Ghost Years, page 3
“It’s why he laugh,” said Angelo.
“Dopo is a good customer,” said Rudy.
“And a big tipper,” said Big Louise, as she refilled Dopo’s cup.
“What’s a filthy ape doin’ sittin’ at a lunch counter?” said one of the men in the corner.
Dopo tipped his fez to Big Louise and showed his teeth. Rudy walked over to the man who had spoken.
“Finish your coffee and go,” he said. “No charge, Louise.”
Both of the men stared at Rudy for a moment, then stood up. Dopo made a screeching sound like a train putting on its brakes.
“Dopo say don’t forget to leave tip,” said Angelo.
One of the men reached into his pants pocket, took out a half dollar and slapped it down on the countertop before they left.
“I hope those guys don’t come back,” said Roy.
A couple of weeks later, Rudy asked Roy if he remembered the two men.
“Un huh. One of ’em insulted Dopo.”
“He’s in jail, the other one’s dead.”
“The guy who’s dead said he could get around anything. The guy who’s in jail didn’t think he could.”
“You can save yourself a lot of trouble, son, just by listening to what people say.”
“Monkeys listen too, Dad.”
Roy asked Big Louise if she knew what the crime was that the two men had committed.
“A hold up, Lou said. Nothin’ big, a pawn shop maybe. Those Jews carry guns.”
“What Jews?”
“Pawn brokers, most of ’em. I knew one, Max Fang, had a shop up on Congress, kept his big bills in an egg beater. Every so often a junkie came in shakin’ a rod and cleaned out the register, in which Max had only ones and fives. The Jews are shrewd, Roy, they’re survivors, had to be chased around like they been. My people are Polish Catholic and my grandfather used to say, ‘If only I were a Jew I’d be a rich man.’ ”
“My dad is Jewish,” said Roy, “so is Lou.”
“Yeah, but they’re different. Your dad is a tough guy but he’s real generous when he wants to be, doesn’t expect anything back. He knows how to take care of people. You could do worse than to be like him.”
When his mother picked him up from the store later that afternoon, Roy told her about the two men and what Big Louise had said about his father and the Jews. Like Louise, his mother was a Catholic.
“Louise is right about your dad,” she said, “but I can’t say anything about the rest of the Jews.”
Chicago 1956
Kitty had always gotten along well with her father-in-law, Ahab. He was fifty years older than Kitty when she married his youngest son, Rudy. Ahab loved to have Kitty on his arm when she accompanied him to a restaurant or nightclub. He had emigrated to America from Bucovina in the year following World War I with his four sons, his wife having died of tuberculosis during the war.
“In the Old Testament it says that Ahab fathered seventy boys,” he told Kitty. “I believe had Bella lived the long life that she deserved we might have come close to his mark.”
Ahab laughed after he said this, but it was clear to Kitty that even in his early seventies he remained strong and vigorous. The old man had remarried once, a year after coming to Chicago, where his uncle Ike had lived since before the war; unfortunately, Natalia died two years later in childbirth, as did their baby, a boy. Ahab decided never to marry again, to leave it to his sons to perpetuate the line. To his displeasure, however, his oldest son, David, fathered two daughters and his middle sons, Moses and Jerome, had not married. It was up to Kitty, Ahab told her, to give him a grandson, which she promptly did, naming him Roy—king—endearing Rudy’s bride to him for the remainder of his life.
One Sunday afternoon in May, Kitty, Rudy and his father went together to Riverview, an amusement park on Chicago’s north side. Kitty and Rudy rode a couple of the gentler roller coasters and competed at trying to knock down three milk bottles with a baseball, which neither of them managed to do. The three of them posed for a photograph together sitting inside a cardboard half moon, Kitty between the two men. In the photograph she looked even younger than her twenty-one years, and both Rudy and Ahab appeared relaxed and smiling.
Their outing was nearing an end as they were passing The Bobs, the fastest roller coaster in the park, when a man stood up at the apex of the climb to the top and leapt from the open car in which he, presumably, had been seated. Many people in the crowd screamed or shouted as they watched the man plunge to his death. A tall man standing next to Kitty said, “Happens about twice a year.” Rudy grabbed Kitty’s left arm and Ahab by his right and hurried them toward the exit.
That night Kitty said to Rudy, “I can’t get the sight of that guy jumping off the roller coaster out of my mind. I still don’t believe it really happened.”
“When I was eight years old, before we left the old country, I saw a kid fall off the roof of an apartment building and hit the sidewalk in front of me. He must have been eleven or twelve, I didn’t know him. He landed on his head and both of his eyes popped out.”
“Rudy, stop! Don’t tell me any more. You must have been horrified and frightened.”
“Surprised, sure, but not frightened. I figured some other kid had pushed him over the edge.”
“Did you tell your parents?”
“I don’t remember. I don’t think so.”
“I hope I won’t have a nightmare,” Kitty said. “I’ll never go to Riverview again. And you know that photo of us in the moon? If I look at it I’ll always remember what happened.”
“It’s a nice picture,” said Rudy, “let’s keep it, anyway.”
Parris Island
“I spent the summer I was sixteen on Parris Island, South Carolina, where my brother, Buck, was stationed with the navy. Our mother was married then to her second husband and they didn’t want me around. I left boarding school and two days later I was put on a train at Union Station in Chicago. Buck was married to his first wife, Katarina, and since he was already a commissioned officer—a lieutenant commander—they had a nice apartment off the base.
“Katarina was a party giver, she liked to entertain, to have company. They even had a grand piano in the living room, which she encouraged me to play during their cocktail gatherings. Popular songs, ‘Stardust,’ ‘You Stepped Out of a Dream,’ ‘Stars Fell on Alabama.’ I was pretty good, I’d taken lessons since I was five, and my mother could play and sing. Most of the guests were officers and their wives, many of whom complimented me, and after they’d had a couple of Buck’s martinis one or more of the men made suggestive remarks to me. Katarina protected me, though. She was very smart, she’d taught calculus and read poetry by Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot. She was lousy elegant, sophisticated but unpretentious, she kept control of the scene. I liked her and admired her looks. She was a natural platinum blonde, a bit severe looking but attractive. She wore her hair pulled back tightly against her skull, which exaggerated her high ckeekbones and wide mouth. My brother was at his handsomest, he resembled Errol Flynn or Ronald Colman. The wives of the other officers were crazy for him. To her credit, Katarina got a kick out of their sometimes shameless behavior. She made sure these women knew he was her property and she revelled in their envy. I was quite shy at that time. I was impressed by Katarina’s casually icy savoir-faire. Being in that atmosphere was a treat for me after having spent several months at Our Lady of Everlasting Obedience. I had a good time that summer on Parris Island.”
“My, Kitty,” said Polly Page, “it’s fun to hear you talk about yourself. Are you this forthcoming when you see your psychiatrist?”
“Oh, no. I only saw him a couple of times. He prescribed pills that made me dopey. June DeLisa sent me to him, she lives on those pills. There was no way I could open up to him. I can’t talk to men, I never could.”
“Even your husbands?”
“Especially them. I tell stories about my life to Roy, he’s a good listener.”
“He’s only eight years old, Kitty. He’s incapable of understanding your innermost feelings about things, you can’t share your most intimate thoughts.”
Kitty lit a cigarette and looked out the dining-room window. Daylight was disappearing.
“Buck went to prison for two years. Did you know that?”
“No. What for?”
“While he was in the navy, as a civil engineer he was in charge of handing out construction contracts to private companies. He took bribes and got caught. I was eighteen. My father visited him when he was in the military penitentiary in New Hampshire.”
“What happed to Katarina?”
“She divorced him after he got out. I remember when he was living in a one-room basement apartment with a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling on LaSalle Street. It really made me sad.”
“Did you ever talk to him about any of this?”
“I only asked him one question: ‘What happened to the grand piano?’ ”
Both women laughed, and Polly said, “Katarina took it.”
“Of course. Buck said she sold it for much less than it was worth.”
After Polly left, Kitty recalled the time she was six years old, walking on a sidewalk with Buck, who had just graduated from the University of Alabama and was back in Chicago for a brief visit, when a loose, snarling, barking dog approached them. Buck moved in front of Kitty, as he did so shielding her behind him. He spoke calmly to the dog and it slowly backed off, though continuing to growl and bare its big yellow teeth. Buck and Kitty passed by without altering their pace and the dog kept its distance. Kitty asked Buck what he’d said to prevent it from attacking them and he told her, “It wasn’t what I said, it was how I said it.”
The light had gone but Kitty did not turn on a lamp. If the phone rang she wouldn’t answer it.
Beautiful Enough
Kitty’s doctor’s prescription for her nervous condition was to “go somewhere warm and lie in the sun. It’ll help you relax and heal the sores on your skin. Rub in the ointment I gave you three or four times a day and the eczema will clear up in a couple of weeks. You need to get away from this cold weather.”
Kitty told her husband, Rudy, what the doctor said, and she and their five-year-old son, Roy, left Chicago two days later. They moved into a suite at the Casa Tropical Hotel on Cayo Divino three hundred miles south of Miami. Most of the citizens of Cayo Divino in 1950 were Cuban or of Cuban descent. Visitors to the island were usually either sport fishermen or people who needed to disappear for a while. Rudy had friends who got lost down there until it was okay for them to go back to wherever they came from. Other than a few bars and a small aquarium there wasn’t much to offer in the way of amusement; for that there was a ferry once a day to Havana that took eleven hours.
Cayo Divino had not completely recovered from the Great Depression of the 1930s; many locals made a living salvaging wreckage off sunken or disabled ships. Other than that the only regular work was in the four resort hotels. Kitty wanted peace and quiet. Rudy, who often had business to conduct in Havana, told her to stay in Florida for as long as it took for her to get better; he promised to stop in Cayo Divino for a few days to or from there to Chicago. She sunbathed, swam in the Atlantic Ocean and slept well. Roy played with the Cuban kids who lived around the hotel, got to know the employees and enjoyed meeting and talking to the other guests.
Late one morning Kitty was sitting in a lounge chair on the lawn behind the hotel reading a magazine when a man approached her.
“Pardon me, Miss. I don’t mean to disturb you, but I believe I’ve seen you before.”
Kitty looked up at him.
“Have we met?”
“No. You’re in the movies, aren’t you?”
“You’re mistaken. I only go to the movies.”
“My name is Guy Rubenstein, from New York. You certainly could be.”
“Could be what?”
“In the movies. You’re beautiful enough.”
“I’m Kitty, from Chicago. And I’m Mrs., not Miss.”
“Twice mistaken. I’m sorry to have bothered you, Kitty from Chicago.”
He walked away. Good looking, Kitty thought, in a slightly slithery Zachary Scott kind of way. Tall but not too tall, slender but probably strong. Jewish. Unusual first name for a Jew. The only man she knew of named Guy was Guy Madison, the cowboy actor.
That afternoon she and Roy were having lunch in the hotel dining room when Guy Rubenstein came in. As he passed their table he said hello to Kitty.
“Do you know that man?” asked Roy.
“No. He spoke to me earlier, when I was outside reading.”
“I saw him yesterday in front of the hotel kissing a woman. She got into a limousine going to Miami. After it drove away another woman came out of the hotel and he kissed her, too.”
“Did she also leave in a limo?”
“I don’t know. I went to meet up with Chico and Jorge. Who is he?”
“Nobody, honey. Just another guy.”
The next time Kitty saw Rubenstein was the following evening. He was sitting on a stool at the hotel bar with one arm around a blonde. Roy was with his mother and she asked him if that woman was one of the two he’d seen Guy Rubenstein kissing two days before.
“No. One of them had black hair and the other one’s hair was sort of dark red, like yours. Why?”
“Oh, I was just wondering how I’d look as a blonde.”
Lefty’s Hat
“Dad, do you know who that guy is? He’s been standing on the corner across the street all morning.”
Roy’s father came out of the door to his liquor store and looked at the man.
“No, son, I don’t think so. He’s either waiting for someone who’s late to meet him or maybe he’s got nowhere to go.”
“Everyone’s got someplace to go, don’t they?”
Rudy looked at Roy, who was five years old.
“No, not everyone. They just drift.”
“I like being alone sometimes, especially when I’m playing with my toy soldiers on the floor in my room.”
Rudy looked again at the man on the corner. He was in his forties or fifties, wearing a shabby dark blue overcoat with the collar turned up.
“It’s windy, Dad, he doesn’t have a hat. Can we buy him one?”
“Today is Sunday, the stores are closed. Wait here.”
Roy stood alone in the doorway for a few minutes. When his father came back he was holding a battered gray double-indented fedora. He handed it to Roy.
“Here, this hat belonged to Lefty Lefkowitz. He left it downstairs. Take it over and give it to that guy.”
“What if Lefty comes back for it?”
“He won’t be back.”
“How do you know?”
“Don’t get run over.”
Roy crossed the street and held out the hat to the man, who looked at him for a moment before accepting it. The man put it on his head, said something to Roy, then walked away. Roy came back without being run over.
“What did he say to you?”
“ ‘Cut off my legs and call me Shorty. It fits!’ ”
Rudy smiled. “You did a good thing, son. How do you feel now?”
Roy walked into the store without answering him and sat down on a stack of day-old newspapers. Rudy did not ask him again.
An Argument for the Existence of God
Kitty’s cousin Lurleen had always been jealous of her. Lurleen envied Kitty’s superior good looks, her early success as a model, her talent as a pianist, and her ability to attract handsome and wealthy suitors without trying. Lurleen’s marriage to a man who worked without complaint for her father in his jewelry business did nothing to assuage her envy of Kitty, even though both of her cousin’s marriages ended in divorce before she was thirty. She also disliked Kitty’s six-year-old son, Roy, for no reason other than that he paid no attention to her.
The women lived in the same apartment building on Chicago’s west side, which afforded Lurleen ample opportunity to observe the comings and goings of Kitty’s visitors. Lurleen was two years older and felt entitled to criticize and reprimand Kitty for what Lurleen considered her younger cousin’s improper behavior, most often involving men.
During a party in Kitty’s apartment, Lurleen’s husband, Herbert, got into an argument with Morgan Barnes, one of Kitty’s boyfriends. Herbert, a short, pudgy man, accused Morgan, who was six inches taller and in decidedly better physical condition than himself, of having insulted Lurleen by suggesting that she take it easy on her drinking. At the moment, she was holding glasses in both of her hands.
“Finish one cocktail before taking another,” Morgan told her, “and quit talking trash.”
“Mind your own business,” Herbert said. “Who do you think you are to order my wife what to do or say?”
“Her remarks about Kitty’s choice of men are out of line. She’s talking too loud and, in case you haven’t noticed, is about to fall down.”
Herbert attempted to slap Morgan’s face but the larger man grasped Herbert’s wrist before he could make contact.
“Unhand my husband, you brute!” shouted Lurleen.
Kitty came over and told her to quiet down.
“You’re ruining my party,” she said.
Morgan Barnes released Lurleen’s husband’s hand and spoke to her.
“Both of you had better get out of here before he gets hurt and you’re flat on your face.”
Kitty could see that her cousin was about to throw one of her drinks at Morgan but before she did Lurleen stopped herself, quickly knocked back what remained of the cocktail in her left hand, and dropped the glass.
“Finish the other one, too,” said Kitty, “and go back upstairs.”
Lurleen stared at her for a few seconds before staggering toward the door and disappeared, still holding the glass in her right hand. Herbert followed her out of the apartment.
“What’s her problem?” Morgan asked Kitty.
“The trouble with women is the feeling of control. They resent it when men automatically take control of a situation, or try to, and they despise what they perceive as weakness when men don’t.”
