The Mortal Nuts

by Pete Hautman

  Axel looked at Kirsten and raised his eyebrows.

  “She doesn’t know how to make them,” Sophie explained. “Juanita won’t be here for another hour, and I need three Buenos.”

  Axel smiled at Kirsten. “Never rolled a burro, eh?”

  Kirsten shook her head. “But I made some tacos. Carmen showed me how to do the tacos and tostadas and nachos.”

  “Waiting for three Buenos,” Sophie said.

  “The secret of a Bueno,” Axel said to Kirsten, “is getting the right proportion of ingredients on the tortilla. You always start with the beans. Not too much, though. Come over here where you can see. A little closer. Now watch how I do this.”

  James Dean found a bench where he could eat his bag of donuts while keeping an eye on the guy, Lord of the Donuts, perched on this stool that was high enough so he could sit down and still be taller than the kids working for him. Sit and yell at them. What was the guy’s name? He couldn’t remember what Carmen had told him, so he thought of him as Tiny Tot, Lord of the Donuts. Dean sat and waited until Tiny Tot got down off his stool and left the stand, passing so close Dean could have reached out his yardstick cane and tripped him. When he was almost lost from sight in the crowd, Dean abandoned the bench and followed him. As it turned out, he was visiting the rest rooms. Dean went in and stood down from him at the long steel trough, pretending to piss. Tiny Tot stood about five two in his pointy cowboy boots, a good five inches shorter than Dean. Tiny Tot pissed quickly, rattling the stainless with angry bursts of urine, then returned to the donut stand. Dean followed, swinging his cane.

  The next time Tiny Tot climbed down off his stool, he took a plaid canvas shoulder bag and filled it with cash from the metal drawers under the donut machines. Dean followed him again, this time to a second donut stand, near the Beer Garden. While Dean bought a third bag of donuts, thinking of the dollar fifty as money in the bank, Tiny Tot collected the cash and left off several rolls of coins, then walked away in another direction. Dean, stuffing his cheeks full of greasy little donuts, stayed ten yards behind, enjoying the idea of so much money being carried by such a small man. He was not planning to actually do anything, of course. This was a simple reconnaissance. Later he could think about what to do with his knowledge. Right now it was just a game.

  The third donut stand was tucked in under the grandstand. Tiny Tot collected the cash, then got into a discussion with two of his employees, which ended with him angrily hanging an out-of-order sign on one of the seven machines. Dean sat on a grassy spot across the street, tapping his stick on the curb and watching When Tiny Tot finally left, red- faced, biting down hard on one of his little cigars, Dean closed the gap between them to less than twenty feet. The guy had no idea he was there. Totally oblivious. Dean might as well have been invisible.

  Tiny Tot crossed Carnes Avenue, fat shoulder bag swinging, jamming his feet into the toes of his cowboy boots with each short, angry step. He cut across a large grassy area dotted with groups of fairgoers, past an exhibit promising a look at a Real, Live Albino Whale, $10,000 Reward If Not Alive, then turned up a wide alley behind a row of food concessions. Where was he going? Dean tucked his yardstick under his arm and stepped up his pace. Tiny Tot rounded a corner, Dean followed and almost collided with him. They stood frozen for a moment, their eyes locked.

  “How are you doing?” Dean said, waggling his yardstick cane back and forth between them.

  Tiny Tot grasped the cane with his right hand, smiled around his cigar, then slowly reached his left hand toward Dean’s face. For a moment, Dean thought the little old man was going to caress him. Instead, Tiny Tot hooked his fingers through Dean’s eyebrow rings. Dean lowered his head, following the sudden pain in his brow, to a place beneath the brim of the black cowboy hat, down to the level of Tiny Tot’s bright blue eyes.

  “I’m doing fine,” Tiny Tot said. “How are you doing?”

  Dean felt as if his brow was separating from his skull.

  Tiny Tot growled, “You better let go that stick.”

  Dean released his grip on the cane, thinking he’d have his shot later, as soon as the son-of-a-bitch let go of his rings. “Okay,” he said.

  Tiny Tot blinked. The smoldering tip of his cigar was an inch from Dean’s nose.

  “I let go,” Dean pointed out.

  Tiny Tot grinned and exhaled a cloud of smoke. Dean felt him tense, then heard the whoosh of the cane, felt it whip up between his legs and crash into his testicles. He jerked back, felt a tearing sensation in his forehead, and dropped to the ground, globules of pain bubbling up through his abdomen, his eyes pulsing with black flashes.

  “I can’t hardly stand to work with her,” Carmen said.

  Axel pulled out of the lot onto Como Avenue. It was nearly midnight, and he was feeling old. The first day of the fair was always a killer. The body needed time to adapt.

  “I mean, we’re in there for a couple hours, and she’s all over me. Like I can’t do anything right. Like I don’t know my job. The bitch.” Carmen lit a cigarette.

  “Crack the window, would you?”

  Carmen rolled her window down.

  “We have eleven days to go, Carmen.”

  “Christ, tell me something good.”

  “I need you two working together. Can’t you humor her?”

  “That’s what I did all night. Me and Juanita just made food and let her and that Kirsten girl serve. Juanita’s all right. Sophie doesn’t bother her.”

  “How did Kirsten do?”

  Carmen shrugged. “She was okay. She sure is clean. I don’t know how she stays so clean. It’s like food doesn’t stick to her.”

  Axel smiled, thinking that Carmen was right. Kirsten Lund could walk through a shit storm and come out looking like she’d just had a bubble bath. “We did good today,” he said.

  “Oh, yeah?” Carmen looked at Axel. “How good?”

  Axel patted the canvas bank bag on the seat beside him. “About thirty-five hundred and change. That’s a good first day. Maybe once you get some sleep it’ll be easier to work with her.”

  “I don’t know about that.” Carmen could now feel the two Valiums she had swallowed while they were cleaning up the stand. They helped. Eleven more days working with Sophie. She told herself it would be the last time, ever. Puerto Penasco was looking better than ever. Rich and free in Mexico. Flicking her cigarette out the window, she closed her eyes and imagined herself on the beach, dipping into a coffee can to pay for her rum punch. She let her mind drift.

  “Here we are.”

  Carmen opened her eyes as they turned into the Motel 6 parking lot. “Want to drop me at the lobby? I need some cigarettes.”

  Axel swung the truck over to the brightly lit lobby and let Carmen out. “See you in the morning,” he said. Carmen walked into the lobby, digging in her purse for change. Cigarettes were up to two fifty. She dropped ten quarters into the slot and pressed the Marlboro button.

  “Back again, eh?”

  Carmen turned away from the cigarette machine to look at the man sitting behind the counter. He was holding a copy of Penthouse, looking at her over the top of it.

  “You talking to me?” she asked.

  The man lowered his magazine. His eyes were small, gray, and moist.

  “You stayed here last year,” he said. “I remember you. You work with Mr. Speeter. Out at the fair, right?”

  Carmen picked up the fresh pack of Marlboros. “That’s right,” she said. “Good night.” She took a step toward the door.

  “I hear you’re gonna be a nurse now,” the man said.

  Carmen stopped. “Axel tells you stuff, huh?”

  “Now and again. He’s my best customer, you know. He’s stayed in number three since before I even worked here. We’re like neighbors; we talk” Quist looked back down at his magazine. “I see you got a roomie now.” He turned a page.

  Carmen lifted a cigarette out of the pack, placed it directly in the center of her mouth, then rested both elbows on t
he counter between the rack of postcards and the American Express applications. She waited. After fourteen hours at the fair, she was too beat to figure out what was going on. She waited for him to explain it to her.

  “He’s in there now,” BUI said, keeping his eyes glued to the magazine. “Your skinhead boyfriend. I saw him go in your room a couple of hours ago.”

  “So? Hey, you got a light?”

  Bill dug in his shirt pocket and extracted a book of matches. He looked at the matchbook cover. “‘Call 1-900 QUICKIE,’” he read, then tossed them to her. Watching her light the cigarette, he continued: “You know, I’m supposed to get more for double occupancy. Since the old man’s footing the bill, you think I should maybe ask him for the money?”

  Carmen shrugged, blew out a long stream of blue smoke, examined her fingernails. They were yellow and orange from handling processed cheese.

  “Or maybe I shouldn’t bother him. What do you think?”

  “I wouldn’t bother him with it. You know how it is.”

  “So how am I going to get paid?”

  “I’ll see what I can do. How much do you want?”

  “Twenty cash ought to do it. Twenty a night.”

  “I’ll have to get back to you on that. In the meantime, let’s just keep it between you and me.”

  “Gotcha, babe. You and me.”

  Carmen crossed the parking lot, let herself into room 19, dropped her purse on the near bed. One day at the fair, and already she was exhausted. She took a canned martini from the cooler by the nightstand and popped it open. The Valiums were stroking the base of her neck. She sipped at the martini and felt the tension roll away, felt her shoulders dropping, felt her legs growing longer. The clock read 12:24. In eight hours she would be back at the fair, spreading beans over fried tortillas.

  Dean lay on his side on the other bed. He was wearing his underwear and holding a wet towel against the left side of his head. His brown eyes followed her.

  Carmen took another sip of martini. She said, “I got blackmailed about five minutes ago.” Dean did not reply. “So what happened to you?” she asked.

  After several seconds, Dean replied, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  Carmen shook a cigarette loose and lit it. She would be asleep soon; she could feel it gathering. But at the moment, she was staying up on a few untamed shreds of anxiety. She traced a design on Dean’s muscular belly with her forefinger.

  “You want to fuck around?” she asked.

  This time, he took even longer to reply. In fact, he never did. Well, what the hell. She didn’t care. It was just an idea to kill some time. She was all but asleep when he got up to go to the bathroom, walking funny, keeping his legs apart, almost like a chimpanzee. Carmen fell asleep thinking of him as James Dean, the naked ape.

  Chapter 15

  Near the back of the south parking lot, deep in the RV ghetto, Tommy Fabian emerged from his sun-bleached Winnebago at six-thirty in the morning. It was a nice day, the second day of the fair, still cool from the night but with plenty of sunshine promising a warm afternoon. He crossed the parking lot, his short legs pumping, and paid his way into the fairgrounds. He bought a cup of coffee from a grab joint in the Coliseum, added plenty of sugar and coffee creamer, then walked up to Tiny Tot # 1 and sat on a folding stool to watch the early-morning action. Fairgrounds employees and concessionaires were moving about, carrying things, opening stands, and unloading supply trucks. A street sweeper passed by, its enormous rotary brushes hissing over the asphalt. A man wearing a Minnesota State Fair windbreaker was handing out copies of the State Fair Daily News to anyone who looked as though he might be in charge of something. Tommy accepted a copy without looking at it. Years ago he had read things like that, but lately it seemed to be too much trouble.

  At seven o’clock he visited the doniker behind the deep- fried-zucchini joint. They were actually clean, this time of day, and plenty of toilet paper available. A few more hours, you wouldn’t want your bare ass anywhere near those toilet seats. Tommy snapped off a loaf, then walked back up to the Jaycees’ and bought another cup of coffee. He returned to his seat outside his donut joint, sat, and sipped slowly.

  A few farmers were straggling onto the fairgrounds now, wearing their clean overalls and go-to-town feed caps. The farmers were always the first suckers to arrive. Then the families. The couples and the teenagers wouldn’t show up until much later, an hour or two before dark. Tommy lit one of his small cigars, his first of the day.

  At seven-thirty, he saw Axel’s manager, Sophie, pass by, carrying a grocery bag. Holding the paper bag in one arm, she tried to unlock the back door of Axel’s Taco Shop. The bag started to slide from her grasp. She grabbed at it, and the bag tore open, spilling several plastic pouches of flour tortillas onto the ground. Tommy watched as she picked them up, let herself into the stand.

  Duane, the kid who managed Tiny Tot #1 for him, showed up at seven-forty, five minutes early. Tommy unlocked the stand, fired up four of the machines, then picked his new yardstick cane from its hook on the wall and, swinging it jauntily, strolled off toward the grandstand to get his next joint up and running. By eight o’clock sharp, he expected to sell his first bag of donuts.

  The second time, Carmen woke up to the sound of Axel’s fist beating on the door. She sat up, looked at the clock.

  “Shit!”

  Dean, who was sitting up, reading, watched her scramble out of bed, naked except for the cellophane wrapper from a pack of cigarettes stuck to her ass.

  “Shit, I’m late. How come you didn’t get me up?” Vaguely, she remembered waking the first time, grabbing the ringing phone, talking to Axel, hanging up. She must’ve gone back to sleep.

  Axel’s muffled voice came through the door. “Carmen! Let’s go!”

  She looked helplessly around the room, still too sleepy to know what to do next.

  Dean said, “Why don’t you tell him you’re not ready. I’ll drive you over later.”

  Axel beat his fist on the door.

  Carmen took a deep breath, opened the chained door a crack.

  “Axel? I fell back asleep. I’m sorry.”

  “How long will it take you to get your butt out here?”

  “I gotta take a shower.”

  “Christ, Carmen. We’re going to be late!”

  “Why don’t you go ahead. I’ll catch a cab or something, okay?”

  Axel threw up his arms and marched back to his idling truck.

  Carmen closed the door. “He’s pretty pissed,” she reported.

  Dean touched his brow lightly, looked at his finger.

  “It’s still sort of puffy,” Carmen said.

  Dean’s jaw twitched. “Listen to this…” He had his

  poetry book open.

  “Isn’t it sort of early for that?” She pulled the curtain aside, letting more light into the room.

  “Listen: This Soule, now free from prison, and passion, hath yet a little indignation.“

  “So?”

  “So what do you think?”

  “I think maybe some of your brains leaked out.”

  Dean closed the book and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. He said, “Life is too short to let an opportunity slide—you know what I mean?”

  Carmen didn’t “All I know is Axel’s gonna be really pissed if he gets stuck in the stand rolling burritos all day.”

  “So what? What I’m thinking is we just go to Puerto Penasco. What do you say?”

  Carmen stared at the scab on his eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, let’s take a look in the old man’s room. See what we find.”

  “We can’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “He’ll know who did it.”

  “So?”

  “So … I don’t know.” She felt her belly tingling, like she was coming on to some good acid, or like she was standing at the edge of a high cliff, looking down. The same reckless, scary feeling she got when she climbed into
bed with a new guy, or lifted a twenty from the Taco Shop till, only more intense. “I don’t have a key,” she said.

  Dean shrugged. “My guess, from what you told me about that guy in the office, that won’t be a problem.”

  Tommy Fabian was taller than a lot of guys. His cowboy boots, which he wore because they were comfortable, brought him up to an even sixty-two inches. Lots of guys weren’t that tall. The Stetson added a few more inches to his stature and, he felt, made it clear to all just who was in charge at Tiny Tot Donuts.

  Tommy stood beside the rock garden on the mall, keeping an eye on Tiny Tot #1, his flagship location. The day had started off with a bang. He’d had twelve machines going before ten, and he’d made his daily nut by eleven. The rest of the day, the next twelve hours, that was gravy.

  It was almost noon, and the lines were lengthening. Lines were good for business, if they weren’t too long. One of the things he told his kids over and over was to work slow when there were only a few customers. Shut off a few of the machines if you have to, because you got to have a line to get a line. Then you got to kick ass when you get busy, keep them from getting too long. People would wait only a minute or so before they decided to go instead for some cotton candy, or a caramel apple, or a paper cup full of french fries. It was just like his days with the carnival. You wanted to make any money, you had to know how to work the tip. That was what made this fair great. Most of the joints were run by amateurs, didn’t know what the hell they were doing. A guy like Tommy, who’d grown up in the carnival, could make a small fortune.

  They were starting to get hungry now; the donut lines were growing. He could see people eyeing the crowd in front of his stand, looking to see what they were missing. Tommy willed Duane, his assistant, to open up the last two machines. As he watched, Duane did exactly that.

  He was a good kid.

  “Hey, Tommy.” Axel Speeter came up the slope and stood beside him. Tiny Tot Donuts was two spaces down and across the mall from Axel’s Taco Shop. This was their usual observation point, the only place on the mall where both stands could be comfortably observed. This was their place for exchanging gossip and speculating about the weather. They were the old pros.