A Christmas Story (6 page)

She also had this friend named The Asp, who whenever she was really in a tight spot would just show up and cut everybody’s head off. I figured that if there was anything a
kid of seven needed it was somebody named The Asp. Especially in our neighborhood. He wore a towel around his head.

Immediately after the nightly adventure, which usually took place near the headwaters of the dreaded Orinoco, on would come a guy named Pierre André, the
definitive
radio announcer.

“
FELLAS AND GALS. GET SET FOR A MEETING OF THE LITTLE ORPHAN ANNIE SECRET CIRCLE
!”

His voice boomed out of the Crosley like some monster, maniacal pipe organ played by the Devil himself. Vibrant, urgent, dynamic, commanding. Pierre André. I have long had a suspicion that an entire generation of Americans grew up feeling inferior to just the
names
of the guys on the radio. Pierre André. Harlow Wilcox. Vincent Pelletier. Truman Bradley. Westbrook Van Voorhees. André Baruch. Norman Brokenshire. There wasn’t a Charlie Shmidlap in the lot. Poor little Charlie crouching next to his radio—a born Right Fielder. Playing right field all of his life, knee-deep in weeds, waiting for a flyball that never comes and more than half afraid that one day they
will
hit one in his direction.

“
OKAY, KIDS. TIME TO GET OUT YOUR SECRET DECODER PIN. TIME FOR ANOTHER SECRET MESSAGE DIRECT FROM LITTLE ORPHAN ANNIE TO MEMBERS OF THE LITTLE ORPHAN ANNIE SECRET CIRCLE
.”

I got no pin. A member of an Out Group at the age of seven. And the worst kind of an Out Group. I am living in a non-Ovaltine-drinking neighborhood.

“
ALL RIGHT. SET YOUR PINS TO B-7. SEVEN … TWENTY-TWO … NINETEEN … EIGHT
 …
FORTY-NINE…
SIX … THIRTEEN
…
THREE!
TWENTY-TWO … ONE … FOUR … NINETEEN
.”

Pierre André could get more out of just numbers than Orson Welles was able to squeeze out of
King Lear
.

“
FOURTEEN … NINE … THIRTY-TWO. OKAY, FELLAS AND GALS, OVER AND OUT
.”

Then—silence. The show was over and you had a sinister feeling that out there in the darkness all over the country there were millions of kids—decoding. And all I could do was to go out into the kitchen where my mother was cooking supper and knock together a salami sandwich. And plot. Somewhere kids were getting the real truth from Orphan Annie. The message. And I had no pin. I lived in an Oatmeal-eating family and listened to an Ovaltine radio show. To get into the Little Orphan Annie Secret Circle you had to send in the silver inner seal from a can of what Pierre André called “that rich chocolate-flavored drink that all the kids love.” I had never even
seen
an Ovaltine can in my life.

But as the old truism goes, every man has his chance, and when yours comes you had better grab it. They do not make appointments for the next day. One day while I am foraging my way home from school, coming down one of my favorite alleys, knee-deep in garbage and the thrown-out effluvia of kitchen life, there occurred an incident which forever changed my outlook on Existence itself, although of course at the time I was not aware of it, believing instead that I had
struck the Jackpot and was at last on my way into the Big Time.

There was a standard game played solo by almost every male kid I ever heard of, at least in our neighborhood. It was simple, yet highly satisfying. There were no rules except those which the player improvised as he went along. The game had no name and is probably as old as creation itself. It consisted of kicking a tin can or tin cans all the way home. This game is not to be confused with a more formal athletic contest called Kick The Can, which
did
have rules and even teams. This kicking game was a solitary, dogged contest of kid against can, and is quite possibly the very earliest manifestation of the Golf Syndrome.

Anyway, I am kicking condensed milk cans, baked bean cans, sardine cans along the alley, occasionally changing cans at full gallop, when I suddenly found myself kicking a can of a totally unknown nature. I kicked it twice; good, solid, running belts, before I discovered that what I was kicking was an Ovaltine can, the first I had ever seen. Instantly I picked it up, astounded by the mere presence of an Ovaltine drinker in our neighborhood, and then discovered that they had not only thrown out the Ovaltine can but had left the silver inner seal inside. Some rich family had thrown it
all
away! Five minutes later I’ve got this inner seal in the mail and I start to wait. Every day I would rush home from school and ask:

“Is there any mail for me?”

Day after day, eon after eon. Waiting for three weeks for
something to come in the mail to a kid is like being asked to build the Pyramids singlehanded, using the #3 Erector set, the one without the motor. We never did get much mail around our house anyway. Usually it was bad news when it
did
come. Once in a while a letter marked
OCCUPANT
arrived, offering my Old Man $300 on his signature only, no questions asked, “Even your employer will not be notified.” They began with:

“Friend, are you in Money troubles?”

My Old Man could never figure out how they knew, especially since they only called him
OCCUPANT
. Day after day I watched our mailbox. On Saturdays when there was no school I would sit on the front porch waiting for the mailman and the sound of the yelping pack of dogs that chased him on his appointed rounds through our neighborhood, his muffled curses and thumping kicks mingling nicely with the steady uproar of snarling and yelping. One thing I knew. Trusty old Sandy never chased a mailman. And if he
had
, he would have caught him.

Everything comes to he who waits. I guess. At last, after at least 200 years of constant vigil, there was delivered to me a big, fat, lumpy letter. There are few things more thrilling in Life than lumpy letters. That rattle. Even to this day I feel a wild surge of exultation when I run my hands over an envelope that is thick, fat, and pregnant with mystery.

I ripped it open. And there it was! My simulated gold plastic Decoder pin. With knob. And my membership card.

It was an important moment. Here was a real milestone,
and I knew it. I was taking my first step up that great ladder of becoming a real American. Nothing is as important to an American as a membership card with a seal. I know guys who have long strings of them, plastic-enclosed: credit cards, membership cards, identification cards, Blue Cross cards, driver’s licenses, all strung together in a chain of Love. The longer the chain, the more they feel they belong. Here was my first card. I was on my way. And the best of all possible ways—I was making it as a Phony. A non-Ovaltine drinking Official Member.

Signed: Little Orphan Annie. Countersigned: Pierre André. In ink.

Honors and benefits. Already, at the age of seven, I am
Mister
Parker. They hardly ever even called my Old Man that.

That night I can hardly wait until the adventure is over. I want to get to the real thing, the message. That’s what counts. I had spent the entire day sharpening pencils, practicing twirling the knob on my plastic simulated gold Decoder pin. I had lined up plenty of paper and was already at the radio by three-thirty, sitting impatiently through the
drone of the late afternoon Soap Operas and newscasts, waiting for my direct contact with Tompkins Corners, my first night as a full Member.

As five-fifteen neared, my excitement mounted. Running waves of goose pimples rippled up and down my spine as I hunched next to our hand-carved, seven-tube Cathedral in the living room. A pause, a station break.…

Let’s get on with it! I don’t need all this jazz about smugglers and pirates. I sat through Sandy’s arfing and Little Orphan Annie’s perils hardly hearing a word. On comes, at long last, old Pierre. He’s one of
my
friends now. I am In. My first secret meeting.

“
OKAY, FELLAS AND GALS. GET OUT YOUR DECODER PINS. TIME FOR THE SECRET MESSAGE FOR ALL THE REGULAR PALS OF LITTLE ORPHAN ANNIE, MEMBERS OF THE LITTLE ORPHAN ANNIE SECRET CIRCLE. ALL SET? HERE WE GO. SET YOUR PINS AT B-12
.”

My eyes narrowed to mere slits, my steely claws working with precision, I set my simulated gold plastic Decoder pin to B-12.

“
ALL READY? PENCILS SET
?”

Old Pierre was in great voice tonight. I could tell that tonight’s message was really important.

“
SEVEN … TWENTY-TWO … THIRTEEN … NINETEEN
 …
EIGHT!
”

I struggled furiously to keep up with his booming voice dripping with tension and excitement. Finally:

“
OKAY, KIDS, THAT’S TONIGHT’S SECRET MESSAGE. LISTEN AGAIN TOMORROW NIGHT, WHEN YOU HEAR
.…”

Ninety seconds later I am in the only room in the house where a boy of seven could sit in privacy and decode. My pin is on one knee, my Indian Chief tablet on the other. I’m starting to decode.

7….

I spun the dial, poring over the plastic scale of letters. Aha! B. I carefully wrote down my first decoded number. I went to the next.

22
…
.

Again I spun the dial. E.…

The first word is B-E.

13 … S…

It was coming easier now.

19 … U.

From somewhere out in the house I could hear my kid
brother whimpering, his wail gathering steam, then the faint shriek of my mother:

“Hurry up! Randy’s gotta go!” Now what!

“
I’LL BE RIGHT OUT, MA! GEE WHIZ
!”

I shouted hoarsely, sweat dripping off my nose.

S … U
 … 15 … 
R … E
.
BE SURE!
A message was coming through!

Excitement gripped my gut. I was getting The Word.
BE
SURE …

14 … 8 … 
T … O
 … 
BE SURE TO
what? What was Little Orphan Annie trying to say?

17 … 9 … 
DR
 … 16 … 12 … 
I
…9 … 
N … K
 … 32 … 
OVA
 … 19 … 
LT
…

I sat for a long moment in that steamy room, staring down at my Indian Chief notebook. A crummy commercial!

Again a high, rising note from my kid brother.

“
I’LL BE RIGHT OUT, MA! FOR CRYING OUT LOUD
.”

I pulled up my corduroy knickers and went out to face the meat loaf and the red cabbage. The Asp had decapitated another victim.

I “hmmmmed” meaningfully yet noncommittally as I feigned interest in the magnificent structure before us. “Hmmmm,” I repeated, this time in a slightly lower key, watching carefully out of the corner of my eye to see whether she was taking the lure.

A 1938 Hupmobile radiator core painted gaudily in gilt and fuchsia revolved on a Victrola turntable before us. From its cap extended the severed arm of a female plastic mannequin. It reached toward the vaulted ceiling high above us. Its elegantly contorted hand clutched a can of Bon Ami, the kitchen cleanser. The Victrola repeated endlessly a recording of a harmonica band playing “My Country ’Tis of Thee.” The bronze plaque at its base read:
IT HASN
’
T SCRATCHED YET
.

The girl nodded slowly and deliberately in deep
appreciation of the famous contemporary masterwork, the central exhibit in the Museum’s definitive Pop Art Retrospective Panorama, as the Sunday supplements called it. I closed in:

“He’s got it down.”

I paused adeptly, waited a beat or two and then, using my clipped, put-down voice: