AS THE BMT TRAIN came to a screeching halt after its long and rollicking ride, the giddy announcer made his final call.
“Last stop, Coney Island! Everybody off!”
The exhausted crowd pushed its way out of the stuffy train and onto the elevated platform, where the air was warm with the scents of sand and sea. Fried clams, vanilla custard, and homemade saltwater taffy.
The pulse of the place was pounding.
Roller coasters rumbled. Carousels careened. Cap guns popped. And people screamed.
Steeplechase Park, Coney Island’s glass castle. A castle fit for a Queen.
Luna Park, Coney Island’s big, beating heart, with all its swirling fanfare.
Jesus Christ! Bella was really there!
It sounded like a thousand carnivals dancing in the air.
An enormous Ferris wheel spun against a turquoise sky.
Was that Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dancing by?
The crowd bumped and pushed.
“Hey doll, are you gonna stand there all day?”
“Toot your caboose!”
“Get the fuck out of our way!”
Bella rode the massive waterfall of people down a steep set of stairs and crested with them across a busy Surf Avenue.
Horns honked.
Tires screeched.
The greasy good smell of grilling meat grabbed her by the hand and yanked her all the way to Nathan’s Famous frankfurters and soft drinks stand.
“Give me a frankfurter, please! Make it three! With sauerkraut! And a root beer float with vanilla ice cream!”
“Anything for you, sweetie!”
The Mickey Rooney counter boy swift-served Bella a paper cone brimming with french fried potatoes backed by the hot dogs and drink. “It’s all on the house, doll!”
Bella heard Terelli sing,
Welcome to Whore’s Paradise! Welcome to Sin City!
She blew the counter boy a kiss and inhaled the food. Then she belched like a hog on its honeymoon, popped open her hatbox, and refreshed her lipstick.
“Which way to the boardwalk?”
“Just follow the troops to the sea!”
Papa! Catch me!
Bella jazz-jiggled and booby-bounced down Jones Walk. She sashayed under the Tornado roller coaster, skirted along Shakey’s Clam Shack, and wiggled past Freaks on Parade.
“Christ! Get a load of the ass on that little lass!”
Whistles tooted, bells rang, and barkers sang.
“Step right up! Step right up!”
Sam Tweety’s Hawaiian Island Girlie Revue and Peek-a-Booth Theater was right where Feinberg said it would be. It was a small, lightbulb-wreathed building wedged between Stauch’s Baths and the Incredible House of Spectacular Oddities, crowned by the Wonder Wheel Ferris wheel spinning up behind it like a giant halo. A tiny strip of an outdoor stage faced a crowded beach and an endless sea.
Papa! Catch me!
In front of a carnival-colored barker’s pulpit, a taffy-shaped man leaning on a bamboo cane was tossing cotton candy to a somersaulting monkey.
“You Sam?”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m Belladonna Marie.”
The monkey stopped twirling and bared its teeth.
“Talk into my left ear, dolly! The right one is dead!”
“I’m Belladonna Marie! Feinberg sent me!”
“What’d you say?”
“I SAID FEINBERG SENT ME!”
The man hobbled around her like she was a prized cow. He pinched her udders with his eyes, poked at her hooves with the tip of his cane, and growled around her hind shank. “How old are you, sister? Speak up when you talk to me!”
“I’M OLD ENOUGH TO BE STANDIN’ HERE!”
“You always this sassy?”
“ONLY WHEN I HAVE TO BE!”
The monkey shrieked.
“Okay, you can show me a little bit of your routine.”
Bella dropped her suitcase and hatbox and waggled around the old geezer.
“Jesus Christ! Not here! Get your ass in back with the rest of the whoring Kewpies!”
Down a slim wedge of boardwalk, sandwiched between the Girlie Revue and the bathhouse, Bella came to a set of patched sheets hanging across a laundry line. On the other side she found a cluster of three tough-looking dames at sea. A portly little gal with a lit cigarette clenched between ragged teeth; a tall, skinny, knock-kneed pretzel of a lady with a lazy eye; and a raisin-skinned biddy with a body like a pulled piece of taffy balancing a beehive hairdo the color of cartoon fire. They were busy adjusting clamshell bras and grass skirts culled from a pile on the ground.
“Howdy!” Bella said as she paraded in.
“Hey, Dolores! Get a load of this bitch!” the beehive cried when Bella stepped in front of them.
The skinny one elbowed the beehive out of the way. “Hey! I thought it was just gonna be the three of us!”
The chubby one, struggling to pull the grass over her sausage rolls, stepped up. “Scrap it, Dolores, and give me a hand with this goddamned thing!”
“Jesus, Agnes! You need to lay off the fudge!”
“Fuck you!”
“What did you fuckin’ just say to me?”
As the ladies fought, Bella dropped her suitcase and hatbox. She undid the buttons on her blouse, tugged it past her arms, and tossed it aside. Then she snapped the back of the bra open and really let ’em fly.
The three broads stopped cold.
“Shit.”
“Fuck.”
“The jig is up.”
They watched, dumbfounded, as Bella slowly slid the zipper down the back of her skirt and stepped out of it. “Too hot for undies,” she said as she bent over and opened her hatbox. She pulled out a tin of Paris Powder, popped it open, and slapped the puff between her legs. Then she patted it around her ass, under her tits, and all over her face. When she was done, she picked up a set of clamshells and squeezed her powdered breasts into them. Then she grabbed a grass skirt and wrapped it around her waist. “Okay! I’m ready!”
Outside, a lively number kicked out of a set of crackling speakers swinging on a line hanging over the stage.
“Hibiscus Sunset Serenade.”
The sheets jerked apart, and Sam and his monkey stepped through. “C’mon girls! Time to dance for some money!!”
“Wait a minute!” Bella said. “What are we supposed to do out there?”
“What did you say?”
“WHAT THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO DO OUT THERE?”
“You’re gonna do a Hawaiian dance!”
“BUT I AIN’T NEVER BEEN TO HAWAII!”
“Well, you’re goin’ to Hawaii today!”
“IT DOESN’T LOOK LIKE HAWAII OUT THERE TO ME! HAWAII’S SUPPOSED TO HAVE PALM TREES!”
“Look out at the sand while you’re out there dancin’, and you’ll see fuckin’ palm trees!”
“HOW MUCH ARE YOU GONNA PAY ME?”
Sam sliced the air in front of Bella’s face with his cane. “Listen dolly, get the hell on the stage out there and shake your ass or hit the fuckin’ highway!”
Bella’s fingers curled into fists. She was not above going after him the way she went after her papa’s fucking plants.
Sam snarled and raised his chin.
“Come on, girls,” the beehive quickly said.
The three broads bolted down the alley and mounted the makeshift stage.
“That’s it, dolly!” Sam called after Bella as she hustled after the three flailing dames and jumped under the blinking proscenium.
The monkey clapped and shrieked.
“Step right up! Step right up!”
With the broad expanse of a crowded beach and the shimmering endless ocean unfolding in front of her, everything finally caught up with Bella.
“You better start dancing,” the beehive hissed.
At first she followed the other girls, bouncing around like a runaway rubber tire. Then she twisted around like a three-dollar pretzel and struck out on her own, recalling an exotic pose from a South Seas Cruise Line poster she had seen taped to the window of a travel office in Passaic.
“That’s it, sweetie! That’s it! You got it! You got it!”
As Bella hip-dipped and fanned her lovely hula hands above her head, a small cluster of mooks gathered in front of the stage. A hairy man with his tongue lolling followed the bounce of her clams. A bunch of foreign-looking rats grinned like they were in Heaven. A clutch of young sailors tried to peek up her grass skirt. A boy about Luigi’s age pulled a sucker out of his mouth and clapped.
“Step right up! Step right up!” Sam cried. “More girls inside! Visit the girls dancing in private peekaboo booths! Only a dime!”
Steam rose in Bella’s pipes and aloha-perked in her hips. Sparks jumped in her eyes, and she cranked into a few low dips. Her lovely hula hands called to the crowd like a guile-filled siren from the South Seas and a shower of nickels and dimes and pennies from Heaven bounced around her feet.
The crowd was throwing money!
“Step right up! Step right up!”
The monkey hopped off Sam’s shoulder and collected the coins in a metal cup. The sailors whistled and slapped each other’s butts.
“Step right up! Step right up!”
Suddenly, in the bopping crowd, the beautiful face of Christ appeared.
Bella raised her arms and he raised his too. His eyes flashed gold and green. His smile made church bells sing. He blew Bella a tender kiss. Then he disappeared. Like a lost breath. Like a wailing infant’s hot tears.