Homesick (14 page)

Becoming the darling and champion of the theatre staff helped Vera recover her old self. It didn’t matter that her admirers were a pathetic collection of oddballs and misfits who accepted Buckle’s reign of terror either because they didn’t have the spine to tell him to go and take a long walk on a short pier, or because they knew they weren’t employable anywhere else except in another half-assed establishment run by a lunatic similar to Buckle. Their general incompetence made Vera feel protective, even motherly towards her fellow employees.

Frank the usher was fifty-five; a nancy boy with fluttery hands, wide-awake astonished eyes, and a habit of whispering conspiratorially everything he said. He sucked peppermints constantly because he worried about his breath, carried his comb stuck in his sock, and walked as if he were holding a ball-bearing between the cheeks of his ass and didn’t want it to fall out. Frank was a great fan of musicals and sometimes when he watched them at the back of the theatre his feet would start to shuffle rhythmically. Once Vera saw him suddenly attempt a pirouette in the dark.

Maurice the ticket-seller was in poor health and distressed by worries about losing his job because his angina pectoris was so bad that ticket-selling was just about the only job he could do. He was Mr. Buckle’s errand runner. During the summer Mr. Buckle sent him out to move the manager’s Oldsmobile from parking stall to parking stall, following shade, and in the winter he dispatched him to fire the engine of the car every two hours so that when it came time to go home Mr. Buckle would have no trouble starting it.

Then there were Amelia and Doris, the weird Wilkinson sisters, who stood side by side manning the refreshment counter. They never tired of telling how since childhood they had been inseparable. Their one goal in life seemed to be to keep their destinies linked. Although Amelia was a year older than Doris, in their uniforms they appeared to be twins. Outside the theatre they dressed in identical, matching outfits so as to strengthen that impression. Doris and
Amelia liked to pretend they were twins because it made them feel out of the ordinary, special and glamorous the way the Dionne quints were special and glamorous. Their greatest fear was that the other would so anger Mr. Buckle as to get fired, leaving her sister behind, abandoned. The idea was so inconceivable, so unbearable that they had sworn a pact that if one was dismissed the other would immediately resign. However, having sworn such a rash pact, each sister began to doubt the other’s judgement in dealing with Mr. Buckle. They were continually admonishing and checking up on one another. “Doris, don’t you go giving Mr. Buckle one of your looks!” “Amelia, save your sauce for the goose!”

When Mr. Buckle first took over his duties as manager of the movie house, he deeply offended the Wilkinson sisters when he forbade them to take any unsold popcorn home to their mother as they had been doing for years, on the ground that it encouraged overpopping. Despite their outrage over the imputation they could ever be so irresponsible, Amelia and Doris cloaked their real sentiments and always smiled most charmingly, in unison, whenever Mr. Buckle crossed their paths or found himself in the vicinity of the refreshment counter.

The only member of the staff aside from Vera who showed no fear of the manager was Thomas the projectionist. Since projectionists did not come a dime a dozen Thomas was treated more respectfully by Mr. Buckle than the others were. He was distinguished in another important way. Because he did not come under the public eye he did not have to wear the theatre uniform and was exempt from Mr. Buckle’s surprise snap inspections, occasions when all uniformed personnel would be drawn up in the lobby before the doors opened to have their turn-outs scrutinized by the manager. Nothing was more resented than this. Everyone felt Mr. Buckle’s observations about their garments and personal grooming to be belittling and demeaning. Mr. Buckle seldom needed to issue a direct order about a failing in attire, a hint was enough. If,
however, his hints were not acted upon, retribution was swift. The upshot could be that you found yourself detailed to pick soggy cigarette butts out of urinals for the next month.

His air when he reviewed the troops was swaggering. “Doris, I’d see to that butter spot on your jacket, if I were you. Those of us who handle food must leave an impression of immaculate cleanliness with the public. Butter spots don’t look very sanitary, do they? I’d go for a thorough dry-cleaning, if I were you, not just a touch-up with cleaning fluid. You’re due for a dry-cleaning. After all, Amelia had hers last week.”

His praise was heartily artificial. Formerly a high school principal until certain difficulties led to his resignation, Mr. Buckle knew the value of commending the deserving. “Well, well, Maurice! Now we’re certainly looking spiffy. The missus certainly got that braid back into fighting trim in short order! Good man!” And a mournful Maurice would get a cordial clap on the shoulder, the sort of warm congratulation you give a man who gets right on top of things, without a moment’s hesitation.

Vera did not get right on top of things, not even after Mr. Buckle had publicly criticized her shoes. Wearing a pair of brown shoes with a maroon uniform just wouldn’t do, would it? They sort of clashed, didn’t they? Black would go much better with maroon, don’t you think? Vera ignored Mr. Buckle and kept right on wearing her brown shoes. The next time the staff were paraded Mr. Buckle made a speech. He said that those who neglected their appearance not only let themselves down, they let down everybody else who worked at the theatre because what one employee did reflected, for good or ill, on all. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind who he was talking about. Especially since he kept his eyes fixed on Vera’s shoes as he spoke.

Go piss up a rope, Vera thought. She wasn’t leaving the one pair of comfortable shoes she owned in the closet because some horse’s patoot wanted to play Napoleon. She’d worn a real uniform in her
day, one that actually stood for something, and if he thought she was going to take seriously this monkey’s tuxedo, he had another think coming.

When he raised the issue again, a week later, Vera put it to him straight. “I’m wearing brown shoes because black shoes don’t get picked off trees. Black shoes and my salary don’t see eye to eye right at the moment.”

None of the staff had ever heard anyone speak to Mr. Buckle that way. Maurice studied the toes of his shoes and nervously shunted his top plate back and forth with his tongue. Frank squeezed his lips and buttocks even more tightly together. Doris and Amelia tried to look disapproving of a woman who could be so rude.

Mr. Buckle got oilier and smoother, a sure sign in his case that he was angry. “You knew what your salary would be when you accepted your position here, Miss Monkman. You were informed.”

“Sure I was. But I wasn’t informed half of it would have to be ear-marked for dry-cleaning and new shoes. I didn’t know I was expected to dress like a Rockefeller on what you pay me.”

Mr. Buckle considered such remarks beneath reply. He simply bobbed up and down on his toes, as if he were pumping more pounds per square inch and more purple into his face. When it was sufficiently purple and swollen he turned on his heels and marched off. In retreat to his office he let fly one parting shot over his shoulder. “If shoes are beyond your budget perhaps you might manage to replace your stockings. There’s a ladder in one of yours.”

“Whyn’t you use it to climb up and kiss my ass?” invited Vera under her breath, just loud enough so that the others could catch what she said but Buckle couldn’t.

When Mr. Buckle’s office door closed on that first act of defiance, Frank and Maurice, Doris and Amelia all clustered around Vera, whispering excitedly.

“Atta girl, Vera. Doesn’t he know he got told!”

“What a nerve! The nerve of that man, Vera! Shoes. As if we could afford shoes! Just as easy as glass slippers!”

“The Rockefeller! Did you see his face? The Rockefeller really got to him. Boy oh boy!
The Rockefeller
!”

“Remember your heart, Maurice,” cautioned Frank.

“Boy oh boy! Rockefeller right up his ass!”

“Let’s not be crude, Maurice,” admonished Frank. “Fair sex present.”

“Well, Vera said it, didn’t she? And so do I.
Rockefeller right up his ass
!”

Mr. Buckle would have fired Vera right then and there if it hadn’t been for her one invaluable talent. Nobody could deal with a troublemaker the way Vera did and the theatre was situated in an area where troublemakers were not uncommon. If it wasn’t for her, the kids at Saturday matinees might have pulled the building down around their ears the way Samson had the Philistines’ temple. And when it came to the other insalubrious types you met running a theatre in this district – the drunks who argued with Cary Grant, the perverts who pestered unaccompanied ladies, the indecent couples who groped and writhed their way through an entire feature presentation – Mr. Buckle didn’t know how these would have been dealt with if it hadn’t been for that brash young woman.

Maurice certainly was of no use. The mere idea of confronting someone and ordering him to remove himself from the premises was enough to provoke chest pains so bad that the ticket-seller had to be sat down and given an Orange Crush. Frank tried but almost always made matters worse. Six trips to request some noisy chap to quieten down and the fellow grew louder with every visit. There was something about the way Frank walked and talked and breathed peppermint all over the rowdies which only whipped them up into further frenzies of misbehaviour. As for Mr. Buckle – quite early in his career he had got his nose broken when he tried
out his high school principal’s voice on a young soldier. He avoided running any risk of a repeat performance.

No, when it came to giving somebody the bum’s rush, nobody held a candle to Vera Monkman. Mr. Buckle attributed her success to the same disagreeable qualities which disrupted his inspections and often caused him to regret the day he ever set eyes on the woman. These were cheekiness, coarseness, natural belligerence, and an outrageously inflated opinion of herself. In many respects, Mr. Buckle thought, Vera Monkman was a thoroughly hateful young woman.

At the first whiff of a disturbance Vera would swing into action, shoulders squared, mouth set, flashlight poised at the ready like a cocked pistol. Vera did not hesitate. She’d give them the high beam full in the face. As they sat blinded, shrinking behind an uplifted hand, she’d say, “Listen, pal, nobody paid good money to listen to you. They came for Clark Gable. They’re having trouble hearing Clark on account of you. So button it and give us all a break. Thank you or else.”

Then, snapping off her flashlight, she would wheel abruptly around and stride vigorously back up the aisle before they got a chance to answer. It was part of her tactics. Don’t let them get a word back at you. Above all, never plead and never argue. Show them who’s boss. If the disturbance resumed, back she went, this time to remove them. There were no second chances. She’d just reach down, grab them, and boost them out of their seats. Most rose without a whimper of protest, it was the element of surprise that did it. If they resisted, Vera quickly sketched what they could expect.

“Look, mister, you don’t want to get in a scuffle with me. I don’t embarrass. I’ve got lungs like a banshee and I hang in screaming bloody blue murder until the cops arrive. So it’s that or get up quietly and leave. You’ve got exactly five seconds to make up your mind which it is before I start in. One, two.…” They usually hustled out of their seats by four.

Vera explained her method to Frank. “The most important thing is never to doubt they’ll come. If you do, you’re finished. They’re like dogs, they can smell fear.” But Frank couldn’t seem to get the hang of it.

Although everyone admired Vera, no one admired her quite the way Thomas the projectionist did. Thomas was an unusual young man. Not only did he project film, he also projected wishes. He had a genius for inventing stories and telling them to people who had reason to wish they were true. For instance, he informed Maurice that Mr. Buckle suffered from a secret heart condition much more serious than Maurice’s own angina pectoris. “You think you’ve got it bad? You’ll live to be a hundred because you take care of yourself. Have you taken a good look at Buckle lately? The man looks like he’s got one foot in the grave. Honest to God, he does. They don’t give him much longer, Maurice. Compared to him, you’re the picture of health.” To Mr. Buckle he confided that both Doris and Amelia adored the manager, found him kind and sympathetic and handsome in a mature, distinguished way. “If I were you, I’d be sure not to show one favour at the expense of the other,” counselled Thomas. “It doesn’t do to stir up jealousy at work.”

He encouraged Frank to get a hair-piece. “Why, it would take twenty years off you. Because, Frank, I have to tell you, that fresh, youthful skin of yours just doesn’t jive with those scraps of old hair. Really, it doesn’t.”

Thomas had no stories for Vera because he could not fathom what she might like to be told. Perhaps it was the mystery that prompted and stoked his ardour. Isolated in his projectionist’s booth he meditated on her constantly. Vera, for her part, hardly gave him a passing thought. If she did, it was to feel sorry for him. Sorry for his long, skinny neck perpetually inflamed with ingrown hairs, sorry that he believed wearing a bomber jacket could cover up the fact that he had been rejected for military service. (Frank
laid the blame on a hernia.) Sorry that he talked so smugly and embarrassingly of his ambition to operate a small electrical appliance repair shop. “After the war is the Electrical Age. There’ll be a fortune to be made in that field. For the ones with the brains to get in on the ground floor.”

It never dawned on Vera that the bomber jacket and electrical shop were given such prominence for her sake. Nor that Thomas’s offers to walk her home after the theatre closed were anything but a courtesy extended by a shy young man who happened to be strolling in the same direction. So it took her entirely by surprise when Thomas proposed a date. If she had smelled it in the wind she would have prepared a tactful, graceful refusal. But she hadn’t and, caught without an excuse, Vera heard herself agreeing to have supper with him on Sunday, the one night they were free from work.