Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories (29 page)

A tiny, shriveled square of cloth next caught my eye. Great balls of fire! My Sky Blazers Arm Patch, which proved conclusively that I ate two slices of Wonder
Bread every day. Tom Mix Straight Shooter premiums, long forgotten but never forgiven, emerged; and a Tom Mix Special Sun Watch, to be used when lost in the jungles of Yucatán, a place I have always half suspected I would end up in, anyway. If you're lost in the head-hunter-ridden jungles, you'd better know what time it is. My pulse quickened as I extracted from the grisly array a device that could come in even handier: my Tom Mix Periscope Ring. I dusted it off and slipped it on my pinkie. Holding it up to my eye, I could see in hazy outline the bathroom
door—behind
me! The uses for such a device are obvious, especially around an office filled with ambitious, bushy-tailed young executives on the make.

Did mine eyes deceive me? No. Beneath a pair of Tom Mix spurs lurked my most occult treasure, a genuine Mystic Voodoo Skull Ring, with genuine simulated emerald eyes—a ring designed to put curses on your enemies. There is no doubt that such a ring could still have its uses. I slipped it carefully into my pocket, already formulating plans. Next came an
objet
of such poignant personal meaning that instinctively I turned my eyes away from it Its very presence brought back an afternoon that even today rankles in my soul as one of those really terrible things that happen to all of us. My Uncle Ned had given me a dollar bill for my ninth birthday. Crisp, clean, of a beautiful green color, I held it for an all-too-brief time. Minutes later, I stood in front of a diabolical machine at the candy store, a machine filled with such tremendous bonanzas as Brownie cameras, wrist watches
and cigarette lighters embossed with naked ladies; flashlights made in the form of tiny revolvers, all floating in a sea of multicolored candy BBs. All you had to do to get one of these treasures was to skillfully operate two chromium handles, which in turn maneuvered the claw of a tiny steam shovel inside the case. Nickel after nickel I poured into this monster, growing more nervous and sweaty as each time the claw didn't
quite
grab the Brownie. Finally, after 85 cents had gone down the drain, it threw me a contemptible lead watch fob bearing the likeness of Myrna Loy.

I sucked moodily on my long-lost Dr. Christian Bubble Pipe. An angry wind laden with sooty ice crystals banged briefly at the windows of my apartment. It was getting colder. Sadly I returned it to the dusty magic mountain of illusion—lost and gone, grieved by only the wind. I had had enough. Back into the box I stuffed Brownie, Wimpy, Grumpy, Ed Wynn, Roscoe Turner, Jack Armstrong, Melvin Purvis, Buck Rogers—the whole teeming throng of them from out of the past. Over this communal crypt I laid the Dead Sea Scrolls—carefully smoothed newspaper fragments bearing the faded face of Harold Teen, and Perry Winkle's round sailor hat, and the yellowed headline
“DAYLIGHT RAID ON NORMANDY PORTS. B-17S BOMB COAST.”

Replacing the cover, I twisted the wires back together, binding the whole thing in place. For a fleeting moment, I considered shoving the whole sorry mess out onto the garbage landing. But I chickened out Staggering under
the load, I dragged my childhood to the hall closet With an enormous effort, I got it up to the top shelf. Mysterious rattles and tinkles and squeakings continued for a few seconds. Then, silence—except for the muffled, jaunty quackings of my old rubber duck. I read the lettering on the box again:
LIFE—THE COMPLETE CEREAL.
I wondered whether my mother had picked that box purposely. You never know about mothers.

Outside, the long December afternoon was darkening into night. It wouldn't be long before the crowds of Christmas shoppers and Rockefeller Center holiday rubes would give way to the big-time, out-on-the-town crowd. Across the avenue, Christmas trees glowed through Venetian blinds. From the apartment next door drifted the nasal tones of a12-year-old protest caroler singing
Jesus Don't Love Me Anymore, but I Got You, Babe,
the current spiritual smash, to the accompaniment of his electric tambourine.

I sat for a long moment in the gathering gloom and then suddenly noticed the huddled form of my little green aluminum Japanese Christmas tree. On impulse, I fished around in the rubble on my coffee table and came up with a thin, dime-sized copper disk with the faded inscription
POPEYE SPINACH EATERS' LUCKY PIECE.
Cradling it in my sweaty palm, I picked up the Christmas tree and gingerly unscrewed the fuse that I had twisted to death. With my forefinger, I carefully inserted my old badge of spinach addiction and Popeye fandom. Magically, the thin but unmistakable notes of “I'm dreaming
of a white Christmas” filled the room and the tiny tree began to pirouette, its hidden mechanisms working flawlessly, its miniature red and green, blue and yellow candles sending out a dazzling rainbow of soft Christmas cheer. Lovingly, I place it on the window sill for the world to see. Popeye had saved the day again.

Puberty rites in the more primitive tribal societies are almost invariably painful and traumatic experiences.” I half dozed in front of my TV set as the speaker droned on in his high, nasal voice. One night a week, as a form of masochistic self-discipline, I sentence myself to a minimum of three hours viewing educational television. Like so many other things in life, educational TV is a great idea but a miserable reality: murky films of home life in Kurdistan, jowly English authors being interviewed by jowly English literary critics, pinched-faced ladies demonstrating Japanese brush techniques. But I watch all of it religiously—I suppose because it is there, like Mount Everest.

“A classic example is the Ugga Buggah tribe of lower Micronesia,” the speaker continued, tapping a pointer on the map behind him.

A shot of an Ugga Buggah teenager appeared on the
screen, eyes rolling in misery, face bathed in sweat. I leaned forward. His expression was strangely familiar.

“When an Ugga Buggah reaches puberty, the rites are rigorous and unvarying for both sexes. Difficult dances are performed and the candidate for adulthood must eat a sickening ritual meal dining the postdance banquet You will also notice that his costume is as uncomfortable as it is decorative.”

Again the Ugga Buggah appeared, clothed in a garment that seemed to be made of feathers and chain mail, the top grasping his Adam's apple like an iron clamp, his tongue lolling out in pain.

“The adults attend these tribal rituals only as chaperones and observers, and look upon the ceremony with indulgence. Here we see the ritual dance in progress.”

A heavy rumble of drums; then a moiling herd of sweating feather-clad dancers of both sexes appeared on screen amid a great cloud of dust.

“Of course, we in more sophisticated societies no longer observe these rites.”

Somehow, the scene was too painful for me to continue watching. Something dark and lurking had been awakened in my breast.

“What the hell you mean we don't observe puberty rites?” I mumbled rhetorically as I got up and switched off the set. Reaching up to the top bookshelf, I took down a leatherette-covered volume. It was my high school class yearbook. I leafed through the pages of photographs: beaming biology teachers, pimply-faced students, lantern-jawed football coaches. Suddenly, there
it was—a sharply etched photographic record of a true puberty rite among the primitive tribes of northern Indiana.

The caption read: “The Junior Prom was heartily enjoyed by one and all. The annual event was held this year at the Cherrywood Country Club. Mickey Eisley and his Magic Music Makers provided the romantic rhythms. All agreed that it was an unforgettable evening, the memory of which we will all cherish in the years to come.”

True enough. In the gathering gloom of my Manhattan apartment, it all came back.

“You going to the prom?” asked Schwartz, as we chewed on our salami sandwiches under the stands of the football field, where we preferred for some reason to take lunch at that period of our lives.

“Yep, I guess so,” I answered as coolly as I could.

“Who ya takin'?” Flick joined the discussion, sucking at a bottle of Nehi orange.

“I don't know. I was thinking of Daphne Bigelow.” I had dropped the name of the most spectacular girl in the entire high school, if not the state of Indiana itself.

“No kidding!” Schwartz reacted in a tone of proper awe and respect, tinged with disbelief.

“Yeh. I figure I'd give her a break.”

Flick snorted, the gassy orange pop going down the wrong pipe. He coughed and wheezed brokenly for several moments. I had once dated Daphne Bigelow and, although the occasion, as faithful readers will recall, was not a riotous success, I felt that I was still in the
running. Several occasions in the past month had led me to believe that I was making a comeback with Daphne. Twice she had distinctly acknowledged my presence in the halls between classes, once actually speaking to me.

“Oh, hi there, Fred,” she had said in that musical voice.

“Uh … hi, Daph,” I had replied wittily. The fact that my name is not Fred is neither here nor there; she had
spoken
to me. She had remembered my face from somewhere.

“Ya gotta go formal,” said Schwartz. “I read on the bulletin board where it said you wear a summer formal to the prom.”

“No kidding?” Flick had finished off the orange and was now fully with us. “What's a summer formal?”

“That's where you wear one of those white coats,” I explained. I was known as the resident expert in our group on all forms of high life. This was because my mother was a fanatical Fred Astaire fan.

“Ya gotta rent em,” I said with the finality of an expert

Two weeks later, each one of us received a prim white envelope containing an engraved invitation.

It was the first engraved invitation I had ever received. The puberty rites had begun. That night around the supper table, the talk was of nothing else.

“Who ya gonna take?” my old man asked, getting right to the heart of the issue. Who you were taking to the prom was considered a highly significant decision, possibly affecting your whole life, which, in some tragic cases, it did.

“Oh, I don't know. I was thinking of a couple of girls.” I replied in an offhand manner, as though this slight detail didn't concern me at all. My kid brother, who was taking all this in with sardonic interest, sneered derisively and went back to shoveling in his red cabbage. He had not yet discovered girls. My mother paused while slicing the meat loaf.

“Why not take that nice Wanda Hickey?”

“Aw, come on, Ma. This is the prom. This is important. You don't take Wanda Hickey to the prom.”

Wanda Hickey was the only girl who I knew for an absolute fact liked me. Ever since we had been in third grade, Wanda had been hanging around the outskirts of my social circle. She laughed at my jokes and once, when we were 12, actually sent me a valentine. She was always loitering around the tennis courts, the ball diamonds, the alleys where on long summer nights we played Kick the Can or siphoned gas to keep Flick's Chevy running. In fact, there were times when I couldn't shake her.

“Nah, I haven't decided who I'm gonna take. I was kind of thinking of Daphne Bigelow.”

The old man set his bottle of Pabst Blue Ribbon down
carefully on the table. Daphne Bigelow was the daughter of one of the larger men in town. There was, in truth, a street named after her family.

“You're a real glutton for punishment, ain't you?” The old man flicked a spot of foam off the table. He was referring to an unforgettable evening I had once spent with Daphne in my callow youth. “Oh, well, you might as well learn your lesson once and for all.”