Seattle Press on Line

By C. P. Kempton

Bank Night

May 18, 2001 -- My movie-struck mother decided when I turned eleven that the time had come to take the rough edges off my compulsive, untrained dancing. She wanted to make sure I'd be ready to take over when Ruby Keeler got old and had to take care of her poor, sore feet.

Every Friday afternoon after school she gave me seventy-five cents for an hour's instruction at the Billy Malloy Studio of Tap, Ballet, and Ballroom Dancing. I walked the nine blocks from my house to the studio carrying a shopping bag that held my black velvet shorts, white satin blouse, and patent leather tap shoes that tied with black
grosgrain bows.

Billy Malloy, a red-faced overweight Irishman, stood with his back to us, wheezing as he led us through the steps. "Right fuh-lap step step, left fuh-lap step step."

***

I was every bit as star struck as my mother. My obsession with the movies was tolerated by our large extended family as no crime in a hare-brained kid. But with my mother it was a different matter. Her sisters and sisters-in-law said it was unbecoming in a dutiful wife and mother to seek such a shallow and immoral form of entertainment. My mother fought back by pointing out that, unlike them, she could understand and speak English, thanks to the movies. Furthermore, she maintained, she had to keep up with the trends in dancing in order to guide me towards my future as a star of stage and screen.

It was at the height of the Depression in the '30s--when movie houses began recruiting audiences by offering free dishes on Dish Night and a chance to win money on Bank Night--that my mother's critics changed their tune. Free dishes were not to be sneezed at and only a fool would pass up the chance to win money.

Often in the darkened theatre my mother nudged me and pointed to a couple of our relatives a few seats away who stared uncomprehendingly at the screen with their free plates cradled in their laps. They stayed, in a show of respect for the plate, until the foreign gibberish got on their nerves and then murmuring, "Scusi. Scusi," they squeezed past the other patrons and went home.

My mother always paid the extra dime for an adult ticket for me on dish nights so I could get a plate too. In no time at all our cupboards were filled with cheap dishes, each one decorated with a Spanish senorita leaning over a balcony rail smiling down at her serenaders, one strumming a guitar, the other with his mouth open in song.

Dish night was Wednesday and Bank Night, Friday. The theatre was always crowded on those nights. People went to the movies no matter what was showing. My mother didn't care for war or gangster movies. What she liked were the musicals and romantic comedies. She was crazy about Nelson Eddy, Gene Raymond, and Dick Powell, all fair, Nordic types. A reaction no doubt to the short, dark Sicilians who were the real men in her life.

***

She was transfixed by the image of Nelson Eddy marching ahead of his men singing, "Give me some men who are stout-hearted men who will fight for the red, white, and blue...."

Poor mamma. She must have envied Jeanette MacDonald who, as the last high note died on her lips, swooned in Nelson's waiting arms.

I adored the musicals. After seeing a movie with Bill Robinson, Fred Astaire, Eleanor Powell or even George Murphy (who made the terrible mistake of trading his acting career for an undistinguished career in the senate), I'd dance all the way home. My mother, carrying the dishes, called after me when I got a block or so ahead of her and I'd wait for her to catch up, tapping in place. When she reached me I'd be off again, leaping and twirling until we got home.

No one ever seemed to win at Bank Night, which only reinforced my father's belief that the whole scheme was a trap. But on one particular Friday the jackpot crept up to two hundred and fifty dollars. As we hurried through dinner my brother, Joe, began to whine about always having to do the dishes while I got to go to the movies.

"You wouldn't like this movie anyway," I said.

"How do you know?"

"I just do."

"It's no fair," he cried.

My younger brother, Gus, who aped everything Joe did, began to complain, too. Shouting, they enumerated all my shortcomings. I was spoiled, ugly, stuck-up, and mean.

I shouted back, pointing out that I did the dishes every other night and had they forgotten that, huh?

Suddenly, BAM! My father's fist hit the table making the dishes clink and rattle. "That's enough!" he roared. He turned to my mother. "You've carried this movie nonsense far enough," he said. "Filling the girl's head with silly ideas. All she does is dance. She's forgotten how to walk. And you! You get a pitiful dish and think you've won a prize. And as for that bank night," he went on with disgust, "how many people do know who've won? I've told you a million times it's just a trick to get people to throw their money away. And for what? To see a half-naked woman letting herself be kissed for all the world to see. It's a disgrace."

My brothers and I were cowed by this rare display of anger in our easy-going father. But not my mother. "You!" she lashed out. "You'd be happy if I sat around with all those ugly women with their old-country ways, getting old before my time."

They sat glaring at each other. Finally, Joe got up and timidly began to clear the table. My father ordered him to sit down. Joe started to whimper and Gus snuffled. I pushed back my chair, gulped, and said, "We're going to be late, Ma. We better go."

"You're not going anywhere," my father said. "How do you like that?"

Sputtering with rage, my mother got up and left the table. She slammed the door to their bedroom. When I knocked on the door she said, "Go away. I'm sleeping."

Going back to the kitchen I stood in the doorway, drooping with disappointment. "Look at you," my father said, "if your face gets any longer you'll step on it. Now wash the dishes."

Early next morning Antonia, the girl next door who had gone to the movies with her sister, Gracie, threw open her kitchen window and leaned out, calling, "Donna Vi! Donna Vi!"

"What is it?" My mother asked listlessly, going to the back door.

"Where were you last night? You won Bank Night! They called and called your name but you weren't there. Just think, you coulda won two hundred and fifty dollars."

"San Giuseppe," my mother moaned, collapsing onto a chair. When she caught her breath she began to chant, "Two hundred and fifty dollars. Two hundred and fifty dollars." After a few minutes she got up and made her way dumbly back to bed.

My father worked half a day on Saturday, as did most working people before the advent of the forty-hour week. When he came home shortly after noon he asked why mamma was still in bed and we told him the awful news.

"Madonna," he groaned. "I'll never hear the end of this."

The next day my mother was up, wan and subdued. When the news got around and people came to commiserate with her she shrugged and sighed, "It wasn't meant to be."

When he got up the courage to speak to her, my father said, "Look, why worry? We didn't have two hundred and fifty dollars yesterday and we don't have two hundred and fifty dollars today. So what's the difference? The world still goes around."

My mother just looked away.

When I entered my teens with my own social agenda, I balked at going to the movies with my mother. So she didn't go as often, but she didn't seem any the worse for it. Her English was pretty good by then. She'd never get another chance at the jackpot and she had enough dishes. And Eleanor Powell had danced onto the scene, banishing any hope she'd had of my taking over for Ruby Keeler.

But my father had correctly predicted the outcome.

My mother recounted the tragedy of her lost fortune a hundred times before the end of her life. In the beginning my father looked sheepish and guilty, but he soon grew callous. As the years accumulated with no sign of the story's demise, he referred to it as "Vi's Bank Night Opera."

While her audience sat nodding in polite sympathy at her tale of woe, my father got up to refill the glasses with his homemade wine. Then, sitting down again, he leaned back in his chair and said, "Vi has spent that two hundred and fifty dollars so many times in her mind she would have had to lose a million to pay for all the stuff she imagined she bought. Isn't that right, Vi?" he said. "Think of the pleasure you've had spending a million dollars instead of a measly two hundred and fifty."

My mother rolled her eyes.

"Well, it's best not to dwell on misfortune," one of their guests said lifting her glass.

"How true," echoed another.

"I say," said yet another, " as long as you've got your health."

"Ah," they all sighed in unison, "how true."

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Helen Poulos	Aug 21, 2002	Bethlehem, PA	retired
I enjoyed the article a lot. Sounded like bits and pieces of our family in the '30's and '40's too.


consuelo	Apr 04, 2005	rio de janeiro	pesquisadora
por favor estou aborrecida. Tudo diz o nome do nelson eddy mas nem uma foto siquer dele. eu preciso ter material para pesquisa. ajudem-me por favor. grata consuelo