Prologue | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20A | 20B | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25-26 | 27 | 28-29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35-36 | 37 | 38A | 38B | 38C | 38D | 39
PART II
ELEVATOR TO THE GALLOWS
40
TREY CAUGHT HER when she fainted.
“I told her to eat,” Dot hissed as Trey laid Marina on a pew, then knelt beside her and stroked her face. Dot glared at Trey and said, “Go get some punch. A bite. Make yourself useful.”
Trey’s jaw ground, but he didn’t know what else to do so he trotted off. Seeing Marina and Dot at the back of the chapel was almost like they were all out having a good time and Gio had ducked out to smoke in peace. Except … Gio didn’t smoke anymore and Albright had made it clear Gio was not to come within a football field of Dot or he’d find his ass full of buckshot.
Despite the lacy white gown, Marina was more lovely than his imagination had made her out to be. But she hadn’t stood there like a beautiful bride anxiously awaiting her walk down the aisle. She looked like a lost and rather sickly young woman who was waiting for her friend to help her get to a doctor.
What Trey had intended to be a lovely little wedding with a lovely little gathering in a lovely little chapel Marina had wanted to get married in had turned out to be a glorified chat in a funeral chapel for no reason whatsoever. They could’ve done just as well in the Albrights’ living room on a Tuesday morning before work.
There were few guests here. Other than his grandparents, who looked guardedly happy, Trey only knew four of them: Boss Tom and Mrs. Pendergast representing the Machine, and Mr. and Mrs. John Lazia representing the Mafia. Neither Boss Tom nor Brother John was happy. If the wives knew what was going on, Trey didn’t know. He suspected Mrs. Pendergast didn’t know about the bet. Most cats like him, their women didn’t know jack about what their men got up to or where the money came from.
He returned with a handful of mints, a cookie, and some punch from the tiny table in the nave. Dot was stroking Marina’s wan face and speaking to her, smiling with such fake cheer it almost made Trey sick to his stomach.
“Scram,” he muttered at Dot as he crouched in front of Marina, whose eyes were still closed.
“No!” she snapped.
“Dot,” Sister Albright called. “Marina is his concern now. Let him do his job.”
“Hrmph,” she said, then arose and flounced away.
“Hey, Sugga,” Trey said as tenderly as he could manage, while at the same time keeping tabs on Boss Tom and Brother John, both of whom were, at this moment, standing at the back of the chapel chatting and laughing with Albright and Elliott, who, shockingly, knew each other from their bootlegging days. The Missus Pendergast and Lazia were doing the same with Sister Albright and Grandmother Susanna, Dot hanging on the fringes, alert for any indication that Marina needed her. The few other people milling about, whom Trey assumed to be Mormon church members, were chatting amongst themselves but casting wary glances between the four feral cats at the back of the church and the one tending his new wife as if the occasion would turn into a repeat of the St. Valentine’s Day massacre.
Trey looked back at Marina, who seemed to be more asleep than passed out. He thought of nothing but her sweet face, a little thinner now as well as being a sickly hue. He caressed her skin with his knuckles, smoothed the pad of his thumb over her eyebrow. He then touched her belly, spreading his hand out, palming it. Where before it had been a little squishy, now it was simply taut with no real change in her waistline, and he wondered how anyone could tell.
Unless they were waiting.
His child. He was going to be a father and for the first time, he realized there was going to be a small human dependent upon him to protect and care for. A human, delicate, aware, who would grow, and call him Daddy.
“Daddy,” he whispered, his fingertips pressing a little harder. Why hadn’t he thought about the baby from the beginning? Why hadn’t it occurred to him that his child would be raised by some other man? It bothered him the way Grandfather Elliott and Bishop Albright thought it should, but now he wouldn’t have that worry.
“Marina.”
Her eyelashes fluttered open. Without moving her head, she looked at him, then around the chapel with unfocused wariness. Then she looked back at him. “Who are you?”
He didn’t know if that was literal or figurative. “Trey. Your husband.”
Her gaze flickered to his chin. “This is a dream,” she whispered. “A dream. You’re dreaming. It’s not real. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up before you do something stupid.”
Oh boy. “It’s not a dream,” he murmured, still caressing her forehead with his fingertips. “You’re not asleep. You’re pregnant. We just got married. I’mma take you home to the house I bought just for you. I think you’ll like it. I hope so anyway.” He realized he was babbling and continued to do so because he was getting her attention. “If you don’t,” he continued, “I’ll buy you somethin’ else. I bought you a car, too. Can’t have you tryin’a run errands on foot.”
Her brow wrinkled. “You … bought me … a car?”
He nodded. “Groceries. Whatnot. Library. Go wherever you want whenever. Kresge’s with Dot. Don’t wanna miss that.”
“You—you’re going to … let me … ”
“You’re married now. Ain’t nobody gonna look sideways at you. You can wear whatever you want. Buy what you want.”
“But … husbands have rules. They decide what their wives can and cannot do.”
Trey shook his head. “Don’t have any I can think of right now—” He paused. “First rule: You don’t come to my speakeasy.”
Her throat bobbed. “I won’t,” she said in a small voice.
“In fact, you stay off Main Street. Ain’t no businesses from Fourteenth to Twentieth you need.”
She nodded hesitantly. “I can’t go to school,” she said in a small voice. “I won’t graduate.”
“Yeh, I’m sorry about that.” He really was. “I’mma get you tutors so you can go back after the baby comes if you want. I’ll get a girl to mind it.”
She blinked. “Why are you talking like that?”
His mouth tightened. “I have to work to remember how to speak properly,” he said gruffly. “Right now, I got too much else to think about to mind my speech.”
She appeared to be thinking about that more than the situation warranted, but the strangest things caught her attention.
“There’s cake an’ punch waitin’ for us.” He held up the empty cup for Dot to see then waggled it. She nodded and scurried out of the chapel. “Dot said you didn’t eat.”
Marina held her hand up to him, and he stood to pull her upright, then sat beside her. Soon Dot sat on the other side of her and damn near shoved a macaroon in her mouth.
“She doesn’t like oatmeal raisin,” Dot snarled at him.
“Thank you, Dot,” Marina whispered, and began to nibble. She took sips of her punch in between.
Trey didn’t speak while Dot fed her. He didn’t want to hear the pure hate in Dot’s voice, even though he really didn’t care about her opinion of him. He was thinking about Gio, who wasn’t talking too much, knowing Dot’s heart was broken but would shatter the second she found out who Gio was, what he did, and what he’d done.
That was the price Gio had to pay to stay alive, which was likely to be a helluva lot steeper than the price Trey would pay.
Trey had gotten the speakeasy and the girl, and suddenly he felt like the luckiest sumbitch alive.
40
If you don’t want to wait 2 years to get to the end, you can buy it here.
Be a helluva conflict for Trey if Gio was the one that drugged Marina.
Right?!
😲
🤔
Man, that was fast!
Nine minutes of passion for Trey, nine months of work for Marina.
Oh, just wait till the wedding night!
*Laughs in unmarried*
Anti-climatic now isn’t it?
OT: Question for the groomers: So FGM is now cool? Just trying to keep track.
Only if it is going to be shaped into a non-functioning phallus.
The whole phenomenon is just sad.
So, I had an internet acquaintance tell me they were basically homeless today. How do you respond to that?
How homeless is “basically”?
Are we talking “I got evicted and have to get a hotel room” or “not even the shelters will take me in and I’ll be sleeping in the rain”?
There were no specifics.
I wouldn’t get involved then. Hard to tailor a response to a broad issue like that.
there’s always a story
it all boils down to what is the fair price for your share of their decisions
I’m a charity starts at home guy: I wouldn’t give a stranger more help than a cousin, neighbor, or congregant
There’s always a story, but this individual only rates as an “Internet acquaintance” and hasn’t shared that story, they are effectively a stranger.
Head for ze hills.
My first thought.
“Dude, that sucks. So how ’bout them Dodgers?”
Or, “Hey, same thing happened to me one time, I had to move in with my girl friend, next door neighbor, Mom, boss, fill in the blank”
There you go!
…..join the Coast Guard
I sort of stayed in the army ’cause I had a place to sleep and eat, clothes to wear, and got paid too.
Been there.
Got the T-shirt?
“I got cheated out of thousands of dollars by my best friend and all I got was this lousy T-shirt”?
Sadly, no.
Offer to let him/her/they sleep in your garage.
I would respond by offering what assistance I could, while expecting they wouldn’t accept any.
Be careful what you
ask foroffer.Something something good deed something unpunished.
I’ve had several good deeds punish me. It does help to find the false friends
It also helps to assuage my Catholic guilt.
@ConLawWarrior Rewatching my favorite movie, Lawrence of Arabia. I’d forgotten this epic exchange about Lawrence and his Arab cohorts occupying Damascus ahead of British regulars in a bid to keep it from them:
-Look, sir, we can’t just do nothing.
-Why not? It’s usually best.
“Get off my lawn”?
Reminds me of JsubD; dunno how similar though.
Hayex- when I lived in Mukilteo I normally watched flicks at the Lynnwood mall – they also got a lot of Korean first run flicks with subtitles too. Probably some newer theaters too, but pretty sure there’s also an Alamo Deafthouse or similar theater in the N Seattle area.
Random tipsy observation.
I’ve heard of this place. I understand that it is an Injun name. As a student of linguistics, I find it interesting that it feels like it’s not an eastern name, as it doesn’t “fit” with the many eastern Injun names I know. Cheektowaga, Tonawanda, Lackawanna, Irondequoit, Cayuga, Massapequa, etc. etc.
I remember studying facets of one or more Injun languages in college but not too deeply – mainly just to illustrate super-alien phonological or morphological properties. One of my professors was an expert in Quechua (Peru) – no help there. I just like having a “feel” for these languages that I otherwise know little about. Though what I do remember is that almost all of them are ferociously complicated to the ears of the white man.
it’s not an eastern name
Agreed.
I’m not an excellent student of language, but I am tipsy, so I’ll observe that I think your examples are Algonquin….maybe some Iroquois thrown in. Speaking for the rest of the east, I’ll venture that Mukilteo is not Muskogeon, either.
It’s made harder by the fact that the tribes shuffled around a lot, sometimes by force, sometimes not.
But yeah, all the names I mentioned are New York State.
shuffled around
absolutely: one of the very best parts of language is time and space
the English story is amazing; Turks aren’t from Asia Minor; where do Finnish and Basque come from? who moved which language where and why
I’ve told my fascination with seeing later transcriptions of Muskogean in Oklahoma
my last two engines were built at Tonawanda
Basque is especially oddball. Its grammar is completely alien to the languages around it. IIRC the thinking is that they arrived from the Caucasus or some shit where the languages share similar features but long before the Romans arrived and somehow weren’t wiped out.
My hometown – Cucamonga. Not just a Jack Benny joke.
Don’t know if this is the same place, but Rancho Cucamonga, at last check, had a minor league team called the Quakes, with a dinosaur mascot whose uniform number was 8.6 (or something appropriately Richter.)
Rancho is the incorporated city which includes what were Etiwanda and Alta Loma. The total population is something like 150,000 now; when I grew up there it wasn’t even 15,000.
Guasti and Cucamonga as well, all four created RC,
/Uplander
I always thought that was a boring Spanish word. I stand corrected.
Thanks—one of my favorite restaurants is at the Alderwood mall in Lynnewood. That might work out fine.
Mukilteo is Athabaskan I think; one of en “2nd wave” migrations so definitely not plains Indian.
Thanks Moj, though I feel like I missed something, somewhere along the line. Like the ceremony and the fact that Trey already had the speak and Marina knows, etc.
I’ve read every chapter but seems like things go too fast for me sometimes. Oh well
I think the problem was my splitting that long-ass chapter into 4 pieces.
* Marina’s pregnant, Trey wins the speak from Boss Tom
* Boss Tom tells Trey he can’t marry Marina
* Bishop Albright arranges for Trey to marry Marina and keep the speak
Part 1 → Part 2
* Wedding day
Next 2 chapters are the wedding night. That is not a spoiler.
Yeah, I somehow missed your top two things, about the speak and Boss Tom telling Trey
my parents married in 63
gas .32
Cadillac 4,900
GDP 3,400
house 18,000
Dad was a chain grocer and made nothing in the delta; Mom would start parttime making even less after 1974
they never made anything that I could tell, but now they are better off than any of my kin by an order of magnitude
go to work every day; buy nothing on credit except a house; buy and hold: every nickel counts, the earlier the better
My mom bought a house in upstate NY for ~20,000 circa 1982.
Just looked – it’s 108,000 now. Zillow says it gained an extra bathroom since then. And it looks to be in good shape – that’s heartening.
Zillow claims my childhood home gained a bedroom and a half bath, but the footprint of the building hasn’t changed, and it’s a shockingly high $43k. The house around the corner is listed for only $6k. The house next door is unlisted with a $22k estimate. I think that’s high for the neighborhood too.
Were you raised in Detroit?
South Side of Syracuse.
Draw a one mile circle centered on my childhood home and you catch most of the murders in the city. It was better than the Projects, but that’s a low bar.
Dayum.
I don’t know Syracuse at all but I can translate that situation to Rochester and be grateful that most of the murders were on the other side of town from where I grew up.
I got out.
I’m wondering if I managed it more because we were ineligable for handouts. Being an introverted white in a black neighborhood reduced the risk of getting drawn into the seedier activities too.
Hell, I was an extreme introvert in mostly white neighborhoods. The kids were monstrous.
But yeah I dunno how my mom did it. Four sons, welfare, various father figures drifting in and out – and still managed to keep us in decent neighborhoods. It could have been so much worse. Like the neighborhoods of every school I attended – gah!
OMG. Yikes.
I did a fly-by of the old neighborhood, and my early-teens home is weirdly more expensive than most of the rest now – which was definitely not the case back in the 80s.
All the older, bigger houses closer in to downtown have gone to shit, it seems. Except Seneca Parkway with all the mansions where all the rich Kodak scientists used to live is still going strong.
OTOH, turning around and seeing all the empty land where Kodak Park used to stand across the street is weirdly unpleasant.
winners and losers, amigo
I grew up in a Southern town that landed a tire plant in 1968 and exploded: new people and new money everywhere
after it was recently closed, the price of the bits of upscale housing collapsed
live and die by the sword: I got the sweet part of the curve and the schools that came with it
what remains is a relative wasteland
Tom Wolfe
we’ve hung out in AVL not a little these past two years, and TW confirms a trend: all of those guys were just a touch off for some reason; as a Southerner I hardly notice such things, but I think it extends to Hawthorne and Fitzgerald….or maybe American authors are all a half bubble out of plumb
I’m missing something. Care to elaborate?
Moj tweeted something about Wolfe moments ago
I’m in a Tom Wolfe kinda mood today. I need a re-read.
AVL seems like a good place to get by on very little money and just wear linen around town for a living
Having determined that my local library only has A Man in Full in audiobook form (which still isn’t as convenient for me as an e-book,) I searched for it by title at Barnes & Nobles’ website. Sorted by default to “Top Matches,” the first book listed (just ahead of the book with the actual title) was How to Have Anti-Racist Conversations. ::facepalm, headdesk::
Nobody knows quite what to do with TW.
I don’t it’s that so much as some weird woke algorithm in B&N’s search function. The other titles that turned up in the search had nothing to do with Wolfe but at least had “man” or “men” and/or “full” in their titles.
Ah! Just looked closer and saw the subtitle of the “Top Match”: Embracing Our Full Humanity to Challenge White Supremacy. 🙄
Vonnegut said something like, “You cannot be a serious writer of fiction unless you are depressed.” I mean, how else do you explain Southern Gothic?
it seems normal to me, of course
went to see Dwight Yoakam last night; his album Buenas Noches from a Lonely Room is a towering success, an anthem of the mood
the thing I loved about Texas was how optimistic they are; as a Southerner, I share most of their values but inherited none of their hope
I like Dot. I think I could get along with her. Or maybe she’d hate my guts. But I think if she did I’d still like her.
Dot’s a sweetheart.
I couldn’t see anyway that she wouldn’t hate your guts.
Easy – Mike bribes Mo to write her that way.
I’m a hell of a plumber. So I got that going for me. Which is nice.
You are very adept at handling seconds, I’m sure.
My balls. Your chin.
Were you humming this while you commented?
https://youtu.be/Hki2jeBZGXs
A writer for She-Hulk: Attorney At Law tried to pwn Bob Iger for his statements that the writers were asking for too much by pointing out that their residual check for She-Hulk was under $400. The jokes write themselves.
Disney+ was bleeding millions of subscribers and losing billions of dollars while She-Hulk aired. $400 for something that brought literally no value if not negative value isn’t too bad.
These people lack any self awareness.
Let me pay you for helping to destroy the company.
Iger started a lot of this trend at Disney during his previous stint, he’s as much to blame as anyone else. I simply don’t see a way out for the company. They have too many staff that are certifiably insane. They’re not going to budge. And I don’t think any executive is going to have the balls to do what is necessary, gut the company to the bones and start over. Particularly when the activist investors like Blackrock are working against you.
Disney is done.
Flipping over to Fox Sports to catch live Collingwood Footy – and it’s poker in Monte Carlo. Every single person on screen is wearing a chin mask. Checks the date and apparently this dates from Arpil, current year. What in the everloving hell.
it’s cultural here in Memphis still: pretty much a racial statement since the progs here are lazy lightweights and chose not to believe their own BS at the earliest convenience
so a kid wore one to his indictment for the murder of a young and very popular doctor in the suburbs and, I’m not a fan of capital punishment, but, bro: government-sponsored minority-attacking viruses are the least of your concerns
I dunno what the racial statement in Memphis is but here in the northeast it’s pretty much only East Asians who still wear – just like in the before times. Plus a smattering of true-believer progs.
some minorities think that both covid and the vax are government-designed mechanisms that target and kill them
They may not be wrong.
I’m not dismissing any crazy ideas anymore.
You still have Fox sports? Lucky. We had Bally sports buy the regional FS out and they’ve now fucked it all up and are going into bankruptcy.
This is national Fox Sports. Our regionals are owned by Madison Square Garden.
Collingwood ahead 86 to 33 at half time. 🤪
Bedtime.
Morning.
Anyone up?
Good morning, ‘bodru! I’m up and out at Tranq Base! How are you & yours today?
I am.
Not of my free will, but the sun is starting to show through the bedroom blinds at 4:44 am
Good morning, hayek! If the morning sun comes through the bedroom blinds that early, you might need one of those little satin sleep masks.
Those things do work.
Dude gone?
Those things do work.
Dude gone?
I have a nice comfy cotton one in my suitcase that I still haven’t unpacked from Texas. Today is laundry day so it should show up eventually…
Yeah, dude is gone. Off down under for 3 weeks.
He’s already planning his next trip up to WA in late August. Plans to be here at least 2 weeks, maybe even three.
Morning!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SDTZ7iX4vTQ
🎶🎶