Now Ca-Ca's cousin Mike was basically a good guy. He did stuff for people. Helps 'em fix their cars... babysits their pit bulls. Stuff like that. But if something wasn't nailed down when he needed money, or you weren't lookin'..oh well. He wrestled in high school. Knew how to get out of tight places. After they let him out of 'Moko' (an old Philadelphia slang term for prison... who knows what it means) he went into business for himself as a consultant... a breaking and entering consultant. Taught 'em how to do the shim-sham-shimmy... how to get into them tiny, cellar windows old Philadelphia row houses have. Back in the nineteenth century they were meant to accommodate coal chutes. But a couple generations later, when people switched to gas, they started putting little windows in 'em. Ditched all the coal bins. Laid down linoleum. Painted over the cement walls. Maybe painted the rafters too. Not exactly the 'family rooms' we have today. More like their great grandparents. But I digress.
The openings were about twelve inches high by sixteen across. Ca-Ca was small. She was ten years old. Once climbed into a dog house... a little dog house, like for a cocker spaniel. This was at a cousin's house in Jersey. Took 'em forty five minutes to find her. Had to lift the roof off to let her out and by then all the chicken and hamburgers were gone. All see got were hotdogs.
And there was more too it than shimmying through a horizontal 'dog door.' Mike had a whole system. First you criss crossed all the glass with duct tape. Then you break the duct tape coated glass with a rubber mallet. That way it keeps together. Less chance of cuts. You want to avoid anything that might draw blood, 'cause most times the cops don't run the DNA, but sometimes they do and DNA is what gets you locked up. That's why crooks bring a blanket. They drape it through the window frame (once the glass is broken) and let it hang down inside. First thing you do once your in is go up into the kitchen and open the back door. Houses without dogs are best. Cats will just leave you alone. And as for time, one to three o'clock on a drizzly night is best. Streets are real quiet on rainy nights... nobody outside..maybe a cheater comin' home late, but they don't wanna be noticed either.
Mike had a whole mock-up down his cellar. Aunt Connie, his mom, yelled - What are you doin' down there?!..... He said - Nothin.' I'm 'consultin.' Now shut up and suck a butt you old lady you!... Ca-Ca laughed. She liked her cousin, Mike. He was cool. She could smoke around him and everything.
Next night he taught her how to break open a small safe. Didn't charge or nothing. But she was gonna give him a nice kick-back depending on how much Pony's grandmom had... even more if he found a good pretend-mom whore. That must be like bein' an actress, Ca-Ca thought.
When her mom asked her where she was, she said 'Watchin' zombie crap with my cousin... Ca-Ca's mom never asked which cousin, 'cause some were just pretend cousins, but she did ask for the box of Rosemary and olive oil Triscuits.
Ca-Ca threw 'em at her and ran upstairs.
She prayed for God to send them a nice make-pretend-whore-mom...
Then she went to sleep...
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They thought about Esther's mother. Ca-Ca and Timothy sat in the tiny backyard and talked. It was easier to talk at Ca-Ca's house because her mother didn't move around much. She sat in the chair, climbed up to the toilet, spent maybe a few minutes in the kitchen making tuna fish for lunch, spaghetti and hamburgers (not meatballs) for dinner (that took a little longer) and that was it. Most days they used paper plates. On Friday afternoon she ran the vacuum. Ca-Ca dusted. Chores got done...sort of. Ca-Ca's father went to the market on Sunday. That was like a big outing. Sometimes she got a coloring book...Ca-Ca, I mean. Actually whole house liked coloring books. She could tell which pages her dad did, by the thick, heavy, dense blocks of color. Her mom was more subtle, shading in the crayons like paint. There was an old round can from Christmas cookies filled with broken crayons. She had it 'out back' now. Timothy liked to color too. But he only did it when he was with Ca-Ca. Then it was all right. They sat on the cheap, dull, white vinyl chairs resting the books on their laps. He had BARBIE ON VACATION!. She had BABIES & PUPPIES! They got them from the sale bin. Who cared? Ten year olds weren't supposed to color anyway.
Ca-Ca said - That detective-cop-guy was lookin' at us... Timothy didn't say anything.... Ca-Ca said - You want them to come get you? I don't want 'em to get me. You know, Jimmy What's-His-Names father is a cop and he curses like a drunken asshole. Once broke his mom's arm too. They said she slipped in the kitchen. Yeah, right. I hate cops. They're like them fat asses at school but with guns. You got a gun at your house?... Timothy went - I don't know.... Ca-Ca said - We do. He has 'em locked up down the cellar. One looks like a cowboy gun but not as long and black. One looks like an army gun. The other gun's a rifle. He goes to a gun place where they let you shot 'em. they got targets and keep score. Like Goofy Golf only with bullets...... Then silence... They color... Eight heartbeats later she says - How do you know it was Esther's ghost? How do you know it was real?..... Timothy shrugged and said - I just do... Your mom smelled her farts? - asked Ca-Ca..... He nodded. She thought for a while, then spoke - I saw a ghost once. Last winter. I went to sleep early on a Friday night, 'cause it was cold and all. Plus they were watchin' crappy shit on TV. So I took one a them High Lights magazines we get from school and got in bed. Goofus and Gallant should drop dead and go to hell....Them or the guy who draws them... Get to the ghost part - said Timothy.... She gave him a look and went on... Must have fallen asleep. Woke up later and turned off the lamp. Then, you know how my bed is right on the wall with the window? I sat up and raised the shade. Sometimes Mitzi from across the alley has guys over. When my light's off I can spy on 'em..... Tim giggles.... She says - So what? She's a tramp. It don't matter. Probably wants people to watch. But that night her house was dark. It was late. They were all dark. And it started to snow. You know that real quiet, light snow? Like that. That's when I seen it, the ghost, I mean. A kid comes walkin' along the top of all the back fences along the alley. Like a tightrope walker he was. Holdin' out his arms, keepin' balance and all. Only his clothes were funny, like what kids wore in an old Shirley Temple movie I once saw. Like from an old black and white movie where everybody's dead. That's why I don't like watchin' black and white movies, you know. Looks like ghosts are in 'em. I see him, the real ghost, I mean. And when he gets to our back fence he looks up like he sees me. Snows coming down. Sky's all nighttime gray, like it gets in the wintertime when it snows. You know what I mean? That's when I see he ain't got no feet. Got legs, but no feet. Walkin' on stumps he was. Then he makes a face like a crazy maniac and goes WHOOSH! right up toward my window. I scream. My father bangs on the door and goes - What happened? You all right?.... I say - I'm OK. Must a had a dream.... He says - All right. Go back to sleep.... I don't want to tell him about the ghost and all, 'cause I don't wanna go back to that mental place. But when I look out the window, the ghost ain't there. Still snowin', but no ghost.... Timothy doesn't say a word. Neither does Ca-Ca... Then she goes - Pony's grandmom had chest pains. Ambulance took her to the hospital. Didn't you see?... He goes - No. We went to see my new baby cousin..... She nods. Then she goes - Pony don't like to be in the house by herself. Shaky Head said. She was talking to Big Tits. I heard. Gonna stay at her friend's house. Nobody gonna be there, the house, I mean.... Timothy goes - So?... So the money's in there and I know how to get in. Right through the cellar window. You know that. Then we can run away..... You got a whore to pretend she's our mom yet? How we gonna check into motels? We need a whore. You said - he asks.
Ca-Ca finishes coloring in a baby and goes - My cousin, Mike, knows a whore. So mind your business. Shut your face and quit using up all my silver crayon.
The two of them sit there in the late afternoon November gloom, till Ca-Ca's mother drags herself into the kitchen and starts supper. You can hear the whine from the can opener outside....
Timothy puts back the crayon, closes the Barbie coloring book and leaves by the back fence door. Then he runs down the alley to the street and across to his house.
Ca-Ca just stares at the sky...
<to be continued>
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In case you've been with us since the beginning of the #HomicideWanderers arc, think of Ca-Ca as a ten year old Jodie Foster and think of Timothy as a ten year old Lucas Haas...That is unless you have ideas of your own.
Timothy stayed downstairs to watch an old movie. I think it was the 1939 ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD. He liked it, even though Robin Hood looked like Peter Pan, by way of The Burger King. Everyone else in the house was sleeping. So it was him, Errol Flynn and Olivia DeHaviland in a dim, almost dark living room. He burrowed under an afghan. It wasn't like the fleece throw from Walmart Ca-Ca's mother had. This was a thick, warm, crocheted work of art. His Great Aunt Josephine made it when she was laid up with her new hip. Only she got an infection and died. Now it was like a relic. Timothy felt warm and protected, whether by Aunt Josephine or a whole lot of high grade acrylic he couldn't tell.
But he fell asleep right after Robin Hood sword fights the bad guy... and when he woke up the house was dark, because the little lamp was on a timer and the TV turns off if nobody changes the channel for a few hours. Timothy was afraid to move... even to breathe...The dark made him remember.... Esther was dead and he knew why.... He hoped someone would go to the bathroom. He'd run up in the few seconds between the time they switched on the light (a little would wash downstairs) and the time they closed the door. But nobody had to pee. The little imitation French carriage clock his mom found on the bus chimed 'three.' That made it worse...
He thought about Esther. Maybe he thought too much. He couldn't help it. He trembled. A tiny sliver of watery, gray light from the pole by the corner snuck in between the drapes. He studied the point where it hit the rug. That's when he saw the shoe... A little girl's shoe from the Thom McAnn Collection at Kmart slid out of the blackness and under his not so rigid, little boy's sternum a nectarine sized heart skipped a beat.
Esther was there. She was with him. She raised her arm and pointed right at him. He saw the shoe. He saw the gray-white hand, but the rest was in darkness, though he could see the outline of her thin, meek form. She didn't make a sound... She just stood there, maybe six feet from his nest on the sofa.
Timothy prayed, not out loud, but in his head. Basically all he said was - God is with me. God is with me.... but he didn't feel that way. Then he hiccupped and she was gone... Was it a dream? Was it real? Does it make a difference? But he sat there, curled under the afghan, til dawn. Then he ran upstairs and peed his brains out.
When his mom got up to make pancakes (a Saturday tradition) he was still wrapped up in bed. But he heard her say - What smells like farts down here? as she passed through the living room... Esther, as we know, had a flatulence problem. That's why they killed her.
Later that day, (cold & gray) he sat on the frigid, marble steps in front of his house waiting for Ca-Ca to come out of her place. But just as she did... just as she opened the door and stepped out... a plain, black car rolled down the block and the detective guy from school was in it. He looked at them both.
Some things are worse than ghosts....
<to be continued>
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The next day was a Friday. They made 'harvest' decorations in class. You couldn't call them Thanksgiving decorations anymore, since that referenced The Divine and any mention of religion, save in the most passing and general manner, was forbidden. The student teacher, a skinny, personable girl from The Main Line, passed out stencils so those lacking artistic ability could have nice leaves too. Everyone was quiet. Kids like 'art.' And Friday afternoon is art time.
Timothy and Ca-Ca sat right next to each other and they were quiet too... almost calm. Cutting through two or three layers of construction paper can do that to you. Science doesn't know why. It just does. If you listened, you could hear the hum from the florescent lights. Esther's desk was still unoccupied. Her books and some personal things were still in it. She had an open ended desk. If you leaned to the side, you could still see them. Her mother said she'd come in to get them, but she hasn't done it yet. Timothy and Ca-Ca never looked over that way. Once a water bug did a crazy dance 'round Esther's desk. All the kids pointed and laughed. Some girls screamed... some boys too. Timothy looked over. His eyes scanned the interior of her desk for an instant, but he saw Esther's little, orange haired troll doll smiling back at him. He almost shit himself.
Right after restroom break (ten minutes, after two o'clock) a man entered the room. He gestured toward the teacher and she got up and followed him out into the hall. Ca-Ca looked. He wore a suit. Male teachers never wore suits. They wore big Hawaiian tops, or button down casual shirts with the sleeves rolled up. The suit-guy made her nervous. Her stomach started gurgling again. Since it happened...the murder, I mean... Ca-Ca'd been farting almost as bad as Esther. Nerves will do that to a person. Now she knew.... Then the teacher came back into the room, went straight to her desk, opened a drawer and took out the roll book. Ca-Ca watched as she returned to the hall and gave it to the suit-guy. A few other kids watched too, wide eyed and silent. Tim saw, but he pretended not to. The man was a cop. They all knew that. Kids from that neighborhood could tell. The teacher came back in. She looked sad. They heard the cop-guy walk away.
The 'bum' must have said something....
Forty five minutes later, as they walked home, Ca-Ca whispered - I can get in 'Pony's' house. Pony was the fat girl from across the street with the 'rich' grandmother. Her name was really Penny, but everybody called her Pony.... Timothy said - How?.... Ca-Ca said - Through the window, through her little basement window. They got them glass slats. The kind you crank open. Three of 'em. If you break the top one, you can slide the other two out. Then you twist the wing nuts and push in the regular glass..... What's a wing nut? - said Timothy. ... Ca-Ca told him to drop dead.
That night it was cold and drizzly. All the window shades were pulled down tight. Everyone sat in watching television. Some houses with two working people in them watched cable. They were the lucky ones.
Ca-Ca laid on the sofa looking at one of them programs where they show Saturday Night Live clips in prime time. Her mother snored from the reclining chair throne. Ca-Ca covered her up real good with a fleece throw from Walmart. Cozy people sleep longer. Everybody knows that. And Ca-Ca wanted to think, so she laid back down on the sofa and thought. Will Ferrell's face flickered on their old 'fat screen' TV. He made 'goof' faces, but she wasn't watching... The three-way bulb in the lamp by the sofa was on low. She felt safe... almost. The little Sears & Roebuck strongbox with all the money was maybe twenty five yards away... But how would she open it? Maybe her cousin Mike would help her. Mike was in juvvie hall. He knew. Old guys learned him lots a things.
Then an icy rain began to hit the windows. She switched stations... Some 'Buy these '60's hits' infomercial. Eric Burden and The Animals sang WE GOTTA GET OUT A THIS PLACE.
Ca-Ca pushed back into the soft old cushions and listened... She listened hard... real hard.
<to be continued>
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They sat on old, dull, white, cheap, vinyl patio chairs... the kind they sell in supermarkets for like $5.99 a piece. There were two of them. It was cold, not bitter cold, just early coat weather, like you get in November. The yard was quiet... a sixteen by sixteen foot concrete square, imprisoned by a seven foot tall, vertical board, privacy fence. The boards were painted dark green. A door led out to the four foot wide alley... more like a cattle chute. Can you imagine cutting through one of these alleys late at night? People do, but can you imagine it? What if some rats were running down from the opposite direction? What if it was a drunk, psycho? What if it was a night-ghoul? Yeah, it's an urban legend, but so what? Who cares? People hear the shrieks. Once they found a lady (or what used to be a lady) with her hands, feet, nose and lips all chewed off. Cops said it was sewer-side. Lying bastids.
Ca-Ca wore her dirty, pink ski jacket with the matching knit cap. She had her hands shoved in
the pockets. She always sat that way. Timothy had on his black, pleather, bomber jacket with his black Nike baseball cap. His dad thought it looked cool. They were still... real still. It was quiet... real quiet. Not like Ca-Ca's mother was gonna bang open that kitchen door. She already had her bowl of pretzels and twenty ounce cream soda. Ellen was on. She was set.
For the longest time they just sat. The two little killers just sat... watching the shadow of the 'weed' tree in the corner play across the old cracked, concrete surface. You know what weed trees are. You see them by railroad tracks.
Then Ca-Ca said - A bum gave me a funny look today..... Timothy goes - A bum? Which bum?.... How the hell do I know, you shithead you? A bum! A bum! I don't know which one. They don't sell bum cards. You can't identify 'em! - she said..... He didn't answer, but they both knew. Somebody saw them do it. Somebody was there behind the old Kotex factory.
Ca-Ca said - Tim, we have to run away from here... Don't we have to pay a whore to make out she's our mom? You said. - went Timothy.... She just gave him a look like she wished he was dead.... Look, he only stabbed Esther's arms and legs a little bit. He didn't kill her. She did. And if them cops got him alone in a room he'd say that. He'd cry. He'd sob and he'd say that. He'd get ice cream. She'd get cockroach bed in Juvvie Hall for as long as they could keep her. Till she was twenty one years old. Maybe die in a prison fight, or from eating ground glass in her mashed potatoes. That's what she thought. Then she collected herself and said - First we need some money.... How much money? - he said.... A lot of money, you shithead son of a bitch. Now shut up! Just shut up!.... And he did.
Ca-Ca was a shrewd little thing.... always lookin'... always rememberin'.... Few years back, fat girl from across the street used to watch her after school, 'cause her mama worked in a pierogi factory and didn't get home till six o'clock. Fat girl always real mad at her grandmom... Said - That old bitch got more money than God. She could buy me a car. I hope she dies. I wish she was dead....
Well, Ca-Ca remembered that story. She remembered about the little, Sears & Roebuck metal safe in the closet and how it was stuffed with ten and twenty dollar bills. She remembered about the three big coffee cans filled with silver dollars. She remembered all that.
Old lady still lived there. Fat girl still lived there too. She's a little bit crazy now, but that ain't nothin'... lot a folks go crazy. Hell, people gotta do somethin'...
She's hatchin' a plan. He knows it. Timothy can tell. But he don't say a word...just hopes she ain't plannin' to kill him.
<to be continued>
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Some cop walked through the lunchroom. Kids said he came through for every lunch period. Sometimes he whispered something to a guy in a blue suit... probably a detective. Mrs. Mattioli, was with them. She's the vice principal. Ca-Ca says they're lookin' for the killer, so we ate our chicken nuggets and tater tots and ran out to the schoolyard real fast.
I'm Timothy, in case you forgot. Esther's dead and we did it. I don't feel like we did it, but we did. And I can't eat ice cream no more, 'cause it makes me throw up. When I look in the mirror I get real stiff and I peed the bed two nights ago. Nobody found out. I washed the sheet and sprayed the mattress and the pad with a whole lot of Fabreze. The dog knows. He hates Fabreze. Don't mind pee, just Fabreze. Dad says - Why you so funny lately?.... I say - I'm not funny.... Mom says - Leave him alone..... Then I go in my room and lay on the bed.
Kids walk through the alley behind the old Kotex factory 'cause they know that's where it happened. We went through there too, with a kid named Hickey. That's his last name, but everybody calls him 'Hickey.' They say - Yo, when you were born, your mom got a Hickey. Then he punches them.
Lot a papers blow down that alley. Bums sleep under 'em. The day we went with Hickey, we seen one climb out from a whole mess a papers. Hickey threw a rock at him... not a 'rock,' more like the big pebbles that break off from crumbling cement. Guy goes - Drop dead you f#ckin' little bastid, you.... and makes like he's gonna chase us... We give him the finger and run away.... Go into a McDonalds. Three-way split a large order of fries. Bug the lady for them little 'courtesy' cups so we can get cold water. She gives us a look, but she gives us the cups.
Hickey eats most a the fries. Ca-Ca and I were thinkin.'...... How do we know there wasn't no bum sleepin' down that alley the day it happened?
Every time the phone rings I jump. Ca-Ca says she jumps too, but her mom don't climb out a that chair, so she gets it anyway... But she still jump.
I don't think bums got phones, but Cops do. Sometimes cops grab bums. If they grab a bum who knows something, he'll talk. I know. I watched The Diary of Anne Frank once. It was a robber who ratted them out. Cops grabbed him. What the hell did he care? My dad says - What you watchin' that crap for?... But I keep watchin,'cause its about a kid afraid she might get killed... and I wanna see what happens.
We're gonna run away. I know it. Ca-Ca says you can pay a whore to make out she's your mom. First we gotta find the right whore. No, first we gotta find the money.
We're havin' tuna fish and macaroni and cheese tonight. Thank God I can eat that.
I don't wanna talk no more.....Lemme sit quiet, OK?
<to be continued>
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My mom is a witch. Everybody in the family says so... some in a good way... some in a not so good way. But she knows things. She knew Crazy Jack, our neighbor killed Junior, our first dog, because he got Princess, Crazy Jack's little Maltese, all pregnant and everything. Junior wasn't Maltese. We never knew what country, or continent his people came from. Dogs don't talk and the people who breed 'em are liars, so how could you really know? But my mom said - What are you thinkin' about?..... She saw me dittin' on the sofa pretending to watch TV. I said - Nothin.' Why?..... She said - You are such a liar... I slumped down in the sofa and closed my eyes.
Ester was gonna get killed. If we didn't do it, somebody else'd do it. They'd push her onto the subway tracks, or throw a plugged-in hair straightening thing in her bathtub, or punch her in the heart or something. I saw a guy get punched in the heart outside a bar. He spit up pink foam and everything. Cops didn't lock up nobody, 'cause the guy who punched him was married to the daughter of a cop. But one day when she was walkin' home from food shoppin' they throw acid in her face. Now kids call her the Twilight Zone Lady. Cop's family wanna kill somebody from the guy-who-got-punched-in-the-heart's family, but they all moved to some country where they eat ponies... I forget where it is.
Do I feel bad about killin' Esther?... I don't know... A little. She cried like a little bird. I saw her mother through the window, though. She was walking to the Chinese store. It's not a Chinese 'food' store. I mean the people who run it are Chinese. And Esther's mother was goin' so slow. Her head was down. Another lady was with her. I don't know who she was. They came back with a little bag. Esther's mother held it. I felt funny... a little bit.
did you know I want to run away from here? I mean really run away to like where the cops have different cop suits and all. I want to grab some crap and get out of here.. My house is full a low-lifes. I don't care about them. I had a little baby cousin. They gave her Whooping Cough. She died. I liked that baby cousin. Maybe I gave her whooping cough. Who knows? But they're the low-lifes. Not me.
Soon I'll go see 'Shithead.' Shithead is Timothy's nickname. He's not really a shithead...just sometimes. Maybe he'll run away too? I could steal my mom's jewelry. Get about three hundred dollars. I can boost crap from stores. They don't look at nice little white girls and I can make myself look 'nice' if I want to. You can't do it in big stores though, like Walmart or places like that, 'cause they got electrical stuff. Some little stores on the avenue just got price tags and a fat lady on a stool who looks at everybody. Not the same fat lady. They each got their own one.
My mom wants a hoagie from the WaWa. I don't want to leave the house... not because of Esther and all. I just don't feel like. My stomach hurts. That's all. I don't even want to say 'Esther.' I don't want to talk about her.
Oh, God, I don't want to go outside...but she really wants that hoagie...
If I see a cop, I'll die...
<to be continued>
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