Uncle Theater
We were still in pajamas when Uncle Stanley showed me the crocodile tongues. He walked me to the back porch and held up a jar, trying to catch the afternoon light. The glass puckered full of vinegary juice and pale cucumbers from Grandma’s yard, one floor below. Standing up here, level with the tree’s limbs, the porch swelled with cool humidity and we took deep breaths through the window screens and sucked in the smell of fresh rain and bruised apples. Late September made this just another Friday that Mom and Grandpa went to work while I stayed home with Grandma and Stanley. This was 1976, a bicentennial year, which made me think of American Buffalos and Yankee Doodle Dandy. I wanted both to eat soft macaroni from my hand and watch me twirl my baton and see how pretty the red yarn ribbons looked in my lemonade hair.
Stanley held the jar up with his beefy hands and a scrape of sun lit through the glass and gave the dill-water a sweet glow. He gave the cucumbers a whirr—green wind—in kibbled brine: small silver onions and black peppercorns—as if someone had ripped apart an angelfish and there were finny wings and there were beady eyes. The cucumbers looked a million years old and I wanted to believe Uncle Stanley because we’d be the only Pollocks on the block pickling reptiles. These were tongues and they were pulled from baby crocodiles that were too dumb to close their mouths.
“Ha. Look, they’re running away,” Stanley said as he kept spinning the jar. When he spoke he leaned forward and breathed into my face. His mouth had a sour, chocolate milk smell that mixed with his stale slippers. The hair on his head was short and flat and looked as if he’d dipped his comb in bacon grease, which we also kept in a jar. The gray pig fat stayed tucked beneath the kitchen sink in the darkness next to the silver, snaking pipe that clicked and hissed spit every time Grandma turned the faucet. She’d be home any minute, back from Wally’s Shop at the end of the block.
We were counting tongues when the sun skedaddled and the clouds gloomed everything. We heard Grandma heaving up the back steps and the door was open so we watched. She looked like a big potato trying to roll up a hill. She was in a brown dress riddled with black dots and every time she moved, the hem tightened around her short legs. Even her babushka was fighting her and trying to slip off her head. Grandma was too plump to rest the groceries on her hip, so she held the parcel into her bosom and panted over the top of the bag, rubbing red lipstick along the papery edge. I wished she’d stayed away longer. She was always trying to boss us around and make us do things like count clothespins or wring out her pantyhose.
When Grandma saw the jar in Stanley’s hands, she found her momentum and turned mongoose. She didn’t stop to take off her stubborn, shiny shoes and walked right past her slippers. “Dog’s blood, you’ll break it,” she said and grabbed at the jar with one hand. Stanley boggled the glass in his clumsy grip and almost dropped it to the floor. This purpled Grandma’s face and she snatched the jar and placed it in the row of sleeping fruits and vegetables, all snuggled in glass and curing syrup.
“Go,” Grandma said and shoved her hand flat against Stanley’s back and with that outstretched arm she steered him forward towards the front of the house. The grocery bag was wedged between them and I could hear butcher paper crinkling as cans shifted against the waxy coating.
“Mah-mo,” Stanley groaned but she ignored him. She pushed him through the pink kitchen, through the short hallway and dining room, and right into the front room. I followed behind her rump, watching her pudgy calves touch as she walked. I pushed into her meaty rear, guiding the back of the train. When she stopped my mouth went right into her caboose, but I don’t think she felt a thing.
Grandma tapped her foot and pointed at the leather pouf and waited for Stanley to sit. He plopped down on the round cushion and I twisted the knob of the television set, catching the end of a Palmolive commercial. Stanley got up to close the heavy, gold drapes. He thought watching shows in the dark was best. Sometimes, it hurt my eyes but I didn’t really care. The dark made everything feel spooky and I loved being scared. I lay next to Stanley feeling the cool floor through the thin rug. I put my hands under my neck and bicycled my feet in the air. I could’ve sat on the orange sofa and pulled at the tufted buttons but I wanted to be next to Uncle Stanley. He was the biggest kid I knew and that fascinated me.
I’d always known something was wrong with him but I couldn’t tell you what exactly made him different. When I was four years old and he was twenty-three, I thought it was our size that separated us. Stanley’s head was as small as a cantaloupe and his elfin ears pointed upwards and back in a peculiar slant. He didn’t take the bus or go to work like other people. Most days he spent at home watching stories and sucking on a big soupspoon. The metal was so worn down it was just a gray lump. Grandma would yell at him and try to take it out of his mouth. She’d say, “Why don’t you just marry that spoon?” The idea was cruel because no one would ever marry Stanley. I mean, I would have. He was the perfect best friend. He liked cartoons and blowing on pinwheels and he was always at home waiting for me and never asked silly questions like did you brush your teeth or why did you take Grandpa’s nail clipper. I didn’t know why Stanley didn’t go to pre-school with me and sit in a circle and listen to rikki tikki tembo no sarembo, and fall into a trance that only a teacher could break with yellow crackers and cheese. Stanley would be really good at mystical chants. Grandpa said he was just different than other people. Mom said he was a savant and I could ask him anything about horror movies or radio shows or the history of Poland. Anything. He’d know it all. But he was with Grandma most days and well, she just called him an idiot.
I’d probably pedaled ten miles with my feet in the air by time Grandma returned to the front room. She hadn’t said anything about our pajamas. She had a handful of fudge, the kind wrapped in yellow paper with a little cow on the package, and chocolate-covered plums because Stanley was always getting constipated. He didn’t want to eat them but I reminded him: Grandma rubs soap bars on butts that don’t poop. I ate one and he ate two as he fingered one of the four raised buttons on the remote control, mesmerized by the slow, fizzled jumps between the channels. The television was black-and-white but really everything was gray and equally sad.
Hair color stood out the most. Blonde was usually cloudy or white and dark-hair always looked black. When a fair-haired girl popped on the screen, Stanley would point and say, “That’s you.” It was usually a blonde with ponytails playing with an easy-bake oven or sipping an orange soda. And when a dark-haired man would come on he’d say, “That’s me.” Even if the man was wearing a plaid suit and ordering a whopper from Burger King. I played along even though I knew Stanley never went anywhere, except for church and Wally’s Shop on the corner, and that wasn’t very often and even that could be a problem.
Wally’s was full of trinkets and Stanley could always find something to fix his mind on and he’d stand there rocking back and forth until the owner, Gimpy, threw him out. Last month, it was the TV tube tester machine that resembled a robot. The contraption was tall and boxy and the instrument panel had sockets and doodads and wires and Stanley would test everything but television tubes. He would try and attach alligator clips to a mashed Hershey bar or a bicycle reflector, wondering if the objects could reanimate and pull a Frankenstein. Another time he stared for twenty minutes at a Whitman’s sampler box. And another time, he locked eyes with the brassy knob on Gimpy’s office door.
Visiting St. Hyacinth’s wasn’t any easier. Stanley would behave entering the tall, brick church with its stately towers, but soon enough he’d get restless with all of the colors of the stained glass. He’d turn to the red, glowing pots and block others from lighting the offering candles because they were all, “Mine, mine, mine,” he’d say. Grandma would end up kicking his ankles and yelling until Father Casmir would grab her wrist and beg her to stop. All of the other babushka ladies would look Grandma’s way and judge her with their eyes and then go back to praying in the pews, whispering into their crossed hands. Probably thanking God that they didn’t have a son like Stanley.
I was on my third cow candy, sucking on the creamy fudge, when Bozo Circus started. Stanley and I loved Bozo the Clown. We wanted his blue suit with its white pompons. But mostly, we wanted to touch his hair that stuck out from his white scalp like an angry, red moustache.
We heard a dog bark. It was Cuddly Dudley, a yellow cocker spaniel sitting in front of his doghouse, reading letters. Then Wizzo the Wizard came on and I could tell by the man’s dark hair and Stanley’s dopey smile and rainmaker hands that Stanley thought, yup, he looked just like Wizzo. Bozo kept clapping and dancing. His laugh was too raspy as if he had a cold, and he sounded nasally. We waited for the ringmaster to step out in his coat and hat and we jumped up and down when he announced that they were about to start playing the GRAND-PRIZE-GAME.
Magic arrows flew over the crowd and Stanley pressed his face into the TV, hoping one would catch his head, but then they landed on a boy and a name was called; it wasn’t Stanley. It was Billy Dinkel, an eight year old from Cicero. Stanley squared off in front of the television staring at the boy and pointing at Bozo. Of course, Billy couldn’t see how upset Stanley was and Billy stepped up to the line. Stanley crawled behind the television set, poking around the back. Billy tossed his ping-pong ball in the first of six buckets and out from the dark, circus curtain came a prize. Stanley walked away from the television and grabbed our coats from the hooks near the door. I didn’t know what he’d found. He was just like that; he’d get an idea and you couldn’t convince him otherwise.
“That’s not Bozo,” he said and helped me stuff my arms into my coat sleeves. My pajamas bunched up and felt funny against the silky lining. Stanley’s pajamas peeked out around the wrists and his coat only went a few inches past his waist. At least mine reached my knees. We were still in our slippers. Stanley’s were worn out but mine were new and light blue and I asked him if we could change. “No time,” he said as if we were on some great, big mission.
We left the television on and walked down the cement stoop and turned left towards the corner. The air chilled my ankles but the humidity was enough to make me sweat around my neck. Stanley held my hand as we walked and I tugged and asked, “Do you know where you’re going?” He didn’t answer but kept marching ahead, scuffing his slippers against the pavement. I tried to walk with my knees high like a soldier. I could see the laundry line shaking and tugging in the backyard and I knew Grandma was out back, stepping on the ground full of dented apples, pulling down Grandpa’s shirts before the rain returned. Stanley lowered his head and we walked extra fast past the fence.
I should’ve seen this coming. Stanley had been growing increasingly agitated over the past few weeks, as children with tall socks and funny glasses kept going up to the bucket line and winning prizes and no one was calling—Stanley, hey you, are you ready to play? I think he was waiting for his name to be called and I don’t think he understood that he had to be there, or at least he had to send in a card with his name and address to roll around the giant drum packed with cards and letters. I wasn’t sure he knew our address. I didn’t. Grandma remembered all of those things.
We’d reached the corner when Stanley stopped in front of Wally’s. It was a small shop with rye bread and cold cuts and rinky-dink items like band-aids, coloring books and candy. Gimpy was standing in the door smoking a cigarette and wearing a dirty apron. His twisted leg almost looked normal in his black jeans but then I saw the funny shoe with the big heel. Gimpy asked, “Where’s Grand-mah?” When he spoke he sucked in a deep drag that pulled back the corners of his leathery lids. I could barely see his faded eyes and they looked borrowed, not blue.
“She’s doing laundry,” I said.
Gimpy harrumphed and ran his hand over his baldhead, pushing away invisible hairs. He held the door open for us and I suspiciously eyed the back counter, a glass case full of hams, headcheese, and stringy sausages that dripped down the wall. The store smelled of peppery meats but there was another scent that was more powerful. Grandma had told me what it was because I kept licking my lips and asking, “What’s that smell?”
“Popcorn grease,” she’d said and that was enough to explain the taste of salt and yellow kernels teasing my mouth. Before Wally had cut into the walls, the shop had been the entrance to an old movie theater. The only things left behind were a velvet rope that sectioned off the deli counter and the big red leather door with gold buttons, tucked in back. I didn’t know if Stanley knew because even though he knew a lot about films, I was pretty sure he’d never been to the movies.
Gimpy snickered as we stepped inside. Cigarettes were hooked over the cash register on the left, next to the tube tester machine; the right wall was full of cards and magazines and in between there were two aisles with soap powder and canned goods and jars, just as there always had been but without Grandma’s careful eye, everything looked different.
Stanley headed right past everything I thought he’d want to sit and ogle and headed straight to the back right corner where the leather door fit perfectly into the wall. It looked like it hadn’t been opened in years.
Gimpy crept up behind us, dragging his ugly leg. “Nothin’ for you,” he said as if there was some big secret hiding there. That’s probably what made Stanley reach for the handle. He looped his fingers around the brass pocked with dark blemishes and green corrosion. Gimpy laughed. His cigarette was mostly ash and soon enough it would sting his lips but he didn’t seem to care. He’d probably held his leg to a train rail and laughed when he felt the vibrations.
Stanley pointed at the door and in his firmest voice said, “Bozo is locked in there.” He pulled again on the tarnished handle, yanking back with all of his might and his pajama sleeves creeping back up under his coat. He tried to reposition himself but his slippers kept shifting on the squeaky linoleum and his hands lost their grip and he fell back. His entire body went down, Stanley landing right on his butt and if Gimpy hadn’t grabbed me away I would’ve been squashed.
I wriggled in Gimpy’s arms, wanting to get away from his hold. He scooped me up, putting one of his arms under my knee and brought my nose close to his smelly chest and I couldn’t get away from his sweaty, chewed-chicken-bone stink. I tucked my chin into my neck and then I felt a loud smacking kiss next to my temple and then a bumpy tongue inside my ear. I hunched up my shoulder and tried to wriggle out the wetness. Stanley had gotten up and was back to struggling with the door, just two feet away, convinced that Bozo was on the other side. I beat my closed fists on Gimpy’s chest, let me go, let me go. He tried to tickle me before he put me down and I spilled forward into the back of Stanley’s firmly planted leg. Uncle finally turned around and looked down at my frightened face. His cheeks were flushed with exertion.
“Moron,” Gimpy said and laughed and then he dragged his boot with the thick sole towards the front. I wanted to leave and I tugged on Stanley’s hand. He was still shaking his head as I pulled him along to the exit, but we couldn’t leave without passing Gimpy who was on the left, in front of the magazine wall, right by the door. Stanley and I walked slowly up the aisle, passing a section of jarred goods. I stared at the glass, avoiding Gimpy’s prune face and his cowardly leg. There were no crocodile tongues; no polar bear eyes or chopped canaries. There were vegetables—pickles, olives, and corn. I wanted to leave and I looked up enough to see the way Gimpy was looking at us, at me. He leaned sideways and a metal shelf cut his body in half. Below his waist were magazines I’d read: Highlights, Cricket, Creature Feature; above his waist was a place I’d never really looked. The magazines were full of naked women. He touched a cover with three jungle ladies, topless, crawling on all fours, their breasts shushing through tall grass and their faces painted like big cats. I shrunk back.
Gimpy raised his eyebrows twice and said, “Girly.” He took a second to massage his bad knee. I elbowed Stanley to let him know we should leave but Stanley just stood there. He didn’t say anything. He just watched as Gimpy opened the magazine and released the jungle girls and let the centerfold drop to the floor. The spread revealed a blonde with ponytails, standing in furry boots, winking. I hoped Uncle Stanley didn’t think it was me. It was in color and I didn’t think he’d ever seen a girl so pink and pretty.
Gimpy sucked on his cigarette and winced his squeaky face into a pitted wrinkle and gave us a wink. Even a lemon couldn’t have stung that acrid eye and I wanted to claw it out of his sly face. Stanley swallowed hard and covered his eyes with his hands. The girl was too bright—showing off like that in color—and Stanley screamed. He began rocking back and forth; Gimpy stepped closer and curled the magazine into Stanley’s pocket and gave it a little shove to make sure it was secured. “For later,” he said with a smirk as if we were supposed to know what he meant.
The shop door opened and before I even turned around I knew it was Grandma in her brown dress. Her skin smelled familiar, cakey and sweaty, and with her she brought the scent of rain. She looked mad as the devil and whacked Stanley on the back of the head. She kept spitting out all her reasons for being angry. How could we leave the TV. on? How could we leave the house without asking? What were we thinking? She didn’t even ask us what we were doing. Stanley mumbled something about Bozo but Grandma wasn’t paying attention. No, she held on to my hand and Stanley’s and fumed as she escorted us up the stoop and back into the front room.
She twisted a big key in the lock and then slid it into her palm and Stanley and I were going to just sit down and watch the scary movie that was starting: Sssssss. But then the slick magazine caught her eye. It was still curled and tucked into Stanley’s coat. She took the jungle girls out of his pocket and flipped through the pages stopping on every fifth one. Stanley didn’t even notice. He was busy reading the movie titles flashing on the screen. But I saw how she was reading the girls and how her fingers were touching the pages and I was so embarrassed that there were girls like that and what was Grandma supposed to do with her long, stretched breasts and her stubbly chin. What was I going to do? Who would I be like? Grandma or the cat ladies?
“That’s mine,” I said and reached for the blonde who was already unfolding. I flared my hands out into little fierce paws but Grandma was too fast. She turned away from me and grabbed Stanley by his ear and twisted so hard I thought I heard it tear. “Mah-mo,” he yelled and clawed at her fingers but she held a firm grip and pulled him across the rug and into her bedroom. I spied outside the door. I could hear her whacking him with the rolled magazine as he tried to turn the knob but the door was locked and I tried to twist it open but Grandma had all the keys.
“If you want to see, I’ll show you,” she said and I could hear her dress unzip and peel to the floor. She panted as her short arms struggled to undo her bra clasp and I heard the stretchy fabric unhook and listened for her warm breasts to smack down on her round belly.
“I’ll show you, then,” she said and I wondered if Stanley was as scared as I was and if he was cowering from Grandma’s hands or hiding under the tall bed. I wondered if this was the first time he’d ever seen her secret hairs.