They waved their arms. They tapped their fingers. Their mouths were always open.
Early in the morning. Turner and me leaning on the counter; both of us staring out at the fog. A kid I didn’t know working grill, singing, “Michael, row the boat ashore. Allelujah.” Outside O’Dermott’s, no motion, just gray. A few truckers had come and gone. That was all.
“So tell me,” said Turner.
“Mm-hm?”
He asked, “Distance equals rate times time, yeah?”
We could see our faces reflected in the glass.
“Yeah,” I said.
Turner shifted his elbows on the counter. The unsteady voice came from the back: “Sister, trim the flapping sail. Allelujah.” Through the fog, we could see the outline of a tree. The play area was almost invisible.
“My, uh, grandfather was from around here,” said Turner.
“Oh yeah?”
“Farthest he ever went was, I don’t know, Boston.”
I picked up a cloth and wiped down my register. Turner kept staring out the window. He was whispering to himself and pointing at the air. I stuffed the rag back in the space between the counter and the register.
“So this trucker comes in and orders like two hash browns,” said Turner, in a voice of awe. “Gets back on the interstate and takes off at like what, sixty-five miles an hour? Eats the hash browns. Shits ’em out what, like six hours later?”
“Eh. Our hash browns are pretty lubricated.”
“Five hours, okay, five hours. Some truck stop, guy shits ’em out. Distance equals rate times time. That puts him layin’ the cable three hundred and twenty-five miles away. Somewhere across the state border. See what I mean?”
I thought about it for a minute. “No,” I said.
With something like a gentle sadness, Turner said, “Man, what I’m saying is the hash browns I serve go farther than my grandpa ever did.”
Rain had been falling for two days. The woods were wet. They smelled like moss. The green was deep and dark.
In the ruined house, there were many leaks. Water tapped on the old, faded beer cans. It sounded like someone creeping up the stairs. Strange stains were spreading in the rumpus room.
I couldn’t do it. I had the hacksaw in my hand, but it was resting on the floor. I slumped against the wall, one leg out straight in front of me. I stared at the condiment troll. The condiment troll was smiling. It was hopeless. I couldn’t do it.
I was supposed to saw off a finger or horn. Then I was supposed to send it to Burger Queen. That would make them sit up and notice.
I looked up at his big, goofy face. He was looming over me. He looked a little menacing. He looked pathetic. I couldn’t do that to something in human form. There was just no way.
“You are fiberglass,” I said. “You’re just a shape made out of fiberglass. You could be in a different shape.” I tried to think of the condiment troll as being just a condiment stand, not shaped like a person or any particular mythical being.
But he was smiling at me. I tapped the tip of the hacksaw three times against the floor. The rain pattered out in the woods. It fell through the leaves.
There was no way I could cut the troll. I could almost hear him scream.
Fiberglass, I told myself. Fiberglass!
It didn’t do any good. He had wide eyes. If you were sawing him, they would look wide with pain.
I no longer wanted to get revenge. I was falling apart. For a while, I’d been enjoying myself playing the evil avenger. I guess I’d enjoyed it too much. So much, I’d stopped feeling angry. It all seemed like a joke, now. Especially since Turner had turned down his jerk volume.
It wasn’t even funny anymore. That’s what I realized. I was getting bored with it. I didn’t feel as angry, and it was no good pretending I did. I just felt depressed about the whole thing. I sat in the ruined house, and felt depressed.
I have got to get a grip on myself, I thought. There has got to be more time spent doing my job right, less time spent mutilating trolls.
Sitting in a ruined house with a hacksaw suddenly didn’t seem very entertaining. It didn’t seem like a good way to get things done.
I decided to abandon the Plan for the moment. Take a few days off from being an insane genius. Calm myself down. See what I really wanted to do.
I braced myself against the wall and stood up. The troll was already standing. “Okay,” I said. “You’re off the hook.” I patted him on the head. “Fiberglass,” I muttered.
I tromped down the hall. I left the troll behind me. I turned back to look at him. I still couldn’t tell whether he was happy, hungry, or hysterical. I went down the stairs. They shook with my weight.
Outside, the air smelled musty. It was a little chilly. The rain had picked up again. I tried to cover my father’s hacksaw with my sweater to stop rust. I think rust can creep when you least expect it. I walked back along the path. Thunder started in the distance. Warm summer thunder. Water dripped off branches. Leaves that brushed my face were cool, and licked my forehead. My clothes stuck to me. The rain had made them wet. Somehow, it felt like the bath I needed.
No more Mr. Nasty, I thought. That’s it. I’m through. Having said that, having made that decision, I felt a sudden lightness. I laughed out loud. I almost did a dance. I half-spun. I threw my arms out wide. I ran into a birch. It shivered and dropped water. Fine, I thought. I shook myself. I was soaked.
“Whoops, that one got you!” said a man’s voice. I looked up. There were a young man and a young woman in rain slickers, going for a walk in the forest arm-in-arm. We all laughed.
“You’re soaked!” she said.
“Yup.” I grinned. “I sure am.” My hair was plastered to my head. I started to dry the hacksaw with the sweater. “Even my hacksaw!” I rubbed it vigorously. Lightning cracked above me. I looked up. They were looking at me funny and moving backward. “Oh,” I said, pointing toward the hacksaw. They started running. “This?” I said. They were running even faster.
I ran after them, trying to explain. “No, this is just . . . hey, wait up!” They ran faster than me. After a while, I was just enjoying leaping over branches and shrubs. My clothes clung to my body, and the air blew through them. I felt naked and free. When I got back to my parents’ car, I was laughing, but shivering with cold.
On the way home, I listened to pop on WBST, the Boost. The rain on the roof sounded happy to be there.
One day that week, while I was watching the tropical fish on television, she called.
“Anthony?” said my mother. “Diana’s on the phone.”
“Okay,” I said. I was suddenly nervous. There was a lot riding on every conversation with her.
My mother came in with the phone, talking and smiling. “So how have you been?” she asked Diana.
Diana answered.
My mother said, “I know, we haven’t seen you for ages. Now don’t be a stranger!”
Diana answered.
“Okay, here’s Anthony. I know he’s been dying to talk to you. Bye!”
She handed me the phone. She leaned on the door frame, smiling and watching me. I was trapped. Try to go to my room and I’d hear nothing but static. I put the phone to my ear.
“Hello,” I said.
“Hi, Anthony.”
There was a long awkward pause. On the television, a voice coming out of a big weed said, “The tautog darts for its mollusk prey, but cannot dislodge it. The tautog will have to feast elsewhere today.”
“Let me turn down the volume,” I said. I picked up the remote control. I muted the television.
There was another long awkward pause. Now there was nothing to hide the silence.
Finally, Diana said, “How are you doing?”
I looked at my mother. “Great!” I said.
“Look, Anthony: I just talked to Jenn. She told me you aren’t ‘great.’ I am really sorry about all this.”
My father’s voice came from the other room. “Invite her to dinner for tomorrow
night. She can have chops, too!”
“Yes!” my mother whispered. “Dinner!”
I didn’t know what to say, with everyone watching me and listening to me. I tried, “I’m watching a show about tropical fish.”
“Anthony, I was serious. It’s important to me that we really do be friends.”
“Yes,” I said warmly. “To me, too.”
“But when I say ‘friends,’ I mean only friends. I really apologize for that night with Turner. That was really stupid of me. Really stupid. But at the same time, it like showed me a lot of things.”
I asked, “What were the things?”
“I can’t talk about the things right now.”
“If it’s just Turner, I forgive you in like a minute. A split second.” My mother heard my tone. She heard the word forgive. She was starting to get a concerned look on her face.
“Has he asked her to dinner yet?” called my father.
I asked, “Was it the Turner thing?”
“It’s not the Turner thing. That Turner thing was just a symptom of the other things. Do we have to talk about this right now?”
“I need to understand.”
“Are you really trying to understand?”
“I need you to tell me.”
“Anthony, it’s just — look, I don’t know how to say this. It’s just —”
Mrs. Gravitz from next door said, “I cannot remain silent any longer. Little miss, you should be ashamed of yourself. Can’t you see you are breaking this boy’s heart?”
“Hello?” said Diana.
“He is a sweet boy. I’m telling you, young lady, you are not going to find a sweeter boy anywhere else soon, especially nowadays, when all the young men are hooligans who hunt the streets, stealing appliances and breaking into computers and calling each other ‘blood pal.’”
“Ask her to come over for chops!” my father said. “Afterward, we’ll have a little Ping-Pong tourney!”
“Hi, Mrs. Gravitz,” I said.
“Mrs. Gravitz?! Tell her to get off the line!” said my mother. “You’re having a private conversation.”
“What are they yelling about in the background?” said Diana. “Your parents.”
“They’re inviting you to dinner tomorrow.”
My mother nodded proudly.
“This isn’t going to work,” said Diana.
“Why not?”
“Can’t she come?” said my mother.
“Listen, young lady,” said Mrs. Gravitz. “This boy is an angel. He is a saint. He should be declared a saint by the pope in Rome.”
“You haven’t told your parents yet, have you?” said Diana.
“No,” I answered. “Not quite yet.”
“Anthony!” she sighed. “You’ve got to deal with this! It’s real. I’m sorry, but it’s real.”
“You can understand . . . ,” I said miserably.
“There’s nothing to understand, Anthony,” said Mrs. Gravitz. “Was this girl unfaithful to you? Is that what it is? Don’t get yourself mixed up with one of these little tarts.”
“Mrs. Gravitz,” I said. “Please get off the phone. I can’t hear myself think.”
“Mom,” said Mrs. Gravitz’s daughter, somewhere on the other line, “you really should let them talk. Anthony, maybe this girl would be more receptive if you backed off and gave her a little me-space. Have you considered that your affection might be crowding her?”
“Diana,” I shouted through the hail of voices. “Diana, I really just need to talk to you.”
Diana said, “I’m not sure what good talking would do. This is too crazy.”
“It’s not crazy, Diana,” I pleaded. “It’s only crazy because the portable phone is screwed up.”
“I just can’t deal with this.”
“Diana . . .”
“This was a mistake to call you.”
“No it wasn’t.”
“I’ve got to go.” I heard her hang up.
Finally, there was silence on the line. My mother was watching me.
“Okay,” I said to the empty phone line. “If not tomorrow, then maybe sometime next week. All right. Great. Good-bye, then.”
“Anthony,” said Mrs. Gravitz. “The little trollop already hung up on you.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Gravitz,” I said. “Thank you so much.”
I pressed the off button on the phone.
“Not coming?” said my mother.
“No,” I said.
“Nothing wrong, is there?”
“No,” I lied.
I turned off the TV, and went outside to walk.
We had one softball practice before our game against Burger Queen. It was on a muggy day. We did some warm-up exercises first. We ran around the field a few times. I ran well.
My batting, on the other hand, was not great. I am not very coordinated. Later I kind of screwed up in the outfield. It was hot and my shirt felt wet and sticky. I stopped concentrating.
I don’t like really like team sports. I can’t stand all the stupid things you have to shout. I don’t like being required to get loud and excited. I don’t understand why some people are so anxious to prove that they are better than other people. Especially at games that only show you’re better at skills I’m not sure are needed very often, like:
— hitting a piece of skin with a stick
— running so you can touch rubber
— grabbing dead things that fall out of the sky.
I stood there in the outfield, trying to think of other scenarios where those particular talents come in handy.
I hadn’t come up with a single one when the ball landed beside me. People swore at me and told me to stop dreaming. I felt a little sheepish. The batter made it to third.
In general, though, I guess I wasn’t bad. I wasn’t the worst on the team, in any case. This guy named Stan had burned himself with the fry rack the week before and he couldn’t even put on his glove without going “Woooeeeoooeeeooo.” He took off his glove and shook his hand out. On the back of his wrist, there was a crisscross of red welts. When he finally got the glove on and caught a ball, he fell down, and started shrieking lots of things including blasphemy and the names of the whole urinary tract, from the bladder down.
When Mike saw me run, I think he was a little more pleased that I was on Team O’Dermott’s. It was the one time he talked to me all day. Even Turner was impressed. The next day at work, he came up to me and said, “You aren’t good at softball. But hey: You don’t suck.”
I was not always proud to be wearing the O’Dermott’s green. When you are wearing a green polyester smock, people don’t treat you like another person. Fathers talk to you like you’re a machine. Mothers talk to you like you’re slow and inbred. Kids talk to you like you’re sad. Usually they seem rich. It seems like they’re going to spend the summer’s day doing something sunny, exciting, and warm. Sometimes they have their own cars. Sometimes their cars are expensive. They seem like they’re going to the beach, or to someone’s house. They don’t mind showing off their skin to each other. They talk to each other in the line, even if they don’t know each other. They didn’t talk to us, the employees, unless they knew us.
This is probably unfair of me to say. A lot of them probably had jobs at garages or convenience stores. But somehow they didn’t act like it when they came in for lunch or dinner. They acted like they were out on the town.
It was hard not to feel ugly. Crusty. Doped. My fingernails were black. My shirt was stiff. My hair hung flat. My skin was shellacked with ambient lard. I had to move as quickly as possible to keep the line down.
When two girls came in wearing half-shirts, their skin looking fresh, their hair full and glossy, their shorts clean and tight, it was hard not to feel like a dork. Their flesh looked more refined than the flesh I was serving them. Maybe they noticed me looking. They looked at each other. I shied away and stared at the register. I said, “Welcome to O’Dermott’s. May I take your order?”
?
??Are we sure what we want?”
“We’re not sure what we want. Do you have any recommendations?”
“I think you’ll enjoy numbers one through six.”
One said, “And the house specialty?” She raised an eyebrow.
I pursed my lips and suggested, “Number four tastes different going in from when it comes out.”
“You,” one of them said, smiling and almost touching my nose with her finger, “have a bad attitude.”
“I don’t mean for my attitude to be bad. I’m under a great deal of pressure at my dynamic and high-paying job.”
“While outside it’s a nice day.”
Something about them made me feel bold. I nodded. “Now you get the picture. My shirt and pants are made of polyester. I ate a number two for lunch. My badge spells my name without the h. Can I ask: Are you ladies going out on the town?”
“Oh, yeah. We’re painting the town red.”
“I thought so. Are you leading glamorous lives?”
Now they were flirting. I was liking them more. They were looking at each other and giggling.
“We’re going to the opera.”
“We’re off to the Ice Capades.”
“Does your chauffeur have a gun and Grey Poupon?”
This, I thought to myself, must be the way that people are charming. Then you find a clever way of seeing if you can meet them later. Then you arrange something. Then you all go out, and get to know them, and you have a good time, and before you know it, you are leading a normal teenage dating life, instead of one where you squat in an abandoned house, cooking up ways to cripple trolls.
They ordered and I took out a tray and put a tray liner on it. I went to get the food. I hit the Sprite button and started filling the cup. Turner was at my side. He said, “Shit, man. Two babes! Babe-o-licious!”
“Yeah,” I said curtly, and yelled, “Grill!” back to Shunt. “Double ham, no onions.”
“You scoring?” said Turner.
“I’m serving their food.”
“You can score and serve, man.”
“Yeah,” I said, and headed off for some nuggets.