Going to Chicago (3 page)

“Clyde and your mother back from the doctor yet?” I asked.

“You don't see the tow truck, do you?”

I didn't.

Will laughed at my foolishness and we went inside.

The place had the smell of dust and oil. Will sat in his father's brown swivel chair and spun around. After three revolutions he propped his feet on the counter and pulled out his guidebook again. “This is something we sure don't want to miss,” he said, paraphrasing what he read as he read it. “By the Thirty-seventh Street entrance there's a poultry show, with an international egg-laying derby as the principal feature. Champion hens from twenty-eight states and Canada, and four other nations competing. Doesn't say which ones.”

“We absolutely don't want to miss that,” I said, watching out the window for the tow truck. Will made several more revolutions in the chair and then slammed the guidebook on the counter. “Jeez, Ace. What if the doctor says Clyde can go?”

I didn't want Clyde coming along either. Still, I couldn't stand seeing Will upset. He wasn't sewn with very strong thread. He was liable to throw something or kick a hole in the plaster. “It'll be swell having Clyde along,” I said. “If that's the way it goes.”

“You wouldn't want that little pest along if he was your brother.”

“It'll be swell. We can tease the piss out of him.”

Will wasn't convinced. He spun some more.

“Better than me teasing the piss out of you for a solid week,” I said. “You know that's what I'd do.”

Will stopped spinning and went back to the guidebook. “I guess it wouldn't be that bad.” Again he slapped down the book. This time he clapped his hands in sweet joy. “Can you believe it? We are going to the World's Fair! Wilford D. Randall and Ace L. Gilbert, Going to the Chicago World's Fair! Sixteen hours and fifteen minutes from right now!”

His excitement spread to me. I dropped on all fours and started growling like a dog. Will winced. He knew what was coming. “Come on, Ace,” he said, “don't do it.”

I cocked my head and snarled. I charged like a rabid bulldog. I took his pantleg in my mouth and pulled him off the chair. Soon we were both laughing and rolling on the dusty oily linoleum, a tangle of sweet joy. When we stopped, Will's pompadour was standing straight up. He raked it back with his fingers, then made sure his zipper wasn't broken. He had that safety pin in his pocket in case it was. “Doctor probably won't let him go anyway,” he said.

I fished a bottle of Coca-Cola from the huge red cooler by the door. I popped the cap and took a long burn of it. “Can't see how he possibly could,” I said. Outside the gravel started crackling and we saw the tow truck's nose peek under the portico.

Mrs. Randall slid out. She was wearing baggy men's pants and a sweater buttoned to her neck even though it was eighty-something. She carried a black purse as well as her customary scowl. Her uncombed hair was cropped short in the twenties style. Clyde slid out next. He walked with his head lying on his shoulder, cotton sticking out of his afflicted ear. He carried a paper bag and I knew from his twisted face he was humming.

Mrs. Randall banged through the door. I quickly hid the Coke behind my back. “You owe us a nickel,” she said without looking at me.

“Absolutely.” I raised the Coke for another burn.

“You owe it to us now, Ace.”

That's how Mrs. Randall was. Hard and sour and tight with a dollar. Tight with a nickel. It wasn't just the depression or her husband's embarrassing death that made her that way. She was one of the Granger Township Southams. All the Southams were hard and sour and tight. My own mother, who grew up in Granger Township herself, told me once that the Southams were afraid of going broke in this life and afraid of not going to heaven in the next. As a result they overworked both their farms and their prayers, leaving them poor, guilt-ridden, and generally unhappy. How Will's mother ended up with Will's father is anybody's guess. He was a laugher and a dreamer. You never had to sneak Cokes from the cooler when he was alive. He'd offer you one the second you walked into the garage, and toss you a Baby Ruth, too. I dug a nickel from my pocket and flipped it to Will, who dutifully put it in the cash drawer.

Clyde finally shuffled in. He'd been checking the score on the door of the Gilbert SXIII. He was humming. “There's our man,” I said.

“Hi Ace. See you shot down another one.”

I demonstrated my invisible machine gun for him. “Went down in a slow spiral of smoke and fire. So, how's Clyde's ear, Mrs. Randall?”

She scooted Will from the chair and sat down, putting her own feet on the counter. “Looks like you got a passenger.”

Will melted against the wall. “Jeez.”

Clyde shook his paper bag. “Dr. Craddock gave me a bottle of drops to keep my ear from waxing up again.”

“Two dollars for three cents' worth of medicine,” Mrs. Randall said.

Will started kicking the wall with his heel. “What if it does wax up? I'm not cutting short our pilgrimage to the World's Fair because Clyde can't keep his ears cleaned.”

Mrs. Randall took out the cash drawer and rested it in her lap, ready to count the morning's receipts. “Don't have a canary, Will. Your pilgrimage will go just fine. Just make sure he gets his drops.”

Clyde pulled the cotton wad from his ear and showed me the big spot of yellowy ooze. We let Mrs. Randall count in peace and walked up the field to their house, where Will presided over an official World's Fair meeting. If Clyde was going along, he'd have to keep his humming to a minimum. It was also his responsibility to take his drops on time. “Ace'll be watching the road and I'll be watching the maps,” Will told his brother. “It's your job to watch your watch.”

While Will and Clyde put their gear on the lawn, I taxied the Gilbert SXIII up to the house. There was a lot to load. There was no way we could afford a hotel when we got to Chicago. We'd have to do what most fairgoers from our economic class did. Camp. On top of our suitcases and a week's worth of food, that meant the big Boy Scout tent and blankets and pillows and cooking utensils, a saw and hatchet for cutting firewood, a lantern and small can of kerosene. Will was happy to see that I had, indeed, remembered to pack my new coffee pot. When we were finished the Gilbert SXIII was loaded to the gills. What we couldn't fit in the backseat—we had to leave a little room for Clyde—we tied to the running boards.

Now it was time to buy the food, an event nearly as glorious to Will as the Fair itself. It was final proof that after four years of dreaming and planning, we were actually going. We headed back down the field toward Ruby & Rudy's. We bought pancake flour and syrup, lard, butter and sugar, cans of beans and corn and peas, Wheaties, sardines and potatoes, onions, apples and pears to keep us regular, ketchup and mustard. We had salt and pepper from the house. Hot dogs and hamburger meat we could buy on the fly. Will and I giggled when Ruby asked if we didn't need a roll of toilet paper. We bought two. Will also bought an extra roll of film for his camera and even contemplated an additional pound of coffee. Ruby added up the damage while we played with the dollar bills in our pants pockets. We'd worked hard for that money, Will in the garage and me on any number of farms. We paid with adult pride.

We put the groceries in the kitchen to be safe and then covered up the Gilbert SXIII with a canvas in case it rained. Which was unlikely. It hadn't rained in three weeks and all of Ohio was as dry as chapped lips. It was now 2:30 in the afternoon. We went straight for the porch and Will's new maps from the Shell Oil district man.

Clyde sat on the step and hummed softly, checking his pocket watch every few minutes so he wouldn't forget his drops. I sat next to Will in the rockers and watched him study the maps. He'd move his finger along, then write in his spiral notebook. Every few minutes he'd tell me about some spectacular exhibit we just had to see. Mrs. Randall closed the garage at six. We ate supper and then sat around the radio until nine trying to dial in WLS. Not much luck. Didn't they know we were on our way? Didn't they know we needed the latest information? We went to bed anxious.

I had Clyde's bed all to myself. Will was forced to share his with Clyde. I put a pillow over my head to block out the humming. I suppose Will's mind was alive with images of the World's Fair. Mine was alive with images of that faceless willing city girl I was going to find.

Thinking back now, I don't think I really believed I'd come back from Chicago with my wick dipped. Intercourse was a lot for an eighteen-year-old kid who looked like me to expect in 1934. But there was the real possibility that somewhere in that great metropolis I'd find some half-blind girl lacking in all carnal compunction, who'd neck with me, maybe let me rub my face across her nipples or even let me wiggle my fingers in her cupcake, things I'd never done, but needed desperately to do.

Will's alarm went off at 5:00. We were already awake. Even Clyde. I helped him with his drops. We washed and went down to breakfast. Mrs. Randall was in the kitchen doing battle with a pan of fluttering eggs and snapping sausages. Pancakes were swelling on a skillet. We huddled around the table and hurt our teeth on glasses of ice-cold milk. Clyde's head was sideways on his shoulder. Will's face was buried in his maps. Mrs. Randall filled our plates and went back to the stove for round two.

We ate like rats.

“Who's ready for more sausages?” Mrs. Randall asked.

Mouth stuffed full, I held up my dirty plate. “That'd be me, Mrs. Randall.”

My gluttony didn't please Will. “Jeez, Ace. There ain't time for more sausages. It's almost 5:30.”

His mother piled the sausage on my plate. “Couple more eggs, Ace?”

“Absolutely.”

Will started a slow shake.

Mrs. Randall gave everybody another fried egg. “You got plenty of time. More pancakes anybody?”

Everybody got one. Will said, “Jeez.”

Mrs. Randall had never tried to stop us from going—she even insisted that Clyde go along—but my gut always told me she didn't like the idea. Subconsciously I think she was trying to get us so fat we couldn't fit through the back door. She poured more batter on the skillet and then poured me another glass of milk. “I was surprised your folks said you could go, Ace. That's a big farm for your daddy to work alone, even for a week, considering his tire job.”

“I guess they figured I'd be worthless all week if they forbade it,” I said.

“I know all about worthless,” she said. “Will's been worthless around here since the day he heard about that World's Fair.”

Will's dam broke. He kicked the table leg. “I don't have to go to the World's Fair! I don't have to see the technological wonders of the modern age! I can stay right here in Bennett's Corners pumping gas and fixing flats the rest of my life, if that'll make you happy!”

His mother calmly flipped the pancakes. “You go get the World's Fair out of your system. I don't want to spend the rest of
my
life hearing how I kept you from seeing the technological wonders of the modern age. I've pumped plenty of gas since your father passed. Patched plenty of tires. I think I can handle things while you go prepare yourself for the glorious future.”

Will gathered up the plates before they could be loaded down with another round of pancakes. “Five thirty-seven,” he said. “Time to kill this place.”

We put our empty glasses in the sink. We hoisted the boxes of food and headed for the door. Mrs. Randall turned the burner off in motherly surrender and followed us to the porch. “Got your medicine, Clyde?”

“Got it, mother.”

“He'll lose those damn drops somewhere yet,” Will called back as he stalked toward the Gilbert SXIII. “Screw up our entire week at the World's Fair.”

“I ain't gonna lose 'em anywhere,” Clyde whined, food box in his arms, head folded on his shoulder.

“Thanks for the swell breakfast,” I said to Mrs. Randall.

“Be sure you're back by Sunday,” she called out. She wasn't sure if she should stay by the house or follow us to the car. She hovered in between, worried arms wrapped tight around her waist. “I'm sure Mrs. Gilbert doesn't want Ace missing church.”

Will assured her we'd be home at 7:15 Saturday evening. Seven-thirty at the very latest.

“Make sure you are.”

“We'll be here,” Will said.

“And remember Clyde starts back to school on Monday. I want him rested. Eighth grade ain't a piece of cake.”

“He'll be rested,” Will said. He put his box of groceries in the backseat and produced his camera from the front seat. “Come take a bon voyage picture with us, mother.”

“
I saw friends of mine—men I had been to school with—digging ditches and laying sewer pipe. They were wearing their regular business suits as they worked because they couldn't afford overalls and rubber boots
.”

F
RANK
W
ALKER
,
HEAD OF
P
RESIDENT

R
OOSEVELT
'
S
N
ATIONAL
E
MERGENCY
C
OUNCIL

Four/Killing the Corners

Will stood his mother alongside the Gilbert SXIII. Clyde got on one side of her, Will on the other. I took the picture. Then Will took a picture of Clyde and me with Mrs. Randall. Then Clyde took a sideways picture of Will and me with their mother. Finally Will showed his mother how to work the camera. This time Clyde was in the middle. We all waved. “The official photograph of the Three Travelers,” Will said through his frozen smile.

It was finally time to kill the Corners. Clyde climbed in the back. Will climbed over the tent strapped to the running board and sat down in the copilot's seat. He opened his spiral notebook in his lap and unfolded an Ohio map over that. He was ready.