+++No this is not an article for the New England Journal of Medicine. No, it's a really wrong story for you to read if you are under eighteen years of age. If you are older; it probably won't hurt you, and may amuse and amaze you.
We called her Countess in private, but to her face, Aunt Grace. Countess because of her regal bearing and elegant clothes and perhaps because of her stagey way of talking, almost British and commanding. She was a great old babe and still attractive in her eighties, suggesting that she must have been a beauty a half century earlier.
Aunt Grace was always dressed for presentation at court. She wore long dresses of heavy silk, a "choker" of ribbon or beads at her neck, her "pinch nose" glass hung on a chain in front. Her gray wavy hair was always impeccably arranged.
I was her favorite. This neighbor and honorary aunt who lived alone, except for two snooty and unfriendly cats. She was my advisor throughout my adolescence. She was the only person I told that I was attracted to my own sex.
I needed her, I was down in the dumps all the time, partly because of my sex problem, but mainly because I was so ugly.
"You're not ugly, my dear," she assured me, tapping her diamond collared cane impatiently.
Oh yes, her cane. It was shiny black ebony with a silver knob handle. Around the upper portion that was a gold band, perhaps five inches, of diamonds. It was unusual, but my brother Davy, who never had anything good to say about anyone, said it was probably fake.
She added, "Sam, you have a perfect body, and your face is interesting, not one of those vapid ones."
I guess it was true that I was built pretty good. That's because I took up body building at age sixteen. You can get quick and impressive results at that age, but when one's eye traveled up from my perfect abs and chest and reached my face, the spell was broken.
My ears protruded, only matched by my large nose that shaded my thin lips. Jimmy Durante comes to mind. My gimlet eyes seemed suspicious and my plain brown, lank, thin hair crowned it all. Girls ignored me, boys made fun of me, I felt useless. Aunt Grace was a safe harbor for me, but when I was seventeen, she died.
She died overnight, suddenly. I say suddenly because I had enjoyed a cup of tea with her the very afternoon before and she seemed her usual self. She told me that she had actually been on the stage. That was the first time I heard her talk about that time in her life.
"I was in the Vanities."
Seeing the incomprehension on my ugly face, she explained that the Vanities was part of Broadway Revue history. "In its day, it was the tops for a musical comedy performer."
Suddenly she got up, threw her cane onto the sofa and walked to the middle of the room. I had never seen her walk without it. Her hands in front of her and her contralto voice quite young and clear, she sang a ditty from that era. Her dignified old face broke into coquettish smiles and leers as the lyrics told about a fallen woman.
Then she stopped and she became an old woman again, staggered over to the sofa and retrieved her cane. "Whew, that was a workout for an old hoofer," she said, laughing slightly between heavy breathing.
As she picked up her cane, she fixed me with a long look. "Davy, I am not rich, in fact I am nearly out of money, so I have nothing to leave you, my lovely boy, except this cane. Now when you get it, be sure to look inside."
I paid little attention. I didn't even know what "inside" meant, but when she died, her lawyer stopped by the house with the cane. "It may be valuable, I have no idea if those stones are real, but she left it to you. There was nothing else of value, her furniture was old and the house was heavily mortgaged."
I was pleased to be remembered. I couldn't imagine what I would do with a cane, especially one decorated as hers was, but I put it on the dresser in my room. Davy was very interested. "If they're diamonds, you're rich."
The next day he drove me downtown and we went to the jewelry store. The old man let out a slow whistle when he saw the cane's stones. "Son, there must be thirty carats here of excellent quality stones. Some are one carat and there are three are around the upper part that could be three or four carats. I'd say you have a small fortune here. If you ever want to sell, I can remove the collar and give a full appraisal. The collar itself is heavy and 24 carat gold, worth lot itself."
I was thrilled. If you're rich and ugly, it's better than poor and ugly. Davy was all for selling and have me buy a snazzy convertible. He was very into cars. But I decided to use hold on to it as a remembrance of a great lady and a great friend.
One afternoon I remembered that she had told me to look inside. I studied the cane and then tried unscrewing the silver knob on top. It turned easily and when it was removed it revealed and hollow about three inches deep. Down in the hole there was a vial such as used for medicine. I shook it out. On the label, in Aunt Grace's old fashioned script was written "Handsome Pills" and in smaller writing, "One a day until finished."
There were about thirty tiny pills inside. I smiled at an old ladies fantasy and foolishness, but in honor of Aunt Grace, I took one. It tasted like sugar and probably was.
After a week, Davy, who shared a bedroom with me stopped and stared at me, "Hey Sammy, you're looking good. You doing something different in the way you comb your hair."
Now I forgot to tell you that I was the ugly duckling of the family. Davy was a stunner, blond, blue eyed and had perfect features. That smile, those teeth and great lips. It drove me nuts. Mom and Dad were both good looking, like a TV couple. Only me, the elf, the gnome who must have been squeezed around head during birth delivery, served only as contrast for their good looks.
When Davy made that remark I shrugged with pretended indifference but went to the well lit bathroom and looked in the mirror. I did look different. Somehow, while my nose and ears were king sized, the effect seemed minimalized and my acne was gone and my skin looked smooth and glowing. I was puzzled, but pleased.
I took that day's Handsome Pill hopefully.
End Part One
==Don't close your fly yet, Part Two will have what you came for.