by Miles Klee
“Are you allergic?” I asked.
“Worse,” he went, between fits. He looked allergic to everything, really. A red grid on his face, the history of how they’d stitched it together. I learned through plastic privacy curtains that he came to the hospital every third week.
No. What I wanted was something else entirely. A moment beyond what we have to describe it, reverse-engineered from its own aftermath.
I was hoping to be changed.
AIDAN /// IVYLAND, NEW JERSEY
Early the next evening, Henri isn’t bouncing about the kitchen, making the usual messes. I’m ready for work in record time.
Outside, Anastasio is showing the tree to an aged reverend who has to peer over his half-moon glasses to make out the Virgin, and I throw them a curt nod. Happily, there aren’t as many spectators as yesterday. Whole miracle thing had run dry fast.
Doesn’t bolster my optimism that the train sits in the station for a solid fifteen minutes, engineers flummoxed by standing water from last night’s storm. Early in the rush hour, but it hardly seems to matter in terms of crowding—guy standing behind me has no choice but to sneeze directly on my shoulder.
This woman across the aisle gets hassled by a conductor because her ticket isn’t a peak-hour, which costs a buck fifty more. The conductor faces three obstacles in trying to extract an additional one hundred fifty cents from this woman: she speaks no English, he speaks no Spanish, and she doesn’t want to pay it.
“Why? No. No. Why?” she keeps going.
The conductor slows down his argument.
“This … [hands flapping to signify the train we’re on] … is … [still flapping] … a … peak … train … rush hour. [pantomiming exchange of money] one … fifty … more.”
The woman shakes her head.
Outside, on the far end of the platform, a homeless man whose face can’t be made out in the glare is brandishing a sign that says
HeLLO, NeeD to GET SOMTHING OF UR CHeST??
4 ONe DOLLAR I WILL LeT U TeLL Me OF Say ANY THiNG U
WANT U KeN CURSe. YeL AND SHOUT AT ME, PriTeND IM UR
BOSS. I PROMISS I WONT GeT MAD !?!
He’s wearing draw-stringed plaid pajama pants that leave pale flaky shins exposed. I brush some hair from my eyes and tuck it behind my ear—what I do when I don’t know what to do.
A nearby passenger who can at least fake some Spanish keeps saying “mas personas” in a feeble attempt to mediate between the woman and conductor. When his two-word vocab is exhausted, the conductor squeezes through clustered bodies to find a better translator.
Should’ve called the tree people myself. Christians make me nervous. Wonder if I can get out on the platform, tell the homeless man I don’t belong here, and be back aboard the train before it leaves. A sticky-faced kid exits the car’s bathroom; shortly after, a finger of piss seeps out from under the door. I start on my bowtie. As I fiddle for that elusive ratio in the knot, the wrinkled guy in camo and dreadlocks sitting next to me develops an expression I can’t account for.
“What,” I say, starting fresh when my first bow comes out droopy.
“I knew it,” he smiles. “You’re not going into space. Nobody is. Could never afford it. Some hoax.”
“Yep,” I tell him. Most crazies just want agreement. “You figured it out.”
The conductor returns to our car with a colleague and directs him toward the Spanish-speaking fare-beater.
“Un dollar y cincuenta,” the new conductor tells her.
*
When I get to Fieldcrest Manor, sprinting a few uphill blocks from the train station and sweating fiercely in my polyester tux, the bridal party has already arrived. Standard doomed couple, bit more attractive than the usual gargoyles. I make a couple of passes at the sign-in sheet, waiting for authority figures to disperse. When they finally wander off, I erase the name of a doofus busboy and scrawl mine next to his punch-in time, then badly forge his signature at the bottom of the list.
“Aidan, where the shit have you been, we’re partners,” a voice chides. I turn around to receive a swift punch to the gut that doesn’t hurt much. Still, wouldn’t have volunteered. “For making me do the water glasses myself.”
“You hate everything.”
“Especially this.” She indicates all of me.
Kidding. I think. Being partners with Phoebe, object of a cyclical schoolboy crush, will at least afford me someone to talk to. It also means I’ll be punched more.
It falls to me to distribute the party favors, mix CDs of the couple’s favorite songs, and lacy bags of candy. I pocket four bags and open a fifth, strewing the rest haphazardly over a table, knocking over the floral centerpiece and soaking some dinner rolls with vase water.
“Is ‘Celebration!’ the band tonight?” I ask.
“I’ve had a shattering premonition they are.”
“You know, Phoebe, some people see the glass as half-full. Ours, however, are half empty, being that you suck at your job.” I pop a candy and spit it out instantly.
“Was gonna warn you how bad those candies were.”
“Thanks,” I mutter, kicking the nasty menthol thing under a chair. “Virgin sex on the beach?”
“Always,” Phoebe beams, and we race over to the bar.
*
A meaningful stride should make you untouchable. This is how I typically walk around Donald, a ranking ass who made me a pet project after I spilled goat-cheese salad on three extremely bearded Macedonians at a raucous wedding some weeks past. Tonight the stride backfires: Don clotheslines me in the chest.
“Stop. You’re doing buffet plates.”
It would be fair to call this a thinly veiled punishment. Fieldcrest has this practice of putting its china plates in a huge metal box that heats them to scalding temperatures, and you don’t want to be the flammable chump who takes them out.
Donald is a balding control freak, obsessed with everything I find unimportant, shorter than me by a head and a half. I strive to make him painfully aware of this last fact, eliminating my slouch in his presence—puts him all the more on edge. So he enjoys his brief vertical advantage here, hovering over me as I struggle to remove dishes from the heater, fanning his face with a hairy hand, listing everything that hasn’t been done.
“More champagne out, four more place settings at table twelve, [sound of several dishes breaking] be careful, will you? O. My. God. This father of the bride is an awful one, he’s already complaining that the band isn’t set up, not that we have any real authority over them, of course, but they don’t know that. People are coming down late to the reception anyhow, probably watching the shuttle launch in their rooms right now. Would be nice to see that, though. Don’t carry so many plates at once, for God’s sake! And where’s your nametag?”
“Still haven’t given me one.”
“We’ll get you one tomorrow,” Donald promises, as he has every day since I got here. “Did you spill alfredo sauce on your tux already?”
“Must be from last week.”
“Niiice. Taking a little pride in your appearance?”
“Can’t be proud to be a slob?”
“Real cute. I’ll tell you who won’t think it’s so cute is Sam: you’d better not jerk him around, boyo.” I slam some more plates on the counter and open the next enormous sliding door. The head boss is Donald’s empty threat of choice—the man wouldn’t bother to acknowledge me if I got caught whacking off on a cake.
“Also, Aidan, Sam was telling me that you need to lose the facial hair, that’s the policy, you know that. You’re scruffy.” The heavy metal door breaks off its hinges and lands on my foot.
“Fucking cunt!” I spit.
“Hey!” Donald barks, “I’m serious, he’s spoken to me on several occasions about how scruffy you’re looking.” I drop another plate.
“Would you stop!”
“Sorry.”
Donald mops his brow with a pilfered dinner napkin. His head looks waxed. I put another se
aring hot tower of plates on the counter and bend to retie a shoelace. It snaps off in my hand.
*
After work I’m the kind of tired where you can’t make a convincing fist. Exhaustion is a tipping factor in my decision to let Henri pick a 24-hour place to eat. I regret it: he drives us to the closest MexiLickin’SurfHog.
“Here?” I ask. A wide customer is exiting the place with some difficulty.
“What?” says Henri. “Should be empty this late.”
“You never go to these places.”
“Not the ones with kiddie ball pits.”
I mope up to the counter after him. A pale girl about our age waits patiently for orders, leaning on her register with one hand and examining the sparkly nails of the other.
“Man,” Henri exhales, “decisions.” He makes a satisfied grunt and strides dramatically up to the counter.
“I’ll have the Hogwash breakfast sandwich,” he announces with gusto. “And a Forest Steppe Adderade.”
“No breakfast served after 11 AM.” The girl doesn’t have to look at the backlit menu to quote it verbatim.
“The small-mindedness,” Henri says, sincerely. “Why are you serving Hang Ten Donuts, then?” He points at this scary woman hunched over a table, coughing food back into the colorful box she ate it out of.
“Because they’re already made?”
“Don’t they count as breakfast?”
“Could eat a donut for lunch.”
“And yet I can’t have a bagel for dinner? This policy seems to paper over relevant semantic issues.”
“What?” She abandons her nails, squinting.
“Here,” I’m compelled to interrupt. “I’ll pay you an extra five to make him that sandwich.” The girl palms the crumpled bill and shuffles into the back.
“I could have handled that,” Henri starts in.
“That what you were doing?”
“Hold up. I know her.” At first I assume he means the cashier. But he’s staring at the woman with the box of donuts. She’s paused, gaze lost in a faraway corner of the fluorescent room. Trying to remember the original restaurants that combined to make this Frankenstein chain, I imagine. Then the pose breaks and she pulls at her nose, apparently irritated by an itch within.
“Let me guess—she’s the next Grady? Gonna turn her life around, too?” I should’ve known why we wound up here. More free-floating guilt to latch on to. More steamrolling tragedy to challenge and be flattened by. He’s sitting at her table before I say, “Wait.”
“Ms. Hecuba?” he asks. She goes in for another donut. “Ms. Hec? It’s Henri. Grown up, now.”
“Henri …” she says, spewing powder. Henri nods.
“Come on, man,” I tell him.
“You used to drive the bus to school. And for camp! Remember Aidan?”
“She doesn’t. Leave her alone.”
“I drive the city bus,” she says, and wipes a dirty finger on her teeth. “Endless one. Not a school bus.”
“You used to … so you switched jobs, then. Congrats! Did you go through Second Chance, then?”
“Henri, it’s not her, cut it out.”
“What is this?” the woman wants to know. She sways and grinds her teeth like an angry sleep will come any second. “I don’t know you.”
“You sure do. How’s DH?”
Wrong question. The woman snaps to, shoving the donut box across the table and into Henri’s lap, and stands, knocking her chair over. She squeezes Henri’s face between two trembling hands and speaks into his eye.
“Not well. You can just stay the fuck away from him.”
“Miss,” I say.
“No people like you. Nothing like that.”
“He didn’t mean anything,” I say.
She faces me and stares.
“Aren’t you supposed to be in space?” she asks.
*
“It was her, though,” Henri says as he swings his weight through the open car door and bounces into the driver’s seat.
“So what. She was insane. Could’ve admitted it and snapped your neck right after.”
“Just being friendly.” The ignition harrumphs a few times before turning over. Henri tears open his bag of food and downs half the sandwich in one bite before backing out of the parking space. I fog the window with my breath.
“Not everyone wants you to save them. Or be in your hypothetical band.”
“I dunno. I see so much tunnel vision around here. Specially after the takeover. Carrying on with life as usual.”
“They should. That’s the only thing you can do. That’s what the last person alive would do.”
“Not me. I’d teach myself to swim or something.”
“In the newly radioactive oceans?” I ask. He laughs and polishes off the sandwich. We speed through one of those stretches where most of the buildings are already gone, grass reclaiming the earth square by square.
“Okay, then, learn another instrument. To improve my solo act.”
“Did you call the tree guys?” I ask.
“I think so.”
Henri takes both hands off the wheel for a second to simultaneously scratch his balls and turn on the radio. A Beach Boys song seeps from speakers, and I up the volume. Commercial, it turns out. Henri slows for a red light, and we idle at a deserted corner where the church I grew up with sits in that curmudgeonly pose. “Here you are,” it chants, “here you are.” Ivyland. Stirring only when somebody tries to pry you loose. Maybe not even then. The light goes green, then flickers and dies completely. Henri pretends not to notice, massages his forehead with a knuckle as he hits the gas.
“Why wouldn’t you drop it with Ms. Hec? Can’t believe you were so set on something. Can’t believe she thought I was Cal. Had to happen two times today before I got it.”
“You don’t look that different.”
“Didn’t think he’d ever go up. Never much wanted to.”
“When’d you talk to him last?”
“He came for graduation last year when mom and dad couldn’t make it out from Phoenix. All he said was I sure took my time. Shook my hand.”
“You still holding onto that grudge? Because it’s rightfully mine, I’ve just been letting you borrow it for years.”
“He always seems worse than before.”
“I imagine he thinks the same way,” Henri says, brown eyes swerving with a current of blue before he goes stiff and his head hooks left. The steering wheel, in a mirrored gesture, gets spun so we cut across the wrong lane and lose the driver’s-side mirror to an abandoned junk car in a burst of sparks that jolts Henri back to attention. He pulls hard right and overcorrects into a 180º spin, squealing to a stop against the opposite curb. We sit in electric silence until Henri mentions he might cry. I tell him he has a bloody nose.
GRADY /// IVYLAND, NEW JERSEY
I have ID from Harvey House, but police laugh and says the shit that comes out my mouth is classic. “Grady,” says a policeman name of Ed, “the shit that comes out your mouth is classic.” I ax him what’s making drool and spit and upchuck classic. “See what I mean.” He laughs suchlike I see all tooths and a broken. He goes, “Take it easy, Grady,” and I says I don’t take nothing but mine things. “You’re all right,” he says, and walking to the MexiLickin’SurfHog. I knowed he likes the donuts there, so I says one day to get strawberry glaze, cause that’s a best flavor, of donuts anyway. “Don’t get donuts, I get those fancy Adderade drinks.” I say like a magic potion like some wizards? “Sort of.” I says I knowed they had some drinks like them and sometime I went inside but a man with a green smock like Harvey House arts and crafts stood near and looked bad till I leave and whatever cause I’m not loving this place. The real Harvey House art class guy brung paints and crayons and everything else. I painted two pictures and make a little clay pot suchlike my thumbs pushed out the bowl and plus to that a clay space shuttle like for the moon visit. Ed looks mad at me. “Bunch of bastards in there. You get your french fries somewh
ere else.” I says I don’t like faster foods. He says: “Whudju want from MexiLickin’SurfHog then?” I says I was curious. The policeman laugh like his way. I ax always again if he knowed what scoundrel locked up my bicycle for when I’m leaving it by the train on accident. Police don’t hear me sometimes or get busy so they forget what I axed and I have to ax them tomorrow, and months of tomorrow. Okie-doke. They got it hard enough without me being super curious. One police name of Vince never forgets. He believes the scoundrels locked up my bike. “Grady,” he says, “looks like they locked your bike up good, I admit.” Some police don’t believe. They says, “I got to see ID,” so I show my ID from Harvey House. They laughs and forget and go to MexiLickin’SurfHog. Okie-doke. Job is no picnic. For one thing, no blanket. For another: no basket.
*
I had a basket for my bicycle, but from the look the scoundrels had removen it. I carry Dr. Hal Rockefeller in the basket. He loves to play and squirm when I ride. Sometime I ride to the park and we seen some kids play baseball. Don’t care who win or lose, I have some fun, I don’t mind to tell. Dr. Hal don’t know butt ‘bout baseball, but never sad to lie in some sun. When games go empty we leave to Freddy’s Baseball Memorabilia. I’m gonna sell Freddy my Mickey Mantle rookie card for bazillions of riches. Always say I can’t wait to’ve brung my Mickey Mantle rookie card to sell. Freddy goes: “Well why dontcha then?” He likes to think I don’t have a Mickey Mantle rookie. I do. Just gotta find it. When I do, boy—watch out! I’ll buy a boss car with the riches. I brung Dr. Hal Rockefeller in there hundreds of times, but Freddy is always forgetting his face. “Can’t have no weasel in here,” Freddy says. Okie-doke. Freddy goes, “Well get him out!” I says you says no weasels and he’s a ferret but Freddy’s too mad at me so always I try to go out on the sidewalk and put Dr. Hal Rockefeller in my jacket and come back in. Mostly Freddy can’t see, but once when Dr. Hal was fooling Freddy says, “Something moving in your jacket?” I says it’s prolly some Mexican jumping beans and you bet I runned my butt off to get out. Freddy says I’m Some ‘Spicious Character. What, I says, little old me? “Yeah-You,” says Freddy, “scaring kids away.” I says I hasn’t seen kids in your store once ever. Freddy says, “That’s cause Some ‘Spicious Characters scare them away!” and he’s chasin me out with a mop. I even get band! “You’re band for life!” Freddy says. First time Freddy made me band was on accident but now I can make it every time. Got band three times one week, honest. When Freddy’s mad enough to put a band he gets red like cartoons and I wait for some steam coming out his ears.