Read Online Going to Chicago by Rob Levandoski - Free Book Online

Armstrong lasted just fifteen minutes.
    Next came a program called Little Italy , right there on WBBM, fifteen minutes of phony Italian accents. Uncle Fritz loved it. Next came Colonel Stoopnagle and Budd , on WMAQ, one of the NBC Red network stations. I quietly gathered up the pie plates and took them to the kitchen.
    Will’s aunt was taking a sheet of cookies from the oven. I piled the plates in the sink and sat down at the kitchen table. “I’m baking you boys some cookies for your drive up to Chicago,” she said. She took one of the cookies off with a spatula and deposited it right in my mouth.
    â€œI like hot cookies right from the oven,” I said.
    â€œYou’re not a fan of Colonel Stoopnagle?”
    â€œHe’s about as funny as wet shoes. I thought you might need some help out here.”
    â€œNow I like Little Orphan Annie,” she said, opening the icebox door, bending her housedress tight. “How about a glass of milk, Ace?”
    â€œNothing better than hot cookies and ice-cold milk.”
    She sat across from me and poured me a glass. She started singing the Little Orphan Annie theme song: “ Who’s the little chatterbox? The one with the pretty auburn locks? Who can it be? It’s Little Orphan Annie !”
    I laughed and sang the next line: “ She and Sandy make a pair. They never seem to have a care! ”
    In the living room Colonel Stoopnagle was putting one over on Budd. Aunt Mary watched me dunk my cookie and suck the milk out of it. The three beagles were watching us through the screen door. “You know, I envy you boys,” she said. “A whole week in Chicago to raise hell.”
    I can still feel my shiver. I couldn’t believe a worldly woman like that was saying “raise hell” to a dopey kid like me. “I don’t know about raising much hell,” I said. “Will’s got our entire trip planned minute by minute, looking at one scientific wonder after the other.”
    â€œWell, I hope you find a little time to raise some hell.”
    I licked the crumbs off my lip. “Me too.”
    â€œNothing wrong with a young man your age raising a little hell. It’s natural.”
    The way she said natural . Goddamn. Sonofabitch. “How about raising a lot of hell?” I asked.
    She pretended to frown. “I’m not so sure about a lot of hell, but raising a little hell is an absolute requirement of growing up.”
    You can imagine what that word absolute did to me. “An absolute requirement,” I repeated. Colonel Stoopnagle signed off. Uncle Fritz thumbed the dial back to WBBM for Just Plain Bill , fifteen minutes about the kindly barber of Hartville, brought to us by Whitehall Pharmaceutical Company, the makers of Anacin.
    She broke off a corner of my cookie and nibbled on it. “Boys are born with more than one extra organ, you know.”
    Organ . I was ready to faint. “They are?”
    â€œUh-huh. And that extra little organ works away quietly year after year, deep inside them, storing up drop after drop of hell-raising juice.”
    â€œHell-raising juice?”
    â€œUh-huh. And when a boy gets a certain age that extra little organ gets so full, some of that juice just has to spill. He might explode into a million pieces otherwise. Want another cookie, Ace? While they’re still hot?”
    Spill. Explode . You bet I wanted another cookie. I watched her move inside her dress all the way to the counter and back. “What about girls?” I asked. “Do they ever fill up with that hell-raising juice?”
    â€œSometimes they do.”
    Like a fool I called her Mary. “You ever, Mary?”
    She shot me a wicked wink. “I guess I was pretty full of it my senior year. When I went to the state spelling bee. Two days and two nights free as a bird in Cincinnati.”
    Sin-sin-atti . “So, did you get a chance to spill any of it?”
    â€œThe last night