Lucia's Noir

Wow. those seedy noirish pulp novels are soooooooo wooky!

'I was an NY Tgirl' - what a fab title. Ok, here's my startling little lump of spoofy noir....

Ned Chamberlain was skulking in the squad room drinking neat Jack Daniels, stroking his luxuriant beard, smoking his pipe and jerking off to Jordan when the boss stormed in. 'Ned', he grunted, 'You're off the Paraquat case. We've a new assignment for you. This one has come down from on high'.

'What? From Allah?' he gasped.

'No, you gibbon's ass', snarled the boss as he picked up the bottle of JD and smashed it over his own head. 'Go home and get some sleep. You look like shit. And don't shave. I'll pick you up tomorrow at nine am.

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Ned and his Boss drove through the wall of traffic to a run down beauty parlour on the Lower East Side. 'These goddam streets. They give me the shinkies', growled the boss.

'So what's the beef, Boss. We busting this joint?', queried Ned.

'Look, Ned. I'll level with ya. We need to get somebody inside the Hieronomous gang. Hieronymous has a thing for Tgirls.'

'What's a Tgirl? Is it like a g-man? Some kinda hard-balled chick who's a Fed?' I'd never heard the saying 'Tgirl'.

'Gee, Ned. You sure are dumb. You know what a tranny is?'

'Sure. It's a guy who has a disturbed mental compulsion to wear women's clothing'.

'Good man, Ned. Now do you get the picture? Why I brought you here?'

'Lemme see. Yeah! You want me to go into the beauty parlour and ask if they've seen any trannies hanging around. Then you want me to lean on one of them until he agrees to go work for us, yeah. Am I right? Sure, Boss... I figured it all out in a jiffy'.

'Wrong, you idiot! What's the matter with ya?! Have yez got purple sprouting brocolli for brains?!! You think we'd trust some simpering street tranny with a job this important. Wise up, wiseguy. You've been specially picked by those on high. Like it or not, Ned, you're walking into that parlour and not coming out again until you're a Tgirl'.

The boss was angrier than Ned'd ever seen him. It was all he could do to ask 'Why me'.

The boss looked down at the floor of the squad car muttering, 'Shoulder length hair. Nice ass. You figure it out'.

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We now have to endure a Hollywood type fade to white (sorry, no black pages on TVcheeex yet) which will serve to indicate the passage of time. In this case, quite a few hours. It's already early evening.We open on a shockingly glamorous overdressed women slowly picking her way along the sidewalk. She's heading West towards the meatpacking district and seems to be having great trouble walking in her heels. To maintain her balance she clings to the walls and when she reaches an intersection, flings herself across in a mad charge and grabs hold of the nearest lamppost for dear life. As she blunders along we hear a voice over - Ned's disgruntled interior monologue.

'Jeez! The Philippino women in that parlour really did a number on me. By the Prophet's Beard, they didn't just pluck out my beard. They waxed every last hair off my body. And then they burnt my clothes. Not only that, they threw my precious pipe on the ground and smashed it into a thousand pieces with club hammers. My granpappy gave me that pipe! The rats!! Then they started rubbing oils all over my body and coated me in French perfume and make up. Christ, this lipstick tastes like cold goose fat. And this damn mascara is sticking my eyes together. And these damned shoes.. I ain't never been in such pain. Not even when I took Lefty McMinsky two rounds in the ring and he bust my glass jaw in seventeen places. Jeez. That damn parlour. What a sleaze-pond. A haven for kooks and oddballs. Sex wierdos in serach of oddball thrills. And those crazy Phillipino women. They sprayed and puffed up my hair so I look just like a goddam women. And then, worst of all, they pierced my ears, jammed in a pair of hoops earrings and proceeded to stick red plastic nails on the end of my fingers. They feel like the mitts of Fu Manchu. Christ.. how do women put up with this stuff? I had no idea their lives were such hell'.

Then the thought hit him. What if his fiance Julie saw him dressed this way? And she a good catholic girl from a good family And worse. 'What if the guys from the precinct ever catch me dressed like this? Life won't be worth living. Why oh why did I ever agree to follow the bosses orders?'

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The full realisation of his predicament suddenly weighed him down. Ned stopped to catch his reflection in a shop window. Yet again, his face reddened as he clocked what he was wearing. A short shimmering dress festooned with bright red sequins. A cute matching bag was perched on his forearm. His depilated legs looked impossibly thin and unfamiliar encased in black stockings. His feet were wedged into a pair of provocative red shoes. He looked at his face and hair. In despair he cried aloud, 'Christ almighty! I look like a goddam hooker!!'

So involved was Ned in his misery that he failed to notice the prowl wagon slowing to a halt behind him. As the engine flicked off, a thick-necked Irish bull leaned out of the passenger seat and shouted at him in a saucy leer, 'Hey, Dollface. can New York's finest by any chance lend you a hand? You need a ride, baby?'

Ned turned to face them and without thinking things through answered in his own voice, 'No, I'm fine buddy'.

The face of the cop twisted into disbelief and then contorted into a sneering grimace of hate and outrage. 'Bejahsus, it's one of them filthy tranny hookers. I thought we'd run the last one out of town a month ago. Get the stinking freak!' The back of the paddy wagon burst open and ten or thirty screaming cops attacked in a frenzy. The last thing Ned felt was a billyclub smashing into his face as most of his teeth flew across the road.

Two weeks later they dragged the body of out the East River, still wearing the sequined dress. Julie avoided the funeral.

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Gee, doncha just love those politically correct, gender sensitive publications boys 'n' gurls?