Winning is Everything (3 page)

4 

Observe!

Could be an opening line for a chapter, thought Gary, as the subway doors burped open and he followed a phalanx of tourists out onto an elevated platform at Flushing Meadow.

Observe!
Gary repeated to himself as he stopped in his tracks to take in his first view of the New York World’s Fair.

Colorful steel-and-glass structures which had been rapidly erected sat clustered together, eclectic in their architectural statements, overcrowded in their futuristic shapes and amusing designs.

An experience, Gary assured himself. It most certainly was an experience. Get it down, take it all in, miss nothing. Details are important, he reminded himself. Textures. Record it in your mind; file it away for future reference. Everything serves as grist for the dramatic mill.

Gary looked all around the fairgrounds until at last he picked out the tall pylons of the Ford Pavilion, some ten-minutes walk away, and as he too joined the moving crowd, scattering as they went off to every corner of the globe that was the fairgrounds, he couldn’t help but wonder just what the hell he was doing there.

Once again he replayed the scene that had taken place just last April in the quad outside the University Center with two friends from Gamma Gamma Something when Ron had hauled him off the grass, shouting, “Let’s go, Sergeant. I’m on my way to the opportunity of a lifetime, and out of the goodness of my heart, I’ve decided to include you in on my good fortune.”

With a cavalier flourish, Ron whipped out an eight-and-a-half-by-eleven flier he’d just removed from the community-news bulletin board and handed it over to Gary.

DO NOT REMOVE

NEW YORK’S WORLD’S FAIR

The Ford Motor Company is looking for young men and women to work at the Ford Pavilion of the 1964-1965 World’s Fair. Interviews conducted in the Student Union Wednesday, April 8, 1964, Room 312, 1-5
P
.
M
.
Mr. Swanson.

Gary read the flier and then handed it back to Ron. Although it was against his better judgment to get involved in still another of Ron’s notoriously crazy get-rich-quick schemes, Gary went along with Ron to meet Mr. Swanson in Room 312 of the Student Union.

They were each interviewed by the portly and crew-cutted man who’d been with Ford for twenty-three years. The whole thing took twenty minutes.

Ron went off to make final beer-and-pretzel arrangements for the traditional Friday-night pig party at the fraternity house and Gary went back to the lawn on the quad and didn’t give the interview a second thought until two and a half weeks later when Ford invited both Ron and <5ary to come to New York to work for them.

Ron promised Gary everything from cocktail parties on East Hampton lawns to Broadway opening nights. Glitter, glamour, razzle-dazzle, the whole shebang, and Gary was foolish enough to actually believe that Ron’s scheme sounded like a good idea.

“Hey, kid,” Ron said to Gary over and over again with the grandest of largess:
“Trust me….”

They each wrote back to Mr. Swanson accepting his gracious offer on behalf of the automobile company and then began receiving, in return, a volume of correspondence about the pavilion, the Ford Motor Company, the World’s Fair, New York life-styles; where to rent, where to shop, where to eat, and last, when to be there. Nine o’clock sharp, Monday morning, the eighth of June, at the pavilion in Flushing Meadow. And although the fair had already opened several months earlier, Gary and Ron had been hired as part of a replacement team being sent in to take over after the natural attrition the Ford people expected would take place among their hosts and hostesses.

Gary walked across a pedestrian bridge and was finally at the Ford Pavilion.

The intricate line of tourists encircling the sidewalks outside the edifice seemed proof the Ford exhibit was one of the more popular attractions at the fair. Buzzing in and around the hundreds of people waiting to get inside once the doors opened at ten o’clock were traffic monitors, obvious in their bright yellow sport jackets and dark gray pants.

Gary asked directions, and was sent around to the office on the other side of the huge building.

The managing director of the pavilion, a burly company man named Mr. Thomason, escorted Gary down to the employees’ lounge, where the seven other summer staff replacements were preparing to begin that morning’s orientation program. Gary spotted Ron and sat down next to him. He was still furious Ron had never shown up, leaving Gary to spend the night alone in their new apartment.

“Where’ve you been?” asked Ron.

“Where’ve
I
been, you asshole? Where the fuck were
you?”

“Attention, please!” said Mr. Thomason, beginning his lecture on the Ford way to handle lost children, traffic control, wrinkled uniforms, and most important, the Ford way to get the multitudes of visitors into the twenty-million-dollar attraction and then out again without a hitch.

He concluded by saying, “Everyone rise, now, and follow me.”

Without waiting for comment, he strutted out of the employees’ lounge, the eight new hosts and hostesses, five boys, three girls, following in a straight line behind him.

Designed and built by the Disney corporation at gargantuan expense, the Ford Pavilion was a cleverly concealed public-relations plan to soft-sell the merits of owning a Ford car.

The Disney ride was conceived as a long choo-choo train of cars. One Ford product followed another, like elephants at a circus, pulled along beneath motorless chassis by a treadmill that kept breaking down. And every time the treadmill broke down, alarms would go off, lights would come on, the magic spell (such as it was) would be broken, and the long line of visitors waiting to enter the pavilion would grow longer, as mechanics would be rushed in to recircuit, unscrew, and rewire.

The new hosts and hostesses were escorted upstairs to the Loading Zone and then taken to the front of the seemingly endless line, where they were assisted into two convertibles—a spanking-new green Lincoln Continental and a fresh-from-the-factory jazzy red Mustang.

Gary slipped into the back of the Mustang next to Ron and said, “You were supposed to meet me last night. What the hell happened?”

“I got into trouble,” said Ron.

“Anything serious?” Gary asked patiently.

“Yeah. Serious woman trouble.”

“Typical,” said Gary, sitting back as the Mustang left the reality of Flushing Meadow and began its journey through a prehistoric kingdom peopled by electronically motivated rubber cavemen who were all fighting to take down a large toothsome woolly mammoth.

“Well?” Gary elbowed Ron, once it was clear the cavemen were not about to turn their spears on the occupants of the Mustang. “Aren’t you going to go into the graphic details?”

“I had some time to kill before I had to meet you, so I took a walk through Maxwell’s Plum, a very swinging bar, and was immediately ogled by a bevy of attractive and available women, all of them mad for me, natch. It was a Sheila Somebody who, lucky devil, ultimately won my not-quite-lasting attention, and the two of us spent the night bouncing about the bedroom of her Rego Park apartment, practically in spitting distance of this very spot. How lucky can you get?”

“But you were supposed to meet me!” Gary protested.

“What can I say?” asked Ron. “She would’ve eaten a lesser man.”

“Well, buster,” said Gary, “as it happens, I took the apartment!”

“You didn’t!”

“I did.”

“But I haven’t seen it yet!”

“No problem,” said Gary. “You’re sure to love it. It’s got one knockout of a view!”

“Fine,” said Ron. “What’s the monthly damage?”

“I mean a real show-stopper!” Gary assured him. “Overlooks the East River. Just wait’ll you see the sunset from up there!”

“But how much is it?” asked Ron.

“Listen, don’t complain to me,” said Gary. “I almost lost the place waiting for you.”

The Mustang passed by an enormous Tyrranosaurus Rex waging a major battle against a giant Brontosaurus.

“I thought those animals were vegetarians,” said Gary, hoping to discuss the apartment later.

“Don’t argue with Disney,” said Ron firmly. “Uncle Walt has a logic all his own. A frozen man wouldn’t lie to the youth of America.”

“This is how we’re going to spend our summer?” Gary asked. “Playing with prehistoric monsters?”

“Nope,” Ron answered. “We never get to go on the ride. We just stuff people into the cars so they can.”

The Mustang shot out of the past and entered an intergalactic freeway of the future.

“Oh, by the by …” Ron asked coolly. “If it’s not too much trouble, could you tell me something about our new dwelling?”

“Thoughtful of you to bring it up,” said Gary. “It’s on the corner of Sixty-seventh and First Avenue. Upper East Side. A great neighborhood. Two bedrooms. Twelfth floor. And, like I said, what a view! An eagle would be happy there!”

Ron watched arrows of light arc across the ceiling of the domed auditorium through which they were now zooming at a supposed speed of light.

“Two bedrooms, huh?” said Ron. “Guess I’ll have to take the larger one, as the traffic flow through my sheets is of such a great volume.”

“Fine,” Gary conceded.

Without warning, the Mustang suddenly ground to an abrupt halt right there in the middle of the future freeway.

“What happened?” asked Ron. “We run out of gas?”

For the third time that day, the ride at the Ford Pavilion broke down. A loud alarm began to ring as bright spotlights suddenly floodlit the arena.

“This happens a lot, I gather,” said Ron. “Now, why don’t you tell me what the rent is on our fancy new apartment?”

“Five-fifty a month,” Gary said quickly.

“Then it must be furnished. What luck! That means you won’t have to send for your junky things.”

“It’s not furnished,” said Gary. “And I called my grandmother last night. She’s shipping everything out tomorrow.”

“Five hundred fifty bucks a month for no furniture?” Ron was stunned. “Are you crazy? We can’t afford that!”

“I know …” said Gary with genuine regret.

“By the time we get a couple of beds, a table, some chairs, and a week’s groceries, we’ll be broke.”

“I know,” Gary repeated, still full of regret, before adding encouragingly, “Maybe we’ll get lucky. Maybe someone in the neighborhood will be having a garage sale.”

“They don’t have garage sales in Manhattan,” said Ron. “They don’t have garages. Hey, listen … it’s not too late to back out, is it? You haven’t signed anything like a lease yet, have you?”

“Don’t yell. I gave the landlord a first and last month’s rent. All my money. Wait’ll you see the place, though. For you, dear chairman of the entertainment committee, the all-time party apartment!”

That hit a responsive chord, all right.

“Party apartment, huh?” asked Ron, his eyes lighting up. “Why didn’t you say so?”

“Please remain in your seats. We’re sorry for the delay” came an announcer’s voice over a public sound system somewhere high above them. “Remain in your automobiles. A host will be around presently to escort you off the ride. We’re having temporary difficulty on the line. Thank you for your patience.”

“They’ve broken down again,” said Ron, watching as a squad of yellow-jacketed monitors entered through a fire door and began moving down the long row of cars, helping people out of their seats, pointing to nearby emergency exits.

The eight new hosts were met by a slightly embarrassed Mr. Thomason. “Sorry you kids didn’t get to see the whole ride,” he told them. “As you can tell, we’re still ironing out a few kinks.”

“Ironing out a few kinks?” Ron whispered to Gary on their way to being given their new uniforms. “They’d better get a goddamn steamroller in here.”

Ron and Gary donned their yellow sport jackets and charcoal-gray woolen slacks, their name tags, their skinny black ties, and went out for lunch.