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

clothes, money. Not like my bitch-sisters back in Medford, cut me out of their lives like I was dirt.
    ‘Cause I left home, & went to live in California. ‘Cause it was obvious to me, my destiny was in Hollywood not boring Medford.
    ‘Cause I wore black. Know why? Black is style.
    When I was just seventeen, in Vallejo, before I’d even caught on about style —something wonderful happened to me.
    You would be led to believe it was the first of many such honors culminating in an Academy Award Oscar for Best Actress…
    It was the nicest surprise of my life. It was a surprise to change my life.
    I had not even entered my own self in the competition but some guys I knew, at Camp Cooke, entered pictures they’d taken of me, when I was cashier at the PX there—all of the soldiers & their officers voted & when the ballots were counted of twelve girls entered it was ELIZABETH SHORT who had won the title CAMP CUTIE OF CAMP COOKE.
    This was June 1941. Six & a half years yet to live. On my grave marker it would’ve been such a kindness to carve ELIZABETH SHORT 1924–1947 CAMP CUTIE OF CAMP COOKE 1941 but not a one of you selfish bastards remembered.

K. KEINHARDT:

    Looking through my camera lens sometimes I thought Betty Short was the one. Other times, I thought Norma Jeane Baker.
    Betty was the dark-haired beauty— THE BLACK DAHLIA . Norma Jeane was THE WHITE ROSE to me—in secret—her skin like white-rose-petals & face like a china doll’s.
    Betty had the “vivacious” personality—Norma Jeane was shy and withdrawn almost—you’d have to coax her out, to meet the camera lens.
    Betty was all over you—it felt like her hands were on you—like she was about to crawl onto your lap and twine her arms around your neck and suck at your mouth like one of Dracula’s sisters.
    Sometimes a man wants that. Sometimes not.
    Norma Jeane was all quivery and whispery and holding-back even when she finally removed the smock I’d given her—to pose “nude” on the red velvet drapery. (You wouldn’t say “naked”—“naked” is like a corpse. “Nude” is art.) Like if you reached out to position Norma Jeane, just to touch her—she’d be shocked and recoil. Ohhh! Norma Jeane’s eyes widened, if I made a move toward her.
    I’d just laugh— For Christ’s sake, Norma! Nobody’s going to rape you O.K.?
    Fact is, I was afraid to touch THE WHITE ROSE —
    you could see the raw pleading in her blue eyes—the orphan-child pleading—no love any man could give Norma would be enough.
    & I did not want to love any of them—there is a terrible weakness in love like a sickness that could kill you—but not “K. Keinhardt”!
    THE BLACK DAHLIA was a different matter. I would not ever have loved Betty Short—but feared being involved with her, so anxious too for a career —& if you were close to Betty you would smell just faintly the odor of her badly rotted teeth—her breath was “stale”—so she chewed spearmint gum & smoked & learned to smile with her lips pursed & closed—a hard knowing look in her eyes.
    Fact is, I discovered Norma Jeane Baker— me .
    Lots of guys would claim her—seeing she’d one day be “Marilyn Monroe”—but in 1945 at the Radioplane factory in Burbank, Norma Jeane was just a girl-worker in denim coveralls—eighteen—not even the prettiest girl at the factory but Norma had something—“photogenic”—nobody else had. I took her picture for Stars & Stripes —in those factory-girl coveralls seen from the front, the rear, the side—“to boost the morale of G.I.’s overseas. And the phone rang off the hook— Who’s the girl? She’s a humdinger.
    See, I made her take off her wedding band for the shoot.
    All the girlie mags— Swank, Peek, Yank, Sir! —wanted Norma Jeane for their covers. But she’d never do a nude— Ohhhh! Gosh I just c-can’t…
    I knew she would, though. Just a matter of time—and needing money.
    Young girls needing money to live and older guys with money—in