And Tom Seaver had a pretty good day, too. The Mets announced that they were going to pay him twenty-four thousand dollars next season, just like Ed Kranepool.
Can you believe it?
February
On the first Friday of February, my father missed Walter Cronkite and the CBS Evening News because he was spending almost the whole day getting ready for the formal presentation of the Chamber of Commerce Businessman of 1967 Award at the Kiwanis Club that night. Actually, we were all spending a lot of time getting ready for the Kiwanis Club, because my mother and sister were wearing long gowns, and my father and I were wearing tuxedos, which are uncomfortable and don't fit right and come with shoes made for people with very wide feet.
My sister had used most of the getting-ready time to complain, especially about the stupid purple orchid that the Kiwanis Club had sent and which she had to pin to her shoulder. It didn't help when I pointed out that I had to wear a white carnation in my lapel and that wearing a purple orchid wasn't nearly as bad. And it really didn't help when I pointed out that I had had to wear white feathers on my butt and that wearing a purple orchid really wasn't as bad as that.
And it really, really didn't help when my father pointed out that she had wanted to be a flower child, and so here was her chance.
"You don't take anything I believe seriously, do you?" she said to him.
"Tie your hair back from your face," he said.
She went upstairs to the bathroom to tie her hair back from her face.
I went up after her. "You should take the orchid and flush it down the toilet," I said.
She looked at me. "Why don't you take your carnation and flush it down the toilet?"
"Maybe I will."
She pointed toward the toilet. "Go ahead."
But I didn't have to flush my carnation down the toilet, because right then a whole series of low chords sounded from the piano in the Perfect Living Room below us, followed by a roar and crash as the entire newly plastered ceiling fell, smashing down the top of the baby grand piano, ripping the plastic seat cushions, flattening the fake tropical flowers, tearing the gleaming mirror from the wall, and spreading its glittering shards onto the floor, where they mixed with the dank, wet plaster that immediately began to settle into the carpet to stain it forever.
All four of us stood in the hall, the sickly smell of mold in our nostrils.
If the committee that chose the Chamber of Commerce Businessman of 1967 had heard what my father had to say about the carpenters and plasterers who had come to fix our living room ceiling, they might not have given him the award, since one of the requirements was that the nominee had to support the general business atmosphere of the town, and my red-faced father was hollering and swearing about how he was going to decrease the number of the town's businesses by two—and he was shredding his white carnation as he said this, which is probably what Shylock would have done if he had been wearing a white carnation after being cheated out of his ducats.
It was a good thing that neither the carpenters nor the plasterers were at the Kiwanis Club that night.
We drove there in silence, and just before we walked into the club, I took off my carnation and handed it to my father. He took it without a word, and while my mother pinned it to his lapel, I held my flowerless lapel out to my sister and smirked.
She smiled back very sweetly. Then, as soon as we had gotten inside, she excused herself, went into the ladies' room, and came back without her orchid. She was still smiling sweetly when she leaned down to me and whispered, "Down the toilet, you little jerk."
So we were both flowerless as we went into the reception hall, but no one would have seen the flowers anyway, since the hall was so dark. The only light came from the candles on the tables, the lit ends of cigarettes, and the lamps at the head table, which shone off the fake paneling on the wall behind. My father sat up there, and the rest of us sat below him at a center table with the wives of the Kiwanis Club officers. My mother refused an offered cigarette—I could tell this wasn't easy—and then she chattered to the Kiwanis wives while my sister and I sat silently through the dinner—roast beef and mashed potatoes and buttered lima beans—and through dessert—lemon meringue pie with a whole lot more meringue than lemon—and through the opening greetings and speeches, and then through my father's speech of grateful acceptance.
He was still red in the face when he got up to speak, and you could tell he was looking out at the audience for the carpenters and plasterers. But he made it through without any hollering and swearing, and everyone clapped when he talked about the growing business opportunities of the town, and how he was glad to be a part of it all, and how someday he hoped to leave a thriving and FEbRuARy 133 prosperous business in a thriving and prosperous town to his son to carry on the good name of Hoodhood and Associates. Lots of clapping at this. When everyone at the head table looked down at me, I smiled and nodded like I was supposed to, since I'm the Son Who Is Going to Inherit Hoodhood and Associates.
My sister kicked me under our table.
Toads, beetles, bats.
When we got home that night, my father phoned the carpenters and the plasterers. He told them that he didn't care that it was late on a Friday night. And he didn't care that tomorrow was a Saturday. They had better be at the house first thing in the morning, ready to fix the ceiling permanently and to offer restitution for the property damage their carelessness had caused.
They were there, first thing in the morning.
If I had had anything to say about it—which, of course, I didn't—I would have had the carpenters and plasterers head over to Camillo Junior High as soon as they were done with the Perfect Living Room, because the ceiling in our classroom was getting to be a bigger and bigger problem as the weeks went by and Mr. Guareschi and Mr. Vendleri couldn't trap, poison, snag, snare, net, corner, maim, coax, or convince the rats to give themselves up. Eight asbestos ceiling tiles had started to bulge down, which meant that either Sycorax and Caliban were getting fatter or the ceiling was getting weaker. Every morning, Mrs. Baker looked up at the bulges to inspect them. And every morning she looked a little more nervous.
"So suppose she looks up there and sees that they've chewed a hole in the tiles and they're looking back down at her. What happens then?" I said to Danny.
"You know that sound the bus driver made just before she hit you?"
I remembered the sound.
"It wasn't anything compared to what Mrs. Baker would do."
We waited hopefully, but the eight bulging tiles stayed intact.
At the beginning of February, Mrs. Baker had assigned me Romeo and Juliet. I read it in three nights.
Let me tell you, these two wouldn't make it very far in Camillo Junior High. Never mind that Romeo wears tights—at least according to the pictures—but he just isn't very smart. And Juliet isn't too strong in that department, either. I mean, a potion to almost kill you? She drinks a potion to almost kill you? Who would drink a potion to almost kill you? Then Romeo goes ahead and drinks a potion that will kill you because he can't figure out that she's only had a potion that almost kills you? And then Juliet, who at least is smart enough to figure out that Romeo really is dead, makes sure that she uses a knife this time, which is not almost going to kill you, but really will kill you?
Doesn't this sound like something that two people who can't find their way around the block would get themselves into?
Of course it does.
Mrs. Baker couldn't see this problem at all. Because she's a teacher, and no teacher ever does. "Didn't you find it tragic and beautiful and lovely?" she asked me when I told her I'd finished reading it.
See?
"Not really," I said.
"What did you find it then?"
"Stupid."
"There we have an opinion that overturns three hundred and seventy-five years of critical appreciation. Is there a particular reason that you find it 'stupid'?"
"Because they never would have done what the
y did."
"Fall in love?"
"All the stuff at the end."
"The poison and the knife," she said.
"Yes. They never would have done that."
Mrs. Baker considered this for a moment. "What would they have done?"
"Gone to Mantua together."
"And their parents?"
"Ignored them."
"I'm not sure that life is quite as simple as that. These are star-crossed lovers. Their fate is not in their own hands. They have to do what has already been decided for them. That's why it's so tragic and beautiful and lovely."
You see? Tragic and beautiful and lovely again. Why not just stupid and dumb?
Meryl Lee thought it was wonderful that I was reading Romeo and Juliet, since, having been inspired by the Long Island Shakespeare Company's Holiday Extravaganza, she was reading it, too. "Don't you think it's romantic, Holling?"
"I guess so."
"And you're reading it just before Valentine's Day."
"Yeah."
"The most romantic day of the year. Don't you love the balcony scene?" She clasped her hands and held them beneath her chin. "O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?"
"Meryl Lee, let's go somewhere together for Valentine's Day."
I turned around to look behind me, because someone else must have said what just popped out of my mouth.
"What?" said Meryl Lee.
I was still trying to figure out how that popped out. I think it must have been because of Mrs. Baker and her "Shakespeare is expressing something about what it means to be a human being" and the "tragic and beautiful and lovely" routine. It all had gotten into the air and mixed together, and the first thing you know after you start breathing that stuff, you say things like what I said to Meryl Lee.
But what could I do now? So I said it again: "Let's go somewhere together for Valentine's Day."
She put her hand on her hip and thought for a moment. Then, "No," she said.
This, in case you're missing it, is the tragic part.
"Why not?" I said.
"Because you called me a blind mole, and then you acted like a jerk about your father winning the Baker Sporting Emporium contract."
"That was three months ago, and I did not act like a jerk."
"You still called me a blind mole and hoped—let me see if I can get this right—you hoped that an unwholesome dew from a wicked fen would drop on me."
It was actually a wicked dew from an unwholesome fen, but I'm a lot smarter than Romeo, and I know when to shut up.
Now, here comes the lovely part.
"Meryl Lee," I said, "there lies more peril in thine eye than twenty of their swords. Look thou but sweet."
"Twenty of whose swords?"
"It's Shakespeare," I said. "It doesn't have to make sense. They just have to be words more beautiful than have ever yet been written."
"So mole and blind are two words more beautiful than have ever yet been written?"
"Had I it written, I would tear the word."
Meryl Lee smiled. "All right," she said. "I'll go."
I told you it was the lovely part.
Even though I still can't figure out how those words popped out of my mouth.
That night, I sat through supper trying to decide where I could take Meryl Lee on an allowance that I had to string together for three weeks just to get some cream puffs. There was a moment—this will tell you how desperate I was—when I thought I might ask Mr. Goldman about another play. But it might be Romeo and Juliet, and that would mean more tights. And not for the whole wide world was I going to wear tights again.
So I asked my mother, "Where could I take someone with $3.78?"
The supper table quieted.
"Well," she said, "I suppose for an ice cream cone."
"It's February," I said.
"Then, maybe to Woolworth's for a hamburger and a Coke."
"Woolworth's."
She shrugged. "And then to a movie afterward."
My mother was not powerful at arithmetic.
"Who are you taking?" asked my father.
"Meryl Lee."
"Meryl Lee who?"
"Meryl Lee Kowalski."
"Meryl Lee Kowalski, the daughter of Paul Kowalski, of Kowalski and Associates?"
"I guess," I said.
He laughed. "You'd better hurry."
"Why hurry?"
"If Hoodhood and Associates get the junior high school contract—and we intend to—then Kowalski and Associates may very well be no more." He laughed again.
"Take her to Woolworth's," said my sister.
"Really?"
"Really. Then she'll know you're a cheapskate and dump you after the first date."
If you think that saving someone's life is all it's cracked up to be, and that the savee should swear eternal loyalty and gratitude to the saver, you don't know the part about how the savee, if she has a picture of her buttocks published in the Home Town Chronicle, has no further obligations to the saver.
If my father was sounding more arrogant than usual, it's because he had brought home a scale model of his design for the new junior high school, and he figured it was a winner. And looking at it sitting on the dining room sideboard, where all the silver had been pushed to the edges to make room for it, I thought he might be right. No pillars, he pointed out. No brickwork. No symmetrical layout. Everything was to be new and modern. So there were curved corners and curved walls. The roof was a string of domes all made out of glass. They arched over the main lobby, the gym, and clusters of science and art classrooms. When I pointed out that the building wasn't square, he pointed out that this was 1968 after all, and times were changing. Architecture should change, too. He pushed back his chair, walked over to the model, and took off its top half. "Look at this interior," he said. "Open hallways that rise three stories to the domes. Every classroom looks out into sunlit space. No one's ever come up with that concept for a junior high school before."
Like I told you, it was a winner.
But it didn't help me plan a $3.78 evening for Valentine's Day with Meryl Lee.
And after supper, while my sister washed and I dried, she was even more helpful than she had been before.
"What are you going to give Meryl Lee before you go out on your date?" she asked.
"It's not a date, so why should I give her something before we go out?"
"Of course it's a date. You have to give her something, like flowers or candy. Don't you know anything? It's Valentine's Day."
"I have $3.78."
"Then buy a rose. Have the florist put a ribbon on it or something. Meryl Lee will figure out you're a cheapskate soon enough anyway."
"I'm not a cheapskate. I just don't have any money."
My sister shrugged. "It's the same thing," she said.
The next day, I asked Danny where he would take someone if he were going somewhere for Valentine's Day.
"I am going somewhere for Valentine's Day," he said.
"You are?"
"I'm going out with Mai Thi."
"You are?" I said again.
He nodded.
"Where are you going?"
"To Milleridge Inn."
"Milleridge Inn?"
You have to know that this is the most expensive place to eat you can go to on the eastern seaboard.
"And afterward, my dad is going to drive us to see Camelot."
"He is?"
Danny nodded again.
"Just swell," I said.
You know how it's sometimes possible to hate your best friend's guts? I figured that by the time Danny was done, he'd spend $17 or $18. And he'd probably buy her a rose, too.
Toads, beetles, bats.
The Wednesday before Valentine's Day for the cheapskate, Mrs. Baker and I read aloud the last two acts of Romeo and Juliet. It was okay, but Romeo still was a jerk.
Come, bitter conduct, come, unsavory guide!
Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on
Th
e dashing rocks thy seasick weary bark.
Sure. If I was about to die for love, I think I could come up with something better than that. But I guess the rest was all right, down in the tombs with torches and swords and stuff. Shakespeare needed to get more of that in.
By the time we were done, Mrs. Baker was almost in tears, it was all so tragic and beautiful and lovely. "You need to see this on stage, Mr. Hoodhood. It's playing at the Festival Theater on Valentine's Day. Go see it."
Now, aren't you glad I didn't ask Mr. Goldman about another play? I told you the next one would be Romeo and Juliet—in tights. This is called foresight, and it probably saved me from more white feathers on my butt.
"I'm already taking Meryl Lee someplace on Valentine's Day," I told Mrs. Baker.
"Are you? Where are you taking her?"
"Someplace that costs less than what's left over from $3.78 after you buy a rose with a ribbon on it."
"That limits you somewhat."
"My sister says that Meryl Lee will think I'm a cheapskate."
"It's not how much you spend on a lady," said Mrs. Baker. "It's how much you give her of yourself?"
"Like Romeo."
She nodded. "Like Romeo."
"He didn't end up too well," I pointed out.
"No," she said. "But Juliet never asked for anything but him."
"So is that what Shakespeare wanted to express about being a human being?"
"That," said Mrs. Baker, "may well be a question for your essay examination on Romeo and Juliet. Next Wednesday we'll review, and you'll write it the week after that. No—no more one-hundred-and-fifty-question tests. You are ready to do more than that."
I guess that was good news.
On Valentine's Day, Mr. Guareschi announced over the P.A. that Mrs. Bigio had baked Valentine's Day cupcakes for the junior high, and each class should send down a representative to pick up the class's allotted number of cupcakes at 1:00. I know this doesn't sound like a big deal, but let me tell you, Mrs. Bigio can bake cupcakes. You never want to turn down a Mrs. Bigio cupcake—even if it is all pastel pink with little hearts in the frosting.