Read Online High Time by Mary Lasswell - Free Book Online Page B

her fat little hands.
    ‘That Whine music always reminds me o’ Danny,’ she said fondly.
    ‘And the leis at the dear old Tropic!’ Miss Tinkham put in.
    ‘What was that?’ Oscar perked right up.
    Miss Tinkham explained and the ladies continued to reminisce. The more they thought of the fun they had last year, the sadder they became. Five hours of steady beer-drinking may have contributed a little to their world-sorrow.
    ‘But what we’re doin’ now is a bigger help to the war, even if it ain’t as much fun!’ Mrs. Rasmussen said with a hiccup.
    Mrs. Feeley was mulling something over.
    ‘Where do you s’pose their ma is?’ she asked Darleen.
    ‘Who?’
    ‘Them brats next door to you!’ Mrs. Feeley said.
    ‘Supposed to be working,’ Darleen answered.
    ‘War work?’
    ‘Well—’ Darleen said, after a pause, ‘that’s one way of looking at it’
    The ladies looked at each other sharply.
    ‘Does she relieve a man?’ Mrs. Rasmussen asked.
    ‘Well, I’m not one to criticize—but the rumor is—quite some few,’ and her voice dwindled away.
    ‘The trollop!’ Mrs. Feeley cried indignantly. ‘No wonder them kids is like wild things: dragged up in vice an’ sin!’
    Darleen nodded: ‘She hasn’t never been right since the Japs executed her husband that time. She just went off the beam all at once! Started drinking and bringing guys home like crazy.’
    The ladies were open-mouthed.
    ‘Why’d they execute him?’ Mrs. Feeley asked.
    ‘He was a tail-gunner in one of them Tokio raids—and they captured him. Later on they shot a big bunch and he was one of them! She feels like it’s her fault, on account of she nagged him so much he put in for the most dangerous job he could get. She was mad at him when he left and wouldn’t even go up to Frisco to see him off! Now she hates herself, and that’s why she acts the way she does—I guess she’s trying to make it up to him by not refusing nobody nothing no more!’
    ‘Great Gawdlemighty!’ Mrs. Feeley gasped. ‘Let her destroy herself if she’s a mind to! But them kids! In all that filth an’ evil! They had oughta be turned in to one o’ the societies or somethin’!’
    ‘Don’t know how they got off this long!’ Mrs. Rasmussen said. ‘Them societies is sure nosy!’
    Miss Tinkham was sobbing softly.
    ‘The children of a hero! A martyr, I might even say—abandoned to the raw gusts of passion! A demented mother! What chance have they in life? Juvenile delinquents, criminals, and degenerates!’ she wailed.
    ‘Gawd! Is it that bad?’ Mrs. Feeley cried.
    ‘That ol’ sour milk!’ Mrs. Rasmussen sniffled. ‘An’ her pants draggin’ clear down ’round her ankles!’
    Mrs. Feeley finished her beer and set her mug down like a period at the end of a sentence.
    ‘Damn! I hate like hell to do it! Them stinkin’, squallin’, fightin’ street Ay-rabs! But we’d never be able to look each other in the face again did we let ’em stay in that boar’s nest one more night! C’mon, Darleen! We gotta take a cab to carry the pressure-cooker, anyway!’
     

Chapter 6
     
    T HE NEXT MORNING the residents of Noah’s Ark woke with hangovers of assorted sizes and hues. They jumped hurriedly out of bed, never the most prudent move after a highly convivial evening, to track down the source of a noise much like that Noah must have heard when he was moved to build the original Ark.
    Pierpont and Myrna had discovered the bathroom. They had both tub faucets turned on full blast and were jumping up and down in the tub naked, screaming like Comanches.
    Mrs. Feeley pried a jaundiced eye open and peeked in the door. The tub was half-full of pots and pans. Mrs. Rasmussen would take a fit when she discovered that Pierpont was using her good colander for a shower bath. Myrna was floating a baking-pan, splashing it along with her hands.
    ‘Beep! Beep! I’m a tug!’ she grinned.
    ‘Airplane carrier! Airplane carrier!’ her brother corrected, banging her