Too Close to the Falls (21 page)

As we pulled into the store's alley and onto the loading dock, the boss told me to keep my foot on the gas pedal and make sure I didn't change gears. I had to slouch down in the driver's seat to make contact with the gas pedal. I was really getting cold and was shocked that the heater wasn't managing to heat the car. I kept putting my hand on it to see if it was working, and it was indeed sending out hot air, but it couldn't keep up with the cold wind. Finally, through the rearview mirror I saw Roy walking up the alley. I knew right away to push in the lighter. Roy, true to form, was what he referred to as “lidless.” He refused to wear a hat, saying it made his hair nappy. He got into the car with a cigarette behind his ear, which he immediately handed to me and I lit with the lighter. I always took a drag like the women on
Alfred Hitchcock Presents
before I gave it to him, saying, “We're loaded. Let's hit the road, Jack.”

Roy made a whistle like Wolfman Jack and said, “Whoooo wee, it's nippy out there. You drive to work today?”

I loved it when Roy did this. He wasn't like my parents' friends in how he joked. “Yup. Dad blew away and froze to a telephone pole and I had to drive all the way up on my own.”

“No trouble with the alley?” he asked as he glanced at the clipboard with the day's deliveries.

“None. I just went slowly.” He nodded his approval. As we were about to back out of the alley, “Rock Around the Clock” by Bill Haley and his Comets blasted on the radio he brought with him, and Roy made it clear that cold weather would not deter us from our usual merriment. As they sang, “One o'clock, two o'clock, three o'clock, rock,” Roy put the car in reverse. “Four o'clock, five o'clock, six o'clock, rock,” and he slammed it into forward. On he went, shifting to the music, and off we lurched down Falls Street, singing and laughing in the face of the dropping thermometer.

After we'd done our local deliveries, we headed out to a farm in Wheatfield, on the outskirts of the county, to make our last delivery. Mr. Vincent had reminded me to tell Roy that before we went out to Wheatfield we should fill up the tank because it was pretty desolate out there and if your gas tank is even half-empty in this weather you can get ice in the gas line and clog the carburetor. He'd also said to watch for snow out there as it was the eye of the snowbelt in those parts. I had to get out the long county atlas to figure out where this farm was and where we had to drop off this expensive ointment that we had to keep next to the heater because it cost a fortune and its label read “Keep at room temperature.” We were really in the sticks and some of the roads weren't on the city
or
the county street guides. Finally we figured we made some wrong turns on farmers' unmarked back roads. Anyway, we got back onto the highway and decided to try again.

It was now dusk, snowing, and we were both eager to find someone to ask directions. The snow was blowing on what
looked like a lunar landscape and we hadn't passed any sign of life for miles. Suddenly Roy hit a patch of black ice and we did a 360-degree turn and headed onto the shoulder and into a drainage ditch. We didn't even have time to get scared. Something under the car had ripped on the grey ice ledge the snowplow had left on the side of the highway. The motor ground to a halt. Roy got out of the car and saw we were tilted forward and the back wheels were off the ground entirely. The tailpipe had ripped off on the ice mound and the muffler lay perfectly sawed off under the car, as though the delivery car had given birth to it and was now too spent to even turn over, no matter how much Roy fiddled with her choke.

It was dropping from dusk to dark as we walked around the car, assessing the damage. We were dug in. It would take a truck to pull us out. As we got back in the car Roy said, “Well, the good news is we didn't hit no one and we're not hurt, and the bad news is it's colder than a witch's tit.” The land was flat and cut into giant squares by an electrified fence. There was nothing in sight but frozen clumps of cultivated ground dusted in blowing snow like confectioner's sugar on molasses cookies. We sat in silence for a few minutes as I presumed Roy was planning our exit strategy. “Well . . . well,” he finally said again. “Well, we don't have many choices. It's too cold to walk to the next farm.”

I piped in, “Wherever that is.”

“It's blowin' like a whistle out there and we'd get turned around, not knowing north from south in this here whiteout.” I didn't say anything, so he continued, only this time he tried to cheer me up, which I certainly wasn't above needing. “Well, Cisco, we'd best be sittin' tight like two bugs in a rug in this here automobile. The boss
is one organized hombre. He gots a copy of our schedule and when we not back on time, he'll call everyone on the list and see who didn't get their medicine and then when he gets a hold of the Ryder farm and they say they ain't seen hide nor hair of us, he'll know just where we are. Nothing get by that man. Besides, someone is bound to drive along this road. It's a highway.”

I thought for a moment. “Roy, what if the lines are down or what if the Ryders, people we've never ever laid eyes on before, don't have a phone. Lots of farmers think phones are newfangled.”

“Yeah, maybe on
Gunsmoke
or
Have Gun Will Travel
. Sister, this is 1956! I bet you one day's — no, one
week's
pay — that we get outta here . . . in one piece.”

I could tell what that pause was about. “Sorry, Pancho, I'm not taking that bet. By the way, did you ever hear a short story called ‘To Build a Fire'? It's about a guy who freezes to death.”

Roy started laughing. “Oh, I'm not goin' down that road, man.”

We had no heater and it was unbelievable how quickly the temperature was already dropping. There was no point in saying anything more about it. I knew what kind of behaviour got on Roy's nerves. He didn't mind all the talk in the world or even all the demands, but he couldn't abide a whiny kid. The kind that goes on and on about things made him as mad as all get out. I'd seen it when snivellers came into the store.

After we sat there awhile, Roy said, “Put up your hood and leave it up. Loosen your boots so there are no tight parts and your skin isn't pressed anywhere. Keep your fingers moving slowly in your mittens and hold your hands close to your chest or put them under your armpits.” The wind rocked the car slightly making noises like hungry wolves, and our seats were leaning forward as
the car was nose-dived. Roy said, “The time'll go faster if we keep each other entertained and if we don't talk about the
weather
. Notice I didn't use the word
cold
.” I nodded. My ears were beginning to hurt but we had decided not to mention it. He suggested, “You name the topic. Oh, by the way, Cisco, I sure as shootin' don't want to hear none o' that freezin'-to-death-gotta-build-a-fire kinda story. Let's hear somethin' warm —
hot
even.”

I thought for a moment and then suggested we revisit what had become known as “the Marilyn Monroe saga.” We had actually made a real visit to Marilyn Monroe over two years ago. Roy agreed that was a good one and said I had the elephant's memory, so why didn't I tell it. I informed Roy, in a moment of sudden inspiration, that I was going to tell it in the form of a “true fairy tale.”

Once upon a time in 1952 when Cathy was four years old and Roy was. . . already big, a movie called
Niagara
was being made in one of the seven wonders of the world called Niagara Falls. As chance would have it, these Falls were only a few blocks away from McClure's Drugs, where Cathy and Roy toiled happily. Marilyn Monroe was the star of the movie and her manager called our store to say that she needed sleeping pills. The boss of the store said a doctor had to call in the prescription and then McClure's would fill and deliver it.

When it came time to deliver it, the boss said he'd drop it off on his way home from work that very day. Cathy, the girl who toiled in the drugstore, told the boss, who coincidentally happened to be her father, how unfair it was that he should suddenly deliver the morphine and Nembutal prescription, when for years it had been the job of Roy, the deliveryman, and Cathy, his assistant. After all, Roy and Cathy had delivered to some pretty ornery people in their travels, but when they
complained that they had a tough time on the reservation or anywhere else for that matter, the boss assured them it was “all in a day's work.” Cathy asked why delivering to Marilyn Monroe wasn't part of
their
day's work instead of
his.
After very little ado, the father agreed, after his favourite daughter made him see the error of his ways.

One July day when it was so hot that the
Niagara Falls Gazette
had a picture of a man frying an egg on the sidewalk, Roy and Cathy walked hand in hand over to the movie set. They couldn't take the delivery car because of the herds of rubberneckers. As they walked they played a game which they entitled Squeeze That Tune, where Roy squeezed Cathy's hand to the rhythm of a song and she had to guess the title. They were amazed by the throngs of people who were roped off from a set of trailers and a movie set with a motel called Rainbow Cabins that only had a front held up by stilts, but no real rooms.

Cathy went up to the guard and said that they had a prescription for Marilyn Monroe. The guard said that he would make sure she got it, but Cathy informed him of the narcotics law in New York State which maintained that the person whose name was on the prescription had to sign for the drug if it was listed in the registry as a narcotic. Low and behold, the rope was moved, and the crowd parted like the Red Sea when Moses divided it, and Roy and Cathy were led onto the set. They went over to the chairs where Henry Hathaway, the movie's director, and Joseph Cotten, the leading man, were sitting. Joseph Cotten, a man, was wearing makeup that even Irene would have thought excessive.

Henry Hathaway seemed relieved to see Cathy and Roy and said, “Thank God Marilyn's medicine is here. You've saved my bacon!” He reached for a megaphone and yelled, “Let's call those extras back to the set in one hour please.”

Jean Peters, another actress, who was leaning on the motel set
having a cigarette under the “No Vacancy” sign, threw her cigarette on the lawn and seemed kind of in a huff. She said, pointing to Cathy, “Well,
she's
the only natural blond on the lot.”

Henry Hathaway laughed and told Cathy, “You never know. You may be our next star.”

Joseph Cotten said, smoothing his tweezed eyebrow, “After all, Betty Grable was discovered at Schrafft's and her hair was only half as blond as yours.”

Cathy was thrilled. Henry gave the security guard the go-ahead for them to go to Marilyn's room in the Sheraton Brock Hotel. Because of the crowds who were waiting for Marilyn to get off the elevator, the guard had to take them up in a special freight elevator that had quilts on the walls.

Cathy knocked on the door, but no one answered. One thing Cathy and Roy knew was that when you deliver narcotics, people are happy to see you. That much she'd learned practically in her crib. She leaned close to the door, tapped, and murmured, “Nembutal for Marilyn Monroe.”

That was the open sesame. Marilyn popped her head out of the door looking like a ruffled white rooster with hair askew and smeared ruby red lips and muttered, “Oh, I'm not quite dressed yet. I know I have to sign — pardon my attire and the mess and come on in.” She opened the door fully and the delivery pair entered, not without trepidation, for Marilyn was in her slip. There were clothes all over the floor, and cigarettes with red ends that were hardly smoked were overflowing the ashtray and getting mixed in with piles of makeup in more colours than an artist's palette. “I just have two more nails,” she said, hastily applying Revlon Night to Remember nail polish on top of chipped old red polish.

Her tight slip wasn't doing a good or even adequate job of covering her
body. The scanty eyelet undergarment was white, but her long-line brassiere, garter belt, and pants were black. The cups of the bra were lace and had concentric circles sewn in top-stitching, and were shaped like sugar cones for ice cream, pointing straight out. Now, if the facts be known, Cathy wouldn't have been caught dead in a room with another woman, let alone a man, in that getup. Cathy gave Marilyn a look which let her know that Roy
was
a man and that maybe he should wait outside.

Roy carried the maroon leather narcotics log and held it out for Marilyn to sign, pointing to the spot where the morphine was listed. As he leaned over to give her a pen, she flopped down on her vanity stool and prepared to sign, scowling as though she'd signed more of these than she cared to remember. Suddenly her mood and body seemed to loosen up, and she said in a little-girl kind of breathy voice, “What's that smell? Is that Juicy Fruit?” She leaned close to Roy's face, sniffing. Roy didn't say anything. He just got out his Juicy Fruit and casually handed her a piece, but she said he had to peel it because her nails were wet. As he took off the yellow wrapper and foil, she gave the signed narcotics log a big squeeze against her chest, which made parts of her body come up over the top of her slip and slide all around. Then she handed the book back to Roy, saying in that same gushy voice, with her eyes open wide, as though she were shocked or something, “Now, that was a sneaky way to get my autograph.” Then she smiled at Roy and her face really lit up. Her whole sort of pudgy sour face turned radiant.