Comic Books and Cocks at the Furniture Store. With bonus Desi guys

 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.

But as I grew, the sense of belonging faded away.  I began to find the visits boring or uncomfortable,  the world of northeastern Indiana more and more alien.

It wasn't just that I couldn't go home again.  What really hurt was, I didn't want to go back.

All tied up with that world was Harvey Comics  -- the ghosts, witches, devils, and other paranormal beings in the bucolic Arcadia of the Enchanted Forest.

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," I asked, "So you can see their wieners?"

He shrugged.  "Sometimes, if they're big enough."

So I could get Harvey comic books and see some wieners 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 see the naked men!

"No!  We want to pick them out!  Me and Kenny.  To see..um....if they're 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

The Face of Pure Evil at Denkmann Elementary School

This is the Face of Pure Evil
 

And the House Where Evil Dwells.

When I was a kid, it was painted grey, and that attic window had bars on it.

I lived on 41st Street, the the north side of Denkmann Elementary School  My boyfriend Bill lived two blocks north, by 18th Avenue -- a busy street that I was not allowed to cross.

To the east was Darry's house (we hadn't met yet), and eventually  Country Style Ice Cream.

To the south was Dewey's Candy Store, Gary's house, and  eventually the Nazarene Church.

To the west was Schneider's Drug Store, where you could buy comic books. 

But we never took the direct route to Schneider's.  We walked all the way up to 18th Avenue and around to the back, to avoid The Maniac and his house.

There were lots of Mean Boys at Denkmann who would steal your lunch money, call you names, or pound you for infractions of the rules of grade school behavior. Like Dick, who hung out by Dewey's Candy Store and pounded you for being a "girl."  Or Mark, who hung out by the south door, and challenged smaller boys to fight him.  But The Maniac was by far the worst.

Most bullies choose one or two victims to torment; everyone else is safe.  But the Maniac was indiscriminate, targeting everyone except girls and bigger boys.  He interpreted the most innocent statement or gesture, even standing too close to him, even looking at him, as an insult that must be redressed: "Now we have to fight!"

If you refused, he attacked on the spot, or if you were inside the school, ambushed you on the way home.

If you agreed to fight, you met your doom later, on the west side of the school yard, a desolate space of dead trees and yellow grass across the street from his house.

Snarling like a rabid dog, The Maniac punched and kicked you everywhere, in the face, the chest, the belly, the balls.  When you collapsed, bloody and sobbing, he poured dirt on you, spat in your face, and moved on.

When you tried to tell teachers, they simply said "No one likes a tattle-tale."

When you tried to tell parents, they  simply said "You have to learn to fight your own battles."

The only escape was to avoid the Maniac: don't sit near him in the cafeteria, don't stand near him at recess, run home as fast as you could after school, and at all costs stay away from the House of Evil.  Don't go anywhere near 40th Street.

But one day during the summer after third grade,  I was stupid.  Mom asked me to return a cake-decorating kit that she borrowed from the Old Lady Schoolteachers for some PTA event.  They lived on 40th Street, two houses south of the House of Evil.

 

I should have walked all the way around Denkmann School, but it was hot, Cartoon Showboat was coming on soon, and besides, the Maniac might not even be home.  So I cut diagonally across the parking lot and the schoolyard and came to 40th Street exactly parallel to the Old Lady Schoolteachers' house.

(Model is over 18).

I peered at the House of Evil -- it looked deserted -- took a deep breath, and crossed the street.  I was in the yard -- almost up to the screen porch.  Almost safe.

"Hey, Fairy!"

More after the break

Oliver!, the Boy with Soft Hands, and "Cocks, Glorious Cocks"

 

When I was growing up in Rock Island, Huey (not his real name) was one of my brother Kenny's friends.  Short, brown-skinned, a rarity among the pale Swedes and Germans of Rock Island, chubby, with black hair and soft black eyes, soft all over.  I especially remember his square soft hands with stubby fingers.

My brother was 2 1/2 years younger than me, and three grades below (so in 9th grade when I was in 12th).  His best friend was Todd, a sports nut with sandy brown hair and blue eyes.

Huey was in a grade below them, so three or four years younger than me, a kid who they tolerated because he was funny.

He told knock-knock jokes.

While eating orange sherbet, he stuck out his tongue to demonstrate that it had turned orange.

He made his belly talk, long before Jerry Seinfeld did it.

On cool autumn afternoons they played baseball in the school yard, and then burst into the house for snacks and sodas, sweating, laughing, gossiping.

At least once, maybe more, Huey exclaimed "Feel how cold I am!", and lifted my shirt to press an icy hand against my belly.  I jumped back, and he laughed. 

Once I tried to retaliate by tickling him.  He grabbed my hands with his hands, and we did a sort of struggling dance.   Suddenly we were rolling on the living room floor.  But the dog started barking, thinking that I was being attacked, so we had to stop.

I remember them pretending to do kung fu moves. Huey was shirtless, his belly bouncing as he jumped around yelling "Hai-ya!"   It must have been during a sleepover, but I don't remember the rest.

One spring when Kenny was in high school but Huey was still at Washington Junior High, the whole family went to see him in Oliver!  He was in the chorus of orphanage boys.  During "Food, Glorious Food," his comedic mugs and pratfalls stole the show.

Food, glorious food!  Hot sausage and mustard!

While we're in the mood, cold jelly and custard!

Peas, pudding and saveloys!

What next is the question?

Rich gentlemen have it,  boys:  Indigestion!

The whole family went to see Kenny's friend, who was just in the chorus, not even one of the stars? Why?

Was he closer to Kenny than I thought?

More after the break.  Caution: Explicit