Ширли Мерфи - Poor Jenny, Bright As A Penny

In the waiting room Jenny sat still as a stone. Ben put his coat around her and she wondered why, because she didn’t think she was cold; she could not feel anything, cold or warm.

She waited by herself, silent and numb. When Ben came back he did not speak until she looked up at him, questioning.

“They’re doing all they can.”

“Will she die?”

“I don’t know, Jenny.”

“But what did she take?”

“The doctor thinks it was strychnine.”

“Strychnine.” The sudden vision of a poisoned dog, writhing, was all she could make of it. She sat dumbly staring at him.

“They will test the pills she had. If it was strychnine, I can tell you that she did not take it on purpose.”

They sat silently. She wanted to know what he meant, where Crystal could have gotten such a thing. And yet she did not want to know. She thought of Crystal as she had looked once, standing before a mirror fastening a golden necklace and smiling. She thought of Crystal sitting with the boys in the back of the school bus, smoking and laughing, Crystal coming in late and soaking from the rain. Crystal when Mama tried to hold her on her lap and rock her.

When the doctor told Jenny that Crystal was dead, she did not believe him. He tried patiently to explain, but she would not comprehend; she wanted to go to Crystal, she begged to go to Crystal. Finally the doctor led her down the hall and she stood by Crystal’s bed. Crystal’s right hand lay palm up, the palm of her hand was beautiful, her arm was beautiful.

Only her face looked dead. Jenny turned away, and she was sick. A nurse held her over a basin, and she heaved and heaved until she could not stand.

When Ben came for her he put his coat around her shoulders once more—she could not remember losing it; he almost lifted her into the car. “I can’t get Georgie on the phone, they must be out. Do you want to go home, Jenny?”

“I don’t know.” If Georgie were there everything would be all right.

But it would not be all right. Crystal was dead. Georgie could not change that.

Ben did not talk to her, but he spoke on the radio and his voice was comforting. Once she said, “I’ll be all right when I get home. Don’t call Georgie.” But she did not know how to tell Mama. And once she said, “Will you get into trouble for staying at the hospital with me?”

“I often do stay, when there’s a question.”

He parked in front of the cottage. Jenny looked once at the darkened windows, then could not look back. “Tell me how she got strychnine.”

“Crystal was the third one tonight, Jenny. Someone has packed some pills, bennies and yo-yo’s, with strychnine.”

“To kill people?”

“Yes.”

“But why?” She looked again at the darkened house. She did not know how to tell Mama.

“It may have to do with the narcotics raids, some kind of retribution. Perhaps a pusher informed on another. Perhaps those pills were slipped into his delivery.”

“To kill anyone who dealt with him?”

“Yes.”

Jenny pushed her knuckles against her mouth and tried not to see Crystal contorted and bleeding; tried not to see Crystal dead.

“I’ll go in with you,” he helped her to the porch and inside.

They lit a lamp. Ben looked around the room, and glanced at Mama’s closed door.

Jenny sat down on Bingo’s bed, then looked up at Ben. “I could wait until morning. I could wait to tell him. He doesn’t need to know tonight.” Ben just looked back at her. “I guess he has a right, though.” Jenny said. “If I tell Mama—if I must tell Mama tonight, then Bingo has a right to be told.” She leaned over and put her arms around Bingo until he was awake. He looked blindly into the light, then sat up. Jenny gave him his glasses. He was slow to come completely awake. Then he began to look puzzled at seeing Ben there, began to see that something was wrong.

When he was ready, she told him.

Bingo didn’t say anything for a long time. Then he said numbly, “Crystal was afraid.” He had turned very pale. “When I saw her, Crystal was afraid.”

Jenny couldn’t bear it, she tried to hold him, but he didn’t want to be held. “Please—can you—” she began. She looked down at him: She must have looked desolate because he put his arms around her then. “Can you remember her,” Jenny said, “please, Bingo, the way she used to be.”

When they told Mama, Mama stared woodenly at Ben’s uniform, as if it were the only real thing in the room. As if it were the only thing that made her believe what they were telling her. She looked at Jenny once, slid a glance at Bingo, then she removed her gaze to the center of her bed. Jenny touched her tentatively, but she was cold and remote. She would not move or speak.

Ben told her as gently as he could that she must go the next day to identify Crystal. Mama made no sign whatever that she understood him. Jenny sat by Mama’s bed for a long time, and Bingo spent the rest of the night curled beside Mama with a blanket over him. Mama said no word, made no movement.

In the morning Mama spoke to them in monosyllables and would not eat. Jenny wanted to go with her to the morgue, but Mama would not have it; she turned so cold and furious that Jenny could not defy her. She would take a taxi and the cab driver would be all the help she needed.

Jenny did not know what she would do, alone by herself.

But Mama got home all right. She had a bottle with her. She got a glass from the kitchen, sat down on the day bed, laid her crutches carefully beside her, and poured the glass full of whiskey. She drank it, then she poured another.

Mama drank steadily from that morning until the funeral two days later. She would drink, pass out, wake, and begin drinking again. Jenny got her to eat only occasionally. She had taken all of Jenny’s money and hidden it; when her bottle was empty she took up her crutches and hobbled carefully to the liquor store four blocks away and bought another one. She seldom spoke.

Once she brought a paper home and laid it in the center of Jenny’s desk. The headlines said there had been nine strychnine poisonings in two days, and that it was thought to be retribution toward an unnamed informer. Warnings were given against using any capsules as there was no indication as to how many had been circulated. The dead were listed. It was shocking to see Crystal’s name there. Jenny stuffed the paper into a drawer of her desk and would not look at it again.

Mr. Knutson came to pay his respects. He had arranged the funeral. Mama only looked at him stonily. Georgie came and Jenny thought she could stop Mama’s drinking, but Georgie said, “Leave her alone, Jenny.” So Jenny did.

*

The funeral is over. We are home again and Mama is passed out on her bed. Now there is such an emptiness. I must write about it, and yet I cannot say what I feel. It’s as if a weight is pressing the air flat and heavy between us so even the hearing of each other’s voices is deadened.

The funeral was so strange. And Mama—oh, I can’t even write about Mama. The funeral was as if we were all wrapped in cotton wool. The room was hushed and people whispered. There were only just Mama and Bingo and me, Mr. Knutson, and the Dermodys. Who else would there be? Who else knew or cared? Jack and Ben were pallbearers. That was the last kindness Crystal will ever have.

But the hushed room, and the whispering, and the awful sweet smell of flowers, and the stink of Mama’s whiskey, all made me feel sick. Bingo had a hard time to keep from throwing up. Before we sat down to the service, Mama lurched up drunkenly on her crutch to look at Crystal.

We bought white flowers for the coffin. I did not want to look at Crystal, and Bingo would not. He went white as a sheet when Mama tried to force him. The sermon was—hypocritical. It didn’t say anything real about Crystal or why this happened to her. The minister had a face like wax. He looked like a wax figure standing there in his black suit, holding his black Bible, staring at the tops of our heads.