Chapter 10

At supper his mother announced that she had signed up to work at the USO. “And I’d like one of you to walk up there with me when I do the job after supper.”

Rigby blinked at her. “Doing what?” he asked.

“Oh not much. It’s kind of silly. I’ve been up there twice this week during the afternoon. It’s a very easy job. I just sit and talk with the boys.”

“I don’t get it,” the boy said.

“Well, they’re away from home, lonely, maybe kind of confused and don’t know anybody. So I help them write letters or tell them about the city or things they can go and see or do.”

Rigby nodded. He couldn’t imagine his mother talking to a bunch of sailors.

“Lots of ladies do it. I’m supposed to work from seven to closing Monday, Wednesday and Friday next week. Ihelp them write letters. Why don’t you come with me. They’ll find work for you.”

Rigby nodded. “OK, why not.”

“You doing your Christmas shopping?” his mother asked as they finished their supper. It had been hot dogs and baked beans again.

Rigby nodded. “Thought I’d get Grandma some more note cards. I think she liked the ones I got her last year.”

“Good idea. You might get something for Gloria or Uncle Tom’s family.”

“Haven’t thought of that.” He had decided that a 1931 or`32 roadster was what he wanted.

“You are going to get some clothes, you know, a lot of clothes, shirts and pants and not much else,” she said with a smile. “You’ve just about outgrown everything.”

“I know and underwear too.” He stuck his arm out to show how short the sweater sleeve was.

“How’s the collecting going?” asked his father.

“Pretty good. The Star calendar helps. I haven’t counted it up, but I think I’ve gotten ten or twelve dollars in tips. Most people are paying too.”

“Maybe you ought to think about buying a war bond. I get one every month you know.” His father smiled at him.

Rigby sniffed, “Holy cow, even at home. I go to the movies and Bugs Bunny’s yelling buy a bond today, and it’s on the school announcements, the Lone Ranger is selling bonds, Captain American and Superman in the comic books, everybody.” His parents laughed and Rigby smiled,. He had thought about it but liked having the money, the folding money.

“That little snow put people in the mood, didn’t it?” said his mother.

“Guess so. You guys coming to the big show at school. I’m working the spotlights up in the balcony.” Rigby smiled. “That’s a good job, but the ninth grader that was doing it broke his leg.”

“A cast of thousands, eh?” said his father with a laugh.

“I think so. Both glee clubs and the band. Wait’ll you see the set. It’s wild when it’s all lit up.”

The next Saturday, with Christmas only a week away, Rigby had just about finished his collecting except for one customer who never paid on time and another who seemed to have moved away owing him for two months.

He had also almost finished his Christmas shopping with a fancy bottle of Evening in Paris perfume for his mother and a big can of Prince Edward pipe tobacco for his father.

Rigby had learned to loosen his belt and wear his trousers low on his hips, but he couldn’t do anything about the length of thin wrist that stuck out of his shirt sleeves. Since he was on the basketball team, he had convinced his mother to let him get a pair of white, size ten, high-topped Converse All-Star basketball shoes, what everybody called “Chucks.” With his father’s ration coupon they planned to buy a pair of regular, brown school shoes in January, what his mother called brogans. The ones they were making now had some sort of wood fiber composition soles and heels because of the leather shortage.

The fourth ration books had been issued and Rigby’s mother had gone down to the high school, stood in line and received her family’s three books of new stamps. Now, in the war’s third year, almost everything was rationed.

Rigby didn’t have a beard, but he did have some fuzz on his upper lip as well as some private hair under his arms and between his legs, sure signs that he was maturing. His voice had pretty much ended its squeaky phase and was a lot deeper than it had been. In the doctor’s office he was measured as exactly five feet nine inches tall and he weighed 127 pounds. And he was occasionally having nighttime emissions and embarrassing erections. All part of growing up, his mother assured him. He had grown more than three inches in a year and gained fifteen pounds.

In early December the junior high school’s varsity and JV basketball teams had gone by school bus out to the Jesuit prep school on the pike and played two practice games in that school’s old, wooden, low-ceiled gymnasium. The ninth graders, the varsity, did well and held their own against the prep school’s JV of mostly 10th grade boys, but the 7th and 8th graders had a tough time against the prep school’s scrubs.

Zip Lehr put his two 7th graders in during the last quarter of the game and both survived. Mason grabbed several rebounds and made one put back shot, but Rigby never got a chance to take one of scoop shots as the prep defense played a tight man-to-man that didn’t give him a chance to even touch the ball.

Rigby had figured out that his social studies teacher gave extra credit for good current event stories in the Friday classes so he started preparing one of those each week. One Friday, with a big photo his Uncle provided, he told the class about the model basin and got the teacher’s praise for doing an extra good job. And the next Friday he tried to explain the charter fight that had been going on in local politics for several years. The teacher praised him for trying. And told him that one of the leaders in the fight lived right in the neighborhood and her daughter had been in his class.

With his mother’s help, his scores on the weekly spelling tests improved and his father had shown him several ways of doing math problems and checked his homework regularly. They had moved into measuring solid figures like circles and cubes.

Rigby had walked with his mother up to the brightly lit USO center several times in the evenings and had been put to work washing dishes and making ice cream cones. He often stood and watched his mother sitting at a card table and smiling at some big sailor or Marine. She seemed to enjoy what she was doing and often made the serviceman laugh.

His parents had attended an evening performance of the big Christmas pageant at school and praised his spotlight work on their way home. That made him feel good.

Rigby and his mother went to midnight Mass on Christmas Eve and then walked home, drank a cup of eggnog and opened one present each before going to bed. His mother thanked him for the perfume and left him near the tree examining a large model of the PBY Catalina flying boat that his Uncle Tom had given him.