and I had seen the Christmas before called Pocketful of Miracles. Pocketful of Miracles had been in color, but Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte was in black and white, which somehow made it even scarier. There was this pianothat played all by itself and a bunch of other creepy stuff. When that guy got murdered with the meat cleaver at the beginning of the movie, I closed my eyes, but Lonny caught me and made fun of me and said I was Mr. Chicken, cluck, cluck, cluck . So later, when this other guy got his head chopped off and the head went bouncing down the stairs, I had to force myself to keep looking, even though I didn’t want to. And after? When we were walking out of the show? Lonny said he thought Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte stunk and wasn’t scary. What did I think?
“Huh?…Oh, yeah. It stunk worse than a skunk. You call that scary? Gimme a break. We should’ve asked for our money back.”
What I’d really been thinking was that Ma had been right—I was going to probably get nightmares, which, whenever I got them, I’d get up and go to her and Pop’s bedroom and tap her on the shoulder and go, “Ma?” and she’d get out of bed and stumble back down to my room and sit in my chair until I got back to sleep. Except what was I supposed to do if I gota nightmare about that guy’s head bouncing down the stairs while she was all the way across the country in California? And plus, was I now going to have to let Monsignor Muldoon know that, not only had I French-kissed my cousin’s poster, but also that I’d skipped church on a Sunday and a holy day so that I could go to the movies instead, and that we’d bought our tickets with UNICEF money that was supposed to be for poor kids who could drink milk for a whole month for like two pennies or something?…Except it was Lonny’s UNICEF money, not mine, I reminded myself. My own UNICEF carton, heavy with dimes, quarters, nickels, and half dollars would be turned in dutifully on Monday morning. Where was the sinning in that?
M onday was always Current Events day in Madame Frechette’s class, which meant that our weekend homework included looking through magazines and newspapers and cutting out articles thatmight get thumb-tacked to the side bulletin board titled “Our Town, Our Nation, & Our World.” On Mondays, after lunchtime recess, we were called, one by one, to stand, walk to the front of the room, and summarize our articles. That Monday, November 2, 1964, several of my classmates reported on stuff about the next day’s Presidential election. Ronald Kubiak told us that Dr. Martin Luther King had broken his rule of not endorsing either candidate and was now urging colored people— black people! I keep forgetting—to vote for LBJ, not Goldwater. Oscar Landry quoted President Johnson himself: “We are not going to send American boys nine or ten thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves.” Geraldine Balchunas predicted that, if Johnson got reelected, it was entirely possible that one of his daughters, Lynda Bird or Lucy Baines, would have a White House wedding.
Jackie Burnham informed us that Great Britain had elected its youngest prime minister ever, Harold somebody, and Edgy Chang reported that the Bostonpolice had rounded up a suspect in the Boston Strangler murders. (Edgy’s real name is Doris, but everyone calls her Edgy on account of when her mother was pregnant with her, she was always real nervous.) When Edgy spoke in detail about the Strangler’s gruesome methods, Madame cut her off with a “Merci, mademoiselle.” She called on Lonny Flood.
Lonny stood, sauntered to the front of the room, and, with a yawn, informed us that the previous Saturday had been Halloween. We waited.
“And what of that?” Madame finally said.
Lonny shrugged. “That’s it. That it was Halloween…. And, oh yeah, it rained. On Halloween. Which was Saturday.” He returned to his desk and sat.
Rosalie Turdski raised her
“Huh?…Oh, yeah. It stunk worse than a skunk. You call that scary? Gimme a break. We should’ve asked for our money back.”
What I’d really been thinking was that Ma had been right—I was going to probably get nightmares, which, whenever I got them, I’d get up and go to her and Pop’s bedroom and tap her on the shoulder and go, “Ma?” and she’d get out of bed and stumble back down to my room and sit in my chair until I got back to sleep. Except what was I supposed to do if I gota nightmare about that guy’s head bouncing down the stairs while she was all the way across the country in California? And plus, was I now going to have to let Monsignor Muldoon know that, not only had I French-kissed my cousin’s poster, but also that I’d skipped church on a Sunday and a holy day so that I could go to the movies instead, and that we’d bought our tickets with UNICEF money that was supposed to be for poor kids who could drink milk for a whole month for like two pennies or something?…Except it was Lonny’s UNICEF money, not mine, I reminded myself. My own UNICEF carton, heavy with dimes, quarters, nickels, and half dollars would be turned in dutifully on Monday morning. Where was the sinning in that?
M onday was always Current Events day in Madame Frechette’s class, which meant that our weekend homework included looking through magazines and newspapers and cutting out articles thatmight get thumb-tacked to the side bulletin board titled “Our Town, Our Nation, & Our World.” On Mondays, after lunchtime recess, we were called, one by one, to stand, walk to the front of the room, and summarize our articles. That Monday, November 2, 1964, several of my classmates reported on stuff about the next day’s Presidential election. Ronald Kubiak told us that Dr. Martin Luther King had broken his rule of not endorsing either candidate and was now urging colored people— black people! I keep forgetting—to vote for LBJ, not Goldwater. Oscar Landry quoted President Johnson himself: “We are not going to send American boys nine or ten thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves.” Geraldine Balchunas predicted that, if Johnson got reelected, it was entirely possible that one of his daughters, Lynda Bird or Lucy Baines, would have a White House wedding.
Jackie Burnham informed us that Great Britain had elected its youngest prime minister ever, Harold somebody, and Edgy Chang reported that the Bostonpolice had rounded up a suspect in the Boston Strangler murders. (Edgy’s real name is Doris, but everyone calls her Edgy on account of when her mother was pregnant with her, she was always real nervous.) When Edgy spoke in detail about the Strangler’s gruesome methods, Madame cut her off with a “Merci, mademoiselle.” She called on Lonny Flood.
Lonny stood, sauntered to the front of the room, and, with a yawn, informed us that the previous Saturday had been Halloween. We waited.
“And what of that?” Madame finally said.
Lonny shrugged. “That’s it. That it was Halloween…. And, oh yeah, it rained. On Halloween. Which was Saturday.” He returned to his desk and sat.
Rosalie Turdski raised her
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