Posts tagged the moll

The Fraternity

She was standing at the bus stop. Sounds like a Hollies song. But she had a wedding ring on, and I already had a moll. No romance here.  But she was still standing at the bus stop. Reading a book. I was curious. I glanced over to see what it was. It was a Robert B. Parker.

She saw me looking. Glanced up. I nodded. Pulled the Mike Hammer I had in my messenger bag and held it up. She smiled and nodded back.  She turned back to her book. I put mine away. Checked my watch and wondered when the goddamn bus would get there.

Nothing more was said.  Nothing more to say.  We were both members of the same fraternity.  It has no name.  Doesn’t need a name.  All it needs is a dirty world—and an avenging angel.  Or several: Spade, Hammer, McGee, Spenser, whoever.  Someone to tame the monsters in a dirty world.  

James Ellroy said the message of film noir is “You’re fucked.”  It isn’t just in the movies. It was in the books before that, and it’s still there.  That’s why we read.  And that’s why we have our heroes: they make sure the bad guys get fucked just a bit faster.  

That’s what this fraternity is about.  There may not be much justice around.  But there’s some “get fucked” vengeance stored away in books.  So we keep that alive—we’ll take what we can get.  We may not have anything else in common.  We don’t need anything else in common.  We just share little nods of recognition and respect.  Because we know who we are. 

We keep the avenging angels alive.  Every time we turn a page.

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Anonymous asked: What do you look for in a girl or a guy? Dating wise.

Dear God, are you for real? My first thought was that this must be spam. But what’s the point of spamming without including an invocation to check out tumblrnet.bot or some such website?

So if this is a real person, let me respond with two pieces of advice:

  1. “-wise” is not an all purpose suffix you can slap on at the end of any word or sentence and have yourself an adverb or adjective.
  2. If you *ahem* pay attention, you would have the answer to your question.  (Cliff’s Notes synopsis: I’m not looking for anything.)

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It isn’t like I need books. I have plenty, and quite a few I’ve yet to read. But somehow they’re hard to resist. Is it a cliché to compare them to crack? Give me something more addictive, then, you would-be Chandlers.  I would say that it’s more addictive than good bourbon on a warm night, but that would bring up memories I’m happier to let fade.  So I’m going with crack—less guilt for me. And I’m surrounded by crack dens.  I just found out there’s another used bookstore in the area with pulp and hardboiled (they spell it “hard-boiled”) sections.  I’ve managed to resist going there, which is no mean feat.  Just give it time. My resolve is inversely related to my disposable income.   Besides, I haven’t finished the bender from the last den of iniquity I visited.  The local League of Women Voters had a book sale.  Had their latest, I should say.  They’ve been doing it for decades to raise money.  They’ve been having an annual book sale almost as long as there have been women voters.  And I was happy to give them my money. I thought it would probably be worth my while to visit the book sale during one of the three days it was running.  Until two weeks before the sale.  The library was collecting donations and I’d see what people were dropping off when I went there.  I was walking into the library.  There was a trunk, and donated books stacked up in it.  On top of the pile was Megan Abbott’s The Song is You.  I was like Walter Neff seeing Phyllis for the first time.  I had to have that book.  All that noir voluptuousness on the cover was irresistible.   And I didn’t have any of Abbott’s novels.  Unlike other (older) books, they’re readily available.  But it isn’t the same.  Finding a gem at a book sale, used book or thrift store is exciting.  Using Amazon is cheating.  Knowing The Song is You was to be sold might be cheating, too.  A man ought to pick his standards wisely. So I began counting down the days to the book sale.  The first day came.  The sale would be starting at 9 a.m.  I didn’t get there till 10:15.  A large white tent sat in the center of town, and I made a beeline for it.  The mystery section was the largest and busiest part of the sale. Scrutinizing all the books rapidly led me to the conclusion that all mysteries were not created equal.  I wasn’t interested in a cat who did anything.  Espionage novels were lumped in with mysteries.  This was great for Alan Furst and John le Carré, but I didn’t want to deal with Tom Clancy or Brad Thor.  I didn’t even want to stop and consider whether Dan Brown wrote mysteries or not. So I focused on Highsmith, Mosley and Lehane.  I found a dozen or so good books. Most of them just fifty cents.  How could I say no?  But there was no Megan Abbott to be found.  I brought the books home.  Went back later that afternoon.  Some new books out, still innumerable copies of The Da Vinci Code.   Then I found Megan Abbott.  It was in a box under the table, with a myriad of other excess books.  It wasn’t The Song is You.  It was her debut novel, Die a Little.  The cover wasn’t as neat.  But that’s all right.  I’m partial to debut novels, anyhow.   I texted  the book moll to exult.  She replied back with “How many and how much did you spend?”  But she’s a good sport.  She went with me to the sale over the weekend.  Pointed out some Elmore Leonard and James Ellroy books to me.  She may lack joie de vivre, but she knows what I like. And she knows me too well.  Finding Die a Little didn’t stop me from going back twice more, once on Saturday and once on Sunday.  Didn’t stop me from accumulating all the books you see there.  I didn’t need them all.  Didn’t need any of them, probably.  But I didn’t know if I’d run across them again.  I once saw a Mike Shayne pulp novel in a used book store for a couple books and didn’t buy it.  I didn’t realize how few Shayne books were in print.  I still haven’t forgiven myself. But I had a clean conscience when the book sale ended.  I also had fifty-odd books.  You can see them up there, and I’ll be posting about them in the upcoming days.  Keep an eye on the literature porn tag.

It isn’t like I need books. I have plenty, and quite a few I’ve yet to read. But somehow they’re hard to resist. Is it a cliché to compare them to crack? Give me something more addictive, then, you would-be Chandlers.  I would say that it’s more addictive than good bourbon on a warm night, but that would bring up memories I’m happier to let fade.  So I’m going with crack—less guilt for me.

And I’m surrounded by crack dens.  I just found out there’s another used bookstore in the area with pulp and hardboiled (they spell it “hard-boiled”) sections.  I’ve managed to resist going there, which is no mean feat.  Just give it time. My resolve is inversely related to my disposable income.  

Besides, I haven’t finished the bender from the last den of iniquity I visited.  The local League of Women Voters had a book sale.  Had their latest, I should say.  They’ve been doing it for decades to raise money.  They’ve been having an annual book sale almost as long as there have been women voters.  And I was happy to give them my money.

I thought it would probably be worth my while to visit the book sale during one of the three days it was running.  Until two weeks before the sale.  The library was collecting donations and I’d see what people were dropping off when I went there.  I was walking into the library.  There was a trunk, and donated books stacked up in it.  On top of the pile was Megan Abbott’s The Song is You.  I was like Walter Neff seeing Phyllis for the first time.  I had to have that book.  All that noir voluptuousness on the cover was irresistible.  

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Like No One is Watching

Dancing. One of the perils of live music. They say the Baptists banned fornication because it might lead to dancing. I don’t have a moral objection to either. But I also like to sit back and listen to music without having to watch either. If I have to watch one, fornication would probably be more interesting.

But dancing feet rarely concur with me.  They certainly didn’t that night.  The blues band was middling, but it was something to do.  So I sat there with the moll while the Chicago blues chugged along at a predictable pace. It wasn’t going to change my life, but it was pleasant enough.

Then the dancing began.  A few friends of the band around the edges of the edge started it.  Then a group of women in front of the stage.  Some of them sashayed demurely.  Then came guys.  In search of demure derriere, no doubt.  One jackass hopped around on one foot like he’d just gotten free from a bear trap.

It was time to see and be seen.  Doesn’t mean it was pretty.  One ungainly broad in a leopard-print sweatshirt shook her distended belly and stomped.  Had all the grace of a beached whale.  ”They don’t have any rhythm!” the moll protested to me.  Didn’t matter.  They had exhibitionism.

But off to the side, one guy wasn’t preening for the crowd or engaging in courtship rituals.  He was too old for either.  He had braces on both knees.  Looked like he needed hip transplants, too.  He seemed to move by hiccuping.  But he was having a grand old time.  He danced with his wife, but she had a hard time keeping up with his exuberance.  

The geezer stutter-stepped and shook his hips to the beat.  He was a randy old devil, thrusting his hips against his wife.  It wasn’t pretty, but it was earnest.  His wife had a hard time keeping up.  He just played air guitar, balancing precariously on his rickety legs, while she caught her breath.  

“Dance like no one is watching.”  It’s an old cliché, and not always good advice.  But if it’s bad advice, that’s alright.  No one does it, anyway.  Or so I thought.  Lots of people say it.  I’ve only ever seen him do it.  Wasn’t that bad.

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Last night was the Tony Awards, which is longer on talent and shorter on self-congratulations than most award shows.  When I watch awards shows with the moll, we have a drink or two.  It was martinis for the Oscars.  But last night I let Raymond Chandler and Robert Altman pick the cocktails.   Chandler’s description of a gimlet in The Long Goodbye is famous the world over:   “They don’t know how to make them here,” he said. “What they call a gimlet is just some lime or lemon juice and gin with a dash of sugar and bitters. A real gimlet is half gin and half Rose’s Lime Juice and nothing else. It beats martinis hollow.” In the 1973 film, Robert Altman and Elliott Gould transform Marlowe into a more self-aware private dick for The Seventies.  In the film version of The Long Goodbye, Marlowe orders a CC and ginger.  Technically, this is a highball and not a cocktail—and should be in a different glass.   But let’s not split hairs.  Both are simple to make and delicious to drink.  And Raymond Chandler would never turn up his nose at that.

Last night was the Tony Awards, which is longer on talent and shorter on self-congratulations than most award shows.  When I watch awards shows with the moll, we have a drink or two.  It was martinis for the Oscars.  But last night I let Raymond Chandler and Robert Altman pick the cocktails.  

Chandler’s description of a gimlet in The Long Goodbye is famous the world over:  

“They don’t know how to make them here,” he said. “What they call a gimlet is just some lime or lemon juice and gin with a dash of sugar and bitters. A real gimlet is half gin and half Rose’s Lime Juice and nothing else. It beats martinis hollow.”

In the 1973 film, Robert Altman and Elliott Gould transform Marlowe into a more self-aware private dick for The Seventies.  In the film version of The Long Goodbye, Marlowe orders a CC and ginger.  Technically, this is a highball and not a cocktail—and should be in a different glass.  

But let’s not split hairs.  Both are simple to make and delicious to drink.  And Raymond Chandler would never turn up his nose at that.

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Romantic film poster aside, this film earns its noir stripes.  Cary Grant displays a savagery absent from his other roles.  When we watched Notorious together, the moll said that she expected Grant’s character to shoot Rains as the film ended.  But leaving Rains’ Alexander Sebastian to the other Nazis was far more brutal than shooting him would have been.

Romantic film poster aside, this film earns its noir stripes.  Cary Grant displays a savagery absent from his other roles.  When we watched Notorious together, the moll said that she expected Grant’s character to shoot Rains as the film ended.  But leaving Rains’ Alexander Sebastian to the other Nazis was far more brutal than shooting him would have been.

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[NOTE: I inadvertently posted this before it was finished.  It’s all there now.] How do you measure a year?  Didn’t that used to be a popular Broadway song?  Doesn’t matter.  I was never good at measuring things.  I don’t measure years.  I get enough people telling me it’s my birthday.  And I know I’m older.  Simple as that. Simple.  And superfluous.  Age hasn’t changed me.  But the past year has.  I can measure my birthday, if I can’t measure a year.  The bourbon in this year’s glass is about eight years older than the rye I drank last birthday, and infinitely smoother.  I didn’t have snazzy Batman cuff links a year ago.    And that’s my year.  The whiskey is older and I’m fastening my shirt-sleeves with postage stamps.  Some year. But it was.  Well, most of it: the ten months after I met the moll.  The cuff links were a Christmas gift from her.  I wasn’t drinking alone because she was here.  I still read noir, but I’m on the outside looking in.  I’m not slowly circling the drain any longer. But I still don’t know how to measure a year.  That’s all right.  I can measure a happy birthday.  So I did that instead.  But that didn’t tell me anything I didn’t know.  Turns out a happy birthday has the exact same lovely measurements as the woman who made me a very happy birthday boy on Saturday night.

[NOTE: I inadvertently posted this before it was finished.  It’s all there now.]

How do you measure a year?  Didn’t that used to be a popular Broadway song?  Doesn’t matter.  I was never good at measuring things.  I don’t measure years.  I get enough people telling me it’s my birthday.  And I know I’m older.  Simple as that.

Simple.  And superfluous.  Age hasn’t changed me.  But the past year has.  I can measure my birthday, if I can’t measure a year.  The bourbon in this year’s glass is about eight years older than the rye I drank last birthday, and infinitely smoother.  I didn’t have snazzy Batman cuff links a year ago.   

And that’s my year.  The whiskey is older and I’m fastening my shirt-sleeves with postage stamps.  Some year.

But it was.  Well, most of it: the ten months after I met the moll.  The cuff links were a Christmas gift from her.  I wasn’t drinking alone because she was here.  I still read noir, but I’m on the outside looking in.  I’m not slowly circling the drain any longer.

But I still don’t know how to measure a year.  That’s all right.  I can measure a happy birthday.  So I did that instead.  But that didn’t tell me anything I didn’t know.  Turns out a happy birthday has the exact same lovely measurements as the woman who made me a very happy birthday boy on Saturday night.

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Sunday Morning

You wake up one Sunday.  This is not new.  You wake up next to a beautiful woman. This isn’t new, either.  But it’s good.  You’re lucky.  This isn’t a one-night stand.  Neither of you will be doing the walk of shame.  So you kiss her.  She’s still sleepy, but he she stirs long enough to kiss you back.  Then you read while she sleeps.  

John D. MacDonald is a more than adequate companion.  So is Travis McGee.  It’s a good morning.  Especially after she wakes up.  So you read the news to her.  Except no one subscribes to a newspaper anymore and you read it off a damned smartphone.   But you enjoy being with her too much to worry about the future of newsprint or.

Sooner or later you both get hungry.  So she is off to the kitchen and you follow.  You notice the bottle of bourbon.  It’s Old Grand-Dad.  Good stuff.  Maybe not the good stuff.  Not too expensive, but good stuff.  Stuff you recommended, she reminds you.  And you’re proud of her.  She was drinking all sorts of fruity pink shit when you met her.  Now she’s drinking Old-Fashioneds and whiskey neat.

She peeling potatoes while you admire her.  Admiring her taste in booze, and just plain admiring her.  Even while she was grating potatoes.  She notices and says you don’t have to watch her.  Of course you want to.  But you go and get your book so you can do it more surreptitiously.  You sit down at the little table and set your book there.  

She’s starting to fry the hash browns.  You’ve read enough this morning, so you go take over at the skillet.  She likes it when you fry things.  You like to make sure everything gets suitably brown and crispy.  You add some more oil to keep the potatoes sizzling.  You add plenty of salt and pepper.  You heap the hash browns on two plates and fry up two eggs, too.  She likes hers sunny side up.  You think that’s disgusting, so yours goes a little longer.

The eggs sit atop the hash browns.  You’re ready for brunch.  But maybe not.  You decide an Old-Fashioned would be good.  It’s already noon anyhow.  Not too early to drink on a Sunday.  Anyhow, you remind her, cocktails are so called because they were created to be had in the morning.  Grab the cock by its tail.  With whiskey, presumably.  So you make two Old-Fashioneds.

Only as much water as sugar, you muse as you mix them up.  It’s astonishing how bars get such a simple drink wrong.  Water, sugar, bitters.  That’s all you need.  Then you pour in a slug of fine, sweet bourbon.  Some ice.  

The hashbrowns and egg are salty.  The Old-Fashioneds are sweet, spicy and stiff.  Your companion is charming and lovely.  She calls it brunch.  You’re not particular about the name, but you’re enjoying yourself.  What more could a man want?  

You glance at the little pulpy paperback.  Its yellowed pages sit forlornly on the table.  It’s gotten ignored as you prepared and then ate the brunch.  But you don’t miss it too much.  You’ll read it later.  You don’t need it just now.  It’s out of place in such a domestic scene.  The eggs aren’t even hardboiled.  But that’s OK.  Not everything is.  Not everything has to be.

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I don’t talk a great deal about myself, but I thought I’d mention my hardboiled Valentine’s Day.  In Robert B. Parker’s first Spenser novel, The Godwulf Manuscript, the slick tough guy makes a dish called Scallops Jacques.  According to Spenser:

I like to cook and drink while I’m doing it.  Scallops Jacques is a complicated affair with cream and wine and lemon juice and shallots, and by the time it was done I was feeling quite pleasant.

After reading that, I decided that Scallops Jacques sounded pretty good.  Wine, cream, mushrooms, cheese—these are a few of my favorite things!  As it happens, my lady love is fond of them, too.  So I made Scallops Jacques for Valentine’s dinner.  It’s supposed to be in little scallop-shaped dishes, and the recipe I used didn’t have shallots in it.  But those are minor quibbles, I think.  The pretty dame in whose honor it was cooked pronounced it delicious, so that’s good enough for me.  Thanks, Spenser.

Speaking of the moll, she made my day by presenting me with two terrific anthologies of hardboiled/pulp/noir stories: The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps, edited by Otto Penzler, and Best American Noir of the Century, edited by Penzler and James Ellroy.  Between the two of them, they’re an excellent overview of the literary evolution that has occurred in crime fiction during the past century.  And she’s pretty excellent, too, even if she does regard them as just books “about violence and gore and death.”  (I’m trying to convince her otherwise.)  She’s not quite a gun moll.  But I’d say she’s a damn good book moll.

And it was a damn good hardboiled Valentine’s Day. 

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