In God We Trust

by Jean Shepherd

  Artistic sights are rare in hamlets of the Midwest, slumbering quietly in the shade of the steel mills, caught in the tangled spider web of endless railroad tracks and groaning under the weight of vast acres of junkyards, but when they do appear the natives respond with voracity. Starving travelers in a wasteland of an artistic desert, they devour each scrap of beauty with a relish that warms the cockles. Tonight was no exception. The Three Stooges forgotten, they stood clogging up the lobby in dark silent clumps of humanity, eyes shining, unbelieving.

  Row on row of radiant, magnificent works of pure beauty lay displayed before them, cushioned on dark, blood-red velvet and setting each observer’s soul on fire with instant desire. They stood, silent, almost afraid to believe the evidence before their very eyes. A simple, tasteful placard spelled it out unmistakably so that even the dimmest wit could comprehend:

  FREE! FREE!

  Beginning next Friday, one piece of this magnificent set of Artistic DeLuxe Pearleen Tableware, the Dinner Service of the Stars, will be presented FREE to each adult woman in attendance. The moviegoer will be able to complete this one hundred and twelve piece set of magnificent dinnerware and enjoy at the same time the finest of movie entertainment.

  Signed by the Management: Mr. Leopold Doppler

  The amber spot played sinuously and enticingly over cascading ledge upon ledge of pearlescent, sparkling, grape and floral encrusted tureens and platters, saucers and gravy boats, celery holders and soup bowls. It was a display potent enough to bring moisture to the eye of a Middle Eastern caliph.

  It would probably have been difficult to knock together a complete set of any kind of dinnerware from among the entire audience of that night. My mother stood gazing at the artistic opulence, her breath coming in short pants, her eyes glowing like coals. Our cupboards were filled with a collection of jelly jars, peanut butter containers, plastic cottage cheese cups, and the assorted eating effluvia of the period. Her prized possession, which she brought out only for State occasions, was a matched Shirley Temple sugar and creamer of dark blue glass. Our silverware consisted of Tom Mix spoons, Clara Bow pickle forks, and a Betty Crocker bread knife with rubber handle and cardboard blade.

  Dish Borrowing and Dish Bringing were major social customs in the neighborhood. It was well known that my Aunt Clara had a set of six matched Mexican-motif coffee cups which she carried with her for any full-scale family ceremonial dinner. My mother, on the other hand, was the owner of a magnificent white meat platter with tiny violets spilling over the edges that had provided the underpinning for every turkey dinner in the family for years.

  The effect of the Orpheum’s incredible offer, hence, was galvanic. The word spread like the bubonic plague, and by the end of the week of waiting the air had become tense and fretful. It was as though the whole town was waiting for Christmas morning, which, like all great days, approached slowly and creakily.

  It was announced in the local paper that, along with the first Free Dish offering, Tarzan and the Pygmies would be shown, along with Selected Short Subjects. Doppler was going all out!

  Friday morning dawned crisp and clear. By 7 P.M. a nervous serpentine line wound its way halfway around the block, past the poolroom, the Bluebird Tavern, Nick’s Hardware Store, and almost to the Willys-Overland showroom, a full football field length away from the Orpheum. Our family, about halfway back in the mob which had begun to gather early in the afternoon, was surrounded by a great waiting mass of suspicious skeptics. It was hard to believe that it would really happen, that a real dish would be given out free just to watch Tarzan and Lady Jane swing from the vines, and another paralyzing fear gripped the waiters—would the dishes run out before we got inside?!

  Rumors spread. The Pearleen DeLuxe display was a phony, just a come-on, and the dishes we’d get would be cheap, hollow reproductions of the truly beautiful original.

  Finally the doors opened and the mob surged forward. The Box Office roared with activity as we pushed and stumbled toward the marquee. Just inside the door Mr. Doppler and two ushers stood, packing cases stacked behind them, handing out to each lady a beautiful, gleaming butter dish.

  What a start! Doppler, the master showman, realized that a smash opening was imperative for the success of any Big Time act. He could have opened with a prosaic cup or saucer, but his selection of a butter dish as an opener was little short of total inspiration. Handing a butter dish to housewives who came, almost to a woman, from Oleomargarine families was masterful. In fact, few people in the crowd had ever even seen a butter dish before and some had to be told how to use it. My mother, a reader of Good Housekeeping, recognized the rare object for what it was, a symbol of Gentility, Good Taste, and the Expansive Life. She was delighted. And my kid brother had to be forcibly restrained in his desire to look at it and feel it.

  We were Oleo people, and my mother would mix the white, lard-like butter substitute in a glass mixing bowl, adding coloring from the gelatin capsules which accompanied the package. We always referred to this as “butter,” and it was invariably served on a cracked white saucer used only for that purpose. Our new butter dish was a step into the affluent world of the twentieth century.

  Mr. Doppler beamed, his black suit crinkling as he clanked out butter dish after butter dish, distributing largess to the multitude.

  “Next week there’ll be a different piece, lady,” he said over and over.

  “Maybe a bun warmer, who knows?”

  Thus he insidiously planted the seed in the mind of each butter-dish clutcher that next week could be even more Exotic. The hackles of desire rose even higher as they filed into the darkened auditorium.

  “What is a bun warmer?”

  “You warm buns in it, you idiot!”

  Snatches of complex Table Etiquette debates drifted back and forth as the mob went up the aisle, butter dishes clanking.

  The Tarzan movie began. The popcorn bags ripped open, and the evening was complete.

  As soon as the kitchen light went on, even before my mother had taken off her coat after the movie, she feverishly slammed open the refrigerator door and the butter dish was put into action. Loaded with Oleo, its Pearleen finish lighting up the linoleum for yards around, it rested in the center of the white enamel kitchen table. Dish Night had come to Hohman, Indiana.

  The incredible news of Mr. Doppler’s largess spread through the neighborhood almost instantly. Over back fences, through tangled jungles of clotheslines, up alleys, into basements, up front porches, into candy stores and meat markets, the winged word spread. Red, chapped, water-wrinkled hands paused on clothes wringers and washboards; bathrobe-clad figures hunched over sinks nodded in amazement. Neighbors trooped into kitchens all over town to observe firsthand the beautiful works of art that somehow had come into our lives.

  The following Friday the Orpheum drew crowds from a three-county area, a jostling throng that stood in long expectant lines to see Blondie Takes a Trip starring Penny Singleton and Arthur Lake and to receive as compensation for that trial by fire a Pearleen-finish Bun Warmer. Mr. Doppler did not fail his public. Bun Warmers flooded Lake County in a massive deluxe Hollywood Finish tide. There were few buns to warm, but the Calumet region was ready.

  The movies, and the Orpheum in particular, had never known such total and complete popularity. It was more than popularity; it was verging on True Love. The other movie in town, the Paramount, desperately tried to stem the rising tide of Mr. Doppler’s popularity. A huge, glowing sign appeared on their marquee announcing that they were prepared to offer free a 187-piece set of Movieland Mexican Plasto-Ware, designed personally by Gilbert Roland and including his permanent, indelibly embossed, raised signature on each and every piece. It was too late. The incandescent Pearleen beauty of Mr. Doppler’s dinnerware had a grip on the aesthetic fancy of the population that was unbreakable. A whole new dimension had been added to Art Appreciation in Northern Indiana, and even Gilbert Roland was swept under.

  The first evening we actually used our bun
warmer was a red-letter day in the family annals. Mr. Doppler was in the saddle and his power grew from week to week as each succeeding piece was added to the growing collection that began to gleam from practically every kitchen cupboard in town, crowding jelly glasses and peanut butter jars further and further and further to the rear.

  The third week saw the first cup and saucer combination, a two-piece bonus. The fourth week a petite, delicately modeled egg cup, the first ever seen in the Midwestern states. Week by week the crowds grew larger. The tension mounted as piece after piece was added to family collections.

  Speculation was rife as to what the next week would bring. Doppler usually just hinted as he and his aides passed out celery dishes and consommé bowls.

  “Maybe next week an Olive Urn, with pick.”

  He never exactly said it would be an Olive Urn, with pick, just hinted. A sort of question. Well, the audience would squirm in their seats as the sound track engulfed them, speculating, already anticipating next Friday.

  The weeks flew by. The town was hooked. They had the Free Dinnerware monkey, a 112-piece specimen clamped on their backs and growing heavier every week. Ladies in the last stages of childbirth were wheeled into the Orpheum, gasping in pain, to keep the skein going. Creaking grandmothers, halt and blind, were led to the Box Office by grandchildren. Ladies who had not seen the light of day since the Crimean War were pressed into service. They sat numbly, deafly in the Orpheum seats, their watery eyes barely able to perceive the shifting, incomprehensible images on the screen, their gnarled talons clasping a sugar bowl for dear life.

  I remember particularly the night we got The Big Platter, as it became known in our family over the years. The Big Platter—a proper name, like The House On The Hill, The Basement, The Garage. The Big Platter was important. There was only one Big Platter in every complete set of dinnerware, the crowning jewel in Doppler’s diadem. For weeks we had filed past the magnificent display in the lobby and there in the exact center, catching the amber spots, glowing like the sun, was The Big Platter. And tonight it was ours!

  One of the saddest sounds I have ever heard was the crash in the darkness as some numb-fingered housewife, carried away by a brilliantly executed scene by Joe E. Brown loosened her grip in laughter. A sudden panic and her platter was no more, scattered in a million Pearlescent slivers among the peanut shells and Tootsie Roll butt ends that formed a thick compost heap underfoot. Recriminations, suppressed sobs, and the entire family rose and filed out, their only reason for being there gone in a single split second. My mother held ours with both hands clamped over her chest in a death grip.

  Few of us at the time realized in the exultation of the moment that the end of the party was already in sight. Without warning one night the patrons were handed a finely sculptured grape-encrusted Gravy Boat. This windfall was greeted with hosannas in our innocence.

  The following week a strangely furtive Doppler dealt out to each female patron another Gravy Boat, all the while mumbling something over and over about:

  “The shipment was wrong this week. You can exchange this Gravy Boat for a dinner plate next week.”

  Vaguely uneasy at this unexpected break in the rhythm of dish collecting, the women filed into the theater, bearing redundant Gravy Boats.

  The third Friday was significantly marked by a sudden avenging rainstorm that grew in intensity until, as the Orpheum hour approached, it became a genuine cloudburst. Women scuttled through the dark, howling rain, carrying paper-wrapped Gravy Boats, to be met at the turnstile by Mr. Doppler and a shamefaced crew surrounded by cases of more dry, shining Gravy Boats.

  “Bring all your Gravy Boats in next week. We will positively exchange them next week. The shipment.…”

  The tide had turned. What had been, weeks before, a gay rabble of happy ticket buyers had become a menacing, pushing, dispirited mob.

  All through that fourth week a strange quiet hung over Lake County. Even the weather seemed to reflect a sinister mood of watchful waiting. Fitful dry winds blew across the rooftops; screen doors creaked in the night, dogs bayed at the sullen moon, and children cried out in their sleep.

  That fourth Friday turned unexpectedly cold, a chill, clammy cold somehow suggestive of the Crypt; mysterious tombs, deserted caves. Solitary dark-clad women bearing shopping bags full of Gravy Boats converged on the Arena.

  By 7 P.M. a murky clot of humanity milled under the marquee and spilled out raggedly along the gloomy, shuttered street. The doors remained shut. Seven-five. Seven-ten. A few in the forefront of the rabble tapped demandingly on the wrought brass gateway. Seven-fifteen. It was obvious that something was up. Seven-twenty, the doors finally, reluctantly, swung open.

  As the vanguard approached the turnstile, they knew the worst had come to pass. For the first time in many weeks Mr. Doppler was absent from his post of honor. Two weedy substitute ushers, unknown strangers, eyes downcast, handed to each ticket holder another Gravy Boat, the fourth in as many weeks. Each Gravy Boat was received in stony silence, quietly stuffed into shopping bag or hatbox, completing a set of four carried hopelessly for exchange.

  The feature that night was The Bride of Frankenstein, the story of a man-made monster that returned to pursue and crush his creator. For long moments the house lay in darkness and almost complete silence, waiting for Mr. Doppler’s next move. On this night no gay music played through the theater loudspeakers. No Coming Attractions. The candy counter was dark and untended, as though Mr. Doppler himself felt the impending end near.

  The mothers waited. A sudden blinding spotlight made a big circle on the maroon curtain next to the cold, silent screen and then, out of the wings stepped Mr. Doppler to face his Moment of Truth.

  He cleared his throat before speaking into the ringing silence. No microphone tonight. He seemed to have shrunken somehow, his eyes erased by black shadows in that blue light. His tie was a little crooked and for the first time scuff marks and dust marred the gleaming toes of his black pumps. His coal black suit was vaguely rumpled.

  “Ladies.” He began plaintively, “I have to apologize for tonight’s Gravy Boat.”

  A lone feminine laugh, mirthless and arid, mocking, punctuated his pause. He went on as though unhearing.

  “I give you my personal guarantee that next week.…”

  At this point a low, subdued hissing arose spontaneously. The sound of cold venom landing on boiling lava began to rise from the depths of the void. Doppler, his voice bravely raised, continued:

  “Next week I personally guarantee we will exchange all Gravy Boats for.…”

  Then it happened. A dark shadow sliced through the hot beam of the spotlight, turning over and over and casting upon the screen an enormous magnified outline of a great Gravy Boat. Spinning over and over, it crashed with a startling suddenness on the stage at Doppler’s feet. Instantly a blizzard of Gravy Boats filled the air. Doppler’s voice rose to a wail.

  “LADIES! PLEASE! WE WILL EXCHANGE.…!!”

  A great crash of Gravy Boats like the breaking of surf on an alien shore drowned out his words. And then, spreading to all corners of the house, shopping bags were emptied as the arms rose and fell in the darkness, maniacal female cackles and obscenities driving Doppler from the stage.

  High overhead someone switched off the spotlights and Frankenstein flickered across the screen. But it was too late. More Gravy Boats, and even more. It seemed to be an almost inexhaustible supply, as though some great Mother Lode of Gravy Boats had been struck. The eerie sound track of The Bride of Frankenstein mingled with the rising and falling cadence of wave upon wave of hurled Gravy Boats. Outside the distant sound of approaching Riot Cars. The house lights went on. The Orpheum was suddenly filled with a phalanx of blue-jowled policemen.

  The audience sat amid the ruin, taciturn, satisfied. Under the guidance of pointed nightsticks they filed into the grim darkness of the outside world. The Dish Night Fever was over, once and for all. The great days of the Orpheum and Leopold Doppler had passed fo
rever.

  Somewhere a million miles away a short man with a funny mustache, in a trench coat, was starting the cameras a-rolling for the next great feature, which was to star all the Male kids in the world.

  The doors of the Orpheum never opened again. Mr. Doppler disappeared from our lives forever, leaving behind countless sets of uncompleted Hollywood Star Time Dinnerware, memories of Errol Flynn, stripped to the waist, climbing the rigging of a Pirate barkentine; George Raft, smooth and oily under a white, snap-brim fedora surrounded by camel’s-hair-coated henchmen, Bobby Breen and Deanna Durbin on a rose-covered swing, with Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald waltzing endlessly under Japanese lanterns; José Iturbi at a piano made of ivory and mirrors playing great rhapsodies before thousand-piece orchestras in a perpetual MGM Grand Finale. Doppler had done his work well.

  “Do you want me to warm up your cup?”

  The counterman snapped me back from Screenland abruptly. Before I could answer he moved away. I knew what I had to do. Stealthily, moving like a cat, in one quick motion I swept the damp green bowl into my zippered briefcase. In my booming John Wayne voice, to keep him off my trail, I barked:

  “Well, gotta push off.”

  I slapped a buck on the counter and quickly scuttled out with my priceless objet d’art concealed under my arm. For a brief instant I almost panicked as I thought I heard the sound of the high, tinny voices of the Andrew Sisters singing “Roll Out the Barrel” from my attaché case, but it was just the buzzing of a leaky neon-sign transformer.

  An instant later I was out on the Turnpike, jaw set in my widely applauded Claude Rains smile, the hard-earned result of hundreds of hours logged in secret practice before the bathroom mirrors of my Adolescence, carrying with me safely a relic that would confound and bemuse as yet unborn future generations of anthropologists, a mute, lumpy Rosetta Stone of our time.