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Novels by Mary Marcus
New on the Blog
Mayhem
“I’d feel safer if I had my little Ladysmith in my pocket, Blue.” Blue and Lady were packing their things up. Lady didn’t have much stuff, what she had amassed in her other life went to her daughter and to the Goodwill. She’d been living in a furnished place off St. Vicente in Brentwood, and for a few weeks now, since he got out of the hospital Blue had been living with her. Their plans were made. Tomorrow night on the way out of town, they would park a ways from the guy’s house, Lady was going to go in, Blue would follow. Afterwards, they’d head toward Vegas. Then to anyplace else they felt like going. Maybe Mexico. You could live cheaply, and the food was good there, Lady had heard. Blue told her, “Do you what you want, darlin’, just don’t lose it. If they find a gun and trace the gun to you, fun and games are over. You got that?” “Yes.” “Come here!” Photo: Joel Goodman They had taken lately to doing it on the floor after planning a certain stage of the crime they would commit tomorrow night. Sinners know the presence of evil can bring you to God, and Jesus, and also that God and Jesus are not altogether absent when the sex is great. Crime can make you horny. Great sex can make you see God. What’s the connection? Neither Lady nor Blue, were thinking about any connection other than theirs. So attuned were they to one another these days they came at the same time, and this made them shout and laugh....Prayer for Daddy
My father died just short of my tenth birthday, in another century, in another culture and milieu. He’s a black and white memory, with the cartoon quality of newsreel footage. What I know about him is this: he was the youngest of five brothers; his mother (for whom I was named) had tuberculosis when she became pregnant with her fifth son, and never had the strength to give him any nurturing. Perhaps because of that, he hated women. And sometimes I think he named me after her, so he could get even with her for having refused to give him love. He picked on me endlessly. Nothing I could do ever pleased him. He called me awful names, he claimed I was ugly, he hit me, he told me I smelled, he screamed at me, anything damaging one could do to a child, short of actual murder he did, and did again without the slightest gesture of self-control, eventual remorse or even, I’m guessing pleasure. Pleasure being different than gratification. Surely I must have gratified the burning ID of this doomed yid. (I am here paraphrasing Philip Roth). Photo: Joel Goodman Unlike my mother, who slowly died over a period of twenty years, my father took only a forty-eight hour time period to kick the bucket. He and my mother went to a Luau themed party at some private club in Shreveport, Louisiana where he stuffed himself on roast suckling pig, came home after he wasn’t feeling well, and then ended up in the hospital that night and that was more or less it. Two memories of that fatal...Casing The Joint
“Look Blue, up there, that’s the house with the lights in the windows upstairs!” Blue told Lady, “Don’t stop! Cut your lights, we’ll park a little further on. I know which one now! That’s a good girl.” They were in Brentwood, California, made famous by OJ and still famous for all its Hollywood denizens. The house in question was on a very dark street that went straight up and then winded its way down again to the flats off San Vicente Boulevard. Photo: Joel Goodman This was their plan. Lady would phone the fucker, say she was coming over, get him in bed, leaving the front door unlatched, and then Blue would come in and finish him off. They weren’t going to use Lady’s Ladysmith, Blue explained to her that the bullet might be matched to the gun, and the gun to her, if things went bad. He’d either strangle the dude, or knife him, that could be decided the morning of. Then once he was iced, the two of them would get in Lady’s car and hit the road. “I’ve got a year, maybe a little more, and we can use up all the money!” “How much have you got?” Blue asked her. “A hundred to use, fifty I’m leaving to my daughter, we can’t touch that.” “Ok, cool,” Blue replied. And he meant it. She had told him the story, the dude who was into popping cherries. And how after her cancer went into remission, it was her greatest desire to see him dead. Things she told him had changed since he, Blue, came into her life....
The New Me
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