I Woke Next to the Corpse by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview
Download the book in PDF, ePub, Kindle for a complete version.
Page 12
to feed the deer, who had become completely used to human company, some even becoming sufficiently aggressive to snatch the cup right out of an unsuspecting, frightened little kid’s hand. Some of the bigger mob guys lived around here with respectable families and kids trained from cradle in the use of rifles. With little around but the trees and wild animals, the spaced out residents of the 18th and 19th century houses, who liked it precisely that way, did what they could to keep it precisely that way. Hunterdon County was a place where gunshots, carcasses, and impromptu burial sites were common and drew no more attention than an over-the-hill and wasted round heel on Eighth Avenue.
Not speaking of which, I didn’t know Margie reet well. In fact, prior to this, I knew her not at all; just as someone who
I Woke Next to the Corpse Page 13
greeted some people I’d occasionally be with, like Tony (Toro) Calabrese, and me only by coincidentally having been there. She was worth a stare. Her slink showed that she was trouble and liked it that way. Yesterday, just after our arrival, she was stretched out on a modernistic Davenport with her slippers off, so I couldn’t help but stare at her gams as she removed the sheerest of silk stockings. They seemed to be manipulated to gather attention from a small audience; something to comfortably and mindlessly stare at; like a cheaply produced, B-noir movie which was only on the screen because you came at the wrong time to see the A feature.
Far from being easily dismissible, Margie’s legs were pleasantly and curvaceously visible to the thigh and one of them well beyond. The knees were dimpled, not bony and sharp. The calves were beautifully rounded, the ankles long and slim and with enough melodic line for a Cab Calloway “Minnie the Moocher”
foray into Chinatown.
”Hidey Hidey Hidey Hi
(Hidey Hidey Hidey Hi)
Hodey odey odey oh
(Hodey odey odey oh)
Heedey Heedey Heedey Hee
(Heedey Heedey Heedey Hee)
I Woke Next to the Corpse