Standing in the Rainbow (8 page)

On one of the numerous occasions when Norma was spending the weekend over at Anna Lee’s house, she helped Anna Lee pull a good one on Bobby and Monroe. One Saturday afternoon, Bobby and Monroe were in the parlor with the blinds and shades drawn, sitting in the dark eating peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches and listening to their favorite scary detective shows on the radio. They had just heard
Yours Truly
,
Johnny Dollar
;
Boston Blackie
; and
The Whistler
and now a new show was just starting.

First strange and weird chords played on an organ, then a voice came through:

WOMAN
: There he goes into . . . that drugstore. He’s stepping on the scales.

(Sound: Clink of a coin.)

WOMAN
: Weight, two hundred and thirty-seven pounds.

(Sound: Card dropping.)

WOMAN
: Fortune.
Danger!

Organ: (Stinnnng
!
)

WOMAN
: Whooo is it?

MAN
: The Fat Man!!!

As promised, this week’s program was chock-full of suspense and mystery. Near the end both boys were literally sitting on the edge of their seats. Just as the strange man in the raincoat was being followed down a wet, dead-end street, with the sound of footsteps following behind him, growing louder and louder . . . click click . . . footsteps . . . closer and closer . . . louder and louder . . . nowhere to run . . . nowhere to hide . . . just at the very moment when the terrified man, his heart pounding, turned to face his fiendish killer, suddenly two figures wearing hideous rubber masks popped up from behind the couch with green flashlights shining under their chins, shouting
BAAA! BAAA!

It scared them so badly that both boys shot straight up in the air and screamed like two little girls. They almost knocked each other down trying to get out of the room, falling over the coffee table and chairs while they scrambled for the door and ran down the hall.

Norma’s boyfriend, Macky, had rigged the flashlights with green bulbs and the masks had come from last Halloween. The girls had been hiding behind the couch all afternoon, just waiting for the right moment. When Anna Lee gave the signal, all the waiting had been worth it.

The Winner

N
eighbor Dorothy started with a great big “Good morning, everybody! Well, I could hardly wait to get on the air this morning because as Gabriel Heatter says, ‘Ah, there’s good news tonight!’ or in our case, today, and we are just tickled pink and chomping at the bit to tell you about it. But first let me ask you this: Does your soap powder make you sneeze?

“Mrs. Squatzie Kittrel of Silver Springs, Maryland, says, ‘Rinso washes my clothes fast in rich soapy suds and it’s so easy on my hands and on wash days it does not make me sneeze like all the others.’ So remember, Rinso white, Rinso bright, the only granulated soap that is ninety-eight percent free of sneezy soap dust. And also, are you looking for checked, striped, or polka-dot material for that bedroom, den, or kitchen window? If so, Fred Morgan of Morgan Brothers says come on in and he’s also got a big bolt of dotted Swiss material he’s going to discount by the yard, so if you have been thinking about making curtains, this is the time.

“And now to the
big
news of the day . . .” Dorothy picked up the letter with the good news and beamed with pride. “You know, usually we don’t like to blow our own horn but we are all so excited we can hardly contain ourselves, so we just had to tell you about it.” Mother Smith played a fanfare on the organ. “Yesterday it was announced that Doc has won the Rexall Pharmacist of the Year Award for proficiency in dispensing drugs for the second year in a row. And he’s to receive it in person at this year’s Southeastern Pharmaceutical Convention in Memphis and I plan to be right there to see him get it. So if you are listening at the drugstore, Doc, we are mighty proud of you.”

Down at the Rexall, Thelma and Bertha Ann, the two gals in the pink-and-white uniforms who worked behind the soda fountain, had the radio sitting on the shelf behind them. Thelma was washing a glass banana-split dish and Bertha Ann was making the egg salad for the lunch crowd when they heard the news. They both stopped what they were doing and whistled and clapped and yelled to the back, “Yeah! Whoopee! Great going, Doc. Congratulations! Our hero!” Doc, who had just finished filling a prescription, handed a customer a bottle of paregoric for her baby who was teething. When she asked Doc what had happened, he said, embarrassed, “Oh nothing, those two are just acting crazy. You know how they are . . . just silly.” He continued, “Now you don’t need much, just a few drops in a glass of water, and that should do the trick.”

After she left Doc walked over to the soda fountain shaking his finger in mock anger. “You girls, what am I going to do with you two?”

They laughed. Bertha Ann said, “That’s what you get for not telling us.”

He sat down on a stool. “I guess I’m just going to have to put a muzzle on that wife of mine.”

But he was secretly pleased. “Fix me a lemon ice-cream soda, will you, Bertha, and fix something for yourselves. Now that the cat’s out of the bag we might as well celebrate.”

Meanwhile, back on the show Dorothy made another announcement. “The other winner today of our What Is the Biggest Surprise You Ever Had Contest was sent to us by Mrs. Sally Sockwell of Hot Springs, Arkansas. She writes, ‘Last year I lost the diamond out of my ring and I was so despondent because my husband, now deceased, had bought it for me when we were first married and now both were gone forever. So you can imagine my joy and surprise three weeks later when, frying an egg, I noticed something shiny in the white part and lo and behold it was my lost diamond. One of my hens must have pecked it out when I was collecting eggs. The Lord works in mysterious ways.’ Yes, he does, Mrs. Sockwell, and thank heavens you weren’t making an omelette or you might never have seen it.

“And speaking of missing objects, Leona Whatley called in and said that someone must have sold her sweater and purse at the school rummage sale. She says she put them down on a table for just a second and when she turned around they were missing. So whoever bought a blue woman’s beaded sweater and a black purse with a small box of Kleenex that had not been opened inside please call Leona, as she would like to buy them back. We have a lot more coming up on the show this morning. Beatrice is going to be singing one of your favorites, ‘I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles.’ And yes, unfortunately, it’s that time of year again. Next Saturday down at the Elmwood Theater they are having the annual Bazooka Bubble Gum Bubble Blowing Contest . . . well that’s a mouthful . . . so mothers, get ready. I know Bobby is about to drive us insane over at our house—
pop, pop, pop, chew, chew, chew,
night and day. Also don’t forget every Wednesday night is dish night at the Elmwood Theater, so go on down . . . and let’s see . . . do we have anything else I’m forgetting, Mother?”

Mother Smith played a few strains of the funeral march and pointed to a jar on the desk. “Oh, that’s right, thank you, Mother Smith. Last week we told you about a new instant coffee but we will have to take it off our list of recommendations, and I am just as sorry as I can be about it but it’s just not up to snuff, as they say, is it, Mother Smith? She says no and made a face but as I say to all my sponsors, Keep trying because we are behind you one hundred percent.

“And remember our motto: If at first you don’t succeed, try again.”

Unfortunately for Bobby, his mother’s motto was one he was to hear from her firsthand the very next week, when he dragged in the door having lost the Bazooka Bubble Gum Bubble Blowing Contest for the second year in a row. It didn’t help him feel much better. He had practiced long and hard until his jaws were sore but he came in sixth. Rats, he thought. Everybody in the family is always winning something but me.

The Boy Who Cried Wolf

D
OC WAS HOME
for lunch and Dorothy stood by the kitchen table waiting for an opinion about the new hat she had just bought for their upcoming trip to Memphis. He studied the object perched on her head for a long moment and then said, “Oh, I don’t know, Dorothy. As far as hats go, I’ve seen worse.”

“Well, thanks a lot,” she said.

Mother Smith jumped in and offered, “I like it,” and gave her son a dirty look.

Dorothy blinked hopefully. “Really?”

“Oh, yes, it’s very stylish. Don’t ask him. He doesn’t know anything about hats.”

Doc readily agreed. “That’s right. Don’t ask me. I can’t tell one from the other.”

“Honestly,” said Dorothy, “I don’t know why I go to so much trouble if you don’t know the difference. I could just stick a pot on my head for all you care.”

When she left the room Mother Smith said, “Now you’ve done it.”

Doc shrugged. “Well, they all
do
look alike, only this one looks like a pancake with some fruit and a dead bird on top.” Beatrice Woods, who was sitting at the table, laughed. Doc leaned over and spoke under his breath. “Count yourself lucky you can’t see it. You wouldn’t know whether to shoot it or eat it.”

After Doc had gone back to the drugstore they all sat around the table talking about the upcoming trip. Dorothy sighed. “I just wish I could lose ten pounds before I go.”

Mother Smith said, “I just wish I was eighteen again and knew what I know now.”

Dorothy said, “What would you do differently?”

“Oh,” she said, “I’d marry the same man and have a child, of course, but I would have waited awhile before I did it . . . maybe been a bachelor girl like Ann Sheridan or a career woman and had my own secretary, smoked cigars, and used bad language.”

Dorothy and Beatrice laughed and Dorothy said, “Beatrice, if you could have any wish come true, what would it be?”

Beatrice, whose favorite radio show was the
Armchair Traveler
, thought for a moment. “I would wish I could get in a car and drive all over the world and never stop.”

Dorothy reached over and touched her hand. “Would you, honey?”

“Oh yes,” she said. “Wouldn’t that be fun?”

“It sure would,” said Mother Smith and quickly changed the subject. She could see that Dorothy was about to get emotional. What was doubly heartbreaking about Beatrice was that even though being blind had limited her life, she did not have an ounce of self-pity and they had to be sure she never heard any in their voices. And it was especially hard when the thing she wished for could never come true.

A week later, the old adage about the boy who cried wolf once too often came true for Bobby when he woke up and claimed he couldn’t go to school that day because he had broken out all over in big red spots. Dorothy knew this was the day of a big math test that he had probably not studied for. Last year at this time he had claimed his leg was broken. The year before it was appendicitis. So she sent Anna Lee to his room for the third time with a simple message. “Mother says if you’re not up and dressed and out the door in five minutes you’ll wish you had spots.”

“But I do!” Bobby protested. “Come here and look at all these big red spots all over me and I feel sick. . . . Come and look.” He pulled up his pajama top for her to see. “Look at these spots, they’re getting redder by the minute, and I feel sick and I think I have a temperature, feel my head.” But Anna Lee ignored him and said as she left, “Stay in bed—I don’t care, I hope you do get a whipping.” Bobby got up, mumbling and grumbling to himself, and put on his clothes and went to the kitchen to find his mother, who promptly handed him a banana. “Here, eat that on the way to school.”

“But, Mother—” he said.

“I don’t want to hear it, Bobby. Now you go on before you’re late.” He mumbled some more under his breath and stomped down the hall and out the door, slamming it behind him.

At about 2:00 that afternoon Bobby’s teacher called.

“Dorothy, I just wanted you to know that I had to take Bobby down to the sick room because he was all broken out in red spots. Ruby says he’s come down with measles and needs to be quarantined.”

Dorothy was alarmed. “Oh, no. Tell Ruby I’m on my way to get him right now, and thank you for calling.”

Dorothy could not have felt any worse and Bobby played the part to the hilt. “I told you I was sick, Mother,” he said in a thin voice and by the time Anna Lee got home from rehearsal, at 5:30, Bobby was propped up in his bed like a king, his every whim catered to. His bed was covered with loads of new comic books his father had brought home for him from the drugstore. He had already been served ice cream, two Cokes, and a 7UP, and his mother stood by ready to do his slightest bidding. When Anna Lee walked into the room, Dorothy looked at her daughter with stricken eyes. “Your brother has the measles—the poor little thing really
was
sick.” Bobby lay back and smiled weakly for her benefit and waited for Anna Lee to apologize. But instead of an apology she looked at him in horror and said, “Measles!” and ran out of the room to scrub her hands and face.