The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek

by Rhett McLaughlin

  “I been waitin’ so long for someone to film these,” Big Gary said, staring at the jar with pride. Resisting the urge to say, “Seriously?” Janine zoomed out to capture Big Gary and his booger-green Li’l Dino’s polo shirt in all its glory. She couldn’t imagine any color looking worse on camera.

  “That’s why I keep ’em displayed on the counter out there. This jar”—Big Gary held it as close to the camera lens as possible, filling up the frame with a blurred nothingness—“is a symbol of all the pain I went through. Shows how tough I am. You know that expression Look at the stones on that one?”

  Big Gary paused, as if he was waiting for Janine to answer.

  “That’s actually the bumper sticker on my car,” she said, calculating that Big Gary wouldn’t detect her sarcasm.

  “Well, then, all right!” Big Gary said. “So you know what I’m gettin’ at: Look at the stones on this one! My stones!”

  Janine couldn’t help but smile, though not for the reasons Big Gary thought. She turned to see if Donna was smiling too, but nope: She was sliding a rack of glasses into the industrial dishwasher and pushing it closed, initiating a loud splashing and humming.

  “So tell me,” Big Gary said, speaking louder to compete with the running dishwasher, “is this gonna be, like, in the movie theaters and whatnot?”

  “Definitely,” Janine said, doing her best to wipe the smile off her face as she lowered the camera.

  “Wow,” Big Gary said, nodding excitedly and releasing a barrage of mmms. “That’s—”

  “Mr. Gary!” A panicked teen boy held the door to the kitchen open, his acne-riddled face resembling the generic pizza pictures scattered throughout the restaurant.

  “Can’t you see I’m busy, Tommy?” Big Gary said.

  “Is she from the news?” Tommy asked. “Are we gonna be on the news?”

  “No, it ain’t the news. This lady’s makin’ a movie about me,” Gary said, turning to Janine and smiling. “What is it, Tommy?”

  “Uh, you better just come and see.”

  “It looks like we got a situation I need to attend to,” Big Gary said to Janine, with a smile that failed to hide his annoyance. “But I’ll be back in a hurry. Feel free to take the stones out and touch ’em. Just don’t lose any.”

  “As tempting as that is, I think we’re actually done,” Janine said.

  “That’s it?” Big Gary said, seeming a little hurt.

  “Well.” Janine suddenly felt bad, imagining how disappointed Big Gary would be when his stones never made it to the big screen. She also knew the earliest flight she could book probably wouldn’t be until tomorrow anyway. “Maybe I’ll stick around to get a little more footage.”

  “Attagirl!” Big Gary clapped three times and let out his biggest mmm yet. “Hey, I’ll have our cook fix you a personal pizza. On the house.”

  “Oh, you don’t have t—”

  “Ron!” Big Gary shouted as he waddled away through the kitchen. “I need one PP! Extra cheese!”

  Janine wondered for the eighteenth or nineteenth time that day what she was doing with her life.

  She was about to say something snarky about Big Gary to Donna, but caught herself when she saw how engrossed her cousin was in her work. Janine watched as Donna grabbed a plate, angled it toward the trash, dumped a couple of pizza crusts, blasted it with a powerful sink nozzle, and added it to a rack, all within a couple of seconds. She was remarkably efficient.

  Janine was reminded that Donna had been doing this since she graduated from high school. So: ten years. As Donna joylessly grabbed the next dish, her two-sizes-too-big Li’l Dino’s polo shirt damp from the splashing water, Janine could think of no starker contrast to the old Donna. If the twelve-year-old Janine had been present, she would have thought that Donna was simply acting, perfectly playing the role of “dejected dishwasher” in one of their movies.

  “He’s a character, huh?” Janine finally said.

  Donna didn’t respond. Janine couldn’t tell if she was being ignored or if Donna was just in the zone.

  “He’s a character, huh?” she repeated, a little louder.

  “Who?” Donna said without pausing in her work.

  “Big Gary.”

  “Oh. He’s all right.” She aimed the power nozzle at the sink, creating fast-moving streams that picked up all the food scraps in their path and deposited them neatly in the drain.

  He’s all right? It was the most un-Donna response of all time. Janine remembered the man running Li’l Dino’s when they were younger, with his thick glasses and an obvious toupee. Donna had ironically nicknamed him Fabio. She would always tell him how great his hair looked, and Janine could never keep a straight face.

  It was surprising to Janine, even a bit embarrassing, to realize that some part of her was still holding out hope that her relationship with Donna could revert back to the way it had once been.

  “We used to have so much fun together,” she finally said.

  Donna turned the power nozzle off. Janine’s breath caught in her chest, though she wasn’t sure if Donna had paused because of what she’d said or if she’d just happened to finish her task at that exact moment. Donna said nothing and kept looking straight ahead at the wall.

  Janine pushed a little more. “You know, um…you’re the reason I went to film school.”

  Donna put her power nozzle down. Her head still turned away from Janine, she said, “I used to like hanging out with you, too.”

  Janine didn’t know how badly she’d wanted to hear those words. They meant she wasn’t crazy, imagining a closeness with Donna that had never existed. “So what happened?” Janine asked, her voice tender.

  Donna was silent for a moment. “A lot,” she said quietly. “A lot happened.”

  “What— What was it?”

  Donna’s shoulders tensed up and she lowered her head. As Janine stepped forward to comfort her, Big Gary reappeared, holding a plate covered with a sloppy mess of sauce and cheese. Donna immediately resumed her work.

  “Your PP’s ready! And I’m ready for more quest—” Big Gary’s eyes darted back and forth between Janine and Donna. “Everything okay back here?”

  “Not exactly,” Janine said, sniffing as she wiped her face, annoyed at Big Gary for interrupting right when she and Donna were finally getting somewhere. “It’s that time of the month. For both of us. And it’s really intense.”

  “Uh,” Big Gary said, at a complete loss for words.

  Janine thought she saw, for a millisecond, the slightest smile on Donna’s face before it disappeared. “But also,” Janine said, “I’m just…excited about the movie.”

  “Oh,” Big Gary said, nodding, grateful for the subject change. “I get that. Like when the Bleak Creek Gazette named us best pizza restaurant in town. I was so proud, I cried. Just like you.”

  Janine was pretty sure Li’l Dino’s was the only pizza place in town.

  “Anyway, sorry about the delay,” Big Gary said. “Those two troublemakers from yesterday just showed up. I’m sure you heard about it…knocked Mr. Whitewood right into his pig smoker.”

  “Oh,” Janine said, remembering GamGam’s excitement. “Only kind of.”

  “Wow, where you been? Under a rock?” Big Gary asked, though he was obviously delighted as he proceeded to lay out for Janine his version of what had gone down, breathlessly detailing the impudence of these “miscreants.” “At least that girl they hang around with was sent away,” he finally concluded, as if it was this story’s equivalent of And they all lived happily ever after.

  “Sent away?” Janine asked. “Where?”

  “Where else?” Big Gary asked, this time disappointed that she didn’t know. “To Mr. Whitewood’s reform school.”

  “Wait,” Janine said. “The guy they accidentally knocked into a grill also has a reform sc
hool?”

  Big Gary turned to find Tommy or someone else with whom he could exchange a “This woman truly doesn’t know anything, does she?” look, but came up empty. “Of course he does! That man is a hero to this town.”

  “But…” Janine looked to Donna to gauge if she had any opinion on this, but she’d walked off to some other part of the restaurant. “Sounds like it was just an accident. Why was the girl sent to reform school for that?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Big Gary said, “maybe because she was out of control! Same with those boys, letting their dog run wild while the pastors were tryin’ to say the blessing. If you ask me, all three of ’em should be sent away to that school. They shape kids up quick over there, quite an operation.” Big Gary hitched up his pants. “Tell you one thing: If those boys try a stunt like yesterday in here, they’re gonna be in for quite a surprise. That’s for damn sure. Now, where were we?”

  Janine had the sudden realization that continuing to film Big Gary would be far less satisfying than actively messing with him.

  “Actually,” she said, “I think I may want to interview those boys.”

  Big Gary stared at her as if he’d been whacked in the face with a flyswatter. “For the…for the movie?”

  “Yeah, I think so.” Janine tried hard to look serious. “Their story seems really interesting.”

  “Are you kiddin’ me? I doubt those boys have passed a single stone!”

  “Oh, good point,” Janine said, seeing how relieved Big Gary was to have convinced her and letting that moment sink in before saying, “but maybe that makes them perfect for the movie. You know, provides a really nice contrast to your super-impressive stone collection.”

  Big Gary opened and closed his mouth, unsure how to argue with that.

  “Can you point them out to me?”

  * * *

  —

  “HEY REX. HEY Leif,” Tommy Dowd said, looking particularly uncool in his Li’l Dino’s shirt as they walked through the doors of the restaurant.

  “Hey, Tommy,” Rex said. He wanted to keep the small talk to a minimum, both because he and Leif were incredibly hungry and because conversations with Tommy were incredibly dull.

  “Nice day, huh?” Tommy asked.

  “I guess,” Rex said, eyebrows furrowed.

  Tommy took the hint and bent behind the welcome podium to get menus. “Just the two of you?”

  Leif visibly flinched. He hadn’t wanted to come here, and had tried to persuade Rex that getting a snack at the Short Stop made more sense, but Rex had been emphatic. “I gotta get protein to feed my scooter leg,” he’d said. “Plus, I haven’t touched my allowance this week, so it’s on me.” It was hard to refuse once Rex was paying, but Leif hadn’t articulated what was actually bothering him, something that hadn’t seemed to dawn on Rex: Nearly every time they’d gone to Li’l Dino’s in the past year, it had been with Alicia. He knew Tommy hadn’t been trying to dig a knife in the wound, but that’s the effect his question had.

  “Uh, yeah,” Rex said. “Just the two of us.”

  “Great,” Tommy said. “Follow me.”

  It was a busy day at Li’l Dino’s, four or five tables already occupied, mostly by high school kids Rex and Leif recognized but didn’t know. As Tommy led the boys to the orange booth in the back corner, the one they usually sat at, Rex could feel people staring, and he realized the whole town probably knew about Alicia.

  Leif didn’t take in any of the glares, as seeing their usual table had triggered a deluge of Alicia memories: her reaching across the booth to repeatedly flick at his ear, her insisting that he order a personal supreme pizza with black olives so she could pick them off individually, her cackling in Rex’s face when he revealed he didn’t realize that Shock G and Humpty Hump were the same person. Leif didn’t know if he’d be able to get through this meal.

  “Um,” Tommy said, placing the menus on the table. “I heard about Alicia.”

  “Yeah,” Rex said as Leif sat down and stared at the table. “Hey…what’s it like in there?”

  Leif looked up. He’d been so consumed by his thoughts that he’d forgotten Tommy had once gone to the Whitewood School. And here he was, standing in front of them, a regular guy. Leif felt a little lighter, remembering he would see Alicia again, that all of this might turn out okay.

  “Oh,” Tommy said, thinking hard. “It’s…Well, it’s not, like, fun. But it was good for me. I was really out of control, you know? And now I stay outta trouble, I’ve got good grades, this job,” he said, gesturing to the Li’l Dino’s logo on his shirt, which featured a stereotypical plump Italian chef who had an accidental resemblance to Big Gary. “Sometimes I think everybody should go to Whitewood. I’m sure it’ll be great for Alicia.”

  Rex nodded. “Thanks, Tommy. That’s good to hear.”

  “Yeah, thanks,” Leif said. He desperately wanted to believe Tommy, but he still felt unsettled.

  “No prob,” Tommy said, walking away. “I’ll be back to take your orders.”

  Rex leaned in. “Okay, so when are we taking that tree guy Ben the stuff he asked for?”

  “What?” Leif said, slamming his menu shut. He had really hoped that Rex wouldn’t bring this up. “How can we even be sure he’s actually got information about the school?”

  “Well, we can’t. But what if he does?”

  “He probably just said he did because he heard us talking about Alicia being at Whitewood and he knew it would be a good way to use us to get him some stuff.”

  “Okay. What if he is using us? Worst-case scenario, he was lying. All we lose is the time it takes to get what he asked for and take it to him.”

  “No, actually…worst-case scenario is he uses that spear—”

  “What can I get you fellas?” Big Gary was suddenly looming over their table. Neither Rex nor Leif had ever seen him take an order.

  “Um, I’d like a pepperoni personal pizza, please,” Rex squeaked.

  Big Gary focused his attention on Leif.

  “I’ll just do a turkey sub,” he said. “No tomatoes, please.”

  Big Gary glared at Rex and Leif for a few moments before speaking. “Behave yourself, boys. You understand?”

  As Big Gary stared at them, Rex and Leif began to instinctively nod, even though they did not, in fact, understand.

  “Good.” Big Gary turned away and shouted to Tommy, who was standing near the entrance to the kitchen. “Tell Ron I need a PPP and a turkey sub, extra tomatoes.” He shot Leif a cold look.

  “Yessir,” Tommy said, disappearing into the kitchen, Big Gary following moments later.

  “That was weird,” Rex said. “Why couldn’t Tommy just take our order?”

  “There’s no way that wasn’t intentional, right?” Leif asked. “I asked for no tomatoes. Maybe he’s really proud of his tomatoes and I just insulted him?”

  “I’d find it hard to believe a man would be that defensive about his tomatoes. No, that seemed personal.” Rex rubbed his chin the way he’d seen cops do on TV.

  “I feel like I need to go up there and tell him to hold the tomatoes.”

  “Wait!” Rex said, grabbing Leif’s wrist to stop him from getting up, even though Leif had made no moves to do so. “I figured it out. He’s sizing us up. Because of what happened with Alicia.”

  “Really?” Leif looked down at himself, as if to assess whether or not he seemed like trouble. “We don’t even have our camera with us. Or Tucker. Does he think we’re gonna push him into his oven or something?”

  “Maybe!” Rex was excited. “I’m not used to people thinking I’m a bad kid. It’s kind of exhilarating.”

  “I don’t think it is at all,” Leif said. “I feel like I’m being judged. And punished with tomatoes.”

  “Just take the tomatoes off.”

  “But they’ll
contaminate whatever they touch.”

  “With what?”

  “Tomato…ness.”

  Rex rolled his eyes.

  Leif sighed. If they’d gone to the Short Stop, they would have already eaten by now. He would’ve gotten his usual bag of pizza-flavored Combos and a blackberry Clearly Canadian, and they would’ve tasted amazing. Instead, he was waiting for a sandwich that wasn’t even what he ordered because he was being tested. As if he hadn’t already gone through enough in the past day.

  “Act natural,” Rex whispered.

  “Huh?”

  “Big Gary is watching us. He’s with some woman.”

  “What?” Leif said, going totally still as if he’d just been told there was a bee on his shoulder.

  “Yeah,” Rex said. “Some woman I’ve never seen before. She looks kind of cool. Like, her jeans are ripped. And she’s wearing a hoodie.”

  “Can I turn around and look?” Leif asked, only moving his mouth.

  “Not yet. They’re still looking. Oh, shoot, she’s walking this way.”

  “Who? The woman?”

  “Yes,” Rex said, smiling and nodding at Leif as if they were deep in a conversation different from this one.

  “Are we getting thrown out?”

  “I don’t know,” Rex said. “She’s holding a camera.” And then the woman was standing right next to them.

  “Hey, guys,” she said. “Sorry to interrupt whatever fun-fest you might be having, but I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions.”

  Leif swallowed extra hard.

  * * *

  —

  THESE BOYS DID not look like troublemakers.

  At least the one with glasses didn’t. He just looked terrified, as if Janine were about to pull out handcuffs. The other one, who had the same side-part haircut as nearly every other male in this town, was trying to play it cool, but Janine saw through it. “What kinds of questions?” he asked. Something about him reminded Janine of Dennis, which was simultaneously endearing and irritating.