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

there I did.”
    â€œWhat’d you do?”
    Her eyes froze on the icebox door. “I’m not so sure what I did. Except the next morning I came in eighty-seventh out of eighty-eight at the bee.”
    â€œWhat word tripped you up?”
    Her eyes left the icebox and landed square on mine. “I think it was yes .”
    Well, that did it. I threw my face across the table and sucked her on the mouth like a nursing calf. I cooled my fire with a long drink of milk. I could feel the mustache it left.
    She didn’t get mad and she didn’t laugh. She moved her face close to mine and wiped the milk off my upper lip with her little finger. “Naughty naughty, Ace Gilbert,” she said. For the rest of my life, whenever I made love to a woman, “Naughty naughty, Ace Gilbert” rang in my ears, enhancing the experience greatly.
    She slid out of her chair and headed for the doorway. “Buck Rogers is coming on next, I think. You like Buck Rogers, don’t you, Ace?”
    â€œAbsolutely.”
    Buck Rogers was in fact next, right there on WBBM. It was only 6:30 Chicago time, but following Aunt Mary out of that kitchen, I was years older than I’d been going in. I’d been toyed with by an older woman, two rooms away from her German husband. I felt wonderful.
    The Goldbergs came on at 6:45 on WENR, an NBC Blue station. I laughed out loud when Molly Goldberg gave us her very Yiddish “ Yoo-hoo! Is anybody ?” Uncle Fritz shushed me. “Laugh to yourself inside,” he growled, “so da rest of us can hear what’s funny, too.”
    At 7:00 he thumbed in WMAQ on NBC Red for the Eno Crime Clues program, a half-hour detective show we all listened to in Bennett’s Corners. Halfway through the clues he thumbed to WBBM to hear Singin’ Sam the Barbasol Man . At 7:15 he thumbed the dial back to WMAQ for Lady Esther Serenade , a half-hour music program featuring the Wayne King Orchestra. Halfway through he thumbed to WLS, another NBC Blue station, to hear Trade and Mark , a team of song-and-patter men who made up with long shaggy beards like the Smith Brothers on the cough drop boxes. At 8:00 he stayed on WLS for Ben Bernie’s Blue Ribbon Orchestra . The Old Maestro was a legend. Everybody knew his closing by heart: “ Until the next time when … possibly you may tune in again … keep the Old Maestro always in your schemes … Yowsah. Yowsah. Yowsah … Au Revoir! ” We didn’t dare sing along. But back home in Bennett’s Corners I’m sure everybody was.
    At 8:30 Uncle Fritz thumbed back to WMAQ for the Texaco Star Theater featuring Ed Wynn, The Fire Chief. It was hard to keep your laughs inside with a guy funny as Ed Wynn. But we managed. At 9:00 Fritz stayed with WMAQ for Lives at Stake , real-life death defying stories accompanied by the Harold Stokes Orchestra. Aunt Mary helped Clyde with his drops. At 9:30 we stayed tuned to WMAQ for Madame Sylvia’s Hollywood Interviews . She gabbed for fifteen minutes—minus the advertisements for cold cream and lipstick—with Maureen O’ Sullivan, who was currently starring with Johnny Weismuller in Tarzan and his Mate .
    One by one we made trips to the bathroom, except for Uncle Fritz, who dutifully stayed in his rocker, thumb ready. At 9:45 it was over to WBBM for Myrt and Marge . This was a fluffy serial about two career girls struggling to make it big in New York City. At 10:00 the dial was back on WMAQ for Amos ‘n’ Andy . White guys talking like Negroes. We all wanted to laugh out loud. Even Uncle Fritz. It was the thirties and laughing at Negroes was just as proper as laughing at Italians, Jews, country barbers, ambitious women, and Arkansas hillbillies like Lum and Abner , who came on at 10:15 on WENR, on NBC Blue.
    At 10:30 we went out to the tent. The three beagles had peed all over the flap, making that old bag of canvas smell even worse than it already