I walked into it.
Howard grabbed me. We skirted some ground-crew guys and found a spot under the right-front propellers. Passengers filed off the plane. The nun shot me the bird. Three picket punks shouted, “Draft dodger!”
Howard hugged me. His hands danced down my back to my ass.
I said, “I need some tail. I need it baaaad.”
Howard dropped his hands. I smiled. The stewardess I bribed walked by and blew me a kiss.
Howard’s a fag. He got drunk once and made a dive for my dong. Tail talk and pussy patter keep him in line. It’s our sex semaphore.
He slipped me a pawnshop tag. “I had to hock your accordion. I needed money to get the booze for the loyalty-oath gig. Dick, Dick, Dick, don’t look at me that way.”
My heartbeat went atomic. My body heaved. A combat ribbon popped off my pecs.
Ransomed:
My rhinestone-wrapped/pearl-patterned/candy-cane ax!
The picket factions faced off. “Draft dodger!” and “Go, Dick!” nullified each other. Howard cupped his hands around my left ear.
“Dick, you don’t serve Ward Bond and Adolphe Menjou anything less than top-shelf liquor. Those guys are prepared to call you ioo percent American, and you can’t stiff them with offbrand shit.”
Howard’s tongue shot into my ear. I stepped back and shook it dry.
“They’re coming to the gig?”
“That’s right. A buddy of mine set it up. We’ve got the booze and cold cuts from your old man’s store, and thirty American Legion guys at five bucks a head.”
My blood pressure depressurized. “What do I play with?”
“I got a loaner off a kid at Belmont High. You have to take the bitter with the sweet, Dick. I promised him three personal lessons.”
Two newsmen bucked the picket line and waved to me. I knew them: Morty Bendish and Sid Hughes from the Mirror and the Herald-Express.
I joined them. Howard joined the picket clowns. He passed out accordion ashtrays. We bought them bulk at a child sweatshop in Pacoima.
Sid Hughes said, “You’re back, Dick. You did your time and did your duty. What’s next?”
I laid out my precanned pitch. “I’m going directly to the Lieutenant Colonel Sam DeRienzo American Legion Post in Glendale. I’m going to voluntarily sign a loyalty oath that declares me as i 10% American. I’m back to let the world know that I can bang that stomach Steinway better than ever.”
Sid laughed and hummed the “Tico Tico” finale. Morty said, “Harry Truman pardoned you–and that’s good. But you’ve also gotten support from some pretty unsavory quarters.”
I said, “Keep going. That last stuff is all fresh to me.”
Morty checked his notepad. “Oscar Levant was on Jukebox Jury. He said, ‘Dick Contino has more to fear than fear itself. He has the accordion.”
Oscar, you hump. Oscar, you rubber-room raconteur.
Oscar’s wife signed him into the Mount Sinai nut ward. His agent signed him out for local TV gigs. Michael Curtiz signed him out for cultural kicks and took him down to watch wetbacks fuck in a skid-row hotel.
I said, “If that’s ‘support,’ put me back on that airplane. I’d rather fight the Red Army than go up against Oscar’s mouth.”
Sid laughed. Morty checked his notebook. “There’s a pinko lawyer named L. Trent Woodard. He’s said some pretty raw things about the LAPD, and he’s gone on to call you a ‘gallant young man who had the courage to acknowledge his rational and understandable fear and implicitly address the absurdity of the war in Korea.”
My blood pressure went presto-prestissimo. “I’m ioo% American. And Ward Bond and Adolphe Menjou will verify that.”
Howard walked up. He grabbed me and lip-locked my ear.
“Dick, we’ve got to go. I’ve got you a quick gig on the way out to Glendale.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re going to serenade a young lady. She’s in an iron lung at Queen of Angels.”
Howard drove me downtown. I stretched out in the backseat and skimmed my recent clips.
CONTINO BACK IN SOUTHLAND was good. The guy stressed my presidential pardon and soft-pedaled all the fear stuff that deepsixed me. ACCORDION KING RETURNS took a tragic tack. The guy ran down my run on The Horace Heidt Show and said I “hipsterized” the squeeze box. I “beat out vocal groups, a Negro trombone, and a blind vibraphone virtuoso” and “sent applause meters haywire for fifty-two weeks straight.” I had “4,000 fan clubs nationwide” and “almost got signed to play Rudolph Valentino” in a “big bio-epic at Fox.” The guy implied that I had the world by the ass and that I got more ass than a toilet seat. Too bad I “cravenly exposed a fearful nature,” “crybabyingly tried to avoid Korean service,” and “cringingly ran from basic training at Ford Ord, California.” Too bad I “shakily served six months at the McNeil Island pen” and “shadily segued back to the army as a hardened con.”