Forever Violet: From Stony Hill to Broadway

By Frances R. Schmidt and James A. Costa

"Forever Violet" is the story of Violet Sheehan, a twelve-year old girl growing up during the Great Depression in Stony Hill, a poor neighborhood of New London, Connecticut. Raised in a loveless home, she endures years of cruelty and indifference from an alcoholic father and mentally unstable mother. Living the life of a gamin, Violet vows to escape the trappings of her bleak existence and fulfill her ambition to become a professional writer. Her journey from Stony Hill to Broadway is fraught with several traumatic experiences and setbacks before the harrowing climax, which leaves open questions of life's unpredictable twists, and the roles destiny and fate play in it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Oct 23, 2023
• ISBN: 9798350915709

Book preview

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Contents

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER 34

CHAPTER 35

CHAPTER 36

CHAPTER 37

CHAPTER 38

CHAPTER 39

CHAPTER 40

CHAPTER 41

CHAPTER 42

CHAPTER 43

CHAPTER 44

CHAPTER 45

CHAPTER 46

CHAPTER 47

CHAPTER 48

CHAPTER 49

CHAPTER 50

CHAPTER 51

CHAPTER 52

CHAPTER 53

CHAPTER 54

CHAPTER 55

CHAPTER 56

CHAPTER 57

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Copyright © 2023 by James A. Costa and Frances R. Schmidt

Forever Violet

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or invented, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast.

Print ISBN: 979-8-35091-569-3

eBook ISBN: 979-8-35091-570-9

Printed in the United States of America

DEDICATION

Dedicated to our friend,

Deborah Renee Daniel.

She brought the authors together,

never imagining her kindness would create

a collaboration so special.

CHAPTER 1

The first thing I saw when I opened the kitchen door was my Uncle Billy tugging my father out of the back seat of his police car.

Not again, I said, stepping out on the porch. It’s the second time this week.

C’mon, Cowboy John, let’s go. And don’t you be puking in my car like before, Uncle Billy barked. It took an hour to clean it up and a week to get rid of the stink. Get your fat legs out here. Let’s go. I ain’t got all day.

Cowboy grunted. I’m fine, go’damn it. Nothin’s wrong with me.

Sure, nothing wrong that an ice-cold bath and six months drying out on the farm won’t fix.

Cowboy’s my father and drunk as a skunk is how I usually saw him. I looked up at my uncle, a giant compared to me. Where’d you find him this time, Uncle?

Uncle Billy hauled Cowboy to his feet. Greyhound station, he said, huffing as he wrapped his strong arms around Cowboy and half-carried him up the porch steps and inside the house. Boozed up and unconscious on a bench. People reported him smelling like a gin mill, just sprawled out and hogging space where they sit. He nodded toward Cowboy’s bedroom. Same place?

Be careful you don’t drop him too sudden. His bed’s so decrepit it could cave in.

Uncle Billy backed off, still breathing hard and looking down on Cowboy. John, you’re lucky you’re my brother or you’d be sleeping it off in the hoosegow right now. He turned to me. He’ll be out for a while.

•••

That’s the way my rotten life was as far back as I can remember. Cowboy, I’m not proud to say, was the town drunk. And my mother? That would be Crazy Annie. Anyway, it’s what everybody called her. Where she could be at any given time was a mystery. She could be dead or sleeping on a picnic table up in Stony Hill Park. She’d been doing it for years. If she was my mother you couldn’t prove it by me. Every time she came home, all hell broke loose.

You’re a no-good rotten drunk, Cowboy, that’s what you are!

And you’re a go’damned whore, Annie!

Drop dead, you worthless bastard!

No, you drop dead, you worthless bitch!

Back and forth they’d go, him with a voice scratched raw with alcohol, and her with a whiny voice that cut right through me. Their battles lasted for hours. Dishes flew, chairs got busted and anything else they could get their hands on got wrecked. I was sure that someday they’d kill each other. It was hard for me to do my homework or write the stories I loved to make up. Writing and listening to songs on the radio, like ‘Deep Purple’ was how I tried to escape all the ugliness around me.

That was life for me on Stony Hill, a poor section of New London, Connecticut, back in 1938. I was fifteen then, living in a crappy house on a crappy street with other crappy houses and crappy families who lived in them. I called it the ‘pits,’ with four D’s: dark, dirty, damp and depressing. Everybody was poor and most men were on the dole.

If you listened to grownups, you’d never know my name is Violet. They’d just say, ‘There goes Crazy Annie’s kid’ or ‘There’s Cowboy’s kid.’ I loved my name. Growing up, it was the only thing I really loved. I thought it was the prettiest thing in my life. Sometimes I’d repeat it over and over, just to hear the sweet sound of it. My mother must have seen the field of violets up in the park where she sleeps and named me Violet in one of her saner moments. It’s the only good thing I can say about her.

•••

Winter was long and cold. Spring was finally turning summery and waking up the buds in the trees and the pretty wild flowers along the roads. I felt restless and didn’t feel like writing my stories, especially with Cowboy in the next room snoring loud enough to wake up the dead.

I cleaned the cracker crumbs off the table, put on my moth-eaten sweater and decided to take a walk up to Stony Hill Park. Annie might be around or she might not. With her, you never could tell. Personally, I didn’t care one way or the other. I just wanted to visit my favorite place, a beautiful patch where the wild violets grow. It was my secret place, where I felt free like the butterflies that dance among the flowers, my private place where no one could yell at me or hit me or tell me how stupid I was. To me, it was the most peaceful spot in the world.

The sun was already burning away the morning chill as I climbed the rocky path, still slippery with dew. When I neared the picnic table where Annie always slept, I heard yelling. Hurrying as quickly as possible, I reached the top just in time to see Annie chasing a bunch of rowdy boys down a steep path. They were whooping like Indians and running zigzag downhill, with Annie chasing after them, her arms flailing. I ran hard trying to catch her, but when I got near to the south slope, I couldn’t see her anymore.

Annie! I cried, at the top of my lungs. Annie!

Listening, I could hear their voices fading in the distance around a ragged stand of pines. Then silence. Descending the slope a short way, I stopped, waited a few moments, and finally gave up. It would be hopeless to wait any longer. Annie was gone and only God knew where to.

I climbed back up and made my way to Annie’s table, stepped on the seat and plopped myself on the flat top, thinking there was a slight chance she might come back. I often wondered where she went when she wasn’t there or at home or chasing off a gang. I could only hope nothing bad happened to her. I’d heard that some of the local boys liked to tease and taunt her, but as far as I knew, they never hurt her. I could never understand how anyone could enjoy being cruel to a helpless person.

After a while I realized it was hopeless to sit waiting, so I slipped off the table and walked to the far side of the hill. Carefully, I edged my way down the gravel part of the slope to a beautiful field of violets that perfumed the air and spread out before me like a rainbow carpet: blue, orchid, white and purple. Never in my life had I ever seen anything so beautiful.

Stepping gingerly, I found a dry spot, smoothed my skirt under me and sat in the middle of the patch. The sun had already burned away the dew and warmed the ground beneath me. Except for a few birds chirping in the trees and two chipmunks playing tag, I was alone. I pulled my knees up and rested my cheek against them. For a long while I sat with my arms wrapped around my legs and gazed at the shifting purple haze shading the distant hills. There’s a new world out there, I said to myself, a better, cleaner world and someday I’d find my place in it. I vowed then and there to leave Stony Hill some day and put its ugly memories behind me forever. In my heart I knew it would happen. It had to happen!

I thought of Annie, out there somewhere. She was crazy, no doubt about it, but I didn’t really know what made her that way, except for losing my baby brother, Eugene, in an accident. That wouldn’t seem to be enough to make her crazy, but maybe it was. I never had much sympathy for her, no more so than for any other unfortunate person. Maybe I should have felt guilty about it, but I couldn’t. She was my mother, yes, but I never really understood the meaning of the word.

Annie was a stranger to me. I saw the meterman more often than I ever saw her. She would stay away for weeks or even months, and then show up, for no particular reason I could figure out. I know it wasn’t to see me. No doubt she preferred the peacefulness of the park, away from Cowboy and maybe to forget whatever memories haunted her. I didn’t know how long she could go on that way. She was old, worn and scarred, just like the picnic table she slept on.

In time I’d learn there was far more to Annie’s tragic life than I could ever have imagined.

CHAPTER 2

That time of month came around and I had the same problem: no money, no Kotex. I used a towel, but that was only temporary. I needed to do something more. Nothing I could find worked. Then I got an idea. I knew Cowboy wouldn’t be home for a long time, so I opened the bedroom door and crept in. It smelled of beer and sweat. Usually I could smell pee, too. I pulled back his dirty sheet and put the blanket back over the top. Cowboy was always so drunk he’d probably never notice it gone. I didn’t care if he did, anyway. Picking up the sheet with my fingertips, I carried it to the kitchen sink to soap and scrub away the dirt, the stink and his filthy germs. After I was done, I took it outside and hung it on the clothesline to dry in the fresh air.

It took about an hour for the sun to do its job. The sheet smelled nice and clean as I gathered it up in my arms and carried it inside, where I laid it on my bed. Annie’s old scissors were a little rusty but still sharp enough. I cut the sheet into long strips, then cut again and again. When I had them the size I wanted, I folded each strip separately and tucked them away in my room. Because they were so old, they were soft. Just right. I knew I’d have to keep soaking them over and over in the future. Fifteen is a crummy age. At least for a girl it is.

Those were hard times for us. The Great Depression everyone talked about found its way into every house in our neighborhood. We were pretty bad off but Johnny Sullivan, my neighbor, was worse off than we were. Johnny lived three doors down from me and we went to Winthrop High together. I studied hard and was a good student because I wanted to get out of the scuzzy neighborhood someday, but Johnny didn’t seem to care too much about anything. To make things worse, he had a bad temper. It landed him in hot water so many times, he was filling our principal’s black book all by himself. Almost every other day when we’d meet in the hall, he’d tell me he had to stay for detention.

Other kids made fun of him behind his back because he was so dirty. They called him Piggy, but never when he could hear it. Johnny was tough and they didn’t dare. It wasn’t Johnny’s fault, though.

Half the time their water was shut off because his father didn’t pay the bill, and he would come and fill up a couple of jugs at our house.

Johnny’s dad was another drunk. Not as bad as Cowboy, but in his own way a lot meaner. Johnny never complained, even though his dad always beat him and his two little brothers. My dad was always too drunk to beat me. I felt sorry for Johnny almost as much as I did for myself. Everywhere I looked I saw poor people getting drunk and beating on each other. Still, I thought my life was the worst of all.

Feeling pretty low one day, I went up to the park and laid in my field of violets. I had a long talk with God. A real serious one. I asked what I did to deserve such a crappy life. I asked him more than that, too. I guess that’s called praying. I don’t know if God heard me. All I know is he never answered me.

My life, if you want to call it that, went on as it had ever since I could remember, with Cowboy ordering me around like a slave, insulting me, sometimes slapping me, and making me feel like I was a worthless nobody. All I could do is dream of the day I could escape my prison and find happiness. If such a thing actually existed and could be found, I swore I’d find it.

•••

Naturally, money in my house was scarcer than a hen’s teeth. Cowboy always seemed to have money for his booze and clothes, but never much money for food and almost never anything for my clothes. I had to go to school in the freezing winter with raggedy things that had been washed so many times you could see through them.

Whenever I heard Cowboy snoring good and loud in his bedroom, I’d sneak in and go through his pockets, grabbing every cent I could find. It was rare, but once in a great while, I’d get as much as two dollars, mostly in change. That was like discovering a gold mine. It didn’t last too long, but it helped.

Staying alive was my main goal. And because Cowboy was so stingy, I had to ‘shop’ every day. ‘Steal’ is more like it, but I just called it shopping. Combing the streets, looking to get milk or bread off doorsteps early in the morning was easy if the people inside were drunk or sleeping late, but it didn’t happen that often. And any foolish woman who left her shopping bag unattended...well, it was mine. I’d grab it and run like hell.

My favorite place to shop was at Mr. Beit’s grocery store because it was easier than at the Busy Bee. Even though the Busy Bee was closer to my house, it was smaller and wasn’t as busy as the name made it sound. Besides, whenever I went there, Mr. Loften always stretched his skinny neck around, watching me like a hawk with his beady eyes.

At Mr. Beit’s store I could always count on picking up a lonesome onion that fell out of a bin, or a celery stalk or, if I was lucky, a big, fat pepper...any damn thing I could get my hands on. Sometimes I gathered enough to make a water stew. That’s a poor man’s meal I made when there was nothing else in the icebox to eat. I’d fill a pot with water, add ketchup and throw everything I could find into it. It was better than starving. If you’re hungry enough it’s not so bad. Not good, but not bad.

One day I decided to do some ‘shopping’ at Mr. Beit’s store. As usual, I made sure I had a few cents on me, so if I had to, I could prove I was there to buy something, not to steal. I moseyed around a while, trying my best to look innocent, when I saw a limp carrot hanging out of a bin. In a flash I took it and slipped it in my bag.

A hand tapped my shoulder. Hello, Violet?

I almost jumped out of my skin. I turned and saw that it was Mr. Beit, the owner of the store standing there. He had a nice smile on his face, like he was happy he caught me.

Oh, my God, I’m caught. I’m going to jail!

Is there anything I can help you find? He had bright blue eyes and a deep dimple in his chin.

My breath stuck in my throat. Unable to speak, I shook my head.

You know, Violet, he said, I have some soup bones I didn’t sell. If you won’t be offended, you can have them. Would you like them?

I couldn’t believe my ears. Nobody ever gave me anything before. Never. I nodded real hard and tried to look grateful. God, I don’t think I ever smiled back at anyone in my whole life. I don’t think I ever knew how.

He left me standing there waiting and wondering why he was being so kind to me. I was nothing to him and he didn’t really know me personally. And why was he taking so long? He must have seen me grab the carrot. He had to be standing right behind me or close enough when I stole it. Was this some kind of trap? Was he going into the back room to call the police to search my bag?

I was ready to run out of the store, when he came out with a package in his hands. It was wrapped in white butcher paper and tied with a bow. He glanced to the side and reached over a counter. And here are three carrots, an onion and a few cabbage leaves to go with it, he said. He nodded toward the door. Now go home and make a big pot of soup. He gave me a little shove.

I used the change I had to buy a loaf of bread before leaving and carried everything in my arms. I didn’t just walk home; I skipped, jumped and danced all the way, hanging on tight to my packages. It did bother me, though, and made me feel a little guilty for stealing from such a nice man. It hit me then that Mr. Beit probably knew all along I was stealing and felt sorry for me. Maybe he even knew about Cowboy and his cheapness. Right then and there, I made a promise to myself that if I ever could afford it, I would pay back Mr. Beit for the stuff I had stolen from him. Every penny of it.

A lot of hungry kids roamed the streets. If they spotted you carrying something, they’d rob you in a minute. The were a bunch of dirty, little buggers. I stopped dancing around before I climbed Stony Hill. I didn’t want my neighbors, those nosy Parkers, to wonder what I had and why I was so happy, either. As I got near the Sullivan house, I heard the boys yelling over and over again:

I’m hungry, Johnny, I’m hungry! And Johnny yelling back, I ain’t got nothin’ to feed you!

I stepped carefully over the cruddy yard littered with broken glass, cans, and pieces of junk right up to their kitchen window. It was grimy and hard to peek through, but good enough to see the boys’ faces. They were filthy, except for the white trails their tears made down their cheeks and around their mouths, where they mingled with the snot running out of their noses.

I looked down at my package of food. The soup would be enough for us all, but that meant nothing for myself later. Oh, what the hell!

I banged on the door and called until they finally let me in. I told Johnny about Mr. Beit and asked him and the boys to come and eat with me. Johnny kept saying ‘no, thanks,’ but I kept badgering him.

I have plenty here for all of us, Johnny. I really do.

Johnny looked tortured. OK, Violet. If you’re sure we ain’t putting you out none.

Come in about half an hour.

When I tore off the butcher paper, I got the surprise of my life. In between the soup bones, there was a big chunk of meat! Amazing! Thank you, Mr. Beit.

Just when I thought the whole world stinks, somebody makes me think again. I cut the meat into small pieces and threw them and the bones into our beat-up old pot. I didn’t peel the vegetables. I figured we would eat it all. But I did wash them first. After a few minutes it began to smell real good. I was happy with myself.

Johnny and the boys, Kevin and Arian, came to the door and I let them in. I could see that Johnny had tried to wash them, but their necks were still dirty. Johnny drew a little sack of salt from his pocket and set it on the table.

Oh, good, I said, knowing that Johnny felt he had to bring something. That’ll help with the flavor.

Twice a week I’d take a container and go to the park and pick violets. I’d put them in whatever I could find: an empty beer can, a milk bottle or an old jelly glass. I took the bunch I picked the day before, made a nice bouquet, and stuck it in a bottle in the middle of the table, where everybody could see them. They were really colorful and brightened up my dumpy kitchen. Maybe they looked silly to Johnny and his brothers because they were boys, but I didn’t care. They were my violets, and they made my crappy house prettier.

We had a feast! The meal was so good, and filling, too. Johnny and I made a pact after that dinner. We made a vow to share whatever we got when we went ‘shopping.’ Only one thing: I made him promise that we wouldn’t steal from Mr. Beit, ever, and he did promise. Between the two of us, we managed to stay alive.

CHAPTER 3

I spent most of my time in my bedroom. With the door shut, I could write my stories while listening to the radio playing beautiful music, like ‘Night and Day’ and ‘Pennies from Heaven.’ I was also shutting out the trouble that seemed to be everywhere. I guess you could say I was trying to get out of this miserable world and make a better one for myself. Every day was as monotonous and boring as the one before it.

I’d take out the writing paper I stole from school and hid in my dresser drawer, and put it on the card table under the window. That was my favorite writing spot. When I wanted to stop writing and think, I’d just sit back and watch the maple trees sway in the breeze and the clouds go drifting by. It was very relaxing.

One morning just as I was getting ready to bury myself in my room to write, I heard a commotion outside. I opened the kitchen door to look and saw all my neighbors running and shouting past my house. As quickly as I could, I dressed and ran out and down the porch steps into the street with a bunch of other people coming from everywhere. Apparently, a car had let loose and went racing backwards down Stony Hill and hit one of the kids.

When I got there, I heard one of them say they were playing jump rope on the sidewalk, just before the car ran over little Judy Crocker. A man near me said she must have died instantly. People came from everywhere and surrounded her crumpled body. Some were holding and hugging each other and crying their eyes out. One man took off his jacket and covered little Judy with it before an ambulance came with its siren blaring. The ambulance crew crowded over her for a while, then picked up her limp body, half-covered with the man’s coat, and took her away. I couldn’t stop myself from looking at the blood splashed on the ground where she had been.

A few days later our class went to see Judy at Meyer’s Funeral Home. The room couldn’t have been gloomier with its gray walls and old carpet, but baskets of flowers bunched up against the walls gave it some color. I didn’t know the names of all of them, but I did recognize the roses and their sticky smell hanging in the air. I’ve hated the smell of roses ever since.

We couldn’t see very much of Judy in that little white box, just the hem of her frilly white dress, her white stockings and white shoes. I don’t know why they showed her that way. Pretty pictures of her covered a couple of tables, and one beautiful Holy Communion photograph leaned against the satiny lid next to a crucifix.

Miss Lambert, our assistant principal, gave a long speech about Judy and what she meant to so many people who loved her, and how much she would be missed by her family and friends, and how kind she was to everyone, and now she was in God’s arms, and on and on and on until everybody was wiping their eyes and honking their noses in their handkerchiefs. So many of my classmates were crying or red-eyed from crying. I’d learned a long time ago that crying didn’t do any good. I buried my hurts behind dry eyes. If I couldn’t cry for myself, how could I cry for anyone else. People later said Judy never felt a thing. I wanted to believe that.

Judy’s dying was my first experience with death, and I didn’t know how to take it. Judy wasn’t my best friend, but I liked her a lot because she was always cheerful and never talked about anybody behind their back. I felt sorry for her, knowing she would never grow up and have a life of her own. It didn’t seem real to me that she could be sitting next to me in class one day and dead the next.

Judy loved horses. Whenever we had a class together, I’d see her drawing pictures of them. I can’t tell you how many times I heard her say that someday she was going to have a horse farm of her very own. It was her dream. I realized then that dreams don’t always come true, no matter how much you wish it. I realized, too, that life isn’t always fair. Maybe it never is. It was a scary thought.

CHAPTER 4

Annie was Cowboy’s wife and my mother, but you couldn’t prove it by me. Whenever my friends mentioned their mothers, I always ducked away from them. I was ashamed to admit that this woman everyone in town knew as Crazy Annie was my mother. I felt the same about Cowboy, my father, the town drunk. I don’t remember when they first began going at it together, the two of them, but I know that it was often and awful. The neighbors could hear their screaming matches a mile away.

I recall a particularly miserable day, coming home from school. For hours torrential rains had been pouring down from the bellies of black clouds rumbling across the sky. With only a flimsy windbreaker on, I ran through the flooded streets until I reached my house and stepped inside, soaked to the skin. I dropped my books on a chair, threw off my dripping wrap and head bonnet and hung them on a hook next to the sink. Grabbing a towel, I buried my wet face in it, then swept it over my head and around my neck. When I turned, I was surprised to see Annie sitting hunched over the table. She had her hands wrapped around a coffee mug and was staring straight ahead.

Annie, I said, moving quickly over by her, Annie, you’re shivering to death.

She said nothing and didn’t even look at me. Her attention was fixed on the far wall, as if she could see pictures there. I snatched up a blanket from our sagging couch and wrapped it around her thin shoulders, patting it down to soak up the water. Even through the blanket I could feel her bones. Her straggly hair, what she had left of it, was pasted to the sides of her face. She looked like the Wicked Witch of the West, like the one in the movie I had seen recently with Johnny.

I grabbed a little plate