Your Body is Changing (4 page)

“Dud, we need to talk. Did you have fun tonight?”

“Fun? What’s fun? I haven’t had fun in so long I don’t even know what fun is.”

“Did you find it pleasant being a detective’s goon? Is it something you could see yourself doing in the future? Think about it. It would give you plenty of material for your writing career.”

“I already have too much material. It paralyzes me as a writer. I wish I didn’t have so many brilliant ideas! It’s my tragic flaw. All the ideas try to get out and they jam together in my brain, causing mental stagnation.”

“What I’m trying to say is, if anything like this comes up again I’ll be able to use you. But you can’t come around the railroad car anymore. You bother Farrah.”

“Well, I highly doubt that. She appears to enjoy our little conversations.”

“Yeah, well, let’s just say she enjoys them so much you distract her from her work. The railroad car is off limits, man.”

“What about my assignments?” said Dud. “How will I get my newspaper assignments?”

“When’s the last time you had an assignment, buddy? Never?”

“Yes, technically never, I guess,” said Dud.

“That’s right. Look, it was in the old man’s will for you to be on retainer. He thought he owed you. Or maybe he felt sorry for you, I don’t know. You’re like a family project or something, ever since Granddad tried to send you to manage that rubber plantation, but you freaked out and they had to turn the whole fucking ocean liner around.”

“Ah, my hysterical dysentery,” said Dud. “It’s just as bad as real dysentery in its net effect on the soul of the sufferer.”

“Maybe you’re my fucking illegitimate uncle or some shit, who knows?” said Three. “But there’s no reason for you to keep coming down and bothering Farrah. She just cuts and pastes stuff off the internet, that’s the whole newspaper, it doesn’t take a team of fucking muckrakers. And trust me, you bother her. She asked me to speak to you about this.”

“May I make the suggestion that you pay me all the money at once?”

“All what money?”

“However much money you think you will pay me on this retainer before I die.”

“When are you planning on dying, Dud?”

“In about forty years, I suppose.”

“Well, that’s a lot of money to pay at once.”

“Yes, but it would be off your mind and I could open the sophisticated restaurant I’ve always dreamed of. Have I ever told you about my restaurant?”

“I’m sure you have.”

“Can you describe it for me, then?”

Three gritted his teeth.

“Let me refresh your memory, assuming for the moment that it is somewhere in your memory, which I highly doubt because I don’t believe I’ve mentioned this to a living soul. I used to tell my late wife about it and she found the whole idea reckless. I explained to her that owning a restaurant would free me up for the leisure time I needed to contemplate my writing activities. Of course she refused to acquiesce. Maybe you could just be a backer of my restaurant, an investor. It’s called Amburger. No, don’t say anything, let me describe it. All I’m going to serve is variations on the common hamburger. The signature burger, the ‘Amburger,’ is just that—a classic, simple hamburger. The Bamburger will be designed by Emeril Lagasse, a famous chef who says ‘Bam!’ a lot. The Camburger will be a cheeseburger topped with Camembert cheese. The Damburger will have a piquant dash of Tobasco—‘dam’ being a subtle play on the idea of damnation and hellfire. The Edamburger, and yes, you might say I’m cheating on this one a bit, phonetically speaking…”

“Are there, like, twenty-six of these?”

“The Edamburger will of course be topped with Edam cheese. The Famburger is merely a plain bun served with a side of water. I don’t expect anyone to order that one. It refers to famine, of course, and may be considered a symbolic nod to political consciousness or compassionate conservatism, as I like to call it. The Gamburger is made with the meat of a chicken leg, ‘gam’ being old-time movie slang for a leg, particularly the leg of a gorgeous woman. My Hamburger, contrary to expectation, comes with a slice of the finest Virginia ham. The I Am Burger is made to order at the customer’s personal specifications, and can include any ingredient on the menu in any combination. Or I may make it the Iamburger instead, one word, a burger with exactly five ingredients, referring to the five beats in a line of iambic pentameter, although that may be asking too much of the customer, which is why I’m leaning toward the former variation. The Jamburger utilizes homemade red-pepper jelly from my deceased wife’s recipe.”

“Jesus Christ! Can you shut the fuck up?” Three had screamed so loudly, and with so much fervor and sincerity, that his voice seemed to shatter, and giant globes of spit hit the steering wheel and the windshield and lingered on his chin.

Dud was silent for about ninety seconds. Then he gasped and cried out: “Oh, my special place!”

“What now?”

Tears were rolling out of Dud’s eyes. “Something stung me on my special place,” he said. “It’s paralyzed! Something has paralyzed my special place, do you comprehend me? Oh God, stop the car.”

“You are so full of it. What’s a fucking special place?”

“It’s the area between my scrotum and…”

“Thanks for sharing,” Three sang in a weird, girlish voice, as if it were a phrase and an affectation that Dud should recognize. Then he said, in his normal voice, “Ouch! Oh fuck! Oh shit! Snake!”

Three pulled off the road in a hurry. He and Dud jumped out, moaning and hollering. The doors of the car were flung wide, the lights were on, the Escort kept going until it hit a tree, but Dud and Three were out, stumbling and falling, Dud into the briars and Three into the road.

“I was bitten first,” said Dud. “Will you please extract the venom from my special place?”

“Are you fucking…” said Three, but could not finish his thought. He flopped in the road like a hurt bird. His hand was at his neck and blood was squirting through his fingers.

Dud tried to crawl toward Three but he couldn’t feel his legs. He dug his hands into the thorny brush and pulled himself toward the road, dragging his useless bottom half behind him. The hot, needling pain had traveled up his back and into his shoulders and arms but he kept pulling. A searing nausea hit him in waves, whiting out the shape of Three, which twisted and jerked in clouds of dust. As he pulled himself across the wilderness, Dud shook his head to clear it again and again. When he reached Three, Dud gathered his poor strength and raised himself up. He cradled Three’s head and upper body in his lap and prepared to suck.

“Look at me, God!” Dud said aloud to the woods. “Look at me, world! I’m rising to the crisis! I’m rising to the crisis! I’m rising to the crisis! I’m rising to the crisis!” Then he looked down at Three, whose mouth and throat had apparently frozen up in a horrible way. Something white was coming out. He was making a sound that sounded something like Fuck. He seemed to die.

“Great,” said Dud to Three. “Thanks for nothing.”

Dud lay Three’s dead body on the ground. He got down beside Three and positioned his mouth on the gory throat, as if he had been selflessly sucking the poison despite his own grave wounds that were killing him as well.

I wish I could see what this looks like, he thought.

There came a sound like rushing wind and suddenly he was floating over the scene, which turned out to be just the way he had pictured it.

“Yes,” said Dud. “Perfect.”

M
r. Morton Fielding, 72, wrote a humorous column entitled “Fairfielding” for the Fairfield, Connecticut, Pennypincher. One afternoon, the day of the first snowfall, he had taken the train into New York to meet with his estranged daughter in the dark, drowsy bar of the Essex House, a cozy hotel across from Central Park.

Before heading to the bar he had double-checked with the desk clerk to ensure that the room he had reserved for his daughter encompassed a view of the park. It made him happy to think of her, with all her troubles, being able to look out of her window at the beautiful snow on the trees.

His daughter, however, was forty-five minutes late for their appointment and Mr. Fielding fretted that she would never arrive. He sipped club soda with a wedge of lime squeezed in, picked through the complimentary nut bowl for cashews, and observed the interesting people who came and went.

At one point a large, dark, acne-scarred man—dressed in what Mr. Fielding recognized from his own experience as a United States Navy peacoat of a certain vintage, buttoned severely, all the way up—approached the small pale fellow who was seated at the table next to Mr. Fielding’s. The little man stood.

“Long time,” he said.

The two men shook hands and sat down. Mr. Fielding couldn’t help overhearing their conversation.

“I’m having grappa,” said the little man. “You should have some.”

“Okay,” said the larger one.

“Take off your coat.”

“I’d rather leave it on. Look at the buttons. Little eagles. I got it for a dollar at a thrift shop. Amazing. That was ten years ago. I’ve thrown up on this coat a lot.”

“You’re going to get hot.”

“I’ll live,” said the big one.

“I know an Italian. He told me that grappa should be served freezing cold. I’ve never found a bar that does it that way, though.”

“Oh well.”

“Grappa was popular for a few years and now I don’t think it’s popular anymore,” the smaller one said. “It’s not for every taste. You should definitely try some. How have you been?”

“Doing pretty well.”

“Hey, do you know that guy in the nasal-spray commercials? Do you know who I’m talking about?”

“No.”

“He’s in those nasal-spray commercials. He was in here just two minutes ago, I’m not kidding. See that young girl? Right there, by herself. He was trying to pick her up. It was sick. I could hear everything he was saying. He was quoting poetry. I was like, ‘Hey, it’s the guy in the nasal-spray commercials and he’s trying to pick up a hot girl. Sick.’”

“Huh.”

“Only in New York!”

There followed a long, reflective pause.

“I mean, look at us,” the little man continued. “Here we are. Who would have thought it? Two Alabama boys in New York for business. Remember all those girls who wouldn’t screw us?”

“Actually I’m in New York for an art show, like I said in my email.”

“Well, art is your business,” said the little one.

“And what is it you’re doing these days?” the larger man asked.

“Short version, I find ways for my company to make a profit off of fish species that are traditionally considered undesirable, inedible. Trash fish. Sounds dull, I know. It’s what we call a ‘blue ocean’ opportunity. That has nothing to do with the real ocean, it’s just a business phrase. It means we’re carving out a section of the industry where there was no industry before, creating a whole new demand for something nobody wanted in the first place. Hey, maybe it’s not art but it takes some imagination. A good deal of creative intelligence, actually.”

“Right, right.”

“I’ve heard people say it’s an art in its own way. I don’t pretend to be an artist of course.”

“Which one’s our waiter?”

“You look good. You got fat. No, that’s a good thing.”

“Yeah, it’s great. Maybe I’ll die from it.”

“You’re tall, so it’s not as noticeable. I wouldn’t worry about it.” The little one snagged the waiter and ordered grappas for himself and his friend. “I invited some other people to join us,” he said. “George and Mandy. You don’t know them. I thought we could talk about Alabama. They’re ex-pats, too. When did you get out?”

“I didn’t.”

“You still in Alabama? What a hoot. Why?”

“I don’t know. I like to take pictures of it.”

“Whoa! You’re supposed to sip it, bro. It’s artisanal. I’m getting a bottle for the table. Now remember to sip it, okay?”

The waiter brought over a bottle and pretty soon the little man’s friends showed up. He said to them, “Ray is a full-blooded Creek Indian.”

“Wow,” said the woman, Mandy.

“Yeah,” said Ray, the large Indian in the Navy peacoat. “Wow.”

“Hey, why are you wearing that big fat coat? Aren’t you hot?” Mandy asked.

“No.”

“At least unbutton it,” said Mandy. “Are you underdressed? I bet you feel underdressed so you don’t want to take off your coat. Oh, I will call you on your shit! It’s what I do. I notice things and then I call people on their shit. I can’t help it.”

“It’s true,” said George, the husband. “She will call you on your shit. This girl will call you on your shit.”

“I guess it’s not politically correct,” said Mandy. “So be it. Oh well.”

“That’s why I love you, baby,” said George.

“Don’t you ‘baby’ me!”

“Ouch! You called me on my shit.”

“Hey, tell ’em why you got kicked out of college,” the little man said to the Indian. “Ray got kicked out of college. It’s a great story.”

“Are you from around Atmore?” asked George. “I bet you are.”

“No.”

“The Creeks have that great buffet. Have you been? I’m sure you’ve been. Soul food, really. Is there a Native American equivalent? Anyway, it seems like soul food to me. At the Best Western? I’m sure you’ve been. I think Mennonites or somebody used to run it but now it’s the Creeks. The food seems the same.”

“Hey, I thought Ray was going to tell us why he got kicked out of college,” said Mandy.

“Oh, I fought a lot,” said Ray.

“How much is a lot?”

“I did some fighting.”

“What kind of fighting?”

“You know.” Ray made some punching motions with his fists. “Fighting.”

“Tell ’em what you did to Carl,” said his little friend.

“This guy Carl kept calling me a wimp, and…Do you mind if I use some bad language?”

“Go right ahead,” said Mandy. “With my blessing! What are you afraid of? Am I a frail blushing flower? I live in New York City!”

“Well, what he really kept saying was ‘You pussy, you pussy,’ just like that, and poking me in the chest.”

“That got you aggravated.”

The little fellow broke in: “You’re not telling it right. They have this thing. It’s called ‘Two Miles of Naked Freshmen’? It’s where they make all the freshmen run two miles naked and everybody stands along the road hooting at their asses.”