Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories (25 page)

“How ‘bout a Coke?”

“Maybe later.”

We sat numbly together in the rickety seats. Comparative calm reigned for half a reel or so, and then the final collapse of the evening began. During a tense moment on the screen—in dead silence as John Wayne waited for the attacking rustlers to come over the hill, the audience crouching forward in nervous anticipation. Daphne herself showing discernible signs of interest—a low rumbling began. At first I thought it was a DC-3 flying over on its way to Chicago. It got closer and closer, louder and louder. It seemed to come from all directions at once, a low bass thrumming. It grew in volume. In the dark, my palms turned to ice. Oh God no, not now!

My stomach was rumbling! It was a great joke in the family that when I missed supper, or a meal was late, the old gut would bang it out like an anvil. As the roaring gurgle sighed off into the distance like a freight train crossing a viaduct, the voice behind me, still on the muscle, barked out:

“Cut it out, ya slob!”

More cackles. Daphne cleared her throat

“Excuse me,” I said.

After all, I didn't want the Bigelows to think I wasn't well brought up. My gut settled down to its regular idle after the first clarion blast and continued muttering throughout the movie.

I had always taken the Orpheum for granted. All of it. But now I began to notice things that I had never been
aware of. Somewhere off behind us there was a continual flushing of plumbing. I could hear the projector whirring, accompanied by the low-voiced, nonstop argument between the two operators. I hoped Daphne didn't notice. But she caught something else.

“Certainly smells funny here.”

“What d'ya mean?”

“You don't notice?”

“Oh, yeah. Yeah. Sure.”

After all these years coming to the Orpheum, how was it I had never before been aware of all those feet? I sat quietly, sorting out scent after scent, hoping desperately that Daphne didn't recognize most of them.

The picture neared the end. John Wayne told Charles Bickford, the cattle baron, how he'd have to move on ‘cause he was the roamin' kind. I knew it was now or never. My fingers crept softly over my knee, over the armrest, poised in the dark for a moment and then dropped slowly over Daphne's exquisitely modeled hand. For a few seconds we sat unmoving; her fingers, cool and smooth, nestled in my sweaty palm. I stared straight ahead, afraid to break the spell. Even my stomach stopped rumbling out of respect for this magic moment. Ahead of us, the tangled couple had fallen into a comatose state, lulled perhaps by satiation or maybe by the tender sentiments of
Hearts Aflame at the Old Corral.
Thus we sat to the final frame, the last slanting rays of the Western sun outlining a lone rider galloping into the distance.

The lights came up. Unfastening our hands, we moved
together back up the aisle and out into the glare of the marquee. Welders, steam fitters, kids, old men wearing black hats pushed and shoved around us. The Cadillac waited. Raymond at the wheel. Daphne said the first thing either of us had uttered for hours, it seemed:

“That was certainly a very interesting place. I'm really glad you brought me to it. Do you come here often?”

“Nah. I just thought you might find it interesting.”

“Well, it certainly was.”

We were back inside the chariot. Already its rich dove-gray aroma seemed homey and familiar to me. I was about to instruct Raymond to wheel us down to the old Red Rooster when Daphne said in a small voice:

“It's certainly late, isn't it? I had no idea how late it was.”

Raymond, without a word, turned his battleship against the traffic and we headed back toward the North Side. For a few moments nothing was said, as the limousine hummed silently along. The heady excitement of social triumph surged through me. Stealthily my hand crept like a predatory spider over the soft mohair, closer and closer to Daphne, as I whistled a few snatches from the Hohman High Victory Song. Raymond tooled on, coolly, discreetly, as the trees grew higher, the privet hedges appeared and the neon signs receded.

Closer and closer. We touched! For a single quivering instant, and then quietly she drew her hand away, laying it in her mysterious lap.

“Did you finish that caterpillar drawing?” she asked.

“Caterpillar drawing?”

“In lab.”

“Oh, yes. You can copy it Monday.”

We rode on in silence. I groped frantically for some feeble straw, some last bit of flotsam to cling to, to keep the conversation going. It was no use.

“I sort of like Mr. Settlemeyer,” she said finally.

“He's all right, I guess.”

We pulled in the drive, up to the veranda and stopped. Raymond whipped the door open. This time I knew how to get out. Daphne took my hand and shook it, the second time it had happened in the same night!

“I've had a very lovely time, and I want to thank you.”

“I had a great time, too. It sure was great.”

“Raymond would be glad to drive you home.”

“Oh, no, I'll walk. I live just a few blocks over, on Harrison,” I lied spectacularly.

“Well, see you in class. Good night.”

She was gone.

“Sure you don't want a ride, Bud?” Raymond had changed.

Without a word, I turned and walked down the long curving asphalt drive between the flower beds, under the trees, past the stone sundial, the iron gates, the white sign that read
BIGELOW
, out into the night, walked in my electric-blue sports coat, my hated, rotten, crummy electric-blue sports coat, its padding squishing and banging against my shoulder blades, its hem flapping against my knees, walked with my long, fluttering tinfoil noose with its monster snail crawling up and down—my despised, ridiculous tie—walked in my booby, pleated, sacky clown
pants, walked in my Tony-Martin-collared, French-cuffed, miserable, jazzy shirt. Walked and walked

I had struck out. My old man had struck out. My mother had struck out. Even my kid brother had struck out. I sailed my Tom Mix lucky charm off across the street toward a delicate, lacy gazebo and walked on, mile after mile, through leafy streets, under catalpa trees, eventually past lurking pool halls, taverns, junk yards, used-car lots. I never knew it was so far to the North Side. Finally I walked under the Bull Durham sign, past the Bluebird, up the back steps, through the screen door and into the kitchen. It was then I remembered for the first time that the invitation to the spring ball was still in my pocket.

I breathed in the aroma of red cabbage, spilled ketchup, fermenting Brillo pads, my mothers Chinese-red chenille bathrobe. Opening the refrigerator, I peered into the yellow, fragrant interior. A dish of peas from last week, a meatball with a bite out of it, what was left of a baked ham, a plastic container with some pickled beets. Home. Smelly home.

Grabbing the meatball, I stuffed it in my mouth, washing it down with milk from the bottle, and was about to rip off a piece of ham when the kitchen light blasted on. Her hair in curlers, her bathrobe hanging limply, my mother beamed sleepily.

“Did you have a good time?”

“Sure did.”

“Were you nice to them?”

“Yep.”

“Well, that's nice. I don't want them to think you aren't well brought up. Well, hurry to bed.”

“OK. Night.”

I finished the food, snapped off the light, stumbled through the dark into my bedroom, removed my repulsive sports coat and my pleated slacks—smelling faintly of sherry—and threw them in the corner next to my baseball bats. I sat on the edge of my bed in the dark. A sparrow rustled under the eaves outside the window. In the next room my kid brother muttered in his sleep. The sink burped moodily. The refrigerator chugged and squeaked. I thought briefly of that long table, with all the crystal and the maid touching things here and there. I wondered idly if Esther Jane Alberry had gotten her invitation to the spring ball yet. Then I lay back on my lumpy mattress and finally fell asleep, but not without a struggle.

“Kongratulations upon buying such a fine products! You have choosed wisely upon procuring our very fine patented (Pend.) devices. The guarante which accompanies herein is unquestionably good for one year or less. If fuse is not twisted? Note base of green color is not easily found to be crackable. To operate correctfully merely plug into standard U.S. (A.C.) two pronged electrics (110 V.). Immediately your Deluxe Yule A-Go-Go Tuneful Musical Revolving Puncture-Proof Table-Model Aluminum Xmas Tree should begins function. (Deluxe Model 2-A is capable of being folds. If excessive care is observed. This provide storage.)”

I reread the directions, which must contain somewhere a clue to the technical trouble I was experiencing with my sparkling little Japanese-made aluminum beauty, a triumph of modern science over the tuneless, nonreusable, old-fashioned Christmas tree of yesteryear. The only trouble was, the damn thing squatted there dark, mute
and unrevolving in the middle of my winter-streaked picture window overlooking my beloved wasteland of Manhattan, even though I had taken every precaution to make sure it was plugged into the correct electrics. Maybe my Yule A-Go-Go is polarized, I thought, with my usual technical know-how, on which I pride myself as an ex-GI.

Dropping to my knees, I crawled laboriously behind my Danish Folding Swing-A-Ding Coucherama, inching forward toward the only electrical outlet that my entire high-rent, three-and-a-half-room apartment supported I plunged my hand into the giant rat's nest of three-way, five-way, nine-way extensions and plugs, by dint of which I managed to squeeze out enough electricity from my one outlet to run my entire life. From somewhere in the distance, deep in some murky air shaft, came the faint strains of recorded Christmas music. I jiggled the plugs, reversed the green one from my Yule A-Go-Go and crabbed backward from behind the couch.

Nothing. Returning to the tree, I picked it up and examined it from all sides in the gray light that filtered in from what passes for a winter sun in the big city. There were no knobs, no switches, no unseemly mechanistic protuberances. Aha! Again my brilliant technical mind leaped in excitement as I spotted on the underside of the Christmas-green polyethylene base what appeared to be the head of an embedded fuse. Quickly I scanned again the thinner-than-tissue-paper sheet of instructions. A single phrase leaped out at me: “If fuse is not twisted?” Do they mean to
twist
the fuse or
not
to twist the fuse? Since my Yule A-Go-Go wasn't yet playing carols and
suffusing my apartment with a festive aura of soft Christmas lighting the way the ad said it would, I deduced that they must mean to
twist
the fuse.

Squinting closely at the base, I observed that the fuse was recessed well below the surface. It would require more than my fingernails to do the job. In a frenzy of creativity, I rushed out into my kitchen, where I kept my meager supply of tools, fished out my dime-store pliers and returned to the fray. As I grasped the base firmly in one hand, the pliers in the other chomped solidly onto the head of the fuse. I gave it a smooth and clean twist.

For a single instant I felt the Christmas tree stir under my grasp, its tiny red, yellow, blue and green lights flaring brightly. The high, thin notes of “I'm dreaming of a white Christmas” bounced off the ceiling. Then a dull, roaring sensation boomed up my arm, crashed into my shoulder, down my spine, hovered for a moment in my pelvic region and then whinged out through my other arm. For a moment, I stood frozen; then I toppled through a cloud of billowing smoke—striking my head smartly against the arm of my burnt-orange Naugahyde Barcalounger—and lay for a full minute, during which I had the clear impression of being on a skiing trip in the Alps, which is rather odd, since I am resolutely anti skiing. Tentatively, my mind gradually groped back into focus and I knew the worst. I had just voided another guarantee.

I crawled to my feet, my silken dressing gown still smoldering slightly, and staggered over to the couch. I sat down heavily, flicking my wrists, attempting to
restore some circulation. It was a little early in the morning for shock therapy, I reflected. Christmas decorations lay scattered about me. Absent-mindedly, I examined a plastic bag containing two sprigs of neoprene mistletoe. In red, Christmasy lettering,
PLASTOKISS
splashed across the gay bagging. Well, at least you don't have to plug this stuff in, I mused.