Fiction: The Queen of the Rollin’ Robin by Barry Kritzberg

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  Billy Mills sat in his blue and white Ford in the Rollin’ Robin Drive-In parking lot, slowly finishing his chocolate malt, waiting for the carhop to come and take his tray.

            He was not waiting for any carhop, but for Gwen, clearly the queen of all the carhops.

            He had never heard of the Rollin’ Robin until a few weeks before, when his date of the evening suggested it was the most fun place to go for a snack after a movie.

            Billy asked what made it the most fun.

            “Oh,” his date said, “I can’t believe you’ve never heard of it! The waitresses bring the trays to your car on roller skates! It is like watching the roller derby, but with trays!”

            This was not Billy’s idea of fun, but he acquiesced, saying nothing and keeping his reservations to himself. He had already signed off on this date: she was cute, very cute, but she was a bit of an airhead, and her conversation did not get beyond the latest soap opera dramas.

            The Rollin’ Robin was at its most chaotic on weekends, when carloads of bored teenagers came, especially for the fried chicken and malted milk shakes, but also just to see and be seen. A special attraction, which Billy noted immediately, was the carhops, who were dressed in uniforms that mimicked the robin’s colors: tight red blouses, very short black shorts, yellow socks and yellow skates.

            The carhop who skated up to Billy’s car and asked, with a broad smile, “What can I do for you, sir? I’m Gwen, here to serve you.”

            Billy could think of a lot of things he might like Gwen to do for him, for he had already noticed that this full-figured carhop turned heads, right, left, and center. She had curly red hair, which flopped this way and that as she skated, and her green eyes enchanted him at once.

            On a return visit, with no date, he finally got Queen Gwen to talk about something beyond the menu, and she even agreed to “do something” when she got off at ten.

            He had a pint of scotch whiskey in the glove compartment, and he thought of driving down to Montrose Harbor where they could drink and talk and neck, and perhaps even more, if all went well.

            She finished with the other remaining car and came to take Billy’s tray. “It’ll take me just a few minutes to check-out, and then we can leave,” Gwen said.

            She was back in no time, slipped in beside him, and kissed him on the cheek.

            “I really like two-tone cars,” she said. “I think they’re the coolest.”

            Billy smiled.

            “Where to, bright eyes?”

            “Anywhere,” she said, looking around rather nervously. “Let’s just get out of here.”

            Billy backed out of the slot, turned the car around and exited east on Montrose, heading toward the harbor. Gwen, not shy at all, was snug up against him, with her head on his shoulder.

            They drove almost to Ashland in silence, and so Billy asked if it was okay to take a drive down by the lake and park.

            Gwen was softly crying, not saying anything. Billy pulled the car over to the curb and asked what was the matter.

            “Billy,” she said, leaning her breasts against his arm, “will you do me a big favor?”

            “Sure, what is it?”

            “Take me home.”

            He protested that the night was still young.

            “Just turn around, and I’ll explain as we drive.”

            Billy made a U-turn and headed back west on Montrose.

            “My mom and I moved out last night.”

            “Moved out?”

            “Yeah, we just couldn’t take it anymore. We’ve put up with it for years, but my mom finally had enough. My ol’ man’s a drunk, and when he’s drunk he likes to yell and knock us around. So last night, when my old man was at the tavern, my mom hands me a suitcase and says to pack up quick, we’re leaving. So I packed up, but I was too scared to really think. I don’t even know what I took. I need to go back home and take the important stuff. I didn’t even take my school books.”

            “Wait a minute. What about your father?”

            “He’s not there.  He’s at the tavern, won’t be home ‘til it closes at two. Will you help me move my stuff?”

            Billy wasn’t sure he wanted to get into the middle of this. He hardly knew the girl, but she was cute and he was flattered that she was prepared to rely on him.

            “Sure, sure,” he said. “Where are you living now?”

            “We’re staying in a little apartment hotel, 840 W. Montrose, at least temporarily.”

            “I know where that is,” Billy said, not sure of what else to say.

            “Turn left on Pulaski, then make a right on Cullom, and go down just past the first intersection and park on the right. We’re the second house.”

            The two-story frame house was dark. As they opened the gate, Billy heard dogs—big dogs—starting to bark. He stopped in his tracks.

            “Don’t worry,” Gwen said. “They’re my dogs. They’ll be okay as soon as they see that you’re with me.”

            Billy followed her up the steps. She opened the unlocked door, and two huge dogs came bounding out. Gwen was stooping down, hugging them both. The larger brown one shoved his muzzle in Billy’s crotch.

            “Don’t worry, he’s just being friendly. He’s Art, short for King Arthur, and this one is Sir Gawain. We call him Sir.”

            Gwen switched on the lights. “Let’s go,” she said, “my room is upstairs.”

            He followed her up the stairs. When she turned on the light in her room, she gave a little startled scream. “My stuffed animals are gone! He must have thrown them out. Could he hate me that much? I’ve been his daughter for eighteen years.”

            She was sitting on the bed, wringing her hands and sobbing softly. “I’m eighteen, but I’m still his little girl.”

            She stood up and opened the top drawer of a bureau. Empty.

            She opened the next, and the next, and the next. All empty.

            She turned from the bureau, walked around the bed, and opened the closet door. Naked hangers, nothing more.

            “I hate him, I hate him!”

            She rushed out of the room, and Billy followed.  She went down the stairs and out the back door to the garage, where she found her book bag in the back of the unlocked Dodge.

            “I left it here yesterday afternoon,” she said. “At least, it’s something.”  She flung the bag over her shoulder and went back through the house. The dogs were at her heels. Billy trailed behind. 

At the front door, she suddenly whirled around. “Would you mind taking King Arthur and Sir Gawain in your car? They’re good dogs, they’ll behave.”

Billy was bewildered, but he said he didn’t mind.

Gwen shut the door on the way out, but didn’t bother to turn out the lights.

“Where to now?” Billy asked, once Gwen, King Arthur, and Sir Gawain were settled in the car.

“I don’t know, I guess 840 West Montrose. Is that okay?

“Sure, if that is what you want.”

Bill obliged, and drove east on Montrose once again.

“I think so. I probably need to get some homework done.”

“Homework? What college do you go to?”

“Oh, I’m not in college yet.”

“Wait,” Billy said, “I thought you said you were eighteen, and don’t you have to be eighteen to serve alcohol at the drive in?”

“You just don’t understand. When I’m at Rollin’ Robin, I am eighteen.”

“And what does that mean?”

She sighed deeply, indicating perhaps that it was too complicated to explain, and slowly pulled her wallet out of her purse.

“Here,” she said, handing him an Amundsen High School identification card.

The name on the ID was Gwendolyn Greer and the headshot, while not very good, was unmistakably the Queen of the Rollin’ Robin.

Bill asked what “HR-204/Div 10” meant.

“Homeroom 204, Division 10, just like it says.”

“So, you are in 10th grade, a sophomore, is that right?

“Yes, at Amundsen High School.”

“But you say you are eighteen, isn’t that right?”

“Yes, I’m eighteen at the Rollin’Robin.”

“But you’re…”

“Stop,” Gwen insisted, “”just stop!”

Bill pulled over the curb and parked the car.

“No, no,” she said, “just stop giving me the third degree,  okay? You wouldn’t understand anyway, so just take me home…I mean to my hotel.”

Billy and Gwen had nothing further to say to one another. Billy dropped Gwen “at her hotel,” with Art and Sir.

Billy watched as she and the dogs went into the hotel. He waited fifteen minutes, perhaps it was even longer, and she did not return.

Gee, Bill thought as he drove home, what a strange girl. She never even thanked me for the ride.

Some two weeks later, he was driving by the Rollin’ Robin, and he saw Gwen skating across the parking lot with a tray.

He pulled into the parking lot and calculated which slots Gwen would be serving. He saw her in the rear-view mirror, skating enthusiastically toward his open window.

            Gwen asked, with her winning smile, “What can I do for you, sir? I’m Gwen, here to serve you.”

            Billy hesitated,  smiled, and asked how King Arthur and Sir Gawain were doing.

            “Those items are not on our menu, sir. Could you please just tell me what you would like to order?”

Barry Kritzberg’s first serious writing experience happened at about age seven, when, at his father’s suggestion, he began keeping a journal about fishing, on the logical notion that an understanding of the habits of, say, northern pike, would lead to catching more of them. That clearly hooked him on writing.