Abnormal Man: A Novel Read online

  “What did you do?”

  Frank crushes the cigarette under his boot and inspects a cross tattoo on his forearm.

  “Trusted the wrong person.”

  * * *

  Mrs. Hamby got you the busboy job. It is supposed to teach you interaction skills like how to get along well with others. You wonder why Mr. Trapnell, the manager, hires parolees and juvenile delinquents. There must be some kind of tax write-off. Tonight, Trapnell has pulled you off the floor and into the kitchen. The old Hispanic dishwasher got mad about something and walked off the job. (Trapnell is big on immigrant labor, too.) There are gray plastic bus pans stacked along the stainless steel counter, stacked damn near to the ceiling and overflowing with filthy dishes and silverware.

  A metallic hose dangles from the ceiling, and you spray it onto the splashguard behind the sink, watching your steamy smeared reflection in the stainless steel. You lose yourself in it. You vaguely hear the crash of a full bus pan being slammed down.

  “…Billy. Earth to Billy. Billy, are you there? Earth to Billy.”

  And you release the trigger of the spray hose and turn around; and Eva, a waitress that you like, says, “You know that’s wasteful. People are chopping down rainforests to heat that water.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Plus, you’re getting a little behind here,” she says and indicates the cliff of dirty dishes. She reaches across the counter and pats your cheek. “Focus.”

  You start scraping nasty, cold, half-eaten food off plates and into the trash can. You load a plastic dishwasher tray full of them and then use the hose to spray scalding hot water over the tray of dirty dishes, to rinse them of congealed grease and clinging food scraps before you shove the full tray along the metal rollers and into the aluminum box that is the automatic dishwasher. The wash cycle takes 90 seconds, and when the dishes come out the other side, they are too hot for you to touch. The old Hispanic guy never used gloves, never gave any indication at all that the dishes were hot enough to blister skin. You can’t find any gloves, so you use two dishtowels wrapped around your hands to stack the plates and saucers and coffee cups on the wire shelf, and sort the silverware into spoons, forks, butter knives, and steak knives.

  Every once in a while, if he feels like he can walk away from the grill for a minute, Frank will come over and help you stack the hot dishes. He doesn’t use gloves and the heat doesn’t burn his skin. He doesn’t say anything, and you don’t acknowledge the help because you think Frank likes it better that way.

  The bus pans are stacked like a wall around you. There is no way you’ll ever catch up. They’ll start running out of clean dishes pretty soon and Mr. Trapnell will be pissed. You decide to stop and rest a minute.

  Through a crack in the wall of bus pans, you can see Frank manning the grill. Next to him is Sid, the assistant cook. Sid is an asshole. His job consists mainly of handling the deep fryers. French fries, chicken nuggets, bite-size shrimp, chicken fried steak. Stuff like that. Mostly fries. When orders are piling up, Sid talks to himself, gives himself instructions. He refers to a serving of fries as a “hit” of fries. He’ll say, “We need seven hits of fries” to tell himself how many handfuls of frozen potato slices to throw into the hot oil. Anything more than ten hits of fries, Sid refers to as “boo-hoos.” He’ll tell himself, “All right we need boo-hoos of fries,” or, when really pressed, “We need boo-hoos and boo-hoos of fries.”

  And sometimes you just want to scream at him, “It’s beaucoup, you jackass,” but you never do.

  Frank keeps a lit cigarette on the floor at his feet, and every once in a while he will reach down and pick it up and take a secret drag. The rumbling, cavernous hood of the exhaust fan above the stainless steel grill block carries all the smoke away. It’s quite a setup, and you admire it. But Frank forgets himself and lets the cigarette dangle from his lips while he works the four T-bone steaks, three patty melts, and two western omelettes he’s got going on the massive steel cube.

  Mr. Trapnell walks into the kitchen and sees the cigarette in Frank’s mouth. The rings of fat at the back of Trapnell’s neck are like a coiled garden hose that stays perpetually pink. But now that tubular flesh is bright, angry red.

  “Dobbs! I told you that if I ever catch you smoking in my kitchen again you’re fired. Put it out.”

  Frank looks up and nods his understanding. He drops the cigarette on the red clay tile floor, and squashes it under his artificial leg. Mr. Trapnell might indeed fire Frank, but it won’t be right now, not at the height of the Friday night dinner rush.

  One of the waitresses, Belinda, her hair permed into tiny curls wound so close it looks like they are pulling her face tight, walks in and says, “Mr. Trapnell, there’s a woman out here who wants to talk to you. Says her Reuben tasted like cigarette ashes.” She flicks her eyes at Frank, and you can hear a distinct note of delight in her voice.

  “Shit. All right.”

  When Mr. Trapnell is gone, you decide to extend your break a little further. You keep watching Frank—who has already lit a fresh Marlboro. You don’t see Sid though, and when you hear his petulant voice, you realize it’s because Sid is now standing right beside you.

  “Hey, Billy, you got that five dollars you owe me?”

  You don’t answer. You’ve been down this road before. Sid is an asshole, but you’re scared of him. You’re scared of most people.

  “Are you gonna pay me back or not?”

  The first time he pulled this on you, you played along even though you knew it was just a con, just passive-aggressive intimidation. An unspoken threat. An unspoken threat that makes its presence felt even stronger now.

  “I don’t play around when it comes to money.”

  You speak up. “I don’t owe you any money, Sid.” In Sid’s hair, you can see tiny grease clots deposited there by fryer fumes. They sparkle like diamonds on a turd tiara.

  “Listen, you little shit, I want my money and I want it now.”

  “C’mon Sid, you know I don’t owe you any money.”

  “Maybe it fell down the sink,” Sid says and grabs your pale bony wrist. He escorts you—escort is a good word for it—to the stainless steel sink that is as big as a bathtub. The drain is clotted with soggy scraps of food, and Sid guides—guides is another good word, because you’re not really resisting—your hand into the drain, through the soggy slop, penetrating it, until your hand comes to an abrupt stop as your fingers meet the chunky metal teeth of the seven-and-a-half horsepower InSinkErator, an industrial-grade garbage disposal that will virtually liquefy anything you throw in it—fruit rinds, coffee grounds, corn cobs, chicken bones. Human fingers. Really, just about anything. It’s top of the line. For real, this baby is the Cadillac of garbage disposals. The stationary and rotating shredding elements are made from cast nickel chrome alloy. And the grinding chamber isolates sound and eliminates vibration. So no one will hear your fingers as they’re chewed up.

  “Feel around in there real good,” Sid says. “Might be some money. Boo-hoos of it.” Meanwhile, Sid’s other hand has crept up the wall over the sink. His forefinger flips back the plastic safety dome that covers the switch that activates the disposal. The clear dome is labeled with three words: CAUTION. DANGER. DISPOSAL.

  “Let me flip this light switch so you can see in there better,” Sid says. His fingers play over the switch in jerky unpredictable motions. “Think it’s stuck. Let me try harder.”

  You want to scream. A scream seems like the only appropriate response in such a situation. You’re fighting now. Trying to pull your arm free. You know that Sid doesn’t really intend to grind your fingers into hamburger meat. Sid is a petulant bully, but he’s not crazy. At the same time, you know that this is a prime scenario for something to go completely-fucked-up-oh-my-God-somebody-call-911 wrong. And you’re the one with your fingers laced around those cast nickel chrome alloy teeth with seven-and-a-half horsepower of chewing energy backing them up.

  Meanwhile, the kitchen is maddenin
gly alive all around you. This whole thing from Where’s my money to Meet the disposal has taken less than thirty seconds. Your whole life changed in less time than it takes to show a commercial on TV. Waitresses are in and out, orders are yelled, plates go up on the pass-through, and you are hidden behind all these bus pans and nobody knows that Billy Smith will probably be known as Hook or Lefty for the rest of his life. And you realize that if you end up with a prosthetic hand, that will make you more like Frank, and a certain serenity follows that thought.

  “Sure you don’t feel any money down there? You’re playing with the devil.”

  And then there is a fat red blur. You will realize later that the fat red blur was a thirty-pound fire extinguisher coming down on Sid’s outstretched arm. Of course what you will never forget for the rest of your life is not the sound of Sid’s radius and ulna snapping simultaneously. It’s not even the sight of the compound fracture poking through the flesh of the forearm. No. What you will always remember is the oddly spiritual pitch of Sid’s scream. Not the scream from when his arm broke, because he passed out either from the pain or the sight of the broken bones extruding through his skin. No, it was when Frank jammed Sid’s ruined arm down the gaping maw of the InSinkErator and flicked the switch—that was when Sid rose to some unknown level of consciousness and the spiritual screaming started. Frank just kept pushing Sid’s arm deeper and deeper into the whirring nickel chrome alloy blades, bobbing the arm, grinding it down like he was in third grade trying to sharpen a pencil. Maybe he just wanted to smooth the splintered bones down to a satisfying point. But he gave up after a while because Sid had lost consciousness again, but still, it seemed like those screams had spurred Frank on—the same way a prayer sets God into motion. Either way, when Frank dragged Sid over to the hot grill and slid his face over it—that woke Sid back up and he started giving out with those weird spiritual screams again. Boo-hoos of them.

  You do not need this shit. No how, no way. How could everything have gone to hell so fast? How was it possible?

  You’re thirty-seven years old and you manage a Shoney’s. This is not what you wanted from life. Some kid’s arm ground down to a nub, his face charred, your grill looking like the Shroud of Turin. Oh my dear God.

  You’re going to lose some weight. Slim down. Take better care of yourself. This stress could give you a heart attack.

  Fucking parolees. Uh-uh. Never again.

  “Sir, Mr. Trapnell, I need you to focus.”

  Focus. Focus. You shouldn’t be standing here talking to the cops, watching the paramedics load the assistant cook into the back of their first response unit. They built some kind of little tent thing over his face so nothing could touch it. Like that kid in Johnny Got His Gun. Metallica sang a song about it. Was it the one with the Sandman? Da-da-da-da . . . Something something . . . Never Never Land. Was that it? Maybe James and Lars would come on down to Shoney’s and whip up a little ditty about Sid.

  “Sir?”

  You should be winding up the shift by now. Watching the waitresses count their tips, hearing the soft whisk of Billy sweeping the dining room, the rough scrape of Frank cleaning the griddle with a 3M Grill Brick. Dobbs. Those tattoos. Christ Almighty.

  “Did Dobbs force Billy Smith to leave with him?”

  Did he abduct Billy? Kidnap him? Is that what happened? What happened? What in the fuck happened? What did Belinda say? You weren’t there. You never saw what went down. But you can’t see Billy Smith leaving here with a violent ex-con. No way. Not in a million years. Billy’s got his issues too, but he’s just a kid. Scared of everything in the world.

  “He pushed him,” you think hear yourself saying. “Pushed Billy out the back door and we haven’t seen them since.”

  Then another cop comes up, reading from a printout he just got from inside the police cruiser. Those things are rolling IT centers these days. You think about computers and how much they have changed the world. Virtual reality. Like dreaming. Maybe this is a dream. Or a computer program. Or a video game.

  “Franklin Arthur Dobbs. Parolee. Lost his leg in a convenience store hold-up. Cashier shot him. Dobbs’s accomplice fled the scene. Left him there bleeding.”

  “That’s what friends are for. Request a BOLO.”

  A video game. That’s it. Dobbs looks like something out of Grand Theft Auto. Too violent for children to be exposed to. You knew you should never have hired him. Those fucking tattoos. But such a nice tax break. And now you’re scraping some kid’s face off the grill. Cleaning bone fragments out of the sink.

  You haven’t had a beer in three weeks. Trying to clean up your act before your heart explodes or your liver caves in. Need to lose some weight. But you’re stopping to get some beer tonight. You by God are.

  Fucking faceburgers.

  Exit light. Enter night.

  This is why you think you’ve always been with Frank. Even when he wasn’t there. Even before you knew him. He has always been there with you.

  Frank’s car is a 1997 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme. It looks like it used to be purple or red or something, but now it’s faded and the paint has come off in big graywhite splotches like that disease Michael Jackson said he had. Vitiligo.

  It feels good in the car. Quiet. The lights on Cobb Parkway make you feel warm, insulated.

  You and Frank are going to Canada.

  You tell him what turns to make until the Cutlass pulls into your driveway. The house is mostly dark, but you can see the faint flicker of the TV. Frank waits in the car.

  You go in as quiet as you can. Grab some empty Kroger bags from under the kitchen sink.

  Harvey is asleep in his chair. Passed out. You creep past him.

  In your bedroom, you stuff the plastic bags with a couple pairs of jeans, t-shirts, socks, and underwear. You get your toothbrush and comb from the bathroom. Then you go back and get your Good News! razor. You don’t have to shave very often, but every third week or so you start to look a little bit like a peach.

  In your top dresser drawer is a photograph of your mother. She made the frame herself. You don’t have a picture of your father. Those all kind of disappeared when Harvey married your mother. Every picture that included your father just sort of evaporated so slowly that they were all gone before you realized it had happened. Your mother said Harvey was sensitive about being a replacement.

  You wonder if you are starting to look like your father.

  You look at your mother’s picture and you feel angry at her for allowing your father’s memory to be painted black. And then you are angry at her for dying, for abandoning you. But then the anger passes. Because you are older now. And you understand that maybe Harvey tricked your mother. That he hid his true self from her. That she wanted a father for you and a husband for herself. She did not know that the man she chose was only pretending that he could be those things.

  And that she did not choose to die. She did not will the cells in her brain to multiply out of control. To divide into a malignant chaos. She did not choose that. Something chose that for her. She was handed that and told to deal with it.

  And a cramp hits your stomach. A tiny one that focuses all its pain in one pinpoint, the way a magnifying glass focuses sunlight. And you run down to the bathroom and wad up a ball of toilet paper and put the lighter to it. You watch it burn and that pinpoint of pain diffuses as the paper burns. And when it finishes burning, that concentrated pain has washed over your entire body and morphed into a generalized discomfort that is entirely tolerable. You feel normal. You drop the last bit of the burning paper, timing it just right, so that it burns itself out as it falls, and flush it away. Normally you never burn in the house, because if Harvey ever smelled even a hint of smoke he would beat you. But you are leaving tonight, so screw him. You need the release.

  You smile and grab a discarded cardboard toilet paper tube from behind the commode. You light it up. It is a pleasure to burn. You tilt the cylinder, guiding the flame, encouraging it where to feed, until the bottom rim
is on fire in a beautiful circle of yellow flame. It is lovely. And the way you feel goes from just tolerable to pretty damn good. What you now feel (you know this from researching the disease with which you are afflicted), what washes over you, is euphoria. A drug high. Your glands are secreting serotonins that are pushing all kinds of wonderful buttons in your brain. You look down and the front of your pants is bulging out. And goddamn this feels good, but you can’t stop to do anything about it right now. Frank is waiting. You have to hurry. You should never have stopped to indulge yourself in this second fire. You have to hurry.

  You turn the burning tube upside down, hoping to get it to quickly burn itself out, down to char and ash, but the most amazing thing happens. Turning the burning cylinder upside down creates the most beautiful chimney effect. The flames, now on the bottom, race up the inside of the tube so furiously that it alarms you and immediately burns your fingers. It is too beautiful to drop in the toilet, so you set the burning tube over the sink drain. And the beauty of it is so staggering that you forget to breathe. A column of flame. Three feet high. And then it has burned itself out. The glowing ember left behind remains in a cylindrical shape and it belches a column of white smoke. Far, far too much smoke. This is bad. You scoop the ash tube and drop it in the toilet. You watch with sweet regret as it lands in the water and sizzles and extinguishes and then sinks like a crippled ocean liner.

  And you realize you came in your pants. A big load. It was a pleasure to burn.

  You know from past experience that if you don’t stop and clean yourself up that it will dry into a protein glue that will clot the two little patches of pubic hair that you have and dry into a tight scab that will pull and pinch. But there is no time to clean yourself. You have to move. Frank is waiting.