by Jack Gantos
“That’s for me,” I yelled back. “It’s Gary Pagoda.”
Betsy was so shocked she put her book down and ran into the kitchen. “You are hanging around with Gary Pagoda?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “He’s a pretty mellow guy since he got some therapy.”
“Right!” she scoffed. “Therapy for him is eating puppies like you for breakfast.”
“No way,” I said. “I’m killing him with kindness.”
“Well, watch he just doesn’t kill you the old-fashioned way—with a knife through your neck.”
I wiped my mouth on my sleeve and dashed out the front door before she started to make sense to me. After all, if his hypnotherapy wore off, I’d be his first victim.
The motor home couldn’t even fit in the driveway so he was parked on the street.
“Hurry up,” he yelled from the driver’s-side window when he caught sight of me. “Dad gave me a list of things to do as long as your arm.”
I opened the door and climbed into the passenger seat. It was so high up I felt as if I were sitting on top our house. “What’s our first stop?” I asked.
“Old-age homes,” he replied, and pointed to a list on the console between us. “Dad’s political consultant says if we get the retirement vote we’ll kick butt. On election day I’ll drive all those ancient wrinkle rats down to the polls and make ’em vote Pagoda, or else I’ll threaten to drop ’em off out in the Everglades.” He laughed a cruel laugh.
“Now, is that nice?” I asked, sounding a lot like my mom.
“You’re right,” he said, and popped me one on the shoulder. “I won’t threaten any of ’em. I was just fooling around.”
“Well, that’s how trouble begins,” I said, again sounding just like my mom. I took a deep breath, and figured it was time to change the subject before I drove him crazy. When I saw a tattoo of a rattlesnake around his wrist, I said, “I’d love a tattoo.” That was a mistake.
“Yeah,” he said, and took another bite of his teriyaki-flavored Slim Jim. “Let’s screw the leaflets until later. I know the best tattoo artist in the South.” He pulled a U-turn and we almost tipped over. When he straightened out the wheel he clipped the fender of a parked car. Then he just kept going.
“You know what my favorite show is on TV?” he asked, while picking up speed.
I tightened my seat belt as I thought of the most violent show. “Roller derby?”
“Nay,” he said. “Demolition derby. I love watching those cars smash into each other like bumper cars. When we used to steal cars we’d play demolition derby where we’d drive down the street and sideswipe parked cars. It was awesome.”
“Did the police ever catch you?” I asked.
“Sure they did,” he said. “Heck, they knew it was us. I mean, how many guys do you know that are as crazy as I am?”
No one came to mind. No one even got close.
“See what I mean,” he said. “The police knew there were no other nuts like me in this town.”
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Dania,” he replied. “All the bikers go to this one awesome guy, Savage Sam.”
“I don’t have any money,” I said. “We can do this some other time.”
He waved me off. “Don’t sweat it,” he said. “I owe you ten bucks for starters, and you can pay me the difference later.”
When we arrived at the tattoo parlor Gary pulled up onto the front yard, which was nothing but packed dirt and weeds. A big motorcycle with a skull and crossbones painted on the gas tank was chained to a dead palm tree. We climbed down and stood before the black door of a little tilted house.
Before we could ring the doorbell a tall, nasty-looking guy in black leather pants, no shirt, a handlebar mustache, and a bald head stepped out onto the porch. “Hey, Pagoda, you loser!” he yelled. “They finally let you out of the can. Come on in. You’re in luck. One of my appointments canceled, so I have time for a job. Now, what is it you are after?”
Gary pointed at me. “Here’s your next victim,” he said.
“Well, kid,” Savage Sam the Tattoo Man asked. “You got any ideas?” He stood in front of me as if he were some kind of tattoo menu.
I was stunned. He had the strangest tattoos. Over his heart, he had a tattoo of a heart with a nail driven into it. Over his lungs, he had a tattoo of lungs filled with green smoke. Over his liver, he had a liver inside a large martini glass. He reminded me of one of those plastic anatomy models in school. The kind where you can see through their clear skin and examine all the organs. Only Sam was a model of organs gone bad. He even had a brain tattooed on his bald head, with a little turned-off light bulb in the middle.
“Well,” Sam said again. “What’s your big idea?”
I’d rather have gone home and cleaned the toilet, or washed dishes, or pulled weeds. That was my idea. Anything but what I was doing. I kept thinking that it was my job to be a good influence on Gary. And if I was doing my job I’d just take a deep breath and say, “I changed my mind.” But I knew Gary would just groan and get all grumpy, and Savage Sam would roll his eyes like I was some dumb kid and say, “Wuss. Chicken. Loser. Don’t waste my time.” Then he’d throw me out the front door.
So I said, “Yeah, I have an idea. In memory of my dead dog, I want a little dog tattooed on the tip of my big toe. The smallest dog ever, like a dog so small it could fit next to Abraham Lincoln’s feet on the back of a penny. A dog about the size of a flea, so that if my dad saw it he would think it was a piece of dirt.”
Savage looked back at Gary. “So you brought me a challenge,” he said, grinning and nodding his dead-brained head.
“I told you I had smart friends,” Gary replied, giving me the double thumbs-up.
“Awesome,” Savage said as he picked up his high-speed drill and revved it a few times. “I’m up for it, dude.” He turned to me. “Take off your shoe and sock.”
I did. He studied my toe for a minute. “I’ll do my best to keep it small,” he said. But judging by the giant teeth tattooed on the outside of his face, the thick arteries climbing up his neck, and a full-size 3-D backbone over his backbone, I didn’t think the word “small” was in Sam’s vocabulary.
First, he washed my toe with one of those hand wipes you get in restaurants after you eat a lobster. Then he put on a rubber glove. When he turned on the tattoo gun the needle whined like a dental drill, and when he pressed it against my toe it felt the same way, only worse. There was no novocaine. Gary held my foot down on the mat and I bit down on a rawhide dog-chew toy as Savage Sam drew on me. I didn’t dare wiggle my toe, for otherwise I figured BeauBeau’s face would have a scratch line across it like when you just goof around with an Etch-A-Sketch.
About an hour later I moaned, “Can’t you hurry?”
“I’m an artist,” Savage replied, somewhat insulted. “If you want something quick, go buy one of those sissy stick-on tattoos that your mom can wash off at bath time.” Then he continued to drill me with that needle at a hundred pinpricks per second.
When he finished the dog he asked, “Any name you want underneath?”
“BeauBeau,” I mumbled. I was half delirious from the pain.
He snickered. “What? Did you ever have a girl suck on your toes?” he asked.
I spit the dog toy out of my mouth. “No,” I said. I couldn’t see the connection. I couldn’t even imagine it. Why would anyone suck on a toe? Suddenly I thought I had gone insane. Gary Pagoda was now my best friend, we were driving around in the Goodyear blimp on wheels, I was in a section of town that was a hangout for America’s most-wanted criminals, I was getting a tattoo from a human-anatomy model who was asking if I ever had my toes sucked on by a girl, and I was chewing on a dog toy. I wasn’t a good influence. I was under the influence, and I wanted out.
“Can I suggest something like, I’m your puppy love,’” Sam asked, trying to be helpful.
“No, just BeauBeau,” I replied. “And in cursive.”
�
��Okay,” he said. “You’re the boss.”
Finally, when it was all over he took a step back and admired his work. “There, it’s now on forever. The only way you can get that off is with a hatchet.”
I was sure Dad had one.
I hopped off the table and hobbled over to a chair. Savage gave me a hand mirror so I could examine the work. Instead of BeauBeau, he had written YO-YO. I didn’t say anything—besides, YO-YO was sort of BeauBeau’s nickname, and would probably be my name, too, once Dad or Mom or Betsy got one look at my toe.
Then he turned to Gary. “Anything for you?” he asked. “I’m on a roll.”
Gary unbuttoned his shirt. “Yeah,” he replied. “I been thinking. How about writing in big letters DAD FOR PRESIDENT just below the TAKE NO PRISONERS-KILL ‘EM ALL AND LET GOD SORT ‘EM OUT! and above the fightin’ Irish Leprechaun.”
“You want it in American-flag colors?” Savage asked.
“Cool,” Gary replied. “He’ll really dig this when I whip off my shirt at dinner.”
I knew I would never take off my shoe again in front of anyone in my family. That is, if I could ever get my shoe back on. My toe had swollen up so much I could only get my foot into my sneaker about three-fourths of the way. I just crunched down the back of the heel as if I were wearing a bedroom slipper.
As the tattoo drill whirred, Gary and Sam kept up a conversation about old pals, and old criminal times. I just closed my eyes and dropped my head into my hands.
What have I gotten myself into? I thought. This isn’t what I’d call taking the highroad.
Four
I was sitting in the bathroom soaking my toe in a jar of warm water. I knew I couldn’t get rid of the tattoo, but I was trying to get the swelling to go down and keep it from being infected. Another day with Gary Pagoda, I thought, and I’ll be checked into a mental institution. I balanced my diary on my lap and wrote, “Maybe I am really as dumb as Mr. Ploof said I was. I can no longer deny the facts. I haven’t written the blockbuster novel I set out to write. I haven’t made a fortune and moved to Paris. And even Frankie Pagoda is smart enough to test out of Sunrise. Dad was right. Brains will only get in the way for me. I should build a career based on physical labor.”
Just then Betsy yelled my name. ‘Jack, Jack! Come here quick!”
I hopped up and knocked over the jar of water. I yanked on my sock and ran into the living room. Betsy pointed at the TV. It was a Mr. Woody commercial. He was holding a Pagoda Pet Pad and saying, “… my opponent claims he is anti-pet tax, and pro-pet. But you be the judge.” He set the pad on the ground, plugged it in, and a lab technician set a dog on it. Mr. Woody turned the pad on and the dog yapped out in pain, did a little dance, and jumped off. “A vote for Pagoda is a vote for pet abuse,” said Mr. Woody, as the dog licked its tender paws.
“Pagoda is finished,” Betsy announced. “The Pet Pad is his Achilles’ heel.”
“Maybe not,” I said. “People know that dogs need negative reinforcement. It’s no worse than a little tap on the butt with a newspaper.”
Betsy scoffed. “If you want to see negative reinforcement,” she said, “you should see Mr. Woody’s other commercial. He has a senior citizen testifying that he accidentally stepped on a Pet Pad and it zapped the pacemaker in his heart and he almost died.”
She was right. Mr. Pagoda was finished unless he had a secret weapon I didn’t know about. Maybe he had one more invention to help him fight off Mr. Woody’s ads.
That night Gary Pagoda tapped on my window.
I pulled back the curtain. I could barely see him because he had covered his face with black shoe polish like some kind of Marine commando. But the streetlight reflected off his gold tooth and I recognized him.
“Come out,” he said. “I need to talk with you.”
“About what?” I whispered.
“Just get out here,” he ordered. “Dad has sent us on a mission.”
Suddenly I was getting a very bad feeling that Gary was Mr. Pagoda’s secret weapon. As I got dressed in dark clothes, I wondered what we might do. Maybe we could take undercover photographs of Mr. Woody selling dogs and cats to medical researchers where their hair would be shaved and their heads drilled and filled with wires. Maybe Mr. Woody had a mansion built with the tax money he had collected to help cats and dogs. Now, if we could get those kinds of pictures, Mr. Pagoda would have a fighting chance. Otherwise, he was doomed.
I slipped out the front door, trotted across our front yard, and climbed into the mobile home.
“What’s our mission?” I asked, as we pulled away. “Where are we going?”
He removed a cassette tape from his top pocket and pushed it into the tape deck. I expected to hear our top-secret orders from Mr. Pagoda. Instead, a woman’s voice came on. It was Gary’s therapist. “Gary,” she said very calmly. “Close your eyes and breathe deeply. Relax and breathe deeply.”
I glanced at him. His eyes were closed, and he was still driving.
“Gary,” she said. “Remember to center yourself.” I wasn’t sure what she meant but we were driving down the middle of the street.
When we began to drift toward the curb I reached forward and pressed the button to eject the tape.
“Hey,” he snapped and grabbed my hand. “That was helping me focus.”
“Focus on the road,” I suggested, and pointed to a telephone pole lined up in our headlights.
He steered to miss it, then snatched the tape and tossed it out the window.
“Now, why did you do that?” I asked.
“It wasn’t helping,” he said, like some weary zombie warrior. “Nothing is going to help anymore.”
I didn’t like the way he said that. “I was thinking that your dad needs an invention, like a secret weapon that can turn negative publicity into positive publicity,” I said.
Gary leered at me. “I’m his invention,” he said, confirming my fear. “I know how to wipe out Mr. Woody’s lead.”
“I mean, is there a button you can push and Mr. Woody’s lead evaporates? Something like that?” I said. “Something scientific and brilliant, like a pro-Pagoda brain wave?”
“I’m the button,” Gary said. “And I’ve just been pushed.”
I hoped he hadn’t been pushed over the edge. But he had.
Now he was driving the mobile home through the streets with the lights off. Then he cut the engine and we began to coast down Wilton Manors Boulevard.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Hunting,” he whispered.
“For what?”
“Signs,” he replied. “When we reach the corner I want you to jump out and grab all of the Mr. Woody signs and throw them in the back.”
“Isn’t this against the law?” I asked, knowing that it was. But I was trying to remind him.
“This is war,” he replied. “You saw those Mr. Woody commercials. A guy like me can’t just stand back and take this kind of abuse.”
“Don’t you think you are taking this too far?” I asked. “We could be arrested and they could send you away for a long time.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Gary said. “I’ve tried to go by the straight and narrow, but nobody plays fair.” He dodged a dog that had wandered into the street.
“That’s not the point,” I said. “We all know that politicians don’t play fair.”
“Then why play? I’d rather just do what I want. I’d rather be a political assassin, or a flaming kamikaze.”
“I think you’re losing it,” I said, taking a chance that he might get even more angry. “Maybe we should turn around and try to find your tape.”
‘Just do what I tell you to do,” he said like the old Gary, the one who loved to sharpen knives all day and throw bowling balls off highway overpasses. “Or else.”
I could just imagine the evening news with a policeman saying, “We are searching for a suspect who killed a young man late last night. The body has not yet been identified. But there is a tattoo on one of his b
ig toes of a dog named Yo-Yo.” Eventually Savage Sam would identify me, and my parents would bury me in BeauBeau’s coffin.
Gary tossed me a flashlight. “Now get going,” he said.
“I’m supposed to be a good influence on you,” I replied, trying one last time to reason with him. “Not your partner in crime.”
“Hey,” he said menacingly. “If I wasn’t here with you, I might set this thing on fire and run it right through Mr. Woody’s picture window. So see, you have been a good influence. I’m only pulling up a few signs.”
I jumped out of the mobile home and ran into the field where a bunch of signs were nailed to wooden stakes pounded into the ground. I flicked on the flashlight and looked for Mr. Woody’s face. I felt as if I were burglarizing a home. When I spotted a sign I grabbed it and pulled it out of the sandy soil. This is all wrong, I thought. Dad might be cynical about politics, but what I was doing was criminal. Then I thought, if I don’t do it Gary will take one of the wooden stakes and drive it through my heart.
“Come on,” he yelled. “Hurry up. We got a million more of them to pull up by sunrise.”
I grabbed a bunch of signs and carried them to the big side door of the mobile home. Gary opened the door and I threw them in.
“We’ll burn these later,” he said.
We drove to the next corner and I pulled up a few more. When we got to a billboard Gary jumped out of the mobile home with a can of spray paint. He went around to the back of the billboard and climbed up the ladder. When he stood on the platform he wrote MR. WOODY SUCKS.
“Can’t you be more clever than that?” I yelled up at him.
“What’s wrong with what I wrote?” Gary barked back. “He sucks! That means don’t vote for him.”
“It does not,” I said. “It sounds so immature.” I knew the moment I said the word “immature” that I was dead meat. When he climbed down the ladder he ran and lunged at me. I fell over backward and he sat on my chest with both his huge hands around my neck.
“I didn’t mean it,” I choked out, thinking, Here comes my death.