When I was a kid, we drove to northeastern Indiana to visit my parents' relatives at least twice a year. I loved it: haunted houses, hidden rooms, long-ago ghosts, endless fields and country roads, magic, glamour, the rough cold beauty of my uncles going hunting, the sleek shivering beauty of my cousins in the swimming pool, the delight of cuddling against Cousin Buster as we fell asleep in his narrow bed in the Trailer in the Dark Woods. A sense of almost mystical belonging.
It wasn't just that I couldn't go home again. What really hurt was, I didn't want to go back.
You couldn't get them in Rock Island. I had only the few that my Indiana relatives gave me, and memories of reading as many as possible in Cousin Buster's room while spending the night.
It never occurred to me for an instant that the stories were supposed to be funny. I found them deadly serious. Casper, Spooky, Wendy, and Hot Stuff fight space aliens, mad scientists, evil wizards, save their friends or the whole world countless times.
But really, the stories were irrelevant: it was the comics themselves, the physical books that I could hold in my hands and remember what Indiana used to mean.
One day when I was about ten years old, I asked Cousin Buster where he got his collection of Harvey Comics. Were there stores with huge racks of them on open display?
"I get them at the Walgreens."
"We have Schneider's Drug Store in Rock Island, but all it has are Gold Key and superheroes. Anyplace else?"
"Whenever I go to a movie, I check the comic books at Manuel's Newsstand next door."
"No newsstands in Rock Island. Where else?"
He thought for a moment, and then said "The furniture store."
"Furniture? Like davenports and dining room tables and junk?"
"They have comic books, too."
It didn't seem logical, but Cousin Buster was two years older than me, and not a Nazarene, so he knew about all sorts of "worldly" things that I was kept from.
"When I was a little kid, I didn't know that you could actually buy furniture," I told him. "I thought it came with the house. How could a store be big enough to display it? What car could big enough to carry it home?"
"It comes in a big truck."
I started to fume. Of course I knew that now. Did he think I was a baby?
"And the guys who unload it -- they take their shirts off," he said in a low conspiratorial voice.
I was shocked. Where did Cousin Buster get the idea that I liked looking at guys with their shirts off? Only my boyfriend Bill knew about that. It was shameful, a sissy thing, just for girls.
I had to deflect, restore my masculinity. Maybe with wieners? Everybody liked looking at them. Cousin Buster and I once climbed up into the loft in the barn to peek down at my uncle as he "cleaned his gun."
"Do they take their pants off, too, so you can see their wieners?", I asked
He shrugged. "Sometimes, if they're big enough."
So I could get Harvey comic books and see some naked guys at the same time?
But how to convince Mom and Dad to take me to a furniture store? I couldn't say that I wanted to buy comic books there. Or see naked men.
I had to talk them into buying a piece of furniture.
A new bed!
"I'm getting too big to sleep in the same bed with Kenny," I told them. "I have a later bedtime, so every time I go to bed, I wake him up. And he kicks!"
"Maybe you're right," Mom said. "Boys your age shouldn't sleep together. We'll go pick out two twin beds for you on Saturday."
Uh-oh. Mom and Dad never took us shopping, except to buy new school clothes every August. They left us with the neighbors, or one went shopping and the other stayed home. But I had to actually go to the furniture store to get my comics and the shirtless men!
"No! We want to pick them out! Me and Kenny. To see..um....if it's cool enough."
I spent the week imagining the furniture store, with its racks of Harvey Comics, Casper, Spooky, Hot Stuff, Ghostland, Devil Kids, Witch World, an endless array of intriguing, brightly-colored covers and evocative stories.
I didn't spend any of my 25 cent allowance all week, and there'd be another 25 cents on Saturday morning. Plus I found a dime on the floor, and I borrowed 50 cents from Bill for a total of $1.10. I'd be broke for nearly a month, but I could buy 9 comic books!
On Saturday after breakfast we drove to a place called Carson Piri Scott, in Moline. I remembered their ads on tv. It was huge warehouse like structure with entire living rooms set up, like a hundred houses all crammed together.
"The beds are on the second floor," Mom said, steering us toward the escalator.
"Wait -- um...." Where were the comic books? The huge display case must be against an outer wall. "Um....I have to go to the bathroom."
"Ok. Do you want Dad to take you?"
"No, I see where it is. I'll be up in a minute."
More after the break
I walked toward the room marked "Men"until they vanished up the escalator. Then I started walking along the outer wall, past sofas and coffee tables, dining room sets, book cases, tv sets...nothing. Where were the comic books?
I walked faster and faster, past customer service and the bathrooms again. Then a loading dock. Where were the naked guys loading furniture into trucks?
No comic books, no naked guys! Finally I was running. I ran faster and faster...I had almost made a full circle, back to the sofas...
When I almost collided with a man.
"Whoops, sorry," he said in a strange accent. "Are you ok, little boy?"
He turned around and grabbed me. Strong arms, brown square hands. I looked up: he was tall, broad-shouldered, with curly black hair, a little moustache, and a brown complexion.
He wasn't African-American -- the only racial minority you saw in Rock Island. But he wasn't white, either. I had never seen anyone like him before, at least not in real life. I stared, mesmerized.
"Are you lost?"
Breathing heavily, I managed to stammer, "Um...I was looking for...I mean, where are the comic books?"
He laughed. "This a furniture store, little man. They don't sell comic books here."
"Huh? But...wait...Cousin Buster said...I saved up my allowance..." My pocket was heavy-loaded with nickels and dimes.
"Don't cry!" I told myself savagely, as the tears started to well up.
"Wait, wait...it's ok," the man said. "We'll find your Mom and Dad. Look, I have something for you." He took me by the hand and led me to where a woman and two kids were trying out couches. He spoke to the woman for a moment, and she pulled something out of her bag.
A moment later, my Dad came to fetch me. He apologized to the man and his family and dragged me upstairs to pick out a bed. I got to keep the comic book, but it has long since vanished.
The guys who delivered our new twin beds kept their pants on.
When I tell this story to my friends, they often have questions.
1. Was there really a Hindi-speaking family in the non-diverse Quad Cities? I didn't meet anyone from South Asia until grad school, but I'm sure there were a few families. Maybe they were in the furniture store because they had just moved to town?.
2. How did his wife just happen to have a comic book handy? In those days before hand-held video games, comic
3. Why were there no other customers or salespeople in the store? Maybe I just don't remember any. I was too focused on comic books and beefcake.
4. Where did Cousin Buster ever get the idea that you could get comic books in a furniture store? For a long time, I figured that he was just putting one over on his "dumb" cousin from backwater Illinois, but a reader suggested that a furniture store might actually have a pile of comic books to occupy the kids while their parents shopped. Maybe he got to take one home, so he was being entirely truthful..
See also: Jamar Pusch: A lot of biceps and bulges, an occasional dick.
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