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“Sometimes a girl just chooses the wrong boyfriend. Or maybe a person’s timing is just for shit!” Muriel McCracken thought as she drove over to visit with her man Eddie Hayes, who still had 5 years more to serve in Elmira Correctional Institution.
They hadn’t seen one another in over 5 years, since she, herself, had been
locked up in the Women’s Prison for all that time after the unfortunate situation
that occurred after they both walked out on their jobs at that taxi company
and had gotten busted the same day.
Life was a pisser, as Eddie would say.
At the light stop, she took the opportunity to check how she looked by
briefly readjusting her rear view mirror of her brand-new Cadillac convertible.
She wanted to look good for Eddie, since she wouldn’t be making these visits
for a long while, since she had decided to take her new money and get the hell
out of the country for awhile.
She fluffed up her brand new ash-blonde coiffure with her fingers and
quickly freshened up her ‘Ice Lover’s’ pink lipstick, which she had forgotten to
do after having her hamburger…her last from this day forward…when she’d
stopped off for lunch at the “Quick Stop Palace” off the freeway.
She just loved her new make-over look. That Madame Arthuretta Bozell
was a genius! Her new socialite look would definitely give Ivana Trump a run
for her money.
She was sure that Eddie would love it, too.
Poor Eddie.
Poor Muriel.
Muriel loved Eddie and Eddie loved Muriel, but look where it got them.
She would find the best lawyer on earth and get him out of the joint as fast
as big money could buy.
The week after she was released from jail and had settled into her single
room occupancy hotel, as a lark, she filled out one of those Publisher’s Clearing
House contest sweepstakes papers. She hadn’t even subscribed to any of
their magazines. She’d never been much into reading until Madame Bozell
turned her on to those decorating and fancy lifestyle magazines a few months
ago.
The next thing she knew, six months later, there they were, in the lobby of
her hotel…Dick Clark and Ed McMahon…with some balloons, a limo, a bottle
of champagne and a huge check for 20 million dollars!
She fainted.
When she finally soaked it all in, she went to see Eddie and told him. Of
course, he had already heard about it. Seen it on the news. In fact everyone in
his jailhouse and in the world had seemed to have heard about her newly
acquired fortune.
He had seemed happy for her. Even told her to go on with her life…to forget
about him.
That was impossible.
She had fallen in love with him the first day she met him. He would be in
her heart and head for life. Sometimes a woman just doesn’t have a choice in
these matters of love.
Muriel McCracken certainly didn’t. And she told him so.
Someone beeped a horn from behind, jolting her thoughts. She quickly
adjusted the rear view mirror back in place, dropped her lipstick tube in her
purse in the passenger seat next to her, stepped on the accelerator and continued
to drive to her destination.
She’d never forget the day she met Eddie Hayes.
Muriel had been living with her parents in their rented house ever since her
divorce from her ex-husband, Georges Callahan, from Desertville, Nevada,
who had turned out to be a violent, sick and twisted individual.
Well…there had been some problem of some kind with trees or bushes or
something and the neighbors next door. So Eddie, who owned her parents’
property, among several others (Eddie had been quite a successful businessman,
in his day) made an appointment to assess the situation. Her folks had
never met the owner, so when he arrived and started up the walkway, her
father came out with a shotgun yelling, “what are you doing on my property,
boy!” and then shot him.
That’s why Eddie has that limp.
Muriel ran out to help Eddie, found out why he was there and then had her
folks call the ambulance.
She accompanied Eddie to the hospital and after that, she moved away from
her folks’ house and have never seen them since.
They would never have been able to tolerate her relationship with Eddie
Hayes and Muriel had respected that.
So…it was ‘bye bye…so long. Gotta go.’ She slammed the door shut on
them before they had a chance to do it to her. She hadn’t missed them at all.
Why should she?
After all those years in the Penn, Eddie still looked good. Healthy. Although
a bit disorientated. But she could handle it, as long as he still loved her.
And he did.
She smiled at him through the partition that separated them and picked up
the prison phone.
“How are you doing, baby?” she asked breathlessly into the receiver.
His big, brown eyes made her heart melt. She longed to caress, again, those
long, thick dreadlocks and her body tingled at the sheen of his sable colored
skin which she remembered as the warmest and smoothest that she had ever
felt in her life.
“Can’t complain…can I?” he had joked, in his Eddie way.
“You can to me, sugar,” she chuckled into the phone.
After Eddie’s foot healed as much as it could, they had moved into his
house.
Things happen, you know?
So…circumstances demanded that they get out of the town they were in
and they ended up in a really nice co-op apartment in the Bronx, in New York
City.
They had set up their system. She had become a dispatcher at the cab company
and he drove a cab.
Those weird Pakistanis messed up everything!
That day, after his shift, Eddie had brought his cab back to the station.
Those rag heads…forgive me, Lord…she thought making the sign of the cross,
as she apologized for her thoughts, accused Eddie of not picking up black fares.“We cannot have you here if we continue to receive complaints from the
black people that you pass them by in our cabs!” the head boss had accused.
“We have had 30 complaints today!” the wife of the boss had screamed.
Muriel was as mad as hell and speechless, even though all Eddie did was
laugh as if he were at some kind of stand up comedy show.
Finally, she got her speech back and yelled, “This is ridiculous! Why would
Eddie refuse to pick up black people when he is a black man himself, you
fools!”
“You are fired!” the two idiots yelled at the same time.
“No, we’re both outtah here!” Eddie yelled back in her defense.
They walked out together. They’d find another system, they’d agreed.
Eddie’s a sweet but often naive man, she had thought. He had told her that
they had fired them to make room for some relatives from Delhi (she had no
idea, after all where that was since she had never studied any geography), who
he had said they were sponsoring to come to America.
But she, Muriel McCracken, knew beyond the shadow of the doubt that
they were simply prejudiced against Eddie, just like her folks were, because he
is a Negro.
“So, baby, what are you planning to do? I’m sure with all your money,
they’ve escorted you out of your cashier’s job at Walbaums. Am I right?”
“Don’t be funny, Eddie. You know I left that job as soon as they showed me
that check!”
“Um hum,” he smiled, broadly, in that Eddie way.
“I got you a good lawyer…”
“And if I get out…”
“You mean…when you get out. I’ve got plans for us. I’m setting up a life for
us in the South of France. What do you think of that?” She tapped her fingers
nervously on the table in front of her, waiting for his answer.
“Sounds…different. Life is a pisser.” He scratched his head and looked
behind him, nervously.
“Look at me, baby! Don’t turn away. You see, I’ll be staying at the Negresco
Hotel, in Nice, France, until I find a house for us. You’ll write me there, okay?”
“Yeah, whatever…”
“Stop that! Don’t talk like that! I have everything under control.”
“I’m sure you do, Muriel, honey. I’ll see you in France then, right?”
“As right as rain on a desert, mon cheri,” she said, fluffing up her hair again
to see if he noticed her new style.
82 Ladyfingers
“I love you, girl. You’re looking very pretty, Muriel, with your new hair style
and all. What did you do?”
“I heard that it was true that blondes have more fun!” she laughed, standing
up to kiss him through the partition.
“I preferred your red-pepper, Irish girl hair, baby.”
“Too bad. Everybody has got to try something new sometimes. When you
get out, I might even be speaking Français. What do you think about that?”
“Très bon,” Eddie laughed and then stood up to return her kiss though the
partition.
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