Free Cold Bullets and Hot Babes: Dark Crime Stories by Arlette Lees Page A

break the bad news before I lost my nerve.
    “Mama, I’ll need a dress for the competition.”
    She stared straight ahead like she hadn’t heard me. She’d been pinching pennies to fix the TV. She didn’t want to hear about dresses. That was even worse than yearbooks and class rings, things I had yet to mention and probably never would.
    “It’s important, Mama. I’ll be standing in front of the whole auditorium.” “Phoenix,” she said to the TV. “Capitol of Arizona.” She rubbed her left foot. “My bunions are killing me. Wear the blue velvet Aunt Nora gave you for your birthday.”
    I was still talking to the back of her head. I stepped between her and the t.v. so she’d have to look at me.
    “That was three years ago! You passed it on to Cousin Virginia, don’t you remember?”
    Mama shifted her generous bulk and let go of her foot. The couch protested with a squeak of broken-down springs. She sighed heavily.
    “Well, I guess we’ll have to do something. Can’t have you looking like the Shanty Irish now can we?” implying our roots were Lace Curtain, maybe Castle if we traced them back to Sligo.
    When I looked at Mama, schlumping on the couch, stuck to the TV, adding another ten pounds every year like interest on a rich man’s bank account, it’s hard to believe she used to be called Irish Rose. Old Man Bulger’s girl is a beauty. That Bulger girl is going places. Her eyes were a pale artificial-looking blue that amazed you at what nature could come up with and she still had shiny dark hair and perfect white skin, so I guess the stories are true.
    Mama gave a deathbed sigh and I knew what was coming.
    “I dreamed of becoming an airline hostess,” she said, as rain began to rattle against the windowpane. There was no escaping the oft-repeated tale so I listened politely like it was the first time, no moaning, no rolling of the eyes.
    “I know, Mama,” I said.
    “When I got pregnant in the eighth grade I told Old Da how Cousin Eddie had forced me. He made me swear on my rosary. Then he told me I had to put ‘unknown’ on the birth certificate where it says father’s name. No need to shame the family. He’d handle it, he said. That Eddie Malone, he was a loose cannon but be was well-liked in the neighborhood. Slander his name said Old Da it could hurt business at The Tammany. Who gives a shit what a bunch of boozers think? Then Father Henry kicked me out of St. Bede’s, and me on the honor roll, when everybody knew about him and Father Devlin. Hypocrites all of them. Never trust anyone in a position of authority. They’re all corrupt.”
    I was supposed to say Whatever happened to Eddie? So I did.
    “The next time I saw Eddie he had a broken nose, two black eyes and a missing tooth right up front. Looked like a pug gone down in the twelfth. That’s the way the Irish took care of business back then. After that Eddie crossed the street whenever he saw me coming, like if he looked at my face he’d turn to stone, like I was the Medusa with a head full of snakes.” She shook her head, her eyes softening, remembering. “Eddie looked just like a young James Cagney, all cocky and full of it. Funny thing is, with a little persuasion be could have had me the right way.” Her blue eyes washed over me. “Dreams are a dangerous thing, Rosemary. Something always comes up.”
    “You’re scaring me Mama. Don’t talk that way.”
    I stopped listening and ran through the study words in my head: sociolinguistic...metasomatism...nidifugous...phlogistic....
    Pompous, pedantic words I’d probably never use. I simply wanted books for college so I could become an English teacher, wear nice clothes, go to the dentist if I had a toothache or to a Jerry Lee Lewis performance with enough money left over for a hamburger and a shake.
    Rain clattered like gravel against the window. I walked across the tattered linoleum and looked into the gathering darkness. Mama was still talking, mostly to herself