“Let’s split one,” said Rocco, taking out a dollar. The other three each passed him a quarter.
“But who gets the watch?” said Nick, believing it possible to win one.
“We can toss for it,” said Gene, since the laws of chance, unlike arm wrestling, would favor them equally.
“No watches in those boxes,” said Frankie. “It’s the worm on the hook.”
The box had space for twice as much candy as was there, not a pound, but eight pieces, quickly chewed, as the boys shrugged off their disappointment.
Another guy came onstage in his white jacket which was a little too long. He was short and square and talked up to the microphone. “All you people who didn’t win the watch. In case you won one, you can’t be in on this. This is only if you didn’t buy the candy, or if you did, you didn’t get a Bulova, which now you can get. Really, really cheap. But only one to a person. I know people here want to buy two, three to take home to their wife, and to their mother. But we have to limit one each, since we don’t have too many. It’s the most fantastic deal Bulova ever made. For just two dollars. That’s right, two American dollars, you get a 100 percent guaranteed Bulova. You never heard such a bargain. How can we do it? Very simple. They have more watches than orders. But they couldn’t get rid of the extras through the stores which sell them for the high price. In fact, you’ll notice the name Bulova doesn’t appear on the face of this watch. It doesn’t want regular stores knowing how cheap they’re selling them here tonight. In stores you pay $25. But tonight, for one night only, you pay just two dollars. The man’s. Or the lady’s. Solid gold-plated. Genuine leather strap. But we have to move fast, ladies and gentlemen. Only ten minutes to curtain time. So have your money ready, please. Don’t miss this amazing offer. It won’t happen ever again.”
“We should get a watch,” said Nick, the altar boy.
“I have one,” said Gene.
“Me too,” said Rocco. “But for two bucks, it sounds good.”
“It’s probably a Dick Tracy,” said Frankie. “I wouldn’t buy anything from these guys.”
“My mother could use a watch,” said Nick. “I’ll get the lady’s.” He fished out his money. Then they all looked at the watch imprisoned in cellophane and staples. Frankie cut the paper with his Barlow knife. The watch was definitely a watch.
So Nick started winding it. He was winding it and winding it. When it didn’t come to an end, he handed the watch to Frankie. Frankie looked at it for a minute and then tapped it in his palm. Then he passed it to Rocco, who shook it with his featherweight grace. Then Gene weighed it in his hand and passed it back to Nick. Gene didn’t want to be unkind to his friend Nick and didn’t say that the watch felt empty.
Nick was still trying to get it to run when the curtain went up and the lights went out. To the beat from the orchestra in the pit, the line of dames kicked onstage with pink feathers in their hair and sparkling sequins on their underwear. They weren’t dolls exactly. The guys were expecting to see the beauties who existed in their imaginations, but instead they saw average dames, with all the mistakes Mother Nature makes in faces and figures. Since they looked so human, the boys felt slightly embarrassed, as if they were leering at their own mothers or sisters, and they drooped a little.
“One on the end’s cute,” said Nick.
“Too skinny,” said Rocco. “But mama mia, the one in the middle.”
“No,” said Frankie. “The blonde.”
The blonde’s smile looked sincere, while the other smiles looked like something was too tight, or a snapshot in the hot sun was about to be taken. The girls in the chorus were showing their teeth as if the audience was a convention of dentists. They pranced and kicked and then they bowed their behinds to applause. Frankie thought none was as sexy as Sylvia tightening her garter in her office when once he just happened to walk in.
Then the stage went dark and the spotlight was on two hands holding a sign that read miss sugar buns. The spotlight danced to the other side of the stage where a bride in her wedding gown danced out to a jazzy wedding march. One glove, one button, and one thread at a time was a slow boil for the crowd, and she was still in her underwear ten minutes later. The drumbeat seemed to be in her hips and breasts where she was big, and every guy was raving. Gene, who played the drums in his school orchestra, was thinking that he might come here to the Hudson Theater when he graduated in a few years and get a job at the skins in the pit from where he could look up at dames every night until, if it were ever possible, he would get his fill.
Miss Sugar Buns was down to her hairnet bra and spangled G-string, and the guys were quiet as if words had more value now by their absence. The theater was heating up and everyone was sweating and holding his breath. The drum rolled. Poised in the spotlight, to clashes of the symbols, the stripper tore off her hairnet bra. Then her G-string. The boys thought they saw everything, but from the balcony, it was hard to be sure. She didn’t seem to have any pubic hair. And it all happened so fast. But they acted to each other as if they had seen the most precious thing a man would want to see.
Altogether, they saw four comedy acts, the chorus six or seven times, and three other strippers. The last was Miss Floppy Candy. Then the show was over and the guys were almost dead from loving all the dames. They had loved even the ugly ones, which a few were, but noses, love handles, bowlegs, and buck-teeth had been disguised by the music and by their dreams of dames.
The crowd moved up the aisles, and when the guys were out on the sidewalk in front of the theater their eyes lit up again. The two dolls from the balcony were licking ice cream cones, bought from the Good Humor Man at the curb. One was almost a Miss Sugar Buns herself, and the other was blonde, but not as pretty close up.
“It’s kind of late,” said Frankie, worried about the time as usual, and reminded by that wispy voice that strange dames could be carrying strange germs.
“Let’s go over,” said Rocco.
“They won’t give us the time,” said Nick, who thought of the pain of confessing his sins that weren’t even too bad.
“What can we lose?” said Gene, who aspired to brazen acts.
Frankie for his reasons, and Nick for his, hung back, and Frankie said, “We’ll go take the bus. You guys can stay.”