The Corn Husk Experiment

by Andrea Cale

  Phil scratched his head, as he often did whenever he felt torn between working a shady profession and being a good person. He had never imagined his life would take this turn during much sunnier days, when he had managed a Polynesian-style restaurant on California’s Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu. He had surfed every morning and closed the restaurant each evening before bringing home filet mignon or mahi mahi to a loving wife who was inevitably up late feeding one of the three babies they had raised there. Life had been sweet for Phil, but he always had a feeling it wasn’t going to last. Even then, he had good instinct. The place had closed in the 80s. With five mouths to feed, he had moved the family to his hometown of Medford, Massachusetts, where they had lived with his parents as he searched for a job. He had begun working at the Gentlemen’s Club as a bouncer and gradually climbed his way up the management chain despite feeling more and more down.

  With Caroline appearing almost from thin air today, interrupting some depressing number-crunching in his back office, Phil thought of his wife, who had stuck with him through all of his ups and downs. He would not let this establishment fail too. He stopped scratching.

  “Two nights a week could work,” Phil said. “Have you done this before?”

  “No,” Caroline admitted quietly. “But I’ve done about every other type of dance, and while I’m not exactly a person who likes to toot my own horn, I can assure you that dancing—any type of dancing—comes naturally to me.”

  Phil was certain now that this was not the typical girl who came in for auditions. He’d never heard one of the glamazons use the expression “toot my own horn” before.

  “I have to ask,” Phil said. “I’m not trying to discourage you, but you need to know that this is an emotional, tough, draining job, and no matter how good of a dancer you are, you have to deal with some, pardon me, crappy aspects. Many of our girls get around that by thinking of other things while they dance—their shopping lists, where they will take their kids on their days off, escaping this type of life, and so on. As a nice cheerleader student, you might have a more difficult time with turning yourself on and off to the emotions, with all due respect.”

  Caroline wanted to tell this big stranger, of all people, everything that she had kept inside for so long: the pain, the suffering, and the slew of traumatic events that she had managed to cope with on her own. Tearing away layers of herself seemed far better than a misguided second cousin doing it for her at an age when times were even more confusing. I can do this, she thought. She was a breath from letting someone finally understand her past, but quickly opted instead to give the kind man the abridged version of her story.

  “I’m tougher than I look,” she said.

  Phil scratched his head again. He thought of another stunning girl a few months back whom he had hired on the spot without an audition. Her lack of coordination on stage had forced boos and drunken heckling from patrons on what had been her first and last night as an employee.

  “OK, then,” he said. “Well, I understand you’re a cheerleader and must be a great performer and all, but I still have to ask you to audition. It’s policy.” His head was beginning to acquire white scratch marks against red, raw skin. “I’ll sit back a few rows,” he added. “Not that it will make you any more comfortable.” Phil had a hard time looking Caroline in the eyes all of a sudden. “Can I get you anything?” he continued. “A glass of water? A shot to wash away the nerves?”

  “Tequila, please,” Caroline said with a calm, steady tone that surprised him.

  Phil glanced at his watch.

  “Aw hell, I think I need one too.”

  He walked behind the bar as the girl thought about what she had on beneath her street clothes—bike shorts and a sports bra. More material than any of my bathing suits, she thought to herself before leaving her dorm less than an hour before.

  Caroline walked up to the bar to retrieve her shot, which was a healthy pour. She clinked Phil’s glass, and the pair snapped their heads back in unison. Phil winced a bit. Caroline did not. For the second time in two days, a man found himself thinking that she was most definitely different from other girls.

  “Fine, then,” Phil said. “Any type of music in particular?”

  “Some classic rock. Please.”

  Phil blared Eric Clapton’s “Crossroads” loudly through the club’s speakers in an attempt to make them both feel like they weren’t alone in the club.

  As the lyrics accurately summarized Caroline’s feelings, the troubled one began losing herself in the dance just as she had learned to do so many years ago. And just as she was able to pull off her routines without having to think much about the choreography, she removed layers of herself without much thought or effort.

  Phil, as he always did with auditions, kept his eyes on the dancer’s eyes. He wanted to give the girls—and his wife at home—some kind of respect. He avoided letting his gaze stray to other parts of their bodies like his patrons inevitably would.

  Caroline wasn’t thinking about Phil’s presence in the room. Her late mother’s locket caught her eye as its diamonds matched a shiny pole that seemed to point toward the heavens. She moved closer to it with her right foot and placed her right hand on it. She intentionally fell forward and then pivoted back, finally linking the back of her other knee around it and spinning down backward. She thought of a fiery hell beneath the rickety floor. She lost more pieces of her innocence, little by little, until not much else was left but her mother’s locket.

  Phil had seen more than enough and stopped the music abruptly. Caroline snapped out of her zone, knowing she had done enough to get the job.

  “OK, then,” Phil said.

  He scurried back to the bar to clean their shot glasses and find other ways to keep busy as she pieced herself back together.

  “Well, you got the job,” he said. “Any nights you’d like. I know you have a busy schedule.”

  The visit had been emotional yet much less painful than Caroline imagined it would be. Oddly enough, she found Phil to be a gentleman. She wondered what run of bad luck had led him to a place like this. And she wondered if the run had resembled any piece of her own.

  “I’ll need you to fill out some paperwork, and we’ll have to talk about your first night and the policies here to protect you.”

  Caroline tugged at her locket. She wasn’t sure what she was feeling. She wondered if it could be happiness and sadness tangled into one. As she filled out the forms, her hand shook. It was something that always happened to her after performances.

  After shaking Phil’s hand a final time, she walked out of the club’s door and felt her phone buzzing in her bag. The caller belonged to a number she didn’t recognize.

  “Hello?”

  “Miss Caroline,” said a deep and confident voice. “It’s Devin.”

  Caroline blushed at the thought of the place she was leaving.

  “Oh, hey,” she said. “What are you doing?” It was the type of cool, casual response she always heard her roommate say over the phone to guys she liked.

  “Nothing, what are you doing?”

  Caroline searched for anything to change the subject.

  “So, anyway, no four-day rule?” she asked. She was used to guys trying to play games with her, including making her feel like she wasn’t worthy of a call until days following a first encounter.

  “Come on, Caroline, I don’t know who you’ve been dating lately, but they clearly don’t know how to treat a one-of-a-kind girl like you.”

  While other guys had to resort to the four-day rule to make them appear harder to get, the act always had the opposite effect on Caroline. Two suitors had tried it on her earlier in the semester, and neither got a first date for that reason alone. She had immediately chalked them up to being players. In reality, Devin was the most notorious of them all, but he never had to resort to any desperate measures to get a girl.

  “So when can I pick you up?” he asked.

  “Oh, here we go. For what?” />
  “Our first date. A momentous occasion. Our first of many.”

  “Oh, really! And which day will this be?”

  “Tonight, of course. Let me try this again, Caroline. What time can I pick you up?”

  Even when she was sober, there continued to be something about Devin that Caroline couldn’t resist. He was persistent. She felt his smile grab her through the phone. Her stomach flopped and she felt sweat finally begin to ease from a face that had managed to remain cool even through her audition.

  “I have cheerleading until five.”

  “Well, I have football practice until six. Look at us, Caroline. The all-American couple. And you are my classic girl,” he teased, thinking of the moment he had first seen her dancing alone at the previous night’s party.

  If his tone were serious, it would’ve made her feel sick from the sweetness, but as many of his comments would be throughout the course of their relationship, she knew he was being sarcastic. In this rare instance, it worked for him.

  “I’ll pick you up for dinner at seven,” he continued.

  CHAPTER 20

  HENRY

  The Shy One

  When Henry’s grandmother picked him up from school, the boy didn’t feel much like talking. He quietly settled into the family car and strapped the seatbelt across the unstylish green button-up shirt that had earned him the nickname of Polly Ester that morning.

  “See ya, Polly,” shouted a classmate who was waving wildly at Henry from the other side of his car window.

  The glass muffled the noise enough to mute the words for the elder woman’s aging ears. Henry felt grateful for that.

  “What did that boy just say?” she asked.

  “I don’t know, Grandma. Can we please go home?”

  “Of course.”

  When the pair made their way into their Brockton apartment, the air in the old building felt heavy and awkward. Henry went straight to his room without a word, as though he were being punished. For this eleven-year-old boy, punishment never came from his mother or grandmother, guardians who secretly dared to wish he would act up just once. His punishment didn’t come from the father he didn’t know. It always came from the kids at school.

  Folded neatly on his bed were the clothes that had been much dirtier and more wrinkled that morning before school. They were washed, dried, and organized now with a note from his mother on top of Henry’s favorite University of Boston sweatshirt.

  H -

  I missed you today. Sorry I was late getting to our laundry. You should’ve woken me up to help you and Grandma this morning. I’ll check in on you sleeping when I get back from the restaurant tonight. Looking forward to driving you to school tomorrow.

  xoxo,

  Mom

  Henry let the paper fall to the floor. He quickly unbuttoned his green shirt as though it were riddled with germs and tossed it into the empty laundry basket with a shiver in disgust.

  “What’s wrong, Henry?” his grandmother asked, peering through the doorway to his room.

  “Nothing, Grandma. The tag was really bothering me or something.”

  “Or somethin’,” she repeated quietly. “I’ll give ya some privacy. I’m going to find a bit to munch on if you wanna join me. Maybe we could tell each othah about ah days. I know I had a doozy of a mornin’ at the gas station. Can’t wait to tell ya all about it.”

  Henry reached for his favorite sweatshirt and began covering up.

  “Um, thanks. I might be out in a bit for a snack.”

  He sat down on his stiff bed. With his grandmother out of eyesight, he reached beneath his pillow for his secret writing pad and pen. Before unleashing the day’s emotions on the paper and trying to make sense of them there instead of in the kitchen with his grandmother, the boy sat up to straighten his lucky shirt. He hoped it would still be presentable enough to wear again tomorrow, when he hoped to run into a bit of luck for once.

  Twenty miles north of Brockton, Henry’s teacher was nearing the end of his daily commuter-to-green line trek home to Boston’s Allston neighborhood. He looked around at the eclectic mix of young adults and students on the train and noticed that nearly every rider was texting, tweeting, or talking on cell phones. He had grown annoyed with the devices for their powerful abilities to lure people away from the present moment, make bullying easier, and decrease personal interactions. Teach’s back smacked the seat as he resisted the urge to shout, “Wake up! Wake the heck up!”

  As he sat silently and sourly in passive disapproval, his own phone buzzed within his front pocket. He felt as though it was mocking him, and worried that his highly anticipated date that night could be calling to cancel.

  To Teach’s relief, he quickly recognized the caller as one of his buddies, a guy who had recently landed a job as a student relations specialist at University of Boston thanks to Teach’s connections at his alma mater.

  “I’ll find a way to repay you one of these days,” his buddy had said on the day the job offer came in.

  Teach couldn’t help but wonder what kind of favor the guy needed now. He hoped his friend hadn’t lost the job already. He pressed the talk button and joined the crew of distracted passengers.

  “Hello!”

  “Teach! I finally found a way to get you back, dude.”

  “You’re a hammer.”

  “You’re a hippie. Anyway, you know I’m a Michigan State diehard till I die.”

  “You’re a Michigan diehard,” razzed Teach. “Hmm. Well, good thing you are a new employee of UB then.”

  “Funny. Well, that’s my whole point, really. Listen! I was told my prestigious position here is guaranteed a few bowl tickets out of the reserved ones for staff, students, and very select alumni as a bonus for the overtime and complete madness that’s about to ensue when your University of Boston Falcons land a major game in the coming days.”

  “That’s great for you,” Teach said as he quietly hoped that his prediction over where the conversation might be heading was correct.

  “You can have ’em.”

  “Get the heck out!”

  “All three of ’em.”

  “You sure? I mean, you’re a football fanatic too,” Teach said.

  “Yeah, man, but unless my Spartans miraculously earn a spot against these undefeated Boston Falcons of yours—which they won’t—I’d prefer watching my employer’s team from the comfort of my own apartment, complete with a plasma TV, high def, a reasonably priced case of Long Trail Double Bag, and a takeout meatball parm sub from Bob’s Italian Foods in Medford. Medfahd. Medfahhhhd.”

  “Sounds like you have your mind made up, then.”

  “I do, dude. I really appreciate you landing me this job. Seriously, I’ve been trying to come up with a way to thank you. You’ve made my dear mother so happy. You’ve made me happy. She’s not calling me every day to harass me. It’s all right up my alley. It’s great work. And of course it’s nice hanging around the young lady students and all.”

  “You’re getting too old for that talk,” said Teach.

  “Whatever. I’m still in the same age decade as them.”

  “Age decade? Maybe the seniors. And only for one more year until you hit thirty.”

  “Any more of this talk and I may rescind my offer and just put the tickets up for sale online when they come in.”

  “OK, OK, let’s not do anything irrational,” Teach said. “What can I say? You are a kind, generous man. And wise too, because I totally agree with your previous statement. Your Spartans have no chance of getting into the same caliber bowl game as Boston.”

  “Now I really may hang up on you. But speaking of ladies. What have you got going on? I haven’t seen you with any kind of girlfriend in months, Teach. Who was that last one? That annoying girl with a face to match.”

  “Oh, stop it. You are so shallow.”

  “No way, dude. I know what I know, and you’re in a serious drought, buddy.”

  “Actually, I have a date tonight,” Teach said
.

  “Tonight? With who?”

  “She’s a blonde dental student at Tufts. She’s smart.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “You don’t know her.”

  “I’m going to plug the old girl into some social medias to see if you speakah-zee-truth.”

  Teach reluctantly provided the girl’s name, even though he didn’t quite feel like he had something to prove.

  “Don’t you have better things to do in that office of yours, anyway?” Teach asked.

  “I’ve been cranking out A-quality work, my man. I’m allowed to take a five-minute break to talk with my friend. Hang on. Here she is. I’ve got her up. Whoa! Solid 9.5.”

  “Let’s just hope she has the personality to match. Hey, man, thanks. Seriously, thank you for the tickets,” Teach said.

  “One more thing.”

  “What’s that?” asked Teach.

  “Medfahd. I just love saying the town of Medfahd.”

  “Later, weirdo.”

  “Bye!”

  Teach pocketed his phone in grand spirits. The news of the bowl tickets overshadowed even the upcoming date that had been preoccupying him. In Allston, the trolley squawked around the bend of Commonwealth and Brighton avenues as though it were tired from a day’s work. A descending December sun peered through a couple of brick apartment buildings and dimly illuminated Teach’s face. If all went well with tonight’s date, he might ask the girl to accompany him in a few weeks to a bowl game. The hottest tickets in town should impress her, he thought.

  “Next. Stop. St. Paul Street.”

  As the side doors thumped open accordion-style, a trio of college students stepped aboard. They were dressed all in black, from their combat boots to their backpacks. Their hairstyles were greasy and colored unnaturally darker than midnight. They spoke to no one, not even each other. The only feature that bothered Teach was the apparent lack of happiness on their faces. The other passengers couldn’t help but stare. Teach wondered about the kids’ stories and thought of Henry’s torture on the playground that morning for simply wearing an unfashionable shirt. He wondered where Henry’s adolescence would take him and whether the boy would be happy. He wondered if he could use a mentor.