Man Crazy by Max Collier - Chapter 01

1956 Genre: Vintage Sleaze / Wanton Woman

The stronger the drink... The rougher the man... The wilder the action the more she liked it!!!

When Collie Malick went slumming, she went all the way. There was nothing she wouldn't do on a dare, nothing she wouldn't try for kicks, nothing she wouldn't keep from happening as long as she was sure she had an audience. The weirder the assortment of men, the stranger the medley of experiences, the faster she moved on the road to self-ruination...and to the ruination of her father's reputation as the Mayor of the town!

Was it love or hate that drove this girl into a world of sordid sensuality and shameless abandonment?

CHAPTER ONE

The streets within the boundaries of ward twenty-one were hung with flags. It was Scotty Marsh day, and bunting hung from storefronts and wires across the streets, and flags waved limply in the narrow ward that fronted the bay and swept back a dozen blocks to include the majority portion of the blighted area. Who started it, nobody knew. Like a mushroom, the affair grew out of the blight nurtured by charity and philanthropy. Under the quiet direction of Dino Pelagia it had progressed, in ten years, from a night street dance in a blocked-off heart of the ward to a full-fledged holiday for those living in the area. A parade wound through the area until everyone had had a chance to see the two hired bands, the school band, and the high-kicking baton twirlers and the pretty girls in the open convertibles carrying pictures of Scotty and proclaiming the virtues of the grand old silver-haired saint.

Naturally, as the godfather of the twenty-first ward, Dino Pelagia had to put in an appearance, and it was only natural that he should choose as his companion for the evening someone who would make a stand-out impression on those of his acquaintances who were there to pay homage. For it was for Dino that they gathered.

Dino was especially pleased with his choice for this year's dinner. He had a couple of drinks with her at his apartment, admired the fullness of her shoulders that were marred only by the narrow straps of her gown and was pleased with the regal look that rode on her brow like a coronet. But most of all, he approved and appreciated the 5 solid, tawny flesh that pushed against the front of her gown.

"I think you're going to enjoy yourself tonight," Dino said, emptying the last of the shaker into the glass she held.

"What's so special about tonight?"

"Wait'll you see," he said and patted the swell of her thigh. "I hope you have your sense of humor with you."

"In my purse," his date said. "Where are we going?"

"Have you ever heard of the Scotty Marsh Memorial Dinner?"

"Who hasn't?" The girl raised her eyebrows, looking up at him. "You mean we're going? Whatever for?"

"This is a damn important dinner. People who haven't had a beer all summer will be robbing the budget to join in a toast to good old Scotty. You should get a big laugh out of it."

"I hope so," Collie said. "I haven't had a big laugh in years."

"Have you ever been to a political dinner before? They get to be quite a brawl before they're over. At least they do in the twenty-first. I'll introduce you to some celebrities."

"Hadn't we better go before they get started?" Collie said, finishing her drink.

"They won't start until I get there. We're going to be sitting at the head table, and they couldn't very well start without the guest of honor." He pulled her to her feet, his hand on the swell of her buttocks. "We've got time," he said.

"So early in the evening?" Collie said, holding herself limp.

"Why not? You're choice, honey. Choice enough for any time." He patted her appreciatively.

"What would you look forward to the rest of the evening?" she said, lifting his hand from the swell of her rump and walking toward the door.

"You know better than to underestimate me, baby,"

he said, a slight frown on his face.

"They're waiting for you." She turned to see if he was following her and opened the door.

Dino watched her for a moment, then smiling strangely, checked for his keys and followed her from the apartment.

Burton Hall was a huge, three-story building that had at one time been a merchant's exchange. Later, when the area had begun to go to seed, a new exchange had been built farther uptown, and for a time the old one had stood empty. Now, the large, open first floor served as a hiring hall, and various unions had their headquarters on the two top floors.

For the Scotty Marsh Memorial Dinner, the hiring hall was emptied of all its ink-smeared, knife-carved benches and tables and hundreds of folding chairs and a fourteen-foot plank was erected. A dais was built along one end of the hall, and since so many people expected to be acknowledged, the platform was extended about midway down two sides. Here the dignitaries and those influential enough to get themselves invited sat. A huge picture of Scotty hung behind the head table beside another of equal size of Dino, and above it a great red and white banner proclaimed SCOTTY MARSH MEMORIAL DINNER.

The only air-conditioning consisted of two thirty-inch exhaust fans high in the back wall that siphoned off the smoky air, but did nothing to cool it.

Dino and his date had been watched for, and as they stepped from the cab, four men rushed forward with hands outstretched, led by a bulky, red-faced man streaming perspiration. Dino put his hand under Collie's elbow and waved, guiding her through the men into the building.

Shouted greetings came from every direction down the hall, but Dino kept walking fast, taking Collie with him and waving.

Word that he had arrived preceded them, and as they reached the dais, the people out front began to cheer and applaud, rising from their seats. Dino raised both hands over his head and waved them as the cheers and whistles continued. He turned and led Collie to the table and held her chair for her as she sat. When the cheers continued and filled the hot, smoky room, he grabbed the mike at the speaker's place and whistled shrilly.

"Speech," someone shouted, as Dino held up his hands for silence.

"The only speech I'm going to give you," he shouted into the mike, "is drink up. It's hot as hell."

It made them laugh and quieted them. Dino came back laughing and, picking up the foaming pitcher of beer, drank deep. He poured some in one of Collie's glasses with a flourish and sat down.

"That's a good way to start," he said. "A good cheer and a good laugh. They know me around here. Did you see my picture up there?" He motioned over his shoulder with his thumb.

Collie turned to look up at the two huge pictures. "Is the other one Scotty Marsh?"

"That's the saint himself. He used to be my father-in-law."

"Oh? I didn't know you were married. Where is your wife now?"

"My ex-wife is in the loony bin, or was until a few years ago. I understand she's out now."

"Did Scotty leave his position to you when he died?"

"Baby, you don't inherit something like this. You go out and get it."

Waiters swarmed over the place after Dino sat down, serving the plates and refilling the pitchers of beer and wine on every table. With the heat, the beer went fast, and from time to time there was a loud hiss as another barrel was tapped. Besides Collie; on the side opposite Dino, was a priest, and Dino leaned over and introduced him as Father Bronski. He was a placid, middle-aged little man, nearly bald, with a seamed and comical face. He seemed to know her father and spoke of him rather vaguely as a good man.

The dinner dragged on and on, it seemed to Collie, but finally Dino leaned across her and said, "Okay, Father, let's get this thing rolling. If they're not finished now, they soon will be." His face was flushed, and perspiration streamed down his cheeks, soaking his collar and the hair on the back of his neck.

Father Bronski cleared his throat with a sip of wine and went to the speaker's podium and tapped the microphone to see that it was on. The noise gradually subsided, and as more and more faces turned up to him, the priest said,.

"Friends, it is only proper that we take the time now to rise and stand for a moment in silent remembrance of our friend and benefactor, Scotty Marsh."

There was a widespread scraping of chairs as the assembly rose, and a pall of silence fell over the room, broken only by the whir of the fans high in the wall. Before the minute was up and before the assembly became restless, Father Bronski broke the silence with a prayer.

There was a momentary pause after he finished, and then the sound of chairs scraping again as everyone sat down.

"I now tum you over to your toastmaster, Mr. Gary Hamilton."

Gary Hamilton was a wizened pixie of a man, and as he rose after Father Bronski's introduction, a wave of applause greeted him and made him pause.

"Who are all these people?" Collie asked, as the applause died away, and Gary Hamilton began his first introduction.

She looked down at the upturned sweaty faces and felt uneasy at the superiority she felt.

"They're your representatives," Dino said with a grin.

"Those are the people representing you in the government, some of them. The others are the people who put them there."

"The voters?" Collie said listlessly.

"Voters?" Dino said with surprise. "They never voted in their lives. They're the ones who tell the voters how to vote, which makes them a hell of a lot more important than the guy who drops one ballot in the box and moves on."

A huge teardrop of a man stood up amidst the applause and made his way to the microphone.

"Who is he?" Collie said.

"Alderman from the twenty-first ward. Very conscientious man. Should serve for several terms."

"He's sickening," Collie said.

Dino looked at her laughed. "It's the heat," he said.

The huge man wiped the sweat from his scarlet, flaccid face as he waited for the applause to die down. As they lessened, he leaned into the microphone and began to bellow his speech. Collie listened attentively for a while and finally put her hand to her face to hide the laughter that seized her.

"What's the matter, you sick?" Dino said, putting his hand on her arm.

"One more cliche and I'm going to pass right out of the picture," she said, as the fat man went on and on.

"So he doesn't know what he's talking about," Dino 10 said with a shrug. "He never saw Scotty Marsh in his life.

He's doing it for me."

The amusement left Collie's face. "What do you mean he's doing it for you?"

"Because I asked him to. If I told him to take off his pants and walk bare-assed through the room, he would. He knows if he didn't, he wouldn't stand a chance of drawing flies, let alone votes at the next election."

"You mean you're responsible for that man being elected?" Collie said with disbelief.

"Sure, why not."

"That man? That illiterate nincompoop?"

"That's what makes him so valuable. He can say yes as if he really means it."

Collie turned more analytical eyes on the speaker and listened intently until he finished, and Father Bronski again approached the microphone and began his yearly eulogy of the man they were there to honor.

"Mr. Marsh must have been all things to all people,"

Collie said, becoming bored with the repetitious words of praise.

"Oh, he was," Dino said. "He had the master touch, and what he didn't do, he made it seem as if he did. He was all things to all people, all right, but mainly he was a fourteen-carat, gold-plated sonofabitch."

"Then why all this eulogizing?"

"Because they don't know, and because I don't want them to know."

Seeking to chase away thoughts that clung to her, Collie turned back to the speaker's podium. Gary Hamilton was introducing the third speaker of the evening. Something he said gave her a topic of conversation.

"Mr. Marsh has been dead for longer than five years, hasn't he?"

Dino nodded. "It's the fifth dinner since we started charging them twenty-five dollars a plate. Before that, it was just a free-for-all fish fry."

"What do they do with the money?"

"Supposedly, it goes into a fund to help the poor."

"What do you mean, 'supposedly?'"

Dino shrugged. "Just that there isn't any fund. If anybody needs a handout, I see that they get it. They get a lot better treatment than they would from some social worker."

"What do you know about social workers?" Collie asked.

"Don't kid yourself. I came out of this ward and I know what kind of crap they give you for a couple of bucks worth of groceries. I'll take care of my ward, and I don't need their help."

Collie was surprised at the anger in his voice and was willing to let it die. She turned back to the speaker.

"Your father didn't show up tonight," Dino said suddenly, looking around the dais.

"Why would he come to a thing like this?" Collie asked in surprise.

"They helped put him in office. It's good for his political health."

"I don't blame him for staying away. It's ridiculous to expect any serious person to attend this."

"What's wrong with this?" Dino asked, his eyes flashing.

"In this heat and smoke and listening to all those people saying the same thing? From what you've said, they're saying nothing but lies. How could anybody take them seriously?"

"This probably looks a little stupid on the surface,"

Dino said, holding tight to her hand, "but a great deal is accomplished by what happens at these affairs. Don't be too influenced if this is your first political dinner."

"Only one or two things have impressed me," Collie said, looking at him as the speaker ended his speech and was rewarded by a standing ovation.

Dino left her abruptly and faded from the dais as if his presence was demanded elsewhere. Collie continued to sit, looking first at her hands folded in her lap, remembering the small bore of Dino's eyes before he left the dais, then lifted her eyes to look for Dino. She saw him across the room; his coat over his arm, one arm around the shoulders of a red-faced man, talking animatedly. Later she saw him down on the floor, a half-smoked cigar in his mouth, his lean handsome face creased in great laughter. The third time she saw him, he had lost his tie and was drinking from a pitcher as a man and his fat wife looked on. When he lowered the pitcher, the woman gave him a strenuous kiss that made her husband laugh.

Collie found it difficult to associate the laughing sociability with the cold contempt with which he spoke of the people present, and somehow her doubt seemed to justify her presence. She pushed back her chair, ignoring those who would help her and went to him, clawing her fingers into his damp shirt.

"Would you take me home, please?" she said, when he turned to face her, his face still creased with laughter.

"Sure, honey. Let's get the hell out of here." With his coat over his arm, but with his tie still missing, he pushed through the seeking hands, pulling Collie with him.

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