Ed Gorman - Wake Up Little Susie

Small-town kids got to see how big-city Philadelphia kids dressed and danced. They became celebrities in their own right, the kids who danced on the show every afternoon. Justine and Benny and Arlene and Carmen and Pat and Bob were just some of the more prominent names. And the girls at home liked to match them up. Decide who should go out with whom. It was a kind of soap opera, because one day Bob and Michelle would be a couple and the next day here was Michelle, that slattern, in the slow spotlight dance practically dry-humping Biff right on camera.

Every once in a while it was all right to miss mass on Sunday (as long as your folks didn’t find out), but you could never (repeat) never miss American Bandstand.

The Great White Fisherman was just coming in from the back porch as I reached the kitchen. Dad had taken a week’s vacation to spend every afternoon up on a leg of the Iowa River with his rod and reel. This afternoon, still in his waders, his fishing hat jangling with a variety of hooks and lures, he stood in the back porch doorway and held out two pretty pathetic walleyes to my mom. “Here you go, hon, we freeze these for dinner Saturday night.”

Mom winked at me and said, “Your dad must be going on a diet if this is all he’s going to eat.”

“I’m surrounded by wiseasses,” Dad said, in his best Job-like voice. Then he grinned and said, “And I love it.”

Different types of men came back from the big war. There were the sad ones, often mentally disturbed, who spent their time in mental hospitals or seeing psychologists. There were the thrill seekers, who kept trying to duplicate, usually in illegal ways, the excitement that danger had given them. There were the petulant ones, who felt that Uncle Sam should forever be in their debt for what they’d done for the Stars and Stripes.

And then there were the men like Dad-the majority-who were just happy to be alive and exultant about being back in the arms of their loved ones. Sure, Dad had almost been killed, and sure, he’d seen a lot of terrible things happen, but most of the time he just thanked the Lord he’d gotten home safely.

He got us a couple of Falstaffs from the refrigerator and plunked them down on the kitchen table, a little quick-moving guy like me. He sat down and said, “Those Ford boys should be shot.”

“The Edsel?” I said.

“Damned right the Edsel.”

“It’s all he can talk about,” Mom said.

“He hates it almost as much as he hates Nixon.”

“Don’t get me started on Nixon.”

“And here I was gonna buy you a pink-and-puce one,” I said.

He laughed at me. “Give it to Liberace.

He’d probably go for it.”

“Now there’s nothing wrong with Liberace,”

Mom said from the sink, where she was putting the dishes in the dishwasher.

Dad had eventually gotten a good job after a spate of low-paying ones, so Mom now not only had the status symbol of the new tract house, she also had the status symbol of the new dishwasher. She was cute about it. She’d have a guest in and instead of seating them in the living room she’d lead them directly to the kitchen and say, “This is our new dishwasher.” I told her she should dress up like a tour guide and sell tickets.

“Liberace’s a cultured man,” Mom said now.

“That’s what you call him, huh? Cultured?”

Dad sighed. “Aw, hell, I don’t mean to make fun of him. I feel sorry for him. You know, how people pick on him and all. He just makes me nervous. I can’t help it.”

That’s a trait I inherited from Dad: feeling sorry for so many people. I guess because Dad was always so little and poor and awkward around people, he identifies with outsiders. I felt the same way about Liberace. I couldn’t sit down and watch him-he drove me nuts-but I didn’t like people making fun of him either.

“Don’t forget it’s a Tv night, sweetheart,” Dad said to Mom.

Mom laughed. “You and Tv night.”

And it. was kind of funny. Bishop Sheen was always warning about how the family Tv set was actually pulling the family apart. Instead of eating dinner at the table the way they used to, families now sat in front of their Tv sets and ate. So Dad had made a deal with Mom.

Two nights a week he got to eat in the living room and watch Douglas Edwards with the News on Cbs. He got to use the Tv tray he’d bought for himself and he got to eat a Swanson Tv Dinner. Personally, I thought Tv dinners tasted like cardboard a dog had left damp. But Dad was never so happy as when he was in his Tv mode.

“Oh, Lord, I forgot,” Mom said. She smiled at me. “I was going to make him a pot roast stewed in vegetables and potatoes. But he’d rather have a Tv dinner. If you can believe that.”

“Why don’t we have the pot roast tomorrow night?”

Dad said.

“All right,” Mom said, “if you’ll take me to that new Debbie Reynolds picture this weekend.”

“You got yourself a deal,” Dad said. Then, to me: “The one I’d be lookin’ into is that young doctor she worked for.”

“Todd Jensen?”

“Yeah. I was fishing out at the park one day and I saw the two of them arguing. I couldn’t hear them but I saw him push her.”

“When was this?”

“Three weeks ago or so.”

Dad never kibitzes on legal stuff but he has no hesitation about kibitzing on matters of investigation. It was from him that I got my habit of reading Gold Medal original paperbacks.

The way he figures it, he’s read enough whodunits to qualify as a detective himself.

He shook his head. “Life is like that sometimes, though.”

“Come again?”

“You know. Couples. She’s going with this doc and everything seems to be fine and then all of a sudden she starts running around on the side with Squires. I don’t know any of them personally, but she sure looked to be better off with that doc. The way Squires treats the little people, he’s a hard one to stomach.”

The little people. That’s what he always called the working class. And that was how he always saw himself. Because I’m an attorney, I get invited to some of the more high-toned events around town. I invite my family whenever possible. Most of the time they don’t go-they always have a graceful excuse-but when they do I see how deep their sense of inferiority runs. Mom with her J. C.

Penney dress and sweet goofy flowered hat and Dad with his blue suit from Sears looking ill-at-ease with all the local gods, the mayor and his cronies and the country club crowd.

I guess that’s why I like John O’Hara.

He’s one of the few American writers to understand our caste system in Iowa. It’s heartbreaking to see how uncomfortable Mom and Dad are around people they consider their betters.

I took out my Captain Video notebook and wrote in a line about Todd Jensen shoving Susan Squires.

“That’s some notebook,” Mom said, laughing.

“Aren’t you a little old for it?”

“Got a deal on a bunch of them.”

“Long as it’s not Mickey Mouse, you’ll be Ok,” Dad said.

Ruthie came in and took two bottles of Pepsi from the refrigerator. “Gee, I wish Bandstand was on for three hours,” she said dreamily, and floated out.

“Hurry up!” Debbie called from the living room. “The spotlight dance is on!”

I probably should have laughed about this in a superior older-brother way, but the truth was, the more I was out in the world, the better my high school days looked to me. I hadn’t been especially popular but I had my ‘ch Ford and my collection of science-fiction magazines with Ray Bradbury stories in them. And I had that greatest luxury of all, time to call my own. I could hang around garages and watch mechanics work on cars; I could take in a double feature, a Randolph Scott and a Robert Ryan if I were lucky; and I could sit in a booth at Rexall’s and feast on a burger and fries while I read all the magazines I didn’t plan on buying. When they make you grow up-or at least make you pretend to grow up-all that changes. Take my word for it.