Mykel drove Route 66 into Springville, Missouri, until he came to Federal Avenue, then turned left and headed to the Chester Ambrose Bonner Residence Hall at Show Me State College. He parked as close as he could to the back lobby doors, because he knew his record player and new TV would be heavy. He got his ID out of his wallet and showed it to the lady that was checking in the students, who had waited until Sunday, the day before the first day of second semester classes, to move in. Mykel noticed there were not as many parents helping students like there were in the fall semester.
“Is your name pronounced MY-keel or Michael?” the lady asked.
“It’s Michael, as in row your boat ashore.”
“Okay, Mykel Daring, you are in Room 515 and your roommate this semester is Clinton Grogan,” the lady informed him as she handed back his I.D, along with a room key. “Do you need a push cart for your things?”
“Yes, I will need one,” Mykel answered. The lady turned to a middle-aged man standing behind her,
“Gerald, this young man needs a cart for his things.” The man got one of the large carts and followed Mykel to the Impala. They loaded the portable TV, record player, clock radio and his two suitcases into the cart.
“Sir, I can take this on the elevator up to my room,” Mykel offered to more self sufficient.
“That’s nice of you, but I have to check you in with your resident assistant,” the man explained, then, trying to make conversation said, “So, you are from Lemming Pond?”
“Yeah, but you don’t have to rub it in,” Mykel answered. The man laughed, as he wheeled the cart full of Mykel’s things toward the elevator, where a fat man, in a gray, wool suit and red, white and blue necktie, stood with his wife, who was wearing a pink dress with violets printed on it. They were accompanying their son, who was a chubby kid wearing horn-rimmed glasses with fruit-jar lenses and his hair parted straight down the middle of his head, so everyone could see the white of his scalp.
“You do have your toothbrush, don’t you, Owen?” the boy’s mother interrogated him.
“Yes, Mother,” the boy answered.
“I’m not sure why you wanted to live in the dorm this semester,” the boy’s father griped. “We only live to miles from campus. You could ride your bicycle to school, like you did last semester. This is going to cost us money! In the dorm, we won’t be able to supervise you and your grades could suffer. You know you will need good grades to transfer to the Rolla School of Mines. We really don’t want you to get a degree from Show Me State.”
“Yes, Father,” the boy answered, like a whipped dog.
The elevator door opened and a some girls walked out, giggling and chatting up a storm. Mykel smiled, thinking about how wonderful it would be having girls in such close proximity. The other boy perked up as well, ogling the cheerful young ladies go past him and causing his parents to frown harder.
Jerry from Student Services grabbed the elevator door and inquired of the grumpy couple, “What floor do you need to go to?”
“The third floor,” Owen’s mother said.
“Okay, I’ll get in back with the cart and Mykel can get by the control panel, that way, you folks can get out easy when we get to the third floor,” Jerry explained. He got into the elevator first and then pulled the cart into the elevator’s car behind him. Mykel got in by the door next to the control panel and the family got in last, moving to the side of the cart.
Mykel pushed buttons “three” and “five.” The doors began to close, when a woman’s voice shouted from the lobby, “Hold the elevator!” Mykel stuck his arm out and stopped the doors before they closed. A heavy set, African American woman in a Jackie Kennedy-inspired pink dress suit, with a matching hat, walked into the elevator car, accompanied by trim African American girl in a sky blue dress, white cardigan with a gloves and pillbox hat to match the sweater.
Owen’s parents scowled at the woman and girl, then shot a dirty look at Mykel, who paid them no attention. “What floor, ladies?” he asked, as the doors closed.
“Fourth floor,” the girl, smiled at Mykel and spoke in a tiny, quite voice.
“Now, if you need anything, Silvy, you call me or call the elementary school,” the woman instructed the girl, as the elevator began to ascend toward the assigned floors.
“I will, Auntie Charlotte,” the girl answered. “And thank you for taking me to your church this morning, although I wish you hadn’t told them I would sing a special. I don’t think I did my best.”
“Honey, you always sing so beautiful and everyone bragged on you,” the girl’s aunt reassured her. “I sure the Lord liked it and his opinion is the only one that matters.” The girl smiled at her aunt’s statement.
Owen’s father looked into the cart. “You got a lot of stuff for a short kid. Looks like your one of those kids who came here to party,” he snarled.
“Yeah, I guess,” Mykel answered, knowing that the man felt he would insult Mykel to get back at him for allowing two women of another race to ride the same elevator as his family.
“You seem also small to be in college,” the mother said, feeling it was her turn to jab Mykle in retaliation for his niceness toward women of another color.
Owen was looking into the cart and observed, “You have a cool record player!”
“Yeah, I got Rubber Soul and Highway 61 Revisited for Christmas,” Mykel explained. “I hope I can hook this up and listen to them tonight.”
“I only have one record,” Owen said. “My parents let me get a 45 of ‘The Jolly Green Giant’ by The Kingsmen.”
“Your parents must have a thing about people’s heights,” Mykel said sarcastically. The girl let out a tiny snicker. Mykel could see her aunt, pursing her lips tight, holding in a laugh. She then put her hand on his shoulder and gave him a ‘good job’ pat.
The bell sounded, the doors opened and Owen’s father gave Silvy and Auntie Charlotte a shove. “Come along, Owen! This is your floor!” he commanded as his wife and son followed. Owen was the only one to say ‘excuse me’ as he left the elevator. The doors closed behind them.
“I’m sorry, young lady,” Jerry from Student Services apologized. “That man was very rude. I can see why their son was wanting to live in the dorm.”
“They were a hateful bunch,” Mykel said.
“We’re used to people like that,” Silvy’s aunt said. “I think they are a local family. They look awfully familiar.” The man from Student Services told how the parents had bossed their son before they got on the elevator. “Well, thank you for being so nice, young man,” the aunt said to Mykel. “You’re awful nice for a short boy,” She then gave Mykel a wink, patted his back and gave a big, loud laugh.
“Thank you, ma’am,” Mykel replied. “And I’m used to snide remarks about my height.”
The bell chimed and the elevator stopped to let the ladies off. “Nice talking to you, gentlemen!” the aunt said, as she and Silvy exited the car of the elevator.
When the doors were closed, Jerry from Students Services said to Mykel, “You did the right thing by holding the elevator door for those women. That was very brave.”
“My mom always told me to hold an elevator door, or any door, for a woman, no matter who they are,” Mykel explained. “Are they from Spring Valley?”
“The aunt is. She is the cook at my son’s elementary school,” Jerry explained. “Her niece is from Arkansas. The funny thing is the her school tried to keep her from taking the SAT. The ACLU and NAACP stepped in and told them they had to let her take the test. She wound up making the highest score in Arkansas and, I think, she was in the top 20 percentile in the entire United States.”
“Wow! Sounds like she is a very smart girl,” Mykel observed.
The elevator’s bell chimed and the doors opened onto the fifth floor. Mykel pushed his cart out of the elevator and Jerry followed him out. There was a long folding table in the lobby and hanging from the front of it was a paper banner, reading “Welcome to Bonner Hall’s Fifth Floor!” in maroon letters. Sitting behind the table was a dapper, clean-cut, blonde boy in a red, pull-over sweater with a white shirt and dark, blue, necktie underneath. The boy was wearing a pin on his sweater reading “Re-elect Mayor Arthur Thomason.” On the boy’s left was a cute girl with jet black hair in a bouffant, held in place with a white headband.
Jerry from Student Services pointed to the young man, “Mykel, this is your R. A.”
“Hello, I’m Randal Thomason!”
“I’m Mykel Daring, nice to meet you!”
“Which room are you in?” Randal asked, while looking at a list of names on a clipboard. “Is your name spelled M-Y-K-E-L?”
“Yes it is.”
“Oh yes, you are in 515 with Clinton Grogan from Hermes,” Randal read off of the sheet of names and rooms, he then looked up at Mykel and said, “There is quite a difference in you two guys height. Clint plays on the Wolves basketball team.”
“Oh great! An athlete. The athletes always hated me in Lemming,” Mykel groused, as the girl, behind the table, wrote his name, with a red ink marker, on an index card, before she stood up and pinned it to his shirt with a tiny safety pin.
“Here is your name tag, so people will be able to learn you name,” she chirped.
“Don’t worry, Mykel,” Randal reassured Mykel. “Clint is a great guy. He lived on this same floor last semester. Come on, let’s go down and meet him.” Randal started escorting Mykel down the hall to his new dorm room.
Several doors were open as other students were either moving in or were already settled in and just hanging out on a Sunday afternoon. The air was filled with the sounds from their radios, record players and televisions, all battling for the attention of the people walking down the hallway. From one room, James Brown was shouting to the world that he felt good, while in another room Buck Owens was complaining because he had a tiger by the tail and further up the hall, Bob Dylan was trying coaxing a girl to dump her boyfriend, that she kept in a box because he had bloodhounds that kneel and belonged to the religion of the Little Tin Women, and crawl out her window.
Amid the music flowing through the hallway, there was the faint sound of futuristic electronic noises playing, while Gene Rayburn informed people that they were “Listening to Monitor on the NBC Radio network,” some boys cheering Jim Brown playing in the Pro-Bowl football game, and the Durango Kid riding to the rescue with his six-guns blazing.
“You don’t have to wear that name card if you don’t want to,” Randal whispered to Mykel. “Suzy is an elementary ed major and she turns everything into kindergarten.”
“That’s okay, I’ll wear it. I wouldn’t want to hurt her feelings. She’s really cute,” Mykel said. “She looks like Mary Ann Mobley, that always plays Elvis’ girlfriend.”
“Well, before you get your hopes up, I should tell you she is my girlfriend,” Randal informed Mykel with a smile.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know…”
“Relax, it’s okay,” Randal chuckled, as he and Randal arrived at 515. “At least, you kept your comments about her clean. You go on in and I’ll follow you in with the cart.”
Mykel walked in the door, which was propped open. He walked down the corridor, past a bathroom, a sink and small ice box. Once he was in the dorm room, he saw a lanky boy with short blonde hair, lying on one of the single beds and a tall, muscular, African-American boy sitting on the other bed. He got up from the bed, held out his hand to shake Mykel’s hand.
“Howdy, I’m Clint Grogan from Her-Miss, Missouri,” he spoke in a Huckleberry Hound voice, trying not to laugh. “My girlfriend’s name is Alice Chambers and I ride her all over our farm.” Randal began laughing, which Mykel thought was rude.
“Pleased to meet you…” Mykel said, shaking the hand of his new acquaintance. The blonde boy jumped off the bed and walked over to Mykel.
“Don’t pay attention to him,” said tall, blonde boy as he walked over and extended his hand for a shake. “I’m the real Clinton Grogan. I guess you are Mykel?”
“Yes, I’m Mykel Daring and I’m pleased to meet you.”
“I’m Clarence Jefferson, but everyone calls me Slick,” announced the fellow Mykel shook hands with first. “I live down the hall. Clint and me are both on the Wolves Basketball team.”
“Slick gets in the newspaper more than I do,” Clint said. “Since I’m an academic probation, so I don’t get to play much.”
“Man, don’t worry,” Slick said. “There is always a chance we may have to work you in at the last minute. Do you play basketball, Mykel?”
“Are you kidding?” Mykel quipped. “I’m only five foot one and can’t make a basket to save my life.”
“Hey, best player I ever saw was only four foot ten,” Slick reassured Mykel. “Besides, we don’t care if your bad, just give us some practice.”
“Clarence, how are you and your new roommate making it?” Randal asked, as part of his duty as R. A.
“Henry has posted several rules for me to follow,” Slick rolled his eyes, as he told about his roommate.
“Well, let me say it has nothing to do with your race,” Randal explained. “He posted so many rules that his roommate last semester went home for Columbus Day and never returned.”
“Dang!” Slick said. “I don’t think it will get that bad. He does seem like a testy little guy though.”
“I need to get back to the welcome table,” Randal said. “If you boys need anything, I’m in Room 500.”
“Hey Randal, is anyone running against your dad in the election?” Clint asked, as Randal started to leave.
“Not yet,” Randal answered. “I’m sure the Republicans will find someone. They own Spring Valley. I’m still surprised Dad was elected last time.”
“Well, tell him good luck,” Clint said. With that, Randal left.
Clint pulled the cart into the room proper. “Slick, let’s help our new friend get settled.” They began working to get Mykel’s stuff situated in the room. Clint pulled a old, gray metal folding chair from underneath his bed and they put the TV it, since they didn’t have a TV stand. They put the record player and radio on Mykel’s desk.
When they were finished, Slick remarked, “This is going to be fine. Clint, why don’t we trade roommates?”
“No no,” Clint laughed. “You are stuck with Henry.”
“He had his radio on K-R-C-A right now,” Slick laughed. “That’s our entertainment.”
“So that is who was listening to Monitor, when we were walking down the hall,” Mykel laughed.
“Yeah, that’s like radio for old, white folks,” Slick laughed.
“I applied for an internship at that radio station, but never heard back from them,” Mykel told the guys. “I got a letter back from K-I-L-L for an internship. I meet with them next week about it.”
“That’s great! I never knew anyone who was on the radio,” Clint said.
“I’m not sure if I will be on the radio. It is more like a class. I’ll get a grade for it.”
The sound of loud voices came from the hallway. It was a commotion that was punctuated by screams, laughter, clapping and doors being pounded on.
“What the Heck is that?” Clint asked with alarm.
“Could be a fight?” Slick said.
“Let’s check it out!” Mykel exclaimed as he hurried down the entrance corridor to see what was going on in the hall. Clint and Slick followed, hoping to catch a glimpse of the infraction.
The three boys looked down the fifth floor hallway to see four smiling girls, walking side by side, clapping and singing with angelic voices at top volume, “We are roaming, roaming, roaming the halls, Making a happy noise! We are roaming, roaming, roaming the halls, Looking for cute boys!” When they came to a room with a door closed, they would bang on it with a majorette’s baton.
“I’ve only had dreams about stuff like this,” Mykel said to Clint and Slick with amazement as he watched the girls approaching their room. “Only the girls in my dreams were naked. Look, they are laughing and smiling!”
“Surely girls in Lemming laughed and smiled?” Clint questioned Mykel about his excitement about the girl’s demeanor.
“If they laughed, it was because some guy was beating me up,” he explained. “And when they smiled, it was stiff and unpleasant looking, like it hurt or something.”
As they got closer, their appearance became more defined. There was a small, thin girl with pixie cut, brown hair and squinty eyes, a chubby girl with blonde hair in pigtails, a girl with curly black hair in a bubble cut and a statuesque girl with a big smile, blue eyes and a sandy, blond bouffant flip hairdo.
“Do you think they will talk to us?” Mykel asked, as his asthma began to act up suddenly.
“I’m sure they will,” Clint chuckled. “Since we are standing out here in the hall looking stupid.”
The girls continued singing and even tried to skip, but it was rather awkward and the girl with pixie cut tripped and fell. They all four nearly fell to the floor laughing.
“This is why I love white, college girls,” Slick laughed. “They do stupid stuff like this!”
The girls stopped in front of the bewildered but anxious boys.
“Hello, we are the girls from room 420!” They announced in unison.
“I’m Kathy!” said the girl with the curly hair.
“I’m Grace!” ironically was the name of the girl who fell a few minutes earlier.
“I’m Debbie!” said the blonde girl with the pigtails, who looked more like she should be in middle school instead of college.
“I’m Sherry!” chirped the blonde with the bouffant flip, who was wearing a snug fitting Spring Valley State sweatshirt and even tighter, bright, red Capri pants.
“Since we want to get acquainted with other people in the dorm and our R. A, Phyllis had to go to her grand-father’s funeral, we are having a little party in our suite,” explained Kathy. “We are getting pizzas.”
“We also have Pepsi and that new soda pop, Mountain Dew, too!” Debbie boasted.
“There may be some other stuff to drink too,” Sherry whispered with a wink. “Just don’t tell your R. A.”
“Don’t worry, Randal goes to church on Sunday night with his girlfriend, Suzy,” Clint explained, as he looked down the hallway and noticed the table was gone from in front of the elevators.
“Her dad is a preacher at the Baptist church in Sucre. They’ve probably already left by now. That’s thirty minutes away.”
“That’s great! Nobody will find out,” Kathy said. “Aren’t you guys basketball players?”
“Yeah, I’m Clint Grogan and this is Slick Jefferson.”
“I’ll try to get my roommate to come, but he doesn’t seem like the party type,” Slick said.
“What’s your name?” Grace asked, as she tried to read the card. “It looks like Mee-Kell.”
“It’s pronounced Michael, like row your boat ashore.”
“Mee-kell?” Debbie laughed. “You have to excuse Grace. She’s not wearing her glasses because she knew we would be talking to boys.”
“Remember, the fun starts at 5 o’clock in Room 420,” Sherry chimed in. “We hope to see you there for the first big party of 1966!”
The girls left the boys behind, singing and clapping again on their way to the stairwell, where Grace walked into the door and they laughed and giggled about it, before disappearing.
“They seem nice,” Mykel observed. “But one of those girls was wearing an odd smelling peppermint perfume.”
“That’s not perfume, Mykel,” Slick said. “One of those girls had been drinking peppermint Schnapps. Boys, we have to go to their little party!”
WIP: DYNAMIC DUO OF THE OZARKS 