Journal Interrobang's Journal: The Most Improved District
(a short story by Sara Stewart, (c) 2001, not to be distributed for profit in any form)
In the centre of the most Improved district in town was the Cafe Americain, and in the Cafe were likely any number of Beautiful People. Although the crowd was thinned out, as the dinner-eaters had gone off to the shows and the theatre-goers had not yet arrived, a number of people (who were Well-Dressed, Well-to-Do, and, most of all, White) still lounged about, chatting, smoking, snacking, and knocking back huge quantities of rather overpriced drinks.
Norma Pierce and her friends Marilyn Golightly and Sophia Lupino were sitting at one of the round tables, pressing haunch through the wire chair-backs and swinging their shoes back and forth as they stirred their endless rounds of pastel drinks, pink, yellow, peach, and green. They were watching the men in the bright suits and broad-brimmed hats who were clustered around a pool table on the far side of the club. The men were watching the cigarette girl who circled endlessly with a silver tray balanced on one black-gloved hand. The cigarette girl's dress came as low in the front and back as it was high at the hem, and it showed all the clips on her garters.
"Hmf," said the exquisitely coiffed blonde in the silver sandals as she clicked past. "The seam on her stocking isn't straight." She headed towards the powder room to check herself for imperfections.
"Tippi, darling," said Norma, "when you get back, do come and sit with us. The men are being just beastly. We'll have girl talk."
"Certainly, Norma, dear," Tippi Taylor said, all the while thinking, that's what you get for dating John Barrymore, you catty thing. "And would you be so kind as to fetch me a drink, if you're up?"
"Of course. We're having Pink Ladies next. Is that all right with you?"
"Yes, dear, thank you."
When Tippi emerged from the powder room looking the same as always, she had to endure the usual round of air-cheek kissing, and then more of the usual. She picked up her drink, said, "Pardon me, girls, for being unladylike, but..." and drank half of it off at a draught.
"Oh, that's quite all right," said Sophia, who had a bit of a reputation for being a tosspot herself. "You got here late, so you've got some catching up to do. Isn't that right, girls?"
"Oh, of course." "By all means." "Certainly, darling."
"Oh, and Tippi, did you see our Little Friend over there," Marilyn said, pronouncing the capitals distinctly. "Isn't she just something else?" She tossed her head behind her halter-top neckline.
"Well," said Sophia, "If you haven't got diamonds, then I suppose a large bust and a fantastic set of gams are your best friends."
"Sophia!" Marilyn was quite shocked. "Really! Well, you know, I would never go out in something like that. It must be quite dreadful to have to work for a living."
"Come, now, darling. We all saw that fishtail silver number you wore to poor Brigitte's premiere. What was that delightful new film called?"
Tippi, who was slightly more brain than looks and so often felt like an impostor in this crowd, supplied the answer. "It was 'Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,'" she said.
Over by the pool table, surrounded by a fragrant cloud that was at least half Scotch, a conversation of a slightly similar nature was going on.
"I call nine in the corner," said John Wayne Barrymore, chewing on his cigar and chalking the end of his cue.
Gary Ogle, who was always trying to live up to his name and always twiddling his significant length of watch chain, said, "Would you check out the legs on her? Man, I can see right up to her panties." He snickered. "That is, if a broad like her wears any." He slurped the last third of his fifth double scotch.
Clifton Cooper snorted laughter around a cheekful of ice cube. "Aw, Ogle, we all know you had her last week."
Ogle looked despondent. "I wish. Make yer shot, John Wayne." He dropped his watch chain and consulted his billfold. "I need another damned drink."
"Right, Tex. Nine in the corner." He shot, the balls clacked and bounced, and the nine-ball Englished gracefully into the corner, spun back on itself, and stopped just short of the pocket. "Oh, you bitch."
Ogle's eyes narrowed. "And how is Norma these days?"
"Why don't you go ask her yourself before I invite you outside?"
"'Druther not," said Ogle, dropping his watch chain to fiddle with his cuff links.
"Then if I were you, I'd watch what you say about my girl."
Ogle looked belligerent. "If I were you, I'd learn to take a joke."
Cooper, sensing trouble brewing like a strong pot of coffee, said, "Ogie, you've had too much to drink. Why don't you go outside, go to the little boys' room, go chat up the cigarette girl, go do something."
"I'll go outside, all right," Ogle muttered. "With him. Or maybe you all just want me to leave so I won't see what a good time you're having with the ladies."
"Aw, no. Come on, I'll take you outside," Cooper said.
"He's pissing me off," said Barrymore to no one in particular, then addressed himself to Ogle. "You little faggot, you've always gotta mess it up for everyone. We were having a good time here and then you--"
Ogle went ballistic. "You asshole! I ain't no faggot!" He rolled up his sleeves. "Ok, right now, outside." Fuming, Barrymore and Ogle headed for the door.
As the duo passed the girls' table, with Cooper slightly behind, Cooper motioned to the girls to come with him. "You've got to cool these guys off or there's gonna be trouble!" he hissed at them. "Help me out here!"
The girls shrugged, got up, and began to trail along.
Before they'd gotten halfway out the door, most of the club-goers were standing in the windows.
Eric J. D. H. Ulvaeus, whose parents were above all Well-to-Do, White and mostly Well-Dressed-but also Eccentric-lived in one of the more Improved districts, one that was Exclusive and Executive, but one that had, for some reason, become home to Wealthy Eccentrics.
Consequently, he had grown up surrounded by dotty moneyfolk, and had turned into one himself. When his more mundane contemporaries, like Marilyn Golightly, Norma Pierce, and John Wayne Barrymore, were paying attention to the latest trends, hottest TV shows and movies, and Conforming, Eric (whose parents had never quite acculturated properly) was reading books (Marilyn: "Books? What's that?"), studying history, and becoming adept at repairing and restoring antiques.
One such, an ancient sewing machine said to be a relic of some ancient forgotten past (but which, Eric knew, only dated to 1929), he used constantly, turning decorators' and costumers' fabrics into whole suits of clothes. But not just any clothes! Not just the clothes preserved for all eternity in pattern books, celluloid and television. No, these were clothes unlike anything anyone other than Eric had seen, clothes he had made from pictures from his old books, which his (also dotty) Great Aunt Brittany had left him.
His mother, who had a wide streak of Conformity in her, despite her Eccentricity, always said, "Eric dear, why don't you just come to the Mall with me and I'll get you some decent things?"
Eric sighed. "Mom, those 'decent things' aren't for me. They won't fit me. I'm short-and I'm fat, Mom."
"Eric! You are not fat, you're...you're, well, you're big-boned."
"I am big-boned, Mom. I'm also fat."
"Well, I'm going to the Mall. Do you want a ride anywhere, dear?"
"Yes, please. Would you take me to the central library?"
"Eric, I don't know why you want to go there all the time. It's full of books, and you could be going to the movies...or watching TV...Oh, why did I ever let Aunt Brittany--"
"Let's just go, Mom, all right?" Eric asked, shrugging on a red velvet frock coat and putting on a hat festooned with several enormous feathers.
"All right, dear. Will you need a ride back?"
"No thanks," Eric said, buckling on his square-toed shoes. "I'll walk."
They had driven off into the long shadows of a summer afternoon where the sun gleamed off the glass office towers and ennobled the trash in the gutters, and Eric had disappeared into the library largely unseen.
After several blissful hours poring over the stacks alone, it was full dark and a white-haired, nearly blind janitor tapped him on the shoulder, saying, "Young-e maan, the lib'rey's glosink."
Eric peered over his wire-rimmed glasses. "Eh? Oh, thanks."
Several minutes later, he was out the door and heading into Downtown and the most Improved district. The policeman walking his company-approved patrol where the cardboard shanties gave way to bright neon and glass knew Eric, passed a few words with him, shook his head, and smiled as he let the young man with his odd clothes and his head in the clouds into the most Improved district of all.
A crowd was gathering in front of the Cafe Americain, hoping for more amusing entertainment than the chanteuse with her headful of kiss-curls and her dowdy dropped-waist dress. Apparently John Wayne Barrymore, who had long been known for his volatility of temper, was going to square off against Gary Ogle, long known for his tenuous grasp on sobriety. A few people eased away from the windows and out the door every few seconds. Insults were flying, and only heroic efforts on the parts of Clifton Cooper and Barrymore's girlfriend Norma Pierce were delaying the probably inevitable fistfight. People were already forming a circle, and the whispered chant "Fight! Fight! Fight!" seemed to be drifting in on the breeze.
The chant got louder, and then become mechanical, or organic, as if a horde of robots or giant insects were stage-whispering from some unseen place. A droplet of sweat slid down Ogle's forehead, and the smell of scotch and agression hung on the air. The sound...It was strange, and didn't seem to be saying "Fight!" after all, Tippi thought. She turned, and realized that the tattoo was actually the sound of hard-soled shoe heels on concrete.
Time slowed almost to a halt, until Tippi pointed and said, in tones normally reserved (in the Movies, anyway) for gods and other supernatural phenomena, "What is that?"
Everyone turned toward the clacking sound, which was now directly across the street from the Cafe. There, all unawares of the spectacle in front of it (or the spectacle it made), was a strange figure dressed in a lustrous red coat of some type, short, bottle-green pants that stopped at the knees (and had buttons!), white stockings --but it seemed to be a man! -- and a huge, ugly hat that capped a long, blonde head of hair.
Someone wearing a tight suit with a narrow tie said, "It's a Commie!"
"No, it's a Nazi!"
"A nigger!" shouted a blonde in a fringed, beaded dress.
"A kike!"
"What's a kike?"
"A faggot!" "A Welfare cheat!" "A Catholic!" "A hobo!" "A Jap!" "A gook!" and on and on, spiralling, louder and louder, faster and faster, before the figure noticed or even thought of running, when the inevitable suggestion was made: "LET"S GET HIM!"
And the Beautiful People were on him, kicking and tearing and screaming, punching, biting, ripping, and stomping. The red velvet coat tore away, its hand-finished seams giving with a loud purring noise. The hat was trampled into the gutter. The wire-framed glasses went spinning up into the glare of the streetlights, reflecting and twinkling, until they landed beside a parked Duesette with a shattering snap! Blood began to flow, as Eric curled up, trying to ward off the punches, kicks, and stabs of elegant high-heeled shoes. "What are you doing?" he yelled. He might as well have been speaking Latin or some other dead language preserved in some dusty unread tome for all the good it did him. Finally, a fist with a watch chain wrapped around it came arcing down, to impact with a crunch. Fade to black.
There was nothing in the Movies or on TV to tell them what to do as they stood around the broken, battered body in the gutter, so they all went back into the club. Two hours later, as John Wayne Barrymore was going to drive Norma Pierce home (and maybe invite himself up in the process), he stepped over it to get into his Corvellac.
"What's that?" Norma asked.
"Just some rags. Probably some bag lady dropped them. Damned private cops, they're good for nothing. Can't even keep the most Improved district clean. What's this world coming to?"
"I dunno, John Wayne."
In the centre of the most Improved district in town was the Cafe Americain, and in the Cafe were likely any number of Beautiful People. Although the crowd was thinned out, as the dinner-eaters had gone off to the shows and the theatre-goers had not yet arrived, a number of people (who were Well-Dressed, Well-to-Do, and, most of all, White) still lounged about, chatting, smoking, snacking, and knocking back huge quantities of rather overpriced drinks.
Norma Pierce and her friends Marilyn Golightly and Sophia Lupino were sitting at one of the round tables, pressing haunch through the wire chair-backs and swinging their shoes back and forth as they stirred their endless rounds of pastel drinks, pink, yellow, peach, and green. They were watching the men in the bright suits and broad-brimmed hats who were clustered around a pool table on the far side of the club. The men were watching the cigarette girl who circled endlessly with a silver tray balanced on one black-gloved hand. The cigarette girl's dress came as low in the front and back as it was high at the hem, and it showed all the clips on her garters.
"Hmf," said the exquisitely coiffed blonde in the silver sandals as she clicked past. "The seam on her stocking isn't straight." She headed towards the powder room to check herself for imperfections.
"Tippi, darling," said Norma, "when you get back, do come and sit with us. The men are being just beastly. We'll have girl talk."
"Certainly, Norma, dear," Tippi Taylor said, all the while thinking, that's what you get for dating John Barrymore, you catty thing. "And would you be so kind as to fetch me a drink, if you're up?"
"Of course. We're having Pink Ladies next. Is that all right with you?"
"Yes, dear, thank you."
When Tippi emerged from the powder room looking the same as always, she had to endure the usual round of air-cheek kissing, and then more of the usual. She picked up her drink, said, "Pardon me, girls, for being unladylike, but..." and drank half of it off at a draught.
"Oh, that's quite all right," said Sophia, who had a bit of a reputation for being a tosspot herself. "You got here late, so you've got some catching up to do. Isn't that right, girls?"
"Oh, of course." "By all means." "Certainly, darling."
"Oh, and Tippi, did you see our Little Friend over there," Marilyn said, pronouncing the capitals distinctly. "Isn't she just something else?" She tossed her head behind her halter-top neckline.
"Well," said Sophia, "If you haven't got diamonds, then I suppose a large bust and a fantastic set of gams are your best friends."
"Sophia!" Marilyn was quite shocked. "Really! Well, you know, I would never go out in something like that. It must be quite dreadful to have to work for a living."
"Come, now, darling. We all saw that fishtail silver number you wore to poor Brigitte's premiere. What was that delightful new film called?"
Tippi, who was slightly more brain than looks and so often felt like an impostor in this crowd, supplied the answer. "It was 'Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,'" she said.
Over by the pool table, surrounded by a fragrant cloud that was at least half Scotch, a conversation of a slightly similar nature was going on.
"I call nine in the corner," said John Wayne Barrymore, chewing on his cigar and chalking the end of his cue.
Gary Ogle, who was always trying to live up to his name and always twiddling his significant length of watch chain, said, "Would you check out the legs on her? Man, I can see right up to her panties." He snickered. "That is, if a broad like her wears any." He slurped the last third of his fifth double scotch.
Clifton Cooper snorted laughter around a cheekful of ice cube. "Aw, Ogle, we all know you had her last week."
Ogle looked despondent. "I wish. Make yer shot, John Wayne." He dropped his watch chain and consulted his billfold. "I need another damned drink."
"Right, Tex. Nine in the corner." He shot, the balls clacked and bounced, and the nine-ball Englished gracefully into the corner, spun back on itself, and stopped just short of the pocket. "Oh, you bitch."
Ogle's eyes narrowed. "And how is Norma these days?"
"Why don't you go ask her yourself before I invite you outside?"
"'Druther not," said Ogle, dropping his watch chain to fiddle with his cuff links.
"Then if I were you, I'd watch what you say about my girl."
Ogle looked belligerent. "If I were you, I'd learn to take a joke."
Cooper, sensing trouble brewing like a strong pot of coffee, said, "Ogie, you've had too much to drink. Why don't you go outside, go to the little boys' room, go chat up the cigarette girl, go do something."
"I'll go outside, all right," Ogle muttered. "With him. Or maybe you all just want me to leave so I won't see what a good time you're having with the ladies."
"Aw, no. Come on, I'll take you outside," Cooper said.
"He's pissing me off," said Barrymore to no one in particular, then addressed himself to Ogle. "You little faggot, you've always gotta mess it up for everyone. We were having a good time here and then you--"
Ogle went ballistic. "You asshole! I ain't no faggot!" He rolled up his sleeves. "Ok, right now, outside." Fuming, Barrymore and Ogle headed for the door.
As the duo passed the girls' table, with Cooper slightly behind, Cooper motioned to the girls to come with him. "You've got to cool these guys off or there's gonna be trouble!" he hissed at them. "Help me out here!"
The girls shrugged, got up, and began to trail along.
Before they'd gotten halfway out the door, most of the club-goers were standing in the windows.
Eric J. D. H. Ulvaeus, whose parents were above all Well-to-Do, White and mostly Well-Dressed-but also Eccentric-lived in one of the more Improved districts, one that was Exclusive and Executive, but one that had, for some reason, become home to Wealthy Eccentrics.
Consequently, he had grown up surrounded by dotty moneyfolk, and had turned into one himself. When his more mundane contemporaries, like Marilyn Golightly, Norma Pierce, and John Wayne Barrymore, were paying attention to the latest trends, hottest TV shows and movies, and Conforming, Eric (whose parents had never quite acculturated properly) was reading books (Marilyn: "Books? What's that?"), studying history, and becoming adept at repairing and restoring antiques.
One such, an ancient sewing machine said to be a relic of some ancient forgotten past (but which, Eric knew, only dated to 1929), he used constantly, turning decorators' and costumers' fabrics into whole suits of clothes. But not just any clothes! Not just the clothes preserved for all eternity in pattern books, celluloid and television. No, these were clothes unlike anything anyone other than Eric had seen, clothes he had made from pictures from his old books, which his (also dotty) Great Aunt Brittany had left him.
His mother, who had a wide streak of Conformity in her, despite her Eccentricity, always said, "Eric dear, why don't you just come to the Mall with me and I'll get you some decent things?"
Eric sighed. "Mom, those 'decent things' aren't for me. They won't fit me. I'm short-and I'm fat, Mom."
"Eric! You are not fat, you're...you're, well, you're big-boned."
"I am big-boned, Mom. I'm also fat."
"Well, I'm going to the Mall. Do you want a ride anywhere, dear?"
"Yes, please. Would you take me to the central library?"
"Eric, I don't know why you want to go there all the time. It's full of books, and you could be going to the movies...or watching TV...Oh, why did I ever let Aunt Brittany--"
"Let's just go, Mom, all right?" Eric asked, shrugging on a red velvet frock coat and putting on a hat festooned with several enormous feathers.
"All right, dear. Will you need a ride back?"
"No thanks," Eric said, buckling on his square-toed shoes. "I'll walk."
They had driven off into the long shadows of a summer afternoon where the sun gleamed off the glass office towers and ennobled the trash in the gutters, and Eric had disappeared into the library largely unseen.
After several blissful hours poring over the stacks alone, it was full dark and a white-haired, nearly blind janitor tapped him on the shoulder, saying, "Young-e maan, the lib'rey's glosink."
Eric peered over his wire-rimmed glasses. "Eh? Oh, thanks."
Several minutes later, he was out the door and heading into Downtown and the most Improved district. The policeman walking his company-approved patrol where the cardboard shanties gave way to bright neon and glass knew Eric, passed a few words with him, shook his head, and smiled as he let the young man with his odd clothes and his head in the clouds into the most Improved district of all.
A crowd was gathering in front of the Cafe Americain, hoping for more amusing entertainment than the chanteuse with her headful of kiss-curls and her dowdy dropped-waist dress. Apparently John Wayne Barrymore, who had long been known for his volatility of temper, was going to square off against Gary Ogle, long known for his tenuous grasp on sobriety. A few people eased away from the windows and out the door every few seconds. Insults were flying, and only heroic efforts on the parts of Clifton Cooper and Barrymore's girlfriend Norma Pierce were delaying the probably inevitable fistfight. People were already forming a circle, and the whispered chant "Fight! Fight! Fight!" seemed to be drifting in on the breeze.
The chant got louder, and then become mechanical, or organic, as if a horde of robots or giant insects were stage-whispering from some unseen place. A droplet of sweat slid down Ogle's forehead, and the smell of scotch and agression hung on the air. The sound...It was strange, and didn't seem to be saying "Fight!" after all, Tippi thought. She turned, and realized that the tattoo was actually the sound of hard-soled shoe heels on concrete.
Time slowed almost to a halt, until Tippi pointed and said, in tones normally reserved (in the Movies, anyway) for gods and other supernatural phenomena, "What is that?"
Everyone turned toward the clacking sound, which was now directly across the street from the Cafe. There, all unawares of the spectacle in front of it (or the spectacle it made), was a strange figure dressed in a lustrous red coat of some type, short, bottle-green pants that stopped at the knees (and had buttons!), white stockings --but it seemed to be a man! -- and a huge, ugly hat that capped a long, blonde head of hair.
Someone wearing a tight suit with a narrow tie said, "It's a Commie!"
"No, it's a Nazi!"
"A nigger!" shouted a blonde in a fringed, beaded dress.
"A kike!"
"What's a kike?"
"A faggot!" "A Welfare cheat!" "A Catholic!" "A hobo!" "A Jap!" "A gook!" and on and on, spiralling, louder and louder, faster and faster, before the figure noticed or even thought of running, when the inevitable suggestion was made: "LET"S GET HIM!"
And the Beautiful People were on him, kicking and tearing and screaming, punching, biting, ripping, and stomping. The red velvet coat tore away, its hand-finished seams giving with a loud purring noise. The hat was trampled into the gutter. The wire-framed glasses went spinning up into the glare of the streetlights, reflecting and twinkling, until they landed beside a parked Duesette with a shattering snap! Blood began to flow, as Eric curled up, trying to ward off the punches, kicks, and stabs of elegant high-heeled shoes. "What are you doing?" he yelled. He might as well have been speaking Latin or some other dead language preserved in some dusty unread tome for all the good it did him. Finally, a fist with a watch chain wrapped around it came arcing down, to impact with a crunch. Fade to black.
There was nothing in the Movies or on TV to tell them what to do as they stood around the broken, battered body in the gutter, so they all went back into the club. Two hours later, as John Wayne Barrymore was going to drive Norma Pierce home (and maybe invite himself up in the process), he stepped over it to get into his Corvellac.
"What's that?" Norma asked.
"Just some rags. Probably some bag lady dropped them. Damned private cops, they're good for nothing. Can't even keep the most Improved district clean. What's this world coming to?"
"I dunno, John Wayne."
