Adult-FanFiction.org : Comics

Born Under A Bad Sign	By : LilLolaBlue Category: DC Verse Comics > Watchmen Views: 1343 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I don't own Watchmen, and I make no profit from writing this story.

Chapter List
- 1
- 2
- 3
Chapter Two: Bite the Hand That Feeds You

New York City: 1940

I: Sally

Sally Juspeczyk wasn’t sure what it was about Eddie Blake that she liked, but there was something.

He was just a kid, he was only seventeen, he didn’t even have a license to drive.

But he didn’t look like a kid, and he didn’t act like a kid, even at 17, the Comedian was quite a man.

Sure, he was the kind of a man that nice girls were supposed to avoid, but the Silk Spectre didn’t consider herself to be a nice girl.

He was a good-looking guy, and he was funny, in a sarcastic kind of way, and she didn’t get the feeling he was looking down on her because she was a broad or because she had been a dancer.

Besides, she was only twenty, and all the other guys, they were so much older than her.

They were all married, or practically married and none of them ever wanted to go out anywhere. Not like Eddie. He kept crazy hours, he was up for going out in the middle of the day or late at night, but those were the best times, when everybody in the city wasn’t out mobbing places, and you could go see a decent band or a movie and have a few drinks, smoke the occasional reefer, enjoy yourself.

He never had any money, Eddie didn’t, and he told her right off the bat that he didn’t have any money, but since they always went out in their costumes, they got a lot of things on the arm.

You could have fun with Eddie, that was for sure, and he didn’t crawl up your leg amaking puppy dog eyes at you and ask for your phone number fifty times and try to get in your life and be your only boyfriend and shit like that. What you did when you weren’t with him, he didn’t ask about and he didn’t care.

Sure, he was a tough guy, but Sally had grown up in Brooklyn, too, albeit a nicer neighborhood that Eddie had, and she’d met lots of young tough guys just like him, it didn’t bug her.

Hollis, who acted like he was everybody’s father, he was always warning her about getting too close with Eddie. You better watch out for that Blake kid, he’s not like the guys you grew up with or met when you were a dancer.

He’s like a wild animal, and wild animals have a tendency to turn on you.

But Sally knew something all of them didn’t know.

She knew why Eddie was like a wild animal.

Dancing had made Sally some good money, and, actually, so had the masked adventurer game. She had a pretty nice apartment, and her own car.

It was a used car, but it was hers, nonetheless, a V-8 Ford that went like hell.

It started out with Eddie saying he thought it was a nice car, and she laughingly said she’d teach him to drive, and then he ended up talking her into teaching him to drive.

Goddamn Eddie, he could talk you into anything.

On one hand, Eddie was a rotten kid, and he was showing signs that he’d grow up to be a bad man. He drove with the horn, and with his mouth; he was the kind of guy who’d get out of the car and have a fistfight with somebody. Every time she saw him he looked like he’d just been in a fight. Pain didn’t seem to bother him, he took it and violence for granted, whether it was the pain and violence he inflicted on others or what they inflicted on him.

And sometimes the crooks he routed showed up at the precinct, and sometimes they floated down the river, as dead as they were ever going to be.

On the other hand, you got the idea that Eddie was trying, really trying, to learn how to be a decent person, and that he wanted to be a decent person.

For all his violent nature and his quick temper and his apparent brutality, he really wasn’t a bad man, at heart.

There was good in him, you just had to know where to find it.

Eddie had a heart, he had feelings, everybody does. There was generosity in Eddie, and tenderness, and Sally had seen both, not just to her, but to the family that no one knew the seemingly unattached teenager had.

Sally was driving Eddie across the bridge to Brooklyn when he took her completely by surprise.

“Hey Sal, I know I only got this permit an’ I can’t drive on my own, but you gotta let me borrow the car.”

“Why’s that, Eddie? You gonna be usin’ it again to do the job on some broad? How about you put a blanket down in the back. Because the last time I had to get the car washed to get the smell of pussy out of it.” Sally quipped.

“Naah. My kid sister, she’s real sick, and I gotta take her to this doctor uptown. She’s not well enough for the subway. It’s tomorrow, at noon.”

Sally didn’t even know that Eddie had a kid sister.

“You ain’t such a good driver yet, Eddie. What about your parents? Can’t they take her?”

Eddie got a strange look on his face, a very un-Eddie sort of look, and then, he bounced back.

“Canya keep a secret, Sal?”

“Sure.”

“We got no parents. The Old Man got his up at Sing-Sing awhile ago, may he smoke and toast in Hell, forever, and Ma died last year. We usedta take care of the little kids together, Ma and me, but now, it’s just me. Ya can’t tell on me, or somebody’ll come and take the kids away. Until I’m 18, they say I got no right to keep ‘em. Fuck them, it’s my fuckin’ family. I’m their brother, I can look after ‘em, I don’t want some fuckin’ stranger doin’ it. Over my dead fuckin’ body they’ll take those kids away from me. I’m all they got.” He said.

“How many, Eddie?”

“Four. There was 12 of us, but only me and my two sisters who don’t live with me and the four little kids made it. I trust one of my sisters with the kids, but not the other, yet. It ain’t been long enough for me that she got off the street, and she’s got that piece of shit pimp still chasin’ her. One of these days, I’m gonna put that cocksucker on ice.” Eddie growled.

Sally didn’t know what to say.

She just remembered how her father used to tell them that if they thought they had it bad there were lots of kids in this city that had it a helluva lot worse than they did.

Poor Eddie, he was one of them.

“Jesus, Eddie, yunno most guys your age wouldn’t do something like that. Take care of their whole family. Sure, I’ll help ya out.”

That was all she could think of to say, and Eddie didn’t say anything at all.

***

Sally sat on the broken-down couch in the main room of an East New York apartment that smelled like cooking grease and cigarette smoke that wasn’t big enough for five people to live in, trying to graciously make conversation with the four children between 5 and 12 who were clustered around her, raptly.

The place was clean, the kids were clean, and so were their clothes, which weren’t overly ragged, and they all seemed to be reasonably well-fed and happy and healthy, but it was still no way for kids to grow up, no place for them to live.

But they had probably lived there all their lives, and in worse conditions.

And they didn’t really have any other place to go or anyone else to look after them, did they?

Just Eddie.

Jesus, he was just a kid, himself, he was only seventeen.

“Are you Sally?” one of the two little boys asked her.

“Yes, honey. What’s your name?”

The little boy just blushed.

“That’s Mickey. Tell her how old ya are, Mickey.” Eddie yelled from one of the other rooms.

Not that there were many other rooms. Two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a kitchen.

Little, shitty rooms.

For five people.

And fourteen people used to live in them.

Jesus Christ.

“I’m eight.” Mickey said.

Eddie came out of one of the bedrooms, dressed in street clothes.

She could see why he always wore his costume.

The bottoms of his pants were frayed and they were too short, you could see his ankles. The frayed cuffs of his battered corduroy and sheepskin coat barely reached his wrists, his shirt looked threadbare, and his cap was worn through around the brim.

He probably had newspaper on the bottom of his boots, too, they looked pretty beat up.

“The oldest, Ruth, she’s 12. Mickey’s 8, Jimmy’s 6, and the little one, Allie, she’s five. What a good lookin’ family, huh?”

The three youngest children ran to him and cleaved themselves to their older brother like he was the most important man in the world.

To them, he was.

“C’mon, guys, break it up. I gotta go take Allie to see the doctor. Ruthie, you watch the little guys for me until I get back, okay?”

The oldest girl, who had sandy-blond hair and blue eyes, nodded.

“Okay, Eddie. Should I make food?”

“No. You’re too little, yet. Ya stay away from that fuckin’ piecea shit old stove or you’ll blow up the whole place. I’ll make youse dinner when I get back.”

***

The doctor prescribed medicine for little Allie and bed-rest.

After Sally drove Eddie back to the apartment, she watched him put the little girl to bed in one bedroom, a small one with one other bed.

He used a different tone of voice when he talked to her, a real un-Eddie sort of voice, quiet and gentle and sweet.

It made Sally feel like she was intruding on something, so she wandered into the other bedroom.

It was obviously the little boys’ bedroom, it had bunkbeds.

“Eddie, where do you sleep?” Sally asked.

“Onna couch. You wanna stay for dinner? C’mon, I insist.”

He was a decent cook, she supposed he had to be, and the kids washed their hands before they sat at the table, and they all took part in setting it.

However, they were all rowdy, even the girl, they all smoked, and Eddie smoked, and they swore at one another until Eddie brought the food to the table and yelled at them.

“Shut the fuck up ‘n eat, an’ quit showin’ Sal how tough youse are.”

And everybody laughed, and they said their prayers and Eddie made them put out their cigarettes, and then they ate dinner.

Sally didn’t know what to think.

She got even more confused a week or two later when she got a call from Eddie in the middle of the night.

His oldest sister and his second oldest sister were in trouble. He needed the car. Would she help?

Sally didn’t hesitate to say she’d be right over.

She didn’t ask Eddie any questions in the car, she just drove him from East New York to Hell’s Kitchen, parked in front of the building to told her to, and followed Eddie into another building, and up three flights of steps.

He knocked on the last door at the end of the hallway.

“Who is it?” asked a tough-sounding female voice.

“It’s Eddie.”

The girl who opened the door had red hair and green eyes, and she was wearing a waitress’ uniform.

“Thank God you’re here! She had no choice. He wouldn’t let us alone. He’s in the kitchen.”

There was a big, rough-looking middle-aged man lying on the kitchen floor, with towels all around him and about five bullet holes in him.

He was as dead as he was ever going to be.

A very large young man with blond hair, high cheekbones and a lantern jaw wearing coveralls was shoring up the towels with more towels.

“Did you do it?” Eddie asked him.

“No. I would have killed piece of shit with bare hands.” The man replied, in broken English with a heavy Russian accent.

“Me too. C’mon, let’s get this garbage outa the kitchen. Sal, lemme have that meat sack.”

“Hey, I’m no stranger to dead goons. I’ll help ya out.” Sally offered.

Sally and Eddie and the Russian packed the corpse up into the bag for stiffs that Sally kept in her car, just in case, along with the towels, and Sally washed her hands in the bathroom sink, showed to her by another girl, shorter than the red-haired girl, with black hair and brown eyes like Eddie’s.

“I’m the one who did it. I killed him. He used to be my fuckin’ boss, he was my fuckin’ responsibility.” The girl said.

“Well, he’s not going to bother you anymore, honey, that’s for sure.” Sally said.

When she came out, Eddie and the Russian took the stiff downstairs to the car, and the brown-haired girl, the one who was used to be a hooker, came with them.

“I appreciate you gettin’ me outa this jam, Eddie. You know I’m out. I been out since I met Ivan. I ain’t doing no more pushing, no runnin’ numbers, nothing. Ivan’s got his papers and he’s gonna move in with us, now. I been cleaning houses, like I did with Ma. I’m straight now, Eddie, yunno I am.”

“You’d better be. And I better not catch you with any more of that fucking junk. Sooner or later, it’s gonna be war, and you’re gonna hafta take care of the kids. I mean it. I won’t send youse to jail, I’ll put youse in body bags.”

“Eddie, I’m clean, I’ve been clean for six months, I swear on our mother’s grave.”

“Good.”

“Here. It’s half his money. Take it. For the little ones.”

“Are you sure yuh don’t need it?”

“Nah.”

“Don’t worry, Eddie. I take good care of girls. They both have job, I have job. We get bigger apartment, one on fourth floor. We have nice quiet life, babies someday. Like regular Americans.” The Russian assured him.

“Yeah, I hope so. I’ll seeya round, okay? C’mon Sal. Let’s go.”

***

Eddie got rid of the body at the docks; when he got back in the car he was wiping blood off of his boiler suit.

She didn’t ask him any questions.

“My sister’s not a bad girl. She’s just fucked up. Yunno, she’s only 16 and she was with that animal since she was 12. He turned her out and got her hooked on junk, and later on he had her selling dope and shaking down the other junkies. But she was better off with him than at home. He never beat her he way our father beat her. Not to mention that the Old Man, that goddamn sick piece of shit criminal bastard, he was fucking her. His own daughter. Ever since she was a kid. He did it right in front of the rest of us, just like he did to Ma, sometimes. Just to show us who was boss. He made us and he could do what he liked with us, that’s what he used to tell us. Well, when I got old enough and big enough, I put a fuckin’ stop to that. Evie and I did. He’s dead and that dope-pushing pimp motherfucker, he’s dead, too. Maybe now she’ll be alright. Her and Aggie and that big dumb Russkie bastard, right?”

Eddie laughed, and he pushed in the cigarette lighter.

“I told that pimp bastard to leave her alone. For a fuckin’ year. I told him she was straight and she didn’t want nothin’ to do with him. I said I’d kill him, but I never got the chance.”

Sally hadn’t exactly grown up in a rich family, but they were a normal family.

“Eddie…Jesus, I had no idea.”

“Don’t tell anybody, alright, Sal?”

“I won’t. You, ah, you take pretty good care of those kids, yunno? And your older sisters, too. That Russian guy, he seems okay.”

“Awww, he’s not too bright, but he’s a decent guy. I mean somebody hasta look after the family. It’ll be niceta have another man ta help me out. We got nobody else. Nobody else gives a fuck. They never did.”

They sat in silence for awhile, and then Sally put the radio on.

***

It wasn’t like she didn’t know that she should be keeping her distance from Eddie.

And Hollis didn’t have to tell her that Eddie was a dangerous man, Sally knew that.

But she knew Eddie better than the rest of them; she knew he had a good side and she really believed that he would never do anything to hurt her.

It wasn’t long after that that Eddie got his driving license and with money finally starting to roll in, he bought a car, and moved the kids to a rowhouse in Bensonhurst.

He got them a dog, some mutt he found wandering around down by the docks, probably, and Sally went there, once, to see them all running around in the little yard full of secondhand toys with the dog, swearing and laughing and having a good time, with Eddie standing there smoking a cigar with his arms folded across his chest, looking on like some kind of combination of Fagin and the Artful Dodger

With a little Bill Sykes thrown in for good measure.

She was getting pretty fond of those kids, and of Eddie.

Unfortunately for all of them, though, it wasn’t long after that when he showed her that Hollis was right.

You can’t tame a wild animal, he can always turn on you.

***

Sally was a superhero, one thing she usually wasn’t was afraid.

And one person she thought she’d never have to be afraid of was Eddie.

But she was afraid of him now.

He was a wild animal, there was nothing human in his eyes, just anger and lust and he didn’t even seem to hear her crying out in pain and screaming for him to stop.

“No, Eddie! Don’t! Don’t!”

He didn’t want to look at her face, he held onto her neck and pushed her further into the floor.

She could hear him unbuckling his belt.

Christ, he was just a kid, he was only 17, why couldn’t she fight him off?

That was when Rolf came to the rescue.

“You vicious little son of a bitch!”

“Hey! Wait! She wanted me to do it! She…”

Rolf cut off his protests giving Eddie a more vicious beating than the one Eddie had gave her.

Sally looked up from the floor, where she was crying and bleeding for long enough to see Eddie, in a bloody daze, himself, buckling his belt and staggering out the door.

“Get up. And for God’s sake, cover yourself.” Rolf said.

She could hear it in his voice, he thought it was her fault.

How the hell could it be her fault?

Sally was brave, she got up and got dressed and didn’t cry.

II: Edie

Edie Blake was watching her younger siblings at her brother’s house in Bensonhurst for the night; he said he wouldn’t be home till morning.

She had just put them to bed and she was getting ready to sack out on the couch when she heard somebody crashing in through the kitchen door, and Eddie’s voice, angry and slurred.

She went into the kitchen and turned on the light, in time to catch her brother as he almost fell on the ground.

He was drunk, dead drunk, and somebody had beaten the shit out of him; there was blood all over his face and his costume and his hands.

He dropped the bottle he had with him on the floor and it broke, and Edie almost slipped in spilt cheap whiskey as she steered him to the kitchen table.

“Edie, get me a beer.”

“Ain’t you had enough, Eddie?”

“GODAMMIT, EDIE, GET ME ANOTHER FUCKIN’ BEER!” he yelled.

But when he yelled, he choked on his words, there was a hitch in his voice like he was crying.

Eddie didn’t cry.

The last time she saw tears in his eyes he was ten years old and she was nine, and, well, anybody would have cried, anybody.

They never cried out loud, though.

That’s what Pop was looking for, and they never wanted to give him the satisfaction.

Aggie cried and screamed and so did the other kids when Pop beat them and did Christ knows what else to them, but not Eddie or Edie.

There were tears in his eyes, you could see on his face where his tears had washed the blood away.

Edie got two beers and a bottle of the good stuff from the top cabinet.

“What the fuck is going on?”

“It’s her fault! Her fault! Why the fuck did she act like that if she didn’t want me? Oh, Jesus Christ, Edie. Jesus Christ.”

“Eddie, what the fuck did you do? What did you do? How could you do that?” Edie screamed.

“I didn’t do anything! I got the shit beat out of me by that Nazi cocksucker! What did she hafta hit me for? Jesus, if only she hadn’t hit me. Now I blew it. I really blew it. What’s gonna happen to the kids if I can’t make any money? And she’ll never talk to me again. Not after what I did. Jesus Christ, Edie, I’m like Pop. I’m just like Pop.”

Eddie put his face in his hands, he was really crying.

When Edie heard that, she got mad.

God damn bitch, always sticking her ass in his face. She knows he’s not right in his head, none of us are, and what does she do? She knows what he’s like when he gets mad, and what does she do? How the fuck is he supposed to know any better?

“Listen to me, Eddie. You are not like Pop. You’ve never raised a hand to any of the kids, or me, or Aggie, and you go out there every night and risk your life so that people like Pop end up where they belong, dead or in jail. You been working 12 hours a day, almost seven days a week since you were 14 for us. You got me off drugs and off the street, you made a nice life in a nice neighborhood for the little ones. What you did tonight, you made a mistake. It was a horrible fuckin’ mistake, and it was a real goddamn bad thing to do, Eddie, but that Polack bitch was askin’ for it. It don’t make you anything like Pop. Listen to me, Eddie. Some women don’t know what the hell they want, but it ain’t up to you to decide for them. You gotta ask nice. And when a girl says no, it means no, no matter how much of a dirty little prick teasin’ cunt she is. You’re a good lookin’ guy, Eddie, and you’re a superhero. You’ll find enough broads to say yes not to worry about the ones who say no. And nobody’s gonna stop you from doin’ your job. This city needs you. And you don’t need those fancy pricks. All they ever did was laugh at ya, anyway. You got your family, Eddie. We’re behind youse a hundred per cent.”

Eddie wiped his face on his sleeve.

“Yeah?”

“You bet your ass. C’mon, let’s get youse cleaned up and inta bed. You gotta go out there tomorrow and knock some sunnuvabitch like Pop’s block off. Let’s go, Eddie.”

“It was my fault, Edie. It was.”

“Yeah. I’ll bet it was.”

***

Edie Blake knew where the Minutemen’s HQ was, and she wasn’t afraid to muscle her way in, or to kick in the door of their trophy room, where they were all meeting.

“Who the hell…” Hooded Justice began.

Edie was a small woman, like her mother, but she was every bit as mean and tough as her big brother, and she didn’t hesitate to get right in Sally Jupiter’s face.

“Now you listen ta me, ya big horsey Polack bitch! You stay the fuck away from my brother! These big lummoxes might feel sorry for youse, but you and I, we both know what ya done, don’t we? I usedta work the street, honey, I know all about it! Well, youse can peddle that shit elsewhere, you get me? And, as for you, you in the hood, ya Nazi kraut faggot prick, ya put your hands on my brother again, I’ll fuckin’ kill you! You know how many big sonsabitches I sent for a big dirt nap in my life? Plenty. Alla you sanctimonious fucks, the way youse always looked down on my brother cos he was from the streets he’s tryin’ to clean up, you can go fuck yourselves! He don’t need you! You leave my brother alone! Fuck youse!”

Edie gave the Minutemen the finger with both hands, angrily crossed one forearm over the other at them, spit on the floor, turned on her heel and left.

“I didn’t even know he had a sister.” Hollis commented, finally.

“She couldn’t be anybody else. Violent, loud, rude, swears like a pirate. I believe she’s Eddie’s sister, alright.” Dollar Bill quipped.

Everybody laughed and they got back down to business.

Sally didn’t think it was all that funny, but she laughed, too.

Maybe Eddie’s sister was right.

New York, 1943

I: Letter From Sally Jupiter to Eddie Blake

Dear Eddie,

I’m not sure if you even want to hear from me, but I just got back from doing a USO tour, and all these guys could talk about was their letters from home from their girl.

I guess your sisters and your brothers write you letters, but I know the kind of broads you run with, they don’t seem like the pen pal type.

So, I hear that you got asked to join the Invaders, which I know makes you happy, because I know how you feel about Nazis. You were right, we shoulda got into this war, earlier, but what can you do about the past?

Nothing.

Anyway, if you don’t mind me writing to you, I guess I’ll keep doing it. New York is still New York, nothing stops these criminal fucks from doing what they do, and I’m still out on patrol trying to stop them from doing it.

I hope your family does alright with you away fighting, but if I know you, I know you probably have them taken care of.

So, I saw you in a newsreel, you looked about as big as the tank you were driving. Seriously, what the hell are they feeding you? When you told me you were going to be a big man someday, I didn’t think you meant it, literally. Pretty soon, you’ll be ready for your rematch with Rolf, huh?

Anyway, I hope you’re doing okay, over there, and try not to get killed.

Lemme know if you want me to quit writing.

Sal

II: Letter From Eddie Blake to Sally Jupiter

Dear Sal,

I had Cap hide behind his shield and open your letter, I thought it was gonna explode.

Sure, you can write to me. Why the hell wouldn’t I want you to write to me? You never did nothing to me, after all.

So, I’m sitting on my ass here in London, going fucking nuts.

I was in the hospital for awhile, I got shot in the guts and laid in a trench for three days. Me and a Canadian guy named Lucky Jim. He was hurt worse than I was, at first I hadda look after him. He was so fucked up I came outa the trench to drag his ass in.

But he’s one of those mutants so he healed up faster than I did, and then he looked after me. By the time Cap showed up and I got outa there I didn’t really need the doctor, but they stuck my ass in the hospital anyway, and I put a hole through the bullet and stuck it on my dog tags.

Good luck charm. Big fuckin’ bullet, too.

They should have left me in the Pacific killing Japs if we weren’t going to go off and kill Krauts right away. What good am I doing anybody sitting on my ass?

I’ll bet those mooks in New York are getting cocky without me around, although I hear this Batman guy does a good job of throwing the fear of God into them.

Nothing reforms a criminal better than dropping his ass off a roof.

So, they got me doing all this covert spy shit, and pretty much me and Lucky Jim, Steve sends us in to do the dirty jobs, but I end up doing a lot of fucking sitting around and waiting for something to happen. Then, when we get around to invading the Nazis, I know I’m gonna be up to my eyeballs in dirty rotten fucking Krauts, and then I’ll be stuck doing the really dirty jobs.

So keep writing to me.

When my address changes, I’ll let you know.

And if you feel like sending me something to remember you by, you know, like a pair of your panties, I promise I’ll keep them close to my heart at all times.

You know, in my pants pocket.

Write back soon,

Eddie

New York City, Minutemen Headquarters, 1946

III: Sally

She kept writing to Eddie and he kept writing to her, for the rest of the war, but she didn’t try to see him after he came back to New York and he didn’t try to see her, either.

Time didn’t heal her wounds, it just put distance between her and the night that Eddie the loveable mutt that she left food on her porch for turned on her like a vicious junkyard dog.

Sally just tried not to think about him, although, Eddie was like a bad penny, he was always turning up.

“So, Mr. War Hero’s back in town. I went to this nightclub to arrest some punk kid who sells reefers there, and I saw Blake on the dance floor with some blonde girl who was about a foot shorter than him, maybe more. And you couldn’t have fit a quarter between them and he’s got his hand on her ass, and all. You know, right out on the dance floor. I think it was the same girl he met over in Germany, the one who was a Jewish refugee with the Resistance. Word has it she’s real crazy girl, and maybe the war did that to her but maybe it didn’t. She’s got a lot of money, anyway, so I guess crazy and rich, she’s his type. There’s a band, mostly colored guys, playing all this loud jazz music and everybody in the whole place is drunk and half of them are smoking reefers and when we showed up people started running for the door. But the band kept playing and Eddie and his girl kept right on dancing and getting all handsy with each other. They were the only couple out on the floor, both of them drunk as lords. He was probably smoking reefers, too, but what the hell am I going to do, arrest the Comedian? I mean with Cap gone, that crazy SOB is America’s Greatest Hero. They mention him in same breath with Superman. If he goes out in the street in his costume during the day, women mob him like he’s Frank Sinatra. You know he has meetings with President Truman at the White House? He used to meet with President Roosevelt, too. And Prime Minister Churchill. And to think I knew him when he was a sawed-off little waterfront rat in a yellow boiler sit and a ten cent mask who didn’t know enough to know you don’t raise your hand to a woman and no means no.”

“He was just a dumb fucking kid, Hollis. So was I.” Sally said.

“How can you take that kind of attitude towards it? I never understood why you didn’t press charges against him for what he tried to do to you. I know it wasn’t because of Larry.”

Sally told her friend a lie.

“I was ashamed. Partly, I blamed myself. And I didn’t want the bad publicity. Rolf saved me, we kicked Eddie out, why bother?”

“Do you really feel that way, Sal?”

Now she told him the truth.

“No. You know what bothers me? It would have been different, if he was a stranger. I’d be over it by now. But I really liked the guy, I admit it. I mean, I thought of him as being my boyfriend. Honestly, Hollis, I prob’ly woulda let the impatient little bastard have me, sooner rather than later, I just didn’t wanna do it in the goddamn trophy room with everybody waiting in the next room. But that kind of brutality, that kind of violence coming from the guy I was starting to think of as my Eddie, that was what hurt the most. That I meant so little to him that he couldn’t even be decent enough to wait till I was ready, that he would just take me, just like that, like he was some kind of goddamn animal and so was I, that’s what hurt. I trusted him. He betrayed me. And I could never trust him again. That’s what hurts.”

“Then why the hell did you write to him?”

Sally knew she couldn’t tell Hollis about Eddie’s dead mother, and his ex-hooker sister who killed her pimp who was trying to stay clean, and the two little brothers and two little sisters who depended on him, and the ghost of his father, a big, brutal, violent man, a criminal who died in the electric chair, who beat his sons and raped his daughters.

Jesus, what if it wasn’t just his daughters?

“I felt sorry for him. I always felt sorry for him. Eddie’s got enough trouble, Hollis. I wrote to him because he was off defending our country, doing some really dirty jobs and risking his life to make sure all of us got to keep living our nice cushy lives, masks and regular Joes alike, and he didn’t have anybody else to write to him but his sister. It’s not like I’m ever gonna actually speak to him again. Which is punishment enough. I see him sometimes, you know, out in a bar or something, or in the street and you should see the looks he gives me. Like I’m the one who got away. Well, good for him. That’s enough for me. Just let it go.”

Hollis Mason, however, wasn’t sure that he could let it go, and he wasn’t sure that Sally could, either.
- 1
- 2
- 3
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Born Under A Bad Sign