Now They Call Me Gunner

by Thom Whalen

  * * *

  “That’s Phil. He’s a virgin.”

  I felt my face flush. I was fast learning to dislike Gwen. Really dislike her. But I still wanted to sleep with her. It was a pure paradox. My desire for her grew in direct proportion to my dislike of her. And the real stab in the gut was that the more I disliked her, the harder it was to imagine seducing her. As my lust grew to monumental proportions, my ability even to talk to her shrank to minuscule size.

  I was in torment. Pure torment.

  The new girl – a lovely face with long blond hair and sea-green eyes – giggled that innocent, evil giggle that’s issued to every high-school cheerleader along with the pom-pom socks and the scarlet letters.

  “If he burns your grilled cheese, make him cook another one,” Gwen said as she led the new waitress out to the front.

  “That’s a body to die for,” Randal said. “I’d throw myself on a grenade to keep that one from taking the shrapnel.”

  “Yeah,” I said. Not my wittiest retort but I was pleased that I could make myself say anything while still gripped in the throes of humiliation. A small part of my mind noted that when Randal said, to die for, he meant it literally, not metaphorically. There was significance in that, but I couldn’t figure out exactly what it implied.

  I heard a sharp yap from out front.

  “Barkley’s here.” Randal was peering over the counter.

  I didn’t need to be told to throw a piece of liver on the grill. Mrs. Craughton brought her yappy little beagle, Barkley, to Elsa’s twice a week, Mondays and Thursdays, before the lunch rush. But only if the weather was fair; Barkley didn’t go out in the rain. Their order never varied; the old lady ate a Denver omelet and Barkley got a small piece of liver, no onions.

  I could think of nothing better to do with liver than to feed it to a dog. Dogs will eat almost anything. And like it. Most people are smarter than that.

  Gwen didn’t bother announcing the order; she just said, “Craughton and Barkley,” as she shoved the ticket on the wheel. Even that was superfluous. By the time she had finished gossiping with the old lady, her food would be cooked. I was pretty sure that Craughton came for the gossip, not the omelet. Barkley came for the liver.

  “Craughton and Barkley,” Randal muttered. “Sounds like lawyers.”

  If I’d known the word, dikigorosophobia, back then, I would have wondered if Randal were a dikigorosophobe. But in my young, naïve years, before I’d undertaken a formal study of psychology, I thought only that he was a strange man. Cool in his strangeness. I hadn’t yet realized that he was, as a professional would say, crazy as a loon.

  Barkley got his treat on a paper to-go plate because Mrs. Everett was afraid that the other customers might be turned off if they saw a dog eating breakfast off the same plates on which they were served their lunch. I figured that she was probably right. I didn’t want to eat off any plate that had been licked clean by a dog, no matter how well it had been washed afterward.

  Randal didn’t use the dishwasher. I didn’t know which auction it had come from, but it seemed to work well enough. When Randal was serving himself, though, he took a clean plate and cutlery from the drying rack and washed them again by hand before using them. He wasn’t fastidious – I saw him do things that almost turned my stomach – he just loved his little rituals.

  Randal wore his hair short. After lunch, Mrs. Everett said, “If you don’t get a haircut like Randal, you’re going to have to wear a hairnet. State law.”

  My hair wasn’t long – collar length, not shoulder length – but I nodded. “Okay.” Tuesday was my day off, so I could get a trim. I wasn’t about to wear a hairnet around Gwen or the new girl. Not even on a dare.

  When Mrs. Everett was gone back to the front, Randal said, “Don’t worry about the haircut if you don’t want. The hat satisfies state law.”

  I was surprised. Randal didn’t strike me as a man who concerned himself with the law to any great degree. The court would appoint lawyers to do that for him, when necessary.

  “Mrs. Everett likes short hair, I guess.” I didn’t want to get fired.

  He knew what I meant. “Don’t worry about her. She won’t fire you without my say so. Learn to cook and do it well and you won’t get fired even if you grow your hair to your waist like a little school girl.”

  I knew what Randal thought about long hair. His opinion, more than Mrs. Everett’s warning, ensured that I wouldn’t let it grow too far past my collar.

  “You go to Woodstock?” he asked.

  I wondered where that came from. “No. I was only sixteen. My parents wouldn’t let me go.”

  “It was hippie Mecca.”

  He was still thinking about my long hair. “Were you there?” I dared for the first time to ask him something about himself.

  He shook his head. “I was otherwise engaged. I just heard about it.”

  “You like rock and roll?” I risked a personal question. My daring knew no bounds that day.

  He looked into the distance for a long minute, before saying, “It’s okay.” He kept staring. “Yeah. Yeah, I like it,” he added with a barely noticeable increase in enthusiasm.

  I inferred that he wasn’t a fan. I was with him on that. I liked rock music all right, but I didn’t seek it out. I’d never been to an actual rock concert. If my parents had let me go, Woodstock would have been my first. It would have been a great way to start.

  “At least Woodstock wasn’t Altamont,” he said. “That was a bad scene. They put a Hells Angel on trial for killing that kid out there but the Angel walked because someone had a picture of the kid shooting a gun at the stage.”

  “Yeah,” I said to be agreeable. I’d barely heard about the Altamont Free Concert. Woodstock had been staged in our backyard in the summertime so we’d all been talking about that one. Altamont was staged on the far coast when we were buried to our knees in snow so it escaped our notice until the newspapers reported the killing. Someone not too bright had asked the Hells Angels to provide security during the concert. It had gone bad.

  “Gotta watch the cops,” he said. “Innocent until proven guilty don’t work if they think you did something. You’re not safe unless you can prove yourself innocent. That Hells Angel was lucky. It’s smart to be lucky.” That was another one of Randal’s rules, though it took me years to figure out what he meant.

  He turned away and threw a handful of fries on the grill for his lunch and the conversation was over.

  That was a milestone. It was the most informative conversation that I’d had with Randal up to that point.

  The new girl worked only lunches that week. I was always busy when she walked through the kitchen so I never had a chance to learn her name or welcome her to Elsa’s properly.

  Her first impression of me was whatever Gwen was telling her between customers. I didn’t think that was good.