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