Going to Chicago (6 page)

“What's wrong?”

“We didn't get any pictures of those two.”

“You crazy? They were professional criminals. You think they'd pose for a picture? That hillbilly would've blasted your head like one of those melons.”

Will calmed. “I guess so.”

Now I slapped the dash. “You see the way his girl was sucking that tomato? I wanted to lick that juice right off her chin. Just think, that hillbilly gets to poke her every night of the week.”

That revelation startled Will. “Every night?”

“Absolutely. All those gangster girls are crazy for poking.”

Byron. La Porte. Pinola. Pinhook. Coburg. My mind and mouth stayed on sex all the way to Valparaiso. “You think this town is big enough to have a whorehouse?” I asked Will while we waited for one of the longest trains I'd ever seen to pass. Boxcar after boxcar after boxcar.
Thu-clump, thu-clump, thu-clump
, like a squeaky mattress going up and down.

“No town in Indiana is big enough to have a whorehouse, from what I've seen,” he said.

“This one looks pretty big. I bet there's a whorehouse somewhere.” The caboose finally bounced by and the gate went up. I took off. “Can't we drive straight through to Chicago? They got whorehouses on every corner there.”

Will didn't take my talk about whorehouses seriously. It was just the biologically inspired baloney of an eighteen-year-old. But being eighteen himself, he went along with my baloney as if I really intended to act on my urges. Will and I always respected each other that way, no matter how far from reality the other occasionally strayed. “We're going to Chicago to see the technological wonders of the modern age, Ace. Not to count whorehouses. You don't have the bile to go to a whorehouse anyway.”

“You are absolutely dead wrong about that,” I said as the train
thu-clumped
.

Will reminded me that I hadn't exactly been Rudolph Valentino with the girls back home.

“That's because I've intentionally kept my distance,” I informed him. “You poke a farm girl and you've just married her for life. But when you poke a whore, or any city girl for that matter, you ain't got that lifetime of misery to worry about. Unless they give you the bugs.”

“Who's Rudolph Valentino?” Clyde asked.

We came to Tecumseh Street. I throttled down and turned. It was a nice street. Fine houses. Tall trees. Dark slate sidewalks.

Will said his aunt's place was the twenty-fifth house on the left. I flew low and slow while Will counted houses and Clyde hummed. It was 3:35. We'd driven halfway across Ohio, all the way across Indiana, been waylaid by criminals, and we were just twenty minutes late. Will, however, was blinking like it was twenty hours.

We passed a short bull of a man carrying a bag of groceries. It was their Uncle Fritz. Will ordered me to land. Uncle Fritz was a real German. Born in Berlin. Came to Baltimore as a boy. Shucked oysters for a few years, then migrated to Gary, Indiana, to work in the oil refineries. Met and married Will's aunt, an elementary school teacher. They moved down to Valparaiso to get away from all the Negroes flooding in from Chicago. But he kept his oil job, paying for his fears with an agonizing daily commute. Bennett's Corners today is lousy with people like that. Anyway, Uncle Fritz smelled like motor oil the way my dad smelled like tires. He had a mustache that stuck down from his nose like a shaving brush. “It's us,” Will called out. “Jump on the running board. We'll give you a ride.”

Uncle Fritz kept his distance, eyeing the Gilbert SXIII like it was Satan's chariot, making a direct delivery to hell. “I ain't taking no ride on dat got-dambled ting,” he said.

“She's as safe as she can be,” Will said. “Brought us all the way from Bennett's Corners, Ohio. Two hundred and eighty-three miles.”

Uncle Fritz started down the sidewalk. “I'll walk on da legs Got gived me. Sanks anyway.”

We flew on, Will counting houses. “Your uncle looks just like that Adolf Hitler, doesn't he?” I said.

“Like who?” asked Clyde, surrounded by melons.

At that age I had little patience for anybody who didn't know what I knew. Figured what I knew was the true measure of worldliness. Which goes to show you how unworldly I was. I let loose: “Ain't you never heard of anybody, Clyde? Adolf Hitler! That funny little guy in Germany, remember? He was in that newsreel when we saw
King Kong
.”

“I remember King Kong, but not Adolf Hitler,” said Clyde.

In fairness to Clyde, not many Americans knew who Adolf Hitler was in 1934. He'd only come to power the year before and was still something of a joke. Crazy little sausage stuffed in a Boy Scout suit. Mustache like Charlie Chaplin. Ranting in unintelligible German. Seven years later that crazy little sausage landed me in Air Force cooking school. You still see lots of shows about Hitler on PBS or A&E and every once in a while the classic movie channel runs
King Kong
. Too bad the gorilla wasn't the real monster. All he did was climb up the Empire State Building and swat a couple airplanes out of the sky. I landed alongside Aunt Mary's house.

I was about to meet Will's aunt for the first time. Twelve years later, when I tracked her down at a trailer park in Michigan City, she was a sad lump of a woman, constantly rubbing her forehead with her iced-tea glass, to numb her memories of Fritz and Will and her happy past. But that summer of 1934, when Mary Koch stepped off the porch and walked toward the Gilbert SXIII, I was encountering the most sumptuous woman alive. She was in her forties and a little plump. But that plumpness stretched her house dress in all the right directions. And the tiny lines springing out from her devilish eyes were an encyclopedia of experience. Experiences I needed desperately to experience myself. Hard to believe she was Mrs. Randall's older sister. Three happy-go-lucky beagles followed her out of the house. They ran in circles sniffing the lawn and each other.

“Three-fifteen and here you are,” Aunt Mary said. “Just like you said.”

Will, Clyde, and I were already out of the car, rubbing the miles out of our kidneys. “Three thirty-seven, actually,” Will said. “But here we are. All the way from Bennett's Corners, Ohio.”

She saw the cotton sticking out of Clyde's sideways head. “You got an earache, honey?”

Clyde poured it on. “My ear's badly afflicted with wax, Aunt Mary.”

She pulled Clyde's pained face into her swollen, sympathetic bosom. “You just give me a hug.” What I wouldn't have given for a little ear wax at that moment.

Will was next in line for a hug. “We passed Uncle Fritz up the street.”

“He wouldn't take a ride,” I said.

Aunt Mary finished hugging Will and extended her hand for a shake. “You must be the famous Ace Gilbert.”

“That would be me.”

“Will's told me all about you in his letters. Your daddy was a hero in the war.”

“He flew with Eddie Rickenbacker in the famous 94th. Between them they sent twenty-seven of those butchering Huns into the vineyards.”

I saw her eyes giggle at the Gilbert SXIII. “Looks like you plan to follow in your daddy's footsteps.”

“Absolutely. Soon as there's another war.”

Then she did it. Buried my face in her bosom just like I was a third nephew. “Well, I'll tell you what, Ace Gilbert,” my muffled ears heard her say. “If you want to stay alive until the next war, I wouldn't mention butchering Huns around my Fritzie.”

“Absolutely not,” I echoed into her cleavage.

“We better get the tent set up,” Will said. I'm sure he saw I was enjoying my hug a little too much.

We started unloading our gear. Aunt Mary offered us each a bed in the house, but Will insisted we needed practice setting up the tent. “It hasn't been up since Dad took our scout troop camping to Niagara Falls.”

She frowned and nodded. She knew that camping trip was just two weeks before his father's embarrassing death. “How is your mother doing?”

“Well enough to drive me crazy,” Will said.

“That's my sister.”

“She's doing fine,” Will said.

“You know I worry.”

“I know. We're all doing fine.”

“Except for my damn ear,” Clyde added.

“I hope your mother had enough sense to get you some medicine.”

“Got a whole bottle of drops in the car,” Clyde said proudly. “Take a squirt every four hours.”

Aunt Mary waved at her Fritzie, who was still several houses away. “Good. I never saw anybody hold onto a dollar like your mother.”

“Money and mother are a legend,” Will agreed.

“That's for sure. I hope she's getting good use of that apron I made her for Christmas.”

Clyde informed his aunt she'd torn it up for kitchen rags.

Will's eyes went to blinking. “Jeez, Clyde! Red just isn't her color, Aunt Mary.”

She laughed so hard she had to grab her knees. “Kitchen rags? At least she's getting good use of it.”

The Gilbert SXIII was unloaded. Uncle Fritz was working his way up the lawn, playing with his beagles. “Say, Aunt Mary,” Will said. “Let me get a picture of you and Uncle Fritz by the car with Ace and Clyde. I'm keeping a photographic record of our historic pilgrimage.”

She was all for it. Uncle Fritz waved us off in disgust and went inside. But the beagles joined in the photograph. It's one of my favorite pictures from our trip to Chicago. I've still got it. Along with the others. Mrs. Randall gave them to me along with some of Will's other things after I returned from England in 1946. Too bad Will wasn't in the picture along with me and Clyde and Aunt Mary and those three sniffing dogs. But I know he snapped it. So I guess he's in the picture as much as the rest of us.

Will wanted to build a campfire in the backyard and cook some beans and brew a pot of coffee. But his aunt insisted we have a proper supper inside. Roast chicken and baked potatoes. Canned corn and rolls. Bowls and platters passing clockwise and counterclockwise around the table in a minuet of near misses. It wasn't long before talk turned to our encounter with that hillbilly gangster on U.S. 20 between Rolling Prairie and Bootjack.

“You must have been scared to death,” Aunt Mary said. “More corn, anybody?”

Will waved off the bowl. “It all happened pretty fast. Ka-boom. ka-boom.”

She made him take more corn anyway. “I'm sure I would have wet myself.”

“I think that farmer did,” I said, adding some drama to our encounter. From my chair I could see the beagles on the porch, pawing and licking the window.

“At least you're all safe. Have another potato, Ace. They're small.”

“Small potatoes,” Will laughed.

“Doze robbers sound like a couple no-good communists to me,” Fritz said.

“They were nice enough to give us those melons,” I pointed out.

“Nice enough to give you da farmer's melons,” he said. “Dey was communists OK.”

Aunt Mary sent the chicken platter on another tour of the table. “Some people are just bad on their own, Fritzie. Not everybody's a communist.”

“More people den you tink, Mary. Da whole country's lousy with communists since Mr. Roosevelt.”

For some reason I felt the need to defend the hillbilly and his girl. “I wouldn't say they were actually bad. They were pretty square with us, anyway.”

“Only because we weren't rich,” Will reminded me.

“Well, how about Robin Hood?” I said. “He was like that. Stealing from the rich, giving to the poor.”

“Who's Robin Hood?” Clyde asked.

“Da first communist,” Uncle Fritz said.

Will had the chicken platter in one hand and the plate of rolls in the other. His tongue chased a corn niblet trying to escape over his lower lip. “The way that robber and his girl were dressed, and that fancy car, I don't think they share too much of their loot with the poor.”

I continued my defense. “All I'm saying is that they were nice to us, regardless of how bad they are to everybody else.”

Aunt Mary wanted me to shut up. “Eat some more of this delicious chicken, Ace.”

Now Will put his foot in it. “When'd you grow that mustache, Uncle Fritz? You didn't have it at Christmas.”

“Ace says it makes you look just like Adolf Hitler,” Clyde said. I quickly took the chicken platter.

“Now see, Mary? I told you I'd look just like Mr. Hitler if I grew dis mustache. Now dere's a man who wouldn't put up with all dese communists shooting up everybody's melons.”

That time I went to see Mary in Michigan City she told me Fritz felt so betrayed when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939, that he not only shaved his mustache, but changed his named to Bob and sent three hundred dollars to the Sons of Warsaw in Chicago. He gathered more scrap metal for the war effort than anyone in Valparaiso. But in August 1934, Uncle Fritz was still very high on the no-nonsense Mr. Hitler.

We finished dinner and rushed into the living room for pie and radio.

It was cherry pie. Tart. Top crust sprinkled liberally with sugar. While Will and Clyde watched Uncle Fritz play with the radio dial, I watched Aunt Mary clear the dining room table. Better than a striptease. Stretching for the empty potato bowl. Bending for the corn bowl. Back and forth from the kitchen. Hips meandering like the wide Maumee.

Uncle Fritz loved his radio. It was a big six-tube Distatone. Beautiful walnut cabinet with mahogany inlays. Ornate pillars running up the sides. It sat on a table by his rocker, as imposing as the Ark of the Covenant, imparting the voices of faraway gods. We huddled around that Distatone for the next four and a half hours listening to what Uncle Fritz wanted to listen to. No talking allowed. No fork clinking allowed. No laughing. Even a squirm got a scowl.

There were three national radio networks then: one operated by the Columbia Broadcasting System and two by the National Broadcasting Company, NBC Red and NBC Blue. Chicago I believe had two CBS stations, two NBC Red stations, and four NBC Blue stations. Add to those all the independent stations and all the signals floating in from other cities and, well, you had a real beehive. There was more variety on radio than cable TV today. Drama. Comedy. Sports. Music for every taste. News. Political harangues from left and right. Gossip. More advice than you could use in a hundred lifetimes. Religion so fierce you wanted to jump off a barn roof. Anything you desired could be had by rolling that magic dial up and down the kilocycles. None of the slime you get today, of course, but occasionally things did get a little cheeky.