Shedding Skin

by Robert Ward

  “Yes, you will really have some visions tonight,” says Warren.

  And I will, pure beauty. Nothing can stop me.

  “Will you turn that thing off?” says Glenn.

  “What?”

  “I’m trying to read.”

  “I’ll turn it down.”

  “Listen, I want it off. That stuff is horrible. Sounds like a bunch of niggers.”

  My anger is limitless. I want to race across the room and make an all-out attack on him.

  I decide to ignore him and put on “The Book of Love,” by the Monotones. When you hear that song, you actually see a huge black book with a golden binding, and perhaps you will step into that book and inside it will be a city with spires, and sandstone towers, and you know that city is yours, all yours, your own Town of Thatched Rooves.

  “Listen, turn it off. Anyway, I want to tell you about this book I’m reading.”

  “I don’t want to hear about your book. I don’t care about your goddamn Nazis.”

  I expect to get a rise out of him with that, but tonight he is playing the patient father. How I hate him.

  “No, this isn’t Nazis. It’s different. Something you’d like. Let me tell you about it.”

  The son of a bitch. He has just taken you out of the hop. Danny and the Juniors are there, and there are big orange streamers on the wall, and this blond-haired teen-age sex queen is twisting in front of you, and your old man wants to tell you about another one of his Nazi books.

  “The name of this book is Man’s Fate,” says my father. “It’s by a Frenchman….”

  A Frenchman. What do they know about rock ‘n’ roll? Once every six months some French singer comes on TV and does bush league versions of Little Richard. Worse than Pat Boone.

  But I try to listen. I really do. If he gets the story over with, it’ll be time for him to go into the bathroom.

  “See, this takes place in China …”

  “I thought you said a Frenchman wrote it.”

  “It’s a novel. They can take place anywhere. It’s about a revolution. There are these guys called the Kumattang …”

  As his voice drones on, as he slips and shuffles over the Chinese names (which all sound alike), I sit and finger my records, and images of the Big Bopper, and Buddy Holly, and Ritchie Valens, three rock ‘n’ roll singers who got killed in a plane crash, come into mind. I see the plane going down and Buddy Holly singing “That’ll Be the Day” as the nose of that doomed craft buries itself in the earth. This image fills me with a great tenderness and longing.

  “There will never be another Buddy Holly,” I say.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Go ahead.”

  And he does, but I am not with him at all. I am at a big party with Frankie Lymon and the Teen-Agers, and Fats Domino, and we are drinking red wine, all of us in the best pub in the Town of Thatched Rooves.

  “So how do you like it?”

  “Great, Dad. That’s a hell of a story.”

  “Yeah … Well, it’s getting late. I’ll tell you the rest of it tomorrow. It’s an important book.”

  “Sure,” I say.

  I watch him get up slowly, like a robot. When he walks into the other room, I shake my head.

  “My poor old man,” I say. “He’s really missed the whole thing. My poor old man.”

  XIII.

  In Which I Join the Aces

  I do not want to be lurking on these cold apartment house steps. Walter does not want to be here either. You can tell because he isn’t being poetic, isn’t looking studious, isn’t Walter. He’s been terrified out of his name. As have I.

  But we are here just the same. Here in the darkness waiting for the night watchman. It is our duty to cop his night watch, a beautiful gold number which hangs by a delicate chain from his gray pants loop. If we can bring this off, we will be invited to join Baba Looie’s Five Aces, the toughest gang in this dull city. Only a few minutes ago, Baba dropped us off in the snow and gave us our orders. Kirk was with him, our friend Kirk, who has already been initiated into the Aces. He had to mug a grandmother in Sparrows Point Industrial Park and steal her sweater, an easy task, but then Baba has always been partial to Kirk. That’s life, as Walter says in his more poetic moments.

  I have wanted to be a member of a gang for years. I remember the first time I felt the desire sweep my body. I was reading Father’s Man magazine, an article about some blind Greek kid who had been stabbed to death on the East Side. At first, I felt great spasms of remorse, but gradually, after seventeen rereadings, I came to understand that what really attracted me to the tale was the pictures of the gang. Tough, beautiful faces, faces with a kind of character, as Freda would say. I cut each of them out, Jim Prevus, Arthur Sphekus, Gus Cocoros, and pasted them to my wall. Afterward I placed a big tube of Testors glue under my nose and fell into a coma.

  Tonight is my chance. I could feel my balls tighten as Baba appeared in front of Read’s, his heavy body completely cloaked in black. From his right hand fell a blacker cane, with a silver wolf’s-head knob. I could see myself walking with him down some dark hallway into the Aces’ Lair. I could hear the Aces’ voices low and cool, as they talked beneath the midnight-blue drapes, beneath the chains hanging so religious from the wall. I could see these same Aces under the hard light at the police station, not one sound coming from their lips. The police would be ruthless, trying every routine at their command. Fat cop, thin cop, nice cop, mean cop, but there would be nothing for any of them from my Aces, for no Ace would ever break the secret codes of the underworld. Yes, yes. I see a whole procession of cops throw up their arms in futility. I see the Ace’s hand reach slowly to his black boot, to take a mighty pill from the sliding heel. A move so deft that only another Ace could possibly notice. Those wonderful Aces. I hear them chuckling softly at the mere idea of ever going straight.

  So now I wait here with Walter, timid Walter, this silver gun in my hand.

  “How in the world are we gonna ever pull this off?”

  Walter again. He’ll be a bad risk if trouble arises, but we have to do it together.

  “It’ll be easy,” I say. “I come up … no, you come up and ask him for a match.”

  “Sure, and have the bastard identify me. You’re outa your fucking mind.”

  I am tempted to remind Walter that I am packing the gun. I picture him dying in slow motion, myself running through the dark night full of joy and terror.

  “Cool it,” I tell him. “What kind of sock you got on?”

  “You know I wear knee hose. They offer support.”

  “Take one of ‘em off.”

  “You’re gonna strangle me. Is it because of what happened to you after the Colt game? I didn’t do anything. It was mainly Kirk.”

  I assure Walter that I have no intention of strangling him.

  “Just take off the sock. He’ll be here in five minutes. Hurry.”

  Walter sits on a frozen block of snow and unties his Scotch Grains. I balance the small gun in my hand. Light. Nifty. Probably made by some Ace craftsman in his leisure hours. It feels like a magic wand. But it also terrifies me. I picture the bullets falling into a puddle of snow. I picture the gun opening and me not being able to get it back together. This will not do for an Ace.

  “My sock is off,” says Walter.

  I tell him the obvious. He’ll put it over his head to eliminate the identity problem.

  He tries, but it will not go over his head. He begins to whine. I am dying to whip him with my pistol. Here it is eleven twenty-seven, two minutes away from the action, and Walter’s sock barely covers his forehead.

  “What the hell am I going to do?” he cries.

  “You are going to get that son of a bitch over your head. Pull.”

  “I can’t, Ward. It just won’t go.” He is standing next to me now, his head snapped to his spine. The sock comes over one eye.

  “Pull, Walter. Pull.”

  He pulls, grits his teeth. The sock finally comes d
own over both eyes. It occurs to me that I have made a crucial miscalculation. It will be extremely difficult for him to ask the night watchman for a match with any reasonable degree of spontaneity. I bite my wrist and begin to cry.

  “Ward, Ward, where are you? I can’t see a thing with this sock over my head.”

  I blow my nose between my fingers and dig at my cheeks.

  “Ward, Ward, how the hell can I ask for a match?”

  Walter is staggering around on the lawn, missing the evergreen by inches. As he falls into the snow I am inspired.

  “That’s it, Walter. Stay that way. Stagger around. It’ll get his attention, and I can sneak up on him with the gun.”

  I hear footsteps approaching us and leap into a snow-covered bush.

  “Hey there, young fella, what’s the problem?”

  “I … ah … got this sock on my head.”

  The man walks across the pavement to help Walter. I see the gold chain burrowing into his pocket. I imagine the watch turning green next to his dying skin. He is reaching down to the top of Walter’s head. Walter is scrambling away from him on his knees, making small exclamation points of terror.

  “Now come here, son. I’m not going to hurt you. You got it all wrong. You gotta help …”

  “Get away from me,” screams Walter.

  “Let me help you with that sock, sonny. Somebody played a joke on you.”

  “Fuck off; leggo.”

  The old man is pulling the toe of the sock. Walter is on his knees, both hands clinging to the elastic. The old man is gaining ground fast. Walter is exhausted. I step from the shadows.

  “Cool it, old-timer, and hand over the night watch.”

  “What?”

  The old man lets go of the sock and starts to turn. I try to belt him with the gun but he ducks and I hit Walter. Walter spins around and runs into the evergreen. The old man kicks me squarely in the nuts, and pulls out a barlow knife. I am doubled over in pain. Walter spins off the evergreen and butts into the old man’s back. The old man is thrown forward and I clip him with the gun. He does not fall, but roars after me, slashing the knife wildly.

  Walter is yelling, “Ward, the sock.” The old man is yelling, “punk kids never git this night watch.” I am dodging like mad as the old bastard hops after me, slashing red berries with his blade. Then I grab a high branch and swing in on him, kick him in the jaw, like Errol Flynn. He falls back into Walter, who screams “My mmm-outh.” Apparently Walter has been stabbed in the lip. I smack the old man in the head, punch his runny nose. He drops his knife, falls with a thud. Walter is still screaming “My mmm-outh.” Lights are going on all over this development. This is serious. I grab the old man’s weapon, start to cut through his pants loop, when he clamps his mouth on my arm. I smash him good again. When I pull away, his false teeth hang from my wrist. Quickly I slice through the old material, reach into his pocket and grab the watch. I turn it over in my hand and read To Zeke for fifty years valiant service. Walter is still running around the tree fighting the sock and crying about his mouth. More lights. Lights everywhere. I grab Walter’s hand and drag him back through the garages. We finally get the sock off and run as fast as possible to Kirk’s. We have the watch. We’re in the gang.

  XIV.

  The Bumjar

  Though Walter and Kirk think I am crazy, the fact still remains—I am in love. It’s really hopeless. I never figured for a moment that after joining the Five Aces, and taking drugs, I could fall for a girl like Susan. But I have—oh yes, I’m deep down the blue drain of love.

  Susan is in my high school junior class and is wonderful in every aspect. Her breasts are well-rounded and she never wears black V-neck sweaters without a dickey underneath. Her hair is ratted to her head, but not so tight that it isn’t springy and full of life. Her dresses come below her knee, and one of her penny loafers has a nickel in it. I sit in history class and think how clever it is of her to put the buffalo on the outside of the nickel. When I relate this observation to Kirk, he reels back in horror, baring his teeth:

  “Baba would throw up if he knew you were hung up on a chick like that. She looks like one of those wax dolls that melt in some old fucker’s attic.”

  “I guess so,” I say, afraid to defend her because of my status in the Aces. Last week I went to the Lair for the first time, and made a bad impression on two of the greasy members by cutting a book riff. After I had mentioned how I kind of liked Hemingway, a little Ace with no teeth came up to me and said, “You’re a smart son of a bitch, aren’t you.” My head began to loll around on my shoulders, like the spring Gino Marchetti doll in the back seat of Father’s auto. Baba came to my rescue, however, by retelling the tale Walter and I had told him about our adventures with the night watchman. Our version was less colorful than the real thing, but made us seem like efficient killers, which made a hit with the gang. Still, I am in a difficult position with the Aces. If they were to find out I am going to cut the meeting this Saturday to take Susan to the movies, it would mean something terrible—like the Bumjar. No one says exactly what the Bumjar is, but I do know that it is the Aces’ method for dealing with informers and discipline cases. I fear the Bumjar.

  But I am in love. Warm flushes appear on my face at odd hours. My hair is being washed every day, by me. When she sways by me in the hall and says “Hi, Baaaab,” I have to run into the men’s room and piss. I am having terrible daydreams about myself. In one I wear a tuxedo, have a Cuban cigar clenched between leering teeth and live in a huge mansion with a yard full of white fountains. When I am on the phone with her, my voice suddenly sounds like Sidney Greenstreet, something I cannot understand. Sidney Greenstreet was a fat eunuch who never scored with chicks, and I don’t want to sound like him, but that’s how it comes out and I am forced to go on with it. She asks me if I am a member of a secret gang, and Sidney tells her yes. I immediately try to take it back but it’s too late. For hours I bite my lip and wonder how she has managed to hypnotize me. I fear her worse than the Aces, and can defy neither of them.

  On Saturday night, I am horrified beyond belief. All my organs are shaking inside my body. I feel like my lungs are being filled with a green slime, which will not drown me, but will not let me breathe either. I am certain that my heart will pop from beneath my pink button-down and roll up the street. (I imagine massive embarrassment as I beg her pardon to go chase it.) On my way to her house, I wish that a drunk might veer off the road and strike me down, or that a gang of queers would stuff me into their trunk and take me to some decadent address in New York. I am certain that the Aces are watching me with telescopic lenses, and I even conjecture that they may have beaten Susan senseless by the time I arrive. Actually, I tell myself, everything is going to be all right. Kirk thinks I am visiting my dying grandmother in Texas. He was much too excited about going to the meeting to suspect anything. Yet, in the deepest part of me, I know that he knows I am lying, that I am going out with Susan. I pray that he will not tip off the Aces.

  As I approach Charles Street, my entire body is a mass of swarming bugs. I look at my hands and imagine them curling like last year’s leaves. On the front porch of Susan’s red brick house, my tie comes to life and starts strangling me. I grasp it violently, hoping to save myself. Mrs. King opens the door and I try the Sidney Greenstreet out on her. It comes out falsetto. I begin to think of myself as the Flub-a-dub, a puppet on “Howdy Doody,” who is half duck and a third ostrich. As I enter the dining room (having no idea what words are being spoken, having seen none of the furniture), fat Mrs. King hands me a ukulele and tells me that when the young men came to see her “way back in the stone ages, ahaha,” they always played the uke and sang old favorites. I say that’s nice, but I don’t know any old favorites. She says oh yes you do. I say now wait a minute. She grits her teeth, snatches the uke and plays madly. I am forced to sing along, wishing I were with the Aces. If only I could catch Mrs. King in a parking lot after PTA. There would be much pain involved.

  Many mi
nutes later, after two full choruses of “In the Evening by the Moonlight,” Susan appears. She has on a simple brown skirt, a mohair sweater and a huge tiara on her head. She looks exactly like a queen. I tell her that fact in my deepest voice, and she looks at her mother as if I am crazy. I want to hide under the couch, refusing to come out unless coaxed by a nice lady doctor, who understands how badly I’ve been traumatized. We finally say good-bye to Mrs. King, who tells me she wishes Mr. King weren’t in the hospital with cancer so he could meet me. I smile and say that’s nice.

  Getting away from Mrs. King brings back some of my confidence. I decide that we are going to see the double feature at the Rex, The Creature from the Black Lagoon and Return of the Creature. Susan pouts and says she wants to see Tammy and the Bachelor. I tell her no, that’s impossible. I have never missed a horror movie in the past five years, and this is the last night for The Creature. She counters by telling me that she read a story in Photoplay about Debbie Reynolds and how this movie is a real challenge to her acting ability, how she even had to do a serious love scene in it. I say no again, this time in my own voice. I explain to her the social significance of the Creature. I tell her to look on him as bestial man, man without social hang-ups, and thus man who must be destroyed. When I turn to look at her this time, I am pleased to see her blue eyes wide open, spelling “I love you, I love you” beneath moist lashes.

  At the ticket booth I destroy the confidence I have built up by pulling out my plastic wallet. It is a souvenir from the trash heap I played in on the Hill, and has raised pictures of boots and saddles on it. Susan turns her head and gives one short snort of disgust. I bite my lips and ask for two children’s tickets. Susan gasps and chokes and I change the request to two adult tickets. She raises her eyebrows, looking forty-five, and asks if I think she is a child. I say of course not, didn’t I already call you a queen?