A FBOW excerpt in sequence: Ruby: Prospective 2
Peoria, Illinois
December 23, 1960
As she never drank—apparently with the exception of ‘Pappy Yokum’s’ moonshine—even though Mitchell had three drinks, one more than his wife felt he should drink, completely enjoying themselves, on this night Marsha and Mitchell Lipensky attended Radio Station WHIP’s annual Christmas party.
December 31, 1960 Living in a comparatively small town such as Peoria, word spread rather quickly and after being courted by all three—‘orthodox’, ‘conservative’ and ‘reform’ temples, Marsha and Mitchell Lipensky, decided to join Peoria’s reform temple a few months earlier.
Attending a New Year’s party given in the home of one of the temple’s younger, wealthier members. On this night conceding to having one ‘Harvey Wallbanger’, even though Mitchell had three drinks— one more than his wife felt he should drink—they completely enjoyed themselves…
However they 'never' went to Friday evening services and dropped out when the next membership bill became due.
January 1, 1961
1:30 a.m….
The baby sitter gone.
The children soundly asleep.
“I love you!”
“Happy new year, baby.”
Marsha and Mitchell Lipensky welcomed the new year by making love…
Not erotically, exotically, sexually …
Gently, as did Missionary’s.
8:20 a.m.
Ten inches of heavy snow fallen the night before and continuing into this first day of the year…
Drinking his first cup of coffee of the day...and the first cup of coffee of the new year: “Mikey, you wanna go play in the snow with daddy?”
“Make a snowman, daddy?”
“Yeah, good idea, kiddo. Let’s make a snowman.”
Wearing jeans, his fur lined winter jacket and the old Coast Guard blue knit watch cap he waited, watching as Marsha dressed Michael in heavy winter clothing, his snow-suit and galoshes.”
“Tell you what, Mikey; what if we tie Mercy to your sled and we’ll let her pull you and we’ll go for a walk. How’s that sound?”
“Then we’ll make a snowman, Daddy?”
“Yeah, baby. After Mercy pulls you, we’ll make a snowman.”
Outside, mounds of wind blown snow had blown top high onto the blue Ford convertible and lay heavily upon the now worn— and in need of replacing canvas top.
Purposely tumbling over and rolling down a high mound of snow that brought him downward to the curbless street and now covered from head to foot with clinging snow, Michael trudged upward laughing through snow coated lips as he repeated the journey while waiting as…
Mercy stood chest high in the white stuff waiting as...
‘Daddy’ tied the ends of four feet of clothesline knotted through either sides of the handle of Mikey’s ‘Flexible Flyer’, and with another two feet tied to her collar then..
“Come on, Mikey!”
Sitting with his feet braced into the sled’s steering mechanism and hands held onto the sled’s sides...
“Mush, mush!” Mitchell yelled to the full grown Dalmatian but looking over her shoulder, not understanding ‘Mush!’ stood stock still.
Holding her collar, pulling her forward, “Mush!” Getting the idea, Mercy lurched forward spilling a red faced, laughing Michael into a deep snow drift.
Then again— Michael throwing himself off as Mercy, urged forward by ‘daddy’, jerked the sled a few fee forward as Michael purposely fell backward... And again, until...
Releasing her from the sled lead. Free now, Mercy playfully lunged at ‘daddy’, knocking him into the drift of snow where he lay laughing until ‘Mikey’ dived onto his chest and together, daddy and Mikey and Mercy rolled down the snow covered embankment, then again and again.
Two snowmen were made that morning; one little ‘Mikey’ snowman and one big ‘daddy’ snowman, then…
“Hey, guys!” Mommy yelled through the door. “ I’ve toasted cheese sandwiches and tomato soup!”
“Yea!”
“Marcie...” waiting for the table spoon of hot tomato soup to cool a bit, “...I’ve been thinking...” sipping the soup, “...the car’s getting kind of old and it needs a new top and I think that the transmission might be needing some work and it’s getting kind of small for all of us.”
Stirring the cooling soup for Michael and Ellie. “You think we need a new car?”
“Yeah, it’s nine years old, but we probably could do a ‘trade in’, and...” rationalising, “... it’ll look better for business.”
“You thinking that new customer?”
“Yeah. If it’s okay with you, maybe we can combine business with pleasure, so to speak.”
Putting a spoon of soup to Ellie’s open mouth. “It’s okay with me, and I kind of like that corral colour.
January 3,1961
“Hey, Mitch!” Spotting him between the floor samples as he walked into ‘Joe Morgan’, Studebaker/Lark dealership.
Jor Morgan Studerbaker/Lark was one of Mitchell’s newest and best accounts.
“ ‘Morning, Joe. Happy new year!”
“Same to you. Come on back, I’ve written a couple of thoughts for the new ad.”
Stopping. Opening the door to a lime coloured Lark. Sizing the interior— checking if it would hold his wife, kids, himself and a full grown dalmatian.
In comparison to the Ford convertible, the Lark was spacious.
“Looking for a car, are you?”
“Yeah, Joe, I think so… ‘If’ I can afford it and if we can make a deal for my car.”
“The ‘fifty-two’ Ford?”
“Yeah.”
“Let’s take a look.”
“It’s kind of dirty now.”
Outside, the professional car salesman looking, “...been in an accident?”
“Yeah, years ago, got rear-ended,”
Marsha’s uncle Bill had one of his ‘chop shop’ acquaintances repair the crumpled trunk in payment for… God only knows.
Back in the show room. “How’s your credit?”
“Good, and should be even better since working for the station and we’re still waiting for the insurance settlement from the...” jerking his head towards outside, “...accident.”
“Yeah...” knowing from experience, “...sometimes those settlements take years. When did it happen?”
“ ‘Fifty-seven’, but there’s three insurance companies involved.
" 'Three' insurance companies, eh, that'll doiot!"
Deciding, “Hold on, Mitch, let me make a call.”
Returning minutes later. “Okay, your credit checks out real good...” jerking his thumb towards his office, “…let’s do the paper work.”
Becoming nervous, having ‘buyer’s remorse’ before buying.
“Hold on, Joe. What’s this going to cost me?”
“We got a couple of ‘sixties’ left...”
More than a ‘couple’ left that ‘Joe Morgan’ Studebaker/Lark had been ‘very’ anxious to get rid of.
“... if you don’t mind last year’s model, we can work something out.”
Becoming excited. “Would you have any in ‘coral’ left?
“As it so happens...”
The Hole Digger
January 10 to August 27, 1961 On Jefferson Street, two doors west of the Walgreen’s drug store, there was a storefront. Within the sign on the window there was a gold painted circle with three stepped letters that read: ‘HFC’ Beneath the circle in heavy lettering the words proclaimed: ‘HOUSEHOLD FINANCIAL CORPORATION’.
He had passed this place hundreds of times, but on this day, he stopped, thinking, Why not?
Mentally calculating the amount of money he sent monthly to the hospital, doctors, lawyers and EZ Credit. Calculating that, other than rent, he had been paying approximately $129.00 a month, plus now for the nineteen-sixty Studebaker Lark adding another sixty-one dollars, so that in total he and Marsha still owed about…?
Between the hospital, doctors, lawyers and EZ Credit, considering he had been paying these bills since Michael’s birth in 1957…
Opening the door. Walking into ‘HFC’ and speaking to a ‘Financial Consultant’, the man began the paperwork that Mitchell would complete at home that, once signed by him and his wife, when approved, would loan the Lipensky's the sum of $4,500.00 from HFC at the present rate of interest to be repaid in forty-eight monthly payments of $95.00
The $4,500.00 would be used to pay all debt, other than the new car, of course.
The HFC balance would, ‘of course’, be paid in full once the long awaited lawsuit for the car accident with Randall Detwiler and Chicago Fastener Corporation was settled.
Digging. Digging…
Money from the new filling the financial hole of the old, so began a never ending field of holes.
May 8, 1961
Ruby?
In the spring of 1961, the ‘Congress of Racial Equality’ (CORE), an interracial activist group founded in 1942, dispatched bands of black and white ‘Freedom Riders’ aboard buses into the Deep South to test local compliance with court rulings that forbade segregated seating in terminal waiting rooms.
While local authorities stood by, many Riders were beaten senseless by irate mobs as their buses were set afire.
Finally, ‘U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy’ sent in 400 federal marshals to protect the Freedom Riders right to travel.
But not before…
Watching as they had on that day in September of 1957, when federal paratroopers stood bayonet to bayonet with the Arkansas Nation Guard outside of ‘Central High School’ when Marsha and Mitchell 'thought' they’d seen their friend..
Watching whenever television cameras focused on the ongoing, unfolding civil rights drama.
Watching as they had on that day in 1957 to this day, as always looking for ‘Rubidoux Meyers’ but never catching another glimpse of anyone who might be Ruby.
But now…
Outside of a large bus depot in ‘Chattanooga, Tennessee’, the television camera focused onto a shoving, hitting match where a white man—a suit clad white man with a strange, albeit handsome face with a Negroid nose, Caucasian lips and, as seen on the black and white television, pure white hair—was being held from behind by one white man while being beaten by two other white men.
“Jesus! ‘ That’s Ruby’! Marcy, that’s ‘got’ to be Ruby!”
Rushing from the sofa and kneeling before the television, hoping to find this same scene on a different channel Mitchell switched channels where almost immediately there was the scene again.
“Mitchie, that ‘is’ Ruby!”
“Yeah, I know!”
“Where are you going?”
“To get my wallet.”
“Your wallet?”
“Yeah, I’ve got Ruby and Sherry’s number in it. I’m calling Sherry!”
“You can’t call now.” Glancing at the clock, “It’s after twelve there.”
“I don’t care! I’ve got to see if he’s okay.”
Taking his wallet from the dresser, stretching a finger into one of the thin pockets he removed the piece of ‘Columbia Yacht Club’ napkin that Ruby had written his and Sherry’s New York City phone number— Where the scrap of napkin had remained untouched since that day in September of 1957 when Mitchell had last seen or spoken to Ruby and when, from that day to this day, out of embarrassment and guilt for not going to Little Rock with his friend, the scrap of napkin had remained untouched.
The dial spinning back to ‘O’ “Long distance, please.” Within moments giving the long distance operator the New York City phone number, he waited impatiently until the operator informed him that…
“Sorry, sir, that number is no longer a working number.”
“The name is ‘Meyers, Rubidoux Meyers’. Could you please see if there is a listing for either Rubidoux or ‘Sherry Meyers’?”
“I’ll connect you with New York City Information.”
“Operator.”
“The name is Meyers, Rubidoux Meyers. Could you please see if there is a listing for either Rubidoux or Sherry Meyers?”
Strangely, the operator asked, “M-E-Y-E-S?” but not for the spelling of ‘Rubidoux’.
“Yes, Operator,” he repeated. “ ‘Rubidoux or Sherry Meyers’.”
Mitchell: Standing in the doorway between the kitchen and living room.
Marsha sitting on the sofa, the two stared at each other for the time it took until…
“Sorry, sir, there is no listing for either a Rubidoux or Sherry Meyers in the New York City area.”
“Thank you, Operator.”
Dialing “O” again, “Long distance operator, please…”
“ ‘Baltimore, Maryland’, information. Please…”
“Operator, do you have a number for Rubidoux or Sherry Meyers? That’s M-E-Y-W-RS.”
And…
Once again an unfortunate fact of life occurred when a person or people whom we truly believed would never be gone from our life, when, due to time and/or distance, and/or when that thread of ‘something in common’ breaks, we discover that that friend or friends are forever gone from our life.
Prospective 1965
With the exception of a television film clip showing a vaguely familiar white man that looked like a black man wearing a black suit and a white shirt with, of all things, a white bow tie, who was obviously standing guard alongside of ‘Malcolm X’ in 1965— two days before the pioneer black militant was assassinated… Along with his two bodyguards, and…
With the exception of that television film clip, Mitchell and Marsha Lipensky never saw nor heard from Rubidoux or Sherry Meyers again.’
Next FBOW excerpt in sequence: “Recall”
