Chapters 16 to 20

Chapter Sixteen


“‘Olé, Baby,'” Ramona told Smiley. “I wrote it myself.”


“Sounds like a good one, Raymond,” said Smiley, his eyes smiling while his mouth remained tight-lipped as always. “I’ll go set the tape rollin’. You can start in a minute.”


Smiley retreated into the booth at the back of the Ranch House studio. I could see him through a large window in the side of the booth. He took off his cowboy hat and slipped some headpnones on.  He did some things with dials and switches which I
couldn’t see.

Then his voice boomed out through the studio speakers. “Just have to set the reel-to-reel,” he said. “Okay, testing, testing, one, two, three. Sound good out there, Cecil?”


Cecil, wearing a Tartan sport shirt in blue, gray, and white, sat behind the drum kit.  He nodded and tapped the hi-hat cymbal a couple of times.


“All right then,” boomed Smiley. “Smith Brothers audition, take one.  Any time you’re ready, gentlemen.”


Cecil started off with the beat, and Ramona and I came in at four.


    Olé baby
    Why doncha take me to a bullfight
    Olé baby
    Let’s go where the kids dance all
    night
    Olé, baby, and go, man, go
    Take me on down to sunny Mexico!
    Well, I took a trip down to sunny Mexico
    They got a swingin’ little club there
    They call the Sombrero…


Cecil was doing a pretty credible job on the drums. Of course, the beat was simple, but old Cecil, when I’d first met him, had looked so sallow and seemed low-key.  I’d been surprised he had the strength to sit up, let alone keep time on snare, bass, and cymbal.

 

But that first time, he’d been wearing a red plaid shirt, the same colors as the dust jacket on my mother’s Betty Crocker cookbook.  Red made Cecil look wan, if not downright ill.  Now, in blue and gray plaid, Cecil looked considerably more alive.


We moved right along through Ramona’s song, slipping smoothly through the song and into the last repeat of the chorus.


    …Olé, baby, and go, man, go
    Take me on down to sunny Mexico!


“That’s a take,” Smiley said into the booth mike. “Will you do us one more?”


“Sure,” said Ramona/Raymond from behind her glued-on mustache. “How about ‘Rave On?'”


“Fine,” said Smiley. “Tape’s rolling.”


We surged into “Rave On.” The first verse went without a hitch, but toward the middle of the second, I glanced at my sister. Ramona/Raymond’s mustache was developing a definite droop on the right-hand side. I hope it would stay on at least until the song was over.


But as we belted out “Rave on, it’s a crazy feelln’,” I started getting a nervous feelin’.  That mustache was about to fall off completely. Already, a good quarter-inch of it was hanging off Ramona/Raymond’s face.


I looked around. Cecil was concentrating on his drum kit, and Smiley was intently watching the sound meters.

“No, no, no!” I shouted, stepping back from the floor mike. Cecil’s drumsticks froze in mid-air; the piano tinkled to a halt.


I marched angrily to where my sister sat at the piano, moving so as to block Smiley and Cecil’s view of Ramona. “What’s the problem, man? That piano ain’t jumpin’.” Under my breath I hissed, “Your mustache is coming off. Press it back.  No, the other side.”


Ramona/Raymond adjusted the drooping facial hair and I returned to my mike, announcing, “The music wasn’t right.” When the take was over, Smiley left the booth to  stand near Cecil’s drum set. As he turned to go back to the booth, I heard him whisper to Cecil, “These redheads are awful hot-headed.”


We ran through “Rave On” from the beginning, this time without a hitch. Smiley left the booth to play the tape back for us. We all sat silently until the last strains of “Rave On” faded away.


“Sounds real good, real good,” Smiley said. “I like that good high tenor singin’, myself. You boys make the Everly Brothers sound like regular bass singers.”

“You makin’ fun of me?” Ramona asked in a surly Raymond voice. “You tryin’ to say I’m not a real man?”  She clenched her small fists and glared menacingly. “Look, buddy, if you want to step outside—”


I jumped up and pretended to subdue her. “Cool it, Raymond. The man’s not tryin’ to Insult you. Don’t wig out, man. The cat’s Just sayln’ we sing high. That’s true, right? So cool it.”


“Okay,” answered Ramona sullenly, relaxing a little.


Smiley lit one of his smoky cigars, apparently unperturbed by Ramona’s outburst. “I think you boys have a lot of potential,” he said between puffs, “and I think you could be a real asset to our label. I’d like to put out ‘Olé, Baby’ as a single, with ‘Rave On’ on the flip side.”  He tapped some cigar ash into a ceramic ashtray shaped like a Western guitar, and for a moment Smiley seemed to be on the verge of an actual smile.

 

“We can set up some personal appearance dates around the state and over in Illinois, for you to promote the record.  I’ve got some deejay buddies who owe me a favor or two. We can talk about all that laer, though. First we need to set up a recordin’ date.”

“Wait,” I said.  “That wasn’t it?””This was our chance to hear your song on the reel-to-reel,” said Smiley.  “We’ll need to come back to cut the master.  But before that, there’s some damned paperwork that we got to get through. Cecil, can you go through the files and get me the papers we need?”


“Sure thing.” Cecil ambled over to a dusty file cabinet wedged into a corner near the engineer’s booth, pulled out the bottom drawer and began to rifle through it.


“Now about the date to record,” said Smiley,  pulling a small red notebook out of his suit jacket pocket and looking through it. “Can you be here the twenty-sixth of this month, ‘long about lunchtime?”


“Sure,” said Ramona/Raymond eagerly.

 

I frowned at her a little. This thing was getting a bit out of hand. I mean, I was the one who pushed Ramona about getting the song recorded, but I hadn’t thought about having to make a legal commitment.


Cecil returned with a handful of printed forms.

 

“Okay,” Smiley said as he took the.forms from Cecil. “What we got here is Just the standard legal crap.  Copyrights, the responsibilities of each partner in the contract, advance payments — ”

 

“Whoa,” said Ramona. “Just a sec. What’s this advance payment?”


“Standard procedure,” answered Smiley. “The idea is, the artist renders his services to the company for a set period of time, and in exchange for that, we advance each artist a sum of money against royalties. “


“How much is this payment?” asked Ramona.

 

“Six hundred fifty per artist,” said Smiley. “So seein’ as how you’re a duo, that’d be three and a quarter apiece.”


“No,” Ramona said firmly. “That ain’t right, man. Six hundred fifty an artist, two artists—that’s thirteen thousand total.”


Ramona was considerably more interested in the financial angle of this thing than I thought she ought to be. We’d be smart to keep the brakes on till we saw what the contract entailed.


Smiley took off his Stetson and smoothed his hair. “Now, that ain’t the way it generally works, Mister Smith. See, what’s meant by ‘artist’ is–“


“I’m hip to the word, Jack. Ricky is an artist, and so am I. We’re both artists, not the same person.  Six fifty per artist is the deal. So either we get a cool thirteen hundred, or,” she shrugged, “it’s Splitsville.”

 

“You drive a hard bargain, Mister Smith, but I’m a reasonable man,” replied Smiley. (Yeah, either that, I thought, or a crook.) “We’ll write the additional money in. Here are two copies of the standard contract. Look ’em over, and if ever’thing looks like it should be, you can put your John Hancocks down there at the bottom.”


He pushed the contracts toward us, unclipped a tacky fake-gold pen from his shirt pocket, and extended it across the table.


Ramona/Raymond grabbed the pen and lowered the point toward the dotted line. I grabbed her wrist. “Hold on there, boy.”


“We hafta consult our manager first,” I told Smiley. “Ernie told us never to sign nothin’ unless he looked it over first.”


“I can understand that,” said Smiley. “We’re talkin’ a thirty-six month commitment here. You talk it over with Mister Neuenheimer–“


“Neuenschwander,” I corrected.


“–Neuenschwander, and see what he thinks. If he thinks you’re gettin’ a square deal, you can sign both copies and send them to me here. Have you all got a telephone number where I can reach you if I need to?”

“Ah–” I gulped.


“Sure,” said Ramona quickly. “I can give you the number of the cat we’re hangln’ out with.” She rattled off the number of the phone in our bedroom.


Ramona gathered up the contracts as I said, “Well, thanks, Smiley. We’ll talk to Ernie, and tell you what the score is later, right?”


“Fine, fine,” said Smiley, showing us to the door. “See you on the twenty-sixth, I hope.”


After a cheery round of goodbyes, Ramona/Raymond and I climbed into Nancy’s station wagon, borrowed for the occasion, and sped off. Restarting the engine, which died at the first Intersection, I said, “I guess we better call and tell him, Ramona. I didn’t think about having to sign anything. You want to tell him together, or should I just do it?”


“Tell him?” screeched Ramona. “Are you nuts? We got a recording contract and thirteen hundred bucks, and you want to tell him?” Her voice rose to a squeak of indignation.


“You’re not seriously thinking of signing that contract,” I said, turning on the windshield wipers against the beginning splatters of a rainstorm.


“Of course I’m thinking of it,” said Ramona. “What’s the matter with you? When I wanted to ‘fess up instead of audition, you made fun of me. How come you’ve got cold feet all of a sudden?”

“A three-year contract is enough to give anybody cold feet, Ramona. Three years. I go away to college in the fall, dear heart. Besides, I don’t trust Smiley.”


“You can go to college any old time,” Ramona said hotly.  “How often do you get a chance to get a record on the radio? Besides,” she said, more softly and persuasively, “you could use the money from the record to finance your education. Then you wouldn’t have to take out all those bank  loans. thinks how long it would take to pay those off.”


I pictured myself as an old woman, tottering to the mailbox to send off a payment to the bank. Six hundred fifty dollars would make quite a dent, and any additional money.. .


“No,” I said firmly. “In the first place, I’m not sure Smiley is on the level.”


“He seems real nice,” protested Ramona.


“That’s just it,” I said. “He seems nice, but is he? He seems a little too nice to me, and he’s awfully anxious to have us sign that contract.”


“Regina, you’re so suspicious,” said my sister. “He seems nice because he’s nice, and he wants us to sign with him because we’re good.”


“Maybe,” I said doubtfully. “It doesn’t matter. We can’t go on with this, Ramona. We’d have to tell Mom and Dad. I can see it now. ‘Dad, I want to put off college so I can dress up like a man and play rock-and-roll music.’ Let’s be realistic, Ramona.”


“You’re smart,” Ramona said flatteringly. “You could think of some explanation–“


“Some lie, you mean.”


“Just for the time being, Regina. After we made a bunch of money, they’d see it was a good idea, wouldn’t they? We could buy them a new house or something.”


“A new house,” I said, disgusted. “We might not make one penny, sister mine. He only pays us if we sell records.”


Ramona read aloud from the contract. “Four cents per record, plus a percentage of any LP sales, plus–“


“I wish you’d get these dreams of fame and fortune out of your head, dear. Especially fortune.”

 

I pulled up in Nancy’s driveway and turned off the ignition. “Ranch House Is a little bitty label. There’s a million labels out there, and each one puts out millions of records–“


“But ours will be good,” Ramona said confidently. “‘Olé, Baby’ is a lot better than anything on the radio. You said so yourself.”


My sister’s enthusiasm was proving difficult to dampen.  Exasperatedly, I said, “Okay. Say the record sells like hotcakes. Say we can fake out Mom and Dad for a while. The checks will be made out to Ricky and Raymond Smith.  How are we going to get around that?”


* * * * *


“That’s easy,” said Ernestine, spooning up the last of a banana split. Ramona, Ernestine and I sat on the steps of the public library, eating ice cream from Betty’s Sweet Shoppe across the street from First Federal Bank.  “My mother is a part-time teller right over there,” said Ernestine, pointing her sundae spoon at the bank building.


“We’ve got accounts there!” said Ramona excitedly. “Me and Regina both.”


“That makes it even easier,” Ernestine said. “You can sign these little blue cards saying that Richard Smith or Raymond Smith, whichever one you are, is authorized to make deposits or withdrawals or whatever. Usually, the person has to come along with you and show identification, but I’ll tell Mom that you’re coming. She knows you guys.  She’ll Just file the cards.”


Ramona said triumphantly, “See, Regina, I told you we would figure out something.”


“This whole business makes me nervous,” I said. “Sounds like the kind of thing that gets your name into the Court Reporter column. Making bank withdrawals under false pretenses.”


“Technically, there’s probably a law against it, but who’s going to complain?” Ernestine asked. “You’re not really cheating anybody. Everybody gets what they want, sounds like to me. Smiley gets his record, and you get your money. As long as you keep your trap shut, who’ll know about it?”


“That’s probably what all those people who bought one Communist newspaper thought before Joe McCarthy got hold of them,” I replied gloomily.


“You’re such a worrywort, ‘gina,” chided Ramona.


“Somebody’s got to worry,” I reminded her. “You going to take over all the little details, like what to tell Mom and Dad?”

 


Chapter Seventeen

 

 

 

    National Council for Young Scientists

    The Porter Building

    Suite 34-A 117 West Blackerby Avenue

    Hartford, Connecticut

 

 

    Miss Regina Hammersmith

    2657 Montgomery Avenue

    Indianapolis, Indiana


    June 23, 1958


    Miss Hammersmith:


    We are pleased to announce that you have been selected as a finalist in the N.C.Y.S. Essay Contest. Your essay, “Bulgaria’s Role in the Space Race: What it Means to America,” is one of fifteen entries submitted to our judges for the final selection process.


    The final selections will be made on June 31, 1958. As you are probably aware, three winning entries will be chosen by the selection committee on the basic=s of clarity, conciseness, and originality.


    The third-place winner receives a full set of the Encyclopedia Brittanica, 1959 edition. To the second place winner will go an all-expense paid trip to Hartford, Connecticut to attend the N.C.Y.S. Annual Youth Seminar and a $50.00 cash prize.


    The grand prize winner receives a handsome engraved plaque, a year’s subscription to Space Age Monthly, and a two-week vacation package including airfare for two to Honolulu, Hawaii, hotel accommodations, meals, and a daily spending allowance.


    Even if you are not selected as a prize winner, we congratulate you on being one of America’s best science-oriented essayists. All fifteen finalists will receive a handsome certificate from N.C.Y.S. and a mention in our newsletter.


    Should your entry be chosen as one of the three winning submissions, a representative of the Council will contact you by letter on July 1, 1958.


    With best regards,

    Nadine O’Banion,  Council Secretary

 

“Quite an imagination you’ve got there, young lady,” said Nancy, leaning over my shoulder to read what I’d typed.


We were in Nancy’s bedroom, where I was using her typewriter. “I see why Ramona calls you the Brain.”


“I hate it when she does, though,” I answered. “Sounds like a disembodied hunk of gray matter, one of those pickled brains in a horror movie that’s trying to take over the worId.”


“The Brain that Conquered Indianapolis,” said Nancy. “Hopw do you come up with this stuff? Suite 34-A, for God’s sake.”


“My bra size,” I said. “And Nadine O’Banion was my eighth-grade gym teacher. I was crazy about her. She looked like a horse, which I thought was neat. Kind of this real long face, you know, and she was tall and lanky like me. She told me that it was okay to be smart, even if you were a girl. I remember she spoke at a P.T.A. meeting one time, and my dad said it was a shame that Miss O’Banion hadn’t found a husband. I don’t think she was loking too hard, though.”


Nancy grinned. “I wonder why.”


I recoiled in mock horror. “You don’t think—not Miss O’Banion!”


We laughed. “Listen, ‘gina,” said Nancy, “that letter is convincing, but hasn’t this whole project gotten a little out of hand?”


“Probably,” I said. “I used to be such a Goody Two Shoes, and here I am embarking on a life of crime. But it means a lot to Ramona, and I could use money for school.”


“If you get found out, though…” said Nancy.


“I know, I know. As long as we keep our stories straight, we ought to be okay,” I said, cranking the sheet of typewriter paper from around the platen. “The thing is, the stories get more complicated by the minute. I’m not sure that Ramona understands how shaky this house of cards really is. One sneeze, and the whole thing tumbles down.”


“I’m not sure I understand the plan,” said Nancy. “Tell me again. You and Ramona each use half of your record advance money–“


“To send Mom and Dad to Hawaii for two weeks,” I said, forging Nadine O’Banion’s signature at the bottom of the letter. “It took me a long time to get this figured out. I kept trying to think of way to explain where Ramona and I were during the promotional tour.”

 

One more look-through and I found a spot where I needed to use a Paper Mate pen to turn an “o” into an “e” by drawing a line through it horizontally.  “At first I wrote the letter giving myself the trip to the science conference, but I couldn’t figure out what to tell my folks about Ramona. They’d never let her go off somewhere for two weeks. Then Ramona told me I was coming at the problem from the wrong angle. Instead of trying to explain where we were, we ought to send Mom and Dad to Hawaii. We’re using the advance money we got from Ranch House, and some of our savings.”


“Won’t they think you should take the trip yourself and see the world while you’re young?” said Nancy. I folded the letter and put it into a long envelope. “Ramona thought of that.”


I licked the envelope flap. “She said we should give them the trip for their anniversary, which is coming up pretty soon. We give a big party, Invite all the neighbors, and give them the plane tickets in front of everybody. Then they’ll have to go.”


“You two are the modern Sherlock and what’s his name…Watson,” said Nancy. “Wasn’t Alexander Graham Bell’s helper also named Watson?”


“Yes, I think so.  I never thought of that,” I said, writing “National Council for Young Scientists” as the return address on the envelope. “No, wait, I’m not sure. My brain’s tired from all this plotting.”  I licked a four-cent postage stamp and stuck it to the upper right corner of the business-size envelope.


“Poor baby,” said Nancy soothingly, her arms wrapped around me.


“But a very cute baby, you must admit,” I teased, leaning back against her.


“Hey, I admit nothing of the kind,” she said.
thirty seconds of tickling brought her around. “Okay, you’re cute, you’re cute. Let me up.”


“Say uncle,” I commanded.


“Uncle! Uncle, already!”


“Say aunt.” I was enjoying this.


“Aunt! First cousin, anything! Let me up now!”


“Say, ‘I am a dirty Communist rat who sells narcotics to schoolchildren and–“


I had pushed my luck a little too far. She flipped me onto my back and pinned me to the floor. I had to say the entire Pledge of Allegiance, twice, to regain my freedom.


The smell of baking tuna casserole wafted up from downstairs. “Almost time for dinner,” Nancy said. “Want to stay?”


“Sure, if it’s okay with your mom,” I said. “But first, walk me down to the corner. I have a very important letter to put in the mailbox.”

 

 

*****

 


The next night, Ramona and I were up In our bedroom, pretending to be normal teenagers. Ramona was holding up a skirt and blouse for me to look at. “Do these go together?”


I looked up from my book. “You’re consulting me about fashion?”


“I’m going out with Frank, and I want to look nice.” My sister pawed through the closet, looking for the perfect ensemble.


I was about to tell her that I didn’t consider any boy worth dressing up for, when our bedroom phone rang.


“Hello?” said Ramona. Uh, yes, he’s here. I’ll put him on.” She covered the mouthpiece with her hand, whispered “Smiley,” and gave the receiver to me.


“Hello?” I said, feeling awkward. I wasn’t used to becoming Ricky at the drop of a hat. It felt funny to use Ricky’s voice without a paste-on mustache attached to my upper lip.


“Well, hello there, Ricky!” Smiley boomed. I winced, and held the phone away from my ear. “I thought I’d check with you gentlemen to see what you decided about the contract.”


“Ah, Ernie looked it over today and he said it’s okay if we add the money we talked about,” I said. “So we’ll sign, and Ernie said we can just initial the changes. We’ll mail the papers tomorrow.”


“Glad to hear it, Mr. Smith!” roared Smiley. I heard him strike a match to light a cigar. “You’re making the right choice young man. Ranch House can do a lot for your brother and yourself. Who answered the telephone, by the way?  Have some company, do you?”


“Er, that was…my wife,” I said.


“I’m sure she’s a charming lady,” said Smiley.


“She is,” I said. “She’s cool, man.”

 

“Good, good,” said Smiley. “Now, about the recording date. The twenty-sixth still good for you?”


“Sure,” I said. “We’ll make the scene.”


“Looking forward to it, son,” said Smiley. “We can talk over the details of the tour then, I guess. I was thinking along the lines of starting end of July, first part of August, somewhere along in there. Will you have any commitments then?”


“No,” I said, Ricky-ishly. “Like, we’ll be free and ready to be-bop.”


“Guess that’s all I need for now,” said Smiley. “I’ll see you gentlemen on the twenty-sixth, then. If anything comes up between now and then, be sure to give me a call here at the studio. You have my card.”


“Okay, man,” I said. “Later.” I hung up.


“What’s all this about your wife?” said Ramona, zipping up her skirt and fastening the waistband button.


“He asked who answered the phone. I couldn’t think, I Just said the first thing that came to mind. Lord, I’ve got a wife, now. Anyway, we record on the twenty- sixth, and Smiley wants us to start touring at the end of next month. You did call the airline today and make Mom and Dad’s reservations, didn’t you?”


“No sweat,” answered my sister. “I went over to First Federal and took out six hundred dollars and paid cash at Blue Sky Travel.  The travel lady was so touched that sisters would treat their parents so great.  Mom and Dad leave on the twenty-first.”


Changing the subject, I asked, “What time is that guy coming for you?” I glanced at the alarm clock on the bureau. “Hadn’t you better hurry up getting dressed?”


“‘That guy’ has a name,” said my sister. “You already made up your mind you don’t like him, and you’ve only seen him once.”


“Once was enough,” I said irritably. “I think he’s too old for you.”


“You sound like Mom,” Ramona said.


“Maybe Mom’s right for once, hard as it is to believe. I’m just wondering why he can’t find a girl his own age. He’s in college, isn’t he? There must be a million girls on campus.”


“You’re making him sound like Rip Van Winkle,” Ramona said hotly. “Frank’s only five years older than me, and there aren’t many girls in his field.”


“That’s another thing,” I said. “You want to date a guy whose life ambition is beekeeping? What’s his nickname, Buzz?”


“No matter who I go out with, you don’t like him, Regina,” said Ramona, brushing her hair at the mirror. “I don’t believe you like boys at all. You never go out unless Mom makes you. Which reminds me”  –she turned around to face me—  “Frank’s brother Andy is real nice. I could talk to Frank, and we could all–“


“I’ll get my own dates, thank you,” I said crisply.


“When?” said Ramona, turning back to face the mirror. “All you do is read and hang around with Connie’s sister. What do you two do all day and night, anyway?  You stayed over there three nights this week already.”


“Now you sound like Mom,” I said, flopping down on my bed. “Truce?”


“All right,” said Ramona, putting down her hairbrush.


Downstairs, the doorbell rang, then Mom’s voice came up the stairs. “Ramona! Frank’s here!”


Ramona opened the bedroom door. “Bye,” she said.


“See you later,” I said. “Have a nice time with–” (I almost said “Buzz,” but amended it at the last moment) “Frank.”


“You staying at Nancy’s tonight?” said Ramona, grabbing her purse.


“Yeah,” I said.


“Have fun, then.” She shut the door, then called through it, “See you in the morning!” Her heels clacked down the stairs.

 


* * * * *

 


The next day I mailed the mailed the contract to the Ranch House studio, and the National Council for Young Scientists letter telling me that I was the grand prize winner. The first letter, the one saying I was a finalist, I had mailed earlier so I hoped I had them staggered out right.


Meanwhile, Ramona was making arrangements for the anniversary party we were giving my parents. She ordered the cake from Roselyn Bakery (angel food with white icing, which was Dad’s favorite). She sent invitations to all the neighbors, and the day of the party, she made Ernestine and me help hang the decorations.

The first job was to put up a long banner painted with “CONGRATULATIONS.”  It had said “CONGRATULUTIONS,” but Ramona’s wet paintbrush was handy so the extra “u” easily became an “a.”


“Now is it straight?” I asked.


“No,” said Ernestine. “You need to hold you end up a little.”


Ramona and I stood on chairs, holding up the ends of a banner Ramona had made for the occasion.


“Now, Ramona, a little to the left,” directed Ernestine. “Up a little–no, not that far–there.”


“Okay,” said Ramona. “Where are the nail thingies?”


“Here.” Ernestine handed a hammer and some tacks up to Ramona, who stretched up on tiptoe, holding the banner in place. Ramona secured her end to the wall, and Ernestine ferried the hammer and tacks over to me. I attached my end, then we got down to admire our handiwork.


The handpainted banner looked good.  At the corners of the room, blue streamers and white ones, twisted together, gave the room a festive look. A huge white rectangular cake, decorated with “Congrats” in blue icing, sat on a card table we’d put up near the couch. From the kitchen came the sound of perking coffee; we’d borrowed a twelve cup urn from Mrs. Evans across the street.


Mom and Dad were having dinner at The Brass Cauldron, the neighborhood’s only “nice” restaurant. They were due back at eight, ready to reign surprise. Ramona had wanted to spring the party on them without warning, but I vetoed the idea. I knew that Mom would want to be dressed to the hilt for the occasion, and Dad generally did not care for surprises.

 

So we compromised. I told Mom and Dad about the party, but extracted a promise from them to act surprised, so as not to disappoint the neighbors.


The back door opened, then closed. Nancy appeared, carrying a nicely-wrapped package.  Connie was right behind her.


“Hey, everybody,” said Nancy in greeting. “Where do the gifts go?”


“On the kitchen table, I guess,” i said. “Did your folks decide not to come?”


“They said to tell your parents that they’re sorry, but that they’re a little under the weather,” reported Nancy.


“Which means they’re still hungover from last night,” Connie added.


“Let’s use a little tact, Miss Mouth,” admonished Nancy. “At least when the neighbors get here. It’ll be good practice f or you.”


The doorbell rang, and the first “real” guests arrived–Ernestine’s parents. I half-expected Mr. Neuenschwander to have on his blue septic-service uniform shirt with “Ernie” embroidered on a white oval patch over the front pocket, but he was wearing a nice lime-colored Ban-Lon knit shirt.  Mrs. Neuenschwander wore a white shell top and Bermuda shorts in robin’s-egg blue.  I knew that my mother would be shocked that anybody would wear shorts to an anniversary party.

 

We said hellos all around, and Ernestine’s mother said that everything looked very nice, girls. Ramona got the Neuenschwanders settled on the couch with cups of coffee Just as the doorbell rang again.  More guests.

 


By five minutes to eight, all the guests had arrived.  We dimmed the living room lights, and Ramona kept a lookout by the front door. Everyone tensed, ready to spring, and there were murmured sounds of anticipation.


“Here they come,” announced Ramona, as the Chevy’s headlights moving up the driveway illuminated the living room for a moment.

 

We heard the clicking of Mom’s heels up the sidewalk, followed by the clumping of Dad’s size twelve dress shoes. The rumble of Dad’s voice bled through the wall:    “…have to do this?…  Hope they….home soon…go to bed …. tired…”


Mom opened the front door. “Girls?” she called innocently, “why are the lights off in here?” Mom definitely had acting talent.


Ramona flicked on the lights. “SURPRISE!” we all yelled, more or less in unison.


“Well, my goodness,” said Mom, right on cue.


“We certainly didn’t expect this,” exclaimed my father rather hollowly, proving once again that his decision not to become a Hollywood movie actor was a wise one.


It was nice to see everyone chatting and eating and being neighborly. Mom and Dad opened the presents, exclaiming over each one and telling everyone they shouldn’t have. I liked Mrs.Neuenschwander’s gift the best: a ceramic bowl,  made in Peking, decorated with robins. The card read “For your ‘China’ anniversary.”


After everybody else’s presents had been opened, I gave Mom a little white envelope. “From Ramona and me,” I said.


Mom opened the envelope and extracted two tickets for Flight 106 to Honolulu.


“Oh, my goodness,” said Mom, this time for real. “How on earth–?!”


I gave her the National Council for Young Scientist contest letters I’d invented, both the one saying I had made the final cut, and the one announcing that I’d won.


There were tears in her eyes when she finished the second one. “Oh, I’m so proud of you, honey.”


Oh no–I hadn’t thought this part out. Gosh, did I feel like a creep. My mother was proud of me even as I was deceiving her. Even though the gift of the tickets was real, it had an ulterior motive behind it. Ramona looked guilty too, but bad feeling was eventually lost in the bustle of cake-cutting and coffee-pouring.


That night Ramona went to stay at the Peabodys’ house with Connie, and Nancy came to stay with me.   Nancy and I had a nicer time, I imagine.

 


Chapter Eighteen

 


On June 26th, my sister and I dressed up as Raymond and Ricky.  We were wearing the mustaches and Cary Grant sunglasses, but instead of the dark suits from the dry cleaner’s shop, we were wearing sport shirts, vests, and chinos we’d bought at a rummage sale on the southeast side of the city.  With my build, I could get away with the outfit by itself, but under her shirt, Ramona/Raymond had on an extra-small little boy’s tee shirt to press herself smaller.

 

The morning of the 26th, we had to sneak out of the house before dawn in order not to be seen by the neighbors.   I drove us in the family Chevy, which I’d asked the night before if we could borrow, to Roselyn Bakery on Tenth Street.  I (eventually) got us into a parking space, just as they opened their doors at 5:30 a.m.  Ramona (now dressed as Raymond) and I both got bear claws and longjohns and half-pints of milk with Elsie the Cow on the  cartons.  As we ate, I noticed an older man over in the bakery area.  He was dressed in a white tee shirt and white pants, and he kept looking at us.  I wondered if our mustaches might be on crooked because we’d been so foggy-minded from getting ready so early.  I didn’t want funny looks to turn into trouble, so Ramona/Raymond and I left and drove around the city for a while until it was nine a.m., time  to report to Ranch House.  It was finally time to cut the single for Ramona/Ramond’s song.

 

Cecil, once again in the Betty Crocker plaid sport shirt, was the drummer.  Someone named Stu played rhythm guitar. Recording wasn’t much rougher than doing the audition tape. We did “Olé, Baby” in two takes and “Rave On” in three.

“The record’ll be ready to distribute in about two weeks,”  said Smiley.  “And I’ve got the first leg of the tour set up.  You’ll be going around to some of thethe state’s medium-size clties, you know — ten, fifteen thousand people. Terre Haute, maybe.  And we’ll go to a few places in Illinois.  I’m getting a special tour bus ready.”


Then Smiley dropped a bomb on us. “I’ve made you an appointment with the tailor,” he said casually, sitting back and propping his cowboy boots up on his desk.


“What?” Ramona and I said at the same
time.


“We need to get you dressed better,” said Smiley. “I don’t know how it is in Alaska, but down here in the States–“


“Alaska is just about to become a state,” I said in a low voice.


“What?” said Smiley.


“Sorry, Just clearing my throat,” I said.


“Down here in the U.S.A.,  our music stars have to Jazz up their look a little,” said Smiley. “Get a look to go with the sound.  I’m thinkin’ gold lamé .”


“Man, is gold lamé still cool?” I said, desperate to get out of this pickle. “We’ve always done our boppin’ in basic blaok and –“


“Black’s for funerals!” said Smiley, his voice  Jovial, his face serious as usual. “If you want to be a hit the American public, son, you’ve got to show a little style, and gold lamé has that flash to it, you know. Catches the light real pretty. “


“It worked for Elvis,” said Ramona in a resigned Raymond voice.


“That’s right!” shouted Smiley, delighted, waving his cigar. “And there’s two of you, so you should do twice as good. All right, here’s the card that’ll get you what you need. Just give it to Don and he’ll take care of you. “


Smiley handed me a business card.  He had signed his name across the face of a business card from Tucker’s Distinctive Menswear. Under a picture of a silhouetted man wearing an evening jacket were the address, phone number and hours.


“All right, then,” said Smiley, steering us out the door. “Get out there and start breakln’ the girlies’ hearts.”


When we got out to the car, my sister and I sat together in the front seat, stunned. “This is going to be a little awkward,” I said, looking at the business card in my hand.


“I know,” sighed Ramona. “We should have told Smiley that we’d take care of this ourselves and we’d send him the bill. We could have gone to a store in some other town as ourselves and told them we were going to a costume party.”


“As twin Elvises?” I said, starting the Chevy. “They would have thought we were kind of strange.” I pulled the car into traffic, heading south toward downtown.


“Not half as strange as these people are going to think we are,” said Ramona.  “And when you told Mrs. Schnabel we were going to be red-haired gypsies, she kind of bought the idea.”


“True,” I agreed, but I still felt a bit rueful. We were dressed as Ricky and Raymond, on our way to an appointment Smiley had made for us. We were to be fitted with identical gold lamé suits. Yikes.

 

Neither of us had ever been fitted for a suit before, gold lamé or any other kind. We didn’t know what to expect. But we knew it was going to be hard to get through the fitting without giving ourselves away.


“We could stop and get something to flatten our chests down,” I said. “Like a bandage or something, and then wear, like, a man’s t-shirt and underwear.”

“That won’t work,” said Ramona. “In the first place, we’d have to show our arms and legs. Look at my arm,” she said, encircling her forearm easily with her fingers. “Even the skirmiest man has bigger arms than you do. Plus, we haven’t got hairy legs. And our crotches don’t, uh, stick out.”

“I hadn’t thought about that,” i said. “Maybe we could roll up a pair of socks and kind of stuff them down–“

“Ick!” said Ramona, cranking down the window and letting fresh air rush into the car. “I’m not doing that. Besides, a rolled-up sock doesn’t look anything like a man’s…thing.”

 

“And how, pray tell,” I inquired, “did you get so well-informed on the subject?”

 

Ramona blushed but retained her composure. “None of your beeswax. Anyway, the underwear-and-tape idea won’t work.”


“And your suggestion?” I said.

 

“Long underwear,” said my sister.

 

“Long underwear?” I asked in disbelief. “That is to say, union suits? Long Johns? Woolies, in short?”

 

“I know it sounds dumb,” said Ramona defensively. “I think this whole business is doing something to my brain. I didn’t used to think like this. Anyway, I know only grandpas wear union suits, and never in July. But on the other hand, if we get kind of baggy ones, they’ll cover our legs and arms and…stuff.”

 

“But Ramona, we’ll be so hot,” I said.

 

“I know,” she said. “We’ll live.It’s only for an hour or two. And if the tailor asks us about it, we say that we’re from Alaska, and this is the only kind of underwear we have.”

“What if we get a tailor who isn’t an idiot?” I said.

“Look,” Ramona said crossly, “you got any better ideas, Miss Nitplck? I guess with the rest of our money we could hire two real, red-haired men who are exactly our size to go in for the fitting.”


“That’s an idea,” I said enthusiastically, then shriveled under Ramona’s scathing look. “That would take a while, wouldn’t it? All right, I guess we’re going downtown to buy long Johns, unless we can think of a less moronic plan in the next five minutes.”


“Moronic?” demanded my sister. “And Just who was it, may I ask, who wanted to hire two real men and–“


Fortunately, the Sears building came into view and the argument was cut short by my desperate attempts to parallel-park.


I’d taken my driving test over twice and parallel-parking was the reason why. I backed up, pulled forward, and backed up again, and then sighed.

 

Providence stepped in this day, because an enormous Oldsmobile pulled away from the curb, doubling my target area. I was able to ease in after stalling only once.


Ramona/Raymond and I got out of the Chevy, slammed the doors, and marched bravely into the men’s department of Sears & Roebuck. What the hell, we had our mustaches on. The salesman behind the counter wrapped some neckties for a customer, then turned to us.


“We want to get two red union suits, size extra-large,” said Ramona in her Raymond voice.


The clerk hesitated, then smiled slightly.  “Practical joke, right?”  He used his finger to make an imaginary mustache over his upper lip.  When he couldn’t get me to smile, he tried Regina/Ramona.  Neither of us cracked.

He looked flabbergasted, murmured to himself, looked at the XL tag on the top union suit’s inner collar, and murmured a bit more.  He surveyed our small frames, and said. “A gift, then?”


“Yes,” said Ramona. “For my Dad.”


“Can’t start Christmas shopping too early,” he said. He motioned to a clerk who was adjusting a display of dress shirts. “Henry, I need you to run back to the storeroom for me.”


We waited at the cash register for Henry to come back with the union suits, and he was gone so long that ! was concerned that store detectives might be on their way. But Henry came back without G- Men, and we paid the original clerk for the suits. He put them into a little cardboard box for us.


We carried the boxes out to the car, then drove to a Big Boy restaurant. We took turns holding down a booth while the other person bravely went into the men’s room, and used a stall to take off our Smith Brothers costume, put on the union suit, then put the outer clothes again.

I went first, and I was lucky because no actual men came in or out as I struggled into my Ricky outfit in the small stall, trying not to get anywhere near the toilet.  By the time I left the bathroom and came back to the booth, I was boiling hot already. The radio weatherman had predicted a low of seventy-two. Ramona left the restaurant booth to  take her turn, and had to veer off twice when men headed for the restroom and she had to go look at the selections in the cigarette machine near the front door till the men came out again.  Finally the coast was clear, and Ramona disappeared into the men’s room for five minutes, then returned to the booth looking itchy and uncomfortable.


Hot and sweaty, we left the Big Boy and motored over to Tucker’s Distinctive Menswear. I was actually looking forward to getting a suit that fit. I’d never been an excessively-vain person, but I just couldn’t feel confident in a ten-year-old suit scavenged from a dry cleaner’s back room. Ramona and I swaggered into the shop with all the bravado we could muster. A dapper young clerk, wearing a tape measure around his neck, was at our service instantly. “Is there something I can assist you gentlemen with?”


I presented the card bearing Smiley’s signature. “We’re the Smith Brothers.


Smiley told us, like, to blow by here to get measured for our threads.”


“Oh, you’re the gentlemen wishing to have gold lamé suits fitted. Will you accompany me back to the fitting area? The tailor is expecting you,” said the clerk graciously.


“You don’t get too many requests for gold suits, do ya?” I asked, stroking my mustache. The clerk’s mustache was sparser than mine, but probably more firmly attached.


“More than you might think,” he said, Indicating with his hand that we should walk ahead of him, toward the back of the store. “We do the fitting for most of Mr. Westbrook’s clients. Not long ago, we outfitted the famous singer Tex Heywood and hls…uh…Yodeling…his accompanists.”


We all went back to where a short, balding man stood In front of a three-way mirror. “Good morning, gentlemen,” he said.
Ramona and I said hello, and the tailor got right down to business. He had us remove our jackets and belts, then he measured each of us from head to toe, calling out the numbers to the clerk, who wrote them down. Then he asked us to strip down to our skivvies. When our skivvies turned out to be red, woolen, and baggy, the tailor rolled his eyes at the clerk, unaware that I could see his face in the three-way mirror.


He sighed gently, then said,”Gentlemen, it will be difficult for me to fit you properly over your… undergarments. It might be best if we found you some others less…bulky.”
Clearly he felt that it would really be
best if we went away, but it was too late for that.


“We’d rather do it like this,” Ramona said nervously. “Like, we’re modest, you know.”


“Also,” I said into the silence which followed Ramona’s explanation, “we’re from Alaska, where we wear our long Johns all the time, ’cause it’s Chlllsville. So, like, we might as well get the suits to fit over them.”


“As you wish,” the tailor said shortly, and began pinning yards of gold lamé around my body. He measured, he sighed, he wrote on me with chalk, he sighed. He pinned, he sighed, he cut fabric, he sighed, and soon I was wearing the rough outline of a suit.

Ramona went through the ordeal, then the tailor dismissed us and told us to return in two days for alterations. At that time he’d send the suits to the studio, along with the bill. His little smile at the word “bill” told me that Smiley was going to pay for the mistake of sending two such un-distinctive fellows to Tucker’s Distinctive Menswear.

 


Chapter Nineteen

 


With only a few days until our tour of Indiana cities would start, Ramona and I practiced our act day and night. Smiley thought that we were professional musicians, and we needed to sound professional fast. Ramona, encouraged by me, penned two more songs. We also addedseveral current hits to our repertoire.
Dad thought our “little hobby” had gotten out of hand, and said so. We had to practice at Ernestine’s or Nancy’s. Mom was too busy making arrangements for the trip to Hawaii to complain, though we missed dinner a lot and left chores undone. She did ask once if anything was wrong, since I’d taken to cringing when either of my parents looked at me, but I said I had a touch of the stomach flu. She gave me Pepto-Bismol and left me alone.


As the start of the tour approached, I found it hard to sleep. One night I woke often, tormented by awful dreams. In one of them, Nancy was dancing in the arms of a blonde woman while I stood outside in a snowstorm, looking in through the window.


I kept trying to get Nancy’s attention, but the storm drowned out my shouts.
The telephone took me from this dream into a state of total confusion. I groped for the receiver and held it near my face.

“Hello?” I said sleepily.


“Hi, sweetheart.”


“Nancy?” I asked.


“No, it’s Rosalind Russell. You must really be tired. Should I let you go back to sleep?”


“No, it’s okay,” I said. “I’m awake now. What time is it?”


“Almost eleven,” she said. “You must be keeping late hours.”


“No, not really,” I said. “I didn’t sleep well. I had nightmares. I dreamed that you…fell in love with somebody else.”


“Oh, dear,” said Nancy. “Well, was she cute?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “The window was frosted over.”


“What?”


“Never mind,” I said. “What’s up?”


“Oh, I Just called to see what you were doing. I thought maybe I’d go bowling this afternoon, and I thought you might like to go.”


“Sure,” I said, relieved that Nancy was asking me and not some mystery blonde. “Let’s go to the Bowl-A-Rama, and afterwards we can eat at the restaurant where Ernestine works.”


“Sounds good,” she said. “I’ll come get you about twelve, okay?”


I said that would be great and hung up. In the shower, the nightmare I’d had came back to me. I pictured life without Nancy, and the picture was a bleak one.


How was I ever going to put up with the insanity of the Ranch House tour without her? If I knew she was there, I could handle any disaster. Nancy’s presence encouraged bravery in me, because I knew that she thought of me as brave. She had a calming influence on me that I felt even in my sleep. The best thing about sleeping in her bed was that I never had nightmares.


However short the tour was, I’d be miserable without Nancy. If only she could come with us. I rubbed shampoo into my hair thoughtfully. Well, why couldn’t she?
I could tell Smiley that my wife wanted to come along. He couldn’t break up a man’s family, could he? Nancy didn’t have any commitments until school started. Ramona was going to ask questions, though.


I broached the subject to Nancy in the car on our way to the Bowl-A-Rama. “Nancy, will you be my wife?”


“Hammersmith, almost nothing you do surprises me,” said Nancy, “but even I never thought you’d propose.”

 


“Will you be Mrs. Ricky Smith and come along on the tour?”


“You’re kidding,” said Nancy. She look her eyes off the road for a moment to study me. “You’re not kidding.”


“No, I’m not kidding,” I said. “I don’t want to go off and leave you, even for a week. Come with me, Nancy.” I looked out the side window for a moment, then said, “I need you.”


“Honey, I’d like to come,” said Nancy, putting on the blinker for a left-hand turn. “But I don’t think I can pass myself off as Mrs. Ricky. I couldn’t keep a straight face.”


“Sure you could,” I said earnestly.
“Who was the star of her high school drama club? Think how much acting we do every day. You have to act as though you don’t love me. How hard can it be to act like you do?”


Let me think about it, honey.” Nancy pulled the car into a parking space and killed the engine.

We got out and retrieved our bowling bags from the back seat. “I’d have to think of something to t ell my parents. And what are you going to tell Ramona?”


“Come with us?” said Ramona. “What do you want her to come for?”


“Well,” I said, hedging, “it would look better if my wife went. Maybe Smiley thinks it’s odd that I’d go off and leave my wife.”


“I think he’d rather Just have us two go,” Ramona answered, settling back on her bed and propping her head on a stuffed tiger. “Less people to keep track of. Besides, will they let three people stay in one motel room?”

 


I got off my bed and flipped the record over on the turntable.  Without turning around I said, “Nancy and I would probably want our own room.” I sat back down on my bed, avoiding Ramona’s penetrating gaze.

 


“You’re up to something,” said my sister. “I can tell. Does Nancy want to Join the band? That’s it, isn’t it? Well, you’ve Just got to tell her, that’s all. Two’s enough, and besides–“


“No,” I answered. “That’s not it.”


“Well, what is it, then? You two have been thick as thieves lately. I know she’s your best friend, but can’t you bear to be away from her for a little while? She’ll still be here when we get back.”


/”I know,” I said uncomfortably. “Ramona, it’s Just that…look, I don’t know how to put this…I mean, this is kind of hard to…”


“She’s, like, your girlfriend, isn’t she?  You’re in love with her.”


“No!” I said.  I paused.  “Well, yeah.”


“I thought so,” said Ramona. “I’m not as good at school things as you are, ‘gina, but I’m not dumb. Besides, me and Connie were talking one time, and she said she thought Nancy was queer.”


“Don’t say ‘queer,’ Ramona,” I said.
“You don’t like it when Dad says all his rude stuff. People say ‘homosexual.’  Some people are trying to get the laws changed so the homosexuals won’t get fired at work and thrown out of their houses and stuff.”


“They can throw you out of your own house just because you’re…like that?” said Ramona.


“Sure,” I said. “They can throw you in jail if they want.”


“What for?” Ramona asked. “I mean, I wouldn’t want to be one, but–“


“Thanks.”


“You know what I mean,” said Ramona.
“I don’t see that it hurts anybody. You can’t help it. I mean, you’re born that way, aren’t you?”


“I guess,” I said. “I read this magazine that said it isn’t a sickness. If you are, you just are.”


“I wonder what Mom and Dad would say,” Ramona wondered aloud.


“God, don’t tell them,” i begged. “They’ll kill me.”


“Don’t panic, ‘glna,” she said. “I’m not going to rat on you. You think I want the whole world to know that you… Well, anyway, I don’t think they’d kill you. Mom wouldn’t, anyway. But they wouldn’t let you see Nancy anymore, I’ll bet.”


“I’d leave home,” I declared. “She’s all I care about.”


“You’re really serious,” said Ramona.


“I guess you better call Smiley and tell him your wife’s going with us.”


“Thanks, Ramona,” I said. “You’re a
pal.”


We heard Mom’s feet on the stairs. “Girls?” she called. “I’m about to do the laundry. Do either of you have anything to go in the washer?”


I opened the bedroom door. Mom was standing there wearing her “What are you girls up to?” look. She’d had that look on her face a lot lately.


“We’ve got some stuff in the hamper,” I said quietly. “Is my blue sweater down there already?”


Chapter Twenty


Ramona and I saw Mom and Dad off at the airport. I could hardly believe that we’d made it this far without blowing our cover. Mom told us twenty times not to: (a) let strange men into the house; (b) stay up too late; (c\) let strange men into the house; (d) leave the oven on when we left the house; (e) let strange men…

 

She and Dad had put a list of crucial phone numbers on the hall table, and made us promise to call them at the hotel every day. We said we would, that we were almost adults, weren’t we, and no, we wouldn’t let anyone into the house.

 

Ramona and I hugged them both, then we watched the plane leave from the deck on the airport’s roof.  I felt happy for them, sad I’d been deceiving them, and a little worried that I’d gotten in over my head with this plan.


The first thing Ramona did when we got home was to put Little Richard on the record player and turn the volume up full blast. She wanted to call up all her friends and have a big party, but I told her we had to keep a low profile. No doubt Mom had told the neighbors to keep an eye on us, and old Mrs. Evans would probably give Mom a full report when she got home.


Smiley called us the next day to say that he’d sent copies of the single to every radio station in Indiana, and to a few out-of-state stations as well. He said that we could expect to hear it played very soon. He reminded us to be at the studio at eleven a.m. on Friday. We would leave from there in the studio bus for our first gig, scheduled for Peoria, Illinois.  The next stop would be Evanston.

 

Smiley took it pretty well when I told him that my wife would be coming along with us. “She wants to keep an eye on her old man, does she?” he laughed. “Don’t blame her a bit. There’s been one or two divorces come out of these tours.”


I tried to chuckle appreciatively.  Yes, us guys sure knew how these silly women were, didn’t we? Aaaargh. Well, Nancy would be coming with me, and that’s all I cared about.


Before I hung up, Smiley suggested that my brother Raymond and I get our friends to call radio stations and request “Olé, Baby.” I said that we would, and that we’d be at the studio on Friday at eleven sharp.

 

*****


“We’re riding all the way to Peoria, Illinois in that?” asked Ramona in disbelief.  She, Nancy, and I were sitting in the back seat of a dark-blue taxi with “Reddy-Set-Go #1 Premier Taxicab” painted on the doors and trunk lid in white lettering.   I leaned over the front of the front seat and paid the driver (Ramona/Raymond did not reach for any ready cash).  

 

I opened the door on my side and got out. Nancy slid along the front seat and got out to stand next to me. Ramona seemed reluctant to disembark, but I motioned at her and she got out on the other side.

 

The three of us stood in Ranch House Studios parking lot looking at that, which was a tour bus painted grayish-green. Rust was evident around the edges of the doors, and it looked to me like the exhaust pipe was dragging on the ground.  The vehicle was at least fifteen years old, and along the side, a painted cowboy threw an oval lasso of rope which enclosed the words “Ranch House Rodeo of Stars.”


“Cheese it, sis,” I said from the corner of my mouth.  Talking that way irritated the outer edge of my lip, which was sore from alternate applications of adhesive and spirit gum remover.  “Here comes Cecil.”


“Hey, Cecil,” I said. “What’s shakin’, man?”


“Aw, not too much,” replied Cecil.  He was wearing a tan, brown, and black plaid shirt I’d never seen before.  I liked this one.  “Smiley’s getting this arranged. This must be the little woman.”


“That’s me,” said five-foot-ten-inch Nancy winningly.


“I’m Cecil,” he said, “and here comes Smiley.”


“‘Lo, there, boys,” said Smiley. “I see you made it here all right. Got ever’thing with you?”


I nodded.


“Well, Cecil can help you load your things into the bus,” he said, taking a bandanna out of his back pocket and wiping the back of his neck. “How you doing, Miz Smith? Don’t believe we’ve met.” He folded the bandanna, put it away, and reached out for Nancy’s hand.


Nancy extended her hand and Smiley shook it, as Ramona and Cecil started carrying things from the car to the bus, beginning with the canvas travel bags containing our performing clothes.

 


“Like, everything’s cool, right?” I asked. “We’ve got motel rooms reserved, and all that Jazz?”


“Everything’s shipshape,” boasted Smiley. “We take good care of our artists. I wish Stu would come on, though. He was s’posed to be here at ten-thirty, to see about the instruments. I don’t know what guitars he wants to take. He was probably out carryin’ on last night, but surely he’s up by now.”

 

He looked around for Cecil, and spotted him coming out the door of the bus. “Cecil!” he called. “Can you try gettin’ ahold of Stu out at his house and see where the hell he is? Excuse my French, Miz Smith.”


Familiar music issued from the open door of the studio, where a radio was blaring. “Hear
that?” asked Smiley excitedly, reaching Into our car lo turn on the radio. The first notes of “Olé, Baby” blared out of the plastic car speaker.

 

Smiley beamed. “You started gettin’ airplay on WDDX yesterday and WQBC picked up on it Wednesday, and I heard it on the Beech Grove station this morning. Have you boys caught it anywhere else?”


We hadn’t. We’d been so busy getting Mom and Dad off safely that we hadn’t had a second to listen for our record. Ramona was grinning now, and the corners of my own mouth lifted. We were on the radio! People all over Indiana and Illinois were listening to a song my sister  wrote!  We’d come a long way from that high school  talent show.


A few months before, I’d had my life neatly mapped out: high school, then college, then a distinguished career in science. And, If It couldn’t be avoided, marriage to an inoffensive colleague who didn’t want children. Good commonsense goals.

 

And here I was, hair dyed red, doing my bad imitation of James Dean, waiting with my sister, dressed as a teenage boy, and my girlfriend to ride in a bus to Noblesville with a serious-faced, expansive pseudo-cowboy named Smiley.

 


The radio announcer’s words broke into my thoughts. “Those were the Smith Brothers–I guess not the same ones on the cough drop package, heh heh. This release is titled ‘Olé, Baby,” and it’s hot, hot, hot like a chili pepper! I think those young gentlemen have a real future ahead of ’em. You listeners have been callin’ in like crazy since we first played it. By the way, the Smith Brothers will be appearing on a double bill with Frankie and the Heptones at Grace Auditorium in Peoria tonight. So get on out there and catch some good music—and on your way, be sure to stop in at Walt’s Burger- Rama, where they’re running a special all this week.”

 


Smiley reached into the car and turned off the radio. “Who’re Frankie and the Hepcats?” I asked.

 

“Heptones,” Smiley corrected me. “Frankie and the Heptones—they’re a dance band from Peoria. They’ll play for about forty-five minutes before you start, to warm up the audience. Have you got your set list made out? We can look it over in the bus.”


Cecil returned from the studio building. “I tried Stu at his house, and his ex-old lady’s house, and at Pete’s. Nobody knows where he is.”


“I know where he is,” said Smiley, grimly.
“He’s at a bar. The question is, which bar?
Whyn’t you take the station wagon, Cecil, and see if you can find him? Start up the highway and hit every tavern that’s open before noon.”


Smiley gave Cecil the keys to the car, then took a cigar from his pocket and unwrapped it.  “Shit — excuse me, Miz Smith—I shoulda known this would happen. ‘Stu’ ain’t short for ‘Stuart.’ It stands for ‘stewed,’ ’cause he generally is.”


“Ricky,” said Nancy with an admirably straight face, “Let’s help…um, Raymond get the bus loaded. That way, when they find Stu, we’ll be all ready to go.”


So the three of us loaded the van—Smiley served as sidewalk supervisor. Stu was eventually located at Benny’s Tavern out on Old Tatlock Road. He told Cecil that he would go home and clean up, then meet us in Peoria.


During the bus ride, we listened to the radio. We heard ‘Olé, Baby” three times, on three different stations, and all three disk jockeys commented on the number of phone requests they’d gotten for the record.


“You boys must have friends all over the place,” said Smiley. “Keepin’ the telephone lines busy, ain’t they?”


“I didn’t call anybody,” I answered. “I was so busy get tin’ ready for the tour, I never got a chance.”


“You didn’t call anybody, Ricky?” Smiley asked, surprised. “Must’ve been Raymond, then.”


“No, I didn’t call anybody,” Ramona said.


“All those people are callin’ on their own?” said Smiley. “But you’ve only gotten a couple of days of airplay!”


“Is that unusual?” Nancy asked.


“Hell, yes, it’s unusual!” Smiley said. “Scuse me, Miz Smith. Generally it takes a couple, three weeks before listeners start pickin’ up on a record.”


I looked out the dirty bus window at the scenery whizzing by and considered this Information. I’d been fairly confident about playing Peoria, assuming that the crowd, if any, would be small. But if people liked the record, then they might drive to Peoria to see us. There might be a hundred people there, maybe a hundred and fifty. We’d told Smiley that we were old hands at this tour business, so it was doubly important that we not succumb to stage fright.


First I saw farms through the window, then a few scattered houses, then the streets of Peoria.


We voted unanimously to stop for lunch. Cecil eased the bus along the curb at the end of the parking lot in front of Howard’s Hamburg Palace.  Small round light bulbs, even in the daytime, raced around and around a sign which said “World’s Best Petty Melt!”

 

From Inside the restaurant. patrons stared out at the dirty green bus with “Ranch House Rodeo of Stars” painted inside the loop of a cowboy’s lasso.


We got out stiffly, and brushed the wrinkles from our clothing. Smiley led the way, with Cecil, Ramona, Nancy and I following him single file. We went back to a table and sat down, watched every step of the way by the other customers.


“You all play In a band, do you?” the waitress asked. The embroidery on her uniform pocket Identified her as Vera.


“Why, these boys are the hottest act to come out of the Midwest in the last ten years,” said Smiley in his usual hyperbolic fashion. He swept his hand toward us grandly. “The Smith Brothers!”

“Yeah?” said Vera. She called to the teenage counter waitress, “Arlene! Come on over here for a minute!”


Arlene flipped the switch on the electric coffee maker and continued to fill and stack paper coffee filters loaded with brown powdered stuff that looked like Sanka.  But she turned her head and smiled.


“These are the ones that made that record you’re so crazy about,” Vera told her.


“Which one?” asked Arlene, who stayed where she was, but looked interested.


“Oh, I don’t know what It’s called,” said Vera. “About bullfighting or something, ain’t It?”


“Olé, Baby,” said Ramona.


“You’re kidding!” said Arlene, looking delighted.   She put down the coffee measuring spoon and came around the counter to stand next to Ramona/Raymond and me. “Really? You’re the Smith Brothers?”


Ramona/Raymond and I nodded. Arlene looked around quickly, then pulled a paper napkin from the dispenser on the table. “Can I have your autograph? ‘Olé, Baby’ Is my favorite record!”


“They’ll be playin’ It tonight at the concert,” Smiley said, stirring a third packet of sugar into his coffee. “Eight o’clock, at Grace Auditorium.” He reached Into his pocket and pulled out two cardboard rectangles. “Complimentary passes–there’s one for your boyfriend, too–lucky guy.” Smiley winked but the waitress was watching Ramona as she scrawled her alias across the napkin.

Underneath I added “Ricky Smith” in a big masculine hand, and gave the napkin back to Arlene, who looked as though she might faint.


“Thanks,” she said, a bit pink in the face.
“Thanks a whole lot —I’ll be there. Thanks…”

 

She wandered back to her counter, carefully folding the napkin and tucking it reverently into her pocket.


Smiley grinned at me. I was kind of flustered by all this, and excused myself to go to the washroom. Ramona stood up and followed me as I headed for the back of the restaurant. She nearly swerved into the ladles’ room, but I hooked her arm and steered her through the door marked “Gents.”

 


We averted our eyes and zoomed into two of the stalls. “Yuk,” I heard my sister say under her breath. A minute later, we zoomed out of the stalls with the same horrified looks on our faces,  We both spent extra time at adjacent sinks with powdered soap and brown paper towels. I vowed inwardly to avoid public bathrooms for the rest of the trip.


When we got back to the table, Smiley was filling Nancy in on his work with Tex Heywood and other big names. Lunch had arrived while I was gone from the table; I sat right down and started in. I’d eaten nothing since I’d gotten up, and I was going to need plenty of fuel for the upcoming adventure.  I did have a constant struggle to keep egg salad out of my costume-shop mustache, which I had just washed the night before and which was still a bit damp.

 

The long-lost Stu appeared at last, slouching up to our table as I was finishing. He was bleary-eyed, rumpled, but fairly sober.


While Stu finished his coffee, Smiley paid the bill. We all returned to the parking lot and boarded the bus, except for Stu, who followed in his station wagon. A few minutes later, our two- vehicle caravan pulled up in front of the office at the Sleep Tite All Nite Motel. Smiley got out of the bus and went Inside. He returned shortly, bearing a fistful of keys attached to brown plastic bags.


These he distributed. “Stu — you’re Room 3, Raymond — Room 4, Cecil and I are in Room 5. Ricky, I couldn’t get four rooms together, so you and Nancy are all the way down in 26.”


“Oh, that’s all right,” I said generously.


“You all get settled and rested up,” said Smiley. “Ricky and Raymond, you boys meet me back here at the bus in an hour. We got a radio Interview downtown at two o’clock.”


We nodded. Nancy watched as her intrepid “husband” wrestled our belongings out of the bus and hauled them down to Room 26.

 

Once inside, I collapsed on the bed, sweaty and exhausted. Once I’d recovered, Nancy and I reveled in the freedom of having a place to ourselves. For the first time, we could relax and have fun without worrying about keeping our voices down. There were no parents or sisters eavesdropping in the next room.


I wanted to take advantage of this opportunity immediately, but Nancy refused to kiss me while I had my mustache on.
So I settled for a nap.

 

Just as I drifted gently into Dreamland, a small noise woke me up.  I opened my eyes and llstened–nothing. But as I turned over and adjusted my pillow, I heard it again. A furtive tapping at the door, followed by a tiny voice saying, “It’s Ramona. Let me in, quick.”


“Okay,” I said sleepily. “Wait a sec.” I unlocked the door, and Ramona scuttled in, shutting it behind her quickly. “What’s the matter?” I whispered, turning to make sure we hadn’t woken Nancy up.


“I lost my mustache,” hissed Ramona.


“Huh?” I said dully.


“I lost my mustache,” repeated Ramona in a panic-stricken voice. “I took it off and put it on the edge of the sink, you know, then I turned around and knocked It Into the toilet somehow. What am I gonna do? We leave for the interview in an hour.”


“Shit,” I said, sinking into a fake Danish Modern chair. “Lemme think.” I took a cigarette from the pack on the nightstand and lit it. “Okay. You borrow mine, then go ask Stu if you can use his car. Go to town and get another mustache—get a couple of extras while you’re at it. Bring mine back as soon as you get back. Hurry, Ramona.
You’ve only got a few minutes.”


“How am I going to find a costume store in a strange city?” whispered Ramona.
I grabbed the Yellow Pages from the nightstand. “Let your fingers do the walking.”


“What?” said Nancy from the bed. Her eyelids fluttered.


“Nothing, nothing at all,” I sing-songed sweetly. “Go back to sleep.”


Nancy turned over and snuggled back into her pillow.

“Here’s one,” said Ramona, holding the phone book open. There’s even a little map here.”


“Good deal,” I said. I went into the bathroom and pried the mustache off my upper lip, which was getting a little irritated from the adhesive. I brought the mustache out, added a few tiny dabs of spirit gum, and attached the red mustache to my sister’s face.


“Perfect,” I said.


“Ready Teddy,” said Ramona/Raymond. “I’m eady, ready, ready to rock-and-roll.  Give me some money, Ricky baby.”


I reached into my suit pants, draped over a chair, and extracted my wallet. “Here’s a five — now step on it.”


Ramona/Raymond dashed off, and I went back to sleep. Ramona returned a few minutes later and woke me again. Nancy was still out like a light. I decided that her new nickname would be The Log.


Ramona held up a paper sack. “Got them,” she said, “The lady at the store thought I was nuts. But I got the mustaches—they’re not quite the same as the other ones, though.”


She gave me the sack and I looked inside. “Ramona, these are brown. Our hair’s red.”


“I know, I know,” said Ramona. “What do you want? I only have half an hour in a strange city to find paste-on mustaches, and you complain.”


“But you won’t look right,” I said. “Maybe you should just tell everybody you decided to shave.”


“That’s no good,” said Ramona. “I don’t want Smiley looking at my face too close—he might remember a smart-alecky girl who didn’t want to be one of the Sis-teens.”


5 turned one of the stiff little mustaches over in my hand. “Maybe we could use henna on it.”


“Not on fake hair, dummy,” said Ramona.
“Henna won’t dye plastic, or whatever the hell that’s made of.”


“Nylon, I think.” ! considered. “Hey! You can dye a nylon blouse, can’t you? With clothes dye, or whatever you call It. Okay, look–I’m going to take a shower. You take the car back to a drugstore and get a box of dye, then come back and we’ll fix your mustache.”


“Okay,” said Ramona, still dressed as Raymond, racing out the door. She raced back in. “I need some more money.”


“What did you do with that five?” I demanded.


“Well, there were the mustaches, and there was a Freez-Queen on the way. They didn’t have chocolate ripple, so I decided to—”


“Never mind. Get going.” I gave her another ten, and shoved her out the door so I could go and  take my shower.

 

As I emerged clean and enervated from under the spray of the Deluxe Massage-O-Matic shower nozzle, Ramona popped into the bathroom, clutching a paper sack and jangling the car keys.


“Will you close the door?” I said, shivering. “I’m gonna catch pneumonia.”    

,
“Little Miss Irritable,” said Ramona, but she shut the door. She took the newly-acquired box of dye from the drugstore sack and read over the directions.

 

“Okay,” she said, “We’re supposed to dissolve the dye in a pot of boiling water but we don’t have that.  So we need to run the sink full of hot water and put in—”


“You run the sink full of hot water,” I said, toweling the ends of my hair dry. “I gotta get dressed.”


“Little Miss Helpful,” snarled Ramona.


“I didn’t knock my mustache into the toilet,”
I answered smartly, and left the steamy bathroom.


When I returned to brush my teeth, the basin was full of red water. Ramona hovered over it, holding a small, dripping, furry object with a pair of tweezers. “How’m I gonna get this dry enough to wear?”


“Wave it back and forth,” I advised, squeezing toothpaste onto my brush. “Away from the toilet.” I bent over the tub and started scrubbing my molars .


From behind me came a bang, followed by an “Eep!” from Ramona and then a splash. I turned to see Nancy standing In the doorway, holding the knob of the half-opened door, with which she’d accidentally struck Ramona. Ramona, losing her balance, had plunged her arm up to the elbow into the basin.


She snatched her arm back and held it up away from her body. Red dye ran down and dripped off her shirt cuff, forming a crimson puddle on the floor.


I’d spit a little toothpaste foam down my front. I grabbed my still-damp bath towel and dabbed at my tie. When it isn’t prudent to laugh, It’s best to concentrate on some small task,


“Oh, my heavens,” said Nancy. She grabbed Ramona and steered her over to the tub, shoving me out of the way. Nancy turned on the tap and pushed Ramona’s soggy red arm under the running water. “Sorry, Ramona. I didn’t know both of you were in here.”


Ramona’s sleeve was a total loss, and her wrlstwatch would never be the same, but most of the dye came off her skin. Her fingernails were ringed with crimson half-moons, but no one was likely to notice.

 

While she hurriedly donned a dry shirt, Nancy and I retrieved the dyed mustache from the edge of the basin, wrapped it in a piece of foil from a cigarette package and baked it in the sunny windowsill till done.


Ramona re-applied her disguise as I scanned the bathroom, which looked like Hurricane Audrey had blown through.  Puddles of water were everywhere, and crumpled, sopping towels lay in and around the bathtub.


Nancy graciously volunteered to deal with the disaster while Ramona and I did our radio Interview. “You two go on,” she said. “Smiley’s probably waiting on you.”


He was. He and Cecil (resplendent in my favorite green plaid shirt) were already inside the bus, with Smiley in the driver’s seat. Smiley drove the way he did everything else:  barreling forward, changing lanes frequently and abruptly, and Just generally projecting an air of

once-more-unto-the-breach. But he got us to the parking lot of WEEE-AM without actually colliding with anything.


The radio station operated from a small, ordinary-looking brick building across the street from a shoe store. At the front desk, we were greeted by a receptionist wearing a little plastic badge which said, “Hello! My name is FRAN.”


Fran ushered Smiley into the waiting area, where a public-address speaker was mounted on the wall, allowing visitors to hear what was going out over the air. An identical speaker was mounted in the gray-carpeted hallway through which Fran led Ramona and myself. The hallway reverberated with the frantic patter of Peoria’s number one disc Jockey, “Screamin’ Gene” Collins, “…a very, very big hit for the Big Bopper!” Gene was shouting.
“YOU wanted to hear it, and your every wish is Screamin’ Gene’s command on W-E-E-E!”


Fran took us back to a room marked “Studio B.” Above the studio door, a red light bulb glowed next to a sign which said “On Air.” Through a huge window set in the studio wall, we could see Screamin’ Gene poised on the edge of a swivel chair, arching forward to scream into the microphone mounted in front of him.


“…Screamin’ Gene with you, playin’ the tops of the pops for ya, at one fifty-eight Fizzie-Cola time! Comin’ up we got the number FIVE song on this week’s Triple-E Tune Tally!” Gene reached sideways and slid a tape cartridge into the Jingle machine.

 

“Double-yew Eee, Eee, Eee,” sang an anonymous choir of chipmunk voices, “will make you smile! Fourteen ten on your radio dial!”


The first notes of Chuck Berry’s “Carol” blasted from the hallway speaker. Gene sat back in his chair and took a burning cigarette from the ashtray at his elbow. He tucked the cigarette into his mouth and began searching through a stack of records piled next to the twin turntables. Fran nipped on the studio window, but Gene couldn’t bear, since he had his headphones on.


Fran opened the studio door and leaned in    to catch his attention.   She caught Gene’s eye at last, and he slid the headset down around his neck. He and Fran exchanged a few words, then she withdrew her head and shut the door.

 

“If you’ll Just wait here,” she told us, “Gene’ll be with you in Just a minute. I need to get back up front.” We thanked her, and she left.


I looked in at Gene as he took a record off one of the turntables and replaced It with another. Screamin’ Gene didn’t look like a disk Jockey. He looked like a certified public accountant, or maybe a high school Language Arts instructor.

 

The longer I looked at Gene, the more he looked like Mr. Deems, my old Shortridge High School homeroom teacher. But Gene was even shorter and skinnier than Mr. Deems–I wondered how such a small person could make that much noise.


As “Carol” ended, Gene put his earphones back on and shouted Into the mike, “You’re swlngin’ with Screamin’ Gene on a Friday afternoon, on Triple-E, WEEE in Peoria! After the next platter, we’ll have a little chatter with …The Smith Brothers!

Not those old guys with the beards, dummy! The cats from Alaska who sing this week’s most-requested record, ‘Olé, Baby!’ They’re here in Illinois to visit their fans, and I’ll be talkin’ with ’em in Just a minute! Trlple-E Is the place to be!  But first we got CONNIE FRANCIS with the number four score on this week’s Tune Tally!”


The chipmunk people sang, “NUM-ber Four,” then Connie belted out, “Stupid Cupid, you’re a real mean guy, I’d like to clip your wings so you can’t fly . . ” Gene took off his headphones and came to I lie studio door. He was even shorter than I’d thought–even Ramona towered over him. “Hey, guys,” said Gene. “Come on in. Which of you Is Ricky and which Raymond?”

 

For just a second there, I forgot which one I was. “That’s Raymond,” I said after a moment’s hesitation. “I’m Ricky.”

 

As we came closer, my heart froze for a moment as Gene scanned my red-haired “brother” and myself in our baggy suits, tortoiseshell sunglasses, and glued-on mustaches.

 

The corners of Gene’s mouth turned up, and he gave a small shrug.  “A put-on — I get it.  Smiley’s paying me back for not spinning Tex Heywood and his Yodelin’ Whatchamacallits.”  He shook his head.


“Why don’t you guys have a seat right here?” he suggested. He indicated a table set up to the right of the radio equipment, on which two table microphones stood. “Either of you need anything? Glass of water, cup of coffee? No? Okay, when this record’s over, we’ll go on. I’ll just go through the usual stuff—I’m sure this is all old hat to you guys. They’re going crazy about your record around here, by the way. I’d bet you’ll be number one on the Tune Tally this time next week.”


“I hope so,” I answered.


“You guys have a real unique sound,” said Gene. “I hope you do real well.” He seemed to mean it. How had such a pleasant, mannerly fellow ended up as Peoria’s king of the teens?


I wanted to ask, but Gene smiled and held up a forefinger. He spun around, slipped on his headphones and shouted, “Gene with you on WEEE! Fizzie-Cola time is two-oh-six! If you were supposed to be somewhere at two, YOU’RE LATE! Two guys who’re right on time are the Smith Brothers, from Anchorage, Alaska for an exclusive Triple-E interview! How you doin’, Smith Brothers?”


“Good,” Ramona said, and I said, “Fine.”


“Good to hear it!” he shouted at us. “You two got the most-requested record in Peoria this week—’Olé, Baby!’  Tell me, Raymond, how’d two guys from Alaska end up with a monster hit about Mexico? Seems like you shoulda done something called ‘Eskimo Rock!”‘


“See, we were on vacation down south of the border,” said Ramona glibly in her deepest Raymond voice. “Like, we dug the place. Lotta swingin’ cats and kitties down there. So I wrote a song about ’em.”


Ramona was definitely on top of the situation. She seemed to be losing her former stage fright and regaining her natural dramatic ability.


“Tell me a little about yourselves,” said Gene. “Start  with what our lady fans are dyin’ to know:  Either of you guys married?”


“I am,” I said in my smoothest Ricky voice. “I’d like to say hello to my lovely wife Nancy, who’s listening back at the motel. Raymond’s still available, girls.” I was carrying my end of the load admirably, I thought. But that was nothing new. After all, who’d been Sally Squirrel in her third-grade class play?


“Hear that, girls?” asked Gene. “There’s still hope. Raymond, how did your career get started?”


“We really like Little Richard, Eddie Cochran, all those guys, you know. We started doin’ a little rockin’ ourselves for friends and stuff, then we got asked to play at a local dance. And here we are.”


“For two guys from Alaska, your career’s really snowballed,” said Gene. We groaned. “This is WEEE, the place to be, and we’re talkin’ with Ricky and Raymond Smith, who’ll be appearing tonight, along with Frankie and the Heptones, at Grace Auditorium. Show starts at eight?”


“Yeah,” I said. Then, as Smiley had coached me, I added. “We’ll be around after the show to talk to the kids and sign autographs. So come on out and see us.”


“You fans get on out there tonight and catch a good show. Screamin’ Gene’ll be there, natch. Will you have copies of the record at the show, Ricky?”


“Sure thing, Gene,” I said.


“Well, we’re gonna play it now—the NUMBER ONE MOST REQUESTED RECORD ON WEEE! What’s it called, Smith Brothers?”

“OLE, BABY!” we shouted In unison. (Gene’s manner was Infectious.)


Gene started the record, then swiveled around. “Thanks, Ricky, Raymond.”  Gene suppressed a smile.  “Hope you have a good turnout tonight. Always like to see new artists make it.”


We thanked him, and cruised back to the waiting area, accompanied by the sound of our own singing. Smiley was out in the lobby to meet us.

 

“You did real well, real well,” he said. “We better get back to the motel and see what needs to be done. We want to get set up by five, so you can start your warm-up right after supper.”


Smiley perilously zoomed the big green bus back to the Sleep Tite All Nite Motel. I wished Cecil was at the wheel.  Cecil was on the quiet side, a little hard to talk to,  but at least he could drive.


After a lot of scurrying around at the Sleep Tite All Nite.  Nancy glided quietly into the bathroom and surreptitiously packed up a small leather case with combs and a jar of cream antiperspirant and extra spirit gum and adhesive remover.  I shook the wrinkles out of both gold lamé suits.

 

Ramona/Raymond went to the motel office to borrow an iron from the manager so we could smooth out our shirts, and was teased for being a bachelor who had to do his own ironing.

 


When everything we needed was packed and brought out of our room, the loading work was supervised by Smiley, who issued confusing, contradictory commands and got in everybody’s way.  Eventually, the rusty green bus (its dragging tailpipe wired up into place with a wire coat hanger by Cecil), was loaded with instruments, equipment, and people, and we were off to Grace Auditorium.

 

Because of the name, I’d conjured up a mental picture of the Shortidge High School auditorium, where we’d played in the Vaudeville show, but when we arrived I saw that I’d been thinking too small.

 

This auditorium was huge.  It was five times the size of the Ritz Theatre back in Indianapolis.


Cecil pulled the rattly old bus around the back of the building, then he turned off the ignition and got out. As he went to the building and pulled up a folding door like the one on our garage at home, the rest of us got out of the bus and started piling our things on the asphalt near the bus door. With so many of us, it only took two trips to get everything into the auditorium’s back lobby.


Smiley punched the “Up” button next to an elevator which was twice as wide as a regular one. It whirred, clicked, then opened, revealing an interior the size of an ordinary bedroom. As we carried our stuff into it, Smiley explained that the auditorium had originally been a symphony hall, and that the elevator had been built to accommodate tubas and double basses.

 

“Look,” he said, pushing one of the many black buttons next to the door. As the numeral for the first floor lit up, both the front and the back of the elevator opened, revealing tiled hallway on both sides.

 

Behind us, leaning against the wall, was a young man dressed In the first baby-blue suit I’d ever seen.

 

At first glance he appeared to be about eight feet tall, but a closer inspection revealed that about two feet of that was hair. His blonde hair was swept up into a pompadour that made Little Richard’s look like a flat top, and he wore at least twenty pounds of costume Jewelry–fifteen pounds of it in finger rings.


He took a last puff on his cigarette, then ground It out. He walked up and began helping us get our things out of the giant elevator. I played a hunch. “Frankie? Of the Heptones?”


“Live and In person,” said Frankie, smiling. “You Ricky, or Raymond?”


“Ricky,” I said. “Thanks for helping.”


“‘S’all right,” he said. “Got a bad case of the Jitters. Need to keep busy.”


“Hey,” I said, “I hear you.” I had a Jitter or two myself.


“I hear Billboard magazine’s makin’ your record their pick of the Week next issue,” said Frankie.


“You’re kidding,” I said, in my regular Regina voice. I caught myself and moved back into a lower register. “Really?”


“Yup,” said Smiley from behind me. “I was goin’ lo tell you about it over lunch, but it slipped my mind.” Nancy, who’d come up to stand next to me, squeezed my arm.


Stu and Cecil, who were shuttling equipment backstage, appeared with our costume bags. “Where do these go?” asked Stu.


“Dressing room’s back this way,” said Frankie. “Don’t mind sharing it with us, do you?”


“Oh no,” I said. I Meant, of course, Oh-no-what-do-we-do-now, but Frankie took me to mean Oh-no-not-at-all, because he started leading the way. Ramona poked me and arched her eyebrows.


I shrugged. We certainly couldn’t change clothes in front of Frankie or the Heptones, but no solution came to me.


Frankie solved the problem for us. “We’re all done in here,” he said, opening the dressing room door, “so you’ve got it all to yourselves. We can take it in shifts after the show.  Too small in here for everybody to change at once.”


“That’s good,” said Ramona, relieved.


“That’s cool, Raymond means,” I added.    “Like, real cool.”


Ramona, Nancy, and I took possession of the dressing room. Nancy guarded the door, ready to bar entrance to anyone blundering in. Ramona and I outfitted ourselves in gold lamé.

 

The new suits were really large, as we had been wearing too-big union suits when we’d been fitted by the tailor.  But the fabric was light and when it fell in folds, it looked kind of nifty.  We looked like rebels.  Shiny rebels.

 

As we dressed, we could hear Frankie and his band warming up. “Billy, that’s not A, that’s Z!” Frankie shouted. “Virgil, help him out, man.”


“Shit,” I said suddenly.


“What’s the matter?” asked Ramona/Raymond, who froze holding one black pointy-toed shoe.


“Did you call Mom today?” I said.


“No,” said Ramona. “Did you?”


“Of course I didn’t,” I snapped. “It’s not my turn.”


“Sorry, ‘gina,” she said. “You think there’s a telephone anywhere in this place?”


“Probably,” I said, knotting my tie. “Ask Smiley.” Ramona started for the door. “Ramona.” She stopped and turned around. “Put on your other shoe.”


She returned a few minutes later.
“Everything’s cool. I Just talked to Mom. She and Daddy are going to a pig roast or something like that. She wanted to know where the music was coming from, so I told her we were playing records.She said keep the noise down for the neighbors’ sake.”


“Good girl,” I said, “Didn’t mean to bite your head off before. I guess I’m nervous.”

Frankie and the Heptones, out in the stage
area, launched into a few practice numbers. They weren’t half bad—kind of a combination of the Five Satins and the Del Vikings.

 

When they finished, Cecil came onstage and started testing the sound equipment, and Stu helped Ramona and me get set up. Finally all the black cords snaked off to where they should, and the piano and microphones were In the right places.


We started with the first song on the set list, and did two songs from each set with no breaks between them. It was six-thirty, and the doors opened at seven-thirty, so there wasn’t much lime for fooling around.

 

Neither of us felt like fooling around, either. I made several nervous mistakes in the first two songs, and Ramona, at the piano, looked like she was clenching her teeth.

 

After the fourth number, Ramona said, “I’m as ready as I’ll ever be,” and went off to fidglt In private.

 

I hung around, peeking out from behind the curtain occasionally. The front doors were unlocked promptly at seven-thirty, and the first fans trickled in. Evidently, a crowd had gathered early on the sidewalk.

 

As the trickle increased to a flow, I realized that the audience was going to be bigger than I’d counted on. I hoped Ramona would bo able to maintain the calm she’d displayed at the radio Interview, and not go into one of her “Oh-my-gosh-all-those-people-are-looking-at-me” catatonic fits.


The front seating section, which made up about a third of the room, was filling rapidly. It was filled by 7:35, and the next two sections were going fast. It looked to me like the room would hold about six hundred people.


By 7:55, the auditorium was full of people, moat of them girls about Ramona’s age, carrying autograph books. A few stragglers found their seats as the house lights went down and the spotlight focused on center stage. From the other side of the stage from me, Screamin’ Gene stepped out. Evidently, he would serve as the show’s emcee; I hadn’t seen him come in.

 

Ramona and Nancy came to look out at the stage with me. Ramona got her first look at the crowd, turned white, and said, “Uh oh.”


Gene now stood in the spotlight’s glare, adjusted the microphone for his height, or lack of it. “Triple-E Productions welcomes you to an evening with two dynamic groups!” he said. We want to thank you all for makin’ the scene! The fire marshal begs me to remind you to keep all aisles clear, and the auditorium manager would like me to tell you that smoking, eating, and drinking are prohibited. And that’s all I’m gonna say, except that tonight you’ll be hearing THE SMITH BROTHERS!”–there was applause here—”and their special guests, cornin’ up right now, FRANKIE AND THE HEPTONES!”


There was moderate applause as Frankie and his band, dressed identically in baby-blue suits and the pointiest possible shoes, took the stage. The band members grabbed their instruments as Frankie went to his mike and said, “One, two, three, four.” The band jumped into “Rock and Roll Is Here to Stay.”

 

The audience liked that one, and they enjoyed the Heptones’ version of “Be Bop Baby,” but after that they lost interest in the band. They perked up a little here and there, but their attention was never really caught again.

 

They clapped enthusiastically after the Heptones’ last number, “Come Go with Me,” but whether it was the music or the fact that it was the last number, I don’t know.


Frankie and the boys took a few bows, then did an encore. They waved, then scooted offstage.


“Bad crowd tonight,” said Frankie as he passed Be, “No enthusiasm.”


I was worried. The Heptones and the Smith brothers did roughly the same kind of material—mostly covers of recent hits. We did have a few originals penned by Ramona, but It didn’t look like this crowd would appreciate God if lie suddenly materialized on stage.  “You look worried, Reg–  Ricky,” said Nancy.  “The crowd is excited.  They’re ready for you to go out and play.”


“Hope so,” I said squeakily.  But there was nothing to do but go on, so go on we did. Screamin’ Gene gave us a revved-up Intro, and I tried to gauge the audience’s reaction. The lights were blinding.

 

From somewhere in front of me came a shriek. I squinted out over the crowd, and finally spotted a girl in the fourth row who was yelling her head off. I looked around for a security person to help her.


Was she sick? Injured? Then a second girl joined I he scream-o-rama, and then another, and then two or three more, I realized that they were all screaming for me –-well, us.

 

I looked behind me. Cecil and Stu were ready to go, dressed Inconspicuously in dark clothes, so as not to distract the audience’s attention from the stars. Ramona, although obviously clenching her teeth again, was seated calmly at tile piano.


I counted off, and we started out with Elvis’ “(l.et Me Be Your) Teddy Bear,” and followed that with a song of Ramona’s called “Beboppln’ Betty.”

 

“Beboppin’ Betty,” we sang, “went to a dance, she was there for the music, not there for romance…” The girls ate it up.

 

By the time we went into Hobby Darin’s “Spllsh Splash,” several audience members were ignoring the fire marshal’s concern over keeping the aisles clear. Some had gotten up lo dance; others jumped up and down, screaming “Ricky!” or sometimes “Raymond!”


Cecil and Stu played on impassively.  If it troubled them that no one shouted “Stu!” or “Cecil!”, they didn’t show it. Ramona, pounding the piano keys, seemed unaware of the growing pandemonium in the audience.  Clearly, her mind was on only the next chord.


We took a break after “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goln’ On” and escaped backstage for a few minutes. Sweat rolled down my face and was dammed by my mustache.

 

I used a handkerchief to blot It gently, careful not to dislodge It In the process.

 

“It sounds great,” Nancy said enthusiastically. I was enthusiastic about the bottle of cold Coca-Cola she’d brought me from the vending machine In the hall.


As I was finishing it, Smiley came and shooed us back onstage. The noise level had dropped In our absence,but it went up a few decibels when we reappeared in front of the curtain.


“One, two, three, four,” I counted off, then Ramona began the intro to the song everyone was waiting for. “Olé, baby, why doncha take me to a bullfight . . .”

 

The audience went nuts. The security people (two retired cops and Smiley) gave up on trying to keep the aisles clear and concentrated on keeping the stage clear.

 

Teenage girls were scrambling up over the front of the stage, trying to get at us. A particularly determined redhead to my right had eluded the security officer twice and was gearing up for a third onslaught. I stepped back a little without letting up on my saxophone~~this lady looked like she might want to take my right arm home for a souvenir.


We worked our way through a few more standards and a couple of Ramona’s songs. It didn’t matter what we played—they loved it.


After the next-to-last number, I carried my saxophone over to the piano, where Ramona/Raymond and I conferred. We’d planned on doing “Tuttl Frutti” as the last song, but now we agreed that a calming influence was needed. We decided on “In the Still of the Night,” and I went back to my mike. The ballad helped bring the fever down a little, and Ramona and I were about to escape unharmed during the applause,
and even sign some autographs after the show without any actual physical damage to ourselves.


When Nancy and I got back to our room at the Sleep Tite All Night Motel, though, and I looked at my redheaded, mustached Ricky-self In the bathroom mirror, I saw that my face, neck, and shirt collar were smeared with lipstick in every conceivable shade.

Nancy came Into the bathroom as I was inspecting myself.  “Didn’t try too hard to fight them off, did you?” she asked.  I could see her behind me in the mirror.

 
“Hey,” I said, “I turned my head, didn’t I? What else was I supposed to–”


Nancy’s grin told me I’d been had, and I grinned back.

Go to Chapter 21 now