Chapter 49
Don't Look At Me
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Twenty-eight forty-four Is seven-come-eleven Quadruplicated... |
(Repeat that to yourself as you crimp another twist.)
(And another.)
(And another...)
Down here in the underground workshop you still think of as the Batcave, a dozen years after it got dubbed that by big brother Corey and his gang of hulking third-graders. They took turns playing caped crusaders and supervillains; you, a mere kindergarten girl, were told to keep out and stay away and quit bothering them like a bratty tagalong Pest (as Daphne had been labeled in The Marvelous Inventions of Alvin Fernald). Yet you (like Daphne) always succeeded in insinuating your golden curls into Corey & Co.’s inventive adventures; and as time went by the big boys taught you how to ride a two-wheeler, how to use manual and power tools, how to change a car’s tires and oil and tune its engine, how to cuss like a sailor on shore leave. You were allowed to be the towel girl at their high school wrestling practices; Corey even let you help him shave his head in admiring imitation of the Mongolian Stomper and other bald matmen, not to mention Mr. Dmitria of Double-A Sporting Goods where Corey worked parttime before departing for Purdue.
Most importantly, Corey taught you how to put up your dukes and stand up for yourself on your own two feet. Which is something you’ve had to do again and again, whether dealing with ex-boyfriends or one-time dates: starting with Futz de Courcey (that lazybutted caterpillar inspector) in sixth grade. He was followed by Wayne Rhinelander and Woody Tays and Graham Aleshire and Mario Neri and Hogan Quirk and his brother Burke (separately, not together) and Diesel Erle and Judd Courtney and Tab Tchorz (that cherry-picking turd) and Cal Cavella and Jeff Friardale and Brewster Canute—though not by Avery Loderhauser, who’s too short for romantic consideration. Which can’t be said for Gootch Bulstrode; yet he was the cheating beanstalk you challenged to an outright fistfight (and served him right) at last year’s Petty Hills Country Club prom.
Some of those guys lasted for months, other only hours; sooner or later each of them failed to make the grade and had to be cast off. Not once were you ever the one who got ousted, exiled, deported from a relationship; not one single time, until you least expected it. And then it was done by the sturdiest of steadies—or so you thought, right up till the moment it happened—on a winter-cursed fatal-shadowed Groundhog Day.
(Croon along with the Batcave radio as you continue crimping those twists:)
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Duhhhhst in the winnnnd All we are is dust in the winnnnd... |
You feel that disemboweling dumpage just as sorely, just as keenly, as on the hollow empty Valentine’s morning when Him With The Teeth sidled up beside you in Second Hour American History class. Hissing “Let’s see a smile, show us a smile, any rags any bones any smy-ulls today? smiiiile though your heart’s been skewered, not just any smiiiile that’s neutered, one belonging to the ages like thissss”—as he thrust a BMV token before your bloodshot eyes. Snakelike and spiderly it writhed: a long black ribbon festooned with tiny skull-like comedy/tragedy masks.
“Stick it in there,” was your only response. Meaning either the trashcan, his own poopchute, or your shoulderbag receptacle for every Valentine offering from guys callous enough to take advantage of your eviscerated situation.
But Candy-Slam-Her-Titties-In-A-Thousand-Gates was also in that classroom; and she broke the sound barrier spreading a rumor that you asked Him With The Teeth to take you to the Turnabout. This pestilential libel didn’t reach Home Ec (Cooking II, officially “Advanced Foods”) by Third Hour, which Doreen spent dithering whether she should accept Rags Ragnarsson’s BMV regardless of his being only a soph though big for his age. But by lunchtime the deceitful smear was all over the cafeteria, abetted no doubt by Drusilla Gorillagator Schwaeder while she flaunted her usurpation of your rightful Valentine. Mary Kate, quietly frantic, shredded paper napkins into angstsy confetti as you told her “I don’t wanna talk about it or hear you talk about it.” She kept right on fussing and fretting, which inadvertently recirculated the slanderous hearsay through the cheerybabe ranks in Sixth Hour Honors Gym; then through Doc Plassy’s Seventh Hour Physics lab; and then—reinforced by Mincy-Pincy Gates her heinous self—through an afterschool double-hour of Follies routines.
The rest of that dismal Valentine’s Day you spent alone in your room with all shades down, all curtains drawn, every mirror turned to a wall or tabletop. No peeking, no prying, and absolutely no more crying: your tear ducts were drained of their last grain of salt. And positively NO further rehashing of why the only boy you’d ever truly entrusted with your heart (don’t even think his name aloud) would treat it and you the way he went and did. Instead, you lulled yourself to unrestful slumber by rereading The Last Unicorn for the umptillionth time; clutching Amalthea (plush replica of the title character, for whom you’d traded a kitschy yellow State Fair umbrella with Niblets Wiblitz) till you dropped into troublesome sleep...
Let’s see a smile—show us a smile—not just any smiiiile, but one like thissss...
A contorted chain gang of gaping skulls, alternating those that grin at you with those that yawn in your face...
Poor silly little girl. Poor unlovable tagalong Pest. Don’t bother trying to get anyplace to cheer anyone: they won’t need you, they don’t want you. Just stick to the stage and shake your big fat chorus girl’s ASS—smiiiiling allll the whiiiile...
So sang a zombiefied Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem behind your twitching eyelids, all through that tormented Valentine’s Night.
(Croon along with the Batcave radio as you continue crimping your twists:)
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Who’d have believed that you were part of a dreeeeam? Now it all seeeems light-years awaaaay And now you know I cannnn’t smiiiile withouuuut you... |
You dreaded returning to American History the next morning; yet Him With The Choppers studiously ignored you while “apologizing” to Mincy-Pincy for causing her to sob her pillowcase into soppiness last night because he’d neglected to present her with a BMV token yesterday, mea maxxxxima culpa oh! how it made him wring his heartstrings to think of Candy’s-Just-What-The-Doctor-Ordered having to wring out that maidenly pillowslip and pin it onto her chaste washline but lament no more (yea verily!) she should bathe her wounds and raise her hands in a glory HONNolulu ay-loha ay-men—
—not permitting Cankerous Gagglefuss to inject even one extradistinct syllable of protest or denial before Mr. Hatch began to discuss Dewey in Manila. And got swiftly sidetracked into describing a Philippine Baby King Alfonso XIII stamp in his philatelic collection, while C.G. was left to stew in her virulent juices.
Not that this meant you might invite Choppers to the Turnabout; not even if all twenty nails got yanked simultaneously out of your fingers and toes. But it did make you think again about his ribbony token—this time without any Muppet background music.
During Fourth Hour Jewelry class you began to sketch a idea for an artifact, an amulet, a talisman. This evolved further in 5C Study Hall, where you lingered through 5D instead of going down to the cafeteria. (Niblets might be able to sketch without interruption while everyone around her ate off trays or out of brownbags, but you sure as hell can’t—not among all those driblets and crumbs.)
(Not to be confused with crimps, as you secure the last metallic twist.)
Your 5D absence on the Day After Valentine’s had an unintended side effect: Mary Kate verging on a panic attack by the time you met her in the locker room for Sixth Hour Gym. “Where were you?? Was it with Dennis?? Did he make you miss lunch?? You know we have to eat in the cafeteria till we’re seniors!! I was so worried!! I didn’t know what to think you might’ve done!! Oh, Cheryl!—I was so scared...”
Dialing you both back those same dozen years, to when the Batcave was still freshly dubbed.
First day of kindergarten at Snead Elementary. Third-grader Corey grumblingly conducted you there, since big sister Elsie was starting junior high at VW; though it was she, not he, who wrestled you into the new stain-repellent dress that he, not she, said made you look like a sissy. Girlish as that dress was. it looked nowhere near as genteel as the Perma-Prest frock worn by the five-year-old Annette Funicello you found weeping quietly in a corner of the playground. “C’mon, whatsa matter?” you kept asking, till she confessed her terror of being kidnapped by the bloodthirsty gypsies her big brother’d said were lying in wait all around Snead to seize and consume new schoolkids.
“Your dumb brother’s the one who’s lying!” you told her, with a boast that you weren’t afraid of anything—gypsies, cannibals, wild beasts, monsters under the bed, and specially not meanie-mouthed big brothers. “So stay close by me, ‘n’ you’ll be okay. I won’t let any of ‘em hurt you.”
“For real? No fooling? Oh thank you! That makes me feel lots better!”
“Hey lookit them, everybody—it’s Betty ‘n’ Veronica! HA!! HA!! HA!!”
“Shut up, Mumbles!” you snapped at Yvette Metcalf, shaking your blonde ponytail indignantly. To your new friend: “Don’t listen to her, she lives down the hill” (as local children referred to Baroque Vista). “Where do you live?”
“I—I don’t ‘member,” whimpered Annette/Veronica, her eyelids starting to refill. “We just moved there last week. My mommy wrote it down...” Fumbling for a tag pinned to her genteel collar that had Mary Kate Hazeldene / 2844 Andricus Drive printed neatly upon it.
“That’s real near me! I live at two-eight-four-four Aleppo! You’re packtickly next door!” you informed Mary Kate—who went ahead and started to cry, but this time with joyous relief.
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Twenty-eight forty-four Is seven-come-eleven Quadruplicated... |
Over those next dozen years the two of you wore a groove into the couple of blocks between Mary Kate’s house on Andricus and this one on Aleppo. Expanding your shared range through Green Hill Gardens (the neighborhood uphill from Baroque Vista) to the rest of Vanderlund and eventually other NESTL(É) suburbs as you both became cheerleaders, following the lead of Theresa Challis who was your year-older role model at Snead. Not to discount star-spangled Celeste Schwall, who thrilled the school (her elementary alma mater) by addressing an assembly from her multiple pinnacles as VTHS Homecoming Queen, National Merit finalist, captain of the Girls Athletic Association, winner of the Flips Exelby Physical Education Trophy, title character in The Unsinkable Molly Brown, Most Likely to Succeed in her graduating class, and The State’s reigning Junior Miss.
You can’t get much more refulgent than that.
You can’t, at any rate; though Mary Kate ought to, with your guidance and support. From that very first day of kindergarten you knew she was the unfakest person in the whole wide world. Later on you learned other apt adjectives—genuine, authentic, bona fide, honestly sincere. No need to lock pinky-fingers to rest assured she would keep any promise or secret; not a ghost of a chance that Mary Kate might ever prove false. Foolish, maybe, like when she skipped out on being crowned Cicada Queen to go see her twin nieces Iola and Iona premiere in The Prince and the Pauper; yet even that was the act of a noble paragon.
You value this quality above all others, deploring hypocrisy and deception. Just one glance at Poison Candy Gates was enough to confirm her deep-dyed fraudulence. The only legitimate thing about Margo Temple was how she hounded Gigi Pyle (that counterfeit Dixie damsel) out of town and off to Peru. Meredith Wainwright’s climb up the cheerleading ladder by kissing Fleur Groningen’s butt and licking Penny Stone’s saddle shoes sickened your stomach. Even someone as true-blue as Alex Dmitria could betray your trust by saying “unicorns are phony versions of horses”—an unforgivable falsehood, since you KNOW they really truly exist in some mystical other dimension.
Of course your mother and sister Elsie did start harping about Why can’t you be more like Mary Kate? the moment you two became best friends. Specifically, why can’t you let them treat you like a Barbie doll and gussy you up in stain-repellent outfits, tie cutesy bows on your fluffed-out ponytail, and render you vulnerable to Corey & Co.’s hulking sneers? For awhile you fought like a wildcat against gussification, and heard your first Oh, Cheryl murmurs from Mary-Kate; but then Theresa Challis showed how you could “doll around” sometimes and still be one of the guys, depending on the occasion. (Theresa would go on to date Corey—“Chromey-Domey,” she called him—for awhile, after she developed her classy chassis and he shaved his head.)
To tell the truth, you’ve often wished you were more like Mary Kate. More graceful, more thoughtful, more optimistic, more altruistic; better able to remember personal details. (You keep forgetting the Tiggs sisters’s names, Sabrina and Samantha, and when reminded are re-astonished that their parents named them after witches.) Most often you wish for more of Mary Kate’s forbearing patience: a much longer fuse for your hot temper, which may not be as hair-triggered as Penny Stone’s or Amanda Pound’s but certainly isn’t laidback. How often have you been on the brink of rage at Doreen Jobling, whom you and Mary Kate (mostly Mary Kate) “adopted” at seventh-grade drill team tryouts? Shame on you—nobody tries harder than poor Dory, or has had as many mishaps and calamities to overcome. (Who else breaks their ankle passing their driver’s test? Or burns off their eyelashes in Home Ec and causes the entire school to be evacuated?)
(Croon along with the Batcave radio as you buff your artifact on the bench lathe:)
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It amaaaazes me And I know the wind will surely someday Blow it all awaaaay... |
• (That is, if the wind can beat Doreen to blowing it.)
(Oh, Cheryl. Her heart’s in the right place.)
(I know that, dammit! Didn’t I just think something like that?)
(Of course you did. You’ve always been our guardian angel.)
Which is a weird thing for a devout Episcopalian like Mary Kate to tell a skeptical Methodist like yourself, even just inside your head. Not that it isn’t sort of accurate: starting in kindergarten when you put the fear of God into Parker Hazeldene, Mary Kate’s nasty big brother, by threatening that Corey would clobber him if he ever picked on her in any way.
Then in early adolescence Mary Kate blossomed very fully very quickly (again like Annette) and outwardly became a sultry siren overnight. Which horrified her when hornyboys took this façade to mean she was fast and loose and ripe for mishandling. “He... he tried to grab me!!” she sobbed on your shoulder after her first postblossoming date. “I’m not a tease!! I don’t wanna look like a bad girl!! Oh, why can’t I be sweet ‘n’ pretty like you??”
It made your blood boil, needless to say. You rustled up a punitive posse to go lynch the malefactor (Bruce “Moose” Sedgemoor, may he rot in pieces) who abruptly vamoosed from town along with the rest of his family. By the time Larry “Throb” Garrigan faithlessly ditched Doreen for hobbling around in an ankle-cast, you’d refined vengeance-taking into a spearheaded boycott by nearly every eligible female at VTHS, which cut “Throb” down to hobbit-size in nothing flat.
Did that make you a bad girl? A mean girl? A girl deserving to have her big fat chorus girl’s ASS dumped on Groundhog Day, by a longtime boyfriend in conspicuous public and practically out of the blue—
“Cher-yl?” from upstairs. “Are you going to be down there all day?”
“No, Mother.”
Imogene the Wedding Genie: a professional bridal consultant, not to be confused with Barbara Eden or the apocalyptic quartet in Athens Grove. Imogene burst out of her genie-bottle when born-to-breed Elsie dropped out of Wesleyan to marry beefy Angus Braford (there’s a name you wish you could forget) at the Green Hill United Methodist Church. After endless palaver, Elsie got gussified in white silk organza trimmed in Alençon lace, while you as bridesmaid was forced to wear shrimp-colored chiffon and carry a ridiculous bunch of glamelias...
(Forget it. Switch off the bench lathe; pick up your polishing cloth.)
Back to the days after Valentine’s. Pacifying Mary Kate with a pledge that you didn’t and wouldn’t ask Him With the Teeth to the Turnabout, even if it were the last dance on earth. Fending off her attempts to rekindle your long-dead interest in that slacked-off Caterpillar Inspector. Ditto Frank Wharton’s promoting Kevin Wingate, who’s even blander than Frank: like a loaf of unbuttered untoasted Wonder Bread.
Enough. Elsie may waddle around waiting to bring forth Angus Braford’s baby, and Corey may have hit the wrestling mat for the last time this season at Purdue; but you’re flexing the skills inherited from generations of Cornish tin miners. A century ago they emigrated to the Upper Peninsula’s Copper Country, from which Tristram Trevelyan (aka Dad) came to The City to curate at its Museum of Science and Industry: bringing the genes that make you a talented metalworker. Even Corey & Co. had to admit your flair for auto repair, though they attributed it to your slender “girly” fingers. This year you enrolled in Ms. Niello’s Jewelry class and put those fingers to work crafting rings, pins, earrings, bracelets, brooches...
...and now this artifact. This amulet. This talisman.
This pendant, all set to have a silver necklace threaded through its bail.
Turn it slowly over and over. Heads, a miniature comedy mask; tails, a matching tragedy mask; each handmade out of sterling silver wire, mounted on either side of an antique silver pendant tray.
Over and over, like the slo-mo flip of a Spanish doubloon.
It grins at you on one side. Yawns in your face on the other. Two diminutive skulls with jawbones agape and blackness within. Both making you shiver in this well-ventilated underground workshop of a Batcave.
Till you bend over the artifact and begin a silent chant of JINX—JINX—JINX—
*
Elmo Raithwight, son of a brawny-armed village blacksmith, laid rails for the original Rock Island Line and loaded cannons for the Volunteer Light Artillery before settling down to forge iron shovels in a City factory that burned to the ground during the Great Fire of 1871. “A body can get religion in an awful hurry when a thing that happens,” Elmo piously testified while wielding a salvaged shovel in his new role as sexton of a City churchyard. From digging graves he ascended to preaching the Gospel, shepherding revivals, and founding the Raithwight Bible Institute to train ministers, missionaries, and Sunday school superintendents; but when he died at threescore years and ten, “Saint” Elmo asked his sexton-successor to bury him with that rescued shovel in his hand. (It didn’t fit in the coffin, so the sexton substituted a garden hoe.)
Flash forward a few generations to the day John Jacob “Skippy” Uberspringer, a Raithwight pastoral studies major, experienced a vision on the road to Decatur. As he described it, a Holy Presence rose out of the Sangamon River to remind Skippy that
The pastor-in-training interpreted this as a call to organize a fellowship called Candlestick that would let the Light shine before students in benighted public high schools and colleges, that they might see Good Works and come to glorify the Holy Presence which art in heaven.
A wick-igniting delegation paid its first visit to the Vanderlund Township High School Principal’s office shortly after Lucas Stabeldore took up residence there. Cool Hand Luke gave polite heed to Candlestick’s request to sponsor a Bible Study Club at VTHS, so evangelical students could discuss their religious experiences with a view to spreading knowledge and awareness of Jesus Christ.
At that time Mr. Stabeldore was far more concerned about a threatened teachers strike if a reduced education levy lost at the polls. Yet he himself was devoted to The Way, kneeling at his bedside every night to say heartfelt prayers, and “applying elbow grease to troubled waters” as his school wallowed through its current tempest. He suggested that Pastor Skippy’s flock help resurrect the Hi‑Y and Tri‑Hi‑Y clubs, in which student interest had been fading over the past several years. After all, the purpose of those inspirational organizations was to build good moral character through clean living, clean speech, clean sports, clean scholarship, and Muscular Christianity. (Yep.)
The Candlestick delegation made a courteous reply, but underlying it was a resounding Nope. From their standpoint the YMCA/YWCA had long since gone astray, losing C and becoming merely Y in a Jesusless gym or pool as they neglected theology and fundamental Christian truths. (Pastor Skippy’s flock did not fail to take note that Mr. Stabeldore was a “confirmed bachelor” who’d been closely associated with scoutmasters for most of his life.)
So Candlestick sought other inroads, focusing on the Vanderlund PTA; and while numerous True Believers were found there, none was as formidable a disciple as Mrs. Emil Ullmann. Born Sigrid Nygaard in Winneshiek County, Iowa, she’d been known from childhood as “Henie” for her resemblance to Sonja the Olympic figure skater, and as “Henie-Penie” for her tendency to react as though the sky were falling. She honed this inclination into a steely determinism during the war years while Emil, her foreordained soulmate, served with the Army Air Corps in Italy. He returned to her, as God intended; they were married, as Jesus decreed; and she gave him six children at rigidly-timed three-year intervals while Emil advanced from a Winneshiek farmboy to a U of C professor of free market economics, as Milton Friedman advocated.
All six offspring received their secular education in the Vanderlund Township School District. Astrid, the eldest, was among the first students enrolled at the new VW Junior High—after Sigrid, her mother, was among the angry parents who argued the district out of labeling VW’s three wings “A, B, and C” or “Red, Blue, and Yellow” (the first misrepresenting grade-point averages, the second impugning military patriotism).
During the Golden Age of VTHS, Mrs. Emil Ullmann took unsinful pride in having her sons and daughters attend one of the top public college-prep high schools in America. Yet she took increasing exception to the dubious innovations implemented by definitely-not-a-Sunday-school Superintendent Amsterdam—not just team teaching, modular scheduling, and New Math, but relaxation of dress codes and hair-length rules and above all (make that below all) the ban on Sex Ed. Which had no place in secular education, so far as Mrs. Ullmann and God Almighty were concerned.
Both were instrumental (Mrs. Ullmann felt certain) in the purging of Christina Rossetti Literary Society after Bitsy Lurdinger’s suicide attempt; and in “Dutch” Amsterdam’s being replaced by “Save-a-Nickel” Billings when budget-belts had to be tightened across the district. But far more important things than nickels needed to be saved in Vanderlund, and the advent of John Jacob Uberspringer seemed especially opportune. Henie-Penie saw Candlestick as a stanchion to help prevent the sky from falling any further than it already had.
Reaction from others in the PTA was less enthused. Some hinted that rather than meddle with separation of church and state, the Ullmanns might prefer transferring their two youngest children to a private sectarian school. “Not while our taxes uphold this one,” retorted Mrs. Ullmann; and in fact neither of those two youngest, Hulda or Howard, were inclined to “go parochial” (as twelve-year-old Howard ponderously put it, turning the pages not of a Testament but the Wall Street Journal). Fifteen-year-old Hulda found Pastor Skippy “fascinating,” mostly because he looked like John Ritter as Reverend Fordwick on The Waltons, and thus was fantasize-aboutable in the material-worldliest sense.
If Mrs. Ullmann felt any frustration at her two youngest’s lack of Candlesticky zeal, she was more than compensated by the stormy vehemence of Aurora “Hear Me Roar” Anstruther. Much as Elmo Raithwight’s life had been changed by a Great Fire and John Jacob Uberspringer’s by a Watery Presence, Aurora Anstruther’s got transformed by a mighty wind—namely the tornado that devastated downtown Canton while she was there for a summer gymnastics symposium. Exhumed from the rubble of a Ramada Inn, Roarie soon healed physically but did not come out of a catatonic fugue until she was visited by Candlestickers bearing a series of Spire comic books in which Archie and his Riverdale gang praised the Lord and passed along redemption.
Roused by these uplifting tracts, Roarie declared herself to be born again and ready to witness for her Savior.
She gave up all other interests during her senior year at VTHS: quitting the varsity cheerleading squad, Concert Choir and Footlight Players; scrapping college applications for USC, Syracuse, and the University of Texas at Austin; breaking off relationships with unspiritual boys and irreligious girls. Among the latter was Aurora’s own little sister Angelique, whom Roarie denounced as a Devil-worshiping bride of Satan for advising her (in no-nonsense pre-med terms) to “get deprogrammed from that Candlestick cult.”
Aurora would rather be reburied beneath a demolished motel than stray from The One and Only Way, and she let everybody know it. Always assertive and outspoken, her pronouncements were now amplified by the mighty wind of righteousness—even when that proved to be counterproductive to Candlestick’s cause. It did not take long for Mr. Stabeldore to bar Roarie from his office, except when summoned there for disciplinary dressing-downs when she’d inform students, teachers, school staff and/or passers-by that they were going to BURN IN HELL unless they repented their sins immediately and opened their hearts to the Light of the World.
After Aurora graduated from VTHS and began holier-than-thou-ing classmates and faculty at the Raithwight Bible Institute, Pastor Skippy often had to ride herd on her. Yet there could be no denying Roarie’s impact: though not as beautiful as Angelique, she had a lot more hotchacha in the my eyes are up here but my breasts are down here sense; and a career in glamorous televangelism seemed a cinch—if Roarie could be thwarted from scaring off the viewing public.
Flash forward again, this time to the present day: Sunday the 5th of March, the
morning after Vicki Volester’s Roller Disco birthday party. Following regular
services at the Raithwight campus chapel, Candlestick held a press conference
presided over by Mrs. Emil Ullmann.
“It has come to our attention,” she commenced, enunciating each syllable as extradistinctly as Candy Gates, “that a musical play containing obscenities has been selected as this year’s Spring Operetta at Van-der-lund Town-ship High School.”
(Aurora Anstruther, standing to one side in a snug Raithwight choir robe, brandished a copy of the Follies libretto for all to see.)
“It goes without saying that we cannot quote the offensive language aloud,” huffed Mrs. Ullmann, “but a complete list of explicit and indecent passages has been prepared and is available.”
(J.J. Uberspringer, standing to the other side, pointed at a stack of bright yellow handouts.)
“Candlestick calls upon all concerned parents to prevent the staging of this immoral musical at a public high school financed by our tax dollars; and to investigate and penalize those responsible for its propagation. Our children deserve and demand nothing less.”
(Roarie, flicking a Bic with her non-brandishing hand, set fire to the Follies script and ostentatiously tossed it into a metal wastebasket; while Mrs. Ullmann and Pastor Skippy tried to behave as though this torch act wasn’t a surprise to them both.)
*
Coverage in the Monday morning papers highlighted the burning of the script, implying this was done in protest against the original show’s Composer and his lifestyle; parallels were drawn to the activities of Anita Bryant and Phyllis Schlafly. Secondary mention was made that VTHS would be putting on a “revision” of the musical, which as Mr. Stabeldore noted (briefly, of course) had been adapted for a high school audience months earlier.
Candlestick fired back, charging that the Vanderlund administration was engaged in a brazen coverup of licentious transgressions, and calling on the School Board to do its duty by prohibiting this dramatic disaster—thereby saving hundreds if not thousands of schoolchildren from further corruption. Towards which end, VTHS got blanketed with bright yellow handouts.
By Tuesday afternoon everyone there had a chance to see the list of goddamns, goddammits, goddamnedests; bet your asses, break their asses; you silly bitch, you fourteen-carat bastard, you pissed my life away; screw around, ravage her, let him up your skirts; Middle-aged Phyllis telling a waiter Young man, you’re getting me all wet after letting Middle-aged Ben know that The way I wanted you, I’d come home with my panties wringing wet—
—each of which vulgarities had in fact been replaced by a euphemism in Mr. Frazee’s playbook: e.g. Young man, you’re getting me “in the mood.”
Nonetheless, Willamene Fowler (daughter of a Baptist clergyman) notified Miss Sickles that she couldn’t and wouldn’t be singing with the chorus of such a questionable Operetta. Half a dozen other students were unsure whether their straitlaced parents would let them remain with the show—among whom was the sadly embarrassed Mary Kate Hazeldene, whose departure would probably trigger a lethal domino effect.
Still, it might be a moot point. On Wednesday morning word came down that the Board of Education would hold an emergency meeting on Friday to determine whether Frazee’s Follies should go ahead and be staged as planned—or get struck unplayed.
During Wednesday’s afterschool double-hour, the entire company (except Willamene) gathered to hear Mr. Frazee deliver a defiant philippic that was almost as inflammatory as any of Aurora Anstruther’s. Everyone cringed to think how the Board might respond to having this sturm und drang blasted in their faces. “Might as well roll up the red carpet and ring down the curtain on this abridged production,” Fletcher Wyndham remarked behind a hammy hand to Nelson Baedeker.
Dexter disapproved of “fraternization” between cast and crew, but there was protective intermingling onstage and in the wings as Mr. Frazee ranted on. Vicki stood not with Avery and the Schrimpfen twins (lounging loftily up on the catwalk) but Alex and Jenna and Spacyjane and Jerome Schei and Wes Gormley. Behind them lurked the apprehensive Doreen, Mary Kate and Alva Dee, plus unruffled-as-ever Becca Blair—and Cheryl Trevelyan, who was behaving more like her normal self for the first time since Groundhog Day. She wore the new silver pendant she’d shown off at lunchtime: a two-sided pair of comedy/tragedy masks that Jenna admired but gave Vicki the creeping meemies. It/they made her think of skulls, reminding her that Biology dissection would begin in less than a month—and not cut the slightest ice with Becca, whose future-surgeon fingers were turning Cheryl’s pendant backward and forward as if to calculate its troy weight to the last grain.
“Made this yourself, did you?” she asked and “Yeah, out of sterling wire,” Cheryl answered; neither of them even pretending to lend an ear to Mr. Frazee, which piqued Vicki out of her usual caution around these two potentates.
“(C’mon, you guys, please listen to him—what he’s saying’s important,)” she whisper-scolded. “(Even if it’s really Coach Celeste who ought to be saying it.)”
Most of the nearby ears pricked up, though not to hear Mr. Frazee.
“(What?)” went Alex.
Good question: how’d that thought pop into your head?
“(Well, um, she’s the choreographer, y’know, so I kind of asked her in Gym should we be worried about this? and she said ‘No, remember yoga poses put our minds at ease, just like aerobic dance provides us with mental and emotional release’ which is what we all sort of need right now, y’know? especially him—)”
—as Mr. Frazee’s tirade flamed out and Zal Tergeist leaped up to perform a show-must-go-on song-and-dance, culminating in that dramaturgical act of contrition which forced Dexter to shake hands with an actor and cemented Zalman’s place in the Operetta cast several days ahead of rumored schedule—
—presuming, of course, the show did go on.
Meanwhile the group in Vicki’s wing was hashing over her quasiproposition that Coach Celeste should be the one to defend Follies at Friday’s tribunal, even if it was actually Mr. Frazee’s baby in the first place.
“Especially because of that,” chirped Jenna. “Otherwise the School Board’ll throw it out with his bathwater.”
“Oh, I love Celeste! She’ll be perfect!” went Wes, echoed by Jerome’s “I can hardly wait to see her in action!”
“Ms. Schwall does have the best aura,” Spacyjane told Alva Dee.
“Well, she’d sure have our votes to save us,” Alex and Mary Kate chimed in.
“What do you think, Cheryl?” Doreen wanted to know.
Lengthy stare across the stage at the other wing, where Candy Gates was undergoing hasslement by Dennis Desmond. Then Cheryl, thumbing her two-faced pendant, cleared her throat and asked “How would you get it to happen?”
“Leave that to me,” said stately Becca Blair.
*
Stage Crew carried on as best they could, trying to get all the technical aspects of Follies ready for a final Crunch Week that might get scratched off the calendar along with the Operetta itself. Vicki, working with Nancy Buschmeyer and Kathleen Prindle, concentrated on costumes. Many of these were supplied by the actors themselves: those playing middle-aged characters borrowed suits and party dresses from real-life older relatives of similar build, while the showgirls brought their own leotards to be sequined—black-and-white for ghosts/memories, brightly colored for Loveland. That vexing sequence would require special attire and accessories: a top hat, cravat and cane for Ben; a derby and light-up bow tie for Buddy; fancy evening gowns for Sally and Phyllis. One way or another, those gowns would have to fit not only Judy and Theresa but their respective understudies, Nanette Magnus (if her nail-it-to-the-door Lutheranism didn’t make her quit) and Crystal Denvour. Vicki’d forgotten about Crystal’s backup assignment till they went through the practice-motions of quick-changing for “The Story of Lucy and Jessie.” It was a powerful reminder of stuffing Crystal back into her sundress after that Back-to-School blackout at VW.
“At least this time there’s no disembodied groper-hands,” she quipped.
“I could use a couple extra hands to get you all changed at once,” moaned Vicki.
Surprisingly, Kathleen Prindle was a pillar of strength for the wardrobe crew; or rather a pedestal of strength, since she was typically found stooped over her portable sewing machine or hunched next to somebody’s hem with a needle and thread. Either way, you could depend on Kathleen to find a quick solution for any costume dilemma, even while she stitched countless sequins onto showgirl leotards as contentedly as she’d made innumerable tissue-paper flowers for the LitSoc float in the Homecoming Parade.
Yet it was Vicki whom Nancy B took aside to privately thank for being there. “(You and Spacyjane and LeAnn Anobile are the only ones Kathleen doesn’t get petrified around. And LeAnn doesn’t understand what we’re talking about half the time—while we need an interpreter to figure out what Spacyjane’s saying the other half.)”
“(Um, well... glad to be of help,)” said Vicki.
On Thursday Gail Spruce breathlessly reported several cases where early ticket buyers hadn’t just requested their money back but demanded it, “saying we ought to be ashamed of ourselves!” Split-Pea Erbsen theorized that these fusspots were all Candlestickers who’d prepurchased expressly in order to insist on reimbursement.
“As they like to say: ‘Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe. And’ (as they like to add) ‘if a man smite the eye of his servant, or the eye of his maid, that it perish; he shall let him go free for his eye’s sake.’ So, Follies folks, let’s step right up and knock their eyes out.”
“You are so weird,” gasped Gail.
*
The Vanderlund Township Board of Education regularly convened on the third Monday of every month with a closed session at 5:30 p.m., opening to the public and press at 6:30 for a further hour of deliberations. However, the special open meeting on Friday March 10th was scheduled to kick off at 5:00 sharp—partly in hopes of reducing attendance by hotheaded and fierywinded elements, though the Board chose to meet in the spacious VTHS auditorium on the assumption these elements would show up anyway. Mr. Stabeldore arranged for a few off-duty policemen to be on-site to handle any situations that might arise—“with parking, or so on.”
Four of the seven Board members had voted to hear their constituents air concerns about the senior high school’s choice of Spring Operetta, but none felt grateful to Candlestick for raking up such concerns at a time when heftier issues were on the agenda. Student attendance had been tapering off all through the Seventies; the youngest Baby Boomers would soon finish eighth grade; childbearing parents were settling in less expensive suburbs; belt-tightening was no longer sufficient. The district had to deal with the need for consolidation—and that meant school closures. Last fall Multch Township tried to extend its period of adjustment by giving three years’s notice that Multch East would be closed and consolidated with Multch North; students, parents and alumni at both high schools promptly mounted death-before-dishonor barricades, and were now as entrenched as any army in World War I. Not that this would save East from shutting down or North from opening up, or a certain percentage of Multch faculty and administrative staff from inevitable layoffs.
In Vanderlund there was tentative talk of closing at least two elementary schools (though no consensus as to which) and one of VW’s three wings, shifting ninth grade back to VTHS no later than 1980, while cutting the district’s future budget by as much as 20%. These were the quandaries the Board needed to resolve; and while outrage about Frazee’s Follies might be called a “diversion,” it wasn’t a particularly welcome one.
The VTHS Stage Crew spent most of Friday’s afterschool double-hour helping to set up the stage and auditorium for the School Board session, leaving strategic evidence of Operetta preparations in visible place. Dexter and Shecky gave short peptalks praising everyone’s efforts and rallying the troops for more to come; while Footlighter scouts kept tabs on the Candlestick picket line across Wheaf Avenue, parading under John 3:16 signs as Aurora Anstruther led them in singing “Day by Day” from Godspell.
Vicki and Jenna were stationed in their crew smocks by the auditorium’s central entrance, ready to distribute mimeographed guidelines and request-to-address-the-Board cards to incomers. “I’ll hate to leave in the middle of all this,” Jenna said as she resettled her proscenium-arch frames, “but it might be the safest thing to do. Even if it weren’t Friday and sunset wasn’t at 5:51.”
“Never fear, reinforcements are here!” proclaimed Zerlina Monticello, traipsing through the doorway with Keiko Nakayama edging shyly in after her. “We brought the big gun, too! You guys know Gemma Symes-Stone, the Kickshaw Dance Director?”
“Good name,” murmured Jenna as a woman barreled past Zerl and Keiko, skidded to a halt, and spun halfway around. To Vicki she appeared to be the personification of Mary Poppins: not spoonful-of-surgary like Julie Andrews, but the uncanny archetype from the books—shining black hair, blazing blue eyes, Dutch-doll nose sniffing irately. She had no daisy-studded hat, carpetbag or parrot-head umbrella, but radiated that terrible-glancing readiness to take offense at any careless remark by Michael or Jane.
“‘Ow are yeh, then? Ain’t seen me Peony about, ‘ave yeh?” ” went this entity as her blue blazers swung left and right, like police beacons seeking a fugitive from justice. “Been chasin’ ‘er bloomin’ arse all over ‘ell-and-gone I ‘ave, this ‘ole blinkin’ week!”
Momentarily flummoxed by the unPoppinsy accent and syntax, Vicki realized this must be Penny Stone’s mother. Three years ago Kickshaw trustees Loomis Pound (uncle of Demandin’ Amanda) and Pasquale Panucci (father of Beany/Bianca) had recruited her from the Runcible School of Fine Arts to take over the conservatory’s Dance Division, which was in a complete shambles. Mrs. Symes-Stone’s restorative endeavors were so effective at Kickshaw that she got elected to the Vanderlund School Board last spring, at the same time Penny was chosen to be this year’s varsity cheerleader captain. Neither was the sort of person you’d want to pick a fight with, or be drawn into an argument with, or even linger nearby while she was having one with somebody else.
“...no’m, I h-h-haven’t seen her...” stammered Vicki.
Emphatic dissatisfied sniff. “Oooh, I’ll ‘ave ‘er guts for garters, see if I don’t! Well, where do yeh want me, then? Get up on that there stage, should I?”
“...yes’m, that’s where the Board—”
“Right! If yeh do catch sight o’ Peony, grab ‘er and ‘old on tight till I can get me ‘ands on ‘er! Tell yer friends the same!”
“...yes’m...”
Mrs. S-S spun back around and barreled off stageward, leaving Vicki to tremble at the thought of trying to tackle Stone-Cold Penny. It would be almost as bad as a clash with Bunty O’Toole! Your best (if not only) hope would be a gang-tackle; so it was heartening to find Zerl and Keiko had been joined by a tall black twentyish girl with a sinewy physique and unfazeable demeanor, who could probably ‘old on tight in an altercation.
She was introduced as Octavia Fredericks, the Kickshaw dance major who gave Zerlina avant-garde lessons. When Maestro Monticello’d called her “a real strapper” Vicki had pictured an ebony Amazon like Louisa Lang, able to lift Rudolf Nureyev one-handed during a pas de deux. Here in person Octavia (“call me Tavey”) looked more like a young Lola Falana, which Vicki would later be glad not to have said aloud once she heard Tavey dismiss Lola as a terpsichorean: “Oh please! All she does is flick her nails and wiggle her bee-hind.”
For the time being Vicki simply asked “Did you go to high school here?”
Purring Eartha Kitt voice: “No, hon, I’m from St. Louis. But I wouldn’t miss a chance to see Gemma kick booty—so long as it’s not mine. It’s no fun then, believe me.”
Vicki did. Up on that there stage, Mrs. S-S was brusquely buttonholing one Board colleague after another—perhaps to be on the qui vive for AWOL Penny, since some began to scan the rows of incoming spectators as if to spot that hostile escapee.
Benjamin Tuerck, President of the School Board, was not one of them. He sat with his customary air of detached remoteness, just as when he’d overseen Beneficial Trucking’s recovery from insolvency to prosperity. Mr. Tuerck’s motto, slogan and catchphrase was “Face the Facts”—one being that an expedient means of shrinking the school district’s budget would be to eliminate all art, drama, and music programs, aside from the generously-underwritten VTHS Orchestra. He had no personal opposition to such curricula; students who wanted them were free to go enroll at Runcible—if they could afford its tuition or win a scholarship there.
Loretta Hobson, the Board’s previous chief executive, was a Baptist church organist (for a much more Caucasian congregation than Willamene Fowler’s) who’d been the unwitting model for Eulalie Mackecknie Shinn in last year’s production of The Music Man. Her own goddaughter Joanna Wilkes had enacted the part with spot-on mimicry, and it was alleged that Mrs. Hobson’d written Joanna out of her will as a result. Unrelenting in her Bawwwl‑zac grudge against the Footlight Players, Mrs. Hobson had put the motion to hear Candlestick’s complaints, even though she and Sigrid Ullmann had a long history of doctrinal differences.
Abby Shackleford, who’d opposed the Hobson motion, wore a vintage Footlighter pin on the lapel of her jacket. She’d gone from VTHS to Mount Holyoke to Cornell Law to Miss Emily Brandoffer’s legal firm to the Vanderlund Zoning Board to the township Planning Commission to three terms as alderwoman and two as State legislator, before “retiring” to serve on the School Board; relying all the while on Seconal to cope with chronic insomnia. Like her mentor Miss Emily, Ms. Shackleford did not suffer what she called fools what they would call gladly, and least of all the likes of Candlestick.
Elvin Bell practiced a whole other variety of jurisprudence, spending most of his career in the criminal courts. He preferred prosecution to defense, plea bargaining to both, and remuneration (in fees or fame) over everything. Having failed to win two elections for County State’s Attorney, Mr. Bell was reconstructing his political image with this stint on the Board of Education; he’d supported Mrs. Hobson’s Candlestick motion since it seemed likely to generate some advantageous publicity.
Dr. John Robinson was considered a “lost soul” by his old mother and all her Plymouth Brethren, having drifted from their fold while in his teens to embrace humanism and quite an array of human females. Ranked among The Cityland’s most eligible pagans, Dr. Robinson was a night-trippin’ bodysnatchin’ practitioner of more than mere medicine; he kept a not-so-little black book with clinical exactitude. Doc favored letting Follies be staged, if only so he could assess Rula Hradek’s erotic portrayal of Carlotta “I’m Still Here” Campion.
Mariah Bartley was the oldest member of the Board and the only one to have taught public school in the district, her iron heel having been felt at Bashford Elementary for four decades. Mrs. Bartley remained inflexible in her judgment of Bad Children: an automatic flunker for gumchewing, notepassing, and insufficiently-sincere-pledging-of-allegiance-to-the-flag. Even now her gimlet eyes peered through censorious trifocals at Keiko Nakayama’s happy reunion with Carly Thibert—two girls hugging each other like a couple of hoydens, when they ought to be clapping erasers in a detention hall!
Handicappers guesstimated three pro-Follies votes (Symes-Stone, Shackleford, Robinson) vs. three anti-Follies (Tuerck, Hobson, Bartley) with one on the which-way-will-benefit-me-most? fence (Bell).
As clocks ticked toward 5:00, the Girls Chorus and Symphonic ensemble were released from their rehearsals upstairs and clattered down to swell the growing crowd in the auditorium. “Let’s stay close to this exit, I can’t afford to get trapped,” said Jenna, so she and Vicki loitered by the doors to greet latecomers while Zerl and Tavey Fredericks took seats in the rearmost row, as did Joss, Alex, Nonique and Spacyjane when they arrived.
Candlestick entered en masse, thrusting bright yellow leaflets at Vicki and Jenna and everyone sitting near the aisles. Roarie led in her picket line under their held-high salvation signs, singing “We Shall Overcome” and changing someday to this day.
(Vicki saw Nonique’s and Tavey’s heads turn toward each other; she could bet their faces were sharing a grimace.)
At precisely 5:00, Mr. Tuerck began to bang his gavel on its sounding block. At more-or-less 5:01, Slats Schrimpfen adjusted Mr. Tuerck’s microphone level to increase the volume of his gaveling. Another minute or two after that, Mrs. Symes-Stone rose from her folding chair and advised the assembly to “Do us a favor and put a sock in it, will yeh? We’re tryin’ to get crackin’ ‘ere!”
“Foreigner!” rang out a voice in response.
“‘OO SAID THAT??” bellowed Gemma in a foghorn tone suited for an oldtime music hall or vaudeville house; no need to amplify it electronically. Silence fell on the auditorium as those blue blazers swept this way and that. “I’ll ‘ave yeh know I’m a naturalized citizen o’ these ‘ere United States, I am, AND ‘appy to match any one o’ yeh native-borns to the tests I ‘ad to take to win that citizenship! AND afore anyone ‘ere should ‘appen to ask, I been a good churchgoer since I was a wee mite AND can reel off a Bible verse or two me own self AND if yeh should ‘appen to be thinkin’ ‘the devil can cite Scripture,’ yeh best bear them words in mind afore yeh go citin’ any Scripture yerselves! NOW, if nobody got nothin’ more to shout about, MAY we all listen up to Mr. Tuerck and get this ‘ere bloomin’ show on the blinkin’ road??”
Unspoken consensus from the audience.
Vicki saw Zerl and Tavey slap gleeful palms; and a glimpse of Avery doing the same with Stretch Schrimpfen in one of the wings.
“Thank you, Mrs. Symes-Stone,” the Board President said blandly. “Please resume your seat, and we shall begin.”
“(I better go now while the going’s good,)” Jenna whispered to Vicki. “(Can’t get much better than that.)”
“(Que tengas un buen Sábado, hermana mayor,)” said Vicki.
“(Shabbat Shalom, hermanita.)”
“(Shecky’s waiting for you, Niblets,)” went Cheryl Trevelyan, suddenly there beside them with that creeping-meemie pendant agleam upon her black-clad chest.
Jenna, shooting Vicki an eloquent glance through proscenium arches, nodded acknowledgment and slipped away. Vicki started to go take the back-row seat Joss was saving for her, when Cheryl laid a chilly hand on her smock-sleeve.
“(Look.)”
“(Hunh?”)
“(At him.”)
Vicki, following her sightline, beheld Dennis Desmond climbing onto the stage.
“(What’s he doing up there?)”
“(That.)”
Namely, bringing a pile of collected request-to-address cards to Miss Hovey, the School Board Secretary; then rotating to aim his Joker-teeth at the two girls standing by the central doors.
Cheryl’s chilly hand stiffened on Vicki’s sleeve. Her other hand grasped the silver pendant, pressing its tiny yawning skull deep into her bosom till Dennis took his grin back down offstage and vanished from view.
Long ragged rooted-to-the-spot exhalation. Followed by a pat on the arm and a quiet “(Run along, Vic. I got this.)”
What this was that Cheryl got, other than a tiny skull-shaped imprint between her boobs, Vicki couldn’t guess as she hastened along the rearmost row (“‘Scuse me... ‘scuse me...”) to the saved seat off which Joss lifted coat, books, and cornet case.
About time! she sub-tutted. What took you so long?
Tell you on the way home. What’s happening?
Rerun joined a cult that worships a head of lettuce called “Ralph,” but Raj—
Oh shut up. Not that What’s Happening!
You shut up. (“Oom shaka loom, shak shak...”)
Pick up the thread of the goings-on. Mr. Tuerck had announced the reason for this special session, referred all those present to the Board’s guidelines, and stressed the necessity for compliance with their constraints. A maximum of thirty minutes would be allotted to public participation, with priority given to parents with children currently attending Vanderlund Township High School. Speakers were to conduct themselves with civility and decorum; direct their remarks only to the Board-as-a-whole when recognized by the President; confine those remarks to no more than three minutes by the President’s wristwatch; and not pose questions to or make statements about any individual Board member, district employee, or person/persons in the audience. Repetitive comments should be presented by a group spokesperson.
Mrs. Bartley’s motion to exclude everyone under the age of eighteen from the rest of the meeting was voted down, as was an objection by Mrs. Hobson to Ms. Schwall’s presenting the case in favor of Frazee’s Follies. Which Becca Blair had stage-managed and Coach Celeste proceeded to do with one hundred and eighty seconds of vibrant positivity, recapping that:
· • all disputed words and phrases in the original script had been modified years ago;
· • selection of Follies to be this year’s Spring Operetta, and details about Mr. Frazee’s adaptation, had been publicized in the December 9th edition of the VTHS Channel;
· • many students had put in seven weeks of hard extracurricular work (while of course giving primary attention to their regular studies) preparing for the show;
· • and to cancel it now, just seven days before its premiere, would cost more in lost revenue (plus money already spent) than might be saved in final expenses;
· • not to mention the crushing blow this would deal to student morale and school spirit. “I know how I’d have felt if The Unsinkable Molly Brown had been called off this close to curtain time.”
(Follies supporters gave mental thanks that Ms. Schwall was pleading their cause instead of Mr. Frazee, who might be a martinet but lacked Gemma Symes-Stone’s Poppins-chops to muzzle an assembly riddled with Candlestickers. Nor could he have imbued the atmosphere with supercalifragilisticexpialidociousness like Coach Celeste; though many of the boys and men in the auditorium—certainly Doc Robinson, who had a good rear view—wished she were wearing her star-spangled leotard and tights instead of that demure pantsuit.)
At 5:28 Mr. Tuerck opened the floor to public input and recognized Mrs. Mabel Hazeldene, a much-loved mainstay of the PTA, whose reformation of her delinquent son Parker (now at Prairie State Community College) had been assisted and applauded by goodhearted rightthinkers throughout Vanderlund. She thanked Ms. Schwall for trying to explain the matter at hand to anxious parents whose only interest was the welfare and safety of their children. “There are so many threats and dangers out there, especially for our girls—the Mad Bludgeoner and whatnot—well, it can get bewildering as well as scary. I don’t mind telling you I check on my own daughter every night after she goes to sleep, and say a prayer over her sweet head that the Good Lord will always keep her protected from harm.”
Amens sounded around the room.
(99% of teens would’ve keeled over at hearing their mother utter such sentiments aloud to a congregation of this size. Mary Kate just shed tears of filial love; while those aforesaid boys, men, and Doc Robinson wished they could check on her while she was beddy-byed.)
Next to speak was the Rev. Wade Fowler, Willamene’s father, who in his best Dr. King cadences expressed profound regret that “the persons behind this scandalous play” hadn’t thought to consult the families of young folks who were persuaded to get involved with it. “For we have been told by One Above that whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in Me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea!”
Louder amens sprinkled with hallelujahs and praise Hims, as Mr. Tuerck called time before the Rev could add that it would also be better to enter into life halt, maimed, or with only one eye than be whole and get cast into everlasting fire.
Formal admonition by the Board that no menacing language would be tolerated, whatever its Source—and regardless of appeals by some in the audience for “Freedom of speech!” “Freedom of religion!” and “Trial by jury!”
Click, click, clack by the gavel.
“The chair recognizes Ms. Mimi McLaine.”
(Anticipatory burbling, not least from those boys/men/Doc.)
Becca Blair’s mother, though a dozen years older than Celeste Schwall, looked the same age and was frequently presumed to be Becca’s brunette sister. A onetime Miss Nebraska and empress of local TV commercials—who could forget her pitch for Canfield’s Diet Chocolate Fudge pop?—she was sure to testify on behalf of Follies, and do so with opulent pizzazz.
And so Mimi might have, had she not been shunted aside by a fur-coated apparition whose emergence out of thin air caused a house-wide groan: Genevieve Wrippley, mother and home-schooler of Madeline. Shrilly yipping “I will be heard!” and repeatedly sweeping Dennis Desmond with a fur-coated arm as he stepped in as Mimi’s ostensible bodyguard, Mrs. Wrippley again lamented “the abysmal state of public education in Vanderlund” which had enticed, beguiled, and misled her own innocent baby to eat an acid-laced cupcake and dance naked on the school roof. “In November! After Thanksgiving! And you call yourselves a School Board!”
It took the off-duty cops approximately three minutes to put Mrs. Wrippley’s harangue on hold. There was no rebuttal, since Dr. Hilde Krühler hadn’t been able to make it to the meeting, so Mr. Tuerck re‑invited Mimi McLaine to have her say. But Mimi wasn't blessed with Becca’s unshakable equanimity; she waved him off and kept her flustered seat as Dennis solicitously fed her what appeared to be cinnamon Red Hots (unless they were some of Abby Shackleford’s Seconals).
By now it was 5:44 and Candlestick reckoned they had better take the plunge, with Mrs. Emil Ullmann as their spokesperson. (“Spokeslady, if you please!”) She was duly called upon and resolutely faced the Board—several of whose members seemed susceptible to a Christian coup de grâce—with her trademark steely determinism.
“Fellow parents: what is the definition of an operetta? Is it not musical theater with a light and humorous theme? Yes! Is it not mostly associated with Gilbert and Sullivan, whose Gondoliers gave this school its mascot? Yes! Were we not treated to a genuine operetta every spring, performed on that very stage, when Miss Rosamond Ambrose was choirmistress here? Yes! Several of my children participated in those shows, and neither they nor I found the experience perilous to their hearts or souls.”
(Evidently Miss Ambrose hadn’t informed the Ullmanns about her amorous escapades with Borrah Minnevitch and the Marx Brothers.)
“Grievously, that cannot be said about this year’s choice of operetta. Its title says it all: Follies. What is the definition of a folly? Is it not reckless, heedless action taken without forethought, which is bound to have tragic consequences? Again, yes!”
(Aurora and the Candlestick singers struck up a mezzo-piano reprise of “Day by Day.” Sidelong glances were exchanged at the Board table, but no one raised an objection; Mr. Tuerck gripped his gavel, but did not clack it.)
Mrs. Ullmann, continuing over the background music, flourished an unburnt copy of the script. “Follies indeed! I have pored over this text from cover to cover. Attempts have been made by staff at this school to disguise the worst of its language, but the theme is unaltered; it remains anything but light or humorous. And what is that theme? In a word: despair. All the characters are disappointed by their empty present lives, bitterly disillusioned about their pasts. One by one they suffer devastating nervous breakdowns, leaving them with no hope for redemption. Which, my fellow parents, is the very definition of despair; and the religious among you know that to despair is to spurn the love of God!”
(Reprise of amens, hallelujahs and praise Hims mixed with the lyrics to “Day by Day.”)
“I am proud and thankful to say that none of my children are involved with this shameful sham operetta—”
(Ironic coughs by those who knew Howard, the heavyset National Review-reading last of the Ullmanns, who’d harbored unrequited lust for Nanette Magnus since back when they were in the same youth group at Calvary Lutheran Church.)
“—but I fear for all the children who have been participating. What sort of messages do these Follies convey to their impressionable minds? Not ones of faith, comfort or inspiration, you may be sure! As our friend Mrs. Hazeldene told us, there are so many threats and dangers out there and in here” [flapping the script] “from whose harm our dear daughters and sons must be kept protected. Poisonous temptation is not limited to cigarettes, alcohol and illegal drugs, but can also be found in what Mark Twain called ‘awful thoughts and awful words.’ It is our duty as parents to implore the Board of Education of Vanderlund Township to cancel this awful musical while there is still time—or else we must forbid our children from taking any part in these Follies, whether as actors, singers, dancers, musicians, or on the stage crew. I have said it before and will repeat it now: our children deserve and demand nothing less!”
“Day by day by day by day by day...” concluded Roarie’s triumphant chorus.
Standing, chanting, shut-it-down-ing ovation by the Candlestickers.
Mr. Tuerck, his remote detachedness still intact, allowed it to go on for awhile as he consulted with Ms. Schwall, Miss Hovey, and the rest of the Board.
Vicki felt her stomach plummet as she clasped Joss’s and Alex’s hands. Up till now she hadn’t really put any thought as to what went on in Follies, apart from how it would be represented with scenery, costumes and makeup. Could the show really be as bad as these churchy people were saying? Her mother didn’t think so; but Felicia was a Unitarian who viewed anything “doctrinaire” with misgiving—she hadn’t even wanted Vicki’s volleyball-injured nose to be treated at St. Benedict’s Hospital. (Which memory brought that dreamboat Dr. Younghunk to pleasurable mind till Vicki packed him back into her subconscious. No distractions! Seven weeks of afterschool double-hour labor were at stake here!)
At 5:51 Mr. Tuerck again applied his gavel, its noise-level increased to piledriver-volume by Slats and the sound crew. At 5:52 Gemma Symes-Stone again stood up, this time taking center stage with Poppins-hands on Poppins-hips:
“If we don’t ‘ave quiet in this ‘ere hauditorium by the time I count five and clap me ‘ands, I am hauthorized to tell yeh that the Board’ll hadjourn this meeting without any more hadoo! Right! One, two, three, four, five—”
—CLAP—
—and silence. Broken only by the light smack of Tavey’s palm upon Zerlina’s.
At a nod from Mr. Tuerck, Coach Celeste rose and (as Doc Robinson re-ogled the seat of her pantsuit) beckoned to someone in the wing. “Follies is about a reunion of former showgirls, now middle-aged or elderly, remembering both bad and good things about their past lives and how those memories measure up against the present day. Sally, one of the showgirls, encounters the man she loved as a girl and tells him about her life with the man she married instead.”
Judy Disseldorf stepped out onto the stage, looked out over the audience, and began an a capella rendition of “In Buddy’s Eyes.”
Her voice filled the auditorium with the force of a torrential downpour as she sang how Sally would always be young and beautiful to her husband; how the best she’d ever dreamed of being—an ageless princess, an eternal prize—would forever be there to see, in Buddy’s eyes.
Long before the last note, many of the middle-aged women and most of the gay males within earshot were crying. Even some non-rheumy moisture was brought to old Mrs. Bartley’s ducts. Comparisons were being drawn to the delivery and impact of Judy Garland’s “The Man That Got Away” or Judy Holliday’s “The Party’s Over.” And at that last note, the majority of those assembled sprang to their feet and gave “Joo-dith! Joo-dith! Joo-dith!” an ovation that left Candlestick’s in the dust-to-dust.
(Scott Grampian ran down the aisle with a plastic-yet-sincere bouquet to hand up to Judy, while Lesley Ogilvie drooped forlornly against Nancy Sykeman.)
Since Mimi McLaine was still out of commission, Candy Gates’s father Horace “Swingin’” Gates—famous for orchestrating the Bull‑onies’s initial fight song, “Take ‘Em By the Horns”—took the floor to ask that the School Board put its seal of approval on Frazee’s Follies as the VTHS Spring Operetta without further delay. Which was done at 6:06, with only the obdurate Mrs. Hobson dissenting.
(“Lucky for us the Disseldorfs aren’t Sabbath-observant,” Jenna would remark when she heard the news.)
(“I’m fine. Just had a long day,” Cheryl assured Mary Kate, Dory Jobling and Mrs. Hazeldene as they steered her faltering gait through the school parking lot.)
“We should’ve let Judy sing at the get-go and ditched all the rest,” Joss told Vicki and Alex as Avery drove them to Burrow Lane for their Friday night sleepover.
“Well, I wouldn’t’ve missed Mrs. Symes-Stone shouting the house down,” said Vicki. “Hope she never gets that mad out loud at me.”
“There was too much anger from too many people,” mourned Alex. “I wish there was a musical version of Black Beauty or Misty of Chincoteague, and we were doing that show instead.”
“Entertainment’s where you find it,” Boomer observed as he popped Affenstunde (a Popol Vuh krautrock cassette) into the Mustang tape deck.
*
All too soon, Vicki was semi-regretting that the School Board hadn’t canceled Follies before Crunch Week—aka Hell Week—got unleashed upon her and the rest of the company. In juggernaut succession came the sitzprobe, the cue-to-cue, the dry tech run where all crew activities got coordinated in real time, the wet tech run integrating crew with cast, and the dress rehearsal adding costumes, makeup, and the Orchestra. Everybody’s nerves got put through one wringer after another; even the most congenial dispositions—Holly’s, Theresa’s, Nancy S’s, Link Linfold’s—were subject to rupture.
And “of course primary attention had to be given to regular studies”; so Vicki winched up her increasingly exhausted eyelids to ingest construcciones con el tiempo, vascular plant taxonomy, geometric volume density, the Treaty of Versailles and poetry of T.S. Eliot. At night her zonked-out doppelgänger wandered through a Waste Land where she had to publicize You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown all over again, as Candy Gates brayed Vel-mah?? Velma, where are you?? in her ear.
“(No wonder they call it Hell Week,)” Vicki mumbled as the alarm clock yanked her back to the here and now of another dawn.
Speaking of publicity: lawyer Elvin Bell didn’t receive much from the special Board session, but Gail Spruce scarcely had to lift a finger other than to tote up receipts. As the taint of scandal metamorphosed into a sales gimmick, tickets rapidly sold out for both nights of the Operetta; there was actually scope for scalpers, with Bootleg McGillah leading the pack. Shelley Stoker, interviewing Mrs. Ullmann for North Squire magazine, came right out and asked if the Candlestick campaign had been a big promotional stunt to advertise Follies. Mrs. Ullmann explosively ended their Q&A then and there, saying “We won’t have to endure such blasphemous insolence when Ronald Reagan becomes President!” (Be that as it may, Pastor Skippy reportedly nixed Aurora Anstruther’s plans to re-picket VTHS.)
Mr. Frazee received polite break-a-leg messages from the Original Production’s Librettist, Composer and Director (or their secretaries), to whom complimentary tickets had been sent. Split-Pea Erbsen said they were probably all relieved that a suburban school district hadn’t ruled their musical to be injurious to the morals of minors.
Finally it was Friday the 17th, which felt four times as unlucky as any 13th. Yesterday’s dress rehearsal had run late, run hard, and run into trouble upon trouble; Vicki’d felt so whipped afterward she couldn’t even enjoy Avery’s lifting her out of the Boss and carrying her to her front door, as he’d done on their first night together. She did hold onto him, though, when he tried to let her go.
“C’mon, kid. Those boots are made for walkin’.”
“(Can’t move m’legs. Gone lame.)”
“Think of it as getting in shape for track season.”
“(Y’could at least kiss me g’night.)”
Which he’d done, and not a circumspect cheek-peck either; yet she’d almost dozed off halfway through it. So much for Prince Charming and Sleeping Beauty...
On opening night the run crew stagehands dressed in basic black. “The audience is not coming to see you,” Dexter reminded them, more than once: “You are not here to be seen.” Which was jim-dandy-all-right with Vicki, who’d choose complete anonymity over being singled out for making some glaring error—like when That ASS prematurely lowered the curtain during the Winter Holidays Concert.
Let her just follow other people’s orders—Jenna’s, Alva Dee’s, Nancy B’s—and get the job(s) done. Wardrobe first, starting with Spacyjane whose supercuteness as a box office showgirl shone through the opening night fog. Then the drifting phantoms—Lois, Filly Faye, Nancy H, Gabey and Charisse—topped off by the tallest headdresses. Then the middle-aged and elderly reunioneers and their ghosts/memories. Then roll up those smock-sleeves (figuratively speaking) and break out the greasepaint, both colorful and monochrome; slather away with finesse. She’d been well trained on the application of stage makeup, and already had a dab hand plying cosmetics as Robin Neapolitan and Fiona Weller could attest from their makeovers.
Here was Isabel, cast as a sexy waitress in Act One, humming the T&A song from A Chorus Line as she got daubed. J‑o‑l‑t-ing Vicki yet again with her lookalikeness to Tricia, who’d revel in this kind of environment—and maybe did, right now, wherever she might be. Please let her be safe Vicki prayed impulsively, prompted by Mrs. Hazeldene. And thanks once more for replacing her with Jenna as “Niblets” birdy-hopped past, checking on everything as chief of the run crew. Also muchas gracias for not making Candy Gates my New Big Sister—and for her being such a smartysnoot about makeup. With standards so impossibly high she insisted on applying her own; as did Zal Tergeist, the two of them sharing a mirror (C.G. being short enough to fit below Zal’s beard) and then, as each other’s severest critic, cross-evaluating the results. “Merde!” was their mutual reaction, or felicitation, or taunt, or maybe just showing off in dirty French.
Meanwhile the Orchestra could be heard doing its tuneup; other techies were busy with their own backstage/catwalk tasks; the costumed/madeup actors, singers and dancers were going through their individual/collective pre-show rituals; and Vicki wished the whole kaboodle was already over and done with—much as she’d felt after playing a JV volleyball match, then being forced to stick around for the varsity loss. Except here she wouldn’t have to shag balls or call lines or try doing homework in the bleachers without being spotted by Ms. Ramsey; no, here she and Kathleen had to be poised to help Alva Dee and Nancy B fix any hair, makeup, or wardrobe mishaps that might occur during the first act and intermission. Then, along with the entire Stage Crew, wait on tenterhooks for the grand unveiling of Loveland after putting Holly and Candy Gates into their multicolored costumes and Judy and Theresa into those damned fancy evening gowns and then, when Loveland dissolved into chaos, getting all four of them back into their previous outfits in time for the downbeat finale.
Please oh please oh pretty please with a Virgin Mary cherry on top, don’t let ME mess up in any way shape or form tonight. Or anybody else either, but particularly not me. Amen, hallelujah, praise Him or Yourself or the Holy Ghost, amen again...
And in fact everything went swimmingly. Backstage, at least, and evidently out front judging by the thunderous applause after every number. Some of the headdresses did require adjustment, and Ken Keezer split the back of his trousers which Kathleen had to stitch up by hand with Ken still inside them (she not batting an eye till it was over, then needing to breathe into a paper sack). But the Loveland transition went off without a hitch, to tremendous OOHS and AHHs; as did the four female leads’s quick-changes, which would’ve garnered some va-va-va-vooms if done onstage. (Chass got her share doing “The Story of Lucy and Jessie,” even without any bursting-forth from her gown.)
Speaking of swimmingly: during intermission, Vicki overheard Mary Kate tell Cheryl and Doreen that she’d caught sight of Stu Nugent in the balcony’s front row, quarreling with Dru Schwaeder while everyone else was in raptures over “Who’s That Woman?/Mirror Mirror.” Stuart, far from setting a new 100-yard backstroke record, had finished no better than fourth in any meet this season; on Thursday he’d come in dead last against Athens Grove.
“Well, like I used to tell him—some turds float and others sink.”
“Oh, Cheryl,” Mary Kate chided, quite like old times; and Dory spread the word that Cheryl’s broken heart was fully mended. (Vicki wondered whether that creepy pendant tucked inside her bra had anything to do with the mending or the sinking.)
At interminably long last, Chass and Ron Deacon carted off Zalman and Judy; Holly, Ken, Candy Gates and Tim McDermid went “Hi... Girls... Ben... Sally...”; then blackout, lights up, and curtain calls that threatened to go on till midnight.
But all through the acclaim, Vicki could only anticipate Dexter’s “Remember, people, we’re doing this again tomorrow night! Same time, same place!” with a belated realization that she herself would never be able to see this show—not properly, facing the stage, as part of an audience, just for enjoyment.
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