9 - KEVIN JAMES

 

9

Kevin James

 

              On Saturday night, I got to the First Methodist Church about the time it was starting to turn dark.  Paul Coakley was on the stoop of the side entrance. He was leaning against the rail and smoking a cigarette.

              “Nobody here yet?” I asked.

              “Oh, yeah.  A few of our kids.  Ruthie and Jack are downstairs making coffee and putting out soda bins.  And Kathy’s setting up the ticket table.  Mr. Jewett’s trying to rig up the speakers and the turntable.”

              “But nobody from outside the church?  Nobody else?”

              “It’s early yet.”

              “It’s almost eight.”

              Paul smiled knowingly.  He crushed his cigarette out under his shoe and put the butt in his jacket pocket. “Lisa’s not here yet, Jay.”

              “Who?”

              “Who?”  He chuckled.  “Oh sure, who.”

              “Yeah, well it really doesn’t matter.  Not anymore.”

              Paul raised an eyebrow.  “Oh? Is that right?” he said.  I wondered if he sensed that something was going on with me, and I had to fight the urge to tell him what I was going to do.

              Paul and I had been pals since we were both thirteen, which was when my family came to live in Suburb, and we had been in the same Sunday school classes at First Methodist.  Paul was a serious and sensitive guy, and he would never have put me down if I washed out of the Air Force.  But even Paul had once told me that he didn’t think I’d make the cut to get into the military.  Well he would find out just how wrong he was in a few months when I came home in uniform.

              I was about to go into the church when the door swung open and a short, pretty girl came outside.  She looked at me, smiled briefly, and then looped her arm through Paul’s.  “Mr. Jewett wants you to come downstairs if you can,” she told him.  “He’s having trouble hooking up the speakers.”

              “I’ll fix them.”  Paul nodded. He said to me, “Ernie Freeman left all the music equipment here this afternoon.  Wouldn’t you think he could have hooked it up for us?”

              Ernie Freeman was a popular disc jockey out of Boston.  We were lucky to get him.  I couldn’t see asking him to do the peon work too.

              I was smiling awkwardly at the girl who had attached herself to Paul, and she was smiling awkwardly back at me.  Paul looked puzzled until the light finally dawned.

              “Rita, this is my friend Jay Draxton,” he said.  “Jay, this is Rita Cook.  You know Bobby, right?  This is his sister.”

              “Hi, Rita.  Nice to meet you.”

              “You too,” she replied.

              I knew Bobby Cook and didn’t much like him.  He was a runty guy with a wise-ass disposition.  He and Paul had both started working in the same section at Raytheon right after high school graduation, and you might say they became buddies by default. The pushy Cook had more or less imposed himself on Paul.  Being the kind of guy who went along to get along, Paul generally ignored the snide put-downs that Bobby Cook sent his way in order to make himself look cool.

              Of course maybe the reason that Paul put up with Bobby’s crap was that he had a thing going with the sister.

              “We might as well go downstairs,” Paul said.  “And I’ll give Mr. Jewett a hand.”

              He and Rita went into the church foyer and I followed them.

              The foyer was in the back of the sanctuary and provided access to three rooms in which Sunday school classes were held.  To the right of the foyer was the stairwell which led downstairs to Fellowship Hall.

              An admissions table had been set up in the foyer, and Kathy Story was sitting at it.  On the table was a cash box and a stack of what looked like movie tickets except that the legend printed on them read At The Hop, September 19, 1959, Admission 50 cents.

              “No freebies,” Kathy admonished me as I was about to pass by the table.

              “Would I do that?” I replied, putting two quarters on the table.

              “Yes you would, Jay,” she trilled, and gave me my ticket.

              Paul and Rita already had their tickets.  The three of us went downstairs to Fellowship Hall.

              Our church kids had done a great job of decorating the hall.  There were lots of streamers along the walls, and red and yellow and purple balloons were pressed against the ceiling.  The floor had been waxed and buffed until it looked like an ice skating rink.  I just hoped that some jitterbugging fool would not slip and break a hip.

              “How do you like the lights, Jay?”  Paul asked.  “We pulled out all the regular bulbs and put in red and yellow ones.  Pretty neat, huh?”

              I snickered.  “This doesn’t look like a place where they hold prayer meetings anymore.  It looks more like a brothel now.  Alice Brannon would go ape if she saw this.”

              Paul laughed.  “I won’t tell her  if you don’t.”

              Alice Brannon was a pious old spinster who screeched the solo hymn for the Sunday morning services.

              “Excuse me, guys,” Rita said, and headed off to the ladies room.

              Mr. Jewett, one of the chaperones for the record hop, was standing in front of the stage, on which had been assembled the turntable and speakers.  He had a screwdriver in his hand and smiled haplessly at Paul.  “You’re the electronics expert,” he said.  “You ought to be able to put this stuff together.”

              Paul took off his sportsjacket, stuffed his tie in his shirt, and set to his task.

              “So, how long you been going  out with Rita,” I asked as I watched him diddle with the backs of the speakers.

              “This is our third date.”

              “Hey!  That’s serious, Paulie.  For you that’s as  good as marriage.”

              “Yeah, well,” he replied.  He was flustered and a little red in the face.

              So I figured it would be a good idea not to push it.

              “It’s hard to believe, huh, Paul,” I said.  “We’re all out of high school and ready to take over the world.”

              “If there’s going to be a world to take over,” he replied.

              Well there would be for Paul anyhow.  I knew just how his life was going to play out. He was focused and very intelligent, even if he wasn’t a part of the in crowd.   Paul would be a big success, a big shot.   In time he’d get married, have three or four kids and a big house.  He was destined for a “Father Knows Best” kind of life.  It was the kind of life I had no expectation of ever having.

              Mr. Jewett came back over to check on the progress.  “How’s it going?  You have it fixed?”

              “I will in a couple of minutes,” Paul promised.

              “Jay, do me a favor,” Mr. Jewett said.  “Check out all the doors.  The ones leading into the sanctuary.  The ones down here behind the children’s classroom.  Make sure they’re locked.  We only want people coming through the side door where the ticket table is.”

              I nodded.  “I’ll take care of it.”

              I went through the kiddie classroom first and locked that door, and then I went through the sanctuary and out into the vestibule.  The main entrance doors were not locked.  I pushed them open and stepped out onto the stoop to look around to see if any kids were starting to show up yet.

              What I saw was three guys coming up the path towards the sanctuary.  They were all wearing sportsjackets, but no neckties.  One guy was even wearing sneakers.  They had that wise-ass punks look about them, and I had a feeling they could be trouble.  One guy was tromping well ahead of the other two and before I could think about closing the door he was in front of me.

              That was when I was sure there was good reason to expect trouble.  Because I knew who this guy was.  I didn’t know his name, but I knew where I’d seen him before.  He didn’t seem to recognize me, but then he’d been pretty snockered at the time.  He had a mean face, hard black eyes, and a hostile expression.  He kind of looked like James Cagney and from his nasty demeanor I wondered if he saw himself as the gangster that Cagney had so often played.

              “This where the dance is,” he snarled.

              “Yeah it is,” I said. “But you need to go around to the side door.”

              “So where the hell is that?”

              “Around to the left side of the church.”

              “Thanks, captain,” he said, and turned and sauntered back down the path before his two buddies had even caught up with him.