Part 7 (1/2)
She continued her darning. He looked around for a moment, dropped the Funnies noisily to get attention, and then announced in his Now For The Big Surprise voice: ”How 'bout let's all of us going to a movie? How 'bout it? Let's all take in a movie!”
Ten minutes later we're all in the Oldsmobile, on our way to see Johnny Weismuller.
The drizzle had become a full rain by the time I realized I was the only one left in the windswept garden of the Museum of Modern Art. The lights were on inside, warm and glowing, and I could see a pink arm reaching skyward. I went back in to have another last, loving look at IT HASN'T SCRATCHED YET IT HASN'T SCRATCHED YET.
XI
FLICK MAKES AN ARTISTIC JUDGMENT FLICK MAKES AN ARTISTIC JUDGMENT ”How come they called it that?”
I laughed my notorious ironic cackle: ”It's some kind of soap or something.”
”You mean they named a statue after soap?” soap?”
Flick squeezed his bar rag juicily onto the duckboards behind the mahogany. I had a vague feeling that the beer was beginning to get to me.
”Well...it's a slogan.”
Behind us, all around us, everywhere, the jukebox boomed heavily and then stopped abruptly.
”Fer Chrissake, I can't see why they named a statue after soap.”
”Well, I told you, you gotta be With It.”
”Nuts.”
Once again I was reminded forcibly that I was back in the Midwest, very far from the effete East.
An uproar broke out in one of the booths back in the gloom near the wall. Two structural ironworkers were loudly Indian-wrestling.
”I'll be right back.”
Flick's jaw squared as he darted from behind the bar. I watched in the mirror as he quelled the battle, fed the combatants two more boilermakers, and returned.
”I'm not as tough as I used to be,” said Flick matter-of-factly. ”I argue more these days.”
I remembered the day well when Flick in his salad period had thrown three Tin Mill Reckoners out on the street in quick succession, which is the Hohman equivalent of taking on King Kong, Gargantua, and Gorgeous George simultaneously.
”I noticed they stopped,” I said.
”Well, they're on my bowling team. They'd better.”
We sat silently for a moment as old friends will when in the midst of a reminiscing orgy. Flick slid another beer toward me.
”That reminds me, Flick. Is it still where it used to be?”
”Yep.”
A minute later I was back at the bar, ready for more action and more beer. A faint snow was falling from the lead-colored skies. The wind rattled the plate gla.s.s windows of Flick's Tavern. Across the street the plastic streamers snapped and fluttered over the rows of like-new, mint-condition, creampuff, fully loaded, ready-to-go-specials. The Used-Car lot is a kind of shrine in Northern Indiana.
”You mean girls ride motorcycles motorcycles in New York?” in New York?”
”That is not all all they do.” they do.”
”Boy. New York sure sounds like a crazy place. I wanted to take my wife to see the Fair, but I couldn't get away.”
”You didn't miss much.”
Flick snapped a pretzel in two, moodily.
”Just the same, I'd a liked to have gone. I sure remember that one they had in Chicago.”
”Oh come on, Flick. We were just little tiny kids.”
”Yeah. But I remember it.”
I sipped my beer and thought about that for a few seconds.
”You know, Flick, I read somewhere that John Dillinger, the old bank robber, used to go to that fair and ride the Sky Ride, between heists.”
”I'll be d.a.m.ned. He was from Indiana, wasn't he?” Flick's Hoosier pride welled to the surface.
”You're d.a.m.n right, Flick. You know, I remember only one thing about that fair.”
XII
THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN Right there on the Lake, next to the Outer Drive, they began to build a model of Fort Sheridan. This was a fort that was operating during Indian times on the site of Chicago. It was the scene of several very b.l.o.o.d.y Indian battles. And here they were once again putting this fort together log by log in a perfect reproduction of the original. It sat there looking out over the cold blue water, and you could see it from the car. It was brown and low, and looked like it was made out of Lincoln Logs. To a kid, forts are very big things. I asked my father, driving the Olds: ”What is that?”
”Fort Sheridan.”
”Oh.”
”Yup. They're building a World's Fair.”
At that time the sh.o.r.e stretched empty and white, with little tufts of gra.s.s here and there, almost to the Fields Museum and down to the cold water, with only Fort Sheridan in the middle of the emptiness.
And, sure enough, a World's Fair began to grow. It spread outward like a mushroom patch from the tiny fort, and grew and grew and grew. Month by month, year by year, great blue and yellow and orange buildings right out of the land of Oz blotted out the Lake, until the tiny fort disappeared behind them all. Mile after mile was covered with this fantasy, this wonderland, this land of real, genuine, absolute Magic.
And I lived in a land that was eminently, very very unmagical. The least magic of all neighbhorhoods, a pure Oatmeal neighborhood-lumpy Oatmeal. And so the idea and the vision of the World's Fair began to be a true Fairyland. The Emerald City had come to the South Side.
It took hold of my imagination until there was room for nothing else, and I was not alone. All the newspapers ran stories, tremendous reams of copy, wondrous descriptions of what it was going to be like, this Shangri-La right there on the sh.o.r.es of Lake Michigan. And then the story began to spread about a special Kid thing that was going to be at the Fair. This Something grabbed me by the ankles and dragged me right into the vortex, and I will never forget it. It was a tremendous thing in my life. Treasure Island!
Treasure Island was a tiny World's Fair within the World's Fair. There was the Hall of Science, the Hall of Communications, the Hall of Man; all these great, wonderful halls that were dedicated to the proposition that Man was the most magnificent thing in the world, and that he was just beginning. A Century Of Progress! Over the horizon was even more magnificence and greatness, and in the middle of it all-Treasure Island!
The Tribune Tribune printed pictures of Treasure Island and told how it was going to be. I clipped them out and saved them, tons of them. One day I would be there myself. printed pictures of Treasure Island and told how it was going to be. I clipped them out and saved them, tons of them. One day I would be there myself.