Stories I'd Tell My Children (But Maybe Not Until They're Adults). Michael N. Marcus
muscled Marine who was coming home soon.
He did seem to give her many more hugs than before the transformation and he admitted to me that she had become the subject of his masturbatory fantasies. It was apparent that if she had given him the slightest encouragement, the ex-Army man would have made a move to temporarily replace Daisy’s Marine.
I, too, was attracted to the new Daisy, and I wasn’t her boss or afraid of her husband. However, I had a girlfriend at the time, and wasn’t interested in an affair with someone else’s wife.
Just as Daisy’s sister Janie had shared her supply of Peanut Chews, Daisy offered to share her speed. Davey readily agreed. I was not a good pill-taker, having only recently made the transition from rectal aspirin to oral, but I had tried LSD and marijuana, and this was the ’60s, so why not?
The next day, after sampling Daisy’s supply, Davey and I met with her doctor. This was a time when doctors could actually sell medication to their patients—not merely write prescriptions for pharmacists to sell to the sickly—and he did not demand much proof of the need for speed.
Soon there were three pill-popping amphetamine-addicted idiots working at PairAway.
We were excellent employees. We were hyper, hyped-up employees. The store looked GREAT. I made beautiful window displays. Davey made beautiful signs. Daisy kept the store clean. As soon as a speck of dirt appeared on the carpet, out came the vacuum cleaner. As soon as a fleck of dust or a fingerprint appeared on the front counter, out came the spray bottle of Windex glass cleaner.
When a pair of shoes was sold, leaving a gap on the shelves, we’d immediately start shifting the stock to fill in the space, so it looked perfect. There were periods when we three stayed in the store for days at a time, going home only for a quick shower and a change of clothes.
We seldom ate, seldom stopped working, and never stopped talking. We drank gallons of Pepsi to lubricate our perpetually dry mouths.
One day my parents drove to Bethlehem with my brother and sister for a surprise visit and they took me out to a nice restaurant for lunch.
I was whacked on speed and would not shut up.
During a brief moment of sanity, I was able to step outside my body and observe the sick scene.
I realized I was acting like an asshole.
After lunch, I went back to PairAway and gave my remaining speed to Daisy. She gave me a bag of Peanut Chews. I think I came out way ahead on the deal.
Unfortunately, Daisy’s husband Gary’s Marine platoon was ambushed in Chu Lai. Sadly, when he returned to Bethlehem, it was for his funeral, not for R&R.
A few months later, the still slim widow Daisy quit her job at PairAway and married her former boss.
Chapter 6
Freedom for the Phantom Schmuck
If you’ve ever spent any time wandering around airports or municipal buildings, you’ve probably passed by a Freedom Shrine.
The shrine can be a spotless and spotlighted room, a few feet of hallway or a dust-shrouded basement corner. It displays framed replicas of historical documents provided by and possibly maintained by the local Exchange Club.
The documents range from obscure articles of surrender and presidential correspondence to the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence.
Several dozen different pieces are usually displayed. There is seldom any discernable order, sequence or pattern; but the unmistakable themes are FREEDOM and rebellion against tyranny.
Hillhouse High School had a Freedom Shrine Room. It measured about eight by eight by twelve feet, had bright and hot lights, a glass wall and no ventilation.
In the ultimate perverse irony, our shrine to freedom was our detention room—the place where the bad kids were kept and freedom was denied.
The shrine was not quite as inhospitable as a Viet Cong “tiger cage,” or a prison cell in Abu Ghraib, but the temperature was often above 100. And, of course, boys in Hillhouse—a public school—were required to wear ties and either sportcoats or sweaters.
Each morning during homeroom period, crew-cut Assistant Principal and Gestapo Kommandant George Kennedy’s voice would boom over the PA system: “The following students will please report to the Freedom Shrine Room,” and we’d hear the names of hooky-players, class-skippers, test-cheaters, glue-sniffers, toilet-stuffers, library-smokers, fire-alarm-yankers and sundry suspected terrorists.
There was a regular group of hard-core Shriners.
Camille, John and Gus made the list almost every day. Occasionally there’d be a new name, but not always a real name.
In an effort to free the Freedom Shrine, the class of ‘64 took the “Who’s Dick Hertz?” joke to a new level.
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When a substitute teacher circulated an attendance sheet for students to write their names on, someone would write “Dick Hertz.” The next day, the substitute would use that sheet for roll call, and if no one responded to the false name, the naïve teacher would inevitably ask “Who’s Dick Hertz?” All of the guys in the class would immediately raise their hands and yell “Mine does!” This was particularly effective with young female subs.
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Our school had a nice swimming pool, and we went swimming each week, with instruction available for those who needed it. At the first class in September, teacher James J. (“JJ”) Davin distributed index cards for us to record our name, homeroom, division number, swimming ability, next-of-kin, etc.
Someone got an extra card and signed up a phantom student named Steve Schmuck. (“Schmuck” is the Jewish term for a penis or a fool.) Steve became part of the official class roster, and JJ read his name when he took attendance at the beginning of each class.
For the first few weeks, one of the co-conspirators would yell out “yo” or “here” to establish credibility for our invisible classmate. But there was no way we could come up with an extra body to take the upcoming swimming test, so we stopped answering when Steve’s name was called.
After Steve seemed to miss a few classes, JJ inquired about his welfare and whereabouts, and some of the guys said that they had seen Steve earlier in the day in English or algebra. JJ reported Steve for skipping class, and the next morning our phantom friend achieved a new level of legitimacy and fame.
More than 3,000 students and teachers heard official tough guy George Kennedy announce through the loudspeakers in every classroom, hallway and other place of habitation, “Steve Schmuck, please report to the Freedom Shrine Room.”
That was the only time our Freedom Shrine ever deserved its name.
The Shrine was freed by the Schmuck.
I still hear the cheering, the applause and the laughter.
YAY, STEVE!
Chapter 7
What’s a nice word for “fart?”
Browne made our lives MISERABLE in 1960. She tortured us at test time (“What five adjectives did Dickens use to describe the horse pulling the cart up the hill in A Tale of Two Cities?”), and she had a strange aversion to basic