Going to Chicago Page 4

  “Holy Toledo,” he said. “I don’t know.”

  Before we’d flown through Maumee, we’d used “Holy Toledo” in dozens of stupid jokes like those. I even pretended to cry and when Will, knowing another stupid joke was coming, asked, “What’s the matter, Ace?” I said, “I want my Maumee!” We laughed like hell some more and then I said “Holy Toledo” for real. There, struggling behind one of those old hand lawnmowers was a magnificently breasted girl. She was wearing a pair of tight-fitting dungarees rolled above her knees and her blouse was sticky with her wonderful sweat. I blew her a grand kiss. She blew one back. If girls in a so-so town like Maumee were that bold, God almighty, I thought, what must those Chicago girls be like?

  We stayed on U.S. 20, passing through Caragher and Assumption, Oak Shade, Fayette, Alvordton, Ainger, and Columbia. Will made us stop and pose for a picture by the “Welcome to Indiana” sign. When it was clear no cars were coming we took a leak in the ditch. Will fished through the groceries for a roll of toilet paper and headed into the corn. I waited a minute then followed with his camera. Clyde followed me. We found Will, pants down, eyes squeezed, doing the silent grunts. I hid the camera behind my back and advanced, doing my famous mad dog imitation.

  “Jeez, Ace, don’t start that now,” he pleaded. His shit was tumbling out. I produced the camera and snapped. “Jeez. Quit wasting my film!”

  I took another picture. “I thought you wanted a photographic record of our historic pilgrimage to the World’s Fair? I think we’ll call this one ‘Will down in the dumps.’”

  Will duckwalked toward me. “Give me my camera.”

  “Will down in the dumps,” Clyde repeated.

  Will wasn’t the least bit amused by my prank. I started to feel like a pile of shit myself. I handed him the camera. Clyde repeated “Will down in the dumps” all the way back to the Gilbert SXIII.

  In the Army Air Force I noticed a peculiar thing about men taking shits. All the urinals and crappers in the barracks were right out in the open, no walls for privacy, so what you did was there for all to see and hear and smell. Now men don’t mind pissing in front of each other. You can talk and tease and do just about anything you want when a man’s draining his chain. But don’t mess with a man taking a shit. Urinating is a communal celebration of brotherhood. The more pissers the merrier. Shitting is a private thing. A man is never more vulnerable, never closer or farther from God, than when bent low. If you encounter a man shitting, pretend he’s invisible. Go on about your own business.

  I wished I’d known all this that day in the cornfield. At least we let Will wipe in peace.

  “Just north of the Twenty-third Street entrance, a great 200-foot tower rises. It is a thermometer, perhaps the largest the world has ever seen, and it accurately tells visitors the temperature in Chicago.”

  OFFICIAL GUIDE BOOK OF THE WORLD’S FAIR

  Five/Green Inside

  We crossed the Indiana line at 11:30, just as Will planned. It was already so hot you could almost hear the cornstalks sucking up dirt. We flew through Ellis and Angola, where we stopped to gas up. Next came Brushy Prairie, Plato, Lagrange, and after an unexpected jag in the road that almost toppled us, Shipshewana. We all liked the sound of that place and thought up dozens of jokes about it. Finally Will said, “Well, you wanna?”

  “Wanna what?” I said.

  “Stop and brew that first pot of roadside coffee.”

  “Now you’re talking,” I said. I landed the Gilbert SXIII by, what else, a cornfield, and after Clyde’s bad ear was squirted full of medicine we looked around for some wood to burn. We found a few dry briars but that was all. I put my new pot from Ruby & Rudy’s away. We each ate an apple. Pledged we would stop for that coffee the first available firewood we passed.

  Elkhart and South Bend were both big towns. When we flew through New Carlisle, I wondered where Old Carlisle was. We laughed like hell. Then Will announced we’d just crossed into the Central Time Zone and that we’d gained that free hour—an hour we’d unfortunately have to give back on the way home. He was as excited about changing time zones as a moon-bound astronaut breaking free of the earth’s gravitational pull. He reset his watch and proudly showed me the new time.

  Bootjack was about the best sounding name for a town we ever heard. It was between Bootjack and another nub of a place called Rolling Prairie that we passed a farmer selling melons and tomatoes in his front yard. I landed for a look.

  The old farmer, as white and dry as a bedsheet on a clothesline, was sitting up on his porch reading the paper. We strolled over to his pile of melons. Will began eyeballing them and thumping them with the skill of a jeweler. The old farmer, almost angry that his reading had been interrupted, meticulously folded his paper and shuffled down the lawn. He spat a drop of his precious saliva as he stopped and studied the Gilbert SXIII and its Ohio plates. “You boys be from Ohio, I see.”

  Will held up a melon. “These ripe?”

  “Of course they be ripe.”

  Will was nobody’s fool. “They don’t thump like they’re ripe. They thump green to me.”

  Again the farmer spat. “You boys be from Ohio all right. These be Indiana melons. Don’t thump like Ohio melons.”

  “They sure look the same as Ohio melons.”

  The farmer contemplated a third spit but sucked it back. “Well, they may look the same as Ohio melons. But these be Indiana melons. Thump totally different.”

  I could see the stubborn resolve rising in Will’s blinky eyes. He rapped the melon with his knuckles. “They still thump green to me.”

  The farmer took the melon away from him. “Ohio folks make that mistake all the time.” He gave the melon a slap. “Here that? That’s the thump of a ripe Indiana melon. A very ripe Indiana melon.”

  While Will and the farmer dueled over the melons, a swell-looking yellow Auburn stopped across the road. Twelve-cylinder job. Bright yellow. Acres of dusty chrome. Behind the wheel was a fellow in his twenties, smooth-faced and skinny. Looked like he was wearing an expensive new suit.

  He had a smart fedora on his head, brim dangerously cocked. Next to him was a woman. She was young and almost pretty, powdered face, bright red lips. Her hair was yellow as the car. Her dress was flimsy and gaudy, open neck, sleeveless, pink roses on black. They both started primping in their door mirrors.

  The old farmer eyed the Auburn and its occupants, spat, and went on. “Pity we don’t have no Ohio melons to compare. You boys didn’t bring any with you, did you?”

  Will smoothed back his pompadour in frustration. “Why would we be buying Indiana melons if we had Ohio melons in the car?”

  Clyde and I were watching those two in the Auburn primp more than we were watching Will and the old farmer dicker. I was especially watching the woman. Even fifty feet away I could smell her perfume. “Pity,” I heard the farmer say. “If you had an Ohio melon with you, I could demonstrate just how different they thump.”

  The man in the Auburn gave the brim of his hat one last tug and then reached into the backseat. Brought out a double-barreled shotgun.

  Will nervously checked his watch. The melon standoff was putting us behind schedule. “All right,” he said. “How much you charging for these Indiana melons?” He reached down the front of his pants to retrieve the money hidden in his underwear.

  The farmer wasn’t quite sure what he was fishing for. “Quarter each.”

  Will brought his hand out empty. “Quarter? They’re only a dime in Ohio.”

  The man and woman got out of the Auburn. The man rested the shotgun over his shoulder. They strolled up the lawn.

  “Dime’s about right for an Ohio melon,” the farmer said. “But Indiana melons be a lot sweeter that Ohio melons. Worth a quarter. If not more.”

  We were all watching the man and woman from the Auburn now. They stopped in front of the melon pile. The man slowly lifted the shotgun from his shoulder. Pumped both barrels into the melons. Melon guts went everywhere. Clyde grabbed his ear and s
ank to his knees.

  While the woman smiled at us, the man calmly reloaded both barrels. “You know, Mr. Farmer man,” he said. “I think these here Ohio boys are right about these here Indiana melons. They do look pretty green inside.” His voice was as mushy as Cream of Wheat. He was a hillbilly for sure.

  Amazingly, the farmer was not deterred by this crazy man. “Now that’s the peculiar thing about Indiana melons,” he told him. “They don’t lose that green when they get ripe, like the melons of so many other states.”

  The hillbilly fired another shell. This time into a basket of tomatoes. It exploded like a shithouse full of dynamite. He pointed his gun in the general direction of the farmer’s head. “You know what, Mr. farmer man? I think you should give these boys all the free melons they want. Only a suggestion from a stranger, of course.”

  The farmer carefully considered the hillbilly’s suggestion. “All right. If they want ’em, they be more than welcome.”

  We piled as many of those free Indiana melons as we could into the back of the Gilbert SXIII. As we did, we watched the farmer empty his change purse into the hillbilly’s patient hand. I especially watched the hillbilly’s girl suck the juicy meat out of a tomato.

  The hillbilly tipped his hat to the farmer and strolled toward us, shotgun back on his shoulder. The woman and her tomato followed. I knew from the way her hips swayed that jazz music must be playing in her head. “Hope you boys enjoy those melons,” the hillbilly said.

  All three of us were twitching. “I’m sure we will,” Will answered.

  I threw in an “Absolutely.”

  The hillbilly grinned. “I’d give them a day or two in the sun.”

  Clyde looked sideways at him, his face twisted with puzzlement and pain. “Ain’t you gonna rob us, too?”

  Will smoothed out his pompadour again. “Jeez, Clyde.”

  The hillbilly grinned even wider. “You boys rich?”

  “No sir,” Will said. “We’re anything but rich.”

  “Then I won’t stick you up. But if ever you are rich and I run across you, I’d be obligated to steal every nickel you had.”

  “We won’t ever be rich,” I assured him, trying not to watch the tomato juice drip off his girl’s powdered, strawberry-shaped chin.

  “Not if we can help it,” Will added.

  The hillbilly’s grin vanished. He shifted his shotgun to the other shoulder. His voice went up an octave. He became what in those days I considered to be philosophical. “That’s just the problem,” he began. “Rich just runs in some people’s blood, no matter how poor they start out in life. Guy ain’t got two nickels to rub together one day, and the next his pockets are full of other people’s money.”

  “Really?” asked Clyde.

  “Sure. Take me for example. I started out one of the poorest sons-a-bitches you ever saw. And look at me standing here now. Fifty-dollar suit of clothes and a matching ten-dollar hat. Pockets so loaded down with money I can barely walk.” He watched our eyes drift to his pockets. He grinned and jingled his pants for us. “You see boys, that’s what this depression is all about. Too many poor people’s money ending up in too many rich people’s pants.”

  Will had to agree. He’d been reading the Cleveland Press every day for years now. He knew the score. “That’s the problem, all right.”

  “Damn right that’s the problem,” the hillbilly said. “Just imagine how bad things would be if I wasn’t here to even things out.”

  Will checked his watch. We were way off schedule. “I don’t think we’re ever going to be part of the problem.”

  The hillbilly got the hint. “Well, that’s comforting to hear.” He tipped his hat and headed for the yellow Auburn. His girl took a final long suck on her tomato and threw it at the farmer. She swayed to the jazz music in her head all the way to the car. They drove off, east toward Bootjack. We flew west toward Rolling Prairie.

  “Flash! Col. Stoopnagle and Budd will begin a new series over the Columbia network on December 7. And for your added interest, this comic pair is under contract to Columbia until December 7, 1935.”

  RADIO STARS MAGAZINE

  Six/Cherry Pie

  Our hearts didn’t stop bass-drumming until we reached Rolling Prairie. We left the paved comfort of U.S. 20 and flew south on State Route 2. It was dusty, gravelly, and narrow, with more than a few unexpected bends. But it would take us right to Aunt Mary’s house in Valparaiso, Will said, in just an hour, if I could hold my speed at thirty.

  With the dangers of U.S. 20 behind us, we relaxed and started making dumb jokes again, teasing the piss out of Clyde. Out of the blue Will slapped the dashboard and shouted “Jeez.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “We didn’t get any pictures of those two.”

  “You crazy? They were professional criminals. You think they’d pose for a picture? That hillbilly would’ve blasted your head like one of those melons.”

  Will calmed. “I guess so.”

  Now I slapped the dash. “You see the way his girl was sucking that tomato? I wanted to lick that juice right off her chin. Just think, that hillbilly gets to poke her every night of the week.”

  That revelation startled Will. “Every night?”

  “Absolutely. All those gangster girls are crazy for poking.”

  Byron. La Porte. Pinola. Pinhook. Coburg. My mind and mouth stayed on sex all the way to Valparaiso. “You think this town is big enough to have a whorehouse?” I asked Will while we waited for one of the longest trains I’d ever seen to pass. Boxcar after boxcar after boxcar. Thu-clump, thu-clump, thu-clump, like a squeaky mattress going up and down.

  “No town in Indiana is big enough to have a whorehouse, from what I’ve seen,” he said.

  “This one looks pretty big. I bet there’s a whorehouse somewhere.” The caboose finally bounced by and the gate went up. I took off. “Can’t we drive straight through to Chicago? They got whorehouses on every corner there.”

  Will didn’t take my talk about whorehouses seriously. It was just the biologically inspired baloney of an eighteen-year-old. But being eighteen himself, he went along with my baloney as if I really intended to act on my urges. Will and I always respected each other that way, no matter how far from reality the other occasionally strayed. “We’re going to Chicago to see the technological wonders of the modern age, Ace. Not to count whorehouses. You don’t have the bile to go to a whorehouse anyway.”

  “You are absolutely dead wrong about that,” I said as the train thu-clumped.

  Will reminded me that I hadn’t exactly been Rudolph Valentino with the girls back home.

  “That’s because I’ve intentionally kept my distance,” I informed him. “You poke a farm girl and you’ve just married her for life. But when you poke a whore, or any city girl for that matter, you ain’t got that lifetime of misery to worry about. Unless they give you the bugs.”

  “Who’s Rudolph Valentino?” Clyde asked.

  We came to Tecumseh Street. I throttled down and turned. It was a nice street. Fine houses. Tall trees. Dark slate sidewalks.

  Will said his aunt’s place was the twenty-fifth house on the left. I flew low and slow while Will counted houses and Clyde hummed. It was 3:35. We’d driven halfway across Ohio, all the way across Indiana, been waylaid by criminals, and we were just twenty minutes late. Will, however, was blinking like it was twenty hours.

  We passed a short bull of a man carrying a bag of groceries. It was their Uncle Fritz. Will ordered me to land. Uncle Fritz was a real German. Born in Berlin. Came to Baltimore as a boy. Shucked oysters for a few years, then migrated to Gary, Indiana, to work in the oil refineries. Met and married Will’s aunt, an elementary school teacher. They moved down to Valparaiso to get away from all the Negroes flooding in from Chicago. But he kept his oil job, paying for his fears with an agonizing daily commute. Bennett’s Corners today is lousy with people like that. Anyway, Uncle Fritz smelled like motor oil the way my dad smelled like tires. He had a mustache tha
t stuck down from his nose like a shaving brush. “It’s us,” Will called out. “Jump on the running board. We’ll give you a ride.”

  Uncle Fritz kept his distance, eyeing the Gilbert SXIII like it was Satan’s chariot, making a direct delivery to hell. “I ain’t taking no ride on dat got-dambled ting,” he said.

  “She’s as safe as she can be,” Will said. “Brought us all the way from Bennett’s Corners, Ohio. Two hundred and eighty-three miles.”

  Uncle Fritz started down the sidewalk. “I’ll walk on da legs Got gived me. Sanks anyway.”

  We flew on, Will counting houses. “Your uncle looks just like that Adolf Hitler, doesn’t he?” I said.

  “Like who?” asked Clyde, surrounded by melons.

  At that age I had little patience for anybody who didn’t know what I knew. Figured what I knew was the true measure of worldliness. Which goes to show you how unworldly I was. I let loose: “Ain’t you never heard of anybody, Clyde? Adolf Hitler! That funny little guy in Germany, remember? He was in that newsreel when we saw King Kong.”

  “I remember King Kong, but not Adolf Hitler,” said Clyde.

  In fairness to Clyde, not many Americans knew who Adolf Hitler was in 1934. He’d only come to power the year before and was still something of a joke. Crazy little sausage stuffed in a Boy Scout suit. Mustache like Charlie Chaplin. Ranting in unintelligible German. Seven years later that crazy little sausage landed me in Air Force cooking school. You still see lots of shows about Hitler on PBS or A&E and every once in a while the classic movie channel runs King Kong. Too bad the gorilla wasn’t the real monster. All he did was climb up the Empire State Building and swat a couple airplanes out of the sky. I landed alongside Aunt Mary’s house.

  I was about to meet Will’s aunt for the first time. Twelve years later, when I tracked her down at a trailer park in Michigan City, she was a sad lump of a woman, constantly rubbing her forehead with her iced-tea glass, to numb her memories of Fritz and Will and her happy past. But that summer of 1934, when Mary Koch stepped off the porch and walked toward the Gilbert SXIII, I was encountering the most sumptuous woman alive. She was in her forties and a little plump. But that plumpness stretched her house dress in all the right directions. And the tiny lines springing out from her devilish eyes were an encyclopedia of experience. Experiences I needed desperately to experience myself. Hard to believe she was Mrs. Randall’s older sister. Three happy-go-lucky beagles followed her out of the house. They ran in circles sniffing the lawn and each other.