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“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, he... he wants the baby!”
“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 my baby and I'm not killing it or giving it up!”
I kissed her and laughed. “Honey, that all you're upset about? All you have to do is go to court, tell the judge he wanted you to get an abortion... all this crap his mama was handing you... you'll keep the baby.”
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 together.
I touched the smooth skin of her shoulder and she slowly opened her almond eyes and stared up at me. I thought how fantastic it was that this girl, whose mother had lived in the Arctic, should now be in an off-Times Square hotel with me. Elma asked, “What are you thinking about, Marsh?”
“That I'd be crazy to let a spoiled brat like this Mac come between us.”
She smiled—those big lips that sent a charge through me —and I sat on the bed and kissed her and kissed her and she said, “Marsh, how I wish I'd met you before—wasn't bringing you a dowry of trouble!”
“We're not in trouble. And, honey, I'm so in love with you, I'm glad to just know you—under any conditions!”
We were kissing and kidding around when Kimball called back. She gave me a name and-a Central Park South address, said, “He'll talk to you. No money, but buy him a box of cigars—real Havana. You really got money, kid?”
“A few bucks. Thanks, Marion.”
“All this stuff you told me before, that's true? I mean, you're not crocked or anything?”
“Sober as a church mouse.”
“Sounds wild as hell, but I hope you make it this time, Marsh. Really, I hope for you from the heart, Marsh.”
Elma wanted to see the lawyer with me, but I thought it best I go alone. I bought a box of cigars for fifteen bucks, took a cab up to see this lawyer.
It was a big, flashy apartment. A maid opened the door and I passed a tired-looking young woman with badly dyed red hair watching TV in a room. She was wearing a sheer robe and could have been the lawyer's daughter—although I would have laid five to one she wasn't.
He was a plump, hard-faced, elderly man with little pale blue veins showing in his thick nose. His face a sickly yellow contrast to his blue silk robe, he looked the picture of the morning-after. He thanked me for the cigars, talked about the weather. I didn't know what Kimball had told him, but I seemed to amuse him, as though I was his favorite jester. That made me sore but I told him the story as calmly as I could.
He sat—sunk deep in his big chair—staring at the wall, half-asleep. When I finished he belched a bit, patted his potbelly, asked, “What you want with a babe already knocked up?”'
“You a lawyer or an advice-to-the-lovelorn columnist?”
He stared straight into my eyes for a moment, then sighed. “Okay, that's your red wagon. I hereby give you my best considered legal advice: kid, they got you by the short hairs.”
“He can really take the baby, have her deported? Why, that's... that's unbelievable!”
“Fellow, don't you read the papers, don't you know what's going on? In the old days a lawyer would take any case that came along, and in a way that's how justice should work. Now, well I'd just be wasting my time defending your... girl. In my youth I used to think I'd be a Clarence Darrow... but that's a long time ago.
“About our case?”
He shook his head. “No lawyer would take it to court, haven't a chance in hell of winning.”
“But why? She hasn't done anything criminal?”
“Fellow, she's a non-citizen, that means they can deport her like this...” He was about to snap his thick fingers, but he belched again, added, ”... quick as that. She's 100 per cent right, nail her for morals, and for being here illegally. Why, fellow, they get big shots for that, so figure out what chance your girl would have! Be a joke to even take her case to court.”
“Don't be a comedian. What should we do?”
“Have the...” He belched again. “Damn stinking booze, always gives me lousy gas. Have the abortion. Always have kids with her later.”
“She won't do that. Could she get the divorce now, battle over the baby afterwards?”
“No. Wanting the kid, he'd make the baby one of the conditions of the divorce. Might have her deported on the q.t. anyway. My advice is to forget it.”
“I didn't come here for that kind of advice, or...”
“Aw, stop flying off the handle, I had a rough night. Look, forget about a divorce, or marriage. Understand you live out in the country? Fine, take the gal back to the sticks with you as your new blushing bride.-When the kid comes, simply put your name down as poppa.”
“But, would that be legal?”
He laughed, showing a lot of rotten teeth. “What means legal? Fellow, laws are made to break. If there weren't any murderers, we wouldn't have capital punishment on the books. What's a marriage license? Nothing but an unused piece of paper—99 per cent of the time. Get what I'm driving at?”
“No.”
“Hell, return to your place in the country, with this girl, say you were just married. Who's going to doubt you, who's going to care? Her husband will never find you, if you're careful. You just met her, she lives in New Jersey, before that she lived in Canada—you probably haven't any friends in common. Play it careful and it will work out fine. And when the kid is born, she'll have a birth certificate and all the other papers, all saying you're the father. Might run into trouble years from now, if you should die and there was a battle over a will... but that can be arranged too. From now on you two are man and wife, and who knows different?”
“You.”
He pointed a fat finger at my clothes. “Fellow, you haven't enough dough to arouse my curiosity. I don't even remember your name.” He stood up. “Another thing, remember what I said about the law—remember too, at times, I'm proud that I am an attorney, respect myself—at times —so I wouldn't stoop to blackmail—not petty stuff, anyway.”
“Sorry. I didn't mean to...”
We shook hands and he said, “Speaking of blackmail, I'll deny I ever told you this. I'm giving you practical advice, fellow, not legal advice. One more thing, if you go through with this—remember to always play it safe, don't talk to anyone about it.”
“Thanks.”
When I explained it to Elma, it sounded foolproof. She said, “But if at any time Mac catches up with us, he can still take the baby?”
“How will he ever find us? He never heard of me, neither have any of your friends. From now on you disappear and become Mrs. Elma Jameson of Sandyhook, L.I. If he should locate us, it will be years from now, maybe times will have changed. Besides, what else can we do?”
“It does seem a little... sneaky... but as you say, what else can we do? I'll have to be careful to keep out of Newark, away from people I know.”
“And never get in touch with Mac.”
“Lord, that's the very last thing I ever want to do.”
I pulled her off the bed, kissed her softly on her full lips. “Darling, I hereby pronounce you Mrs. Marshal Jameson. And some day we'll really make it legal. This will work out, I know it.”
“Marsh, we love each other, that makes it as sincere and honest as any other marriage ceremony,” she said, kissing me fiercely.
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