Comic Books and Shirtless Men at the Furniture Store

Rock Island,  August 1971

When I was growing up in Rock Island, we drove to northeastern Indiana to visit my parents' relatives at least twice a year.

When I was a little, I loved it: haunted houses, hidden rooms, long-ago ghosts, endless fields and country roads, magic, glamour, the rough cold beauty of my uncles going hunting, the sleek shivering beauty of my cousins in the swimming pool, the delight of cuddling against Cousin Buster as we fell asleep in his narrow bed in the Trailer in the Dark Woods.  A sense of almost mystical belonging.

But as I grew, the sense of belonging faded away.  I began to find the visits boring or uncomfortable,  the world of northeastern Indiana more and more alien.

It wasn't just that I couldn't go home again.  What really hurt was, I didn't want to go back.

All tied up with that world was Harvey Comics  -- the ghosts, witches, devils, and other paranormal beings in the bucolic Arcadia of the Enchanted Forest.

You couldn't get them in Rock Island.  I had only the few that my Indiana relatives gave me, and memories of reading as many as possible in Cousin Buster's room while spending the night.

It never occurred to me for an instant that the stories were supposed to be funny.  I found them deadly serious.  Casper, Spooky, Wendy, and Hot Stuff fight space aliens, mad scientists, evil wizards, save their friends or the whole world countless times.

But really, the stories were irrelevant: it was the comics themselves, the physical books that I could hold in my hands and remember what Indiana used to mean.

One day in the summer of 1971,when I was ten years old, I asked my Cousin Buster where he got his collection of Harvey Comics.  Were there stores with huge racks of them on open display?

He told me: the drug store.

  I got my comics at Schneider's Drug Store, but all they had were Gold Key and superheroes.

Also Manuel's Newsstand in town.

Too bad.  There were no newsstands in Rock Island.  Where else?

He thought for a moment, and then said "The furniture store."

Furniture? Like davenports, recliner chairs, and dining room tables?

When I was a little kid, I didn't know that you could actually buy furniture.  I thought it came with the house.  How could a store be big enough to display it?  What car was big enough to carry it home?

Cousin Buster told me that they had big trucks, and men with their shirts off to move it for you.

Men with their shirts off?

So I could get Harvey comic books and see men with their shirts off at the same time!

But how to convince Mom and Dad to take me to a furniture store? I couldn't say that I wanted to buy comic books there.  Or see shirtless men.

I had to talk them into buying a piece of furniture.

A new bed!

"I'm getting too big to sleep in the same bed with Kenny," I told them.  "I have a later bedtime, so every time I go to bed, I wake him up.  And he kicks!"

"Maybe you're right," Mom said.  "Boys your age should have their own bed.  We'll go pick out two twin beds for you on Saturday."

Uh-oh.  Mom and Dad never took us shopping, except to buy new school clothes every August.  They left us with the neighbors, or one went shopping and the other stayed home.  I had to actually go to the furniture store to get my comics and the shirtless men!

"No!  I want to pick them out!  Me and Kenny.  To see..if it's cool enough."



I spent the week imagining the furniture store, with its racks of Harvey Comics, Casper, Spooky, Hot Stuff, Ghostland, Devil Kids, Witch World, an endless array of intriguing, brightly-colored covers and evocative stories.

I didn't spend any of my 25 cent allowance all week, and there'd be another 25 cents on Saturday morning.  Plus I found a dime on the floor, and I borrowed 50 cents from Bill for a total of $1.10.  I'd be broke for nearly a month, but I could buy 9 comic books!

On Saturday after breakfast we drove to a place called Carson Piri Scott, in Moline.  I remembered their ads on tv.  It was huge warehouse like structure with entire living rooms set up, like a hundred houses all crammed together.

"The beds are on the second floor," Mom said, steering us toward the escalator.

"Wait -- um...." Where were the comic books? The huge display case must be against an outer wall.  "Um....I have to go to the bathroom."

"Ok.  Do you want Dad to take you?"

"No, I see where it is.  I'll be up in a minute."

I walked toward the room marked "Men"until they vanished up the escalator.  Then I started walking along the outer wall, past sofas and coffee tables, dining room sets, book cases, tv sets...nothing.  Where were the comic books?  Where were the shirtless men?  I walked faster and faster, past customer service and the bathrooms again. Then a loading dock. No comic books, no shirtless men.   Finally I was running. I ran faster and faster...I had almost made a full circle, back to the sofas...

When I almost collided with a man.

"Whoops, sorry," he said in a strange accent.  "Are you ok, little boy?"

He turned around and grabbed me. Strong arms, brown square hands.  I looked up:  he was tall, broad-shouldered, with curly black hair, a little moustache, and a brown complexion. Wearing a Nehru jacket.  Smiling.

He wasn't white, but he wasn't black, either.  I had never seen anyone like him before. I stared, mesmerized.

"Are you lost?"

Breathing heavily, I managed to stammer, "Um...I was looking for...I mean, where are the comic books?"

He laughed.  "This a furniture store.  They don't sell comic books here."

"Huh?  But...wait...Cousin Buster said...I saved up my allowance..."  My pocket was heavy-loaded with nickels and dimes.

"Don't cry!" I told myself savagely, as the tears started to well up.

"Wait, wait...it's ok," the man said.  "We'll find your Mom and Dad.  Look, I have something for you."  He took me by the hand and led me to where a woman and two kids were trying out couches.  He spoke to the woman for a moment, and she pulled something out of her bag.

It was a comic book!  Not a Harvey.  And in a language I didn't recognize. Later I discovered that it was Hindi.

A moment later, my Dad came to fetch me.  He apologized to the man and his family and dragged me upstairs to pick out a bed.  I got to keep the comic book, but it has long since vanished.

The guys who delivered our new twin beds kept their shirts on.

I have some questions about this memory.

1. Who was the man?  What was a Hindi-speaking family doing in Rock Island in 1970?  The town was not at all diverse.  I never met anyone else from South Asia, through high school and college.

2. How did his wife just happen to have a comic book handy?

3. Were there no other customers or salespeople in the store?

4. Where did Cousin Buster ever get the idea that you could get comic books in a furniture store?  Maybe he was putting one over on his little cousin from Illinois.

No, I didn't see anyone naked, but here's a naked Desi guy to tide you over.

See also: Sausage Sighting of My Cousin Buster