Thursday, April 23: Femme Fatale
HAMMER TIME
by Deborah Elliott-Upton
When I was a preteen, the city library moved from quarters in the civic center to a mansion downtown bequeathed to the city by Mary E. Bivins following her death. We rarely went downtown, but one day when my mom was pregnant with her fourth child who would be my only brother, she took me and my two younger sisters to the library. She signed me up for my own library card that day. I treasured that little slip of cardstock as if I’d been presented with a medal.
I’m not sure where Mom took my sisters and disappeared in the cavernous three-story plus full basement structure originally home to the city’s elite, but I was left alone. “Find whatever you want to read,” Mother said. Obviously, no one worried about child predators then and Mother thought at 11, I would choose books other 11 year-old girls were reading. She trusted me and always said I was born old. I’ve always taken this to mean she thought I was an old soul. Or maybe it was because I took to bossing my sisters around as if I were the one in charge.
Other girls probably read LITTLE WOMEN or WHERE THE RED FERN GROWS. Not me.
Just beyond the staircase was a doorway. I was drawn toward that opening as if there was a magnetic charge deep within me that didn’t just pull, but yanked me toward the floor-to-ceiling shelves of the east-facing room off the original foyer of Mary E. Bivins’ private homestead on Polk Street. This was the mystery section and before I ever learned where other sections were in the library, I read every mystery book housed in those shelves.
The first book I checked out on my own was Mickey Spillane’s I,THE JURY.
Mickey Spillane’s protagonist was Mike Hammer, a tough guy and a man’s man in the vein of John Wayne’s portrayals I’d seen on the movie screen. As a detective, Hammer always got his man. He was intense and used rough language I wasn’t used to hearing, much less reading. He carried a .45 and did not hesitate to use it when it was necessary. His office had a miniature bar by the window and Mike frequented that often enough to make me curious about such things, but no so much that I worried about him.
Mike Hammer was everything I thought a man should be and I wanted nothing more than to be Velda, his faithful and beautiful secretary. Velda was more than arm candy: she had brains and kept even Mike Hammer in line, albeit subtly.
I was in love with the man who oozed sex appeal through the pages, yet would outwit any antagonist.
Finishing the book, I wanted to know more about his creator. When I tracked down what Mickey Spillane looked like (not as easy in pre-Internet times), he matched my imaginary vision of Mike Hammer. Trench coat flying behind him, I knew Spillane would be a man’s man and this woman’s (okay, almost-a-woman at that time) ideal man.
For a small town, naive girl, many of Spillane’s novels were enlightening. I envisioned every guy in a big city lived like Mike Hammer.
Finding that section of the library that first day probably sealed my fate. I would never be a girl who read flowery romance novels. I didn’t care about their stripped-to-the-waist chiseled physiques. I was more interested in a sturdy man who I wouldn’t have to worry if he happened to be prettier than me. To me, romance novels’ heroes pale in comparison to Mike Hammer. They are more than welcome to keep Fabio. Give me a Spillane character any day.
Mother never said anything about my choice of reading, but she did notice I wanted to go to the library every week. The library had no limit on the number of books we could check out at a time and each week it seemed I carried a taller stack with me out the door. Some librarians smiled at me, some stamped the dates delicately while others acted as if they squashed bugs between the stamp and paper slips. None ever told me about a children’s section where I could find “suitable reading.” Until I was an adult, no one questioned my early choices.
Some writers have been slightly horrified when I spoke of my first reading choices and suggested I may have been warped somewhat by reading such books at an early age. Maybe, but I don’t care. I have been shaped into who I am. I am a mystery writer and a mystery reader and I like it.
In the fifth grade I made a friend who also liked to read, Virginia Guilford. Virginia knew how to take the bus downtown to the main library, and she showed me how to obtain a library card and check out books. What an eye-opening experience that cost only a 10¢ bus ride. Although the 1950s weren’t exactly the literary poverty faced in the early Americas, to a little kid unaccustomed to such cultural abundance, it seemed like the shelves in that building housed millions of books. The children’s section had all the volumes of my favorites — DR DOOLITTLE and MRS PIGGLE WIGGLE. I carried home stacks of library books and read them all.
The children’s books were up on the second floor, and the adult books were downstairs in the main library. Right next to the children’s books was a section called YOUNG ADULTS. Fifth graders weren’t allowed to read those books, so I had discovered censorship for the first time. Like Eve, I wanted to taste the forbidden fruit; Virginia taught me how. You just had to collect five children’s books and stick a book from the young adults section in the pile. Then, instead of checking the books out at the children’s desk upstairs, you would go downstairs to the main check-out desk. The librarians there weren’t as familiar with which books were only for children and which were for young adults, and they usually just checked out our books without comment. At that time, this was our idea of committing the ultimate high crime and misdemeanor: Thor Heyerdahl’s KON TIKI and my first World War II thriller, THIRTY SECONDS OVER TOKYO by Capt. Ted Lawson.
My early library intrusions also taught me about the long arm of the law. Of course, books had to be returned on time or heavy fines would be levied. My limited budget didn’t allow for such expenses, so I found that by dumping overdue books in the bin in the alley behind the library, I could get off scott free, or so I thought. When I needed to renew my library card, there came a shocking and embarrassing revelation. I was confronted with a huge bill to pay before the frowning librarian would extend my borrowing privileges for another year. [Nowadays, as we know, bad school kids are shooting each other, snorting meth, and getting pregnant. They seem to be unfamiliar with my aggravated childhood felonies of reading adventure & history too soon in life and trying to cheat the library.]
The next major event in my reading career was when the Judds moved into our neighborhood. I think I was in fifth or sixth grade. I met Dinah and her older sister Jeannie at the bus stop and became part of their family as much as a part of my own. Jeannie read a lot and told me about Betty MacDonald’s adult books like THE EGG AND I (MacDonald was the author of the childrens’ Mrs. Piggle Wiggle series mentioned above) and many others, mostly in the young adults section of the library and beyond. No more kid stuff for me. Their house was filled with books of all kinds. There were so many books the parents had nailed extra shelves to the walls high above the furniture to store them. The whole family read constantly, and it drew me to them like a vacuum.
Dinah and Jeannie’s mother’s name was Raydia, but they just called her Ray. She was skinny, had brown, leathery skin, and stiff dark hair with a cut that looked like a bowl on top of her head. I soon got over the shock of children that called their mother by her first name, and came to know her better than my own mother, probably because she soon set out to educate me like her own children. Once I remember she bought a jar of caviar just for all us kids to try, explaining that, like it or not, we had to try it at least once in our lives. Ray opened a package of soda crackers and that jar of smelly, black fish eggs. She spread them on a cracker for each of us, smashing the eggs with her knife. The smelly oil oozed out and dripped off the saltines. One by one we bit our crackers, and all screamed “awk, yuk, vomit, and barf.” We had been educated, and I haven’t eaten any caviar since.
On the other hand, Ray made delicious pea soup that was to die for.
Ray wrote too. She had an immense, black Underwood typewriter, which she could play like a piano. In the summer, when her windows were open, you could hear her machine clack-clacking all over the neighborhood. I had never seen anyone who could type before, and saw that as my next step beyond reading. Someday I would learn to type, too.
She loaned me a book she had chosen carefully. I read it and brought it back to her. One by one, she loaned me other books from her giant supply, probably ones her daughters had read. My transition from being a child to an adult reader came when I was in junior high school. She picked a book of short stories by Guy de Maupassant off her shelf and held it thoughtfully in her hand. She looked at her husband Webster and asked, “Is Tony old enough to read this?”
Moments of silence seemed like hours as he considered the weighty question. My readiness for adult literature was being calculated by persons I respected very much. “Yes,” he replied, “he’s old enough for that.” Oh, thank you Webster!
And I didn’t have to fool the librarians any more.
My earliest memories of the library come from my mother; she used to work there while pursuing her first degree. I would go up there and participate in the children’s activities on the weekends as I waited for her to get off work. I always remembered it as a warm and safe place to be. After she graduated and started her career, we would still return on the weekends as it was cheap entertainment. I would roam the shelves looking for something to entertain me while being mindful of the homeless people who were just looking for a place to rest. My imagination was always active and the books helped to fuel it with pictures and new ideas. I would get a book and then stay up all night reading it. I wanted to gleam some new truth or thought from the pages and couldn’t put it off until the next day. I still have to fight that urge to this day.
Mom has always been an avid reader, but I think that was instilled in her from her mother. To this day my grandmother still spends her free time reading and has one of the best vocabularies of anyone I have met. She would forgo watching television with my grandfather and would instead read the new book she picked up that day. There would be shows that she watched, but it wasn’t the mindless entertainment that it is now. Shows that drew you and required thought, offered mysteries and intrigue. I wonder if it is a common theme among strong women. I wonder how many people were inspired to read due to the influence of a woman in their life.
Another great post Deborah.
Three articles for the price of one! Thanks, Kerry, Deborah, and Dr. Harris.
It’s funny: I recall reading The Egg and I about the same time!
Our closest library was a stone manor with stained glass windows. Therein, librarian tended to overlooked fines, 2¢ a day.
I don’t recall a children’s section, although I’m sure they had something with Uncle Wiggley, Raggedy Ann, and Dr.Doolittle. Like the rest of you, I spent my time digging through mysteries and science fiction.
My favorite part was finding a corner seat where sunlight streamed in and it was easy to imagine the grey stone walls were that of a castle.
Orlando’s library is also grey stone, but the modern concrete slab and florescent lighting don’t carry the same ambience. A modern library is more like a place to shop, not a place to inhabit.
Ah, the library, my second home. Or maybe third, after the bookstore.
Deborah, I remember hearing somewhere that at one point in time, probably back in the 30s, seven out of the ten all-time bestselling novels were written by Mickey Spillane. On the one hand, hard to believe — on the other, those books were great. I loved ’em.
Great column, as usual.
I remember spending hours in that beautiful mansion turned library, too, and I’ll never forget the wonderful smell – not musty or stuffy – just distinct – a particular perfume produced by those miles and miles of books just waiting to be held and read. Thanks, Debbie, for reminding me of those happy childhood days.
My mother was a big Mickey Spillane and Erle Stanley Gardner fan(atic). I wish I’d known some of you when we donated her huge collection of hardbacks to the library when she passed.
I love libraries. My problem is I want the books in “my” library!
Great column as usual.
Great post. I recently did one on libraries myself, but mine failed to spurn the plethora of comments yours has. And I’m not aahamed I read Where the Red Fern Grows and liked it. So much so I immediately read it again and I plan to read it to my boys soon. ‘Course then again, I am the big hairy Texan who writes women’s fiction. 😉
Wow! Libraries were my refuge when I was a kid and are still sacred places to me. And, Deborah, I was around 13 when I discovered Thorne Smith. Talk about age-appropriate material!