EVALEEN THE QUEEN
By Sandra Rector
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2011 Sandra Rector
Smashwords Edition License Notes
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DEDICATION
I wish to dedicate Evaleen the Queen to my very shy mother, Agnes Johnson. who during the Great Depression sold furniture polish door to door. Although my mother did not get rich selling her furniture polish, I always wondered what would have happened, if she had and to P M F Johnson who without his love and constant encouragement, this book would not be possible.
CHAPTER ONE
Outside the front windows of the tenement building where Eva Doyle lived with her parents, the snow came down in windy gusts. It was another cold day in Emerson, Massachusetts in the winter of 1935. The Super had turned down the heat again to save money. Did he think they didn't notice, Eva wondered as she slipped on yet another sweater. But she didn’t blame him either. Half the people in the building, including her own family, were behind on the rent. Times were tough for everybody. Pa had lost his job as a mechanic three months ago and hadn't been able to find another one, although he had tried mightily, often getting up in the middle of the night to be one of the first in line.
Without a job to occupy him, a silent man to begin with, he became bitter and depressed and had taken to drinking cheap whiskey. When he was drunk, he often took his anger out on Ma and Eva, mostly Eva. Everything Eva did seemed to irritate him lately. Mostly he seemed to resent the fact that he still had to feed and clothe her. She had tried hard to get a job and would have taken anything, but there were no jobs to be had for someone with no experience at anything. If it weren't for her uncle who still had a job and was able to help them out, they would have all been out on the street months ago. That's where her parents were right now, asking for another loan from her uncle.
She tried not to think about the cold or how broke they all were or what Pa would do when he found out that she had stolen the emergency money for the ingredients to make her grandmother’s skin cream, money to be used only if someone were sick or dying.
Being extra careful, she opened the fragile notebook containing her grandmother’s skin care recipes and began searching for the skin lubricating cream her grandmother swore by. Her grandmother had given Eva the notebook right before she died. She remembered it well.
Eva and her grandmother, her mother's mother, shared a bedroom after her grandmother broke her hip in a fall and moved in with Eva's family. Eva loved having her there. Often before going to sleep they would have long talks. Sharing secrets with the elegant old woman who understood everything and loved her just for herself was wonderful and comforting. One night Eva was helping her grandmother get ready for bed when her grandmother stopped what she was doing, and with great ceremony handed Eva an old notebook.
"This contains everything I know about skin care," she said. "Having beautiful skin has been my legacy and it can be yours too."
People were always telling her grandmother how beautiful her skin was, even when she was very old. She had shrugged it off like it was nothing at all. Eva knew better. Skin care was her grandmother's obsession. Eva's grandmother was not a raving beauty, but she had the most beautiful skin. Even in her eighties, bent over almost double with rheumatism, people were forever pleading for her secret. She would just smile and shrug as though having lovely skin in old age was the most natural thing in the world. Eva's own mother had never shown any interest in beauty, other than buying cosmetics from time to time which she rarely used.
Eva thanked her grandmother profusely. Together, they had sat up in bed and looked through the book with its yellowed pages and spidery handwriting while her grandmother explained the benefits of each recipe. Eva knew how important this was to her grandmother, and so for her sake she forced herself to pay close attention.
But afterwards, out of her grandmother’s sight, Eva stuffed the notebook into her dresser drawer where she soon forgot about it, because what she wanted most in the world was not to have beautiful skin but to be someone special, the kind of person Hero Lyon would notice and take an interest in. At eighteen, Hero Lyon was over six feet tall with thick, blue-black hair that glowed like raven feathers in the sun. His almost black eyes had a way of looking right through you. Every girl in high school wanted Hero Lyon. And every boy wanted to be just like him, cool and elegant and rich and not seeming to have a care in the world.
As far as Eva could tell, Hero only liked tall, slim, blond girls with pale skin, none of whom she remotely resembled. Eva’s freckle-filled face was more ruddy than pale. She wore her red hair in a pony tail, which she cut herself when it needed to be trimmed. Her hazel eyes were her best feature and had a tendency to change to a pale olive green depending on the light and time of day. She was barely five foot three and big boned, the kind of girl who wouldn’t look skinny no matter how much weight she lost. Her only real asset was her perfectly oval face, a face that looked beautiful in photographs but was in reality quite plain. And unlike Hero who lived in a large mansion on Trenton Hill, Eva lived in a two bedroom apartment on the third floor of a tenement building on Hansen Street, one of a long row of tenement buildings all in various states of disrepair. The only redeeming feature on her street was a small park directly across from her building where Eva’s grandmother used to like to sit in the sun and watch the people pass by, but which was now occupied by hobos who always left a terrible mess.
Josh Goldman, her school chum, said redheads were already special since there were so few of them. Eva didn’t believe him, though he was not the type to lie. Josh always thought the best of everyone, so his opinion didn't count. Everyone liked Josh. He was easy going, trustworthy and a good friend. He was tall, over six feet, and thin to the point of scrawniness, and his blond hair had cowlicks that no amount of Vaseline Hair Tonic would keep down. He was nice looking, but not special like Hero. Nobody was.
It wasn’t until her father lost his job when Eva, who was in her last year of high school, remembered her grandmother’s notebook. She was putting the laundry away one day when the drawer jammed and she saw why -- the notebook was sticking up at the back of her drawer, which she found rather strange. But seeing it there, it occurred to her that it was a sign from her grandmother to use her skin care creams to make money. A lot of people were going door to door these days selling everything from used clothing to wood, why not her?
The more she thought about it, the more excited she became. She knew her father wouldn't approve, but she had to do something and this was all she could think of to do. And so she decided to go ahead. When her parents were out, she took the emergency money which was hidden in a bowl in the cupboard, money not to be used except for dire emergencies and bought the lanolin and sweet almond oil she needed from the local drugstore. She reasoned that if she actually made some money, Pa would forgive her and be glad. If it didn’t work, well, she didn’t want to think about that.
Now with her parents gone for the day, this was her one and only chance. She took a deep breath, let it out slowly, then, forcing herself to concentrate, carefully opened up the dry and crackling pages of the old notebook. Her heart was beating hard with a mix of fear that she was wasting time and precious cash on something that might not pay off and excitement that she was actually doing something to change her family’s destiny. If everything went right, today would be a new beginning for them all. And if it didn't work there was a good possibility they would soon have to go on relief, or even worse end up on the street, living in one of those tent cities on the edge of Emerson. The thought made her shiver but did not deter her.
She read the instructions for the lubricating cream slowly and deliberately twice, then ran water into the bottom half of a large frying pan and lit the stove. As she did, she imagined the surprised look on Hero Lyon's face when he discovered his former classmate Eva Doyle, someone he barely noticed, was now a successful businesswoman, just as good as he was, maybe even a little better. She grinned at that impossible thought.
She said a quick little prayer asking her grandmother to help her as she waited for the water to heat and worried if the cream would turn out right or even if it did, would anybody actually buy it from her? She shivered at that thought then forced it out of her head as she concentrated on measuring out the lanolin and pouring it in the pan. She was just about to measure the sweet almond oil to add to it when she heard a knock on the door.
She froze, sure it was one of the neighbors who would discover what she was up to and tell Pa. She was flooded with relief when she heard the sound of footsteps retreating and climbing the stairs to the apartment above theirs. Hobos going from door to door to ask for food or money! There were so many these days. She felt sorry for them, but she felt even sorrier for the wives and families they had abandoned. Eva returned to her work, stirring the mixture together as it heated and tried not to think about the half million women who'd been left to support their children alone. As she stirred, she enjoyed the delicious aroma of the almond oil wafting up to her nostrils. From time to time, she dipped a finger into the cream and rubbed it on her arm. It felt silky and good and smelled wonderful.
When the cream was done and cooled sufficiently to be handled, she poured it into the five small baby jars she had managed to collect, clean and label in secret, wiped off the mouth of the jars with a dish towel and set them aside to finish cooling before screwing on the tops. As she waited, she admired the jars that proudly proclaimed, "Fresh as a Daisy Lubricating Cream," with her name, address and phone number inscribed in tiny letters at the bottom next to an equally tiny drawing of a daisy.
Suddenly she heard the familiar crunch of tires on the snowy street out front. With a strange sense of foreboding, she went to the window and looked out just in time to see her father begin to maneuver his car between two other parked cars.
In a panic now and working as fast as she possibly could, she scraped the melted beeswax from the counter and shoved the pan beneath the sink. She heard the front door open and her parents' footsteps on the stairs as she quickly snatched a tray from the cupboard and began to load up the jars. She was racing down the hallway towards her room with the tray when the door burst open and Pa entered the room. He was a big man, red in the face, with a mop of faded red hair that stood up like a wire brush.
"What’s that I smell," he said. "What the hell’s going on here?"
Eva, stopped, frozen with fear, holding the tray in front of her.
"The roads are slippery and the snow is coming down so bad we could barely see out the windshield…." her mother said. She spoke hesitantly, her voice dying away uncertainly as she followed her husband inside.
"What you got in those jars?" Pa demanded.
"I made Grandma's skin lubricating cream," Eva said speaking quickly. "I'm planning to sell it door-to-door for twenty-five cents each and..."
"Nobody's got any money for shit like that," Pa said. "And look at yourself. Who'd buy beauty creams from a lump like you?"
He snatched the tray out of her hands and tossed everything in the wastebasket with so much force the glass shattered.
Eva’s pride in her work collapsed instantly and she was filled with shame. A suspicious look crossed Pa's furious face. He hurried to the cupboard, yanked out the empty sugar bowl and held it out for her mother to see.
"It’s empty," he said, spitting out the words. "Your daughter's a no good thief."
Ma shook her head no and backed away, her face as pale as the white handkerchief she always carried inside the cuff of her sleeve.
Eva felt a familiar shiver of fear as Pa took off his coat, threw it angrily on the kitchen chair and began to unbuckle his belt with vicious pleasure. Eva had felt the sting of Pa's belt before, especially after he'd had a few drinks to spur him on. The last time he hit her was for leaving her coat on a chair instead of hanging it up. She had red welts for a week. Worse than the beating were his words.
"You're never gonna be nothin', and you're never gonna amount to nothin'."
She was furious at him for saying that and even angrier at herself for believing it. After that last beating, she had made a vow that no matter what happened she would never, ever let him hit her again.
Determined to keep that promise, she bolted for the door. As she fled down the steps, she could hear Pa's footsteps on the stairs behind her. She was just about to take off running down the sidewalk when she heard a terrible noise like a seagull screeching in pain. She turned around and saw Pa appear to dance in the air, then drop to a crumpled heap at the bottom of the stairs.
"Oh Pa, I’m sorry," she cried as she raced back to his side. "Are you all right, Pa? Please tell me you're all right. I'm so sorry. I won’t do it again. I promise. Please, Pa. Tell me you’re okay. Please…."
He did not move nor answer. He just lay there, unmoving, staring wide-eyed up at the snow filled sky.
Frightened for his life, Eva raced back up the steps to call for help. When she arrived, Ma was still in her winter coat, unmoving, standing at the window, staring, a blank look in her eyes.
Pa's hurt," Eva cried as she raced for the telephone. "He’s on the steps out front."
Ma snapped out of her daze, and with a fearful cry rushed for the door. Eva snatched up the phone and dialed the operator with icy fingers. The operator connected her to an emergency number and after giving the information, she raced back downstairs to her father.
She arrived just in time to hear him make a hollow, coughing sound and see a puddle of urine begin to form beneath his prone body.
"It’s no use," Ma said, speaking almost in a whisper. "He’s gone." She began to cry, a low, tortured sound.
Snow continued to fall on his open, staring eyes and upturned angry face.
Eva sat down next to her, too stunned to cry. Death wasn't supposed to happen this way. It was supposed to come at night when you were surrounded by your loved ones, not like this and not in such a terrible way. And not when it was all your fault.
Two hobos chose that moment to shuffle across the slushy street from the park. They stared as if Eva and her mother were alien beings. Death was fascinating but apparently no real concern of theirs. Eva noticed the lack of emotion in their faces and the strange lack of it in herself.
A crowd soon gathered. Mrs. Smythe, a kindly widow who lived in the basement apartment with her crippled son George, came out and took charge.
"Go home," she said, shooing the people away. "This is none of your business. Go away now. Leave these poor folks be."
The hobos, seeing nothing to be gained here, shambled back to the park. The people who remained also began to drift away. An ambulance arrived shortly and double-parked as Eva and her crying mother sat next to the dead man. Two men dressed in coveralls leaped out of the ambulance and went to work on Pa. As Eva and her mother huddled together, miserable, not knowing what to do, a late model Ford arrived and parked behind the ambulance. A small man got out. He wore a blue overcoat much too large for him, as though he'd bought the coat in the size he wanted to be rather than the size he actually was. He talked in a low voice to the two men, who were now gathering up their equipment, then approached Eva and her mother. He introduced himself to them as the police chaplain.
"I'm sorry for your loss," he said, a look of kindly concern on his face. "Where do you wish to hold the funeral?"
At the word funeral, Ma broke down in a fresh wave of sobs.
"Wagenstein and Murphy," Eva said automatically. It was a funeral home she passed every day on her way to school. The man quickly relayed the news to the men, who had begun to gather up their things, then he herded Eva and Ma up the steps to their apartment.
Only afterwards did Eva realize that he did this so she and her mother wouldn’t see the two men taking Pa away. Instead of consoling them or telling them what to do, as Eva had assumed, the chaplain asked her mother to sign some papers, then left as quickly as he had arrived.
By this time the light had already begun to fade. Ma collapsed into Pa's old easy chair next to the radio and sobbed uncontrollably. Eva, dry eyed and numb, did the only thing she could think of to do. She picked up the phone and gave the operator Gussie's number.
Gussie was Eva’s friend since first grade. She would know what to do. Gussie could always be counted on in any emergency. Both her grandparents had passed away in an old people's home during the last year and Gussie had taken care of all the arrangements. Her parents were not capable people. They had depended on Gussie ever since Gussie was ten and took it upon herself to call the insurance company to come and fix a hole in their roof caused by a hail storm.
"Pa just died and I don't know what to do," Eva blurted out when Gussie answered the phone on the second ring.
"Oh dear, I’m so sorry," Gussie said, all sympathy. "I’m coming over right now. Don’t do a thing until I get there."
"Call the funeral home and set up a time to meet with them tomorrow," she announced when she arrived minutes later even before she had taken off her coat. "They'll tell you what you need to do next. Then call the folks who'll need to know. And for heaven's sake, Eva, put on something warm," she said taking off her own coat. "You're turning blue."
"I know this is hard for you," Gussie said helping Ma out of her coat, "but right now, you need to make a pot of coffee and straighten up the apartment, because as soon as the word's out, folks will be dropping by to give you their condolences."
Ma and Eva did as they were told. Eva was surprised at how little she felt about it all.
"Something's wrong with me, Gussie," she said. "My father just died and I feel so numb."
"You're in shock," Gussie said kindly. "It’ll hit you later when you can begin to deal with it. Nature’s good to us that way."
CHAPTER TWO
"Herodotus Lyon the second," the sheriff announced sharply, "your home is in foreclosure. You have been duly warned and must now leave. We're here to make sure that you do."
Hero Lyon the Third happened to be in the reception hall, where he'd gone to check the mail, and heard it all. He rushed to the door to see for himself what was happening. Hero realized it was real when he saw the confusion in his father's eyes. The sheriff was right -- they had been warned several months ago. Hero had been positive his father had taken care of it as he had always taken care of everything. Apparently not.
Seeing his father squint down at the papers the sheriff handed him as though his eyes hurt, Hero felt a surge of sympathy. Ever since Hero could remember, his father had moved in the world with great authority, respected by one and all. Until right now. Hero was desperate to help him. But what was there to do?
The Lyon's family's good fortune had begun to change the day bank examiners appeared at the bank where Hero's father was the president. The position that made Hero's father one of Emerson's leading citizens now caused the Lyon family to become one of its poorest.
Hero knew nothing about this until the day he showed up at his father's bank to ask for an advance on his allowance to go to the movies. He walked in his father's office unannounced just like he always did and was surprised to see two big men sitting in front of his father’s big desk, their briefcases held stiffly in their laps and his father looking pale and sick.
"Illiquidity is rampant here," one of the men said, ignoring Hero's presence. "New deposits are non-existent. You must know that the position of this bank cannot be maintained."
Hero's expected his father to frighten the man with just a look, but it was his father who appeared to be frightened. People had stopped paying their loans. On one harrowing day alone, checks amounting to over twenty thousand dollars were returned for non-payment. His father had struggled mightily to find some solution, working with the debtors, burning the lights late each night. He worried so much that at one point he said he thought he was losing his mind. Month after month he fretted, but there was no solution. No amount of agonizing or staying awake nights or trying to coerce the bank's debtors to pay up made any difference at all.
He was not alone.
In the first years of the Depression, wages declined sixty percent and over four thousand banks failed, ten of them in Emerson, Massachusetts, a usually thriving city of two hundred thousand factory and retail workers. So many businesses had closed that Emerson was beginning to resemble a ghost town lately.
On the day the bank closed, Hero's father was allowed just enough time to get his hat and coat before being herded out the door along with his employees. His position as bank president was finished that day and their life savings were gone.
Hero had always taken it for granted that his family's good fortune would go on forever. He had been named for his father and grandfather. The name came from the Greek historian Herodotus, said to be the first historian. Hero's great grandfather, who made a fortune loaning immigrants money at high interest rates, was a passionate student of history and a lover of all things Greek, thus the name. Hero had been given everything his wealthy parents could lavish on him, with one exception: both parents insisted that he attend public schools through elementary and high school. His father believed it was necessary in life to have what he called the "common touch" in order to do business with both the high and the low. It was assumed that Hero would finish high school and matriculate at Harvard, where his father had also gone. Hero felt that he belonged at Phillips Exeter or Choate or even Milton and resented attending a public high-school, but sure of his exalted position in life anyway, he always walked the halls of Emerson High with a confident swagger.
That life was now gone forever.
"The keys," the sheriff said, as he escorted the family to the curb. He held out his beefy hand.
Hero still expected his father to come up with a bundle of unexpected cash or at least say something to put the sheriff in his place. Instead, his father meekly handed over the keys. The sheriff's sneering deputy stood by, one eyebrow raised suspiciously, as though they might try to sneak back into their own home. Hero was tempted to slug the sheriff and his ridiculous deputy, wipe the smug look from their pasty faces forever. He was younger and stronger and could probably take them both, but it would do no good and might get them all in worse trouble he reasoned, so he jammed his fists into his coat pocket and stared at the ground.
He was absorbing this lesson, absorbing it well: a man needed money. Cash in hand. If his own father wasn't able to supply everything, it would be up to Hero. At eighteen, he was a man now. That day, he vowed to himself that money would never be a problem again. He would show them all.
"I'll be coming back in two hours to make sure you're gone," the sheriff threatened, before heading back to his car.
"Don't forget," the scrawny deputy added with a sneer. "Loitering is a crime."
The Lyons' family might have driven away in one of two cars they owned that day, except their cars had been repossessed weeks ago, along with most of their furniture. The family stood together in cold, miserable silence as lace curtains fluttered up and down their street. No one came out to sympathize or help. Hero, his face hot with shame, stood in his camel-colored cashmere overcoat shivering with cold and waiting for his father to offer a sensible solution. Hero was ready to help, to do anything his father asked.
But his father, wearing his own cashmere overcoat, sat on a suitcase in the snow, his head in his hands, not speaking. Hero's mother stood next to him, her pale, frightened face partially hidden in a fox tail scarf worn over a mink coat. Her hands, in their kidskin leather gloves, clutched a brown paper bag filled with kitchen utensils. On the sidewalk lay a thin mattress that used to belong to one of the maids who had been let go a month ago along with the cook and laundress. Hero had grabbed the mattress on his way out the door, thinking to find a use for it later.
Hero stared at his father hard, willing him to do something. His father had always been his guide: the wise one who always knew what must be done, knew the next step to take. But what was the next step here? Hero felt a stirring panic as he waited for his father to do something, anything.
Suddenly a coughing rumble sounded in the distance and a baby blue Packard Runabout came driving up the hill. Some careless stranger coming to enjoy their humiliation? To Hero's surprise, the Packard halted on the street before them. The driver, a man with a bald head that stuck out of his navy blue overcoat like a turtle out of a shell, rolled down the window. Hero recognized him as George Carson, one of the wealthy men with whom his father used to do business. George had been to their home numerous times for dinners and charitable events over the years. He was the kind of man who blustered his way through life, shaking every hand like a politician.
Hero's mother buried her face deeper into her coat. His father stared straight ahead, refusing to acknowledge the man. Hero stood by, silently willing the man to get lost.
"Got that warehouse over on Washington," the man called out from his car. His eyes wandered over their things, but did not rest on any of them. "Can't do anything else with it since they closed the factory. You might as well use it as a place to live. Can't offer a job. Barely hanging on myself. Warehouse'd be rent free, until you get on your feet. 'Sides, it'll keep the bums from takin' up residence." He looked uncomfortable. "That's what's in it for me, so you see, it isn't really a handout. You'd be actin' as security."
Hero was astounded. Mr. Carson was trying to help them, something no one else was doing. At the same time, Hero felt ashamed that they had sunk so low that they needed rescuing.
"I don't want my wife or my son living in such a place," his father said sharply.
"What will people think?" his mother wailed, clutching at the pearls she had snatched from her dresser on the way out the door. "I'm willing to put up with a great deal, Mr. Herodotus Lyon," she whirled on her husband, "but you just better be careful, now."
"Have to live somewhere, ma'am," the man said impatiently. "Least this way you'll have a roof over your heads. Twenty-four families living in that Hooverville over by the tracks. Last week, cops rounded 'em all up and put ‘em in jail or they’d have frozen to death."
Hero glared at his father so fiercely that his father quailed. Would he just stand by and do nothing? What was wrong with him?
"Sir, yes." Hero said, stepping forward. "Yes, Mr. Carson. Thank you, sir. We'll take it. Absolutely. Thank you so much."
It was a shift in power between his father and himself so complete that Hero knew it would never shift back. For better or worse, Hero was now in charge of the family. Hero made a tiny gesture and amazingly his father obeyed, stepping forward.
"I guess we don't have a choice," his father said, his voice flat. Then, almost shyly to Mr. Carson, "Thank you for your kind offer." He took the key from the man's hand, but the look on his face was one of shame rather than gratitude.
Mr. Carson looked uncertainly from father to son, then nodded to himself. "Be seein' you, then. I'd give you a ride myself, but I don't have the time right now."
He put his car in gear and without once looking back, rattled away.
All three stood, watching him go.
When he was out of sight, Hero's mother took in a deep breath, wiped her eyes with the back of her gloved hand with a defiant gesture, picked up her small bundle and like a zombie began to walk in the direction of the warehouse district, five miles away. Hero's father sighed heavily, picked up his own bundle and followed her. Hero, feeling sick, like he'd just watched a bad accident, grabbed the mattress, balanced it on his head with both hands and joined his parents as they paraded down the street.
How dare Hero command his father in that way? How could his own father have obeyed? Hero wondered that himself as, heavy with his new responsibilities, he and his family walked down his former street filled with all the mansions of the rich, through the middle class neighborhoods and across the railroad tracks to the poor side of town.
A parade to poverty. Luckily, the day was unusually cold and the streets of Emerson, which normally teemed with people, were deserted, so only a few folks witnessed the family's shame. With each step, Hero grew more determined never to be put in this situation again; never to be vulnerable to such ridicule and harsh dealings.
And change he did. Although outwardly he remained ever charming and polite, ready for fun, behind this front he was always paying attention, learning from everything -- how to take advantage of those weak enough to drink to excess when gambling, whose palm to grease to keep everyone happy. But there was one other vulnerability he took away from that day. Forever after, he hated confrontation. Hated especially the naked threat in the eyes of the deputy. Hero was not a coward -- he fought when forced to do so -- but he would always try to look ahead, to anticipate trouble, knowing there was never any profit in fighting. And he would always work hard to find some way around any threat. That was not entirely a bad thing, for he avoided those who dealt in violence, and he exercised an instinct for being absent at the times when violence came sweeping through some drinking or gambling establishment he was at, for there were many angry, displaced young people looking to take their frustration out on someone.
When Hero and his parents arrived at the warehouse, they were exhausted, emotionally drained and chilled to their very bones. His father slipped the key in the door and the family numbly trooped inside without speaking and were greeted by the smell -- musty, oily, closed up, and something Hero couldn't quite identity that made him feel slightly ill.
The warehouse consisted of two rooms -- in the store front was a big picture window so dirty that light could barely get through, and in the back, a large, dank, windowless room where a kind of oily sand covered the floor. Off to one side in the back room was a tiny, closet-sized room with a toilet and a wash basin. A cold draft could be felt blowing through the many cracks in the walls.
His mother gave a great mournful sob and sank down onto the mattress that Hero set down on the floor in one corner. She came from a prominent family and had taken their prosperity completely for granted. The common touch was all very well and good and those who possessed it were spoken of reverently among her set, but always over tea in bone-china cups. Her people had little sympathy for those who allowed their fortunes to be frittered away through what they were sure was their own carelessness or dissipation.
She was still sitting on the mattress crying, Hero's father trying to console her, when Hero put aside his own despair and exhaustion and went back out to see what he could scrounge up for their new home. In an empty lot next to a closed restaurant he found a bent two-burner kerosene stove that could be used for cooking and for heat, some beat up pots and pans, a urine-stained double mattress and the back seat of an old car from a family who must have removed it so they could fill up the car with their belongings when they left town.
The car seat became their davenport. Two stained and ripped easy chairs, which he found the next day, completed their living room set. For food, his father had just enough cash left to purchase several cases of pork and beans at a special low price. From that day forward, they ate pork and beans with rice, pork and beans with catsup, pork and beans with garlic, pork and beans with onions. Pork and beans every single day. At night Hero and his father killed rats with an old pistol his father grabbed at the last minute. Hero's father never mentioned why he had chosen to take that pistol above their more valuable possessions, and Hero, not wanting to know, didn't ask. His mother moved about in a ghost-like daze, not seeming to notice anything.
Hero surprised himself with his ingenuity and resilience. Every day, he went out hunting for anything to improve their lot. He picked up coal blown off the box cars at the train tracks to sell, scavenged food from dumpsters, combed the Emerson dump for scrap metal to sell to dealers and for newspapers to fill the cracks in their walls -- always with his ears open for news of a job or something that could be turned to his advantage. Surprisingly, he was not desperate, nor angry, nor even bitter: he was too busy thinking of some angle he could pursue to improve their situation.
The weight of their new life dragged on Hero and his earlier pride fought to reassert itself. Hero despised everything about their living situation, hated being cold all the time, hated living in such close quarters with his parents, hated the noise of the constant trucks that assaulted his ears day and night, hated the fact that the kerosene leaked out from the pump, making them all worry about fires and being asphyxiated in their sleep, loathed everything about their living situation. He intended to win in this life and he resented everything that resisted his efforts.
When he thought they couldn't sink any lower, the pork and beans ran out and there was no money to buy more. Hero stared at the emptied last can of pork and beans. Not even a trace of juice remained. Almost in a rage, he walked the four blocks to a building that looked like a grocery store with a big plate glass window. A long line of people stood in front of the building. Hero, feeling heavy and old before his time, took his place at the back of the line. As he waited, men, women, even children emerged from the building with cardboard boxes and bulging bags. When it was his turn, Hero gathered three cans of grapefruit juice, a bag of cornmeal, some rice, prunes and canned beans, then he left the building, his eyes downcast, careful not to look anybody in the eye. Accepting a government handout was a shameful thing. He had often heard his parents speak disparagingly of such people. But it was either pride or starvation -- an easy choice. Back at the warehouse, he put the food away in their makeshift cupboard. Neither parent seemed to notice or care.
In the days that followed, Hero was careful not to lose his swagger and did what he could to keep up appearances. He washed his white shirt in the bathroom sink and put his dress slacks on some newspapers beneath the mattress at night to keep their press. When he couldn't stand the close quarters another minute, he went to O'Dooles, a three-two beer joint nearby. It was there he picked up a pool cue for the first time, since he could play for free. He had no idea what he was doing and was amazed when he actually hit a ball and it went into the pocket. But he soon fell in love with the game and played it at every opportunity. When business was slow O'Doole showed him a few tips, like how to develop a good stance or how to change his finger position to get a good bridge. Sometimes O'Doole would stake him to a few games. When Hero won, they split his winnings.
One Tuesday night in the middle of a game of pool, Tom Sullivan mentioned the Pinkerton Detective Agency in Chicago was hiring, looking for men who were bigger and stronger than most.
Hero signed up first thing the following day and to his delight was hired. He didn't stop to wonder why they wanted big strong lunks; he only knew it was a chance to make some money. High school was a moment in the unimportant past; just as college was a meaningless word to him now.
CHAPTER THREE
It was the last day of March, 1936, and soot covered snow was piled high at every corner as Eva headed to downtown Emerson. The day was colder than usual but the sun was shining, a hopeful sign. To quell her anxiety, she concentrated on the spiel she planned to give to the bankers. And if she could convince some big deal banker to give her the money she needed to begin, then maybe she could convince women to buy her grandmother's beauty cream and then by osmosis somehow gain the confidence she needed to make her own way in the world and maybe even marry the best boy in town. She wasn’t sure of anything right now though, much less her ability to convince a banker to give her something as big as actual money. Even so she was determined to try. All they could do was say no. Right?
Eva still felt guilty about Pa's death, even though the coroner's report said he had a bad heart and that a heart attack was inevitable. Ma reassured Eva that it wasn't her fault, but that didn't help. What was even more disturbing was her feeling of relief that he was gone, that he wouldn't be able to tell her ever again that she was too dumb to ever succeed at anything and she would die without a dime. At the same time she missed him because he was her father and she loved him and she could also remember the times when she was a little girl and he saved the fruit in his lunch bucket to bring home to her because he knew how much she loved fruit. It was all so confusing and mixed up and painful, so painful that she tried not to think about it at all, except that thoughts of him kept popping into her head off and on every day and there wasn't a thing she could about it.
But right now, she had another huge problem to think about. It was up to her to care for her mother, who had never held a job and was too dazed lately to even try. In spite of the hopelessness of their situation, Eva continued to dream of becoming a successful businesswoman who made and sold her grandmother's skin care creams. Her excuse to Ma and to herself for starting up again was that there were no jobs, that this is what they had and that was all they had going for them, which was the honest truth.
With Ma's permission, she spent what little there was left of Pa's small life insurance policy after paying for his funeral, to buy the ingredients she needed to make five more jars of cream. Her plan was to use the baby jars of cream to convince bankers what a good product she had and why they should give her the money she needed to get started in business. Eva and Ma both gave up their morning cup of coffee. Pa had been a tea drinker and they still had some left, so they became tea drinkers. Ma didn't much care for tea but she didn't complain, for which Eva was thankful. Her high-school pal Josh had insisted that she draw up a business plan. He said she would need one if she wanted to convince a bank she was serious. Even though he was still in high school himself, Josh had a part-time job at a brokerage and read business books the way other people read mysteries. Beside being so smart, he was one of the best forwards Emerson High's basketball team ever had.
She was nervous about the whole idea of selling anything to strangers but she had promised herself and Josh, Gussie and Shu , who all thought it was a grand idea and sure to be a big moneymaker, that no matter how scared she felt, she would give it a try. It was Josh's idea to try the banks who were slowly beginning to lend money again.
She was dressed for the weather today in a grey felt cloche, worn black coat, wool gloves and her mother’s high heels, which were a half-size too small and pinched her feet. Over her shoulder hung Ma’s big old faded leather purse, filled with samples. She felt about her samples like a loving mother might feel about her children: pride, protectiveness, hopefulness and more than a little anxiety. Nestled next to the baby jars filled with cream was the precious business plan.
The day was cold and the sidewalks were even icier than usual as she hurried along. "Success comes to those who try," she said out loud several times to give herself courage. Napoleon Hill had said those very same words in a talk he gave on the radio about his study of millionaires and how achievement occurs. The line stuck in Eva’s brain and it had been playing in her mind ever since.
She chose to walk downtown today rather than to drive because she would need Pa’s car and the quarter tank of gas it contained when and if she received some money from the bank to buy her supplies. On her way, she passed an empty store front, one of several in a row of empty stores. Seeing her reflection in the window, she worried that she looked too ordinary and low class to convince anybody of anything. To fight her errant thoughts, she began to mumble the sales pitch she had written and rewritten so many times.
"How do you do. My name is Eva Doyle. I have in my possession a secret recipe for an amazing skin lubricating cream handed down to me by my grandmother, who had beautiful skin, even in old age." Eva mimicked taking the picture of her grandmother from her purse and handing it to the banker to look over.
"Isn’t her skin lovely? It is my intention to make and sell her amazing skin care cream door-to-door, so that other women might benefit from her expertise." She pantomimed handing the banker a sample jar. "For the missus." She smiled a practiced smile and it was then, according to her best fantasies, the banker would smile a grateful smile back at her. Next would come the closer. "In order to produce my grandmother’s miracle skin cream in quantity, I will need a loan of one hundred dollars." With a little flourish, she pretended to hand over her business plan then fantasized sitting calmly, her hands resting nicely in her lap, while the banker read her plan over and made his decision. In her best fantasy of all, the banker would look up with a big smile, say he could see for himself what huge possibilities her product had in today’s market place, and immediately write her a check. She would smile, thank him and reassure him he would never have a reason to regret his decision. They would then shake hands and she would leave, all smiles.
"How do you do, my name is Eva Doyle," she said, again, and was so preoccupied with getting her speech perfect that she didn’t see Josh approaching, and almost bumped into him.
"Hey, Eva," he said, stepping neatly to one side. "Today’s the big day, huh?"
"Yup. I’m hoping they’ll give me the money right away, so I can get started."
"They’d be fools to say no," Josh said.
"You think so? I’m so nervous, I’ll probably pee my pants before I get out a word."
"And if you do," he told her, laughing, "just dry yourself off and go on to the next bank. There are plenty of bankers who never even met you. Have a little faith, sweetheart." For emphasis, he waggled his eyebrows like Groucho Marx and tapped the end of a pretend cigar.
"Oh Lord, I hope you're right," Eva said weakly.
"You can do this," he said, serious now. "I know you can." He blushed bright red, for no reason that Eva could see.
"Thanks," she said and smiled. "I needed that."
"Hey, my timing always was impeccable," he joked. They both laughed.
#
Josh was already late for school, but nevertheless stopped to admire Eva as she hurried away. He had a look of such tenderness and longing in his eyes that, had she noticed, she would have been shocked to discover how deeply he cared for her. Mingled with that tenderness was also a kind of heat. Quiet he might have been, shy he certainly was, but there was no weakness in Josh Goldman. He, too, was determined to succeed. When he did, he intended to win her heart, but he had a flaw that could be fatal for a young man courting a young woman – too much patience. He honestly believed that he needed to build up his own worth before he could become worthy of her and make his intentions known.
#
Energized after seeing Josh, Eva hurried the rest of the way downtown and approached the first bank on her list, The First National Bank of Emerson, an imposing building with huge marble pillars. She took in several deep breaths to calm her fears, reminded herself again that success comes to those who try, and entered the bank, moving briskly across the marble floor to the reception desk, trying to act as if she belonged there, yet feeling terribly self-conscious in her mended coat and cheap high heels. She could talk to herself in a positive manner all day, but she looked poor because she was poor. Knowing this hurt and shamed her. Worst of all, she had spent the little bit of money they had left after paying for her father's funeral so if this didn't work, she and Ma would be in even bigger trouble than they already were. But she was here in the bank now and there was no going back. She steeled her shaky nerves and approached the woman at the reception desk.
"May I help you, Miss?" the woman asked.
Before Eva could speak, she was suddenly overcome by a wave of nausea. Instead of asking to see a banker, she turned away and hurried off to the ladies room. She barely made it to a stall in time before vomiting up her entire breakfast of weak tea and oatmeal. Crouched over the toilet with her eyes clenched shut, the stench of her own vomit in her nostrils, hopelessness overwhelmed her.
What were you thinking? she asked herself as she wiped her mouth with toilet paper. You don’t belong here. How could you possibly think you do? And after what you did to your father, you don't deserve anything, much less to succeed. A wave of shame and grief hit her then and she felt sick all over again. Go home, she told herself. Save yourself the humiliation. You’re more suited to being a hotel maid than asking a big deal banker for money.
"Success comes to those who try," she whispered to herself in the mirror as she stood at the sink and finished cleaning herself off, but the words sounded hollow and ridiculous.
As she stood there, the anxiety faded somewhat when she reminded herself that she had promised her friends what she would do today and no excuses either because for sure she would never get up the courage to do it tomorrow or ever again. This was it.
With that, she ran some water over her face, rearranged her face in what she hoped was a confident look and returned to the information desk before she lost the little nerve she had and became sick all over again.
"How can I help you this time?" the woman asked, obviously annoyed.
"I would like to speak to a banker," Eva said. It came out more like a squeak than anything else but it did come out.
"What is it that you wish to speak to a banker about?" the woman said, her voice changing to a more businesslike tone.
"I wish to apply for a business loan," Eva said. She felt her heart pounding in her ears and sweat dripping from her arm pits.
"It might be awhile before anyone can see you," the woman said, her voice softening somewhat.
"I’ll wait," Eva said, forcing herself to look the woman directly in the eye.
"If you insist," the woman said, sounding even more annoyed this time. "You can wait over there." She pointed to a row of wooden chairs in the middle of the lobby, then turned to answer a ringing telephone.
Eva sank down on one of the chairs, glad to have some time to sit down and compose herself, as her feet hurt and they were wet and icy cold from the walk downtown. She was soon joined by an elegant elderly couple, who looked as though they had not aged so much as simply grown dry. She realized how poor and pathetic she must look next to them. Suddenly she felt queasy again, but she didn’t want the woman at the information desk to think she’d fled, so she stayed put and thankfully the queasiness finally went away. After sitting there awhile, she began to notice things, like the patches on the elderly man’s trousers and the woman's shoes, which were worn down at the heels and that the customers in the bank weren’t as well dressed as she initially thought. She began to relax a little.
An hour came and went.
Had the receptionist forgotten? She probably hopes I’ll just give up and go away, Eva thought, but she refused to relinquish her place as the rest of the chairs began to fill up with waiting customers. She kept her bottom defiantly glued to the chair, determined to sit there forever if necessary. She was beginning to be sure the receptionist had every intention of never calling on her, when to her surprise, the receptionist stood up and headed her way.
"Mr. Jones will see you now," the receptionist said to Eva, and pointed to one of three identical glass offices along one wall, before clicking away in her high heels.
Eva, her heart racing, stood up. Feeling shaky and strangely light-headed, she walked over to the office indicated and sat down on one of two chairs in front of a pine desk, her hands held rigidly together in her lap. A man with droopy eyes, which made him look exhausted, appeared shortly afterwards. He reminded her of Doofus, a neighbor’s beagle, a thought which she immediately put out of her mind.
"What can I do for you?" He sounded impatient as he plopped himself down into the chair behind the desk.
"How do you do," Eva said, going into her spiel in a barely audible voice. "My name is Eva Doyle and…" Her panic flared and she forgot her entire speech. She started again and mumbled out the parts she could remember. Finished, she timidly handed over her business plan along with a jar of her skin lubricating cream.
"For your missus," she said, too nervous to look him in the eye.
He took both items like someone accepting dirty laundry, shoved the jar to one side on his desk without looking at it and began to skim her business plan. Eva sat on the edge of her chair, every nerve in her body tense. He began to smile as he read.
He liked it? He must! Please God. Let him like it. Please. Please.
But when he finally spoke, it was with a sneer in his voice.
"You gotta be funning me, lady," he said. "You want money for beauty creams at a time like this?"
"I'm not funning you," she said, biting her lip so as not to break down and cry. "I'm going to make a lot of money some day, and you'd be smart to invest in me at the beginning." The actual words came out sounding like the cry of a wounded animal.
"Don’t make me laugh," he said. His smile grew even more sarcastic as he rose from his chair and flicked his hand dismissively.
"I won't waste any more of your time," she said meekly, as she gathered up her business plan from the desk, tucked it away carefully, then stood. She moved away slowly, precisely, in the way a person does when they’re confused and have no idea which way to turn.
"Go home, lady," he said, noticing her confusion. "Find yourself a husband and have a couple of kids. Forget about trying to start a business. Let the men do that." In a last insult, he let his eyes slide over her body in a lascivious way.
She felt a sudden burst of rage. How dare he? She yanked the jar of cream from his desk and shoved it back in her bag. Let him keep his evil money and his greasy fingers off her precious bottle of skin cream. She gave him an evil look, then stormed out of the bank, not stopping to put on her coat until she was outside and felt the cold. She could almost hear the sneer in her father’s voice, asking, "Well what the hell did you expect?"