“The only thing we’ve got to be thankful for this year,” my father said, “is that we’re still alive.”
December
It was almost midnight, it was almost 1943.
Michael had decorated the room with war posters, and I squinted at the one on the farthest wall, trying to read it like an eye chart, struggling under the slight handicap of having consumed twelve beers since the start of the party. The poster showed a workingman behind a riveting gun, and a soldier behind a machine gun, and the big lettering on the bottom of the poster read BOTH BARRELS, but I couldn’t make out the smaller type to the left of the workingman’s head. I rose unsteadily, navigated my way across the room and past the wilting Christmas tree, and peered at the full message: GIVE ’EM BOTH BARRELS. Very good, I thought, and remembered the barrel of beer in the kitchen, and thought it was time to have another little brew.
I was very depressed.
First of all, whereas Michael Mallory was a close friend of mine, I did not wish to be in his house this New Year’s Eve. I had been in his house last New Year’s Eve, and that had been depressing as hell because the Japanese had practically just finished bombing Pearl Harbor, and nobody was exactly in the mood for revelry and gay abandon. But this year’s party was turning out to be just as depressing as last year’s, so naturally I blamed my father. If he had given me permission to join the Air Force, I wouldn’t have been here in Chicago at all, but instead would be up there someplace in the wild blue yonder, being all of seventeen years old and five feet eleven inches bone-dry, which was old enough and tall too for a fighter pilot, so why wouldn’t he sign?
It was all quite depressing.
It was also quite depressing, believe me, that I had been flirting with a redheaded girl all night long, and she was now necking on the sofa with Matty Walsh. Walsh kept trying to sneak his sneaky little hand up under her skirt, but the girl had the good sense to pull it away each time, which certainly didn’t excuse my father. I remembered abruptly that tomorrow was his birthday, that at exactly 12:01 on the first day of January in the year 1900, my dear daddy, Bertram Tyler, had been brought into the world and the century, doubtless screaming his head off. I had already planned to call him after midnight. I would call at exactly 12:01 and listen to the phone ringing in the old house on East Scott Street, and when my father came onto the line, I would say, “This is Western Union, we have a message for Mr. Bertram Tyler, is he there please?” knowing full well he was of course there. And then I would sing “Happy Birthday to You,” and as a finale I would say, “Pop, this is Will. Can I please join the Air Force?”
I wondered why Walsh didn’t take the redhead into one of the bedrooms. It occurred to me in my foamy stupor that perhaps the redheaded girl did not wish Walsh to take her into one of the bedrooms, and thus emboldened I staggered across the room doing my imitation of John Wayne, found the record player, and with no little difficulty picked out ten or twelve very good records for dancing close to, all fox trots. I hesitated a moment before approaching Walsh and the girl, partially because they were at the moment kissing, and partially because I was trying to think of a good joke I could tell when I got over to the couch, but all I could think of was the one about the guy at the induction center with a hard-on, and I didn’t think I should risk that one with the girl, not having said two words to her all night long. So I shrugged and went into the kitchen instead. Russo and another guy were standing near the keg of beer, talking to two girls from Evanston.
“Hello, hello,” I said.
“What’s going on out there?” Russo asked.
“Walsh is necking,” I said, and heard the first of my records fall into place on the turntable, Jimmy Dorsey’s “Star Eyes.”
“Isn’t everybody?” the other guy said.
“We’re not,” the girl closest to the keg said, nor was it any wonder since she was possibly ugly as sin or worse, and since she immediately giggled after her funny remark and nudged her friend, who giggled too, a nice ugly pair of gigglers. They were both blondes, both wearing their hair in shoulder-length pageboys, both wearing navy blue taffetas with gold buttons down the front, flaring from the waist over thick legs, their beauty was so fantastic they had to duplicate it.
“Well,” I said, “I think I’ll have another brew.”
I opened the tap and poured myself a foaming glass of beer, and then chug-a-lugged it, aware of the no-doubt-admiring glances of the two ugly gigglers, and then looking toward the living room and wondering what was keeping the redhead. I figured maybe I would have to hit Walsh, but that was okay. He had no right trying to sneak his hand up under, sneaky little Jap. I wondered why my father wouldn’t let me join the Air Force. I opened the tap again. One of the gigglers said, “May I have one, too?”
“Sure,” I said, and handed her the glass I’d already filled.
“Why, thank you,” she said, and giggled again.
“Are you sure you’re old enough to drink?” Russo asked.
“I’m sixteen,” she answered, which meant she was fifteen, and which meant she was just as old as my kid sister Linda who was definitely not old enough to drink.
“She’s sixteen,” Russo said.
“Mmm,” I said.
“Yes, I’m sixteen,” the girl said again.
“That’s certainly old enough to drink,” Russo said.
“That’s certainly old enough for a lot of things,” the other guy said.
I didn’t say anything.
There was a momentary silence as “Star Eyes” cleared the record player, a click, and then the next record dropped, the tone arm moved into place, and Frank Sinatra began singing “Sunday, Monday or Always” with a choral background. I began thinking about musician’s union strikes and things like that, and started getting very depressed again, and just then the redhead walked into the kitchen. Her lipstick had all been kissed off, and she was very flushed from all that Walsh activity. Her hair was rolled up from either side of her head into twin pompadours, falling straight and free behind in a cascade around her shoulders, burnished copper against a black crepe dress, three rhinestone buttons over her bosom. She came directly to the beer keg and said, “Can I have a beer?”
“Sure,” I said.
“Will’s the bartender tonight,” Russo said, and laughed, I didn’t know at what.
“Looks that way,” I said, and smiled, not at Russo but at the redhead.
“Is that your name?” she asked. “Will?”
“That’s right.” I handed her the brimming glass. “What’s yours?”
“Marge.”
“That’s a good name for a redhead.”
“Is it?”
“Sure. All beautiful redheads should be named Marge.”
“Oh boy,” she said, “what a line,” and rolled her green eyes, and sipped at the beer.
I poured myself a fresh glass from the open tap. Russo and the other guy had moved toward the sink, the two gigglers following them. “What’s your connection with Walsh?” I asked.