Ширли Мерфи - Poor Jenny, Bright As A Penny

They left the drugstore and passed a beautiful hotel with trees growing in a courtyard. There was a new Lincoln parked in front with a lady and a little poodle waiting in it. Mama looked in, sniffed, and said, “Them fox scarves don’t look good on fat women.” Bingo pulled Mama by the hand to hurry her along. “What’s the matter with you?” she grumbled. “You feel sorry for rich folk?”

“Well I don’t know, Mama, maybe that lady worked hard for that car and fur coat.”

“Did I say anything about the car? All I said was—”

He blocked out the rest of it, meandered and scuffed his feet. Mama took him by the shoulder and hurried him along to where a large department store presented windows of brilliant summer clothes, displayed with wrought-iron furniture and paintings of summer beaches. Awnings hung over the street to keep rain off the windows and off the people who paused to look in at those bright, exotic worlds.

Inside the store it was warm and smelled like a garden. They were in the cosmetic department. Mama stopped at a counter, looked into a little round mirror, and fluffed her hair. There were wigs there, red, blond, and gray. Mama sat down on a stool and began to try them on one after the other. The saleslady smiled. Bingo wandered away. When he looked back, Mama had left the sales counter and was picking something up off the floor. She shoved it in her pocket. He thought she had found some money and wanted to ask her, but she hurried off toward the elevator. By the time he caught up, there were people around.

They got off the elevator at Girls’ Dresses, and Mama began to flip through the racks. She picked out a blue satin dress with ruffles that Bingo knew Jenny would hate. Mama handed the clerk a credit card and the clerk called her Mrs. Harold. Bingo stood staring at Mama. That was a credit card Mama had found.

He knew he should stop her, but when they left Girls’ Dresses there were too many people, so he just followed Mama like a sheep. In Women’s Coats Mama bought herself a new raincoat the color of strawberries and walked out wearing it, again having signed Mrs. Harold’s name. He tried to talk to Mama without giving her away, but Mama wouldn’t listen. He would have had to shout to get her attention. She bought some towels with yellow flowers on them, and a bottle of perfume.

Then they were alone in the elevator. “Mama, let’s throw that card away and get out of here and not buy any more.”

“Nobody’s hurting, the store’s insured.”

“Well, it’s stealing from somebody. And if we get caught—”

But it was too late. The elevator door opened, and there was a store detective waiting for them.

The detective’s office was five floors up, a small hot room with a cluttered desk and an ashtray full of cigar butts. The chairs were made of aluminum tubing and covered with cracked plastic. From his seat by the window Bingo could see the rooftops of the city, crowded with vent pipes, skylights, and billboards.

Mama played innocent as long as she could. But the credit card had been stolen the week before and there was a long list of purchases against it. “I did report mine lost,” Mama lied. “This one belongs to my husband.”

“Do you have identification?”

Finally it became obvious that if Mama didn’t tell the truth she was going to be charged with making all the purchases, which amounted to several hundred dollars. By the time she decided to level with the detective, he seemed to find her story hard to believe.

Bingo stood up for her then. “She did find it today. I saw her.”

“It must have gotten mixed up with my own credit cards,” Mama said. “I intended to turn it in, but I hadn’t got around to it yet.”

“If you intended to turn it in, why were you signing the owner’s name on the sales slips?”

Unable to answer this, Mama squeezed out a few tears, found a handkerchief, and broke down and bawled. “Mister, I’m on welfare. It’s tough to make ends meet and care for three little children,” she sobbed. “I guess I lost my head when I saw that card lying there. My little girl has a birthday next week. Please, take the things back and let me go. I’m really sorry.”

Bingo was so ashamed of Mama. The store detective called the police, and Mama said through her tears, “It isn’t fair. It just isn’t fair. I said I’d give everything back. I just can’t afford to be arrested.”

At the police station, when it became clear to Mama that she was going to be put in jail and not just reprimanded and sent home, she stopped crying and got mad. The young red-headed officer who booked her was very polite, but Mama swore at him abominably. “How long do you expect to keep me in this goddamn place!”

Officer Dermody looked at her coolly. “Mrs. Middle, are there other children at home? Is there anyone there to care for them?”

Mama didn’t mention Lud. She knew county welfare would find out. But she had to tell about Crystal and Jenny, for the police would surely check with Mr. Knutson, her welfare caseworker, and she feared this even more than going to jail. “There are two girls at home, but they are very capable and able to care for the boy.”

“How old are they?”

“Fifteen and sixteen, but old for their ages, and responsible.”

“They will be cared for at juvenile hall,” Officer Dermody said. His eyelashes and eyebrows were red too, Bingo noticed. Then the meaning of juvenile hall hit Bingo, and he sat down feeling shaky.

“For how long?” he asked weakly.

“At least through the weekend, until your mother can get into court on Monday. Then the judge will set the date for her trial. He will either release her on her own recognizance so you can all go home, or he will make her stay in jail until the trial date, maybe several weeks. If that happens, Mrs. Middle, you can post bail and get out. That can be borrowed from a bail bondsman, but it will probably cost a hundred dollars to borrow it.”

Bingo thought it sounded like a long time in juvenile hall. He kissed Mama good-bye and watched her being led away toward the cells. He walked to the patrol car between Officer Dermody and a gray-haired policewoman, and got into the back seat with her.

At a stop light Dermody turned to look at Bingo. “How are your sisters going to take all this?”

“Jenny won’t make any trouble. Crystal might.”

“Is Crystal the oldest?”

“Yes.”

“How much trouble?”

“She might kick and bite. She won’t like going to juvenile hall. She’ll swear at you,” he promised.

“We’ve been sworn at before.”

“Will it be all right for Jenny there? Is it rough? She’s not like Crystal.”

“It’s a nice place, she’ll be fine. But it’s never a picnic, I guess, to go to detention.”

“Jenny won’t mind, it’s something new. She’ll be interested.”

The officers stared at him, puzzled. “Jenny writes. She needs to know about things, new things.”

Dermody studied him in the rearview mirror. “She wants to be a writer? Tell me about her.” “She fills notebooks; she has stacks of them. What she sees, things that happen to us. She says she can’t help it. Like breathing.

Dermody continued to study him. His green eyes, in the rear- view mirror, were unsettling. Bingo said, “If Jenny were on the gallows with a rope around her neck, she’d be thinking how to describe it, how the people’s faces looked all turned up and watching.

Dermody considered this, and grinned. “She’ll meet someone at J.D.H. who’ll be interested in that, you bet!”

Chapter 6

It’s incredible, but we’re in juvenile hall. We didn’t do anything wrong. We’re here because there is no one at home to be responsible for us. Mama is in jail. I can hardly bear to write about it. I’ve left a note for Lud, he wouldn’t even know what happened to Mama. The police just came to the door with Bingo and we got our things and left.