AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Elro?”
“And guess what else. He and Sissy used to date.”
“Elro and Sissy?” She shook her head. “No, never.”
“That’s what her mother says, and I believe her. They went to movies together.”
“I don’t believe it. Anyway, what’d he want with you?”
“I’m not really sure. He was drunk and yelling about stuff. I guess he wanted me to come out with him.”
“Did you?”
“Are you kidding?”
She frowned. “I never liked Elro. He’s a creep.”
“Yeah.”
“Remember those magazines he brought to school in fifth grade? He’s a sex maniac.”
“Yeah.” Practically every boy Mary Sue knows is a sex maniac. I wondered about her relationship with Jimmy.
We stayed on the east side of Center Street to avoid passing right in front of the News Depot. Even from across the street, I could see people sitting at the fountain, their dark silhouettes lined up in perfect order, like bowling pins. Behind them, the magazine rack filled an entire wall. It was funny to think of Butcher standing there, waist high to the older boys. When I was younger, I used to hang out at the magazine rack, too. Butcher and I had that in common. The movie magazines were what attracted me. I felt so guilty about it, Bunny was always saying that they only printed lies and trivia; she wouldn’t let me bring them in the house. But I loved those magazines. Not so much for the stories—I only leafed through, glancing at the pictures—but for the way they looked and the way they felt, their shiny, gaudy covers, their thin, pulpy paper. The paper had a special smell, sweet and fresh and nutty. It smelled like excitement, and I always had the urge to rip out a page and chew on it, as if excitement were a kind of food you could actually eat.
We circled around the square, cutting over on Mabel Street, past the telephone company, and then hitting North Emerson and coming back down. Wally’s Record Emporium was empty, except for Wally himself, who was sitting at a raised checkout counter watching a baseball game on an old television.
Mary Sue found the song she was looking for in the little section of records that were available for customers to listen to, and she led me back to the sound booth, a cubicle equipped with a phonograph. There was barely room for two of us in there. Mary Sue sat in the lone chair, and I stood beside her. The walls were made of white posterboard that had been scribbled on and dirtied and pealed away in spots. In a corner, I saw “T.C. 11–16–54,” and I knew Tom had been there. Mary Sue closed the door, shutting in a sudden strong odor of stale cigarette smoke.
“You’re gonna love this,” she said. She slipped the 45 out of its cardboard sheath and put it on the phonograph. The sound booth suddenly exploded with noise. Little Richard came on with a kind of squawk, and he sounded panicky to get all the words out. Mary Sue swayed and bobbed her head back and forth, completely out of time to the music.
“What’d you think?” she asked when it was over and my ears were vibrating in the silence.
“It’s awfully loud, isn’t it?”
“That’s the new sound. I think it’s fantastic. And the words. What did you think about the words?”
“They seemed kind of simple to me.”
“I mean the chorus.” Mary Sue sang and snapped her fingers, reciting a string of nonsense syllables that were approximately what Little Richard had sung.
“How can you understand what he’s saying there?”
“I listened to it. I probably listened to it five hundred times. We wore out Jimmy’s record. Here.” Mary Sue put the needle in the outer groove and started the phonograph again.
When Little Richard had finished, I said, “Once more.” The song was pretty catchy. Mary Sue played it through four more times. I closed my eyes. I was tingling all over. I wondered if this was what Reverend Vaughn meant when he said that organ music filled him up. After a while, with my eyes closed, it started to seem as if the normal sound of the world was Little Richard screaming “Tutti-Frutti.” Everything that went on—people talking, cars screeching around corners, birds singing and dogs barking—went on over and above that.
When Mary Sue finally put aside the arm of the phonograph, her face was red, and there were tears in her eyes.
“What is it?” I asked. She was always getting emotional.
“Jimmy,” she said in a squeaky voice. “The song makes me think of Jimmy.”
She’d turned so bright red and feverish that I couldn’t help laughing. “Mary Sue, that’s the most unromantic song I’ve ever heard,” I said. “It’s all loud noises.”
Her eyes brimmed over, and the tears cascaded down her cheeks. “It’s our song,” she said.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Don’t get upset.” I knew it was useless, but I tried to explain myself. “I just meant the song didn’t sound very romantic. Think of ‘Autumn Leaves’ or ‘Sentimental Journey.’ Those are nice, soft, romantic songs.”
