Ernest wasn’t sure what to do with his vague unease. Then he remembered the painted angels he’d wrapped as gifts.
With a worried sigh, he rolled out of bed and stepped to the window, scratching his head. There were no cars. No carriages. Even the saloons were closed. The entire city was asleep. The downy flakes had stopped falling, and all seemed solemn and still.
Ernest shivered at the thought of the cold and then got dressed. He bundled up in two pairs of pants and three shirts, and doubled his socks. Then he crept down the main staircase, which was carpeted and quieter. He tiptoed to the door, slipped on his boots, his overcoat, hat, and mittens. He wrapped a scarf around his face to keep his neck and cheeks warm.
Once outside, the air was so crisp, so cold it made his eyes water as he crunched through a thin eggshell crust of windborne powder, frozen atop the deep, wet snow. He walked around the building until he stood beneath Maisie’s darkened window. He looked across the wide street, which was now covered, with nary a footprint, then up at the window once again and watched his breath steam away into the night sky. Finally he sat down, lay back into that cold desert of fresh powder, spread out his arms, and made a snow angel. He stood up, regarded his work, then took a giant step toward Fahn’s side of the building, sat down, and did it all over again. He stepped again and again, up and down, occasionally feeling snow and ice go down his pants or the back of his shirt. He made snow angel after snow angel, covering the street, the sidewalk—anyplace that could be seen from the girls’ windows. He caught his breath as he counted three dozen, then four, then five, while his nose ran and his eyebrows froze.
Finally, he crept back inside, warmed himself in front of the fire, adding another piece of thick cordwood and watching it burn. Then he wearily climbed back into bed just before the grandfather clock downstairs sounded three in the morning.
Ernest was exhausted, but he smiled as he fell asleep, imagining the look on Maisie’s face at sunrise when she looked out her window, Fahn’s face too.
He wondered how many angels he’d made. He had no idea. He’d stopped counting after two hundred.
B SIDES
(1962)
Ernest stood on the sidewalk in front of Ruby Chow’s impatiently counting the minutes. He’d paid the bill and stepped outside while Juju and Gracie were still chatting with the waitresses—about nothing too revealing, Ernest hoped.
There had been an awkward silence after Gracie dropped her bomb about being a prostitute. Then Juju had deftly stepped in, saying something about having left too many copies of Whisper and Confidential magazines lying around the house for Gracie to read. Her mother must have misremembered a bit of Hollywood gossip about Veronica Lake or Helen Hayden. Since Gracie’s ailment had set in, she’d said plenty of things that didn’t make sense, and they’d laughed it off, albeit nervously. Meanwhile Gracie had turned her attention to a nice rock cod, roasted whole with shallots and fresh parsley. She’d put the tender cheek, the choicest part, on Hanny’s plate.
Everyone in Chinatown seems to have a B side to his or her character—an untold story—Ernest reasoned as he lit a cigarette and remembered that one of his favorite songs was a Hank Williams flip-side record, “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.” That song had seemed to do pretty well. Then again, some say Hank Williams died of a broken heart.
Poor Hanny, Ernest thought. She didn’t know what to believe. So she smiled and said nothing. I guess there’s comfort in denial.
But Rich knew the truth—Ernest could see that plainly in the man’s wide-eyed look of surprise and benign admiration, even as he went on and on about his colorful life in Las Vegas. He told a story about being a law clerk during the raid on Roxie’s, a famous western bordello. And about how he’d once met the famous Miss Bluebell, as well as Marli Renfro, the showgirl who’d been Janet Leigh’s body double in Psycho.
Fortunately for everyone, Hanny and Rich had had to leave before dessert. Rich had to take a phone call with a client who was in jail.
Ernest put out his cigarette and loosened his tie as he looked down the street toward Chinatown, past popcorn stands and Turkish baths, past businessmen in raincoats heading home or to a bar, and past secretaries running to the post office, or meeting their friends for a drink. He could see the old Washington Court Building in the distance—the ascendant home of Madam Lou Graham, then Florence Nettleton. The building was now home to the Union Gospel Mission, one of the few missions that had survived the great flu that wiped most of them out forty years ago. The building now had a neon sign, which read, REACHING OUT AND TOUCHING LIVES.
If there is a God, he’s the god of irony, Ernest thought. The angels of Ernest’s childhood had been replaced by a scattered crowd of lonely, bearded men who wandered around the sidewalk entrance like pigeons bobbing for crumbs of bread and wobbling, noontime drunks, loaded to the muzzle.
Ernest was still gazing off into the distance when Juju emerged.
“It’s all true, isn’t it?” she said as she put a gentle hand on his shoulder. “What Mom said—and that’s where you both lived.”
Ernest nodded as his daughter handed him a bag full of pink takeout boxes. Gracie had appeared behind Juju, beneath an awning, buttoning her coat and covering her hair with a floral scarf as the cloudy sky began to drizzle.
“How’s she doing?” he asked.
“She’s restless,” Juju said. “She talked to everyone about the new world’s fair—says she’s dying to go. But she’s tired. She hasn’t been over to this part of town in forever—so many familiar faces, so much to process, so many…things remembered.”
“You’re taking this revelation about your mom remarkably well.”
Juju shrugged. “I deal with the lurid side of humanity for a living. Am I shocked? Of course, but she’s still my mother—who am I to judge? It was a long time ago, and back then only one in ten girls even graduated from high school. She’s probably lucky she ended up at the Tenderloin. Besides, I still have a deadline and a feature to write.”
Ernest cleared his throat.
“Oh, don’t get me wrong,” Juju said. “I’m leaving Mom out of it—I’m not crazy. But you—you’re still part of a great story. I still can’t quite believe you were raffled off and ended up in a brothel. That’s quite a secret.”
Ernest shook his head.
“I was just reading about how Louis Armstrong grew up in a bawdy house in New Orleans, a place just like the Tenderloin. That hasn’t hurt his record sales one bit.”
Ernest recalled a decades-old memory of Professor True talking about the urchin boys who grew up in Storyville and how they’d go through the suit coats of customers while the patrons were otherwise engaged, skimming the pocket change. Ernest’s life at the Tenderloin had been downright respectable by comparison.
Juju kept talking. “And, now that I think about it, Mae West practically made her name playing the types of characters you grew up with.”
Ernest said, “Mae West isn’t helping your argument.”
“Why’s that?” Juju asked as she helped Gracie fix the buttons on her coat.
“Because I remember going to the AYP and watching a dashing musician named Guido Deiro,” Ernest said. “He went on to be the secret love of Mae West—a scandal that haunted both of their careers.”
“It was a different time then.” Gracie shrugged. “People move on. Speaking of, we should too. It’s starting to rain.”
Ernest looked at his wife, his mouth open. It seemed as if she was really following the conversation. “I’ll go get the car,” he said.
“I’d like to walk,” Gracie interrupted.