Read Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet No. 12 Online
Authors: Gavin J. Grant
Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet No. 12
Small Beer Press
www.lcrw.net
Copyright ©2003 by Small Beer Press
Spirits of Sage, Wind, and Sun
Found Wedged in the Side of a Desk Drawer in Paris, France, 23 December 1989
Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet
Gavin J. Grant. Right lane must turn right. Left lane must turn left.
Kelly Link. Good things, yes. Bad things, no.
Jan Lars Jensen
The theme for our ten year grad reunion was “Happy Days.” I'm not sure why this particular show was selected, as we had graduated long after the ‘50s, and the series had been cancelled before most of us met in high school. I'm not even sure why we needed a theme—a reunion wasn't a prom. But I guess “Happy Days” generated a feeling of nostalgia that the organizers hoped would rub off on our event, and few people could claim they had never seen an episode.
My wife and I had a little spat because I would not go dressed as Fonzie, even though I had been President of the Student Council. I argued that if logic dictated the Class President must portray himself as a central character, then I should be Richie Cunningham, who was clearly intended as the protagonist of the series before Ron Howard left and focus shifted entirely to Arthur Fonzarelli. But I had a more cerebral choice in mind than either of those two, and perhaps it was even more self-congratulatory.
Mr. Cunningham. Dad. Maybe unconsciously I saw myself as a father figure to my fellow grads, that in some way I was responsible for how they'd turned out, good or bad, and that they could expect to hear advice from me, whether they wanted it or not. I used folded towels to round out my figure and I wore a pair of trousers and a shirt that I found at Value Village which seemed plausible ‘50s attire. My wife still thought I should be the Fonz, but she accepted my decision after realizing it made us fit tighter, with her attending dressed as Joanie. We had been a couple since high school, and now we returned as a happy domestic twosome, even in costume.
The reunion committee rented a hall adjoining a local hotel and did a good job decorating according to the theme, with crepe paper streamers, pennants, even a rented jukebox. The deejay played ‘50s music and there was some bellyaching that we should have heard tunes from our high school days, but who could argue with the theme? Anyway they must have played “Rock Around the Clock” four times that night, and with old friends and enemies we got up and fumbled through our idea of an appropriate dance style.
I spent much of the evening watching others, and I tallied the characters represented. I counted thirty-three attempts at Fonzie and I lost track of the Richies after twenty-eight. Mrs. Cunninghams and Joanies were tied around twenty, and only slightly fewer Pinky Tuscaderos (there weren't a lot of strong female roles in “Happy Days” but the decade portrayed was at least partly to blame). Maybe a dozen people, like me, thought they were sharp coming as Howard Cunningham. There was a surprisingly disproportionate number of Ralph Malphs over Potsies—almost a five to one ratio, even though the characters were of equal stature in the series, and I could only attribute this to the unpopularity of Anson Williams.
I started looking for patterns among people who came dressed as the same character. Some notable Fonzies:
Brad Forneau: he had become a pilot in the military and flown a fighter jet in a recent UN peacekeeping mission. He used his flight jacket as part of his Fonzie costume (despite the fact it was brown and had military insignia on the sleeves), and when I spoke to him, he mentioned several times how flying an F-16 was largely about “keeping your cool."
Rodney Bislin: Rod in high school had accepted the “geek” label but, since then, had redeemed himself with a lucrative career in the telecommunications industry. “All those lunch hours spent in the Computer room paid off,” a friend of mine sneered. Coming as Fonzie, I sensed, was Rod's attempt to announce his success. He knew he'd been the dorkiest of misfits back then, but here he was, having pulled himself up to the top of the character ladder, Fonzie with a diamond in one tooth and a Jaguar parked in a garage somewhere, some fancy neighborhood we would never know; God bless computers.
Sompho Thammavonga: Sompho was from a family of landed refugees and, in school, I had only been dimly aware of him as a figure lingering in the hallways. At the end of term, though, he stunned the whole school (the entire community, in fact) by getting the top mark in the province for Algebra. The future had seemed bright for this new Canadian, but I heard that since then, he had become involved in heroin and trafficking, and judging by his complexion, the worst rumors were true. Wearing a leather jacket and boots, with his hair back-combed off that wrecked face, he was as scary as the early Fonzie must have seemed to the Cunninghams, a hoodlum as likely to beat the shit out of Richie as give him the time of day.
Jane Sipes: stupidly I assumed she'd gotten a mannish haircut just for the evening's festivities, but my wife informed me that Jane worked for a lesbian bookstore in Vancouver and lived with a professor of Womyn's Studies. Anyway, she was as credible a Fonzie as any, mostly because her leather jacket and snug jeans looked like part of her wardrobe, not costume pieces.
I watched the people I had grown up with to see if they'd grown up anymore, and I tried to relate it to “Happy Days,” and we danced to the theme song and reminisced and remembered favorite episodes, and we got our pictures taken beside the jukebox with our thumbs up, “Ayyy!", and when it was over, the feeling was that this was a great success, we should get together more often, and whenever we had our next reunion, the theme should again be “Happy Days."
As our next reunion approached, my wife started calling me “dad.” She was always home before me, trying on one of several 50s-style outfits. I assumed she was trying to get in perfect “Joanie” character for the big event. This time I could not get away with clothes I picked up for ten dollars at Value Village. We got a photo of Mr. Cunningham and had an outfit custom-made. To my dismay, I found that I no longer needed folded towels for physical effect. My body had started to resemble Tom Bosley's, something I would have thought impossible fifteen years ago. But facing my reflection in the mirror, I came to terms with my lumpy torso. It was a matter of perspective. A man was allowed to put on some pounds as he aged. It was a privilege that emerged alongside responsibilities like managing a hardware store.
I had heard rumors that the decoration for this reunion was going to be something special. Not only had the interior of Arnold's Diner been rebuilt within the venue, but so had other set locations, like the men's washroom, and the living room of the Cunningham's home, and Fonzie's apartment above the garage . . . Our jaws dropped when we stepped inside, and my wife's eyes flashed like she had never truly been alive before this moment. I suspected all this could not have come to be without a sponsor, and it turned out that Rodney Bislin had been writing the cheques. I suppose he had really enjoyed the triumph of his return as Fonzie, last time.
For this reunion, nobody came out of character, and the level of detail had increased dramatically. You could have lined up the Joanies and gauged her development from kid-sister to young woman from series beginning to series finale. The first Fonzie to arrive on motorcycle caused quite a stir, but by the third such appearance, it lost its novelty, and the Fonzies looked for other ways to establish authenticity. A competition evolved whereby they took turns striking the jukebox, trying to coax songs from it. Meanwhile, our meals came out of Al's kitchen, carried by waitresses on roller skates. Like last time I gave a speech, but whereas before I had only made a passing allusion to the “happy days” of our youth, this time I peppered my oration with references to the hardware store, Uncle Leo, old army buddies, the Leopard Lodge, and whether or not we should dip into our vacation fund to build a bomb shelter. I found myself racing to these anecdotes: the other material seemed like filler, and I could only concentrate on it as a bridge to the next Cunningham story.
It was a good time but not without tension, as people argued over events from high school, like who had given whom a hickey, who had not returned a borrowed sweater, who had spread the rumor that Mary Lou Milligan had a reputation. It had been a long time, after all, and it was important that things were set straight. Nobody argued about the success of the evening, afterward, and most of us were already thinking how we might improve our characters for next time.
Our next reunion came early as it was generally agreed that people couldn't wait five more years. My wife's wardrobe had become pretty much dedicated to Joanie sometime in the year beforehand, and she spent much time exercising (even had a little plastic surgery) to maintain the physical aspect of her character.
Tensions between us grew. Unlike her, I didn't have to exercise for my body to look like Tom Bosley's. So we spent our time differently. And when we were together, we argued over when she should be home, how late she could stay up. But things were worst in the bedroom.
Bedrooms, I should say. She had started sleeping in the spare. I went in to kiss her goodnight, then, awkwardly, attempted to kindle some romance. I kissed her arm, to her obvious discomfort, and tried to join her on the narrow single bed. She protested further as I clambered atop her, kissing her neck, and she struggled to get out of my grasp. “Dad, what are you doing?! Stop it, Dad!"
She shoved me off, and I accepted the look of contempt on her face. I straightened my sweater and left the room, going downstairs to sit alone, with imagined Chachis peering through the window, trying to get a gander. “Wa-wa-wa."
The reunion was moved from the banquet hall to a property that one of our grads had received as an inheritance, so decorations wouldn't need to be dismantled. It didn't look like a converted barn inside. The booths, the revolving neon “A,” the Cunningham sofa, the television: it was complete. Within, old friendships and rivalries had dissolved and re-formed according to character: Richies hung out with Ralphs and Potsies, but only if they had the same lettermen jackets. I passed a table full of Als, six identical Als, looking at whomever passed with hangdog expressions and urging them, in concert, to try the fish. They all wore white aprons.
Fonzies did not congregate. They staked sections of turf and tried to expand their influence. Sompho Thammavonga remained the dark Fonzie, and rumors circulated that he had killed a man with a switchblade. On the other end of the spectrum was Brad Forneau, who took on benevolent aspects, talking of the possibility of adopting a child and speaking almost spiritually of the secrets of cool. Rodney Bislin enjoyed more popularity after he activated a pinball machine by striking it with his hip, but favor evaporated when it was revealed he had used some remote control gimmick. A marathon dance contest was held but after forty-eight hours, three Fonzies could still dance the flamenco with Mrs. Cunningham, and someone suggested they settle it once and for all by jumping over barrels on motorbike. Doors were opened so the contestants could have a decent run at it, and although Brad managed to clear the barrels (perhaps using his distant pilot training to his advantage), Sompho not only landed the jump but also guided his bike into a crash, deliberately sliding across the floor and taking out Arnold's fried-chicken stand. This would have extinguished all challenges to his authenticity had it not also left him slightly brain-damaged.
Our next reunion was not so much a reunion because we all lingered at the site and made contributions, building on our own living rooms, our own restaurants or our apartments above the garage.
Speeches were no longer necessary. Memories drifted by us and sometimes swept us into their current, as Richie double-dated or guarded the hardware store, as Fonzie cheated on a test or built a disastrous pigeon coop, as I worked on my card-playing skills in anticipation of the dark day when I would need to call upon them. I would recognize a fragment of something that was going on and contribute my wisdom, my common sense, my fatherliness. I would not let my son be intimidated by hoodlums. I would not set him up on dates to advance my business dealings. Or, I would at first, but later see the error in it and resolve never to do so again. I sat on the couch turning over cards, the faces of the queens all Joanie's.