Chapters 21 to Epilogue

Chapter Twenty-One



The entire Indianapolis contingent, except for Stu, took the old green bus to have lunch together the next day at one of Peoria’s many mom-and-pop restaurants.  Stu, in the car,  had driven to the Post Office to pick up another 500 copies of “Olé, Baby.” which Smiley had arranged to have the record plant ship to the local postal station.  We’d sold out of the 250 records we’d brought.


After breakfast, it was on to Evanston, and the minute I sat down on the cracked leatherette cushion of a bus seat, I fell deeply asleep, the edge of my tortoiseshell sunglasses rattling against the smudgy glass of the bus window.

 

I woke up when we entered downtown, but I could have gone through the routine In my sleep. The itinerary was the same as Peoria’s:  A chat with “Boppin’ Bob” Myers, of WHVS, “The Sound of Evanston,” scheduled right after Don McNeil’s Breakfast Club finished for the day.  Set-up, rehearsal, dinner, then a re-hash of the previous night’s show. Our special guests In Evanston were Bo Barton and the Bar-Tels.


We endured the autograph session–the Evanston crowd was huge and enthusiastic, and even “In the Still of the Night” didn’t cool them off. We stood In a hark hallway for two hours signing records, autograph books, napkins, and casts.


After the last happy fan went off into the night clutching her autographed record Jacket, we  plied Into the old green bus with the Ranch House lasso painted on the side.  Cecil, for once not in plaid but rather a red paisley shirt,  took the wheel, which meant we’d probably live long enough to see Indianapolis again. I was thrilled to see the familiar stores and houses as we headed back to Smiley’s place.

 

Ramona, Nancy, and I got out of the bus at the studio, and drove back to the Hammersmith residence. Ramona collapsed into her bed, and Nancy and I sacked out in the folks’ room.

 

Some time later, I was awakened by the phone. Both Ramona and Nancy obstinately refused to wake up, so I dragged myself out of bed and answered it after what must have been the fourteenth ring.


“H’lo?” I croaked.


“Up ‘n’ at ’em, boy!” shouted Smiley cheerily. “Up ‘n’ at ’em! We got a reporter from Record World magazine cornin’ by the studio at eleven, and right after that we got a lunch date with a lady from the Chicago Sun-Tlmes! It’s almost ten now, so you boys better hop to it.”


“Do what?” I asked stupidly. “Don’ wanna go anywhere. Wanna sleep.”


“Wake up there, boy!” boomed Smiley. “This is no time to be restin’ on yer laurels! You’re a star, son, a star! And stars got obligations, so let’s get that tail outta bed and get goin’! I’ll have coffee hot for ya when ya get here. Get that lazy brother of yours outta the sack and get him dressed. I’ll see you a little before eleven o’clock.”


He hung up before I could put together a suitable protest. I shook Ramona, who rose grumbling and cursing. We put on our somewhat rumpled gold lamé suits, affixed our facial hair, and stumbled out the front door, leaving a note for Nancy.

 

We stopped at a doughnut shop on the way. While Ramona went inside and got us a makeshift breakfast, I used the phone booth outside to check in with Mom and Dad. They weren’t up yet when I called, but the hotel desk clerk assured me that he’d deliver my message when they woke up.

 

Both the interview at the studio and the lunch meeting with the newspaper reporter were a breeze. Ramona and I had ready answers for any questions about our home town, how the band got started, and so on, but neither reporter asked about any of that stuff.

 

Both of them just wanted statistics: our height, weight, color of eyes. What we liked to eat, what our favorite colors were. What we’d take with us to a desert island. (Raymond/Ramona said a record player and records, I said my wife.)  They didn’t care about our music; they wanted us to be personalities.

 


We Just had time for a quick nap in the back room of the Ranch House studio building, then it was time for us to meet with a photographer who would take our pictures for Scott-Todd Productions. Scott-Todd was the company Smiley had hired to put out all our publicity material.


“I’m tired,” protested Ramona after the photo session, when Smiley told us that we’d be dining with Mltzi (or was it Frltzi?) Gibbons, the editor of Teen Tune Magazine. Teen Tune, a slick monthly fan mag, ran a monthly feature called, “Tell He All About …” and the upcoming issue would tell the readers all about…Ricky and Raymond Smith.


Smiley ignored Ramona/Raymond’s complaint. “That’s show biz,” he said. “You’ll get used to it. Besides, I Just got some real good news.” He smiled at Ramona, but for once she didn’t smile back. “Guess which brother act Just got hired tomorrow night to play the State Fair’s secondary stage, the one that has seating for three thousand people?”


“Who?” asked a bored Ramona/Raymond, scratching her mustache. “The Everly Brothers?”


“Guess again,” said Smiley, and I sucked in my breath.

 

“You’re kidding, Smiley!” I gasped.


“Would I kid a smart guy like you, Slick?” aid Smiley. “They had a late-minute cancellation and they’re going nuts over there. My good buddy Ollie Washburn is the Fair director, and he just gave me a buzz on the ol’ telephone, wanting to know where he could find those boys with the bullfighting song.

 

Seems his daughter’s about worn out her copy already. Havin’ a cancellation like that really put Ollie in a bind. “They’re havin’ Jerry Lee—”


“Lewis?” said Ramona with big eyes. “Jerry Lee Lewis?”


“The one and only,” said Smiley, pushing his cowboy hat back on his head. “The grandstand is sold out, ten thousand seats.  So they got this second stage, and Ollie was plannin’ on havin’ The Three Chords come play to catch the overflow of the ones who couldn’t get grandstand seats.”


“I’m trying to dig you, man,” I said. “Do I know these Three Chord cats?”

 

“They used to do some backup for Kay Starr, Doris Day, you know, some good voices,” said Slim.  He laughed.   I had never seen Smiley crack a grin, so his laughter startled me.

 

“It’s prob’ly good for Ollie that they’re claiming laryngitis, which is show biz for ‘not enough money.,” he said.    “I don’t know that the ones who wanted to see Jerry Lee are gonna settle for three men doing ‘Bewitched, Bewildered, and. . .’ whatever that damn song is.”


“That puts you boys in the catbird seat. Yes sir, the catbird seat! We can probably get you a shot on ‘Bandstand’ out of this —”


“You can get us tickets to ‘American Bandstand‘?” said Ramona/Ramona, her eyes sparkling.  She forgot to use her boy voice and went a little squeaky for a moment till I frowned at her.  “I want to Rate-a-Record! Can you sign us up for that, or do we have to get chosen from the audience?”


“Son, you got to start realizin’ your star status,” said Smiley, clapping Ramona on the back so hard that she nearly fell over.  The tortoiseshell sunglasses slipped and she had to grab them and jam them back back on her nose.

 

“You ain’t going to be ratin’ no records! You’re going to be onstage, singing your heart out and givin’ all the girls the cold shivers!”


“Really?” Ramona squeaked again in her regular girl voice, but Smiley didn’t notice. He was unwrapping three stinky cigars, one at a time, and I saw that it was time for a little sister-to-sister conference away from Smiley — far away.

 

“Raymond,” I said in my deepest voice, “Come on and help me get my clothes ready for tomorrow night.”


Smiley held up the cigars. “Let’s us celebrate a Iittle, and let the clothes go for now! I got a bottle in my suitcase, and It’s time to break loose a little. It ain’t every day—“


“Can’t do it, man,” I said, backing out of the room and pulling Ramona with me. “Smoking will ruin my voice–my throat’s a little sore the way it is, so–“


“Sore throat?” said Smiley, looking alarmed. He stuffed the cigars into the front pocket of his embroidered Western Jacket. “You go right to bed, boy, and rest up. You two gotta play the Fair tomorrow night. Go on, now,” he said, pushing us out the door. “Don’t you get sick on me.”


Once Ramona and I were alone, I said, “Ramona, we can’t go on ‘American Bandstand,’ for heaven’s sake.”


“Why not?” said Ramona. “And if we’re the stars, I don’t know why I can’t play Rate-a- llecord.”


“Forget Rate a-Record,” I said. “Pay attention, dear, this is important. In the first place, our parents are coming home from Hawaii in a few days. You might remember them–Dad’s the bald guy with the short temper, and Mom’s the nice lady with — “


“Maybe we could still —”


“And tell them what?” I said. “‘Oh, by the way, folks, we’ve got to hop a plane to Philadelphla because we are secretly rock-and-roll singers who are booked on America’s favorite teen program?’ Besides, we can’t get away with this act forever somebody is going to get wise to us real soon. And who knows when you’ll drop your mustache In » motel toilet again.”


“That’s right, blame everything on me,” said Ramona sulkily. “Well, what are we going to do?”


“Right now, let’s concentrate on getting ready for the Indiana State Fair,” I said. “A couple thousand people are expecting us–well, they were hoping for  Jerry Lee Lewis, but I guess they’ll have to make do.”

 

 

 

Chapter Twenty-Two

 


It was boiling hot on the night of August 12, 1958, when my sister and I, dressed as the Smith Brothers, were killing time in the hours before we’d take the FFA Pavilion stage at the Indiana State Fair.

 

Even our casual Ricky-and-Raymond attire was too hot for a summer event outdoors.  Everyone else was wearing seersucker sport shirts and sleeveless blouses, Bermuda shorts, and practical skirts.  We both wore vests over our shirts, and baggy chinos.  People were looking at us, but since we wore our tortoiseshell Cary Grand sunglasses, at least no one could see our reactions to their stares.

 

Hoosier fair-goers were not only giving us the once-over because of our attire but because Cecil was acting as our official photographer.  The strap of a Kodak Signet camera was around Cecil’s neck, and  its protective leather case hanging down over his chest.   He pointed the lens at Ramona/Raymond and me as we toured the Fair.  Cecil snapped photos of the Smith Brothers watching farm boys chase a greased pig, the Smith Brothers looking up at a huge market scale recording the weight of the enormous prize pumpkins at eighty-nine pounds exactly, and the Smith Brothers sampling apple butter and peace preserves right next to the official judges in the Homemaking and Crafts tent.

A few people asked for our autographs, but a lot of the fair-goers were older farm folk from Anderson, Noblesville, and Vincennes, and they were not interested in two young hoodlums in fancy sunglasses.  I signed the back of a paper plate for a woman my mother’s age, only to see her disappointment when she realized I was not the red-haired fellow who played Jimmy Olsen on the “The Adventures of Superman.”

 

I’d been calm all day, but about half an hour before showtime, I was behind the FFA Pavilion building, in my gold lamé suit, and my poor  stomach began doing flip-flops.In the background, I could see the lighted merry-go-round turning in the darkening sky, and hear the people screaming as the roller-coaster dropped down the steepest part of the ride.  Neither of these did a thing for my jitters or my digestion.

 

I tried deep breathing, drinking water, and counting backwards from a thousand, but I couldn’t calm down. I walked back and forth in the hallways behind the stage area, carrying my saxophone.


Ramona, dressed as Raymond, in full gold lamé glory, had shut herself into the dressing room, and I hoped she was coming out pretty soon. Smiley couldn’t get her to come out, so he came around the back of the Pavilion and  tried to give me a little pep talk, but his stinky cigar was more than my queasy guts could take.

 

“Smiley, man,” I gasped, “Make like a baby and head on out with that cigar. I can’t take it, you dig?”


“All right, son, all right,” said Smiley. “You got the jitters, I can see that. You’ll do all right, boy, you always do.” He clapped me on the shoulder and left me to pace in peace.


I went to the door of the dressing room to find the other half of my act. “Raymond, man,”
I called through the door. “Is it cool if I come in?”


“Go away!” Ramona called through the door.


“Uh, are we doing this gig?” I called through the splintery old door. “There’s a lot of good Hoosier people sittin’ out there, getting ready to hear us play. So are we playing?”


“It’s not time yet,” Ramona said. “Come get me when it’s time.”


I looked at my watch. It was two minutes till showtime. I leaned on the door, crossed my arms, and squeezed my eyes shut, “One thousand,” I counted to myself, “Nine hundred ninety-nine, nine hundred ninety-eight, nine hundred–”


“You asleep, Ricky?” roared Smiley in my ear. “It’s time to get out there and knock ’em dead!”


“Hear that, Raymond?” I called through the door. “Smiley says it’s time to rock!”


I waited to see if the door would open. I was surprised when it swung open and Ramona/Raymond appeared, rippling shinily  in gold lamé, red mustache firmly in place. “Let’s go,” Ramona/Raymond said, walking briskly toward the backstage area.


Ramona and I waited in the darked backstage area of the secondary stage while Fair officials did a lot of announcements from the microphone. The results of the steer-judglng were in, and the top three champions were named and applauded.


Somebody’s kid was lost, and he wanted his mom to come get him from the Information Booth. And last but certainly not least, the announcer said, there was a special guest this evening, “the Governor of the great State of Indiana!”

 

The crowd applauded politely as a medium-size man in a gray suit entered the stage from the opposite side from us.


“That’s him, huh?” said Cecil, standing behind me. “He’s not much to look at, is he?”  Cecil himself was wearing a particularly snappy plaid sport shirt in gold, purple, and black.


“Shh,” I said. “I can’t hear.”


“…behalf of the good people of Indiana,”
the governor was saying, “I’d like to welcome our Alaskan friends and present them with these Certificates of Appreciation.”

 

The governor paused, and Cecil gently shoved me between the shoulder blades. I had no idea what was going on, but I walked mechanically toward the middle of the stage.  It was much brighter there than backstage, and the stage seemed huge.  Was Ramona behind me or not? I didn’t dare turn to look.


Before I knew what was happening to me, the Governor had a grip on my right hand and was pumping it up and down. A photographer was exploding flash bulbs in my face, then Ramona was shoved between the Governor and me and the whole thing started over again.

 

I looked out toward the audience, but I couldn’t see a thing. The stage lights were so bright that the seating area was pitch-black. I heard a constant low-pitched hum which must have been people talking, changing seats, and eating hot dogs.


“Thank you,” I said in my best Raymond voice to the Governor. “Alaska sends its greetings to everyone in Indiana.”


“Yeah, that’s right,” added Ramona/Raymond, helpfully. “We all love Indiana, up in Alaska.”

 


The Governor wasn’t looking at me at all. He was turning his face toward the photographer, moving as the camera lens moved. Then our elected official gave the audience a big wave and walked off, leaving me and Ramona standing at center stage. Ramona/Raymond stood frozen, staring at me.


I stepped to the right-hand front mike. “How you all doing out there?” I yelled, and from the darkness in front of me, the low-pitched hum got a little louder for a moment. “I’m Ricky Smith, this is my brother Raymond, and we’re going to bring on our band and shake this place up a little!”

 

I couldn’t tell this time if the hum got any louder or not. I turned to wave at Cecil and Stu, but I saw that they were already on stage, ready to play. So much for the big kick-off.


“Ready, guys?” I said, not caring if they were ready or not. I was standing in the middle of nowhere, screaming at people I couldn’t even see.  My saxophone was on a tripod-style stand near the microphone.  I picked it up.  “One, two, three, four,” I called out as loudly as I could. “Well, I took a trip down to sunny, sunny Mexico…”


Not only could I not see a thing, I couldn’t hear anything either. The bounceback from the monitors was horrible, and I couldn’t hear Ramona, Cecil, or Stu. I couldn’t hear my own voice or sax, either. I didn’t know what to do, except keep going.

 

I took us through the set list, and cut out most of the chit-chat we’d been doing between songs. At the close of each song, I’d Just say “Now we’re going to do a little number made famous by Buddy Holly,” (or Little Richard, or the Everly Brothers, or whoever), count off for the new song, and pray that the band was following me.

 

The time flew by, and we were ready to do just one more, and leave the Fair stage.  We closed with one of Ramona’s numbers, a real up-tempo dance tune called “The Honolulu Hop.”  It was mostly an instrumental with not much in the way of verses, but the kids in the audience loved the chorus, which ended

    put your feet on the beach

    just as far as you can reach and

    hop, hop, HOP!

I could hear, out in the seating area, the rattle and groan of aluminum as kids jumped up and down in the bleacher area.  There was a final drum roll from Cecil and we were done.


“Thanks a lot!” I yelled into the microphone. “You all have been great! Goodnight now!” and I walked off the stage, carrying my saxophone, and nearly fell over a folding chair I didn’t see in the dark area offstage.


When Ramona, Cecil, and Stu met me backstage, none of us said “How was It?” to each other. None of us wanted to know, I guess. Smiley went around slapping all of us on the back and booming, “You did a fine Job! Fine Job!” but that’s what he would have said no matter if we’d done wonderfully or awfully.

 

I was surprised at how much I didn’t care about the show at all. I wanted to go home.


* * * * *


For days and days, Ramona and I had had to take turns sneaking off In order to call Mom and Dad, who were vacationing In blissful Ignorance of the Smith Brothers’ explosive debut on the music scone. The day after the Fair concert, It was my turn to make the call. As Mom was telling me about a luau, or some festive gathering, I broke in with, “Oh, my gosh.”


“What?” asked Mom.


“What day Is today?” I said.


“The thirteenth, I think,” said Mom. “Why?”
“Oh, Just thought of something,” I answered inlmly. “Nothing important.”


Nothing important—just that Mom and Dad would be returning on the sixteenth of August. Today was the thirteenth—Ramona and I had three days to do something about the Smith Brothers.

 

Why hadn’t we made some kind of definite plan for dealing with this? If Mom and Dad got back to the house we hadn’t cleaned and found the letters and bills piled up under their mail slot and the milk curdling inside the metal box on the porch, they’d demand an explanation, first thing.

 

When Mom gathered up our laundry, she would  be startled to come across  our gold lamé suits. Things were going to get ugly unless we did something, fast.


I set the receiver into the cradle on our kitchen wall phone, after bidding Mom a cheerful goodbye, and went to find Ramona. I knew where she was because the record player in our bedroom was blasting Chuck Berry’s “Nadine.”  I picked up the stylus and Ramona said, “Hey!”  

I stood in the middle of our bedroom, clutching my head and saying, “Mom and Dad, Mom and Dad!”


“What about them?” asked Ramona In a worried voice.  “They’re okay, right?”

 


“They’re coming back in three days,” I groaned. “We have to figure out what we’re gonna do. We’ve put It off way too long, and now we only got three days.    We–“

 

Our bedroom telephone rang.  I picked up the receiver.  “Ricky, that you?” roared Smiley.”Y’all need to be here in a hour!  Endorsement conference, breakfast cereal and malted milk mix.  Need you here, in an hour!”

 

“We’ll make the scene, man,” I said in my weariest Raymond voice, and hung up.  Of course there was a meeting in an hour.  There was always something in an hour.


“Look,” I told Ramona, “We have a meeting now but we’d better go off someplace later and talk.”


“I need to tell you about what I found out yesterday,” said Ramona. “When I — “


“Later,” I said.  “I have to go glue my mustache on.”


* * * * *

 


Ramona and I decided to treat ourselves to a meal out that night.   For once we were dressed in our own clothes, or “disguised as ourselves,” as Ramona put it.

 

We took a cruise down to the old familiar Tailee Qulk, and it felt good to sit in the lot, watching the waitress come out to the car. It was hard to me to sit quietly and give her the order. The waitress was the first person I’d spoken to, besides Nancy and Ramona, in my Regina voice for weeks.


After the waitress took our order into the building, I lit a Kool and shook out the match. Ramona looked at me.  “I don’t care if you smoke, ‘gina, but aren’t you worried the smell is going to stay in the car and Dad will notice?”


“We’ll drive home with the windows open,” I said.   “Listen, Ramona, Nancy told me tonight that she’s going back to college tomorrow.”


“She is?” said Ramona.


“Yeah, and she’s glad,” I said. “She hates all this stuff. Zooming around, people asking her what It’s like to be Mrs. Ricky Smith, the whole
thing.  Plus what if somebody had taken her    picture when she wasn’t looking and some relative saw it in I he paper? She was supposed to be doing all these summer projects instead.” I paused.

 

“To tell you the truth,” I continued, “I’m getting pretty sick of the tour myself. I thought it would be fun. it’s horrible. I don’t know if I’m Ricky or Regina, and I’m always seared to death I’m going to slip up.”


“I know,” said Ramona. “Mister Smith, turn this way for the camera. Mister Smith, what kind of pajamas do you wear? Mister Smith, tell us in your own words why you think Flakies Cereal is America’s best breakfast buy. And all along I’ve been thinking, Well, at least we’re rich, but look at these.” Ramona took a folded sheaf of papers from her purse and spread them on the dashboard.


Just then the waitress came back with our order. I rolled down the window some so she could hook on the tray, then I handed    Ramona her cheeseburgers and cherry Coke.


“Okay, so here’s the stuff I found out,” said  Ramona said through a mouthful of cheeseburger.  She reached into the back seat and picked up a cardboard folder.  She took some sheets of paper out of it.  “Here’s our contract.  This first part’s got the basic stuff about percentage, income, and all that. So many cents per record, et cetera et cetera. But here’s this other thing, which says that travel expenses, food, hotel accommodations, et cetera, come out of the capital, which this document says — well, the upshot of it is that we’re not getting any of the money. Or hardly any.  Smiley’s getting most of it. All the costs come out of our pockets, and all the income goes into his pocket. We’re even paying the taxes on his share. We shouldn’t have signed anything without a lawyer. Smiley’s–“


“A crook,” I said. “Great, glad to hear it.
No money, no Nancy, no nothing.  And Mom and Dad come back in three days.”  I looked at the big white clock on the Tastee-Quik sign.  It was 12:02 a.m. “Two days, now.”


“We’ve got to get out of it somehow,” said Ramona.  “Smiley can’t hold us to that contract, can he?” she said desperately.  “It can’t be legal–we didn’t sign it with our real names.”


“Aye, there’s the rub,” I told her. “Or one of the rubs. We try to break it, and then what? He drags us into court. Or has us arrested. Or whatever it is they do to you for fraud. And posing as the opposite gender. And lying to the Indiana governor. And…Well, you get the picture. Maybe we should just disappear. Maybe in the next city we Just sneak out of the hotel and fly home and burn our costumes and…”

 


“Smiley has our home telephone number, dear,” Ramona reminded me. “We’d have to Join the Foreign Legion. And Smiley could probably find us in the desert, It he wanted to. We’ve had it.”


“We’ve really had it,” I said, looking over her shoulder at the parking spot next to us.  One of the people in the car next to us was wearing a plaid sport shirt in particularly vivid shades of blue and green. “Keep your face turned toward the side. It’s Cecil.”

 

“I don’t believe It,” began Ramona, but another look at my face told her I wasn’t kidding.

 

“Cecil?” she said. “What’s he doing here?”


“Hell, I don’t know,” I said. “You know who lie’s with, though? Ron and Eddie. They’re in the car with him.”


“Who’re Ron and Eddie?” asked Ramona, starting to turn her head for a look.


“No, no, don’t look,” I said. “Maybe they won’t notice us. Just pray Cecil doesn’t see us.”

 


“Who are Ron and Eddie?” demanded Ramona again, in an irritated voice, but she was interrupted by two short horn toots from the car on our right, and I turned to see Eddie hanging out of the back seat window, waving wildly at me.

 

“Hi, Regina!” he said. “I can’t believe you’re here too!” Ron was smiling at us through the driver’s window, and Cecil was in the passenger seat, with a very strange facial expression.


“They’re friends of Nancy’s,” I said. “It’s funny that Cecil’s with them, because they’re–“

 


“Cecil’s looking right at us,” said Ramona. “I guess the jig is up.” In fact, Cecil was getting out of the car and coming around to Ramona’s window. He leaned on the car and lit a cigarette. “How ya doln’?” he said.

 

“Um,” I said, at a total loss, “good.”

 

He took a drag from his cigarette .


Ramona hurriedly gathered up the contract pages and threw them into the back seat.

 

“Look,” I said miserably, “it was just a Joke. We didn’t know it was going to get this far. We just wanted –”


“It’s all right,” said Cecil gently. “You don’t have to worry. I haven’t ratted on you yet, have I?”


“You mean you knew?” I squeaked, astonished.


“Yep,” said Cecil. “I’m Just quiet — not dumb.
I figured it all out a while ago. I thought you looked familiar when you came to audition, but the red hair threw me. Then I remembered the two girls that came in and wanted to make a record. So the next time you came in, I looked you over real carefully. I pictured you without the mustaches, and voila! The Hammersmith sisters. The name was the clincher—Hammersmith obviously got shortened to Smith.”

 


I was too astounded to speak, but Ramona piped right up. “Why didn’t you tell Smiley?”


“Well,” said Cecil, “At the time I was kind of mad at Smiley, and I wanted to see somebody take the wind out of his sails.”  Cecil took one more pull on his cigarette, then dropped the glowing butt to the asphalt and ground it out with his shoe.  “Even when I wasn’t mad any more, the thing seemed pretty funny. I wasn’t sure what to do, so it was easier not to do anything.”

 


Obviously, there was a lot more to Cecil than met the eye. I’d always considered him a dim bulb, but I’d been the dim one.


“How did you know we were coming here?” I asked. “Did you follow us?”


“No,” said Cecil. “I didn’t know you were here. I wanted a shake, and, uh, Ron and Eddie and I used to hang around together quite a bit. Before I met Smiley.” Cecil was blushing a little.


“Before you met Smiley?” asked Ramona, confused. “Why did that make any diff– Oh.”


“I know it’s hard to believe that anyone could love Smiley,” said Cecil, “but I do. Which isn’t to say that he’s perfect — far from it.”


“Holy cow,” I said. “I can’t believe it.”


“Cecil, come on!” yelled Eddie from the other car. “The waitress is here and she wants your order!”


“Order me a couple burgers and I’ll be right there!” Cecil called back.


“Go ahead and tell Smiley if you want,” said Ramona. “We don’t care. He’s cheating us anyway.”

 

She reached into the back seat and grabbed a handful of the legal papers, then spread them messily  all over the dashboard again. “We looked this stuff over, and Smiley’s getting all the money.”

 


“I don’t doubt It,” said Cecil. “I love him,
I live with him, but I wouldn’t buy a used car from the man. He grew up poor— real poor, and he’s never gotten over It. Money’s Important to him. He stores it up like a squirrel.”


“Well, I don’t care what he does with his own money,” said Ramona Irritably. “But It seems like he’s squirreling away mine while he’s at It.”


“liey,” said Cecil, “Smiley’s not an ogre. He–“


“I know,” I said. “He’s a real softie at heart . He wouldn’t push his grandmother down the alalrs in her wheelchair. He’d throw her down, ihat wheelchair might be worth something.”

 


“He let you take the contract with you before you signed It, didn’t he?” asked Cecil. “He didn’t object to having your manager look it over. So what it comes down to is that you didn’t go over this contract very carefully before you signed it, because Smiley looks honest. Well, he is honest, in the tense that you get every cent the contract guarantees, although I’ll admit it isn’t much. But you didn’t have to sign.”


“It’s not quite like that, though,” I said. “You could say that about a guy who owns a big factory and pays the workers fifteen cents an hour. Nobody makes them work there, but he knows it’s not right.   I mean, we’re working hard—very hard—for almost nothing.”


“Hard work?” asked Cecil. “Isn’t It fun? I’d think It’d be great to be famous and have everybody yell for you. I wouldn’t know-I’ve been a backup man all my life.”


“It’s fun at first,” said Ramona, “but it gets oId.“


“I’ll say,” I chimed in. “Less than a month, and I’ve had all the stardom I want. Plus now Smiley’s putting pressure on us about making a follow-up single, and an LP, and maybe a movie . . what for? To make a lot of money for him.”

“We’re stuck,” said Ramona. “I’m about ready to shoot myself,” she added dramatically.


“it’s hopeless,” I said.


“It’s not hopeless,” said Cecil sensibly. “Don’t talk that way. I’ll talk to Smiley and–”

 

“Don’t tell him, Cecil!” I said, alarmed. “Then he’ll have all the aces.”


“We’ve got to tell him, Regina,” said my sister, “and take our chances. Cecil, tell him in a good way, and maybe it’ll work out all right.”

“I’ll talk to him,” said Cecil.


“Cecil, your food’s here!” called Ron from the other car.


“Gotta go,” said Cecil. “We’ll see what happens.”

 

 


Chapter Twenty-Three

 


Smiley was spoken to the next day, but not by Cecil. Our downfall came at the hands of a little woman named Alice Trussell. Alice was four-feet-eleven at the most, maybe ninety pounds sopping wet.

 

She was a legal secretary, hired by Smiley to straighten out the rat’s nest of complications Smiley had created by authorizing three different companies to handle the Smith Brothers’ business negotiations. We were invited to the conference, as minority stockholders in ourselves.


When she walked into Smiley’s office, Alice Trussell did the last thing I’d expect from an overworked secretary entering a room to sort out the fine points of extremely complex money matters. She started laughing. And she continued laughing, increasing the pitch and volume until only a wordless squeaking came out of her mouth. After a full minute, or maybe two, of this, she recovered and gasped out, “It’s great! I love it!”


“Love what, ma’am?” asked Smiley politely. His serious face coupled with his relaxed body posture said that hey, if a woman wants to show up at a business meeting and suddenly start laughing her head off, that’s her business.


“Ma’am?” said Alice. This sent her off into another attack of the giggles. “The gag’s great, Mr. Westbrook—if you are Mr. Westbrook. Or did I hey hire you, too? I mean, is this your joke, or did Dot back at A & L Legal put you up to this? That must be It otherwise you couldn’t keep that poker face.”


“Uh, ma’am?,” drawled Smiley in his best Gary Cooper manner, “I, uh, wish you’d let me in on the Joke.”


Alice said, “Okay, play It straight if you want.  Should I pretend I don’t notice anything odd about these two…persons?”


“‘These persons’ are the Smith Brothers,” said Smiley. “They are the number-one recordin’ act in this state, and this time next year, they’ll be number one In this nation. I represent them. You called me by ay name, so I guess you’ve got the right person, lady, but I still don’t see what’s so funny.”


“Just my zany sense of humor, I guess,” said Alice. “I guess you’re going to tell me there’s nothing funny in being sent to work out business contracts with three gentlemen, and finding one gentleman and two young girls wearing ridiculous costume-shop mustaches?”


“Do what?” said Smiley, looking around. “Did you say girls?”


“Girls,” said Alice. “You know, females. Young women.”


Smiley looked at me, then Ramona, then back at me again, confused. “Could you fill me in a little there, Mrs.–“

“Miss.”


“Miss Trussell,” Smiley said politely but tensely. “I seem to have missed somethin’ along in there.”


“These two,” said Alice, pointing at Ramona and me, “are teenage girls. You’re not going to tell me that you can’t see that they are skinny teenage girls wearing men’s clothes! This is priceless.” she squealed, bursting into a new round of tee-hees. “I believe they’ve got you fooled,Mr. Westbrook!” More tee-hees.


Smiley was now gazing at me very intensely, with a horrified expression. Gingerly he reached out a thumb and forefinger and tugged at the corner of my mustache. It gave way a little.


“Ouch,” I said, pulling back my head, “That smarts.”


“Is it real?” Smiley asked hopefully.


“No,” I said quietly. “It’s the cement—you can’t Just rip it off. You have to use solvent.”


“Oh,” said Smiley. He turned and looked at Ramona, dressed as Raymond.

 

“Don’t pull on my mustache,” she said. “My lip’s already sore.”


“You’re those two girls,” Smiley said slowly. “You’re those two girls who turned down the contract, aren’t you? That I met at the television station?”


I nodded. Ramona nodded.


Smiley bolted for the door. “Cecil!” he bellowed into the hallway. “Cecil? Where the hell are you, boy? CECIL!”


Cecil appeared in the doorway, wearing s yellow-checked shirt and munching a bite of apple. He held the uneaten portion in his hand. “Whassa ma’er?” he asked thickly, then swallowed.


“These–these–” Smiley gestured helplessly at us, unable to continue.


“He found out, I take it,” said Cecil to us, as he stepped inside and closed the door.


I nodded. Ramona nodded.


Alice said something vague about having left the cat in the wash so she really must go.

 

Smiley thundered, “You stay right there!” and she did. Not so much out of fear, I suspect, as out of the curiosity which draws some people to car accidents.


“All right, Cecil,” said Smiley. “Ricky and Raymond are girls. You knew it. she“–indicating Alice–“knew it.  Ricky and Raymond knew It. Why didn’t I know it?”


“You really want to know?” deadpanned Ramona.


“You be quiet!” hollered ol’ Smiley. “I’ve had about enough outta you!”


“I don’t have to be quiet,” said Ramona. “Who you think you’re talkin’ to, anyway?”


“That’s what I’m tryin’ to find out,” said Smiley grimly. “And as long as your are in my employ–“


“Ah, but I’m not,” said Ramona calmly. “I quit.”


“You can’t quit!” yelled Smiley. “We have a legal, binding contract!”


“Look at the signatures,” replied Ramona.


“Now you’ve done It,” I said. Smiley walked back to the table and grabbed a copy of the contract. He examined the bottom of the last page. “I’ll sue,” Smiley said. “I’m gonna call my lawyer and–“


“Think for a minute,” said Ramona sensibly. “In the first place, if this story hits the paper, we’re gonna look cool and you’re gonna look the fool. You know, ‘Clever Teens Hoax Manager, Governor! Besides, what’re you gonna get if you sue? We don’t have any money. You certainly saw to that.”


Smiley was thrown for a moment, then he said, “Your parents. I’ll sue them for every penny–“


“That’s about all you’ll get, a penny,” I countered, “Got any use for a four-year-old Chevy with rust in the wheel wells? A washing machine that Jumps across the floor on the spin cycle? My dad’s got some nice neckties–maybe you could use a couple of those.”

 

Smiley sank onto a chair, resting his head In his hands. “Ruined,” he moaned, “ruined …”


“Not necessarily,” said Cecil, finishing the last bite of his apple. How he could eat at a time like this, I don’t know.


“I trusted you, Cecil,” Smiley  said brokenly. “Trusted you and–“


“Stow It, Smiley,” said Cecil. “You really got yourself Into this by trying to turn a fast buck. Now, I have an idea, but the whole thing hinges on this lady right here.” He turned to Alice. “What percentage of the action do you want to keep this on the q.t.?”


“Percentage?” asked Alice huffily. “I don’t have to be bribed to keep my trap shut about something that’s not my business.”


“Didn’t mean to offend,” said Cecil apologetically. “All right, then, here’s the plan….”

 

 

 


Chapter Twenty-Four


From the front page of the August 16, 1958 edition of The Indianapolis Star:


    ACCIDENT TAKES LIVES OF TEEN IDOLS (AP) Benedict “Smiley” Westbrook, president ofRanch House Records, an Indiana-based recording studio, announced today that his firm’s best-known artists, the Smith Brothers, were killed early this morning.


    Richard Smith, 23, and his brother, Raymond, 21, were killed in a one-car accident near Mexico City, Mexico. They apparently lost control of the vehicle, which struck a tree, according to Westbrook. Both men died instantly. Mexican authorities have not yet released any information pertaining to the accident. Ironically, the singing duo’s rock-and-roll smash, ‘Olé, Baby,’ tells the ml oi’y of a visit to Mexico.


    Funeral services for the popular singers will be closed to the public, and held in an undisclosed location, said Westbrook. In addition to his family, Richard Smith is survived by his wife, Nancy, who Is believed to be In seclusion.


    Fans of the duo across the nation mourned today, displaying their grief In many ways . . .


It was sad, really, In a way. Our fans took our deaths hard. One fourteen-year-old girl In Naalivllle, Tennessee jumped from the roof of a three-story department store. Fortunately, she landed in the awning suspended over the store’s front door, and firemen were able to rescue her by the use of a fire ladder. A few high schools In the Indiana area suspended classes, as eachers couldn’t be heard over the sobs of grief-stricken students.

 

Autographed pictures of Ricky and Raymond began selling for as much as twenty-five dollars apiece, and “Olé, Baby” sold more than ten thousand copies in a week.

 

Smiley got all the proceeds from the record.  Part of the deal that Cecil worked out was that Ramona and I would relinquish all claims to profits brought on by the Smith Brothers’ untimely deaths.


Ramona and I spent the morning destroying everything In our possession which connected us with or Raymond, except for our red mustaches, which we sealed Into business-size envelopes as souvenirs.

 

The real of the day, we rushed around the house, throw­ing away spoiled milk and unread newspapers, moving furniture back where it belonged, picking clothes and wet towels up off the bathroom floor. We only had a few hours to make the house look less like we’d been away on tour

.
At four o’clock we left for the airport.  Flight 214 from Honolulu was delayed for forty-five minutes, so Ramona and I had crummy airport food In the crummy airport cafeteria. At last a mechanical-sounding woman’s voice came over the speakers, announcing that passengers on Flight 214 would be disembarking at Gate 4.

 


Ramona and I jumped up, paid our check, and dashed down to the gate. The last people through were Mom and Dad. They looked very tan and sporty in flashy flowered shirts, carrying pineapples and leis and little wooden statues of Hawaiian fire gods.


“Well, you’re still alive, I see,” said Mom, after a lot of hugging and kissing all around. “I guess I should’ve known you girls were old enough to look out for yourselves, but a mother worries.”


“Why don’t we have dinner someplace nice?” said Dad as we headed for the baggage claim. “Wait’ll you hear about all the fun us old fogies had. What have you two been up to while we were gone?”


“Oh, not much,” said Ramona.

 

*****

 

 

 


Epilogue


Eventually, of course, Ramona and I got caught up in the small dramas of everyday life, and eventually we pretty much forgot about the summer we were teen heartthrobs.

 


A couple of years after our summer adventure, Ramona married Frank, a full-time beekeeper, in a ceremony marred only by Ernestine’s getting tipsy on champagne and accidentally driving off in the honeymooners’ car. She didn’t notice the streamers or the tin cans, but she did notice the stop sign which crumpled the car’s front bumper.  Too late, obviously.

 


Ramona and Frank live on a farm near Toms River, New Jersey, where they raised two daughters (Becky and Amy), a few dogs and cats, and lots of bees.

 

Nancy and I moved eight years ago to East Lansing, Michigan, after Nancy retired from teaching French to high school students, and I put in thirty years as a pharmacist for Huy Drugs. Not as glamorous as the space program, hut I enjoyed the people who come by for their antibiotics and so on.

 

Over the years, friends and family who know the story have asked me why I abandoned music as a career.  There was a brief period in the late 1970s when Ramona felt that we might be able to make it as feminist folksingers, and in 1981, my saxophone and I were nearly invisible in the hazy back row of a horn section, playing New Wave music for a  video.  The band was called My Hair’s On Fire.   I thought the name itself might help the group become a hit on MTV, but the video didn’t take off.  Show business Is risky.

 

Every once in a great while, though, the local oldies station plays “Olé, Baby” and when it plays on the car radio,  I sing along


I still know all the words.

                                              THE END