From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- Peter Paul Markin’s Stew

 

 

 

Jesus, Peter Paul Markin was in a fine stew. I had, over the part forty plus years that I have known him since we first met on a Russian Hill park in San Francisco during the Summer of Love, 1967, seen him in a dither on many occasions, most not worthy of discussion , or mention, but this was different. This was one of those furies that might not past, especially since it involved his very essence as he called it. A few weeks back on one lonely night he called me up and said he wanted to talk, talk seriously, which tipped me off that I was in for an earful. Later that night at the Surfside Bar over on Main in Ocean City after a few preliminary drinks he let go. For the next two or so hours he, calmly mostly, ran through his life time of grievances, tics, weird allusions and just plain funk. I tried to take notes as I as is my wont in these infrequent tirades but I make no claim that I got everything right. Here is the gist of his complaint.   

First off Peter Paul Markin said he was tired, tired of remembering and writing about remembering. On the top of that list was remembering writing and remembering, fatally remembering, those femme fatales that he was addicted to watching on old time black and white film noir flicks. He spoke of the addiction like it was a curse that befell him and that he, and he alone, needed to clear the memories of those ancient females who did what they had to do, come hell or high water. See, he said, in those days, and maybe now too although frails (women in his old-time corner boy remembrance Billie Bradley working class Adamsville, Ma. projects days term) have their own dough more now, a woman had to look out for herself, especially working women who it didn’t take much to put on cheap street and so they had to take the main chance when they got it. Especially good- looking frills (another Billie-ism, okay) who maybe didn’t finish high school, maybe were faced with serving them off the arm in some cheap jack hash house, maybe charging a dime a dance in some clip joint, or maybe just avoiding the boss’ passes while taking dictation in some seventh floor seedy run down office building but who had, well, had looks, and a certain way of carrying herself, but mainly the scent, that scent that told every guy, rich or poor, that here comes trouble and what are you going to do about it.     

Naturally when old Pee-Pee (his nickname from those Billie day neighborhoods) got into second gear about femme fatales he (and I) knew that the subject of one Jane Greer would come up. I braced myself although I too could have recited the story he would relate chapter and verse. See I had seen (at his suggestion) Jane Greer in the 1946 classic Old Of The Past although he conveniently forgot that hard fact when he was in the stews. Of course  Ms. Greer’s dilemma touched old Pee-Pee’s larcenous heart. Seemed that hard pressed working girl Jane (if you want to cut to the chase here and look the story up at its Wikipedia entry feel free to do so and as well get the character names because I am using their acting names here) was just the slightest bit trigger happy and put a slug in her sugar daddy, one Kirk Douglas. She split but not without taking a fistful of his dough (Pee-Pee loved that part, the “for services rendered” part).

Naturally one sugar daddy, one connected don,  did not get, or keep, his sugar by being a patsy, especially not to some twisted gunsel dame. So he hired gumshoe Robert Mitchum (and his partner) to get the damn dough, and bring milady back into the fold . And so the chase was on, well, almost was on because once old Robert got a look at her down in some dusty old Mexican cantina, no, got a whiff of that gardenia , or whatever perfume, even before she came through the door he knew he was hooked. Hooked by a femme just as bad as a man can be hooked. So they ran away and lived happily ever after. Right?

No way. You forgot about Kirk and his little sense of manhood, and maybe Jane and her wants to. He sent the gumshoe partner off to get this pair and he does finally find them. Except then Jane’s little problem with guns came back into play. Boom, boom dead partner and she skipped town letting Robert play the fall guy, or at least a prime candidate for that distinction. But all comes out well in the end, the noir end. Jane found her way, as a struggling girl must, back to Kirk, Kirk accidently found  out where Robert was holing up, they have a powwow and Jane in one last gallant act shot Kirk in order to run away with Robert. But dear Robert had by then learned a lesson or two in life, kind of, and so he crossed up the deal. Jane in one last blaze of glory puts a couple in Robert for double-crossing her. In the end all three are RIP. What a woman Pee- Pee said almost in a sacred whisper before stating that, hell, he had told that story seventeen different ways and enough was enough. Yah, the stews.

Almost enough that is. Before I could get a yah in edgewise he was off on another femme binge this time whimpering about Miss Lana Turner , damn Miss Turner, who played  some California (by way of Okie/Arkie dust bowl beginnings) tramp who picked up some gabacho old guy and who was serving them off the arm at his seaside diner when Mister John Garfield went left instead of right at the stop where he was left off by some hobo-saving trucker in The Postman Always Rings Twice. When our boy John saw her coming through the door, all dressed in white and ready, ready for anything, and started licking his chops he was doomed just like probably ten million Lana guys before him. Yes Lana had seen the dark side of life and she wanted her’s, wanted it all. And John bought into her dreams, or maybe just that jasmine scent that kept him awake every night until, well, just until, I told you he was hooked, hooked as bad as a man could be hooked, maybe even worst that Robert Mitchum. Jesus. So when dear Lana suggested that all that stood between them and happiness was old hubby the plan was hatched, hatched to perfection.  

Except don’t trust amateurs in the murder racket. This pair screwed up about six- way to Sunday, screwed it up so bad that it was only just when the deal went down that Frank, Frank was left alone to take the rap. Taking the rap and begging for long gone Lana’s smile up in some death row prison cell. The way Pee-Pee told it though was like Lana was some Madonna of the streets, some virginal vestige of all the bad that could happen to a woman and so she needed, more, she was entitled, to grab, and grab hard for whatever small solace she could dig out of this wicked old world. But Pee-Pee yelled, one of his very few eruptions that, he had done that story about eighteen different ways and while Lana, and her ilk, deserved better that is the way that kind of story went. Basta,     

So finally he was done with the femme tale stuff, right? No, no way he still had the trifecta to complete, the ankle bracklet story. Well that ankle bracklet doesn’t play much of a part in the story but that is what Pee-Pee always called it when he cornered somebody long enough to tell this tale this Double Indemnity plot line and how poor Barbara Standwyck really did get the short end of the stick when all was said and done. Barbara needed dough, well she just needed dough, don’t ask the reason maybe just some depraved childhood or something. But what she really needed was a guy who could do some heavy lifting, was ready to jump hoops for her, and like it. Enter one Fred MacMurray who once he got a load of the ankle bracklet and looked up he was hooked, need I say it, hooked as bad as a man could be hooked and still breath. See Fred sold insurance, life insurance, with nice little riders for double indemnity in case of some accidental death, like falling off the club car of a slow-moving train fell from the sky. Manna, pure manna. So Fred and Barbara were going to be on easy street after this little caper, no problems. Problem is the insurance company that Fred works for has a tenacious fraud investigator, Edward G. Robinson (more frequently seen working the bang-bang bad guy, guys like mobbed-up Johnny Rico in Key Largo) who almost fouls the plan up except the pair start distrusting each other and save him the trouble by shooting each other up, bang, bang. Yes, Barbara was a queen-sized  femme maybe having had a hand in off-handedly knocking off hubby’s first wife to get to the prize and then tripping up poor Fred. But that crime doesn’t pay thing Pee-Pee complained had been done by him about nineteen different ways before. Enough of femmes, enough of driving guys crazy perfumes (or ankle bracelets for that matter), and enough of guys trying figure them out. Including Pee-Pee.             

With those several mouthfuls you would have thought that Pee-Pee had exhausted his venomous ways. No, not by a long shot. Once he had gotten film noir queens out of the way he was just getting up to speed. I will spare the reader a little eyesight though and summarize that he went through  just about every frill that had done him wrong since about childhood,  some bath soap thing named Rosalind, some perfumed  pre-teen named Maria, a couple of college girls who sounded to me like they were just doing it as a lark, more south of the border senorita failed drug deal stuff, and about six others that even I couldn’t keep straight by the time the tirade ended. He even brought in Butterfly Swirl, a Botticelli girl that I had “stolen” from him out in San Francisco back in the ‘60s. Then he finished up, finished up classic Pee-Pee, with this beauty- “What’s a guy to do when that scent gets to a man” What, indeed. Jesus, the stews.