Snow flakes fall above the City of Angels. January
21, 1936. Sticking to everything: awnings,
boulevards, eyelashes.
Outside the orphanage a woman is waiting. Mrs. McKee,
kind-faced and cheery, her hand outstretched. Snow
flakes melting on her open palm. Too ladylike to
lick, as she once did, when she was a child. That was
in 1901. A light dusting in 1922, but other than
that, snowless winters here in Hollywood. Snowless
unless you count the studio sets at Paramount, MGM,
RKO...
“Gracie!” a young girl cries.
Sound of a door creaking open. McKee shuts her palm.
The girl runs from the doorway into a full embrace.
Whitish-blonde hair spills over Ms. McKee’s chest.
“Norma Jeane.”
”I’m just so happy you telephoned ahead!”
“How’s the orphanage Norma Jeane? How do they treat
you?”
Norma Jeane steps back. Her eyes glitter like the
white treasure tumbling from the darkness of heaven.
“None of the other kids can go out. But I can.
Because I know you. Because you came.”
”That’s right, Norma Jeane. I came as soon as I saw
the snow. A girl ought to have one chance to play in
the snow when she’s young.” Big hand takes little
hand. They walk along the boulevard in the snow.
They are followed. Man with a pistol in his coat
pocket. His eyes on the McKee purse, bobbing up and
down at her shoulder.
(Snow flakes fall above the City of Angels. January
21, 1936.)
Standing at the window of his house, looking down at
the intersection of Poinsettia Road and Dahlia street,
Gregory Matthews picks up the telephone and cranks.
“Hello. Operator. Get me the public works department,
City Hall.”
The squeal of breaks. Matthews runs to the window.
Another near-miss. Another automobile sitting
crookedly in the road, these drivers who have never
seen snow.
Matthews is from Long Island. He is here to become a
cameraman in the film business.
”Public Works,” says a man’s voice at last.
”Yes, you need to get a salt-man down to the
intersection of Poinsettia Road and Dahlia. It’s a
mess. Slippery. Someone’s going to get killed.”
There is a pause.
”Salt-man?” the voice says. “Is this a joke?”
(Snow flakes fall above the City of Angels. January
21, 1936.)
Larisa Alcott has short black hair and high
cheekbones, her lips pouting and her eyes turned down
at the corners. She is wearing a pearl necklace.
That is all she is wearing.
“Explain to me again,” Larisa sighs, “Why you must go
so soon?”
“Official city duty,” the man mutters. His name is
Bryan O’Malley, he’s Irish, and he has all of his
clothes on. He stands opposite the bed near the
telephone.
”Don’t go,” Larisa sighs. “Please. I want you to
stay longer.”
”Why?”
”I am in love with you.”
The man laughs, his mouth tugging into a smirk. “Is
that why you come to my apartment every thursday
night, allow me the pleasure of watching you undress,
and then don’t let me come near you? Is that love?”
Larisa pouts more deeply. “But Bryan. My parents...”
”Would never find out.” He throws his coat over his
shoulders. “Some fool order to scatter salt on an
intersection...gotta be done right away...” he
mutters. “Get your clothes on. Let yourself out.
See you next week, Larisa Alcott.”
He opens the door.
Larisa gasps: “Wait!”
He shuts the door halfway. Widens his eyes. “Yes?”
“Take me,” Larisa whispers.
O’Malley closes the door. “You’re sure?”
She stretches her naked body across his bed. “Yes,”
she whispers. “You have never left me before. I have
always been the one to leave. But now I realize just
how much I desire you...”
The public servant stands a moment, thinking of duty.
Then he begins to undress.
(Snow flakes fall above the City of Angels. January
21, 1936.)
“This is an All Point’s Bulletin, an APB,” crackles
the police radio. “All available squad cars proceed
to the intersection of Sunset and 5th, repeat, Sunset
and 5th. Mugging in progress. A woman and her
daughter. Over.”
“Over,” says Police Sergeant Waterson. He’s close.
Just a couple blocks away...
He flicks the lights. Cranks the siren up. Snow
flakes splatter against the windshield as he watches
the wide boulevards of the city fly past. Cars
pulling over. Good. Poinsettia, just a couple more
blocks...
The car fishtails and goes into a spin.
Smacks into a light post. Waterson blinking, stunned.
Tries to get the engine to turn over.
But it’s dead.
(Snow flakes fall above the City of Angels. January
21, 1936.)
Gun discharging. Two shots. A man runs, his feet
making tracks in the snow. Nobody will follow. Grace
McKee bends over the body of her best friend’s
daughter, Norma Jeane. Her last words were threats.
I’m gonna scream.
“I called the police four minutes ago,” a stranger
says, coming up at a breakneck run and sliding a
little on the wet snow. “From my house. Don’t know
why they didn’t come. Hope the ambulance is on time.”
The man knows some first aid. He rolls her over.
“God, but she’s a pretty young thing...” he says, his
breath making cotton clouds in the winter evening.
(Snow flakes fall above the City of Angels. January
21, 1936.)
Nobody remembers Norma Jeane. She was put to rest in
a cemetery somewhere near Hollywood. But everyone in
America knows Betty Alcott, and that famous still
frame image of her removing a long pearl necklace from
her bodice is a chunk of Americana just as much as the
Statute of Liberty.
Betty Alcott was a child film star with an unknown
Irish father and a crazy, outcast mother. She was
perhaps most famous for her film *Gentlemen Prefer
Brunettes* and her unhappy marriage to Joe DiMaggio.
Born in 1936.
Died in 1972.
Died of a drug overdose.
Saw interesting times.
(Snow flakes fall above the City of Angels. January
21, 1936.)
Some things are meant to happen no matter what.
x x x
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