"1106 Grand Boulevard reads like Harold Robbins's The Carpetbaggers, but with a beautiful woman in the lead." - Paul Kyriazi, Hollywood movie director (Omega Cop), author of How to Live the James Bond Lifestyle, Hard Rock Lovers
“A heart-wrenching and heart-warming masterpiece…. This gem of a book is not just another romantic story based on a real character. In fact, I think it is the most powerful and touching novel that I have ever read.” - Thomas Wikman “Texas Swede” – Amazon Reviewer
"Edge-of-your-seat suspense… Dravis grabs the reader up front. A page-turner story that tugs the emotional heart strings." - David E. Meadows, author of the best-selling Joint Task Force and Sixth Fleet series
"Billie Jean Sloane was created for life's dramatic moments. Nothing she does is "beige"...she is washed in vivid colors from Day One....I could not put this book down, taking it everywhere until I reached the last page. And then I wanted a sequel!" - Laurel Rain Snow author of Web of Tyranny
"Few writers rival Dravis's ability to make insightful social observations while leading the reader through a fascinating story. She knows her craft as a storyteller while she shares her intuition as a significant journalist. 1106 Grand Boulevard is a fascinating journey well worth taking!" - Grady Harp, No. 4 Top Amazon Reviewer, author of War Songs
1106 Grand Boulevard
Betty Dravis
Canterbury House Publishing at Smashwords
www.canterburyhousepublishing.com
Copyright 2006 by Betty Dravis
All rights reserved.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Readers familiar with—and lucky enough to grow up in—Hamilton, Ohio will recognize that 1106 Grand Boulevard is an authentic address. That’s actually the old house in which we seven Barger kids grew up, moving to Kahn Avenue when the last to leave the roost, brother John, Jr. “Buck” and I, were already attending Hamilton High School.
Yes, the house is real and still standing and I treasure the childhood memories that center around “1106” as some of the happiest in my life. The Sloane family in the book is my dear, beloved Barger family and most of the family trivia is true. (I selected “Sloane” simply because I like the sound of it.) Details of my personal life and journalism career are factual, while the trials and tribulations of Billie Jean’s multiple marriages, though based on fact, are highly dramatized figments of my imagination. I suppose I’ve always been a Drama Queen...but that’s another story. This drama is Billie Jean’s.
As a tribute to family members, I used their real first names, adding middle names to my lovely sisters’ names...as fancy hit me.
This book is a work of fiction, based on fact—what many in the publishing industry now refer to as “faction.” - Betty (Lou) Barger Dravis
DEDICATION
This book is dedicated to everyone who has ever fantasized about a first love, mourned over an emotional break-up, or lost a mate to death. Through my characterization of Billie Jean in this novel, you will see that starting over brings new challenges—but she did it and so can every woman... and man too. I hope her struggles to find her own identity, true love and lasting happiness inspire you to keep trying.
Dedicated also to my late, beloved parents, John Barger and Felda (Crawford) Barger; to my sisters—Billie Shannon, Dottie True and Gladys Mathey—from whom I borrowed the most attractive features of their personalities, characters and anatomy to fashion one unforgettable fictional character...the beautiful, voluptuous, enchanting Billie Jean Sloane; and to my brothers—Homer Barger and Philmore Barger, both deceased, and brother John “Buck” Barger, Jr. who resides in Florida. My brothers play minor roles in the book, but in my heart they’re major players.
I am saddened to tell you that three of my siblings passed away since I first published this book in print format: Billie passed away on October 4, 2010, brother Homer in August 2010 and Gladys in January of 2008. Brother Phil preceded them by a few years. I miss them so much…
FOREWORD by C. ROBERT “BOB” LEE
Graduate, Hamilton High School, Class of ‘47
I read 1106 Grand Boulevard in manuscript form and it’s a sizzler that will get your blood pumping faster as you follow the twists and turns of a luscious young woman seeking a lasting love. Her naïveté colors her choices in husbands because she’s slow to discover her own identity and her life’s purpose. Billie Jean’s ride through life is not unlike a cowgirl struggling to cling to the back of a Brahma Bull—but who has ever seen a cowgirl ride the wildest critters in the rodeo? Life is more than a rodeo. Life is more than a box of chocolates, too—sorry Forrest Gump. 1106 is crisp, non-discursive writing...with passion, understanding and insight bubbling beneath the surface.
This book brings back vivid memories of my youth in Hamilton, Ohio. The large house at 1106 Grand Boulevard was perhaps the largest and most attractive home on the widest street in Hamilton, a super-industrialized town in south-western Ohio. The Boulevard never attained the elegance that the city fathers had planned. The west end crossed railroad tracks passing by a huge tin-can factory and ended there on Dixie Highway that was a straight shot all the way to Cincinnati, twenty-five miles south. To the east it passed between the world’s two largest safe manufacturing companies, Moslers and Herring-Hall-Marvin, where it continued for a mile or two more before narrowing from four lanes into two lanes as it climbed into the lush, rolling farmlands. My mother worked at HHM for twenty-five years.
During the war years, 1941-44, I was a student at Roosevelt Junior High School and played varsity basketball. Every day after practice I walked about two miles south to Grand Boulevard and west over the railroad tracks and north on Dixie Highway past the tin factory to where the south-bound bus stopped in front of a potato chip factory. I bought a sizable, brown paper bag stuffed with chips for a nickel. My route took me by 1106 and I knew that Betty Barger (Dravis) lived there. This short walk saved me about an hour of bus transfers to reach my home in Lindenwald.
Betty was the high-stepping drum majorette for our marching band. I had a crush on her blonde-headed, happy face. Her sinewy legs prancing in the sunlight was a sight that we guys found extraordinarily pleasing. It didn’t bother me that she had one of the highest I.Q.s in the class because she wasn’t snooty about it. One day I summoned the nerve to ask her to attend a movie with me and she accepted. Later, on the front porch of 1106, I was bold enough to kiss her on the cheek. Her mother watched us from a corner of the living-room window. After I left, her mother scolded her for letting me kiss her.
Four years ago with the publication of Betty’s debut novel, Millennium Babe: The Prophecy, she and I reconnected after fifty years. It has been a fruitful relationship as our two families have gotten acquainted. - C. Robert Lee, photojournalist/Life, Time, Saturday Evening Post, Cosmopolitan and many more, author of the novel trilogy: Circles of Destiny
"This life is what you make it. No matter what, you're going to mess up sometimes, it's a universal truth. But the good part is you get to decide how you're going to mess it up. Girls will be your friends…some come, some go. … As for lovers, baby, I hate to say it, most of them--actually pretty much all of them--are going to break your heart. But you can't give up because if you give up, you'll never find your soul mate. You'll never find that half who makes you whole…and that goes for everything. … Keep trying, hold on and always, always, always believe in yourself, because if you don't, then who will, sweetie?...” - Actress Marilyn Monroe
CHAPTER ONE
Billie Jean Sloane-Taylor
Hamilton, Ohio, August 3, 1933
The quiet peace of the humid August evening was abruptly shattered when Cal stormed into the kitchen. He pulled up short, slammed his fist into the ice-box and roared at his young bride. “You slut! How dare you let Rusty see you like that! You stupid, or something?”
When he puffed out his chest, folded his arms across it and glared at Billie Jean, his hooded brown eyes blazed with anger and his nostrils flared, pulsing to the beat of some hidden rage. Billie Jean couldn’t believe Cal could be so cruel. His drastic mood-swing terrified her. As a tremor shook her slight frame, an odd observation slashed through her mind: Cal looks madder’n that old bull on Uncle Bob’s farm.
She flashed back to earlier in the evening when Cal had seemed so happy and carefree. They had enjoyed a peaceful, relaxing supper with his young brother, Rusty, followed by a refreshing run through the lawn sprinkler; it had been a swell day. Then he had driven Rusty to a friend’s house and returned home in a rage.
So what had happened between now and then? Why was Cal being so mean and hurtful? He was like a different man.
When Cal stomped into the house and verbally attacked her, Billie Jean had been cutting into a ripe, juicy watermelon. He startled her so much, she instinctively jumped back, causing the melon to slip off the counter onto the floor where it shattered, sending sticky, mushy blobs of pulp and rind slithering all over the shiny linoleum.
Christmas colors, she fleetingly observed, even as she inhaled the rather sickening sweetness of the juicy, red pulp.
Billie Jean was confused by the changes in her husband since their hasty marriage––petty jealousies, unfair criticism, temper tantrums––but he’d never been this unreasonable. Hurt by Cal’s meanness, she fought back tears, determined to be brave—to not show her fear.
Through sheer willpower, she thought she had succeeded when she clenched her small fists and brought them up before her face, but her body language betrayed her. Billie Jean’s hands trembled and she knew how she must appear to Cal when she glared at him. In the past, he’d told her that her eyes looked like two fiery green marbles when she was angry and she had joined him in laughter when he charmed her into forgiving him.
But his current behavior was no laughing matter; Cal had gone way too far this time. He even had the gall to smirk when he said, “Close your mouth! You look like a moron with your mouth hanging open.”
That remark infuriated Billie Jean even more, but she struggled to control her emotions, deliberately closing her mouth, unclenching her fists and lowering her arms to her sides. She relaxed her jaw and with renewed resolve, tried to still her shaky voice. She wanted to scream at Cal, but reining in her own Irish temper, she chose her words carefully. “I c-can’t believe you think there’s anything wrong with Rusty seeing me in this modest, old-fashioned swimsuit. After all, he’s your brother and he...he just came in the kitchen for a soda-pop before going to the movies.”
And why hadn’t Cal objected to the swimsuit this afternoon when they’d had such fun in the sprinkler? Why mention it now?
Moving closer to Cal, Billie Jean placed her rigid hand on his shoulder and forced herself to gaze up into his eyes. “I...I love you, honey, but your hot temper and unreasonable jealousy is destroying our marriage. Darling, we’ve talked about this before and you really do need help. Please go talk to Pastor Young.”
At her open reference to his fiery nature, Cal’s anger exploded. “Dammit, Billie Jean, don’t ever talk down to me,” he shouted. He bared his teeth like a rabid animal as he stumbled to the bureau drawer and withdrew a pistol, waving it menacingly. When she saw the gun, Billie Jean ran for the front door, slipping and sliding in the goop on the floor, but just as she grabbed the doorknob, Cal caught her and shoved her aside. She lost her balance and fell. Cal went down with her, rolled on top of her and grasped her arms, attempting to pin her to the floor. Both were breathless from exertion as they struggled around the floor, getting seeds and fruity pulp all over themselves.
Billie Jean broke out in a sweat when she looked into the barrel of the gun. The petite girl––not much over a hundred pounds (sopping wet, as Cal often bragged)––knew she was no match for her big, brawny husband, but she grappled with him...rolling aside a scant second before the gun exploded in a burst of blue smoke and a stifling odor.
Hot, searing pain shot through Billie Jean, but she lurched to her feet and staggered out the door before Cal recovered from the shock of what he had done. Fearing he would bolt after her, she stifled her screams, ran like hell and crawled beneath the evergreen bushes between their apartment and the house next door. She crouched there like a frightened little kitten trapped by an angry, snarling dog.
As Billie Jean hunkered down behind the prickly bushes, shivering in the damp, sticky swimsuit, a police cruiser drove by, but fearing Cal would discover her hiding place, she remained silent. Too terrified to leave her meager shelter, she stared at the cruiser as it rounded the corner, as though she could will it to return.
Too much in shock to feel the pain from the bullet wound, Billie Jean huddled there in the dark for what seemed like an eternity. Squatting in that awkward position cramped her muscles, so she eventually gave up and slumped to the ground. When she rested her head on her arms and sprawled out on the hard, rough earth, she felt something warm, fluid and sticky. She jerked back, swiped her hand across her temple, then drew it away. Her fingertips were coated with blood. She thought she had a head wound, but after gently probing with her fingers, she discovered she’d been shot in the upper arm.
Then, from someplace deep within, Billie Jean’s emotions finally erupted. Forgetting about Cal, she screamed loud enough to wake all the dead at Greenwood Cemetery, then angrily pounded the ground with her one good arm.
As people rushed out of their apartments and surrounding homes, Billie Jean heard the sputtering noises of an old car puttering up the street. She sucked in her breath when Earl and Sally Friedland, the retired couple who lived next door, pulled up in their faded blue Oldsmobile. “Oh, thank God!” she cried, lifting her eyes to Heaven. She was so relieved to see them, she mumbled incoherently as she crawled out of the bushes and collapsed at their feet.
Safe! I’m safe! she thought. Earl and Sally would help her. They would take good care of her.
Earl was a kind, caring man...a round, florid man who always wore plaid pants with a pocket-watch dangling over his paunch, wide-brimmed felt hats and carried an umbrella year-round. Even though he was a bit showy and pretentious, he had a heart of gold and to Billie Jean, he looked like a swashbuckling-Errol-Flynn-to-the-rescue as he waddled up the cobblestone path to summon help.
Meanwhile, Billie Jean was left in Sally’s capable, yet arthritic, hands. Sally was a comforting sight; in her usual attire––floral house-dress and big straw hat which she wore with rolled-down nylons and sensible black shoes––the woman was every bit as colorful as her husband. Billie Jean felt a fleeting pang of sympathy when Sally groaned as she lowered herself to the ground and cradled her against her motherly bosom. She knew Sally’s arthritis was acting up, but her own pain was so severe she couldn’t be concerned about anyone else.
Oh, God, it hurt so bad.
Billie Jean burrowed into Sally’s body like a frightened child, thriving on the woman’s sweet, soothing voice. Temporarily lulled, she moaned as Sally rocked her back and forth, stroking her long copper tresses with a trembling hand while waiting for help to arrive.
But as warm and nurturing as Sally felt, Billie Jean yearned for her own mother and eventually stirred in Sally’s compassionate embrace. “Mom! Mom!” she cried. Her silver tears spilled onto the shoulder of Sally’s floral dress, then trickled down into her own blood.
And that was how Billie Jean Sloane-Taylor got started on her way back to 1106 Grand Boulevard...the first time.
She was only sixteen years old.
CHAPTER TWO
Calvin Taylor
Hamilton, Ohio, August 4, 1933
Cal had been sitting on the floor in a cramped corner of their apartment ever since he’d been turned away from the hospital, almost sixteen hours earlier. He’d lost track of time and, like Billie Jean, his thoughts were tortured. He had gone to the hospital to see his wife, but her father had given the order to shut him out and that damned attendant had been too scared to let him in. He really couldn’t blame the man. Hell’s bells, no one in Hamilton had the guts to defy Big John Sloane.
Poor Billie Jean... Oh, God, what had he done? Why had he lashed out at her like that? He had no idea what had come over him. He certainly never meant to hurt his little doll-face.
Cal thanked God she was going to be all right, but he winced when he thought of her being in pain. It took will power, but he forced her image to the back of his mind as he tried to formulate a plan to win her back.
She would take him back, wouldn’t she?
Around noon, when Rusty came home, Cal was still sitting in the same spot. After the movies the previous evening, Rusty had spent the night with a friend, so had just heard the bad news. When he rushed home and saw Cal sitting in the corner, he gave him a piece of his mind: “What the hell’s wrong with you, Cal? You’re a damned idiot! Billie Jean’s the best thing that ever happened to you. Do you have any inkling how pathetic you look, slumped there in that corner like a scared little pussy-cat, leaning against that wall with your legs spread out in front of you, that ever-present ashtray between your legs? In the name of God, brother, get up and do something. Go apologize to your wife. Then get that damned counseling! We both know you need it...and we both know why.”
Cal looked worse than pathetic; he looked wretched––like a drunk who’d spent the night in a dark, dirty alley. He was unshaven, uncombed and stunk to high Heaven. He had chain-smoked through the night and hadn’t eaten a thing.
Rusty knew his brother’s joints must be cramped from sitting on the floor so long and he probably felt guilty and ashamed. He sensed that Cal didn’t feel like talking to anyone, but when he finally found his voice, he spoke in a monotone. Gawking blankly at Rusty, Cal rubbed the itchy stubble on his chin and muttered, “Hell, Rusty, don’t you think I know? But I gotta talk to Mom first.”
“Mom...that witch? God, Cal, she’s the last person in the world who’d help either of us. Haven’t you learned that yet?” Rusty crossed the room to stand over Cal, then shook his head impatiently as he glared down at the sad, dejected figure who only yesterday had been so happy and proud.
“But...but maybe she’s changed...mellowed,” Cal muttered, a note of hope in his voice. “Maybe she’ll talk to Big John for me.”
“Never! That woman’ll never change. And what makes you think she’d help you? Do you ever remember her helping either of us?” Rusty shrugged his shoulders and held out his hands in a gesture of resignation. “Oh, why am I wasting my breath? You won’t listen to me any more than you listened to Billie Jean.” Then, in a more gentle tone, he urged Cal to “get up and at ‘em.”
Later, standing in front of the hot stove, scrambling eggs and frying bacon, Cal found himself thinking about Billie Jean in happier days. How cute she had looked in those frilly little aprons, scurrying about their sunny, yellow kitchen. She was always cleaning the house, ironing, doing laundry, or preparing meals for him...and never complaining. The mental image of his gorgeous wife was so vivid he could see the barnyard roosters in the kitchen wallpaper, could even smell her gardenia perfume. He smiled spontaneously and began to feel more normal.
Billie Jean’s pleasant image shattered as he smelled the odor of burned eggs. He snapped back to reality, hurriedly turning the eggs with a spatula. Then the reality hit hard and he saw his frightened, wounded wife staggering out the door of their apartment, while he stood there dazed, that damned gun hanging limply in his hand.
Once again, shameful feelings of guilt raged through Cal. Things will never be normal for me, he mused bitterly. But how could he be normal, coming from his background?
Later, when he tried to swallow those “cruddy yellow blobs of chicken refuse,” as Rusty called eggs, his throat clammed up. “Hell’s bells, why am I thinking of food at a time like this, anyway?” he asked himself, even as the answer followed: To keep your energy level up, stupid.
Cal knew he was going to need super-human strength to endure seeing his mother and to survive without Billie Jean.
Later that afternoon, when Cal summoned the courage to enter his mother’s old tumble-down farmhouse on Erie Highway, familiar feelings assaulted his senses: Anger! Pain! Shame! Fear! He thought about turning the car around and high-tailing it out of there, but then he saw his mother standing on the porch, beckoning him. She looked so thin, so frail and helpless, he felt a great surge of pity for her. Two years since I’ve seen her, he thought, and look at the poor old thing. Time had not been good to her, but perhaps she had mellowed and would be more understanding.
Yeah...sure...like her rose bush would start sprouting tulips.
The minute Cal stepped across the threshold, through the foyer and into the parlor, his mother closed the pocket doors and began ranting and raving at him, quoting the Bible:
“What goes around, comes around, Calvin.” ...
“An eye for an eye, Calvin.”
The same old bullshit he’d heard since childhood.
His mother brutally forced Cal back into his troubled childhood when she closed her tirade with a threat: “Didn’t I raise you to never strike a woman? You know the penalty for that, son. Guess you need another lesson.”
As he reflexively cringed and stepped away from her, Cal wondered how she had found out so soon.
Then, as only she could do, she switched subjects and demeanor. Speaking in a sweet, peaches-and-cream voice, she abruptly asked Cal if he’d like a piece of homemade angel’s food cake with a glass of milk.
Angel’s food! How ironic! Cal was too stunned by his mother’s change of attitude to answer. He simply nodded.
When she left the room, returning a few minutes later with the dessert on an old chipped, faded, floral tray, memories from Cal’s past surfaced. Everything in this house is floral, he noted, not for the first time in his life. Then he noticed his mother had the tray balanced on the inside of her right arm and was carrying an ugly, battered, black bag in her left hand.
Hell’s bells...that old black bag... Not the black bag!
Cal froze, but pretended not to notice the dark, ugly thing, feigning indifference. He attempted to keep a straight face and to swallow the lump that had formed in his throat, but hundreds of disturbing images roared through his mind. Why did she keep that awful reminder of his terrible childhood? My God, didn’t the woman know that hideous thing would fill him with terror? Or was that the point?
Bitter memories of when he was a bad little boy and his mother took joy in punishing him, hurtled back like an automobile bearing down on a startled boy who had chased a ball into traffic. The hairs bristled on the back of Cal’s neck. He broke out in a clammy sweat and felt like he had as many open pores as a scouring pad His finely-honed, journalistic mind scolded him: What a terrible simile, kiddo, and you’re supposed to be a writer.
Placing the bag beside her chair, the tray on a table, his mother calmly reclaimed her seat in the ornately-carved, ash rocking chair that she’d used since Cal was an infant. For the second time that day, Cal had trouble getting food past the lump in his throat, but knew better than to refuse. He certainly didn’t want to anger her.
They ate in a strained, intimidating silence, but his mother seemed to have regained her social equanimity. Cal sensed she comprehended exactly how he felt and was enjoying it. Perhaps Rusty was right...she hadn’t changed. Could she still be the mean, sadistic bitch she had always been?
After picking up the last morsel of white, spongy cake and stuffing it into her mouth with her unkempt, unpainted fingernails, his mother insisted that Cal clean his plate. Then, as limber as a wild-cat she sprang to her feet and slowly lifted that ugly black bag. The old woman’s dark eyes bored into Cal’s with a malicious gleam when she withdrew that dreaded instrument of torture...a long black whip.
Oh, no...Cal thought. Please, God, not again...after all these years. Frightful memories of the vicious beatings he’d taken as a small, defenseless boy filled his head. Panic-stricken, he jumped to his feet to confront his mother, attempting to explain that he was now a man and she couldn’t do that to him, but he burned with deep guilt over what he’d done to Billie Jean, so she played with his emotions.
His mother had always had a way of persuading him that the beatings were justified and he deserved them, so now it was easy to convince him he deserved a beating...man or not. Cordially––as though announcing dinner guests––she told him that what he’d done was monstrous and unforgivable.
Cal supposed he was a monster, like she had always said. He choked back bitter tears.
Then, quicker than a whiplash, his mother’s mood changed again. She flopped back down in the rocker, dropped the whip to the floor and crooked her index finger, beckoning him to her.
Like a small child, Cal reluctantly approached her. He was intrigued when she smiled sweetly at him and patted her lap, indicating that he sit there...as though he were still a little boy.
Relieved that he might avoid a beating, Cal inched gingerly onto his mother’s spindly lap. When she began caressing his face with her bony hands, he was reminded of how thin she had become, but when she began stroking his wavy, dark hair, all other thoughts fled. With his head nestled on his mother’s shoulder, Cal felt peaceful and loved. Suddenly he couldn’t contain himself; all his pent-up tension burst out and he sobbed.
He cried for his little doll-face...he cried for his mother...he cried for himself.
As Cal desperately clung to the old woman, she began rocking back and forth, crooning an old lullaby, “Sleep, baby sleep, thy father tends the sheep...” His mother’s gentle ministrations and the familiar creak of the sturdy old rocker soothed him. He felt calm...relaxed.
Well, if he couldn’t have his wife, at least he had his mother. The bitter irony of it brought fresh tears to Cal’s eyes.
CHAPTER THREE
Billie Jean
Hamilton, Ohio, August 4, 1933
Billie Jean didn’t like much about Mercy Hospital, but she did like her nurse, her caring manner, her attentiveness and especially that she listened to her. Her tormented emerald eyes were red rimmed and puffy as she vented her frustrations. “Damn, Nurse Lois, my whole body aches and my arm hurts like sh… Oops! Mom’d kill me if she caught me swearing like this.” She gave a guilty little grin and continued. “Sometimes I don’t understand Mom. When she rushed in here yesterday, she was worried and loving. Then the first thing she did––after she found out I was going to be okay––was start preaching to me again about running off and marrying Cal.
“Doesn’t she know how bad I feel?” Billie Jean said. “I love Cal. He’s my first love and no matter what he does, I’ll always love him.” She moaned as she turned from side to side, trying to find a comfortable position in the tangled, sweaty sheets.
Lois Ainsley nodded as she checked her patient’s blood pressure and mentally rearranged her schedule to allow time to comfort the young girl.
Billie Jean groaned again as she shifted her gaze past the nurse and fastened on a spot on the wall. As though talking to the wall, she rambled on: “Just being here’s hard enough without worrying about what my parents think. And I’m really worried about Cal. Where is he? Why hasn’t he come to see me? I know Dad banned him, but he could find a way to get in... If…if he really wanted to.”
Billie Jean remained silent for a while, then her eyes took on a faraway look. Gently clutching Lois’s arm, she continued in a softer tone: “You know, Nurse Lois, before I met Cal, life was pretty good. Things were going along swell. I had a good family and plenty of friends, but that wasn’t enough. I always wanted to do a bit better than my friends...get myself the handsomest, kindest––”
“Heaven’s sake, little lassie, quit jabberin’ like a love-struck schoolgirl for a minute and let me do my job,” Lois scolded. She sounded impatient, but grinned as she stuck a thermometer beneath Billie Jean’s tongue, telling her to clamp down. The nurse held the girl’s hand until the time was up, then removed her hand, tucked a few strands of wayward brown hair into her severe bun, took the thermometer out and happily announced that Billie Jean’s temperature was almost normal.
Billie Jean admired her nurse’s efficiency and wanted to compliment her, but she’d been dying to talk to someone who might understand her problems, so let the moment pass. She never missed a beat as she continued right on with her monologue: “...most successful husband. When Cal proposed, I thought my prayers were answered....Yeah...I thought Cal was my dream-boat...my ticket to happiness. How was I supposed to know he could be so cruel?”
Suddenly she stopped, opened her Bible to Psalms, withdrew a picture of Cal and handed it to Lois. “Isn’t he the cat’s meow?”
Lois gazed at the photo of the devastatingly handsome Calvin Taylor and when she returned it, rolled her heavily-mascaraed eyes and whistled appreciatively. “Yeah,” she muttered, “he’s somethin’, all right.”
Billie Jean smiled and then the sparkle cooled in her eyes. “Nurse Lois, my parents warned me that you never truly know someone till you live with them and I should’ve listened. I knew Cal had a mean streak, but was blinded by his looks. He even hit me before we were married, so what should I have expected? But I...I still love him. Mom says it’s just puppy love and I’ll get over it. But will I?”
Billie Jean saw Lois looking at her in much the same way her mother had and sensed her nurse would reach out and take her in her arms, if it weren’t against hospital policy. For a second, when Lois bent down to Billie Jean’s level, she thought the nurse was going to embrace her...and wished she could. She needed the warmth of a hug.
But then Lois grimaced, pulled herself erect and clutched her hip.
“What’s the matter, Nurse Lois?” Billie Jean asked, bolting upright in alarm.
When her hand instinctively shot to her head wound, Lois chuckled. “Fine pair, aren’t we, lassie? But to answer your question, you can get over anything, if you really want to, honey. The question is, do you want to? Are you really through with your husband?”
“Oh-h, God,” Billie Jean cried, “I...I don’t know.” Then she closed her eyes, placed her fingertips beside them and massaged the area to erase the building pressure. With a deep, heavy sigh she asked, “What’s to become of us?”
Then she answered her own question: “There will be no us, if Daddy has his way. Since I’m only sixteen, he says he’s going to get the marriage annulled. Can he do that? Will he? He was furious when I wouldn’t tell that nice detective that Cal shot me. I couldn’t do that to Cal, so I told the man it was an acc––”
Billie Jean abruptly stopped speaking and grasped Lois’s arm in a painful grip. “Nurse Lois, don’t tell anyone Cal shot me. And...and I’m sorry I lied to you, but I promised my parents.... Please...please...don’t tell!”
Lois pried Billie Jean’s hand from her arm and rubbed it briskly. “Honey, we all s’pected Cal shot you and you were coverin’ for him, but it’s okay. Unless you or your parents make a fuss, no one can do anything to him.” She took a tissue and wiped the tears from Billie Jean’s cheeks.
Lois had to leave to check on her other patients, but promised Billie Jean she’d look in on her before going off duty. Billie Jean winced as she watched her kind, caring nurse shuffle away, favoring her painful hip. Calling after her, she said, “ Oh, Nurse Lois, one last question. Why do hospitals have such bare, ugly rooms with shitty, pea-green walls?”
The look on the nurse’s face was priceless. She blew a kiss and trudged out of the room, her mood obviously lighter. “You’re a brave little trouper,” she called back over her shoulder.
After Nurse Ainsley left, Billie Jean tried to relax, but her mind kept spitting out its troubled dialogue. She wished Doctor Adams would hurry up and let her out of there. He had told her parents the bullet only nicked her upper arm, so what was he waiting for? She wanted to go home.
But where...the apartment with Cal or back to 1106?
Billie Jean knew the bloom was off her rose-colored glasses, using an expression her mother often used. She had tough decisions facing her. She didn’t want to be separated from Cal, but wasn’t willing to go back to him unless he got counseling. “Oh, dear God,” she prayed, “please let Cal listen to reason and get counseling. After shooting me, I think he’ll do it now. I know he truly loves me and must feel terrible about hurting me.”
Billie Jean vowed to find Cal whether her parents liked it or not. She would ask Dottie Sue to help, but wasn’t certain she could count on her younger sister. She feared that––like her parents––her sisters and brothers had turned against Cal too.
She couldn’t blame them if they had. They loved her...and he had shot her.
“Dad never liked him, anyway,” Billie Jean muttered into her pillow,
“Poor Cal...”
CHAPTER FOUR
1106 Grand Boulevard
Hamilton, Ohio, August 4, 1933
1106 Grand Boulevard––home to the Sloane family––was a great house in which to grow up. And the small Midwestern city of Hamilton, Ohio, though steeped in outmoded Victorian principles, was a good, moral place to raise children.
1106 was a marvelous old house, tattered and run down, but big and white with its very own gable. Unlike the mansion in Ann of Green Gables, 1106 boasted only one gable and it was gray shingled. The gable was actually a small, topsy-turvy, cone-shaped room in the attic where the Sloane kids entertained themselves, sitting on the floor in the dark, telling ghost stories. They appeared to love their home, their life and their family.
Before Billie Jean married Cal she was the favorite story-teller, dramatically relating spooky tales in absolute darkness. There was a bare light bulb hanging on a wire in the gable room, but she wouldn’t let her brothers and sisters turn it on. In her best ghoulish, make-believe voice, she reminded them, “What’s a ghost story without pitch-black darkness?” Then she hunched over, skewed her face, splayed her fingers and lurched towards them, like the wicked witch straight out of Hansel and Gretel.
Long ago the kids had stashed a flashlight under a loose floorboard, often using eerie light effects to add more horror to their stories. The gable room also had its own private sound effect: the harsh, creaking noise of the rough-hewn crawl-door as the kids crouched down to enter. It all worked together for an hour or two of entertainment. The more goose-bumps, the better!
That room was perfect for the runaway imagination of “The Sloane Kids,” as everyone in Hamilton called the four girls and three boys, sometimes referring to the sisters as “those pretty little Sloane girls.” Billie Jean was the oldest girl, Betty Lou, the youngest, while Homer and Bucky were the bookends.
The Sloane kids knew something was up when their mother, Felda, sent for their father, “Big John,” to come home from his job as superintendent for Arthur G. McKee Company, a huge steel mill up north in Cleveland. The following day when the concerned father arrived at 1106, he gathered the family in the parlor where the kids crowded onto the old, nail-head-trimmed, green leather sofa. As he closed the pocket doors between both the dining room and foyer, he and his wife shot worried glances at each other.
Then they pulled up chairs, facing their children. When John sat down, he slumped into the chair, but quickly pulled himself erect. He looked as tense as a pirate walking the plank...so solemn he frightened his children. His handsome, sun-weathered face was compressed into stern, angry lines.
“Well, kids,” he began, closing his eyes and rubbing his forehead, “I have some bad news...and some good.” He managed a small smile, then continued, “The bad news is that Cal shot Billie Jean. The good news--”
The kids were shocked and frightened for their sister, but the babies of the brood, Betty Lou and Bucky, took it the hardest. John did not get to finish his sentence; at that point little four-year-old Betty Lou jumped off Dottie Sue’s lap and clambered up onto his, screaming passionately, “Oh, no, Poppy! No!” Her eyes wild with fright, she blubbered all over his stiff white shirt.
Mr. Sloane cradled his youngest daughter against his broad chest, looked into her confused blue eyes and said, “Now, now, little wildcat, it’s not as bad as it sounds...just a small boo-boo. Billie Jean will be all right.”
His watery eyes searched above her head till he caught––and held––his wife’s. Despite Felda’s concern for Billie Jean, she managed a reassuring, dimpled smile for her husband.
That little squirt, Bucky, had only hesitated a second before following Betty Lou’s lead. He scooted off Homer’s lap and toddled over to his mother’s outstretched arms for comfort. Then all the kids started jabbering at once:
Homer, the eldest child––two years older than Billie Jean––stomped around the room, saying things like:
“Where is that Calvin Taylor? I’ll kill that stinkin’ bastard!”
“Wait’ll I get my hands on that creep!”
“He’ll wish he’d never been born when I get through with him!”
Homer and Billie Jean always fought like cats and dogs. And it was okay for them to fight, but if anyone else dared touch her, Homer would fight to the end for her. She was family.
Dottie Sue––wringing the life out of her dainty pink handkerchief, a gift from Billie Jean– turned to Gladdie Jo. “Oh-h, G-god, p-poor Billie Jean… C-can’t believe it. They were so happy when they ran away to Kentucky to get married.” Her thoughts drifted back: The wedding had been a few months before, right after her eleventh birthday. She heard it was easier to get married in Kentucky, but she thought Billie Jean and Cal must have lied about her sister’s age. Even there, they wouldn’t marry you at sixteen, would they?
Dottie smiled when she thought of her baby sister. Betty Lou thinks Cal’s the handsomest man she’s ever seen, and tells everyone he looks like Cary Grant and John Wayne combined...in her cute little baby-talk, of course. Well, that described Cal Taylor’s outward appearance, but Dottie knew he was one ugly s-o b when he shot her sister.
Betty Lou’s whimpering interrupted Dottie’s thoughts. The little brat was still begging her father to take her to see Billie Jean. “Please, Poppy…wanna see Billie Jean. Please, Poppy ...”
“Jeepers, quit your blubbering, Betty Lou,” Dottie reprimanded. “Mom and Dad have enough to worry about––” She was silenced in midsentence by her parents; both glared at her, daring her to continue.
The least emotional of the children, Gladdie Jo and Phil, never spoke a word, but they were occupied with their private thoughts. Gladdie sat quietly beside Dottie, as though unperturbed by their father’s startling announcement. Actually, she was very concerned about Billie Jean, but was more worried about Betty Lou and Bucky. She wondered what those sweet, innocent little things were thinking. Why had her father told them? They were way too young.
She recalled how upset she had gotten when Billie Jean was only thirteen and everyone said she was a “man-killer.” Gladdie thought that meant she had killed someone, so had gone blubbering to Mom. Just like Betty Lou’s blubbering now. But she, herself, had felt better when her mother explained that “man killer” meant men liked Billie Jean, not that she had killed anyone.
Gladdie’s lips curved gently upward as she glanced over at Betty Lou and Bucky. She was only a few years older, but they had her wrapped around their heart-strings. Gladdie watched her mother clutch Bucky against her bosom and knew she was beside herself with worry for her eldest daughter. As she rocked Bucky back and forth, she mumbled, “Oh, Lordy, what’s going to happen to kids growing up in the thirties and forties. What next? Things like this just don’t happen to Sloanes. We’re just an average working-class family doing our best to raise our kids. Please, Lord, let Billie Jean come out of this okay. And if there’s a lesson to be learned from it, let her learn it well.”
Later, about two o’clock, the other Sloane kids––except brother Homer––met in the gable-room to compare notes. Homer couldn’t be there because he was with their father. After dropping their mother off at the hospital, father and eldest son planned to track down Cal.
Since Dottie idolized Billie Jean and was very articulate for her age, she took on the temporary role of elder sister. After Phil retrieved the flashlight from beneath the floorboard, the kids formed a circle on a raggedy old quilt they had dragged up to the attic years before. Sitting down and curling her legs beneath her, Dottie began. “Well, kids, the facts are this. Cal shot our sister and Dad and Homer are out looking for him. That’s all I know. I knew it was a mistake when she––”
“Want Billie Jean…” Betty Lou butted in, just as she had when their father talked to them earlier.
“Oh, Betty Lou, shut up! You’re acting like a baby! If you’re old enough to be up here with us big kids, then you’re old enough to keep your mouth shut,” Dottie scolded. Out of earshot of their parents she was much bolder in dealing with her baby sister.
Gladdie reprimanded Dottie with a piercing green gaze, even as she lifted Betty Lou onto her lap and whispered, “Shh, honey, let Dottie talk. She needs to.” She tugged affectionately at her baby sister’s thin, blonde pigtail.
It was stifling hot in the small gable-room, so the kids shifted positions a dozen times or more as Dottie reminisced about Billie Jean and Cal. The blanket beneath them bunched up each time they moved. Dottie searched her mind as she shared her thoughts with the kids. It boiled down to this: Despite Cal’s good looks and charming personality, no one in the family approved of––or even liked––him from the minute Billie Jean brought him home. He was always polite and considerate in front of the family, but word got to them about how possessive and jealous he was. When any other man so much as looked at Billie Jean, he took it out on her, accusing her of flirting.
Dottie remembered asking their mother, “Heck, Billie Jean’s so pretty, everyone looks at her. That’s normal, ain’t it?”
Even before Billie Jean and Cal got married, the talk was all over Hamilton that he often hit her. The kids had overheard their father telling their mother about it and it frightened them when he said, “There’s something sneaky about a twenty-three-year-old man dating a sixteen-year-old girl, anyway––and I’m sure gonna put a stop to that romance.”
Then Dottie went on to tell the kids about the screaming matches she had witnessed between Billie Jean and their father when he tried to get her to quit seeing Cal. One time when Billie Jean stomped out the front door in a fit of anger, their father had grabbed her by the hair and threatened to hit her. After that happened, Dottie had overheard their mother telling Aunt Clara that Dad was so angry his face was as red as Billie Jean’s painted nails.
The girls giggled when their father’s face was compared to their sister’s nails, but Dottie would not be distracted. “And Mom said his features were all dis...distorted. Wouldn’t that be odd if Dad hit our sister for going with a guy who hit her?
“And Billie Jean threw a temper tantrum when Dad told her he didn’t trust Cal because he had ‘mean eyes.’ She gets down-right upset when anyone dares criticize her precious, perfect Cal! Could that be what ‘Love is blind’ means?”
Dottie also talked about their mother’s preachiness, but was quick to point out her sweetness, her kindness and peace-loving spirit. She also remembered how she had defended Cal, trying to understand his mood swings. And how she preached to Billie Jean about wearing tight sweaters, swinging her hips and rolling those sleepy green eyes. “Maybe then the men will leave you alone,” she had said.
By the time Dottie got that far along, Betty Lou and Bucky had fallen asleep. Gladdie piped up, “God, Dottie, we know all that. What happens next? My butt’s getting tired.” She gave an exasperated little snort and rolled her eyes back in her head.
“Don’t know, sis,” Dottie said, a soft sigh escaping her lips. “... just don’t know....I guess she’ll be out of the hospital in a few days, but whether she comes home or goes back to Cal ...” She looked thoughtful as she rubbed the perspiration from her forehead and stood to stretch her long legs.
When Dottie finally rose, Gladdie and Phil lifted the two littlest Sloanes and carried them downstairs, leaving Dottie alone with her never-ending thoughts: Heaven knows, I’m too young to understand about my sister and Cal and why he’s so mad all the time, but I hear plenty. Mom says Cal has to be evil to do such a thing and she thinks Billie Jean’s “a little wicked herself, teasing men the way she does.”
That was pure poppycock! Her sister was as sweet and pure as vanilla ice cream, but nobody ever listened to Dottie. At her tender age, what did she know?
And now, Billie Jean was in Mercy Hospital, “reaping the results of her wild oats,” as their mother said. And all the aunts and uncles were probably clucking their tongues and shaking their heads, muttering, “We told you so! That girl’s too pretty for her own good.”
None of it made any sense to Dottie. Cal shot Billie Jean and it sounded like they were blaming her. Jeepers, she would never understand adults.
CHAPTER FIVE
Cal
Hamilton, Ohio, August 4 & 5, 1933
Cal had sat on his mother’s spindly lap for a long time, the wooden rocker creaking back and forth, back and forth. He had no idea how long he’d remained there, but when––around midnight––he was startled out of an unaccustomed restful sleep, he couldn’t remember how he had gotten into his old bed.
Something was definitely not right!
The darkness hung heavy in the musty old room and he heard a muffled sound. Reaching to switch on the bed-lamp, he was startled when a hand clamped over his hand. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw a ghoulish image: His mother––dressed like a phantom in a loose black dress and a hooded cape––was towering over the foot of the bed, holding that blasted whip in her hand.
As the crone-like old woman’s long, skinny arm raised the whip–– making a show of swinging it in a wide, sweeping pattern, then cracking it like a lion tamer––her eyes blazed, her features contorted. She looked insane.
Cal was confused, but comprehended that his mother had used her old tactic of lulling him into a false sense of security before doling out the dreaded punishment. One look into her empty black eyes convinced him it would do no good to argue.
He shuddered as he obediently removed his shirt and undershirt and rolled onto his stomach. Resigned to his fate, Cal reasoned that his mother was right this time. He deserved to be punished and maybe it would ease his guilt over hurting his little doll-face.
As his mother struck Cal’s naked flesh with the heavy leather––over and over again––he was determined not to beg, or plead like he had as a child. With each stroke, he relived his childhood when his mother had repeatedly lashed him on the back and other places where the bruises wouldn’t show––warning him not to tell anyone.
Cal cringed when he saw the evil, twisted smile on his mother’s face as she struck him with that grotesque whip. My God, she enjoys it! But he was even more frightened when she began counting the lashes. In her high, nasal pitch, she chanted: “One for the pain you caused Billie Jean. Two for the pain you caused her family. Three for the pain you caused me when you were born. Four for chasing your father away. Five for...”
Cal struggled bravely to fight the agony as his bare skin was stripped bloody, but he finally succumbed to the pain. “Do-on’t! Do-on’t, Mother! Oh, please...do-on’t ...”
When her fury––or whatever it was that motivated her––was spent, the old woman pulled out a damp rag, wiped off the whip, silently recoiled it, returned it to the bag and shuffled to the door. Turning the doorknob, she laughed insanely and abruptly left Cal there alone...writhing in pain, tormented by his own crazy thoughts of guilt and self-pity.
Oh, God, was there no end to the nightmare?
Cal grabbed a blanket, clutching it as though it were a life preserver. Blackness was creeping into his mind, but he fought it. He longed for sleep, but prayer was more important. He prayed for God to change him, prayed for Billie Jean to forgive him. His nerve endings were on fire and he prayed for the pain to cease. The prayer had barely escaped Cal’s lips when he gratefully succumbed to the blackness, losing consciousness immediately.
The following morning, Cal awoke from distressing nightmares to the smell of fresh-brewed coffee––and loud voices from downstairs. He recognized his mother’s Kentucky drawl right away, but couldn’t place the screaming male voice. Mindful of his painful lacerations, he carefully eased his undershirt over his head and hobbled down the stairs.
When he saw Rusty in the parlor standing before their mother with that dreadful whip in his hands, Cal froze. His brother had lost it! Raving and ranting, he was waving the whip in the air, threatening their mother as she had always threatened Cal.
Cal had never seen his calm, younger brother wild with anger like that and he watched in horror when he cracked the whip across their mother’s face. She let out such a piercing yowl––a witch-like sound that would raise the hackles on a dog––Cal felt sure the people all the way up on Gobbler’s Nob could hear her. But Rusty paid no heed; he seemed to have finally passed some self-imposed limit and would not be stopped. He was shouting about how she had ruined Cal’s life and was solely responsible for his mistreating everyone he’d ever met, how she must bear the guilt. He ordered her never, ever to hit Cal again.
His heart thundering, his eyes wide with fright, Cal pushed between his brother and their mother. He tried to get the whip from Rusty, but he was powerful in his frenzy; there was no reasoning with him. His brother’s rage shocked Cal.
Perhaps Rusty’s more sedate nature was the reason Mom never whipped him...only me, Cal thought. Hell’s bells, he and his mother were the family members with the volatile tempers. He always suspected she––not heredity––was the root cause of his own ferocious temper, yet he always covered for her, always made excuses.
Rusty, his anger finally abated, lowered the whip and stared at it in horror, as though it were a poisonous snake. Then he shouted a last warning, “Remember, Mother! This is the last time you’ll ever beat Cal. Never again!”
He then hurled the whip to the floor and raced across the rose-patterned rug onto the worn hardwood floor, his long, slender legs retreating in haste. As he reached the door, his shoulders slumped as he turned to face Cal. “I’m sorry, but I did it for Billie Jean...and for you, Cal,” Rusty said. “I couldn’t stand Mom starting in on you again.”
And then he was gone.
When Cal turned to his mother, she was sprawled across the floor, crying hysterically, begging for help. “Calvin, please...please,” she moaned. Her face was already beginning to swell and as she reached her skinny arms out to him, he automatically took a few hesitant steps towards her. His first urge was to comfort her, but his aching body reminded him of last night’s beating, so he halted with his hand only inches from her forehead. Then he thought about his bitter childhood and about what Rusty had said.
Could his mother really be the reason he had lashed out at Billie Jean and so many others in his life?
Cal snorted indignantly, gave his mother a penetrating look, then without saying a word, helped her into the rocker. After dutifully examining her minor wound, he handed her a damp wash cloth. Then he, too, turned his back and walked out.
Cal met up with Rusty at the apartment, knowing that’s the first place he would go when troubled. When he walked in, it was like seeing an earlier image of himself. Rusty was slouched in the same corner he had talked Cal out of the day before. His pose was the same as Cal’s had been and he was smoking a cigarette.
The only trouble with that picture was that Rusty wasn’t a smoker.
Seeing his brother like that was just like having his heart broken three times within a matter of three short days...first by what he’d done to Billie Jean, then by his mother and now by Rusty. Cal looked with dread at his younger brother. It took that morning’s happenings to make him understand that Rusty was truly more mature than he was. The anger had been building in Rusty all his life and today he simply reached the end of his rope.
But now it was Cal’s turn to be brave, to start acting like the older—supposedly wiser and stronger—brother. Hell’s bells, he had certainly not been a very strong husband! Cal cautiously approached Rusty, lowered himself to sit beside him and joined him in a cigarette. Before, he would have scolded him for taking up his filthy habit, but that was not the right time, so they sat there, side by side in a hazy cloud of smoke.
Cal supposed Rusty was thinking back, as he was. Both struggling to come to terms with the events of the past few days. Cal realized Rusty had put up with a great deal from him, but what he did to Billie Jean must have broken his brother’s heart.
They both knew that Cal was different from the other children they grew up with and that their mother passed her meanness on to Cal. Her deep-rooted, cruel streak had surfaced when Cal was a toddler––when she first started beating him. Fearing her as they did, but loving her as their mother, they tried to hide from the ugly truth. And, until today when Rusty brutally opened his eyes, Cal had thought there was something wrong with him, thought he had done something wrong for their mother to treat him so abominably.
His thoughts strayed back to when Rusty was a cute little red-headed tyke––he had called him “Little Red” then. That poor little guy had suffered a double whammy. Though their mother never physically abused him, she was always calling him names and belittling him. He not only put up with mental abuse from her, he also had to bear with Cal taking his frustrations out on him, Cal’s fights at school and all the other trouble Cal managed to get into.
But, to Rusty’s credit, that tough little guy had always stood by his big brother, always hoping he would eventually learn to forgive and forget. Now Cal finally realized that Rusty understood more than Cal thought and all his young life he had sympathized in quiet agony.
Thoughts of when he first left home flitted through Cal’s mind: Having vowed to leave as soon as he finished high school, he had left the day after graduation. And thanks to Aunt Edith, his father’s sister, he had the means. One hot summer day shortly after his sixteenth birthday, she had come to their house, saying she had to talk to him. He was mowing the lawn at the time, so stooped to shut off the noisy engine. Then he took his aunt’s arm, escorting her to the porch.