PRINCE  

CHARMING 

g s martin 

1955 

Los Angeles, California. Millions of V8s spewing second-hand petrol. Leaded gas weather. Every morning, I watch the smog fill the LA basin. It looks like that picture Granny showed me of a dust storm. Smog is bad. When the brown wave gets here, breathing hurts. Like poison gas. 

Sometimes, the Santa Ana winds blow the smog out to sea. When that happens, the sky turns blue. There is no wind today. 

I just turned four. I stay at Miss Fleurette's Nursery School while my mom wraps meat at 'Shopping Bag.' All the butchers like my mom. She's pretty. The butcher shop floor is covered with bloody sawdust.  

I never met my dad. My mom has a picture of him holding a baby. Dad looks scared. Like he might drop it. 

Miss Fleurette's is a good place to be when you're four years old, and today will be special. Because some of us are going to play a game. A special game. 

There are no men at Miss Fleurette's. They're building houses and drinking Bubwizer. The few other boys and I are lucky to be with the women grown-ups. The grown-up men are mean. Fighting Japs made them crazy. 

My mom says to not call them Japs. She says it's not nice. 

Uncle Phil disagrees. Uncle Phil only has one arm. 

The school is a white two-story house. It sits behind a block wall with a big wooden door, like a castle gate. Miss Fleurette and her daughter live upstairs. They made the playground out of sand. Sand is cool. A teacher told us we'd get to China if we dug deep enough. Billy and I tried.

What's China?                                                                                                         

There's an old car sitting in the sand for us to climb on. No seats, no doors. No windows. It reminds me of my grampa's car. Except his car has a steering wheel and shiny paint. Miss Fleurette says monkey bars are too spensive. 

There's a big block of wood porcupined with bent, rusty nails. The grown-ups give us hammers.

"Have at it, boys!"

The goal is to get through a nail-hitting session with both hands and all fingers un-crushed. 

We draw pictures. We play toy instruments and eat home-cooked meat pies. 

Yesterday a man came with a chicken egg. He cut a window in the shell so we could see the baby chick inside. We asked if we could keep it for a pet. He said it was too young to vive and threw it in the garbage can. 

I liked the baby turtles in their plastic pond. Until Danny smashed them with a rock. 

Last week, the kid with the robot legs talked to me in the boy's bathroom. I could hear him coming up from behind. He didn't come to pee because he can't do that. Instead, he came to ask questions.

This boy has polio. He wears noisy braces that keep him standing up. Because his legs don't work anymore. 

The doctor thought I had polio and made me wear those things for a while. Lots of us kids have polio. The doctor says they're trying to make a shot to make it go away. It makes a mark. 

The robot boy watched me pee into the trough. 

"How do you do that? What's it feel like?" he asked. 

I tried to explain with no success. I'm only four. 

The back half of Miss Fleurette's is a big open room. Water-stained cheesecloth blinds, three shades too dark, cast a hideous amber glow. 

Even more sinister when it rains. 

Wooden baby cribs against the walls. The cradles are rolled out at nap time and placed around the room. 

Cutouts of nursery rhyme things line the dingy walls. Scary spiders and dire wolves. Broken crowns and mutilated sheep. 

If a grown-up sees you playing with yourself, she swats your hand away. 

"Don't touch yourself like that!" 

So here we lay, bathed in a dim, smoggy glow, surrounded by pastel violence.                                                                                                     

Fidgety cadavers in a restless morgue. 

There's a hubbub among the girls and grown-ups. All a-twitter, they gather in the amber room. Us boys are left out on the playground to wonder. Until a grown-up finally comes out. 

"Jake! Come with me! The rest of you boys stay out here. Hit nails or something!" 

She takes me to the big room, where all the girls are gathered. 

Two old trunks come out, one big and one smaller, filled with ribbons, lace, and plastic jewelry. Stuffed with golden belts and long, flowing gowns. 

The girls tear through their chest, dressing up in pink, purple, and green. Princess stuff. 

For me, the smaller chest, filled with foppish garb. Even a be-costume-jeweled crown. 

Once adorned, a grown-up takes me to my throne. An old chair painted a lovely shade of lead gold. 

On an ancient Motorola, locked and loaded, plays a scratchy waltz. 

And now I understand. 

The girls are Sleeping Beauties. And they picked me to be their Prince Charming.

They skip and prance. Colorful strings of wool trail from their clenched hands. They go round and around and around, twirling to the music like spinning wheels. Their gowns fly bedazzled, throwing slivers of light. The music builds from strange to stranger as they spin fast and faster.

The music stops. 

Like synchronized swimmers, the girls collapse to the floor. Exhausted...dizzy... too many Highballs dizzy.                                                                                                                                              

So it's bad to touch yourself because it feels good, but spinning the girls into a shit-faced stupor is OK? 

Training the girls. Until they understand the importance of subordination and servitude. A lifetime of lessons ahead. 

The Prince Charming music starts as I wander in a daze through the field of fallen beauties. At least I'm not dizzy-drunk.                                                                                                          

Something in the music prompts the grown-up to gesture. It is time for me to choose my Princess.

I pick Betty Kline and give her a Magical Kiss, rescuing her from the Evil Spell. A festive polka plays. And Oh, the Joy! 

The loser beauties scuttle off to the side in shame. They're not having much fun anymore. 

But Betty and I dance joyfully around the room, madly in love! Living Happily Ever After! 

Until snack time. 

And the lesson: 

"Girls, you will lose most of the time. But remember, always be pretty! 

Don't get uppity!

And never ever forget it is now and always will be Mr. Charming's world! 

And maybe, just maybe, you'll get lucky and find a man. A good man.

One that imbibes infrequently and doesn't slap you around too much 

 at night. Now go wash your hands, and we'll have some apple sauce." 

When my mommy came to get me after school, I tripped on the doormat and fell on my tummy, and I couldn't breathe. I cried. I'm glad mom was there to pick me up. 

 [O1]