The wind swept the tarps from side to sway. This is where people went to restock on free paper hats, pens, key chains and undelivered junk mail. Usually you are greeted first thing by a dirty blonde with rolled bangs and a neon pen on a string around her neck. She will hand Mother a plastic drawstring bag with a couple of items, usually including the first key chain and a clicker stick pen with some realty company’s logo on it. This would be the first booth of a long line of standing and talking to people in tarp covered booths behind spreads of brochures, pamphlets, fliers and business cards.
I think at the time this was Mothers way of networking. She was too young for bingo and the make-up ladies grew bitter and jealous when she won the company car for highest sales, which left Christmas oddities catalogues once a year for "Social Professional Association" – or SPA time, in a way. This was when she sold without having to flirt or show off more leg for the rapidly growing, cheeky and insistent businessman population of greater Delaware.
Mother got her start in the business during a vapid age of the sexual revolution. Uniforms were cutting back and policies were being amended, however, people were mute. They were all frozen in an elevator listening to the omniscient intercom of Genesis Muzak. Mother was hired to show these people how to have a good time. As a second generation host she would leave the house with a bag full of lingerie and return with a bag full of laundry, empty wine and sparkling cider bottles. She’s a professional realtor now but on those days it was sell! Sell! Sell!
I remembered the first time going to an air show at Rickenbacker. I saw the neon pen around someone’s neck and wondered which was hanging who. Then I wondered what that meant. I kept repeating it in my head as we rounded the corners of the plastic tarp tents while the jet engines chopped up the sky, leaving scuff marks in the blue distance.
Flailing vehemently against each other were a dozen white balloons tied by strings to the frame of a booth. A child was standing on a chair, untying one of them to have on his wrist. He watches his Mother, hoping she does not turn around and yell at him for being on the chair. He reaches for the string. The balloons pull and struggle away with a gust. He turns his head and looks over his Mother again. She is standing in close proximity chatting with a man in a navy blue suit.
The kid stands on his tip toes and tools at the knot, freeing one of the white floating orbs upward and away. The jets shush off to silence and the crowd applauds dimly like the feint of the lapping tarps. The boy has descended from the chair to avoid reprimand and is tugging on his Mothers coat hem, pointing at the lost treasure. He yanks harder to get her attention then yells at her towards the crowd of people. “Look Mommy! Now daddy has a balloon to play with.”
She looked up and for a moment. The three of us watched as the orb ascended, then vanished.
----
The white light behind his floor number pinged off and the door shushed open. He stepped off the elevator and through a corridor. The omniscient intercom horned Chicago brass.
0 comments:
Post a Comment