by Lois Ruby
“Aw, some crummy school picture. Your hair’s plastered down.”
Tag nodded, twirling his Cokes around in the ice. He was using one of Johnny’s huge pots as an ice bucket.
“So what are you going to do, just stand out here on a public highway? You might as well flag the cops down next time they drive by, in case they happen to miss you.”
“You are really stupid, Dovi.”
“Stupid!”
“Didn’t I disappear when those cops showed up?”
“Well, yes.”
“But now I’ve got to get back to work.”
“Oh, come on! What if they come back?”
“You don’t know anything about the free enterprise system.”
“Yeah, and you’re a graduate of the Harvard Business School, right?”
“I am a graduate of the school of hard knocks,” Tag said. I swear, I could have closed my eyes and heard Cee Dubyah talking.
“Which means?”
“Which means, business is business. If a guy needs something and another guy has it to sell, you got business. You got business, you got profit. Then you buy more stuff with the profit, and you sell more stuff. Then you take the extra profit and you buy stuff you need for yourself, like cheeseburgers and toothpaste. There isn’t one other thing you have to know about business,” he said, and then his whole tone changed as some trucker came over to check out the shop. Fenway got so excited that he all but knocked over Tag’s orange-crate pyramid.
“Good morning, sir.” Tag dripped charm. “Heading out, or home?”
“I’m heading back to Kansas City for a few days of R and R with the wife and kids. What have you got here?”
“I’ve got all kinds of cold drinks, but it’s too early for beer.”
“A kid like you selling beer?” the driver said, and I could see him holding in a great big laugh.
“Oh, no, sir,” Tag said, as if he were good and shocked at the very idea. “The beer’s one hundred percent absolutely free.” He waited till the trucker’s eyebrows raised up high, then added, “But I charge a dollar for the paper cup.”
“Well, I believe I’ll buy me one of your paper cups, then,” the trucker said.
“No sale,” Tag told him, crossing his arms stubbornly across his chest. “How am I going to sleep tonight if you wreck between here and K.C. ’cause you’re drunk on my beer?”
“One lousy beer?”
“Okay, picture this,” Tag said in that style I’d come to know so well, where he drew pictures in the air. “You’re riding along, and you start to doze off.” His hands showed us the path of the truck, drunkenly snaking down the highway. “Suddenly you wake up to a siren blasting in your ears.” There were full sound effects, with Fenway barking the way any respectable dog would bark at a fire truck. “A cop pulls you over, and he smells beer on your breath. So you tell him, ‘Gosh, officer, all I did was buy a paper cup from a kid eighty miles back,’ and bingo! We both spend a night in the slammer.”
“It’s not a pretty picture,” the trucker said, staring into Tag’s thin air.
“But, I’ll give you an ice cold Coke for free.”
“How much for the cup?”
“Free.”
“What’s your angle?”
“You got anything in your cab for the kids at home?”
The trucker glanced over at his truck and back at Tag with a guilty look on his face. “Naw, I’m only away half of every week. It’s no big deal when I come home.”
“You’re going home to those sweet babies empty-handed?” Tag asked, as if he were personally offended.
“‘You didn’t bring me nothing, Daddy? Again?’”
Well, that trucker headed back to his rig with his free Coke and about fifteen dollars’ worth of absolute junk—carnival prizes like spider rings and Chinese finger-prisons.
Tag flicked a refreshing shower of water from the ice bucket on Fenway, who barked and nuzzled his nose gratefully in Tag’s crotch.
I stepped back for a second to watch the two of them, especially the twerp of a kid in his high-water jeans and baggy alligator shirt, and I realized I was in the presence of a genuine pro.
“That was too simple, Fenway,” Tag said. “What an easy mark.”
NINE
Barbara and Bill Wanamaker came in for some lemonade. Barbara dipped her pinkie into the glass and let the baby suck on it. She was getting bigger and bigger and wouldn’t be willing to hang around in that serving tray much longer, so the Wanamakers were spelling each other through the night, not even stopping to catch a few hours in a bed.
While we all clucked over the baby a truck driver came in who just wasn’t like the others. Most of the customers would say “Cuppa java, black,” or “Gimme two scrambled.” This guy looked like the rest in faded jeans that sagged at the knees and seat and an AH, KANSAS! T-shirt, but as soon as he opened his mouth we knew he was different.
“Would you be kind enough to bring me a piping hot cup of creamed coffee, with a warm scone at the side?” The Wanamakers glanced at each other and snickered, and even the baby smiled, but the Gentleman never noticed. He had his face buried in a red magazine that had no picture on the cover, just small white letters. The only words I caught were Journal of.
Tag was mopping up his fried eggs with a wedge of toast. “What’s a scone?” he asked me.
“Oh, a scone, well. It’s a … it’s like a sausage … not links of course, but a sausage pattie, about so big around.” I made a circle with my fingers, starting at about watermelon size and working down to something that would fit alongside a cup of coffee.
“I don’t believe you for a minute. The guy said he wanted it warm. People eat sausage sizzling hot,” Tag said.
“What he meant was warmish hot. Nothing’s ever served hot around here, you know that. A warmish hot, used-to-be sizzling sausage.”
In the back booth, Stephanie smoothed a page of her notebook and said, “You are both utter fools. Don’t you know that a scone is a tropical fruit? It’s related to the papaya and the mango, only not as fleshy. Mango! That’s what I’ll call the mynah bird in my fiction novel. And I’ll call the Malaysian houseboy Papaya. Brilliant, Stephanie, brilliant.”
“You have a Malaysian houseboy in your story in Kansas?” Just where did Stephanie think we were?
“My fiction novel is populated with very sophisticated people who’ve been around, Dovi. But you wouldn’t know, because you don’t read. Oh, of course you read, but you only read true crime and things like that. Not the realistic world of romance, the world of mynah birds and scones.”
The Gentleman lowered the Journal of a couple of inches. “For those who are interested, a scone is a flat cake, similar to, but flatter than, a muffin, and not as sweet.”
Okay, I was a little off on this one—but not as far off as Stephanie. Still, it stung just a little. “I don’t think we’ve got anything on our menu like that,” I said hotly.
“An English muffin will do. You have English muffins?”
“Nope.”
“A biscuit, perhaps?” His eyes were teasing.
“I can give you a biscuit, but it’ll be like a hockey puck.”
“Allow me to revise my order. One cup of creamed coffee, steaming hot, and one warm hockey puck.”
“Mister, are you from London, England?” Tag asked.
“No, but I’m an English teacher. I was an English teacher.”
“An English teacher!” Stephanie jumped up and slammed her notebook shut. “It just so happens that I’m writing a fiction novel.”
“Remarkable,” the Gentleman said.
“I could show you some of the best parts of it,” Stephanie generously offered.
“Very brave of you,” he replied, “but I couldn’t accept the compliment.”
“Sure you could. Here, just read the smashing opening sentence.” She slid the notebook in front of his Journal of and waited eagerly.
His eyes flew over the notebook, and h
e gently put it down. He took a bite of the hockey puck. “I haul meat and fresh produce and milk,” he said. “I don’t critique papers.”
“Oh, I understand fully,” Stephanie gushed. “But just let me read it to you, for the full dramatic impact. ‘On a sun-blistered afternoon deep in picturesque rural Kansas, a desperately handsome and sinewy Army lieutenant named Andy Marini walked through the door of an oasis on the prairie to behold the face of his one true destined love, Honorée.’ Well? What do you think?”
The Gentleman responded, “I’m not paid to think. Just to drive.”
“But what do you think?” I insisted.
“Honestly?”
“Absolutely honestly,” Stephanie assured him. She whispered aside to Tag and me, “I always get A’s in English.”
“Responding strictly as a sophomore English teacher, I would say your spelling, punctuation, and sentence structure are excellent.”
“See?” Stephanie said, practically spreading her plumes.
“Responding as a creative writing teacher, I would say your opening sentence is …” He sighed deeply.
“Go ahead, tell her!” I urged him.
“Trite.”
“What does trite mean?” asked Stephanie, not sure just what kind of compliment this was.
“Ordinary. Predictable. Overblown.” There was a small gasp from Stephanie, and he added hastily, “But I haven’t come to the part about the Malaysian houseboy yet, or the mynah named Mango. That’s surely where your story begins to sparkle with originality.”
“Yes,” Stephanie said, backing away with her notebook. “That’s a definite high point.”
The Gentleman said, “I urge you to keep writing. It’s an excellent romantic outlet for a girl of your obvious … sensitivity.”
“Oh no, you’ve encouraged her,” I groaned, for now Stephanie’s pencil raced over the pages of the notebook and I knew I wouldn’t get a stick of work out of her for the rest of the morning.
“So how come you’re not teaching school?” Tag asked in that way he had of piercing right through to your gut. Come to think of it, my way.
The Gentleman reached for his wallet and spread three pictures on the counter, all bald babies dressed in uncomfortable red clothes, and piled like a pyramid. “Twins, almost two years old, and a new baby,” he explained. “I can’t feed them on what a teacher makes.”
“Maybe you have too many kids,” Tag said.
“Oh no. I have too many wives. My first one has two children, teenagers. This is my second wife.” He handed us a picture of a dumpy little woman who looked like a “before” ad for a weight-reducing pill.
“Listen to this,” Stephanie cried. “Listen—to—this! ‘Mango and Papaya were inseparable. Bird and man as one, until Papaya’s employer, the lovely and desirable Honorée, sold the mynah bird to a passing truck driver. Papaya wept three days and three nights on his grass mat, until Honorée’s young heart was breaking for the short, weeping Malaysian houseboy, so she made the truck driver give Papaya the bird. Meanwhile, Andy Marini—’”
“Wait, wait. Don’t give the whole plot away,” the Gentleman said, gulping the last of his coffee. He plunked some coins down under his saucer. “Well, thank you, boys and girls, and especially you over there, with the pencil. You’ve convinced me that I’m much better off driving a truck than teaching English.”
That night Stephanie, Tag, and I were lined up on stools at the counter like See, Hear, and Speak No Evil. Stephanie was scribbling away in her notebook; the scratching pencil was the only noise in the place except for the buzzing of an overhead fan that badly needed oiling and the sound of our straws sucking up root beer floats.
After listening to the air for a long time I asked Tag, “Did you ever consider writing a book?”
“I haven’t got anything to write about.”
“Not true. You could write a book called, um, How to Make Your First Million Before You’re Twelve.”
“I’ve got plenty of business ideas,” Tag admitted, moving his eyes around the room as if he were reading ideas off the wall.
Stephanie looked up from her notebook to catch a sip of her root beer float. “I started writing when I was even younger than you,” she bragged. “As a child, I was writing poetry that rhymed.”
“My mother had a poem in a magazine once,” Tag revealed.
As far as I could remember this was the first time he’d ever mentioned his mother, and I wasn’t about to let it pass. “Well, why don’t we write to your mother and ask her to send you a copy, for inspiration on your millionaire book? Where does she live?”
“I told you, I’m not supposed to say.”
“I’m not going to tell anybody,” I protested. “I just want to know for your own good.”
“You’re sticking your nose in again where it doesn’t belong,” Tag said snidely.
“Well, I’m not dumb, you know. I can go to the Spinner Public Library and look up all the Laytons in the Wichita telephone book, and I’d find her after a while.”
“She has a different last name,” Tag said quietly.
“How could that be?” asked Stephanie, chewing on her eraser.
“Figure it out.” Tag’s face revealed nothing.
I considered the possibilities. One, Tag’s mother and father had never been married to each other. Two, they were married, and his mother had kept her own name; but that didn’t seem like the kind of thing a man like Cee Dubyah would allow. Three, they were married, but she’d taken back her own name after they were divorced—but did that make sense if she had a child? And four, she’d remarried after her divorce. “Tag, has your mother got a new husband?”
“What do you mean by ‘new’?” he asked.
“So that’s it! You hate your stepfather,” Stephanie cried. “That’s why you don’t want to live with your mother.”
Tag spun around on his stool and glared at Stephanie. “I don’t hate him. I just like my dad better.”
The fan whirred and squeaked; we didn’t know what to say. Finally Tag jumped into the silence. “I won’t make my first million before I’m twelve anyway. I guess I won’t write the book.”
TEN
Johnny brought my dad in from the bus station at about seven thirty Friday night. We all could have gone, Tag and Fenway and everybody, if all personnel under the age of sixteen had been willing to ride in the back of Johnny’s pick-up. But Stephanie was afraid she’d get a hair out of place. And she didn’t want road dust glopping onto her make-up.
So we decided to close the Pig-Out early and have a surprise party for Dad when he got home. Everything was as black as a skillet. We set Fenway up as our look-out. As soon as he spotted Johnny’s pick-up turning into the lot, he started hollering, which was our signal to flip on the neon sign and all the lights and the juke box. The whole place was shimmering when Dad and Johnny walked in.
“Mike, Mike!” Momma threw her arms around his waist and smothered him with little kisses up and down his face.
“I can’t even breathe. Give me a chance to breathe, Marilyn. Dovi!” Dad stretched his arms out to me and included Stephanie in his hug, and we looked a sight—one tall, bearded, half-bald man with three women plastered to him.
Then he noticed Tag sitting alone in the last booth. “Well, who’s this?” Dad asked.
“Some waif, name’s Tag,” Johnny replied. “Lives here, eats like a horse.”
Dad looked confused, but Momma flashed him one of her I’ll-explain-later looks, which he was used to, because Momma always had something outlandish to explain later.
“How was your bus ride, Uncle Mike?” Stephanie asked when we’d finally all crammed ourselves into a booth.
“It was the slowest trip on record. Do you know how many cow town stops there are between Wichita and Spinner?”
“Thirty-seven?” Momma guessed, and Dad growled. Momma was always doing that. Dad would try to impress us with how many, how tall, how old, how heavy, and how much-type questions, an
d Momma would always guess way over the normal, expected maximum. To Dad, the computer man, the world was precise and had at least some rules and logical limits. To Momma, the 93,000,000 miles from Earth to the sun wasn’t much farther than the 240,000 miles from Earth to the moon, because both were a long way off, and both looked about the same distance to the naked eye, and anyway she had no plans to visit either one. Momma was much more concerned about whether domestic workers, maids and all, were unionized and got decent benefits, or about prayer in schools (against) and increasing voter registration in the South (for), or about how many scoops of ice cream you could get from a gallon drum. So she guessed, “Thirty-seven?” and Dad growled.
“Nine,” he said, “and at some of the stops nobody even got on or off.”
“Oh well, hey, the only one getting off at Spinner was this guy here,” Johnny said. “The bus slowed down to just about twenty and shoved him off.”
“Yeah, Johnny caught me as I fell out the door with my suitcase.”
I thought of a million things to tell him and couldn’t figure out where to start. Then he patted Tag’s head in that sweet poppa way he had and said, “So, how are you doing, Tag?”
“Okay.”
“He’s doing a lot better than okay,” I reported. “He’s in business for himself. He believes in the free enterprise system,” I said, with a little hoot.
“A tycoon, huh?” Dad said.
“Sir?”
“A hot-shot businessman. What kind of business are you in, Tag?”
“Oh, five-and-dime, cold drinks, newspapers, shoe shine.” I half expected Tag to pull out a printed card.
“Say, is your house near here?”
Tag motioned with a flip of his mop to some dark place out there.
“Are your parents long-time Spinner people?”
Momma gave Dad such a kick under the table that we felt it all the way down the line. Across the booth, Stephanie jumped about a foot.
Johnny’d made us an apple pie for the party. Well, sort of an apple pie. It was a big oblong thing full of hot crunchy sliced apples, with a two-inch layer of his killer biscuit dough on top. It wasn’t as bad as it sounds, with chocolate ice cream melting over the top and dribbling into the apples.