Manhunt. Volume 14, Number 1, February/March, 1966

Ten minutes after Stan left Mary Ellen breezed in, her green eyes shining like traffic lights. She pulled a ham-pose at the door with her chin up and her hands high like a ballet dancer. She waltzed over to me, leaned over the counter, and planted a kiss on my head. “Oh, what news, Unk! What news!” Then she noticed the look on my face and laughed. “Look at the pilly Pilgrim!”

“What the devil do you think this is!” I started, but she stopped me with that patient, longsuffering look her mom used to wear.

“Now wait a minute, Unk... before you have a stroke. I just auditioned for Mr. Henderson. Joe Coffee was only a name he made up to conceal his real identity. You guessed that, didn’t you? Look, Unk. Here’s his card!”

She shoved a name card into my hand... a rich looking hunk of paper finely engraved in gold and blue: BERNARD K. HENDERSON... REGALITY PICTURES. There was a Sunset Boulevard address and a phone number. An ornamented coronet backed the name. I handed the card back to Mary Ellen and she dropped it down the front of her dress.

“He’s a real movie producer, Unk. A real Hollywood producer!”

I felt as though I’d just taken the big dip on a roller coaster. I didn’t want him to be Joe Coffee, Bernard K. Henderson, or Walt Disney! I didn’t want Snake Eyes to be anybody but Marty Klegman. The hood with twelve hot G’s in a tan bag.

“An hour and a half!” I griped. “Some audition!”

She gave that high whinny of hers that she likes to think idly is a tinkle, like in bell. She perched happily on the end stool, looking like a green and ivory pixie, all life and color and kid excitement. Jeez. I felt old looking at her...

“Mr. Henderson knew I was an actress, Unk! Think of it! I didn’t have to tell him anything about the Albion Amateurs, or the Community Players, or the Footlight Club at church. Nothing! He said he recognized talent ‘on sight’. He said I shot sparks and color. Like a Roman Candle on the Fourth of July!”

There was no interrupting her or stopping her. This was American Youth in high gear loaded with bright future and daydreams. She gushed adjectives like my old soda tap gushes fizz. I was glad the place was empty. There was enough talk in the village about Mary being fast and flighty with a cobweb head.

“He had me sing for him, Unk! I did ‘Temptation’ for him... in my sexy voice, you know... and he said he’d never heard it rendered like that before! Imagine, rendered! Then I got that ‘Complete Works’ you gave me and read Lady Mac-Beth to him. Oh, Unk! You should have been there! He wants to take me to Hollywood with him for a screen test! What do you think of that?”

I caught her wrist and held it hard. “I think you’re acting like a silly, damned little fool!” She winced at that, as though I’d punched her in the belly. “How corny can a guy get with that old Hollywood routine! That was old when they turned movies with a crank. I thought you had more brains than that!”

“Oh I didn’t believe him at first! I’m not that thick! But when he showed me those credentials and started talking about the people he knows out there — Cary Grant, and... and... Rock Hudson, and Doris Day... and all the rest of them... I just knew he wasn’t kidding me along.”

“Then, Mary Ellen, what was all that bushwash about ‘Joe Coffee’ and ‘riding in on a moonbeam’ he gave out with in here?”

“Oh, that! He told me all about that, Unk.”

“Well, haw about telling me. Just for laughs.” Mary reached up and pinched my cheek. Her hands were cool and trembling.

“You Old Doubting Thomas, you!” she giggled. “Mr. Henderson has been on a talent hunt in Detroit. Strictly q.t. Except the news leaked out, and there was a story in the paper about him, and then he was mobbed. You should have heard him tell it!”

“I wish I could have...”

“People wouldn’t let the poor man alone, Unk! Every crooner, and horn blower in town was after him. And pushy mothers with talent brats! They chased him into restaurants and bars. They jangled his phone all night long. One guy, a tap dancer, bribed the garage man to hide him in Mr. Henderson’s car so he could meet him. Can you imagine!”

“What did your Mr. Henderson say about his car, anyway? Did some talent brat take it home to play with? Or did Hardcash Henderson donate it to sweet charity?”

“Now you’re being stinky,” she pouted. “Mr. Henderson was on his way to Toledo this afternoon, and his engine conked out. He left his car at a garage in Flat Rock, but the mechanic didn’t have a... a pump... or a fuel... handle... or something like that. He had to send to Detroit for it. The car won’t be ready till tomorrow and the mechanic dropped him off here for the night.” She talked the way a teacher does, explaining to a kid that the moon was not made of green cheese.

“Who was the mechanic, do you know? Whose garage, did he say?”

“Honestogosh, Unk! You’re so darned suspicious! How do I know? I wouldn’t ask him that and he didn’t tell me!”