The RCA Victor Dance Caravan--70 years ago in Cleveland
Fascinating article about the RCA Victor Dance Caravan that visited Cleveland during World War II.
. . .I wasn't there. . .
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Permanent Declarations of a Temporary Love
I was about as drunk as a person could be. I heard Frank singing in the background but I had no recollection of putting him on. I was sitting in my hot tub and shriveling up like a prune. I was in danger of sinking beneath the surface. You can just take that metaphorically if you wish. My soul was sinking along with my head. I dipped down into the tub and just had my nose and eyes above the water. Which would be why I didn’t hear the latch on the door behind me.
Rin dipped into the tub across from me. All I saw was smooth brown skin and fleeting black pubic hair dive below the skim of the water. I came up. This I didn’t need. If Amber walked in I was toast on a stick.
“You don’t mind, do you?” Rin asked.
Mind? On what planet would I mind? I wasn’t about to burst out in tears of rage. I wasn’t about to ask the good Lord why he was doing this to me either. I thought maybe I’d just enjoy the moment. Although I was good and snookered, part of me was enjoying the moment already.
She motioned for the bottle of Southern Comfort and I handed it over to her. She drained about a third of it without blinking an eye or catching a breath. I stared at her with wonder and admiration. Speech. I finally found speech.
“No, I don’t mind.” She offered the bottle back to me. I shook it off and she set it down on the table outside the tub. I stared at her and she back at me. I felt a set of toes inch up my leg. Naturally, in my impaired state, I wiggled my own first to make sure I wasn’t somehow becoming a contortionist. Now was the time for me to get up and run. Except it would be quite obvious that my betrayer would be happily jiggling in the wind and want to go in the opposite direction. I hadn’t a clue what was up here. Besides me.
Rin’s toes planted themselves on one side of my groin. My groin? What? Am I a sports announcer? Why do they say that in football games on TV? He has a groin pull. He has a groin injury. He got kicked in the balls. Somebody put a mean hurt on Mr. Happy. But, I digress. With one set of toes firmly planted on the Eastern side of my penis, the other set of toes, like Lewis and Clark and eight of their pals going up a perverted creek, were climbing the side of my other leg and found a home on the opposite side. Rin was staring into my eyes and I could do little but stare back. Well, let me correct myself. I certainly could do something. And a stronger person might have. A less drunk one. Maybe a more moral one. I could rationalize this. This was a set of toes. A pair of them. And hell, who’s to say they were forty-five-year-old toes or twenty-something toes? They were toes goddamn it! And all of a sudden they were moving up and down. I had no idea whether my toes were supposed to be returning the favor, but I kept them right where they were. And a good thing too. Although I was still staring right into Rin’s eyes, my ears were working perfectly. I heard the latch on the door this time. In what seemed like an eternity, I saw Rin smile at me as she furiously moved her toes up and down. I came with such intensity I buried my head beneath the water to keep from screaming. I came back up slowly and looked at my daughter disrobing, casting aside her clothes and flashing a bright pink bikini as she gently eased herself into the hot tub without a care in the world.
I felt my penis slowly deflate into a nub of dread.
“What’s up?” Amber asked. I looked at Rin and she smiled.
“Not a thing.” I said.
“Not now.” said Rin. Amber looked at Rin and then looked at me. I motioned for the Southern Comfort and started drinking.
“So, Rin,” Amber said, “tomorrow’s your fourteenth birthday, right?” I started choking on the Southern Comfort. I coughed and wheezed. Amber came over and started hammering me on the back. Rin was laughing so hysterically she started snorting.
“Plus a decade,” she said between bursts of glee.
Amber started rubbing my back after I had calmed down. She moved back over to her side of the hot tub. We sat in silence for several minutes.
“Time for me to get out,” Rin said. She got up, natural as can be, the water slipping off her smooth skin. She lifted one leg up and out and then the other one, grabbed a towel, and started patting herself dry. Amber watched as her new naked roommate trailed away and casually entered my bathroom. She then turned very slowly around to me. I believe if it were a symphony, this would have been described as a largo movement.
“It’s just another proud moment for your daughter,” Amber said. I started coughing and choking again. She just stared at me.
“It must have been something I ate,” I said, calming down once again.
“I certainly hope not.” She got out of the tub, grabbed a towel, and stared down at me.
“What?”
“Tomorrow we’ve got work to do.”
“Okay.” She dried herself off.
“It’s a good thing I love you so much.”
“A good thing.”
“Oh no. A very good thing,” she said.
“Indeed. A very good thing.”
“Do I need to drain this thing?” she nodded down into the tub.
“I think these chemicals kill just about everything, don’t they?”
“We can only hope.” Amber turned and walked out the door.
I sat there and pondered why my life took these turns.
Rin came out of the bathroom, dressed, and looked over at me.
“I need you to do something for me,” she said.
“Anything,” I said.
“I want you to kill somebody for me.” She walked out the door.
. . .from the novel in progress. . .Permanent Declarations of a Temporary Love
Friday, November 4, 2011
Permanent Declarations of a Temporary Love
If you called me stupid you certainly wouldn’t be the first.
I was back at the airport. This time putting Sara on a plane. Rin had gone along for the ride. My sum total of time spent with Sara had been less than a day. Half of that time with my neglected appendage tucked away in warmth and wonder. Was this how it was going to be? Fleeting flings in tired sheets and then back off to Asia? I didn’t think I could live the rest of my life this way.
“I know you’re upset with me,” Sara said.
“I understand.” I was tapping my foot. That must have passed for more than boredom. Rin kept a respectful ten feet away looking at the arrival and departure monitors.
“You’re just saying that.”
“Yes, you’re right.”
“I’ve got to do this. You know that.”
“Knowing it and liking it are two different things.”
“You know, you are a free agent,” Sara said. She looked into my eyes for me to say something in return.
“Is that your way of saying you’ve got some man stashed back in Korea or Japan or some other ricey place?” Did I really hear myself say ricey place? Sara pressed her body against me and kissed me for a long time. It was one of those kisses, although immensely enjoyable, I wanted to peek an eye open to see if we were being filmed or watched by hundreds of potential passengers and gossipers. I broke it off and hugged her tightly. Rin was engrossed in us now.
“You’re the man,” Sara said, coming up for air. “But, look. We’ve never been exactly about commitment.”
“That would be your choice,” I said, picking a particle of dust off her sweater.
“I can’t begin to help who I am anymore than you can help writing your next great American novel, reading Dostoevsky, or finding ambient music endlessly fascinating. And notice I didn’t even mention your penchant for bedding young girls.”
“Uh, you just did.”
“I think Rin might just have a thing for you.” I looked over at Rin. She was staring at us.
“Let’s not go there shall we?”
“Oh, I won’t go there. I don’t swing that way. But, perhaps, you might just get lucky.”
“Luck I don’t need. It’s you I need.”
“And we might just accomplish that one of these days.”
“Yeah, when I’m close to eighty and this thing doesn’t work anymore.”
“This thing?” Sara patted my crotch. I looked to see who was looking. Ten seats worth of a girls soccer team and three nuns seated across from them. And an airport security officer headed our way. I put a bit of distance between us and he walked by us. Apparently we weren’t the object of his intentions.
“Any idea when you might be back for more than just breakfast?”
“You forgot about dessert.” Sara looked up into my eyes.
“Are we over, Sara?” I guess I just had to know. If you don’t ask, you don’t know.
“We’re never over.”
“I need more than an occasional dipping of the stick, you know.” The boarding announcement came over the loudspeaker for Sara’s plane.
“I’ve got to go. I’ll call.” Sara kissed me on the lips and was off to get in line. I stood there looking like the loneliest person in the world. She turned back around. “A dipping of the stick?” She shook her head and walked through the door to board the plane.
Dreamers on the Rise
We grabbed the first T we could find and made our way over to Cambridge Harvard Square eleven o’clock they’d have them in the sack. One of the guys nodded at me as I sat down, figuring I was one of the fraternity. I wasn’t about to go all Jerry Falwell on these guys for a minute. I was a far sight older than them and Charly was just a hair older than the girls. The waitress came up to us.
“How ah ya?” she asked, bored, taking the pencil out from behind her ear. She looked me up and down and then did the same to Charly. She zeroed back to me and stared. I felt like I still had Charly’s panties around my neck for crying out loud. Cut me some slack here Flo.
. . .from the forthcoming novel. . .Dreamers on the Rise
Permanent Declarations of a Temporary Love
As we pulled into the driveway of the main house, I noticed two cars I didn’t recognize. I popped the trunk and took out Rin’s carry-on and her suitcase. I toddled up to the door with them. The door opened and I eyed Amber as I tumbled in, awkwardly hoisting the suitcases into the house. I set them down in the foyer and looked up.
Sara.
# # # # #
“I told you I impinguinated him,” Amber said. She kept telling me she had been telling Sara she was fattening me up so other women would stay away from me. And it had worked wonderfully! Sara looked me up and down and then came over to me. She hugged me for a long time. Eventually the clapping by all the roommates broke us up. I looked over and saw Slick Vanderwall stride over toward me.
“Slick,” I said.
“How are you, Ben?”
“Better now.” I looked at Sara and her eyes were glistening. She still hadn’t said a word.
“Numbers,” Sara said.
“What?”
“The numbers.” Confused as ever, I stared at her. Sara looked at Amber with frustration. Amber came over to Sara and whispered into her ear. Sara nodded. She took my hand.
“We’ll be back,” Sara announced to the others. She led me down into the basement, down through the hallway and punched the numbers into my security keypad. Sara walked over to the steps pulling off her shirt. I was right behind her. She unsnapped her bra and tossed it back into my face. We entered the kitchen, she reached into the fridge and grabbed two beers. She took off her jeans and put them on the kitchen table. She headed up the stairs, hopping on one foot and then the other as she eased her panties down. She stood at the top of the stairs in white socks. I was fully dressed. I climbed up the stairs and stood in front of her.
“Uh,” I said.
“Brilliance spews forth.” She tugged at my belt and cut to the heart.
Permanent Declarations of a Temporary Love
“There’s a guy . . .”
# # # # #
There are times when I wondered how much God wanted to dump into my lap. After the adventure Amber and I shared a few years back, I thought my quota of lifetime adventure had been adequately filled. Sara apparently thought differently. And there was a reason Sara sent Rin my way. There was a guy. A bad guy. Wasn’t there always?
“ . . .by the name of Parson Shivers.” Rin finished. I dropped my coffee cup, coffee splattering across the floor. The waitress was none to happy. I apologized profusely to the woman and helped her clean up the mess. After we determined the floor was clean, I sat back down across from Rin. She looked at me.
“Sara figured you’d know the guy.” Shit.
“I don’t know the guy, really, Rin. I know his brother very well. We knew he was into girls, but not to this extent.” Just how did I go about telling Stimple his brother was a bigger cretin than we imagined. Rin continued her tale.
“When Sara and Kim were digging around over in Korea to find old comfort women, they ran across some of my relatives. One of them told Kim about me.”
“And how did they piece all this together and get Parson Shivers out of it?” I figured it would lead back to our old buddy, Slick Vanderwall, and I wasn’t far from the tree.
“Sara knew a guy back here in Ohio, Slick Vanderwall?” Bingo.
“He’s a good man.”
“So Sara said.” Sara and Slick worked together while Sara was in college. Slick was a private detective in Columbus. He was a tremendous help to us when we tracked down Pervis Stahl, another cretin who lived to torment young women. But, I figured with the demise of Pervis, an adventure I’d never dreamed I’d share in, that would be the end of my being a Hardy Boy and Amber being Nancy Drew. Sara, apparently, had other ideas.
“If I might ask you, Rin, just what is my role in all of this?” She gathered up the pictures, tapped the pile into a neat stack and put them back into the envelope.
“She knew Amber would need your help.” I looked at Rin. Figured the little shit knew all about this already.
“I see.”
“She said you would do whatever Amber said.” Rin looked at me for some kind of confirmation. “In fact, I believe she said you were helpless when it came to Amber.” Indeed.
“One might say.”
“So, you’ll help us?”
“Us?”
“Me. And Amber. And you would make three.”
“And just what is it we’re supposed to do?”
“Get Parsons. And they also know he’s had some help here in the states. A woman.”
“A woman?”
“Yes.”
“Any clues on whom that might be?”
“Yes.”
“And you might enlighten me this evening?”
“Yes.”
“Now?”
“A woman by the name of Hanna Doushay.”
All the blood drained from my face.
. . .from the novel in progress. . .Permanent Declarations of a Temporary Love
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