The Electron Pencil

BLACK COMEDY

By Michael G. Glab

© 2013

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— Fifty —

For a hot minute, Anna considers grabbing Tami by the arm and walking right back out of Doc Ryan’s. Then again, Anna has never liked being forced into doing anything — not even by a couple of dozen white men who are staring at her and her new Negro friend as if they’re lepers.

So Anna and Tami wade through the silence and claim the only open four-top in the place. As they hang their bags over the backs of their chairs and remove their winter coats, they hear the scraping of chairs against the Linoleum floor. Anna eyes turn to slits; the revelers and drinkers around them are moving away. Anna snorts. They’re trying to be subtle, these pot-bellied, pasty-faced old bastards, but the two or three extra inches they’re placing between themselves and the Negro who’s entered their sanctuary may as well be the distance from Galewood to Mau Mau land.

Tami grins broadly — too broadly, Anna thinks. “So, what should we have,” Tami asks.

“I dunno,” Anna says. “You okay here? You wanna try someplace else?”

“Girl, we just got here! What are you talkin’ about?”

“Sure?”

“Sure I’m sure. Now what should we have?”

“Beer,” Anna says.

“Okay, beer,” Tami says.

So the two wait for the bartender to come by and take their order. They don’t know just yet that he has no intention of approaching their table. Emilio Irato stands behind his bar and rubs the same spot on it with his damp towel with such effort and for so long that a couple of guys on stools nudge each other. “I t’ink he’s gonna rub a hole in da wood,” one whispers to the other.

Emilio has owned Doc Ryan’s for almost a year now. He came upon it the old fashioned, Chicago way. He is a clerk in the City Collector’s Office. Doc Ryan’s is his neighborhood bar. He’s had his eye on the proprietor, Maggie Ryan, ever since her husband Doc keeled over dead of a heart attack in the summer of ’67. He’d stop in the place three, four times a week, sip his favorite sweet cocktail, and inquire after Maggie’s health and welfare even while she still wore black.

The first time he ordered his cocktail — a shot of Amaretto and a shot of Southern Comfort over ice with a splash of sour mix — Maggie asked him what he called it. “Aw, it don’t have no name,” he said. “I just like it.”

Between Christmas and New Year’s, 1969, Maggie came into the City Collector’s office for her 1970 liquor license. Emilio was manning the counter at the time. “Perfect,” he said to himself as he watched Maggie approach. He looked over her application and told her she’d have to come with him for lunch so they could talk over some irregularities in her paperwork. In the Mayor’s Row restaurant on LaSalle Street, where dozens of such business deals were consummated daily, Emilio put it to her straight. All she would have to do is sleep with him and all the application irregularities would disappear. Maggie stared at him, aghast.

Finally she said, “Uh, I don’t think so.” “Okay,” Emilio, a reasonable negotiator, countered. “D’en what about a blowjob, okay?”

Maggie had no intention of sleeping with or blowing Emilio Irato no matter what he threatened her with.

And threaten her, he did. “You ain’t gonna get no license, lady,” he warned her after deducing she was serious. Still she held out. And when January 1st, 1970, rolled around Maggie could not open her doors. There was nothing she could do about it until Emilio himself bailed her out. He’d borrowed money from Jackey Pontone and made her a fair offer for her business. What could she do but accept it? Emilio told himself he was a savvy businessman for getting his hands on Galewood’s best tavern.

On a Sunday mid-afternoon in December, 1970, a savvy businessman in Galewood doesn’t want any porch monkeys coming into his joint, even if they are with Al Dudek’s daughter. Emilio rubs the same spot on his bar harder and harder, staring at the the two women.

“So,” Tami says.

“So,” Anna says.

“That was an interesting meeting,” Tami says.

“No it wasn’t,” Anna says, laughing.

“No,” Tami says. “No it wasn’t.” She shares Anna’s laugh. Anna glances around the room. A good half of the clientele is still staring at the two of them. The remainder, she is certain, are trying their hardest to pretend she and Tami don’t exist.

Race Relations

■

“What I don’t get,” Anna says, “is how you could fall asleep. I thought you were taking notes on what Helga was saying.”

Tami covers her face. “Oh, I’m so embarrassed.”

“No, no. Don’t be embarrassed. Please. I told you; I fell asleep too.”

“You did, didn’t you!”

“Yep.”

“Well, first off, her name was Hagar, not Helga.”

“Whatever,” Anna says, rolling her eyes.

“I can dig it,” Tami says. “Anyways, I wasn’t taking notes. I was writing up a grocery list.”

“A grocery list!”

“Yeah. I want to make lasagna tonight.”

“You do? Lemme see that list.”

Tami digs around in her bag and produces her notebook. Anna scans it. “Noodles? Tomato soup? Cottage cheese? This isn’t lasagna!”

“It isn’t? Well, what do you call it?”

“I don’t know what I’d call it but it won’t call it lasagna.”

“Okay, Miss Galloping Gourmet. You tell me how to make lasagna.”

“Ooh, The Galloping Gourmet. I love Graham Kerr. Listen, let’s make it together.”

“You’re on!”

“I’d make a toast but we don’t have any drinks yet,” Tami says.

Anna realizes Emilio Irato will not be waiting on them. She gets up and approaches the bar where Emilio only stares at her. “Hullo,” she says. Emilio says nothing. “Um, can I order a drink?” Emilio remains silent. She coughs. “So, uh, can I have two beers?”

Emilio continues to stare at her in murderous silence. Anna shifts from foot to foot. Two dozen Bears fans stare at her. Anna thinks: Go ahead. Kick us out. You’d be doing us a favor.

The high noon moments passes when Emilio finals budges. He reaches for a couple of mugs and begins to fill them from the tap. He tops off one, then the other, and slams them in turn on the bar. Anna begins to dig in her purse for her wallet. Emilio holds up his hand. He says: “Doan worry about it.”

Anna says, “You sure?”

Rather than answer, Emilio simply turns on his heel and walks to the other end of the bar. Anna grabs the two beers and brings them to her table.

“Thanks,” Tami says. “I got the next round.”

Anna glances back toward the bar. Emilio leans on it in the far corner, exhaling a lungful of cigarette smoke, eying the two of them through the swirls.

“I don’t think there’ll be another one,” she says.

To be continued

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All fictional characters, descriptions, and situations are the property of the author.

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BLACK COMEDY

By Michael G. Glab

© 2013

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— Forty-nine —

A young woman clears her throat and the dozen or so other women sitting in folding chairs in a circle with her fall silent. She smiles beatifically, looking right and left.

“Welcome, sisters,” she says. “My name is Hagar. It’s a slave name.”

Anna tries to check Tami’s reaction out of the corner of her eye. Nothing. Tami, the only black person in the room, is busy scribbling on a notepad on her knee. The young woman continues.

“Like our Afro-American sisters, I found it necessary to change my name. I chose not to be branded by the label put on me by the oppressive hierarchy. I was baptized Mary Pat,” she says. Two or three of the sisters in the circle titter.

“I decided that my life wouldn’t be pat.” More titters.

“I also decided I didn’t want my name to honor a woman whose only accomplishment in life was to be a virgin.” The titters spread.

Anna’s eyes widen. She’s right, Anna thinks, but she’d better be careful talking that way about the Mother of God.

The young woman goes on. “So I chose the name Hagar. It’s from the Old Testament. Hagar was Sarah’s slave. Sarah was barren so she gave Hagar to her husband Abraham so he could father a child. Can you believe it? She gave this woman to her husband.”

Anna thinks, Hmm, I did not know that. Naturally, she wouldn’t since Catholics long have been forbidden to read the Bible. Grandma Luisa told her that when Anna was a little girl. Every Catholic home must have a Bible in it, preferably on a table near the front door, Grandma instructed. But under no circumstances were they to open and read it. The Bible, the priests always warned, was filled with riddles and mysteries and arcane messages. It was far too easy to become confused by it. Look what happened when all those Lutherans started reading it!

The young woman expounds. “Hagar represents all the oppressed woman of the Bible.” She pauses for effect. “I apologize for being redundant,” she chuckles. “I think we can all agree the every woman in the Bible was oppressed.” She glances from left to right again. “Not much has changed in a few thousand years, I guess,” she says. Titters and nods.

Tami, though, continues to jot furiously in her notebook. Anna pretends to stretch her neck, as if to relieve a kink. In reality, she’s trying to see what Tami’s writing but the angle isn’t quite right.

Little does Anna know but the young woman’s tidbit on Hagar of the Book of Genesis is only the preamble to a lengthy lecture on the sad, sorry lot of women throughout history. Nine of the woman nod in agreement as the young woman drones on. Only the young woman herself, Tami, and Anna are not nodding. The young woman is busy droning. Tami is busy writing notes. And Anna is busy falling asleep.

Now and again, Anna snaps awake. Embarrassed, she looks around to see if anyone has noticed but fortunately the women are engrossed. All, that is, except Tami whose furious note-taking seems to be slowing down. The third time Anna snaps awake, she notices Tami’s pen has stopped moving.

Now Anna is dreaming. Hands caress her bare skin. A pair. Two pairs, then three. Soon she can’t even count the hands anymore. And, sure enough, some of those hands are dark-skinned. Anna has never felt so warm in public, so deliciously bad.

Anna feels is if she’s about to arch her back when — bang! — she’s awakened by a thunderclap, an explosion, the slap of the hand of Mary, the Mother of God, across her cheek.

Even Hagar jumps in her seat. Eleven pairs of eyes turn to the floor in front of Tami. Her notebook has fallen. Tami awakens with a snort. Anna covers her mouth to hide her smile.

Hagar quickly wraps up the final 30 years of female suffering. She asks, “Should we do this again next Sunday? Let’s see a show of hands.” Eleven hands go up.

As the women stand and put on their winter coats, Tami whispers to Anna. “I am so sorry,” she says.

Anna whispers back: “It’s okay, I fell asleep too.” The two giggle.

“I like you,” Tami says. “What are you doing right now? You wanna go sit somewhere and have a cup of coffee?”

Anna says, “I have a better idea. Let’s go sit somewhere and have a drink.”

“I like the way you think,” Tami says, grinning.

The two walk out in the December gray to Tami’s Volkswagen Beetle. “Sorry,” Tami says as she starts it up, “the heater doesn’t work. Where we goin’?”

“Let’s go up to North Avenue. We’ll go to Doc Ryan’s.”

“Point the way, lady,” Tami says.

Doc Ryan’s is fairly crowded for a Sunday afternoon. The Bears are on the black and white TV above the bar. They are playing the last game of the year, manhandling the woebegone New Orleans Saints. The Bears have scored a late touchdown making it 24-3. Anna and Tami can hear the crowd roar inside as they get out of the Beetle. A light snow is beginning to fall.

“Sounds like fun,” Tami says.

Anna says, “It’s not fun. It’s football.”

“I like football. I like Dick Gordon. He’s fine,” Tami says, drawing out the word.

“I don’t really dislike football,” Anna says, although she loathes it. “It’s exciting.”

“So is Dick Gordon,” Tami says.

“You’re bad.”

“Don’t I know it!”

The two enter Doc Ryan’s. The cheering, which had been dying down already, comes to a sudden halt. Several dozen white male heads turn toward them. The tinny blare of the television is the only sound in the place.

Anna thinks, Ooh, this is one big mistake.

To be continued

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All fictional characters, descriptions, and situations are the property of the author.

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BLACK COMEDY

By Michael G. Glab

© 2013

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— Forty-eight —

Anna’s seen the little flyer taped up on the post at the Oak Park Avenue stop the last two times she’s gone downtown on the el. “Sisters,” its headline blares, “There’s More To Life Than Ring Around The Collar.” She’s read it thoroughly each time she’s seen it.

■

Anna thinks of Ma, scraping her knuckles on the grater, creating mountains of Parmigiano every time she had an argument with Daddy, or Joey got into trouble at Holy Cross, or — Anna cringes to think of it now — every time the two of them had a spat, which was an everyday occurrence when Anna was a teenager. That’s how Tree Dudek handles stress — by grating cheese. Or doing housework.

Ma’s life has always been consumed with nothing more than grating cheese, slicing zucchini, vacuuming, window-washing, polishing silver, baking anisettes, smoking Pall Malls, amateur interior decorating, packing lunches for Al and Joey, whacking Joey on the side of the head two or three times a week, polishing Al’s dress shoes, ironing Joey’s school shirts, unclogging the kitchen drain, plunging the toilet, replacing the batteries in the transistor radio, changing the clock to daylight savings time, arranging and rearranging her three-by-five recipe cards, and all the other things that have to do with the smooth running of a Galewood home, all those things that…, that…, that are nothing!

That’s what Anna thinks her mother’s life is all about. Nothing at all. Not a thing.

It’s a rotten shame. It’s a crime. Ma is the hardest woman on the face of the Earth to get along with but, still, she’s a human being. A woman. And if these Galewood men had their way, a woman would be nothing more than a slave. And guess what! These Galewood men have their way!

Well, Anna thinks, I’m not gonna be anybody’s slave.

The flyer explains that there’s to be a meeting of sisters who wish to throw off the chains of bondage at the hippie record store, Nirvana, not far from the Oak Park Avenue el stop, Sunday afternoon at 2:00. Anthony gets his albums at Nirvana, even that damned Chicago Transit Authority that she’s sick of hearing, but Anna’s never been in the place. She’s only ever bought her 45s and LPs at Sears at North and Harlem because her friend Janine, who worked there, let her use her discount card. That is, until Janine was caught doing so and was promptly fired. But that was just a couple of months before Anna got married and, what with the all the chaos, she hadn’t any time time for records although she really would have liked to get Bookends by Simon and Garfunkel but, well, you know.

■

Anyway, Anna’s always thumbed her nose at Nirvana. She figured it was a cheap knock off of Bizarre Bazaar in Old Town, which even today remains one of her favorite places on Earth despite the fact, she must concede, it’s where she re-met Anthony. And, yeah, Bizarre Bazaar always had flyers and posters up that began, “Sisters…,” but she never really paid any attention to them because she’d never felt like anybody’s sister. Besides Joey, but, you know.

After two and a half years of sheer loneliness, even with Anthony now in the damned house every second of the day, Anna feels the need for sorority. And my husband, my own husband thinks I’m a ditz. The very first day I friggin’ met him he started in on me, telling me how stupid I was, Anna thinks.

I am not stupid. And I am not a slave.

■

So Anna finds herself in the classical music section of Nirvana, normally the least populated area of the store on a Sunday afternoon — or any afternoon — waiting for this consciousness-raising meeting of sisters to begin. A dozen or so folding chairs are set up in a circle. There will be no lectern, no single place where a leader holds forth because in this new, sisterly world, there are no leaders. Leadership, you know, is so patriarchal.

Anna’s wearing her white Keds with Levi’s. She has on an old University of Illinois sweatshirt underneath her winter coat and scarf. She has laid her coat neatly over the back of her folding chair and dug into her shoulder bag for the book she read a couple of months ago, Love Story.

Love Story, of course, was one of the two bestselling books of the year 1970. That and The Godfather. The last thing in the world Anna wanted to read was some love poem to the animals that make up the Mafia, even if the animals in Mario Puzo’s book are New Yorkers and not the real mobsters she’s known like Tony Accardo and Paul The Waiter Ricca and Sam Giancana and Tony The Fist Pontone.

So, Love Story it was, but that was back in the end of October. Anna knocked off Love Story in two sittings. She sobbed uncontrollably when Jenny died. When Oliver emerged from the hospital looking forward to the rest of his life she could have tossed the book aside and run to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to console him and ultimately marry him because he was handsome, athletic, principled, romantic, dashing, and — the main reason of all — he wasn’t Anthony.

Anna has brought Love Story with her for a couple of reasons. One, she wishes to carry a book to convey to these sisters that she is as literate as they surely are. And two, this particular book is set around Harvard University. Harvard. Hah-vahd. Having immersed herself in Love Story for two intensely emotional days a couple of months ago, Anna feels she is part of that great institution of higher learning. Harvard. JFK and Bobby went to Harvard. No one from Galewood had ever even come close to going to Harvard. If Joey ever even thinks of Harvard, he thinks of some femme place where fairies run around reading poetry and blowing each other behind the bushes. Harvard.

Harvard’s Gates

■

And the coup de grace for Harvard is that it’s light years better and smarter and more refined and cultured than Northwestern — Take that, Mr. Anthony Pontone, you insulting jerk!

Anna opens Love Story to a random page. Oh, yeah, this is funny. Jenny’s on the phone with some guy named Phil — that’s what she calls him, Phil. As in “I love you, Phil.” Oliver overhears this and flies into a jealous rage. “Who’s Phil?” he demands. Turns out Phil is her Daddy-o. Oh, these crazy, exotic, delightful Hollywood Italians — hehe, they call their fathers by their first names! I mean, alright, it’s not exactly true to life; after all, Anna didn’t even know her own father’s name was Al until she was seven years old and had finally put two and two together. Calling him Al would have been a mortal sin, the first step on the slippery slope to something evil and unspeakable, like incest.

Anthony Never Played Hockey For Harvard

■

Anna reads and rereads the passage, allowing herself to chuckle over it again, a knowing, wise chuckle, the chuckle of someone who reads important books set among the ivy-covered walls of academia. She’s not watching who enters the room.

That’s why, when the woman who sits next to her first speaks, Anna jumps. “Girl!” the woman says. “Whatchu readin’ that commercial bullshit for?”

Anna places her right hand over her sternum. “Oh my God. I thought I was gonna have a heart attack,” she says. She takes a couple of deep breaths until the woman’s words sink in. Now Anna wants to to her to go to hell. But when she looks into the woman’s face, she’s disarmed. The woman is smiling. Her eyes stare directly into Anna’s.

The woman, already sitting, begins to struggle to take her coat off. Anna helps her with it and even folds it neatly and drapes it over the back of her folding chair as the woman straightens herself out.

She wears an Angela Davis-style ‘fro and a yellow and black dashiki. She has on floppy bell-bottomed jeans and knee-high black boots. Her skin is the color of Boston coffee. Her eyes flash with energy and kindness and excitement. Anna thinks it’s as though this woman lives on some higher plane, in a different world, a place where people do things and see things and know other fascinating people. Anna comes to this conclusion merely by looking into the woman’s eyes.

“Oh, girl,” the woman says, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to freak you out. I was just teasin’.”

“That’s okay,” Anna says.

“What’s your name?”

“Anna.”

The woman extents her hand and clasps Anna’s in a soul shake. “I’m Tami. I don’t know anybody else here. Let’s be girlfriends.” With that she laughs loudly and deeply. Anna can’t help but join in.

Yeah, Anna thinks. Yeah. I’d like that.

To be continued

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All fictional characters, descriptions, and situations are the property of the author.

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