Couldn't post for a few days. Needed to decompress a bit. Spent time at sea shore with family and friends... I LOVE shore towns... could live there all year round... Like nice little Mayberries but with city amenities.
NEXT TIME ~~~ Ca-Ca and her shady cousin, MIKE, break into 'Pony's' grandmother's house.
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Three nights later, it rained... a cold misty drizzle. The streets were deserted. Everyone cocooned inside the narrow, row houses. Cops will tell you most nighttime break-ins occur in bad weather... icy cold.. rain... Not snow, though. Too many foot prints. Plus, if it's cloudy, the light bounces back and forth creating a false, deep, dusk that never goes away. Kids sled all night. No, snow is bad for burglars. Ca-Ca's cousin, Mike, understood that. He was what you call an instinctive crook. And he had a kit... a few screw drivers... a small hammer... something like an ice pick... rubber gloves... two towels... some other crap. Hey, I don't know. I'm just the narrator. They tell me and I tell you. Ca-Ca saw some old reruns of Honey West on cable and said they should wear black, so they got these sweatshirts, wool caps and jeans at Kmart. they were having a sale on burglar clothes. Mike paid for it.
Ca-Ca's mother said - Where you gone?.... Ca-Ca said - I'm gonna watch scary movies with Mike and Aunt Connie.... And that was no lie. They were gonna watch scary movies. She watched scary movies there all the time 'cause they had cable. Would fall asleep on the sofa... the 'parlor' sofa... not the 'down the basement' one. Aunt Connie went upstairs at one, or one thirty. Ca-Ca and Mike watched til four. Then they fell asleep. She took the big 'man's chair.' He stretched out on the sofa. That's what they did. Liked ghost stories the best... old ones... creepy ones... But this time, when Connie goes to sleep, they're gonna slip out and go get that safe. Mike knew how to break it open and everything. I mean they have sites that tell you how to break open small household safes on You Tube. Not hard to do. The people who manufacture them call them 'fireproof strong boxes,' but they look like safes and everybody calls them 'safes.' Only they're not so safe. If you drop one from a second story window onto a hard surface, like cement or something, the lid'll pop right off. Cub scouts know it... even Brownies. Just gotta be sure you put the safe into a big, tied shut, plastic bag so the money inside don't blow away. Mike broke open safes before, but never one that was supposed to have so much money in it.
Ca-Ca watched as Connie went upstairs. Mike watched too. Figured they'd give her a half hour to fall asleep. She'd close her door. Didn't want to hear the movies. And they'd have three, maybe three and a half hours til she took a pee. Plenty of time.
They heard the bedroom door click shut. Mike looked at his watch and mouthed the words 'a half hour.'... Ca-Ca nodded. Then they watched the movie, The Uninvited, Stella By Starlight and all that. Good theme, actually. Ahead of it's time (1944). Look it up on You Tube. You'll see. Thing is, all these ghost movies made Ca-Ca think about Esther's ghost. Ghosts like to confront their killers. Must think about that a lot. I don't know what they think about after the killer's dead too, but who cares?....
After a bit, Ca-Ca whispered. She said - What do you think hell's like?........ Mike goes - Not my problem. I'll be dead..... She gave him a look and exhaled. Smart he ain't.... Then she said - I read that back in the nineteen fifties, Jews in Israel grabbed some German Nazi guy and buried him underground, like under a hundred feet of cement in metal cube, like a little room. It was dark...pitch black. Food & water came down a tube. There was like a drain, you could take the cover off, for piss and shit to go down. If he missed the hole, he had to push the shit down with his hands. And the water came down like a little shower. He had to stand under and drink it, or else he wouldn't get none til the next time. And if the food bounced onto a piece of shit... ewww, can you imagine what that was like? Ceiling was twelve feet high and German Nazi guy was naked. He lived for eighteen years, sleepin' curled up on a metal floor. They kept it just barely warm enough, so he wouldn't die. And he survived down there almost twenty years. Guy probably thought he was dead and he WAS in hell. God I hope it's not like that.....What do you want? Do you want fire? said Mike..... Don't be a shithead! - goes his cousin.
Then the half hour's up and it's time to go...
Mike gets the sweat shirts... They pull 'em on and slip out. He closes the door real careful. Hardly makes a sound. Almost all of the houses are dark... like a stage set. And from up above, the Eyes Of God, or perhaps one of His lieutenants, watch as two black shapes make their way down the shiny, wet street toward their prize.....
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Sometimes, if they want to, Ca-Ca's cousin Mike shows his clients something else they can do, like if they're jealous of the people they're robbing, or hate them, or something. He'll show them how to plant bedbugs. Exterminators have 'em. They got every thing and they'll sell you some, if you want them. Mike has a guy on South Broad Street. Three generations in the business he is. That's who he gets them from... the bedbugs, I mean. Puts 'em in little empty pill bottles. Pop the lid and throw it in a corner, or under as bed and it'll be itchy season real fast. And if the student-thief already has bedbugs, all he has to do is rub an old t-shirt all over the effected parts of his bed, tie it up in a small plastic bag and ditch it in a ransacked bedroom. Some thieves shove toothbrushes down their pants and spit in whatever they find in the refrigerator.
Ca-Ca says she don't want to mess with no bugs. Mike shrugs and goes - Your loss... She asks him if he has bedbugs... He laughs and makes like he's gonna tickle her. She gets off the old sofa and sits on the cold linoleum floor.... Then he asks her if she really killed Esther, or is only afraid the cops will think she killed her.... She tells him to drop dead and go to hell..... Mike says - If I drop dead and go to hell, who's gonna go with you?... She sits there... He goes - Yeah, you didn't think of that. Did you, you little shit..... Ca-Ca says - Lemme alone. I don't need you. I can do it by myself..... You shit can do it yourself - goes the cousin. What if there ain't nothing under the window? What if it's a six foot drop to the floor, a hard floor, a cement floor? What if they got rats ? How you gonna open the safe? You sure she has a safe?..... She says - Yeah, I'm sure.... He gives her a look..... I know! I know! I know, you friggin' son of a bitch! Pony talked about it all the time, from when she used to babysit me when my mom was makin' all them pierogis! I know from BEFORE I killed Esther! You SHIT! You SHIT you!..... Mike's mother (Ca-Ca's aunt) yells down - Jesus Christ! What the hell's gone on down there!?....... They get quiet, but Mike gives her a look and it makes her feel funny... He says - I'm gone in with you... and I get half.... She just sniffs and nods her head. Then she starts to tear up. Mike gets down on the floor and hugs her. Not because he feels sorry for her. He doesn't want his mom to hear her crying.
When he walks her home, her mother's already dragged herself up to bed. Ca-Ca double locks the door and turns on a battery powered dollar store phony burglar alarm. Then she sits on the sofa and sees a copy of their neighborhood weekly. It's all about Esther's 'senseless' murder. God, her mother looks so sad.
Ca-Ca doesn't cry. She just sits there... Forty nine minutes later she quietly puts out the light and goes upstairs....
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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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