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 one 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 on the subject of
femmes, fatale or otherwise. 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 Markin (let’s leave
it at that since I have already introduced his full name and that is what I
have taken to call him of late since Peter Paul seems too ornate and his
childhood Pee-Pee, well too childhoody) said he was tired, tired of remembering
and writing about remembering that had been his lot for the past several years.
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,
of his self-imposed addiction, like it was a curse that had befallen him and
that he, and he alone, needed to clear the memories of those ancient females
who did what they had to do, including a little rough stuff, boom- boom rough
stuff or a case of the run offs 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, walking some red
light streets, or in some broken down wreck of a whore house working night to
five (night to day) doing what they had tried to avoid doing 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 on the back streets of town
peopled by in your face repo men, failed dentists, shady chiropractors,
flim-flam insurance guys, peeping tom
gumshoes and assorted other low life 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 and the last time I will use
it here, sorry) 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 Out Of The Past although he
conveniently forgot that hard fact when he was in the stews. Of course Ms.
Greer’s dilemma touched old Markin’s larcenous heart. Seemed that hard pressed drop
dead beautiful 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 (Markin loved that part, the taking the dough “for services
rendered” part and if you think about it whatever she did do she earned that
dough, earned it the hard way).
Naturally one sugar daddy,
one connected don (maybe connected, maybe a free-agent but with muscle and no
scruples) did not get, or keep, his sugar by being a patsy, especially not to
some twisted forty-five happy 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.
Markin figured that Robert he had it figured that she would be a looker maybe
he figured he could withstand that scent, and maybe the slow afternoon whiskies
just got to him once he knew he had to have her. Hooked by a femme just as bad as a man can be
hooked. So they ran away back to the states 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 the partner 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 came out well in the end, the noir end. Jane found her way, as a
struggling girl must, back to Kirk. But Kirk would be well-advised to not turn
his back even a quarter- turn when Jane had her wanting habits on. In the meantime Kirk accidently found out
where Robert was holing up, some Podunk town out on the edge of oblivion, they
have a am not man 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. Crossed it up so bad that Jane,
in one last blaze of glory, put a couple in Robert for double-crossing her. So
in the end all three were RIP. "What a woman," Markin said almost in
a sacred whisper before stating that, hell, he had told that story seventeen
different ways, including having her cast as some avenging Madonna angel of the
streets out to avenge the historic gash left by primordial man before the fall,
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
looking some walking daddy to run rings
around) tramp round-hell whore 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-ways- 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 Markin told it though was like
Lana was another one of those Madonna of
the streets frails, 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 Markin
yelled, one of his very few outright eruptions, that he had done that story
about eighteen different ways, including switching it up and having her as
nothing but a money-grubbing man-hater, all men, maybe going back to some
unspoken abusive father creeping up to her room time, 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 bracelet story. Well that ankle bracelet doesn’t play much of a part in the story but that is what Markin always called it when he cornered somebody long enough to tell this tale this Double Indemnity plot line and how poor Barbara Stanwyck 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 deprived, 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 bracelet 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, extra sugar, in case of some accidental death, like falling off the club car of a slow-moving train that 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 worked for had 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 fouled the plan up except the pair start distrusting each other and
saved 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 Markin complained of
had been done by him about nineteen different ways, including the inevitable
Eve substitute thing that he had a thing about, 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 Markin.
With those several mouthfuls
you would have thought that Markin had exhausted his venomous ways. Had gotten
his remembering hurts off his chest. 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 elementary
school thing named Rosalind who turned on him because he didn’t have the right
clothes or something the way he told it, some perfumed pre-teen named Maria who
refused to take a “clipped” (stolen, petty larceny stolen with friend Billie)
cheapo onyx ring as a sign of his eternal devotion, a couple of college girls
who sounded to me like they were just doing it as a lark, one clearly just
slumming before moving on to her dream stockbroker, more that I had previously
known about south of the border senorita-led failed drug deal stuff with a couple of dead
hombres face down in some dusty Sonora back street, the usual three or ten
failed marriage, live together, night together, week together things half the
world has been through without becoming apoplectic about femmes
at sixty-something , and about six others that I couldn’t keep straight by the
time the tirade ended. He even brought in Butterfly Swirl, a Botticelli-picture
girl, that I had “stolen” from him out in San Francisco back in the ‘60s and how
she dope smoked up the world and left him flat (neglecting to finish for me, although
in the end she, Botticelli vision or not, left me for her old time golden-haired
surfer boy back in Carlsbad). Then he finished up, finished up classic Markin,
with this beauty- “What’s a guy to do when that scent gets to a man.” What,
indeed. Jesus, the stews.
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