Part 18 (1/2)
Mr. Doppler continued, pretending to have difficulty in reading the number.
”D...Seven...Oh...let's see. This is D-Seven-Oh-Three....”
On a rising inflection, the audience now in a state of frenzy, scattered wails of lament and thuds of bodies falling amid popcorn cartons as Doppler closed with a smas.h.i.+ng finish, his voice rising to a crescendo.
”D-Seven-Oh-Three-EIGHT!”
I sank back into my seat as a high thin squeak came from somewhere near the EXIT EXIT sign to the left of the popcorn stand. A great roar arose among the defeated as a tiny, limp figure, carried down the aisle by jubilant companions, rushed toward the stage, yipping as they came. My G.o.d! It was a girl! sign to the left of the popcorn stand. A great roar arose among the defeated as a tiny, limp figure, carried down the aisle by jubilant companions, rushed toward the stage, yipping as they came. My G.o.d! It was a girl!
Muttered obscenities in the darkness. The mob was now in an angry mood at this unexpected turn of events. A girl! Flick, next to me, half-rose in his c.o.c.kpit, his meat hook poised to hurl the remains of a taffy apple onstage as a statement of defiance. The sharp bark of an usher in the aisle catching him in midair: ”Siddown!”
The flashlight beam caught him, taffy apple c.o.c.ked, jaw set He sat, sheepishly.
Onstage it was all anti-climax, and Mr. Doppler knew it. Quickly wrapping up the scene, he hurried the bicycle, kids, and ushers offstage and darkness fell. As we prepared for the first volley of the fourth feature of the afternoon. It was again the beating surf of crackling paper wrappings, the steady crunch crunch crunch of mastication picked up in tempo and blended into the fanfare of bugles superimposed on the opening credits and the great cla.s.sic line: REPUBLIC PICTURES PRESENTS.
As the Longest Day wore on, time completely obliterated, the Outside World non-existent, no day, no night, just the thunder of the Pursued and the Pursuers and the crunch of fist meeting jaw and the crash of bottle hurled through barroom mirror roared ever onward. Life was complete. Occasionally a menacing form roamed up and down the aisles, searching for a huddled fugitive from supper. A sharp outcry in the darkness and a kid would be dragged, kicking and screaming, protestingly toward the EXIT EXIT sign and back into life. sign and back into life.
Then, finally, three quick Mighty Mouse cartoons in succession as a capper for the road, and it was all over for another week. Back out in the real world at last splinter bands of bloated, sticky, Tootsie Roll-filled kids drifted homeward, recounting in absolute detail every labyrinthine twist and turn of each feature, reliving each fistfight and walkdown, each ambush and thunderous escape in the embattled stagecoach as the ideological arguments began. The Ken Maynard faction snorting derisively at the lesser Bob Steele contingent. An occasional Roy Rogers nut would sing nostalgically, nasally, ”On The Streets Of Laredo.” A few holdouts for Tim Holt, outnumbered but game, all united finally in UNIVERSAL UNIVERSAL distain for the effete d.i.c.k Foran and Gene Autry. distain for the effete d.i.c.k Foran and Gene Autry.
The great day was almost over. We all had to face the ordeal of trying to stuff down baked beans and spare ribs at supper, which was not easy on top of four Milky Ways and a rich compost heap of other a.s.sorted indigestibles drifting like some great glacier down through our digestive systems.
The uproar on Sat.u.r.day afternoons at the Orpheum was as nothing compared to the constant hoopla and razzmatazz of the rest of the week, when Mr. Doppler's Orpheum would rise to a fever pitch of excitement. Very little of it had anything to do with actual movies, although the Orpheum pretended that it was in the Film business and so did the customers.
Monday night, immediately after supper, the Faithful-or at least one contingent of them-would scurry through the darkening streets toward the sacred temple to play Screeno. I have heard that in other movie houses this was called Keeno, but Mr. Doppler was a Fundamentalist. As the Judy Canova fans pushed through the turnstiles, they would be handed a crude sheet of cardboard ruled off in squares, with the great black letters: SCREENO! EVERYBODY HAS A A CHANCE TO WIN! WATCH YOUR NUMBERS CHANCE TO WIN! WATCH YOUR NUMBERS!.
Next to the door was a wastebasket filled with corn kernels. Each lover of the Cinematic Art would grab a handful on his way in to the humid arena of the Fun Palace, slide down in his seat, and wait for the action.
About 7 P.M P.M. on would come the Movietone News, with the bathing beauties and the horse races, funny goose-stepping comic soldiers wearing scuttle helmets marching in phalanxes to the sound of ”Deutschland uber Alles,” ”Deutschland uber Alles,” Westbrook Van Vorhees and the Voice of Doom. Ten minutes of previews of coming attractions, featuring music by the Coming Attractions Band, and the first feature would begin, with Ben Blue chasing Judy Canova around a haystack as the mob rustled their cards and crunched on corn kernels in keen antic.i.p.ation of the delights that were to follow. Westbrook Van Vorhees and the Voice of Doom. Ten minutes of previews of coming attractions, featuring music by the Coming Attractions Band, and the first feature would begin, with Ben Blue chasing Judy Canova around a haystack as the mob rustled their cards and crunched on corn kernels in keen antic.i.p.ation of the delights that were to follow.
By the time Judy had deafened the mult.i.tude and the eighth reel spun out, the moment of exultation arrived. The house lights would go on; the popcorn bags stashed, and there would be a moment of suspended animation while the real reason all were there was getting under way. On stage the great white screen stood empty. Mr. Doppler could be heard-himself!-testing the PA system, his rich, dynamic voice: ”h.e.l.lo, test. h.e.l.lo, test. One-Two-Three-Four. Can you hear me up in the booth, Fred?”
And then, silence. Next on screen a great blue and red numbered wheel appeared, with an enormous yellow pointer, and Mr. Doppler would get right down to business.
”All right, folks, it's time once again to play the Fun game, Screeno. Anyone filling out a diagonal or horizontal line with corn kernels wins a magnificent grocery prize. Yell out 'Screeno.' Be sure to check your numbers. And now, here we go!”
A spectacular fanfare would wow into the sound system, since Doppler really believed in Production all the way, and the evening would start. On the screen the pointer, a yellow blur, spun as band music played softly behind. Everyone leaned forward in their seats, their cards held at ready as they waited for the call of Fate and Riches to lay its golden breath on their fevered, movie-loving brows. The pointer slowed, and stopped, and Doppler's voice intoned: ”The first number is B Twelve.”
Rustlings, creaking of seats, muttering. Some steel-mill wit up in the gloom hollers: ”Screeno!”
The crowd t.i.tters and the pointer spins again. A constant obbligato of dropping, rolling, and scrunching corn kernels and excited mumblings played like a soft flame under the great pot of edible gold that all pursued. Finally someone inevitably shouted: ”SCREENO!”
And the first prize of the evening was snagged. Doppler, his voice trembling with emotion: ”And now the first Screeno gift of the evening, a five-dollar bag of groceries from the Piggely-Wiggely store on Calumet Avenue, Credit Extended, Superb Meats and Groceries; We Cash Checks. This five-dollar bag of superb vittles goes to....”
The usher would hurry down the aisle with the winner's Screeno card and his name, the audience s.h.i.+fting restlessly, distractedly waiting for the next game to begin, and somewhere off in the middle distance the sound of celebration as the winning party, already tasting the Piggely-Wiggely bacon, celebrated the great coup.
The pointer whirled; the action roared on. The kids, not eligible to partic.i.p.ate under the strict International rules of Cla.s.sical Screeno, spent most of the time throwing corn kernels at the balcony and the silver screen.
To the right of the stage glowed a magnificent smoked ham and all the other grocery gifts for the Screeno crowd. During the Depression a seven-pound ham was good for at least four months in the average family, not including 800 gallons of rich, vibrant pea soup, so Screeno was a very serious game. Rising above the usual Orpheum aroma, a rich mixture of calcified gum, Popcorn, hot leatherette seats, steamy socks, and Woolworth Radio Girl perfume and hair oil, was the maddening scent of smoked bacon, fresh pickles, and crushed corn kernels.
Screeno was played for at least forty-five minutes, until the last can of Van Camp's Pork & Beans had been won. The excitement rising upward until the final great moment, the Grand Award-a year's supply of Silvercup Bread, provided by the local A & P store. Bread truly was the staff of life to a dedicated Screeno addict. A year's supply of bread! The very bread that the Lone Ranger lived on and that Tonto used to make the French toast and to sop up the gravy of the Lone Ranger's solitary chuck wagon beans.
Immediately after the Grand Award, which of course Doppler masterfully squeezed for every last drop of dramatic tension, the lights would go out and on would come somebody with a rich Bavarian accent saying: ”Munngeys iss der cwaziest peebles.”
And once again Culture marched on into the next feature. There was never a recorded instance of a Single Feature playing the Orpheum.
And so went Monday. Tuesday was known as Bank Night. Bank Night was for the really Big Time movie fans, and that crowd usually avoided Screeno like the plague. Every week the Bank Night jackpot rose by hundred-dollar jumps, and every week Tuesday night at Zero Hour, amid a deep hush, the spotlight on stage, the sinister cage containing the Bank Night registration slips was spun as the world perceptibly slowed in its...o...b..tal flight around the sun. Mr. Doppler, standing solemn and straight-no razzle-dazzle on Bank Night-waited beside his silver microphone as a s.h.i.+mmering white card was drawn by one of the audience. A moment of agonizing hesitation and in a quiet voice Mr. Doppler would say: ”Tonight's Bank Night registration drawing for seventeen hundred seventeen hundred dollars....” dollars....”
A pregnant pause at this point to let the 1700 bucks sink even deeper into the souls of the harpooned congregation, most of whom hadn't seen a whole ten-dollar bill for five years running.
Seventeen hundred hundred dollars! Everyone in the house had followed the progression of Bank Night from the first 100 dollars to its present astronomical height, and each week Mr. Doppler would change the great red figures on the marquee, and all week-seven long days-the feverish Bank Night dreamers pa.s.sing back and forth on their aimless errands were constantly reminded. Seventeen hundred dollars! And next week-eighteen hundred dollars! dollars! Everyone in the house had followed the progression of Bank Night from the first 100 dollars to its present astronomical height, and each week Mr. Doppler would change the great red figures on the marquee, and all week-seven long days-the feverish Bank Night dreamers pa.s.sing back and forth on their aimless errands were constantly reminded. Seventeen hundred dollars! And next week-eighteen hundred dollars!
As each week rolled into history, the sweat, the nervousness, the fear that someone else would strike it big grabbed at the very vitals of each registrant. He scrabbled and sc.r.a.ped week after week to scratch up the price of a ticket, until finally, at the 1700 mark, it had become almost a compulsive nightmare.
The movies shown on Bank Night unreeled before uncomprehending, glazed eyes, their pupils contracted to pinpoints glowing in the darkness, their breath coming in the telltale short pants of the near-hysteric. Seventeen hundred dollars meant the difference between actual Life and gnawing, grubbing, penny-scrabbling, bare Existence. On Bank Night there were no no friends, only solitary sparks of human protoplasm-alone-plotting, scheming, hoping against hope that no one else would win. friends, only solitary sparks of human protoplasm-alone-plotting, scheming, hoping against hope that no one else would win.
”...is Number Two-Two-Nine-Five!”
Silence. A stunned, watchful, waiting, fearful fearful silence. Will the $1700 be claimed? Is Two-Two-Nine-Five here? A single thought in each Depression-ridden mind. Judy Canova, Jack Oakie, and even Clark Gable drowned in a dark, swirling sea of anxiety. silence. Will the $1700 be claimed? Is Two-Two-Nine-Five here? A single thought in each Depression-ridden mind. Judy Canova, Jack Oakie, and even Clark Gable drowned in a dark, swirling sea of anxiety.
”Is the holder of that card in the house?”
Silence.
”I repeat, Number Two-Two-Nine-Five. Is the holder of that card in the house? Once.”
An usher on the right of the stage, in a blue spotlight, raised a padded mallet and struck a gong.
BOOOONNGGG.
The clangorous boom rolled out over the mult.i.tude like some cataclysmic death knell, echoing and re-echoing from c.o.ke machine to gilded cherubim, high above the arched stage and down into the depths of the hearer's subconscious, a sound that must be something like the one that will be heard on Judgment Day before the great trumpets blow and Gabriel rises to summon the Faithful from their graves.
”Once.”
A dramatic pause.
”Twice.”
BOING!.
Another dramatic pause.
”TWO-TWO-NINE-FIVE. Three times and out.”
BOING!.
A deep collective sigh of relief, blessed, numbed, tremulous relief rose from the darkness. The audience settled back into their seats. Already plans were under way in fevered minds on how to grub together next Tuesday's admission.
Somewhere, someplace, in some dark mortgaged hut, Number Two-Two-Nine-Five, who had decided to stay home this one night in order to save the forty cents' price, tossed uneasily in his sleep, unknowing, as the great s.h.i.+p of Fortune sailed by him, unseen, unheard, into the darkness forever. The bedsprings creaked as he s.h.i.+fted in his sleep. He slept on.
Mr. Doppler played on the vast organ of human emotions like a master musician, twittering on the Acquisitiveness stop as one possessed of an evil genius.