The BOYS
Episode FORTY-SEVEN
Mr. C, predictably, was lurking in the
doorway to his pedophiliac lair as Walt followed the shrinking violet,
Gabrielle, in punching his card. Lev
and Lula followed him… bouncing through the door arm in arm and dodging the ramparts
of toilet paper in the hall, Lula clocking in a microsecond before the
timeclock tolled five oh one. “Safe…by
the skin of your teeth,” Barry sneered, but couldn’t help snapping “…so what are you so happy about?” before slamming
his office door behind him, precluding an answer.
“Somebody’s in a bad mood,” Lula
winced, popping a wad of gum in her cheek.
Eunice, giving two customers in
construction helmets their tickets, turned towards the hall with a rueful
smile. “He’s been like that all
day. Mr. Z. called, but the Roach won’t
spill a word. Nada!”
Tex, manning the grill with Ed
Musgrove – old and sour as ever – rolled over four sausages with his spatula
and did a little celebratory Elvis dance; hips shaking, a shock of blond hair
bursting out of its confinement under the hairnet under the paper DP
derby. “Payday!” he winked at the
evening shifters. “Gotta gig in the
City tomorrow night, and this calls for fresh strings, tighter than Barry’s
asshole. Except,” and he let the
spatula sag a little, “he better not fuck with our checks…”
“Ain’t nobody but queers and sailors
ever go downtown,” Joe Sybco leered, over the frypit. “You break a string, just start humming and slap the box because
the both of ‘em will be too drunk to notice…”
“No, man,” Tex objected, “the
City.” And he pointed towards and past
the windowbox where the retard from
Louie’s party drooled and stuttered - somewhere along the line, Walter had gleaned
that his name was Timmie… or Jimmie… whatever natural speech defect he possessed
was mulched up in the static of the squawkbox as he back and frothed with the
customers waiting in line, engines running and gunning. “For real.
Well, almost, the club’s in Long Beach,” he admitted…
“Same difference in rey the queers and
the Navy,” Joe pounced like a cat upon a rat and shoveled a fresh basket of
taters into the grease. “Give my
regards to Queen Elizabeth and the rest of her court,” he added as the kid in
the windowbox leaned into the DP proper and, after a thin strand of drool escaped
his lips and bounced on the floor, he recited the order…
“Four hot Chihuahuas, salty dog,
yaller, fries and pies. One coffee, one
Spash, two cola Slushies…”
Not even Barry had had the cojones to
fuck with Jimmie… or Timmie… the kid was too pathetic or, maybe, the dayboss
just didn’t feel like wasting his best on a forlorn mook already screwed by God
and lacking the capacity to respond to, or even comprehend, the subtler
elements of refined Cullery cruelty. Or,
just maybe, it was that… despite the recession… Zweiss and Barry were finding
it harder to find people willing to tolerate the shit, often late wages and the
abuse of the DP. Mr. C. had even
quietly prevailed upon Mr. Z. to cut short Fermeley’s suspension and do a
patch-up with the child welfare people, and she was back on the register.
“Comin’ up!” Joe replied, turning back
to Tex. “I hear you about the money,
though… wrote a check on my gas bill that was nothing more than fumes, and if I
don’t cover it by tonight, they’re gonna hit me with another goddam thirty-five
buck overdraft. Almost a whole day’s
pay those bankers get – for what? I
could get a better deal from the Mafia!”
“Damn straight,” Fermeley said,
snapping her fingers at a spaced-out lady with two squaling kindergartners… the
girl attired in a sort of fishy, last year’s Little Mermaid sequel princess
coronet, the boy in a Scream mask, wielding a rubber knife. “I’m out of Pampers.”
The woman nodded, still undecided…
more or less following the angry barbs flying around behind the register.
“What this country needs is
Revolution!” Joe said, lifting the basket of taters to determine if they were
sufficiently brown yet; shaking it, splattering grease across the counter. “Violent revolution,” he emphasized, placing
the basket back into its bubbling oil.
And Ed Musgrove pointed a bony finger
at Walt, who was just leaning against the wall, next to the mop and bucket and
out of the line of sight from Mr. C’s office… the daytime manager having
forgotten to give the newcomers their assignments, they were just hanging
around, pretending to look busy.
“Better watch what you say around Fales, Sonny,” Ed warned the aspiring
Davy. “Rat don’t like working people
dishing out the liberal trash talk,” he nodded, “he’ll do you himself, in the back,
or turn you over to those cop friends of his…”
Walter chewed a couple of comebacks
around like sweet stalks of tall grass, but none seemed appropriate, so he just
nodded, hanging out, waiting for business to pick up. But business, already dragging, never did pick up as the clock
crawled towards, then past five.
Although it was still several hours to dark, parents and their little,
costumed monsters thronged the sidewalks – ducking into and out of enterprises
like excited, popping popcorn kernels, garnering tribute in the form of
packaged sweets which the merchants had on hand… and which would be brought
home and carefully scrutinized for rat poison, razorblades or mashed jalapeñnos
that might be lurking at the heart of their Milky Way fun bars from the
generous Double Dollar. (The fruity
Middle Eastern delicacies from the falafel joint would, of course, be tossed.)
Conspicuous signs had been placed in
all three DP doors – “THIS ESTABLISHMENT DOES NOT PROVIDE HOLIDAY GRATUITIES”,
and if sufficed to keep away all but a few of the older delinquents – kids ten,
maybe, or up to twelve, trying to shake down the DP. Two, covered head to toe in clanging kitchenware, entered and
said… in unison… “Trick or treat!” only to be informed by Eunice that it was company
policy not to submit to extortion. “So
it’ll have to be trick,” she frowned, “and… by the way… just who or what, are
you supposed to be?”
The cashier’s firm reply deflated the
young buccaneers, the taller of the two lowering his eyes and responding,
barely above a whisper: “Ironmen.” Then
they turned and went on their clanging, jangling way, treatless.
“That car keeps coming around and
buying nothing,” burbled Timmie… or Jimmie… from the windowbox.
“So?” Tex sneered. “They’re just a bunch of cheap bastards, so
shut up, gorp…”
Louie… sporting plastic horns and a
red, devil’s half-mask… burst, well, not exactly bursting, more like oozing
through the front door at a quarter to five, late… and unapologetic. People in paper hats converged upon him, pleading
with Spicotti to intervene and better down Barry’s door… secure their checks
(which, Eunice and Tex concurred, had been brought over to the DP by Mr. Z’s
weird attorney sometime around three).
“OK, OK… I’ll do what I can,” Satan
tired to placate the mini-mob… hands up, backed against the wall while Fermeley
rang up one ood Dog for a thin, sallow man in a faded blue t-shirt and
hillbilly gag teeth.
“Tell him that I have to check out in
fifteen minutes,” she appealed. “Kids
want to go out, and there’s no way I’m letting them wander the hood by
themselves,” she insisted. “I’m tired
of waiting for His Honor to give me my money.”
“Too many old creepy dudes like Mr. C.
out on the street tonight with their greasy, grabby hands, watching the
children.” Lula winked at Walt. He
nodded, following Lev, who’d followed Louie back to the hallway and, after the
Devil knocked once and opened the portal to Castle Cullery, they remained by
the door, gleaning what intelligence there was to be gleaned from Louie’s
wrathful, yet impotent outbursts and Barry’s soft but firm responses.
“I do
have the checks,” the manager agreed, “and I will distribute them once they have been reconciled. But before I reconcile the checks,” Mr. C.
told the night amanger, “I have to double-check the week’s invoices and compose
a draft letter to Mr. Z, informing him that the premises… certain areas of
them… are unkempt and, possibly, unclean.
In particular, I mean the area around the dumpsters which are already
being trespassed upon by the homeless and, by tomorrow morning, are going to be
filled to overflowing with rotten pumpkins from that fly-by-night enterprise
that, as we speak, here, is already preparing to pull up stakes and flap off to
wherever it goes between the holidays.
Garbage of this sort attracts rodents, and more homeless people. And, after I prepare that memorandum, I will have to compose another to the effect that
the janitorial supply firm delivered twelve gross of Softee Sheetz… twelve, Louie, instead of the usual six. And every moment that you stand there with
your mouth open under that stupid mask, every crank call and prank visitor I
have to deal with… well that just adds to my workload, and to the time that
those people outside will have to wait.
“So?” and Barry’s voice rose despite
its self-righteous tenor… Walt could not see, but imagined the Devil hemming
and hawing, standing on one foot, then the other as he looked for a way out of
the damned pre-pubescent seraglio with his infernal dignity intact.
“Alright,” the night manager finally
blurted, “I’m going. I’m going!”
“Close the door behind you, when you
go. And I hope you’re not going to wear
that ridiculous mask out in front where the customers can see you,” Walt heard
Barry add as he and Lev tiptoed away, “you know how Mr. Z. feels about
holidays. And get Timmie out of the
window and have him find a place to stash all those extra Softee Sheetz in the
cooler – put Fales in the box, in his place.”
“Will do,” Walt barely heard Satan reply
as he sidled past the griddle, grasping a pair of tongs so as to stand ready to
spring into action if an emergency arose – if Tex or Musgrove pushed one of the
sausages too far towards the edge, where it would be in danger of falling off,
the way that sailing ships fell off the edge of the world in the blissful days
before Columbus, before America and before the DP.
“Walt?” he heard Spicotti coming down
the hallway, calling out his name.
“Walt! Take over for Timmie in
the box awhile…Timmie, come with me, I got a job for you, a special job for my
special guy…”
“I do alright?” Timmie
“You do fine, just fine. And because you do,” Louie said, trying not
to sound pretentious behind the devil’s mask, “I have a job for you to do where
it is nice and cold.”
Walter sloughed off his apron,
adjusted the paper hat in the chrome surrounding the windowbox, and stepped up
to face the first in a line of vehicles that wound around the corner of the DP,
backing up towards the parking spaces still overrun with Harvey’s unfresh
pumpkins. Vampire Mickey swayed in a
light breeze – a commuter dad, alone, with two boys in plastic Terminator
costumes, had ordered Slushies all around, hold the hotdogs… Walt held up the
order, figuring that it was the start of another divorced Dads’ weekend, and
the little brats would be spoiled sick by Sunday night…
“Anything else with that? Salties?
Wiener dogs… how about legal referrals… just playin’ with you man,
Halloween humor… here you go, and have a nice day.” Some garble came in over the box, so he picked up the special
microphone and pressed the button, saying “I didn’t catch that…”
“Six polish, two fries, two root beer
Slushies, asshole. You wanna tell your
boss to invest in a callbox that works, and help that can speak English?”
“I speak English fine, sir,” Walt
replied, calling out the order, then removing his finger from the microphone
button and adding, “this one gets the special sauce.”
“I’ll handle it,” Tex said and Walter
smiled. What exactly the special sauce
might be varied from time to time, and boy to boy… most of the ladies, for
example, refused to play along. It
would be hidden, and unpleasant. It
helped the time go past…
Fermeley dropped off two paper bags
and Walt exchanged them for seven dollars and forty five cents. The lucky recipient was a woman with two
kids… a boy dressed as Captain Caribbean, a Disney knockoff, the girl had cat
whiskers drawn on her cheeks with charcoal.
Captain kept whacking his sister with a plastic broadsword and, after
telling him to sit still, the lady took her bags and started up at the man in
the funny hat in the box.
“I’ve tried to tell him that they’re
only criminals… those awful people in Somalia, for example, but Jeffrey doesn’t
care, he likes pirates. Besides,” she
shrugged, as if seeking absolution, “the costumers were forty percent off at
Harvey’s…”
“Takes all kinds to make a world,”
Walt agreed, then served up two Good Dogs and a Spash to a dude in shades,
driving a vintage BMW. The angry
motherfucker who’d ordered six polish… apparently all for himself… was next;
Walter took his money and handed him his dinner (with special sauce) saying
nothing, working hard not to even crack a smile. Next was a guy in a pickup truck… nine Wieners… a cute young
thing from China or one of those places who’d actually ordered a Big Bucket,
all for herself. A nondescript foreign
sedan wheeled around her, turned, and disappeared back into the strip mall,
leaving him wondering that it took all kinds to make a world when the squawkbox
squawked and some more insidious garble
replied. Walt picked up the microphone,
pushed the button. “Can you run that by
me again?” There was more of the same,
then teenaged laughter, and the box fell silent. Shit. One of those…
Louie tapped on the window, still
wearing the half-devil mask. “Thanks,
Walt… Timmie will take over again. Just
grab the mop and bucket, try to look busy,” he added, as the chubby kid
squeezed past…
“Checks?” Walter inquired. Satan wearily shook his head.