by Lesley Kagen
Jimbo reached across the table, plucked the fork from Viv’s fingers, and cradled her pale white hands in his dark ones. “Don’t be so sure ’bout that, baby.”
After Albie washed down his last rib with what looked like whiskey, he peeked over his shoulder to make sure everybody in the club was more interested in their lunches than what he had to say. “There’s mysterious goin’s on at the hospital. Private things they don’t want nobody knowin’ about.”
“Private things” was what the girls and I called whatever it was that was going on between our legs, so Viv thought he was going to say something naughty, and she slapped her hand down on the menu and was almost drooling when she asked, “What kind of mysterious and private things?”
“Patients get transferred, files go missin’, there’s that locked room in the basement, and I seen lights in the woods when I pull the night shift,” Albie said.
Seemed like there were an awful lot of reasons for us not to visit the patients, so my heart and mind were in a tug a war. When I’d first got the idea, I hadn’t thought it through any more than any other kid my age who got enthused about an exciting new adventure would. Getting confronted that afternoon in the back booth of Earl’s with how my desire to speak with the patients might expose Frankie’s secret, get Jimbo or Albie in trouble, or embarrass our families was a real slap in the face.
Because I couldn’t make up my mind whether we should just forget the whole thing or go full steam ahead, I decided that what we’d do would depend on the answer to my next question. One I wasn’t sure at all I wanted to hear the answer to.
“I don’t think anybody from the hospital will catch us ’cause Viv’s right. We’re really good at sneakin’ around and we’ll keep our eyes out for those hidden cameras,” I told Albie, to placate him. “But what if one of the patients reported us to the higher-ups?”
Albie grinned and said, “Don’t got to worry ’bout them none, sugar. Nobody believes a word they say.” He drained another shot of whiskey. “They’s always conversatin’ with outer-space people or saints, or tellin’ ya that they’re the king of England or Marie Annette. Like that new fella they just locked up on the third floor.” He nudged Jimbo. “His chart says he’s John Johnson, but what’s he call himself?”
“Leo,” Jimbo said.
“Yeah, that’s right.” Albie reached back and removed from his pants pocket the newest Superman comic the girls and I had picked up for him at Whitcomb’s. They had a spinning red rack of them over there and once a week he’d give us a dime and tell us to fetch one for him. “Mitch, the orderly on the third floor, he told me this Leo goes on and on about bein’ a newspaper reporter, and he offered him cash money if he’d call his boss.” He tapped his manicured finger on the cover of the comic book. “He’s actin’ like he’s Clark Kent from the Daily Planet tryin’ to get in touch with Perry White.” He’d gotten tipsy from the whiskey and he belly-laughed loud enough to draw attention. “Tell ya what. You girls keep bringin’ me my Man of Steel books, remember the rules ya just swore to, tell Bigger every so often what a catch I am, and everything should be just dandy.”
And, you know, from his mouth to God’s ear—it was. Getting to know the patients from the spot behind the fence that summer turned out to be more than even I could have hoped for, and I looked forward to doing so for many more summers to come. But then Viv had to go and ruin it all a year later when she did something reckless that’d end up almost costing us our lives.
Chapter Nine
During the last weeks of June, when Aunt Jane May wasn’t lecturing us about staying on the straight and narrow or keeping us busy with enough chores that might ensure that we did, the girls and I traded gossip at Whitcomb’s Drugstore, did swan dives off the high board at the community pool, and worked on ticking adventures off our list.
Summer 1960
Visit Broadhurst and try to sneak into the Chamber of Horrors.
Scary movies on Saturday and a romantic one if Viv won’t shut up.
Are Aunt Jane May and Uncle Walt in love?
Stop Mulrooney.
Fourth of July
The County Fair and Carnival.
Watch out for Dutch Van Heusen and Elvin Merchant, who are hell-bent for leather.
I had to add number 7 to the list after juvenile delinquent Herman “Dutch” Van Heusen cruised past the girls and me when we were on our way to the library to pick up the newest Nancy Drew.
He yelled from his Chevy car, “I’m gonna getcha for what ya did to me, ya little shits,” which was a shocker, honestly. I thought he’d forgotten about how we almost drowned him.
I added the leader of those JDs—Elvin Merchant—to the list, too, after we spent some time at the drug store’s fountain counter the next afternoon. Frankie, Viv, and I already knew that besides working at the family service station, he’d gotten a job collecting money for Chummy Adler. Merchant was warning folks in Mud Town, like Albie, that if they didn’t pay their gambling debts, he’d make them pay with broken arms and teeth. But what we found out about him that day at Whitcomb’s was even worse. All the kids were talking about the awful thing Merchant had done to Cindy Davenport, which wasn’t that much of a shocker, honestly. He had always been the worst of the bunch. The kind of boy you just knew folks would read about in their newspapers someday and say about whatever atrocity he’d committed, “Anyone with half a brain could see that coming from a mile off.”
The girls and I had been giving most of our attention to number one on the list, but we’d not had a chance to sneak down to the secret room in the basement yet, and we never went up to Broadhurst on Saturdays. That was the day we worked on number two.
We hardly ever argued about what movies we’d see, but in keeping with Viv’s newfound fixation on romance, Frankie and I had to appeal to her sweet tooth to see things our way. We told her that if she’d quit barraging us with dumb ideas about how we could sneak into the Starlight Drive-In to see a Summer Place, we’d buy her whatever candy she wanted when we went to see the new horror movies at the Rivoli. She eventually gave in, but that turned out so bad that I wished she’d stood her ground.
The three of us and the other kids in town got a big kick out of The Amazing Colossal Man, but Viv, who was growing more boy-crazy and impetuous by the day and was somewhat ticked off that she’d miss seeing that movie with Troy Donahue and Sandra Dee, did something we’d lived to regret during The Incredible Shrinking Man. She leaned over her seat and planted a juicy kiss on Norman Wilkes’s neck. Girls weren’t supposed to do those sorts of things and Viv could have earned a bad (worse) reputation overnight. The way “Easy Mimi” Kincaid had after a few of the boys let it be known that she was willing to satisfy their curiosity. Some of the girls now said, “P.U.” and held their noses when they walked past Mimi and called her mean names. She was a sweet kid who just couldn’t say no and was crushed when she was shunned and insulted, but if those snots tried something like that with Viv, she wouldn’t have taken it lying down.
Because Frankie and I didn’t want to spend the rest of our vacation burying the bodies our little hellion would leave in her vengeful rampage, I ran out to the concession stand and bought three Sugar Daddys to make Norman forget the kiss that Viv had laid on him. But Frankie, who’d learned how effective strong-arming could be from watching Jimbo at Earl’s Supper Club, shoved her fist into his face and hissed, “You tell anybody Viv slobbered on ya, I’m gonna punch you in your Adam’s apple so hard that your puny voice will go even higher … Norma.” The poor boy was already getting teased for having to sing with the girls in choir, so he readily agreed to keep his mouth shut. But the rest of the kids in the balcony that afternoon didn’t, and in a matter of days, everyone started calling him “Norma.” He vowed revenge against us, of course, but we weren’t losing any sleep over it. He was small potatoes compared to Dutch Van Heusen and Elvin Merchant, and the other big problem we’d suddenly come face-to-face with.
The girls and I had been
so busy we hadn’t noticed that June had turned to July and number five on our list snuck up on us.
I’d like to blame our lack of preparation for the big day on all the chatter floating around town about how that year’s Fourth of July festivities might get canceled for the first time in history on account of the heat wave, but the girls and I knew that was just folks blowing off steam. Only those on their deathbeds, the perpetually overdressed Montgomery sisters, and anyone willing to be mocked for months for being “city soft” would’ve skipped the town’s annual patriotic merrymaking. And now, it looked like the girls and I would be sitting on the sidelines, too, if we didn’t immediately get on the stick.
Aunt Jane knew we’d usually count down the days to the early morning parade down Main Street, and the races, games, picnic, and fireworks that’d be held at Grand Park afterward, but it was a few days before the big shindig, and she hadn’t said a word to us. That was very unlike her, which is why I asked the girls that night in the hideout, “Don’t you think it’s kinda weird that she hasn’t asked to inspect our bikes the way she always does?”
“It’s ’cause she’s on cloud nine, which, for your information, is something else that happens when you’re trotting hotly,” Viv told us as she paged through a Photoplay magazine on her sleeping mat.
Frankie and I were playing go fish, and the cards in my hand started quivering when I said, “We’re gonna be in such deep doo-doo when she sees we haven’t a lifted a finger. She’ll know that we’ve been up to no good.”
Viv said with a laugh, “Don’t sweat it. I’ll come up with some baloney to tell her.”
In the middle of rearranging her cards, Frankie jerked her head up and said, “Did you hear that? That squeak? I think she’s on the move.”
Aunt Jane May looked forward to squirming out of her girdle and letting her hair down after she put the house to bed for the night, and would only leave the premises if she was called on to assist Doc with a medical emergency or if a member of our parish needed hand-holding.
If the girls and I were in the hideout and not out gallivanting, we’d know when she’d been called to help someone in need if we heard the telephone ringing, the kitchen screen door slamming shut a few minutes later, and her hollering up at us, “Don’t get any bright ideas.”
So when Frankie heard that squeak from the screen door, without any of the other rigmarole that’d let us know she was on one of her missions of mercy, we got suspicious and peeked out the hideout door to see what was what.
The globe light above the screen door hadn’t been turned on, the way it usually was, and it was a moonless night, so it was hard to tell who was back there. I thought it might’ve been Doc coming home from the office until our aunt’s velvety bass reached our ears. Only she wasn’t warbling one of her favorite hymns or “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair” or “Que Sera, Sera.” This tune sounded familiar, but the way she was humming it so low down with a lot of bluesy rhythm, I couldn’t place it. But I had no problem figuring out what the tap tap noise she was making was. She was walking down the cobblestone driveway in high-heeled shoes. With cleats.
“Told ya so!” Viv crowed. “I bet she’s got on black stockings with seams and a dress tight enough to show off her bosom, probably red, because that’s Uncle Walt’s favorite color. I bet she’s meetin’ him at Earl Spooner’s Club.” She jammed her feet back into her sneakers and grabbed the binoculars off the brass hook before she noticed that Frankie and I hadn’t made a move to toss our cards down and join her. “Get the lead out! You told me that if I got some proof that we’d spy on her and she’s gettin’ away!”
Every night that week we’d ridden over to Jimbo’s to hear a story about the Broadhurst patients or play ghost in the graveyard with our friends at Mud Town Cemetery. Afterward, we’d cooled down with slices of chiffon pie on the back porch of Earl’s and watched the dancers. So far, nobody had reported seeing us to Aunt Jane May and I didn’t want to push our luck. But that wasn’t the only reason I told Viv, “I don’t want to go over the tracks tonight. I want to play cards.”
Viv looked at me like I was a cat box overdue for a cleaning, then nudged Frankie with the toe of her red high-top. “But you’re comin’, right?”
Normally, Frankie would jump at the chance to spend time alone with Viv, but she said, “Got a blister on my heel. Go fish, Biz.”
Once Viv got a plan set in her mind, she hated for it to go off the rails, and after she called us every name in the book, she hollered, “Who needs ya? I’ll go after her alone.”
Pretty sure she wouldn’t, not after hearing the recent reports circulating around the drugstore about the Summit Witch doing her best hunting at night, I shrugged and said, “Suit yourself.”
Frankie called her bluff, too. “Don’t wake us up when you get back. Any jokers, Biz?”
“You … you …”—Viv ripped off her high tops and threw them at us—“stinkin’ party poopers! I’ll get you for this.”
That threat would usually spur me into action, but her fury couldn’t trump my fear that night. I was too scared to follow Aunt Jane May because what if Viv was right and she was meeting up with Uncle Walt at Earl’s? If they got spotted wiggling their hips on that dance floor, you best believe that’d get back to Evelyn Mulrooney—her spies were legion. She’d shout all over town about their romance in the most derogatory terms possible, which would be awful, of course, but God only knew what Viv would do to shut that so-and-so down.
I wouldn’t feel right describing her as a child completely devoid of conscience, but Viv was impressed rather than appalled by the child psychopath in The Bad Seed. I didn’t think she’d go as far as trying to drown the Ladies Auxiliary president in Grand Creek or lock her up in the furnace room of the church and set it on fire—little Rhonda Penmark had done versions of both to her enemies—but our girl was capable of executing a payback so twisted and heinous that, if caught, she could find herself cooling her heels in the juvenile hall in Port Washington. Frankie and I couldn’t let that happen. We couldn’t take being apart from one another again. After Aunt Jane May inflicted on us the “severe consequence” of a two-week separation after we’d almost drowned Dutch Van Heusen, the Tree Musketeers swore up and down that we’d run away if she ever tried to pull that on us again.
I yanked Viv down next to me and warned, “You can’t tell her what we saw tonight. That could open a huge can of worms.”
“Sure, I’ll keep my mouth shut,” Viv said with a slick grin, “but only if you come spy on her with me.”
Frankie lost her cool then and hollered, “Kissin’ Norman Wilkes was disgustin’, and so is the way ya look at the Jessop boys, and you won’t shut up about Uncle Walt and Auntie. I’m so sick of you and your romances I could puke. ”
Viv screamed back, “And I’m so sick of—
“Quit it,” I hollered. “Do a shoot-out. If you win, Viv, we’ll do what you want, but if Frankie wins, you got to swear to stop talkin’ about romance for a while, and that includes saying anything to Aunt Jane May about what we saw tonight.”
“Fine,” the both of them shouted two inches from my face. “Rock, paper, scissors … shoot!”
Thank God Viv continued her losing streak.
* * *
The morning after our blowup in the hideout, Viv told us the plan she’d come up with to keep our lack of preparation for the Fourth of July from Aunt Jane May. She peeked out from behind the tree we were hiding behind and said, “She’s in the garden, and our bikes are leanin’ against the garage, so we’ll sneak behind her and ride over to the dime store for supplies. She won’t suspect a thing.”
We slipped over to our Schwinns all right, and we thought she was too intent on harvesting vegetables to notice us as we wheeled them behind her, but just as we were about to make a clean getaway, she looked over her shoulder and said, “Hold up.” She slipped off her gardening gloves and gave us the c’mere finger. “If y’all are intending to ride in the parade
on Saturday and win the tickets to the movie theatre the Auxiliary is going to award the winner,” she said, pointing to our metal steeds, “you are ill-prepared. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen you out here practicing for those egg-and-spoon and sack races like you do every year neither.” She withdrew one of her big lace hankies from her red clutch purse and dabbed the sheen off her upper lip. “And ya know what that tends to make me think, girls?”
Viv thought she could charm her out of her surliness by responding like one of our aunt’s beloved Shakespeare characters, “Pray tell-eth, what are you forsooth-ing to think?”
“What I’m thinking Vivian Edna, is that the three of you haven’t prepared for the big day yet,” she replied, not charmed at all, “because you’ve been too busy doin’ things you’re not supposed to be doin’.”
Viv swore she wouldn’t say anything to her about sneaking out of the house the previous evening, but when she grinned, I was sure she was about to throw that remark back in Aunt Jane May’s face. Say something like It takes one to know one or maybe The cat’s outta the bag-eth!
Fearing the same, the brains of our operation took charge of the conversation. “We haven’t decorated our bikes or practiced for the races yet because we heard they were getting canceled on account of the heat,” Frankie lied to Aunt Jane May.
“But we found out last night during kick the can that wasn’t true and we’re on our way to the five-and-dime to get crepe paper and Kleenex,” I said. “When it cools off later, we’re gonna give our full attention to—”
“Decoratin’ our bikes and making those beautiful tissue flowers you and your sister used to make and—hey!” Viv smacked her forehead like she’d just had the best idea of all time and she needed it to stay put. “You want us to pick anything up for you while we’re at the dime store? Since it’s a holiday, maybe you’d like to wear different nylons tomorrow?” The gleam in her eye was almost blinding. “A darker shade. With seams?”
