Hell and Damn and Skimming Off the Top

After his mother-in-law's death at age 88, Jake brought dozens of boxes from her apartment to his two-car garage to store until they could be sorted out. This was at the request of his wife Nancy, who had been close to her mother and expected to find items in these boxes that she would treasure and keep. The fact that Jake and Nancy’s house was already full of “treasured” objects that they themselves had purchased and forgotten about didn’t seem to play a part in their acceptance of the boxes. Thus, the floor space of one car was taken up, floor-to-ceiling, with these boxes. Jake agreed to keep his car in the driveway for the time being.

Nancy claimed that Lynn, her mother, had been a writer. Jake had never heard Lynn mention anything about this, but Nancy planned to search for manuscripts in the boxes. “Mother was self-conscious about it,” Nancy explained. “She didn’t want attention or praise— except for her cornbread or her taco salad or her embroidery— that was acceptable, you know?” Jake, being a “privileged” white male, did not.

Nancy did find lots of unfinished embroidery projects, including two bibs for the twins. These were started years ago, since the twins, Tyler and Tina, were now in college. The completed sections featured a teddy bear and a butterfly, respectively; the unfinished sections, appearing as faint blue lines, included borders (tiny balloons) and the names of the then-babies. Under these very bibs and their accompanying colorful unused skeins of thread, a manuscript came to light. It appeared to be the size of a package of copy paper, and had been produced on an old-fashioned typewriter. Nancy’s heart beat faster as she lifted the bulky item from the bottom of the box and began to skim the pages.

The title was: “The Eltonville Five.” Perhaps it was a family saga based on Lynn’s childhood in rural Indiana? The very first line of type took Nancy aback: “ ‘Damn him to hell!’ exclaimed Eddie. “The count’s not right! Al’s been skimming off the top.” A quick glance further down the page brought Nancy the image of Eddie taking out his anger on his “moll,” Susie, as Susie held her own, using even fouler language. They were bootleggers, apparently. Nancy found the plot intriguing already. What a lively opening!

Some hours later, halfway through “The Eltonville Five,” Nancy realized it was time for bed. Her head was spinning with car chases on two-lane blacktops, confrontations with revenuers, and the murder of Albert (whose demise had seemed satisfying at first, until Susie revealed that she and Al had been lovers). Though worried about what would happen to Susie, Nancy simply had to stop reading and get herself to bed. Jake was already snoring. As Nancy slithered under the covers beside him, he woke slightly and murmured, “How is it? Your mother’s novel?”

“Oh, hon. I’m afraid to let you read it. It will have to be cleaned up, for sure. Such language. And such goings-on!” But why was she perpetuating the idea that she, and Jake by association, were too clean—living and clean-thinking to handle her mother’s exciting prose? Nancy was certain the novel was almost ready for publication. If anything, it could be spiced up a little. The sections describing sexual activities were not adequately ‘fleshed out,’ in Nancy's view. Her reading of explicit contemporary romance novels had given her opinions in these matters. Was she protecting Jake’s regard for her mother?

Well, wait until the money came rolling in! This saga could be a movie! Jake would have to expand his ideas about what women should and should not do, and how well they could do it.

— Macoff