was finished, Roy thought, she looked even older. Her breasts were long and narrow and set wide apart, the nipples sporting silver pasties; once released from imprisonment, they depended almost to her hips. During May's flounce and inevitable divestiture, the few witnesses who had paid to get in out of the cold expressed no particular emotions that Roy could easily discern. Most of them remained passive, if not in fact comatose, undisturbed by this jactitative offering. Those individuals deep in slumber went undetected by the performer, their snores rendered inaudible by the unenthusiastic strains of Jimmy Forrest's signature composition. May Flowers completed her act without much of a flourish. Once having shed all but a strategically positioned gold lam
é
triangle, she strode quickly out of sight and for all anyone knew directly out of the building.

Miss Flowers was not in evidence once Roy and Magic Frank went backstage. The musicians beat a hasty retreat as well, and two cadaverous-complexioned ushers hustled the patrons into the inhospitable night. It was part of Frank's job to turn off the lights and make sure the doors were locked, so the ushers took off as soon as they were certain all of the customers had gone.

Roy asked Magic Frank if there was anything he could do to help him, and Frank said he could empty the waste baskets from the office and dump them into a garbage can in the alley. Roy consolidated the contents of the several baskets into one and carried it outside, careful to prop open the door with a chair so as not to lock himself out. As he was emptying the trash, May Flowers walked out of the theater into the alley, carrying a bag and a box with a handle. She was wearing a big beaver coat with a small matching hat. Roy shivered in the icy rain.

“Nasty night, ain't it?” she said.

Roy looked at her and asked, “How do you get all of your hair under that little hat?”

“You mean the wig I wear durin' my act? It's in here,” said May Flowers, lifting the box. “There's a pack of cigs and a lighter in the left side pocket of my coat. Could you be a good egg and take 'em out and light one up for me?”

Roy put down the waste basket, fished a hand into the pocket of May's coat and dug out a pack of Viceroys and a gold lighter.

“Pull one and torch it, honey,” she said.

Roy put a cigarette between his lips and flicked the lighter. Up close, she looked a lot like his grandmother.

“Just stick it in,” said May Flowers, parting her lips.

Roy transferred the Viceroy from his mouth to hers, then replaced the pack in the beaver coat pocket.

“You're a livin' doll,” she said. “Don't you end up like these bums come in this dive don't do nothin' but tell each other sad stories of the death of kings. Merry Christmas.”

May Flowers walked away. Roy picked up the waste basket and went back into the building. Magic Frank was putting a mop and bucket into a closet.

“I just saw May Flowers in the alley,” Roy told him. “She asked me to light a cigarette for her.”

“No kiddin'. What else did she say?”

“That I shouldn't end up like the men who come here.”

Later, when the boys were in a diner, Frank said, “Wow, first night at the Tip Top and you got to meet May Flowers.”

A scabrous Christmas tree, bedraped sparingly with tinsel, stood by the door.

“Yeah,” said Roy, “but I wish I hadn't seen her breasts first.”

 

The Sultan

James “The Sultan” Word died last week. I read his obituary in the local newspaper, one of the paid obits, not a byline in the sports section, which he deserved. The Sultan was a terrific prize fighter for fifteen years, a guy nobody liked to fight, a counterpuncher who made opponents come to him. If he got in with a hard charger who tried to wrap him up, Word would wade in quickly and catch him by surprise. According to the paper, James was one month shy of his fiftieth birthday when he died; no reason for his demise was given.

I remembered that he worked for the sanitation department as a garbage collector back in his boxing days because his income from matches was erratic. The Sultan was a sweet character, a soft-spoken, tan-complexioned, good-looking welterweight with a Ray Robinson mustache and permanent smile. He was given his nickname by Aroundel X, a Black Muslim friend of Word's, who told James that he resembled a Mohammedan Sultan and was put on earth to dominate any Turks who dared to defy him. I don't know that James bought into Aroundel X's concept, but the nickname stuck.

The Sultan and I played chess together on Saturday mornings at Yardbird's Gym when it was on Magazine Street while my sons worked out on the bags and sparred in the ring. One-eyed Eddie, James's trainer, let him rest Saturdays and tutored my boys while we played on a card table off to one side. The Sultan played chess the way he fought, shyly, staying away until I made an improvident move, depending on an opponent's impatience to provide him an opening so that he could sneak in a shot. Win or lose, The Sultan never stopped smiling.

I went to his funeral. It was on a Friday and the weather was awful, raining hard with thunder and lightning and even a little hail. I was one of three or four white men among about thirty or forty black people. After it was over I walked away alone and as I did I noticed a stocky young man with big ears who reminded me of a kid I once knew named Ernie Nederland. I first met Nederland when we were both in sixth grade. We went to different schools, so we ran into each other occasionally, at parties or hanging out at parks around town. Ernie was a good-looking guy, girls liked him even though his ears stuck out, and at twelve or thirteen years old he already had the reputation of being a tough kid. He and I got along well whenever we encountered one another; he never seemed particularly aggressive but it was clear that he thought highly of himself. Nederland's rep stemmed from his family being connected to The Outfit; his uncle was a federal judge who supposedly was in their pocket, and Ernie's old man was a big deal in the city sanitation department, which was famously controlled by organized crime.

A few years after I moved away, an old friend of mine from high school told me that Ernie Nederland had become a button man. Ernie owned a gas station on the West Side but he made his real bread by shooting people at the behest of The Outfit. According to my friend, as long as Ernie's victims were known or suspected criminals, his uncle the judge protected him; even if Nederland was arrested, he was never prosecuted.

I don't know what became of Ernie. When I was in my car driving away from The Sultan's funeral, I recalled watching Ernie Nederland in a fistfight on a school playground when we were about fifteen. Nederland kept a grin on his face while he fought, and like James Word he let his opponent come to him, taking punches on his arms and elbows without letting the other guy get a clean shot at his face. I'm sure Ernie lost a fight now and again but the time I'm talking about he slipped every roundhouse right and rabbit-punched the kid hard with his left hand, which he used like a hammer. That fight ended after Nederland dropped the other boy, then picked up a two-foot length of lead pipe he'd brought along and cracked the kid's skull with it. Ernie never stopped smiling the whole time.

The Sultan didn't, either. I watched him spar numerous times and fight a half dozen and he was always smiling, even when he got hit. I figured he did this to unnerve his opponent, to not let him know he was hurt, a common enough ploy. I thought it a little bit interesting that both The Sultan and Ernie Nederland's dad were in the sanitation business. As far as I know, Ernie never hoisted a garbage can so long as he could handle a lead pipe or a gun.

Nederland did tell me a story once, a year or so before I saw him pipe that kid. We were at a party and he noticed that I was watching one girl dance with more than casual interest. She had a ponytail and was wearing a yellow sweater. She was dancing with another girl.

“You know her?” Ernie asked me.

“No,” I said. “Do you?”

“I know about her.”

“What do you know?”

“She's dyin'.”

I looked at him. “How do you know?” I looked back at her. “She doesn't look sick.”

“She had a heart operation, got a thick scar on her chest from where the doctors opened her up.”

“She showed you?”

Ernie shook his head. “An older guy I know, Al Phillips, done it with her a few times. He's seen it.”

It was uncommon for kids in those days, especially girls, to have sex before the age of sixteen or seventeen, but I believed Nederland.

“How do you know for sure that she's dying?”

Ernie pulled a pack of Camels from a pocket, shook one out, lit it and inhaled.

“Want one?” he asked.

“No, thanks,” I said.

Nederland blew a couple of smoke rings.

“Al Phillips told me,” he said. “Doctors told her folks after she got out of the hospital a year ago, when she was twelve and a half, that she should enjoy herself for the time she had left. They didn't say how long that might be. It's probably why she started doin' it so young. Her name's Daisy Green.”

I watched Daisy Green dance. She moved better than most of the other girls.

“Real slinky, ain't she?” said Nederland. “Al says she'll do anything.”

He rapidly exhaled a trio of smoke rings and went to talk to somebody on the other side of the room.

The record that had been playing ended and “Good Golly, Miss Molly” came on. Daisy Green and the other girl continued dancing together. I thought about cutting in but I didn't. It felt strange knowing that she would be dead soon and that she was more sexually experienced than I.

A week after The Sultan's funeral there was a small article in the newspaper stating that police had arrested a man suspected of having murdered James Word during an attempted street robbery. The suspect, Tyrus Chatmon, had shot James twice in the chest. There were photographs of Chatmon and Word; only The Sultan was smiling.