“I see. Become one of them.”
“I told ’em, I said, Took—’”
“So you’ve spoken with them.”
“Buncha times. I keep telling ’em, ‘Get off my back, will ya? When I make my decision I’ll let you know.’ Two days later they’re calling me again.”
“On the telephone?”
“Day and night.”
She nods. “And do you ever see them?”
“Couple times. One of their scouts ambushed me after school one day.”
“But you escaped.”
“Eventually.”
“And would I be able to see them, too?”
“How do you mean?”
“If they were here—one of their scouts, for example. Would I be able to see him? And speak with him?”
“I guess. If you wanted. What for, though? I mean, no offense, but I don’t think he’d be interested in you.”
“Oh? Why not?”
“Well, I mean … they don’t generally go after women.”
“I see. And why is that, do you suppose.”
This lady’s turning out to be a little strange.
“Well, what could they use a woman for?” I say to her.
“She could cook for them, couldn’t she?”
“That’s … true. Except, I think they probably have their own cooks, Audrey. You know?”
“I see. So they’re only interested in you. Is that it?”
“I’m not saying that. I’m sure they’re after other guys, too.”
“But they have to be special, don’t they.”
“Well, they’re not gonna go after just anybody.”
“And what makes you special, Max? Out of all the others.”
“Hey, I don’t wanna sit here bragging, okay?”
“Just between us.”
“All right. Just between us? I’m better, that’s all. Simple as that.”
“Better in what way, Max?”
“A lotta ways, except…”
“Yes?”
“I don’t have much power.”
“I see. You mean like the power of medicine men? Is that the kind of power you’re talking about?”
“Not… exactly.”
I think this woman has a screw loose.
“What kind of power do you mean, Max? I’m curious.”
“I’m just saying I wouldn’t mind stroking one out now and then, that’s all. That’s all I’m talking about.”
“‘Stroking one out’?”
“Just, you know, to see how it feels.”
“So you’ve never … ‘stroked one out’?” she says, dropping her voice.
“Like I said, I don’t have the power. Don’t have the size really.”
“I see. So size is important?”
“For power? Sure. But that’s not what they want me for. They already got plenty of power.”
“So what is it they want you for, Max?”
She’s making me nervous, the way she keeps leaning towards me, speaking secretly. Plus the lighting here is spooky.
“Where did you say you were going?” I ask, to change the subject.
“Atlanta.”
“Hey, great city. Wonderful people. I was there, back in … let’s see now …”
“What do they want from you, Max? Can you tell me?”
“I’m gonna read for a while, okay?”
But she doesn’t take the hint. She leans even closer. I can see the veins in her eyeballs.
“Are you afraid, Max?”
“Little bit.”
“Afraid they’ll hurt you?”
“Who?”
“The Indians.”
Oh, man.
“They’re not gonna hurt me. Why would they hurt me?”
“So what is it you fear, Max?”
I don’t know if she knows it but she has her hand on my knee.
“What are you afraid of?” she whispers.
“Of you,” I whisper back.
Her face turns to stone.
She sits back, opens the magazine in her lap and starts flipping through it, looking at the left page, looking at the right.
I think I hurt her feelings.
“Hey,” I tell her.
She keeps flipping pages.
“Audrey …”
She doesn’t look up.
“You didn’t scare me,” I tell her, “okay? Really. It was just… the way you were whispering, that’s all. I get a little nervous when people whisper. I’m kind of a nervous person, okay?”
“Well,” she says, turning a page, “maybe your Indian friends will help you overcome that.”
“Right. Thing is, actually, that was sort of … made up. They’re not really after me. I was just trying to impress you.”
She looks at me. “You thought that would impress me?”
“Well, yeah. I mean … didn’t it?”
“Impress me? No. It alarmed me, hearing someone say such outlandish things.”
“Hey now, wait a minute, it’s not that outlandish. It could be true. Could damn well be true, believe me.”
“A lot of things could be true, Max. It could even be true you once ate a pizza in Dubuque.” She returns to her magazine.
Just to show her how much she knows, I inform her that my name’s not Max.
“I’m not surprised,” she says, flipping a page.
God, this woman …
I tell her, “You’re right. I was never in Dubuque. But I am going to a baseball camp and believe me it’s not for fun. It’s called the Al Haines Baseball School and Tryout Camp and tons of pro players got started there, including guys like—”
“Please?” She looks at me in a pleading way. “Do I have to find another seat?”
I don’t answer.
She returns to her magazine.
We don’t talk anymore after that. She reads her magazine and I rest my head against the window.
A thin bright edge of the moon cuts along, keeping up.
She believed me about the Indians, I know damn well she did. Because it will be true. Maybe not with the Indians but it’s gonna happen. They’re gonna see what I can do down there and they’re gonna say, Sign right here, kid, because I am one hell of a ballplayer and she believed me—and it turned her on. It got her all hot. And she’s embarrassed about it now.
Poor old thing.
I fold my arms, close my eyes, and go to sleep.
On the train ride coming home, the moon is full. Gazing at its woeful face, I think about spending the rest of my life as a train conductor … a butcher … a businessman … a bum, a fucking skid row bum …
Gas Station Attendant
LEFTY’S CLARK STATION, SOUTH HOLLAND, ILLINOIS, SUMMER ‘67
“And better check the oil,” the guy adds.
“The oil?”
“Right.”
Up until now I was going good.
I got scared when Lefty—my mother’s cousin’s brother-in-law or something—said he’d go pick up the sandwiches, leaving me alone on my first morning. But I was going good. Guy drove in wanting a fill-up, unleaded. I put the nozzle in the tank, set the trigger, then washed his windshield with the combination sponge and squeegie. Trigger gave a click, meaning the tank was full, but I squeezed in another twenty cents’ worth. Came to four dollars, sixty cents. He handed me a five. I hit the little dime handle on my change-maker, which goes ching-ching, and the nickel handle and the quarter. “Here you go,” I told him. “And have yourself a real good day.”
Then I did two women at once. Got them both back on the road real quick and smooth and satisfied.
I like the way the change-maker feels on my belt and I like my blue shirt with the orange Clark patch above the pocket.
Then this jerk wanting his goddam oil checked.
After doing his gas and windshield, I open the hood and stand behind it for a minute, close it and walk up to his window.
“Looks pretty good.”
“You’re kidding. Figured I was do
wn at least a quart.”
“Actually, you’re not. Looked like she might be down, but then … she wasn’t.”
“Pretty dirty?”
“Excuse me?”
“The oil. Is it dirty?”
“Well, little bit, little bit dirty, sure. That’s to be expected. But not too dirty, not where you need to have it … you know … cleaned.”
“Cleaned} What the hell you talking about?”
“Just saying, that’s all.”
“Saying what?”
“Just… that it’s okay, everything’s fine, looking good. Prob’ly wanna have it checked again real soon, though. Okay, so that’s five on the gas.”
“Here.”
“Thank you, sir. And have yourself a real good day.”
Over our sandwiches at his desk I confess to Lefty I don’t know how to check the oil.
He stops midbite. “You’re shittin’ me.”
I backpedal. “What I mean is, I know how to check it. I know that. I’m just not real sure about the specifics of it, that’s all.”
“You mean like how to do it?”
“Well… yeah.”
Lefty takes a long drink of his Coke and releases a long low belch. “You know anything about cars?”
“To be honest? Probably not as much as I should.”
“Know how to drive one?”
“Actually, no, I don’t. To be honest.”
He nods.
I can tell he’s wondering what else I don’t know how to do. Like make change. Or dress myself.
The next guy who wants his oil checked, I call Lefty over, like he told me to, and he shows me all about the dipstick, then has me do it.
“I’d say … down a quart, right?”
“Tell him.”
I go over to the window and tell the guy, “You need a quart, pal.”
“All right.”
I return to Lefty. “He said all right.”
“All right what?”
“Just all right.”
Lefty sighs and goes over to the window.
I slide the dipstick back into its holster. I remember Tim Baker once calling me a fucking dipstick, years ago. I figured it was just a variation on dipshit. But this is what he meant. Interesting.
Lefty shows me where to pour the oil, using a funnel. It comes out thick and silky-looking. When I spill some he tells me it’s all right, take it easy, not to worry.
But I feel him thinking, You fucking dipstick.
It’s afternoon before I get anyone else wanting their oil checked—a woman in a scarf and sunglasses, like Jackie Kennedy.
When I show her the dipstick she lowers her sunglasses for a better look.
“See right there?” I say to her. “Where the oil stops? Means you’re down two whole quarts.”
“Oh, my.”
“Yeah, you gotta watch that. Don’t wanna be driving without oil. Do some serious internal damage to your engine.”
“I see. Well, thank you. That’s very helpful.”
“Hey, it’s what I’m here for. So. Two quarts?”
“Please.”
I have a feeling this woman finds me damned attractive: a young man who knows what he’s doing. And I probably don’t look too bad either, in my Clark shirt with the sleeves rolled up, the change-maker riding my hip.
After I get her all set and she pays, I tell her, “Don’t forget what I said, now.”
“Sorry?”
“About your oil.”
“Right.”
“And ma’am?”
“Yes?”
“One more thing.”
“What is it.”
“You have yourself a real good day.”
She drives off.
Standing there watching her go, wiping my hands on a rag, I’ve got a feeling she’ll be wanting that oil of hers checked again real soon.
Before the afternoon is up, Lefty shows me one other thing: how to put air in a tire.
So now I can do it all. Anyone who drives in, I can serve them. I can pump their gas, clean their windshield, check their oil, give them oil, put air in their tires—and do it quickly, efficiently, and in a friendly manner.
Riding home on my bike I’m thinking I need to learn just two more things: how to drive a car and how to make love to a woman. Learn those two things and then I’ll be set. I’ll be all caught up.
By the end of the summer I’ve learned how to drive a car.
Busboy
POW WOW ROOM NORTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY, 1968
It’s only four hours, three evenings a week, but I feel like all the time spent in classes and the dorm and in town flies by in a blur and I’m here again, walking around pushing a large plastic garbage can on wheels, stopping at tables to slide the stuff left on trays into the can: the remains of pizza slices and cheeseburgers, styrofoam coffee cups, little creamer cartons, plastic salad bowls smeared with thousand island dressing, ash trays piled with butts and a brown apple core, ketchup-stained copies of The Northern Star, balled-up napkins someone possibly blew their nose in. And there’s not always a tray. Then I have to touch the stuff.
After clearing the table I wipe it off, holding my breath because the smell of the rag makes my knees buckle.
But I like the stiff white jacket, the pockets stuck shut with starch. I won’t wear the cap, though. I’m sorry.
And I won’t do a table until the people have gone. Not any more I won’t. Everyone chatting, laughing it up, and I’m clearing away their garbage, asking them, “You through with this tray?”
“What?”
“You through with this tray?”
“Yeah, take it. Have a ball.”
And I hate when someone walking by tosses something into my can, especially if they say, “Here ya go.” And I really don’t appreciate people spitting into the can as they pass, with me right there. That’s happened more than once.
None of this stuff seems to bother Melissa, though.
She works the same shift, other side of the room, wearing the same white jacket—with the cap. She doesn’t have a problem with the cap. Maybe she knows how cute she looks in it.
After six, when the boss leaves, we stop and talk now and then, midpoint of the room, standing there with our garbage cans. Melissa is little, in John Lennon glasses, with a space between her teeth, and two brown braids lying in front like an Indian maiden’s. She blows her cigarette smoke out the side of her mouth and tells me to cheer up:
“What’re you always so sad about?”
“It’s just the way my face looks,” I explain.
“You’re sad about your face?”
“No, I mean—”
“Take a slice of lemon, rub it all over your face twice a day. Clear it up in a week.”
“I’m saying it’s just the way my face looks. I just look sad.”
“Oh. So you’re not really sad?”
“Maybe a little.”
“Know what Vm sad about? This fucking country.”
“What about it?”
“Well, let’s see, there’s the war, for starters.”
“Vietnam?”
“No, the Trojan war. Jeez, this guy.”
“Well, Vm sad about that, too.”
“Nah, you’re just sad about your zits.”
“Right. Okay. I got work to do.”
“Wait. Know what’s really good for acne? Even better than lemons?”
“I’m not interested, okay?”
“Sex.”
“Pardon?”
“Sex. Best cure in the world for pimples. I’m serious.”
“Yeah, well…”
“See any zits on my face?”
She gives me a little smile, lifts a braid and waves bye-bye with it.
I stand there.
“Excuse me, folks,” she tells a crowded table, “let me get some of this out of your way.”
A couple evenings later, the boss gone, I’m strolling down the middle aisle, dreaming away, when a guy
in a booth full of fraternity types yells, “Two points” tossing an empty 6-ounce milk carton at my garbage can. It hits the rim and lands on the floor.
I stop.
“Get the rebound!” he tells me. “Hurry! Clock’s running out!”
I could just pick up the milk carton and drop it in the can. But everyone in the booth will cheer because I got the rebound. So that’s out.
I could walk over and tell him to pick up the carton.
But I can’t imagine him obeying me unless I had a gun, and I don’t.
Or I could just leave the milk carton where it is and resume walking, shaking my head with sadness and disgust. This seems the best alternative.
But I’ve stood there too long. Another little empty carton gets tossed from the booth, a tropical punch carton. This one makes it into the can and a cheer goes up.
Okay. That’s it. Now I’m mad. I walk over there. I have no idea what I’m going to say.
They’re waiting with eager faces.
I tell them I quit.
“Happy?” I add.
They’re very happy, cheering as I march off.
“Know what you shoulda done? What I woulda done?” says Melissa, who saw it all and followed me into one of the storage rooms behind the kitchen, where I left my coat.
I tell her I’m not interested in what she would have done. I tell her goodbye, good luck.
“No hug?” she says, standing there with her arms open.
“Oh.” I set my coat down, walk up, and put my arms around her. I hold her carefully.
“I won’t break,” she says, wrapping her arms around me.
I hold her close.
She arches her skinny little back.
I hold her tight.
“Can’t… breathe,” she tells me.
I let go. “I’m sorry. God. Listen. Goodbye. Okay?”
She takes my arms and places them around her again.
“Let’s see how you kiss,” she says, raising her face and closing her eyes.
I turn my head and clear my throat. Then I set my mouth on her soft little mouth, tasting cigarettes. She opens her lips a little, slips her tongue in my mouth and slides it around. I do the same, or similar. I don’t know if I’m doing it right and would like to ask but of course I can’t just now.
She fumbles at my belt buckle and I step back.
“Don’t be scared,” she says.
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