The Ferrari in the Bedroom (4 page)

“When I was a kid back in Indiana, my only form of reading matter was the comic strips. Like millions of others who now call themselves Grown-ups the chief influences in my early life were Orphan Annie, Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers and Mutt ’n Jeff. It was the Depression, and a kid in the Depression—at least in a Northern Indiana mill town—was not knee deep in toys. Or much else, other than snow, maybe.

“Every night I would read, or at least look at the pictures of the comics, with religious intensity. Even today I can remember lines uttered by Dagwood or Mr. Dithers, his boss. My kid brother and I would battle fiercely over who would get what page of the Sunday Color Comics, the absolute high point of the week.

“There were all kinds of great comics. Dick Tracy represented law and order and violence before the days of Gun-smoke. Polly and Her Pals was situation comedy à la Danny Thomas, while Smoky Stover was pure psychedelia. The whole spectrum of today’s TV programming ran through the comic strips, including Mary Worth, in the Peyton Place tradition. There were even commercials, usually disguised as a comic strip running across the bottom of every Color Supplement sheet. Powerhouse Candy Bars had its own Superman, called The Powerhouse Kid. Peter Pain, a little, green, warty pickle with a derby hat, stuck pitchforks into ladies’ backs on behalf of Ben-Gay salve. My kid brother and I, just like today’s kids, enjoyed the commercials as much as the actual shows. Until one fateful Sunday when just such a comic strip commercial set me on the road to Crime.”

Clarence, his eyes glowing with interest, hissed: “Yes! I remember those. Go on! What happened?”

“One Sunday,” I continued, “occupying the half-page directly below Popeye and the Thimble Theater, was an enormous picture of a kid holding a magnificent Brownie
camera. Gold colored, with a large seal embossed on the side. He grinned out of the page at me. Out of his mouth a white balloon carried this message:

Great Scott! I couldn’t believe my eyes! A camera was something owned strictly by grown-ups and used only at major family celebrations, such as picnics and Grandfathers’ birthdays. A camera! For kids! free!

The coupon read:
I AM TWELVE YEARS OLD THIS YEAR AND WOULD LIKE A FREE CAMERA ON EASTMAN’S BIRTHDAY.
There were blanks for name and address, and for an adult to sign, and then it said:
TAKE THIS COUPON TO YOUR EASTMAN DEALER AND GET YOUR FREE CAMERA. YOU MUST BE ACCOMPANIED BY AN ADULT.

What a fantastic bombshell! There was only one trouble. I had just turned seven. For the first time my famous reading ability, which was the wonder of my family, had produced a traumatic experience.

Instinctively I knew what to do. I hid the coupon under the overshoes and fielders mitts in my closet and began to lay my plans. With the craftiness of a born criminal I created a foolproof caper. I knew my mother and father, being basically square and upright, would not sign any coupon saying that I was twelve.

The next day on the way home from school, I carried out the first step of my scheme. There was a candy store that kept me supplied with jawbreakers and rootbeer barrels
which I had frequented for some time. I stopped by with three cents in the pocket of my corduroy knickers. This was roughly two-thirds of my Life Savings. I must confess that I am not much ahead of that level yet, but that’s another story.

There was a tall, thin high school kid who worked at the candy store. He came from the neighborhood and was known to us all as Lefty Neff. He played first base on the high school ball team and was a local hero.

“Whadda ya want?” he asked as I peered into the glass case at a collection of juju babies.

“Two a’ them.”

“Okay.” He handed them over and scooped up my penny.

“Hey, Lefty, have you got a camera?”

“What?” He was not used to this sort of question from the rabble of kids he dealt with.

“Have you got a camera?”

“Nah.”

“Wouldja like to have one? To use, that is?”

“What are you driving at, kid?” I showed him the coupon.

“So what?” he asked.

“Well, I’m a kid,” I said, “and you’re a grown-up, and a grown-up, it says, can sign it for me.”

Anyone over the Fourth Grade was a grown-up to me. Teachers were even beyond that. Thoughtfully he re-read the coupon.

“Yeahhh…” he said reflectively, “it might work.” A crowd of kids came in at that point, so negotiations were broken off.

Two days later, after a bus ride of some length, the two of us walked into the big Eastman camera shop downtown. The window was crammed with golden cameras with big signs about Eastman’s birthday party. The store was busy, as usual. I had only been past it from time to time and had looked in the window with my father or mother but had never been inside. It was an exciting place. Camera stores still make my old blood pound.

Lefty walked right up to a clerk who was wrapping something for a customer. He pushed the coupon across the counter. The clerk quickly read it, glanced up, and said incredulously:

“You his father?”

“Nah. I’m his uncle.”

“Why doesn’t he come in with his mother or father?”

“They was killed in a train wreck.”

“Really?” The clerk peered down at me as I tried to look pathetic.

“Yeah. He’s an orphan.”

“He doesn’t look twelve to me,” the clerk observed, focusing his eyes sharply through his bifocals.

“He’s little for his age.”

“He sure is,” said the clerk.

“They were in the circus,” said Lefty in an attempt to change the subject.

“Who?” asked the clerk.

“His mother and father.” He nudged me with his knee. It was my cue to talk.

“…yeah!” I squeaked, “they were killed in a train wreck. I’m an orphan.”

The kindly clerk’s eyes watered. His bifocals clouded with sympathy.

“Yeah,” said Lefty sadly, “when they got killed, he got stunted. From the shock.”

“Oh, that’s too bad,” the clerk sympathized, “I’ll call Mister Smythe. He has to okay it.”

Uh-oh! Trouble! We waited a few minutes, panic rising, until Mr. Smythe, a tall, thin, balding man in a black suit, appeared. Apparently the clerk had told him the story. Mr. Smythe looked down at me and asked:

“Are you sure you’re twelve?”

I was so scared that I couldn’t answer. To this day I don’t know whether Mr. Smythe was taken in or not. I’ll never know. Maybe he was one of Nature’s noblemen. Anyway, he said:

“Sonny, can you read that sign?” He pointed to a poster extolling the virtues of Eastman roll film. I read the first line. He stopped me with: “Charles, give the boy a camera. Mr. Neff, you have a precocious nephew.”

“Yeah.” Lefty used his favorite word.

Five minutes later we were on the bus home, with a brand-new leatherette-covered, gold-colored genuine Eastman Brownie, Anniversary model, with a roll of free film.

“Well, kid, ya got a camera,” Lefty said to me as we got off the bus. “Now don’t forget, I get to use it whenever I want, right?”

After I got home I carefully hid the camera in the coal bin and two days later announced that I had, astoundingly, found a camera, fully loaded, while on the way home from school. The family was rocked! It was a windfall of stupendous proportions. I was questioned sharply as to where and how the find was made. I carried it off flawlessly, now a hardened prevaricator.

I spent hours peering through the viewfinder, stroking the leatherette hide of my beautiful camera, clicking its shutter and pretending to take pictures long after the reel of film had been shot, by my father of course, at the Company Picnic. No camera I shall ever own will ever be as beautiful as that camera. Somewhere along the years it disappeared, but I’ve never forgotten it.

We sat, Clarence and I, for a long moment after I had finished the story. The Christmas tree glowed cheerily on into the night.

“Yes, I see what you mean. That must have been a beautiful camera,” said Clarence softly, still in the mood of my tale of Evil.

“You know, Clarence, there are times when I fear every knock at the door, that one day an official of the Eastman Company will present himself, with an officer of the law. But I don’t regret it. I would do it again.”

Clarence drained his glass in a salute. “Well said.”

I nodded.

Long after Clarence had driven out into the night I sat and toyed with my new Instamatic, planning future compositions; greater shots than before, then went up to bed. It was a good Christmas.

News item:

Well, I guess it had to come. In this age of Total Nervousness the car that comments on the personal habits of its driver was obviously a logical development. Not that I’m in any way, shape or form an advocate of drunken driving. On the contrary, I agree with any judge who really nails a guy who’s been lappin’ up the soup and kicking around 400
mean horsepower in addition. It’s just that being told by your hardtop GT that you’ve made a horse’s ass of yourself tonight smacks of further evils to come. Why stop with drunken driving? I say. How far can this thing go?

Well, anyone who has really done a hell of a lot of crosscountry driving knows damn well that drinking is only one source of big trouble when it comes to the Clobbering scene. For example, how about battling with the wife? I would like to know the statistics on that one alone, just how many guys have powdered a safety island right in the middle of making the final crushing point in a screaming argument with the old lady over why the hell he acted like he did at his sister-in-law’s house last night. With neck bulging, eyeballs popping, he screams, “God dammit, I never could stand that stupid broad even though she is your sis—” BOOMMM!

Okay, Nader, how you gonna handle that one? After the Martini Meter has been installed universally and the accident rate continues to go up, no doubt someone, after an immensely expensive national survey, will come to the conclusion which we smart asses already know—that there are a hell of a lot of ways to prang a Buick that don’t involve drinking at all. I can see a headline a few years from now:

Naturally, after the installation of both the Martini Meter and the Uproar Meter accidents will continue to climb and
statistics will soar. Nader will be nonplused momentarily but investigations into the causes will continue at spiraling expense. It will then be discovered that large numbers of accidents occur due to guys dozing off behind the wheel. This phenomenon does not necessarily result from a simple lack of sleep. For example, it is a well-known fact that large numbers of people find themselves totally unable to remain conscious in a Plane Geometry class in spite of twenty-two hour’s sleep the night before. Others snooze off almost immediately when subjected to a David Susskind panel discussion. It is a well-known fact that many brains today are permanently in a state of vegetation bordering on catatonic sleep due to a prolonged overdose of unbroken, steady Hard Rock. For example, a driver is hunched over the wheel of his LDX 1750 Zotsmobile, as sober as a judge. In fact, he has refrained from drinking for forty-eight hours before taking the wheel, fully conscious that his car is watching him at all times. He is driving alone since he knows that taking a passenger with him may activate his Uproar Meter. He nervously hunches over the wheel, conscious that at any moment the Zotz may pull the plug on him. Boredom sneaks in. He flips on the radio.