A Steady, High-Type Fellow

I am A steady, high-type fellow with a nice face. Most people love me. It is my custom to avoid, whenever possible, leaving my shoes about the bedroom, writing bad checks, and being frivolous with my wife's feeling for me. At the approach of the summer season, however, when it's time to make the resorts where I even did clarinet as a high school brat, I often undergo an odd relapse into old habits. It's a bad habit to be so habitual.

For example, at the hotels on our route, I unpack my suitcase and throw my clothes everywhere, although the uniform is always the same: white ducks, purple flannel jacket, Hal's Sweetboys embroidered above the five-pointed hankie pocket. I carry more shoes than our troublesome Gwen, the Sweetboys' Canary--only to lose the shoes behind cold summertime radiators. You know me already. As to Gwen (Twist-and-twirl, she's not my girl), I'll get to her later.

Then last month I sent in the payment on our Pontiac. The check bounced. Makes a man mad at the irony of fate which consists in not putting enough hike in the bank.

Finally I am obliged to report that Lady Alice and I have been at it again, or rather, off it. I itched and wiggled and she slammed doors through the usual term of struggle; I put in the claim, like a good courteous husband, that this was only a scratch-for-fun quarrel; off she went to Mama. "I'm coming to see you soon, goodbye," I said.

"Goodbye, don't bother," she said.

"Be polite at least. Listen, no insults, Lady. Long as we're separated, you don't have to treat me like a husband."

"Okay, but if you cut in on me like last time, just be sure to have a hotel reservation."

"I got friends to bunk me in Pittsburgh."

"They'll be glad to see you," --as spiteful as my Lady could make it. She's such a pretty girl when she's mad that it reminds me of how pretty she is when she's not mad--tiny and determined all over, fierce hot eyes, that mouth that gets plump as a bruise when she bites her lips. That reminded me:

"Say, Lady, what'd you do with my extra mouthpiece?"

"In the cupboard next to the Wheaties. The reeds are back there too."

Goodbye, goodbye, we both said. I tried to kiss her; she said not to waste her time, but be sure to pay my parking ticket if I got one. As I waved the train out of the station, I was proud that I hadn't said, "Poor Mama." Somehow that always annoys her. She's sensitive on how her mama hates being the Rest & Recuperation Camp.

Naturally, when the woman you love takes off, with her behind wagging and, not even a friendly so-long-daddio, it's a blow to the confidence. My self-respect was shot. I thought about what I needed and came to the same old decision: reassurance. I was right the first time. Our opening date was Vermilion-on-the-Lake, a beaverboard resort with sand-flies and smell of kids and the usual early crop of Junebugs and other silver-winged creatures. You have to fan them off the music stand and they come buzzing back and you squash them when you sit. Well, you get the picture.

But the rolly-coaster curve up the back of a girl lying alone in the sun--and down the legs, of course--always makes me want to drive against the beat. That's part of the picture, too. Hal, our leader, who took a vacation from his jocking job to get back to The Peepl (the agency advised it) by leading the band again, said: "Jeez, makes you think, those are my faithful listening audience, and they don't even want what they're gonna get. You know, it's not heart-warming, man. It's rending."

"Yep," I said soothingly, "the cockles are cold, not cool. It's really tough."

"And they tell me jocking makes you stale. I'd rather plug for some freezer plans then try to tickle one of those sun-soakers."

Good old Hal. Poor Hal. What a neat old friendship and understanding we had that day, because I, too, thought about those resort chicks: Bad, bad. They take their hands and pat the sand off their tan plumplies, when either nobody or somebody is looking, depending; they peekaboo-baby themselves when they sit up; they flop over in the sun and their legs come unlocked funnily for no fun at all. Then, after a day watching them, you come in and find out how they've put on organdy or a black sheath for dancing and you're paid to blow the horn to wake them up from their sunstroke. It'd be no life at all, except that always one of those girls sleeping on the beach has had an eye open and calculating what her shape was doing for you. And she always wanted to know a real live musician. "You're better'n a Harry James record, Mister."

"That was the trumpet. This is a clarinet."

"Oh me oh my."

I would grin and help her out. "You must mean Benny Goodman. Benny's okay, too."

"Gosh-all, do you know Mr. Goodman personally?"--and so it goes.

I always blow good horn, dance horn anyway, when I'm feeling nasty like this, and I wanted to keep the Pontiac, so when Hal said, "How's about it?" I joined his Sweetboys again--suitcase full of shoes, as you already know. It doesn't need nastiness to blow horn, it takes another kind of mad, but the nastiness is good for resort fakery. Vermilion. Sandusky. Cedar Point. Down to Massillon for a polka party with a pick-up accordion. You know the route: we're the original first-of-Mayers. At breakfast I thought tenderly about Lady Alice, the prettiest little wife I know, and that made me mad: "Up hers!"--and I broke a pipecleaner in the mouthpiece.

"Want your toast gray or brown?" the waitress asked. "You're one of them Hal's Sweetboys, ain't you? I love good music."

"Sit down, Miss, and let me tell you all about my desperate, carefree, glamorous life, but take care of your customer over there first. He wants a large ojay."

I really needed that reassurance. Sometimes the reassurance came leaning by the bandstand when its boy-friend passed out. "Doing anything now?" I would ask at the break, while I cleaned the spit out of the mouthpiece.

"Okay," it might say.

"Not just now, sis, but after the set."

"Right now I'm so busy watching the music," it would answer. "Afterwards I haven't made up my mind yet. Look at that lump over there on the couch. Out for the night."

"Which one?" I would inquire in a friendly and fatherly way. "The one with the pasty stupid face and a couple of hairs for a mustache, what he thinks? The square with the dirty pants? That one?"

"How did you know, was I pointing?"

"Just telepathic. Meeting of the minds. As I was remarking, Miss--what's-your-name-again? Anyway, it's depressing to have nothing to do for fun after a nice dance like this. I feel it in my bones, it's like a real crazy thing you need to do. At least if you have a feeling for music that's how it is."

Usually it was how she felt about it, too. Just loved a strong beat, and singable? Man, that's especially right. So away we stroll, hip-and-hip, for hamburger, coffee, confidences, more coffee --I like them jumping--and then maybe a little ride and by that time it's yes or no, very often yes. Afterwards I like them to sing to me. "Try sweet embraceable you."

She tries.

"You ought to be with a band," I say, "there's such a shortage of fine high type vocalists." Then I turn over and try to get some sleep while she dreams that I'm really Guy Lombardo Junior looking for talent. Next stop: Erie, Peeay.

Well, what should happen, but just three weeks out and we're suddenly switched to a Pittsburgh booking. Isn't that a jolt for you? A regular coincidence. Makes you think. And I had just happened to think of Lady Alice, that lovely lippy wife o' mine. Some big name outfit had got mashed up in a bus crash and spoiled for the season, so there we were with this lucky break--a Kay Kyser type kick (remember?) and that's all we had to know. But poor Gwen, Hal's Sweetgirl, she had to learn some new songs, an effort which gave her varicose brains. She was the kind who could even forget what comes after:

Somewhere, over the rainbow,

Way up high,

Birds fly--

The answer, in case you're wondering, is: Over the rainbow. Gwen couldn't even win a hundred dollars off on a teevee. She was thinking and eating a pencil and getting lead all over her lipstick and trying to learn the ballads and Hal turned the lock in the bathroom and sat down and said: "You don't get out till you know those lyrics. Not a movie, not a snooze on the bed, baby. You can have a glass of water, though." And he handed her the plastic cup in which nine different styles of toothpaste were caked.

Next room to them, I was doing my own hard figuring. A Pittsburgh date! It was the irony of fate that had caught up with me again, just like that rubber check with the Pontiac. What should I do about Lady Alice? The summer was only beginning, but it really seemed a shame not to kill two birds with one bus ticket, play Pittsburgh and say goodbye to byegones. She'd probably come cuddly on my knees before she remembered all the sick about me she was pushing at Mama. What an eruption! Maybe she'd be proud of me in my purple flannel jacket at the Sigma Rho hassel in the Pittsburgh Coliseum Ballroom. Well, most likely not proud, but who knows? At least it would rock her to see me so soon, and straight like I was.

"Patch things up, Lady?" I would say.

"Don't mind if I do."

I wouldn't worry myself thinking about it. Interferes with swimming, packing, rubbing spots off the clothes with cleaning fluid. I took a seam between my two hands and frisked. In the meantime, there was trouble between Hal, our leader, the captain of the Sweetboys, and Cedar Point's Own Gwen. She had a pretty little face and winsome at the eyes and knew how to pose as if naked behind a prop sombrero in the publicity glossies. But Hal said that if she didn't pick herself up some more I.Q. she might as well look for another job. Even eating celery didn't seem to help her. She said that if he didn't stop tormenting her ("You're squarer than square"), she'd never be able to learn another song. "Hal, anyway, listen to me, they're all alike. Crazy-razey-daisy, howja expect me to remember one from the next one?" She has no really basic love of music, that Gwen. She's an artist without any real genius, but she's nicely stacked and that's what is needed to stand and jiggle next to Hal's piano on the stand. And smile for the kids.

So in a motel the night before Pittsburgh, when I heard a splash next door, the music of fist sinking into face, I thought to myself: this offbeat world is a world without harmony. (Being without a wife after getting used to one obliges a man to become philosophical.) Hal and Gwen were having another discussion. I ran out to the corridor, put my mouth to the keyhole, and tried to yell loud enough to get to them over the sobbing and screaming and various disagreements: "Don't blacken her eye, Hal. We got to open tomorrow night. Keep her mouth clean, Hal. Hit below the belt where it doesn't show."

Suddenly, it was quiet inside. Quieter than a waltz palace in Harlem.

(continued on page 30)High-Type Fellow(continued from page 24)

Before I could congratulate myself there was a squish of calloused heel on the floor, the door came open, and Hal stood there with his face wanged up in the thickest, baddest mad I had seen since Lady Alice left me. He was in his pants, but no shoes or socks, and he was naked to the waist. And he was mad. The hairs on his chest and belly were squirming with his breath, really upset. "Shut the," he said. "Shut the-the-the-the door."

Gwen was also close to naked, only wearing a slip, and also angry. It would have been useless for me to offer her my jacket. "You shouldn't stutter," I said to Hal, "not if you're going back to jocking in the fall. The sponsors won't like it. Try saying 'Vitamin B-1, B-2, B-3, B-4, B-5, B-6, and Valuable Hormones, Too'--fast, just to see if you can do it, Hal."

"Shut the door."

I shut the door.

"Go put something on," he said. I wanted to explain that I felt dressed up enough for the occasion, but realized that he was talking to Gwen. She slipped into his bathrobe and knotted the cord.

"He hit me," she complained, "real hard."

"I'd like to stop awhile for listening to your sad story," I told her, one eye on Hal's hard-muscled chest, "but you should do what Hal says. He's our leader, and a grand fellow, besides. We open tomorrow, Gwen. We all depend on you to look yourself, I mean lovely--

"And," said Hal, "and to know the lyrics. Says she can't learn them. Wants to write them on her hands." He leaned spread-legged toward me. I could see that he was beginning to blame me, the way a big fellow does, and he had been interrupted and needed somebody else to pound if it wouldn't be Gwen. The hairs on his chest squiggled with his breathing and his tongue lolled in his open mouth. His voice was hoarse. Hal and Gwen really disagreed about palming the lyrics.

"Well, night-night, everybody," I said, and put my hand on the doorknob. I wanted to get back to my own lonely business in the next room, where there was nothing punchy but the mattress.

"I said he hit me, Danny. He doesn't really love me anymore, never will."

"That's the way I feel about it, too," I said.

"What?"

"Whatever you said, Gwendolyn. Be seeing you."

She threw herself toward me and looped around my neck like she was trying to reach for a parade over my head. "Don't leave me now, I need you, I want you to stay," she cried.

Hal was just watching and pinching himself until he got his breath again. He was wheezing with an asthma uglier than goldenrod--I had upset their disagreement. "Are you leaving, Danny boy," he asked me, "or do I have to heave you out?"

This was another of the many misunderstandings which that summer was accumulating for me. "Dads, I want to go, I'd just love it," I complained, "but you got to take this girl off my feet. She's stepping on my corns and dirtying my socks."

"I'll never leave you tonight," she said. "He scares me."

"Are you please going to get?" Hal asked.

My natural inclination was to prefer Hal's invitation, but Gwen was grabgrabbing, and it would have been impossible and silly besides to carry her out with me two-headed or piggy-back. "Danny, I want to stay with you until Harold apologizes. He hits too much. I don't care if it takes a month. I just don't like music, that's all. I decided I'll never leave you now, Danny, you're all I've got--"

"What?"

"Unless he apologizes," she pouted. "I made up my mind."

I had never heard Gwen deliver such a long speech. If I understood her English--and I was the most educated of the Sweetboys--it seemed that I was in a difficult, perhaps desperate, perhaps even compromising situation. "You better apologize to the girl, Hal." I told him. "Say you're sorry. Nice Gwen, nice Gwen, don't be so upset. Take your knee out of my crotch, please."

Hal took a step toward me and said, "Get out, you. Are you getting?" He was stroking his fat bare arm like a club. "And get out fast."

"You see?" I interpreted for Gwen. "He means he's sorry he hurt your feelings and wants to make it up to you."

"Get the hell outa here!"

I could feel the fuzz of that bathrobe all over me and I was paralyzed. It was like having cops in the house. I mean I just didn't have the strength. I smiled down at her and sniffed her perfume (very tasty) and said, "Listen to him, Gwen, he's saddened but wiser by this experience. Hear his friendly words, please. He wants to start life over with you, all fresh and new."

Gwen let me go and stood by the door, watching us thoughtfully with her hands in Hal's bathrobe pockets. She was cute in that wraparound, a sweet little honey-haired creature, built high above and behind. nicely turned. She took a piece of Hal's wadded Kleenex out of the pocket, made a delicate face, and dropped it to the floor.

"Git!" Hal said to me.

"He'll have to apologize nicer than that," Gwen remarked pensively. "I already decided to be strict." She held onto my arm. She had a nice light hand and she was stroking the inside of my elbow, whatever you call it.

"If you don't start going," Hal told me, "or start to start going fast, I'll have to help you a help." His lungs were pumping, his glands were working, and he was grammatically confused, but I knew what he meant. Yes, his lips were curling over his teeth. He figured to spoil my mouth for clarinet.

Naturally I shook off Gwen's hand and went fast for the door. A cracked lip for the clarinet runs would be no good at all; I'd have to take up the kazoo. So I left, sideways and quick. Okay for the hall, okay for my own door. But before I could get it closed, Gwen wiggled in and said, "I'm staying with you, you protect me now." She turned the lock herself. "Danny," She sighed, "you're so wonderful to me."

"I didn't do it," I called to Hal through the door.

Gwen smiled at me (I mean the winsome ballroom smile) and rubbed the fuzz of Hal's bathrobe against whatever I was wearing and stood up and bit me on the shoulder, whispering, "Now you're all mine."

"Gwen, you shouldn't do that. Leggo! It hurt."

"That's my mark," she said. "Ask Hal to show you sometimes. He's got'm all over, m-m-m-m-m." She ran the pink tip of her tongue over her lips.

"Oh, I'll remember to ask him," I said. Hal was roaring outside. "Gwendolyn," I said sternly. This was serious and I pronounced her entire name. "Gwen-do-line Harris, you can't, you shouldn't."

"I did."

For a moment I couldn't figure what came next. She was logical, but unfair to Hal, the King of the Sweetboys. "Well, what about his bathrobe?"

She began to undo the cord. "I'll put the chain on the door and slip it out to him."

"No! No! Don't do that, please, Gwen. He'll make noise and spoil it for everybody. We got to be rested up for the Sigma Rho deal."

"He already gave me a rho deal," she said bitterly.

"Cynical, cynical. You'll never get to be Doris Day like that," I warned her.

"I don't wanna be Doris Day, I wanna be Judy Garland. The world is such a sad bitter-sweet place."

"No."

"Yes, that's my secret desire, Danny. Now you know the truth about me."

There was a heave, there was a crash, and Hal came splintering through the door. He jumped me and began pounding and I went down in glorious defeat right away quick. Gwen kept her hands in the bathrobe pockets and said, "Don't hurt yourself, boys." I think I tried to get up once. I heard Gwen saying to Hal, "Oh Dads, you do love me if you fight for me like this, you do do do." Then I was alone in the motel room with my illusions and Hal's bathrobe. I lost my job, too.

The next day I went to see Lady Alice in Pittsburgh. I told her that I got bruised like that in an automobile accident, driving with my shoes off and my socks tore on the accelerator and I couldn't switch to the brake in time. The car wasn't even hurt. "You got here so soon," she said.

"Let's start all over," I said. "I really care for you, Lady, but I don't want to be a Sweetboy anymore."

"Well, let the Union know you're here and they can probably find you a pickup job in Pittsburgh while you recuperate. You poor boy."

I kissed her, trying to favor the stiff places. "My mind wandered," I said, "I was thinking about you all the night long, and then that ungraded curve came up on me, whoosh."

"You're so sweet," she murmured. "But say, honey, how did a skid into a ditch ever put those little teeth marks on your shoulder?" Some girls I've met just have a mistrustful streak in them, and my wife is one of the worst.

"She can't learn the lyrics," said Hal. "Wants to write them on her hands!"