LIKE A MIGHTY QUONKER, Chapter 6

     Matt replayed his conversation with Ada Silberwetter until 3 A.M., coming up with a number of blistering responses which would have put the flouncing fluff in her place.  A sunny mood, therefore, accompanied him through the frigid gray morning that followed.  He couldn’t use the comebacks on their target now, of course, but with a little tweaking, he could work them into “Ascent of the Ruby Slippers”.  This was one of the meagre advantages of his secret career.  Anything unpleasant that happened to him could add to the book.

     Swinging his briefcase, mouthing a polished riposte he’d perfected on the bus, he marched into Down.  “You’re looking mighty cheerful on such a glumpy day,” said Maryann.

\     “Where’s your pen?” asked Linda, shuffling off her coat as she passed him.

     “Hmmmm?”  he glanced at his fellow prisoner.  He shook some snow from the coast over his right arm and was turning back toward Maryann when one eye was struck by a flash of green from Linda’s dark blue suit.

     A fierce and red-eyed parrot glared from the top of a pen clipped to Laura’s collar.  “It’s all the thing for people on the inside track,” she explained, as Matt stared.  “Don’t YOU have one?”

     Matt opened his mouth, but Maryann was quicker, pointing out, “Oh, he had one on yesterday.”

     Matt looked the secretary up and down.  She had never been particularly malicious before.  “Um,” he said.  “Un, just got here.  Heh.  Not really dressed yet.”

     He hurried back to his cubicle, fishing out the key.  The teddy bear pen was where he’d left it with the other pens.  He tossed the coat onto one of the extra chairs and sat to study the bear.  He put a hand on the desk.  Then, cursing himself for cowardice even as he did it, he picked up the pen and stuck it into his lapel.

     Sighing, he opened his briefcase and transferred his lunch to the lunch drawer, taking quick inventory to make sure it held no surprises.  Then he took up his “List of Things To Do” and added “Pick Up AS’s Pix” to the profound and persnickety errands listed there.  He frowned.  What did the pictures have to do with a party guest dead in the soup?  She hadn’t said.

     Matt shrugged.  Plenty of other chores sat ahead of that on the list, commencing with “More Paper Clips”.  He started out of the cubicle again, list in hand.

     He was halfway to Maryann’s command post when someone roared, “You here, Benz?  Come look at these!”

     Only one person in Down dared to roar.  Matt did an about face and marched back to Walter prince’s lair.  The occupant could be heard snarling, “Some people think he’s nothing but a big dumb jerk.  Not true: he isn’t so big.  Bust his head open, but I don’t want all that ignorance getting loose.”

     Bracing himself for his first bawl-out of the day, Matt stepped into the doorway of the Chief Cubicle.

     Walter Prince sat behind the desk, with Carleton Nairn occupying the chair angled like a witness stand to the right.  The rookie was chewing a pencil, his face painted  with rue.  Matt felt sorry for him.

    The High Cockalorum slapped a sheaf of paper onto the desktop.  “Benz, look at these spreadsheets!”

     Matt leaned forward to do so, but refrained from comment until told HOW to look at them.

     Both Walter Prince’s hands came down flat on the pages.  “Why can’t we get more results like this around here, Benz?”

     This was not much of a clue: sarcasm was one of Walter Prince’s favorite blunt instruments.  Still, Matt felt it was time for him to say something about Carleton Nairn’s first effort.  He ventured that the data seemed to have been competently assembled.  This meant there were no coffee cup rings visible on the top sheet.

     “It looks competent because it IS competent!” Walter Prince informed him, slapping the pages again.  “This is the way I want work done around this joint!  Why it should take a newcomer to show the whole gang of you how it’s done….”

     Carleton Nairn shifted the pencil he was chewing and said, “Well, now, I just remembered how the sheets Sil….”

     He wilted under Waltr Prince’s gaze and his superior went on, “I don’t set up discord in my department, or I’d send copies to every one of you as an example.  If I thought anybody was going to look.  You’re all going to have to pull up your socks, Benz; we’ve got someone who knows what he’s doing now.”  He pushed himself back from the desk to where he could glare up into Matt’s face without craning his neck.  “MacTaggart can’t handle the work at all.  She’ll have to go.”

     “Oh!”  The monosyllable broke from Matt’s mouth.  Since Walter Prince’s attention was focused on him now, he decided to go on, “Well, er, she’s still just new.  Inexperienced and…really, you know.  Er…she’ll get the hang of it.”

     “And you’re a booby, Benz,” Walter Prince reminded him.  “I don’t even know why I bother with you.  Get back to work.  Try not to screw things up so much we can’t fix them later.”

     Matt turned.  Carleton Nairn made as if to rise and follow.  He put a hand toward Matt’s elbow.  “Sorry about….”

     “Get back here, Nairn,” Walter Prince barked.  “I didn’t say it was perfect.  Tell me what this is supposed to mean.”

     Holly was just sneaking in and unlocking her cubicle.  Matt wondered if he ought to pass along some warning.  Would it be more merciful to let her get settled in first?  She might be embarrassed at being caught ducking in late.  He wandered across to the tallest row of file cabinets and meandered for a few minutes, glancing now and again at the list of things to do in his hand as if he didn’t already have all the work he’d need for the rest of the year piled on his desk.

     He came out of the maze at the far end, insuring that he would have to pass Holly’s cubicle to reach his own.  His care was wasted: she wasn’t inside.  He heard her voice coming from Watanabe’s…no, Carleton Nairn’s now, of course.

     “Oh, that’s just Prince.  I’m not afraid of him.”

     “I could see that,” a low whisper replied.  “But it’s not just Mr. Prince.  Mr. Benz was saying that you just don’t have it yet: that you’re young and don’t have the experience.”

     Matt blinked twice and slid back into the cabinet maze to take the long way to his enclosure.  He understood about Carleton Nairn a little better: the city veteran was an employee after Walter Prince’s heart.  And probably after Matt’s corner cubicle as well.

     Matt sat down and set his elbows on the desk.  Carleton Nairn could have the cubicle, as far as Matt was concerned.  But there was no way to sign a deed and transfer the real estate.  Cubicles could not be swapped.  No, there had to be convoluted maneuvering, resulting in a loss of cubicle and job as well.

     A spot in city bureaucracy was not the height of Matt’s desire but he did need the salary.  He aimed for no four-window office with two secretaries; all he sought was a congenial way to make a living wage while he wrote his stupid little stories.  (He knew they were stupid or they’d have been published by now.)  What a pity there was no grant or trust fund to support harmless creatures who frittered with fiction, to the annoyance of their families.

    Matt’s relatives were the lenient sort.  He owed his job and his apartment to relatives who had found these for him.  Matt paid the rent, but his older brothers had examined the lease, checked out the neighborhood, and told him where to sign.  Their excuse was that it was their duty to be sure their mother had the right place to live.  Matt wasn’t fooled.  They were creating a sanctuary for two waifs at once.  The apartment was a little trophy case for useless items with too much sentimental value to be thrown away: a place where Matt and Mom would be sage from harm and no one would be tripping over them.

     Matt wondered, sometimes, if he ought to resent this.  Too much work, really, to seethe over something so insubstantial: besides it was a nice apartment.  And someday the Great Thing would happen and prove his value to the world.  The Great Thing varied from daydream to daydream.  He rescued someone’s lovely daughter.  He talked some poor, unloved being out of suicide.  Sometimes he just made a great deal of money.

     “I made $48,382 this morning,” he murmured, trying it out.

     None of these things had so far happened, for which he was profoundly grateful.  Any of them would be time-consuming and conspicuous (mortal sins).  And Matt was burdened with a daunting streak of realism.  Even in daydreams, he couldn’t shake the conviction that, being handed fame and fortune on a silver platter, he would fumble the platter.

     A familiar voice cut through the gloom.  “See?  I told you they’d all be here at this hour.”

     Matt frowned.  Identifying the voice, he felt his heart sink.  “Oh,” someone replied.  “By this time of day, everyone knows what time it is if they just look at the lock.”

     Recognizing this second voice, Matt felt his heart die.

Over Exposure

     No, I think it’s time to move on.  We have by no means exhausted the subject of wardrobe malfunctions on bygone postcards, but there are other, more delicate,  subjects we can address in this special space.  (You have no idea how many new outhouse postcards have come into inventory.)

     We have done enough for the whole concept of the accidental upskirt. (Nonetheless, this postcard has a number of interesting issues.  Who’s speaking: him because he’s “looking up” or her, because the onlooker is “looking up for me”?  How is her skirt being held down by that strap that doesn’t seem to reach to the back of the skirt while the paratrooper in the background is getting full attention from the breeze?  And what kind of operation required someone to drop two WACs into an Allied airbase?)

     And there is no time to go through ALL the variations on the Mouse upskirt gag.  This might make a whole nother blog, since it would be interesting to compare the ingenuity of the early postcards, like this one, in finding something for the lady to jump up on, with the ingenuity of later postcards, finding a way to make the lady raise her skirt for fear of a mouse even when the skirt was, as dictated by fashion, pretty much too high for a mouse to reach anyhow.

     We have already covered (or uncovered) every idea in the line of fallen underdrawers gags.

     And does the “Skirt Too Short” gag really count as a wardrobe malfunction?  The lady is just in a place where her outfit becomes awkward.

     Is the act of simply leaning a bit too far forward a malfunction or merely an Ogle-of-Opportunity?  (By not discussing this whole matter, I can avoid telling the story of my encounter in an arcade with a pair of yellow underpants that had bluebirds all over them.  I shall save that for my autobiography …or TikTok.)

     We have briefly mentioned hereintofore children with bare bottoms as a joke our ancestors felt was both cute and hilarious.  I await the news that half the comic books I read as a kid are now illegal to send through the mails.  (Did you know, by the way, that a comic book is not covered by the book rate at the post office?  THAT’S a whole nother blog as well.)

     Shirley, we have done enough, here and there, for the assorted wardrobe mistakes made by young female tourists at dude ranches.  Until I find more in the next load of incoming postcards.

     Besides, I am tired of scouring the collection for the very occasional wardrobe malfunction involving men, just to show wardrobes malfunctions are not limited to one side of the Battle of the Sexes.  So we will not be discussing wardrobe malfunction postcards here today.  Try to get along somehow, and keep an eye on your knicker elastic.

Fashionable Transparency

     No, we’re not quite done with our discussion of wardrobe malfunction gags on vintage postcards.  We have not even addressed transparency, and THAT, I know, is an up-to-date atter for discussion and debate.  I check those articles on transparency in business for useful photos, but maybe I’m missing something.  Anyway, this first postcard doesn’t count, since that is INTENTIONAL transparency.  (We mentioned hereintofore the delicate lines that were drawn in to assure any post office censors that the model is NOT naked under that sheer raincoat.  Hose shorts are nearly as magical as the raincoat, but they ARE there.)

     The intentionally transparent garment has been a subject of discussion for centuries, going back to whichever sage defined silk as an expression of a woman’s desire to be clothed and naked at the same time.  That, of course, was merely a matter of something that was so form-fitting as to SEEM transparent, like the custom ladies in Regency England had of wetting down their already somewhat scanty garments so that they would be tight and nearly transparent if the British climate was not damp enough.

     What we need for wardrobe malfunction is at least a transparent garment that the wearer did not expect to be viewed in, at least not by random visitors.

     Or possibly some new-fangled garment which the wearer may or may not realize is thoroughly transparent.  Artist Walter Wellman would never let a phenomenon like that pass him by.  (Art students may note here that he is exhibiting the habit, more common in animated cartoons than postcard ones, eyeballs had of bouncing out of the face when shocked.)

     For thorough wardrobe malfunction quality, though, we need garments which are transparent only under certain circumstances, of which the model may be completely unaware.  No need to come up with an excuse for the model to climb a tree or get too close to a barbed wire fence.

     Sunlight is the cartoonist’s accomplice in these gags.  (I don’t believe this is REALLY what we mean when we say “sun dress”.)

     For one thing, this means the accidental nudity is largely a matter of silhouette, whereas real transparency would have meant details the mailman was forbidden to deliver.  (There’s a lot going on in the details here.  You can see that the female student looks angry—was the cartoonist implying sympathy or jealousy?—and the blackboard shows that she teaches anatomy more efficiently than she does spelling.)

     As usual, the male counterparts in this area are far behind: this is not precisely accidental transparency, but as male nudes were policed even more fiercely than female ones, this was the best a cartoonist could really do.  (Even with his back to us, the suggestion that a male model’s swimsuit was transparent would have been too shocking for the general public…no matter what they might have seen in the flesh at the local beach.)

LIKE A MIGHTY QUONKER, Chapter 5

     The eyes sparkled.  The impudent little chin came down.

     “Boo!” said Mrs. Silberwetter.

     Matt took a step back.  Mrs. Silberwetter started forward and Matt took five giant steps back.  A slow, deep smile rolled across the woman’s rosy face.  Every millimeter of exposed tooth brightened the room sixteen candlepower.  Eyelashes that should have been registered with the police batted mocking messages across glowing round eyes.  Matt’s brother George had always told him, “Stay away from women with big round eyes: nobody’s THAT innocent.”  Matt had found this dependable.

     Ada Silberwetter was known as a woman of easy virtue, but that was untrue.  She had none at all.  Matt’s mind swept against his will to a sweltering summer afternoon when she had popped out of his closet.  Although the visit had been brief, he remembered the location of every dimple in that peach-frosted angelfood body.  Today, Mrs. Silberwetter was clothed, in a severe brown suit, which was all right, but…wasn’t there supposed to be something under the jacket?

     “Well?”  The word dipped and swooped so nicely that she said it again.  “Well?  Are you surprised to see me?”

     He must not appear flustered: that was what she wanted.  He growled, “Surprised you didn’t come in a window this time.”

     She tipped her head toward one round shoulder, and rolled her eyes up.  “In this weather?”

     Her hands clasped in front of her.  A nostalgic little sigh shook her lapels, and Matt’s composure.  “That was a red-letter day,” she said.  “And I had so hoped for a scarlet letter day.”

     Matt’s throat seemed to be closing off.  Probably acold: he coughed.  “You’d never make it today.  They installed screen locks.”

     “Here you go,” said his mother, stepping from the kitchen with two steaming cups.  “What are you talking about?”

     “The screen locks,” Matt told her.

     “Oh, the screen locks,” she repeated, with an uneasy disinterest that indicated complete ignorance of what a screen lock might be.  “The screen locks.  Of course.”

     “Those new security locks on the window screens,” Matt told her.  “So no one can get in.”

     She nodded.  “A very good idea.”  She turned to Ada, waving one teacup.  “You know, the way people break into places is scandalous.  Stealing, killing…someone was killed on this very floor last summer.”

     “Ah,” said Mts. Silberwetter.  “How naughty.”  Matt winced.  Having known, worked with, and disliked the deceased, he still expected the long arm of the law to drop a hand on his shoulder any day.  The police had found him far too interesting.

     “Matt?  Are you here?”  His mother blinked in his direction.  “It was right on this floor, wasn’t it?  Two doors down?”

     Mrs. Silberwetter was opening her mouth to reply.  “So!” Matt exclaimed.  “Mrs. Silberwetter!  How’s Marhsall?  Marshall Silberwetter, your husband!  Remember him?”

     Ada crossed her eyes at him, and a soft pink tongue jabbed out for a second before she replied, in tea party tones, “Not well, really.”

     “What’s wrong?” Mrs. Benz inquired.  This was something she did understand.

     “Fatal complaint,” Ada replied.  “Ignoring his doctor.”

     The older woman nodded.  “I’ve got a bad case of that myself.”

     “Very sad,” Matt added.  “However would you get along without him?”

     An insincerely dimpled smile came his way as a reply.  “Marshall IS such an intelligent man,” said its owner.  “HE appreciates fine things.”  She raised a hand to her hair, carelessly exposing one round, perfect arm as the sleeve slid back.  “You’d never guess how much he gives to Public Television.”

     Matt cleared his throat.  “I see his son lost that race for the thirty-fourth.”

     Ada shrugged.  “It wasn’t his fault.  A poor lad can’t always get laryngitis when he needs it.  But we must get back to business, and not detain your little boy, right, Mrs. Benz?”  She nodded to Matt and ambled around the corner into the dining nook.

     The older woman nodded and followed, still holding two cups of tea.

     Matt, who had been wishing Ada Silberwetter was out of his sight, irrationally chose to hustle down the hall after them.  “Business,” he said, coming around the corner, “What business?”

     “I suppose you think I do nothing all day but eat bonbons and read True Romances,” answered Mrs. Silberwetter.  She arched her spine, squared her shoulders, and wriggled a bit in her chair.  “I came to consult an expert. One of our guests dropped dead at our little Thanksgiving party.”

     Mrs. Benz frowned.  “I didn’t read a thing about that in the newspapers.”

     Ada patted Mrs. Benz’s hand.  “You won’t,” she said.  “Now, he had a weak heart, so it might have been nothing at all.  But he’d been receiving those threatening letters.”  She spread one hand on the table, palm up.

     Matt took a long breath.  “Do you have something personal about telling the police?”

     “Oh, that’s so indiscreet,” Ada sighed, arching her back again.

     “No, no,” Matt assured her.  “Very discreet chaps, those police.  Nobody better than this city’s police at keeping a secret.  I’ve said so time and again.  Any cases of murder with threatening letters that my friends turn up, I always tell them to go to the police.  I….”

     “Matt,” his mother broke in, “How CAN you be such a stick-in-the mud?”

     He glared at her.  “Willpower.”

     Ada gave a little bounce of glee.  “And don’t you read books?” she demanded.  “The detective is always the least likely to get killed.  It’s the safest job in the story!”

     Sensing, without seeing, that her son was seething, Mrs. Benz added “You know what trouble I’ve had starting stories these days.  I thought this might give me some ideas.”

     Matt opened his mouth to =reply but shut it again as Ada announced, “great oaks from little okras grow.”

     In the silence that followed this, she studied both Benzes.  “The detective has to say profound things.  Then the sidekick gushes over them.”

     “And those pictures are a perfect plot device,” said Mrs. Benz, visibly resolving not to try to figure this out right away.  She pushed her chair back and jumped up.  “That’s right!  I was going to look in my room!  Just a moment.”

     Muttering “I’d forget my head if it didn’t have my glasses on it,” she bustled through the kitchen to get to her bedroom without passing Matt.  She just missed kicking over the trash bin as she turned the corner.

     “She’s already looked there,” said Ada, looked back and up at Matt.  “She didn’t find them.”

     Matt had planned to say something entirely else, but found himself apologizing.  “No, I accidentally took those to work…if you mean the skull ad the tombstones.  But I can bring them back tomorrow.”

     He caught himself, and his breath, and started over.  “Now….”

     “Oh, don’t be that way,” Ada interrupted, setting one elbow on the table in a way that endangered the top button of her jacket.  “I need somebody to hunt clues and I can’t use any of Marshall’s creatures.”

     “Why us?” Matt demanded.  Setting his hands on the table, h e glared into her face, ignoring other options,  “With Marshall’s money you could rent Clint Eastwood.”

     “What?  That fellow who looks like Dick Cavett?” Ada retorted.  “You’re handier, and you’re the only private eye I know who doesn’t submit an expense account.”

     “I am not….”

   “Besides.”  Her lower lip came out in a pout and her eyebrows went up.  “You wouldn’t let me come around this summer and solve Gus’s murder.  One of my own ex-husbands, and you hogged that all to yourself.”

     Matt rose, covering his eyes so she couldn’t see how hard we winced.  She went on, “Anyway, I love the funny faces you make every time I come within five feet.  Guys who blush aren’t that easy to come by.”

     Matt’s teeth were clenched so tight he expected to hear them snap.  “I will not….”

     “Ha!”  Ada pointed one sharp red fingernail at him.  “And I really like your mom.  I bet we could do this without you, once you stop stealing the evidence.  We were having a lovely chat before you came in to play spoilsport.”

     Standing up, she marched to the front door, collecting a hat, coat, and scarf that matched her lipstick from the front closet.  “See you tomorrow, Mrs. Benz!” she called, sashaying her way from the apartment.

     “Does she have all the answers already?” Matt’s mother asked, stepping out of her bedroom.

     Matt sighed.  “She thinks she does.”

Feeling Down

     Some wardrobe malfunction jokes are relatively young.  This sort of gag, for example, is largely from the era when elastic replaced buttons for holding up the underdrawers.  I cannot claim to be much of an expert on fashion, but the lady on this relatively late issue of Cap’n Billy’s Whiz-Bang seems to have chosen style over function, for that waistband does NOT look dependable.

     Although this young lady’s predicament comes from a postcard of an earlier decade.  This seems to be  drawstring problem.  Perhaps a fashion specialist IS needed for this discussion, though that might get us into a side issue on whether we had to wait until the underdrawer-optional era came to its end.  And I know you’re more interested in postcards than such stuff.

     Here we see, with Walter Wellman’s passing observer, that the 1930s certainly understood the dropped drawers joke.  This, unlike the other wardrobe malfunctions discussed hereintofore during this rather elastic series, relies less on the embarrassment of the main character but on her state of ignorance about what has just happened.  Whether a glimpse of her unmentionables or anticipation of what she will do and say when she finds out are the core of the gag.

     This MUST involve the latter: he has surely seen his wife’s undies before.  Maybe WE are supposed to chuckle at his predicament instead of hers: he doesn’t realize yet that he is destined to be taken on a shopping trip to buy new lingerie.

     This is simply a fine old joke, attempted by several cartoonists at several companies over the ages.  If there WAS a fashion historian on my payroll, we could consider all the different styles of underpants over the years.

     I am merely a joke historian, an examiner of social trends.  I am more interested in whether this variant was supposed to be more or less naughty than the sort shown in the previous example.

     Although the nether garment involved in the gag was considered naughtier indeed than a swimsuit or short dress, the circumstances make the scene itself less potentially harmful to those of a delicate sensibility.  THIS joke, now, shows even less than the previous ones, but may or may not suggest more.  (For those who lack dry cleaning establishments of this sort, cleaners used to have emergency services for people who were dressed up for some event and ran afoul of a mud puddle, a passing impudent bird, or other possible damage.  The customer, usually a man, would wait in this little modesty booth while the damaged pants were cleaned.  THIS gentleman is entertained by seeing his fellow customer’s unspecified plight.

     Men were not as vulnerable to this sort of gag, so we must fall back on losing one’s overpants for them.  And even here we’re supposed to be paying attention to the pneumatic lady discussing inflation.  Parity is not always possible.

Out On a Tear

     There was never any real plan to do a dissertation on the history of wardrobe malfunctions in art, even just in postcard art.  However, the possibilities of revealing accidents are limitless, and it is a fear common to most of us, regardless of class or gender.  As a mighty philosopher once stated, “Everybody’s got a naked.”

     In previous installments, we have considered mischievous breezes and impudent props.  But these did not cover, or uncover, the results of more serious accidents, a theme which does take us  back to the Golden Age of postcards.

     This is about as serious as the accidents get.  I hate to be THAT blogger, but this card, neatly as it depicts the scene, does not use the best version of the limerick in question, which specified that the lady from St. Paul WAS wearing a Newspaper Dress and asked us to commiserate with someone who burned her entire Sporting Section.  Maybe the verse as originally written didn’t fit on the card.

     Clothes which got torn (or in this case, chewed off) provided another theme common to all ages and levels of society.  THIS lady is a very intent artist, or the goat is working very quickly.  She also teaches us an important lesson, which is that we must not forget our underdrawers when going on a photographic safari.  (Not sure how this got past the editors; a lot of wardrobe malfunction postcards show clearly where the Powers That Were said “Okay, put a thin black line right here so everyone knows she IS wearing underpants.”)

     Here we have a fie example (or a ripping good case) of bygone slang providing the basis for a joke.  In the United States, a “ripping good time” was a phrase used primarily among the flaming youth of the 1920s.

     Except on postcards, where its life was extended another generation simply because no artist wants to give up a good gag as long as there might be SOMEBODY who still understands.  (We will devote another column someday to those postcards for people who were having a “Slapping Good Time” or even a “Whacking Good Time”.)

     Of course, where the wardrobe malfunction postcard is most functional is in fashion history.  Correct me if I am reading too much value into cartoons and social history, but THIS particular gag wasn’t really possible in the days when bathing suits were more voluminous and less formfitting.  Yes, the Edwardians had their torn swimsuit cartoons, but a lady putting on the swimsuit and realizing that, well, it has obviously shrunk over the winter belong to a later age.

     And, as ever, the joke was not always on the ladies.  The cartoonists of the First AND Second World Wars (at least) could never resist this particular military jargon.  Although here we are left rather in doubt about just what HAPPENED to the soldier’s trousers.  He is, quite properly, facing the foe, so was this friendly fire?  Is the percussive shock of that bit of artillery being fired rough enough to…anyway, the cartoonist couldn’t resist the possibilities and a fine old joke is a fine old joke.

LIKE A MIGHTY QUONKER, Chapter 4

     The rest of the day passed without incident, aside from the tantrum Walter Prince threw on learning Matt has assumed the authority to unlock Watanabe’s cubicle and present it to Carleton Nairn.  In the beginning, Matt had suffered terrific anxiety over such explosions, but by now he couldn’t even work up a sweat.  He had learned that one of the primary functions of Walter Prince’s assistant was to absorb at least one tirade a day.  If it hadn’t been about Carleton Nairn’s workspace, it would have been something else.

     It was wearying, though, day after day, so instead of boarding a Number 11 bus, Matt walked a couple of blocks to catch a One-Fifty-One and rode it to Water Tower Place.  A little Christas shopping would settle his nerves.

     After all, there were no decisions to be made outside Water Tower Place the month before Christmas.  You just joined the migratory pattern and pried yourself loose once you reached the top floor.  Here the array was beautiful and useless and all browsing strictly frivolous.  Matt’s height made it easy to window shop, and he checked all the store displays, debating whether his mother would prefer a ceramic satyr ir a seven foot vinyl grandfather clock with a telephone holder on each side of the case.  He had no intention of buying either; he was pretty sure he didn’t want to meet any human being who would.  In his pocket was a list of things his mother had mentioned wanting, but he did not check this.  The Benz family had always bought gifts on the Surprise Principle: if you bought someone something they asked for, it wouldn’t be a surprise.

     Finishing the seventh floor, and noting distaste that a boring clothing shop was slated to open between the tobacco novelties store and the designer telephone outlet, he worked his way down through the mall.  Eventually, and not by accident, he found himself in front of the bakery where Beth worked.  The crowd was sparse here.  Shops on both sides had decided to relocate, and remodeling for new tenants was going on behind silvery wooden barricades that completely hid the gourmet pastry shop between.

     There was only one other customer when Matt walked in.  She was enough.  “One without too many nuts,” she said, looking over a tray of precisely identical brownies.  “And not too dry.  The one I had yesterday was like chalk.  And not all mooshy in the middle, either.  You know what I mean: not quite done.  You know what I want.”

     A yellow-haired, red-faced clerk was doing her best to maintain an even temper.  The other counter attendant was a large-eyed creature whose shoulders rose bare inches above the counter.  The soft face was fixed in an expression of concentrated disinterest: large eyes intently regarded a square of linoleum that was not quite the same shape as the rest of the floor.

     This short gloomy person was Beth Zimmerman who, under the name Jinx Bottym, wrote much short gloomy verse.  She had won some attention with her book, Aftermath Alphabet (“A is for Apple, Big and Brown; B is for Burned-out Buildings in Town”).  But writing poetry still paid less regularly than packing fat round cookies into white paper bags.

    “I have some envelopes for you,” Matt told her, unlatching his briefcase.

     “Ah,” she said, not shifting her eyes from the linoleum.

     Not that Beth was ever excited about anything, but Matt could understand a certain lack of glee at the five envelopes with fold marks across them as he drew these from the briefcase.  Acting as her agent, Matt sent Jinx Bottym’s poems hither and yon, getting most of it back in stamped return envelopes.  Beth knew as well as he did the author’s credo: “Big Checks Come In Unfolded Envelopes.”

     Matt slid these across the counter and brought the briefcase up to relatch it.  “Say,” he said, glancing into the luggage on his knee, “These aren’t yours, are they?  I found them this morning and don’t know where they came from.”

     Beth’s glance actually brushed the yellow box he brought out, but then went right past to rest on a spot of powdered sugar marring the surface of a lonely chocolate doughnut.  “No,” she said.

     He raised the lid.  “Well, look.”

     Matt’s heart soared: when that left nostril flared, it meant Beth was interested.  Two small white hands pushed his away from the box.  Matt leaned toward the pictures of the ancient gravestones, her blouse billowing against the countertop to expose what was more of a dimple than cleavage.

     Matt tried to look away and failed.  His moral compass, he felt, had been bent out of shape forever the afternoon he was flashed by the wife of Marshall Silberwetter, a city official so far Matt’s superior that Matt never knew whether to shake his hand or kowtow.  Mrs. Silberwetter had wanted to see what Matt would do.  When Matt did absolutely nothing, this amused her far more than any other action he might have come up with.

     Matt still felt sullied by the encounter.  Hitherto, his association with Beth, though tinged a bit with romance, had been primarily intellectual.  Now he couldn’t look at her without speculation.

     Beth had the top picture out of the box, flipping it over to consider two Xs penciled on the back.  Her eyes, of course, still seemed to be pointing at the lonely doughnut in the display case, but she said, without interest, “Interesting.”

     “Would you….”  Matt’s voice seemed ridiculously breathless to him.  “Would you like to keep them…overnight?”  He felt himself blush.  “I have to figure out whose they are, but I don’t suppose anyone will miss them tonight.”

     The top picture went back into the box, which then slid into a pocket in Beth’s apron.  “Okay.”

     Matt’s heart was high as he sloshed out of water Tower Place to await  Number Eleven.  By the time the bus arrived, however, he was already trying to identify what he had done wrong.  E should have allowed Beth to keep them more than one night; insisting on one was probably too pushy.  Of course, he could hardly have stood there negotiating a special date for the return of the photographs.  Beth’s manager didn’t like employees to stand around talking.  Had the manager been within earshot?  Matt scolded himself for not checking.  He always reminded himself to look for the manager before even passing Beth the envelopes.  After he reviewed the scene in the bakery six times without coming to any definite conclusions about the manager’s whereabouts, he replayed everything he’d said, checking words and intonations for mistakes.

     This took time; his mind was still on it as he walked through the lobby of his building and boarded the elevator.  He was on the nineteenth floor and inside the apartment before he knew it.  Once he did know it, he turned back for a look at the locks.

     Usually, getting past this door involved a certain amount of agony because his mother, hearing him arrive, would hurry to “help”.  Turning knobs, she would lock locks he had unlocked and unlock others until they were both thoroughly confused.  But this time there had been no such reception.

     He slid toward his mother’s bedroom door to see if anything was wrong and then heard a voice ask, “What time does your son get home?”

     Matt, remembering his mother’s fans, nodded and started to tiptoe back toward his own bedroom, hoping to attract no attention.  “Oh,” his mother replied, “By the time he gets home, it’ll be about the time he usually gets here.”

     The other voice had been faintly familiar, reassuring Matt, but the little laugh that greeted his mother’s reply sent shivers shooting the length of his backbone.  He held his position, trying to remember where he’d heard it.

     His brain tossed him a possibility, and he shook his head.  Impossible.  His mother didn’t even know….  He started toward the bedroom again.  One knee knocked the briefcase against the wall.

     “Matt?” called Mrs. Benz.  “Matt, is that you?”

     There was no escape.  “It better be,” he replied.

     Chars shifted; two women came into view from the dining nook.  “Oh, Matt!”  Mrs. Benz turned to her guest.  “This is my son Matthew.  Matt, this is Ada Silberwetter.  We’re here in the dining room having some….  Oh, I still haven’t brought in the tea!”

     Raising both hands to shoulder height, she turned and hurried back through the dining room to the kitchen.  The people she left behind studied each other from opposite ends of the hall.  Matt noticed his hands were poised above his hips as if he was about to reach for his sixguns.  The briefcase whacked the wall again as he swept both hands behind his back.

Keep Your Skirt Down; You’re a Big Girl Now

     In our last thrilling episode, we were considering the Windy Day school of Wardrobe Malfunction postcards.  These small cardboard jokes were aimed primarily at a bit more leg exposure than was allowed the average woman going about her daily chores.  But if the breezes did not cooperate, an artist could resort to more slapstick methods of exposing an ankle, calf, or thigh.  THIS theme goes back to the early days of postcard humor, as you can see above.

     But the accidental leg exposure motif became wildly important at mid-century, when pinup painters busied themselves thinking of possible accidents which would result in accidental exposure.  Artists like Gil Elvgren, whose Near Miss is seen here, did not generally publish their work on postcards, but did benefit from the nostalgia market, which produced this postcard for pinup collectors.

     A dog’s leash, an inconvenient door: anything that would keep a lady’s hands occupied so she couldn’t hold her skirt down would do.  One artist, Art Frahm, specialized in pinups which made matters worse by not only having a skirt fly up while the lady was trying to untangle herself from a leash, but would also make it clear that the elastic in her underdrawers had given way at the same time (though the skirt was generally flying up in a way that denied anything too intimate from being displayed to us, the viewers.  What onlookers at the scene saw was left to our imagination.)  But postcards were generally too subject to postal inspection for this degree of catastrophe.

     Unless the artist could think of a way to make it harmless.

     But a lady did not need to have her hands full for an accident to result in an embarrassing display.  Like our lady at the fence, above, a badly placed prop would be enough.

     Or an inexpert fisherman.

    It was not even necessary for the lady in question to realize what was going on.  The postcard artist could instead capture a moment before it all sank in.

     You will notice that in most of these situations, the artist has NOT included an onlooker (unlike the Frahm “Lady in Distress” pinups, which always included spectators to make the situation even worse.)  After all, that’s what WE were there for.

     And, as always, there was at least one artist to remind us that social exposure is not limited to women.  (See column hereintofore on skinny-dipping accidents for the ultimate in men’s wardrobe malfunctions.)

Now You See It, Now You….

     I was going to write a quick and breezy column about the wonderful world of wardrobe malfunctions in bygone postcards.  Dropped pants, bathing suits torn in quite the wrong places…it was going to be a high class, high tone study of the humor of previous generations.

     But there was a theme that was simply too all over everywhere to ignore.  The single most popular mishap in the world of clothing was the strong breeze.  A high wind could takes skirts higher than intended to the delight of the passing voyeur.  The tradition was passed along for generations, along with the joke about the lady who was reproved for hanging onto her hat in a high wind instead of attending to covering up farther down.  (If you are not up on your Fine Old Jokes, the punchline is, “The hat’s brand new.  What those guys are looking at is twenty-three years old.”)

     Perhaps you think this was not a hazard in the days of long dresses.  This isn’t the least bit so.  That era coincided with one in which a glimpse of stocking was looked on as something shocking.  (Thank you, Mr. Porter.)  Plenty of cartoonists went farther than a lady’s hosiery, in fact, and some no doubt longed for the days of hoop skirts, which offered even greater latitude.

     We have discussed the phenomenon a little in previous bloggery.  One theory of why the phrase “23 skiddoo” (it meant “scram”) was that it refers to a street in New York known for loafers waiting for the wind to toss up the skirts of passersby.  One of the earliest surviving naughty movies is a Thomas Edison release in which an unwary young lady walks over a subway grate just as a train passes, sending her skirts up past her knees.

     The gag continued in popularity well through World War II (when ogling women was another sign that the American serviceman was a red-blooded American boy).

     And into the post-war world.  The joke remained a harmless detour into the very outskirts (sorry) of carnal joys: a moment’s embarrassment for the victim, a moment’s gratification for the viewer.  Nothing, really, to attract the eye of any but the most diligent and severe of censors.

     Really short skirts and the decline of postcards in the sixties muted the joke, perhaps, and attention moved over to the equally old joke of how a lady gets out of a vehicle without showing too much of what the skirts were supposed to cover.  The joke, like the weather that caused it, remains, and will probably never QUITE disappear.

     It has been applied, in fact, in places one might not expect.  But we can dissect the humor of this card someday when we have more space to consider kilt humor, and the various uses of the word “wind”.  We are, I think, doomed to wonder just why the young lady, who is wearing one of the few styles of skirt which will NOT accommodate the joke, is blushing about.

LIKE A MIGHTY QUONKER, Chapter 3

      Matt stood up and put out a hand.  “Um,” he said.  “How do you do?”

     “Er, good morning,” said Carleton Nairna little taken aback, as were most people, by just how much of Matt there was.

    Matt had heard of Carleton Nairn.  Everyone in the city had heard of Carleton Nairn.  The call-in radio shows had devoted time to Carleton Nairn, and the Tribune was in a proper snit about Carleton Nairn.  Carleton Nairn once held a position with the city before taking a court-ordered sabbatical for embezzling.  After his release, he cooled his heels in a consulting job designed for heel-cooling.  His old friends had been seeking to get him on the city payroll again in some position insignificant enough to escape notice.  But Carleton Nairn wasn’t cool enough yet.  A spot in Streets and San brought forth editorials demanding why he hadn’t stayed in prison at least long enough for people to count how much he’d stolen.  So, seeking a spot even less significant, his friends had apparently deposited him in Matt’s cubicle.

     Very little of this concerned Matt.  He suspected a number of his superiors had done less time for more money.  If anything, it made him feel a little sorry for Carleton Nairn, since anyone with such a public flaw was going to be at a disadvantage dealing with Walter Prince.  But it did make him study his new co-worker with some interest.

     The Tribune photographers had flattered Carleton Nairn, or the editors had dug way back in the archives for pictures.  Carleton Nairn was a chinless specimen with bulging eyes and tentative sideburns that did not begin tom make up for the polished gap in his hairline.

     The smile, though, was hearty and professional.  “I’ve heard of you, Mr. Benz,” he said, putting another hand up so as to have Matt’s hand in both of his, as if those fingers were precious to him.

     For one moment, Matt wondered if Nairn would mention short stories.  Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine had accidentally purchased some of his fiction, moving him from local to national obscurity.

     “I read that report you put together on the Pedestrian Underpass Ordinance.  Great.  Great stuff.”

     “Thank you,” said Matt, cancelling a sigh.  “Yes.  Well, uh…glad to have you here, Mr. Nairn.”

     “Carleton,” his apprentice corrected him, still cherishing the handshake.

     “Yes.”  Matt came around the desk as an excuse to lever his hand free.  “Er, they did tell us we’d get more staffing in due course.”

     Nairn chuckled appreciation.  “Yes, and due course is always years away.  Like when your parents said ‘In a while, dear’.”

     Matt chuckled back at Carleton Nairn.  “Well, uh, um.  I, ah, well, you’ll want to see your cubicle.”

     “Yes, indeed.”  Carleton Nairn nodded.   “Enough chitchat, get to work, right?”

     “Oh, I didn’t….”  Carleton Nairn had already turned for the door, and in the time it took him to look back, Matt realized he might have been making a joke.  So, with a semi-hearty “Heh heh”, Matt followed his new subordinate outside, fumbling in one pocket for the key.

     The departures at Down had left three cubicles locked and unloved: Matt’s former cell, the one Nelson Ryan had abandoned after learning he would not inherit Thaxter’s, and that of Richard Watanabe, felled by an anonymous mugger in Grant Park just in time to abolish any calm period between the death of Thaxter and the huffed farewell of Ryan.

     Watanabe’s cubicle was nearest to Matt’s new domain.  Matt unlocked this and looked around it.  It would probably do: Watanabe’s sister had collected his things, leaving the space tidier than its occupant had ever been.  Pens, pencils, and papers still littered the desktop, though.

     Carleton Nairn had to ease around Matt to find standing room inside this little box.  “Half a window,” he said.  “Not bad.”  He picked up a Bears mug that had served as a pencil holder.  “That was a heartbreaker Monday night, wasn’t it?”

     “Mm,” Matt agreed.  It seemed to him that any second Watanabe would still waltz in, explaining that he was a little late because he’d had to attend his aunt’s cat’s funeral.

     Nairn set the mug back down and moved over to give the chair an experimental spin.  “So what should I start in on?”

     Matt’s eyes were on the desk.  Watanabe’s latest heartthrob had given him that pen; his sister had rejected it with contempt.  There was a wire loop from the end, from which hung a swing and a red pompom teddy bear that bounced back and forth when the pen was moved.

     “You’ll need supplies,” he murmured.  “Paper and…stuff.”  His hand went down to the desk in what he hoped was a nonchalant manner.  “Did you meet Maryann?”

     “Nom” said Nairn, looking up.  “Only you, so far.  I think Mr. Prince called the woman at that desk out front Maryann.”

     Walter Prince had made an effort for Carleton Nairn then; the head of Down usually called Maryann “You.”  Nodding, Matt slid his fingers to the red pompom teddy bear.  It didn’t mean much and probably hadn’t meant much at the time: Watanabe had a new fiancée every week.  But you never could tell.

     “Oh, well, um, you need to know Maryann,” he said, turning at the same time he lifted the pen, so Nairn might miss him sliding it into his pocket.  “She really runs the place, you know: she’s in charge of paper clips.”

     He led a chuckling Carleton Nairn along the row of cubicles.  Holly was talking to Maryann, but pulled back as Matt arrived, to let him know she was still affronted.  Like Maryann, though, she was alive to the interesting possibilities of strangers, and didn’t withdraw too far.

     Matt liked both Maryann and Holly.  They were friendly, competent, and fun to be around, and he wondered occasionally if he should compliment them on their work, since Walter Prince never would.  He always stopped short of actually saying anything; it seemed presumptuous.

     “This is Carleton Nairn,” he said, trying to face Maryann and Holly equally while he told them the one thing they already knew.  They smiled at Nairn, and Matt added, “He’s going to be working here, in Richard’s space.  Mr…Carleton, this is Maryann Hoxey, our, er, executive secretary, and Holly…MacTaggart.”  He never knew whether to mention the middle initial.

     Nairn’s pale eyes moved over both women and then back to Matt.  Matt saw something stir behind those blinking eyelids, and knew by the reaction of his stomach that he was being summed up, and pretty accurately.

     “I’ve heard of you, Ms. MacTaggart,” Nairn said, holding out both his hands.  “I read that report you did on Ventilation.  A breath of fresh air.”

     Holly took this the way a horse takes sugar  She also took Nairn’s hands and gave him a frank, open smile, so open Matt could have counted her fillings.

     “Oh, we’ve met,” she said.  “I’d see you at grandpa’s, oh, hundreds of times.  Did Matt show you all the files?”

     “Not yet,” replied the new kid on the block.  He grinned.  “Mr. Benz started me right at the top by introducing me to yourself and to Ms. Hoxey.”

     “Oh, let ne.”  Holly pulled on his hands to lead him away.  She glanced back over her shoulder.  “You wouldn’t mind, would….”

     Her eyes, already not the least conspicuous feature of her face, widened.  “Why do you have a teddy bear on your lapel?”

     Matt glanced down.  He thought he had put Watanabe’s pen in his shirt pocket, but had instead thrust it through the buttonhole on that lapel.  He opened his mouth to explain, and then remembered that look in Nairn’s eyes.  His backbone stiffened.

     “Didn’t you see them at that meeting in October?  They’re slipping novelty pens into the spots for boutonnieres.  A touch of whimsy helps get through all the speeches.”

     Holly’s eyebrows snapped down and she turned away.  Matt recalled, a little late, that she had expected to be sent as Down’s representative to the October meeting, only to be disappointed by Walter Prince.  But Matt could hardly call her back and apologize.

     “You’ll need to know all these shelves, Mr. Nairn,” she said.

     “Carleton,” he corrected.

     “Didn’t you used to be in Streets once?” she said, pulling him into the mass of cabinets.  “I bet you never got  parking ticket.”

     “No,” Nairn told her.  “I could never get a parking place.”

     Holly giggled.  Maryann looked up to  Matt and shrugged.  Matt shrugged back and turned for his cubicle.  He had to finish that list of projects he was working on.  That came in handy whenever Walter Prince barged in and demanded, “Benz, what in hell are you doing?”