5 The Boy Who Never Grew Up

by David Handler

  Sal went right for Matthew, the better to inspect his bald patch. I’d warned him. He circled Matthew slowly, appraising it. “Hoagy, I’m glad you didn’t call anyone else,” Sal confided. “I don’t think anyone else could save this head.”

  “Can you?”

  “He’ll look fantastic,” vowed Sal, removing Matthew’s glasses. The opticians took them from him and scurried off. They already knew Matthew’s prescription—Sarge had it on file.

  Mr. Tricker, who was under the greatest time pressure, ordered Hollywood’s most successful director to stand up on a small platform so his tailors could begin taking measurements. While they did he and I went through the bolts of suiting he’d brought. There were blues, grays, browns. Glen plaids, pin stripes, houndstooths. I chose a fine, midweight navy blue flannel. Single-breasted jacket. Pleated trousers with cuffs.

  “And will Mr. Wax be wearing braces, sir?” Mr. Ticker inquired.

  “He most certainly will.”

  “What are braces, Meat?” Matthew wondered, blinking at me myopically from the platform.

  “Suspenders, Matthew.”

  “Who, me? No way.”

  “We’ll get right on it, sir,” Mr. Tricker said. “Will he be needing a topcoat today?”

  “That won’t be necessary.”

  “Spread or straight-collared shirt, Mr. Hoag?” asked Nigel, stepping forward.

  “Spread. White broadcloth. French cuffs.”

  We picked him out a paisley tie of burgundy silk to go with it. I left the braces and other accessories up to Nigel. For shoes Tim and I decided on Maxwell’s cap toe balmoral, cordovan. Matthew Wax wore a size 16 shoe, D width, in case you’re interested.

  Sarge watched all of this activity with a smile. It amused her to see her general being pushed and prodded this way.

  “I’m going back to my typewriter now, Matthew,” I announced. “You’re in excellent hands. By the way, did you take care of that other matter we discussed?”

  “What other matter, Meat?” he asked, as Nigel took his collar measurement.

  “You know which one,” I said, glancing over at Sarge.

  He followed my glance. “Oh,” he said, reddening. “I kind of forgot, I guess.”

  “Ask her, Matthew,” I commanded. “I won’t do it for you.”

  “Ask me what?” she demanded, suspicious.

  Matthew cleared his throat uncomfortably. “I—I just wondered if you might have a little free time later this afternoon.”

  “I was gonna play some racquetball,” she said. “But, like, if it’s important I can—”

  “Can you teach me to dance?” he blurted out.

  She drew herself up, a panther ready to pounce. “Say what?”

  “I can’t dance. Will you teach me?”

  “Why me?” she demanded, nostrils flaring. “Think it’s, like, in my blood or something? Got them happy feet?”

  “No, no,” Matthew insisted. “It’s just that Meat doesn’t dance with boys and—”

  “And Arthur Murray’s dead,” I said.

  She weighed this. “Fast or slow?”

  “Slow will have to do,” I said. “I don’t think he has enough time to master the fine points of hip-hop.”

  “You got that right.”

  “I have some tapes in my bungalow if you—”

  “Get outta here,” she whooped. “I got my own sounds.”

  “Then you’ll do it?” asked Matthew bashfully.

  “I’ll do what I can,” she muttered. “But I’m making no promises. Ain’t like I got a whole lotta natural talent here to work with.”

  I left them to it. Spent the rest of the afternoon at the typewriter, doing the job I was being paid to do. The drum banger called again, this time from his posh weekend home in posh Sag Harbor, which is where publishing people go to get away from everything and everyone—except each other.

  “I just came from a cocktail party at Jason Epstein’s.” He was greatly agitated. “Pennyroyal’s editor already has her first five chapters. Cassandra faxes him pages every night to his apartment. He was telling everyone at the party all about it. I didn’t know what to say about how ours is going.”

  “I’m already writing Matthew Wax’s material,” I said. “I can’t write yours as well.”

  “But I don’t have anything,” he complained. “What do I tell people?”

  “I’m sure you’ll think of something. Somebody told me you’re the smartest editor in publishing. Oh, I know who it was—it was you.”

  “But this is the hottest story in—”

  “I’ll deliver it when I said I’d deliver it. Now is there anything else?”

  There wasn’t, so I hung up on him. I was starting to enjoy that.

  At six I dressed. My double-breasted ivory dinner jacket and pleated black evening trousers with the black satin stripe. My starched white broadcloth tuxedo shirt with ten-pleat bib front and wing collar. My black silk bow tie. Grandfather’s pearl cuff links and studs.

  Lulu perked up noticeably. She likes parties. People are cheerful, and there is generally seafood. She wore a white silk scarf around her throat and the beret Merilee got her in Paris. Most sassy, provided you weren’t downwind from her.

  Bunny was outside her bungalow unloading her golf bag from the trunk of her Jaguar. She had on a golf skirt and a cardigan sweater. The bag was big. I asked her if I could help. She didn’t answer. Just gave me as hateful a look as a five-foot-tall senior citizen could give a man. It was as hateful a look as this man has ever gotten, and I’ve gotten plenty. What she really wanted to do was mash me over the head with her mashie. Instead she pulled her bag out of the trunk, slammed it shut, and stomped off toward her bungalow. She’d warned me when we met that I wouldn’t want her for an enemy. Well, I had her for an enemy now.

  If only I could make friends so easily.

  Alberta Hunter was singing “Old Fashioned Love” slow and gentle on Stage One, Fred and Ginger swaying to her in the Hayes’s living room. Lulu and I stood in the darkness, watching. They made some pair. Her in her tube top, spandex shorts, and cross-training shoes, murmuring sweet one-two, one-two-threes into his ear. Him staying doggedly in step, holding her as if she were made of china. Sal had given him a stylish high and tight brush cut that completely masked his bald patch, with the help of a little grease. He had a clean shave for the first time since we’d met, manicured nails, and gleaming new gold-framed glasses. His navy blue suit hugged his long, ungainly frame like only the finest material and custom tailoring can. His fresh white shirt sparkled. His shoes shone. He was every inch the gentleman of distinction. It was quite some transformation.

  Something else had changed, too. The way he was looking at Sarge. I think he’d finally realized she was alive. Alberta Hunter and a new suit will do that to a growing boy. He stared at her as she counted. And kept staring.

  “Why you looking at me like that?” she finally demanded, fiercely.

  “Like what?” he asked, swallowing.

  “Don’t like this no better than you do,” she huffed, as she maneuvered him around the dance floor. “Next thing I’ll be coming in and scrubbing your damned back for you.”

  He was still staring. She was staring back now, her eyes soft and very wary. Shadow knew plenty, all right.

  I applauded them when the song was over. Startled, they jumped apart as if I’d caught them doing something dirty.

  “What do you think, Meat?” Matthew wondered, bashfully modeling his new self for me.

  “I’m not disappointed.”

  “That’s high praise from him,” he told Sarge.

  “Your posse’s on their way home, Hoagy,” she reported. “Pockets bulging.”

  “It was worth it,” declared Matthew.

  I deepened the dimple in his tie for him. “Glad you think so.”

  “He looks okay,” Sarge acknowledged. “I was afraid they was gonna make him look like some bank president. But I guess ain’t nobody can do that.” She
gave me the once-over. “Don’t look so bad yourself.”

  “For a tall, skinny white boy?”

  She smiled. “Just plain period.”

  “And how would you rate your dancing pupil?”

  “He’ll get by on the slow stuff all right,” she replied. “But if it turns up-tempo, get his ass off the floor.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “Thanks for the lesson, Teach,” he said to her.

  “That’s okay,” she said. “Hard to find anyone to dance slow with. Without it turning into some kind of vertical body rub, I mean.”

  “What are you doing tonight?” he asked her.

  “Working,” she barked angrily. “What the hell else would I be doing?”

  “I just wondered,” he barked back. “You don’t have to bite my head off.”

  She busied herself gathering up her tapes. Alberta was singing “Sweet Georgia Brown” now.

  “Ever see her in person?” I asked Sarge.

  “I wish,” she replied. “You?”

  “At the Cookery in the Village, about fifteen years ago. She was in her eighties. Never sounded better. Let’s hit the road, Matthew.” We started out, his eyes fastened on Sarge’s broad, muscular back.

  “Hey, Matthew?” she called after him.

  “Yes, Sarge?” he said anxiously.

  Her face broke into a warm smile. “Knock ’em dead, hear?”

  We took the Batmobile, and I didn’t much care for the way it handled. Strictly a show car. It took us forever to get there. The traffic was slow. I also had to pull over twice so Matthew could throw up. Still, we turned a few heads when we came zooming into the parking lot of the Sheraton Panorama City. And Matthew turned more than a few when we strolled through the lobby, Lulu in tow. Conversations stopped cold. People gaped. The man was Page One.

  There was a big banner over the door to the Blue Room welcoming members of the James Monroe High Class of ’72. Three young women were handing out name tags at a table outside the door.

  Matthew panicked ten feet short of them. “I can’t do it, Meat,” he said, wiping his clammy palms on his trousers. “I can’t.” He was quite pale.

  “You can, Matthew.”

  “Can’t.”

  “All you have to remember is one thing—they’re going to be afraid of you.”

  “But why?” he wondered, baffled.

  “Because you’re famous.”

  “But—”

  “Let’s go, Matthew,” I ordered. “Action.”

  “Hey, that’s my line,” he protested, grinning at me. Then we got our name tags and waded in.

  It was a big room, big enough for two dozen banquet tables, a dance floor, and a stage, where a lite ’n’ easy rock trio was listlessly knocking out a medley of early seventies nonfavorites. A bar and hot hors d’oeuvres buffet were set up against one wall, where about three hundred people were laughing and hugging and gaily getting reacquainted. The gaiety was more than a little forced. It generally is at reunions. This was most decidedly not a gathering of balding, beefy plumbers and their girdled wives. It was a Yushie crowd, a veritable hive of the Young Urban Shitheads. The men looked like personal injury lawyers who did a lot of situps. The women were slim, attractive, and stylish. Several wore sequined minidresses. A few were decked out in Calvin’s stunningly expensive, stunningly stupid military tunic. Things changed noticeably when they caught sight of their illustrious classmate in the doorway. Eyes widened. Jaws dropped. A respectful hush fell over the entire room. I’m used to showing up at places with Merilee. I know the effect a star can have on a room. This was different. This was like showing up at a party with Moses.

  Lulu caught a whiff of crab puffs and headed straight for the buffet table.

  “What do we do now, Meat?” Matthew gulped, a frozen grin on his face.

  “Not a thing,” I replied. “Just wait for them to come to you.”

  And they did. First to approach was a short, powerfully built guy with a jagged scar across his forehead. His wife was tiny, perky, and frizzy-haired. “Mr. Wax?” he said nervously. “You won’t remember me in a million years, but I used to live next door to you when we were kids. Neal Bricker.”

  “I sure do,” said Matthew, awestruck.

  He did indeed. This was the bully he’d nailed in the head with the rock. Neal still wore the scar.

  “I’d like you to say hello to my wife, Phyllis,” said Neal, surprised and flattered that Matthew Wax remembered him. “She’s a big fan of yours. We run a pet supplies outlet together in Glendora.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Phyllis,” Matthew said pleasantly.

  I headed off to the bar to fetch us some champagne. By the time I got there he had been engulfed. His classmates clustered around him, paying their respects, shaking his hand, proudly introducing him to their husbands and wives. Some took snapshots of him. Others asked for his autograph. At first, he seemed genuinely stunned by all of it. But then he started enjoying it. His eyes shone brightly. He was laughing. He was lapping it up. And why not? He’d always wanted these people to like him. And now they did. It had taken Matthew Wax twenty years, but he wasn’t a goon anymore. He was one of them. He was home. And loving every minute of it.

  It didn’t take me long to find her. She was standing over by the edge of the dance floor exchanging kiddie photos with three other women. She was taller than I expected, much taller than Pennyroyal. And the resemblance had faded some over the years. Her features were more pronounced than Penny’s, nose longer, chin more square. Age lines crinkled at her eyes. She was not a great beauty. But she was a striking, handsome woman. She wore a white silk blouse, suede skirt, and black boots. She looked weary. Single mothers tend to. When the other women drifted away, I moved in.

  “Mona, isn’t it?” I asked.

  She smiled, flushing slightly. “Wait, don’t tell me, let me guess.” She looked me over carefully. “Don’t tell me. … I’ll get it. …” She finally gave up, squinting at my name tag. “Stewart Hoag. Wow, the memory’s really starting to go.”

  “It’s not, Mona. I never went to Monroe. I’m here with a friend who did—Matthew Wax.”

  She gasped girlishly. “Matthew Wax came? God, my daughter will die when I tell her. She adores Dennis. Watches it over and over again.”

  “He’d like to say hello to you.”

  Mona brought her hand up to her mouth. “To me?”

  “Yes.”

  She shook her head at me. “No, he must be thinking of somebody else. We hardly knew each other.”

  “He specifically mentioned you.”

  “Are you sure about this?”

  “Quite sure.” I offered her my arm. “Shall we?”

  She hesitated, then took my arm. We started across the room toward him. She stopped. “Wait, is this some kind of prank?”

  “Prank?”

  “They pull all kinds of stuff at these things to embarrass people.”

  “It’s no prank,” I assured her.

  She bit her lower lip nervously. “Look, let me go comb my hair first, okay? I’ll find you.”

  “Mona, there is one other thing—would you dance with him?”

  “Dance with him?”

  “If he asks. Will you say yes?”

  “Well, sure.” She was mystified. “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “No reason. No reason at all.”

  She headed off to the ladies’ room. I went back to Matthew, who was chatting away with a tanned, athletic couple he introduced to me as the Kip Londons.

  “Kip played basketball with me, Meat,” he informed me, with a sly wink.

  “You bet,” said Kip, pumping my hand. “I’ve been telling Andrea for years now we played on the team together.”

  “I’ll bet you guys had your share of laughs,” I suggested.

  “More than our share,” Kip affirmed heartily. “You in motion pictures, too, Stewart?”

  “I am not. What do you do, Kip?”

  “Manage a Wendy
’s franchise over on Lankershim for my father-in-law,” he replied. “We had your sixteen-ounce cups, Matt. Your Yeti cups. Sold a million of them.”

  After he told Matthew how very, very much they enjoyed his pictures they moved along. Matthew and I were alone.

  “This is great,” exclaimed Matthew, beaming happily. “Just great. I mean, they’re the ones who are nervous. I don’t know why I was dreading it so much.”

  “I don’t either,” I said, watching Mona approach him shyly.

  “Hello, Matthew,” she said, tapping him on the shoulder. “Remember me?”

  He froze, his eyes bulging out of his head.

  “Mona Schaffer,” she said. “Mona Thayer, now.”

  He tried to speak but all that came out was a faint whimper. His throat seemed obstructed. “Sure, sure,” he managed to stammer, shaking her hand. “Sure you are. Sure.” He kept on shaking her hand. She looked at him oddly, wondering if he was ever going to stop. He did, finally. “Sure you are. Sure.” He was starting to perspire.

  “My daughter just loves your movies.”

  “Really? How old is he?”

  “She.”

  “I meant she,” he said hurriedly, his teeth chattering.

  “Eight.”

  “I—I have a little boy myself. Six months old.”

  She laughed. “No kidding. I only read about him every day in the paper.”

  “You do?” He seemed surprised at this.

  “Of course, Matthew. We all do.”

  He stared at her, glassy-eyed. He’d run out of things to say. That helpless whimper came from his throat again.

  “I understand you’re a nurse, Mona,” I said, stepping in.

  She nodded. “At the Kaiser Permanente in Woodland Hills. I’m in pulmonary intensive care.”

  “I—I direct movies,” Matthew volunteered.

  She laughed again. “He’s really funny, isn’t he?” she said to me.

  “I think so.”

  Up on stage, the band segued into a perfectly repulsive rendition of Desperado, the old Eagles’ song. It was, however, slow. A few couples were dancing. I nudged Matthew with my elbow. He looked at me inquiringly. I shot a look over at the dance floor. He nodded grimly.