CZ Studio and Radio Verte presents The Wild Wind by Corey Zimmerman.
Part 2
Chapter 11
The Wild Wind
She walked into the fine hotel so outwardly depressed, she had to dry the tears from the
corner of her eye with a handkerchief as she requested a room.
The receptionist, a kind man in appearance, asked if she was all right. She answered,
My Cecil is dead, before breaking down into an unrelenting sob.
As the other patrons looked on in concern, the receptionist called on the bellhop to take her
to her room at once. And once settled in, she lay down upon the bed and rang the bell for assistance.
As the bellhop returned, the lady pointed to an empty bottle on the bedstand, labeled
Two Ounces of Laudanum, a suicide note by her side that simply read, Life is Void Meaning.
The bellhop ran out of the room in a panic, and soon a doctor rushed to her bedside, where he found
her unconscious. The medics were quickly administered and a pastor was summoned, as the woman told her
how her husband had died and left her with nothing and that she could no longer bear the pain nor the hunger.
The pastor spoke with her about the virtues of life and of the spiritual consequence of suicide,
and as word spread through the hotel, concerned guests and kind strangers raised a rather robust purse.
Upon request of the hotel manager, the bellhop delivered her a large platter of food,
a sirloin cooked medium rare, a french salad made of potatoes, carrots, peas, pickles, hard boiled eggs,
sour cream, mayonnaise, apple cider vinegar, and salt and pepper, and a piece of white cake for dessert,
and a bottle of Dr. Pepper.
The lady slept well through the night with her belly full and departed early the next morning,
leaving behind a hefty tip of the young bellhop, passing right by the receptionist without a word.
She continued along her way across Iowa, raising $25 in Waterloo, 40 in Iowa City,
and departing Davenport with a free ticket on the railroad to commit suicide at some other location,
anywhere but there. It would be useless to give her real name, and for that matter,
next to impossible. She was known to the police of 20 cities under a dozen aliases,
but out of all the maze of names, only that of Fanny survived. Yet let us respectfully refer to
her as the cleverest swindler and confidence woman to ever grace the midwestern plains.
Yes, it was right to say the lady within the tight form-fitting dress, slit far up the right thigh,
the stunning petite figure, was a thief. A thief's thief, an adventurous of misdeeds, a pickpocket,
shoplifter, a con artist, and there was no doubt that Fanny was sexful, a flapper before her time,
a flimsy, revealing, heavy smoking, heavy drinking, mad dame, trampling down long,
dusty roads from town to town with the affliction of dancing like a bird,
flapping her arms gracefully along the way. Fanny pulled up her dress and pissed on a bunch of
yellow wildflowers on the side of the road, and then under a single oak tree, offering shade in
the vast prairie, stretching from where she had come to where she might go, toward the next glistening
object to catch her eye, she perched like a raven. Her jet-black eyes glistened as she opened her
suitcase and sorted through an array of disguises, under which she laid buried a particular assortment
of treasure, pocket watches. Fanny pulled out a silver hand mirror embellished with a fine
tactility of status, well beyond her birthright. In grabbing it with her petite hand, without a
speck of shame, claimed it as her own. In its reflection, she reapplied her dark lipstick,
and then pulled out a dummy bucket of a hat, placed it upon her head of short, silky black hair,
and leaned back against the rough bark of the oak tree. She shut her heavy, long eyelashes,
and rested for a spell, but not before clicking the toes of her fine shoes together, removing any
loose dirt. Exhausted, Fanny dreamed of rest. The tiny footprints that led to that old oak tree
led all the way back to a family in Kansas, to a paul who once called her Peewee, a railroad
worker and a musician, who died in a freak accident that split him in two, a consequence of
drinking rye on the tracks. Peewee's ma was soon to take on her own taste for rye, and by the time
Peewee grew into her full height of five foot, not an inch more, her ma was in the throes of an
alcohol-induced nervous breakdown, wholly incapable of caring for little Peewee. So at the age of 12,
after her ma was taken away to the poor house, Fanny was shipped off to live with her grandmother
Thelma, in southern Missouri. Between the rolling forest ravines and majestic hilltops, beside a
bubbling stream, stood a ramshackle shack, consisting of nothing more than a smoky kitchen and a room
with a rope bed, just wide enough for two. Fanny dreamed of being a dancer or a stage actress,
and she spent the afternoons with a broom, spinning her petite frame around like a butterfly,
as she swept the plank floor. Thelma worried no matter how many iron skillets she might tie
to Fanny's feet, or burnt biscuits she might shove down her throat, that Peewee would someday
spin away amidst a dust devil. In a matter of only two years, Fanny caught a local merchant's eye.
His name was Cecil, two decades her senior. A large but gentle man, Cecil owned a furry,
and he lavished Fanny with an otter fur coat. He treated her to the finest dining southern Missouri
had to offer, as Thelma's fried coon skins never quite suited Fanny's taste. She devoured the fair
with an appetite Cecil admired, as he shot back a glass of rye and jubilation. Eager to get Peewee
out of her grandmother's rope bed and into his own, Cecil asked Fanny for her tiny hand in marriage.
She was fourteen, and in no time at all, she fell into the housewife's roll and cooked up a storm,
with all the large pantry had to offer. Though she always burnt the biscuits, filling the two-story
Victorian with smoke in the morning, as the sun poured in through the large floor-to-ceiling
windows. Nonetheless, Cecil thought to hire a housemaid in a show of appreciation for his new
bride, so Fanny could sit back and enjoy the good life. However, Fanny loved to cook and sweep,
and she would grab the broom from old Miss Terry's hands and swoop and spin away, throwing dust in
every rich way, leaving Cecil wheezing and sneezing, and old Miss Terry shrieking in the corner without
a clue of what to do. Cecil loved watching Fanny dance, and with two bottles in, he often joined
her, causing old Miss Terry to flop down on the front porch in a state of bewilderment. Cecil
adored Fanny so, and she him, when things were mighty fine. Though in time, a dark cloud rolled
in, as it tends to happen. They fell on hard times and had to let old Miss Terry go, and soon the
smoke stopped rising to the ceilings, as the pantry ran dry, but the rye whiskey remained.
You see, Cecil loved his rye as much as he did his bride, but as he drank the bottles dry,
and provided Fanny with a life he struggled to sustain, his wallet grew thin, and where there
is smoke, there are flames. But when the furry mysteriously burnt to the ground one night, Cecil
was left with nothing but debt and ash. Fanny was in the bath, savoring her last drop of lavender oil,
as Cecil finished off his rye on the porch, clicking open and shut the pocket watch his
paw left him after he had died. He then made his way down to the cellar, where he pulled a bottle
labeled two ounces of lard from the pocket of his fur coat. He held it to his lips and flung back
his head, removed his coat, laid it upon the floor, and he curled up upon it, wrapped his arms around
his knees, and fell gently into the unforgiving grip of death. All I need is you, not these shiny
things, as she looked down at his pocket watch now in her palm. It was late October, and the leaves
were a most beautiful shade of orange when Fanny walked away from the mound of cold damp earth.
Fanny's growling belly awoke her, and she pulled an apple she had plucked from someone's tree,
as quickly as a bullfrog grasps a dragonfly with its tongue. Given her hunger for fine food,
dislike for sleeping outdoors, her mighty taste for rye, Fanny rose to her feet and continued along
her way, twirling with divine madness, yet an ever watchful eye over her shoulder, for it was
always on her tail, the Black Maria, in pursuit of the Dust Devil she had become.
Fanny was good at her trade craft, but things always seemed to have a way of catching up with
her, especially when on the run. You see, having been arrested hundreds of times,
Fanny had come up with devising ways of slipping out of the claws of the law of justice, if there
lived and breathed such a thing which she doubted. Therefore, an ordinary jail cell could not hold
her. Being such an expert at picking locks and lifting jailers' keys, they were almost superstitiously
afraid of Fanny, and when every other resource failed, she simply fainted, sure to cause her
removal to a hospital, offering a chance to plan her escape and ultimately accomplish it once again.
Though each step Fanny took was written in destiny. The script scribed with each flap of the arms,
each twirl, each tick and tock of each glistening pocket watch.
Toward her own horizon, an unstoppable locomotive moved forth toward an inevitable fate, but for
this day, Fanny was free. Free enough. So let us get to know Fanny as we might,
free from captivity, if not free from her haunts.
To fly under the broad blue horizon like a blue jay, just above the whispering prairie,
is one thing. To be chased by the Jayhawk of Justice is quite another. The breeze on her
cheek, a kiss from whatever truth might exist, whatever elusive justice she sought, or rather,
sought her, misdeeds as countless as her personas. She fled simply to flee.
So Fanny carried on, flapping her arms, dancing along in her shiny black shoes,
down that long, long, dusty road. You didn't have to lead me to this life of womanly wild,
weaseling my way through the gates by quickly catching an eye. Yet you did, Cecil. You did.
Now here I am again, alone in the night. It ain't no matter anyhow, you see, Cecil.
I done came a wild one, said Fanny as she shattered a rye bottle on the tracks and gave
out a howl to the moon in that sweet time of late July. Amongst the chirp of crickets,
a deep voice came rolling out. What you doing, man? I'm out here all alone like that.
How, how howling at the moon, answered Fanny. This is nowhere for a gal like you, said a dark
silhouette slowly approaching. Certainly not in the dead of night, the man now coming into view.
They all say that until they don't, said Fanny, until they expecting something.
You expecting something, mister? Names John, he said. I work these here tracks. No, man,
I ain't expecting nothing. I see the glance of a curious sort of bird through the bars of a cage,
said Fanny, a vivid, restless, resolute captive. Were it but free, it would soar cloud high.
Miss Jane Eyre. It's a pleasure, Miss Jane Eyre, said the dark-skinned man. But I suppose you can
call me the bright, the famous Miss Birdie, she said with one fingertip on her lip, exposing her
bottom teeth. Watch, mister. I can balance on the track twelve steps, and the strange man lunged
to catch her in his arms. And in the moonlight, he got a close-up look at her rare beauty to match
the mystery of the night, the magic of sexful madness. His eyes widened as she pulled away,
and he let go gently enough. Now you the jam you've bit a jam, he said. And you're quite the
cake-eater yourself, said Birdie. Birdie howled again, her echo swallowed by the surrounding
forest. And then a silence overcame her. She lowered her gaze to the dim wick-burning headlamp of the
approaching locomotive, and said, and the light is where I belong. You might not know it, but I could
have been the bathing beauty of my time, not just a mixed nut. I hate to say it, man, but what's
behind there? That light gonna crack you like a nut, flatten you like a flapjack. Birdie stumbled
over to him, and grabbed him by the strap of his overalls, gazed deep into his white eyes, and asked,
you got a flapjack, mister? Birdie let go, hop back onto the track, now with perfect balance.
And she took twelve perfectly balanced steps, looked down at her toes, at the shards of glass
from the drunkard's past, tiptoeing one fine shoe before the next. Say, Mr. John, you know where a
woman can get her shoe shined around here? Why, yes, ma'am, I sure might, he said, following along
with whatever Fanny had to offer. You might? You think you got what I need? She asked. Just might,
depends on what you need, he said. Now you better move out the way, ma'am. Thought you weren't
expecting, sir, asked Fanny. Anyhow, I need to see a man about a dog, she said, just as he placed the
back of her palm upon her forehead, and let out a gentle sigh as the rumbling grew closer.
The man ran over and picked up Fanny by her tiny waist, and carried her off the tracks in the dim
with light, his eyes transfixed upon the soft flesh of her pale face, blue as the moon,
as the locomotive rumbled by and by, a mysterious yet sexful madness in some sweet time in late July.
Now it may have been the growing rooster or the deep, gravely snore which awoke Fanny,
but regardless of the cause of the uprooting of her disheveled hair from the dingy yellowed
goose down pillow, she possessed one thing on her groggy mind. Fanny stood in a nude and stretched
her arms above her head, eye keen on the shine from the nightstand across the bed. She carefully
leaned over the snoring man, who suddenly gasped for air, causing Fanny to freeze, her breasts in
his face, until he let out another restful breath of gravel and stale rye. Fanny seized the pocket
watch with what skill she might, grabbed her dress and suitcase from the floor, and tipped
out her tiny feet, fine shoes in hand, for the door. Its hinges squeaked like a trapped mouse,
so Fanny opened it swiftly and stepped out like a cat, mouse, in her jaws. She sprinted to the road,
dripping over herself as she slid on one shoe before the other, mid-stride. A man passing by
on horseback twisted his neck to an unnatural angle at the scattered dame, dress over her head, nude,
to the chill of the morning air.
Let's see what we got here. A three-ounce silver case, the old pawnbroker said,
inspecting the watch through a monocle before holding it up to his ear. Sure is ticking all
right. This chief, I'd say, 1877. Fanny cleared her throat, her chin resting on her palm, elbow
on the counter, as she asked in a full yawn. So how much? Well, spanking new chief goes for
around $13. I'll give you three. Birdie held out her tiny palm. Where'd you come across this old
fell anyhow? The old pawnbroker asked, peering at Birdie through his monocle, only then noticing
the black lipstick smeared about her face. Fanny stared up at him with a silent lack of enthusiasm.
Well, okay, let's see here, he said as he pulled a wooden box from under the counter before placing
the bills in her hand. One, two, and three. Fanny turned and walked away as the old pawnbroker
watched her hips swing from side to side in her tight dress. Good gracious, he said, monocle
falling from his eye. The sign outside the saloon read, hard-boiled egg with every drink.
A connoisseur of saloons, Fanny entered. Fanny took a taste for saloons, offering savory meatballs,
French cheese, hickory cured ham, and other dainties on narrow 20-foot long tables covered
with spotless white linen and topped with plates of delicacies to please the most discerning tastes,
where drinks cost two bits. Fanny lamented the time she'd ate wild boar steak, boned wild turkey,
patties of quail, aged bear's paws in burgundy sauce, ragout d'acune, and squirrel pie at a
saloon in Chicago. The meat had been in an advanced state of decomposition, but it went down just right
with the right amount of hot sauce, pepper, and beer. If the barkeep was German, Fanny never missed
a feast of bratwurst and frankfurters in the Italian saloons, calzone, and pepperoni, but her
absolute favorite dish was a simple roast beef with au jus sauce. However, despite her taste for
fine food, Fanny usually sustained herself with free lunches of cold cuts, yellow cheese, beans,
and stalks of celery. These were provided by the planer saloons, where the drinks cost only
15 cents. Salted food, pretzels, rye brie, smoked herring, salted peanuts, potato chips, and dill
pickles. Places where the word lunch should not be taken literally, where lunch imperceptibly blends
from free breakfast into free dinner, where the salted goods waited patiently on their fly-speckled
plates morning, noon, and night. While many saloons offered only free creamy pies to the older
customers, more often not, a saloon provided free food to all. Franks on Monday, roast beef on
Saturday, baked fish on Friday, and so on. In theory, a couple of shot glasses or steins produce
an appetite, and the salty goodies, in turn, might produce a mighty thirst. The chain reaction
process of drinking and nibbling, nibbling, and drinking could go on for hours, during which
customers spent stacks of greenbacks. However, the free lunch often posed many bartenders a problem,
as the institution rested on the honor system. Supposedly, no creature walking on two legs could
be so low as to approach the free lunch table without first consuming and paying for at least
two drinks. Yet there are many human skunks, as they were known, and Fanny grabbed a plate and
filled it with sausages until the barkeep cleared his throat rather loudly. Fanny shut her long black
eyelashes and took a deep breath, spilling the links back onto the platter. Fine, bring me the
menu, she said, sitting down at an open table, kicking her fine shoes upon the opposing chair.
Catching her floppy hat on her toe, she ordered duck's breast with apricot chutney. That'll be
15 cents, the bartender with the waxed handlebar spoke from his deep cigar-smoke-encrusted chimney
of a throat. Bring your finest bottle of rye, said Fanny. $2.50, said the barkeep, doubtful she
possessed such wealth. But without hesitation, Fanny slapped three bills down on the table,
and the barkeep stared down at her with disdain, as he knew her kind. Fanny stared back up at him,
sarcastically batting her eyelashes with a false grin, lipstick immaculate.
The barkeep grabbed the bills and walked away with perfect posture.
Cob in your ass, she muttered. Got a match? The man at the table looked over his shoulder with
the kind of bewilderment that followed her like a shadow. In two dozen fingers of rye later,
the sun set on the saloon full of patrons who found themselves stunned by Fanny's knees twisting in
and out. Every eye glued to the sexful exposure of her fine legs and flapping arms. One man sat so
far back in his chair, he fell over. Just as a pair of pinstriped overalls found the liquid courage
to grab Fanny by the waist, and pull her in tight to the upright piano, adventurous tune. The jingle
of which made its way out the saloon doors, its liveliness echoing down the otherwise dead streets,
proud mostly by stray cats and stumbling drunks at this hour. In the otherwise Puritan village
of Kiwani, Johnny Hoglick as he pressed into her pubic bone.
Behind the saloon, the man grabbed her by the back of the neck and pushed her face into the brick,
the wounds on her back still fresh. But she did not resist. She wanted it and took it like a mare,
though she could still hear the snap of that horse whip, and her wrists were still raw from
coarse rope. As the man groped her hips and tits, his awful breath reminded her of the old sadistic
farmer, that first thrust. The man's body was covered in blood, and the man's body was covered
with the blood of the sadistic farmer. That first thrust, the shooting pain, it was all the same.
Though she tried her damnedest to ignore the familiar grunt, to shake off the memories and
enjoy herself, but all she saw was flames. The pathetic endless need nauseated her after all,
and with the final grunt, the man finished and stumbled backward, trying to walk and pull up his
pinstripe overalls at the same time. He coughed up something grotesque and disappeared for more drink.
Fanny slid down the wall, her hands over her eyes, as a black cat appeared out of the night,
rubbing against her leg. Why hello there gorgeous, what's your name? Petting his shiny coat as his
back arched in pleasure. Well ain't you a beauty. Making her way out of the alley, Fanny stopped just
short of the street, pulled out the pocket watch she had slipped out of the pinstripe overalls,
and held it up to glisten in the moonlight. But it was dull and rusty. Cheap bastard, she said.
Her hair and dress were disheveled. As it began to rain, she spotted a man walking by in a nice suit.
Sideburns long, but he appeared a proper man, sober, most likely wealthy, assumed by his posture,
so she ran for him like a cat for a tree. Please sir, she said pitifully. The man stopped and turned
back, surprised and concerned to see a woman in such a wretched condition, a woman who fainted at his feet.
Fanny was right in her judgment that the man had money, but he was also a church-going Christian,
as was his wife, who sneaked through Bertie's suitcase for any sign of her identity,
at which point she found the stash of pocket watches. Out of suspicion, she thought it best
to call on the sheriff, who just so happened to recognize Fanny, where she laid, snoring.
Fanny tried her darndest to sweet-talk the three officers guarding her in the back of the black
Maria, but they paid her no attention as instructed, and soon she found herself behind bars. Fanny called
for the deputy and told him she did not feel well, and then fainted to the cell floor. Not going to
work this time, Fanny. Fanny was on the lam from warrants in 12 Illinois counties, after all,
not to mention the states of Missouri, Iowa, Kentucky, Wisconsin, Tennessee, and there were
even rumors all the way down in Texas, which would explain Kansas and Oklahoma. The warrants were
mostly for theft, but unfortunately for Fanny, one was for arson. You see, the sadistic old farmer who
told Fanny she was nothing more than a worthless man trap, who tied her to the post in his barn
while his wife slept just yards away in the house, did not have a pocket watch to lift. However,
he did have a shark-tongued whip, which left Fanny none too pleased to leave empty-handed.
So Fanny returned late in the night and let loose his hogs, burnt down his barn,
and stood back under the stars watching the flames lit the July sky.
A week later, the godless soul now sat on the stand, pointing directly at her and said,
that's the devil right there. We done lost everything. Now my wife's gone hungry as the
farmer's wife burst into tears. One row behind Fanny. Fanny rolled her eyes.
Guilty, the jury announced unanimously.