Chapter Nine. Follow the Bouncing Ball

Mitch Miller, American musician, singer, conductor, producer


Follow the Bouncing Ball

"Mistuh Wink-o, wemembuh, be cautious like de deeuh cwossing de stweam and awweez ack wike de kitty cot." Opie was bulldozing through the crowd, moving toward the laundry building.

"Like a deer crossing the stream. Got it. Act like a kitty cat. OK. Will do." These terms were familiar to Derby from his Taoist readings. But he wasn't 100% certain what acting like a cat would look like, once he was in the presence of the Red Dragon wizard named Umpa.

"Oh and one moah impo-tant de-tay-o. Mistuh How-wer tell me. He say mose impo-tant de-tay-o for you to wemembuh. Ask Wed Dwagon to bwow on your baws." Opie had stopped in the midst of the activity and faced Derby to tell him this. He held out his short arm and looked up to make eye contact.

Derby needed clarification. "What you mean bwow on my baws?"

"Bwow. Bwow." Opie was pushing the wind out of his cheeks to demonstrating blowing.

"Aha, blow...blow on my baws? What are baws?"

"I not know what Mr. How-wer mean ee-duh. Mose men not likey other men bwow on their baws." Opie was embarrassed at the subject and Derby could tell because he was blushing.

"Ah. My balls. Now I see what Howard is talking about. I am to ask Umpa to blow on my balls." Opie wouldn't have known that at that moment what Derby was grabbing in his pocket was his packet of white and black marbles.

"Yes. You co-wect. Wed Dwagon mus bwow on you baws. You likey that Mr. Wink-o?"

Derby was smiling and reached out to pat Opie on the shoulder. He was starting to like the boy. "Opie. It isn't what you think. I have these marbles...," with that he dangled the little bag in front of Opie to show him. Just as he held them to Opie's eye level the arm of someone in the crowd knocked the sack from his hand and the marbles went tumbling. It was almost as if he watched the action in slow motion. One marble then the other, flying through the air and the little pouch floating down and lost in the mass of bodies surrounding them.

Derby frantically tried to catch the marbles in mid flight but after the initial slow motion view of them leaving his hands, now there was no sign of them. Just then he caught sight for a fleeting moment of the white marble on the ground near a stranger but then again, as if in slow motion, he watched a foot kick the marble and it went rocketing along the paved road.

"Opie. Please look for a black marble near us here. I'll try to find that white one which just got booted down the street."

"OK weow do Mistuh Wink-o. Bwack mahbow. I weow fine fo you!," said the young man enthusiastically. As he kneeled down, Opie saw the black marble and was proceeding toward it on hands and knees, looking like a child at play imitating a dog on the run, when he watched with horror another child scoop it up and start running away with it at full speed.

Opie looked back for Derby but didn't see him. Not wanting to loose sight of the thief he decided to chase the lad with the marble. In the meantime Derby was excusing himself with strangers right and left as he tried to clear a path at their feet so he could find the white marble. He was so relieved when he spotted it near a sewer drain but he was nervous about its vicinity to the sewer, for fear that another foot would inadvertently send it down the drain.

He too wondered about Opie's location and he considered for a moment that he was stuffed like a sardine in a crowd of loud Chinese people in the midst of a colorful celebration and night was approaching. "What if he wasn't reunited with Opie?," he found himself wondering. "Stranded and balless and only can speak a little Opie, but not a lick of Chinese."

As he paced deliberately toward the marble, with these thoughts on his mind, the surreal incident which followed stopped him cold in his tracks.

A jet black mouse or rat (he wasn't sure which) ran up to the white marble and swallowed it, then disappeared into the sewer drain. While he stood there in disbelief at what had just happened, he felt the tug on his sleeve.

"Mistuh Wink-o. Wook. Wook Mistuh Wink-o! I tow you I woo fine it. De mawbow. Wook I fine!."

For the split of a second Derby was relieved until their enthusiasm turned to surprise as another arm in the crowd knocked the black marble from Opie's hand. Both stood in shock, with mouths open because the clink of the white marble bouncing in slow motion seemed to be as loud as the other fireworks which surrounded them. Clip-clop-clank and it too disappeared in the sewer drain.