Where Does the Red Brick Road Lead? – Part 1 (The Investigation)

Once again, our annual Easter showing of “The Wizard of Oz” has ended and, as enjoyable as it was, I was again left unfulfilled.  Every year, Dorothy sets off along the yellow brick road, a song in her heart and ruby slippers on her feet, and every year, I’m left wondering about the other road, the road not taken, the red brick road.

We know all about the yellow brick road: it leads to the merry old land of Oz, the Emerald City, the home of the Wizard, the horse of another color, and an all-purpose beauty salon equipped for humans, lions, scarecrows, and tin men.  Jolly good fun.

What about the other road?  The red brick road?  It’s swirling right there besides the yellow, but never gets a mention.  The only road the munchkins prattle on about is the yellow brick road.  As far as I’m concerned, everyone’s just a little too anxious Dorothy should take that one and not the other.  It’s too convenient for my tastes.  Where does the red brick road lead?

The Lollipop Gang

The only clue we have comes from former Munchkin enforcer and leader of the Lollipop Gang, Butch Icecreamsoda.  In his later years, he ran an illegal chocolate mining operation on the outskirts of the Emerald City.  Before he passed away in a merry old penal colony, he dropped this bombshell: “Forget the yellow brick road.  The best times I ever had were following the red brick road.”

What?

When pressed, he would add a few even more cryptic comments: “It was a great education in the school of hard candy for a young gang member.  Back then, you had to learn how to fend for yourself…  There weren’t any government handouts…  I made my bonbons on the R.B. back in ’35.”  The R.B.?  What was he talking about?  What went on on the red brick road?

The article didn’t say, and the Twister Tribune went out of business years ago.  Butch did mention another name in the article though: his former flame and the Lullaby League’s prima ballerina, pin-up girl Marsha Mallow.

Poor Marsha.  Life hadn’t been kind to her.  After her dance career fizzled, she had worked as a chanteuse in a smoky soda parlor in Oz for a time, eventually posing between two graham crackers and a slab of chocolate in Munch-boy magazine.  That was her last hurrah.

If I wanted to follow the red brick road, I was going to have to find Marsha.

The Lullaby League

Trying to find a picture of any member of the Lullaby League after the 1950s is impossible.  It’s like trying to find a jelly bean in a Skittle-stack.  For weeks, I read through old newspaper clippings and magazine articles, perusing for a clue, but the trail ended in ’62 on board the Good Ship Lollipop.  It was a sweet trip to the candy shop until it ran aground in Peppermint Bay.  After that, not a mention.

I had almost given up until I had a breakthrough.  One afternoon, I was reading a story about the migrant crisis from Loompa Land.  Apparently, Wangdoodles were eating ten Oompa Loompas for breakfast and thinking nothing of it; not to mention the Hornswogglers, Snozzwangers, and rotten Vermicious Knids.  In any case, one of the boatloads of refugees contained some elderly munchkins, one of whose names was Madame Guimauve.

Odd name, I thought.  I turned the page, then it hit me.  Sufferin’ sarsaparilla!  Guimauve!  That’s marshmallow for us anglophiles.  Madame Guimauve was being held pending her asylum application.  I was off to the border.

Marsha Mallow: Built Like a Red Brick Road

By the time I got to the border, Madame Guimauve, a.k.a. Marsha Mallow, had been processed and released, and I was back to square one.  I decided to stop off for a hamburger and drown my frustration in a few pints of beer.  I stopped at the nearest greasy spoon and placed my order, wading through my notes while I waited.  Marsha Mallow had been my last hope.  How would I find the red brick road now?

As I stared out a window that hadn’t been wiped clean in a decade, somebody shoved my shoulder forward.  I dive-bombed the lip of my beer mug and nearly chipped a tooth.  I was all set to get up and throw down as I turned to face a wizened, elderly woman who was about three and a half feet tall, if that.

“Hey, buddy,” she slurred, “how about buying a girl a drink?”  It was barely noon and she looked like she’d already had her share.

I took a shot.  “Marsha Mallow?”

She rocked backwards.  She transformed from randy cougar to hissing asp.  “Can’t get me, barney, that warrant’s two decades old!”

“I’m not here to arrest you,” I said.  She looked skeptical.  “I just want to ask you a few questions.”

“What about?”

“The red brick road.”

“In that case,” she tumbled into the booth across from me, “make it two drinks.”  She waved the waitress over.  “Gimme’ a butterscotch and soda, on the rocks.  A double.”

To be continued in Part 2…