The Doorman
Just a doorman married to an art teacher, trying to make a little beauty or excitement through the written word
The Doorman
Just a doorman married to an art teacher, trying to make a little beauty or excitement through the written word
Just a doorman married to an art teacher, trying to make a little beauty or excitement through the written word
Just a doorman married to an art teacher, trying to make a little beauty or excitement through the written word
He didn’t care. He didn’t care and he wasn’t even trying to hide it. I watched my son as he sat on the couch and stared blankly into the distance, his little sister hugged up next to him as he pretended to comfort her. He pretended to care.
Ever since my mother’s sickness progressed to the point where she struggled to talk, he had barely spoken to her at all. Barely acknowledged her. It’s like her lack of ability to talk had already made her dead to him. He would just stare at her with those blank eyes, hardly responding at all when she did manage to croak something out to him.
“Well.” He said, standing up, “I’m going to the house.” I wanted to ask him why, to ask him to stay with us, but I couldn’t. My heart was too broken. My will too shattered. His cold eyes bored into me. “Do you need anything?”
I wanted to speak, but I couldn’t. There was too much. It was too much. I needed my mother back. I needed my son to care. I shook my head. He turned to go and, just as I was about to muster the nerve to speak, I saw him turn and look at the chair my mother had laid in during her last days. It was brief, a split second glance, but in that glance I saw pain welling up like a boiling pot, lid rattling with pressure. Then he was gone, and I was left wondering if I had really seen what I had saw.
“E-ov”
The abbreviated words stood out to me like a middle finger in a church parking lot. An insult. A moral wrong.
I had been working at Gerseppi’s Pasta and Pizzeria for three years now, and I had known, all that time, that this day would come. Though I had prayed daily, agonizing with the Eternal Father to spare me this dilemma, the day had still arrived. Some poor, sadistic, freak with defunct tastebuds had finally requested the ultimate evil.
Extra Olives.
I pressed my mouth into the fabric of my faded red Gerseppi’s Pizzeria polo and muffled a cry of frustration. How dare they- How DARE they send such a request into my kitchen. How dare they allow it to pass the threshold of the ticket window. How dare they.
It would have been easier to excuse if the order had come from the new girl, Neveah. Just a spunky little know-nothing teenager that had never worked in a pizzeria before. I could have ignored that. I could have just corrected the order without a second thought, and then informed her of proper pizzaria etiquette afterwards. Oh, how easy it would have been if only the order had come from her.
I fixed my eyes upon the culprit of my moral dilemma as the fat, greasy, son-of-a-moldy-onion-peel waddled into the kitchen like he owned the place. Partially, of course, because he did.
“Gerseppi!” I started, my voice rising to a roar by the end of his unnecessarily long first name.
“What is it this time, Rodney?” Gerseppi replied in that tired, annoyed New Yorker accent of his.
I held up the grease-stained ticket with Gerseppi’s grimy fingerprint plastered plainly on it.
“What is this? Extra Olives? You let some Bonehead order extra olives and then have the nerve to send it into my kitchen?”
“Just make the order and send it out, Rod. Don’t make a big deal out of it like you did when I switched to whole wheat flour.”
“Whole wheat flour is a blaspheme to pizza!!” My voice cracked under the force of my fury. “But I made it anyway!! But extra olives, Gerseppi?? That’s a bridge too far!”
Gerseppi smashed his fist down on a plump, juicy tomato, launching freshly-made tomato sauce in every direction like a wave of Italian vengeance across the disarranged kitchen.
“You’ll make that pizza and you’ll make it now!!” His sweaty jowls undulated with fury as smashed tomato dripped down off of them.
“I’d sooner die!” I screamed back, launching a flurry of chopped habaneros into his face. He screamed in agony as the pepper juice filled his eyes before reaching for a knife and launching it at my head. I ducked under the projectile, leaving it free to slice into the gas line behind me. Quickly, I jerked up the hot skillet of cherries for my cherries Jubilie and ignited it with the gas stovetop. I pulled on the copper line, aiming it at Gerseppi’s face before holding the flaming skillet up to the escaping fumes.
A line of fire billowed out toward Gerseppi, but the oily hog doused the flame with a bucket of discount alfredo sauce and then threw the emptied bucket at me. I attempted to dodge but the sauce on the floor hindered my normally graceful movements, putting me in the unfortunate position of having a bucket lined with expired alfredo sauce on my head. I wretched and stumbled back into more sauce, quickly losing my footing, causing me to fall against the pasta bowls, launching spaghetti, ziti, rotini, and gnocchi into the air.
I tore the bucket from my head, scrambling to my feet, expecting the italian whale to be waddling toward me with all his might. Gerseppi, however, was still where he had been previously standing, his face blanched white and his eyes wide as saucers. He made an odd sound in his throat and fell to his knees.
“He’a choking!” One of the low-rent, untalented, minimum-wage line cooks exclaimed.
“What??” I exclaimed in horror
“One of the gnocchi balls launched into his throat and got stuck!”
Gerseppi’s eyes were starting to roll back into his head and he began shaking all over, his rolls of fat jiggling like cold lard on a serving tray.
“Gerseppi!” I cried with utmost despair. Desperate to save him, I rushed to his side and tried to wrap my arms around his midsection to give him the heimlich maneuver. My efforts were entirely in vain, however. He was much too wide and cylindrical. Panicking, I searched my mind for a solution. What was the one thing that could make Gerseppi wretch? Then it hit me. I ran to the vegetable chopping station and grabbed the one thing I knew would make Gerseppi’s stomach reject everything it has ingested, taking anything else in the way, along with it. Olives.
I rushed back to Gerseppi’s side and shoved a handful of the dreadful orbs into his mouth and forced his powerful jaws shut. His eyes instantly refocused, all sign of irises gone as he blanched whiter than the bleached flour he no longer allowed us to cook with.
The flurry of things that came out of that man's mouth would haunt me for years to come. Mcdonald’s burgers, children’s toys, three decomposing rats, and even a piece of tablecloth that had a bundle of grapes printed on it. I shuddered and decorated the floor with my own lunch of oranges and chewed up bread.
Both of us fell onto our backs, our chests heaving.
“I’m sorry, boss, I’ll do what you say next time, I promise,” I told him. He shook his head and waved his hand, but still didn’t respond for several long seconds.
“Na, na, you was right, Rodney. I shouldn't've accepted that order. I should have kept the status quo. I’m sorry, I hope you can forgive me.”
“Forgiven boss, forgiven.”
Gerseppi’s sighed and rolled over to get up. I followed, a bit more nimbly. We wiped our hands off on our aprons, sheepishly and nodded to each other before heading back to work. After I had reached my station, just before Gerseppi stepped back out into the dining room, he turned to me.
“Oh by the way, table four said they want you to add black pepper to their cheesy bread.”
“I’ll never do it!” I screamed, throwing my pot of steaming hot marinara sauce at his face. He ducked and grabbed a porcelain plate, launching it like a frisbee while screaming:
“You’ll do it and you’ll like it!!”
The doctor tells me I should be able to return to work Friday. Gerseppi said I have to be back by Wednesday. In response, I mailed him an envelope full of olives I had stashed in my apron.
I dream of a snowfall with all the white, winter glory that I’ve read in stories, that I’ve seen in movies, and I want it truly, you see.
I want a winter fair with icy stairs that I have to hold onto the rail or lose my footing.
I wish for a cold, so profound as to implode the idea of cold in this summer utopia of the sad soggy south in Alabama.
I want it to freeze, to seize up every road, every highway headed to or from my way, so there’s no way in the world to thaw in less than two weeks.
I desire a spire, a wire, attire to roast weenies in the snow around a bonfire, basking in the falling snowflakes and pleasant conversations.
I hope to sit in twos, wearing warmer winter shoes, sharing stories of times long gone like final whispers wandered away without care.
Can you hear it?
Listen
Feel the vibrations in the wall as it creeps toward you, seeps toward you, crawls on your skin until it tickles every bone.
Her voice drills in your ear and travels down your neck, through your spine, until it settles into your very core.
Hush
Stop breathing
Close your eyes and stop seeing, stop fleeing, stop needing to escape, because she feels your pain
She feels your fear
She knows you’re near
A moan in the hall, the only thing to let you know you’re still alone, still away, still safe here in her grave
But you feel her fingernails scratching down the stone faces as the ache is in your chest, rumbling like a train and slithering like a viper, a trapper, a sniper, a vine wrapping around your insides and choking them, roping in, invoking this fear that gnaws at your pitted bones.
The sound of subtle silence.
A silence so violent, so strident, so visceral and defiant that it doesn’t sound so much like silence at all, but like a scream echoed through a wood, bouncing off of every tree until carried away by the chill arctic air.
A silence like dead men in a long-sunken ship, mouths open wide, twisting and stripped to the bare ivory stone, silence like hollow eyes of a romance already gone, already swept away by lies.
It’s then you know it’s too late.
Too late, too far gone, she’s at the door, she’s on the throne, she’s in your face, you face disgrace, you face destruction, the discussion of your fate already had and given away.
You realize you’ve given away your last chance for peaceful silence.
“So can you pick up radio signals with that thing?” The question was partially innocent, but mostly purposely cruel, meant to embarrass and, subconsciously, meant to intimidate. I remember looking at Timmy and laughing nervously. He had been the bane of my existence since kindergarten, and his teasing had never wavered. Sixth grade was just a continuation of the same.
Being the experienced loser that I was, I chose to play along with the joke rather than fight it.
“Yeah, I can!” I grabbed my ear and twisted it, as if turning a knob or twisting rabbit-ears into position. “Krrzzzzt… welcome to WGC 1-oh-3 radio, home of the hits!” Everyone started laughing, and I joined in. I was funny now, right? Timmy did that annoying little thing that bratty children do where they lean over the table and stick their face out as close to you as they can manage before ridiculing you.
“We’re laughing at you, not with you!” Looking back, I realize that the reason we grow out of sticking our faces out when we ridicule someone is because, at least with men, we realize the very real possibility of getting slapped or punched into near unconsciousness because of a poorly timed insult.
I kept grinning, of course, though I’m sure my eyes showed my insecure hurt. My left ear had always stuck out like I was part chimpanzee while my right ear was perfectly normal. Mom had always told me it was cute. My classmates thought it was interesting when we were very small. At 11 years old, it was just another reason for them to pick on me.
I kept the fake grin up until Coach Carter blew the whistle and then slunk back into the gym to another day of getting ignored by everyone except for my fellow losers. Zane, a boy with someone else’s heart in his chest, and his girlfriend, Amanda, who had developed abnormally early, and TJ, the chubby kid with a reading disorder. Those were the days, though. I had the whole future in front of me, and anything I wanted to do- except for modeling, I could grow up to do. Times were good. Problems were small. And this crazy ear has been with me through it all.
———————-
Andy put down the stack of papers and looked up at me with dull disinterest.
“You tellin’ me this is what you wanna use to kick off yer biography, Mr Mclaughlin? A rogue ear story?” He picked the rough-draft back up and flipped through a few more pages, scanning over it. “Oh great, a whole chapter on the church you was raised in. Golden!”
“Isn’t that what a biography is supposed to be?” I argued, trying to hold in my annoyance. A story of my life?
“Yeah, but most people embellish a little, keep it interesting, ya know?” He motioned his hand at the stack of papers and threw it on his desk. “This could be anybody! What’s interesting about it?”
“I’m what’s interesting about it!” I said with heated resolution. “People want to know about my life, so I wrote down what has happened in my life!”
“Ya wrote a whole chapter on yer big left ear, Jeremy.” He picked the papers up and tossed them to me. “Go find someone else ta publish yer stupid biography, I won’t do it. Good luck, don’t let the door hit ya on the way out, Radio.”
And there it was. Suddenly I was back in sixth grade, sitting at the break table with Timmy as he made faces at me and pulled his ear out to mock me. His right ear, of course, because he was a dumb kid and didn’t fully grasp the mirror effect when you’re sitting across from someone. So I did what I never had the guts to do as a child. I punched Timmy.
Open skies beckon in something broader Open minds calling for the devil’s daughter
Dancing like heathens around our bonfire Dancing on the reasons we never tire
Like broken shores fighting a rising tide Like trees shaken, braking aside
Watching teeth gnashing against their chains Watching them dashing like a pouring rain
A fear of recognition I despise A fear of what is coming from in the skies
“Winifred, are you suggesting that you’re not going to smoke one of these fine Bavarian cigars?” Thomas’s mustache twitched back and forth like a small, live mouse on his upper lip as he scrunched up his face in disapproval.
“That’s exactly what I’m suggesting, Thomas,” Winifred replied as she placed her tube of fine, french lipstick back in her clasp and popped her lips in a distinctly obnoxious manner. Thomas pulled his cigar from his mouth and blew out a thick puff of smoke.
“That is, without a doubt, the most absurd-“ he abruptly began coughing, smoke coming out of his nose in undignified wisps as he attempted to take another draw. He cleared his throat and continued. “As I was saying, this is the most absurd thing you’ve refused since you decided that chicken was unclean.”
“They are unclean!” Winifred stated with that wide-eyed fury that she frequented when challenged on any point about anything. “Since Darwin wrote that book on the evolution of species-“ she ignored Thomas’s scoff of dismissal, “- multiple biologists have determined that chickens - and in fact, all birds, mind you,- are direct descendants of those horrid reptilian beasts coming to be known as “dinosaurs.” And I, Thomas, do not eat reptiles!”
“Winifred, my dear, we have already had this discussion and, while I do not believe there is a single ounce of merit in Mr. Darwin’s theory, I did agree to let you continue to go to these absurd “scientific discussions at the university.” She responded with a huff of irritation which Thomas, with determinedly ignorant alacrity, absolutely ignored. “However, everyone knows that tobacco is good for the lungs! It fills you with a sense of purpose and strengthens your breathing! It cleans out your throat and keeps you from getting sick! Everyone knows this, Winifred.”
“I don’t know it,” she snapped back. “In fact, there have been multiple studies as of late, by several well-respected docto-“
“From the university, I assume,” Thomas interjected.
Winifred pursed her lips to keep from shouting. After a short moment she continued in a grating tone, “as I was saying, several well-respected doctors have performed studies which have come to the conclusion that smoking is absolutely detrimental to the proper function of your lungs.” Winifred was promptly interrupted by the raucous laughter of, not only Thomas, but the two men in the next booth as well, who had been studiously pretending they weren’t listening in up until now.
Hurt registered on Winifred’s face and tears sprung forth, unbidden. Winifred stood up quickly, holding her clasp against her stomach in resolute anger, and said, in a breaking voice, “You’ll die with that cigar in your hand, Thomas, and I only hope I am not around to see it.” With that severe declaration, she spun on her heel and marched off.
Thomas stood and called out after her, “Winifred, now don’t be like that! Winifred! Winifred, stop this instant!” Winifred, however, did not heed his words, continuing past the maître d, marched out the door of the eating establishment, and disappeared down the street. One of the men from the next booth leaned over and gave Thomas’s elbow a light pat.
“Oy well, ole chap. Wimmun, they’s a mystery, they is.” Thomas slowly turned his head and looked down at the man with a raised eyebrow.
“Really, Brian? That’s the accent you’re going with?”
Brian threw his hand up in irritation. “Whut? Now I ain’t speakin’ right? Whut’s next Tommy, ya gonna tell me that I shouldn’t wear my sneakers because “those weren’t invented yet?”
Tommy pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry, am I inconveniencing you, Brian? It’s your great grandparents whose relationship we’re trying to sabotage so you can grow up rich instead of the slums of southern Alabama. Is that a little too much for you? Should we jump back in the time-capsule and just go back home?”
“No, no, I just- look, okay, I wuz bein a jerk. Now let’s go get gramma Winny. If you ain’t frenchin’ her before the day’s out, I’m gonna think about just takin care of the problem myself, since you can’t seem ta handle it.”
There was a moment of awkwardness between the two men as Thomas stared worriedly at Brian. Finally his words seemed to click and Brian’s face screwed up in disgust.
“No, no, that ain’t whut I meant-“
Thomas tuned Brian out. It was time for plan D. Kidnapping Brian’s great-grandmother.