“Mr. Thurmond, I’d like you to meet our oldest resident, the woman we’ve been talking about: Katharine. Miss Kate, this here is Mr. Thurmond.”
“Pleased to meet you, I’m sure.”
“And it’s a pleasure to meet you as well, ma’am.”
“Mr. Thurmond came here all the way from Hollywood, California.”
“Hollywood, did you? Why, you must know-oh, what are their names?-Myrna Loy and Norma Shearer! They’re so beautiful. Are you friends of theirs, Mr. Thurmond?”
“I’m afraid not, ma’am. I’m here to do research for Quentin-“
“Oh, you can call me Kate. Why don’t you sit down? I don’t get many visitors these days. I reckon you know why that is.”
“Miss Kate, now take it easy. Mr. Thurmond here wants to ask you some questions.”
“Only if that’s all right with you, ma’am. I mean Kate.”
“All right? Of course, it’s all right.”
“Well, I’ll just leave the two of you to get acquainted.”
“You go on ahead. Mr. Thurmond and I have some talking to do. What they call you at home, Mr. Thurmond?”
“My first name is Evelyn.”
“That right? I’ll be. I guess I’ll call you Ev, then. And you can call me Kate.”
“You are very kind, Kate. I’m doing some research, you see. The research involves you and some people you used to know. People in your circle. Friends and family.”
“Now you’re cooking with gas, Ev. You’re Presbyterian, ain’t you?”
“Beg pardon?”
“I say you’re cooking with gas. Those are the most important things in the world. Friends and family. You got a real nice way of saying that, Ev. You know, I always taught my boys to enjoy-well, you know what I’m trying to say. I told them that money is all well and fine and the good Lord knows you can’t go far in this world without it. When you get a lot of that money, the way we did, then sometimes, I told them, it’s easy to forget all the things you wanted that money for, things like such as like your family, your friends, your food. Them is the things that matter deep down and not just the money itself.”
“You explained that to them?”
“I did. But you know how boys are. Most of the time it was like talking to the sink. All they ever thought about in them days was working. They may not have been all that much to look at, my boys, but they had so much ambition back then, it was hard for me to tell them to take it easy, but that’s what I kept saying, even to Fred Burke, a friend of my son Freddie, which is what I guess you’d call a coincidence.”
“A coincidence? Yes. I see.”
“Oh, Fred Burke was such a good looking young man, turned the heads of all the ladies, he did, young and old alike. He was one mighty fine dresser, that boy was. Plus he was the type that knew just what to order in your fancy restaurants and such. He was the type other men on the street called ‘Sir,’ unless they were friends, in which case they called him ‘Mr. Burke.’ But I always called him ‘Junior,’ to make him feel different from my own son Freddie, which I guess you’d call a coincidence.”
“Oh, I agree, Kate. Very much so.”
“And besides that it made my own Freddie feel like a big shot himself, being the senior and all.”
“Kate, do you happen to remember Valentine Day’s of 1929?”
“Do I? Do I? What them doctors tell you about me?”
“Nothing, I just-“
“They told you I’m forgetful.”
“They said-“
“They told you I’m senile!”
“They only-“
“They said I was demented!”
“Kate, listen, they didn’t-“
“That was only six years ago. Not like I would forget such a thing.”
“Six years? Is that all it’s been?”
“You have the nicest eyes, Mr. Thurmond. What did you say your first name was? Wait! They call you Ev. That’s right. So this Valentine’s Day morning you’re asking about, Ev, old Junior had spent the night on my divan. Fred-wasn’t his name quite the coincidence?-he wasn’t drunk nor nothing because Junior didn’t drink, even though he could tell you all about any kind of hooch there was, be it Scotch, rye, bourbon, gin, vodka, Canadian whiskey or wine. No, Junior wasn’t drunk. He was just asleep to the world and snoring like a little tuckered out puppy dog and he was sleeping because he was tired and he was tired because he’d been up most of the night going over the books with Freddie Goetz, another one of those coincidences you kept hearing about in those days. I know what you’re thinking, Ev. You must be thinking that ‘Freddie’ must have been a popular name and it sure was. I hear tell it means ‘peaceful ruler,’ which summed old young Junior up right fine. Anyway, I woke him up to ask him what I could fix him for his breakfast. Did you know what that name means?”
“No, ma’am. I mean, Kate, no, I did not.”
“I’m sure you really did. Where was I? Oh, Junior didn’t stretch or yawn or shake his head or nothing like that. He just looked at the clock and said, ‘Ma, did I get any telephone calls?’ I told him the telephone hadn’t made any noise, which was only the God’s honest truth, but Junior twitched just a little and he stood up and fanned the wrinkles out of his clothes. He said, ‘Freddie Goetz will call around ten this morning.’
“I smiled at him. Junior was such a serious boy that his forehead grew those little ridges just like they have in those potato chips and around his blue eyes there pecked these little crow feet and his lips didn’t much turn up or down, unless he was working, which was something he so loved to do. You don’t happen to smoke, do you, Mr. Thurmond?”
“I’m afraid not, Kate.”
“I haven’t had a good smoke since I got into this God damn hospital, you’ll pardon my language. Where was I? I was telling about Junior. I brought him a hot cup of coffee from the percolator and I stared at him and he stared through the steam and he popped a cigarette out of his gold case and lit it with the same hand all in one movement, all with that style he had. I can still smell that brand he used to smoke. They was called Juleps. That was the brand. Real minty, they was. So we was both staring at the same time, which I guess you’d call a coincidence. I was staring at him and he was staring at the steam off his coffee. I asked Junior about his plans for the day and he kept right on staring through that rising steam and I heard him say something under his breath about some business he had with Ray, Bob, and Freddie-that was Freddie Goetz, he was talking about. You could always tell which Freddie he meant by the way he said it. If he meant Freddie Goetz he always said ‘Freddie’ and if he meant himself he always said ‘Me’ and if he meant my son Freddie then he’d say ‘Senior,’ so that helped us all tell them apart. Do you think they have any coffee in this place?”
“I’m sure I don’t know, Kate.”
“Well, if they do, they sure ain’t sharing none of it with us, are they? God Almighty, I keep losing my place. Wait! I know! Junior! I inched myself closer to the divan and said, ‘Junior.’ That’s what I always called him. I said, ‘Junior, I wish you’d get yourself a nice girl. This is Valentine’s Day. The day of love. You do like girls, don’t you?’
“His lips hardly moved at all and he kept right on staring at the steam. He said, ‘Ma, I ain’t like Senior. I go for girls just fine.’
“I says, ‘Then why don’t you call up Mary Anne Gusenberg? Or better yet, you could stop by her parents’ house with a loaf of bread and some Gouda. It never hurts to get in good with a young lady’s family, Junior.’”
“His beautiful young steady head moved in my general direction nice and slow, kind of like watching one of them submarine periscopes turning as it’s looking for frogmen. His head finally stopped and he says to me, ‘Gusenberg? She’s Pete Gusenberg’s daughter. Isn’t that right?’
“I told him it was just as right as it could be and all of a sudden a smile came to his face. I about dropped my own coffee cup because you just about never saw Junior smiling around the house unless he was talking about business. He went on talking. He says ‘I’ll run into Pete later this morning, Ma.’
“‘I’m sure he’d love a good slab of Gouda, Junior. Take him a loaf of Italian bread and-‘
“Junior laughed so hard he shook some of his coffee right out of his cup, a change of style that was more like Freddie-my boy, Freddie-than Junior any day of the week, except this one, which was a Thursday. Don’t reckon I know how I remember that. You know, Mr. Thurmond, I can remember things from way back then like they was just yesterday but ask me what I et for breakfast and I ain’t got no idea. They scold me around here like I’m some old lady. Of course, I actually thought about scolding Junior for his rudeness and then I changed my mind. Instead I said, ‘Junior, you have to slow down. You know, my own boys, they look up to you. Why don’t you try setting an example, one that your father would have liked? He didn’t always work all the time, day and night.’
“He blows his cigarette smoke into the coffee steam and runs into the kitchen to get a rag to mop up the spill he’d made. He tended to all that-he was such a focused lad. Then he sits himself back down and sips on the rest of his coffee. I just watch him and wait. Around the time of the last drop, he looks over at me. He says, ‘Ma, you been more like a mother to me than my own mother. You know that, right?’
“I reached over and patted down his hair in the back. Junior’s hair was black, a certain kind of black that you might call gun metal blue. I looked into his eyes and smiled while he looked back at me and didn’t smile one bit. I said, ‘A woman could open you up, Junior. She could open you up to the things in life that matter. Family, friendship, food.’
“‘You and the boys are my family. Friends I can buy on the street. Food? I know more about food than anyone on this street and you know it.’
“I suppose I just wanted to have a girl around the house. Someone I could have girl talks with. But he wasn’t having none of it. He snubbed out his cigarette between his thumb and finger. He said, ‘Ma, did you have a chance to iron my uniform like I asked?’
“‘It’s hanging in the hall closet, Junior.’ I told him.
“He didn’t say anything else. He just got up and went to the closet and disappeared into the bedroom. I kept sitting there listening in case he needed to say anything. Junior always liked people to pay close attention to the things he said. But he didn’t say anything else to me and he stayed in the bedroom until the telephone rang right at ten that morning.
“When it rang he grabbed the ear piece and must have said ‘Yes’ into the speaker hole ten times and then he hung up and left the house through the front door, looking so handsome in his policeman’s uniform.
“That was the last thing I ever heard him say because that was the last time I ever laid eyes or ears on Junior, but an old half-pint moron name of Byron something or other-I can’t recollect his Christian name-hung out in the neighborhood and he supposedly saw what happened and it was Byron who came right back later that day to tell me what he seen. Say, you know why I can’t recollect his Christian name? It seems to me that Byron was a Jew. Do you know, Ev, if Jews have Christian names?”
“I honestly do not-“
“‘Yeah, Ma,’ this Byron says to me. ‘Mr. Burke pulls up in his police car and gets out. Freddie Goetz pulls up in another police car right behind him and gets out. I’m just leaning up against the mouth of the alley outside the garage. I don’t say nothing and nobody says nothing to me.’ Now you can believe that one if you want to but if you do then you don’t know Byron from Adam. Do you think Adam was a Jew, Ev?”
“Again I have no way-“
“Well, the boy carried on some more. He says, ‘So from across the street comes strutting Bob Carey and Ray Nugent. You don’t know them boys, but they’s a cold pair of guys. You think Mr. Burke’s made of ice? Nope. Ray and Bob, Ma, they’s made out of iceberg meat, I’ll tell you. They’re wearing these handsome suits like you see the guys up north wearing.’ Like Byron would know wool from ascot, that’s what I was thinking, but I just kept listening and nodding. He says, ‘Now I know Ray and Bob are strictly Southside guys, but that don’t stop them and they strut right over to Mr. Burke and Goetz and walk down the alley toward the garage. The two Freds-Mr. Burke, I mean, and Goetz-followed them. If you didn’t know any better, you’d have thought they was arresting the Southsides. Of course, that ain’t what happened.’
“This Byron sounded to me more full of crap than a Christmas turkey. I asked him, ‘What did happen, Byron?’
“‘I followed the four of them on in through the alley. I was laying back a ways just in case there was trouble. I don’t need trouble. I don’t want trouble.’
“This Byron always did run off at the mouth. It’s really a wonder he’s still alive, if he is, which he probably ain’t. When he finally got around to it, he said, ‘I’m down on all fours peeking between the Freds and the Southsides and I can see they got seven guys grabbing the wall off the S.M.C. Cartage garage. The Southsides reach under their jackets and hand Mr. Burke and Fred Goetz each a Tommy gun. Mr. Burke says something like, “Have a nice day, Bugs.” They start shooting. Lord, Ma, must have shot for half a minute. When it stopped you could hear some woman somewhere screaming bloody murder. They left the guns right there and I faded back against the wall. I didn’t think anybody even knew I was there. Then the damnedest thing happens. When Mr. Burke got about even with me, he turns that head of his and looks me right in the eye and says, “Nice day,” smiling all over his face.’
“That was six years ago this very day. Made all the Chicago papers. All that’s left of us these days is me and Freddie. That’s my boy, Freddie, I’m talking about. I don’t call him ‘Senior’ no more. What I hear is they was trying to rub out Bugs Moran. They didn’t get him. One of the Gusenberg boys looked so much like him, I guess they made a mistake. Well, no harm done. Ain’t nobody perfect except the good Lord up above. Here lately I’ve been feeling not all that healthy. The doctor calls it dementia. Freddie says I’m just crazy. He says that and laughs and I hear him say it and I laugh. The doctor says I should retire and I always tell him I have.”
“I want to thank you, Kate. Those are all the questions I have today.”
“Don’t be in a rush, Ev.”
“I don’t wish to tire you.”
“I’ll let you know when I’m tired. People think just because you’re an old lady you get tuckered out. Well, I never have and I never will.”
“Yes, ma’am. It’s just that I really do need to get going.”
“There’s something else you need to know, sonny. So just sit your gray behind back down in that chair.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Wha’d I tell you?”
“Yes, Kate.”
“That’s better. I know all you people on the outside, you think I’m crazy. Well, I’m crazy like a fox. I know I been in this hospital longer than any six years. I know my boys is either shot dead or laid up in jail, just like I know the story got out that the lousy coppers shot and killed me and Freddie back in ’35. Ain’t that right?”
“That has been said, yes.”
“You bet that has been said. Well, I’m here to tell you something else, Mr. Thurmond from Hollywood, California, who wants to leave before I say he can. Before he went away for taxes, Mr. Capone paid me a visit. I know you’ve heard of Mr. Capone. Freddie will tell you I dreamed this, but I know good and well and as the good Lord is my Savior it is true that Mr. Capone came to visit me. He sat right on that same divan that Junior sat on that morning. Mr. Capone says to me, he says, ‘Kate, I want to make sure you and Freddie are taken care of. I’m going away for a while. Junior can’t help you now. He’s doing some favors for me upstate.’
“Well, as sure as turkeys can fly that Mr. Capone reaches inside his jacket and takes out one of them thick brown envelopes. He puts it on the divan right next to him, he gets up, he kisses my hand and lets himself out the front door right. There was enough money in that envelope so that Freddie-that’s my boy I’m speaking of-wouldn’t never need to pull no more jobs again for the rest of his life. That’s how I been able to pay for staying in this place all these years. Still and all, the G-men keep sniffing around as if my boy was some kind of wild-eyed monster. I keep telling him what he needs is a girl to move in. Then maybe I’d have someone around here to have girl talk with.”
“Again, Miss Kate, I want to thank you for-“
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Go on, get out. You’ve got your story. Tell Myrna and Norma I said hello. Happy Valentine’s Day to you, sir.”
“The same to you, Mrs. Barker.”