In God we trust_ all others pay cash - Jean Shepherd [23]
It was then that I became aware of someone saying something to me. It was an empty car. There was no one else but us. I glanced around, and there it was. Above us a line of car cards looked down on the empty streetcar. One was speaking directly to me, to me alone.
DO YOU OFFEND?
Do I offend?!
With no warning, from up near the front of the car where the motorman is steering I see this thing coming down the aisle directly toward me. It’s coming closer and closer. I can’t escape it. It’s this blinding, fantastic, brilliant, screaming blue light. I am spread-eagled in it. There’s a pin sticking through my thorax. I see it all now.
I AM THE BLIND DATE!
ME!!
I’M the one they’re being nice to!
I’m suddenly getting fatter, more itchy. My new shoes are like bowling balls with laces; thick, rubber-crepe bowling balls. My great tie that Aunt Glenn gave me is two feet wide, hanging down to the floor like some crinkly tinfoil noose. My beautiful hand-painted snail is seven feet high, sitting up on my shoulder, burping. Great Scot! It is all clear to me in the searing white light of Truth. My friend Schwartz, I can see him saying to Junie Jo:
“I got this crummy fat friend who never has a date. Let’s give him a break and.…”
I AM THE BLIND DATE!
They are being nice to me! She is the one who is out on a Blind Date. A Blind Date that didn’t make it.
In the seat ahead, the merriment rose to a crescendo. Helen tittered; Schwartz cackled. The marble statue next to me stared gloomily out into the darkness as our streetcar rattled on. The ride went on and on.
I AM THE BLIND DATE!
I didn’t say much the rest of the night There wasn’t much to be said.
VII FLICK OFFERS ME HARD LIQUOR
“You sure you don’t want a shot? A little bourbon maybe?” Flick asked, oozing sympathy. He went on:
“Do you remember the time Jane Hutchinson left me standing in a snowdrift for four hours? While she had a date with Claude Eaton!”
“Whatever happened to her?”
“I hear she moved out somewhere near Cedar Lake.” Flick mopped the bar pensively.
“Cedar Lake! I haven’t heard of Cedar Lake for years! The Dance Hall! The Roller Rink! The Smell! Is it still out there, Flick? How is Cedar Lake?”
Flick paused meaningfully in his swabbing, savoring to the full his next statement.
“Cedar Lake. It’s the first time I ever heard of ’em doing it to a lake. It’s Condemned.”
VIII HAIRY GERTZ AND THE FORTY-SEVEN CRAPPIES
Life, when you’re a Male kid, is what the Grownups are doing. The Adult world seems to be some kind of secret society that has its own passwords, handclasps, and countersigns. The thing is to get In. But there’s this invisible, impenetrable wall between you and all the great, unimaginably swinging things that they seem to be involved in. Occasionally mutterings of exotic secrets and incredible pleasures filter through. And so you bang against it, throw rocks at it, try to climb over it, burrow under it; but there it is. Impenetrable. Enigmatic.
Girls somehow seem to be already involved, as though from birth they’ve got the Word. Lolita has no Male counterpart. It does no good to protest and pretend otherwise. The fact is inescapable. A male kid is really a kid. A female kid is a girl. Some guys give up early in life, surrender completely before the impassable transparent wall, and remain little kids forever. They are called “Fags,” or “Homosexuals,” if you are in polite society.
The rest of us have to claw our way into Life as best we can, never knowing when we’ll be Admitted. It happens to each of us in different ways—and once it does, there’s no turning back.
It happened to me at the age of twelve in Northern Indiana—a remarkably barren terrain resembling in some ways the surface of the moon, encrusted with steel mills, oil refineries, and honky-tonk bars. There was plenty of natural motivation for Total Escape. Some kids got hung up on kite flying, others on pool playing. I became the greatest vicarious angler in the history of the Western world.
I say vicarious because there just wasn’t any actual fishing to be done