Howard promised me reporters. He delivered. The kiddie press showed up en masse. Six high school papers sent scribes. The lung ward ran SRO.
I strapped in and played to the lung girl. I pounded my pelvis and humped my hips and socked my sockets out at right angles. I played “Sabre Dance,” “The Beer Barrel Polka,” and “Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White.”
I strutted. I writhed. I sprayed sweat laced with Old Spice cologne. My Tiger Wax melted. My pompadour dropped into my eyes. I bent back and resurrected it. I pressed my eighty-pound ax out to arm’s length and played from a full-arch position. My spine shook, shuddered, and held. Applause eclipsed my crescendo.
I bent back to a normal stance. I bowed to the lung girl. Her tears spattered off the lung ledge.
Howard shot me a look:
Quit while they love you/Fuck these kids/No encores and no good-byes.
I dumped the ax and pulled a fast exit. A big ovation blew me out the door. The sax slipped me an envelope. I stepped into the hallway and opened it.
Her note:
Dear Dick,
I will reach the age-of-consent at 10:49 P.M. on Thursday,
March 29, 1954, which is only 6 days from now. Please call
me at 10:50 P.M. (Dunkirk 4-5882) to arrange a rendezvous. I
know that we will make beautiful music together.
xxxxxxxxx!!!!!!
Linda Jane Sidwell (Contino?)
I felt a little heft in the envelope. I looked in and saw a fat reefer.
We drove out to Glendale. Howard wanted to toke the reefer en route. I said no. Maryjane always flipped his switch. I didn’t want him hopped-up and horny.
I shut my eyes and daydreamed. Linda Jane Sidwell–six days to love.
I’d form a combo and take it to Vegas. Linda would quit school and blow sax for me. We’d work up a patriotic shtick. We’d suck up to professional patriots. We’d play lounges and move to main rooms. Linda’s parents would hate me. I’d buy their love with Cadillacs and introductions to Sinatra.
Howard nudged me. “Wake up. We’re here.”
I opened my eyes. We pulled up in front of the Legion Hall. Howard said, “Shit.”
No banners. No reporters. No Ward Bond, no Adolphe Menjou, no Legionnaires. A table full of cold cuts rotting in the sun.
I jumped out of the car. An old guy walked out of the hall and snagged some cheese puffs.
He saw me. He drooped. He said, “Dick, I’m sorry.”
I kicked the table over. Delicatessen delights hit the sidewalk. Two dogs caught the scent and leaped from a moving car.
The Legion guy said, “Dick, I’m sorry.” The dogs snouted up salami and sun-ripe cheese.
I said, “What happened?”
The guy took off his Legion cap and wiped his face with it. “Duke Wayne called the post commander. He said, ‘Lou, I hate to ask you for this, but you see how it looks. Contino paid his dues, but that Red cocksucker Woodard’s screwing up his public perception. I hate to exert pressure, but you know I always buy three pages in your book every Christmas.”
I shut my eyes. I tried to blot it out. I saw the Duke in my revised Fort Apache. A redskin keestered him and snatched his wig for a scalp.
I opened my eyes. The dogs attacked a three-pound capo-collo. I said, “Where’s the liquor? I want to take it back and get a refund.”
The guy pointed to the door. “Your buddy took most of it, and he said he’d be back for the rest.”
“What buddy?”
“I don’t know. He said he was your buddy, and he said you went way back.”
Iran inside. I saw the stuff that Wayne and Woodard fucked me out of.
The lectern draped in red, white, and blue. The prepaid seats and party hats. A wall-mounted flag and a cue-card gizmo to feed me the words to my oath.
I ran back to the storeroom. I saw a pile of flattened cartons five feet high.
Johnnie Black and Hennessy XO. Bonded bourbon, Ballantine’s and Bacardi.
Stacked on a shelf.
A box of rubbers and a six-pack of Brew 102.