“Over at whose house?” she raised her eyebrows.
“Penny’s. Ack Ack says his father’s going to start charging Ben room and board, he spends so much time there.”
“I hope he’s not planning on charging him more than about fifty cents a week because that’s about all he could afford,” she said.
“Do you like her, Mom?”
“Like who?”
“You know who. Penny. Ack Ack’s sister Penny.”
“Oh, her. I don’t really know her. How could I like or not like her?” his mother asked.
“If you got to know her, you’d really hate her,” Charlie said.
“If Ben likes her, she can’t be all bad,” his mother said.
“Oh, yeah?” Charlie said. “That’s what you think.”
“And I’ll tell you something else. Arthur says if they get married we’ll have to have Christmas dinner together on account of we’ll be relatives and they have their turkey stuffed with a bunch of junk and they don’t like the second joint,” Charlie finished.
Charlie’s mother looked dazed. “Listen,” she said. Then “Never mind. I’ll have to go and think this one through.”
She sneaked away on her sneakers. Charlie and Mary watched her go.
15
“Is Ben there?”
It was Ack Ack.
“No, he’s still at work. What do you want, Ack Ack?” Charlie asked.
“How’d you know it was me?” Ack Ack asked, surprised.
“Oh, I don’t know. I just did.”
“Well, tell him I want to know if he thinks we have to take these cats out and tie on the old feed bag after the concert. Tell him after I get through paying for the tickets, I’m practically out of bread. Tell him I thought maybe we could just say ‘So long, girls,’ kiss them good night, and then toss ’em out of the car in front of their houses and take off.”
“Listen,” Charlie said, “if it was me, I wouldn’t spend a plugged nickel on either one of ’em.”
“I know the feeling well,” Ack Ack whispered confidentially into the phone, “so that’s all right, boy. Just take my word for it, though, Charlie, things will change. I remember when I too was a broth of a boy and the opposite sex was a blot on the escutcheon. But times change, Charlie, and you will find that the girls grow up to be beauteous creatures that have a definite appeal. It is too bad, in my opinion, that they are so expensive. I myself see nothing wrong in the great old American custom of the dutch treat, but I have been unsuccessful so far in my attempts at selling it.”
“What’s ‘dutch treat’ mean?” Charlie asked. Even if half of Ack Ack’s conversation went over his head, he enjoyed listening to him and being treated as an equal.
“That’s when you have the pleasure of the lady’s company and all, but she pays her own way. For everything. Food, drink, movies, concerts, and taxi fare. Or bus fare, if that’s the kind of guy you are. Sort of a women’s lib routine. It’s the only way to go,” Ack Ack concluded.
“It sounds like a good idea to me too,” Charlie agreed. “If I ever ask a girl out anywhere, which I probably won’t, I think I might tell her it’s dutch treat or no soap.”
“You are a smart boy, my friend,” Ack Ack said. “Far smarter than I or your brother or anybody I know, for that matter. Start off on the right foot and you’ve got it made. Treat ’em rough and they love it. Did you ever see that Jimmy Cagney movie where he pushes this grapefruit in this girl’s face and she loves it? Did you see that one?”
“No,” Charlie said. “I know I would remember that if I saw it. That’s one I missed.”
“Next time I see it scheduled on the late late show I will advise you of same. It is one of the great ones.”
“That’d be cool,” Charlie said.
“O.K., sport, now tell Ben I called and tell him what I want answered. You have to decide these things in advance. That way you can be sure there’s no slip up.”
“Right on,” Charlie said, borrowing one of Ack Ack’s favorite phrases. “Done and done. I’ll see he gets the message.”
“I’m splitting,” Ack Ack whispered and hung up.
16
“Sammy, this is my friend Arthur. The one who makes up poetry,” Charlie said. “Arthur, meet Sammy.”
“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Arthur,” Sammy said. “You’d be about a size sixteen, with a thirteen and a half neck, I would guess.” Sammy always liked to make sure which size a person was before he got down to conversation. “I got a very nice three-piece suit here that might be just the thing for you. I happen to personally know that the party I purchased it from has all his garments custom-made. It is a lovely piece of cloth. A Harris tweed.”
“Three pieces?” Arthur said.
“That’s the coat, the pants, and the vest. A vest is a must for the well-dressed man. Not to mention it keeps the drafts off the chest and so cuts down on pulmonary infection,” Sammy said.
The tomcat surveyed Arthur and Charlie scornfully.
“How’s Ben?” Sammy asked. “He still got the same lady friend?”
“Yeah,” Charlie said. “I’m afraid so.”
“A fine young lady, I am sure,” he said. “Would you like to have a look at a new shipment of merchandise I just got in? A couple of nice sport coats, a Norfolk jacket that’s a beauty, and a tie or two that might hit the spot.”
“How are you fixed for hats, Sammy?” Charlie asked. “What I would really like is a black hat like Ben’s, the one like Humphrey Bogart wore.”
“Ah, Mr. Bogart,” Sammy said fondly. “All the customers want a hat like Mr. Bogart’s. They are not easy to come by. A genuine Humphrey Bogart number is a very rare bird, you might say. Not only do you have trouble finding the hats, you have trouble fitting them to the proper person. Not everyone is the type. The hat is no good on the wrong head.”
“You mean if it doesn’t fit?” Charlie asked.
“I mean it’s a question of joie de vivre,” Sammy said.
Arthur and Charlie both looked as if they had been struck on the head with a blunt instrument.
“That’s French,” Sammy explained, not without pride. “It means you ought to have a joy of living, of life, the way Mr. Bogart and those of his ilk did in order to wear a Bogart-styled hat with aplomb. Ben has got the joie de vivre and the aplomb. Maybe you boys will have it, too, in a couple of years.”
“Ben calls it his good-luck hat,” Charlie said.
Sammy nodded approvingly. “That’s about it,” he said. “When he has got that hat on his head, there is nothing he cannot do. It is a state of mind.”
“He doesn’t wear it that much any more,” Charlie said. “Penny, this girl he likes, doesn’t go in for that kind of stuff. I’ve asked him a hundred times if I can have it but he won’t give it to me. He’s a regular dog in the manger.”
“He may get back to it,” Sammy said. “Give him time. I can see his reasons. Even if he doesn’t wear it, he knows it’s there. Now how about a spot of poetry?”
Sammy was prepared. He propped an enormously fat book up on a table cluttered with old clothes. “Sit yourselves down,” Sammy said. “Any place you can find.” He scooped more old clothes off the seat of a dilapidated sofa. “Make yourselves cozy,” he said.
Charlie had told Arthur about what a character Sammy was, about his crossed eyes and the way he liked to size everybody up before he got involved in conversation.
“Ben says he is one of nature’s noblemen,” Charlie had said as he and Arthur walked to Sammy’s, “and I think he is right. He will give you the shirt off his back if he likes you. He is his own boss and he is an honest man, as he will probably tell you. I like to listen to Sammy. He says a lot of stuff you really have to think about. He didn’t go to college, but he is a heck of a lot smarter than lots of guys who did, I bet.”
“We will start with ‘Paul Revere’s Ride’ by Mr. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,” Sammy said now that they were settled. “I want you to listen to the
story it tells. It is about an event that actually happened, which no one can deny.”
Sammy started off: “‘Listen, my children, and you shall hear/Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere.’” And whether it was the way he really got carried away with the poem and his face got red and his eyes bounced around something fierce, or the way his voice rose and fell for dramatic effect, Charlie did not know, but he and Arthur were spellbound.
When Sammy got to the part where Paul Revere springs to his saddle, “But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight/A second lamp in the belfry burns!” all three of them were ready to cheer.
“You would make a neat teacher,” Charlie said as Sammy wiped his brow. “You would really grab the kids’ attention.”
Arthur said, “That old Paul Revere was some gutsy guy, right?” and Sammy nodded agreement.
“Next time I’ll try a little of Lochinvar on you two. Not the whole thing at once, it’s too long, just a little.” Sammy looked serious. “We don’t want to run Lochinvar into the ground before you get the feel of it.”
The bell tinkled and a couple of middle-aged ladies came into the store.
“Excuse me, boys, don’t go away,” Sammy said. “I will tend to the customers and be right back.”
Charlie and Arthur pressed back into the depths of the sofa and the old clothes and listened as one of the ladies explained that she and her husband had been invited to a costume party to which they were to come dressed as characters in an old movie.
“So I got this darling idea,” the lady said, “and I thought my husband and I could go as Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. I have this dreamy dress with feathers and all that I got from my mother-in-law, and it’s straight out of one of Ginger’s movies, and I thought if you had a tail coat and maybe a top hat, why, my husband, he’s a divine dancer anyway, he could be Fred Astaire.”
There was a silence and Charlie could hear the tomcat making noises of displeasure in his throat.
Finally, Sammy said, “I do not happen to have anything of that description at the moment. I am sorry.”
“Oh dear,” the lady said. “I was counting on you.”
“I bet you got plenty of dough for that coat and hat that Ben wanted, didn’t you, Sammy?” Charlie asked when the ladies had left.
Sammy scratched his head.
“I didn’t sell it yet,” he said. “I still got it in the back room.”
“Oh,” Charlie said. “Then how come you didn’t sell it to her?” and he gestured to the door.
“I keep thinking Ben might change his mind,” Sammy said. “Who knows? We all change our minds now and then. It is good for a person to change his mind. It keeps him flexible.”
“Sammy,” Charlie said, “you lied to the lady. You said you didn’t have a top hat and tail coat. I thought you were an honest man.”
Sammy’s eyes came together over the bridge of his nose and he smiled. He didn’t look at all ashamed. “I am,” he said. “I am a very honest man. But we all got to have our little lapses here and there. Now I’ll get out the saltines and put the kettle on. And Arthur, I would be honored if you would read me a poem or two of your own making.”
Arthur pulled out the big envelope he had stuffed under his sweater.
“I just happen to have a couple of them with me,” he said.
17
Ack Ack was uptight. You could tell even before he came in, sat down, and started biting his fingernails. Usually, he said “Ciao,” took out the cigarette he kept behind his ear, lipped it around for a couple of minutes, put it back, hitched his pants legs up and started in on a long, philosophical discussion.
Charlie’s and Ben’s mother enjoyed Ack Ack. He made her feel very sophisticated, she said. Their father said, “I have my doubts about that kid,” and Ben said, “He’s all right. He may seem a little peculiar once in a while but he’s true blue. You shouldn’t judge a person by his appearance.”
The night of the concert Ack Ack wore a modish pair of plaid trousers, topped off by a green shirt with no sleeves, like the top of an old-fashioned men’s bathing suit. He had an ascot around his neck and wore no shoes.
He admired himself in the hall mirror.
“That’s class,” he murmured. His mustache had grown some and he looked more woebegone and pursued than last week.
“My mother’s blowing her brains out about this,” he said, stroking the mustache. “My father says he gives me two days to shave it off, and if I don’t he’s going to sit on my head and do the job himself.”
“Will he?” Charlie asked.
Ack Ack shrugged. “Probably. It gives him a feeling of power to be able to direct my actions to the point where he acts as my barber. If the guy wants to, well, he can shave it off. It is important in his projection of his idea of himself that I be clean shaven. It is a sort of status thing for a guy his age to have a son with no facial hair. He probably raps about it all the time with his peers on the train. The funny thing is, I’ve seen some of those cats when they hop off that old choo-choo and a lot of them have burns and beards and the works. Boy, do they ever look raunchy!”
Charlie blinked. “Half the time I don’t know what you’re talking about, Ack Ack,” he said.
“That’s all right, kid.” Ben came in. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about either, so that makes two of you.”
Ack Ack paced back and forth. “Let’s split,” he said.
“Keep your hair on,” Ben said, combing his own carefully, polishing his loafers with a dirty undershirt. He wore a white shirt, a pair of flannels, and socks with his loafers.
“You’re not going like that?” Ack Ack asked. “You’ve got to be out of your mind.”
It was the socks that got to him.
“You’re going to a concert dressed like that?”
Charlie thought that Ack Ack would probably be ashamed to be seen with Ben.
“You do your thing, buddy, and I’ll do mine,” Ben said, and tilted his good-luck hat off the bedpost.
“All right, sweetheart, let’s go,” he said and all of a sudden he was Humphrey Bogart. “Suave,” he said, “very suave.”
“Square,” Ack Ack said, “very square. How come you let some chick change your whole life-style? Especially some chick like my baby sister?” He shook his head in bewilderment.
Charlie felt like kissing Ack Ack for saying that. Ack Ack had hit the nail on the head. Maybe Ben would listen to him.
“Whose life-style?” Ben asked. “Not mine. I maintain my individuality; you look like everybody else. Ever think of that?”
“I’m getting nervous,” Ack Ack said, unnecessarily. “How do I know this Laurie and I will be compatible? I wonder if it’s worth it.”
“If what’s worth what?” Charlie asked.
“This Mustang. I would just like to get my mitts on it for one brief moment. Get the picture,” and Ack Ack closed his eyes and smiled dreamily, “of me blasting around town behind the wheel of a Mustang.”
“All right, kid, I’m ready. Let’s get out of here,” Ben said.
“What time will you be home, Ben?” his father asked, giving him the car keys.
“Well,” Ben said evasively, “the concert’s over at eleven and then we have to take the girls out to feed them.”
Ack Ack looked pained.
“I thought we decided against that,” he said. “I’m low on bread. I told Charlie to tell you.”
“You can spring for a hamburger and french fries. Do you want Laurie to think you’re a cheapskate?” Ben asked.
“Why not? I am,” Ack Ack said simply. “I don’t want to start off under false pretenses. This chick better get the picture right off.”
“Why not go to one of those cheap hamburger joints?” Ben’s father asked. “What do they cost, ten, fifteen cents? And that includes the ketchup and bun. Surely the girls are worth fifteen cents.”
Ack Ack started to explain why this might not be the case and Ben had to drag him out, still talking, still
waving his hands.
“Your old man is a very understanding guy, for a father,” Ack Ack told Ben.
“Other people’s fathers are always more understanding than your own,” Ben commented and, with a great roaring of engine and blowing of horn, he prepared for take-off.
“Don’t forget those seat belts,” Ben’s mother shouted.
“Your mother’s hollering at you,” Ack Ack said, looking back at the house.
“I know,” Ben answered. “She always does. Mostly she does when Charlie’s in the car, but I guess she feels responsible for you too.”
Ack Ack considered this piece of information. “Why does she do that? Do you listen to her?”
“Sure I listen. I usually smile and wave at her and that makes her feel better. She ought to make a recording and just open the kitchen window and play it every time I drive away.”
“Does she always holler the same thing?”
“Yeah.”
“What does she say?”
“She says ‘Don’t forget to fasten your seat belts’ or a variation of that.”
Ack Ack rolled down the window. He listened for a minute. “You’re right,” he said. “Why don’t we let the girls sit in back and we’ll strap ourselves in up front, just so’s your mother’ll feel better?”
“No,” Ben said. “You and Laurie sit in back. You want to drive that Mustang or not?”
“Oh, I do, I do,” Ack Ack said earnestly. “Hey, slow down, there’s Charlie.”
Charlie was out of breath.
“Mom says to be sure and fasten your seat belts,” he said.
“I know, we are,” Ben said.
“I was just suggesting to Ben that we strap ourselves in front and let the ladies sit in back,” Ack Ack said.
“Hey, Ack Ack, try to pretend you’re chivalrous, even if you’re not,” Ben pleaded.
“You know something?” Ack Ack asked. “I don’t think chivalry is my bag.”
18
“How was it?” Charlie asked. He had tried to stay awake until Ben got home from the concert, but he must’ve dropped off because the next thing he knew it was morning.
The Good-Luck Bogie Hat Page 6