2.(57-58) A Bronx Movie to Bronx Egg Creams

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57. That Saturday Feeling at the Tuxedo

Ali sits naked on the red sofa. It is Saturday and she is reminded of movies at the Tuxedo movie theater on Jerome Avenue.

At 1 PM they go to the movies. Kimura looks at Ali admiringly as they wait to cross the Avenue.

    “Ali-san, permit me to say: Thou art* ravishingly beautiful. In short: Thou swell!”
(*Thou is the archaic familiar You; it takes Thou art for You are)

    Ali laughs. “So ravish me at the Tux, Hon.” She points to the movie marquee whose letters spell "Dark Victory with Bette Davis and George Brent", and, beneath it, "Roundup Time in Texas, Gene Autry". Under the marquee before the ticket window Kimura gives two 10-cent coins for the thumb-size tickets. At entrance an old man in uniform and visor cap collects the tickets, tears them in half, returns one half to each and drops the other in slot. He informs that the 2nd feature movie, Roundup Time in Texas will be ending in a few minutes. They go into the lobby, an open area in the rear of the viewing, behind the seating.  Ali buys hot dogs with mustard and sauerkraut and a large French fries to eat and Pepsi' Cola soda drinks. The eats are on 2 plates for them to take to seats. Just then Roundup Time in Texas ends and Ali directs Kimura to their seats.

   They sit in Seats 25Y and 25Z in the last row all the way in, against wall on the rear right corner. The seat-backs are set against the 4-foot high white marble wall that forms a partition from the lobby.

   Their seats swing upward when not sat on. Seating themselves, they munch on the reddish grilled, fragrant frankfurters smeared with sharp-tasting yellow mustard heaped over with shredded sauerkraut in roll, and they eat, piece by piece, the French fries with sweet vinegary tasting red ketchup, washing the bites down by drinking the deep brown, bubbly, distinctive tasting Pepsi Cola from a shared soda bottle. Ali finishes the final French fry, Kimura swallows a last munch of hot dog just as the lights dim. At once he feels what he would call cosmic contentment. On future Saturdays he will recall this Saturday feeling: his stomach pleasured with piquant satisfying food and his stimulated erect sex organ poking out of unbuttoned fly in the hand of an American beauty just as the opening flashes of the main feature movie, Dark Victory, appear on the upfront big silver screen.

   Ali selected the seats so she and Kimura can be away from other movie viewers in order to whisper comments during movies. Also she likes to, as Americans say, “make out” with her seating partner. No one near ‘em to see or hear ‘em so they freely engage in hand and mouth play as Dark Victory proceeds.

   The opening credits inform that Dark Victory is based on the same-name Broadway play and Ali who’d read a New York Times review of it whispers, “Tallulah Bankhead did Bette’s part in 1934 but it only ran 51 performances. Tallulah! She’s a flamin’ les-be-fren!”

   “Oh, friendly, you say?”

   “Not that kind a friend. A Les, Hon! Like the Sappho.”

   The movie is boring but Kimura and Ali enjoy passionate kissing and private touching.
   The movie ends and Ali comments: “Far as I’m concerned it’s Yawnsville USA. First, Humphrey Bogart was miscast as that Irish stable hand!  C’mon now! They shoulda made him another Duke Mantee like in his last movie, Petrified Forest. And let him meet pop-eyed Bette for an eat-drink-and-be-merry-tomorrow-we-die romance.

 "And George Brent! A soggier lover I never did see! And what a brain surgeon! All he looks to be doing is trimming his pencil-thin mustache and making eyes at pop-eyed Bette – it’s her thyroid condition dontchyaknow? Bette needs a good stiff dick like Humphrey's got.”

   “Ali-san you are missing your calling; you should be the next George Jean Nathan - you know - the great drama critic.”

   She leans over and kisses him on left ear whispering: “Hon, speakin’ a stiff dick, I’m gettin’ ho-ongry. Havin’ ta sit thru Gene Aurtry sic makes me sick. Le’s git outa here, pronto, kimosabe!”

58. Bronx Egg Cream

They stop at Alfonze’s store for a Bronx egg-cream soda and sit at the counter with Alfonze preparing it and 3 teenagers looking on, Ali explains “A Bronx egg cream is chocolate soda – syrup and seltzer in a glass that flares at its top and curves inward in a rounded collar – see. The glass is important – you can’t have egg cream in a cup. I mean, even if the ingredients and preparations are the same it an’t egg cream. Get me?”  Kimura nods.

   “Now watch!” She points at Alfonze as he jerks in seltzer bubbly water, filling the glass three quarters full, adds chocolate syrup, pours milk and mixes it all up. “You see the foam? Just enough without spilling over. And voila!”

   Alfonze tailors his preparations to Ali’s words and places two white foam-topped drinks before them timed to Ali's Voila.

   Kimura sips the soda and shows approval. “But Ali-san, I fail to hear anything in your explanation about the egg in the title?”

   The redhead girl sitting on his left interrupts: “’Excuse me mister, it tastes like raw egg in chocolate soda.”

   “Nah it don’t taste anything like egg, Bren” says her boyfriend. “My idea izzat some frog chef over in France or somewhere – da guy dat invented shampain – drop raw egg in it. Dose Frogs day’re always puttin’ in stuff! But when it cum ta da Bronx dey drop dee egg fer milk. An’ I’m glad cuz I hate egg.”

   Kimura puts a twenty-five cent coin on the counter and asks Alfonze to make egg creams for the three. The boyfriend asks Kimura, “Where ya from?” When he hears “Japan” he is quiet a moment and then says “I t’ought fer sure you wuz Chink.” He extends his right hand. “Anyway, pleased to meetchya an’ welcome ta da Bronx.”

   These kids are members of a social club, The Knights. To prove it, the guys wear black-silk front zipper jackets with individual names written over the right chest area and a big cursive “Knights” on the back. Brenda, by gender ineligible, is affiliated by romance.

   Danny, sitting next to Brenda, and president of the Knights, invites Kimura and Ali to a party at Brenda’s tonight at eight. The kids call it Loneliest Night of the Week Party because it is meant to give the less popular members something to do Saturday nights instead of feeling unwanted.
To read next, click  2.59 The Loneliest Night of the Week