The Saint Louisans (26 page)

I froze, half-expecting this, but hoping against hope it wouldn't come up.

“What,” Jama said, “you didn't think I knew about this Desouche biz? They've got lots of—”

“No. Never. You are not to go near Mrs. Desouche, do you understand me?”

The soft laugh from Jama wasn't a surprise. She smiled like she'd won a victory. “That's right, Mom. Keep the fucked-up daughter away from rich old grandma.” She chewed another slice. “It would save me, wouldn't it? A lot more than all of this cloak and dagger crap you and Saul are cooking up.”

“Margot Desouche is dying. I will not have her burdened—”

“With me? Her granddaughter. She might like to meet me. I'm sure you'll introduce Pierce.” Jama sighed. “Did you really think I wouldn't find out about your being her daughter? I'm not really keen on the Desouches, but I am on their money.”

“Jama. No.”

She stared hard, as if she held some kind of winning hand, like the pictures she'd shown of her and Shana riding the elephant.

“You'd rather see me go into a whorehouse then ask my grandmother for money. It'd be a loan.”

“Since when have you ever paid back anything you've stolen from me?”

She turned away and stared at a quartet of extras yukking it up. “It's always going back to that two thousand, isn't it?”

“It's a good starting point, yes.”

“I took that—”

“That's not important, now. We have to get Rasheed out of here.”

“Super nurse.” Jama leaned forward, a familiar coldness and contempt in her eyes. “Now, your gig is watching people die, but you like being way up there.” Her hand went up and fingers wiggled; Jama body language for Mt. Everest. “You're not going to help me, fine. I'm working on something.”

“No,” I said. “None of your damned scams.”

“Well, Mom, I'm kind of getting low on options. Since I can't go to Grandma.”

“You'd just con her, and I won't have it. I can't. It would be the worst thing for everyone involved. Terri and Pierre would have a field day with that.”

“Sure,” Jama rubbed her fingers again, “can't let Jama get involved. Can't let the fuck-up show her face—”

“Hey.” I frowned. “I don't think you're a fuck-up.”

“Oh, yes you do. And you know something? I should have scammed the whole hundred grand, because I pissed away thousands pitching
Lallah Rookh
.”

“God, you and the damned elephants. Will you listen to me? Please listen. I am trying to get your ass out of hot water, but do not go to Mrs. Desouche. I will do something, I swear it, but—”

She rose. “I got a scene coming up. You should leave, Jackal.”

“Stop calling me that.”

“What you are, Mom?” Jama said this with the casual sniping she was mistress of. “Really, like Doc said. Digging up the dead. Don't fucking bother. I'm working on something.”

She was already shifting back into character; a hustler with a heart of obsidian. I saw everyone get up and head back for another meaningful afternoon of hanging around the set. I looked at the remains of the pizza. “Jama?”

She turned, almost ready to sneer. She hates it when I mess up her exit line. I pointed to the uneaten pizza.

“You going to eat that?”

She shrugged, already on her cellphone. “Be my guest.”

I scooped the last four slices and wrapped them in paper. After all, it was the deluxe. I left Jama to her dream palace as I prepared to call Rasheed and
try to bull him into pulling back. The smell of the pizza was overwhelming, bringing with it memories of the night Pierce first brought Antje home, and Saul explained how St. Louis is like Imo's Pizza while we discussed St. Louis movies. It was one of those rare nights when even Jama had been on good behavior. Not her best behavior, but good. Good enough, at least. I'd been arguing the merits of
Meet Me in St. Louis
while Saul nodded thoughtfully.

“But is it great?”

“Sure,” I said. “It's about the World's Fair and all its dreamery.”

“The family moves to New York.”

“Don't all good St. Louisans? In their hearts?”

Pierce reached for a slice of pizza and offered it to Antje. She put it on a plate, fork ready.

Tres
continental.

We sat sprawled in my living room, pizza boxes open and still warm. Saul was next to me across from Pierce and Antje, this her maiden voyage to America. Jama leaned on a window sill, in town between gigs, talking on her cell phone to her agent. This was two weeks before she raided my account.

“
The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery
,” Pierce said.

“Okay.” Saul said with a nod. “It's got local settings and is downbeat, but it only got one-and-half stars.”

I quoted a movie review. “‘Gritty but boring. In black and white.'”

“That's St. Louis,” said Pierce. “The city that defies Technicolor. Any more?”

Saul raised one hand, pizza slice in the other. “
The Hoodlum Priest
. It got three stars. Also in black and white. I see a trend.”

“Hoodlums,” smiled Pierce, “sounds archaic. Like ‘cutpurse or ‘footpads.'”

“But in the day,” Saul bragged, “Hoodlums, man! With a switchblade, man. Going to the rumble. Like, this place is so square, daddy-o.”

We all laughed, even Antje, who hadn't the slightest idea what Saul was talking about. Teen talk of the late fifties was coherent as Chaucer.

Pierce turned to Jama, who was ignoring us as usual to rap with Hollywood, but scooped up a slice when offered: a chunky one with bacon and pepper. Jama always gets the chunky.

“Jama? St. Louis movies? Great St. Louis movies?”

“
Glass Menagerie
,” she said. “I played Amanda in it. Best movie about
this dump.” She turned to attack the receiver. “Look, asshole, just let me in to pitch.”

Saul nodded. “Good one.”

Antje cocked her head. “What is
Glass Menagerie
?”

I explained it was native son Tom William's, a.k.a. Tennessee Williams, study of life here, a tale of illusion and bitterness, of frailty destroyed. It is
the
St. Louis play, and used to have a yearly production somewhere, someplace within our environs. But enough's enough, say the amateur and community theater here: bring on
High School Musical
. Noises Off. St. Louisans like to be Disneyfied as much as the rest of the world. While explaining, I hoped I wasn't being the overbearing mom-in-law that Sky's mother was, an Ozark version of She-who-must-be-obeyed. Antje listened attentively, sedate and quietly stunning.

She wasn't Marlene Dietrich, but one of Cranach's paintings; a sly, fair Susannah confounding Biblical lechers. I expected Pierce's girlfriend would have been Asian or another kind of exotic. These days, a handsome white man choosing a handsome white woman seems almost boring, at least unfashionable. I liked Antje's radiance and athleticism. She looked ready for a hike. She finished her slice, licking a dab of cheese on her fork. Pizza steamed up before her, like a votive offering.

“It is very good,” she said.

“Provel cheese,” I replied. “Wags say it's Velveeta, but disregard them.”

“But,” asked Antje, “what is this Provel?”

“A blend,” I said. “Of cheddar, Swiss, and provolone. It was invented in St. Louis at Costa Grocery. On the Hill.”

“On a hill?”

Pierce leaned to her. “The Hill. The Italian part of town. And Provel isn't really cheese.”

“Okay,” I sighed. “Debatable point. It's the Missouri or Missoura thing all over again.”

“Fucking bullshit!” Jama assaulted the receiver. “This story will rock! You owe me.”

I frowned at Jama's fury, then continued. “The point is Provel is soft and gooey. You're able to bite it off nice and easy. It's a St. Louis, a Midwestern thing. We combine shades of bland. We don't want to offend.”

Saul leaned forward, a genial and tipsy Rabbi, ready to expound. “If you
say eyemo's … that's
echt
Hoosier.” Pierce offered another slice to Antje's plate as she nodded.

“Hey, she know about Hoosier?”

Pierce smiled. “I explained Hoosier.”

“Hooseeeurs,” Antje nodded. “They are like Bavarians. I like this … Imo's pizza. There is nothing like it.”

Pierce smiled. “Go on, Mom. Tell her the Imo's story.”

“Why not you?”

“You're the priestess of the city. Storyteller extraordinaire.”

Antje chewed and frowned. “Mother Bridger, tell me the Imo's story.”

I cleared my throat. “Ed Imo was a tile maker. In the sixties he started making pizza. Habits of tile making spread to the kitchen.” I pointed to the cartons. “That's why Imo's pizza is cut in squares instead of the usual pie style.”

Antje nodded thoughtfully and chewed.

“Yes, Mother Bridger. It looks like a chessboard, no?” The empty spaces in the carton made dark squares.

“Also,” I continued, “the thin crust. It saves money, and that's very St. Louis. It's in contrast to Chicago style, which is thick and deep dish.”

“We're frugal,” said Pierce.

“Also,” Saul said with waggling eyebrows, “we only vote once in elections.”

Antje smirked. “Used to, if you wanted pizza in Germany, you had to go to Berlin.”

She took another slice, a playing card topped with peppers and sausage. Antje meant East Germany, where she grew up. Berlin … West Berlin … was where things were. Maurice Sendak imagery, that, unlike Tower Grove Park where we made great mastodons and far eastern outposts, was used to describe consumer goods. Food to be savored. A lack of diesel and cabbage in un-bourgeois socialist air. The ability to say two plus two equals four.

Saul troweled a thick slice crowned with bacon. I raised an eyebrow.

“Tonight I'm a bad Jew,” he said. “Imo's does that. Don't worry. I'll atone. That's what Yom Kippur is for. We plan ahead.”

Jama put down her cellphone and surfaced for a couple of slices. Pierce sipped his coke and looked at her. “You said you were in New Zealand?”

“Sure,” Jama swallowed, then wiped her hands and began to punch out numbers. “Did
Amazons Versus the Skulls
. Great shoot. Saw some of the gang from
Xena
. Got to wear leather bikinis, ride horses, and beat up on the stunties. Great mountains. Did one of our fights on a fjord.”

I sighed at this latest addition to her resume. “Another ‘straight to DVD?'”

She shrugged defensively. “It's a paycheck.”

Pierce spoke. “So, what's the script?”

Jama dived into the pizza. “
Lallah Rookh
. You know, the elephant.”

Saul drank. “Wasn't that a poem? Veiled Prophet and exotic nubile maids?”

“No, Saul.” Jama swallowed quick. “It was an elephant in the 1850s. The first elephant to walk a tightrope. It was
the
circus attraction. Then it swam the Ohio River and died afterwards.”

“Yeah,” Saul said. “The Ohio could do that to anyone.”

“But I got this story of the elephant. It's a blockbuster. The next
Dumbo
. It's like
Dumbo
meeting
Gone With the Wind
. And no one wants to fucking do it.”

Jama had been trying to peddle the script for five years, and she immediately picked up her cell to contact someone else, a friend of a friend of a producer … there was a three-hour time difference, so he was still getting sloshed at a party. We turned away to let Jama do battle with Lala Land.

Saul, now full and cozied by wine, looked at the empty squares of pizza in the carton and waxed philosophical. “The city's neighborhoods are like these squares. Chopped up and enclosed. In St. Louis, we've every ethnic group imaginable, but they stay in their own world, hiding behind brick and asphalt while they get Americanized.”

He pointed to the remaining squares. “Soulard. Tower Grove. Compton. The Hill.”

Antje blinked. “Where the Provel comes from.”

“Good girl.”

I observed Antje's legs on the couch next to Pierce. A sign of love, because when a woman relaxes like that next to a guy, it means she trusts him. Good. They were having a happy marriage.

“I see many German names here in St. Louis,” she said.

“All dying out,” I replied.

“Mom, remember that Pepsi sign over on St. Louis Avenue? The one in German? It says ‘
Sage stets Pepsi bitte
.'”

Antje rested her head on Pierce's arm. “I want to see it. Take me to it.”

“Probably gone by now, but if both of you are up for high adventure in the Northside …”

“Take the highways,” Saul continued. “Escape as a metaphor, a
sine qua non
for existence. Our local Autobahns are places of worship. They slice through neighborhoods and chop them up.” He pointed to thick indentations of the pizza on the carton. “They're pizza slicers for the city. Europe still has a cohesiveness in her cities. We divide blocks and sections like asphalt amoeba. Interstate 70 chops the Arch off from the city, cuts us from the river from whence the city began.” He lifted a slice of pizza and pointed to it. “This is the landing. Sliced off by two bridges. Interstate 70 on one side, so if you want to walk there, you got to thread through concrete and overpasses. How charming. But this is St. Louis. We don't restore, we bulldoze. This city hides and destroys its history. It's not a dramatic place.”

Antje sipped her juice. “Berlin is too dramatic.”

I looked at Saul. “It's better than being histrionic.”

He groaned like a door that needed oiling. “I was doing it again, wasn't I? The great architectural savior. Pierce, Antje, forgive me. All of you see pizza, I see a metaphor for a city. Sometimes I'm like a squeegee guy who wipes your window with case studies.”