A [School] Formal Introduction to Life

Somewhere in Sydney, the mid 1960s

Dog Days of Dejection

‘Unless there’s a good funeral coming up, we’ve wasted our money buying Phil a black suit, Marie.’

‘Philip loves dressing up, so I don’t think you’ve wasted your money, Peter. You had a fine idea buying him a lounge suit. It makes no sense to have bought him a dinner suit merely to attend a school dance…that he won’t be attending.’

‘Oh well, it won’t be long before he finishes high school and joins the army where he’ll get all the girls he can afford…that won’t be many on a private’s salary.’

‘Peter!’

‘Who else would want to go out with him, Marie?’

She answered her husband with a glare but could think of nothing to refute his claim.

Peter Danté’s face brightened.

‘Of course! We’ll hire a teenaged babysitter to go with him!’

‘It doesn’t work like that, dear. You do not hire a babysitter to take someone to his School Formal!’

‘I wouldn’t mind paying her a bit more…’

In his quest to find a date for his School Formal of the penultimate year of high school, Phil Danté had collected 13 ‘no’s. He was having a hell of a time of it, as we was given one ‘Hell no’, one ‘go to Hell’, one ‘when Hell freezes over’, one ‘like hell!’, and two ‘get the Hell out of here’s as well as three ‘you’ve got to be joking’s, two ‘piss offs’ and one ‘leave me alone or I’ll call the police!’

Phil’s father proclaimed,

‘If at first you don’t succeed, and you try, try again and you still don’t succeed…then maybe failure’s your forte.’ He began to sing, ‘Pa-ri-ah!…Pa-ri-ah!...They Calllll My Sonnn…Pa-ri-ahhh!...What’s wrong, Marie? Somebody die?’

Though Phil kept his stiff upper lip, his mother knew he was upset. Marie, who had been giving her son dance lessons, ordered her husband to ease off on his sarcastic sense of humour that he had passed on to his son. She also asked him to have a father-to-son talk…Dad went in like a shark smelling blood in the water…

‘You never wanted to play sports, so now you’re getting your just desserts! As ye sow, so shall ye reap!’

Phil wore a puzzled expression,

‘I don’t get that, Dad. Could you please explain that one to me?’

His father pulled faces of concentration. When he couldn’t explain he want back to his old stand-by and bashed him one.

‘Don’t talk back to your father! It’s rude!’

He stormed off, then turned around and came back, then bashed him ‘one more for the road’,

‘You’re a ratbag, and you bloody always will be!’

He stormed off again.

Mum sent her daughter Jean, who had also been teaching Phil how to dance, to have a heart-to-heart talk with her younger brother.

‘Sixteen is a difficult age to be, Phil. When I was your age, I didn’t want to be with any boy my age. I wanted someone older, and I’m sure most girls your age do too. The girls younger than you wouldn’t be allowed out at night by their parents.’

‘I’d like to believe you, Jean, but everyone else in my class is going.’

She squeezed his hand.

‘Some day you’ll laugh about it.’

‘I highly doubt that…In the meantime, everyone will laugh at me.’

‘You must be used to it by now, Phil.’

Mystery Date

On the morning of the School Formal, his family had happy expressions on their faces at the breakfast table; especially his father, who rarely appeared to be happy.

‘Phil, you can get your new formal suit ready. You’ve a mystery date who’s going to pick you up tonight.’

‘No questions’, his sister sensibly said, ‘that’s what a mystery date is all about.’

* * *

As they waited, everyone enjoyed Phil trying to cover up his curiosity.

At last, their doorbell rang.

‘Let her in, Phil!’

Feeling like 007 in his black suit, bow tie and cummerbund and a brand-new dress shirt with metal studs in place of buttons, he rose to go to the door.

‘Don’t embarrass her, Philip!’

He instantly reverted to his former self.

‘Yes Mum.’

Phil unsuccessfully tried to hide his excitement as he opened the door for his mystery date…

‘Bon soir, mon beau cher.’

There was his Auntie Micheline beautifully dressed.

Phil kissed her and they embraced as they always did.

‘I’m sorry, Tatie, I thought you were my date who’s coming by this evening.’

‘C’est moi, c’est moi, et tu es mon roi!’

Phil froze, his laughing family still had their enthusiastic smiles.

‘I don’t know if they’ll let you in school…’

‘You’re not going to some stupid kid’s dance, Phil’, his strangely happy Dad exclaimed, ‘Micheline’s taking you out!’

‘Out of this world…’, laughed Tatie Micheline.

His father’s laugh was as strange as his leer…

Phil had always loved his Aunt, and now he loved his family, for they thoughtfully provided a sensible alternative to his despondency.

‘This is the greatest family in the world!’

Everyone was thrilled that Phil didn’t go into shock, anger or embarrassment.

‘For your date.’

His father presented a corsage to his sister and took photographs of the couple.

A Night on the Tiles

They drove in her Renault Caravelle cabriolet sports car to her apartment and parked; she rang for a taxi.

‘For the rest of the evening, do not ask me any questions…promise me…’

Phil nodded, his Auntie’s eyes displayed her satisfaction.

‘Et maintenant, pour mon compagnon romantique…My gentleman’s corsage…’

She pasted a moustache on him,

‘Pas de questions!’

He nodded, she showed him what he looked like in her compact mirror, he didn’t look too bad.

‘Mon agente secrete…Anthony Eisley, with the dash of Errol Flynn…do not smile too much, look sophisticated. If you do not know what that means, look like you are bored…no matter what you see tonight…A mystery date is not only who you are with, but where you are going and what you are going to do…’

To his great surprise, they travelled by taxi…

To Kings Cross, the red-light district of Sydney and Australasia where anything goes!!!

She pulled a scarf out of her handbag, wadded it up and stuck it in his inside suit coat pocket; he now looked like he was packing a pistol…

Phil had never been to ‘the Cross’ before, as he had no reason nor no money to go. The pavement was crowded with the delighted and the destitute, the young looking forward to excitement and the old looking backward in regret. There were the fun-loving groups and the self-hating loners as well as the buyers and seller’s market of women renting interesting parts of their bodies for assembly-line sex. Some had rendezvous to keep and fun to live, others were on their own with only time to kill; the enthusiastic and the pathetic. Henry Lawson’s poem Faces in the Street suddenly appeared in his mind.

Two policemen desperately tried to look the other way as a large bouncer next to them had his way with some unfortunate who played the fool and lost.

Tatie turned Phil’s head. kissed him on his mouth, then held his face as she looked into his eyes,

‘Do not look at them; both the policemen and the bouncer are paid by the same person…also, a gentleman never takes his eyes off the lady he is with…Jamais!...Mon beau cher, you see and learn more when you view the world out of the corner of your eyes…and you will live longer…’

Rather than go to a restaurant, they walked arm and arm into the Pink Pussycat strip-tease parlour. The leering staff seemed used to older women bringing younger males to put their stallions in the mood. Once again, she was tutoring him in another way of life.

‘Deux verres de vin rouge’, his Auntie ordered; commerce was the lingua franca.

Phil turned to look at the waiter, who was a waitress, and she was topless…His mother’s training in it being bad form to show any sort of emotion in public paid off.

‘Remember her, and the others…This will be what some of the girls who refused your invitation to go to your school dance will grow up into…All of them are no better or no worse than the women you will see tonight…There are only good or bad circumstances…and how you respond to them when they occur to you…’

The room went dark, the stage became lit, the sound of percussion and an organ…

Footsteps...Footsteps…

The audience turned into a pack of zoo animals at the full moon...

Phil recognised what the bouncy stripper performed to, Barry Mann singing Steve Lawrence’s Footsteps, with hypnotic organ music and percussion that made her large bottom as well as her audience swing and shake. She would thrust out her hips, then oh so slowly remove a piece of clothing in time to certain parts of the song, display it for all, twirl it over her head, then use it as if she was vigorously drying herself with a towel.

Why did you say goodbye?…Why did you make me cry?

He didn’t engage in any whistling, cheering or howling like everyone else. They sounded like the Saturday afternoon matinee when Steve Reeves would rip chains out of the wall and beat an army to death or John Wayne would grab a plank of wood and bash George Kennedy who was drowning a loveable old man.

The pair watched professionally as they held each other closely like lovers and whispered in French. Tatie explained the artiste’s slowness in her moves, her facial and body language of self-confidence and her movements. Phil responded that she didn’t appear to enjoy what she was doing. There was a twinkle in his Auntie’s eye when she told him that someday he would meet a woman who would enjoy what she was doing, and to never let her go…

The male audience acted exactly like the wolf with his eyes popping out when the redhead chanteuse sang her number in the MGM Tex Avery cartoons.

Phil was fascinated by her caesarean scar, for as Tatie said, she did have full-on self-confidence.

A squeaky voice echoed Barry Mann,

‘Come on back to Big Daddy!'

The artiste raised her eyebrow at the bespectacled accountant on his night out, as if he crawled out of a hole in the floor with the other cockroaches.

‘Never believe that when a woman is merely smiling that she is actually happy.’

She whispered into his ear,

‘You are behaving well, but one drink is all that we shall have, for you have seen enough.’

Her intense look continued,

‘Do not look directly at the people I will name, only look at them out of the corner of your eyes…an unintentional look can mean serious injury or your death…’

She informed him of people in the club that he had heard of before, low life celebrities like the underworld man-about-town Abe Saffron, music promoter Lee Miller and the ‘club’ owners, Wayne Martin and ‘Last Card Louie’ Benedetto. As he promised his Auntie he would ask no questions, he didn’t ask her how she knew them.

The price for their drinks was high.

The snapping of fingers made everyone freeze. They turned to see Last Card Louie himself giving the high sign.

‘On the house’, said the large man at the register.

‘Frenchie! Ça va?

Louie and Tatie kissed in the Continental style. He looked at Phil,

‘Who’s the ladykiller? Some of my girls had their eyes on him as soon as he stepped in the door.’

Phil felt ten feet tall!

‘This is Phillipe.’

The pair shook hands and looked into each other’s eyes; Phil believed he was the type who’d be either the best of friends or the deadliest of enemies; no half measures.

‘Parlez vous Anglais. Phillipe?’

Phil deepened his voice and spoke in a French accent,

‘Oui, Monsieur…I have had a most pleasurable time. Thank you.’

Last Card Louie turned to Micheline.

‘If I had have seen you, I would have had champagne with you.’

‘Some other time, Louie. We…’

His Auntie whispered coquettishly in Louie’s ear; his eyes widened, and he gasped,

‘Oh! You French!!!’

Phil leered. As he turned, he saw the topless waitress make a telephone handset gesture with her right hand, the motion of dialling a telephone number with her left and a yearning look on her face. Phil gave a Continental ‘Alas’ facial expression as he and Tatie left the Pink Pussycat.

They entered the crowded Hasty Tasty snack bar where she ordered a pair of espresso coffees. Phil reflected that coffee must have been invented to prevent people from being told to ‘move on’ or being charged for loitering. There were the usual sounds of a woman laughing like a cockatoo and a man laughing like a chimp.

Brook Benton sang Walk on the Wild Side, one of the films she brought him to after she came to stay in Sydney and explained things in the film afterwards over dinner. The song was apt, he had seen some of the ladies of the night on the street; they were unmistakable, and they didn’t look like they were having a fun time like the girls did in Irma la Douce. No doubt an excess of alcohol made them look more attractive than what they were.

‘What do you think of what you have just seen?’

‘I thought the customers acted rather silly.’

He imagined his Auntie undressing for bed to Footsteps, with Cheetah the Chimp doing somersaults; he would never think of behaving like an idiot.

‘If you have never been to low places before, you will act ‘silly’ when you see them with others who will act that way…that is another reason I have brought you here…’

As with the Pink Pussycat, Phil glanced sideways at some of the other customers. One woman older than his Auntie was overly made up; her eyebrows making her look like a character in a science-fiction movie. Unlike his Aunt, she wasn’t tough and ruthless; she was rough and toothless.

‘Her name is Rosaleen, and she claims to be a witch. Everyone here claims they are something they may or may not be. Always live a life where you are satisfied with yourself.’

At the table next to them, a man in his mid-thirties was attempting to impress his bottom-feeder younger female companion who appeared to be terribly sleepy. A waiter who looked like a professional wrestler brought them their dinner; Phil thought it looked pretty good.

She demonstrated how sleepy she was when she crashed face first into the food on her plate.

Tatie softly tapped his leg with the toe of her shoe.

‘Do not look at them, look at me. Do not take your eyes off me. You have heard of heroin? That is what it does.’

Out of the corner of his eye, Phil viewed the gentlemen gently lift his companion’s head and tenderly wipe the spaghetti sauce and pasta off her face as if he was a father feeding his sloppy infant.

‘Ici, tout le monde rit...chez elle, tout le monde pleure...’

‘You do not like jazz music, and I am sure that you do not like men who dress like women; I will spare you those things.’

Tatie continued her intense stare and spoke like a hypnotist.

‘You will tell no one of where you went tonight, and you shall never forget what you have seen here. We will return to my apartment where I shall serve you dinner.’

He fought the urge to say, ‘Yes, master’, instead he nodded his head, and wondered if she would snap her fingers...

‘A rendez-vous amoureux mystère is a mystery…and must remain a mystery…’

Two Together Forever

After entering Tatie’s apartment, she removed the false moustache from his face and her scarf from his pocket as if he was being stripped of his rank and buttons off his uniform if he was being kicked out of the army.

‘You behaved very well, Phillipe, like a gentleman…It is very easy to be a gentleman in ordinary circumstances, but when you are in circonstances extraordinaires…it is difficult, but necessary.’

‘Merci, Tatie.’

'Your family told me how hurt you were when none of the schoolgirls would go to the dance with you. That is because you are not like they are, never forget that.’

‘What am I, Tatie?’

‘You are a gentleman, and you soon will be a man of the world, but never disgrace your family.’

‘Thank you for being my best friend.’

The pair embraced, she looked into his eyes,

‘Now, Phillipe…before dinner…M'accordez-vous cette danse?’

Her record player softly played Renée Lebas singing La Mer, as they slowly danced together.

‘Look in my eyes…not down at your feet…Mmmmm…You dance better than I thought you would…’

‘I feel so confident with you, Tatie.’

‘Confidence and discretion are two important qualities of a gentleman.’

The pair looked into each other’s eyes and saw each other in a new light…for a gentleman never took his eyes off his lady…

FIN

Author Notes: I am the author of three Extra Dimensional/Ultraterrestial military science fiction novels MERCENARY EXOTIQUE, OPERATION CHUPACABRA and WORK IN OTHER WORLDS FROM YOUR OWN HOME! as well as two travel books THE MAN FROM WAUKEGAN and TWO AUSTRALIANS IN SCOTLAND (all from Lulu.com). I live happily ever after with my wife in paradise (coastal Kiama, NSW Australia).

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