by Robert Ward
“Your stomach … You rub your stomach.”
“So? I rub my stomach. Lying about what, smart ass?”
It’s not like Walter to say “giggles” or “smart ass.” He is quiet and poetic, but lately we have both been influenced by the language of Baba and the gang. On some days I feel myself turn fat and soft. Feel my legs get short and dumpy. Then I know that Baba has taken over my speech, my style, all of me. It’s a transformation just as great as when we pretended we were cowboys on the hill. Greater. For this transformation is involuntary, and brings with it guilt and fear.
“Let’s be honest,” I say. “I got sick after what we did at the shopping center. At the time it was funny. But … it wasn’t really, you know?”
I am trembling as I speak. It is no good for a delinquent to have a conscience. I will not drink water, and Warren will become so dry he cannot speak to me from my chest.
“It was funny,” he says, not looking at me. “I thought it was then, and I still do. The way that lady looked. Don’t be sorry about it. She would have done the same to you. Like Glenn and Freda. You know that. They want one thing. To turn you into them. Little replicas. Don’t be soft.”
I am overwhelmed. I want to fall in the dirt in front of Walter and beg forgiveness for my candy assness. I want to run into a Golden Age Club and knock around domino players. I will strangle my own grandfather. Hot flushes are all over me. I have to stick with my friends. We are rebels. We are a brutish, unstoppable force.
“Yeah,” I say to Walter. “Yeah, yeah.”
“In fact,” says Walter, lighting a cigarette and popping a Benzedrine pill, “I think it was so funny that I’m going back down the shopping center tonight to see it again.”
“Well, screw you,” I say.
Oh my God. Why did I say that? I grab my chin, shut my lying mouth.
But now something strange happens. Walter is rubbing his stomach furiously. And he is saying to himself over and over, “Yeah, jes go right down there and see it again and again. Every night. Gonna do those old people in.”
And I feel lightheaded. Walter is Kirk and Baba. I am Kirk and Baba. Glenn is Freda. I am Kirk and Baba and Freda. The sun is in the sky. The sewer water rushes from the pipe, foul, brown and clogged with old tires, candy wrappers and rubbers. And I sit still, sit very still, listening to the incessant, terrified beating of a heart. But whose heart? Whose?
X.
The End of Innocence and All That
I am downtown in Hutzule’s Department Store with Kirk and Randy. We are into our heavy shoplifting phase. For the occasion we wear inconspicuous sweaters with school letters ironed on the pockets. Shoplifting is full of ritual and deep emotions. You begin by sticking a magazine inside your shirt. My choice is Pro Football Highlights, which features many action shots of Johnny Unitas. Just lately, Johnny Unitas has started giving me cold sweats and erections. After copping the magazine, we glide into the Record Nook. On the walls of this department are pennants from all the high schools in the area, and black cardboard musical notes, which look as if they could leap to the floor and entertain you. After looking out of the corner of our eyes, we pick 45s off short, round racks (reminiscent of Baba Looie’s cock, so delightful in the shower after gym class). We carry the records into listening booths and put them inside the stolen magazine. I place mine next to a picture of Johnny Unitas warding off monstrous Negro linemen and imagine juices secreting from each groove.
Then it happens. Randy sees it first and reports his wisdom to me with great relish. His small eyes (set like frozen peas in a round of red pork) glisten and dance. His chubby chin trembles and jumps as if pulled by wire. He is ecstatic to have scored a first because he lives entirely through me. On many days he will mindlessly repeat every witticism I utter. Often I will set a designated number in my mind and when Randy repeats that number of my sayings I will give him the Fingee. It is a cruel and barbarous torture, the Fingee, and makes maximum use of Randy’s gullibility. I ask him for his fist, promising not to squeeze it hard. Then I press the bent, pink fingers into his palm, which sends massive waves of pain up Randy’s portly arm into his always surprised face. Randy submits to this indignity because Kirk, Walter and I constantly tell him I am a genius.
But today, I must admit, Randy has turned a trick. He tells me in his best Arkansas Ecstatic voice:
“I seen yo’ daddy over in the corner wif his arm round some ole girl.”
“Thank you thank you, Randy,” I say, placing my hand over his sweating fist. After Randy turns red, I tell Kirk.
“Traumatic,” says Kirk, completely detached. He is much too busy trying to make time with the salesgirl, who wears lace dickeys and possesses a gigantic pair of tits.
Hiding behind Ladies’ Lingerie, Randy and I observe my father. He is indeed with another woman. She is Delores Conklin, secretary of the Waverly Methodist Church. My father is affecting a sporty look. He is wearing a black cardigan with red trim and silver buttons. On his long head is a plaid racing cap which is set at a jaunty angle. From his mouth hangs a pipe. He thinks he is Perry Como. His right arm is tossed casually over Delores’ broad back. I am terribly disappointed with his style. Delores looks like a Polish ham smothered in some gooey brown sauce. Or like Mother Freda.
After waving good-bye to Kirk, who has managed to get himself behind the record rack and is fondling Miss Tits, Randy and I follow my father to the street. He stops next to Delores and hails a cab. He is a nervous wreck.
Because of heavy traffic, we are able to follow the lovers on foot. The cab turns up Cathedral Street and pulls to a stop at the Hotel Albion. Delores springs from her seat. I now notice a dying yellow flower sagging from the lapel of her pea green suit. As they hurry into the lobby, she leaves a petal trail.
“Whad we gonna do?” says Randy.
“Teach my father the virtues of faithfulness and the responsibilities of fatherhood,” I reply.
“Whad?” says Randy.
“Get your money ready, Randy.”
After a suitable waiting period, we enter the lobby. It is exactly as I would have pictured it. Wonderful old men staring into the past beside rotted palms, forlorn reception desk from 1936 motion picture. The room clerk is another cliché. He pretends ignorance of the matter, suggesting a tip from my father. I use my basso buffo voice and tell him that my uncle is Judge Surrento from criminal court, which is true. I show him a press clipping (which I have with me at all times, even now) of the judge handing down long sentences to members of a Baltimore crime wave. This impressive fact enables us to obtain the room number and a personal escort to the freight elevator. Before we enter the elevator, Randy hands the man five dollars.
“Why did you give the man five dollars?” I ask, as we move through the gloom.
“Ya sade git ma money ready,” says Randy.
I patiently explain to Randy that the money was to be given only in the event that the clerk did not fall for the bluff. I apply a wicked Fingee. Randy screams.
Once on the fourth floor, I get a drink of water from an ancient fountain. Randy asks me, “Whad ya gonna do?”
“Patience, Randy.”
I wait for a full ten minutes, sitting on the dusty hallway runner, reading about Johnny Unitas and how he can win games in the last two minutes. True to form, I break out in the cold sweats and feel the beginnings of an erection. At the end of a paragraph full of players’ testimonials concerning Johnny Unitas’ ice-water veins, I rise. I ask Randy to slap me in the face. He mutters that he cannot do it because I am his friend and a genius. I demand it. Randy looks down at his feet, which point in opposite directions. He still cannot do it. I take his hand and squeeze until his face turns red and past red to white. He grits his small teeth and slaps my face with great violence. Tears spring from my eyes. Chills tear my body. After hiding Randy in the stairwell, I rap madly at room 45.
“Daddy, Daddy,” I say in a voice suggesting controlled panic. “What are you doing in there?”
&nb
sp; “Oh God,” whispers my father from the other side of the wall.
“Daddy, Daddy,” I say, much louder now and high-pitched like a bird screaming over the death of her young.
“Jesus God, Glenn,” says Delores Conklin.
“Dadddddddddddeeeeeeeeeee,” I yell with blood-curdling accuracy.
“Dadddddddddddeeeeeeeeeee, how could you? Mother was such a nice girl. She coulda married the missionary.”
Now I am kicking the door, scraping at the transom, throwing myself all over the hall.
“Dadddddddddddeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.”
I jiggle the bronze doorknob, burst into the lovers’ room. Delores Conklin’s bra is hanging off her shoulders. My father is making futile efforts to put on his pants. Both of them are chanting that there are some things a boy just can’t understand. I roll around on the rug for a while, gasping wheezing moaning. Oh, I say to myself, this is joy, this must be joy.
XI.
Clothesline
It seems impossible, but it has happened. The Colts have lost. The setting was perfect for Johnny Unitas. Two minutes to play, the Redskins ahead fourteen to ten, the Colts with the ball on their own forty yard line. A perfect pass from Johnny Unitas to Raymond Berry, who makes an amazing tightwire snare at the sideline, two disgusting Redskin backs hanging on his shoulders, puts us on their twenty. Kirk gives a knowing nod, and I leap up, the cold sweats pouring over my body ten times worse than a junkie’s cold turkey. First fucking down, with one minute thirty-two seconds showing on the scoreboard clock. During time out, I walk through the knotty pine section of Kirk’s basement to the dingy storage room and put my head in the freezer. The sweat dries on my body as I take deep, deep breaths.
Action resumes. No gain on a line plunge. I am scraping my face and making small noises from my stomach. It’s clear what my beloved Johnny U. is up to. Keeping them honest for the slant-in pass. I see it before it happens. Down and out, and then in, like a gazelle. The ball will float over the grubby hands of Redskin linemen, sail through the maze of terrified Redskin defenders, into the waiting arms of whoever Johnny has decided will gain the moment of absolute glory.
I feel the erection pressing my black Levi’s to the bursting point. The Colts are up in formation. I hear Johnny’s voice bark the signals, the cool stiletto syllables fracturing the despicable spirits of those thirty thousand Redskin rooters. He is back in the pocket. He is setting up. My pants are on fire, I tell you. Oh God, he is crushed. Smothered by a mammoth wall of Redskin fat. The dust clears. The cruel linemen stalk back to their side. Jesus fucking Christ, he doesn’t move. He lies still, frozen in time. Not moving. There is a flurry of activity, a stretcher. The word itself is enough to make me bite my wrist, which I do until blood comes from small holes.
“They can’t,” I say, tears drowning me.
“Dig Ward,” says Kirk.
“Ha Ha Ha,” says Walter.
My friends circle around me. Their faces are distorted into blowfish. I am beside myself with grief. I stand quivering from the bottom lip, aware that I am the laughingstock, but too horrified to care.
“Agh, agh” is all I am able to muster. The distorted faces dance around me, pointing and shouting. From far away, as if from a tunnel, I hear grim Chuck Thompson announcing the worst.
“And the final score is Washington Redskins fourteen, Baltimore Colts ten.”
His metal voice goes on to relate the Unitas injury.
“It is impossible to say how bad John was shaken up on the play. We can only pray that he has the wind knocked out of him.”
Kirk is in focus now. He is pretending to fade back for a pass. Walter is lumbering after him, his arms raised above his bleating face. Kirk is mocking Johnny U. by making whimpering cries of terror.
“No pleathe Mr. Redskin do not harm me.”
I cannot stand it. I feel a bomb, old and rusty, explode in my head.
“You rotten inhuman bastards,” I yell, feeling like a complete fool.
They are deaf to my pleas, and continue their obscene play, Kirk getting more frantic in his defense. He falls to his knees and begs Walter not to hurt him, swears he will call Walter’s mother if he “lays one silly hand on him.” I feel myself storm across the room, leave my feet at high velocity. My body parallel to the ground, like Jim Thorpe’s flying wedge, my arms out like Don Schinnick as he clotheslines a Green Bay Packer. I crash into them, smash them into the television. Kirk’s arm slams through the screen. Walter cracks his head on a picture of Kirk’s brother, Chuckie, a grim Marine. I stand above them and feel like Superman or Johnny Unitas after a four-touchdown afternoon. The blood is racing through my body. My chest is growing inches of solid muscle.
“That’s for Johnny U. and the Baltimore Colts,” I say. Then I turn and begin my long walk down the ramp, away from the defeated jackals. I am Weeb Ewbank after the 1958 championship game.
Unlike Weeb, I do not make it. Something clips me from behind. There is a forearm smash to my nose and a huge pileup in the center of the room. I am scrambling for my life, looking for an opening, as cleats stomp my face. Where the hell is the referee? Fifteen yards here for sure. I manage to gain my balance and stiff-arm Kirk as he swoops in for the kill. I am streaking for daylight; the stands go wild. Then the lights go out, deflated footballs spin through gray smoke, all of the Town of Thatched Rooves watches my burial out beyond the flaming grandstand.
When I come to, I see a tree limb in front of a yellow light. Am I on the training table? No, it’s the moon. I try to rise but every muscle has been ripped, every tendon torn. It will be weeks before I am able to move. Where am I? What’s up?
The stars are out above me, cold winds push across my bleeding legs. I think that I am in a little park not far from my home. It seems important to stay awake, and I pull out a couple of blades of grass and tickle my eyeballs. I figure that if I irritate myself enough, I will not fall into a frozen coma.
After I fall asleep, I dream of myself in a long white room, a hospital ward, I suppose. On the walls are films of the Baltimore Colts. Five movies running simultaneously, with the sound tracks overlapping one another, until all that can be made out is one high-pitched scream. Next to me, propped up in traction, is Johnny U. He lies very still, staring blankly at the movies. Nurses walk by, dressed as cheerleaders, occasionally stopping to spread their white legs for Johnny. He smiles and says “Down set.” They begin to take off their clothes and fall upon him, but he stops them and points to me.
“I’m crackers over the Bobby boy. Make love to him and I’ll watch.”
“Thank you, wonderful Johnny U.,” I say, as the movies flash on and on….
My dream is interrupted by Kirk and Walter, who offer me their hands. I tell them that it is simply half time and I am just taking a breather. They merge into one face, tell me that they had no choice but to clothesline me. I see the cheerleaders behind them. Johnny U. passing a ball from the tops of trees. The wind is sweeping over me, old programs from 1948 Colt games piling up beside my eyes. I come awake for an instant as they drop me, like old, scarred equipment, into the back seat of Kirk’s car.
XII.
In Which Somebody Misses the Point
I walk into the living room with my box of records. It’s a red plastic box with a gold snap and inside it are jewels gold rarest pearls. Ah, those 45s: Specialty labels—black and yellow with Little Richard screaming “Tutti Frutti” or “I Hear You Knockin’ “; Sun labels—yellow and brown with Carl Perkins doing “Blue Suede Shoes” and “Honey, Don’t”; ABC Paramount labels—black with a twisting red snake across the letters, and Danny and the Juniors doing “Rock ‘n’ Roll Is Here to Stay” and “At the Hop”; RCA—the label is austere but they have Elvis Presley and I remember the first time I heard “Heartbreak Hotel.” Even though it was just a year or so ago it is already a moment with instant nostalgia, infinite wonder. I was sitting down the basement listening to the “Buddy Bean Show” and they were playing a lot of bad stuff
(Kay Starr doing “Rock and Roll Waltz”), and then Buddy said, “Yes, that was Kay Starr, but now I’ve got something a little different for you, something that could make a mighty big splash in Hitsville, and here it is, a newcomer to the scene, folks, but one we here at WZX think just might be around a long time.” And then they put it on. Strange is the only word I can think of to describe it. Strange, and desolate and lonely, and that was fine with me, because I was feeling that way myself, lost in my fantasy world again. That song opened it all up to me. Not only Elvis but all the records I had, and have collected since, seem to take on gigantic powers, secret misty visions, or brash cartoon miracles, and they flash on-off in my head every time I play them—pictures and whispers, and groans, a weird magic which never fails no matter how many times I play them. These are more than records. These are the Real World.
So I sit down in front of my pink square plastic 45 automatic magic maker and put on a stack. The putting on of records is a ritual that is so deep with hidden significance that I break out in a sweat every second. Tonight I want to compare Gene Vincent with Elvis and Carl Perkins. So I put “Be-Bop-A-Lula” on and then “Boppin’ the Blues” (Perkins) and finally “I Got a Woman” by Elvis. I will listen to all of them, make faces when the gritty guitars really start to wind up; I’ll feel strong and deep and real. Yes, and maybe I’ll add another Sun record, Warren Brown’s “Ubangi Stomp.” It’s new, and it’s a typical Sun special. For every company has its own mystique, much greater than the mere sound. With Sun records you picture hot dusty towns, and maybe Carl Perkins’ girl friend is out in that town, doing it up without him, and you can see it all, every bit of it. Or maybe Warren Brown is actually in the jungle and he is stomping his feet, and the Captain is there next to him, and you are there too, without a doubt, without a care in the world. Yes, next to my Town there is only one thing of any significance—my records. For after this night of listening to them I will lie in bed and the Town of Thatched Rooves will be even more substantial. I will see everything with a crystal clearness. Music makes all the buildings stand out. Sun City and my Town are one in that moment, and there can be no threats from Fernando Roush, none at all.