Evan Hunter - Streets of Gold

“I thought it was the bum,” my mother said. “I’ll kill him. I’ll kill him the minute he comes through the door.”

“What?” I said.

“Him and his whore,” she said, pronouncing the last word “hooer.”

“What do you mean? What...?”

“You think I’m stupid?” she said. “Where is he, it’s four o’clock, he’s supposed to be here at three, where is he, the bum? He’s with that whore, that’s where he is. We’ve been married twenty-one years, the dirty bastard, he’s rotten through and through, la Madonna opened my eyes, she told me what your father’s been doing, oh, and I believed him, I believed him when he told me he was lining up wedding jobs after work, sure, some wedding jobs, I’ll kill him when he gets home, don’t you say a word, Iggie, I’m going to kill that rotten son of a bitch.”

“Mom, sit down, will you? Mom, please . ..”

“What am I stupid?” she said. “I must be stupid to let this happen. I called my father, I called him the minute I came in the door, I put down my bundles and I called him at the tailor shop. I told him la Madonna stopped me on White Plains Avenue and told me what a bum my husband was, told me he’s been seeing this whore from Pelham Parkway every day, every day , I told him, who knows where they do it, she must have an apartment there, he probably delivers mail to her, or else he met her at one of those beer parties he plays, of course , why else does he go all over the Bronx playing those jobs, to meet whores, I told my father, I told him. And he said What madonna , what are you talking about, my own father , would you believe it, he sticks up for that rotten son of a bitch, I saw her with my own eyes, all in black, she had this sad face, there were tears in her eyes when she told me, and she said God bless you, Stella, and then she vanished, my own father didn’t believe me. He told me to calm down, he told me to wait till Jimmy comes home, talk to him, find out what it’s all about, my own father, what’s there to find out about when la Madonna comes to me and tells me, what’s there to find out, Iggie, oh, Iggie, what’s there to find out?”

“Mom,” I said, “Grandpa was right. When Pop gets here...”

“I’ll kill him!” she said.

“Mom, please ,” I said, and burst into tears.

She came to me, she clutched my head against her bosom. Frantically she stroked my hair, and the hysterical monologue went on, and I half listened, and prayed her rage would run its course before my father stepped through that kitchen door, because I knew for certain she would stab him with a bread knife if she did not calm down before then. “How could he do this to us? To me , sure, he doesn’t love me , he never loved me, but to you ? Iggie, how could he do this to you , doesn’t he know you’re his son, doesn’t he have no respect for the family, you’re blind, doesn’t he know that, isn’t that enough for you to bear, do you have to be ashamed of a bum for a father? Oh, no wonder, oh now it makes sense, oh yes now I understand, I thank you sweet Madonna , I get on my knees to thank you, I’ve been stupid, so stupid, I’ll take care of you Iggie don’t worry your mother loves you she’ll always love you no matter what that bum does I don’t care if he ever comes back I’ll kill him when he comes in this house that dirty bastard twenty-one years I’ve been good to him twenty-one years and he finds himself a cheap rotten whore a blond woman la Madonna said an Irish whore with blond hair she lives on Pelham Parkway he goes up there all the time when he’s delivering mail he met her at one of the beer parties he plays la Madonna said it’s been going on for years now she said she told me everything Iggie and she said God bless you Stella oh Iggie what am I going to do how are we going to manage my own father won’t believe me.”

In my mother’s temporary insanity there was irrefutable logic. If the woman in black had not been the Virgin Mary, then how did she know who my mother was? My mother, after all, had never seen her before, so how could this woman, unless she was the Virgin Mary, immediately identify her as Stella Di Palermo? And similarly, if the woman had not been the Virgin Mary, how could she have known what my father was up to on Pelham Parkway almost every day after work, how could she possibly have known that he was in love with another woman? My father maintained that the lady in black was a troublemaker, that my mother was a fool to believe a stranger who had stopped her on the street and told her such a lie, how did my mother know the woman wasn’t some kind of nut? “Then how did she know me?” my mother screamed. “Why did she pick me out of the crowd, the avenue was crowded, everybody was out shopping, she came up to me and said right off Stella Di Palermo, she knew me, you son of a bitch!” My father told my mother (this was all in my presence) that she was as crazy as the lady who’d stopped her, if she believed such a thing. My mother said, “Oh, no, I’m not crazy, you’re the one who’s crazy if you think I’m going to live under the same roof for another minute with a bum who’s running around with some cheap Irish whore on Pelham Parkway,” and my father said, “For Christ’s sake, Stella, will you please shut up, you’re giving me a headache,” and she said, “ I’ll give you a headache, you rotten son of a bitch,” and my father left the house.

My mother immediately went through all the drawers on his side of the dresser, searching for evidence that would link him incontrovertibly to the mysterious blond Irish whore on Pelham Parkway. She found a bill from a jewelry shop, and she read it off to me triumphantly — “One pair gold earrings, sapphire chip, forty-seven dollars and twenty-two cents, where are those earrings, Iggie? Did you ever see those earrings, this bill is dated January twenty-eighth, did he give those earrings to me , did you ever see those earrings in this house? He gave them to his whore, he spent our good money on an Irish whore!” My father told her on the telephone that he had picked up the earrings for a friend in the post office, my mother could go check with the jeweler if she wanted to, but she said, “Sure, the jeweler’ll lie, too, you think I’m stupid?” He had gone to stay at my Uncle Nick’s house in Corona, and on Good Friday, Nick came to my mother as an emissary. Nick told her she was foolish to believe a strange woman who’d come up to her on the street....

“ What strange woman?” my mother shouted. “ La Madonna , do you understand me, Nick? La Madonna, all in black!”

“Sure, but after all, Stella, are you going to believe some crazy person or your own husband?”

“I’m not crazy, don’t worry,” my mother said.

“Who said you were crazy, Stella? I’m telling you this person, this woman who came up to you...”

“La Madonna!” my mother said.

“Now come on, Stella,” Nick said, “make sense, will you? What the hell is la Madonna gonna be bothering coming here to the Bronx to tell you about Jimmy, huh?”

“He’s a no-good bastard,” my mother said.

“All right, so what do you wanna do? I’m wastin’ time here. You want me to tell him to come home, or you want me to tell him to go drop dead? Which is it, Stella?”

“Why won’t he tell me the truth?”

“He swore to me on the Bible he ain’t got no other woman; now what more do you want, Stella?”