What Doesn't Kill You...
Lorraine Mutschler

Chapter One
BABE


We met on February 2, Groundhogs Day, 1951, my sixteenth birthday. I walked into
Murphys Five & Ten on Brownsville Road, the main street of my hometown of Carrick,
in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to begin my first day at my first job. My girlfriend, Mary
Helen Becker, was with me. She had already been working there for some time.


I was thinking about how nervous I was, about working with the public and meeting
new people. When I crossed the metal threshold of the open glass doors, I was startled by
a wet mop at my feet that would change my life forever.


At the handle of the mop was a slightly-built, boyish looking young man, wearing
Navy-issue flared pants and a denim shirt, with cuffs rolled up to his muscular forearms.
He had light brown hair, slightly receding from a broad forehead, and his blue eyes were
the gentlest I had ever seen. I froze there for a second, Mary Helen pulling at my sleeve.
As he looked up and smiled at me, I couldnt breathe. The breath literally left my body
and my legs went limp. He moved the mop aside and with an exaggerated gesture,
gallantly waved us by.


I was suddenly aware that my hair was wind-blown and frizzy. And I hated this long
black coat. It made me look even taller than my 59" gangly frame. I was a stick. Sixteen,
and a senior in high school, and I had hardly started to blossom where it counted most. All
these thoughts surged through my mind in the two or three seconds it took to make my
way past his watching eyes. He was thin but well built, and the cutest boy I had ever laid
eyes on. I turned to Mary Helen and said, "Im going to marry that boy."


She laughed and told me I didnt have a chance. "Hes been going steady with the
same girl for the last two years."


I leaned my head to hers and whispered, "Thats today." We giggled and went to our
separate counters.



I worked in Notions: thread, scissors, buttons, that sort of thing. And records. Mine
was the last counter before the freight elevator and the hi-fi record player was my
domain. No stereo back then. It was my job to make sure the latest recordings were
playing through the loud speakers to entice the teenagers to buy. It also gave me a chance
to catch a glimpse of Ralph Andrew Mutschler passing through the wired glass window
of the elevator, up to the stockroom and back down to the basement.

When he stopped at my floor to unload merchandise, I just happened to be at the back
of the counter where he could see me, and I would smile my sweetest smile.
Unfortunately, I would also blush, and my nose would turn red, which was why he called
me "Rudolph." I didnt care what he called me. I began drawing the letters "RUDOLPH"
on my book covers at school. The other kids thought I liked some German foreign-
exchange student named Rudolph. Little did they know.


But Mary Helen knew, and tried to spark the romance. She would send me to the
stockroom for supplies when she knew he was up there. I would just say "hi" at first, then
after a few days, we began one-line conversations. Months later, I got my first kiss in the
stockroom, on the third floor of Murphys Five & Ten, with his face intermittently
illuminated by the flashing--red "Murphys" sign outside the glass block windows. My
face couldnt have been any redder, sign or no sign.


I started wearing my long hair down instead of back in a pony tail. I would see the
freight elevator stop at our floor and the inside lights go out, as he sat there, watching me.
My hands would tremble, and of course, I would find it necessary to go to the turntable in
front of the elevator more often--to check on the rotation of the record. The water
fountain was right in front of the window, so naturally I was also thirstier when he was
there . . . sitting, watching . . . making my heart race.


I asked his best friend, Dick Henry, who also worked in the stock room, if he was
really going steady. All he would tell me was, "dont give up." A few days later, Dick
came downstairs to my counter and stood beside me. He ran his hand from the top of his
head down to the top of mine. As he was walking away, he said to no one in particular, "I
told him she wasnt taller than me. I knew he meant Babe. Dick had told me not to call
him Ralph, that everyone called him Babe". It seemed rather forward, and had a hard time
coming out of my mouth, but when I finally called him Babe one day, his eyes lit up, and
for me, he was Ralph never more.


So now it was confirmed. I was not too tall for him. He had kissed me in the stock
room and made my knees buckle.


He was stopping the elevator to watch me, thinking I didnt know. Now what . . . would
he finally ask me out?


Then, that week, a new girl came to work. A beautiful girl with long black hair and
gorgeous eyes. Her name was Jill and she zoomed in on Babe the first day. I was
heartsick. She asked me if he was going with anyone. I could say with all honesty that I
heard he was going steady with the same girl for two years. I prayed for Divine
intervention; but she pursued, and I retreated.


So it came as a shock one day, when I saw his 36 Chevy rumbling down Brownsville
Road, with the usual contingent of male arms and legs hanging out the open windows,
and he actually pulled to the curb beside me! I froze and glanced inside. There must have
been ten guys crammed in there. He smiled that smile and my throat closed. "Where you
off to?" he asked.

In a chorus, the boys in back sang out, "Hellloooo, Lorraine!" I was red as a beet
already and could only smile. They laughed and poked at each other. "Well?" Babe was
looking up at me with those eyes, waiting.