up
elevator operators as potential archenemies, whispering
side-of-the-mouth but fluent orders into the ears of cocker spaniels,
drawing beads, with index fingers, on the foreheads of arithmetic
teachers. And always waiting, waiting for a decent chance to strike
terror and admiration in the nearest mediocre heart.
One
afternoon in February, just after Comanche baseball season had
opened, I observed a new fixture in the Chief's bus. Above the
rear-view mirror over the windshield, there was a small, framed
photograph of a girl dressed in academic cap and gown. It seemed to
me that a girl's picture clashed with the general men-only decor of
the bus, and I bluntly asked the Chief who she was. He hedged at
first, but finally admitted that she was a girl. I asked him what her
name was. He answered unforthrightly, "Mary Hudson." I
asked him if she was in the movies or something. He said no, that she
used to go to Wellesley College. He added, on some slow-processed
afterthought, that Wellesley College was a very high class college. I
asked him what he had her picture in the bus for, though. He shrugged
slightly, as much as to imply, it seemed to me, that the picture had
more or less been planted on him.
During
the next couple of weeks, the picture--however forcibly or
accidentally it had been planted on the Chief--was not removed from
the bus. It didn't go out with the Baby Ruth wrappers and the fallen
licorice whips. However, we Comanches got used to it. It gradually
took on the unarresting personality of a speedometer.
But
one day as we were on our way to the Park, the Chief pulled the bus
over to a curb on Fifth Avenue in the Sixties, a good half mile past
our baseball field. Some twenty back-seat drivers at once demanded an
explanation, but the Chief gave none. Instead, he simply got into his
story-telling position and swung prematurely into a fresh installment
of "The Laughing Man." He had scarcely begun, however, when
someone tapped on the bus door. The Chief's reflexes were geared high
that day. He literally flung himself around in his seat, yanked the
operating handle of the door, and a girl in a beaver coat climbed
into the bus.
Offhand,
I can remember seeing just three girls in my life who struck me as
having unclassifiably great beauty at first sight. One was a thin
girl in a black bathing suit who was having a lot of trouble putting
up an orange umbrella at Jones Beach, circa 1936. The second was a
girl aboard a Caribbean cruise ship in 1939, who threw her cigarette
lighter at a porpoise. And the third was the Chief's girl, Mary
Hudson.
"Am
I very late?" she asked the Chief, smiling at him.
She
might just as well have asked if she was ugly.
"No!"
the Chief said. A trifle wildly, he looked at the Comanches near his
seat and signalled the row to give way. Mary Hudson sat down between
me and a boy named Edgar something, whose uncle's best friend was a
bootlegger. We gave her all the room in the world. Then the bus
started off with a peculiar, amateur-like lurch. The Comanches, to
the last man, were silent.
On
the way back to our regular parking place, Mary Hudson leaned forward
in her seat and gave the Chief an enthusiastic account of the trains
she had missed and the train she hadn't missed; she lived in
Douglaston, Long Island. The Chief was very nervous. He didn't just
fail to contribute any talk of his own; he could hardly listen to
hers. The gearshift knob came off in his hand, I remember.
When
we got out of the bus, Mary Hudson stuck right with us. I'm sure that
by the time we reached the baseball field there was on every
Comanche's face a some-girls-just-don't-know-when-to-go-home look.
And to really top things off, when another Comanche and I were
flipping a coin to decide which team would take the field first, Mary
Hudson wistfully expressed a desire to join the game. The response to
this couldn't have been more clean-cut. Where before we Comanches had
simply stared at her femaleness, we now glared at it.
elevator operators as potential archenemies, whispering
side-of-the-mouth but fluent orders into the ears of cocker spaniels,
drawing beads, with index fingers, on the foreheads of arithmetic
teachers. And always waiting, waiting for a decent chance to strike
terror and admiration in the nearest mediocre heart.
One
afternoon in February, just after Comanche baseball season had
opened, I observed a new fixture in the Chief's bus. Above the
rear-view mirror over the windshield, there was a small, framed
photograph of a girl dressed in academic cap and gown. It seemed to
me that a girl's picture clashed with the general men-only decor of
the bus, and I bluntly asked the Chief who she was. He hedged at
first, but finally admitted that she was a girl. I asked him what her
name was. He answered unforthrightly, "Mary Hudson." I
asked him if she was in the movies or something. He said no, that she
used to go to Wellesley College. He added, on some slow-processed
afterthought, that Wellesley College was a very high class college. I
asked him what he had her picture in the bus for, though. He shrugged
slightly, as much as to imply, it seemed to me, that the picture had
more or less been planted on him.
During
the next couple of weeks, the picture--however forcibly or
accidentally it had been planted on the Chief--was not removed from
the bus. It didn't go out with the Baby Ruth wrappers and the fallen
licorice whips. However, we Comanches got used to it. It gradually
took on the unarresting personality of a speedometer.
But
one day as we were on our way to the Park, the Chief pulled the bus
over to a curb on Fifth Avenue in the Sixties, a good half mile past
our baseball field. Some twenty back-seat drivers at once demanded an
explanation, but the Chief gave none. Instead, he simply got into his
story-telling position and swung prematurely into a fresh installment
of "The Laughing Man." He had scarcely begun, however, when
someone tapped on the bus door. The Chief's reflexes were geared high
that day. He literally flung himself around in his seat, yanked the
operating handle of the door, and a girl in a beaver coat climbed
into the bus.
Offhand,
I can remember seeing just three girls in my life who struck me as
having unclassifiably great beauty at first sight. One was a thin
girl in a black bathing suit who was having a lot of trouble putting
up an orange umbrella at Jones Beach, circa 1936. The second was a
girl aboard a Caribbean cruise ship in 1939, who threw her cigarette
lighter at a porpoise. And the third was the Chief's girl, Mary
Hudson.
"Am
I very late?" she asked the Chief, smiling at him.
She
might just as well have asked if she was ugly.
"No!"
the Chief said. A trifle wildly, he looked at the Comanches near his
seat and signalled the row to give way. Mary Hudson sat down between
me and a boy named Edgar something, whose uncle's best friend was a
bootlegger. We gave her all the room in the world. Then the bus
started off with a peculiar, amateur-like lurch. The Comanches, to
the last man, were silent.
On
the way back to our regular parking place, Mary Hudson leaned forward
in her seat and gave the Chief an enthusiastic account of the trains
she had missed and the train she hadn't missed; she lived in
Douglaston, Long Island. The Chief was very nervous. He didn't just
fail to contribute any talk of his own; he could hardly listen to
hers. The gearshift knob came off in his hand, I remember.
When
we got out of the bus, Mary Hudson stuck right with us. I'm sure that
by the time we reached the baseball field there was on every
Comanche's face a some-girls-just-don't-know-when-to-go-home look.
And to really top things off, when another Comanche and I were
flipping a coin to decide which team would take the field first, Mary
Hudson wistfully expressed a desire to join the game. The response to
this couldn't have been more clean-cut. Where before we Comanches had
simply stared at her femaleness, we now glared at it.
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