TIL MORNING

PART NINE, TIL MORNING

            “Give him his present,” Morrie told the son-in-law. Babe and Cornshucks scatted “Happy Birthday.” I kept smelling carp from the East Side.

            Son-in-law handed me a leatherette folder. “It’s a prospectus,” he said.                  

            I gave the contents of the folder a proper gander. Most of it bore the mark of Saul. Numbers, projections, business shit. I spread out what they wanted me to see.

            “Looks like something out of Madison Avenue,” I said.

            “Keep looking, Johnnie.” Saul grinned. “We got the best illustrator to paint the rendering, finest graphic artist to design your logotype. See the sign in front of the building?”

            “Johnnie’s Bowl ‘n’ Bite,” I read aloud. “I get the bowl. Where’s the bite?”

            “It’s a bowling-dash-delicatessen,” Saul said, without any real enthusiasm. “Combination-type place.”

            “You can see,” Morrie said, throwing out a hand as if to display the building we were in. “How television has resurrected the sport.”

            The place filled up. Early evening, and the alleys thundered. 

            “We start a chain,” son-in-law yelled into my hearing aid. “It’s called franchising.”

            “Place where you can bowl a few lines,” Morrie shouted above the roaring echoes. “Then relax with some lox and bagels.”

            “Say what?” Cornshucks jumped up. Her enormous teeth flickered gold and ivory. “Sounds like a fool scheme to me.”

            Babe Pascoe stood as well. “Let’s get out of here, Cornshucks” he said, “and let these guys talk business.”

            I sat back down and wondered how much this birthday was going to cost me.

            “It will only take me a minute, Babe,” I said. “Wait for me outside.”

***

            A minute was about all it took to get me in the Bowl ‘n’ Bite business. Saul had always done his best for me, and my clothing line had sold well, at least at first.

            Babe and Cornshucks took me to their favorite tavern, a place called Tabby’s on 52nd.  People came in shaking snow and ducking in out of the swirling rush hour. Night had started to fall, but the sky had that odd cast like it was about to turn solid white.

            Babe bought me a birthday shooter and introduced me around. I started looking for a phone to call Dotty.

            “This is your year, Johnnie,” Babe said. “Morrie’s got us lined up for a world tour.”

            “Gives me nightmares,” I said.

            Two broads walked in smelling like French perfume and winter. They adjusted their furs and flicked their hair. I caught them smiling at me and gave them my all-knowing look. They both raised their eyebrows like how did I know they were together—really together?

            In no time, Babe began to tell them a story how over in London at the Dorchester, I ended up naked, pounding on the door to Paul Douglas’s room.

            “You were nude?” one dish asked.

            “Buck-assed,” I admitted, although any memory I had of that night had been enhanced by fiction.

            “Paul Douglas, the actor?” the other one asked. Then, out of the side of her mouth, “You were interested in him?”

            “You ever see Paul?” I asked.

            “Not in real life.”

            “You take the biggest bear in the woods,” I said. “He mates with the wild witch of the north. And you got your Paul Douglas.”

            They cracked up. I moved off to find a phone. In the tavern’s doorway, I thought I spied Liz Montgomery and her new actor husband Gig Young. Maybe I was drunk or hallucinating, because they looked right at me, then danced back onto the sidewalk as if rehearsing a scene. Then a shiny, shaved head appeared. The guy could be a twin of Yul Brynner, fresh from his performance in The King And I. Something felt off here. Too many coincidences.

            Then I saw Dotty.  My eyes filled up, and I felt for a moment like I were flying through space. Less than two weeks since we’d been together, and I already missed her like crazy. Next to me now, she threw her arms around me. “Happy birthday, darling,” she whispered. “Surprise.”

            I buried my face in her dark hair and looked past her out on the street. There stood Liz and Gig. They and others, her friends, my friends, jumped in and out of a bus, laughing, drinks in their fists.

            “Get in your shuttle, Johnnie,” Dorothy said.

            I looked at Babe and Cornshucks. “You knew all along, didn’t you?” I asked them.

            “Just get your skinny ass onboard,” Cornshucks said. “We’re right behind you.”

            Liz Montgomery grabbed one arm, Yul Brynner the other.

            “First stop, the Colony,” Yul said.

            “Then Le Pavilion,” someone added.

            Dorothy took my face in her hands. “Then the St. Regis, the best for last. All your favorite places.”

            I didn’t tell her they were her favorite places, not mine. I was too happy. I could sense that she was waiting for my reaction. I paused on the shuttle’s step-up and took a cocktail from an outstretched hand.

            “I’m all yours,” I said, and I watched her smile in the falling snow.

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