I’m cashing in on the big rock ’n’ roll craze, slanting songs at the teenagers. The way I figure it, they’ve exhausted the teen market, and they’re going to have to start on the preteens, so I’m going to beat the trend. I’ve just recorded my first record, it’s called “Nine Years Old and So Much in Love.” It’s backed with “Ten Years Old and Already Disillusioned.”
Okay, Marty, forget the sickshticks. That’s what got you your fame, that’s why they’re honoring you today in Lainesville. But that’s dodging the issue. That’s turning tail and running, Marty. Forget the routines, just answer the questions. Do you remember them? The truth now.
You’re about as funny as a guided tour through Dachau.
Another bit, Marty? Another funny from your long and weirdie repertoire? Or is that routine closer to the truth? Is it a subconscious gag, Marty, babe? Does it set you thinking about Evan Dennis and Jack Wheeldon and all the rest from the sleepy, rustic town of Lainesville, just thirty-one miles from Cleveland in the so-called liberal heart of the great American Midwest?
Is it the truth, as you descend the aluminum staircase of the great flying machine, Marty Field?
Does it start the old mental ball game, that remark about Dachau, where they threw Jews into furnaces? Does it do something to your nice pseudo-Gentile gut? That gut that has been with you since Morrie Feldman days … that heaved on you when you had the nose job done to give you such a fine Gentile snout … that didn’t complain when the name was changed legally. Does it bother that gut now, and give you the hollow, early-morning-chilly feeling of having stayed up all night on No-Doz and hot, black coffee? Does it bug you, Marty?
…ve haff an interesting phenomena in Chermany today … you’ll haff to excuse the paint under my fingernails; I’ve been busy all night, writing “goyim go home” on the doors of cathedrals …
Oooh, that was a zinger, wasn’t it, Marty. It was a nice switch on the synagogue-swastika-painting bits the papers have been carrying. Or is it just that, Marty? Say, how the hell did you ever become a sick comic, anyhow? Was it a way of making a buck, or are you a little sick yourself? Maybe a little angry?
At what, goddam you, get outta here and let me alone!
Why, at your past, Marty, babe. Your swingin’ past in good old we’re-honoring-Marty-Field Lainesville.
Is that the axe, sweetie? Is that why you keep swingin’?
Shut up. Let me alone. It’s a gig, that’s all, just another gig. It’s a booking. I’m in. I’m out. I take their lousy honor and blow the scene. There’s no social signif here. I’m a sickie because it’s a buck. That’s it. I’m whole; I’m not a weirdie, that’s just my bit. It goes over.
Sure, Marty. Sure, babe. I understand perfectly.
What’d you call me?
Not a thing, swinger. Not a mumblin’ thing.
You’d damned well better not call me yellow, either.
Cool it, man. No one’s asking you to cop out. The whole world loves Marty Field. He’s a swinger. He’s a funny man. He was a funny kid, maybe too, but now he’s a funny man. Go on, sweetie, there they are, waiting behind the hurricane fence, waiting to greet the conquering hero. Go on, Attila, say something funny for the people.
The banner was raised by two children, then, and Marty Field’s face broke into its calculated good humor at the sight of
WELCOME HOME MARTY FIELD
PRIDE OF LAINESVILLE!!!!
It wasn’t such a long ride, but then it never had been. Thirty-one miles, past the Fair Grounds, past the Colony Lumber Company where he had played so long before. Remembering the condemned pond, so deep behind the Colony Lumber Company; remembering his birthday, when he had thought there would be no party and he had stayed all day, miserable and wasting time, only to go home and see the remains of the surprise party, held without him. Remembering the tears for something lost, and never to be regained.
Past Lathrop grade school, where he had broken one of the ornamental lamps over the door. Past Harmon Drive, where he had lived. Down Mentor Avenue, and after a time, into the center of town. The square, and around the square, past what was once the Lyric Theatre, now metamorphosed into an office building. Remembering the tiny theatre, and its ridiculous banner beneath the marquee:Lake County’s Most Intimate Theatre. Remembering how you had to sit in your neighbor’s lap, the movie was so small. Intimate, indeed. Remembering.
Then the hotel, and washing up, and a fresh white shirt with button-down collar, and your Continental suit, so they could stare and say, “He really knows how to dress in style, don’t he?”
All that, all so fast, one bit after another. Too many memories, too many attempts to ravel the truth about what really happened. Was it a happy childhood? Was it the way they say it was, and the way you’d like to remember it?
Or was it something else? Something that has made you the man you are … the man who climbs into the spotlight every day of his life, takes a scissors and cuts up his fellow man. Which way was it, Marty? Come on, stop stalling.
An honor banquet, and Lord! they never had food like that in Lainesville before. No pasty dry sliver of white chicken meat for Marty Field, no, indeed, not! The best of the best for the man who out Trendexed Maverick. And after the meal, a fast tour of the town — kept open, center-stripe on Main Street left rolled out after eight o’clock — just to stir that faulty, foggy memory.
A dance at the Moose lodge …
A late-night pizza …
A lot of autographs …
Too many handshakes …
Then let’s get some sleep, don’t forget the big dedication of the plaque tomorrow, over at the High School, that’s a helluvan honor, doncha know.
Sleep. You call that a sleep?
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the Principal began, “humor is a very delicate thing.” He was a big, florid man; his job had been secure for fifteen years, with the exception of the time Champion Junior High had been condemned, torn down, and joined with the new Senior High. Then they had tried to drag in a man from East Cleveland, but the Principal had called on his brother-in-law, whose influence in local politics was considerable. And abruptly, the man from East Cleveland had found his record wanting. The Principal was a big, florid,well-fed, and secure man.
“And like all delicate things,” he went on, “it takes a special sort of green thumb to make it flower. Such a green thumb is possessed by the man I’m privileged to introduce this afternoon.
“I recall the first time I ever saw Marty Field,” he pontificated, drawing thumbs down into vest pockets. “I was Principal of the old Champion Junior High, and one September morning, as I left my office, I saw a thin, small boy hurrying late to class. Well, sir, I said to myself …”
Marty Field closed off reception. There it was. Again. The small, short, sickly bit again. Yeah, you were so right, Principal. I was small, and miserable thin, and that was part of it. But only part. That was the part where I couldn’t keep up. But that isn’t where it began. It went back much further.
Go back, then, Marty Field. For the first time since they contacted you about the honors Lainesville wanted to bestow on you, go back and conjure it up as it really was.