FIVE
Once upon a time long ago...
(far and wee)
when he was just a little lad;
(there's some for you and some for me)
once upon a time when mother went to Montreal with her art club and father went to Vegas for the annual unveiling of the fall shows;
(blackberryjam and blackberry tea)
once upon a time when 'Bama was four-
SIX
"Bama's what the only good one
(Mrs. Shaw Mrs. Greta Shaw)
calls him. She cuts the crusts off his sandwiches, she puts his nursie-school drawings on the fridge with magnets that look like little plastic fruits, she calls him 'Bama and that's a special name to him
(to them)
because his father taught him one drunk Saturday afternoon to chant "Go wide, go wide, roll you Tide, we don't run and we don't hide, we're the 'Bama Crimson Tide!" and so she calls him
"Bama, it's a secret name and how they know what it means and no one else does is like having a house you can go into, a safe house in the scary woods where outside the shadows all look like monsters and ogres and tigers.
("Tyger, tyger, burning bright," his mother sings to him, for this is her idea of a lullabye, along with "I heard a fly buzz... when I died," which gives 'Bama Chambers a terrible case of the creeps, although he never tells her; he lies in bed sometimes at night and sometimes during afternoon naptime thinking! will hear a fly and it will be my deathfly, my heart will stop and my tongue will fall down my throat like a stone down a well and these are the memories he denies)
It is good to have a secret name and ivhen he finds out mother is going to Montreal for the sake of art and father is going to Vegas to help present the Network's new shows at the Up-fronts he begs his mother to ask Mrs. Greta Shaw to stay with him and finally his mother gives in.
Little Jakie knoivs Mrs. Shaw is not mother and on more than one occasion Mrs. Greta Shaw herself has told him she is not mother
("I hope you know I'm not your mother, 'Bama, "she says, giving him a plate and on the plate is a peanut butter, bacon, and banana sandwich with the crusts cut off as only Greta Shaw knoivs how to cut them off, "because that is not in my job description"
(And Jakie-only he's 'Bama here, he's 'Bama between them-doesn't know exactly how to tell her he knows that, knows that, knows that, but he 'II make do with her until the real thing comes along or until he grows old enough to get over his fear of the Deathfly)
And Jakie says Don't worry, I'm okay, but he is still glad Mrs.
Shaw agrees to stay instead of the latest au pair who wears short skirts and is ahoays playing with her hair and her lipstick and doesn't care jackshit about him and doesn't know that in his secret heart he is
"Bama, and boy that little Daisy Mae
(which is what his father calls all the au pairs)
is stupid stupid stupid. Mrs. Shaw isn't stupid. Mrs. Shaw gives him a snack she sometimes calls Afternoon Tea or even High Tea, and no matter what it is-cottage cheese and fruit, a sandwich with the crusts cut off, custard and cake, leftover canapes from a cocktail party the night before-she sings the same little song when she lays it out: "A little snack that's far and wee, there's some for you and some for me, blackberry jam and blackberry tea."
There is a TV is his room, and every day while his folks are gone he takes his after-school snack in there and ivatches watches watches and he hears her radio in the kitchen, always the oldies, always WCBS, and sometimes he hears her, hears Mrs. Greta Shaw singing along with the Four Seasons Wanda Jackson Lee "Yah-Yah" Dorsey, and sometimes he pretends his folks die in a plane crash and she somehow does become his mother and she calls him poor little lad and poor little lost tyke and then by virtue of some magical transformation she loves him instead of just taking care of him, loves him loves him loves him the way he loves her, she's his mother (or maybe his wife, he is unclear about the difference between the two), but she calls him 'Bama instead ofsugarlove
(his real mother)
or hotshot
(his father)
and although he knows the idea is stupid, thinking about it in bed is fun, thinking about it beats the penis-piss out of thinking about the Deathfly that would come and buzz over his corpse when he died with his tongue down his throat like a stone down a well. In the afternoon when he gets home from nursie-school (by the time he's old enough to know it's actually nursery school he will be out of it) he watches Million Dollar Movie in his room. On Million Dollar Movie they show exactly the same movie at exactly the same time-four o'clock-every day for a week. The week before his parents went away and Mrs. Greta Shaw stayed the night instead of going home
(O what bliss, for Mrs. Greta Shaw negates Discordia, can you say amen)
there was music from two directions every day, there were the oldies in the kitchen
(WCBS can you say God-bomb)
and on the TV James Cagney is strutting in a derby and singing about Harrigan-H-A-double R-I, Harrigan, that's me! Also the one about being a real live nephew of my Uncle Sam.
Then it's a new week, the week his folks are gone, and a new movie, and the first time he sees it it scares the living breathing shit out of him. This movie is called The Lost Continent, and it stars Mr.
Cesar Romero, and when Jake sees it again (at the advanced age often) he will wonder how he could ever have been afraid of such a stupid movie as that one. Because it's about explorers who get lost in the jungle, see, and there are dinosaurs in the jungle, and at four years of age he didn't realize the dinosaurs were nothing but f**king CARTOONS, no different from Tweety and Sylvester and Popeye the Sailor Man, uck-uckuck, cany a say Wimpy, can you give me Olive Oyl. The first dinosaur he sees is a triceratops that comes blundering out of the jungle, and the girl explorer
(Bodacious ta-tas, his father would undoubtedly have said, it's what his father always says about what Jake's mother calls A Certain Type Of Girl)
screams her lungs out, and Jake luould scream too if he could but his chest is locked down with terror, o here is Discordia incarnate! In the monster's eyes he sees the utter nothing that means the end of everything, for pleading won't work with such a monster and screaming won't work with such a monster, it's too dumb, all screaming does is attract the monster's attention, and does, it turns toward the Daisy Mae with the bodacious ta-tas and then it charges the Daisy Mae with the bodacious ta-tas, and in the kitchen (the mighty kitchen) he hears the Tokens, gone from the charts but not from our hearts, they are singing about the jungle, the peaceful jungle, and here in front of the little boy's huge horrified eyes is a jungle which is anything but peaceful, and it's not a lion but a lumbering thing that looks sort of like a rhinoceros only bigger, and it has a kind of bone collar around its neck, and later Jake will find out you call this kind of monster a triceratops, but for now it is nameless, which makes it even worse, nameless is worse. "Wimeioeh," sing the Tokens, "Weee-ummm-a-weh," and of course Cesar Romero shoots the monster just before it can tear the girl with the bodacious ta-tas limb from limb, which is good at the time, but that night the monster comes back, the triceratops comes back, it's in his closet, because even at four he understands that sometimes his closet isn't his closet, that its door can open on different places where there are worse things waiting.
He begins to scream, at night he can scream, and Mrs. Greta Shaw comes into the room. She sits on the edge of his bed, her face ghostly with blue-gray beautymud, and she asks him what's wrong 'Bama and he is actually able to tell her. He could never have told his father or mother, had one of them been there to begin with, which they of course aren % but he can tell Mrs. Shaw because while she isn't a lot different from the other help-the au pairs babysitters child minders schoolwalkers-she is a little different, enough to put his drawings on the fridge with the little magnets, enough to make all the difference, to hold up the tower of a silly little boy's sanity, say hallelujah, say found not lost, say amen.
She listens to everything he has to say, nodding, and makes him say tri-CER-a-TOPS until finally he gets it right. Getting it right is better.
And then she says, "Those things were real once, but they died out a hundred million years ago, 'Bama. Maybe even more. Now don't bother me any more because I need my sleep."
Jake watches The Lost Continent on Million Dollar Movie every day that week. Every time he watches it, it scares him a little less.
Once, Mrs. Greta Shaw comes in and watches part of it with him. She brings him his snack, a big bowl of Hawaiian Fluff (also one for herself) and sings him her wonderful little song: "A little snack that's far and wee, there's some for you and some for me, blackberry jam and blackberry tea." There are no blackberries in Hawaiian Fluff, of course, and they have the last of the Welch's Grape Juice to go with it instead of tea, but Mrs. Greta Shaw says it is the thought that counts. She has taught him to say Rooty-tooty-salutie before they drink, and to clink glasses.
Jake thinks that's the absolute coolest, the cat's ass.
Pretty soon the dinosaurs come. 'Bama and Mrs. Greta Shaw sit side by side, eating Hawaiian Fluff and watching as a big one (Mrs. Greta Shaw says you call that kind a Tyrannasorbet Wrecks) eats the bad explorer. "Cartoon dinosaurs," Mrs. Greta Shaw sniffs. "Wouldn't you think they could do better than that."As far as Jake is concerned, this is the most brilliant piece of film criticism he has ever heard in his life. Brilliant and useful.