Stanley Elkin - The Franchiser

“Your sister,” Cole said.

“That’s right,” said Oscar. “Father corresponded with your sister after your parents were killed in the auto wreck.”

“I don’t understand,” Ben said. “What about my sister? I mean, I know how he wanted a son or a daughter. Why didn’t he take an interest in my sister?”

“That’s easy,” Ethel said, “Dad wasn’t your sister’s godfather.”

“It wasn’t the same,” Lorenz said. “Do you think it was the same, Jerome?”

“No,” said Jerome.

“Neither do we,” said Irving and Noël.

“He used to tell us,” Ethel said, “he didn’t give a shit about your sister.”

“Didn’t you resent me?”

“Not for a minute,” Gertrude said.

“I know I didn’t,” Kitty told him. “When I learned you’d been a serviceman, I hung up a little blue star for you in my bedroom window. This was after you’d already been discharged.”

“There was a Wharton Business School pennant above my dresser,” Lorenz said.

“We wanted what Father wanted,” said Helen.

“A change,” said Sigmund-Rudolf.

“That’s it,” said Mary.

“A different face like,” Moss said.

“You’re one of us now,” Gus-Ira said.

“All for one and one for all,” said Lotte.

They took him up.

The Finsbergs were a close-knit family, and since no car ever built could possibly have held them all, after the war Julius had purchased one of the first new city buses that came off the assembly line. On one side of the bus was a picture of a redbud and, on the other, sprigs of mistletoe. On the rear there was an immense scissor-tailed flycatcher, the representations painted against a background of blue, white, olive, green, wine, and a sort of reddish mud. These were the official emblems and colors of the state of Oklahoma, the show Julius liked to think had paid for it. They kept the bus in the driveway of their large house in Riverdale. Julius had never learned to drive and none of the children was old enough. Only the hoofer — Estelle — could drive it, but now that Julius was dead she no longer had the heart.

One day during the week of mourning Estelle came up to Ben. “After this is over,” she said, “the children would like to go on a trip. They thought you might take them in the bus.”

“I don’t think I can drive a bus.”

“Why not? It’s the same principle as the deuce and a half. You were in the motor pool.”

“You know about the motor pool?”

Ben took them to Jersey.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Ethel said.

“Mother never took us this far,” Cole said.

“We never left the Bronx,” said La Verne.

“Oh, Ben,” said Lotte, “it’s really marvelous. It’s like a picnic. Let’s have a picnic. Wouldn’t that be fun?”

“I’d like some ice cream,” said Oscar. “Ben, may we stop for ice cream? Please, let’s.”

“Yes, Ben, yes,” said the others happily. “Oh, Ben, please,” they said.

“Ice cream would be just the thing,” Lorenz said seriously. “We could buy our cones and eat them in the bus.”

For all that he knew how they liked him, he was not really sure where he stood with them. Though they told him they looked on him as one of the family — wasn’t he in Daddy’s will? — the fact was that he had become a sort of factotum to the Finsbergs. He had gone with Estelle to help pick out the casket and had ended up making nearly all the decisions and arrangements for the funeral. (He soon discovered that except for the enormous immediate family Julius had propagated, there was no other, no surviving brother or sister, no cousin or uncle or aunt. Estelle herself was as bereft of relations as Julius.) Now he had become the children’s chauffeur. He felt in camp-counselor nexus to them and the truth was they frightened him a little. Being left the prime interest rate was very complicated and he was unsure of what his guarantors would and would not stand for.

So he took what had been their request for ice cream as a kind of polite command.

“Ice cream, ice cream,” they chanted.

“All right,” Ben said.

He drove west on Route 4 and within five minutes he spotted the bright-orange roof of a Howard Johnson’s. He stopped the bus and the twins and triplets jumped out excitedly. “Oh, isn’t this grand?” they said when they were inside and ordering their cones. They had never seen so many flavors.

“Look, Ben,” Mary said, “it says they have twenty-eight flavors.” The triplets all ordered triple scoops and the twins double. They ordered all the flavors and each had a lick of every flavor. They bought Ben a single scoop of vanilla.

“Oh, look,” said little ten-year-old Sigmund-Rudolf, pointing to the logo on the wide mirror behind the counter, “see the funny man. That’s Simple Simon.”

“Yes,” said Kitty, who was eleven, “and the man in the chef’s hat, he must be the pieman. Is he, Ben? Is he?”

People were staring at the strange group.

“Yes,” Ben said. “Come on, kids, why don’t we finish our cones in the bus like Lorenz said we should?”

They got back into the bus and Ben drove on. They turned off Route 4 and onto Route 17.

“Gosh, Ben,” Oscar said, “look. There’s that same ice-cream parlor. We must be going in circles. Are we lost?” he asked worriedly.

“Are we, Ben?” Patty said.

“No,” Ben said, “that’s just another Howard Johnson’s.”

On the Hamburg Turnpike Gertrude spotted a third and outside Paterson Jerome saw a fourth.

After that they decided that the first one to see the next orange roof and little turquoise tower of a Howard Johnson’s would be the winner and would get a wish. Ben zigzagged through the New Jersey countryside. It was getting late and he started to look for signs to the George Washington Bridge.

He followed Saddle River Road, left it, and came to Route 23. Just after they passed “Two Guys,” Lotte, who was sitting right behind the driver’s seat, jumped up. “ I see one, I see one!” she shrieked.

“Where?” screamed Noël.

“Where, where?” Irving shouted.

Ben almost lost control of the bus.

“There. Right there,” Lotte yelled.

“She’s right,” the kids agreed.

“Oh, Ben,” she called in his ear, “I get a wish, I get a wish.”

“Gosh,” they all said as they passed by Howard Johnson’s. “Will you just look at that?” “Golly,” said some of the twins. “Boy,” chorused Patty, LaVerne, and Maxene.

“I get my wish,” Lotte said. “I wish—”

“Don’t tell your wish or it won’t come true,” Ben said.

“But, Ben, I have to. Otherwise it can’t come true.”

“I don’t figure that,” Ben said.

“Well, remember how you told us that Howard Johnson’s was a — what did you say? — a chain? ”

“Yes.”

“Well, I wish that you would use your prime interest rate to buy one.”

“But why?” Ben said. “Why are you all so excited about a restaurant? You can have ice cream whenever you want.”

“It isn’t the ice cream,” Jerome said.

“Of course not,” said Noël.

“It isn’t the ice cream, silly,” Helen said.

“No,” said Cole and Ethel.

“Well, what is it then?”

“Don’t you see?” Irving asked. “Don’t you under stand? ”

“What? Don’t I see what? What don’t I understand?”

“That those places,” Lorenz said,

“they’re—” said Jerome and Mary,

“—all the SAME,” said Sigmund-Rudolf and Gertrude and Moss.

“Just—” Gus-Ira said

“—like us! ” said they all.