up my embarrassment at being so frank. “Now we sound like a couple of mooning school kids,” I added. “But don't start old blabbermouth me talking, I want to do the listening.”
“All right, I'll talk you deaf and dumb,” Elma said. “I didn't take Mac's mother too seriously at first, thought it was the usual case of mother-in-law trouble. And Mac, in making his big pitch about religious freedom and all that, almost talked back to mama—for the first time in his life. We lived together for several months and I assumed mama had gotten over the shock that her little boy was now a husband. Living in New York, we didn't see her often anyway. But the old woman was merely lying back in the woods, waiting to ambush me. Since both Mac and I were out of work, we had money troubles, but I got a job as a salesgirl and Mac still had his union card and picked up a couple of recording dates, so we were eating. One Sunday mama paid us a pop call and was shocked at our living in a furnished room. She said Mac should come home and run their Newark store, maybe I could work there too. She even had a big furnished apartment lined up for us. We accepted. Our big error.”
“Why? Sounds like a good deal.”
“It was wrong from all angles. Mama had Mac in her grip again, a double grip, because she had him tightly by the purse hairs now, too. And poor Mac, it knocked whatever little self- confidence he had smack out of him. He always hated being a storekeeper, some sort of phony conception of his being an artist, all that bunk and snob-appeal. So when we got our fancy apartment in North Bergen, a car, started to learn the ropes of the store... well, the more we got, the more Mac's ego began dragging on the ground; it was all a kind of surrender—to him—that finished him as a man. Maybe you can't see the picture, since you don't know Mac.”
I said, “Seems to me the guy is crying with a loaf of bread in his kisser.”
Elma shrugged again. “Could be this is all rationalizing on my part, to build up my own ego, own explanation for a wrong marriage. Point is, by this time I realized what a weakling Mac was— where mama was concerned—but I thought I could snap him out of it. But the more he worked in the store, more sour he became, started drinking. As it happened, we were making a success of the store, so I suggested I might be able to handle the store alone and he could go back to arranging. That might have worked, but the baby changed all that.”
She stopped talking and after we'd walked a block and she kept staring ahead as though I wasn't there, I finally asked, “What about the baby?”
“I don't know quite how to explain Mac and the baby. Either the thought of being a father scared him silly—he'd always ducked any 'responsibilities'—which was a fancy name for anything he didn't want to do, or maybe he was tired of me... or tired of battling mama. I've tried to think it out, but can't. Seems he was seeing mama daily, without my knowing it. Anyway, when I first thought I was pregnant, Mac seemed happy about it, but a week later when the doctor assured me I was going to have a baby... Mac suddenly said I had to do away with it because mama couldn't stand a baby being brought up by a person of a different religion. Mac arranged for an abortion and when I refused he got nasty, started slapping me. Even in that he was frustrated, I conked him with a jar of cold cream and left. I...”
“How long ago was that?”
“Over two months ago. I had a few bucks saved up, sold some jewelry... since then I've been living in a room, trying to get along as cheaply as I can. Reason why I was at the radio show last night, seeking free entertainment. That's my story, and sometimes it all sounds like a bad dream, so stupid and pseudo-melodramatic, I can hardly believe it myself.”
“Except for the trimmings, it's an old story. We'll straighten this out in a hurry,” I said, wondering if she was telling me the truth. I could hardly believe any clown giving up a girl as pretty and intelligent as Elma merely because of mama. And carrying his child. “What I'd like us to do is go back to Sandyhook, which is very quiet and peaceful in the winter. If we pool our money, leaving about $500 for hospital expenses and doctors when the baby comes, we have $1,900. We can rent a decent house for less than sixty a month, it's off season, buy some furniture for another few hundred. I still want to try my hand at sculpting, find out if I have it or not. Suppose we give it a try for six or seven months, or till the baby comes?”
“Sorry, Marsh, but it isn't that simple.”
“Look, Elma, I won't make a dime, I know that. But at the end of six months, whether I've found myself or not, well still have some bucks left, and I'll get a job. Meantime, we'll ask Mac for a divorce, get married and...”
“Marsh, you can try being a sculptor for as long as you wish. Money never worried me too much. I'm a good office worker, can always find a job. It isn't that.”
“Of course I've assumed you want to marry me, but if...”
“Oh, Marsh, you know I do!”
“Then, honey, what is it? Won't Mac give you a divorce?”
“He'd be only too glad to,” Elma said, her voice shaking. “It's the...” She began to weep, soft gentle tears.
Hailing a cab, I told him to take us back to the hotel. I held Elma tightly, but she still cried. “Honey,” I asked, “what's wrong? He'll give you a divorce, and we'll...”
“Marsh,
“But you just said he wanted you to have an a.b.”
“That's it, he demands I either do away with it— and I won't!—or I must give the baby to him. You see, this is another of his stands, his great goddamn stupid ego- bolster-ers. But it's
I kissed her and laughed. “Honey,
She shook her head, her face in pain. “No, Marsh, I'd lose in court. That's where he has me over a barrel. I'm not a citizen: I'm in the country illegally, he could not only take the baby but also have me deported.”
“That's ridiculous. Why any judge...”
“I wish it was ridiculous. They have another angle, my union activities. As a non-citizen... you know the rest. Mama thought up this angle, probably talked it over with a lawyer. Mac hinted as much. And the fact that I'm not even a Canadian citizen...”
“But that didn't stop you from coming into the States?” I said, as though that proved anything.
“That was simple—then. I looked and talked like a Canadian, and I told them I was born in Toronto—which I really believed at the time. Why, I even voted up there. No, now under the McCarran Law they could stick me on Ellis Island and forget about me, throw away the key.”
“Stop talking like that. For Christsakes, this is the U.S.A., not a...”
“You stop talking like a jerk, Marsh. Mac even told me their lawyer assured them they could pin a moral turpitude charge on me because I lived with Mac for a week before we were married. As a non-citizen, illegally in the country, they can do almost anything they want to me, and I have no comeback. And imagine if they find out about us, why they'll surely...”
I put my hand over her wonderful mouth. “I don't want to hear any more stuff like that.”
“You may not want to hear it but...” she mumbled through my hand.
“We'll talk to a lawyer first, then see...”
“I've already discussed my case with a society that aids non-citizens. They think I'd lose a court case... these days,” she said, her lips moving against my hand.
“I have a friend who knows some big lawyers. We'll get their opinions. Why, seems to me when you tell this Mac you plan to get married, he'll be glad to step out of your life, get off without a mess or...”
She shook her head. “Marsh, don't you think I've exhausted every avenue, every out that...?”
I took my hand away, closed her mouth with a kiss. “Okay, no more worrying or thinking about it. Things have changed, Elma. There's two of us, and we have some money. Now let's stop all the guessing till I talk to a lawyer. Not another word.”
Elma nodded, found a handkerchief in her bag and ran it over her face. When we got back to the hotel, she said she was tired and stretched out on the bed. I went down to the lobby, called Kimball, asked her, “You know a good lawyer I can talk to? Not for free, either?”
“Sure, Marsh. Thought you were coming over last night? We balled till... What sort of a jam you in? Are you in the clink?”
“No. I'm going to get married to a girl I met last night and she's having husband trouble. There's a baby involved and I want to know where we stand.”
I heard Kimball gulp over the phone and finally she said, “Say that again.”
“I'm going to marry a girl I met yesterday, and she has a husband and a kid and... Aw, come on, Kimball.”
She laughed and I could almost smell the stale liquor on her breath over the phone. “Marsh, you're wonderful. Never a dull...”
“Marion, this isn't any laughing matter. I need to see a lawyer— now.”
“On New Year's Day?”
“You're a gal with influence. Can you swing it?”
“I ought to swing on you. I'll call you back—soon as I pull myself together.”
Giving her the hotel number, I hung up. I bought some pipe tobacco, went up to our room. Elma was sleeping on top of the covers, in her slip. I stood by the bed, looking at her for a long time— liking what I saw.
I think even then the idea was already in the back of my mind, waiting to be said. For I knew I'd found the girl I'd always been looking for, and I'd be damned if I'd let any spoiled mama's boy take her away!
I don't know if I believed in fate or anything like that, but I had a hunch that with the money and everything, it was almost as if Elma and I had been fated to be
