Read Online L.A. Noire: The Collected Stories by Jonathan Santlofer - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Jonathan Santlofer
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detectives shrank from seeing me & quickly covered my “remains” with a coat for I had an actual father named Cleo Marcus Short who favored me above my four sisters Kathryn & Lucinda & Agnes & Harriet & wrote to me solely, in 1940, when I was sixteen, to invite me to live with him in California—which Daddy would not have done if he had not truly loved me.
Post mortem —is the Latin term. Post mortem is this state I am in, now. That you do not know exists when you are “alive” & you cannot guess how vast & infinite post mortem is for it is all of the time—forever & ever—after you have died.
Later, Daddy would deny me. Daddy would be so shocked & disgusted by the newspaper headlines & photos—(which were not the coroner’s photos or the LAPD crime scene photos which could not be published of course—too ugly & “obscene”)—but photos of Elizabeth Short a.k.a. THE BLACK DAHLIA —(for since the age of eighteen when I came to L.A., I wore tight-fitting black dresses with dipping necklines & often black silk trimmed in lace & undergarments as well in black & my hair glossy-black & my skin pearly-white & my mouth flame-red with lipstick)—which were glamour photos striking as any stills from the studios—Daddy refused to identify me still less “claim” me—the (mutilated, dissected) remains of me in the L.A. coroner’s morgue.
Or maybe Daddy thought he would have to pay some fee. He would have to pay for a burial, Daddy would fear.
Oh, that was mean of Daddy! To tell the L.A. authorities he would not drive to the morgue to make the “I.D.” (For there is no law to compel a citizen in such circumstances, it seems.) If Daddy had not already broke my heart this sad news post mortem would do it.
But that was later. That was January 1947. When you were all reading of THE BLACK DAHLIA shaking your hypocrite heads in revulsion & chastisement A girl like that. Dressing in all black and promiscuous, it is what she deserves.
When Daddy wrote to me, to summon me to him, it was seven years before. I had dropt out of South Medford High School to work (waitress, movie-house cashier) to help Momma with the household for we were five daughters & just Momma and no father to provide an income for we had thought that Daddy was dead & what a shock—Daddy was not dead but alive.
Cleo Short had been a quite-successful businessman selling miniature golf courses! All of us brought up swinging miniature golf clubs & hitting teeny golf balls & our photos taken—FIVE SHORT DAUGHTERS OF MEDFORD BUSINESSMAN CLEO SHORT TAKE TO THE “MINIATURE LINKS”—& published widely in Medford & vicinity for we were all pretty girls especially (this is a fact everyone acknowledged, this is not my opinion) “Betty” who was the middle sister of the five and the most beautiful by far.
& then the Depression which hit poor Daddy hard & soon collapsed into bankruptcy & utterly shamed so Daddy drove to the Mystic River bridge & what happened next was never made clear but Daddy’s 1932 Nash sedan was discovered on the river bank & not Daddy, anywhere—so it was believed that Cleo Marcus Short was a tragic suicide of the Depression as others had been, & declared dead two years later, & Momma collected $3,000 insurance & was now officially a widow & we were bereaved for our beloved Daddy, for years.
Oh but then one day a letter came postmarked Vallejo, CA! & the shocking news like in a fairy tale that Cleo Short was not dead in the Mystic River as we had believed but “alive and well” in Vallejo, California!
Momma would not reply to this letter, Momma had too much pride. Momma’s heart had turned to stone in the aftermath of such deception, as she called it.
& bitterness, for Momma had to pay back the $3,000 insurance which had been spent years before. In doing so Momma had to borrow from relatives & wherever else she could & out of our salaries we helped Momma pay & everyone in Momma’s family was hateful toward Daddy for this
Post mortem —is the Latin term. Post mortem is this state I am in, now. That you do not know exists when you are “alive” & you cannot guess how vast & infinite post mortem is for it is all of the time—forever & ever—after you have died.
Later, Daddy would deny me. Daddy would be so shocked & disgusted by the newspaper headlines & photos—(which were not the coroner’s photos or the LAPD crime scene photos which could not be published of course—too ugly & “obscene”)—but photos of Elizabeth Short a.k.a. THE BLACK DAHLIA —(for since the age of eighteen when I came to L.A., I wore tight-fitting black dresses with dipping necklines & often black silk trimmed in lace & undergarments as well in black & my hair glossy-black & my skin pearly-white & my mouth flame-red with lipstick)—which were glamour photos striking as any stills from the studios—Daddy refused to identify me still less “claim” me—the (mutilated, dissected) remains of me in the L.A. coroner’s morgue.
Or maybe Daddy thought he would have to pay some fee. He would have to pay for a burial, Daddy would fear.
Oh, that was mean of Daddy! To tell the L.A. authorities he would not drive to the morgue to make the “I.D.” (For there is no law to compel a citizen in such circumstances, it seems.) If Daddy had not already broke my heart this sad news post mortem would do it.
But that was later. That was January 1947. When you were all reading of THE BLACK DAHLIA shaking your hypocrite heads in revulsion & chastisement A girl like that. Dressing in all black and promiscuous, it is what she deserves.
When Daddy wrote to me, to summon me to him, it was seven years before. I had dropt out of South Medford High School to work (waitress, movie-house cashier) to help Momma with the household for we were five daughters & just Momma and no father to provide an income for we had thought that Daddy was dead & what a shock—Daddy was not dead but alive.
Cleo Short had been a quite-successful businessman selling miniature golf courses! All of us brought up swinging miniature golf clubs & hitting teeny golf balls & our photos taken—FIVE SHORT DAUGHTERS OF MEDFORD BUSINESSMAN CLEO SHORT TAKE TO THE “MINIATURE LINKS”—& published widely in Medford & vicinity for we were all pretty girls especially (this is a fact everyone acknowledged, this is not my opinion) “Betty” who was the middle sister of the five and the most beautiful by far.
& then the Depression which hit poor Daddy hard & soon collapsed into bankruptcy & utterly shamed so Daddy drove to the Mystic River bridge & what happened next was never made clear but Daddy’s 1932 Nash sedan was discovered on the river bank & not Daddy, anywhere—so it was believed that Cleo Marcus Short was a tragic suicide of the Depression as others had been, & declared dead two years later, & Momma collected $3,000 insurance & was now officially a widow & we were bereaved for our beloved Daddy, for years.
Oh but then one day a letter came postmarked Vallejo, CA! & the shocking news like in a fairy tale that Cleo Short was not dead in the Mystic River as we had believed but “alive and well” in Vallejo, California!
Momma would not reply to this letter, Momma had too much pride. Momma’s heart had turned to stone in the aftermath of such deception, as she called it.
& bitterness, for Momma had to pay back the $3,000 insurance which had been spent years before. In doing so Momma had to borrow from relatives & wherever else she could & out of our salaries we helped Momma pay & everyone in Momma’s family was hateful toward Daddy for this
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