Whitechurch

by Chris Lynch

  “You fired up?” Pauly asks me, bumping up against me as we hang over the rail of the oval tabletop track.

  “I am,” I say. Then I notice, “So is he.”

  White Rabbit is acting the fool among his peers. As they await the start, all the other competitors are doing ordinary rodent things, licking their little hands, slicking back their hair, shitting. But our boy is going off the charts, doing like, back flips and handstands, chasing his tail and trying to eat the AstroTurf carpeting of the track. “What’s his problem?” I ask. “I thought he was a pro at this.”

  Pauly looks a tad nervous as well. “Ah, he’ll be fine. He’s just a little excited … ’cause you’re here watching.”

  I shove him away. Then the gun goes off, and so do the rats.

  The first lap of the oval goes very well, as White Rabbit is off like a bullet. There’s nobody close to him. I cannot believe the noise level in the barn, like the Indy 500 is going off here. Coming into the second lap, White Rabbit is creaming the field, and I’m thinking, My god what a rush. Pauly was right. This rat is a thoroughbred. This might really be something. I turn to my mates. Pauly is whooping like a madman. Adam Everly is biting his lip, looking more like an expectant father than a fractional owner of a racing rat. I can’t stop nervous goofy laughing.

  Until the event. All White Rabbit needs to do is cruise through those last three laps, collect the food bits that have been sprinkled in front of him, and then we’ll take him out for champagne. But he goes haywire.

  First he reverses. Goes back where he came from. Stops. Starts jumping into the air. High into the air. On his third jump, he goes over the barrier and lands in lane four, where he comes face-to-face with his nearest competitor.

  Whom he attacks, with as much fury as he can muster. And he can muster plenty. It is a pretty ugly sight, as White Rabbit turns out to be just as good a mauling rat as he was a running rat.

  My stomach fills again, with something not at all like butterflies. As White Rabbit, son of Gray Ghost and Silver Fox, puts his opponent to merciless death. And then proceeds to eat him.

  We watch in silent horror. Until the official—that is, the guy with the air rifle—comes out and ends the carnage with one quick shot.

  White Rabbit appears not to care much either way. He dies with a bloody smile on his face.

  Adam Everly is inconsolable. He rides in the bed of the truck with his head in his hands right up to his front door.

  “I still owe you a dinner,” I say, hoping he takes it as a joke.

  “I still owe you the money,” he says. No joke.

  Pauly swings the truck around to drop me off.

  “I feel bad,” he says.

  “C’mon, Pauly,” I say.

  “No, like, really bad. This was serious. You mighta thought it was a goof, but I thought it was no goof. I was thinking we coulda been onto something here. I worry about you, y’know.”

  That line is a showstopper. I make a small gurgle before managing actual speech.

  “You. Worry. About me.”

  “No kidding, Oak. I wonder where you’ll be, what you’ll do. If I’m ever not around to keep you going.”

  “I was a little depressed before. Now shit, Pauly, what am I, Adam Everly, you gotta set me up in the family rat business before you croak?”

  He’s parked in front of the coffee shop now, beneath my front window, which is a few feet from where my dad is probably sleeping.

  “No,” he says, jamming the truck into park and facing me, ultraserious. “Difference between you and Adam is you got plenty on the ball, but no inclination to do shit with it. Difference between me and Asa is I love my boy.”

  I open the truck door and get ready to bolt. He makes it so hard on me, when I want simplicity. When I want to merely hate him or pity him or fear him or fume at him. I need to be physically removed from him to accomplish any of that, or he does this to me.

  “Anyway,” he says, “I’m sorry how it turned out.”

  “Ah, there’ll be other brainless schemes.”

  “That’s the spirit, Oakley boy.”

  “And besides, it wasn’t you who jumped the fence and ate the opponent.”

  He stares at the brake pedal. “But it was me fed him six No-Doz.”

  I stare at the sky. I could kill him finally. I could, I could, I will.

  I won’t, of course.

  “I’m going to see Lilly,” he offers. “Wanna come?”

  I continue to stare at the sky, but I’m just being dramatic, because I’m out of ideas.

  “The laundry’s closed,” he says, with the same Pauly enthusiasm that he invests in all his nonsense, “but we could find who’s hung out their washing today and go watch it dry on the line.”

  I climb back into the truck. “That’s the spirit,” I say. We speed off to get Lilly, as if time were an issue.

  In Spite of Myself

  MOSTLY

  As I lie

  sandwiched

  between days

  sandwiched

  between needy sheets

  despite the Laundromat

  being right there

  I wonder

  how they do it.

  Why they do it.

  Does anybody else

  ever feel

  like lying down

  and staying down?

  Hamstrung.

  By mania

  by loneliness

  by family

  by friends.

  Nobody quits.

  From what I can see.

  Nobody quits.

  Would god not smile

  on nobody quits?

  Why does god not smile

  on nobody quits?

  Why does god not smile?

  And why should I be

  a home team fan.

  Despite history

  despite intelligence

  despite common

  sense.

  I root.

  Despite myself.

  I do this much

  in spite of myself.

  I pray.

  In spite of myself

  when nobody is watching

  I pray.

  I look

  from my window

  across the street

  down the street

  at the spire

  and I aspire

  and I swear

  I’d take a flyer

  on the white god rocket

  for the one smallest sign.

  In spite of myself

  I pray for the gleam gap-toothed smile.

  The sign.

  That god is

  worthy

  of the guy

  who thinks

  my underwear

  is sacred

  worthy

  of the pale rodent

  with the good heart

  and the bad wiring.

  Or does the business of being god

  make him too weary

  to bother

  to smile

  at his own

  stammering

  glory?

  Café Society

  I WALK ALONG, TOWARD the stop where the ancient yellow bus would pick me up and do its best to take me to the regional technical high school twelve miles away. There is only a handful of kids from this area going to the Tech, so we don’t get the prime service. The bus is cold, especially in the mornings, and seems even colder the way the students are spread out front to back, six benches between pairs or individuals. The hills are tough too, even for a healthy vehicle, and the groaning of the old yellow Bluebird would quash any conversation, so mostly nobody tries. By the time we get to school, even doing nothing seems like too much effort. We each take our own window seat, hug ourselves against the cold, and stare off into the hills.

  Pauly would make the trip a little more lively, but mostly that’s not possible. He’s technically in the Tech, but not really. Sometimes he’ll go on a Tuesday, when they’re serving bacon bur
gers for lunch.

  I have the time. I head to King’s, where I can tank up with something good and hot. And absorb some Chellie King.

  I sit at a small circular table, small circular tables being one of the two options with big rectangular ones being the other. It is a fairly large place, larger than it needs to be, since it’s actually a converted movie theater, which used to hold probably a hundred people. The floor is even loped ever so slightly, so that when you walk into the place gravity directs diners down to the back, and that is how tables fill in King’s naturally, back to front. The windows are small and the lights are always low, as if the feature is perpetually about to begin. SEAT YOURSELF, the sign-on-a-stand reads, as if you really have any say in the matter.

  “I am so glad you’re here,” Chellie says excitedly. Chellie, short for Michelle. It’s all spelled out on her name tag, in tiny print. And though I like to be a gentleman and though I know her name perfectly well by now, I cannot break the habit of staring at her name tag. Chellie King has what is generally referred to as a womanly figure, to go with her little delicate hands and kind of youngish face and singsongy voice. Makes more the miracle that she’s got the ego of a much uglier person.

  “Hey, Chelle,” I say.

  “Hey. Listen, you have to come back on Saturday.”

  “But I’m thirsty now,’” I say.

  “Now and Saturday,” she says, like she’s in a big hurry to go someplace, even though she works here day and night four days wrapped around her classes. Another of Whitechurch’s family-run businesses.

  “Jeez, Chelle,” I joke. “I mean, I know I’m renowned for not doing much with myself, but I think I can do better than that. And twice in one week?” I try to sound pained. “I could die from that.”

  She starts writing. “So you eat the donuts. They’re imported. Can’t hurt you.” As she finishes dictating my order to herself, she scurries back to the kitchen, where both of her parents are waiting to fill the order of one donut and one coffee/cocoa combo. There is no one else in the restaurant.

  “So you know how I’m up at the junior college, right?” Chellie asks, plunking herself down along with the order. “And how I’m studying in the hotel-and-restaurant-management program?”

  I look, I suppose, blankly.

  “Oh sure, you knew that. Well anyway, after like begging and crying, and suggesting till I am royal blue in the face, my folks have finally consented to hand the whole place over. To me!”

  “Chellie!” I say, jumping up out of the chair when she does. But I am truly happy for Chellie. She has tried just about everything the junior college has to offer. Public-speaking courses. Computer-Aided Design. Fashion Design. Computer-Aided Interior Design. German. Until she finally decided that the family dynasty was the way to go.

  But no one ever expected her parents to hand it over while they were still alive.

  “This is amazing,” I say as we take our seats again. “So, what, your folks finally decide to take the Florida option?”

  “What? Oh no. Don’t be simple, Oakley. They’re letting me have Saturday night. Just. Come on, you know my old man. He says he spent his whole life working his butt off to get this place, and if he wants to spend the rest of his pears poisoning the good people of Whitechurch, then that’s his right.

  “And it is,” she adds graciously.

  “Well sure, it is,” I say, swallowing a big blueberry bite of donut. “So what do you get, exactly?”

  Here she gets even further lathered up, grabbing my drink and taking a long calming gulp. She speaks with a mocha mustache. A lovely mustache. She endures it patiently and doesn’t flinch when I reach up and dab at her lip with my napkin.

  “I make it mine,” Chellie says when I finish. “I take over. Give this place some style. ’Cause let’s face it, my parents are the sweetest folks on earth, but their idea of taste is hand-painted zebra T-shirts. Ready for the concept? Café Cinema. Right? I’m gonna open up that moldy thing.” She points to the back of the room, where the old Rialto curtain hangs, floor to ceiling, gold satin with diagonal maroon stripes. “And I’m going to show a classic old movie, just like in the old days, only with table service. Classy stuff. Little sandwiches and guacamole I’m going to make myself. Martha Stewart shit all over the place.”

  Chellie King and her endless, inventive plans. You can’t help but be a fan. I can’t anyway. “Beats hell outta racing rats, Chelle,” I say.

  “What?” she asks.

  The bus comes gasping to a halt in front of King’s, and the driver looks in the window. His name is Alekos and he only speaks Greek, but he knows where to find every student, as if he creeps along peeking in every window of the town, rounding ’em up without ever dismounting.

  “Gotta go, Chellie,” I say, standing.

  Chellie scootches up and kisses me on the mouth. A blast furnace of a kiss from a friend, and my day, so early, has already reached far higher than most of my days.

  So even I can stumble across a great idea now and then. Coming to Chellie King was my great idea of the day.

  Saturday comes cool, ideal autumn, crisp so you have to walk a little faster, hug yourself, hunch your shoulders so a downdraft can’t sneak into you. But not so cold you’d rather be indoors unless you have a good reason.

  And enough of Whitechurch has been convinced that Café Cinema is a good reason that the place is nearly three-quarters full and buzzing with noise. I, however, have no date, unless you count Adam Everly, whom I do not count because someone who owes you money makes for a lousy date. Lilly said the same thing she said he other night—she had a date, and maybe not with Pauly, and no I didn’t need to be sticking my nose in. Then my other steady, Pauly, was AWOL when I went looking, meaning he’s either out with her or stalking her. Just another night with Whitechurch’s First Couple.

  But signs are good that I won’t even miss them. King’s big old curve-top Magnavox radio is patched into the movie sound system, which makes it only slightly buzzier than it usually sounds. The local station is playing its regular Saturday-night oldies show. There is a popcorn smell, but it’s beginning to be overpowered by a deep-fryer smell.

  “Oakley, Oakley, Oakley,” Chellie says as she greets me at the door, and I feel like VIP-BMOC all at once. If this is what she’s doing to every customer, she will be one of the great entrepreneurs and won’t be waiting nobody’s tables for long. She’s half whispering because she is, after all, the proprietor here tonight, and doesn’t want to come off all silly-sounding, especially dressed like she is.

  “Wow, Chelle,” I say, and can barely manage to say it.

  “Ya?” she asks, taking a step back for me to admire her. She spins. Stops.

  “Oh ya. Wow. Pow, even.”

  It is undeniable, anyway. Chellie is wearing a floor-length rust-colored velvet dress, cut discreetly, yet unmistakably, to the exact shape of Chellie. With a very low neckline.

  “Good.” She grabs my arm and yanks hard, as if she’s ringing a great bell somewhere. “Good, good, good. I drove down to Boston to get this. Convinced my dad it was an investment. Cost six times what I’ll probably take in tonight, but look.” She rushes the length of the room, down the sloping floor, all the way to the foot of the stage where, coolly now, she strokes the thick, heavy, lush fabric of the stage curtain, which closely matches her dress.

  She rushes back to me. “See,” she says, “it’s so I have some clear, obvious connection to the theater. Like you can tell it’s mine. You can tell, right, Oakley, that this is mine, right when you walk in?”

  I look all around, checking out the crowd. “Everybody here knew it was yours before they even laid eyes on the dress, Chelle. But now they also know you’re the queen. That dress is the most elegant thing Whitechurch ever saw.”

  Chelle drops her head slightly, like she’s checking out the cleavage like everybody else.

  “I look like a fool, don’t I, Oakley? This is too much. This is stupid.”

  No, no, no. Ev
er hear something so wrong—not wrong as in incorrect, but wrong as in cosmically not right—that it hurt you to hear it? I could doubt the plan, but I could not doubt Chellie King.

  “Chelle, don’t run out of gas now. You gotta make this thing fly. This is the most excitement I’ve had since my rat died.”

  She looks up again. “What’s with this rat theme lately, Oakley?”

  “Not important. The important thing is no guts, no glory. Get your velvety self in gear and show this burgh a little class.”

  She brightens. “I’d love to make, you know, a little statement. Not a big deal or anything—”

  “Too late, you’re already a big deal. You going to show me to my table so I can start getting fresh with the hostess, or can I just start here?”

  She begins, with a slightly exaggerated but not much exaggerated swingy sexy walk, to show me to my reserved table. When we get there, she leans in and says, “Damn, I wish you were a few years older.”

  “I brought a fake ID,” I answer, as I sit.

  “Keep it handy,” she says, squeezes my Shoulder, and off she goes to make the rest of the crowd half as happy.

  “Oak. Oak. Oak,” Adam Everly says, and it sounds like the nervous yap of a little dog. He’s sitting, his hands folded tightly on the table in front of him, and he’s rigid. “Oak, Oak.”

  I can’t help but laugh. “What’s with the barking, Adam?”

  This Adam Everly takes as his cue to stand, just as rigidly as he was sitting. “Gotta talk to ya, Oak.” He makes a motion with his head the way only the old-movie hard guys of fifty years ago did, and I get up to follow Adam down front, up against the stage where nobody sits.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask, but can’t manage to get too worked up about it. While I’m talking to Adam he’s actually staring straight up, at the massive expanse of curtain that obscures the screen.

  “Jeez, Chellie coulda made herself five hundred dresses out of this thing.” He reaches out to feel the fabric, rubs it between his thumb and middle finger. Rust velvet dust twinkles to the floor.

  “I d-d-d-don’t …”

  Adam’s stutter is worse than ever. He is so frustrated he stops completely. I study his face and can see some kind of calculations, a mantra, a pep talk, something going on inside Adam that might get him through this.