In God We Trust_ All Others Pay Cash Part 5

He is referring to My Mother.

Gertz lowers his voice and they all scrunch their chairs forward amid a great cloud of cigar smoke. There is only one thing to do. I scrunch forward, too, and stick my head into the huddle, right next to the Old Man, into the circle of leering, snickering, fishy-smelling faces. Of course, I do not even remotely comprehend the gist of the story. But I know that it is rotten to the core.

Gertz belts out the punch line; the crowd bellows and beats on the table. They begin uncapping more Blatz.

Secretly, suddenly, and for the first time, I realize that I am In. The Eskimo pies and Nehi oranges are all behind me, and a whole new world is stretching out endlessly and wildly in all directions before me. I have gotten The Signal!

Suddenly my mother is in the doorway in her Chinese-red chenille bathrobe. Ten minutes later I am in the sack, and out in the kitchen Gertz is telling another one. The bottles are rattling, and the file clerks are hunched around the fire celebrating their primal victory over The Elements.

Somewhere off in the dark the Monon Louisville Limited wails as it snakes through the Gibson Hump on its way to the outside world. The giant Indiana moths, at least five pounds apiece, are banging against the window screens next to my bed. The cats are fighting in the backyard over c.r.a.ppie heads, and fish scales are itching in my hair as I joyfully, ecstatically slide off into the great world beyond.

IX

I INTRODUCE FLICK TO THE ART WORLD I INTRODUCE FLICK TO THE ART WORLD "It hasn't changed a bit," Flick said.

Two truckdrivers had taken places at the far end of the bar. Flick ambled down; served them up a pair of boilermakers. One of them got up immediately, crossed to the jukebox, dropped in a coin, pressed the b.u.t.tons, and returned to his stool. Immediately a wavering reddish-purple light filled the room as the enormous plastic jukebox glowed into vivid neon life. Waterfalls cascaded through its plastic sides. I watched it for a moment, and, forgetting where I was, said: "Pure Pop Art."

Flick paused in his gla.s.s-polis.h.i.+ng. "Pure what?"

It was too late to back out.

"Pop Art, Flick. Pure Pop Art. That jukebox."

"What's Pop Art?"

"That's hard to explain, Flick. You've got to be With It."

"What do you mean? I'm With It."

I sipped my beer to stall for time.

"Flick, have you ever heard of the Museum of Modern Art in New York?"

"Yeah. What about it?"

"Well, Flick...."

X

MY OLD MAN AND THE LASCIVIOUS SPECIAL AWARD THAT HERALDED THE BIRTH OF POP ART MY OLD MAN AND THE LASCIVIOUS SPECIAL AWARD THAT HERALDED THE BIRTH OF POP ART I "hmmmmed" meaningfully yet noncommittally as I feigned interest in the magnificent structure before us. "Hmmmm," I repeated, this time in a slightly lower key, watching carefully out of the corner of my eye to see whether she was taking the lure.

A 1938 Hupmobile radiator core painted gaudily in gilt and fuchsia revolved on a Victrola turntable before us. From its cap extended the severed arm of a female plastic mannequin. It reached toward the vaulted ceiling high above us. Its elegantly contorted hand clutched a can of Bon Ami, the kitchen cleanser. The Victrola repeated endlessly a recording of a harmonica band playing "My Country Tis Of Thee." The bronze plaque at its base read: IT HASN'T SCRATCHED YET IT HASN'T SCRATCHED YET.

The girl nodded slowly and deliberately in deep appreciation of the famous contemporary masterwork, the central exhibit in the Museum's definitive Pop Art Retrospective Panorama, as the Sunday supplements called it. I closed in: "He's got it down."

I paused adeptly, waited a beat or two and then, using my clipped, put-down voice: "...all of it." of it."

She rose to the fly like a hungry she-salmon: "It's The Bronx, all right. Fordham Road, squared. Let 'em laugh this this off on the Grand Concourse!" off on the Grand Concourse!"

I moved in quickly.

"You can say that again!"

Hissing in the venomous sibilant accents of a lifelong Coffee Shop habitue that I always used in the Museum of Modern Art on my favorite late afternoon time-killer-Girl Tracking-which is the art most fully explored and pursued at the Museum of Modern Art. Nowhere in all of New York is it easier, nor more pleasant, to snare and net the complaisant, rebellious, burlap-skirted, sandal-wearing CCNY undergraduate. Amid the throngs of restless Connecticut matrons and elderly Mittel European art nuts there is always, at the Museum, a roving eddying gulf stream of Hunters and the Hunted.

It was the work of an instant to bundle her off to the outdoor tables in the garden where we sat tensely; date and cream cheese sandwiches between sips of watery Museum of Modern Art orange drink.

"Marcia, how many of these clods really really dig?" I shrugged toward all the other tables around us. "It's really sickening!!" dig?" I shrugged toward all the other tables around us. "It's really sickening!!"

"b.a.s.t.a.r.ds!"

She whistled through her teeth. I sensed the stirrings, faint but unmistakable, of an Afternoon Love. Up to her pad off the NYU campus, down to the Village by subway for a hamburger, and then....

"Only the other day," she continued, "at the Fig, I said to Claes: 'Top Shmop. Art is Art, the way I see it'...."

She trailed off moodily and then bit viciously into the raisin nut bread, her Mexican serape sweeping the ashes from her cigarette into my salad.

"Good old Claes." I followed her lead, "He lays it on the Phonies!"

I wondered frantically for a brief instant who the h.e.l.l Claes was!

"And they lap it up," she added.

Our love duet was mes.h.i.+ng nicely now. Point and counter-point we wove our fabric of Protest, Tristan and Isolde of the Hip.

A light fog-like rain descended on us from what pa.s.ses for sky in New York. We ignored the dampness as we clutched and groped toward one another in the psychic gloom.

"What do these Baby Machines know of Pop Art?"

I nodded toward a covey of Connecticut ladies eating celery near us. Our eyes met intensely for a long, searing moment. Hers smoldered; mine watered, but I hung in there grimly. And then, her voice low, quivering with emotion, deliberately she spoke: "Pop Art, as these fools call it, is the essential dissection of Now-ness, the split atom of the Here moment."

We looked deep into each other's souls for another looping instant. I took three deliberate beats and countered: "Now-ness is us, baby. The Now Now of Here!" of Here!"

Her hand clutched convulsively at the smudged and dog-eared paperback copy of s.e.xus s.e.xus. A Henry Miller. I knew my harpoon had struck pay dirt!

Suddenly, without warning, she stood up and called out in a loud voice: "Steve! Oh Stevie, over here!"

I turned and saw striding toward us over the marble palazzo, past a Henry Moore fertility symbol, a tall broad-shouldered figure wearing black cowboy boots and tight leather pants. Marcia hurriedly darted forward.

"I've been waiting, Stevie. You're late."

Stevie, her high cheekbones topped by two angry embers for eyes, snapped: "Let's go, baby. I'm double-parked. And the fuzz tag a Harley-Davidson around here quicker than a kick in the a.s.s. Let's go."

Her rich ba.s.s voice echoed from statue to statue. Marcia, weakly indicating me, said: "Uh...this is...uh...uh...."

"Pleased ta meetcha, Bud," Stevie barked manfully, her thin moustache bristling in cheery greeting. They were off arm in arm. Once again I was alone amid the world's art treasures.

"You can't win 'em all."

I muttered under my breath as I wolfed down what remained of Marcia's sandwich, salvaging what little I could from the fiasco. The compet.i.tion for girls in New York is getting rougher and more complex by the moment. I ironically raised my paper cup of tepid orange drink to the gray heavens, sighting over its waxen brim the glowering bronze head of Rodin's Balzac Balzac outlined craggily against the jazzily lit museum interior, the pink plaster arm of outlined craggily against the jazzily lit museum interior, the pink plaster arm of IT HASN'T SCRATCHED YET IT HASN'T SCRATCHED YET seeming to reach out of Balzac's neck. seeming to reach out of Balzac's neck.

"To good old Claes. And Pop Shmop."

I drained the miserable orange drink with a single strangled gulp. Then it happened. Somewhere way off deep down in that dark, buried coal bin of my subconscious a faint but unmistakable signal squeaked and then was silent. A signal about what? Why? What was Balzac trying to say? Or was it Rodin? Once again I sighted over the statue's head and aligned the mannequin arm at exactly the same position that had set off that faint ringing. The rain drifted down silently while I waited. Nothing.

I tried again; still nothing. My eye fell on Marcia's half-empty cup. Could there be a connection? Carefully realigning the arm and statue, I sipped the sickening liquid. Far off, unmistakably, once again the bell tolled for me. There was no question about it. Unmistakably there was a connection between the orange drink and that arm, not to mention glowering old Balzac, the original woman hater.

By now the rest of the tables had been deserted by my fellow Pop Art lovers. Alone, I sat in the museum garden, contemplating the inexplicable. The pieces began to a.s.semble themselves with no help from me. I slowly began to realize that I had been fortunate enough to be present at the very birth of Pop Art itself. And had, in fact, known intimately the very first Pop Art fanatic who had endured, like all true avant-garde have always, the scorn and jibes of those nearest to them. His dedication to his aesthetic principles almost wrecked our happy home. My father was a full generation ahead of his time, and he never knew it.

The Depression days were the golden age of the newspaper Puzzle Contest. Most newspapers had years before given up the futile struggle to print News, since nothing much ever happened and had turned their pages over to comic strips and endless Fifty Thousand Dollar Giant Jackpot Puzzle Contests. d.i.c.k Tracy became a national hero. Andy Gump was more widely quoted than the President. Orphan Annie's editorializing swayed voters by the million. Popeye raised the price of spinach to astronomical heights, and Wimpy sp.a.w.ned a chain of hamburger joints.

As for puzzles, when one ended, another began immediately and occasionally as many as three or four colossal contests ran simultaneously, NAME THE PRESIDENTS, MYSTERY MOVIE STARS, FAMOUS FIGURES IN HISTORY, MATCH THE BABY PICTURES NAME THE PRESIDENTS, MYSTERY MOVIE STARS, FAMOUS FIGURES IN HISTORY, MATCH THE BABY PICTURES. On and on the contests marched, all variations on the same theme, page after page of distorted and chopped-up pictures of movie stars, kings, novelists, and ballplayers, while in the great outer darkness, for the price of a two-cent newspaper, countless millions struggled nightly to Hit The Jackpot. They were all being judged for Originality, Neatness, and Aptness of Thought. All decisions, of course, were final.

Occasionally the tempo varied with a contest that featured daily a newspaper camera shot taken of a crowd at random-walking across a street, waiting for a light, standing at a bus stop. IS YOUR FACE CIRCLED? IF IT IS, CALL THE HERALD EXAMINER AND CLAIM FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS IS YOUR FACE CIRCLED? IF IT IS, CALL THE HERALD EXAMINER AND CLAIM FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS!! The streets were full of roving bands of out-of-work contestants, hoping to have their faces circled. My father was no exception. One of his most treasured possessions was a tattered newspaper photo that he carried for years in his wallet, a photo of a crowd snapped on Huron Street that showed, not more than three inches away from the circled face, a smudged figure wearing a straw skimmer, looking the wrong way. He swore it was him. He had invented an involved story to corroborate this, which he told at every company picnic for years.

He was particularly hooked on FIND THE HIDDEN OBJECTS FIND THE HIDDEN OBJECTS and and HOW MANY MISTAKES ARE IN THIS PICTURE HOW MANY MISTAKES ARE IN THIS PICTURE?, which consisted of three-legged dogs, ladies with eight fingers, and smokestacks with smoke blowing in three directions. He was much better at this game than the Historical Figures. No one in Hohman had ever even heard of Disraeli, but they sure knew a lot about smokestacks and how many horns a cow had, and whether birds flew upside down or not.

Contest after contest spun off into history. Doggedly my father labored on. Every night the Chicago American Chicago American spread out on the dining-room table, paste pot handy, scissors and ruler, pen and ink, he clipped and glued; struggled and guessed. He was not the only one in that benighted country who pasted a white wig on Theodore Roosevelt and called him John Quincy Adams, or confused Charlemagne with Sitting Bull. But to the faithful and the persevering and to he who waits awards will come. The historic day that my father "won a prize" is still a common topic of conversation in Northern Indiana. spread out on the dining-room table, paste pot handy, scissors and ruler, pen and ink, he clipped and glued; struggled and guessed. He was not the only one in that benighted country who pasted a white wig on Theodore Roosevelt and called him John Quincy Adams, or confused Charlemagne with Sitting Bull. But to the faithful and the persevering and to he who waits awards will come. The historic day that my father "won a prize" is still a common topic of conversation in Northern Indiana.

The contest dealt with GREAT FIGURES FROM THE WORLD OF SPORTS GREAT FIGURES FROM THE WORLD OF SPORTS. It was sponsored by a soft-drink company that manufactured an artificial orange drink so spectacularly ga.s.sy that violent cases of The Bends were common among those who bolted it down too fast. The color of this volatile liquid was a blinding iridescent s.h.i.+mmering, luminous orange that made real real oranges pale to the color of elderly lemons by comparison. Taste is a difficult thing to describe, but suffice it to say that this beverage, once quaffed, remained forever in the gastronomical memory as unique and galvanic. oranges pale to the color of elderly lemons by comparison. Taste is a difficult thing to describe, but suffice it to say that this beverage, once quaffed, remained forever in the gastronomical memory as unique and galvanic.

All popular non-alcoholic drinks were known in those days by a single generic term-"Pop." What this company made was called simply "Orange pop." The company trademark, seen everywhere, was a silk-stockinged lady's leg, realistically flesh-colored, wearing a black spike-heeled slipper. The knee was crooked slightly and the leg was shown to the middle of the thigh. That was all. No face; no torso; no dress-just a stark, disembodied, provocative leg. The name of this pop was a play on words, involving the lady's knee. Even today in the windows of dusty, fly specked Midwestern grocery stores and poolrooms this lady's leg may yet be seen.

The first week of the contest was ridiculously easy: Babe Ruth, Bill Tilden, Man O' War, and the Fighting Irish. My Old Man was in his element. He had never been known to read anything but but the Sport page. His lifetime subscription to the the Sport page. His lifetime subscription to the St. Louis Sporting News St. Louis Sporting News dated back to his teen-age days. His memory and knowledge of the minutia and trivia of the Sporting arenas was deadening. So naturally he whipped through the first seven weeks without once even breathing hard. dated back to his teen-age days. His memory and knowledge of the minutia and trivia of the Sporting arenas was deadening. So naturally he whipped through the first seven weeks without once even breathing hard.

Week by week the puzzlers grew more obscure and esoteric. Third-string utility infielders of Second-Division ball clubs, subst.i.tute Purdue halfbacks, cauliflower-eared canvas-backed Welterweights, selling platers whose only distinction was a nineteen-length defeat by Man O' War. The Old Man took them all in his stride. Night after night, snorting derisively, cackling victoriously, consulting his voluminous records, he struggled on toward the Semi-Finals.

A week of nervous suspense and a letter bearing the imprint of a lady's leg informed him that he was now among the Elect. He had survived all preliminary eliminations and was now ent.i.tled to try for the Grand Award of $50,000, plus "hundreds of additional valuable prizes."

Wild jubilation gripped the household, since no one within a thirty-mile radius had ever gotten this far in a major contest, least of all the Old Man. He usually petered out somewhere along the fourth set of FAMOUS FACES FAMOUS FACES and went back to his Chinese nail puzzle and the ball scores. That night we had ice cream for supper. and went back to his Chinese nail puzzle and the ball scores. That night we had ice cream for supper.

The following week the first set of puzzles in the final round arrived in a sealed envelope. They were killers! Even the Old Man was visibly shaken. His face ashen, a pot of steaming black coffee at his side, the kids locked away in the bedroom so as not to disturb his ma.s.sive struggle, he labored until dawn. The pop company had pulled several questionable underhanded ploys. Water Polo is not a common game in Hohman and its heroes are not on everyone's tongue. Hop Skip & Jump champions had never been lionized in Northern Indiana. No one had even heard heard of Marathon Walking! It was a tough night. of Marathon Walking! It was a tough night.

His solutions were mailed off, and again we waited. Another set of even more difficult puzzles arrived. Again the sleepless ordeal, the bitter consultations with poolroom scholars, the sense of imminent defeat, the final hopeless guesses, the sealed envelope. Then silence. Days went by with no word of any kind. Gaunt, hollow-eyed, my father watched the mailman as he went by, occasionally pausing only to drop off the gas bill or flyers offering neckties by mail. It was a nervous, restless time. Sudden flareups of temper, outbursts of unmotivated pa.s.sion. At night the wind soughed emptily and prophetically through the damp clotheslines of the haunted backyards.

Three weeks to a day after the last mailing, a thin, neat, crisp envelope emblazoned with the sinister voluptuous insignia lay enigmatically on the dining-room table, awaiting my father's return from work. The minute he roared into the kitchen that night he knew.

"It's come! By G.o.d! Where is it?"

What had come? Fifty thousand dollars? Fame? A trip to the moon? The end of the rainbow? News of yet another failure?

With palsied hand and bulging eye he carefully slit the crackling envelope. A single typewritten sheet: CONGRATULATIONS. YOU HAVE WON A MAJOR AWARD IN OUR FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLAR "GREAT HEROES FROM THE WORLD OF SPORTS" CONTEST. IT WILL ARRIVE BY SPECIAL MESSENGER DELIVERED TO YOUR ADDRESS. YOU ARE A WINNER. CONGRATULATIONS.

That night was one of the very few times my father ever actually got publicly drunk. His cronies whooped and hollered, guzzled and yelled into the early morning hours, knocking over chairs and telling dirty stories. My mother supplied endless sandwiches and constantly mopped up. Hairy Gertz, in honor of the occasion, told his famous dirty story about the three bartenders, the Franciscan monk, and the cross-eyed turtle. Three times. It was a true Victory Gala of the purest sort.

Early the next morning the first trickle of a flood of envy-tinged congratulations began to come in. Distant uncles, hazy second cousins, real estate agents, and Used-Car salesmen called to offer heartfelt felicitations and incidental suggestions for highly rewarding investments they had at their disposal. The Old Man immediately, once his head had partially cleared, began to lay plans. Perhaps a Spanish adobe-type house in Coral Gables, or maybe he'd open up his own Bowling Alley. Victory is heady stuff, and has often proved fatal to the victors.

The next afternoon a large unmarked delivery truck stopped in front of the house. Two workmen unloaded a square, sealed, waist-high cardboard carton, which was lugged into the kitchen. They left and drove off. Somehow an air of foreboding surrounded their stealthy, unexplained operation.

The Old Man, his face flushed with excitement, fumbling in supercharged haste to lay bare his hard-won symbol of Victory, struggled to open the carton. A billowing mushroom of ground excelsior surged up and out. In he plunged. And there it was.

The yellow kitchen light bulb illumined the scene starkly and yet with a touch of glowing promise. Tenderly he lifted from its nest of fragrant straw the only thing he had ever won in his life. We stood silent and in awe at the sheer s.h.i.+mmering, unexpected beauty of the "Major Award."

Before us in the heavy, fragrant air of our cabbage-scented kitchen stood a life-size life-size lady's leg, in true blus.h.i.+ng-pink flesh tones and wearing a modish black patent leather pump with spike heel. When I say life-size I am referring to a rather large lady who obviously had dined well and had matured nicely. It was a well filled-out leg! lady's leg, in true blus.h.i.+ng-pink flesh tones and wearing a modish black patent leather pump with spike heel. When I say life-size I am referring to a rather large lady who obviously had dined well and had matured nicely. It was a well filled-out leg!

It was so realistic that for a brief instant we thought that we had received in the mail the work of an artist of the type that was very active at that period-the Trunk Murderer. For some reason this spectacular form of self-expression has declined, but in those days something in the air caused many a parson's daughter to hack up her boyfriend into small segments which were then s.h.i.+pped separately to people chosen at random from the phone book. Upon being apprehended and tried, she was almost always aquitted, whereupon she accepted numerous offers to appear in Vaudeville as a featured headliner, recalling her days as a Trunk Murderer complete with props and a dramatized stage version of the deed.

For a split instant it seemed as though our humble family had made the headlines.

My mother was the first to recover.

"What is it?"

"A...leg," my father incisively shot back.

It was indeed a leg, more of a leg in fact than any leg any of us had ever seen!

"But...what is it?"

"Well, it's a leg. Like a statue, I guess."

"A statue?" statue?"

Our family had never owned a statue. A statue was always considered to be a lady wearing a wreath and concrete robes, holding aloft a torch in one hand and a book in the other. This was the only kind of statue outside of generals sitting on horses that we had ever heard about. They all had names like VICTORY VICTORY or or PEACE PEACE. And if this was a statue, it could only have one name: WHOOPEE!.

My mother was trying to get herself between the "statue" and the kids.

"Isn't it time for bed?"

"Holy Smokes, would you look at that!"

My father was warming up.

"Holy Smokes, would you look look at that? Do you know what this is?" at that? Do you know what this is?"

My mother did not answer, just silently edged herself between my kid brother and the magnificent limb.

"Would you believe it, it's a LAMP LAMP!"

It was indeed a lamp, a lamp in its own way a Definitive Definitive lamp. A master stroke of the lightoliers' art. It was without question the most magnificent lamp that we had ever seen. lamp. A master stroke of the lightoliers' art. It was without question the most magnificent lamp that we had ever seen.