Mr. Winkley and I were late to the party because Roy was there and I didn’t want to see him. We waited outside Gladys’s door for Roy to leave, but he didn’t leave so we went to the Colonel’s room and I knocked on his door. “Hurry up, Colonel,” I said, but he said he wasn’t ready yet. I went back to Gladys’s room carrying Mr. Winkley and stood outside her door. I wanted to go in because Gladys always had good parties, but I shouldn’t call it a party because it was supposed to be a memorial for Nancy. Gladys liked to give parties and every Christmas she made a big turkey dinner and invited everybody. Finally we went in and Roy came over to me and said he was sorry about Nancy and that it was hard on all of us.
“Screw you Roy,” I said.
Gladys had on a wig and a dress and she put down her tray of hors d’oeuvres and told me that Roy was her guest and that I was being rude.
“It’s okay,” Roy said to her. “I understand how Willy feels. He and Nancy were good friends.”
“If you’ve got something to say to me, Roy,” I said, “then you can say it to my face.”
Gladys started to say something and Roy said, “No no, it’s all right. I have an appointment. I should be leaving anyway.” Then he left and that was fine with me.
Mr. Winkley was getting some hors d’oeuvres and the tray fell onto the floor. Gladys was mad but she got over it.
She went to Stanley’s room and dragged him in, but he just stood leaning against the wall and looked at everybody like he wanted to kill them. Every time you’d look at him he’d look at the floor. He made sure to stuff his face on Gladys’s hors d’oeuvres, though.
Francine was telling how she taught Gladys everything that Gladys knew.
“This place ain’t nothing compared to what it used to be,” Francine said. “The johnnie boys were coming and going all the time, day and night.”
As far as I know, The Morpheum was never anything more or less than a hotel. Gladys had friends, and sometimes friends of friends, who came by now and then, and sometimes they gave her things; but that was mostly before I knew her. It wasn’t anything like what Francine said.
“This place was so busy,” Francine went on, “that Elsie had to fill in whenever one of the girls was sick.”
“What?” Gladys said. “Francine, you are so full of it.” Then to the rest of us: “She’s full of it.”
“Honey,” Francine said to Gladys, “I seen things you never even dreamed of. You never knew it, but Elsie …”
“Oh, don’t listen to her,” Gladys said to us. Then to Francine: “That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”
I was sitting next to Francine on the sofa and she poked me with her elbow. “I taught her everything,” she said to me.
“I beg your pardon,” Gladys said, “but you, Francine, are a big percarivator, I mean … pre … prevaricator, did I say that right, correctly? By which I mean you are a big liar.”
“And you are a big fat liar,” Francine said.
Gladys never did like Francine calling her fat.
“I don’t remember it the way you remember it,” Gladys said.
“She don’t remember nothing,” Francine said. Then to Gladys: “I taught you everything you know, but I didn’t teach you everything I know, because I kept my best tricks for myself.” Then she patted her own chest and said, “Francine was the one they always asked for. Gladys just handled the overflow, when I was busy. And I was always busy.”
“You were busy changing my sheets,” Gladys said. “That’s what you were busy at.” Sometimes it was hard to tell if Gladys was really mad or just kidding around.
The Colonel came in and Francine said, “Look who just flew in from the loony bin; the head colonel of all the loonies.” He sat in a chair and didn’t say anything.
Gladys got up to make some more hors d’oeuvres and Mr. Winkley grabbed the back of her dress. He must have thought she was his mother.
“Get him off of me!” she said. The more she shook her dress the more he grabbed on. Finally he let go of her dress and ran under the bed. It was nice and quiet and dark and he was hiding under there.
“I didn’t invite him,” Gladys said to me. “He doesn’t belong here.”
I had just figured that it was okay for me to bring him to the party, and she’d said she had to invite everybody, and to me it was the same as if she had said in front of everybody that she didn’t want me there either. I stayed sitting in my chair and didn’t know what to say.
“Well?” she said. “Are you going to take that cat back to your room where he belongs?”
I tried to think that Gladys was just kidding; but she wasn’t.
“Get your cat, little boy,” she said.
The Colonel went to her and tried to calm her down but she waved him away.
“She needed a man and she got a little boy,” she said.
The Colonel got her settled into a chair, and Howie came over and squatted down beside me and said he’d help me catch Mr. Winkley and bring him to my room. I thought he was too fat to ever catch Mr. Winkley, though.
Gladys said, “If he’d been any kind of a man instead of a little boy, she would still be alive.”
I went under the bed to get Mr. Winkley, and I didn’t plan to stay under there, but I was holding him and thinking that we really didn’t have any better place to go. It was dark and nobody could see me. I felt like if I moved I’d upset everything, and so I didn’t move. I closed my eyes to make everything go away.
“Just ignore him,” Gladys said. “Let the little boy sulk.”
The party went on for a while and then Gladys said, “This has gone on long enough.” She knelt and lifted the skirt of the bed and looked at me with her head sideways.
“What are you guys doing under there?” she said. “What’s going on with you two?”
“I didn’t kill Nancy,” I said.
“I know,” she said. “I’m sorry. Are you going to stay under there all night? You want a pillow and a blanket?”
“I’m not a little boy,” I said.
“You’re hiding under my bed like a little boy,” she said.
“Leave me alone.”
She told Stanley to grab one of my legs and she’d grab the other. I couldn’t see how, if Stanley was deaf, he could know what she was telling him, but he got hold of one of my feet and I shook it and wiggled my toes so that my shoe came off in his hand, but by that time Gladys had hold of my other ankle and Stanley grabbed my foot again. I was still holding Mr. Winkley and there wasn’t much under the bed for me to grab onto, so I was kicking my feet.
“It’s going to be a breech birth,” Gladys said. “We’re going to have to pull this little baby out feet first. Ready, Stanley? On the count of three. One … two …”
They pulled me out from under the bed. I took my own sweet time lying on the floor and then I got up and put my shoe back on and took Mr. Winkley to my room and went back to the party. When I got back Francine was still picking on the Colonel.
“Fly back to your nut house, loony bird,” she said. The Colonel didn’t say anything. He was just staring, and he was going into one of his trances.
Everybody said that Francine should apologize to the Colonel. She bent down next to him and we thought she was going to say she was sorry, but she yelled “Bang!” right in his ear. He looked around like he was afraid of something.
“Now look what you’ve done,” Gladys said to Francine.
Gladys knelt in front of him and took his hands in hers.
“What can I get for you, Colonel?” she said. “How about a drink?” He didn’t answer her.
Francine waved her hand in front of his face and snapped her fingers.
“He don’t know nothing about what’s going on,” she said.
He was shaking and his lips were quivering. Gladys looked at us. She was still kneeling and holding his hands, and she didn’t know what to do.
“Unfit for service,” he said, and right away he slumped in the chair and fell asleep.
Howie got up. “It’s getting late, Francine,” he said. “Perhaps it’s time for us to go.”
“Perhaps it’s time for you to shut up, Howie,” she said. “Bum Howie. Howie the bum.”
“Francine, I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” Gladys said. “Howie, you can stay. Just because she’s leaving doesn’t mean you have to.”
Francine turned on Gladys. “Where I go, Howie goes!”
Gladys nodded to me and Howie, and we each took one of Francine’s arms and started to take her out, but she fought us, so we lifted her off the floor. She was kicking and yelling at Gladys, “I taught you everything, you fat worn-out chippie! How’s business lately, Fatty? Not so good? You tried to teach Nancy what I taught you, only you couldn’t teach her nothing, because she already knew!”
She got her arm away from me and tried to point at Stanley, and I grabbed her arm again. Howie was holding her other arm and telling her to just calm down and everything would be all right.
“The dummy knows all about it!” she said. “The dummy heard everything, standing outside her door in the middle of the night. The dummy ain’t so dumb. He heard everything that was going on in her room. Hey dummy, were you waiting your turn at the meat counter? Take a number, dummy.”
Stanley’s face turned red and he was looking at the floor. The Colonel was still in his trance.
“Get her out of here,” Gladys said.