by Nina Post
“No!” Nathan said.
“I didn’t know you were lactose intolerant.” DZ crossed his arms and smiled. “Or are you one of those animal activists?”
“I was referring to the women,” Nathan said, his voice inflecting up at the end with disbelief.
“Fine.” DZ held his palms out. “If you don’t want to watch a movie in the theater while you have eat lobster from Maine and ice cream straight from Cincinnati … or we can eat on the patio and watch Daryl.”
“Who’s Daryl?”
“The flamingo!”
Nathan sighed. He liked DZ’s home theater. But he couldn’t deal with any more DZ tonight. “No thanks.”
“Then you’re fired. Don’t bother coming in tomorrow.”
“You can’t fire me.”
“I can do anything I want. You don’t think I can handle running an unwinnable contest? I’ll do that, and I’ll use it to jack up sales of Quantal Organic Yogurt until it’s the number one yogurt brand, organic or otherwise. Then I’ll prove to him I can do that with any brand, and I’ll hold all the power. I’ll control everything, and you can be a part of it or you can be a douche.”
Nathan wondered who ‘Him’ referred to, but he didn’t want to encourage DZ to go on longer than he already was. He suspected it wasn’t religious, but familial.
“Either way, you’re fired.”
Nathan squinted. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
DZ took his briefcase and held up his car keys. “I’ll take my Aston Martin back to my sprawling manse. I hope you enjoy your sad, lower-middle-class evening in your dingy little apartment –”
“I have a house, and it’s not dingy.”
“– with your instant oatmeal and a battered old VHS tape of Manimal.”
“I have a nice multimedia setup, and I’m a decent cook, thank you very much.” Though Nathan had to give it to DZ, that did sound pretty sad, and not completely unfamiliar.
“Sure you do.” DZ’s tone was patronizing. Nathan rolled his eyes and left with his bag. “Don’t forget – you’re fired!”
Eric loaded yogurt into his coolers at the Lucky-Ducky. The aisle was swarming with competitors, none of them talking, all of them dazed but single-minded. With some experience, Eric had learned to crouch down and plow through in a direct line to the yogurt, hip-checking along the way, then to launch up and push out on both sides. Then he would sweep the Quantal Organic Yogurt into the large cooler bags and maybe get in a few shoulder-checks before he barreled back out like Comeback Joe. Rex stood by the bread, chuckling.
But two competitors were more determined than the others. One of them, a hefty middle-aged woman, heaved her body through the air and slammed Eric to the floor in front of the display. When he got his breath back, Eric scrambled up, knocked the yogurt out of the woman’s hand, angled his back to her, and snatched up the containers from the floor. He had to play dirty with these people.
In the unoccupied refuge of the canned foods aisle, Eric, weighed down with three full cooler bags, flashed Rex a glare. “I love how you come with me but conveniently use the excuse of being an incorporeal essence for not helping me with the bags.” Eric set down the bags then rubbed his shoulder, which felt like it would have a nasty bruise later.
“My corporeal strength is limited to using your laptop,” Rex said.
Eric pressed his temples above his ears.
“Migraine?” Rex said. “That’s more of a woman thing, like cramps.”
“First of all, you’re an idiot. No, I thought I – I could swear I heard –”
Rex motioned with hand for Eric to finish his thought.
“Voices.” Eric looked sheepish. “From the yogurt.”
Rex sighed and switched to a pitying expression. “I was afraid this would happen. Okay, step one is to give me power of attorney. Step two, give me your blessing to marry Willa in whatever body I choose to possess, similar to how men of previous centuries would marry a dead brother’s wife. Step three, sign over the title to the Princess so I can sell it and send Taffy away to camp. Step four –”
“Enough. I let you get that far out of morbid curiosity,” Eric said. “I’m not crazy.”
“Allow me to point out that you’re technically talking to yourself right now, as far as other people and the security cameras are concerned,” Rex said.
“The yogurts.” Eric lowered his voice and speaking through clenched teeth, “told me to stop trying to win the contest.”
Rex bit his lip and put an arm around Eric’s shoulders. “C’mon, buddy. We’re gonna get you to a safe place.”
Eric pushed off his arm. “If you weren’t an inchoate wisp, I would beat you down right here, right now. I’m telling you, I received a transmission from the yogurt.”
Rex looked skeptical.
“I think there’s some kind of beacon in them. Maybe an RFID tag that’s motion-activated?”
Rex crossed his arms. “I never thought that someone so self-defeated could rustle up this much narcissism.”
Eric tilted his head. “I can’t believe you weren’t the best man at my wedding.”
“To think that, what, someone would bug the yogurt specifically to tell you not to pursue the contest on the lid? Wow.”
“I never said it was specifically for me. Maybe they’re all hearing it.” Eric gestured at his competitors, who had eventually realized that all of the Quantal Organic Yogurt was gone and were now curled up on the floor, crying.
“Damn, you’re high-maintenance.” Rex reached into the cooler bag and picked up a yogurt. A woman in her seventies passed by and did a double-take at the hovering yogurt. Then she rolled her eyes and kept going.
Rex held the container to his ear. “I don’t hear anything.”
Eric grabbed the container and waved it around himself like a TSA wand.
“Wait,” Rex said, leaning over. “Nope, still don’t hear anything. Congratulations, you’re crazy.”
They went to checkout.
“I love our time together,” Eric said.
Chapter Twelve
Eric’s competitors had glommed onto him as the guy to follow to find Quantal Organic Yogurt. They tailed the Princess in carpools, and Eric’s bus didn’t exactly perform like a sports car. And since he had to pare down his shifts at The Buckhead and Sammy’s Diner, money for fuel and other things was running low. The holidays were coming up, too. Willa and Taffy were minimalist when it came to stuff, and preferred things that supported their work or things they liked to do, but Eric didn’t want to disappoint them – especially not with Mark Bollworm slithering in just before Christmas.
Eric coasted to a stop, then put on his right turn signal. When the light changed, he sat there, feigning a mechanical breakdown. Cars honked. Then, just as the cross light turned yellow, with seconds to spare, Eric went through the yellow light, cutting out at least a couple of the cars following him. But one made it through.
He took a street he knew was one lane and again went slow. This drove the other drivers insane, because they couldn’t see past the bus. It was dangerous, but as soon as the opposite lane was empty and a car from several lengths behind him had pulled up to pass, he sped up. The car shot in right behind him. Now there was one car between the Princess and the last carpool of contest competitors, who tended to be terrible drivers.
Eric was able to do the same trick one more time, padding his lead with two cars. But he had to take the advantage as soon as possible, before the in-between cars turned off onto side streets.
He couldn’t turn fast, he couldn’t accelerate fast. But there was one thing he could do. Just before a turn that he knew was coming up, Eric dropped two gears so the engine spewed a load of black smoke from the tailpipe. The cars behind him slowed way down and Eric turned right, then left. He checked the rearview mirrors. No one was behind him.
Eric made a fist and bopped the steering wheel in triumph. He drove on to an obscure reclaimed freight center, Hobo Hank’s. The cavernous
warehouse was filled with pallets of food at super low prices. Eric ran through a labyrinth of pallets, searching for Quantal. Though it probably wasn’t safe to eat, finding a bin of Quantal Organic Yogurt from a freight truck that didn’t make their delivery on time would be a huge coup. Then he recognized one of the contest competitors, a Paul Bunyan-type, fifty-something. He looked like a timber sportsman who worked at the steel mill.
Eric’s phone rang. It was his manager at The Buckhead telling Eric he needed him to cover a shift that day.
The bearded man headed closer.
“I’m sorry, I can’t today,” Eric said, keeping his focus on the competitor. “Did you try Les?”
Then, Eric and the bearded man spotted the telltale yellow yogurt in a bin at the same time. On the phone, Eric’s manager said that Les quit with two hours notice.
The bearded man broke into a trot.
“Oh no you don’t,” Eric said.
“Excuse me?” the manager said.
Eric lunged right and scrambled around a giant set of wooden pallets of cereal.
“I can’t do it today!” Eric yelled into the phone, ducking behind a pallet of ramen noodles, feinting to the left, then running to the right, feeling guilty because he prided himself on being a reliable worker, and hated to let someone down.
In one rush of a sentence, Eric said, “I’m sorry Jim but I gotta beat Paul Bunyan to the yogurt bye.” He dropped the phone on the floor as he bent his knees, then flew at the bearded guy, knocking him away from the yogurt in a half-spin. His beard was soft. His breath smelled like chewing tobacco and stale coffee. The man grabbed Eric by the torso and put him aside like a doll, then headed toward the bin.
With a feral grunt of protest, Eric reached up and pulled the man’s wide leather belt as though to save him from jumping off a building. The man lost his footing and stumbled, then Eric hopped up and body-checked him in the direction he was already going. The man spun around, then fell to the cement floor with a heavy thud. Eric stole a cart from a woman who was examining the mops, put the bin on the cart, and ran as fast as he could to the checkout.
Competitors were lined up an aisle away in the lot.
Eric kept his head down as he hurried, while trying to make it look like he wasn’t hurrying. He had his keys ready. It suddenly occurred to him that he was well-known and easily recognized in this niche group of zombie-like contest competitors, and should take steps to obscure his appearance.
The competitors noticed him and took off running. Eric reached the bus, fumbled at the lock, threw in the bin of yogurt, then climbed in. He pulled the door in to shut it but the man thrust his beefy arm in between the door and the side of the bus. The rest of the competitors mobbed the bus, crawling up on the hood and pounding at the other doors. Eric leaned way over to the side, turning his butt in the seat until he could kick the man’s arm out of the way. Then he reached up and pulled the door all the way closed, locking it.
After several nervous stabs at the ignition, Eric managed to fit in the key. The burly man and the other ones were trying to get on top of the bus. Eric’s heart raced. He put the Princess in reverse and gunned it, as much as he could gun the Princess. One of the competitors slid off the hood and ran toward him. Another, at least one, had reached the top and was pounding on the metal.
He felt stupid for wishing Rex were there, but he kind of did. He put the Princess in first and gunned it again. Whoever was on the ceiling fell off and rolled.
He really needed a disguise.
Eric was taking a sorely needed nap on his sofa when he got the call from Jerry at Quantal Food’s ad agency. “Eric Snackerge, we want you to be Quantal Foods’ unofficial mascot,” Jerry said, excited.
Eric rubbed his face and sat up. After the incident at Hobo Hank’s, he wasn’t in any mood to talk to an ad agency on the phone. Besides, that’s all he needed for his dignity: to be a mascot, and not even an official one, for the Quantal Foods company, along with his job as a shot boy – if he still had that job after his manager calmed down.
“We want to make a series of branding videos for you,” Jerry said.
Eric wanted, more than anything he had ever wanted in his life so far, to win that damn contest. He hoped it would show his family that he was willing to do this crazy thing for them. He hoped that by demonstrating he could put his mind to something and actually accomplish it despite the obstacles, Willa and Taffy would see that he did have the confidence to take control of his life. If making web videos as unofficial mascot for an organic yogurt brand helped him do that in even the smallest possible way, he would do it.
“I’ll do it,” he said, noticing out of the corner of his eye the talon he ‘met’ at Rex’s second sponsor meeting.
Jerry hesitated slightly before saying “Great! Ah, I kind of expected to have to talk you into it, to be honest.”
Eric pulled all of the pillows on the sofa up to his crotch. The talon, aka He Who Digs In, waved back and forth, then fell back to the bus floor with a clicking sound.
“We read that article about you in the paper,” Jerry said. “You’re perfect for this. You have the sexy factor –”
“The sexy factor?” Eric couldn’t even remember the last time he felt sexy. Objectified, sure. Panicky, yes. Also tired, angry, desperate. Worthless. Not to mention defeated, betrayed, alone. Sexy? Low on the list.
“But your distressed clothing makes you seem relatable.” Jerry said.
“My clothes aren’t ‘distressed,’“ Eric said, “they’re carefully laundered and I don’t buy new things unless I need to, so I don’t –” The talon jumped up with disconcerting speed and sank itself into Eric’s sofa. Eric tried to pry it off with no success.
“We’d love to get some footage of you and your bus,” Jerry said on the phone. “The goal is to show that even though Quantal Organic Yogurt is the only thing you eat now –”
“It’s not the only thing,” Eric said, pulling at the talon, which made him very nervous. “Sure, I eat a lot of the yogurt, but –”
“– It’s such good yogurt that you still enjoy it, even though you eat it all the time,” Jerry said over the phone. “We could get some sexy footage of you enjoying Quantal Organic Yogurt in your bus, at work, in the store – because you can’t even wait to open it. You have to have it right there in the dairy aisle.” Eric pictured a video of him grabbing a vaguely female-shaped, life-size container of yogurt and pushing her up against the aisle to kiss her.
“And you still live in the bus, right?”
“Yep,” Eric said.
“That’s fantastic,” Jerry said. “I want to bring a team over today, now. Is that okay? Where can we find you?”
Eric gave up and let go of the talon, which then dug in even deeper and began to carve out a chunk of fabric and stuffing. Rex was going to be paying for this, or working it off. He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “You know those plastic bison on the side of Hardscrabble Road? Just north of that is the Fireworks Superstore & Convenience Center. I’m in the back lot, on the opposite side from the dumpster. If you see the giant colonoscopy sign, you’ve gone too far.”
Jerry was quiet. Finally, as though he realized he hadn’t spoken yet, he said, “Uh, sounds good. I’ll round up my team and we’ll see you within the hour.”
“I can wait here twenty minutes. If you and your team want to follow me, that’s fine.”
“Follow you where?” Jerry said.
“To buy yogurt, of course. I have a tight schedule.”
Eric wanted to work on a disguise, but couldn’t wear one even if he had one: in his bus was a camera guy, a sound guy, and Jerry – the team from Quantal’s ad agency.
“Could you eat a yogurt while you drive?” Jerry asked.
Rex chuckled from the chair behind the passenger seat, where the camera guy was sitting. “I’m going to enjoy this.”
Eric wanted to ask Rex where he had been, but couldn’t, so he focused on driving. Jerry handed him a container
of Quantal Organic Yogurt, pre-opened, then lifted his arm to toss the lid in a bag.
“STOP! Put the lid in the shoebox,” Eric said. “Please. “
Rex gently pulled the sound guy’s mustache. After the sound guy stopped swatting at it, Rex stroked the mustache as he would a kitten, and the sound guy went half-crazy rubbing his face and batting at the air.
Eric pulled into a far corner of the front lot at Massive Food, a warehouse-type store two towns away. People in strange costumes were handing customers bags branded with Quantal Organic yogurt on their way out of the store. “What are you supposed to be?” Eric asked one of the people in costume.
“A moon,” she said, as though it were obvious.
Eric took the bag. “And what’s in this?”
“It’s a holiday survival bag.” She gave him an excessively cheery smile. “Take one on your way in, I won’t tell.”
“I hope my parole officer isn’t watching,” Eric said, in the mood to mess with people.
Her smile faltered and she turned away.
The crew followed Eric into the store, recording his every move as they passed by a Quantal Organic Yogurt table with branding and trays of free samples.
“You guys are really pushing this hard,” Eric said to Jerry, indicating the table.
“We’re not handling the promotional efforts.” Jerry dismissed the table with a contemptuous wave. “That’s a different agency.”
Eric didn’t want to be here with these people. He missed Willa and Taffy and wished he was with them at the house watching TV with a big bowl of popcorn, Taffy pointing out what pathogens the characters were likely to ingest based on what they ate and the symptoms they were likely to have, and Willa explaining how she would set up the HVAC, or a part of it, in the building the characters were in, and what was obviously wrong with their current setup.
When they reached the dairy aisle on the far right side of the store, Eric took all the yogurt they had and asked an employee to check the back for any remaining stock that might be on hand. Rex leaned in to him by the swinging door and Eric tilted his head away from the agency crew, who continued filming him.