Love and Other Consolation Prizes(97)

Ernest kept his eyes peeled—searching for any sign of Gracie as he passed an adults-only wax museum, whose teasing placards stretched his already-ripe imagination. He lingered at the entrance of the busy show hall, where Sid and Marty Krofft were putting on a topless puppet revue—the same routine that Pascual had talked so much about. Ernest kept walking as scalpers worked the margins of the crowd.

The volume of visitors seemed overwhelming, and Ernest wondered if perhaps his hunch was off. But as he debated whether or not to leave, the crowd parted and he saw the entrance to Gracie Hansen’s Night in Paradise, an enormous dinner theater topped by a giant neon apple with a bite missing.

Another Gracie, Ernest thought. Could his be inside the racy revue, with scantily clad showgirls and blue comedians? He didn’t think so—he’d read it had been sold out all week.

That left the Girls of the Galaxy exhibit and the seedy Backstage USA, where ticket buyers could spy into the dressing rooms of off-duty performers between sets, in various states of undress. Though rumor had it that the ladies were often just knitting or reading, or mending their feathered costumes. Ernest opted for the former and paid to enter the darkened auditorium, where a dozen topless pinup models were posing in space-age costumes. He felt like a visitor to the set of Forbidden Planet as he heard warbling, futuristic sound effects and beheld a bizarre tableau of red-light science fiction come to life. He searched the audience as the stage rotated every few minutes to reveal a new scene, and Jose Duarte—the Man with a Million Voices—played emcee, introducing each new girl and her costume, or lack thereof, while concessionaires mingled through the crowd selling film and renting cameras.

This is the future? Ernest frowned as he scanned the crowd—single men of every age, couples, groups of curious ladies, and foreign visitors. His head ached as he noticed a familiar figure, though it was not Gracie. Alone in the front row, perched near a velvet rope.

“And here we have Sally the Saturness,” the emcee droned over the loudspeaker.

“Having a good time?” Ernest asked as he found a spot at the rail, standing next to Hanny’s fiancé. A flashbulb went off from one of the back rows, and he heard the battery-powered whir of a camera.

“You could say that again,” Rich said, then he did a double take as he recognized Ernest. He stammered, “Wait, Mr. Young—what on earth are you doing here?”

Ernest smiled politely.

Rich looked about the room. “Honestly, it’s not what you think. I was down here for research. Legal reasons, actually. I heard that the city tried to shut down all the cabarets for too much shimmying, can you imagine? So, I had to see the show in person—just to appraise the legal footing. For future reference.” Rich seemed to relax a bit as he realized that Hanny wasn’t in the room. “Now the girls here have to pose like statues, which is completely dull. Am I right?”

Ernest tried not to shake his head. “I’m here looking for someone.”

The emcee chimed in again, “And behold, the Heavenly Body of Venus.”

“Really?” Rich smiled and tried to contain his surprise. “Well, I don’t blame you one bit. And for what it’s worth, you got here just in time. They told me this place reopened a few days ago and already they’re closing the show down again. They’re padlocking the doors at midnight. What’s a fella to do in a city like this?” Rich patted Ernest on the back and waved to a girl wearing purple pasties, whose skin and hair had been dyed green. The stage lights went out and the theater was filled with polite applause and an occasional wolf whistle. Then the lights came back on as more maidens of the galaxy struck high-heeled poses in sparkling metallic outfits, with towering wigs and painted skin.

Ernest sighed, and left Rich in the dark without saying goodbye.





TWICE IN A LIFETIME


(1962)



Ernest stepped outside into the carnival world of glitter-filled balloons, flashing neon, and music. A bank of sun guns lit up the underside of the Space Needle as everyone celebrated nighttime at the fair.

He blinked as he heard a commotion; then he saw a group of elderly women and for a moment thought the ghost of Mrs. Irvine was back on the march. But the group was only the Grandmother’s Kitchen Band, happily playing washboards and tin buckets. Ernest stepped back to let the procession pass, listening to the banging of pots and pans and the buzzing of hundreds of kazoos.

The world keeps on spinning.

Ernest had almost given up hope of finding Gracie anywhere at the expo when he noticed a guide to the fairgrounds in an overflowing garbage can. He unfolded the discarded map and scanned the page, skimming over the Christian Science Exhibit, the Hall of Industry, and the Antique Car Ride, until he finally found the Japanese Village, near the Islands of Hawaii Pavilion, adjacent to the entrance of the Gayway.

He followed the map, walking past the rumbling compressor engines and hissing hydraulic pistons of the new carnival rides, the Giant Wheel, the Wild Mouse, and the Flight to Mars. He also heard the heckling, taunting seductions of midway barkers offering stuffed bears and Kewpie dolls.

Then, nestled between newly planted trees, he spotted an arched torii that marked the Japanese Village. Ernest walked beneath the gate and approached the kimono-clad girls at the entrance, struggling to communicate in his best, broken Japanese. “Hi…Konichiwa. Um…shusshin wa dochira desu ka?”