The back door opened. Danny Getchell walked in.
The Hush-Hush guy.
Who:
Called me a “pretty-boy pantywaist” and a “pusillanimous punk.”
Who:
Called my mom a “maladroit madonna” and my pop the “punk’s paterfamilias.”
I saw Danny. Danny saw me. He grabbed the rubbers and ran. He cut through the parking lot and jumped into a blue Merc coupe. I chased him. He gunned the engine. He yelled, “Commie castrato Contino can’t run for shit!”
I ran harder. I gained ground. Danny put the car in gear and goosed it out of reach.
He yelled, “Lefty loser less than lethal at Legion loyaltyfest!”
I ran harder. I gained ground. Danny goosed the car out of reach.
He yelled, “Ballsy bandit burgles boffo batch of brand-name booze! Less-than-lethal loser left in lurch!”
I ran harder. I gained ground. I hooked around to the front of the hall and hauled ass.
Danny goosed the car out of reach. I slipped on a pile of my dad’s cold cuts. I hit the street ass-over-elbows and ate hot exhaust fumes.
2
Howard refused to front me the coin for a room. I moved into my dad’s bomb shelter.
I treated my elbows and knees. I climbed into a bongo shirt and peggers. I called Linda Sidwell’s house and left a message with her mom.
Tell Linda to pack for ground zero. Make an atom-bomb sound. Tell her we’ll head for Hiroshima and level the town with our love.
I was desperate. I was walking the lonely streets of Shit City. The bad guys dug me. The good guys feared me. The lung gig was my welcome-home highlight. Howard said we could sell the lung-ward kids accordion lessons and spring my ax from the hock shop. My comeback would boom from there.
I didn’t buy it. I felt one of my Patented Post-Passive Rages poised to pop. I lashed out once in a billion blue moons. I imploded all my impacted shit inward and outward and took it out on inanimate objects.
The bomb shelter smelled like a catbox. I taped some nudie pix to the ceiling above my cot and stretched out to slam the ham.
I noticed two envelopes on the nightstand. My mom must have brought them in. They were perfume dipped and pale blue linen.
I picked them up. I sniffed them. I saw my name and address. The back flaps were stained at the edge. Prison mail was steamed open, read, and resealed. This looked like the same thing.
The postmarks read 2/18 and 2/20/54. The return-address stickers read:
Vivian Woodard, 348 South Muirfield Road, Los Angeles, 4, California.
“Woodard”–as in “L. Trent.” Swank Hancock Park.
I opened the envelopes. I read the letters inside. Passionate passages pounced on me.
“Your art is dubious and derivative, but you play with an astounding sensual conviction.” “My husband admires your struggle and your blunt and wrenching admissions of your fear, and is concurrently vexed by your power over me.” “You cannot be socially enlightened without acknowledging Dick Contino as a symbol of candor and transcendent vulnerability.” “I want you inside me. I want to swing off the axis where our loins meet in wetness and tumescence.” “Your music is my anthem. Your seed is the hot ink that courses through my veins and my pen as I write these words.”
Oooooooooh, Daddy-o!!!!!
I read the letters four times. I circled the sex stuff. I taped the letters to the ceiling above my cot and formed an erotic collage.
Somebody banged on my door. My mom yelled, “Dick! Oscar’s on the phone!”
Oscar Levant said, “You’re a schmuck. You’re also a schmendrick, a schlemiel, and a schlemazel.”
Oscar was pissed. Freddy Otash cut down his dope dose. Oscar said Freddy extorted the shit out of schvartze jazz musicians. Freddy didn’t want Oscar to overdose and die. Hush-Hush couldn’t fly without his sinful and sincere sinuendo.
I tilted my chair back. I scoped out the nut ward. Oscar tilted his chair back and tracked my eyes.
The rec room was chock-full of nuts. An orderly was marching an old man around. The old man was talking non-stop and drooling into a cup.
Oscar said, “Pops is a Wall Street trader. He recites nursery rhymes, with some insider stock tips laced into the flow. The orderly is Freddy O’s watchdog. He keeps an eye on me, pumps the old guy for stock tips, and feeds them to Freddy.”