In God We Trust (34 page)

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 forever.

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.

XXXI
THE DAY SHIFT DROPS BY FOR A BELT

“You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

With this, Flick hunched down under the bar and began rummaging around on the shelves next to the beer tap. He straightened with an air of transcendent triumph, concealing in each hand an object. Placing his fists carefully on the bar, he slowly opened them to reveal two dull, gleaming objects.

“What are these?” I asked.

“Take a look at ’em. Just take a look at ’em.”

I bent over in the darkening light of Flick’s Tavern. Full winter twilight had now settled down over the grim landscape. Outside, the wind rose, and I could hear the tinfoil streamers snapping and cracking viciously over at Friendly Fred’s Used-Car lot. I bent closer to see what Flick had placed on the bar. Maybe it was the beer, or it might have been the light, but at first I didn’t know what he was driving at. I picked one of them up, holding it so that the glow of the neon sign picked out its details in a dull, red-orange. I looked at it closely. There was something vaguely, naggingly familiar about that metal face that stared up at me. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

“Okay, Flick, I’ll bite. You’ve got me. What is it?”

“Pick up the other one,” he said.

Again a peculiarly haunting, familiar face, this time feminine. Again I could not identify it.

“Okay, you win.”

“That,” said Flick, “is a genuine Fibber McGee and Molly salt-and-pepper shaker set. You see, the pepper comes out of the top of Fibber’s head and the salt comes out of Molly’s hair. My Old Lady bought ’em at the World’s Fair in Chicago.”

He tenderly replaced them on the shelf.

“Seventy-nine Wistful Vista. …” I said.

“You remember that closet?” Flick asked. “Old Fibber would swing open the door and down it would come, all that stuff. Digger O’Dell, the only gravedigger I ever heard on the radio.…”

The jukebox was now in high gear.

“I’ll have to turn the heat up,” Flick said, “temperature musta dropped outside.”

He fiddled with a thermostat on the wall back of the bar. I swung around on my stool to look out at what little remained of the day. It was now almost dark. Darkness comes early in Midwinter in Northern Indiana. Kids shouted and shoved their way by the tavern front, going to the store, coming home from school, God knows what. Traffic had quickened outside on the street as the two lines of cars, one going to the mill, the other returning, crossed and converged.

I turned back to Flick, who was checking the cash register.

“Too bad Schwartz couldn’t have been here,” I said.

Flick grunted, busy with his change counting. We both knew that Schwartz had been shot down over Italy. They never found him.

A great crowd of Shift workers burst in. The day shift was home, and it was thirsty. They were going to hoist a few before heading home to the hamburger and the TV. Flick had galvanized into action, drawing beers and pouring shots like a man possessed. I called out:

“I hope they win tonight.”

“Hell, it’s a breather. They’ll murder ’em.”

I stood up stiffly, brushing a few crumbs of pretzel off my
coat and slacks. Turning, I pulled my light New York topcoat off the hook. As I buttoned it, I called out again:

“Hey Flick, I’ll try to get back to have another drink with you before I gotta go back to New York.”

He was at the far end of the tavern now, carrying a tray of steins. Faintly, I could hear his reply:

“Okay, I’ll be seein’ you, Ralph.”

I glanced back over the mob of lumberjacketed, safety-shoed beer drinkers. Above the bar, under a Christmas wreath I noticed for the first time, a sign:

IN GOD WE TRUST
ALL OTHERS PAY CASH

How true. I swung the door open and stepped out into the bitter cold air. The refinery fumes, the aroma of a thousand acrid chemicals bit deep into my lungs. It was Home air.

I turned and walked against the wind that cut through my worsted topcoat as if it were cheesecloth. My stomach rumbled as the strong taste of beer welled up into my mouth. I fought it down. My conscience flared up. I had wasted a whole day. Well, what the hell. The company’d never find out. But I don’t like to waste time when I’m working. Far off in the sky I could see the faint glow of the steel mills. I peered into the gloom at the grimy Mill traffic.

Dammit, it’s gonna be hell getting a cab around here. Oh well.…

I waited briefly at the light and then turned left, toward the bus stop.