“Depends on what for. Right off the bat, I’ll tell you I don’t do no sexy stuff. Don’t let the snakes do it neither. ‘Cause snakes know, you know.”
“Know what?”
“Well, I’ll tell you. Pigs know. Cats don’t. Some dogs do. But snakes know most.”
I wondered for a second if he was making some veiled biblical allusion, but there was such a crafty look in his eye that I got the feeling that, to this man, snakes “knew” something infinitely greater. I thought it best to leave that knowledge to him and his slim friends.
“No. I want to hire you to come with them to a boy’s birthday party.”
It’s heartbreaking, the things we forget. Even experiencing them again later—the exact same things—often cannot remind us of their real truth, which is what they were like when we were children. Birthday parties are a good example. Sure, adults put on cute paper hats, scream, “Surprise!” and have a good goofy time. But that is only them being fake children. At a real kid’s party, joy goes hand in tightly held hand with greed, true rage, exultation. Winning musical chairs or getting a smaller slice of cake, a dumb present from your most important guest, can lift or drop you off the edge of your small earth. And most of all what we forget as adults is the dead seriousness of these details. To a child they are neither cute nor trivial, but rather the crux of those essential days.
They had made the outside of Crowds and Power look like a big birthday cake. No wonder Lincoln wanted to have his party there! Ky stood outside wearing a Creature from the Black Lagoon costume. That shook me.
“Ky, this isn’t a costume party, is it?”
“Costume? No. Just me. I am the parking monster. You go like that.”
“Who did the decorating?” I gestured at the restaurant’s façade.
“We all. Last night we come out and do it.”
That these many different characters had gathered in the middle of the night to transform a building into a cake was the nicest thing I’d heard in a long time.
“He’s one lucky boy.”
“We are a family. He is our son.”
A car arrived and two children jumped out before it had stopped. Watching them run into the building, I didn’t notice the driver until she was standing near me. It was Kathy Jerome, the television news commentator.
“I have been hearing about this party for weeks. We couldn’t go on vacation till it was over.”
We introduced ourselves and walked in together. It was funny to hear this famously serious woman say, “Holy shiiiiiit!” when we saw what had happened to the place. There were giant cobwebs hanging from the ceiling, aluminum-foil lightning bolts too; what appeared to be painted flats from horror movies against the walls. Cobb the greyhound had a Superman cape tied around his shoulders. The Band sisters were dressed as Frankenstein and Dracula, the sexiest-looking monsters in recent memory. It was all wonderful and much too much. But I realized the crazy mix had been done for a purpose—it was like a Spook House at an amusement park, but one that small children could enter and not be frightened. The excess in every direction made it comic and tame, not nightmare country. Kids raced by, eating chocolate bats and marzipan rats. The real birthday cake—a monumental haunted house—stood on top of the bar and was one of several centers of attention. Games were held in one corner of the main room, run by Gus Duveen, who was dressed to look like the Wolf Man. Ibrahim dished out food and drinks wearing a high chef’s hat and white outfit, his face painted the eerie tinfoil silver of the famous monster in the Midnight films.
What I liked most was that the many adults there were having as good a time as their children. The noise and joy were infectious. People danced with their kids to rock-and-roll music, respectable-looking fathers scuttled on all fours across the floor with little ones on their backs in races (all losers got to squirt dads in the face with seltzer bottles). A pizza large as a car tire was brought out to oohs and aahs and quickly set upon by young and old. It was a vegetarian pizza, and when cook Mabdean emerged from the kitchen, he was given a big round of applause.
“What do you think?”
“Oh, hi, Lily! I think it’s a hell of a party. Everyone’s having a ball.”
“Yes, I think so too. Where’re your snakes?”
“Coming! They have to have a little fanfare. Why aren’t you in costume?”
“Lincoln asked me not to. He was afraid I’d come up with something better than him. That’s okay, because I’m not big on dressing up. Come on, let’s walk around.”
Her company was a compliment. People knew her here, which meant they looked at me with eyes wondering who was I to rate this companion. She was cordial to the guests but not effusive. They were glad to see her; you could tell they wanted her to stay around and chat. But she played the room like a consummate diplomat—a little bit to everyone, a laugh that sounded genuine and perhaps was, then on to the next and “Hi! You made it. That’s great!”
Lincoln kept coming over to ask about this and that. He was dressed as a sorcerer in red velvet cape and turban, gold rings and bracelets, elaborately worked leather sandals that swept up at the toes and looked like little gondolas. Today his mother stopped whatever she was doing to listen and advise. Normally she didn’t do that. She believed her son should learn proper behavior, to lose some of his child’s egotism and learn to wait until it was his turn. Once he made her bend over so he could whisper in her ear. She heard him out and turned to me.
“He wants to know if you got him a present.”
“Ma! You didn’t have to telllllll!”
“That’s okay. Course I got you a present! But it’ll be here in a while. I had to order it and they said it wouldn’t be ready till a little later.”
That satisfied him and he took off with a girl who was wearing a T-shirt with a head coming out of the stomach, a la the Alien.
“How’re you going to do it with the snakes?”
“Wait and see. It’s been choreographed to the minute.”
Beware the Ide(a)s of…
What was supposed to have happened was this: Although in his full-getup wrestling togs he looked bigger and meaner than a psychotic’s nightmare, Tackhead Frank Cornish liked children very much. Never in a million years would he have wanted to scare them. But as his wife said, Frank is dumb and I’m sure he only wanted the kids at the party to get their money’s worth. What we’d planned was for Tackhead to open the door of Crowds and Power and walk nonchalantly in with Willy Snakespeare’s roommates, holding one in each hand. Willy fed them two days before, thus guaranteeing they’d be in a post-meal stupor. That was all. The famous wrestler comes in brandishing real live snakes and calls out in a nice friendly voice, “Where’s the Birthday Boy?” Finding Lincoln, he hands him the comatose snakes and says, “These guys wanted to come to your party.” All the kids get to pet the snakes and ogle Tackhead. It was meant to be a sweet showstopper. Just enough drama to amaze and delight for a few minutes. And when the air cleared, I’d be recognized as the giver and Lincoln would see me with new and loving eyes.
Frank is six foot six and weighs close to three hundred pounds. His shaved head looks like a blacksmith’s anvil. Mary says he wears a size 15 shoe. I asked him to wear his wrestling costume because I thought it would look flashy and crazy.
When the door exploded open half an hour later and an outrageous, seismic roar instantly silenced every other noise in the place, I thought for one second: Oh boy, this is better than I hoped! But then again, I knew what was happening. Besides, I was an adult. In the doorway, silhouetted by the burn of California light around his enormous form, arms extended, snakes a-dangle, Frank didn’t look much like a man, or even a human being. He looked like a shaved bear from Jupiter. A very furious bear. When he howled, “WHERE’S THAT BIRTHDAY BOY?!” and shook the poor snakes so they looked like black lightning bolts, people were already freaking out. If memory serves me right, a woman screamed first, not a child—the classic horror-film “AAAAAAUGH!”