Standing in the Rainbow (14 page)

“Good night, Grandma.”

“Good night, Mrs. Smith.”

After she had gone Monroe said, “I guess she’s the oldest person I know.”

“Yeah,” agreed Bobby. “Just think, she’s a whole century old. . . .”

They lay there staring up at the stars. Bobby asked, “I wonder what it’s going to be like when it gets to be the year 2000?”

“I don’t know but I’ll bet everybody will be riding around in their own spaceships, going back and forth to Mars.”

“How old are we gonna be in the year 2000?”

Monroe sat up and counted on his fingers. He looked at Bobby incredulously. “We’re going to be sixty-four years old!”

Bobby sat up. He could not believe it. “Nooo!”

“We probably won’t even be alive, we’ll be so old.”

The prospect of being as old as the men who sat around the barbershop all day was a sobering thought. After a while Bobby said, “Monroe, let’s make a pact. If we’re both alive in the year 2000, no matter where we are, we will call each other up and say, Hooray, we made it, O.K.?”

“O.K., shake.”

They shook hands and lay back down. They both wondered where they would be and what they would look like but they could not even imagine it. To them the distance from this night, August the ninth, 1946, all the way to the year 2000 seemed as far away as Elmwood Springs was to the moon.

They stayed out in the yard and kept looking to see a falling star until Dorothy called to them and said they had to come in.

Time Flies

O
ther than Mr. Peanut coming to town and the Elmwood Theater showing four Gene Autry movies in one day and Bobby getting stuck in the arm at Monroe’s birthday party while playing Pin the Tail on the Donkey, nothing else exciting happened and before they knew it September came rolling around again.

But as much as Bobby hated summer ending and shopping for school clothes with his mother, because she made him try on everything, there was something exciting about starting back to school. He loved the smell of new books and going to the five-and-dime and getting school supplies. Brand-new pencil boxes, notebooks, and big thick rubber erasers, and a new satchel. The boys in town had gone to the barbershop and gotten a haircut for the first day of school, the girls had tight new curly permanents and new dresses, and everybody had brand-new shoes.

The school had been slicked up as well. The wooden floors had been waxed to a high shine, the lunchroom polished and scrubbed. Even the teachers, rested from their summer vacations, looked optimistic and eager, ready to inspire the tender young minds that would be in their care for the next nine months. Fresh new chalk, new shiny maps on the walls, the white round globes hanging from the ceilings, beaming with bright new bulbs. The entire building vibrated with enthusiasm and anticipation of the best year yet. Everyone was happy to see each other—almost everybody—and ready to begin anew with high hopes.

This euphoria lasted about three days and by the end of September it was the same old drudgery as it had been the year before. Bobby was still the shortest boy in class and Luther Griggs still threatened to beat him up every day.

Christmas came and went and Bobby got a new maroon-and-white Schwinn bicycle and a silver-colored cowboy holster with the multicolored artificial gems and a Dick Tracy cap pistol. Plus lots of socks and underwear he did not want. He had been hoping for a genuine Jungle Jim pith helmet.

Besides Bobby getting underwear and socks, the other bad news was that on Wednesday, January 3, dish night at the Elmwood Theater, the movie that was supposed to come in on the Greyhound bus had not come in. Consequently, Snooky had to show the backup movie he kept in the booth for this sort of emergency. But that night most people left after all the dishes were given away. After all, just how many times can you sit through
Lassie Come Home
?

January and February were both fairly mild but March came roaring in. The first Monday of the month started off looking like it might be a nice day but by eight o’clock in the morning things had changed drastically and in a hurry. Dorothy hardly had time to run around and get all her windows shut before the storm hit. By the time the show went on the air, several houses had lost part of their roofs, the awning at the A&P grocery store had been ripped, and Poor Tot Whooten had just called, all upset because part of Merle and Verbena’s roof had blown through her dining room window and had broken all that was left of her good dishes.

Mother Smith opened the show with a few strains of “Stormy Weather” and Dorothy ran in and sat down and said, “That’s right, Mother Smith, it is stormy weather, as stormy as can be over here, and looking out my window I can tell you everything is a big mess. I just hope everything is all right where you are. It was so bad I was worried we were going to get knocked right off the air, so I am glad we are on.” She stopped for a moment. “At least I think we are. Bobby, run next door and see if we are still on. But in the meantime I’ll just keep talking until he tells me we are not on the air. Oh, what a day: One minute the sun is shining and the next rain is blowing up and down the street every which a way. I didn’t even have time to get my clothes off the line.”

The day had turned so dark that Doc called and said they had to put the lights on at the drugstore just to see. Bobby came running in and slammed the door and shouted, “You’re on!” Dorothy said, “Oh good. Bobby says we’re still on the air . . . so after the thing hit there wasn’t a thing to do but wait it out. We all watched it from the bay window in the dining room and I must say we enjoyed it, even though we did see Doc’s pajamas fly by. Storms always manage to hit us on a wash day, don’t they? Mrs. Whatley over behind us just brought a couple of Doc’s shirts back but we lost everything else. Everybody in town has been calling, saying they have somebody else’s clothes. Mr. Henderson said a pair of ladies’ drawers had wrapped themselves around his weather vane but I don’t know who would have the nerve to claim them. What? Bobby says we have all kinds of clothes hanging off the radio tower, so if you’re missing some come over and look, they might be here. Oh, I am so discombobulated this morning I can’t find my format or anything.”

She picked up her potted plant and put it down again. “For all of those of you at home, just thank your lucky stars you can’t see me through the radio. I look just like an old frump this morning and, believe it or not, I am still in my robe. Between the storm and so many calls the time just got away from me. And today of all days. The very day when we are announcing our brand-new sponsor, the Cecil Figgs Mortuaries and Floral Designs for all your floral and funeral needs, and here I sit with no face on, in my hair net, and still in my robe. And I do apologize, Mr. Figgs, and I promise to do better tomorrow.”

Dorothy looked at Bobby sitting in the front row with Beatrice, happily chomping away on a radio cookie, and suddenly realized something. “Excuse me a minute, girls,” she said and put her hand over the microphone. “What are you doing out of school, young man?”

“I had to go get Beatrice,” he said.

“That was very sweet of you but I think we can get along without you the rest of the morning.

“Sorry, everyone. I have a boy here who needs to be at school, so if anybody’s listening in the teachers’ lounge, he will be right there . . . and call me if he’s not.” A moment later the audience heard the front door slam.

“Rats,” said Bobby, stomping off to school.

Dorothy, who was still searching for her format, announced, “And now here’s Beatrice to sing for us on this rainy old day, ‘Let a Smile Be Your Umbrella’ followed by ‘Painting the Clouds with Sunshine,’ and maybe by then I’ll find what I’m looking for.”

The rest of the year went by with no more major upsets or dramas and was fairly uneventful until Saturday, June the first, at 4:16 in the afternoon, when something major did happen.

Life Changes

B
obby had been down at the drugstore since early that morning, working in the stockroom unloading boxes and stacking them in a pile outside the back door in the alley. He received an allowance of fifty cents a week but he wanted to earn extra money so he could send off for the Charles Atlas bodybuilding course. He and Monroe had vowed to become muscle men before they went back to school next September. Considering that he weighed sixty-eight pounds soaking wet and had arms like sticks, it was an ambitious goal. He had whipped through boxes of red-and-white straws, paper napkins, boxes of shampoo, cough medicine, baby powder, aspirin, Band-Aids, and Whitman’s Samplers in record time. He was in a hurry. Today was the day the swimming pool opened for the season.

Doc paid him his fifty cents and yelled after him as he ran out the back door, “Be careful, son, don’t hit your head on the diving board.” Doc heard a faint “Yes, sir” as Bobby ran as fast as he could down the block, heading for home. Neighbor Dorothy had just told her radio listeners that, unlike other prune juices on the market, Sunsweet prune juice was guaranteed by
Good Housekeeping
to have the same laxative potency in every glassful when he came flying through the screen door, slamming it behind him,
wham
, on the way to his room. Neighbor Dorothy informed her listeners, “As you might have guessed, that was Bobby,” and went on to announce that a Mrs. Aline Staggers of Arden, Oklahoma, was interested in locating a recipe for old-fashioned strawberry-and-rhubarb pie. “So if you have a good one, send it on in.” At that moment Bobby came crashing down the hall carrying his bathing suit in one hand but before he hit the front door his mother said, “Hold it, young man!” and stopped him in his tracks. “Since you are making so much racket, why don’t you come in here and tell everybody where it is you are going in such a hurry.”

Bobby poked his head in the room and shouted, “Cascade Plunge opens today!”

Neighbor Dorothy said, “Oh, I see. . . . Well, everybody, I guess we can say that summer is officially here. Bobby has just informed me that the pool is open.” Mother Smith hit a few happy chords of “By the Sea, by the Sea, by the Beautiful Sea” while Bobby stood there, chomping at the bit to be released. His mother said, “Well, go on but for heaven’s sake, don’t hit your head on the diving board!” Everybody at home heard a faint voice disappearing into the background saying “O.K.” and the slam of the door.

Bobby knew the shortcut to everywhere in town through the back alleys and was at the pool in two minutes flat. As he had whizzed by their houses, the ladies listening to Neighbor Dorothy heard all about the saga of how last year he had been showing off for some girl and had cracked his head on the diving board and had knocked himself out cold and had to have three stitches. Most people would have learned their lesson and not gone near the pool, but not him.

Bobby loved the water. His mother did not know it but he had already been swimming out at the Blue Devil several times. That was fun but not like Cascade Plunge. To him there was something wonderful about the certain smell of chlorine on hot, wet cement, and swimming underwater in that clear, aqua pool water streaked with wavy strips of white sunlight—something about the quiet under there, the whole world above muffled and far away. And then, too, there were girls at the pool. He wanted to show off for a girl in his class, not the same one he liked last year, a new one. She was a tap dancer, and when Bobby, who Dorothy had to practically drag to the Dixie Cahill dance recital, saw her solo to “Tiptoe Through the Tulips with Me,” he thought she was as cute as a pair of new yellow shoes.

Bobby ran up to the big cement building with blue sky and white clouds painted over the sign that said
CASCADE PLUNGE
and dug in his jeans for a dime and got his locker key and ran on in, practically pulling all his clothes off before he reached the men’s changing room. He was in such a hurry that he almost tripped on his bright orange swim trunks. He quickly locked his locker and ran out from the shadowy dressing area into the shining white sunlight. There it was. At last he had reached that oasis of shimmering crystal-clear water he had been dreaming about all winter, and the sight of it almost took his breath away. It looked like a big lake, sparkling like a thousand diamonds in the sun, surrounded by a sea of hot white concrete. Oh, it was all too much. He was far too excited to wait another minute and he ran and flung himself into the pool. He swam underwater for a while and came up right beside Monroe and they immediately began to splash water at each other while all the girls around them who didn’t want to get their hair wet screamed. Let the fun begin!

At about 4:30 that afternoon when Bobby had not come home yet, Dorothy said to Anna Lee, who was in her bedroom with Patsy Marie working on their movie-star scrapbooks, “Anna Lee, I’m worried about Bobby. He’s been down at that pool six hours. Would you and Patsy Marie take a walk over there and tell him to come home, he’s had enough for one day.” Anna Lee groaned as if her mother had just told her that she had to build an Egyptian pyramid by hand. “Oh, Mother, do I have to?”

“Yes, I’m worried he might have cracked his head again.”

“But, Mother, if he wants to knock himself silly on that diving board, I can’t stop him.”

“Please, for my sake.”

Anna Lee sighed monumentally and got up. “Come on, Patsy Marie, let’s go. But I don’t know why you let him go down there in the first place. All he does is swim around underwater all day, pinching people and acting like a jerk.” What she said was largely true. At the moment Bobby and Monroe were swimming around underwater, pestering everyone they could. The best fun was to dive down and swim between unsuspecting people’s legs and scare them to death. Bobby was having a grand time. The pool was jam-packed with potential victims. He had just gone between one pair of legs when he suddenly saw another pair nearby and swam over and went for them. He thought this was hilarious until he realized a second too late that the pair of legs he was now swimming under belonged to none other than Luther Griggs.
Big
mistake!