"I can"t serve kids here."
I could see he was putting them on. The smaller of the two started to whimper weakly. Flick drew a large gla.s.s of water, handing it over to me. I pa.s.sed it on to the elder of the pair.
"You kids can split it. And don"t tell your mother that you"ve been hanging around Flick"s Tavern, you hear me?"
They silently drank the water, doggedly, finally handing the gla.s.s back to me. Without a word they turned and headed for the door. Flick stopped them in their tracks: "All right, you guys. Whatta you say?"
The smaller one squeaked: "...thank you...."
They were gone. Flick rinsed out the gla.s.s.
"Boy, all day long they"re in and out of here. I"m surprised they don"t ask me for a beer."
Outside, in the unfriendly air, the two struggled out of sight, clinging to one another.
"Flick, that little one with the runny nose looked suspiciously like he belonged to your lodge."
Flick snorted: "That kid ain"t no Elk."
"No, that isn"t what I mean. I know a Root Beer Barrel Man when I see one. Did you notice that suspicious bulge in his right cheek? I suspect that he was loaded."
Flick sat down heavily on his high stool behind the bar. He rubbed his hands over his white shirt front. I swear his eyes clouded noticeably, although it could very well have been all the beer, as well as the vodka I had put down, not to mention the other stuff.
"You know, Ralph...." he said at long last, "...I haven"t had a really good root beer barrel in a h.e.l.l of a long time."
"To be honest with you, Flick, I never fully understood just what you saw in root beer barrels."
Flick did not answer, being off in a world by himself. I pushed on: "As you recall, I, personally, was a Jawbreaker man. And I am proud to say that I have the silver inlays to prove it."
XX
OLD MAN PULASKI AND THE INFAMOUS JAW-BREAKER BLACKMAIL CAPER OLD MAN PULASKI AND THE INFAMOUS JAW-BREAKER BLACKMAIL CAPER There is a vast, motley mob of Americans, untold millions, who even today, years after the consummation of their original sin, are paying the Piper. Paying in many ways, the most notable of which is sheer, stark, shrill, agonizing, bone-shattering pain which sometimes strikes its debauched victim late at night and sends his shuddering frame into the gray fringes of near-madness. The agony sometimes becomes so poignant that men, strong men, unweeping men, have been known to toy actively with suicide and even worse as the only escape. And in some instances, not as rare as might be thought, have actually taken that final, fatal step, the pain unbearable that made the sharp, crashing impact of a Thirty-Eight slug behind the ear child"s play by comparison.
Yes, the sinners are paying, as they have always paid in the end, and will always pay. There is no escape!
These poor, innocent citizens are Victims, and they seldom even know the origin of their ordeal by fire of what has lately become known in some of the more advanced medical textbooks as "The Juju Baby Plague," sometimes termed "The Root Beer Barrel Rot."
Anyone who has ever experienced a first-degree, Big League, card-carrying dedicated toothache in a major molar at 3 A.M A.M. in the quiet solitude of night has stood at the very gates of h.e.l.l itself. There are no words in the language that can adequately describe the ebbing and swelling, ebbing and swelling and then rising to even greater heights, then again deceptively receding, only to turn again to the attack; insistent nagging, dragging, thudding, screaking ache of a tooth that has faced more than its share in a hard, rough and tumble lifetime of Juju Babies, Root Beer Barrels, Jawbreakers, and countless other addictions devoured during the innocent days of childhood. And like all sinners, Orgiasts of all stripes, he looks back upon the very thing that reduced him to a shuddering, denture-ridden, cavity-wracked hulk with bleary-eyed, teary nostalgia. Everywhere, daily, dentists-cackling fiendishly-reap the harvests sown years ago in Penny Candy stores across the land.
Well I remember the Pusher that sent me on that long rocky road that finally led to $765 worth of silver alloy and various plastic compounds which I now carry in my skull as a mute reminder of past, fleeting pleasures. The fillings are not permanent, but the cavities are!
In the throes of a toothache, all men are one. It is the one affliction known to Man that is truly the Great Leveler. Kings and commoners, Generals and simple peasants of the field all bow to this basic, somehow singularly humiliating curse that has been known and endured as long as there has been Man on earth. George Washington became a Revolutionist because of a bad set of incisors. And no wonder!
Recently there was a dispatch from Burma that told of a rampaging tiger that in a single night, without warning, killed twenty-eight Burmese in a quick dash down the main street of a jungle village. The native hunter who later bagged him simply said: "He had bad teeth."
One afternoon recently, while staring bleakly out of a waiting-room window, having tired of the ancient National Geographies National Geographies and the Currier & Ives prints, attempting to blot out of my consciousness the sound of m.u.f.fled moans and occasional sharp yelps of pain which were mingling with the Muzak, my tortured mind-perhaps out of some deep-hidden well of submerged masochism-plucked out of my vast file of sinister Life Experiences and dredged to the surface Old Man Pulaski and the great Jawbreaker Tie-In Sale. While waiting my turn on the Rack, I began to piece together the whole sordid tale. and the Currier & Ives prints, attempting to blot out of my consciousness the sound of m.u.f.fled moans and occasional sharp yelps of pain which were mingling with the Muzak, my tortured mind-perhaps out of some deep-hidden well of submerged masochism-plucked out of my vast file of sinister Life Experiences and dredged to the surface Old Man Pulaski and the great Jawbreaker Tie-In Sale. While waiting my turn on the Rack, I began to piece together the whole sordid tale.
Pulaski, a blue-eyed, blue-jowled native of the Midwest, operated a mercantile establishment that was the Steel-town Indiana version of The Candy Store. n.o.body ever called it by that name. It was just "Pulaski"s." On the side of his red brick, two-story store there was an enormous Bull Durham sign that showed this great, dark red, arrogant, fully equipped bull looking out into the middle distance toward Chicago, with the simple inscription "Her Hero."
It was under this sign that Pulaski dispensed Juju Babies, licorice cigars, Mary Janes, Jawbreakers, Navy Cut Chewing Tobacco, Mule Twist, Apple Plug, Eight-Hour Day Rough Cut, Mail Pouch, Copenhagen Snuff, and summer sausage, sliced thin.
Penny Candy is just about the very first purchase that any kid actually makes himself. That very first buy which launches all of us on a lifelong career as Consumers, leading finally to G.o.d knows where. Kids take to buying the way fleas take to Beagle hounds. It"s just natural. You don"t have to learn; somehow you know.
It doesn"t take long for Penny Candy buyers to begin that great weeding-out process of the Slobs versus the Anti-Slobs. It is here that it starts. A discriminating Penny Candy connoisseur knew what he was after, while the rest merely settled for anything that was big, lumpy, sticky, and sweet. The Juju Baby connoisseur today buys Porsches and fine wines while his slack-jawed erstwhile friend continues to dig large, lumpy, sticky-sweet automobiles and syrupy beer that comes in six-packs with self-open tops. I pride myself, perhaps overly so, on having developed an exceedingly discriminating palate for the various vintages and chateaux chateaux of Penny Candy. of Penny Candy.
The genuine American Penny Candy store bears no relationship to the present chi-chi Ladies" Magazine reproductions that are popping up in Greenwich Village, the hipper sections of San Francisco, and Old Town in Chicago. They were invariably dark, with windows filled with cardboard placards advertising Dutch Cleanser, Kayo the magic chocolate drink, Campbell"s Pork & Beans, and the Hohman PTA Penny Supper.
The candy itself was displayed in a high, oak-framed case with a curved gla.s.s front and sliding gla.s.s doors well out of reach of the sneakier purchasers. In the case were rows of metal trays containing The Stuff.
Penny Candy was bought in lots of from two to four cents, and in extreme emergencies one penny, but that was rare. Pulaski, bending high over the case, would peer down at us, looking unconcerned and bored while we made our decisions.
"Fer Chrissake, I haven"t got all day! D"y want a licorice pipe or not!?"
And the battle was on. Glaring down at the huddled band of well-heeled investors, many of whom were in well-advanced stages of the Sour Ball Shakes, Pulaski played his cards coolly and well. He knew that he had all the trump as well as the only neighborhood supply of licorice whips and wax false teeth. He was the Man; the Connection. It was a Seller"s market.
The wax false teeth, by the way, played a part in a great second-grade drama when suddenly and without warning wax false teeth became a maniacal fad that swept over Harding School like a tidal wave. I remember one historic afternoon when every last male member of my second-grade cla.s.s showed up with a large set of wax false dentures clamped in his jaw to face Miss Shields and Arithmetic. Little did we realize at the time that the wax false teeth were a foreshadow of things to come for many in that benighted academy of lower learning.
Miss Shields stood for a long electric moment beside her desk and then silently reached out her claw, palm upward, and said simply: "Give "em to me."
One by one she de-toothed us, putting the booty in her lower left-hand drawer along with sixty-seven rubber daggers, 922 compet.i.tion yoyos, seventeen small well-thumbed, smudgy volumes of comic books relating clandestine adventures of Maggie & Jiggs, thirty-six bird whistles, a round dozen Throw-UR-Voice ventriloquist gadgets purchased by mail from Johnson & Smith, two wax mice on a string, and a giant a.r.s.enal of water pistols, cap guns, and carbide cannons. Miss Shields had seen a lot, and wax false teeth were just another wave in a giant sea of surrealistic nuttiness that she had fought all of her life.
"Give "em to me."
And we gave.
Another specialty of wax that had a certain illicit air about it was a small wax bottle filled with a colored, sickeningly sweet syrup, usually green in color, and a sure-fire appet.i.te killer. These bottles had a vaguely illegal quality to them since they had the unmistakable hint of Jug-Hitting, and there was plenty of that on Sat.u.r.day nights in our neighborhood. The bottles were not not shaped in the form of milk containers. The kids were practicing up to be grownups even then. shaped in the form of milk containers. The kids were practicing up to be grownups even then.
The wax itself was invariably chewed after the bottle had been drained or the teeth had lost their charm, and had a distinctive, vaguely fragrant taste which even now I detect from time to time in coffee containers at ball games. An old Wax Eater never forgets.
I should say at the outset that the wax teeth were larger than life, true pink gum color-gums suffering from a rare case of advanced pyorrhea. The teeth proper were large, horsy, and obscene, and a nine-year-old kid coming out of the gloom of half twilight grinning from ear to ear with a set of Pulaski"s teeth gleaming like nightmare fangs undoubtedly sent many a Friday-night Blast-Furnace worker directly to the Salvation Army to take the pledge. We did not, however, frighten Miss Shields.
Just before suppertime Pulaski"s would be packed with a jostling throng of customers. Guys from the Open Hearth wearing tin hats, buying next week"s supply of Beech Nut "as sweet as a nut," Old Virginia Licorice Twist, Honest Plug Tobacco, Dago cigars known as Guinea Stinkers, and Peach Blossom Chewing Snuff. Short fat ladies haggling over soup meat, and kids making the Big Choice.
At this point perhaps I should describe the variety of Penny Candy that has become a cla.s.sic substrata of Americana. No other country I know of has anything remotely like it.
Juju Babies were exactly what they sound like; small, rubbery, symbolic figures of different colors-black, red, yellow-molded in the form of a Prehistoric ritual baby. s.e.xless, the Juju Baby sort of represented all Mankind, to be devoured by Man himself. The Juju Baby had a habit of getting stuck in the back teeth, and I remember a transparent yellow one that remained jammed between two molars for the better part of a Summer. It was perhaps there that my first step in the direction of Advanced Dentistry took place.
There was the Root Beer Barrel, beloved of kids of slightly more advanced and subtle taste. A small, compact item molded in the form of a tiny barrel, sprinkled over with sugar grains and tasting roughly like a fine blend of stale rootbeer and cake icing. The Root Beer Barrel had the extra advantage of being cheap. Since few kids bought them, they were roughly five to seven for a cent. Demand always controls price; never quality.
For more frivolous eating, or particularly Girl-types, there was a tin pie plate about the size of a half dollar filled with a semisolid paste usually pink, yellow, or chocolate in color that was to be spooned up with a tiny tin spoon. Many a tongue was split from end to end with the razor-like edge of this lethal instrument. The taste of the "pie" is not easy to define, since it had none other than a kind of electric, incisor-tingling sweetness. There was no other flavor.
Occasionally Pulaski would import a rarer item for his regular customers, exactly like the pie-tin and spoon combination except that the paste was in the shape of a tiny, tasteless but somehow interesting and subtle fried egg. I frankly admit I was a sucker for these fried eggs and even had developed a full technique for eating them that I still follow today with the real article. Using my spoon to scoop out the brilliant orange "yolk," I then would attack by quadrant the white and finally, licking the pan, would throw it at the back of Kissel"s head.
Licorice came in many forms and several distinct textures. There were, of course, the traditional smooth, shiny whips, red and black, and the only time I ever was cursed with these was when Aunt Min, who to this day believes I am a nut on licorice, would bring a bag of them home. The licorice pipe, made of a crumbly, bitter licorice, was more my style. A curving stem and upswept bowl of the cla.s.sical calabash shape of the Old World made licorice barely palatable. Many an evening on my paper route, licorice pipe clamped in my square jaw, Root Beer Barrel tucked next to the second to the left molar on the right, Jawbreaker to the left, I sucked dextrose energy into the marrow of my bones while rotting the roots of my second teeth beyond repair.
The Jawbreaker requires and actually deserves a whole special treatise which, of course, s.p.a.ce does not permit here. The virgin, or untouched Jawbreaker in its natural state was roughly a full inch in diameter and as hard and unyielding as obsidian. There were two basic Jawbreakers which actually were divergent types of the same majestic, cla.s.sic Bicuspid Buster. They were simply know as "Red" and "Black," the Red being coated on the outside with a brilliant, flaming, gleaming, smooth enamel of pure carmine; the Black stark, austere, and yet somehow dignified with its glistening, pristine ebony sh.e.l.l has not yet been improved upon as a study of sheer geometric and aesthetic unity. Here was and is truly a masterwork in the Penny-Candy genre of creativity. Structurally, both Jawbreakers were identical, but both represented opposing sides of the nature of Man and his universe. Ying and Yang. The Red Jawbreaker man rarely touched the Black and the Black Jawbreaker adherent knew what he wanted and would accept nothing else.
The Jawbreaker was never never chewed, but sucked over long periods of time, allowed to soak in the salival juices, the lining of the mouth puckering and retreating as the succulent elixirs of layer upon layer of Jawbreaker forever established a whole range of att.i.tudes of gustatorial appreciation. The Jawbreaker revealed its endless subtleties layer by layer, holding back, suggesting, stating, until finally, the inner core, the pit, the Mother Lode was finally reached. chewed, but sucked over long periods of time, allowed to soak in the salival juices, the lining of the mouth puckering and retreating as the succulent elixirs of layer upon layer of Jawbreaker forever established a whole range of att.i.tudes of gustatorial appreciation. The Jawbreaker revealed its endless subtleties layer by layer, holding back, suggesting, stating, until finally, the inner core, the pit, the Mother Lode was finally reached.
Each layer of a Jawbreaker was slightly and subtly a different shade of coloration from the one that preceded it, after the initial black or red coating had been sucked off, had disappeared, the Breaker would emerge dead white and then a few moments later it changed imperceptibly to a dull, mottled brown with overtones of green, followed by a rich brick-red vein. Next, perhaps, a mocking, impudent onion-yellow. White again! And then a somber, morose purplish-gray, and on down, layer after layer, color after color, until finally, at about the size of a tiny French pea, it would crumble and reward the aficionado aficionado with a minute seed which crunched and then disappeared. The Jawbreaker, a fitting parable of life itself, infinitely varied, sweet, and always receding until finally only the seed. with a minute seed which crunched and then disappeared. The Jawbreaker, a fitting parable of life itself, infinitely varied, sweet, and always receding until finally only the seed.
The Black Jawbreaker unquestionably was one of the major influences in the formative years, the Silly Putty years, the cellophane-transparent malleable days of my budding youth. It was a Black Jawbreaker that taught me a major lesson of Man"s Inhumanity to Man.
There were other, lesser Penny Candies; the strips of white paper dotted with geometric rows of yellow, white, blue, and red pellets of sugar, fit only for cretins and two-year-olds, the banana-oil flavored, peanut-shaped obscenities beloved of elderly ladies, and girls, the jelly orange slices, and others.
There were a few minor works that bear mention. The Spearmint leaves, for instance, too subtle for ten-year-olds, which must be grown into. The flat, coconut-flavored watermelon slices; blood red, green-rinded, black seeded, sprinkled with sugar and fly spots. Oh yes, and the candy ice cream cones with pink and white marshmallow "ice cream" covered with sugar and a marshmallow cone that briefly caught me before I knew better. The tiny red peppermint hearts that old Pulaski sold by the scooping of a minute wooden barrel; hotter than h.e.l.l and arrogantly unpleasant.
But it is the Jawbreaker, when all is said and done, that represents the absolute pinnacle of the world of Penny Candy, lost and gone, but festering on in countless root ca.n.a.ls wherever Dental appointments are made and broken on long American afternoons.
Sudden likes and dislikes, inexplicable fads, swept the Penny Candy buying world at Pulaski"s like crosscurrents in a riptide. Suddenly and without warning everyone bought nothing but Mary Janes. Then there would be a total shift to Tootsie Rolls or Root Beer Barrels, and the trays of pie-tins and spoons, marshmallow ice cream cones, and Juju Babies would be untouched. This bugged Pulaski.
But one summer I discovered the only completely satisfying and genuine experience that I really wanted. The Black Jawbreaker. They got ahold of me the way Hashish gets a stranglehold on a Lebanese rug merchant in a Middle Eastern den of vice and degradation. Day after day, with every last cent I could sc.r.a.pe up, it was nothing but Black Jawbreakers. I became an evangelist, convincing others-Schwartz, Flick, Kissel-until one day the inevitable finally happened.
The store was full of steelworkers and kids. Pulaski"s screen door was banging continually. The flies were flying in great formations around the light bulbs and clinging like tiny cl.u.s.ters of dead grapes to the spirals of flypaper that hung from the ceiling.
Pulaski was back of the hand-operated lunch-meat slicer and a short, angry lady was leaning over the Toledo scale, fixing him with a beady eye. Pulaski was alone in the store that day, and the tide was coming in. For at least forty-five minutes he battled the salami buyers and the guys who wanted the work gloves. The flies hummed; the heat came in puffs through the screen door.
At least eight of us milled around the gla.s.s case, the Jawbreaker Fever hot on our brows. Pulaski ignored us as long as he could, until finally he dashed over behind the case and opened negotiations.
"All right, what do you want? Quick!"
Flick led off: "Gimme some Root Beer Barrels."
"How many do you want!"
Flick: "Gimme four and one Mary Jane."
Pulaski rushed back to the meat-market counter, filled a container with a mess of sauerkraut, weighed it up, shoved it across the counter to Mrs. Rutkowski, said: "I"ll be right back," and rushed back into battle.
"They"re six for a penny. Mary Janes are two for a penny. D"y want Mary Janes or Root Beer Barrels?"
"Gimme four barrels and one Mary Jane."
"Fer Chrissake!!"
Nine Tin-Mill workers came in in a covey, hollering for beer. Mrs. Rutkowski, in broken English, said something about pickled pigs" feet. Pulaski retreated and started handing out bottles of beer and Polish pickles. Flick hollered out: "I only want four barrels."
Pulaski, for the sixty-third time that day, weighed his left thumb, the heaviest in Northern Indiana, along with a couple of pork chops. Everything was on credit anyway, so it really didn"t make much difference. The Depression was like that.
The place was getting crowded. The flies hummed on and the screen door banged. Mrs. Rutkowski angrily yelled something that could have been Lithuanian, and Pulaski rushed back to the candy counter. Looking right at me and completely ignoring Flick, he said: "Awright, what do you you want?" want?"
He knew what I wanted very well, and before I could even open my mouth he belted me with this thunderclap: "No more Black Jawbreakers unless ya take one Red one for every Black."
They were two for a penny. I hated hated Red Jawbreakers! Red Jawbreakers!
"I am getting stuck with too many Red Jawbreakers."
This was the first time that the laws of Economics and Human Chicanery had impinged on our tumbleweed, windblown lives. For a second we said nothing, stunned.
"What?"
"I said no Jawbreakers unless you buy Red and and Black." Black."
There wasn"t a Red Jawbreaker man in the crowd.
"Make up your mind. D"ya want "em or not?"
We looked in through the curving gla.s.s case and saw that beautiful tray of magnificent Jawbreakers, almost all Red, the few remaining Blacks spotted here and there like diamonds in a bank of blue South African clay. Flick said: "Red Jawbreakers!" Jawbreakers!"
Schwartz said: "I"d rather have some rotten Tootsie Rolls!"
I thought it over. For as long as I had remembered, Jawbreakers were two for a penny. Black Black Jawbreakers. Two for a penny, and now, in effect, the price had doubled. I thought about it. Finally Pulaski"s face loomed over the counter, looking down at all of us. I don"t think he ever saw an individual kid. They were always just that jostling little mob in front of the case, with the hot, sweaty pennies. Jawbreakers. Two for a penny, and now, in effect, the price had doubled. I thought about it. Finally Pulaski"s face loomed over the counter, looking down at all of us. I don"t think he ever saw an individual kid. They were always just that jostling little mob in front of the case, with the hot, sweaty pennies.
"Awright, you guys. I don"t have any more time to mess around. You want Black Jawbreakers or not?"
The only other Jawbreaker salesman in town was a good twelve blocks away, and still I couldn"t say it.
"Gimme a penny"s worth of Jawbreakers."
Pulaski reached into the case, carefully taking one Red Jawbreaker and one Black Jawbreaker, and handed them over to me, picking up my penny from the gla.s.s top of the case. One after the other we gave in, until finally there was only Flick.
"Awright, what do you you want?" want?"
"Four Root Beer Barrels and a Mary Jane."
"Fer Chrissake, all right!"
Pulaski grabbed a handful of Root Beer Barrels and a Mary Jane and shoved them in Flick"s fist. Mrs. Rutkowski seemed to be asking for spareribs, or something, in broken Croatian. More steelworkers surged through the door. The screen door slammed. Pulaski clanked the sliding panels of his candy counter shut, turned his back on us, and hurried back behind the meat counter.
It was the first Jawbreaker Tie-in Sale. To get the gold you must also take the dross. The Jawbreaker remained true to its spirit, a pure distillation of Life itself; give and take.
Out on the street I stuck my black beauty far back on the right side, right where my wisdom teeth would be eventually impacted. I shoved the red monster into the pocket of my Levis. I"ll give it to my kid brother, I figured. The great Jawbreaker pushed my cheek walls out until the proper tension was reached and the first soul-satisfying taste of that dark, rich, ebony masterpiece began to sink into my veins. It was worth the exorbitant price.
I stood at the window, looking out over the vast, crowded metropolitan traffic-jammed street, the burning coals of my aching tooth subsiding somewhat in the tepid bath of recollection and nostalgia. Only a steady, dull, thumping, subterranean pulse remained. I was still paying Pulaski.
A high thin whine of the steel burr as it bit into the marrow of another victim"s left upper canine wound its way into my consciousness. It stopped. There was a moment of silence and then that white Archangel of Pain, the blonde, crisp, Shirley Temple-ish dentist"s a.s.sistant, touched me on the elbow.
"The doctor"s ready."
I turned.
"So am I, Miss."
Together we moved forward toward the Rack.