Lord of the Ralphs

by John McNally

  There were all of these losers, plus a few hundred more, but no Patty. Then, as a sea of people parted, Ralph spotted her and pointed, and at the far end of an ever-widening path I saw her: Patty O’Dell. We stared speechless, conjuring the Patty who’d let a stranger snap photos of her for a department store catalog while she stood under the hot, blinding lights in her bare feet. It was a thought so unfathomable, I might as well have been trying to grasp a mental picture of infinity, as complex and mysterious as the idea of something never coming to an end.

  “You’re right,” Ralph said, shaking his head. “It’s not her.” He tossed the catalog off to the side of the blacktop, as though it were a fish too small to keep. He shook his head sadly and said, “I thought I found her.”

  After school, Ralph told me to meet him outside my house at eight, that his older cousin Norm was going to pick us up and take us to a party. Norm had just started dating Patty O’Dell’s older sister, Jennifer, and with Norm’s help, Ralph and I hoped to get to the bottom of the panty ads, maybe even score a few mint condition catalogs from Jennifer, if at all possible.

  “You got a costume?” Ralph asked.

  “Of course I do,” I said. “I’ve got all sorts of costumes. Hundreds!”

  I had lied to Ralph; I didn’t own any costumes. In fact, I’d had no plans of dressing up this year. But now I was trapped into scrounging up whatever I could, piecing together a costume from scratch.

  My sister, though disgusted by my choice and unable to conceal her revulsion, expertly applied the make-up.

  “Of all the costumes,” Kelly said.

  “What’s wrong with Gene Simmons? What’s wrong with KISS?” I asked.

  “One day,” she said, smearing grease paint from my eye, all the way up to my ear, and back. “One day you’ll look back on this moment, and you’ll change your identity.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “You’ll move to a different country,” Kelly said.

  “Whatever.”

  I found hidden at the back of my parents’ closet a stiff black wig hugging a Styrofoam ball. I sneaked a dinner roll out to the garage, spray-painted it black, then pinned it to the top of the wig, hoping it would look like a bun of hair. My parents didn’t own any leather, but I found a black Naugahyde jacket instead, along with a pair of black polyester slacks I wore to church. For the final touch, my sister gave me her clogs. She was two years older than me, and her feet were exactly my size.

  In the living room, in the shifting light of the color TV, my parents stared at me with profound sadness, as if all their efforts on my behalf had proven futile. My mother looked for a moment as though she might speak, then turned away, back to the final minutes of M*A*S*H.

  Outside, I met Ralph. As far as I could tell, his only costume was a cape. A long black cape. One look at Ralph, and I suddenly felt the weight of what I’d done to myself. Ralph said, “What’re you supposed to be? A clown?”

  “I’m Gene Simmons,” I said. “From KISS.”

  Ralph reached up and touched the dinner roll on top of my head. “What’s that?”

  “It’s a bun,” I said.

  “I can see that,” Ralph said. “But why would you put a hamburger bun on top of your head? And why would you paint it black?”

  “It’s not that kind of bun,” I said.

  “Oh.”

  “At least I’m wearing a costume,” I said. “Look at you. Where’s your costume? All you’ve got on is a cape.”

  Ralph smiled and pulled his left hand from his cape. Butterknives were attached to each of his fingers, including his thumb.

  “Holy smoke,” I said. It was the most impressive thing I’d ever seen.

  “I’m an Etruscan,” he said, pronouncing it carefully while rattling his knives in front of my face.

  “A what?”

  “An Etruscan,” Ralph said. “I’ve been reading a lot of history lately.”

  “History?” I said. This was news to me. Ralph hated school.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Stuff about the Romans.”

  “Romans,” I said. I didn’t tell Ralph, but I knew a little something about the Romans myself. I wrote my very first research paper in the sixth grade on them, though all I remembered now were bits and pieces: the Gallic War, The Ides of March, some creep named Brutus stabbing Caesar to death. The idea of Ralph picking up a book and actually reading it was so preposterous, I decided to lob a few slow ones out to him, a quiz, and test what little he knew against what little I knew.

  “So,” I said. “What do you think about Caesar?”

  “A great man,” he said. “He brought a lot of people together.”

  “Oh really. How’d he do that?”

  “Violence,” Ralph said. I expected him to smile, but he didn’t. His eyes, I noticed, were closer together than I had realized, and his eyebrows were connected by a swatch of fuzz. Ralph glared at me, as though he were thinking about punching me to illustrate what he’d just said. But the thought must have passed, and he said, “Etruscans were the original gladiators. Crazy, but smart. Geniuses, actually. Very artistic.”

  “How’d you get the knives to stick to your fingers?”

  “Krazy Glue,” Ralph said.

  I nodded appreciatively. I had always feared Krazy Glue, scared I’d accidentally glue myself to my mother or father, or to a lamppost. I’d seen such things on the news, men and women rushed to the hospital, their fingers permanently connected to their foreheads.

  “What if they don’t come off?” I asked.

  Ralph said, “I thought of that. That’s why I glued them to my fingernails. My fingernails will grow out, see. And then I can clip them.”

  “You’re a genius,” I said.

  “I’m an Etruscan,” he said. “Very brilliant, but violent.”

  Ralph’s cousin Norm pulled up in a Chevy Impala and motioned with his head for us to get in. He was twenty-five years old and ghoulishly thin, but the veins in his arms were thick and bulged out to the point you’d think they were going to explode right there…a spooky guy with spooky veiny arms, but he worked at the Tootsie Roll factory on Cicero Avenue, along with Ralph’s other cousin, and he gave me and Ralph bags of Tootsie Pops each month, which made up in part for the spookiness.

  I took the backseat; Ralph rode shotgun. Norm said nothing about our costumes. I reached up and made sure the bun on top of my wig was still there. Norm gunned the engine, then floored it. Blurry ghosts, clowns, and pirates appeared and disappeared along the sidewalk. Pumpkins beamed at us from porch stoops.

  A mile or two later, Ralph said, “Where we going, Norm?”

  “I’ve got some business to take care of first.”

  “What kind of business?”

  “I’ve got a trunk full of goods I need to unload.”

  Ralph cocked his head. If he were a dog, his ears would have stiffened. He loved the prospect of anything criminal. “Goods,” Ralph repeated. “Are they stolen?”

  “What do you think?” Norm said.

  Ralph turned around, smiled at me, then looked at Norm again. “What kind of goods?” he asked.

  Norm lifted his veiny arm and pointed at Ralph. “None of your business,” he said. “The less you know, the better.”

  Ralph nodded; Norm was the only person who could talk to Ralph like that and get away with it. A few minutes later, Norm pulled into a White Hen Pantry parking lot.

  “I need some smokes,” he said, and left us alone with the engine running.

  Ralph turned around in his seat. “So what do you think’s in the trunk?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “Guns,” Ralph said. “That’s my guess. Bazookas. Maybe some grenades.” He turned back to the White Hen to watch his cousin. He rested his hand with the knives onto the dashboard and began drumming them quickly.

  Norm returned to the car, sucking on a cigarette so hard that the tip turned bright orange and crackled. Then he filled the entire car with smoke and said, “I
ran into a little trouble two nights ago. Serious trouble. I’ll admit, I screwed up. But hey, everyone screws up every now and then, right? Huh? Am I right?”

  “Right,” Ralph said.

  “Right on,” I said. I lifted my fist into the air, a symbol of brotherhood, but nobody paid any attention.

  “I had to get on the ball,” Norm said. “Think fast. Figure out a way to come up with some money, pronto.”

  “What happened?” Ralph asked.

  Norm looked at Ralph, then looked down at Ralph’s fingers with the attached butterknives, as if he hadn’t noticed them until this very second. He turned and looked at me, squinting, raising his cigarette to his mouth for another deep puff. “Just what the hell are you guys supposed to be anyway?”

  Ralph said, “I’m an Etruscan.”

  “And I’m Gene Simmons,” I said. “From KISS.”

  “The Etruscans,” Norm said. “I never heard of those guys. They must be new. But KISS,” he said and snorted. “That’s lame. You should’ve gone as Robert Plant. Or Jimmy Page. Or somebody from Blue Öyster Cult. Now that I’d have respected.”

  Norm put the car in drive and peeled out.

  The longer we sat in the car, the more I thought of Patty O’Dell posing for a Sears catalog. The more I thought of Patty O’Dell posing, the more I wanted to roll down the window and howl. I wasn’t sure why.

  Norm wheeled quickly into the parking lot of a ratty complex called Royal Chateau Apartments and said, “Give me a few minutes, guys. If the deal goes through, we’ll party. If not, I’m in serious trouble. Big time,” he said, opening the door and getting out. He slammed the door so hard, my ears popped.

  Ralph turned around and said, “How’s it going back there?”

  I gave him the thumbs up.

  Ralph said, “Let’s take a look and see what he’s got in the trunk.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said.

  “C’mon,” Ralph said. “Pretend you’re Gene Simmons. What would he do in a situation like this?”

  I leaned my head back and stuck my tongue all the way out, but the bun on top of my wig flopped over, cutting short my impression. A pin, apparently, had fallen out.

  “I got the Krazy Glue with me,” Ralph said. “You want me to glue it down?”

  “I’m fine,” I said.

  Ralph reached over, turned off the car, and jerked the keys from the ignition.

  “Hey,” I said. “What’re you doing?” But Ralph was already outside, leaving me with no choice. I got out, too.

  By the time I reached the trunk, Ralph had already inserted the key into the lock. “Ready?” he asked. He turned the key and the trunk hissed open. Slowly, he lifted the trunk’s lid, as if it were the lid of a treasure chest and we were seeing if the mutiny had been worth the trouble.

  “Holy crap!” Ralph said. “Would you look at that!”

  My heart paused briefly before kicking back in, pounding harder than ever. I’d never seen anything like it. The entire trunk was packed full of bite-size Tootsie Rolls. There must have been a few thousand. I dipped my hand inside and ran my fingers through them. Ralph scraped his knives gently across the heap, as if it were a giant cat wanting scratched.

  “Norm,” Ralph said, frowning and nodding at the same time, clearly impressed with his cousin. “He’s a real thinking man’s man. He knows when to steal and when not to. Don’t you see? This is perfect. I mean, when’s the only time people start thinking bulk Tootsie Rolls? Halloween, man.”

  “Halloween’s almost over,” I said.

  Ralph pointed his forefinger/butterknife at me and said, “That’s the point exactly. People are running out of candy. They’re getting desperate. Here’s where Norm comes in. Bingo!”

  “We better shut the trunk,” I said.

  “Not yet,” Ralph said. “I’m hungry. Give me a hand. Start stuffing some of these babies into my pockets.”

  Ralph and I scooped up handfuls of Tootsie Rolls and dumped them into Ralph’s cape pocket. Then Ralph shoved as many as he could into his jeans pockets. Twice, he accidentally poked my head with a butterknife.

  “Watch it,” I said. “You’re gonna put my eye out.”

  “Count yourself lucky,” Ralph said. “An Etruscan would’ve chopped off your head or thrown you to a lion by now.”

  We shut the trunk and waited for Norm. Using only his teeth and one hand, Ralph unrolled Tootsie Roll after Tootsie Roll, cramming one after the other into his mouth until his cheeks bulged and chocolate juice dribbled down his chin. He started talking, but his mouth was so full I couldn’t understand a word he was saying.

  Out of the corner of my eye I spotted Norm. I nudged Ralph. Norm was walking toward us, along with a fat guy decked out in a red-white-and-blue sweat-suit. The man’s hair was sticking up on one side but flat on the other, as if Norm had woken him.

  When Norm saw us, he shot us a look and said, “Get off the trunk, you punks.” To the guy with him, he said, “All I need are the keys…”

  “I got ’em,” Ralph said. “Here.”

  He tossed them to Norm; Norm glared at Ralph, a look that said, We’ll talk about this later.

  “Didn’t want to waste gas,” Ralph said. “Remember when they had that shortage?”

  The fat guy said, “I ain’t got all day. Let’s take a look.”

  Norm nodded, popped the trunk.

  Where there had once been a mound of Tootsie Rolls was now an obvious trench. I didn’t realize we’d taken that many. I looked at Ralph, but he just pulled another Tootsie Roll from his cape pocket and unrolled it with his teeth and weapon-free hand.

  The fat guy said, “These are the small ones. I thought you were talking about the long ones.”

  “They’re the same thing,” Norm said. “One’s just smaller than the other.”

  The guy shook his head. “Look, Slick. To make a profit I got to sell a hundred of these for every twenty of the big ones I’d’ve sold. You see what I’m saying? Kids want the ones they can stick in their mouths like a big cigar.”

  “That’s true,” Ralph whispered to me.

  “Okay,” Norm said. “All right. You want to haggle? Fine. I respect that.”

  But the guy was already walking away, back to his Royal Chateau, saying, “No can do, Slick. No business tonight.”

  After the man rounded the corner, I looked up at Norm, afraid he was going to yell at us, but he was holding two fistfuls of his own hair and yanking on it. “I’m screwed,” he said. “Do you hear me? I…am…screwed.”

  Ralph made a move to offer Norm a few Tootsie Rolls, but when I nudged him, he thought better of it, slipping the stolen goods back into his own pocket, keeping them out of Norm’s sight.

  For an hour we sat in Norm’s car and said nothing while Norm drove. Ralph started running his butterknives through his hair, giving himself a scalp massage. “Hey, Norm,” Ralph finally said. “What do you know about Patty O’Dell posing for a Sears catalog?”

  Norm said, “Would you mind shutting up a minute and letting me think?”

  “Sure,” Ralph said. He twisted around to face me and said, “Hey, Hank. Quit talking. Let the man think.”

  “What am I doing?” I asked.

  “Both of you,” Norm said. “Shut the hell up.”

  Norm drove us in circles, a loop that kept returning us to 79th and Harlem, a corner Ralph and I knew well because it was the home of Haunted Trails Miniature Golf Range, where Ralph and I enjoyed chipping golf balls over the fence and into heavy traffic, and behind Haunted Trails was the Sheridan Drive-In, where we could sneak through a chopped-out part of the fence and watch Bruce Lee on a screen the size of a battleship.

  The seventh time Norm made the loop, I gave up any hope of ever making it to a party. When Norm finally deviated from his endless loop, he jerked a quick right into Guidish Park Mobile Homes. He stopped the car, killed the lights, and turned back to look at me.

  “I need a favor,” he said.

/>   It was so dark, I couldn’t even see his face. “What?” I said.

  “I want you to take something to number 47—it’s about a half-block up there—and I want you to give it to whoever answers the door and tell them I’ll get the rest of the money tomorrow. Okay?”

  I didn’t want to do it—my bowels felt on the verge of collapsing—but I was awful at standing up for myself, unable to tell someone older than me No, if only because my parents had trained me too well. I was dutiful to the end. So I told Norm okay, that I’d go, and when I stepped out of the car, he unrolled his window and handed over a cardboard cylinder. It was about a foot long. I shook it but couldn’t hear anything inside. Only when I passed under a streetlamp did I see what I was holding: a giant Tootsie Roll bank. It had a removable tin cap with a slit for depositing coins. I shook it again but couldn’t hear any change.

  At number 47, I knocked lightly on the door, two taps with a single knuckle. I was about to give up when the door creaked open and a man poked his head outside. He narrowed his eyes and inspected my costume. Without looking away, he reached off to the side and asked, “You like Butterfingers or Milk Duds?”

  “Milk Duds,” I said. “But actually I’ve got something for you. It’s from Norm.”

  Before I could smile and surrender the giant Tootsie Roll, I was yanked inside the trailer by the scruff of my Naugahyde jacket. He shut the door behind us and said, “Who are you?”

  “His cousin,” I lied.

  “Uh-huh,” he said, nodding. “So you’re the famous Ralph I’ve heard so much about.”