Free Teen Angel by Sonia Pilcer

whispered mean things loud enough so she could hear. But all of them were immature, insecure, vomitatious, armpit gangrene. The world would be a much betterplace if they all fell into quicksand and contracted paralytic polio. As for Mrs. King, who sat there with her arms crossed like Big Chief Sitting Bullcrap, Sonny hoped she would die from the one-handed clap or rectal cancer, which she heard was the slowest and most painful way to go. She didn’t care one iota of a bit about the whole lot of them. She was going to have a woman-to-woman talk with D.B. who was mature, understanding, and had bigger tits than her mother and Mrs. King combined.

7
    “You live here?” Sonny asked as they entered a rundown building with metal sheets over many of the windows on 178th Street and St. Nicholas. Coon City, U.S.A.
    “My mother’s been here for over twenty years,” D.B. said as they rode up in the elevator with an angled mirror in one corner so you could see if a murderer crouched holding a knife or gun when it was already too late. “Our apartment is rent-controlled. The landlord keeps trying to have the building condemned but he hasn’t been able to. I think my mother once had a thing with him anyway.”
    The lightbulb in the hallway was out so they stood in darkness until D.B.’s mother answered the door. And if Sonny’s eyeballs could have popped out of their sockets like Kodak Brownie flashbulbs, they would have. Her mother was dressed in a turquoise silk kimono loosely sashed around her waist, revealing a black lace slip and the hugest
kazoombas
Sonny had ever seen in her life, notcounting in the movies.
She just couldn’t be D.B.’s mother
. Her kimono had a golden dragon embroidered across the front. And she wore black fishnet stockings, red patent leather spikes.
THIS COULDN’T BE ANYBODY’S MOTHER!
Her hair was long and wild like smoke.
Ava Gardner
. She wore red lipstick and her nails, painted the same color, were three inches long.
Rita Hayworth
. She was someone glamorous and important, not just D.B.’s mother.
    “Why don’t you come in …” she said like Elizabeth Taylor in
Butterfield 8
talking to Laurence Harvey. “You must excuse the way I look,” she said, following them into the living room. “I must look terrible.” She ran her hand through her hair.
    “No,” Sonny said, star-dazed, as if she was in the presence of a Hollywood goddess. “You’re beautiful.”
    D.B. interrupted her. “Ruth, this is Sonny. She’s the new girl I told you about.”
    “Oh yes. Hi. Really, I usually do get dressed by this time of day.”
    D.B. looked at her. “Yeah, just like yesterday.”
    “Well, I’ve been working. Real hard. I’ve been very busy choreographing.”
    “What’s that?” Sonny asked, still not able to take her eyes off Ruth.
How could this be D.B.’s mother?
    “I used to create dance numbers for nightclubs and theaters.”
    “Really? Wow …”
    “Oh, that was before your time. I almost had my own show once. Down at the Academy of Music on Fourteenth Street. What happened was the guy who was the backer, the one who had all the dough, pulled out of the deal at the last minute. But I already had my costumes custom-made for my money. I had this one made for me which was for a Mae West-type number where I sang and danced with six guys. It had a violet ostrich boa,” she said, her voice trailing off dreamily. “It was so elegant.”
    “Do you still have it?” Sonny asked.
    “Sure,” Ruth said. “You don’t just throw something out that cost you a couple bills. At least, I don’t. Do you want to see it?”
    Sonny nodded her head eagerly.
Veronica Lake
. Ruth walked out of the room. “Your mother’s gorgeous!” she whispered.
    “I guess so,” D.B. said. “Hey, when were you a finalist in the Miss New York City contest?”
    “1947!” Ruth called back. “Two years before I had you, kid, and my figure went to pot. I used to look pretty good, though.”
    D.B. walked down the