by Alex Wellen
Paige does love her horror flicks.
“I was going to tell her to watch it, but I didn’t have her number handy,” Manny explains.
Gotcha. Why don’t I hustle those digits right up for you?
“Just tell her that we need to talk.”
“I’m writing that down,” I say, pretending to record the urgent message in thin air.
Manny Milken has spent the better part of his life pining away for Paige. It’s Manny’s fault that Paige and I didn’t get together years ago.
Back in the early ’80s, Paige and I went from Star Wars to star-crossed, seeing very little of each other in the decade that followed that fateful Halloween. It wasn’t until ninth grade that we actually became true-blue friends: Paige being “Day,” and me being “Altman,” we shared homeroom together, but it was Ma dame Kuepper’s French class where things really came together.
Madame Hedwig Kuepper still teaches at Willow High, a fireplug of a woman from Normandy, France, no taller than Dr. Ruth, with streaked blond hair tightly pulled back and pasted to her head like a sculpture.
I remember the first day of class. Paige was sitting right there behind me. It was first period. I was half asleep. Madame Kuepper turned to write something on the chalkboard, and I leaned back over Paige’s desk and silently let out a huge yawn. At the height of my stretch, Paige playfully poked me in both armpits. It was petrifying, really. I blurted out the only sound one can make when he’s been unceremoniously stabbed in both underarms during high school French.
From that day forward, Madame Kuepper considered me “très bizarre.”
Paige sat directly behind me during all four years of high school French, and over time, we developed a system of signals to help each other with vocabulary. For example, when Paige mistakenly used the masculine form of a feminine noun, I might start massaging my neck and biceps. (I’m sure these idiosyncrasies played right into Madame Kuepper’s impression of me.) By sitting behind me, it was easier for Paige to tip me off if I made a mistake. One swift kick to my chair and I knew: Mais oui, naturellement, j’aime la … LE chat noir.
By sophomore year, I still hadn’t worked up the courage to ask Paige on a date; somehow I’d convinced myself that I’d only be ready to pop that question when I could order dinner for her in fluent French. But then the Crockett Indians were playing the Piedmont Highlanders. It was the last high school football scrimmage of the season, and out of the blue, Paige wondered if I’d like to accompany her to the game.
On paper, it had all the markings of a legitimate date—just the two of us (and the rest of the student body) … at night—but then Paige suggested we meet there instead of me picking her up, and when I arrived at the game, there were “others,” among them Paige’s older sister, Lara, and Lara’s best friend, Tyler Rich, both seniors.
It was five minutes into the first quarter of the game—Paige and I locked in an intense conversation over whether the first word or words in the Peter Gabriel song “Big Time” was “higher,” “hi there,” or “hey la”—when it hit me. The football. Or at least that’s what I’m told.
I would learn later that while it was the Piedmont Highlanders’ star quarterback who was responsible for launching the pigskin, it was our defensive linebacker, Emmanuel Milken, who, in attempting to block the shot, tipped the ball slightly upward, causing the torpedo to hit me smack-dab in the right temple. What happened next happened quickly. Through various witness accounts, computer simulations, and expert testimony, I believe the magic bullet then ricocheted off my noggin, smacked Paige square in the forehead, knocking her off her bench and across two rows of bleachers, and then returned off Paige’s face to pop me in the nose before coming to rest.
The crowd gasped. The game stopped. It all happened so fast, I think Paige thought I head-butted her midsentence.
“You okay?” I managed to blurt out before Lara and Tyler jumped on Paige, all Secret Service-like.
Paige said nothing. We were both seeing stars. Lara and Tyler helped Paige to her feet.
“Let me help …,” I said, stumbling to rise.
“You’ve done enough!” Lara insisted.
Through tunnel vision, I can still see Paige’s protectors dragging her away toward the on-site nurse, Paige crying, “Wait, wait, wait. Hold up one sec. I’m fine. I think Andy’s the one who’s hurt.”
“I’ll be no problem,” I screamed back, one hand cupping my bloody nose, the other rubbing the side of my head.
Paige and Tyler were tight after that, though she rarely mentioned him in French class. They dated off and on for the rest of high school and possibly beyond. It would take me ten years before I’d get a second date with her. Had Manny just kept his right meat hook to himself, everything would have been so different.
“Know what these are?” Manny says, reaching inside his de livery truck and dragging a medium-sized box closer with his fingertips.
My eyes widen. The orange and light blue lettering on the box is a town trademark. The red ribbon unmistakable. Memorial Day is only two weeks away. Crockett’s Red Rockets are back, baby!
“I’ve got Gregory’s supply right here. Can I interest you in a few freebies?” he says, tapping the contraband.
“No way,” I lie. “Those are for the children.”
“What-ever. You’re such a wuss. I got my own stash anyways. One box always manages to fall off the truck, if you catch my drift.”
“Nice,” I tell him. “So you literally steal candy from babies.”
“You should shut your piehole. I’m sorry I said anything to begin with.”
Once I’ve moved all the supplies, drugs, and candy inside, no thanks to Manny, I take my California-sanctioned fifteen-minute break.
The storeroom is windowless and I nearly break my neck tripping over Gregory’s boxes. The overhead fluorescents in here flicker uncontrollably, so I flip them off, pop on the computer monitor, and begin mocking up a simple diagram of what I plan to give Paige for her birthday. I draw the quadrilaterals. The one on the left is exactly five inches tall at its highest elevation.
I can hear Gregory in the next room talking to a customer about cough syrup. The generic is the exact same thing, I lip-synch along with him. I know this monologue by heart. If you want to pay twice as much for the brand name, be my guest, but they both contain the SAME dosage of dextromethorphan. Gregory gets too much pleasure out of saying words like dextromethorphan, pantoprazole, and fluvastatin. Actually who doesn’t like saying fluvastatin.
Paige is feeling tremendous anxiety about turning thirty later this month. She’s made it abundantly clear that she cannot be held responsible for what happens the next time someone asks her if she’s excited about turning “The Big Three-Oh.”
I complete the third and smallest quadrilateral and inspect my work. Paige is going to love this one.
Homemade gifts have gone over well in the past. Paige still uses that custom makeup case I built her for Valentine’s Day. The makeup applicator worked just fine up until the accident. (Three words: temporary eye patch.) Then there was the automated plant watering system. It took me three freaking weeks to snake those tiny hoses through the walls of Gregory’s living room, affix the timers and sprinklers, and install the elaborate irrigation system. Gregory was such a sourpuss about the whole thing, but Paige was quick to call the project a “moderate success.” Most of her plants were dying, anyway. Plus who paid the rental cost of the wet/dry vac? Me.
It’s going to take a few days to track down the supplies I need to build a proper prototype of my gift in time for Paige’s birthday. Meantime, Sid and I have some other collaborative projects to attend to.
The door to the storeroom wildly swings open. White light pours in like a portal to the afterlife. I fumble to find and eventually hit the on-off switch on the computer monitor. It’s hard to know how much Gregory’s seen.
“Altman! What are you doing in here? Are you disturbed?” he asks, clearing his throat and shaking his head
, dumbfounded by my oddness. “Why are you sitting in the dark?”
“I’m not” is all I can think to respond.
“You’re not sitting in the pitch-dark?”
“I wasn’t. At that exact moment I just finished catching up on some Medicare stuff, shut the computer, and you walked in.”
Neither of us believes me. We stare at each other. Hey, quick question: Could I have your daughter’s hand in marriage?
“What?” we both ask at the same time.
“Your lips were just moving, but you weren’t saying anything,” he says.
“Sorry.”
“We’ve got a line of customers and you’re in here doing who-knows-what. I need you back on the floor,” he barks. “I’m going to be here late enough as is.”
CHAPTER 5
Reversing the Polarity
THE deal: I supply the car. Sid supplies the vacuum cleaner.
The car: My car—“Hulk.” A swamp green 1995 Oldsmobile Series II Cutlass Supreme coupe complete with worn pleather bucket seats, one functioning fog light, multiple dings, dual air-bags, and a 3.1 liter 3100 V6 engine. This beauty can go zero to sixty in about twenty-eight seconds—roughly twenty-five seconds longer than it takes a Ferrari. The 1995 Cutlass Supreme is among the least stolen cars in the country.
The vacuum: Sid’s vacuum. A red and chrome 1952 Eureka Attach-O-Matic swivel-top canister unit. Most of the original clip-on tools for this flying saucer went missing decades ago, but Sid’s garage is a treasure trove—a destination hot spot at the annual Crockett townwide yard sale—and he managed to dig up the original flex hose and upholstery nozzle, its ragged brush hanging by a thread.
This is what Sid’s thinking:
“Flat screwdriver!” Sid demands, holding out a shaky hand.
He’s just about managed to pry off the vacuum cleaner’s chrome top.
“Hammer,” he says with a surgeon’s tone.
A bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering plus four decades of building naval ships, and the man’s literally bent over a vacuum cleaner in his driveway smashing it to bits with a hammer.
“Why don’t I take that,” I offer, grabbing the hammer’s handle in the upswing. “You’re sure Cookie’s cool with us using this?”
“I just bought her a new one from Target, like, five years ago. She thinks I threw this hunk-a-junk out decades back.”
I loosen the lid with my bare hands; fifty years of coagulated gook comes undone.
“Nice job, small fry,” he says.
“Small fry” is Sid’s nod to my hero, Linden Fry, the inventor of the Bellowing Big Mouth Bass. At the turn of the twenty-first century, it wasn’t flying cars or nanotechnology that captivated the country’s fascination, but a reanimated trophy fish that could sing and dance the “La Bamba.” The Patent Office has this rule about inventions being “useful,” and Linden Fry’s bellowing bass suggested the bar is pretty low, but the potential rewards, infinite.
One of Fry’s millions of singing trophy fish graces the wall of the pharmacy. Belinda started calling him “Corey”—as in the singer Corey Hart-the-one-hit-wonder—after she heard the big mouth bass belt out “I Wear My Sunglasses at Night.” Gregory happens to be pretty fond of that fish. That’s because Lydia gave it to him for Christmas years ago after seeing it on The Tonight Show. When Lydia was alive and the two of them were healthy enough, Paige says her parents loved to fish together—neighboring Boone offers some decent fly-fishing. If Gregory’s in the right mood, nothing makes him happier than seeing Corey swing his head forward, wag his tail, and perform Johnny Cash’s “I Walk the Line.”
“There it is,” Sid whispers, squinting into the dusty guts of the vacuum like he’s spotted pirate booty. “Electric current powers that fan right there and the blades force air and debris toward the exhaust port into the vacuum bag.”
“Uh-huh,” I say, pretending to understand.
“We need to change the direction of the fan so it blows the air out the intake pipe,” he explains.
“So we’re reversing the polarity,” I conclude.
“Come again?”
“Reversing the polarity: making something negative positive,” I explain.
Sid impatiently waits for me to recant.
“Yeah, I’d be making that up.”
“Just unscrew that fan unit and flip it 180 degrees. We need to lower the level of air pressure outside the fan,” Sid says.
I’m more confused than ever and he knows it.
“We need the fan to blow, not suck,” he says simply enough.
Sid goes inside the garage to find an extension cord. Meanwhile I jury-rig the vacuum to his specifications by screwing in the fan the other way around and reattaching the swivel top. With one heave-ho, I lift and mount it on top of my car. As I duct tape the metal pod to the center of the car roof, I ignore the little voice inside my head telling me this is a terrible mistake. Then I run the flex hose along the roof, and I duct tape the upholstery nozzle so it hovers just above the windshield.
Inside the garage a rack of hubcaps crashes to the floor.
“Oopsy-daisy,” Sid chuckles as the last disk takes forever to settle on the concrete floor.
I ask if him if he’s okay; he’s fine.
“Small fry, I’m thinking this one’s PMP-worthy,” Sid yells from inside the garage.
“Exactamundo,” I scream back.
Gone are the days when an inventor needs tens of thousands of dollars and a deep familiarity with arcane law to patent an idea. A few years back the Patent Office came up with an invention of its own: the Provisional Patent, or as Sid and I call it, the “Poor Man’s Patent” or “PMP” Nowadays, if you’ve got an idea, all you need is three hours to fill out a simple three-page application plus about three hundred bucks for the filing fee. A PMP buys you exactly one year to experiment with the idea, make and market it, and decide whether it’s worth patenting for real. The best part about a PMP is it entitles you to start using two of the most powerful words in the English language: “Patent Pending.”
I remember our first PMP fondly. It was September. Sid designed a ladder stabilized on three sides like a camera tripod. Then in November it was my dog umbrella. In March: side-access Velcro sneakers. Both of our names appear on every application; it’s just a matter of which inventor is the headliner. Neither of us is made of money, so nothing gets filed unless we’re in total agreement. For example, I couldn’t convince Sid to PMP “Urine Bed.” Who needs the bathroom in the middle of the night? I pitched him. When you’re in bed … “Urine Bed.” Sid stopped me right there. We now have a standing rule: all bladder-control devices are off-limits.
I tear off a piece of duct tape with my teeth. Just then the Vomit Mobile pulls into Gregory’s driveway across the street. This clown car has been out of the shop for all of seventeen hours. The driver’s side door slowly swings open and a bleary-eyed beaut climbs out. She’s just finished a killer shift—4:00 A.M. to 12:00 P.M. Tack on the forty-five-minute commute each way plus a quick workout and Paige is toast by 2:00 P.M. Ready to slink back into bed, Paige slowly throws a gym bag over one shoulder and a garment bag over the other.
“Yoo-hoo!” I scream. “Come here!”
With her back to me she weighs her options: Maybe I can pretend I didn’t hear him. I yell over to her again. Paige does an about-face and trudges across the street like a pack mule. Sid appears from the garage dragging one end of an infinitely long, thick yellow extension cord. I plant a kiss on her cheek.
“Why aren’t you at work?” she asks, doing her best not to sound too judgmental.
“Yeah, I decided to take the day off. Stanley from Walgreens filled in.”
Stanley and I dropped out of pharmacy school a week apart. We’re both about three hundred practitioner hours away from becoming fully certified pharmacy technicians.
“Sid and I really need to nail down this invention, and today worked best for Sid, isn’t that right?” I prod him.
He doesn’t react.
“Sid’s retired,” she reminds me. “Every day works best for him.”
“You’d be surprised how busy retirement gets,” he chimes in, finally.
“So what do you think?” I ask her, giving the device strapped to the roof of my car an exaggerated “ta-dah.”
“My dad could really use your help at the pharmacy, Andy,” Paige replies. “And Stanley is …”
“Stinky?” I suggest.
Stanley’s not big on showers.
“Stanley makes him uncomfortable,” she says. “Let’s leave it at that.”
Stanley also has this habit of breaking into a human beatbox machine every time he counts out pills.
“He’s fine,” I assure her. “Five bucks says your dad doesn’t even notice he’s not me.”
“You’re wrong,” she insists. “He needs you, Andy. You get him. Stanley doesn’t. Daddy likes having you around.”
Sid nonverbally seconds that.
Maybe there was a time when Gregory liked having me around, but not anymore. That ended the moment he learned I was dating his daughter. No one has ever been good enough for Paige. In French class, Paige used to regale me with stories about how much her father detested the guys she dated. I think that’s part of the reason it took me years before I asked her on that second date. Baseball players, budding actors, and future business leaders of America, to Gregory, they were losers, lemons, and future failures. Even that All-American good-looks-Porsche-driving-girlfriend-stealing Tyler Rich didn’t cut it.
“What?” Paige asks me.
“What?” I ask her.
“What?” Sid asks us.
“You’re looking at me funny,” she says.
“I’m thinking. This is my thinking face,” I explain.
“Is it my sweats?” Paige is wearing a velour powder blue running suit. “If you hate them, just say so. I promise I won’t be mad,” she swears.
This is the oldest trick in the book and I’m not falling for it.
“And this is not a trick,” she assures me. “So you won’t be falling for anything.”