Rich and Famous (7 page)

Chapter

I put down the phone, feeling sort of dizzy and
faint. There were a lot of different thoughts swinging around in my mind, but they were coming and going so fast I couldn't catch hold of any of them long enough to know what it was about. I just stood there like that, completely disorganized for I don't know how long. Then I heard Sinclair shout from the barn, “Hey George, hurry up.”

I ran upstairs to the back bathroom, which faced out toward the barn, and put my head out the window. “Just a sec,” I shouted. “I don't feel too good. I think I got a bug or something.”

“Well, hurry,” he shouted.

I was still pretty dazed. Of course just because Woody said it was going like molten lava didn't mean anything. In my experience there were always plenty of firemen around to put out these blazes. It wasn't the first time Woody had screamed at me to be in his office at two o'clock, punto, either. Nothing had happened those times, so why would anything happen now?

But, I don't know, it felt different. And what was I going to do? The obvious thing would be to find Uncle Ned, explain to him what it was all about, and get him to put me on the train for New York. But knowing Uncle Ned, the first thing he'd do would be to put out a few surprised grunts, and then he'd say, “George, it doesn't seem sensible to me to send a boy your age off by himself on something like this.” Then he'd call Woody, and Woody would find out that I was supposed to be locked up in Sinclair State Pen for the rest of the summer. Or he'd call Pop in Paris, and Pop would hit the ceiling. No, anyway you looked at it, being honest with Uncle Ned would only make a mess out of things. It was clear that I was going to have to do a lot of lying over the next little while. Of course, the other thing I could do would be to call up Woody and tell
him
the truth; but that would only bring on a big mess, too. What's the point of telling the truth if all you get out of it are big messes?

The main thing was that I had to get down to New York to find out what was going on. By this afternoon, the chances were that it wouldn't be hotter than molten lava anymore; it'd be just plain old hot, and I could come back to Pawling and forget about it until the next time the
volcano
overflowed, which would most likely be sometime after next Christmas. That meant thinking up some excuse for going down to New York for the day. I tried to think of one. Maybe I could say that I suddenly remembered that I had a dentist appointment. Or that Pop had just called, Denise was sick, and they were coming home. Or that Stanky was delirious and kept calling out my name. But as excuses they weren't any good. Anything I could think of Uncle Ned would call up whoever it was and find out. There was only one thing to do: take off. I could walk to the train station, or better, I could hitchhike into New York. You never could tell. Uncle Ned or somebody might pass by while I was standing at the station.

I flushed the toilet just in case Sinclair had been listening, ran back out to the barn, and climbed up into the loft.

“Listen, Sinclair. I just remembered I have to register for my tutoring school today. In New York.”

“Tutoring school? I didn't know you had to go to tutoring school?”

“Sure,” I said. “I flunked practically everything last year.”

“You have to go down to New York? How could you forget an important thing like that?”

“I forget a lot of important stuff,” I said. “I wouldn't have remembered it even now, but this friend of mine just called up to remind me.”

“I didn't hear the phone ring,” he said.

“You probably missed it. I happened to go by the phone just as it started to ring. It hardly rang at all.”

“I still think I would have heard it.”

“Not all the way out here you wouldn't. Anyway this kid said that they changed the date for registering and I have to do it tomorrow.”

“How did they get our phone number up here?” He was pretty suspicious.

“Oh, naturally I gave it to this other friend of mine, Everett Stanky. So I figure what I'd better do is take off right away, so I won't foul it up or anything.”

He stared at me. “You mean you're going to New York right now?”

“Sure, why not? I'll just hitch down.”

“I'll call my father.”

“Oh, I don't want to bother him. I'll just go and you tell him I'll be back tonight.”

“
I think I should call my father.”

“Don't bother, Sinclair. Just tell him what happened.”

But I didn't trust him. I climbed down out of the loft, raced into the house, and began changing my clothes.

Then I heard Sinclair open the back door. I knew he was coming in to call up his father. So I charged downstairs, out of the house, and onto their road. I didn't know much about Pawling except that there was a big main road to New York just outside of the town. So I trotted out there and began hitchhiking, and about ten minutes later somebody picked me up.

“Where you going?” he said.

“New York,” I said.

He gave me a look. I guess he thought it was pretty funny for a kid my age to be hitching to New York. “My father sure is going to be sore. He gave me four dollars for my train ticket, but I lost it.”

“Where you coming from?”

“I've been staying here with my cousin.”

“Your cousin?”

“Their name is Stanky. Everett Stanky. Maybe you know them?”

“No, I don't think so,” he said. But he seemed satisfied with my story. In telling a lie the basic thing is not to make yourself look too good. I mean if you want to put it out that you're a big basketball star, don't say that you made the high school team when you were a freshman and averaged thirty points a game the first year. Instead you should say you didn't get to start regularly until the end of your freshman year. I said, “I'm pretty worried about what Pop's going to say when I tell him I lost the money and had to hitch.”

“Why tell him?”

“Oh, I couldn't do that. I never lie to Pop.” But that was making me seem too good, so to make it a little more believable I said, “I mean, I don't lie to Pop too much.”

So that was all right; and we talked about sports and he drove me into New York. He parked the car in a lot on Forty-second Street and I walked over to Times Square and got a couple of hot dogs smeared up with mustard and ketchup. It was twelve-thirty already. I killed some time walking around, looking at the advertisements for the porno films around Times Square, and then I went up to Woodward and Hayes to find out how on fire everything was.

Woody
just shook his head when he saw me. “Baby, you sure are a pain in the butt. I called your home and some chick said you'd gone to Europe. What are they, crazy or something?”

“Pop went to Europe,” I said. “He sublet the apartment.”

“Where are you staying?”

“With my cousin upstate.”

“Upstate? How far?”

“Oh, it isn't far. It only takes about an hour on the train.”

He whipped out his pen. “Lemme have the address and phone number so you don't get lost again.”

But I didn't want Woody getting into any conversation with Uncle Ned. “I forget the telephone number. I'll get it next time.”

“All right, what's the address.”

Or write any letters, either. “I . . . ummm. . . .”

“Don't tell me you forgot the address of where you're living?”

“Well, it's just this little town. I know where their house is.”

“I don't suppose this little town has a name,” he said.

“Pawling.”

“Pawling?” He looked suspicious. “That's two or three hours up, isn't it?”

“Oh no, it's only around an hour on the train. I don't remember exactly, though.”

“How did you get into town?”

“I hitched.”

“Hitched?”

“Yes. My Uncle Ned gave me money for the train ticket, but I lost it.”

“George, how could you lose the train money between the house and the station?”

I blushed. “Well, actually I didn't lose it. I owed it to some guy and he saw me at the train station and made me give it to him. He was a pretty big guy.”

“How come you owed this big guy money?”

I was beginning to get pretty nervous; I had a lot of lies out and I was beginning to lose track of them. “Well, see, he let me ride his motorbike and I tipped over and busted his tail light.”

Woody
shook his head. “You lead a complicated life, George. All right, now listen, Georgie, this thing is screaming for action like a fire siren. As far as Superman is concerned, all systems are go. He's putting it to the President of Camelot, Mr. Fenderbase. Next fall, Georgie, it could be star-time.”

“So I don't have to do anything until September?”

“Are you kidding? We start in right away—new clothes, the hair cut, the image, the public relations boys, the whole kit. I'm going to run your tail off from now until Labor Day. I want to know where you are every minute.”

“Okay,” I said, swallowing.

He leaned back in his chair. “Now, here's the drill. We've got a meeting with Mr. Fenderbase next week. He's the biggy. He wants to get a look at you. Then we're going to cut some experimental demos, just to see what kind of sound we want to aim for. Then after that, we'll try you out in a live situation. Probably we'll fit you in with a short segment in a concert somewhere, just to get audience reaction. And if it's all working in the fall, we'll cut a record, we'll look for some television guest shots, we'll start booking you around the New York area for some exposure. I suppose your old man won't let you drop out of school.”

“I don't think he would,” I said.

“Well, we'll work that out when the time comes. Maybe you can be tutored. But let's not count our chickens before they hatch. There are a lot of places we can go wrong yet. Meanwhile, be in here Thursday morning at ten. Punto.”

So there it was. I left Woodward and Hayes' office, went down on the street, and bought another hot dog smeared up with stuff from a lunch cart just to calm my nerves. Everything about it was scary. I mean it was scary enough thinking about what I was going to tell Uncle Ned, without having meetings and demo records and concerts to worry about. And I think I'd have just sort of fainted right there, except that I knew there was a pretty good chance that there'd never be any demo records or concerts, or maybe even no meetings with biggies, so there was no point in getting nervous over something that might never happen. So I calmed down a little, walked over to Grand Central, and took a train up to Pawling, trying to work out my excuses. Thursday was two days away. I had time, but I knew I'd better not lay it on Uncle Ned at the last minute.

I got back to Pawling at five-thirty, and walked over to Sinclair's house, feeling pretty
scared.
I had a story figured out, but I didn't know if it would work. Sinclair was out front mowing the lawn, and he stopped the minute he saw me come up the street. “Boy, are you in trouble,” he said. “I knew you would be.”

“Why should I be in trouble? I had to register for my tutoring school.”

“George, I believe that's a story you're making up.”

“God, Sinclair, what a thing to say. I don't go around accusing you of being a liar.”

He looked at me sort of confused. Then he said, “Well, it doesn't sound sensible to me.”

“Don't give me that jive, Sinclair. If I have to be tutored, I have to be tutored.”

“We'll see what my father says.”

I didn't have to be told that. I went on up to the porch. Uncle Ned was sitting there, grunting his way through the paper. When he saw me he put the paper down. “Well, George,” he said.

“Gee, Uncle Ned, I'm sorry I forgot to tell you about registering. I thought probably Pop told you.”

“He never said a word. What's it about?”

“I'm supposed to go to tutoring school this summer. I flunked a lot of stuff.”

“I'm surprised. Your father told me you'd done pretty well this year. Not as well as Sinclair, of course, he's an exceptional student, but well for you.”

“I guess he was sort of ashamed of me. Maybe that's why he didn't mention about tutoring school.”

“What exactly did you fail?”

“American history, and math, and I almost flunked French, too.” The minute I said math I knew I'd made a mistake.

“Math? I could have helped you with that. What was the course?”

“Beginning algebra. I guess that's another reason why Pop didn't tell you about it. He knew you'd want to help me with my math, and probably he didn't want to bother you. I mean being busy the way you are.”

“Nonsense, I would have been delighted. With a student as exceptional as Sinclair around, I never get much practice tutoring. Well, all right, now what is this school?”