Lesley Kagen - Whistling in the Dark

Ethel leaned over the table toward Troo and said, “You know, Miss Troo, you just gotta let that go with your daddy’s accident. Chil’ren, they don’t know what the heck they’s doin’ so it don’t count what they do in God’s eyes like a bad thing ’til they get much, much older and they know when they’s doin’ a bad thing. And I know that Mr. Rasmussen, he can’t replace your other daddy, but…” Ethel took a sip of her Ovaltine and it left a mustache on her lip that she licked off with her startling pink tongue. “If I know anything at all about Miss Sally, it’s that she’s very good at sharin’.”

Troo looked over at me and I nodded so she’d know what Ethel said was right. I was good at sharing and would be happy to share Mr. Dave with Troo equal equal. After all, Troo had shared Sky King with me. Not knowing. But she did. I think even if she had known, she would’ve. Maybe not right at first, because that was something Trooper could use some work on, but she would eventually. I think.

And since she, like me, thought Ethel was the smartest person we knew, Troo asked her the same thing she asked me earlier, which was exactly what I was hoping she’d do. “But what about Uncle Paulie? I made him into a brain-damaged person and now he just builds Popsicle stick houses and can’t be a carpenter like he was.”

“Paulie a carpenter? Wherever did you get that idea from?” Ethel said, frowning. “Your uncle Paulie weren’t no carpenter. Paulie was a bookie.”

I was the one who told Troo that Uncle Paulie was a carpenter because I could have sworn I heard Mr. Jerbak call him a carpenter before the crash, when Uncle Paulie was gonna give me a ride home back to the farm after a visit at Granny’s. We’d stopped up at Jerbak’s Beer ’n Bowl on the way because he said he had some business to attend to. When we walked into the dark room that smelled of Vitalis and beer and chocolate chip cookies, from behind the bar Mr. Jerbak hollered, “Hey, lookee who’s here. If it ain’t Paulie the carpenter. The guy who nails more broads than Jesus nailed boards.” And all the men at the bar laughed and laughed and I had three kiddie cocktails while some of the men gave Uncle Paulie their money. So maybe Ethel was mixed up.

“Do you know what that is? A bookie?” Ethel asked.

Hadn’t Eddie gotten his Chevy car from a bookie who couldn’t pay his dues?

Troo and me said together, “No.”

“A bookie is somebody who takes bets for other people,” Ethel said.

Troo asked, “Bets on what?”

“Well, it really don’t matter no more, does it? But that was what your uncle Paulie were. A bookie.”

Ethel took another long drink from her sweaty lavender metal glass and then set it back down on the kitchen table. “I’ll tell you one thing, Miss Troo, something I really noticed about your uncle after that crash. I knew him pretty good before that crash because I was keepin’ company with a gentleman around that time who had a fondness for the ponies.”

A fondness for the ponies? Like me?

Ethel got up and walked her empty glass to the sink. “You know I’m sad to tell you this, but your uncle Paulie, he weren’t so nice in them days. In fact, some folks thought Paulie Riley was the baddest man around. So maybe in a way you did yourself and your family a favor, Miss Troo. Come to think of it, Paulie, too.” Ethel pulled open the refrigerator and took something out. “Anybody yearnin’ for a radish sandwich?” That was what Ethel always had during the summer for a snack. God only knows why. But her wavin’ that bunch of radishes around, it made me have a memory that just came to me out of nowhere, just blew through my head like a hot wind.

On the afternoon of the crash, Mother and Uncle Paulie were standing on the porch at the farm. I was getting a drink out of the hose and cleaning off some of the little radishes I’d just picked from the garden, tending to it the way Daddy had told me to so he wouldn’t be disappointed in me anymore when he came back from the game. I was feeling real, real bad about saying those mean things to him. I swore to myself I’d make it up to him. Later on I’d give him a rub on his tan neck. He especially liked that. Mother and Uncle Paulie didn’t know I was out there. I set the hose down and snuck a little closer because Mother had a funny look on her face. Daddy and Troo were sitting in the car in the driveway, facing away from the house listening to some loud cha-cha music on the radio. I froze myself so I could hear what Uncle Paulie was saying to Mother. His voice was like how Butchy sounded when you tried to take away his bone.

Uncle Paulie was real close up to her, his chest pressing against hers. “Got myself into a little trouble and I need some dough. Break open the cookie jar, little Miss Stuck-Up, or I’m gonna tell your husband about you know who.” Then Uncle Paulie touched her lips and ran his finger across them. Mother hauled back and slapped Uncle Paulie across the face, knocking the cigarette right out of his mouth. Then Uncle Paulie left through the screen door, but not before he smiled and said, “You’re gonna wish you hadn’t done that, Helen.”

Mother stood there on that porch staring after Uncle Paulie until he got into the car. Then she ran into the house, and through her bedroom window I heard her crying. I got so scared. I needed to tell Daddy to come back… that Uncle Paulie had made Mother cry… that I was sorry I said I hated him and wished for another daddy. It couldn’t wait. I dropped the hose and ran down the driveway after them, but all that was left was the dust of the car where it had pulled out onto the road in a hurry.

It was funny how those radishes made me remember that, but sometimes baseball and hot dogs with mustard and relish also made me have rememberings of Daddy, so maybe it was the same sort of thing. But for sure I knew now that Ethel was telling the honest-to-God truth about my uncle being a bad, bad man. I said to her, “I think Uncle Paulie might be the molester who murdered Junie and Sara.”

Ethel made her eyes go so big that the brown part looked like a fly on a plate of mashed potatoes. “Paulie a murderer and molester? Oh, Miss Sally, you have got to get that imagination under control. Why, Paulie could never do nothin’ like that. He can barely get hisself dressed.” She looked over at Troo and said, “Now he coulda done somethin’ like that in the old days, cuz in the old days that man was nastier than chicken poop on a pump handle. I could tell you some stories that would make your hair stand straight up. Back then, Paulie was always drinkin’ up at Jerbak’s and takin’ bets and most of all-womanizin’.” Ethel shook her head like she was so disgusted. “I’m gonna tell you something now that maybe I shouldn’t but I think I’m goin’ to anyway, for Miss Troo’s sake.” She lowered her voice and said, “But you gotta swear that you don’ ever tell nobody. Spit and shake.” Ethel spit into her hand and we did the same and shook on it. “Paulie got hisself arrested that summer for breakin’ the legs of a man who wouldn’t pay him his bettin’ money and then takin’ advantage of that man’s wife. He was gonna have to go to jail for a very long time for doin’ that. But after that car crash with your daddy… your mother, she got Officer Rasmussen to make that work out all right by asking him to give that man and his wife some money so they’d drop them charges against your uncle.”

The O’Malley sisters’ mouths fell right open.

Ethel shook her head back and forth and made her aaahhhaaa sound. “God the Father sure do work in mysterious ways.”

We just sat there and thought about that together until Ethel said, “Why ever did you think Paulie was the murderer and molester, Miss Sally?”