NOTE: Ms. Datlow wanted a glossary with this story, so I've done one—notes on the music, people, the times, construction of the story itself. It's front-loaded—the notes come thick, heavy and fast at first, then get fewer and further apart. I'd rather you read the story and discover some of the things for yourself, first, THEN go back and check out the notes, if you're confused or have some sneaking unconfirmed suspicions.

I had a few initial qualms about doing it this way, but then, if nobody got on David Thomson for Suspects or Silver Light, I'm not really worried ….

SUNDAY. "Stranger On The Shore"

Bobby sat in the small beachside park watching the waves come in from Japan.

It was a park put up by the WPA twenty-five years before, probably nice once, that had been allowed to run down. There were a few picnic tables, some missing slats from the tops, three firepits and a poured concrete bench overlooking the ocean.

An old lady there once told him that it had once been quite popular with families just after the war. Then bodybuilders had started using it, and the kinds of crowds they attracted, she'd said, arching her eyebrows, and then the Colored had moved into the area, and now look at it.

Now, looking at it, he saw a couple of surfer guys paddling around out there, and their girlfriends lying on towels on the beach, even though it was October, and a guy walking a dog back and forth, eyeballing the girls' butts.

Bobby came here because he usually wasn't bothered. There were two orders of french-fries from the In-and-Out Burger a mile away beside him.

He heard a car pull into the parking lot, a door slam, and the sound of a tinny transistor radio playing "Fly Me To The Moon (Bossa Nova)" getting closer.

"You gonna eat all those fries?"

"No, I was hoping some dork grad-school physicist would come along and want some."

"Hello, Bobby. Swell mood."

"Hello, Stewart. Plenty to make me this way. Sorry. What's up?"

"Went by the place, you weren't there, you weren't at the pool hall, figured you were here."

"Turn that thing down."

Stewart fiddled with his shirt pocket, turned off the brown and silver radio, took his Chesterfields out of the other pocket and lit one up.

Bobby moved away from him on the bench, coughing. "What's up?"

"Saw Gadge at your apartments," he said. "Pomphret's busting his chops again at j.c. Making him think and stuff. The bastard."

"He was making everybody think when we were there; why should he quit now?"

"Yeah, but you know how Gadge is. He says when he first saw the prof, six or seven years ago, he was a science reporter named Johnson; now he's at the junior college teaching English and his name is Pomphret."

"Maybe he's got a half-twin brother or something? Anyway, what's on Gadge's mind?"

"You know, since he discovered girls, he wants to be called Brian?"

"Yeah, yeah."

"Well, he said he talked to Dobie, and Dobie's worried about his dad again."

"From what I hear," said Bobby, "His dad ain't been the same since he had to go up into the hills and identify his brother Joe's body in the swimming pool at that crazy old bat's house. That was before my time, though."

"Well, there's that. There's also trouble with Dobie's uncles. His dad's a triplet, you know; Joe was a younger brother. Anyway, there's him, Herbert T., then there's his brother Norbert E. who used to be the taxi service in some podunk town, and then there's Elbert P., who everybody used to call Pinky and worked in a male psycho ward in New York."

"Okay. Triplets. What's the deal?"

"Well, Pinky—that's Elbert P.—got to looking through some state records and ran across their birth certificates. Pinky was always told he was born last. But the records say that was Norbert E. He can't be Pinky—he's Herbert T. or he's Norbert E. but he can't be Elbert P. So Norbert's Pinky, or Dobie's father is—"

"What does this have to do with anything?"

"Well, now Herbert T. thinks he may be Pinky. And Norbert doesn't know who he is."

"I think Dobie's runnin' his dad crazy, hanging around with beatniks, chasing after girls who only want rich guys when he ain't got two nickels to rub together—"

They were interrupted by singing from below the rise at the edge of the park: "Medea—I just met a girl named—Medea—" off-key, very off key.

Stewart walked to the edge of the park and looked down. "Go somewhere else, squirts!" he yelled. He walked back.

"It's just that Opie and young Theodore," he said. "Go on."

"I said, Dobie's running his father as crazy as his dad's worrying about which triplet he is. How did we get off on this?"

"You asked me what Gadge said. I'm telling you the truth, Ruth. He's worried about Dobie's—"

"Sorry I asked in the first place. God, I wish life was as simple as wondering whether I'm me!"

"Gal trouble?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Suit yourself."

They watched the ocean in silence. Stewart finished his fries. "Well," he said. "I better get back and check on Roger. Want to shoot some pool later?"

Roger was Stewart's little brother, who hadn't spoken in six years.

"Naw. I'd rather brood."

"Ok." said Stewart. "You might want to check the news when you get back—you may not have heard out here on Despondence Slough Point, but some big-ass deal's up in Washington, cars coming and going all day, Kennedy flew back from campaign-stumping for senators in the midwest. Not that I give a rat's ass." He paused. "And I wouldn't go selling Dobie's friend too short. Regiomontanus was a Krebs." He got in his Merc and left.

Bobby brooded for an hour or two, then that lost its charm. He went back to the parking lot.

As usual, there were notes stuck under his windshield wipers, two under the left and one under the right. He pulled that one out. It said: "Don't listen to those guys!! I'll top any of their offers by $75. Call Spud," then a phone number.

Bobby's car was a 1946 Ford Super Deluxe wagon: pale green hood and fenders, black top, with light blond wood doors, sides and back, and rear door. It had a green Continental kit and whitewall tires.

Every gremmie and would-be ho-dad on the coast was always trying to buy it from him, so they could use it to haul their surfing-boards and beach-bunnies around in it and look cool. He tore up the notes and threw them in the park garbage can.

He got in, made sure the greasy rag was handy on the floorboard, the one that he used when the gears hung between first and second, when he would have to jump out in the street, open the hood, yank the shift-levers even, and start all over again. It was happening more frequently lately.

No matter. He put it in reverse, swung out, shifted and headed for home.

Trouble or not, his rod was not for sale.

Bobby came in from work, took a quick shower, and lay down on his bed, which was three steps from either the door or the shower.

He looked around at his place. What a dump. He had to make some more money, or something, and get out of here.

He looked up at the wall where there was a license-plate holder. Above, it said "DC Cab" and below "Call Lawrence 6 1212." The license plate itself was number H0012. He'd gotten it when he was eleven. He remembered the day he'd gone to the cab company to get it, the day they changed all the license plates for the next year. It hadn't cost him anything: by then everybody seemed to have forgotten everything that had happened.

He'd had it with him ever since, in DC at the boarding house; when he and his mom had moved to California for her new job in '54, when his mom died in '58 and he'd been out on his own.

He also remembered, back in '51, that the first thing he'd done that summer night was to beat the shit out of (26)Sammy, the neighbor kid, for putting the finger on Mr. Carpenter. "They was Army guys!" said Sammy that night as Bobby pounded some more on his snotty nose, "What could I do? Don't hit me!" But Sammy knew he had it coming.

He turned on the radio. "—will make an address in about six more minutes. Meanwhile, here's 'Sea of Heartbreak' by Don Gibson, from way way back last year in 1961—" The music came up.

There was a knock on the door, then Stewart came in. "Hey, turn on the box. Kennedy's gonna blow off his bazoo in a few minutes."

Bobby switched on the TV, fiddled with the rabbit ears and the tinfoil til Channel 9 came in as well as it ever did. Some afternoon game show was wrapping up.

Stewart fired up a Chesterfield with the flame-thrower Zippo he used.

"God, those things stink!" said Bobby.

"You don't like smoking, move to another country." said Stewart. He rebreathed his own smoke three or four times.

"That kind of smoking when out in the Stone Age." said Bobby.

"The hell." said Stewart. They heard a motor-scooter buzz up outside.

Gadge, who lived in the same apartments, came in the door with his books under his arms.

"Kennedy talking yet?" he asked, dumping his books all over the floor. "Pomphret's busting our asses again."

"That right? Well—"

The TV had gone to the network logo, and a "Please Stand By—Special Bulletin" card. The announcer said: "We take you now to the White House where the President of the United States will address the nation."

Bobby looked at the clock. Four p.m. PDT. That would be 7 o'clock on the East Coast.

"—within the past week, unmistakable evidence has established the fact that a series of offensive missile sites is now in preparation on that imprisoned island. The purpose of these bases can be none other than to provide a nuclear strike capability against the Western Hemisphere.
"This government, as promised, has maintained the closest surveillance of the Soviet military buildup on the island of Cuba—"

Stewart was quiet.

"Where's the admiral?" asked Bobby.

"He had to get back to the Pentagon last Friday. Some big-cheese reunion of the old code-breakers or something … Hey, wait! I bet it had something to do with this!"

Gadge started to laugh.

"What's so funny?"

"Boy!" he said. "I just got a picture of Krushchev and Kennedy waving their dongs at each other, their hair all standing up straight …"

"Krushchev doesn't have any hair." said Stewart.

"He does on his back." said Bobby.

"Yeah, well, it's just a big-dick contest!" said Gadge.

"It's a big-dick contest with H-bombs." said Stewart.

"Hey," said Bobby, looking at him, "you're the one who's usually a card. Why so glum?"

"I better get home," said Stewart. "No telling how Roger's taking this. See you guys later."

"Lemme put this in perspective," said Bobby, stopping him at the door while turning off the TV, and turning the radio back up, which was playing Bert Kaempfert's "Wonderland by Night" from 1960. "Kennedy thinks he's got problems, what with Russians and missiles and Castro in Cuba. Me, I gotta find a shifter gate collar for a '46 Ford."

The junkyard was as crummy-looking as most, but it was bigger.

There was a parking strip, and a tiny office you had to go through, attached to a barn-size building with a couple of garage doors through which you could see the entire history of the internal-combustion engine and the transmission stacked up to the ceilings. Beyond that was about two miles of 10-foot-high fence topped with four strands of barbed wire with a sign every fifty feet saying "Patrolled by Vicious Dogs." There was a big wrecker with the junkyard name on it, and a smaller one made out of a pickup, dark blue with a dribble of pink paint on the left fender, that was unmarked. On one side of the garage-part, hoods of cars and trucks were stacked up like rental boats at a lake in the off-season. There were four or five cars out front when Bobby pulled up. He took out some wrenches and screwdrivers and went inside the office.

A fat guy was on the phone. His hands looked like he'd cleaned them last during the third Roosevelt administration. He held up one of them. He finished talking and hung up.

"First thing you do, kid, you go to that stack of pads there and you write your name and address and you sign and date it."

"I thought I was at a junkyard." said Bobby.

"Hoho. So you are, kid. This is for my insurance company. Something happens to you out there, and you've signed the form, I don't care. You don't sign it, you don't get in on your quest for the perfect hot-rod."

Bobby stepped over to the pad of mimeographed forms, read it—the standard "own risk" crap, wrote out his name and address, signed and dated it.

"Letting lawyers doing your thinking for you, aren't you?"

The guy sighed. "You got cars, glass and junk, you get insects and worms. You get insects, including bees and wasps, and worms, you get birds and rats. You get birds and rats, you get snakes, many beneficent, but including the coast rattler, the copperhead and the mocassin. You reach for the headlight assembly on an El Dorado and grab a handful of coast rattler, you die.

"I really don't have time for a nature lecture, kid. I just don't want anybody asking me in county court why I let idiots in such a dangerous place. That is the short answer. You through?"

"Yes."

"Happy hunting."

There was a slow rise at the back of the place, mowed grass on it, a mound. In the middle of the mound was what looked like a bank-vault door. Above the door and to one side was a dark indented slit in the mound.

Bobby jumped down inside the front of a '54 wagon, made, he knew, too late after they changed everything, but he looked anyway.

Bobby walked closer. He saw that the inset slit above the door contained the business end of a submarine periscope.

He knew then that he was looking at a pretty serious fallout shelter. So the junkyard guy was going to bunker-up during WWIII, instead of taking his chances outside with all the radioactive mu-tants. To each his own.

He tossed it up in the air and caught it a few times. He walked to the edge of the mowed grass around the fallout shelter. The water truck was long-gone. The dogs were going crazy. The sun was heading down in the drink, and they were getting restless. Maybe they lived for each night, hoping just once somebody would be out in the place when they were turned loose. He saw there was a big lift-gate at the front of the pen, and a walkway above it so the gate could be pulled up and the dogs couldn't get to whoever opened it. The was some operation.

"Out in the 34 area," the fat guy was saying to the kid. The kid nodded, looked at Bobby, bounced away.

"You look happy. What you got, kid?"

"Shifter gate collar."

"Shifter gate collar? Well, normally that would be 50¢. But being how the world's gonna end this week, that'll be a quarter. You'll need it to get up in the hills to the people who'll steal and rob and kill you."

"Thanks," said Bobby, handing him two dimes and a nickel. "I see you're ready."

"That I am. But don't come around when it happens thinking I'll let the whole world and his uncle in. All my family's ready too, 'ceptin' that boy you saw there; he says he'll take his chances."

"Well, he may be right," said Bobby. "Maybe people are more or less good. Maybe they'll help each other if that happens."

"Kid," said the fat guy. "Prepare yourself for one big disappointment."

Then Bobby noticed the fat guy and his sun-blond kid standing on the office porch looking at him.

"Hey, kid." said the guy. "My son wants to know if you want to sell your car?"

Bobby cranked up and put it in reverse.

"Not for all the farms in Cuber." he said, and drove away.

Roger, who was thirteen, was putting together an Aurora model of the Frankenstein monster. He had it standing up on its tombstone base, its left arm outstretched and in its shoulder socket, and the two halves of the right arm together and held with rubber bands while the reeking airplane cement dried.

"You okay, kid?" asked Stewart, coming in and putting his papers on the chair nearest his bed in the room they had shared for six years.

Roger shook his head yes.

"School okay?"

Roger shrugged.

"Yeah, I know what you mean. Neat Frankenstein."

Roger pushed the box, with all the parts already broken off the sprues, over toward him. He pointed to the sides, with its pictures of Dracula and the Wolfman, and the slug-line "Collect 'Em All!"

"I'll bet you can hardly wait for your next allowance, huh?"

Roger smiled, then went back to gluing.

Sarah was upset when she came into the boys' room. "It's the admiral," she said. "He wants to talk to Roger a minute, then you," she said to Stewart.

Roger ran out into the hall. After a couple of minutes he came back in, pointing over his shoulder with his thumb.

Stewart picked up the receiver.

"You okay, Admiral?" he asked.

"Yeah, yeah, Stewart, I'm fine as could be. Eating good old Navy chow again, working with some of the old gang. Look, Stewart—" he said, then stopped. "I—"

"We'll be fine, Admiral. It's you we're worried about."

"Yeah, well, I was fine for about forty years before you was born, kid. I want you to know how—uh—"

"Hey! I want you to know how much I—me and Roger—appreciate all you and Sarah and Miz Jones did for us. Especially for Roger, Admiral. We couldn't have been an easy thing—"

"Aw, hell. All I said was give me those kids; they need something like a parent right now, and I don't have time to argue with you."

"Wasn't like ordering around swabbies on a boat, though, was it?" asked Stewart.

"Well, no." said the admiral. "But I got you, didn't I?"

Then he cleared his throat. "Look, Stewart. This thing might get a little hairy. Keep on top of stuff. Get Roger and Miz Jones and Sarah somewhere safe, if it comes to it. You're the man of the house right now."

"Of course I will, Admiral." said Stewart.

"Well, gotta get off the blower here—they're only giving everybody one call. I oughtta know, I signed the order myself. And I'm strict." He laughed.

"Admiral, we—"

"Get back to your books, Stewart. Tell Sarah and Miz Jones I'll be back the minute this little flap is over."

"Sure thing," said Stewart. There was a transcontinental click on the other end of the line.

The admiral, who'd been working with his parents the week before, and who was on his way back from Washington when it happened (the week after the collapse, then sudden reemergence of the Soviet Union, when it looked like the messages his dad had been getting from Mars were faked by the Nazi from South America) got there in the first few hours while the ruins were filled with firemen, police, FBI, and the military.

Aunt Jessica and Uncle Hume had wanted to adopt them, but of course the State of California said "They're actors. New York actors, mostly, and they have kids of their own."

So the admiral said "Give them to me. Those boys need me." The State reminded him he wasn't married. "You're right," he said. "I figured if I needed a wife, the Navy would have issued me one. But I've lived in the same house when not on blue-water duty for twenty-four years, my sister lives with me, and we've had the same housekeeper for twenty of those years, and we don't intend to change now. And I don't want either boy to go into the Navy—assuming the little one starts talking again—they got too many brains for that, I've seen their IQ scores. They'll have to get real jobs when they grow up, like everybody else. I'll give them a good solid home and I'll take care of them til they're ready to leave. Now tell an admiral in the US Navy he hasn't got the onions to be a fit parent."

A week later they'd moved into the admiral's house, and their lives had been swell ever since.

Roger climbed into bed, staring at the monster, which he'd put on the top of the bookcase that was the footboard to his bed. He'd put it there, striding toward him off its graveyard base, arms outstretched for him.

He reached down under his bed, from the ragged pile there, and took out Famous Monsters of Filmland #12, which seemed to be his favorite. He went to sleep with his bedlamp on, the magazine across his chest.

Stewart got up, put the magazine back in the pile, pulled the covers up around Roger, and turned off his light.

Then he went downstairs to raid the refrigerator.

"Ready to go?" asked Stewart.

"I don't know," said Gadge.

"What do you mean? All this stuff getting you down? I'm the one who's worried the hell about Roger, and the admiral. I'm here. I'm ready. I want to see some flicks."

"Look." he went on. "I been zombieing around for three days. I haven't had the fun of fighting over groceries and lugging five gallon cans of gasoline home, or stocking a fallout shelter, or buying shotgun shells. I been moping around and worried about my little brother, who hasn't said a word in six years anyway."

"How is Roger?"

"Who knows! No different than always. Watches the news. Don't change the subject. Are you coming with me to the drive-in or not?"

"Look, Stewart. Everything's pretty spooky right now. I mean, what if there's World War Three while we're there …?"

"Listen at you. All the Russian ships slowed down but the one that's fifty miles out ahead of the others. It won't reach the blockade til Saturday. Nothing's gonna happen til then. Besides, what would you do? I mean, supposing you only had an hour to live?"

"That's easy," said Gadge. "Send both Veronica and Angela Cartwright to my room. Have Hayley Mills wait outside in case they don't kill me …"

"Right! There you go! And where is it you can ever ever hope to see girls like that?"

"At … at the movies." said Gadge. He sighed. "Let's go."

"Look, guys," said the owner who was taking tickets, and who lived in the house that was the screen, with its upper story porthole windows. "Not enough people show up, there won't be movies tonight. We'll announce it and give your money back as you exit."

"Whatta ya mean, no show?"

"Kid, the world might end any time."

"Yeah, well," said Stewart, "if it doesn't you'll regret being out our six bits."

"I'll go get some crap to eat." said Gadge. He got out and headed back toward the concession stand as the floodlights around the screen came on with the dark.

"How much I owe you?" asked Stewart.

"Man, this place is expensive." said Gadge. "It came to a dollar-ten in all. If you don't want any of the Dots, give me 50¢."

"I really don't know why I'm here," said Gadge. "Hayley Mills isn't in any of these movies—I'm sure she's not in Bride of the Gorilla—when it was made she would have been about two years old."

"Where's your spirit of adventure?" asked Stewart. "Maybe you'll see another girl of your dreams in this. Or Poor White Trash. Or High School Confidential?"

"Yeah, right. If they were my age when these things were made they'd be about forty by now …"

"Come on. Where's your appreciation of cinema history?"

Raymond Burr, the guy who played Perry Mason on TV, was having trouble in the jungle.

"Seriously," said Gadge, biting into the Clark bar. "How is Roger?"

"He seems okay," said Stewart. "Well, no different anyway. He just watches TV more. He's been in study-hall for two days. They sent some of the special ed kids home Tuesday—some of them got too upset. He still answers any yes or no question you ask him, shakes his head, like he always has. I talked to his shrink last week before all this happened."

"What'd he say?"

"Same stuff as you and me heard growing up. Post-wonder effect. It wears off or it doesn't. Not enough of us around to figure out if everybody comes out of it or not. I mean, it's what, a decade or less … Bobby was one of the first and that was only eleven years ago."

"It was sure as hell less time for me than since this movie was made." said Gadge.

He looked at the clock on the dash. Only 9:30—this must be Poor White Trash. Yeah, there was Peter Graves.

"Hey," said Stewart. "Wake up."

"Huh, what? Huh?"

"You know the idea I had about going to the movies to forget our troubles?"

"Yeah?"

"Bad idea."

"Bad idea," Gadge repeated. He looked up at the screen. "What happened to the gorilla?"

"Wrong movie." said Stewart. He cranked the motor, put the speaker back out on its hook on the post, and drove toward the exit with his parking lights on.

There were still two cars way out in the back row, their windows steamed up. The lights in the snack bar were already out.

"Wake me up when we get to my place," said Gadge.

Then he was snoring again.

Stewart was thinking about "My Boomerang Won't Come Back." When the song first came out, there was a line in it about practicing til you were black in the face. Now the song said blue in the face. Go figure. The Aborigines must have a tough union.

Bobby said "A Raymond Burr gorilla movie?"

"If I'm lyin', I'm dyin'" said Stewart.

They were sitting in Stewart's '53 submarine Merc at the Hi-Spot, eating burgers. Stewart had swung by to pick up Bobby just as he'd swung in from work with his paycheck in his pocket. They went by Bobby's bank, where he cashed his check and put $8.00 in his savings account, and then they'd driven here.

"That guy was always having trouble with gorillas, wasn't he?"

They had the same radio station on in the car as the one piped in over the drive-in's speakers. The song ended and the DJ said "… and that was Larry Verne with 'Please Mr. Custer' and then Ben Colder's 'Don't Go Near the Eskimos' and a happy oog-sook-mook-ee-ay to you, too …"

Then the news came on and it was grim. The blockade waited for the Russian ships: the one out ahead of the others, the Grozny, was still coming on strong, the others slow behind it. The President and cabinet were meeting in the War Room. Absenteeism in schools and jobs was running 35%, 50% at defense plants on the East Coast and the Midwest. Stores all over the US were out of toilet paper, bulk foods and batteries. There was price-gouging all over; some stations were selling gas for as much as 50¢ a gallon. The weather forecast came on, then the DJ played Jack Scott's "What in the World's Come Over You?"

"And Gadge thought this was a big bluff thing." said Bobby.

"Yeah, well …" Stewart chewed on his fries. "Look. Don't you sometimes wish … I don't know …"

"What?"

"I mean, look at us. You, me, Gadge, especially Roger. All that stuff we went through. It didn't change a goddam thing."

"Well, how do we know it didn't change anything?"

"Okay, Mr. Philosophical. Everybody knows there's guys from outer space. Well, one, and his big robot enforcer. They went away. We never heard from them again. Then everybody thought my and Roger's dad was talking to Mars; things went crazy. The Russian Orthodox Church overthrew the Commies, for god's sakes …"

"For about a day—" said Bobby.

"For about a day. Then Krushchev and Beria came down on them like a ton of bricks. It was like, you know, a little holiday, and then business back to Commie usual.

"And Gadge—his gramps makes a robot. Then all kinds of spy stuff—where Pomphret comes in; Commie spies. Then it's over. Gramps sends up the robot in a souped-up V-2. It's never seen or heard of again. 'Cranky Old Man Shoots Robot Into Space' The end. Two years later—Ooops! Sputnik!"

"Your point being?"

"Nothing changed. Not one thing. We're right back to Us vs. Them, like The World is all there is, like we're all that matters …"

"Well," said Bobby. "Most people can't handle the idea we're not alone; that strange and marvellous stuff happens all the time, that—that—"

"But it did happen. We saw it; they saw it; they went crazy, too. But to them, it wasn't personal. It was just The News; then something else took its place. It was just this year's tortilla Jesus."

"We got on with our lives. Well, except for Roger," said Bobby "Why shouldn't people who weren't even there?"

"Yeah, but Truman? Eisenhower? Kennedy? Krushchev too. They saw what happened. You don't see any of that influencing foreign policy, or scientific research, or anything. Just business as usual. Now look where it's got us!"

"You expecting somebody to drop down from Pluto and straighten this out?"

"No. That would be the easy way out of this mess our world leaders have gotten us into."

"Well, what do you want?"

Stewart looked over the steering wheel out into the big plate glass window of the Hi-Spot where the carhops whizzed by on roller skates.

"I want a world better than this one," he said. "I want a world with shadows, and wet streets, and neon lights flashing 'Hotel' 'Hotel' outside my windows. Everything here seems to be taking place in a grey flat light. I want to be able to smoke like Robert Mitchum, and drink all day and night like Barton Maclane, and never, ever blow my beets. I want—I want to break someone's heart, or have mine broken, in the rain …"

"Why, why," said Bobby, "… you … you're a romantic! Take me back to my place before I become so filled with cheap sentiment that I can't move."

"Asshole." said Stewart, and flashed his lights for the carhop to come and take the tray.