Before Texas Changed: A Fort Worth Boyhood

Chapter 7

7. While my friends and I were smoking, dancing, following our sports heroes, grabbing our ankles, and dusting erasers, the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the West was dominating the news—especially atomic weapons. One of the benefits of this otherwise ominous development was that we often got to miss some class time in order to conduct air-raid drills. At the sound of bells, we all filed out into the halls, were told to cross our arms, place them against the lockers, and then press our faces into our arms. This was to be our protection against an atom bomb. One afternoon, our faces buried in our arms, the guy next to me said: “What do you think? Even if our butts get blown off, our faces will be alright? What if the whole building goes? Are we going to be left standing here? What idiot planned this?” I wasn’t sure, but at least no bombs fell and the drill got us out of class for a while.
“Hey, Murph,” asked Charlie, “Did you know there’s a grocery store that’ll deliver to your house? All you have to do is call in your order and give your address, and they’ll bring you whatever you ordered.” “So?” I asked, not yet seeing where he was going. We were in his upstairs bedroom, and he pointed out the window to a house across the street. “What if we were to call the grocery and order a ton of food and have it delivered there? That lady’s home most of the time. One of us could pretend to be her husband, and we could watch the whole deal when they bring all that stuff to the door.” 102 “Great idea!” I said. “Do you know the name of the store?” “Sure, that’s why I thought of it.” He ran downstairs to get a phone book and returned with his finger on the number. “I’ll do it,” he said. “Watch this.” I dialed the number and he began his spiel. After identifying himself as someone who lived in that house, he began placing a huge order. “I need lots of meat,” he said, naming some of the steaks he knew and throwing in some sausage and baloney along the way. “And canned goods—I need a lot of those—some corn and beans and peas, about six cans each. And also some sugar and flour. Several sacks will do fine.” Quickly exhausting his knowledge of groceries, he put his hand over the phone and whispered, “What else? Think of something, quick!” “How about some desserts?” I added. “Get some cakes and pies.” “Yeah,” he smiled, “That’s good.” “Uh, I’m also gonna need two pies—apple and cherry—and two cakes. Make ‘em chocolate.” Apparently, this inspired some other ideas, because he kept adding to the list until he had ordered enough for a small army. “How long do you think that’ll take,” he asked. “Okay, that’ll be fine. Thanks a lot.” Slamming down the phone, he fell back on his bed and burst into laughter. “Can you imagine the look on her face when she comes to the door? This’ll be great! I wonder how long it’ll take them to get here?” We soon had the answer. Within a few minutes, lying across his bed on our stomachs and looking out the window, we saw a delivery truck pull to the curb in front of the house and two men get out. They went to the back of the truck and began removing sacks of groceries . Both of them then lifted as many as they could, carried them to the door, and rang the bell. “Here it comes,” said Charlie. “Watch this.” a f o r t w o r t h b o y h o o d 103 We couldn’t hear anything, but the hand and head motions told plenty. So did the woman’s face. She put her hands to her mouth and began shaking her head from side to side. The men obviously didn’t want to take no for an answer and kept standing there with arms full of groceries. By now she was motioning with her arms, trying to convince them the whole thing was a mistake and she knew nothing about it. “Get back!” I warned Charlie. “They...