“Why would the sprinkler malfunction?” Tom said and found the light switch. He flicked it on and the room filled with fluorescent light. It flickered enough so Tom’s eyes did not have to accustom themselves and he could make out images easily and quickly. He found his uncle immediately. He was squatted in the corner, his knees pulled up to his chest, his hair disheveled and his tie askew. Shoelaces untied.
“Don’t!” his uncle screamed. “Turn it off!” Tom flicked the lights off, but not before he realized there were tears streaming down his Uncle’s face. Why did he have to see that right now, of all times? What should he say? Should he leave? How close could he get before knowing a sympathetic hug would be too weird? In the end he could only say, “Holy shit.”
There was a long pause in the darkness. Then: “They didn’t malfunction.” It was a whisper, barely audible.
“What?” Tom asked.
“The sprinklers,” his uncle said, “They didn’t malfunction. There was a short in the lighting system and there was a small fire.”
“Holy shit.” Tom offered.
“Yes, holy shit,” his uncle said. “The lights I put in the other day, I put them in wrong.” He was staring into the wall, trying to think of someone to blame, perhaps. Or mad at himself for certain, knowing he was the cause.
“Oh.”
“The security company called me, and I arrived before the fire department. The fire was small, but between the sprinkler system and the fire hoses the whole store was flooded.”
“But why did Jude say the system malfunctioned?”
“You’re joking with me, right?” Tom could see the sneer even in the darkness; it was something so familiar in his uncle’s voice. “You don’t let your subordinates know that you screwed up. Everything I do must seem impervious. This way, they strive to do the same.”
“So...”
“I told them all the sprinkler malfunctioned and ordered them to work cleaning it up.”
“Ok.”
“That’s what you think,” his uncle wailed. “It will take hours to wipe up the mess. The doors aren’t working, and all the shopping carts are going shlosh shlosh shlosh all over the store.”
“But...”
“You think you’re so smart?” his uncle screamed. “People remember. They will never shop here again.”
“Your store is spotless, as a rule,” Tom said. “Maybe there are a lot of people around who shop here for convenience or drive a little out of their way for your service; surely they could forgive an amount of discomfort. It won’t tear everything down.”
“Exceptions,” his uncle shouted. “There are exceptions to the rule and people remember! They will remember this day when the doors didn’t work and there was water all over the place and the stock boy took a few more seconds attending to them because he was mopping.” His uncle sobbed. “People expect - no, people demand a clean, well-lighted place in which to do their shopping.”
“...”
“People are fussy about this sort of thing.”
No, just people like you.
“What did you say?”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“But you were thinking it,” his uncle said. “The thing you don’t understand, Tommy, is that old saying: how you do some things is how you do everything.” His uncle waited expectantly.
“You’re right, I don’t understand,” Tom said.
“You don’t understand!” His uncle began to cry. “Everything is ruined. All my life I have worked at keeping this store the safest and cleanest in the city. In the province. Maybe the country, I don’t know. And now, gone. All in one day my reputation is in tatters.”
Tom looked out over the store through the one-way mirror. Below him the store was in obvious disarray. Half the clerks whose job it was to stock the shelves were busy with the mopping and placing large placards around warning customers of potential impending disaster via wet, slippery floors. Here and there customers had stopped their shopping to ask well-meaning questions. Tom could see both the customers and the stock boys smiling and shaking their heads in disbelief. In one corner a woman with her young son was chatting amiably to a stock boy. He placed his hand on the boy’s head and then to his own chest as though measuring the young fellow’s recent and apparently surprising growth. In another aisle Tom witnessed an elderly customer hugging a stock boy in sympathy. By the dairy section a customer dressed in overalls was apparently explaining, through large friendly hand gestures the best way to go about cleaning up this sort of mess. The stock boy was taking it all in and nodding in agreement and appreciation.
“It can be cleaned, Uncle. You have a loyal customer base,” Tom said.
“Loyal?” His uncle staggered to his feet and approached Tom menacingly. He grabbed Tom by his shirt collar and forced him to look closer. Tom gazed down into the aisles. There were as many shoppers as he ever remembered seeing there, they were making their way around the stock boys and smiling at each other as they passed. All Tom could see were the stock boys and the ‘caution, wet floor’ signs. And customers nodding sympathetically and moving on to their shopping. The water on the floor was contained and soon a large fan and heaters appeared at the end of each aisle. It would probably be dry in a few hours. “You see!” His uncle shrieked and reached up to remove a smudge on the glass. “They are devastated. They will never be back.” He pointed out one shopper who was nodding and smiling at a cashier. “She is laughing at my entire operation,” he said.
“I don’t think she is laughing at you, Uncle,” Tom said.
“Tommy, you wouldn’t know if someone was laughing at someone or not. You can’t even tell when people are laughing at you.”
“What?”
“I mean, come on.” His Uncle scrubbed at the smudge furiously, spreading it around. “You and this life insurance thing. You know you’re too much like you father. You are not a business man.”
“...”
“I mean, do you have what it takes?” His uncle stopped and looked at Tom. “Could you get this involved with something? Could you give your whole life to something like this?” He waved his arm at the window and his flooded store.
No.
“What did you say?”
“I didn’t say anything,” Tom said.
“You were thinking it, though.” His uncle seemed to puff up a little; he let go of Tom’s shirt and cleared his throat. “I’m not going to let this stop me,” he said.
“Of course not,” Tom said, frowning, trying to assimilate what his Uncle had just said to him.
“They won’t shut me down.”
“Why would they shut you down?” Tom asked, “Who is they?”
“They are the ones that want to shut you down. Everything you try to do, they try and make sure you don’t succeed. Everyone is against you, Tommy. It’s a fight. A Fight.”
“I thought you set off the sprinklers.”
“It doesn’t matter,” his uncle said. “This isn’t over. This store will continue.”
“Why wouldn’t it continue?”
“Didn’t you see the destruction, you tit?” His uncle waved out the window. Tom did not see.
“Everything will be all right,” Tom said.
“Really?” His uncle pushed his face into Tom’s with an expression of complete scorn. “And you know this for sure? You know for a fact? You have a crystal ball or one of them squiggy boards?”
“Ouija boards.”
“So, you do? You and your mother and her hocus pocus and you with an Ouija ball?”
Tom felt his temper rising. He was familiar with the feeling, but never directed at anyone. Certainly not directed at anyone that he felt the need to express out loud. He felt his timidity suddenly slip away. He felt it as clearly as when he had thrown the rock through Joe’s window. The gnome, rather.
“And what if it wasn’t?” He pushed his uncle away. The older man stumbled back a few paces and stood blinking at his nephew. “What if you lost the whole stor
e? So the fuck what?”
“What are you talking about?” his uncle asked. “You have no idea. You have no mind for business. Just like your father.”
“My father?” Tom said flatly.
No mind at all.
“What did you say?”
“I didn’t say anything.” His Uncle said.
“But you were thinking it,” Tom said. This much was true. His father had no sense of business. He remembered his mother and his father having an argument long after he was supposed to be in his bed. It was about his father refusing to join his Uncle in the store as assistant manager and part owner if they could come up with the necessary capital.
“I would not be happy working with my brother,” his father said.
“It’s an incredible opportunity,” his mother would screech, and his father would shush her with an admonishing, “You’ll wake up Tommy.”
The same argument over and over. “You would be happy if we lived in this small house forever, just getting by.”
“I would,” his father would say, seriously. The smile in his voice uncharacteristically gone for that moment. “I don`t see anything so wrong with that.”
“You’ve got no vision.”
“I have vision,” his father said, laughing again. This would calm Tommy and he would rest his head against the staircase listening again to things he didn’t quite understand. “I envision going fishing on the weekend,” his father said.
“Going fishing?” his mother asked. “You don’t catch fish.”
“I catch plenty of fish.”
“You don’t bring any home.”
“I don’t like fish,” his father said, “and neither do you.”
“That’s right, I don’t.”
“Then why would I bring any fish home?”
“Then why would you fish at all?” his mother said. “It’s a waste of time.”
“I don’t think I understand you,” his mother would say.
“I don’t think I understand you,” his father would say.
Tom shook his head sadly at his uncle. “Listen, I only came by today to tell you that Walter Russ had a heart attack. He’s in the hospital.”
“You’re kidding?” His uncle’s eyes widened. “Well, I knew it would happen someday, the man is so caught up in his work.”
Chapter 16
It was ironic the way Tom kept the lights off. After the days without power, Tom thought he would be forever bathed in the light provided from the power company once again. The nights he wasn’t at the billboard he sat in the basement apartment below the mannequins and stared at what could have been the opposite wall. He ate very little or not at all. Nothing changed. He had not been in to the office in several days and, when he honestly evaluated his situation, knew he probably wouldn’t go back. The cable had been cut off and Tom was in no hurry to get it reinstalled. The last program he watched was the news and the lead story was Joe’s death. It was regarded as suspicious, the newscaster said. Of course it was suspicious, Tom cursed. He tried to make it look like an accident and might have been successful if he had bothered to take Joe out of the green sleeping bag. It must have confused the police and rescue crew for a moment, Tom mused. No wonder the man ran his truck off the road, he imagined them saying, he’s in a sleeping bag. Tom knew, however, that it wouldn’t take them long to deduce that no one wrapped in a sleeping bag in that manner could drive at all. There must be something askew here, Tom could hear them theorizing. In fact, the police were no doubt connecting the dots at that very moment. As Tom sat in the dark, the good-looking officer was probably putting his case together. The meeting at the bar confirmed Tom’s suspicions that they suspected him. At any moment Tom felt he would hear them at his door. Would they bother to knock, he wondered, or would they use a battering ram and bang the door down, shouting at him to lie on the floor and put his hands behind his back? Humiliation of all humiliations, and with Tom’s luck, there would be a camera crew with them to film for an upcoming episode of COPS or To Serve and Protect or some such program. World’s Dumbest Criminals?
On cue, Tom heard the handle of the front door turn once, twice and then clatter frantically. His heart jumped, and he felt his skin grow cold. There was someone at the door. So soon? Damn. What now?
“Hello?” he called from his seat. “Who is it?”
“Hello?” He heard a familiar voice from the other side of the door. “It’s me,” the voice said.
Tom flipped the dead bolt and opened the door slowly. There was a second when he wasn’t sure what or who he was looking at. It was raining, so he first noticed stringy hair matted to what looked like a bone white skull. Then he noticed loose clothes hanging wet and heavy on a small frame. “Eddy?” he said.
“I need a place to stay, Tommy,” Eddy said and took a step forward, falling into his arms. He held her in the doorway for a second and then noticed she was shivering. Afraid he would break her, he let go and backed into the living room, leading her by one painfully small hand.
“What happened?” he asked as she took refuge in the chair where she usually sat, her bony hands clutching at the quilt Tom handed her.
“My mother.” She began to sob, and Tom held her and ran his fingers through her wet hair.
“I’ll run you a bath,” Tom whispered, and she nodded.
“Why are the lights out Tommy?” she asked. “Did you forget to pay the bill?”
“No, no,” he said quickly. “Everything is fine. You stay here and I will run you a bath.”
Tom turned on lights as he walked down the hall to the bathroom, the sudden illumination hurting his eyes. He plugged the tub and turned on the hot water, adjusting the cold with one hand and letting the water flow over his other. When the tub was half full he went back to Eddy in the living room. She was huddled beneath the quilt and he all but carried her down the hall, stripped her from her wet clothing and placed her gently in the tub. She sighed long when she hit the water and immediately submerged herself to her nose.
“Are you hungry?” he asked softly and his heart jumped. What a stupid thing to say to Eddy. Then he saw her nod nearly imperceptibly. “You are?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“What can I get you?”
“Steak,” she said flatly. “with lots of garlic bread.”
“We don’t have steak,” he said. “Or bread. Actually, I don’t think we have anything. Cottage cheese, maybe.” He turned to the bathroom door to make like he was going to check the fridge, but there was no need; he knew for a fact they had no food.
“We could go out,” she whispered. There may have been a tear running down her face, or it could have been the water. She was nearly submerged.
“We could.” He thought of his bank account. Did he want to spend money on a steak dinner just to have her go to the bathroom and throw it all up? Then he felt badly about his insensitivity. “We could,” he said again, hoping he sounded more convincing.
“I have nothing to wear,” she said, and now he knew she was crying.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “You relax and I will dry your clothes. We will go out. We deserve it.” He tried to sound cheerful.
“We deserve everything we get,” she said and moved her arms about in the bath. She hardly made a ripple.
Tom gathered Eddy’s clothes and threw them into the dryer. He took one of his own belts from the closet and guessed at where to make extra notches for Eddy’s waist. He doubled his guess and notched three more with a steak knife while he waited for the dryer to finish and Eddy to be done her bath.
He checked on her after half an hour. She was floating with her eyes closed. “Eddy?” he asked tentatively.
“Yes?” she said.
“Nothing.” He sighed with relief. “You looked so quiet and still, like you were... are you ready to go?”
“I’m in the bathtub.” She sneered, and then smiled, “I’m sorry, Tommy. I had a rough week. I’ll be out in a second.”
“Alright
.” He retreated to the living room. With no television there was not much to do but wait for her to be done.
At a restaurant four blocks from their home, one they had never been to, Eddy told Tom everything that had happened since she left and went back to her mother’s. “It was awful,” she said, and Tom tried hard to think if he had ever met her mother (he had not) or even if he knew anything about the woman (he should have).
Here is everything, distilled for brevity, that Eddy told Tom over their two years together about her family that Tom should have remembered: her parents were born into money, Eddy’s grandmother having started a clothing company called “Everyone Is Obsessed With This Clothing Company”. The clothes catered to upper middle-class women with a penchant for the avant-garde. A multi-national conglomerate bought the company when Eddy’s mother was still in high school and changed the name to “Everyone’s Obsessed.” An interesting sidebar: two of the waitresses in the restaurant at that moment were wearing garments from this company. One wore a pink thong with tassels and another wore a blouse with a picture of a mouse snorting cocaine. The waiter, of course was not wearing anything from this famous company, as he rarely wore underwear, but Eddy and Tom, not being omniscient had no way of knowing any of this. In fact, interestingly enough, Tom and Eddy happened to be the opposite of omniscient. While Eddy’s mother never actually wore any of the clothes the company produced, she certainly lived off the proceeds, both she and her husband, Eddy’s father, never had to work a day in their lives. They lived in a large house on a five-acre garden in the country where Eddy’s father decided to become an alcoholic and her mother decided to collect porcelain dolls replete with doilies for dresses made to fit over medium sized empty wine bottles that her husband provided. They divorced as a matter of course, but each refused to give up the mansion. Luckily the mansion was large enough that neither of them had to move out and neither of them had to see or speak to each other ever again. Eddy swore at an early age that she did not want to share in her mother’s frantic collections or her father’s frantic intoxications. She refused their money as well, both of her parents thinking that the money would tie her to them. They were wrong. This was the reason why Tom had met neither of them. Still, no excuse for Tom not knowing about them; over the course of their two years together, she had told Tom all that is presented here at one time or another.
It's Called Disturbing Page 16
