The Plan
Somewhere in the Land of Once Upon a Time
It was one of Ray’s schemes, that like his angles, his cohorts in the Down and Outers, Stash and Joey accepted without question. It began when they were pleasantly idling together on a park bench near the city’s courthouse on an unseasonably warm Spring afternoon.
‘It’s a sneak preview of summer!’, laughed Stash.
‘Remember how summer used to last forever? At least until the end of August when going back to school was just around the corner...’
Ray could see by the looks on their faces they were on the same wavelength, even though Joey had every weekday afternoon off.
He broke their reverie,
‘We ought to put in for one day of leave where we can enjoy the summer together.’
‘That’s a great idea! Weekends aren’t the same, and the 4th of July is celebrating instead of taking it easy’, answered Joey.
The Down and Outer’s world wasn’t only the morning parade and the nighttime fireworks. It was blowing off large amounts of firecrackers, bottle rockets, Roman candles and cherry bombs of questionable legality they purchased at the ‘Outlaw Territory’ of the State Line.
‘You think you’re going to do lots of things, but the summer slips by…then suddenly it’s September...’
‘I’ll make out a list of things to do, Ray! I think we should take the day on a Friday; that’ll blend into the weekend!’
‘Great idea, Stash. We’ve got our National Guard Camp and Joey has his Naval Reserves in June, so the middle of summer would be best!’
‘That’s Little Fort Days! That would be perfect!’
Everyone agreed with Joey.
The annual middle of July festival celebrated when Waukegan was once called ‘Little Fort’. The remains of the original Little Fort, a French trading post and Potawatomie Indian settlement, was believed to be somewhere beneath the Martin Gas Station on the bluff overlooking Lake Michigan. Little Fort Days was a big deal.
Stash pulled out his ubiquitous pocket scratch pad and pen, recording their plans to enjoy every zephyr and tempest like Joey did.
They began in enthusiasm, but…,
‘I don’t wanna go to a ball game.’
Ray was imagining himself in Wrigley Field just as Stash made his remark.
‘Well, I don’t wanna read a book!’, he turned to Joey, ‘Or watch old movies on TV; movies are other people’s adventures!’
‘And a ball game isn’t?!’
‘I don’t wanna read a book, watch a ball game or movies on TV, or watch the summer from my backyard balcony. I wanna be in and enjoy the summer with you two!’
Joey saved the day; the gang went back to their dream list.
The Day
Their day was a glorious one when it finally arrived.
They shared a pizza at Rico’s the night before with Angie who wouldn’t be joining them. Afterwards the boys went to Joey’s house to watch a TV late show, then walked back to their downtown apartments after midnight. Two outvoted Stash’s suggestion of rising with the birds to watch the dawn over the Lake and ‘revel in the Temple of the Golden Dawn…’
They slept late and didn’t shave, other things on their list, then met for ten o’clock coffee, happily talking about the workplaces they weren’t at. Downtown had the atmosphere of Sunday morning without church bells because the stores didn’t open until noon due to being open until nine on Friday night.
The gang popped into the A&P supermarket to pick up a watermelon, another thing on their list. Ray carried his Arnold’s Army-Navy Store M3 paratrooper dagger to carve it.
Rather than going to the crowded, devoid of shelter icy cold freshwater Lake Michigan North Beach with its deadly undertow below the surface, they walked to their favourite swimming hole filled by small rivers in ravines on their way to the Lake. It was wet, warm and surrounded by shady trees.
The mid-morning sun rose higher and grew hotter as they swaggered down the street like schoolboys playing hooky knowing no one could touch them. Their path up North Genesee Street through Upton Park and across Sheridan Road to a wooded area that led to their destination was walked in bliss, swapping memories of school summers and how they were as free today as they had been then. Cicadas and crickets gave the sounds of summer; the blue sky was full of puffy clouds resembling cotton mountain ranges. They walked barefoot in the cool grass, another item on their list, to reach their swimming hole and live the entire summer in a day…
There were no others there; maybe the local kids had gone to summer camps where their supervised fun was dictated to them. Beneath a large willow tree, they removed their clothes with swimming trunks worn underneath their shorts. Making sure there was no one about to take their belongings, they ventured into the water.
They swam and laughed, then paddled out to the green islet in the middle of the miniature lake, went ashore and talked of movies; Tarzan, pirates, spacemen, monsters, zombies, South Pacific Island invasions…Stash told a tale combining all of them.
Ray spotted a rope hanging from a branch.
‘Tarzan is right!’
He was the first to climb the tree,
‘Tarzan the Monkey Man! Swingin’ from a rubber band!’
He gave a yodelling yell and swung into the air diving into the deep enough water. The others followed.
They swam in the cool water that reflected the clouds of the hot summer’s day, then floated on their backs without a care in the world watching birds fly over them. Joey raised his hand as if to catch the summer sky...
Going back ashore, they sat in the shade as Ray cut the watermelon in four equal slices, wrapping the fourth slice for later. They ate as they recalled school days, military encampments and 4th of July antics.
‘Remember when Rico came to the Washington Park band concert dressed like Uncle Sam and Ray shouted, “’Eh!!! Goombah! Looka who’s fresh offa daboat! Pasta Fazool!” Rico chased you through the park down to the ravine with the whole town cracking up! Not many people have Uncle Sam himself trying to kill them in front of the entire town on Independence Day!’
Ray and Stash heard snoring.
‘Joey’s got the right idea! I didn’t put it on the list, but I wish I could have a nap after lunch at work without getting caught!’
Ray put his straw fedora over his face and was soon asleep.
Stash produced the paperback he packed in his bag and began reading with his back against the willow.
Time stood as still as the two reposing statues in his museum of summer.
He noticed three boys wearing straw hats carrying bamboo rod fishing poles venturing out of the woods on the other side of the water. Were they real and following tradition, or were they from summers past?
* * *
Ray was the first to wake.
‘It must be almost three!’
The gang went in for one last long languid swim, then came ashore and finished the watermelon Ray divided into three equal parts with his dagger.
The wind picked up, sending the clouds and their afternoon to oblivion; the leaves rustled in the trees, and it became pleasantly cooler. They packed their trash up, put on their shirts and walked home in their bathing trunks.
Their trunks were dry enough for them to enter a downtown drugstore soda fountain and have ice cream sodas with more reminisces. They returned home to shower, shave and dress up to meet their friends downtown at six.
The Night
Little Fort Days was in full swing; the stores had tables of bargain goods outside on the sidewalks. Lake breezes cooled their city packed with jubilant locals, visitors and hordes of white uniformed sailors.
The street Rico’s was on was blocked off for the carnival. Stash’s bright idea put tables with red-chequered tablecloths outside Rico’s that resembled an Italian sidewalk café; ‘Holiday in Italy’ tunes filled the air.
Angie, wearing an Italian-type blouse and colourful skirt, was working a double-shift at her own request. Rico gave her a free dinner and time off to enjoy it at a reserved table with the Down and Outers, Peter, and Connie and Betty, the nurse girlfriends of Joey and Stash. Karen was off trying to find a rich future husband in the crowd.
They shared a couple of ‘Rico’s Summer Shared Specials’, salad, spaghetti, sauce, cheese and garlic bread with a carafe of watered-down grape juice.
‘Whaddidyuh do today, Ray?’
‘We went swim-‘
‘We conquered summer, Angie!’
‘What??? What’s that mean, Stash?’
‘If you have to ask, you’ll never know!’, Ray answered.
‘What do you think, Rico?’
None except Peter had noticed him watching them, leaning against the doorway with his arms crossed.
‘Take five and join us!’
‘OK Ray’, he sat down at their table, ‘If the Down and Outers say they conquered summer, they did it.’
‘We made our plans last Spring for everything we wanted to do in a summer, took the day off and did them.’
Stash handed his scratch pad to Rico who studied it,
‘I never woulda thoughta that…’
‘Carpe Diem…’, Betty remarked.
Angie sneered,
‘You goofed around, went swimmin’ in a gunky swamp and conquered what?’
Joey raised his glass of juice,
‘I Concord Grape…what did you do today?’
‘I made money and tonight I’m workin’ an extra shift ta make more money!’
‘What are you going to do with the money?’
‘Somethin’ sensible! The least yuh coulda done was go to a ball game!’
Ray gritted his teeth.
Stash held his right hand in the air, fingers up, bringing his thumb to them and rotated his wrist.
‘What’s that thing in the washing machine called? The agitator!’
Everyone, including the tables of sailors adjoining them laughed.
‘Now, lemme get this straight, yuh conquered summer by swimmin’ in a gunky swamp...’
‘Just like Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn without travel or danger’, Betty explained.
‘Without nuttin’! That’s borin’!’
Connie mused,
‘Long ago I took a course in creative writing. Our teacher said you didn’t have a story without a conflict, even a comedy has conflict and complication.’
‘Like all movie and TV plots have at least one coincidence’, Stash added.
‘Contrivance’, Betty corrected.
‘I disagreed with the teacher…”Wouldn’t it just be wonderful to tell about a pleasant time with your friends?” The class took the teacher’s side and ganged up on me, “You can’t have a story without conflict”.’
‘They were right!’
‘Everything’s a conflict with Angie!’
‘Shut up, Ray! Yer wastin’ your life!’
‘Maybe this is the best time of our lives…’, pondered Joey. ‘We’re all together again with a carnival to go to…’
All looked at each other in silent contemplation.
‘It’s wonderful…but the best time in my life was meeting Katrina on the Eve of St. Nicholas Day.’
‘Awwwwwww’, everyone sighed.
‘Say Peter, when you meet Katrina after work, why don’t you two join us for the carnival, then we can take the later streetcar home together. Carnivals become magic after dark!’
‘That’s a great idea, Betty!’
‘What was the best time in your life, Angie?’, asked Joey.
Everyone turned to look at her, Angie became nervous.
‘I gotta get back tuh work.’
‘When was it, Angie?’
‘Shut up, Ray! Yer not goin’ anywhere, and yuh never will!’
‘That’s because I’m already here. Can’t you see?’
‘Never live a life you need a vacation from’, Stash proclaimed.
‘Angie, we worked hard today, and we’ll work hard tomorrow, but tonight’s the night for fun with friends…because when will we have it again?’, Connie asked.
Angie stormed off, Rico followed her and shouted,
‘It’s on the house, yuh conquered me too!’
Everyone thanked him. Before Angie entered Rico’s, Ray shouted,
‘I’ll meet you here at eleven to walk you home.’
‘Yeah, OK…’
‘Some people never learn’, Ray lamented.
‘Maybe someday she’ll make her big plans like we did.’
‘Wouldn’t that be something, Joey? Remember the time we saw Frankenstein’s Daughter and Missile to the Moon at the North Star?’
Ray chuckled,
‘I’ve seen way better movies, Stash, but I’ve never had more fun at the movies!’
‘I liked Lost, Lonely and Vicious and My World Dies Screaming in Psych-O-Rama!’, Joey reminisced.
‘We laughed about it, but Angie complained all the way home…because it’s her way of having fun.’
‘Just like Karen’, Betty noted.
‘It takes all types’, said Joey.
‘Well, it’s time to meet Katrina and let her conquer the summer like we did!’, chirped Connie.
‘Beat it, Angie! Go join your pals!’, Rico shouted.
Angie exuberantly ran to her gang. They walked through the carnival of the magical summer night to Katrina’s department store, for her magical summer night was just beginning…
FIN
Author Notes: I am the author of three Extra Dimensional/Ultraterrestial military science fiction novels MERCENARY EXOTIQUE, OPERATION CHUPACABRA and WORK IN OTHER WORLDS FROM YOUR OWN HOME! as well as two travel books THE MAN FROM WAUKEGAN and TWO AUSTRALIANS IN SCOTLAND (all from Lulu.com). I live happily ever after with my wonderful wife in paradise (coastal Kiama, NSW Australia).
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Australia • 68 years old