Footprints in the Butter (3 page)

I stumbled, Patty floated gracefully, the music died.

“Pre-senting The Four Leaf Clovers!” Wylie shouted.

Positioned atop a raised platform, he held a mike to his mouth. The band stood at attention, like musicians awaiting the arrival of some visiting dignitary. Soon they’d play for he’s a jolly good fellow which nobody can—

“Oh, shit,” I swore, trying to deny the sight and sound. I knew what would follow, and of course it did.

“This is your lucky day!” Wylie shouted, completing the introduction that had haunted me for twenty-plus years.

Ben hefted me up onto the platform, whereupon I gazed out over the expectant crowd.

“We can’t sing.” Despite my backward lurch, the microphone echoed my squawk of dismay. “Stewie’s dead. We’re not Clovers any more.”

Wylie winked at me, then turned toward the audience. “Pre-senting the newest member of our talented group,” he said. “Dwight Eisenhower Cooper.”

The reunion gang applauded wildly.

I studied Dwight’s face as three men lifted his wheelchair up onto the stage. His lips twitched in what could have been a grin or grimace. His dark hair was short, thick and wavy, and an Elvis curl formed an upside-down question mark above his right eyebrow. But his faded blue eyes would have nailed him a part, had he auditioned for
Night of the Living Dead
.

My gaze shifted to Alice Shaw Cooper, who blotted her lips on invisible tissue.
Her
eyes shot microscopic daggers toward Wylie. Why? Did Alice still want to sing with the Clovers? Hey, she could take my place. There was a frog in my throat, an ugly, warty toad, and I knew my voice would be rusty, like furniture left out in the rain.

Rain! I remembered Stewie’s words, just before he left for Nam: “I’m gonna’ carry a lucky clover, Ing, and when you sing about familiar faces you’ll think of me.”

“Hey, what a fab idea,” I had replied. “We’ll all carry lucky clovers, Stewpot. You, me, Benji, Wylie Coyote and Patty-Cake. But I won’t sing again until you come home, and that’s a promise.”

God, I was so young! We were all so young!

I turned my back to the mike. “Ben, please listen. I promised Stewie I wouldn’t sing until he came marching home again.”

“But he’d want you to sing, honey, to honor his memory, especially tonight.”

“Do you mean the reunion?”

Ben nodded and I said, “Maybe you’re right. Maybe he would. Okay, I’ll try.”

I saw Wylie consulting with the band. He reminded me of my beloved mutt; a waggish Hitchcock planning to trash the trash and retrieve some forbidden chicken bones. In other words, Wylie looked both guilty and smug.

“This is for you, Stewpot,” I said under my breath, just before we began to croon our standards.
I Believe
, followed by Creedence Clearwater’s rolling rocker,
Proud Mary
, then Debbie Reynolds’ simple-minded ballad,
Tammy
.

Dwight wasn’t bad. He crewel-stitched his voice through Ben and Patty’s harmony like eggs sizzling in butter, but he didn’t disturb the syncopated rhythm.

My performance was robotic, a knee-jerk reaction, until the audience called for our theme song. Tears blurred my vision as I sang the introduction. “Farewell every old familiar face. It’s time to stray, it’s time to stray. Only wait till I communicate, here’s what I’ll say.”

“I’m look-ing o-ver a four leaf clover,” we all trilled.

When we finished, reunionites clapped and whistled. Were they nuts? This was a generation who had attended concerts by the Dead and Dylan and Manfred Mann; a generation who had insisted that Puff the magic dragon was drug-related. How could they applaud I Believe Proud Tammy?

The band segued into movie themes.
You Light Up My Life
was their first selection. Ben’s sneakers whap-whapped again as we began to dance.

“Before you arrived,” I said, inhaling bleach from his collar, “Wylie reminisced over the Clovers. Do you think that’s why he instigated our pathetic performance?”

“It wasn’t pathetic.”

“Yes it was, Ben, and Wylie did it on purpose. He’s acting so weird, as if he wants to tell each person here to go stick an elephant tusk up his or her butt. The Clover bit was my tusk.”

“Patty said it was Alice’s idea. Maybe she wanted to get Dwight away from his dark corner, light up his life.”

“Baloney. When they lifted Dwight onto the stage, I saw Alice. Her mouth got so tight, her lips disappeared. Making Dwight the fourth Clover was Alice’s tusk.”

“And Dwight’s tusk?”

“Dwight didn’t want his life lit. The limelight hurts his eyes. They looked zombie-ish.”

“How could Wylie possibly know—”

“Wylie’s intuitive.”

“Assuming you’re right, and just for the record I don’t agree, why hasn’t Wylie done anything to me?”

“Because you’re not the singer who reneged and spoiled his grand plan. And you’ve never been a jock like Dwight.”

“Dwight hasn’t been a jock for thirty years, and why the hell would Wylie want to piss off Alice?”

“I don’t know, Ben. It’s just a hunch.”

“I thought Wylie was the intuitive one.”

The object of our conversation waltzed by then backed up. “Let’s switch partners,” he said.

Before I could object, Patty melted into Ben’s arms. “Why did you resurrect the Clovers?” I hissed into Wylie’s ear.

“It was Alice’s idea,” he replied quickly.

Too quickly. Wylie was lying through his teeth. All of a sudden I had a revelation. It was like watching a movie and admiring the handsome hero until he smiled, revealing fangs. Wylie was lying through his fangs.

Because this whole event—the decor, the elephant cut-outs, the banner theme, the Clovers—every detail, except possibly the choice of champagne and the gray Dumbo sandwiches, had been Wylie’s scheme.

An attempt to regain his lost youth?

“Wylie, why are you playing Peter Pan?”

He didn’t even pretend to misunderstand. “I like Peter Pan,” he said. “Pete could boff Wendy, tinker with Tinkerbell, and he never had to assume responsibility. Adolescent hormones and all that crap.”

“Except for Disney’s animated, penis-less version, Peter Pan is always played by a woman,” I shot back.

“Are you saying that I’m gay?” His eyes narrowed. “Are you hinting that my marriage to Patty is a sham? That my thing with you was merely an attempt to prove my manhood?”

“No! I’m hinting, more than hinting, that you grow up!”

“Look around.”

“We’ve already played this game.”

“Study the people. What do you see?”

“Friends. Familiar faces.”

“Strip away the beautiful clothes. What do you see?”

“Naked bods,” I replied sarcastically.

“No, my darling. Naked souls.”

Releasing my waist, Wylie stomped toward the platform, leaped up, grabbed the microphone, and whistled. The sound hurt my ears, and everyone else’s, but he had our attention.

“Hey!” he shouted. “We were supposed to be the generation that saved the world through love. Instead we opted to become Peter Pan’s lost boys. Our homes are status playpens, our favorite toy a cellular phone.”

“Shut up, Jamestone,” growled Junior Hartsel, the ex football jock.

Wylie ignored Junior’s menacing bellow. “Ponder this, my friends. What would happen if you stripped the Lone Ranger’s mask from his face? I think you’d find a wrinkled, toothless, senile man.”

“Are you crazy?” The ex-cheerleader stepped forward. “The Lone Ranger wears an itty-bitty mask. It just covers his eyes. You can see his nose, mouth and chin.” She ran her fingertips across her own nose, mouth and chin, as if trying to ascertain their ageless reality. “And he has all his hair,” she added desperately, “which you can see when he’s not wearing a cowboy hat.”

“His hair’s a rug, his false teeth bleached, polished, shiny with petroleum jelly.” Wylie grinned. “I think the Lone Ranger puts on a rubber mask. Pull away the rubber and you’ll discover a monster.”

“Ick!”

“Boo!”

“Shut up!”

“Get off the stage, Jamestone!”

“Did you honestly believe you could hide those saggy chins and boobs?” he continued. “Alice plans to crown a Reunion Dance Queen. Any volunteers? C’mon, who wants to be queen? How about you, Junior?
You’ve
aged well, except for that bald forehead, humongous butt, and bony chicken chest. We could choose Dwight. He’s handicapped, sorry, physically challenged, and if we chose Dwight, we’d all feel so frickin’ good inside.”

Wylie gestured toward the cheerleader. “Gimme an S, gimme an H, gimme an I, gimme a T. What do you got? Look at her, folks, trying to put the letters together. It spells hits, you airhead! Speaking of hits, what male vocalist won the Grammy in 1966?”

Most of us just stood there, speechless, but one
Jeopardy!
addict shouted, “Who is Glen Campbell?”

“No, you asshole. That was sixty-eight. Anybody else? C’mon, Ingrid, you’re the expert.”

I knew the answer. Sinatra. But I shrugged my padded shoulders.

“Frank Sinatra,” said Wylie. “It was a very good year. Wasn’t it, Beaumont?”

Okay, I hadn’t fooled him. I never
could
fool him.

“Seriously, folks,” Wylie said seriously, “we tsk-tsk over the homeless, then spend billions on plastic surgeons and products that promise eternal youth.”

Wylie continued his harangue, only we couldn’t hear him because Alice had yanked the microphone’s cord from its socket. Angry tears streamed down her face and you could practically see the steam vaporizing from her ears.

Reunionites buzzed like a swarm of angry hornets while the ex-cheerleader screamed, “Who the hell do you think you are anyway? Why don’t you eat shit and die!”

Fondling his crotch a la Michael Jackson, Wylie jumped down from the platform. I grabbed his arm and led him toward an empty bleacher section. “Damn,” I said. “What brought that on?”

“Your Peter Pan remark.”

“I only meant—”

“They say a dying person’s life unfolds before his eyes. Once we had ideals, Beaumont. Once we stopped a war!”

Surprisingly, despite everything, I wanted to hug him, nurture him, and I wondered why he and Patty didn’t have any kids. An heir would have helped Wylie regain his lost youth.

I was bothered, to put it mildly, so I responded with the first thing that popped into my head. “Are you dying, Wylie?”

“We all die by bits and pieces, Beaumont. How do you make a statue of an elephant?”

“By bits and pieces?”

“Wrong. Try again. How do you make a statue of an elephant?”

“I don’t know. I give up. How?”

But Wylie was running toward Patty. Draped across her arms were two coats—one a fur-lined tweed, the other a full-length mink. Patty, who thought PETA stood for Pelts of Ermine, Tigerskin and Aurumvorak, appraised the basketball hoop’s backboard, her head held high, and I felt like cheering her regal stoicism.

Following Patty and Wylie’s abrupt exit, I searched for Alice. She was standing near a white Styrofoam cooler, empty except for melting ice cubes.

Alice’s hair had once been dishwater blonde. Then she watched celebs talk about how they were worth it. Alice decided she was worth it, too. After all, she was worth plenty. So every month she hopped a plane to L.A. and paid a visit to some exclusive beauty salon. From a distance, Alice looked like a platinum Q-tip.

Up close, she looked mournful. “The wine’s all gone,” she whined, nodding toward the cooler. “And everybody hates the champagne.”

“Everybody doesn’t hate it, Alice.”

“Wylie hates it. I hate Wylie.”

“No, you don’t.”

“He looked nice tonight.”

“Who? Wylie?”

“Yes. He looked nice but sounded nasty.” She sucked in her lower lip. “What a bummer. Wylie was always a beatnik.”

“Hippie, Alice.”

“Remember his pad?”

“Apartment, Alice.”

“Would you do me a big favor, Ingrid? Pretty please with sugar on top? Cheer up Dwight and Junior? Dwight’s sulking and Junior’s fuming. Gosh-darn-it, I wanted everybody to feel groovy tonight.”

It suddenly occurred to me that Alice’s marriage to Dwight Eisenhower Cooper was appropriate. Alice sounded as if she had just stepped out of a late 1950s movie. She never swore and she probably thought that sex was an abbreviation for sexton, the church employee who, among other things, digs the graves.

“What about the cheerleader?” I asked sarcastically. “The one who told Wylie to die. Should I cheer her up, too?”

“She’s already bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.” Alice pointed toward the end of the basketball court, where the cheerleader, skirt held above her panties, was dancing to what sounded like the theme from Clint Eastwood’s
The Unforgiven
. “Dwight and Junior have always admired your spunk, Ingrid.”

“I don’t give a rat’s spit if…” Pausing, I studied Alice’s red-blotched cheeks and brimming eyes. “Okay, what the heck. Where’s Dwight?”

“Outside.”

“And Junior?”

“Over there, standing by the bandstand.”

He’s not standing
, I thought,
he’s slumping
. Junior Hartsel had once been a pretty decent football player. Unfortunately, he was short, barely five-nine. He had never grown into his bulk, nor his dreams, but he had used his athlete’s status to boff a goodly number of our graduation class.

On my way to the stage I stopped to adjust one shoulder pad, and felt Ben’s voice tickle my ear. “You light up my life, babe,” he whispered, hugging me from behind. “Let’s go home.”

“I wish,” I said as I felt his arousal. “But I promised Alice I would cheer up Dwight and Junior. Dwight’s outside, sulking. Or maybe he’s planning some murderous revenge scheme against our dear departed Wylie. Would you soothe the savage beast, Ben?”

“Sure. Afterwards, I’ll soothe your savage breast.”

I gazed longingly at Ben’s broad shoulders. Then I hastened toward Junior, who was now on top of the stage.

The band was taking a break, and Junior was drunk. He slid onto the drummer’s stool and looked up at me with bleary, bloodshot, basset-hound eyes. “Wylie said I had a big butt,” he whined. “Do you think I have a big butt, Beaumont?”

“You have a very nice butt, Junior.” It was a fib but why quibble? “Maybe you should put that nice butt inside a cab and head for home.”