He was a round man. And, although he was heavy, he moved with a sort of airy weightlessness admirable for a man of his girth. His skin, shiny and rubbery, stretched tightly over his face, giving him a deceitfully jovial expression. The resemblance was such that one would be tempted to rub a finger down his cheek to see if it made that annoyingly screechy sound balloons made. To his great relief, no one had yet attempted this. It would have undoubtedly tested his otherwise mild disposition.
On the morning of the day his life would change the Balloonman finished his chores early and was, by noon, sitting behind the counter reading the newspaper. All of the balloons had been blown and were now en route to their designated destinations. None of his patrons really knew how the balloons were delivered. The balloons simply appeared where they wanted them to appear. One minute their mailbox was naked and the next it was covered in a multicolor display of balloons intended to alert people to the location of their family reunion or auction.
Looking out the window, the Balloonman sighed heavily. The day was just as gray and heavy-looking as ever. This seemed a direct contrast to the light and airy nature of his festive stock. It wasn’t until he was ready to close up just before six o’clock, a few minutes early, having only seen three customers that day, his life changed.
June First came charging in the door, her face flushed and her ponytail in disarray. The Balloonman, living in the center of town, knew more about the residents than many people. He knew June First came from a poor family. He also knew she was a gifted scholar, the valedictorian of her class, and would be attending a wonderful college in the East on a full scholarship after she graduated later this year.
She slammed the door behind her, panting, breathing in the heavy latex smell of the Balloonman’s shop.
“You have to help me,” she said.
“What’s wrong?” the Balloonman asked.
“It’s Derek Gloom,” June said. “He’s after me.”
“Why is he after you?”
“He wants me to marry him. He says he wants to take me away tonight.”
The Balloonman knew who Derek Gloom was. Everyone knew who Derek Gloom was. He was the son of Cecil Gloom, the fireworks tycoon. Cecil owned a large fireworks factory at the edge of town that employed many of the residents and he wielded his power over the town just as Derek wielded his father’s power over the high school.
Derek was a threatening figure. He was very tall and very pale. Rumors said that Cecil used his children to try out new and fantastic fireworks. Consequently, they weren’t exposed to a lot of sunlight because the fireworks were best viewed in the dark and Derek only had three fingers on each hand, the other four assumedly blown off by ultrapowerful firecrackers. Of the remaining fingers, he let the nails grow to sturdy points. He always smelled like gunpowder and threatened the younger kids with Roman candles and bottle rockets. If they didn’t do what he asked, he nailed them. And his father’s lawyers would exonerate Derek even if his last victim were left with a massive burn or without an eye.
“I don’t want to go away with Derek. I don’t want to go anywhere with Derek.”
The Balloonman did not know how to react. He was not a policeman. He was not a protector. He sold balloons. Not only that, the second June First had pounded into his shop he had nearly forgotten how to breathe. The Balloonman was very nervous around girls. He had never so much as held hands with a girl and, if it didn’t involve the decorative placement of balloons, he didn’t really know what to say to them. So now he was in two situations that made him very uncomfortable.
“I need to hide or something,” she said. “They were right behind me.”
The Balloonman came out from behind the counter, smoothing his tight suit over his ample stomach, and said, “Go on upstairs. I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thank you, uh, Balloonman,” June said, running up the stairs behind the counter.
The Balloonman walked over to the door and stared out at the gray afternoon. Derek Gloom and some of his friends approached the shop. The Balloonman turned the sign that said “Open” to where it said “Closed.”
Derek stopped just on the other side of the glass, raising a gnarled hand and knocking ominously on the door.
“Send her out, Balloonman. I know she’s in there,” he growled.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the Balloonman said.
“I saw her go in.”
“No you didn’t.”
This blatant lie seemed to stump Derek for just a second before he regained his train of questioning and said, “Yes she is. I was just down the block when I saw her come in.”
“Go away before I call Sheriff Badge.”
“Oh, like he’s going to do anything to me. My father has him in his pocket.”
The Balloonman pulled down the white shade in the doorway and turned to go up the stairs.
His heart did a double hammer in his chest. Now he had a girl upstairs in his apartment and that ... that had never happened before.
June sat in an overstuffed orange chair that smelled like a balloon, pulled just far enough away from the window that she couldn’t be seen.
“Well, I think I got rid of them,” the Balloonman said with a bit more bravura than he had intended.
June shook her head, looking so scared sitting in the chair that seemed to eat her up. “There is no getting rid of Derek Gloom,” she said. “I need to get out of this town.”
As if to punctuate this statement, a large rocket shattered the window, crashed into the far wall and exploded, sparks flying around the room. Both June and the Balloonman jerked spasmodically.
“How did you get mixed up with someone like Gloom?” the Balloonman asked. Maybe, the Balloonman wondered, it was the extremity of the situation allowing him to actually speak with June.
“I don’t know,” June said.
A whole package of firecrackers flew through the window and exploded loudly on the floor, leaving a large black stain on the boards. June jumped up, leaping out of the chair, screaming this time. Ever attentive, she tried to give the Balloonman a satisfactory answer. “I just thought ... well, his father owns that big factory and I thought it would be nice not to be so poor.”
“You were going to ... marry Derek Gloom?”
“I considered it ... but I said no. And now this.”
This time, a multitude of fireworks poured through the window, popping and exploding, a continuous stream. The fireworks hit June and the Balloonman, exploding and stinging their skin before they could gather their bearings. Finally, the Balloonman said, “Come into the bathroom with me. I think I’ve just thought of something.”
The Balloonman led her into the bathroom. “Now,” he said. “I’ve never tried this before so I don’t know how well it will work.”
Then he leaned down as if to kiss her. June wrinkled up her face and pushed him away. “You dirty old man,” she said. “This is not what I came here for.”
“No,” the Balloonman said. “You’re mistaken.”
“I might as well just go back to Derek,” she said, retreating into the main room.
The Balloonman followed her. “No, it wasn’t what it seemed.”
A bottle rocket bounced off her head and Derek shouted, “You better get out here, June, or the whole place is going up!”
While she was distracted, patting out a smoldering flame in her hair, the Balloonman grabbed her around the forearms and gruffly pulled her toward him. Then he leaned down his head and planted a kiss on her lips. Startled, she opened her mouth and the Balloonman exhaled. June felt the breath go through her body, expanding it. She felt light. Lighter than air.
“Come on,” the Balloonman said after exhaling his lungs and breaking the kiss. It was hard to keep her from floating to the ceiling before they reached the window in the bathroom. He grabbed her arm and led her to the window, stuffing her out of it.
“Thank you,” she said.
Outside, she floated high up into the
gray sky, her bright yellow dress billowing up around her.
Derek and his gang turned away from the Balloonman’s loft and began shooting their fireworks toward June but, from that distance, their aim was not as good and they all missed, the fireworks exploding around her, drawing attention to the girl floating through the sky. The Balloonman stared from the window and watched as she floated away, hoping she would make it all the way to her prized college in the East.
-- -- --
After the kiss, things turned tragic for the Balloonman.
He deflated.
His balloons were no longer what they used to be. Whereas before they stayed afloat for weeks, now they were lucky to stay afloat for a couple of hours. The people of the town could no longer take it. More and more people began coming to his shop. Only, this time, they came to complain. They came to yell at the Balloonman, the once plump proprietor of quality balloons, now a gaunt and wasted wreck of a crook.
Then his luck changed. One day, after his balloons had ruined Derek Gloom’s wedding, the bride-to-be came into the shop.
She was stunning. Not as stunning as June First, but stunning in a different way. She had gathered all the limp balloons and dumped them on the Balloonman’s counter.
“I would just like to say thank you for ruining my wedding,” she said.
“It certainly was not my intention to ruin your wedding,” the Balloonman said.
“I couldn’t even go through with it.”
“You couldn’t get married because the balloons went flat?”
“No, I most certainly couldn’t. And that marriage could have made me the richest woman in town.”
“But, maybe,” the Balloonman said, “if something silly like balloons would keep you from getting married, then you shouldn’t have married this person anyway.”
The beautiful woman looked at the Balloonman and he saw something sharp, like glass, break inside of her.
“I guess you’re right,” she said. “He was a fool anyway.”
Then the Balloonman thought she looked at him with renewed interest.
“How long have you worked here?”
“I’ve always worked here.”
“No, the Balloonman is a little more ... puffy.”
“I used to only want to make balloons. Now I want something else.”
“I guess we all want something else.”
“And I guess you want a refund?”
“No, I didn’t pay for the balloons anyway. So what are you going to do now that your balloons are about as good as used condoms?”
The Balloonman wrinkled his nose at the simile. “Maybe I’ll travel.”
“Would you like a companion? I bet you made a killing off this place in its heyday.”
The Balloonman looked at the woman, saw whatever it was that had broken in her before harden again, and shook his head.
“No, I think I’m just going to go east.” He thought about June, floating away from him in her yellow dress. He thought about the way she had tasted. He thought about her fleshy arms in the palms of his hands. He figured she was probably where she needed to be now and wondered if she needed deflating. He thought he would know how to do that.
The woman huffed and turned toward the door, marching out on heels made of ice.
Behind her, he flipped the sign to the “Closed” side and walked to the back of the store. He opened the circuit breaker box and flipped all of the switches off. He opened the back door and stepped out onto the loading dock. He locked the door behind him. Crouching down, he began untying his shoes. Untying his shoes was not nearly the chore it once was. He hoped he had enough float left. Once his shoes were untied, he placed the toes of the right against the heel of the left and slid the shoe off. Already, he felt himself lift. He repeated the process with the right shoe and, slowly, he was off the ground.
He looked to the East, to the future, and floated a little higher, looking down at the pair of empty, weighted shoes behind the back door of his abandoned shop.
Reading Manko
Entering a bookstore, I discovered all the books had been replaced with authors. Angered, I nearly left but decided to stay and have a look around. The store no longer smelled like books. It smelled aged—liquor and old cigarette smoke hanging around the authors. For the greater part, the authors—mostly white, mostly male, mostly older—wandered aimlessly throughout the store. Some of them sat in the cafe, sipping overpriced coffee and engaging in inane babble. Some of them played board games. Some played with stuffed animals and other things the bookstore still sold. Others spoke on their cell phones. I wondered if authors were especially good at text messaging. Or did they find it too confining? These people who had let their brains dribble out over countless pages.
Disheartened, I found myself in the fiction section. It was virtually empty except for one old man sitting in a comfortable-looking armchair. His faded blue eyes, below his wisp of thin white hair, stared vacantly into the distance. His suit was mostly brown. He twisted his gnarled hands in his lap. I noticed his withered-looking legs and it finally hit me who he was. This was Gregory Manko, an obscure writer from Otlatl, a small European island. I had read a book of his short stories a number of years ago. Only a handful of his books were still in print.
“Excuse me,” I said. “Are you Gregory Manko?”
“Yes.”
He looked resigned.
“Are you for sale?” I asked, not really intending to. Sometimes I just blurted things out.
“Yes,” he said with the same resignation.
I wondered how much an author like this would cost.
No matter. I had a credit card.
I looked around to see if he had a wheelchair nearby. I hadn’t known he was crippled. Had he been crippled when he wrote those beautiful stories? I’d have to go back and read them.
“I don’t have one,” he said.
“Sorry?”
“A wheelchair. That’s what you were looking for, wasn’t it? I don’t have one. You’ll have to carry me.”
“Oh. Sure.”
I bent down over the chair. I didn’t want to hurt him. He seemed so old and fragile.
“How do you ...?”
“Probably easier if you just get down on your knees and I’ll scoot off onto your back.”
“Yeah. Okay. Right.” I figured he’d probably done this kind of thing before.
Turning so my back was to the chair, I crouched down in front of him. Grunting, he maneuvered himself onto my back, grabbing my shoulders with his gnarled hands. Getting a firm grip on the underside of each of his knees, I stood up.
“Easy,” he said.
“Sure. Right.”
I walked slowly to the front registers. A cute, intellectual-looking girl leaned against the counter, leafing through a magazine. Once I reached the counter, Manko on my back, the girl huffed and dropped her magazine on the floor. She had a nametag but whatever name had been printed on it was crossed out.
“Hi,” I said.
She gave me a look as if to say, “Please, spare me,” and held up the laser scanning gun. She opened Manko’s blazer and scanned a barcode on the inside of it. Turning her attention to the register, a look of surprise crossed her face and she said, “That’s way too much. Someone’s wandered out of the bargain section again.”
I didn’t know how Manko could wander anywhere but I wasn’t going to argue if it meant getting him on the cheap. Besides, I figured maybe he’d gotten one of the other authors to carry him there. She gave me the new total, which was nearly half the original price. I handed over my card, signed the receipt, and left the store to load Gregory Manko into my car, not really knowing what I was going to do with him once we got back to my apartment.
Things didn’t go very well. I was exhausted after the first day. I had to carry him to the restroom each time he had to go, which was a lot. Mainly because he ate and drank all the time. I didn’t see how anyone so thin and old could eat so much but it was like he was t
rying to pack it all in before he died which, from the look of him, could be any day. I began thinking about how much a funeral would cost and whether or not I would have to pay for it. Already, I had resolved to purchase a wheelchair—soon I would have to go back to work and I couldn’t just tell him to hold it all day. He was probably incontinent, anyway.
By the end of the first week, I didn’t know why I had purchased him in the first place. Honestly, what did I expect to do with an author? I didn’t even read very much. Maybe I thought he would be the stuff of drama—more thrilling than television. But thrilling he most certainly was not. He didn’t talk in anything other than monosyllabic answers to my questions so there wasn’t even any type of intellectual discussion to engage in.
Careful that I was out of Manko’s earshot, I called the bookstore.
“Do you take returns?” I asked.
“Depends,” a girl said in a bored voice. I wondered if it was the same girl who had sold Manko to me. I listened for the fluttering sound of magazine pages flipping but I couldn’t hear anything over the din in the background. They’d either gotten more authors in or they had livened up a bit since I was there.
“Depends on what?”
“Lots of things, really.”
I gritted my teeth. I most certainly would not be purchasing any more authors from this bookstore.
“Would you like to know what it is I want to return?” I helped her along.
“Not really but I imagine you’re going to tell me anyway.”
“Last week, I purchased Gregory Manko from your store and I’d like to return him.”
“Why?” she asked. “Already have one?” At this, she chuckled.
“No, I ... I don’t already have one. I just didn’t ... I guess I just didn’t realize how expensive it would be. And physically taxing.”
“It’s not his fault he has a handicap.”
The Driver's Guide to Hitting Pedestrians Page 4