All That Glitters Read Online Free Page B

onto whose running board I, without so much as a by-your-leave, sprang ! I wrapped one arm around the doorpost and stuck my head inside the car ! I could smell her! Jesus, what a whiff! What a scent ! Was it “Midnight in Paris,” the dimestore perfume in the dark blue bottle, or the one with the man bending the lady backward in her ball gown over the piano? I stared for what seemed minutes. I was aware of eyelashes about a foot long and curled like the tines on a hayraker. I saw a coat of heavy orange stage makeup, and a startling nakedness, an alarming vulnerability in the person of the goddess, as if mere mortals such as I were not supposed to be seeing her in such close proximity.
    She was a lot smaller than I’d imagined (Babe was only five-two without her platforms); Mayor Allen, not so tall himself, dwarfed her. But I was hardly aware of him as I stared at my quarry. She had a jeweled bag in her lap, and gloves, and the rocks on her free arm gleamed and coruscated like crazy. Her eyes were large and china blue and reminded me of the eyes in a doll. But though the eyes may have been large, the hands and feet were small. Teeny-tiny. I saw this right away. And—gad!—her little shoes were toeless, with tiny bows and spike heels.
    She showed no alarm at my incursion, only a measure of mild surprise mixed with amusement. What was this dumb squirt-gun going to do to her ? She smiled at me, that gleaming, porcelain smile that was hers, all hers. This was heady stuff and I had the feeling I was going to pass out. I didn’t faint, however, but leaned farther inside, saw those snaky hips in that shiny black stuff, caught the sheen of sheer silken hosiery; I was suffocating from my passion and, reaching into the car with my fingers begrimed with charcoal from school, I—
    pinched her!
    God’s truth. I pinched her on the thigh. Today people tell it that I pinched her on her ass; I didn’t. She was sitting on her ass. But I do remember putting my index finger and thumb together and squeezing that holy flesh. It seared my pads and burned away my fingerprints forever; I leave none wherever I touch, that index finger and thumb are blistered but absolutely without whorls, only smudges. Believe that as you believe in a heaven yet to come.
    I heard an exclamation of horror from Mayor Allen, and was aware of his indignant stare behind his pince-nez, and his mouth, open like a fish out of water, gulping air. Then, as I took my hand away, I saw Babe pat her cartwheel hat or maybe just her hair, and roll her eyes, and I heard her say:
    “S’aw right, sonny, help yourself.”
    It’s true, every word. I heard it with my own ears and Mayor Allen later verified it, though Babe herself later claimed not to remember having said it, which may be regarded as odd, considering how she could always recognize a good line when she heard it.
    There was no time for more. I’d had all I was going to get of Babe Austrian for this and many a year to come. A burly arm seized me about my middle and I was torn bodily from the running board, and while the car rolled forward in the procession, I was left in the toils of John Q. Law, three feet off the ground, swimming in the air. I saw faces—staring, laughing, ridiculing faces. As I was plunked down on my two feet with no ceremony whatever, I saw, protruding from the window of the mayoral vehicle, one little baby hand, languidly, eloquently waving—itty-bitty waves. Then it was gone.
    The effects of this minor escapade were manifold. I made the evening edition, my picture was plastered on page three, my name was set down in the annals for posterity (wrongly spelled, my age falsely reported), my father was obliged to draft a letter of apology to the Mayor, while I was sternly forbidden the inside of any movie house for a period of two whole months. And I commenced a lifelong association with Babe Austrian. Oh yeah !
    Babe’s story is one of the Plain Tales from the Hollywood Hills, the legends that