Bradley’s Bar

1

  He should’ve known this night would come, this long, unbearable night, can’t sleep, that’s the worst of it. Plenty of warning signs, Mark’s complaining about the tiny room and single bed—but wasn’t it Mark who insisted they move in together, Mark who started it all last summer at Audra’s house beneath clean white sheets in that huge double bed two feet off the floor? Next morning making excuses—Boy was I drunk last night! yet continuing to goad Dana in the darkness of the El Capitan on the trip out to L.A., drunk or sober. You might call it just fooling around, but replete with orgasms, and certainly a step beyond playing grab-ass as they did with their buddies in the army overseas—never an embrace or kiss—kissing another guy was unthinkable.

  When’s the sun coming out? He’s still in suit trousers, belt loosened, T-shirt pulled over his head again at the beginning of this painful vigil, soon after he got back from the French restaurant on Fairfax. He tried to sleep, frustrated when he couldn’t, which only compounded his frustration. Where the hell is Mark? Why doesn’t he come home? He could at least call.

  “I’ll follow him anywhere,” he told Audra on Mackinac Island. Well, damn it—here I am—following him, and getting nowhere.

  A typical dull, gray Southern Cal morning, high fog outside inhibiting light—no rain expected. Mark’s got to be coming up the stairs any minute now—he must! He’s not going to move out without taking his clothes—and his precious Bay Rum and Burma Shave.

  Footsteps on the stairs! He swings his legs over the side of the bed, eyes fixed on the door, willing it to open; to see Mark standing there.  And he is, sheepish grin on his face, but hardly apologetic.

  "Where the hell have you been?” resisting the desire to grab him, embrace him, to make sure it’s really him—hold on to him, keep him from vanishing—Mark, blue defensive eyes; Dana’s wispy dish-blond sharply contrasting Mark’s black hair.

  Mark, packed into tight, faced 501 buttoned Levi’s—what else? aping L.A. Times poster boy on large billboards all over town, hawking papers, white tennis shoes. Mark’s kidding himself, he’ll never look that young again.

  “I'm going nuts waiting for you to come home, couldn't sleep all night, thought you were dead,” (he's thought no such thing).  “Where the hell were you?”

  "Calm down—you want Mrs. Harmon to hear you?” going to the sink in the alcove, splashing his precious Bay Rum on his face. “I—I went down to Pershing Square and met someone,” brushing teeth, “we got a hotel room.”

  "You picked up a whore in Pershing Square?"

  Mark allows himself a chuckle before rinsing his mouth, spitting into the sink, "I can take care of myself all right." He’s back in the room sitting on the bed. Dana paces, bumping into the only chair in the room, a drab overstuffed remnant from Mrs. Harmon’s cellar, then flopping into it, sullen. "What about—what about me—?"

  “Get hold of yourself.”

  "I never thought you'd stay out all night and not even bother to call."

  “No explanation necessary—it got to be so late, didn't want to wake up Mrs. Harmon. What would she think if I called you in the middle of the night? Besides, if I called, what could you do about it?”

  Mark considers a moment, smiling. “It's not the end of the world, you know,” buttoning up a fresh white shirt, hesitating, checking his reflection in the mirror. “Fooling around with you—it’s not healthy, or satisfying. I just don’t want to do it anymore."

  "I suppose picking up a whore in Pershing Square is healthy."

  "Mickey’s a cute little Mexican girl—she’s not a whore. C'mon, throw some cold water on your face, I'm starving. Let's go to the drugstore and get some breakfast."

  Dana doesn’t like Mark’s favorite drugstore one bit, but it’s close by, on Melrose Avenue, across the street from Fairfax High School. He follows Mark in, sulking, greeted by smells of pharmaceuticals and perfume overwhelming a faint aroma of coffee and frying bacon. The drugstore is small, allowing enough space for a display of perfume, toothpaste, lotion bottles crowding the top of a glass counter; below it, an enticing treasure of wrist watches, Kodak cameras, and costume jewelry. Across the room, a dozen screwed-to-the-floor stools front the soda fountain—all of them empty; to the left, a glassed-in pharmacy.

  Behind the lunch counter Mr. Stein siphons hot coffee from the large aluminum pot into a smaller glass pitcher. His son, a young brooding red head, stands at the cash register, scowling at them as they come in. Mr. Stein has told them his son was in the Battle of the Bulge and got captured by the Germans and survived because he was rescued before his captors found out he was a Jew, "thank the Lord." Dana thinks it’s his Nordic look triggers the boy’s hostile stares.

  Mr. Stein carries the coffee pot to them: "Early, aren’t you? Looks like you need some fresh hot coffee, black—that’s the best thing for you,” filling two thick white porcelain mugs. “Been out, gallivanting around town, have you? The war is over two years and you've got to give it up, yes? My Phillip is going back to school, so when are you going back to school?"

  Mark turns on the charm, so typical of him, subtly seducing Mr. Stein with questions. “Is he going to be a pharmacist like his dad?” Count on Mark asking something personal to draw people out. It’s never bothered Dana before, but now, after last night—

  “Young man, we’ve had this conversation before. I told you, my son is going to U.C.L.A. to major in movies. They call it the Film Department, isn't it a joke, yes? At U.S.C. they call it Cinema, as if this makes it more respectable. It's certainly a subject more expensive at U.S.C."

  "So, he'll be a big producer or director someday—or maybe, matinee idol."

  "No, no, not an actor—"

  "Why not? He's got the looks."

  "You think so?"

  Dana is desperate. Why doesn't Mr. Stein go away? Why does Mark encourage him? We need to talk!

  "So what is it you boys are having this morning—the usual?"

  "Eggs-over-easy—and toast," Dana says quickly—too quickly. Mr. Stein takes a breath, frowning. Mark says he’ll have the usual, "straight up eggs and bacon—and white buttered toast—and could you bring me some cream for my coffee?”

  Mr. Stein turns around to the service counter for the cream pitcher. “Enjoy,” he says, and walks away. Gone at last. Mark asks, "You okay ?"

  "No I’m not okay. Are you moving out?"

  “Of course not. Neither one of us can afford to live alone. But we need a bigger place. I told you about the boarding house near Crenshaw and Pico. The room’s got its own bath and we can use the kitchen to cook our food and it's got a king size bed so we won't have to be all over each other all the time. And it's closer to work—the street car goes straight down Pico to Robertson."

  "You really want to work in a plastics factory?"

  “It pays good—making coffee pot handles should be easy, and we need the money. Swing shift, four to midnight, Saturday nights off."

  “Until I go back to school.”

  “Until you go back to school. Meantime, you should go out on your own and make friends.”

  “On Fairfax Avenue? Some nice Jewish girl?”

  “You could do worse. Mrs. Harmon has a daughter your age but she’s probably looking for a husband. What about the waiter at the French restaurant?”

  Dana hesitates. “Him? He’s queer--I told you. He asked me to go home with him last night, maybe I should have.”

  "Here you go, boys." Mr. Stein interrupting with breakfast on two white porcelain plates. A large, nervous woman with frightened henna rinsed hair calls out from the pharmacy window, "If you would not be too busy, Mr. Stein."

  “Be right there, Mrs. Grossman,” going to her, "Now, now, Mrs. Grossman, you want you should raise your blood pressure?"

"So why else am I here, Mr. Stein?"

  Mark digs into his eggs ravenously. "My girl, Mickey—"

  "I don't want to hear about your girl Mickey," Dana poking at his food.

  "—she’s the one told me about this bar on Hollywood Boulevard, Bradley’s Bar. You could meet someone there, maybe.”

  Dana startled, draining his cup, staring down at the mess on his plate—too panicked to take another bite. Mark slurping white toast in his eggs, “I’m taking you there this afternoon.”

  Bradley's Bar, shaped like a large bowling alley, is long and narrow, now invaded by bright midday sun shining through several high windows reflected in a mirrored bar; not crowded this time of day—scattered along the bar and tables beneath the large windows, a few men, young and not so young, dressed casually, a couple of them in suits. A giant juke box with turquoise neon tubes, observing the daylight in silence, sandwiched between two tables, rests under the windows. Now and then, a couple of unkempt women float in from Hollywood Boulevard for a quick look around.

“Two Stroh’s,” Mark says to a surly bartender, a tall, skeletal man, sallow complexion and hallow eyes, obviously not much in the sun. He glowers at them, “You think you’re in Pittsburgh?”

  “Make that Detroit—whatever you’ve got—Budweiser’s okay.” As the bartender goes for the beer, Dana asks, "What's his problem?"

  "Not too content with his job, or maybe he hates queers.”

  “I don’t see any queers here.”

  “I mean he might object to us—you know—two guys together—”

  “So queers come here?”

  “I think so—more so at night, I guess.”

  The bartender is in front of them, the necks of two beer bottles held in one hand. “Fifty cents,” he says.

  Dana takes a breath, “You’ve been here before—at night?”

  “No-no, not day or night. Didn’t know about it—that’s why I went to Pershing Square—didn’t know where else to go. Mickey told me about it.”

  “I thought you said Mickey’s a girl.”

  “She is. She’s—she’s been here with a couple of lesbian friends. You might want to come here on your own on our night off, probably crowded on Saturday nights."

  “Why should I want to come here?”

  “Well for one thing, a place to go, to get you out of the room.”

  Beer bottle at his lips, Dana starts to say something, thinks better of it, gulps down a mouthful, forcing a memory, Michigan State, drinking pitchers of beer with Delta Sig brothers. The Prince of Wales has lost his tails and number three knows where to find him. . . Good times with the guys—why couldn’t it be forever?

  And why does Mark think he'd want to spend time at Bradley’s with a bunch of strangers? He wraps his hand around the beer bottle, starts peeling off the label. He thinks I’m a queer, that’s why.

  They move into the boarding house on Victoria Place, settling into a large sunny room. The house built at the turn of century is a dirty white frame with cupolas and a huge front porch, the last survivor of other Victorians once on the block which gave the street its name. The oversized double bed, as Mark promised, is big enough for them to avoid the danger of becoming intimate, not even touch. Nothing’s said about Mark's girlfriend. Dana hopes he’s forgotten her altogether.

  The small plastics factory is on Robertson Boulevard, the unfashionable side of Beverly Hills south of Pico. It’s crowded with clattering molding machines and a separate area for lunch and dinner breaks. The swing shift crew, supervised by Paul, an unemployed actor in his late twenties who's losing his hair, also includes Marge and Terry, a couple of rather masculine girls who seem more interested in each other than the guys. Wearing asbestos gloves, they mold black coffee pot handles into machines, filling narrow receptacles with hot wax, sprinkling a dark, grainy mixture looking like gun powder into molds. Pulling a large handle which resounds with a chaotic clank-clank-clank to infuse the powder—clunk-ka-lunk, the molds lifting automatically after thirty seconds to release a single ordinary looking, black coffee pot handle. After filing off the residue, tossing it in a bin, ready to grace the side of what he supposes will be an ordinary looking coffee pot.

  Their first night over bagged lunches, Mark begins probing into Paul’s personal life, but Paul’s onto him and turns the tables, asking him why a couple of college guys are working in a place like this?

  Mark says, “It’s only temporary, until I find an acting job—Dana’s going back to school.”

  “Lots-a luck,” Paul says.

  First Saturday off, no work until four pm Sunday. Dana hopes for a night out with Mark, cheeseburgers at the local car-hop, going to a movie maybe, but Mark, dusting the top of the chest of drawers, puts an end to that fantasy. “I’ve got a date with Mickey tonight.”

  Instant panic. "What am I supposed to do?"

  "How should I know? You'll be back in school soon. You'll be okay till then."

  "That's at least four months away!"

  "Then go out—try Bradley's Bar."

  "You mean get laid."

  "Not a bad idea, is it? You’ve got to sometime. Fucking Mallory in a Chicago hotel room hardly qualifies."

  Yes, Mallory in Chicago, Mark giving instructions to all the guys. First time he’d been inside a girl—it felt good, once he got inside, but sure as hell not loving it—or Mallory.

  Brooding through the afternoon, alone when Mark takes their laundry to the Chinaman, descending to lethargy—and depression. He tries to shake it off, but not a chance, and now Mark’s back in the room, snapping, "Why haven’t you vacuumed?”

  “Alberta’s using the vacuum."

  "She’s finished. I saw her putting it back in the closet."

  Four o’clock—sun shut down behind a fog bank—damn “low clouds along the coast” again. Depressing. They walk down Crenshaw to Olympic to Smiley's Drive-In, ordering hamburgers—“without onions,” Mark advises, “in case you meet someone.”

  "You're really going out tonight, aren't you?" biting into the hamburger. "You bet I am," Mark, thumping the ketchup bottle over french fries.

  In the room again Dana waits silently, sitting on the bed immobile. Mark, coming out of the bathroom, stripped down except for a towel around his middle, struggling into his well-faded 501 Levi’s, buttoning up. Trying to ape the Times delivery boy on the billboard again. Wriggling into a beige sweater over a blue shirt doesn’t hide the intention, white tennis shoes, finally going to the mirror over the dresser to slap on his beloved Bay Rum, slicking down black curly locks with his beloved Kreml, making it shine.

  “I used that new laundry soap called detergent,” he says. “It makes a great bubble bath. You should try it. One of the more useful products to come out of the war.”

  "Kind of dressed up for Pershing Square, aren't you?"

  "We're getting a hotel room in Hollywood—Taft, probably.”

  “Dressed like that?”

  “Sure, why not? You go on out and meet someone."

  He's out the door, leaving Dana in an empty, silent room. Panic—damn it, get a grip on! He rallies, gritting his teeth. I'll show him, and don’t have to dress like a paper boy! pulling on khaki trousers, feeling secure in a gray sweater slipped over a long-sleeve white shirt. No tennis shoes for him—brown loafers okay by me, but mimicking Mark as he slaps Bay Rum on his face and combs Kreml into his hair.

  With some effort he moves out onto quiet Victoria Place—to Crenshaw Boulevard, catching the bus for a transfer on Wilshire. Now west, transferring again at Rossmore. Rossmore, heavily trafficked, lined with Sycamore trees, dusty green and withered after a long summer; large homes and eight-to-ten storied apartment buildings. For a moment his brooding mind is diverted by the passing façade of a tall pseudo-French chateau owned by Mae West (info, courtesy of Mark, of course). Where’s Mae West going tonight? Sure as hell not to Bradley’s. Probably lounging in her luxurious heart shaped bed entertaining muscle men. Mark told him that, Mark, always quick with the hot news.

  As Rossmore crosses Melrose its name changes to Vine Street. At Hollywood and Vine, he glances at the Taft Hotel nearby—giving him a sick feeling—turns back to the task at hand, puts one foot in front of another, making his way two blocks to Bradley's Bar.

  Welcomed by the juke box, insistent yet soothing, Vaughn Monroe crooning “Ghost Riders in the Sky.” Straight ahead he goes, from dark boulevard into brightly lit Bradley’s Bar—nothing like the dimly lit piano bar in Chicago Mark took them to after summer stock on Mackinac Island, lonely men in pullover sweaters and not a woman in sight.

  A furtive survey of Bradley’s reveals a few men scattered at the tables beneath the windows—at the bar, two men huddled together, one of them laughing. Maybe he should go somewhere else—but where, for god sakes?  This is it, sink or swim. What if I don’t meet someone—then what?

  Appear casual, that’s the ticket,  find a place near the entrance where I can make a quick getaway. Holding his breath, he slides onto a bar stool, greeted by the same sallow faced bartender, remembering Joe Geers, his teamster step-father who drinks nothing but Eastside.

  “Eastside?" snarls the bartender through twisted lips. "You think you're on skid row? We have Budweiser on tap if you want cheap beer."

  "Okay, Budweiser.”

  When the bartender moves away, Dana looks hard at his reflection in the counter-level-to-ceiling mirror. What am I doing here? Then quickly his attention is drawn to one of the men he’d noticed, smiling at him in the mirror—in his thirties maybe, clipped brown hair, pleasant looking—beside him a man about the same age in shirt and tie—buddies, maybe from the war like me and Mark—fuck! can’t I forget Mark for one fucking minute?

  A frowsy woman, matted yellowish hair, not combed in a lifetime, black and red-boned comb stuck in a top knot, wanders in from the street and sits next to him, ordering a shot of whiskey. Well, I'm sure not taking her home! Where's smiling man? Okay, still there, talking quietly with his friend, then bursting suddenly into laughter.

  The woman from the streets grins at Dana. My God, she wants me to pick her up! Grabbing his beer, attempting to appear calm, he jumps down from the stool, and strides swiftly to the jukebox, now greeted by Nature Boy sending shivers up his spine, goose bumps blossoming on the back of his neck. Mark’s favorite! and mine. 

  There was a boy, a very strange enchanted boy who wandered very far, very far, over land and sea, until one day, one magic day he passed my way, and though we talked of many things, fools and  kings, this he said to me, the greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to be love, and be loved in return . . .

  The elegy is crudely interrupted, "Goddamn faggots," turning to see the frowsy woman shove open the door to the street, stopping for a moment on the boulevard, looking first right, then left, finally making her way toward Vine. (Faggot? isn’t that what they burned witches with in the middle ages?)

  The man who smiles motions to him. Surprising himself, Dana doesn’t hesitate a second, but goes quickly to his side. "Why didn't you take her up on it?" smiling man’s dark brown eyes, full of laughter.

  “Are you kidding?"

  "Never if I can help it,” holding out his hand. “I'm Bob Adams, meet George." Dana returns the solid grip, trembling, introducing himself while averting his eyes, taking a swig from the bottle.

  "Your name has a New England ring to it.”

  Dana takes another swig. “My dad was born in Portland, Maine, one of his grandmother’s ancestors came over on the Mayflower."

  Bob, laughing. “Family genealogy? Not sure we’ve got time for that.”

  “Sorry—“

  “We’re practically cousins,” he says, laughing again. “I am, however, not descended from John Adams.”

  Close up, Dana can detect not a wrinkle on the man’s face, but his eyes—yes, sadness lingers there, from  the war maybe—might explain why he laughs so much.

  "So do you want to go home with me?"

  "Home?"

  "Temporarily the Highland Hotel—that means on  Highland Avenue. You have a cah?"

  "You're from Boston."

  "Oh-oh, cah gave me away. Been away a long time from my home town, but never lost a touch of bean-town in my speech.”

  “I studied phonetics at Michigan State.”

  “Did you indeed? So do you, or do you not have”—with a splash of self-mockery—“do you have a cah pahked outside?”

  "No, I came on the bus—more than one bus, in fact.” Thinking of Mark, he asks, “Were you in the war?  (Fuck Mark!)

  “Major in Transportation Corps, so you can show some respect and call me Major Bob, like my friend George here does.”

  “Watch out, he’s an inveterate liar,” George says. (Inveterate—damn, one of Mark’s favorite words!)

  Bob finishes off a tall drink—scotch highball, from the smell of it. “You look too young to have been in the war.”

  “I was born too late to get into combat, lucky for me . . .” He’s off and running now, the chance to talk to someone besides Mark gets the better of him—“but I ended up a second lieutenant in the Infantry. I was on Okinawa for a year, landed there four months after the fighting. In the occupation for a year.” (Talking too damn much!) swallowing the last dregs of his beer—so drink, chug-a-lug, chug-a-lug, chug-a-lug.

  “Infantry, huh? You jokers called our insignia the Wheel of Shame. I should have nothing to do with you.”

  “They did put me in the Transportation Corps on Okinawa—unloading ships, and we had a company commander who wanted me to wear the insignia, but I wouldn’t. Our exec was from Boston.”

  “Well I suppose that counts for something. So you don’t have a car-r-r-r?” laughing, “George has a car-r-r-r. He’ll drive us, won’t you, George? It’s paarrked around the corner.”

  In the back seat Dana falls into the arms of Major Bob, lips and tongues locking in wanton passion. (I’m kissing a man! this is not like cousin Tommy—no kissing there!  Tommy said only queers kiss each other!)

George: "Hey, watch out you two, there's vice squad on every corner!" Dana pulls away. Major Bob says, “Who cares?” and it’s right back to the big smooch, not letting go. Dana’s in heaven.

A short trip to Highland Hotel, a two story box-like building on Cahuenga. Out of George’s car, waving goodbye to George, and now it’s follow the leader, passing a half-awake night clerk, climbing a dimly lit staircase to the second floor.

  Entering the room, breathless anticipation, now inside, door locked—no escape! a tiny nightlight too dim to overcome the shadows. Clothes tossed, rolling naked into bed—into each others arms, fighting blankets, deep kisses, like forever. All he’s yearned for, plunging deep in uncharted seas, surging with much-too-long suppressed desires, giving—now and forever, again and again through a timeless night, rushing into the eucalyptus grove—we  two boys together clinging. Warm, secure, imagining futures without shape, so soon, too soon will the night end, and dawn will come too quickly. . . Major Bob enters the worlds I dreamed, dreamed as a child, dreamed a man’s world, world of men, lusty men—no longer afraid. . .

  A bright morning celebrates Sunday—no depressing boring high fog, but he knows this is not the end of it. Returning to Victoria Place, Mark’s not there—no panic now. He’ll see Mark at work.

  Like a robot, he yanks the handle of the clattering machine, heat warming his face, wax dripping onto gloves. All those long years of frustration, desires never fulfilled, leading nowwhere. Protected by the loud clank of the plastics molder, he declares aloud, "I am a homosexual,” slapping his gloved hand against the machine. “I have been a homosexual all my life!" All is as it should be. He will be with men—all through the long nights and days, he will be with men, in love with men. He’ll tell Mark tonight on the bus home. Maybe Mark will embrace him and confess his love—wouldn’t that be something?

  Mark sitting next to him on the bus chugging east on Pico Boulevard, taking them to Victoria place, he declares, “I’m a homosexual.” Mark stares at him, leaning forward, looking around furtively, even though at this time of night the bus is almost empty, except for a faded old man sitting in the rear. Mark takes a deep breath, a catch in his throat, his blue eyes avoiding him, “Dana, I’ve been—I have been an inveterate homosexual all my life.”

  Hope springs eternal, no need to jump off a cliff or rush off to get cured. “I thought you would have guessed the night I took you and Mallory and Lenny to the bar in Chicago—when you said how sorry you felt for those lonely men.”

  “So on Okinawa—it wasn’t the girl you swam with at Ishikawa—it was her partner—the blond boy.”

  “Yes, but I knew about myself long before that.” Floodgates opening now, “Almost as a joke, me and some Delta Sig brothers planned to claim we were inverts to avoid the draft, but gave up on it.” (Invert—one of the words Mark got from psychology courses, no doubt.) “So I got drafted and got a commission in the horse artillery. When we got to the Philippines I had a kind of fling, I guess you’d call it, with a Captain—but the good Captain found an all-too-willing Filipino boy—brought right into camp as an aide. I don’t know how he got away with it, but he did. When I got shipped to Okinawa—it really got rough for me. Officers in the Two-Four, you may recall, only wanted to play grab-balls, in which, you may recall, I did not wish to participate.”

  “Until the boy—“

  “Yes, until the chorus boy. I thought you would have guessed. How couldn’t you know about yourself?”

  “I just couldn’t imagine having sex with a man—kissing him, sucking and all that. I had a cousin I sort of fooled around with when I was twelve, but I never thought it meant I was queer.”

  At Crenshaw Boulevard now, stepping off the bus, walking the half-block to Victoria. A black-and-white pulls up alongside them. A lone, tall officer, handsome as a Columbia Pictures cowboy, lopes toward them, one hand resting on a belly club hanging at his side. “Where you boys headed?”

  Quick answer from Mark. “We’re going home.”

  Dana’s frightened, almost as if the cop’s overheard their conversation on the bus. “You live together?”

  Mark’s in control, cool as a cucumber. “We were buddies overseas, in the army.”

  “So were a lot of guys. Why are you out wandering around the streets this time of night?”

  “We work at the plastics factory on Robertson—the swing shift, four to midnight. We’re on our way home—Victoria Place.”

  “Okay,” not bothering to apologize. “We’ve had robberies in the neighborhood. Better get to wherever you’re going and not wander around anymore.”

  In the room, Mark strips down to jockey shorts, pulls back the covers on the double bed, and falls into it. “I’m bushed.” (Now it will be like it was with Major Bob, really kissing, holding each other, not like at Audra’s house). Snuggling in beside him, Dana says, “Mark, I love you,” reaching out to embrace him.

  Mark jerks away. “What are you doing?”

  “I love you.”

  “Well I don’t love you!” stumbling out of bed, standing over him. “I’ve never had that kind of feeling for you. You’re too—well too damned—serious.”

  Flashing anger, Dana’s  out of bed, pulling on shirt and khakis. “Well, fuck you!”

   “Where are you going? It’s one o’clock in the morning!”

  “I’m going to see the Major.”

  “Who?”

  “The guy I met last night at Bradley’s. He loves me, said he wanted to see me tonight when I got off work, he didn’t care how late—”

  “You’re crazy!”

  “Well at least he’s in love with me.”

  “After a one night roll in the hay? Did he sodomize you?”

  “What?”

  “Did he fuck you?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “You fucked him.”

  “No!”

  “Well, what did you do, play patty-cake?”

  “None of your damned business!”

  Dana is out the door, Mark nursing a twisted smile.

  Major Bob accepts his sudden arrival as a declaration of love, convinced of it as Dana abandons himself as spontaneously and thoughtlessly as the night before. In the morning, the Major treats him to brunch at the Tick-Tock on Vine Street—better than Mark’s damned drugstore! Sharing confidences, Major Bob says he’s in Los Angeles to find work as a marketing exec; Dana rambling through his life story, babbling trivia, how he learned to play the piano from his mother—unrelated details, his ambition to be an actor and continue at U.C.L.A. and get a degree in theatre. Major Bob says, “I’ll buy a house. I’d love to hear you rattling around in it. I’ll send you through college. I’ll buy you a piano. You’ll have your own car.”

  It takes him maybe two weeks to realize a long-time affair with a thirty-five year old man is the last thing he wants. Besides there’s more to experience—adventures waiting, think of the possibilities! And of course, there’s Mark. At least Mark wants him around and they can still be friends and live together—and maybe someday. . . How can he allow the Major to guide his future, and what would his family think of a thirty-five year old man helping him through college?

  Besides which he’s eager to explore the Hollywood scene, 1930s queens and belles now coming out into the light, encouraged by more than a few men who bonded with each other in the war and want a future together—and more than a few women most likely, although the Lesbian world is a hidden world.

  After several nights not hearing from Dana, Major Bob finds him at Bradley’s Bar brooding into an oversized glass of draft beer. The Major touches his shoulder.

  “Come sit down, bring your beer to the table.” Vaughn Monroe crooning, Dance ballerina dance. . .

  “What are you doing here, Dana?”

  “I’m . . . exploring.”

  “I thought better of you.”

  “I want to meet other guys. I’m just getting started and you were the first—“

  “I brought you out?” Major Bob trying to wrap himself around this revelation.

  “Yes. I fooled around with my cousin when I was twelve and there was an artist at my rich aunt’s house in Palm Springs who caught me in bed one night and rubbed my stomach, and—so, yes, I guess you brought me out—made me realize—”

  The Major stares, eyes expressionless, lips pursed, not laughing, reminding Dana of his sixth grade teacher, Miss Judson, solving disciplinary problems with Where there’s smoke, there must be fire!

  “I’m going back to Boston, your Los Angeles is for the pits.” He clatters out of his chair, pushing it so violently it topples over. “I’m sorry I ever met you.”

  “What’s so great about Boston?”

  “Someday I hope you’ll find out.”

  He’s on the Boulevard so fast Dana hardly knows he’s gone.

  They quit the plastics factory. Dana finds temporary work for the holiday season at the May Company-Downtown. Mark has enough money saved to keep him going while he tries to make contact with friends from Michigan State now in the movie business. They visit one of them on the set of “Queen for a Day.”

  They move to a furnished house on Mount Washington in Highland Park, high above the scrubby California oaks and holly bushes where he and Tommy Buchanan played. Outside their new home clustered red and purple geraniums cover .the hillside.

  Stanley Little, he calls himself their landlady, lives next door—a willowy, pale faced man, yet retaining a trace of masculinity, wandering around the living room the night they move in, straightening furniture and setting lamps on side tables. No need for Mark to draw him out, he’s eager to tell his story.

  “We all had secret names before the war. Mine was Sheila. We led two lives—work by day, meetings in each other’s homes at night. Most of the time we knew our friends only by their secret names. We wouldn’t dare intrude on each other’s public lives, unless we fell in love—and that was tricky, risking your job—even jail, if you were found out. Then the war came along and I joined the Navy and everything changed. Plenty of encounters aboard ship—swabbies were the cocksuckers—Marines, the fuckers—they called it “corn holing.”

  A nervous laugh, “Some of the old bunch are still around, and I guess we don’t have to hide anymore. Now it’s Stanley by night and Stanley by day. I really hate to let Sheila go. Stanley by night, Stanley by day, how can I let my Sheila go? Sounds like a Noel Coward song, doesn’t it? But how I do miss the old Miss Sheila.”

  “Don’t be too quick to come out into the daylight,” Mark warns him. “It’s still pretty dangerous out there.”

  Mark continues to reject physical contact; Dana doesn’t even try to make it happen. Together they explore L.A.’s seamy post-war queer world, not calling themselves “queer.” Mark clings to “invert” but soon takes up the new code word “gay” which had originated in France’s queer underworld, although it’s not in general use in Hollywood. And Mark is right, it’s a dangerous world “out there.”

  The Hollywood Citizen News, with pretensions of turning itself from tacky shopper’s throwaway into a legitimate daily newspaper, launches a campaign to close all the bars in and around Hollywood Boulevard “catering to degenerates.”

  The Hollywood Division of the Los Angeles Police Department appears to support the cleanup campaign, even though closing down gay bars would mean the end of payoffs, as well as eliminating a rich source of loot from victims targeted by an organized and intricate entrapment process—from the officer in plain clothes who looks like a football hero, to grungy bail bondsmen, right up to the stiff-lipped presiding judge—all get their cut from a five hundred dollar fine. After an overnight in Lincoln Heights jail, pleading guilty, fine paid, the accused “Lewd Vagrant” avoids registering as sex offender—although this policy was to change in a couple of years.

  Dana writes an anonymous letter to the Citizen News challenging the crackdown, extolling (but not able to prove) the manly relationships that came out of the war, dropping the letter into a mailbox at the corner of Seventh and Broadway on their way to the Warner Brothers movie palace on Hill Street, and the minute it disappears into the slot, he starts to panic. “Would they take fingerprints? My fingerprints must be on file at the F.B.I. from the service.” Mark says, “You’re paranoid. If you feel that way, you shouldn’t have mailed it in the first place.” His letter never appears in the paper. In spite of the close-down-the-queer-bars campaign, no bars are closed; entrapments and pay-offs become even more frequent.

  Now that they are securely nested on Mount Washington, they’re free to enjoy the Hollywood underworld—an eerie, romantic world, love-making in dark corners and furtively registered hotel rooms, escaping to Laguna Beach or San Diego. They stay away from Bradley’s Bar. Who needs Bradley’s when other bars offer one hundred percent gay clientele, bartenders more than happy to get the business, although they most assuredly are not gay-owned. Favorite hangouts—Slim Gordon’s on the Boulevard near LaBrea with an entrance opening through flaps of black leather into a crowded room lit mostly by a huge jukebox—smells of beer and bourbon, Slim a huge overweight marvel mingling with his customers, slapping butts when he thinks he can get away with it.

  The Black Watch on Sunset at the corner of Laurel Canyon Drive, more brightly lit than Slim Gordon’s, is patronized by “Daddy” types seeking young, respectable looking hustlers. The Tropicana on Hollywood Boulevard is one to avoid—vice officers edge through the crowd on their way to the men’s room, groping customers sitting at the bar, hoping to entice them so arrests can be made.

  Eating out migrates from drugstores to Coffee Dan’s on Hollywood Boulevard, near Highland. They discover the Candlelight on Ivar down the street from the Ivar Theatre, a quiet little restaurant which more than satisfies Dana’s fantasies—romantically lit with real candles on tables, where trysts and fulminating liaisons are contracted. Further along on Ivar, block-long news racks, a cruising venue, where you can search for the hometown paper—every imaginable newspaper and magazine from around the world—and maybe meet up with a new trick.

  Dana is right about the Candlelight Restaurant’s romantic possibilities, charmed by a sinuous, small packaged waiter, Harry Gosnel, who pleases Dana’s definition of “sophisticated,” because Harry is secretive, speaks little; and is from New York City—Manhattan, where no doubt he’s had many lustful encounters. As expected, Mark gets Harry to talk, inviting him to Mount Washington.

   “I don’t drink alcohol,” he says as soon as he’s in the door. Mark prods him; Harry suddenly lights up—Mark’s magic working its spell. When asked about New York (Mark’s never been there), Harry says, “I love New York. It’s a great city for walking the streets, looking up at apartment windows, knowing behind each one there’s a different life—a different story to tell, all kinds of people living their own special lives.”

  Mark asks, “So what are you doing in L.A. if New York’s so great?”

  “Hollywood, I want to make my own movies someday, so I’m trying to break into the business—as assistant director, or whatever. It’s not easy.”

  Going to the fridge to get himself another beer, Mark says, “I’ve heard the Broadway theatre’s pretty much dead.”

  Harry fumes. “Not at all! Haven’t you heard about The Glass Menagerie—Tennessee Williams—Streetcar Named Desire?”

  “Marlon Brando, the mumbler,” Mark says, pouring his beer into a glass. “Isn’t he an invert?”

  “A what?”

  “A queer.”

  “I wouldn’t know.” Harry smiles condescendingly. “Does it matter?”

  As it turns out, neither he nor Mark makes it to bed with Harry Gosnel, but Dana continues to dream of it—not necessarily sexual fantasies—more like really falling in love, visions of curling into his small, warm body, and living together in a place of their own. A couple of weeks later, dropping by the Candlelight alone—no Mark at his side to interfere—he’s told by the head waiter Harry has gone back to New York. “In Harry’s own words, he couldn’t take Hollywood any more and fled back to the Big City.”

  Mark goes home for Christmas. After an emotional farewell at Union Depot—tears from Dana, not from Mark who’s as cold as the winter he’ll find in Detroit. He wanders up to Broadway, fighting depression. I will not allow this to happen again, he tells himself—the dry mouth, lonely, hysterical nights. Mark will come home. Mark loves Hollywood, and besides, he’s left most of his clothes behind.

  He takes himself to the posh Universal movie house at Ninth and Broadway to see Ray Milland and Marlene Dietrich in “Golden Earrings.” When gypsy Dietrich takes Milland in her arms, sliding her hands down the back of his white shirt, leaving a trace of dirt from her claws, he thinks—how Mark would love this reality! Mark, and Mark again. Will he never break free?

  He should’ve called one of his one-night stands—Danny, the stock boy he met on his temp Christmas season job at the May Company and tricked with at the Taft in Hollywood, but he doesn’t have his phone number; Danny, who brought him a “Prairie Oyster” in the morning, raw egg in orange juice. A bit effeminate perhaps, but very sweet, and passionate sex.

  After Mark’s return from Detroit, things get uncomfortable on Mount Washington. Mark meets a docile, retiring little red head, Mickey Feay, at “His Master’s Voice Music Store” on The Avenue—North Figueroa, Highland Park’s Main Street. “We’re just friends,” Mark claims, but when he meets Mickey for the first time over Sunday morning pancakes at Coffee Dan’s, it’s clear Mickey has fallen under Mark’s spell. Mark has ensnared another devoteé. They would live together, never as lovers, for thirty years, Mickey willing to  play “third man out” as Mark made  his way through three lovers.

  When Mickey talks, his words move inward like a receding tidal pool; even his voice seems to swallow itself—high pitched, but Mickey speaks more like bewildered kid with face of an older man—not surprising since he was a tail gunner in a B-52 shot down in the South Pacific, suffering a head wound, spending two weeks on a life raft with other survivors; awarded a Purple Heart for valor. He wears a steel plate in his head. He’s a heavy drinker.

  Mark finds a small apartment to share with Mickey on Marmion Way along the Santa Fe Railroad tracks. “I’m fed up living with you,” he proclaims to Dana one night after returning from the Laundromat, a basketful of clothes which unfortunately includes Dana’s boxer shorts. “You never do the laundry, or take our shirts to the Chinaman, and you never vacuum the rug or mop the floor, or dust the furniture.” Lame excuse for moving out.

  So it’s back to the room behind the garage on Joy Street. Free from Mark—but not from Highland Park. Is it his fate to live here forever? Christmas at home, frustrating, longing to be somewhere else—anywhere but in the bosom of his family. New Year’s Eve, even worse, so on the following Saturday night, he escapes to Hollywood via Veteran’s Cab—the “back way, shortcut to Hollywood,” the driver explains, through Silver Lake to Franklin Avenue. From there it’s a straight line to Slim Gordon’s.

  The bar is crowded. Slim sidles up to him and whispers, “Watch out tonight, I think we got some vice squad in our midst, and look at this crowd, all escaping from stultifying family holiday gatherings.”

  Dana thanks him for the warning, finds his way to the bar. Even before he can order a beer, a cherub face with piercing brown eyes accosts him. Dana barely can hear him above Judy Garland belting out “Somewhere over the Rainbow.”

  “I’m Bill Anderson,” he says—an expectant teddy bear, maybe ten years older than Dana—not much hair. And not likely vice squad. Vice squad would be one of Dana’s fantasies—tall, dark and sinewy. But what the hell, finally a chance to talk to someone besides his mother and sisters and step-dad. He yearns to give himself some legitimacy. (I’m not just a one-night stand!) quickly explaining he’s an actor and will return to U.C.L.A. in February; that he went there before he was drafted, then launches into his personal history for the past several years.

  Teddy bear, patient for a time, then interrupting with squeaky, high pitched voice, “You want to see where I live? We can walk—it’s on the side of the hill above the church at Franklin and Cahuenga.” his voice colored with a gravely sound, distinctly masculine, and promising.

  Bill Anderson takes him up a winding road to a towering high roofed Japanese pagoda, and beneath it to another large Japanese looking building. “It’s the Yamashiro—Mountain Palace—built by Bernheimer in 1914. Today it’s an apartment building. Tomorrow, who knows? I’m the caretaker.”

  Now down a narrow path, to a small shack in a clearing, much more than gardener’s shed. Bill opens a sturdy door with polished metal hinges on a one-room wonder with an overwhelming aroma of burning pine cones; a breath of romance in the air. In the murky shadows, distinguishing a cozily quilted, unmade bed beneath windows overlooking Franklin Avenue, a small table with a couple of candles in sturdy brass candlesticks, two rustic chairs, serviceable kitchen sink, stove and refrigerator, bathroom off to the side.

  “I’ll get a fire going,” Bill says—a real fireplace with screen and andirons. He stashes crumpled newspapers beneath half-burned logs and pine cones, striking a match, his quick movements unexpected.

  Flickering glow of tiny flames, illuminating a room obstinately reflecting the man—walls paneled with long, two-foot wide redwood planks, books scattered on the floor, fugitives from a rickety book case, no pictures on the walls.

  Is Bill the one? Has he found a place where, in front of a glowing fire, he can snuggle in a man’s arms, sinking into dreamy fantasies, tallow and flames responding to Brahms?

  Contrary to his quiet, unassuming nature, Bill Anderson is no recluse. He gets around. Dana falls into the habit of spending weekends with him. The surprise visitors who venture like Hansel and Gretel to the shack, are probably weekday conquests. And one particular surprise, who should appear at the threshold one Saturday afternoon but Lloyd D. Meyer. Where on earth could Bill have met Lloyd D. Meyer? Probably at the baths on Melrose, Bill’s favorite hangout.

  Bill is off pruning bushes, leaving Lloyd and Dana free to reminisce. Lloyd tells him why he played “older brother” to him at U.C.L.A., a time when Dana never gave a thought as to who was queer or who wasn’t. And now they feel it’s required to share a mildly passionate encounter to celebrate the reunion—it’s not very satisfying. Recovering, leaning against the windows next to the bed, Lloyd says. “I thought you were queer at U.C.L.A., but I didn’t have the heart to tell you.”

  Another Saturday, Mark and Mickey stop by, Mark taking the opportunity to charm Bill, but Bill is resistant. After they leave, Bill says, “I don’t know what you see in him, Dana. He’s much more effeminate than you—and you’re not in the least effeminate!” This gives Dana little comfort. Mark, damn it, will I love him forever?

2

  Is it only three months ago? Dana stirs from a nodding sleep. They’ve just passed Westlake Park, crossing Alvarado—no, it’s called MacArthur Park now. A jerk of his head, again trying to focus on the script. Where is it? Scattered at his feet. Traveling two hours from U.C.L.A. to Highland Park—to morning classes, and two hours again late at night, not giving him much time to sleep. The bus sputters, jerks and grinds to a stop. A boy his age gets on and walks toward him, hanging on to seatbacks to steady himself as the bus lurches forward. Is he ever a beaut, black curly hair—the great fantasy, to go to bed with a tall guy with black curly hair and shadowy, deep-set eyes . . .

  The boy is wearing tight fitting buttoned 501 Levis. Dana avoids risking even a glance as he passes. He might be vice squad. He’s heard about guys getting busted just by glancing out the window at someone waiting at a bus stop.

  Stretching out a hand to pick up the script, he lays it open on his lap and tries to concentrate without nodding off again. Got to stay awake, reminding him of a bar in Detroit, Mark warning him not to fall asleep or they’d throw him out. Mark again! Focus!

  But he’s shown Mark, hasn’t he? standing up or lying down, in bed with a lot of guys—young and not so young, even a couple of old duffs—even with Mickey Feay on Christmas day! when he managed a brief escape from Joy Street. And now, at U.C.L.A. already tricking with everyone who’s willing. Well, now he’s made his escape from the Mark obsession—hasn’t he? Maybe not quite, but he’s back in school and new friends are waiting in the wings—maybe he’ll even find the great romance—he’s out there somewhere, that tall, dark, merry-eyed Adonis. Someday he’ll come along, the man I love . . .

  In the meantime, already he’s discovered other accomplices at U.C.L.A. who will take him into a world Mark would not care to enter. Even before, in that tight little room in the Fairfax District, hadn’t he discovered on his own, long before Bradley’s Bar, hints of a world Mark wasn’t interested in sharing? At the local art house, Jean Louis Barrault’s “The Children of Paradise,” “Cage of Nightingales,” Jean Cocteau’s “Beauty and the Beast” starring his lover, Jean Marais. His first opera, courtesy of his mother who suffers through ”Il Trovatore” at the Shrine Auditorium in the Metropolitan Opera’s national tour—Regina Resnick, not yet singing mezzo roles, the tenor Jussi Bjoerling’s steel-tempered voice soaring into the rafters from off stage. At U.C.L.A. the promise he’ll find those who will take him far beyond a life with Mark Buchoz—just as Pandora in the form of beautiful Myra Kinch had done, not so long ago—releasing spirits for him to romp and play with.

  And Mark won’t have a chance against them.

This concludes "Stories Never Told" - 1. Longing   2. Yet Still a Child   3. Music for the Theatre           4. "a callus on my left heel   5. "Bump! Bump! a Wave!"    6. Bradley's Bar.

Memoirs following - I'll Take Manhattan - "Oh! for a Muse of Fire!" (U.C.L.A. 1948-195) and "Kitty O'Brien and a Rite of Passage" (New York, 1950-51)

Beaumont Tower, Michigan State

Stories Never Told / 5. Michigan State 1947

Bump! Bump! A Wave!

  Now the thrill, boarding the El Captain, all coach Santa Fe streamliner to Chicago, four-thirty p.m., blast of the horn, the train rolling out L.A.’s Union Station—thirty-nine and a half hours to a city he’s never seen.  It’s less than a month since he was welcomed home at Union Station by his mother and step-father number four—Jane and Joe Geers, Alice and Leno, Edith and husband, tall, lanky, mild and unassuming Mel Murray, sister Jane, 16, and kid brother Robert, 9.

  Homecoming’s jubilation soon diminishing as his mother closes in on him, expecting him to live at home—on Joy Street of all places after sailing halfway around the world—a summer in Neosho with Jane and Joe, Little Jane and Bobby; Jefferson Barracks by the Mississippi, St. Louis, training in Arkansas—staying behind as his buddies are shipped to Europe to fight the Battle of the Bulge, ending up at Fort Benning Officer Candidate School—weekends in Atlanta; after getting his commission, a couple of weeks at Fort Hood, Texas as pimply faced second lieutenant presuming to train men less than a year younger than he is.

  At Fort Hood, finding Pat Billinghurst in the Officer’s Club—Major Pat Billinghurst, that is, who graduated from Franklin one year ahead of him—Pat captured in the Bulge, yet to reveal himself. That would be eleven years later.

  Then onto to Corvallis and Eugene, Oregon, waiting for shipment overseas, sailing from Seattle through San Juan Fuca Straits, across the Pacific, defying its name with stormy seas.  .  .  one year on Okinawa, and now a journey he’s compelled to make—Mark Buchoz waiting for him in Michigan.  Settle down at home?  Not a chance!

  Glued to a window in the El Capitan as the train insists its right-of-way climbing above the gully . . . collecting pollywogs with Johnnie, ka-klunkety-klunk over rails  wandered in summertime with Tommy Buchanan and Johnnie and Bob Crimea, snatching up bottle caps and beer cans.  Now emerging from trees—Joy Street a blur—but crossing gates at North Avenue 50 clearly etched now and in memory, in a dinghy with Frank Hagaman, Tommy and Johnnie, sailing forever around the world. how many years ago? Only nine years? No kids standing in awe to wave them by. streamline train rumbling through the neighborhood.

  Now along Marmion Way to cross the Arroyo Seco—stepping over stones to climb the rickety wooden stairs to first grade Herman Way Grammar School. . . Quick stop at Pasadena station, then as night falls, on to Chicago.

  Finding his way to the dining car; he orders, writing choices on a silver embossed card—what luxury! To smoke-filled club car for a drink. Festive, comfortable atmosphere, red and gold mural of bronzed Grand Canyon mesas on the wall. Lighting up; still smoking Camels—not his favorite brand; couldn't get Luckies overseas—Luckie Strike Green Has Gone War, ordering a whisky hi-ball mixed by a tall and easy black man who doesn't ask for I.D.—good thing because he's illegal, five months away from twenty-one; perhaps the small brass ruptured duck on the lapel of his salt and pepper suit jacket helps, signifying he’s served his country.

  This time, no blue-haired woman staring at him, challenging his future; young girls mostly, none of the men in uniform.

  Any girls on the make? Not sure, but definitely not interested. Besides where could they go on an all-coach train? not compelled to find out, for no reason in particular, rather anticipating what lies beyond the smoke filled room, his sites reaching eastward—Mark Buchoz waiting for him at M.S.C. 

  Before falling asleep, he marvels at the vast California desert, cinder cones like ghostly Indians rising against a dark sky, recalling his trip with Alice and her girlfriend, following their husbands to Camp Howze, Gainesville, Texas, dropping him off at Amarillo for a bus ride through Oklahoma (remembering most of all, red soil of the decimated farmlands) up into southwest Missouri through Joplin to Neosho to be with his mother before getting drafted.

  El Capitan won't follow this route, at noon turning north from Albuquerque—so new country to explore! Sleeping as they pass through Kingman, Flagstaff, Arizona, wakening to dawn in New Mexico until precisely at noon, a fifteen minute stop at Albuquerque; Indian women selling pottery and woven baskets in front of the earth-brown adobe station to follow the Santa Fe Trail north to cross a corner of Colorado at La Junta, through Raton Pass hemmed in by mountains, into Kansas at night.

  Santa Railway has planned well, riding through Kansas, a dry state in the night hours, State Trooper standing at the entrance to the club car, watching passengers closely, ready to pounce on anyone who tries to spike their cokes with liquor—liquor not allowed, not even beer.  Good thing he wasn’t stationed in Kansas during the war.

  On the second and last morning, crossing the Mississippi, riding over a long, steel latticed bridge. Mark Twain country.  When drafted at Jefferson Barracks, he’d seen the river only through trees fringing the camp—a swatch of it. Now here the river grandly flows beneath them. Now up through vast farmlands, shocks of wheat dotting brown fields. James Whitcomb Riley country—When the frost is on the pumpkin and the fodder's in the shock . . .  On the banks of the Wabash far away!

  El Capitan asserting itself now through crowded Chicago railroad yards. Carl Sandburg's hog butcher of the world! so much to see, but opting to spend an hour waiting to transfer to a coal burner to Michigan. The station is colorless; no Spanish arches of bright blue and yellow tiles as in L.A., but somehow the drabness excites him; a different world altogether—Chicago, rail hub linking all American’s great cities.  Crowds move under lofty arches, hurrying, much faster than in L.A., seeming not to care about, nor taking time to contemplate architecture, or each other.

  A connection here to Twentieth Century Limited to New York City, Philadelphia, Boston—to cities south and west: Terre Haute, Indianapolis, Columbus Ohio, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia. . . NOW BOARDING! Gary Indiana, Michigan City, Kalamazoo, Lansing—ALL ABOARD! Now déjà vu of army days on a lurching coal smoke-burners, circling Lake Michigan to East Chicago, Gary and Michigan City, Indiana, crossing into Michigan, north to Kalamazoo (I had a gal, in Kalamazoo, zoo-zoo-zoo!), Battle Creek—Kellogg's Cornflakes, and Lansing.

  Late afternoon—the coal belcher squeals into Lansing station, Mark keeping his promise, manly greetings, with two fraternity brothers, Stu Evans and Joe Greenhoe.  Stu peering through brown horn-rimmed glasses, smiling happy sunshine—Stu a little guy, taller than Mark. Joe Greenhoe, awkward, tall, gangly, big eyes, fractured, prominent nose—a lean Bob Cratchit from “A Christmas Carol.” Mark’s comforting, familiar enthusiasm, precise, yet coming on as eager teenager, getting Dana and his duffel bag into Joe's pre-war, 1938 streamline Ford.

  "You arrived in the middle of homecoming,” Mark in command, “just in time for the big game this Saturday against Purdue, no problem bunking in the house. You’re going to room with Lance Hoffmeir and Stu, a little crowded, but it’s a big room, and besides the boys will be dragging you out to guzzle beer at Eddie’s." Dream coming to life—swimming together in warm seas at Ishikawa, dreaming a world ten thousand miles away.

  "My step-dad had a car like this," Dana says, hoping to make conversation. Sitting next to him in the back seat, Mark says, "For God's sake get rid of that ruptured duck, nobody wears them anymore." Dana flushes, obediently detaching the small brass emblem, shoving it in his pocket, not quite ready to throw it out the window. Mark says, "You're supposed to be an active member to live in the house, but I got consent, with no dissenting votes—"

  “He means unanimous,” Joe says. Stu laughs—“As long as you don't stay forever." Joe asks him if he’s good at decorating, but Dana gets no chance to reply, no stopping Mark.  “Big game Saturday—for the Old Oaken Bucket."

  Stu: “The game’s not for the Old Oaken Bucket—that’s the Indiana-Purdue game.” Mark ignoring him, “You're here just in time for all the fun. All the houses are decorating.  Joe's in charge this year, and we always get first prize."

  "Don't count on it," Joe says, "the A.T.O.s have been pledging design students, I hear."

  "They've always been a little fey," Stu says, turning a corner. Mark is silent.

  "There's going to be a big green and white Spartan standing over a groveling Boiler Maker and a slogan hanging across the front of the house, The Old Oaken Bucket is at the Bottom of the Well" Joe says, “or maybe no banner headline at all," wheeling them into the driveway of a large, two story frame house, white with green shutters, emerald green Greek letters D S F – Delta Sigma Phi centered over a large front porch. Mark's home for three years before he was drafted.

  Joe escorts him to a spacious sunny room on the second floor cluttered with beds and tables and books, a large window overlooking a sun splashed front lawn. "You'll share this with me and Lance," Joe says, “and here’s Lance himself,” pointing to a hefty guy with thinning hair, certainly older than the others—even older than Mark—sitting at a small desk in a brightly sunlit corner of the room, portioning a cluster of large green pills into a bottle, looking up, kindly inquisitor, eyebrows arching in round face; amused, quizzical expression, as if he wants to entice Dana into a confessional.

  He learns that Lance joined the Navy right after Pearl Harbor in his junior year; also that he’s Keeper and Dispenser of the Small Green Pill, proven cure for hangovers.

  “Not even Lance knows what’s in them,” Joe says.

  “I get it from my doctor, a morning-after cure-all when you’ve been guzzling too many beers at Eddie's. I know they contain chlorophyll—thus the green."

  On the front lawn of the fraternity, a raw, cold November day, Dana feels, for the first time, gloriously trapped in fantasy—Joe Greenhoe, Stu Evans, and Mark, piecing together decorations for the Big Homecoming Game. Future visions stir, defining themselves, alive as never before, in the company of guys who’ve survived the war . . . belonging, eastern cold hugging him in a world he's known only in dreams.  The chill in the air does the trick—touching them, holding them, bound.

  That night, too excited to sleep, Joe studying for exams, talking to himself, Lance clattering late into the room, drunk, he and Joe take off Lance's shoes, peeling down his pants, flopping him into bed. Finally on the edge of sleep, again remembering the dream, endless sea disappearing into mists, climbing into a small dinghy, together laughing, excited, sailing forever around the world, boys together clinging . . . Here’s to old Delta Sigma Phi! Here’s to the green and white!

  Homecoming game—cheering just like U.C.L.A. before the war, only now Mark is next to him. The Spartans lose. Voices raised, singing the Alma Mater, Mark off-key, sound of his voice fractured, trembling voice through tears.

  M.S.C.  we love your shadows,
  as twilight softly falls,
  flushing deep and softly paling,
  o'er ivy covered walls.  .  .

  As guest of the Delta Sigs, with time to spare, he’s Pied Piper, luring the boys away from their books to beer chug-a-lugs at Eddie’s bar, just outside the two mile limit from campus. The Prince of Wales has lost his tails and Number Six knows where to find him. Not I, sir, who then, sir? Missing a beat, you must guzzle down your full mug of beer, so drink, drink chug-a-lug, chug-a-lug, chug-a-lug, drink chug-a-lug, chug-a-lug.

  Once again Mark is in Eddie’s, dragging Dana to his feet. Feeling no pain, he recites “Casey at the Bat.”

  Dinner in the grand Delta Sig dining room, waited on by pledges; always a songfest, Mark joining in lustily, not a bit bothered he’s off-key.

  Alice, where art thou going?
  Upstairs to take a bath.
  Alice, built like a toothpick,
  and a neck like a giraffe—like a giraffe.
  Alice steps in the bathtub,
  pulls out the plug and then
  Oh my goodness, oh my soul,
  there goes Alice down the hole.
  Alice, where art thou go—ing?

  Thanksgiving in Detroit with Mark’s family. Young Barry, taller than his brother—a lady-killer matinee idol. Mark’s father, an older version of Mark, short, puckish face, mop of gray hair, friendly, questioning Dana, probing. Mark’s mother, Midwestern house frau, a kind, elegant matriarch. “I have a sister living in San Diego. We visit her almost every year in the summer. So many sailors there, sailors everywhere you look!”

  Mark’s older brother Matthew, taller even than Barry, sandy hair, looking more like his mother. A drinking family—but no drunks. Matthew takes pride in his green crème de mint stingers.

  Alone with Mark in his bedroom, Mark tells the story of how he rode to school in a chauffeured limousine until his father lost everything in the crash of ‘29; a drummer for many years, on the road through the Midwest selling business machines for Burroughs, working his way up to Vice President in charge of sales. Mark digs out from a toy trunk, little paper booklets of crude porn cartoons. Dana looks at the pictures blankly, an occasional—“Wow, look at that.” It never crosses his mind that Mark is testing him.

  Mark’s not always with the brothers at Eddie’s bar. Dana supposes he’s studying hard to prepare for next quarter which will be his last, one step away from entering graduate school in Communications and Speech, with a minor in Psychology; Dana surprised to realize he’s having a ball without him. The brothers are sold. It’s predictable they will welcome him in January—not only a fun guy but going to be a speech major; more than a few liberal arts majors in the fraternity—short on pledging football heroes as a rule, having at the time one brother who plays running back on the Spartan team, Ed Maloney, a chunky, sexy guy with a prize fighter's face.

  Most Delta Sigs, he’s learned, are speech and psychology majors, and one pre-med, dark and sinewy Jack Sturges claims to know what's in Lance Hoffmeir's Green Pill, advising against taking too many—even for the worst hangover.

  Dana makes preliminary inquiries for winter quarter registration, January through March. He's guaranteed a room at Harold Belknap's house close to campus. Portly Belknap with respected beer belly, is National Director of Delta Sigma Phi. His son, Leslie, not well-liked—arrogant and not too bright, but they had to pledge him, of course. Luckily, Dana will not have him as roommate—Leslie lives in the fraternity.  Dana will share his room with a guy who isn't a Delta Sig, and who’s contemptuous of “frats.”

  Home for Christmas, again on El Capitan, this time crossing the vast California desert at dawn—ghostly Joshua trees silhouetted against golden sunrise. Pasadena station, scarlet bougainvillea spilling from the eaves of adobe white buildings welcome him home.

  California winter. He must be mad to give up this paradise! Now across the bridge spanning North Avenue 64 over the arroyo; crossing through lowered, clanging white gates of the North Avenue 50 crossing—the white house, still there, 4949, Marmion Way.  Should be a museum.

  Nothing at Joy Street has changed. He’s been gone less than a month, yet his mother’s a stranger to him, arguing against his returning “back east.” His own inner conflict—U.C.L.A.  or Michigan State? He’s learned U.C.L.A. has a full-fledged Theatre Arts Department now. His mother has fixed up a room for him at the side of the garage. Mt. Washington rising above Marmion Way dominates the western sky—Tommy Buchanan and our club house hidden in the scrub oaks and holly bushes.

  He's seen his mother fall apart many times in his life. Now at age forty-four she looks very much in her thirties, tall, thin, homespun elegance. "I don't want you so far way. It'll worry me sick!"

  "I was in the army for two years—gone a whole year travelling half-way round the world."

  "I never did get used to it.  You should go back to U.C.L.A. Michigan’s too far away.”

  "Well, I'm going."

  "You can't!"

  "Well, I am!" He breaks away, out the back door, slamming it as she yells after him, "Don't slam the door!"

  A new experience, walking with Mark on sidewalks hard packed with January snow, barren branches heavy with it, on their way to visit Mark's friends, Phil and Marge, Mark, rattling on, interrupted only by the sound of shoes squeaking. (I’ll have to get some boots!)

  "Phil is the sweetest guy you'll ever meet,” Mark, chattering, “he'll give you the shirt off his back. Once, a long time before any of us were drafted, he was driving a bunch of us to Detroit for Thanksgiving, and we passed a car stuck in a ditch and without saying a word, he pulled over, got out and started helping them—an elderly couple. He never asked if they wanted help, he just did it; so we all pitched in while Marge soothed the old lady, pouring her a cup of coffee from the thermos. Afterwards, on the road again, Stu said to him, Boy, you don't hesitate a minute to help someone out. Phil ignored him, started singing, Here's to old Delta Sigma Phi, and we all joined in , singing practically all the way to Detroit.

  Phil and Marge's home is a small one-story wood frame in a cozy neighborhood, small yellow porch-light beckoning. Phil, a docile mountain lion, unwinds from a long green and purple floral-patterned davenport. Everything about him is subdued; light brown slacks and cardigan sweater—no T-shirt under the sweater, Dana notes, revealing a chest with hazel fuzz of hair. Even his smile is soft, subtle, brightened by a row of perfect white teeth.

  "Hi.  Marge, they're here," calling out as he takes Dana’s hand in a firm grip. "That's just a regular handshake," he says. "Guess you haven't learned the secret Delta Sig handshake yet."

  "There’s no such thing,” Mark says, laughing, “but he's pledged all right. I got up in the meeting after he went home for Christmas and said you all know Dana.”

  “They should know me, we drank enough chug-a-lugs together.”

  “The vote was unanimous."

  Marge, glowing in saffron yellow appears suddenly with a tray of drinks, large one-shot glasses with green liquid. She seems to complete Phil, her tawny coloring and exuberance, brightening his subtle beige hues.

  "Stingers," she says.

  "Marge makes the best stingers in Michigan," Mark says.

  Handing Dana the stinger, laughing. "In East Lansing anyway. Mark, as you must know by now, tends to stretch the truth a bit. . . To the new pledge!” sipping, “but then he's hardly new to you, is he, Mark? buddies overseas and all that. Drink it slowly, Dana, for the best effect." To Phil and Mark, "I know you two will swallow it whole, so I don't ask." She settles in with Phil who's again reclining, legs outstretched.

  Later, walking to the Belknap house and Dana’s room, Mark says, "They’re the perfect couple and you can see why. Nothing they wouldn't do for me. I'll tell you all about it someday. What did you think of them?"

  "I never met a couple seemed so happy.”

  Hell week, pledge class of twenty-one—expecting the worse, but only general humiliation—hardly Dante’s Inferno:  immersed naked in a bathtub filled with ice cubes, Jack Sturges monitoring heart beats. Salaaming beneath the Great Seal of Delta Sigma Phi in the front hallway each time they enter the house:

  Alla-man, alla-man,
  Cock-tattle, tish-titty,
  Oh what a shit I am!

  Other forced indecencies:  one day on campus required to wear jockey or boxer shorts outside trousers; in the house living room, blindfolded, ordered to shed all their clothes; still blindfolded, ordered to get fully dressed again—with blindfolds removed, finding themselves in a wardrobe mix mash. Lined up in the front hall, stripped naked so the brothers can measure their “hoses”—the longest declared fire chief must call the Delta Sig sister sorority with the announcement. Dana places second by a quarter-inch, but still is required to call the sorority as runner up. “Hi, I’m Dana from Delta Sigma Phi, calling to say I placed second in the fire hose contest.” Expecting a giggle from the other end, but getting only silence.

  The Big Night, final Rite of Passage. Each of them blindfolded will take a solo trip across the Nile, Mark obviously having written the narrative which intensifies the drama, led into an flooded basement room none of the pledges knew existed before now. Taken by the hand, asked to step into what feels like a large row boat. “Your trip across the Nile to the Temple, oh lowly one.” Water splashes, stinging his knees, violently rocking. Mark as Hierophant intones, Bump! Bump! a Wave!! and Dana recalls the basement, most of which was large empty pool, at the Delta Sigma Phi house at U.C.L.A. when Lloyd D.  Meyer and he were given a tour before renting the room—traces of dirt just under the rim of the pool, the brother explaining, “caused by recent winter rains.”

  After bouncing across the turbulent Nile and a couple of more cries, Bump! Bump! a Wave! arriving at the far shore, lifted out of the pool, dripping cold water, meant to imagine he’s standing before the “temple,” forced to swallow a large spoonful of “camel dung”; leaving the inner sanctum, out the door into the downstairs bathroom, blindfold removed, joining other pledges who seem as elated as he is from the experience, the final ordeal.

  Sturges urges them to up-chuck the camel dung, telling them it’s a lump of coarse pipe tobacco moistened with soft Roquefort cheese—Dana can’t seem to—he doesn’t feel sick. And there’s more! They now must swallow a large blue pill, courtesy of Lance no doubt, making their tongues turn blue—and their piss, but “not to worry, it will go away in a day or two.” Blue tongue, mark of the initiate.

  He doesn’t want the blue on his tongue to go away—he wants everyone to see the mark of his identity as newly initiated member of a fraternity; later, waiting in line at the movie house in downtown Lansing—proud, with an illusory thrill of belonging to this “band of brothers” showing off their blue tongues. He’s so easily led into fantasy worlds at this time of his life, reluctantly knowing this world must include finding a girlfriend.

  The fantasy completes itself soon after with the formal acceptance ceremony in the fraternity living room, solemnizing them as active members—soon after finding a girlfriend at a pledge recruiting sorority party. She’s not like the pretty, button-nose blondes or sultry dark sorority types his brothers are dating, but she’ll do. Ruth Anne MacGowan (who has declined joining the sorority), is a bit hefty, stern Mother Superior, majoring in liberal arts—her real ambition, to settle down to home and babies.

Stu Evans and his girlfriend on left, Joe Greenhoe next to him.  Lance in center back in shadows, smiling. On the right, Ruth Anne MacGowan and Dana. (Where are the glasses?")

  The entire pledge class has opted to become life members of Delta Sigma Phi.  Identity complete—fraternity brother, girlfriend, and now he’s twenty-one and can drink legally.

  One night in April, just after his 21^st birthday, he attempts to go all the way with Ruth Anne in the back seat of Stu Evans’s car while Stu is off in the bushes working his own magic with his dark beauty. Dana fumbles in the darkness, trying to recall Uncle Tom’s instructions—go for the clitoris, failing utterly, no help from Ruth Anne. “What are you doing?” she whispers. Shall he answer, I want to screw you? Shouldn’t it be obvious what he wants? (or does he?) “I don’t do that unless I’m married,” she says.

  He’s content to forget the episode; Ruth Anne continues as the girl on his arm—beer busts and Friday night movies. Mark seems to have given up on social activities altogether, not dating anyone, and certainly fidgeting to finish out the quarter and get on with his life as an actor.

  Spring erupts, and for a native California who’s never seen such glory, overwhelmed, although touched at times with an inexplicable melancholy recalling Sundays spent on Okinawa with fellow officers (they could hardly be called buddies or friends) before Mark had come on the scene, wandering through the ruins of Nakaguzuku Castle, or driving the jeep through off-limit, dusty, forlorn villages—searching for magic adventures and never finding them. Same old story, yearning “to sail around the world,” close friends at his side—male friends (making it with women certainly allowed, he supposes, and expected)—to be one of an impassioned group fighting noble causes. To touch, to hold dear, hold close, unspoken, indefinable longing to be in the company of men. Impossible to imagine himself alone—without a buddy—not ever.

  Green eyes shooting sparks beneath inky eyebrows, Paul Russell, chief editor of the Spartan Humor Magazine grumbles, “Frats are a thing of the past, the war changed all that nonsense—us common folk arising from depression poverty with our G-I Bills puts us on equal footing now. Why don’t you give up all this rah-rah college crap and become a serious writer?” He’ll publish Dana’s poem in the mag, even if he is a “frat boy,” sensing the poem expresses the yearnings of many returning veterans.

Infinity

Open the window, let in the rain,
time to sleep, Morpheus old buddy, time to dream,
hit the sack, set the alarm clock, turn off the lights.
(are you asleep, or awake and afraid to listen—?)
Everything’s set, life’s on hold. Your only hope,
to climb out of bed in the morning.

Wind responds, whispering through barren trees,
(or is it the sound of lost comrades calling me?)
Padded rain traps dead leaves in muddy earth.
Out there in the night, wailing train from Saginaw
mourns for places far away.

Or perhaps it’s the smell of coal burning,
so you’ll not forget the army camp in Arkansas.
Or perhaps the humid smell of hay and livestock
reaching out from farms, dreamer.

Perhaps, a smashed cigarette still burning,
the clouded  look in a woman’s eyes.

Just might light out one day,
four walls and routine don’t make for comfort,
just might pack my bag and go.
Should never have come to this place,
tomorrow you’ll find me in Idaho, or Louisiana.

Searching for rainbows, looking for happy land?

Let’s go to Europe, Joe,
let’s go to Europe on a freighter,
and we’ll make those Paris gals,
and see the Sistine Chapel.

Why are dreaming, dreamer,
why do you get this ache in the middle?
Maybe the wind can tell, or maybe the rain,
or maybe the train from Saginaw.

  First week of May he begins to feel earth under his feet, immersed in springtime’s amazing world, the campus transformed into a startling wonderland. Students and faculty seem to move in slow motion, dreamlike, as if bent on mysterious missions—going somewhere important known only to them, drifting among bright green-leafed trees, falling pink blossoms from tress for which he has no name, great puffy clouds blowing clear after late season snow flurries, revealing a cobalt blue sky. He belongs to it, he owns it, it’s his world now, he yearns to talk about it to someone—to anyone who’ll listen. But there’s no one there.

  Longings unsatisfied, not even with the breathtaking flowered floats drifting down Red Cedar River bordering the campus—donning white dinner jacket, black tie, red carnation in buttonholes, voices of Delta Sig’s chorus raised in song. Nothing satisfies his hunger for something more.

  The Delta Sigs win no first-place ribbons—not for chorus or float. Next day in Spartan Magazine’s editorial offices, Paul Russell grabs Dana’s lapel and sits him down in a rickety spindled chair. With sardonic smile, as much of a smile Paul can muster, he gloats: "You and your brothers got all gussied up in your white dinner jackets, red carnations, scarlet cummerbunds and tux pants, and you only got third place. Don't you get it?”

  “You were there? Thought you didn’t patronize such dumb rituals.”

  “Yes, I was there. You frat boys displayed too much window dressing. Everybody resented it, all that fancy, Teutonic display. You were there to sing, not show off how beautiful you are."

  “Fraternities and sororities did win all the first place ribbons. We’re not ready for the revolution yet.”

  His affair with Ruth Anne, if you could call it an affair, continues lack luster, but soon he won’t have to deal with it anymore. He’s off to Mackinac Island (native and foreign born pronounce it “Mackinaw”) for summer stock with Mark and others from the Speech Department. Graduating Ted Barber has got enough money together for a theatre company; he doesn’t reveal from whom, changing his name to Gavin Barbour, brushing gray greasepaint into his temples to make himself look older, even though his plump and sallow moon face make him appear older without artificial enhancement.  Mark, as always tactless, taunts him. "Ted, why the gray in the temples?"

  "It's Gavin Barbour, and you may call me Gavin—"

  "Well, Gavin, nobody cares how old you look."

  "It's there to stay, so please go along with it."

  On Mackinac Island— handsome, square-jawed Bob Lindsay, scenic designer, Gavin Barbour’s protégée; Betty Framden from Holland, Michigan, a city famous for springtime fields of multi-colored tulips; Mallory Compton, tooth-pick girl, disheveled, bracken hair, marvel of efficiency, who seems not quite present and accounted for, Mark and Dana—and Audra Hatch, all red head (Ah! redheads—like his teenage idol, Ann Sheridan), announcing she’s from Marshall, Michigan, near Battle Creek. “You know—Kellogg’s Corn Flakes." She appears a day after they’ve settled into a ramshackle frame house on a hill overlooking Mackinac’s Main Street where the theatre’s located.

  Audra is more handsome than beautiful—elegant, fun to be with, and like Ann Sheridan, the oomph girl, “just one of the boys." He lets go of Ruth Anne MacGowan after one uncomfortable weekend visit to see the season's opener, “Claudia and David,” Audra and Dana playing the leads.

  Before the opener, a stage must be built and the entire company must build it at the Old Trading Post on Main Street, "second oldest building" on the Island. They’re not told, nor do they really care, which building is the "first oldest building." The Trading Post reveals its secrets as up in the rafters they hang lights above the soon-to-be-completed stage platform, smell of sawdust and sound of buzz saws wafting up from below.

  Mallory is the only girl in the company who ventures into the rafters to hang lights, where they find huge four-by-six beams hammered together in the distant past by artisans using large wooden pegs. Below, the new stage rises four feet above the hall's planked floor. Seats are brought in and nailed, six to a runner, and "Gavin Barbour" is ready to direct "Claudia and David."

  Ruth Anne's retreat from his life brings on pangs of guilt—for maybe a day or two. It isn't like him to dwell on things—he learned that from his mother. Their farewell, a night after the gang has splurged on one pound cheeseburgers circled with slices of white onions and beefsteak tomatoes (and mayonnaise, don’t forget the mayonnaise!) in the Grand Hotel's informal downstairs coffee shop.

  At the dock, Dana says, “It's beautiful here, isn’t it? at nighttime. You can hear the buoys on Lake Superior."

  "It's over.  Why pretend it isn't?"

  A cool breeze out of the northeast breathes across the lake, stirring the harbor buoys at irregular intervals, clang. . . clang. . . clang. . . for Ruth Anne, sounding a death knell; for him, summons to more romantic adventures. You’re with Audra now, is that the way it is?

  "There's a legend you always return to Mackinaw once you've been here," Dana says.

  Ruth Anne grasps his arm. "You're an incurable romantic, Dana. You never wanted to get married. You only dream about life. You live in a world all your own. Having a girlfriend is just some kind of romantic fantasy—a requirement to satisfy the image you wish for yourself."

  "I've got too many plans to settle down. I want to be an actor. I'm not going back to Michigan State in the fall."

  "Because of Mark."

  "What's he got to do with it?" He nervously lighting a cigarette. "Smoke?"

  "No. Are you going to follow him around the rest of your life?"

  "He's my friend. We were buddies overseas."

  “You dote on him like he's some kind of god. You'll go with him anywhere, even straight to hell if he says so."

  "That’s ridiculous. I just admire him, that's all. He's not returning to M.S.C. either.  He wants to go out to Hollywood— "

  "So I'm right, that's why you're not going back to M.S.C."

  "Los Angeles is where I was born. My whole family lives there."

  "And Audra?"

  "Audra?"

  "Let's go back. I don't want to argue about it."

  She fades into darkness as he tries to take her hand, tossing the cigarette into the water, calling out to her, "Slow down! We can at least walk together, can't we?"

  "If you say so."

  Ruth Anne is on the ferry next morning and he doesn’t even bother to see her go.

  "I'm going to direct The Drunkard," Mark announces to them over Grand Hotel cheeseburgers. "You, Dana, will play the lead and we'll have Olio acts between scenes. You can recite The Face on the Barroom Floor. Sorry, Audra, I can't see you in this.  You're too refined."

  "Well thanks, I guess. It's okay, it will give me more time to study for Ruth in Blithe Spirit."

  "That's two weeks way," Mark says. “After Blithe Spirit, it’s You Can't Take It With You."

  "I'm playing the drunk in that one,” Audra says, “How's that for refinement? "

  "I thought you were going to play Elvira in Blithe Spirit?" Mark says, slicing into his overloaded cheeseburger. "Damn it, this is the best cheeseburger I've ever tasted, one of things I'll remember about this Island."

  "Ted says I'm too down to earth to play Elvira. I wish you'd all make up your minds about me."

  "Don't call him Ted," Dana says, "someone might hear you."

  "Who—the bus boy?"

  "I call him Ted," Mark says. "Anyway, I think he knows by now nobody gives a hoot he's still in graduate school and not over thirty.  You notice there's no gray in his temples anymore?"

  A laugh escapes from Audra, green eyes glittering. "Maybe he ran out of grease paint and powder."

  Each afternoon, the company scatters on the lawn behind the house for "free time"—free, that is, to study lines for the next production following the play on stage the same night—currently "Outward Bound." Betty Framden as Elvira, Dana as Charles running lines for “Blithe Spirit”—the breakfast scene opening Act Two.

  “Anything interesting in the Times?”

  “Don't be silly, Charles.”

  Mark, announcing his arrival, interrupts them. "Actually there is something interesting in the Times. Seems there's mutiny afoot."

  "Ted's pushing too hard," Betty says. "There's no time to rehearse, to learn lines."

  Martha says, "That's obvious after you boys fractured the play last night.”

  "Ah, but we kept on going," Mark says.

  "I've got to get out of it, I've got to get out of it—I’ve got to get out of it," Dana mimics. "I thought you'd never stop, and it's not even my cue."

  "Learn to improvise," Mark says.

  "The line is, Let me get away, let me get away!" Audra says, "and it's said only twice, not forever and a day. You were going blank, were you  not?”

  “Okay,” Mark says, “I admit it.”

  "A near disaster," Martha says.

  "Except for your Mrs. Midget,” Betty says, "you were great, even if you're too young for the part."

  "Well, who else in the company is going to play the weird old characters? Anyway, I thought I was terrible."

  "No, you were good—Mom," Mark says, "but it's true, you're not exactly the typical cockney char woman—“

  "Or your long lost mother," Audra snaps.

  "Hey, look," Dana says, “there's Ted and Handsome Lovely Lindsey, brown nosing.  What's he think it's going to get him? Designing a float for the next Spring festival?"

  "I guess Ted thinks he needs a body guard," Martha says.

  "Or something else," Mark says.

  Tension builds, but little comes of it, except a few brutal remarks about Ted and Lindsey and their obvious "intimacy." The first few performances of "The Drunkard with Olio Acts" draws the best audiences of the season and Ted promises better food on the table.

  Then, three days into the week's run of “The Drunkard” bats which have been taking up residence in the rafters come alive and descend into the auditorium. They've already flown at night into the girls' bedroom in the house on the hill—through an open window, sending Mallory into hysterics; now on stage, suddenly swooping down like a flock of vampires too many to count, they’re apparently reacting to sounds of laughter and applause. Women, and even a few men in the audience, scream, covering their heads with programs. Everyone knows bats love to tangle their claws in your hair! goes the Old Wive's Tale, and most everyone out there in the dark seems to believe it.

  After the incident the number of ticket buyers diminishes, even though the bats mysteriously retreat to the rafters and stay there—until, on cue, in “Blithe Spirit” they reappear.

  “You Can't Take It With You” is directed by Mark, Audra, playing the Grand Duchess Olga Katrina, waitress at Childs Times Square; Mark as Pop Vanderhoff; Betty Framden as Gay Wellington, drunk most of the time and bursting into song,  I'm drunk with love, my body aches. One more drink is all it takes. In the original Moss Hart and George S.  Kaufman play, Gay Wellington sings, "There was a young lady from Wheeling, who had a remarkable feeling. . ." The bats are unexpectedly dormant during these performances, even during the sound of rockets bursting and whistling at the end of act two.

  Not so in “Blithe Spirit” in the scene between Madame Arcati and Ruth, the bats making a timely appearance, flying spookily about the stage as Ruth challenges Madame Arcati to get rid of the ghost of Elvira, Charles's first wife, blaming Madame Arcati for the manifestation. Madame Arcati is affronted at such a suggestion.

  Martha Reingold as Madame Arcati seems to be the only one in the play who knows her lines, sniping at Ruth, "Your attitude from the outset has been most unpleasant, Mrs.  Condomine. Some of your remarks have been discourteous in the extreme and I should like to say, without umbrage, that if you and your husband were foolish enough to tamper with the unseen for paltry motives and in a spirit of ribaldry, whatever has happened to you is your own fault and, to coin a phrase, as far as I'm concerned you can stew in your own juice!" At which point she sweeps majestically from the room, bats on cue, dutifully following her out the door.

  This prompts Dana and Betty, in the wings, to cook up adlibs. 

  Enter Charles and Elvira—Ruth, still unable to see Elvira, the poltergeist. Charles says, "What on earth was Madame Arcati doing here?”

  Ruth: "I invited her to tea."

  Charles: "Does she always bring her bats with her?"

  Elvira: "Oh no, that was Bobo.  He's a friend of Merlin's."

  It gets a smattering of applause and weak laughter; the audience anesthetized at this point by Dana’s limping, halting performance. The role of Charles Condomine is one of the longest male roles in modern theatre, as to number of lines, and he’s failed to memorize them thoroughly, or accurately in the week given to rehearsal. He will redeem himself three years later playing the role at U.C.L.A.

  The season ends. Mark is going to California, to Hollywood, and Dana’s going with him. Audra challenges him, facing him in a wooded park near the lake. "You're not going back to M.S.C.?"

  "Maybe U.C.L.A. eventually, I don't know, but I know I'm going with him," straining to justify. "he's my best friend. We're going to stop by your house in Marshall on the way, and then a night in Chicago. You'll be in Chicago with us, won't you? Mallory will be there, and maybe Lindsey."

  "With or without Ted?"

  "Without, I think. He’s not much in the mood for fond farewells.”

  "I won't be coming to Chicago, but you're welcome to the guest room in Marshall on your way out to the coast. . . You haven’t really adjusted, have you, like so many veterans. You just want to keep holding on.”

  “I’ve adjusted okay—I cut myself off completely from the army—don’t even belong to the reserves.”

  “I mean. . . clinging to Mark because—

  “He’s a friend—I wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for him.”

  “So now you’re not going to be here anymore, you’re running off to Hollywood together.”

  “So?”

  “You’re in love with him, Dana.  You’re in love with Mark.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  He wakes in white—everything in the room is glaring white—white sheets, white pillow cases, sun blasting through white curtains striking Mark’s small, compact body as he tumbles out of bed, pulling on white jockey shorts.

  High above the floor in the Hatch guest room, Dana rolls over into the sheets, eyes firmly shut against remembering their naked bodies last night rolling into each other. Too much bourbon bought at the package store before an informal supper of eggs and bacon at the kitchen table—Judge Hatch, all-American rugged, graying temples, quizzing them—ambitions? graduate school? just short of asking Dana if he plans to “deflower” his daughter. Audra’s mother, not at home, off on a junket to New York with her women’s literary group.

  Standing below the bed, Mark says, “We were really drunk last night.”

  Dana stirs, eyes open, worrying who washes the sheets. Hopefully they have a servant, or maid who will ignore the evidence.

  Mark is talking. “Don’t take it seriously, just relieving the tension, that’s all, been a long time since I got laid.”

  Dana silent, pondering, Felt kind of good.

  Mark laughs, “I wonder who washes the sheets? Probably a maid.”

  “I don’t feel guilty or anything,” Dana says.

  “Of course not, no need to run off to a psychiatrist. C’mon, get your ass out of bed.  We’ve got a train to catch.”

NEXT – Stories Never Told, 6^th and last – Bradley’s Bar