Summer of '42 Page 3

  Hermie sat in front of the candy store, looking intensely at the latest issue of Jungle Comics. Benjie sat alongside him, gazing hypnotically at his watch, timing Hermie. But Hermie was unaware of Benjie having a clock on him because he was deep in the lush tropical brush, swinging with Sheena of the Jungle from tree to tree in twelve lascivious full-color panels to the page. And each panel revealed another angle of Sheena’s throbbing topography. Lusty thighs and busty cleavage pulsated within her ragged leopard skin. Girded loins and screaming navel assaulted Hermie’s eyes and mind, slamming against his retina and shaking his young brain pan. Even the carnivorous quadrupeds in the panels looked up from the zebras they were devouring to contemplate the leaping lady and to consider an immediate change in their eating habits. There was a lion down there, drooling like a faucet. And there was a tiger who looked as horny as a rhinoceros. Hermie was never too sure why these books were called comic books. There was nothing funny about them. Mickey Mouse might have been funny, but Sheena of the Jungle was nothing to be laughed at. Sheena of the Jungle could drive a man mad and only for a dime. Hermie narrowed his X-ray eyes in an effort to see through the leopard skin in panel nine, the one in which Sheena’s legs were spread a mile as she swung across a dangerous precipice while screaming in a white balloon…“Yaaaaaa, Sheena!”

  The voice belonged to Benjie, the official timekeeper and general all-around moron. “You’ve been on that page for seven minutes.”

  “I wish I was in it.”

  “Seven minutes and seven seconds. You’re some slow reader.”

  “Who’s reading?”

  “Seven minutes and fourteen seconds. What’re you doing—memorizing it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Turn the page.”

  “It’s the last page.”

  “Then close the book.”

  “Close your mouth.”

  Oscy came out of the candy store just as Hermie was about to roll up the Jungle Comics and belt Benjie over the head with it. Oscy came out whistling and acting so nonchalant that he had obviously stolen something. Emotionally, Hermie was still in Jungle Comics, halfway up Sheena’s left thigh, the one the dumb monkey was looking up at and evolving for, when Benjie gave him a short elbow to the ribs. That ended Hermie’s reverie just at a point where his X-ray equipment had succeeded in turning Sheena’s leopard skin to cellophane. It was a crushing blow, and Hermie immediately turned on Benjie and rolled up the book and swatted Benjie with all fifty-two pages.

  Oscy swept by and was already a short distance down the street by the time Hermie finished flogging Benjie, who took it all on the right forearm, thereby protecting his wristwatch which was on his left wrist, which was in his pocket, which was like a foxhole. Benjie then jumped up, called Hermie something obscene, and took off after Oscy. Hermie stood and straightened up as best he could, which wasn’t exactly the letter i. Remorsefully, but realistically, he returned the Jungle Comics to the newsstand, where it would eventually wither and die. For no one ever bought a comic book. Comic books were placed on newsstands to be read free, as a public service, only don’t get caught doing it because Old Man Prowdy could hit a kid and not leave a mark. And so it was farewell until next month to Sheena of the Jungle and her sparkling navel, and onward to Oscy and Benjie and the insanity of life.

  Oscy led them to a discreet place where no outsider could observe his criminal machinations. Then he withdrew from his pocket a shiny chrome object, which he displayed to his companions as though it were an idol’s eye; only it was a harmonica. Benjie was immediately displeased. “What the hell you steal a harmonica for?”

  Oscy shrugged and smiled. “It was an impulse.” And he tucked the harmonica into his pocket and walked away.

  Benjie followed him, a skinny gnat flailing at solid air. “You were supposed to steal a kite!”

  “I can’t play a kite.”

  “You can’t play a harmonica either.”

  “I can learn.”

  “Jesus, Oscy—we can’t fly a harmonica!”

  Oscy only flicked at the gnat and then paid him no never mind. As for Hermie, he was dragging a few yards behind, wishing he had Sheena on his secret X-ray table where he could freely conduct his evil experiments upon her anatomy, accompanied only by his faithful manservant, Komo, whose job it was to keep his mother out.

  Hermie walked along the main street, a good distance behind his two friends. Sheena was so fresh in his mind and groin that he just didn’t care to listen to his bickering buddies. Up ahead he could see Oscy neatly riffling the shiny harmonica between his lips, catching his upper lip in a C# and causing Benjie to collapse with glee. Except, when Oscy finally freed his lip and started swatting Benjie with the harmonica, that’s when Benjie became immediately and diplomatically sympathetic.

  Hermie was dropping off the pace like a miler no longer in the race. He knew that it was as they said, let an athlete waste time on thoughts of sex, and vap, there goes his wind. As soon as a boxer got married, he was through. The day a football player got laid for the first time, he could hang up his cleats. It was a sports truism. You didn’t have to hear it from Bill Stern on the radio, you just knew it. Every man jack knew it. The interesting thing was why so many athletes persisted in doing it when they had to know it was ruining their wind. Hermie suspected there was more to it than Bill Stern was letting on. Hermie’s head snapped “eyes right,” impaled on the polka dot torso in the store window. For a short moment his eyes were just two more polka dots, whirring about, searching for an opening. But when the smoke cleared and when the eyes had refocused, he could see the two-piece bathing suit on the armless, legless, headless female form. Only the good parts were there, painted a very neat and even tan, kind of cocoa and exciting. Hermie’s eyes fluttered with painful realization. Was he forever to be an observer and not a participant? Was he truly doomed to be a sexual time bomb, ticking in limbo until one day when he could tick no more, at which time he’d simply explode, a glob of Herm and sperm on some reformatory wall? And who would make the identification of his remains if his mother was too embarrassed because her son was a saint and that couldn’t be his penis squashed through the window bars, reaching for the sun? He made a conscious decision, then and there, no more avoiding the issue. He would do it, and it would happen. He would stand there, in front of that store window, and he would stare the torso right in the eyes. And by sheer will, the bathing suit would drop off and a naked lady would appear. And she would step through the glass like Cosmo Topper, wrapped in invisible ectoplasm, and there he’d be, Hermie in Wonderland, and Komo would stand guard and— Yaaaaaa, Sheena!

  “Hermie? Hey, Hermie.”

  That was Oscy’s voice, but Hermie figured that Komo could handle it. Ignore it, naked lady. Your mine, all mine. Yaaaaaa, Sheena.

  “He’s in suspended animation again.”

  That was Benjie. Komo, can’t you see I’m busy? Get rid of him. Excuse me, naked lady, where were we?

  “Hey! Rip Van Hermie! Hey, Hermie?”

  Oscy again, loud and interruptive and unavoidable. And so it was farewell to the naked lady, who jumped back onto the torso as a polka-dot bathing suit. Shiiiiiit, Sheena. Komo, you’re fired.

  Hermie turned to see Oscy and Benjie, who had walked back to rescue him from his most recent trance. He knew it would be senseless to chastize them. They’d never understand. How could they? Not even he understood. Oscy cocked his head to one side and smiled at Hermie. “You coming, Hermie?”

  “Yeah. Where you going?”

  “Ethiopia.”

  “Okay.” Why not? What was left for him?

  They meandered down the street and finally ended up sitting on the ferry pier supported by the green moss-covered pilings that didn’t look as though they could do their job another day. They were getting very good at sitting on the pier, and Hermie yearned for a tidal wave or a typhoon that would just wash them away. He hoped it would drown his friends while tossing him safely onto some island somewhere with
two gorgeous girls and his manservant, Bokoto. But it was impossible for Hermie to transport himself anywhere with Oscy sitting nearby, coaxing some truly weird music out of his harmonica. The Gas Pain Symphony. Benjie was looking over the notices tacked upon the town bulletin board, checking them against his wristwatch, timing them. Jesus.

  Hermie hid behind his usual expression of utter stupidity, watching, yet not really watching, the people boarding the 2:20 to the mainland. People, children, dogs, carriages, wagons, the last train out of Poland. And them, the man and the woman. Again his blood rushed dizzily at the very sight of her, at the very thought of her name, whatever it was.

  The man was in an Army uniform and had a duffel bag hoisted on his shoulder. He wore all sorts of battle ribbons, fruit salad galore. The woman, aaaah, she wore faded jeans and a loose blouse, and her suntan and her hair, and her sweet green eyes all misty, and Hermie’s heart was considering stopping altogether because what better way to go out than with an eyeful of ravishing beauty? She was clinging to the man, trying to become a part of him. He was leaving. She knew he had to go. She didn’t know when she’d see him again. It was an old familiar story, but it seemed newly strange for Hermie to see it so expertly acted out somewhere else other than in the RKO Kenmore. The lovers stood in the very exact geographical middle of the crowd, like Kansas, and people moved by them, hustling to get aboard the sputtering ferry. Good-bye was in the air, and she was smiling in the face of it, fooling no one.

  It was all so weird. The pair of them should have been lost in the crowd, but they weren’t. It was as though they were standing atop some high pedestal for Hermie’s benefit, so that he could see their anguish and learn from it. The pedestal was turning, ever so slowly, rotating even as the other ferry boarders slid by the good-bye lovers. Slowly, slowly the lovers turned, their eyes forever fixed on each other. The man removed his cap and placed his free arm about her and pulled her close in a long, long kiss, kiss, kiss. Impossibly long. How could they hold it that long and not go further? What control. What manner of man. What an athlete.

  Eventually all the passengers were aboard. All but the lovers. And as the ferry began to push out, and as the hawsers flew and the gangplanks drew back and the dogs barked, Hermie knew that he should warn them, say something to them. Behind him, Oscy was tooting his lousy harmonica, but it couldn’t alter the tragic beauty of the moment.

  Finally the kiss ended, and the lovers separated. The man became aware that the ferry was pulling away. But without being the tiniest bit ruffled, he tossed his duffel bag toward the departing boat. It floated on the air like a hydrogen-filled balloon, taking a half hour to reach the ferry. And during that expanse of time the man turned to the woman, taking her dear face in his two huge hands and bestowing a final kiss upon her forehead, just as the duffel bag reached the ferry and plunked silently onto the stern deck. The lovers broke, their hands playing unseen pianos. Then the man took a few steps and launched himself over the twenty yards that separated the ferry from the pier. And over the water he fairly flew, vaulting the ferry’s protective railing and landing on brilliant tiptoe, a modern-day Doug Fairbanks, smiling, waving, magnificent.

  Hermie turned back to look at the woman, and she had changed. Standing alone on the pier, she was waving a fair arm to the sea, the wind softly pushing her lovely hair. She was Anna Karenina, Helen of Troy, the Lady of the Lake. And under it all, the lovely tones of a harmonica. Virtuoso. Larry Adler at a Bundles for Britain Rally. Borreh Minevitch doing likewise for Russia. Oscy, the ugly duckling, was playing like a swan.

  Hermie turned again to glimpse the fast-fading ferry as it coursed the bay. It was so far away that the man no longer had an identity. He was just another passenger, another dot on the 2:20.

  Hermie glanced back at the woman. The last wave still lay lightly on her fingertips, the last wan smile etched unconvincingly upon her sorrow-filled face. Standing there as she was, with the tears forming in her superb eyes, she was the saddest creature in the saddest of worlds. Her hair was strewn with multicolored flowers and she was Ophelia. Warm poison on her lips and she was Juliet. A frog in her throat and she was June Allyson. Greta Garbo, Lana Turner, Linda Darnell. Penny Singleton were Paradise enow. The harmonica theme was stretching hauntingly to the heavens whence it had surely come and her diaphanous gown slowly disappeared before the power of Hermie’s X-ray eyes, clearly exposing her ivory breasts so deliciously capped with individual maraschino cherries. And then her dress became undone, and a breeze came up, and the slight garment slid away, gliding…

  “Hey, Hermie? Hey, dream boy?”

  Shit, it was Oscy.

  “Yoo-hoo, oh, Hermie?”

  Shit, it was Benjie. Shit, shit, shit.

  Hermie turned to see Oscy and Benjie smiling idiotically at him. Side by side they stood, and the stupid smile seemed to begin at Oscy’s right ear and extend all the way across both their faces to Benjie’s left, leaving nothing between but teeth and most of that sheer orthodenture.

  Hermie wheeled quickly again, to see the woman, once more, a last vision, a photo for his memory book, a place on the wall of his heart. But she was gone, and all he saw of her was one small white sneaker turning a sharp quick corner. She was just another lady in faded jeans, no more. And the harmonica was once again excruciatingly horrible because Oscy couldn’t play, and that was definitely that.

  Hermie bellied up angrily to his two so-called chums, the annoyance spilling out of him, causing Oscy to put aside his harmonica and step back in a moment of smiling muddlement. “You guys!” Hermie ranted. “You never shut up! Why don’t you shut up every once in a while? Why don’t you shut up occasionally and just think? Or read? Jesus, you never read! Nothing!”

  “I read, Hermie,” Oscy said, and then he pointed with his thumb at Benjie. “And Benjie, he looks at the pictures.”

  “The two of you make me sick! You really do! The both of you! You make me so sick I wanna puke!” Hermie was really building up to a full head of anger.

  Benjie stepped back in feigned fear. “Please, sir, don’t puke on me. I’m only a kid.”

  Hermie was about to beat Benjie’s mouth into oatmeal, but Oscy stepped in, remarkably tolerant. “Hermie, your whole problem is you’re a dreamer.”

  “So I dream! So what?”

  Oscy put his arm around Hermie’s shoulder and began to walk him up the street. “You see, Hermie—you’re supposed to dream when you’re asleep. If you dream when you’re awake, people’ll think you’re buggy.” He sought corroboration from Benjie, who was tagging along. “That right, Benjie?”

  Benjie’s eyes were closed, his arms outstretched like a sleepwalker. “Don’t wake me, I’m dreaming.”

  Hermie’s exasperation was beyond containment. He shoved Oscy’s arm from his shoulder and stopped walking because it’s tough to express anger when you’re walking. To express anger you have to stand still, clench your fists, and raise some blood in your eye, all of which Hermie did just prior to giving voice to his displeasure through teeth that let no air in. “Okay, you guys. I’m through hanging around with you, okay? You’re beneath me, okay? So far beneath me that I can’t believe how far. You’re stupid and dumb. You have no idea of current events. No idea at all, none so fuckin’ whatever.”

  The non sequitur threw Benjie. “Current events?”

  Hermie turned on him. “What’s your IQ?”

  Benjie turned to Oscy. “What the hell is current events?”

  Oscy smiled to Hermie. “Tell him.”

  And Hermie told Benjie, “You have an IQ of four!”

  And Oscy said, “Right.”

  Hermie broke off and his two friends knew not to follow. If Hermie was going into another period of dark strangeness, they’d just as soon he went it alone. It wasn’t even worth yelling at him as he left, even though they knew how much it rankled Hermie to be yelled after in the street. No, they figured, let him go in peace. It would be better for everyone all the way around.

  All
the way home Hermie kept trying to apply some organization to his chaotic mind. But all he could come up with was Ernie Lombardi’s batting average divided by Lucille Ball’s bust measurement. That was the equation of his life. And all it added up to was total confusion multiplied by frantic helplessness and then conjugated by three times loneliness. The circling sea gull was not included in the calculations, though it did cause Hermie to accelerate the walk to his house because a bird on the wing was more threatening than two in the bush. Whatever was to show up on the dinner table would have to be an improvement over what was there the night before. One great thing about his mother, she’d never hit a guy with a veal cutlet two times running.

  6

  The sun was a blooming corker, hot and high, as befitted July. And the waves broke gently over the supine forms of the Terrible Trio as they lay half in and half out of the water like so many beached tuna fish. Benjie had his left arm periscoped into the air to protect his precious Ingersoll from the spraying surf. Oscy, to prove he wasn’t dead, pulled his bathing trunks a few inches from his stomach so that the ocean could waltz through and tickle his unit. “I wish,” said Oscy, once more imploring the heavens, “I wish that someone would invade this dopey island. I’m going mad. Mad, do you hear? Mad!” To demonstrate the statement, he laughed madly and received a mouthful of salt water for his troubles, plus a tiny sand crab that slid into his trunks and caused a small havoc before going out with the receding surf.