Blind Date

  Levanter felt like a prankster praised for playing a practical joke on a superior.

  “But some of your letters — I mean stickers — caused a major event in my family,” the man murmured.

  “An event?”

  “That’s all I can call it. You see, one of my sisters has been an epileptic since childhood,” he said. “She’s in her forties now. Because of her illness, she never married and never worked away from the house. We all, the whole family, have always taken care of her.”

  Levanter squirmed.

  “She’s the one who collects the mail every day,” the friend went on. “A few months ago, she picked up your letter with a sticker proclaiming EPILEPSY — UNDERSTANDING IS HALF THE TREATMENT. She disregarded it at first, she said, but your next letter arrived with another slogan: HELP EPILEPTICS LIVE AND WORK IN DIGNITY.”

  Embarrassed, Levanter listened in silence.

  “Where do you get such stickers and stamps?” his friend asked.

  “I got those from a foundation that I occasionally contribute to,” said Levanter lamely.

  “I see,” the man said. “In any case, by then my sister was convinced that I had put you up to sticking all those messages on your mail to prod her into getting a job. When a letter arrived with EMPLOY EPILEPTICS, she ran away from home, leaving a note that she had taken the hint and did not want to be a burden to the family anymore. It took us and the authorities several weeks to trace her. We found her in pretty bad shape, but she’s back home now.”

  “It never occurred to me—” Levanter stammered.

  The other man shook his head. “It had never occurred to us either that she was so sensitive about her condition. No film or TV play about epileptics had ever upset her; she never took them personally. Yet she really took off over that EMPLOY EPILEPTICS sticker. Amazing what the printed word can do!”

  Like many other Europeans living in America, Levanter was awed by the effect the size of the country and its large population could have on one’s sense of freedom and enterprise.

  An acquaintance of his, an elderly man from Belgrade who had settled in Minneapolis, was full of stories about émigré investors.

  “For instance, take this fellow from Galicia,” he said to Levanter one day. “Came to this country a poor immigrant. No English, no profession to speak of, no relatives. Works nights sweeping floors, and learns the language by day.

  “One day, just for fun, he places an ad in two newspapers, one on the West Coast and one in the East: TICKLE HER FANCY — THREE ORIGINAL TICKLERS FOR A DOLLAR ONLY. He lists a post-office box. If he gets any answers, he figures he’ll send every customer three ordinary goose feathers for their buck. After all, where he comes from men have other things to worry about than tickling the fancy of their women.

  “In a few days, the post office calls him to say he has received several thousand letters. He picks up his mail and starts opening the letters. Out pour orders from all over the country. Some with one dollar, some with several dollars. Before he knows it, he is investing in the mail-order business. He buys thousands of goose feathers, envelopes, and postal stamps, hires three sweet young things to help him fill the orders. He places more newspaper ads in papers throughout the nation, hires more employees.

  “In the first few weeks he makes over sixty thousand dollars. But this is a large country, and a lot of people are willing to part with a mere dollar to tickle the fancy, or whatever else is ticklish, of their beloved. The orders keep coming. Today that guy is a millionaire. Over the mantelpiece in his Malibu Beach house hangs a plaque — a solid-gold relief of three goose feathers!”

  After a few glasses of wine, the man admitted to Levanter that he had been forced to leave Yugoslavia when the whole capital seemed to know of his eccentric sexual proclivity. “How many people like me are there in the world?” he asked.

  Levanter shrugged.

  The man answered himself. “A fraction of a fraction of one percent,” he said. “In a small country like Yugoslavia, that’s no more than a dozen people at most. They hide like animals, even from each other. But in America, a country of two hundred twenty million,” he continued, “a fraction of a fraction of one percent runs into tens of thousands. Here, people with my preference, like people with various political views, are free to advertise, to communicate with each other, and even to congregate in public places. When I learned about it, I felt like a left-handed person discovering a whole town of left-handers.”

  He reached into his desk drawer and brought out a thick book.

  “Our most recent directory,” he said, handing it to Levanter. “It lists thousands of people who like the same thing I like: names and professions, addresses, telephone numbers, even photographs of some of them. In fact, it seems that in America there are more men and women with my taste than there are inhabitants in the whole city of Belgrade. Imagine that! There I was a freak. Here I am one of the multitude. Nothing to be ashamed of anymore.”

  A few years after Levanter’s arrival in America, a New York-based booking agent for conventions mentioned that he had just arranged a three-day meeting of the newly formed Alliance of Small Americans. Like the better-known Little People of America, it was an organization made up of unusually short men and women, both midgets and dwarfs.

  Small Americans, the agent said, tried to avoid convening in big cities. In subways and buses, their faces were pushed into other people’s thighs, bellies, and bottoms. Most public telephones were hung too high for them to reach. In general, dwarfs or midgets in trouble were afraid to ask for help, because most people of average height assumed they were also mentally handicapped. It was not uncommon for little people to be sexually abused and molested by those who saw them as mere children, though they were endowed with the minds and appetites of adults.

  The meeting had been booked in the Midwest, in a place called Impton. The agent told Levanter that when he went there to inspect the facilities and to reserve rooms in hotels and motels for the conventioneers, none of the managers had ever heard of the Alliance of Small Americans. Thus, when he requested only hand-held microphones for the assemblies and asked for the lowest tables and chairs, the managers assumed that Small Americans were Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. The agent laughed as he told Levanter that he had done nothing to disabuse them.

  “I’d like to be there in Impton,” he said chuckling, “to see all their faces when these assorted dwarfs and midgets start descending upon them.”

  Curious about how such things went in his adopted country, Levanter landed at the airport that serviced Impton and two other neighboring townships, rented a car, and drove to the center of town. He went straight to the Taft, the largest hotel, which advertised itself as “unconventionally superconventional,” and took a room.

  The desk clerk handed him a guest registration card. Levanter looked up at the huge banner suspended from the ceiling: THE TAFT WELCOMES ALLIANCE OF SMALL AMERICANS: THE SCOUTS OF TODAY, THE LEADERS OF TOMORROW.

  “Who are these Small Americans?” Levanter asked the clerk while filling in the card.

  “Just boys and girls from all over the country. A Scouts’ convention, you know,” said the clerk.

  “How many are coming?”

  “A few hundred. Some might arrive tonight, the rest tomorrow.” He glanced at Levanter inquisitively. “You here on business?”

  Levanter smiled. “Looking for business.”

  “It’s all the same, isn’t it?” The man returned the smile.

  After dinner at the hotel, Levanter strolled over to the registration desk and leaned against the far end. A number of people were milling about the lobby: a couple with five children waiting for their luggage so they could depart, two businessmen who had just arrived, and several elderly men and women of the sort always found in the lobbies of respectable hotels, sitting, drowsing, reading, or just idly watching each other and the people who pass through.

  Suddenly, a tiny man came through the revolving door. He was less than three
feet tall, fat and pursy, his head nearly as big as his torso, his arms so short that the wrists seemed to grow out of his elbows. He approached the desk and, in a squeaky voice, asked the clerk to send a bellhop out to collect the luggage he had left outside with his wife. He then reached up, took a registration card, and, using his knee for support, began filling it in, writing with his left hand.

  “Did you see what I just saw?” the clerk whispered to Levanter when the short man walked away.

  “It’s a big country,” said Levanter. “A lot of left-handed people.”

  The clerk looked puzzled. “Left-handed? A lefty is one thing, a freak is another. Why, this fellow is shorter than my six-year-old kid.”

  “Will your kid grow any taller?” asked Levanter.

  “That isn’t funny, Mister,” said the clerk.

  Just then the little man returned, accompanied by a fat woman, an inch or two taller than he. She had a round face, double chin, full bosom, and plump thighs bulging out of tight shorts.

  Everyone in the room stared at the newcomers. The departing family clustered together, the five kids peeking out from behind their parents, mocking the waddle of the little couple. A few senior citizens who had dozed off in easy chairs woke up and, adjusting their glasses, blinked at the spectacle. The two businessmen stood dumfounded, dangling their room keys.

  The couple went up to the desk. Standing on tiptoe, they called out their names and asked for their room. The man said the reservations for the conventioneers had been made for the whole group, but he and his wife had arrived early.

  “What convention?” asked the clerk.

  The little man proudly pointed to the identification tag on his lapel. “Small Americans! What else?” he said.

  “Are your kids the delegates?” the clerk asked.

  “We don’t have any children,” said the woman.

  “We are the delegates,” the man said emphatically.

  The clerk glanced toward the cashier at the other end of the desk. But she deliberately looked in the other direction.

  “So you are!” the clerk said at last. “It just didn’t click right away that some grownups would be accompanying the kids,” he said cheerfully.

  “Not ‘grownups’!” the small man corrected him with a smile. “Adults!”

  “I didn’t mean it that way! Adults, of course!” Sheepishly the clerk handed the room key to the bellhop.

  The little couple went to the elevator, followed by the bellhop, who could not restrain his snickering.

  Levanter was still standing next to the desk.

  “In this line of work you have to expect anything,” said the clerk, rubbing his forehead. “How was I to know that these two worked with the Scouts? Adults, indeed!” he chortled.

  “It’s a big country!” Levanter said once more.

  The clerk had just settled down behind his desk when the revolving door spun around again. Three little women and four tiny men came through and advanced toward the desk. The clerk, engrossed in his work, did not see them.

  “You have some more guests,” said Levanter.

  The clerk stood up. When he saw the group, an expression of utter disbelief crossed his face. Open-mouthed, the cashier stared at the midgets. Everyone in the lobby turned toward the registration desk.

  The new arrivals were barely as tall as the desk. All wore convention identification tags.

  “Are you all delegates to the Scout convention?” the desk clerk asked, nodding toward the banner over the entrance.

  “Do you mean to the Small Americans convention?” asked one woman.

  “Yes, that’s the one.”

  “We are. What do Scouts have to do with it?” asked one of the men.

  “It’s their convention, that’s what,” answered the clerk, handing the group registration cards.

  “If you mean the Alliance of Small Americans, then it is ours,” another man said. “Scouts have nothing to do with it.”

  “I don’t believe there are very many Scouts in the Alliance,” one of the women added.

  “What do you mean there aren’t many Scouts?” The clerk was now on the verge of panic. “We’ve prepared the whole place for them. Why, we even installed additional bunks in a number of rooms so that many of the kids could be together! Look at that!” Once again he gestured toward the banner.

  “It’s your banner, not ours,” said one man.

  “Maybe the Scouts are having a convention at the same time,” said one of the women.

  The clerk did not answer. By now he seemed to have grasped the hotel’s misunderstanding.

  Word that the little people had come spread to other parts of the hotel. Soon cooks in white hats, waitresses in aprons, and patrons with napkins tucked under their chins crowded into the lobby to get a good look. As the new guests marched off to the elevator through the throng of spectators, two hotel technicians, trying to be inconspicuous, started to take down the banner.

  Levanter walked over to the bar across the street. A waiter from the hotel came rushing in. Laughing so hard he could barely speak, he tried to tell everyone what he had seen.

  “What’s going on?” Levanter asked.

  The waiter’s shoulders were shaking. “Would you believe there’s a busload of freaks over there?”

  “It’s a big country,” said Levanter offhandedly.

  The waiter ignored his remark. “Would you believe they’re all little pygmy people no taller than that?” he went on, bringing his hand to the level of the barstool.

  By now all the patrons had left the bar for the Taft. Levanter decided to take a drive through town.

  It was only nine o’clock but the main street was already almost deserted. A few teen-agers drove by, the finish on their polished cars reflecting brightly lit shop windows, the roar of their supercharged engines competing with blasts of music or chatter from their Citizens Band radios.

  Levanter passed the town hall, two department stores, a bowling alley and a shooting gallery, the post office, two drugstores, three banks, a shopping mall, the police station, and the bus and railroad terminals. Within fifteen minutes, he had crossed downtown Impton twice.

  He stopped for gas on the outskirts of town. The station attendant peered closely at Levanter, then at the car, as he filled the tank.

  “The wheels are local, but you’re not,” he said with a friendly smile as he wiped the windshield.

  “I’m not,” Levanter said.

  “By-passing Impton?”

  “Passing through. For a day or two.”

  “You’ll never guess who stopped here for gas ten minutes ago,” said the man, leaning through the window.

  “How about some midgets?” said Levanter, looking up at the sky.

  “I’ll be darned!” he exclaimed. “How did you know?”

  “It had to be someone you don’t see very often,” said Levanter.

  “Good thinking!” the attendant agreed. “I almost flipped when they drove up. Like in a circus: Seven Dwarfs in one small car. Bet I don’t see a sight like that again for the next twenty years!”

  “Don’t bet on it,” Levanter said as he paid for the gas. “You might see some more small miracles before the night’s over.”

  “That’ll be the day!” The man was chuckling as Levanter pulled away.

  Back at the hotel, Levanter found a small table in a far corner of the crowded, noisy bar. He ordered a drink and settled back to observe the scene. The Taft bar was the best in town, and most of the patrons, all prosperous-looking, seemed to be locals who knew one another.

  A group of Small Americans — five men and three women — appeared at the door. The room immediately became quiet. Everyone turned to look. Several couples at the back of the room stood up, straining to get a view of the little people, who did not seem to mind the attention. They moved to the center of the room, and one of them, a man with a flattened nose and exaggerated chest, asked a startled waiter to seat them, but not on the high barstools. The waiter led t
he group to two side tables, which, with some effort, they helped him push together. Seated there in a bunch, with their round faces, bulging necks, fatty arms, and stubby hands and fingers, they could have served as models for a human still-life theme — a bowl of plums, doughnuts, and bonbons.

  The hum of voices started up again. But the Small Americans remained the focus of attention. Many of the patrons could not take their eyes off them and lost interest in the sedate conversations at their own tables.

  Only one person in the entire room, a woman at the bar, seemed unaffected by the presence of the Small Americans. She had glanced at them indifferently and then had resumed talking to the two men she was with.

  A brunette, with subtle features, a shapely body, and long legs, she appeared to be in her midtwenties. Every time she laughed, men and women at nearby tables drew their eyes away from the Small Americans and glanced furtively at her. By midnight, when the little people got up to go, the brunette and her two companions were among the few patrons left. All three seemed tired and a bit drunk and were not speaking much to each other. The expression on the woman’s face was one of boredom as she scanned the almost empty room. When she noticed Levanter, her eyes showed a flicker of interest. As her companions watched, she picked up her drink, walked over to him, a bit unsteady, smiling as if they were acquainted. Before Levanter could offer her a chair, she sat down at his table, her back to the bar.

  “Please don’t mind my doing this,” she said, her speech a little slurred. “Can you smile? Pretend you know me. I want to get rid of those two at the bar.”

  Levanter smiled. Then she turned and waved good-by to the two men she had been sitting with and watched them walk out.

  “I’m Jolene. One of Impton’s foremost beauties, in case you haven’t noticed,” she said.

  “I’ve noticed. I’m George Levanter.”