Free L.A. Noire: The Collected Stories by Jonathan Santlofer Page A

K.K.—& Betty Short.
    It was such cruelty—to ask if he might kiss me & when I shut my eyes, to press the chloroform cloth against my nose & mouth!
    For in the romance movies always the kiss is with shut eyes —the camera is close-up to the woman’s beautiful smooth face & long-lashed shut eyes.
    And the romance music.
    Except in actual life—there is no music. Only the sound of the man’s grunting & the girl trying to draw breath to scream, to scream, to scream—in silence.
    & such cruelty, to slash the corners of my mouth smiling in terror & hope to “charm”—slashing my mouth to my ears so that my face that had been a beautiful face would become a hideous clown-face that can never cease grinning.
    & my breasts that were milky-pale & beautiful—so stabbed & mutilated, the hardened coroner could barely examine.
    & the autopsy revealed contents of my stomach too filthy & shameful to be stated—the man would subordinate the girl utterly in all ways, & why could not be imagined…
    What I am hoping you will comprehend—if you would listen to my words & not stare in horror & disgust at the “remains” of me—(the morgue photos have been published & posted everywhere—there is no escape from shame & ignominy, in death—the two halves of me “separated” with a butcher knife the Bone Doctor wielded laying my lifeless body on two planks across a bathtub—in the house on Norfolk, that I had never seen before in all of my life—with this knife the cruel maniac tore & sawed at my midriff—my pearly-pale skin that was so beautiful & desirable—that my blood would fall & drain into the tub—& these halves of my body he would wrap in dirty plastic curtains to carry away to dispose of like trash in a public place to create a spectacle for all to stare at in revulsion & titillation enduring for years)—if you would listen to my words post mortem , I am trying to explain that though Norma Jeane has become famous throughout the world, as MARILYN MONROE, it was a chance thing at the time in January 1947, it was a wisp of a chance, fragile as those feathery spiraling seeds of trees in the spring blown in the wind & catching in your hair & eyelashes—it was not a decreed thing but mere chance that Norma Jeane would become MARILYN MONROE & Elizabeth Short would become THE BLACK DAHLIA pitied & scorned in death & not ever understood, & the cruelest lies spread about me. What I am saying is that if you’d known us, Betty Short & Norma Jeane Baker, in those days, when we were roommates & close as sisters you would not have guessed which one of us would ascend to stellar heights & which would be flung into the pits of Hell, I swear you would not .
    K.K. had photographed Norma Jeane when she was working in a factory in Burbank—but she’d never do a nude for him, she said.
    A “nude” is all the calendar men want—if you don’t strip, forget it. No matter how gorgeous your face is—nobody gives a damn.
    When K.K. saw us in the Canteen, & invited us to his studio to be photographed, it was Betty Short he stared at most, & not Norma Jeane he’d already photographed and had hit a dead-end—he thought. ‘Cause she would not pose nude.
    It was Betty Short who engaged K.K. in sparky repartee like Carole Lombard on the screen not Norma Jeane who bit her thumbnail smiling & blushing like a dimwit.
    It was Betty Short who said yes maybe. Can’t promise but maybe, yes.
    It was Norma Jeane who just giggled, and murmured something nobody could hear.
    I was twenty then. I was so gorgeous, walking into the Top Hat—or the Canteen—or some drug store—every eye turned on me in the wild thought— Ohh is that Hedy Lamarr?
    Norma Jeane said if she walked into some place eyes would flash on her and people would think— Ohh is that Jean Harlow?
    Bullshit! Norma Jeane never was mistook for Jean Harlow, I can swear to it.
    I was not jealous of Norma. In fact, Norma was like a sister to me. A true sister—she’d lend me