Going to Chicago

by Rob Levandoski

  Will was smart beyond his years and had every right in the world to pontificate on religion, adulthood, politics, death, money, the future, or anything else. I was the last person on earth to pontificate on sex. I didn’t get close to poking a willing city girl during our pilgrimage to the Chicago World’s Fair—wouldn’t have come close even if Gus Gillis hadn’t hijacked the Gilbert SXIII or Pruitt hadn’t done what he did. In fact I didn’t poke anybody until 1941, when I was learning how to cook at Ft. Benjamin Harrison. It was a mulatto girl from Chicago, who had traveled across Indiana. She cost me five dollars. No doubt it was the quickest five she ever made. I’m sure she forgot about me the second I stepped out her door and the next future Army Air Force cook stepped in. Still my memory of that first sexual experience has lasted me a lifetime. The clap I caught lasted me five months. I had sex six times in England, four in London and twice in Manchester. The first time I made love to a woman, that is, lingered before and after, talking and laughing, and not having to pay for it, was in 1948 with Lois Cobb, the woman I was about to marry.

  Lois Cobb and I were married for eleven years. Never had children. A couple years into our marriage the R&R Luncheonette was doing well enough that we began talking about having children. I told her if we had a boy, his name would be Will. “It’s bad enough I have to live with Will Randall’s ghost,” she said. “I’ll be damned if I’m going to give birth to it, too.”

  Little by little my chance of ever becoming a father dwindled as our marriage bed turned into an ice cube tray.

  Our accumulating debts didn’t help matters. Despite my triple-deckers and secret sauce, people kept flocking to the new Big Boy restaurant on U.S. 42. Lois divorced me six weeks after I sold the R&R to that dreamer home from Korea. Lois married an Irish autoworker from the west side of Cleveland and had three quick sons. She died of lung cancer in 1977. She wasn’t a smoker, but her Irish husband was a goddamn chimney, the sonofabitch. I had nothing against Lois Cobb. Even after she divorced me I thought she was one hell of a fine woman. Will Randall and the new Big Boy on U.S. 42 just got in our way I guess.

  “Do women on the air give you the screaming meemies? Do you feel jittery when you hear the sweetness and light heroine of the ‘He, She, and It’ dramas, who talk as no regular girl ever spoke on land or sea. In such a propah, propah mannah, my deah, that you long to kick her in the nether part of her lingerie and say, ‘Be yourself, dearie.’”

  RADIO NEWS MAGAZINE

  Twenty/Digging All Night

  Gus killed more than the ceiling, he killed any hope of getting Clyde and his ear to a doctor. Seven o’clock came around much too quickly. We were on the air.

  Lloyd read the introduction he and Gus had worked on most of the afternoon: “WEEB proudly presents The Gladys Bartholomew Theater, starring the beautiful and talented Gladys Bartholomew. Tonight’s broadcast is brought to you by the notorious Gus ‘The Gun’ Gillis, still terrorizing the goodly people of Weebawauwau County because Sheriff Orville Barnes is too much of a checkered-shirt cowboy to come after him, lead a’flying. Gus will be along a little later to egg the sheriff on, but now what do you say we settle back with a refreshing glass of Canada Dry ginger ale and enjoy the program. In our first episode, entitled ‘The Handsome Hobo,’ Gladys portrays Gladys White, sweet Georgia peach whose life is changed forever by a knock on the door.”

  The next thing the goodly people of Weebawauwau County heard was me asking, “Now?” Then after Gladys rolled her eyes and nodded they heard me rap three times on a block of wood, knock knock knock. “The Handsome Hobo” was underway.

  “The Handsome Hobo” was nearly identical to “The Dashing Stranger.” Instead of a country girl and her blind father needing someone to fix the levee before the rains started, it was about a southern girl and her grandfather needing someone to find a hoard of Confederate gold before the Yankee tax collectors arrived to confiscate their farm. Luckily a good-looking tramp, played of course by Will, showed up.

  WILL

  (as the Handsome Hobo)

  You bet your curly brown hair I’ll find that gold for you and your granddaddy. If I have to dig all night.

  GLADYS

  (as the Georgia Peach)

  You will? Here’s a shovel and a lantern. I’ll be out directly with some lemonade. Do you like it with lots of sugar?

  That’s the way it went. Hard to say what the people of Weebawauwau County thought of the story or the acting—both were pitiful—but I do know everybody was listening. Maybe today people wouldn’t give a second thought to a carload of criminals taking over a radio station and then haranguing the sheriff all night on the air, but in 1934 in the middle of Indiana, it was a big thing. Eight years later when I looked up Lloyd he was still strutting with pride about our huge success.

  Sheriff Barnes was listening at Millie’s, with her girls gathered around the radio, since the broadcast had interrupted all local desire for illicit sex. Pruitt was alone in his room at the Weebawauwau Inn. Others were listening, too: Albert Finley from the nearly empty Weebawauwau Palace; all five Harmony Heavers from an empty roadhouse on the highway; Bud Hemphill from the barn where his one-winged Jenny was drying out; Will’s Uncle Fritz in Valparaiso.

  Lloyd introduced Gus at the end of Act One.

  Gus slid back his fedora and leaned into the microphone. “Thank you, Lloyd. I hope everyone is enjoying tonight’s broadcast—and I hope everyone enjoys having a checkered-shirt cowboy for a sheriff. That’s right! That’s exactly what I said! Checkered-shirt cowboy!”

  Gus recounted all our crimes; the delivery men we stuck up, the riverful of Baptists, even the ballgame; he told them about kidnapping Will, Clyde, and me, how he was keeping us from our pilgrimage to the Chicago World’s Fair; told them how Sheriff Barnes’s refusal to enforce the law was preventing Clyde from getting the ear drops he needed to dissolve his painful wax. Gus went on for ten minutes, his hillbilly voice getting higher and higher. “Come on, Mr. Sheriff Orville Barnes. Come and free these poor Ohio boys. Come and free ol’ Gus Gillis from his despicable fleshy host. Send my worthless soul to roast in hell alongside Clyde Barrow’s. Come riddle me full of little holes, sheriff, riddle me full of little diddly damn holes.”

  Lloyd thanked him, recapping much of what he said. Will and Gladys launched enthusiastically into Act Two.

  Gladys’s acting was as overdone as her makeup. Will on the other hand was brilliant. He’s been reading aloud to me for six years. Now he was reading those terrible phony lines just as natural as could be. Just an hour earlier he was ready to die to unwax Clyde’s ear. Now he was lost in the radio play. He was somewhere in Georgia, digging in a dark swamp for Confederate gold, helping a beautiful Georgia peach save her granddaddy’s fahm from heartless Yankees.

  Gus called Sheriff Barnes a checkered-shirt cowboy several more times during the next commercial break. Act Three began. The Handsome Hobo had dug all night. Drank lots of lemonade, the sound of which I made by pouring Canada Dry into a coffee cup, about an inch away from the microphone, and then gulping it down myself like a noisy bullfrog.

  GLADYS

  (as the Georgia Peach)

  Oh Mr. Hobo, you have found the gold just in time. The sun is rising and I can hear that Yankee tax collector’s big black Oldsmobile coming up our dusty country road.

  This drivel led of course to the inevitable saying-goodbye scene.

  WILL

  (as the Handsome Hobo)

  Sure, it would be easy for me to stay. To fall in love with you. Especially the way the sun makes your hazel eyes sparkle.

  GLADYS

  (as the Georgia Peach)

  That sparkle is my love for you.

  WILL

  (as the Handsome Hobo)

  I’m a hobo. It’s in my blood. In my soul. I could stay, shave my two days of stubble. We’d get married. Settle down. Have a couple kids. But, drat it, sooner or later my old wanderlust would return, as certain as the tax man always returns. And I’d have
to leave. Break both our hearts. No, I gotta travel on.

  GLADYS

  (as the Georgia Peach)

  Good-bye—my handsome hobo.

  I, by the way, got to play more than the door and the lemonade. I was also the girl’s granddaddy and the Yankee tax collector, as well as a couple of Negro sharecroppers passing by with fishing poles. Clyde didn’t get to play any parts. He was in the corner humming. I remember wondering if the studio microphones were picking up his humming. I wondered how many people were sitting in their parlors trying to slap that hum out of their radios?

  I was exhausted. But we weren’t finished yet. After Gus lit into Sheriff Barnes for another ten minutes, we launched into “The Saintly Soldier,” followed by a reprise of “The Dashing Stranger.” Our performance ended with a final harangue by Gus and a few closing words from Lloyd: “Unless Sheriff Barnes comes and riddles Gus, we’ll be back tomorrow night with the three same episodes of The Gladys Bartholomew Theater.”

  We snacked on cheese sandwiches and Canada Dry. Will sat with his arm around Clyde, rocking him, telling him he wasn’t going to die.

  In Valparaiso, Will’s Aunt Mary was just getting home from the movie house. She’d gone with a neighbor lady to see Cleopatra starring Claudette Colbert. “Mary dear,” Fritz said when she came in, “guess who wus on der radio yust now!”

  In Weebawauwau Center Sheriff Barnes herded the whores from the room and made love to Millie. Pruitt sat in his hotel room making a list of all the laws Gus Gillis had broken.

  We slept pretty sound. Except Clyde. Sunday dawned. The Reverend Donald Aylesworth showed up for the Hour of Reflection.

  The Reverend Aylesworth was a crackerjack preacher. He knew how to take a current event and run with it. For an hour he dashed back and forth between the Old and New Testaments, digging out biblical truths that might bring Gus to his senses. Gus sat in the control booth, shotgun between his legs, thoughtfully taking it all in. Toward the end of the hour the reverend launched into a description of an earthly paradise, which would materialize overnight, he said, if only people would love their neighbor more and themselves a little less. “The wolf shall also dwell with the lamb,” he said, “and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together.”

  Gus was watching the wall clock, wanting the Hour of Reflection over. He rapped his fingers impatiently on his gun barrel, leaned into the microphone. “That’s all fine and dandy, Mr. Preacher man, but even Jesus said you can’t unscramble an egg.”

  The Reverend Aylesworth rippled with Christian indignation. “Where in the scriptures does our Lord say that?”

  Gus didn’t want an argument. “Play some music, Lloyd.” He escorted the reverend out, shotgun pointing in the general direction of his head.

  Gus did not expect Sheriff Barnes to come after him right away that morning. He knew everyone in a place like Weebawauwau County went to church on Sunday. But he was sure the sheriff would show up after lunch. “Any minute now you’ll see that corn start to dance with lawmen and vigilantes, closing in with pockets full of bullets.”

  The afternoon slipped by. Clyde’s head continued to swell. He was humming full bore. We sat on the lawn and watched the corn. It wasn’t dancing. Gus paraded back and forth, making a target out of himself. The corn still wasn’t dancing at suppertime. Gus looked sad enough to cry. He sent Will and Gladys inside to rehearse with Lloyd. He sent me to pick field corn.

  We’d eaten the last chicken the night before, so we didn’t have any meat. Just field corn, canned corn, rye bread, and Canada Dry. Gus wasn’t as disappointed as you might imagine. “That Barnes is a sneaky bastard,” he said, buttery niblets flying. “He’ll wait until we start the broadcast, then barge in, guns blazing. Y’all make sure you duck.”

  At seven The Gladys Bartholomew Theater went on the air. Between harangues from Gus, we worked our way through our three Daphne Darnell masterpieces. Sheriff Barnes didn’t barge in. Gus had survived another day. He dragged Gladys off to bed depressed. Will gave Clyde a boiled rag to hold on his face. “Something’s got to be happening back in Bennett’s Corners by now, don’t you think?” Will whispered. “I bet Mother called out the dogs when we didn’t show up last night.”

  “If she didn’t I bet my folks did,” I said.

  “What dogs?” Clyde asked.

  “Not dogs,” Will said. “The authorities. Mother’s probably called out the authorities.”

  “Authorities on what?” Clyde asked.

  “The police,” I said. “She’s probably called out the police.”

  “Let’s hope they don’t show up wearing checkered shirts,” Clyde said. Both Will and I were impressed with his sarcasm. Clyde wasn’t as dumb as we thought. Later I learned that both Mrs. Randall and my parents had called out the dogs. But not until after church on Sunday. Had they called them out Saturday night, or even before church, things might have been different. But they didn’t. Things also might have been different if Will’s Aunt Mary had believed Uncle Fritz when he told her he’d heard us all on WEEB. But she didn’t. Neither Mrs. Randall or my parents would arrive in Weebawauwau until late Monday afternoon. Too late. Too goddamn late. Sonofabitch.

  “Scientific and sanitary meat preparation for the market is shown by a mechanical bacon slicer with a capacity of 1,000 pounds an hour. Girls in spotless uniforms wrap and pack the bacon as it flows from the machine.”

  OFFICIAL GUIDE BOOK OF THE WORLD’S FAIR

  Twenty-One/Overpopped

  Sheriff Barnes made his move. Not because he wanted to. He wanted the game to go on a while longer. Millie Macmillan later told me he was prepared to wait us out all week. “It’ll be like a whole week of February 29ths,” he told Millie.

  Others weren’t as enthusiastic. His cousin Albert Finley in particular. Immediately after the Sunday night performance he called the sheriff at Millie’s and asked him to come by the movie house. “Albert sounds suicidal,” the sheriff told Millie. He scooped up his marbles and called Pruitt. Figured mixing the no-nonsense government man with his nervous cousin would be fun.

  They met in front of the Weebawauwau Palace. The Marx Brothers’ Duck Soup was playing. It was only a little past nine but there wasn’t a car on the street. The sheriff small-talked his way to the ticket booth. “You enjoying your stay, Pruitt?”

  “It’s a fine little town,” Pruitt said.

  “It’s the finest town in America. Finer than wherever you’re from.”

  “Bucksnort, Tennessee.”

  “Finer than Bucksnort, Tennessee,” the sheriff said.

  He small-talked the ticket girl. “How’s your momma and daddy, Lucy?”

  “Fine as fine can be,” Lucky said.

  “Tell your daddy I’m going to bowl his britches off tomorrow night.”

  “I will.”

  They went inside. He small-talked down the long empty lobby. “Bucksnort got a bowling alley, Pruitt?”

  Pruitt told him it didn’t.

  “Didn’t sound like it did,” the sheriff said. “You can come bowl with us tomorrow night if you’d like.”

  “I’m not a bowler.”

  “Didn’t think you were.” They found Albert Finley behind the concession counter. The crack under the theater door was flashing. Groucho was wisecracking. Nobody was laughing.

  The sheriff introduced Pruitt to his cousin. “Albert, this is Pruitt. Government man down from Chicago, to tell us how to live our lives.”

  Pruitt told me in 1968 that shaking Albert Finley’s hand was like grabbing a bluegill under water.

  “So what’s the problem, Albert?” the sheriff asked. “You catch Donny Fish drawing talking assholes on the bathroom wall again?”

  “Talking assholes, Mr. Finley?” Pruitt asked through his iron lips.

  “You know, assholes with words coming out in those cartoon balloons,” Albert Finley said.

  Pruitt pressed the investigation. “What are these assholes saying?”r />
  “Usually just ‘Hi,’” Albert Finley said.

  “Donny’s lonely but safe enough,” the sheriff assured the government man. “Good drawer, too.”

  Albert Finley dragged his clammy hands down his face. Started to quiver. “I didn’t call you because of Donny Fish’s talking assholes, Orville.”

  Sheriff Barnes knew Albert’s quivering was nothing to mess with. His cousin had been a bed-wetter right through puberty; hid in a barn for three days after getting a C-minus in high school Latin; over the years his breakdowns and depressions had cost the Finley and Barnes families an arm and a leg in doctor bills. “Then what’s the problem, Albert?”

  His cousin pointed at the pyramid of red-and-white boxes on the counter. “All this popcorn for starters.”

  “It does look like you overpopped a bit.”

  “No more than usual for a Sunday night. But you can’t sell popcorn if people don’t come to see the movie.” He swung his sweaty finger toward the theater door. “There’s not a soul in there, Orville. Not a one.”

  Pruitt offered federal assistance. “Maybe you should change movies, Mr. Finley. I never thought the Marx Brothers were that funny.”

  The government man’s stupidity emboldened Albert. “Everybody loves the Marx Brothers. I could run the Marx Brothers backwards and sell out the house. It’s that Gus and Gladys. Everybody’s stayed home to listen on the radio. Last night, too. All of Weebawauwau County’s gone goo-goo over those two.”

  The sheriff jerked out a bottom popcorn box without making the pyramid collapse. He rammed his mouth full of corn and pushed sideways through the theater doors. When the box was empty he came out, chuckling. “That Harpo laughs me to hives,” he said. He started down the lobby. “Let’s go, Pruitt.”

  Pruitt raced after him. “Where we going?”

  “We’re going to make Gus Gillis the unhappiest man in the state of Indiana. That’s where we’re going.” Being the sonofabitch he was, Pruitt figured they were going to shoot Gus down like Dillinger. But the sheriff had no such intention. “I don’t get it,” Pruitt said as they rushed toward the door. “For two days he’s been out there, calling you a—”