The yips of puppies greeted my ears. Mother picked out a jet black little guy, a Miniature Poodle. She paid the portly lady and home we drove.
Mortified, I said nothing. A poodle. How could she? Poodles belonged to old ladies with butterfly sunglasses, rhinestone jewelry and high-heeled sandals parading up and down Collins Avenue in Miami Beach.
The little fellow curled up and slept in my lap.
“Does Dad know about this?”
“He will when I pick him up from work.”
“Mom?”
“Well”—her voice rose a tone—“the right dog completes a lady’s ensemble.”
“Oh.” No point arguing that one. “Greyhounds are elegant.”
“And big, and they chase anything, including Skippy.”
“Yeah, I forgot about that.… A Clumber Spaniel?” I loved those Clumbers.
“Hair is too long. A Miniature Poodle will suit me fine.”
“You know that they aren’t really miniature. Mom. This dog will get to be the size of a Toy Schnauzer.” I petted his little head. “Maybe fifteen pounds.”
“Big enough to get out of the way, small enough to handle.” And she added, “They’re very smart, so you can train him.”
“Okay,” I agreed weakly.
She hummed the whole way home, breezed through the door, picked up the phone and invited her sister over.
She greeted Sis with rapture, making Aunt Mimi suspicious. Then Mother walked into the kitchen which she’d blocked off to keep the puppy confined, scooped up the puppy and showed it to her sister.
“You always have to be first!” Aunt Mimi flamed out of there.
“Jealous,” Mother giggled.
Fortunately, poodles originally were hunting dogs. I felt better when I learned that. And he was smart. I taught him the basics and I taught him to fetch the paper. Mother loved that dog. She wore her poodle sundress a lot. She began finding poodle scarves, poodle costume jewelry, you name it. Mother became heavily empoodled.
Dad liked the dog, too.
Aunt Mimi, spiked to a competitive pitch, bought an expensive Pekingese. She spent a lot more than she’d intended. Chin had a pedigree as good as that of Bold Ruler, a fabulous Thoroughbred. Black Sunshine, Mom’s dog, although handsome and well put together, was not well bred.
What a sight they were, strolling through the Sunrise Plaza shopping center, then brand spanking new, with their canine alter egos. Aunt Mimi favored a thin leash with rhinestones on it to match the sparkling red collar Chin wore. Mother thought male dogs should never be exposed to rhinestones, for it might affect their sexuality. Black Sunshine, a butch poodle, wore a rolled leather collar.
The two dogs often got along better than the two sisters.
On those trips to the shedrows, Sunshine stayed with me on his leash. He liked horses.
Aunt Mimi, who made a show of opposing gambling, allowed Mother to cajole her into attending the races one time. She won over two hundred dollars. She and Mom sang “Shine On Harvest Moon” part of the way home until their voices pooped out. They’d shouted themselves hoarse at the races.
Aunt Mimi’s new car (white—the only intelligent choice in Florida) had a good radio. They turned it on and we all heard Elvis Presley for the first time. “Hound Dog” delighted the sisters. One of the lines, “You ain’t nothing but a hound dog,” became one of their refrains. Mother read about Elvis. She adored him. Aunt Mimi said he was singing “race music,” but then proceeded to listen to every new single he released.
They loved him. Patsy Cline, Tennessee Ernie Ford and Dinah Shore. They bickered about how fat Kate Smith really was and vied with each other singing “When the Moon Comes Over the Mountain” complete with tremolo.
We’d be strolling down Las Olas Boulevard, Sunshine and Chin keeping pace.
Mother would start, “Ginger Rogers.”
Aunt Mimi would counter, “Eleanor Powell.”
“Cyd Charisse.”
“Ruby Keeler.”
“Ann Miller.”
“Isadora Duncan.”
“Can’t use her.” Aunt Mimi stopped in front of the preppy women’s clothing store that sold tassel Weejuns, a kind of loafer.
“Why not?”
“She didn’t dance in the movies.”
“You’re saying that because you can’t think of anyone else.”
“Ha.”
I dropped twenty feet behind them. I’d reached the age where I didn’t want to be seen with my family, anyway, and when Mom and Aunt Mimi wound up for a donnybrook I really didn’t want to be around.
I walked into the store and tried on tassel Weejuns, size 7B. They were twelve dollars. I had five, which I’d saved from my lawn mowing. The rest I had put in the bank.
Old Maine Trotters, Weejuns and tassel Weejuns were the shoes of choice. If you couldn’t afford them, you could pass muster with a pair of white sneakers, no socks. If you wore socks in Florida, that meant you were a major weenie. Couldn’t carry an umbrella, either, no matter how hard it rained.
I left the store and ran after Mother, who was deadlocked with Aunt Mimi over dancers.
“Mother, will you lend me seven dollars?”
“Seven dollars?”
“I need tassel Weejuns and I only have five dollars.”
“Will you clean the jalousies?”
This had to be one of the most hateful jobs in Florida. Jalousie windows have thin louvers of heavy glass, exactly right for the climate, but a royal pain to keep clean. It required three to four hours in the hot sun to soap them up and wash them down, and you couldn’t use the hose or you’d soak the inside of the house.
“I’ll do them today.”
She reached into her skirt pocket and pulled out the money.
“Hey, Pick.” She smiled. “Put your best foot forward.”
“Oh, Mom.” I ran back and bought the shoes as those two laughed at how clever they were.
When I emerged from the store, shoe box in hand, I didn’t join them immediately, but walked behind, watching them. I wondered if I would grow up to be like Mother. Surely this is a fear that strikes terror in the heart of every female when she takes her mother’s measure.
I swore I wouldn’t. Never. Not for a skinny minute would I be like Juts.
Ha.
30
School Daze
Does anything interesting happen in junior high? If so, tell me. I missed it.
31
Pluperfect
Passing and repassing, a southern ritual, slows you down while loading you up with all the news that’s not fit to print.
Mother and Aunt Mimi excelled at trolling through town. They were newcomers, but their church work and political affiliations catapulted them to the center of activity. Then again, Fort Lauderdale in those days was a sleepy town; there wasn’t but so much activity. Drowsy though it was, the inhabitants could be counted upon for their share of drunkenness, car wrecks and desultory infidelity. Naturally, Mom and Aunt Mimi wished to hear every syllable even if they weren’t on a first-name basis with the culprits.
I unwittingly supplied them plenty to comment on. The time came when the boys no longer enjoyed my whipping them at baseball and football. My arm alone could make a coach weep. My gender made him weep even more. I could throw anything with accuracy. A lot of good it did me.
Nothing could induce me to join the swim team after eighth grade. Since the school in those days had no swimming pool, we practiced in the Atlantic Ocean. If nothing else, it made us tough. That salt water was cold at six-thirty in the morning, and swimming parallel to shore with the tide sucking you in and out built strong swimmers. After an hour of that we showered at the open showers on the beach, threw on our clothes and hitched a ride back to school. In the afternoon we used the Casino Pool for the miserable drill of wind sprints. My lungs burned even as my teeth chattered. My lungs gave out before my muscles did.
The other thing I loathed about swimming was that I couldn’t see m
y rivals. Well, the chlorine turned one’s hair green, but I could have lived with that. I swam freestyle and butterfly and the only reason I hung on as long as I did was that it only cost me a bathing suit.
Finally red-rimmed eyes and chilly mornings forced me to look for another “girls’ sport.”
Dad dragged me to a driving range. The guy handed me a bucket of balls and showed me the proper grip on the rented golf club. I teed up and whacked that sucker out to the last numbered card. I blasted every ball I could. A few veered to the right, which infuriated me, but most of them sailed straight out and not very high, just like a rifle shot.
The fellow in the little booth allowed as to how I might have some talent. I didn’t want to play golf, though. For one thing, it was much too expensive for us. For another, I associated it with old men in kelly green pants with embroidered whales on them.
The only sport left was tennis, which I thought was another weenie sport. At least I could run around and hit things, but it seemed so tame compared to football and baseball. However, if my parents didn’t find some channel for my energy, I’d drive them crazy—or worse, run off to Hialeah and try to breeze horses. This thought scared Mother half to death, quite apart from the family history concerning riding.
The danger involved in sitting atop a flying twelve-hundred-pound animal was, as you might expect, exactly what attracted me.
Wherever you find the footprint of a Buckingham, Young, Finster or Zepp, you’ll also find a hoofprint. My great-uncle Johnny ran a Thoroughbred stable in Green Springs, Maryland, right after World War II (or maybe it was before the war). At that time, the great state of Maryland (and it is) brimmed with tracks. Johnny kept good foxhunters on the side and went out with Green Springs Hunt, too, really a grand hunt. The law busted him for making book and he lost everything. He sat in the pokey for a while.
Today, they call it off-track betting and the state controls it. So much for free enterprise.
Mother came by her gambling naturally. I don’t think she feared that I would gamble because I have no inclination in that direction. I might gamble with my life but I won’t gamble with money.
But long before Great-Uncle Johnny cooled his heels in a Black Maria heading for jail, our family trained horses, sold them or showed them. I wonder if that first Thomas Buckingham, running from Cromwell, wasn’t really a horse thief. Aunt Mimi must be spinning in her grave that I could even think such a thing. Face it, no one suffered an Atlantic crossing in the seventeenth century unless life had turned unbearable in the old country. What Aunt Mimi told me was that as the younger son, Thomas wouldn’t inherit. Well, he could have gone into the church or the military, but Thomas must have had a skeleton in his closet. In the beginning, of course, we were all Europe’s rejects and Africa’s captured. What a strange beginning for a country.
But underneath, I think. Mother worried that I’d go bad at the track even though she was the one always depositing me there. She frantically searched for some new focus.
The first time I saw the Southside tennis courts, next to Southside Elementary School, I nearly laughed. Of packed red clay, those courts had withstood the abuse of many feet. Except at the yacht club and the country club, there were no other courts. These were public ones.
The skipper of this pathetic ship was a vigorous, good-natured man named Jim Evert. A little bowlegged, heavily muscled, with jet black hair and sparkling eyes, he’d stand out there in the grueling sun teaching classic flat tennis strokes. As some of you know, with the classic stroke (as opposed to, say, a topspin forehand), you have little margin for error, but the payoff comes when the ball hits your opponent’s court. That baby will fly.
I had no money for lessons. I watched him. I’d saved enough from mowing lawns to buy a racket from Sears. It cost eleven dollars and was called a Blue Ribbon. It was awful.
Armed with this poorly balanced, nylon-strung block of wood, I would pick up old tennis balls and go onto the courts at the end of the afternoon. I’d serve.
But Jimmy Evert, unknown to us kids, was no ordinary tennis pro. Oh, we knew of his titles, including winning both singles and doubles titles at the Canadian Open in 1947, but we didn’t know the sweep of vision he possessed. He convinced the city fathers that Fort Lauderdale needed first-class public courts. Lighted courts. As Southside was away from the center, why not place them in Holiday Park, which was a better location? This was great for me because it meant I could walk to the courts, whereas I had to take a bus to Southside.
Fort Lauderdale built eight clay courts with a green surface. No lights. Those came later. The place was packed morning, noon and night. Within a few years the city added more courts.
The best part for me was the backboard. I could hit to my heart’s content. Dad bought me a month’s membership, which I think cost fourteen dollars. I didn’t know if anyone would play with me.
Jimmy, stern on the outside and a real sweetheart on the inside, found an older gentleman who would hit with me. The fellow was German and a baker. He lavished attention on me. I loved him. I called him Otto to torment him.
Pretty soon other people asked to hit with me, mostly men. I was off and running.
If I lost my temper, Jimmy would haul me off the court. I’d sulk. He was very strict and so was Colette, his engaging, extremely pretty wife. Standards were high. You measured up or you shipped out.
One Saturday I got so mad at myself I threw my racket on the ground and broke it. That fast I was off the court. Jimmy told me not to come back until I repented.
Repented? I was in anguish. I didn’t have the money for another racket. Bad though it was, the Blue Ribbon was all I had. I fought back the tears and trudged home to disgrace because Jimmy had called my mother.
People paid close attention to children then. If you were reprimanded at school or at the tennis courts, you were bound to catch holy hell at home. If someone like Jimmy eighty-sixed some cherub today, God only knows what would happen. Chances are the enraged parents would engage a lawyer.
Mother tore me a new asshole, she was so mad. Then Dad, who didn’t raise his voice, voiced his disappointment. That hurt even worse.
Aunt Mimi, Uncle Mearl, Russell and Julia Ellen also gave me the benefit of their thoughts: I was a jerk. I thought they were going to take out an ad in the Fort Lauderdale newspaper.
But Otto and my other hitting partners showed me once again that my life is full of loving surprises. I didn’t know that Mom knew Hans (Otto’s real name). He baked at the downtown store for the Stevens brothers.
At that time he must have been nearing seventy. His abundant hair, glimmering white, set off his bright blue eyes. He had the square build and chin of a Bavarian. He loved to talk about Germany before World War I. Europe must have been idyllic then, between the Franco-Prussian War and World War I. He fought in the First World War, then suffered the punitive peace that paved the way for extremists. When Hitler came to power, Hans left with a little bit of money. He couldn’t speak English, but he learned fast. His wife died when he was in his fifties, and for whatever reason he hadn’t the heart to find another partner.
Mother paid little heed to my athletic gifts. She couldn’t see where they benefited a girl, and realistically she was right. There were no athletic scholarships for women, nor was there respect for talent except for those few men who liked to see a good athlete compete regardless of sex. Hans convinced Mother that I should stick with tennis.
Never one to throw away an advantage, Mother laid down her conditions. “This only goes to show that you need cotillion.”
“I said I would go.”
“I know. I enrolled you for spring.”
“That’s a year early. I can’t go to catechism and cotillion at the same time.”
“You can and you will.”
I did.
Hans and the guys bought me a Jack Kramer, 4⅝ grip (I liked big grips), strung with Victor Imperial gut. If I misbehaved again, they’d take back the racket.
&nbs
p; Counting to ten became a necessity, but I didn’t throw my racket again.
Tennis delighted me. Cotillion didn’t.
The guardians of manners, many of whom were UDC (United Daughters of the Confederacy), had bosoms like flight decks. They’d bear down on you at forty knots. If one of those ladies had slammed into me, I’d be blind. These were the days of rocket-cone tits. Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe reigned.
I poured ice-water “tea” until my biceps bulged. Bring the cup to the pot, never the other way around. Stand when a married lady enters the room. The guest of honor sits at the right of the head of the table. Never wear navy blue before Easter or white after Labor Day.
The rules, memorized and repeated, separated quality people from riffraff. Riffraff was starting to look good to me. After all, Elvis was riffraff, but Mother insisted he had manners. He did, too.
Added on to the weekly session of deportment came the introduction sessions. “May I present Rita Mae Brown to Your Majesty.”
I curtsey.
Her Majesty slightly inclines her head and moves on. She may or may not shake your hand.
After Her Majesty comes Her Royal Highness. Oh, God, the endless drills. I longed for Her Lowness.
Finally, the pièce de résistance (I emphasize résistance): the Christmas Ball.
It was held at the Governor’s Club, then the most fashionable hotel in Fort Lauderdale. Each year, various groups would decorate the ballroom, engendering hot competition among the Junior League, the Professional Women’s Association, the Pilot Club, and so on.
My first Christmas Ball truly was beautiful. The theme of red and white transformed the ballroom into a winter fairyland, and since there was no winter, the fake ice and snow surrounding an enormous ice sculpture of a reindeer with a red nose was fun.
You had to glide through the receiving line. The mayor was in it. If a lady, you positioned yourself somewhere in the open and waited for young men and boys to fill your dance card. This could be agony, and I imagine it was agony for the boys too. Large fathers resplendent in tuxedos quietly forced boys to sign up to dance with girls they didn’t want to go near.
Rita Will_Memoir of a Literary Rabble-Rouser Page 15