But You Scared Me the Most

by John Manderino

  “I wasn’t scared. All I said—”

  “Fear of the unknown,” she said in a spooky voice.

  “I wasn’t scared, okay?”

  “Don’t shout at me, Paul.”

  They ate.

  “Your father was the most narrow-minded eater I ever saw. He thought anything on his plate besides meat was just . . . what’s the word I want . . . not ‘decoration’ . . .”

  “‘Garnish.’”

  “Garnish. Couldn’t think of it.”

  She was quiet then.

  He went on eating.

  “That’s been happening to me a lot lately, Paul,” she said after a minute. “A blank spot where a word should be. Like ‘garnish,’ or . . . what was it earlier I couldn’t think of, when you throw things for a dog . . .”

  “‘Fetch,’” he said with his mouth full.

  “That was it. Now, I ask you, is that such a difficult word?”

  He went on eating.

  “Paul, what if I’m . . . oh God, hon, what if I’m coming down with . . . what’s it called . . . when you lose your mind . . .”

  “Alzheimer’s.”

  “See? I couldn’t think of it!” She laid down her fork and sat there with her hands in her lap, staring off.

  Paul stabbed another water chestnut and held it up. “What’re these called again?”

  She looked. “Water chestnuts.”

  “Oh yeah.” He put it in his mouth. “Couldn’t think of it.”

  She nodded at him, smiling softly, as he went on eating. “You’re a nice boy, Paul. Do you know that?”

  “All right.”

  “Whether you like it or not, you’re a very nice—”

  “All right.”

  “Don’t shout at me, hon.”

  “I wasn’t shouting.”

  “Well, don’t.”

  They ate.

  “I wish he would grow back his mustache,” Mrs. Wilcox said from her end of the couch. “I liked him so much better in a mustache.”

  Sprawled at his end, still in his pajamas and mask, a large bag of corn chips between his thighs, Paul said, “Peter Pan.”

  “Question, hon,” she reminded him. “In the form of a question.”

  They watched.

  “Amelia Earhart,” he said.

  “Who, Paul, who is Amelia Earhart.”

  “Aviator.”

  “No, I’m saying . . . never mind.”

  They watched.

  “He’s Canadian, you know,” she told him, as she did every time. “They’re very sophisticated, Canadian men.”

  They watched.

  She laughed. “And I love his sense of humor. Very dry, very Canadian. Like their ginger ale.”

  They watched.

  “Oh I know this one,” she said. “Small, blonde, very cute, oh God what is her name?” She sagged. “Meg Ryan. Of course.” She looked at Paul. “See, hon? How I’m getting?”

  He placed a corn chip through the mouth of the mask.

  “If I find one corn-chip crumb on this couch, so help me God,” she promised.

  A shampoo commercial came on, a beautiful red-haired woman staring deep into Paul’s eyes as she told him she deserves it. He squirmed just a little.

  “Pretty girl, isn’t she?” his mother said, and looked at him. “Very attractive, don’t you think?”

  “Quit it.”

  When the show came back Mrs. Wilcox clicked her tongue. “I hate this, where he talks to them.” She picked up the remote from her lap and studied it. “Where’s the mute on this one? I can never . . . here it is.” She pressed a button. “That’s better.” She began speaking for the contestant, a tall woman in narrow glasses. “Well, Alex,” she said in a fussy voice. “Once? I was getting on a bus? And I didn’t have the exact change? And the driver wouldn’t let me on? And I said ‘Oh no’ and ran home and got some change and waited for the next bus? And by the time I got to work? I was almost late!”

  Paul chuckled quietly. “What’s this one saying?”

  “Him? Well. He’s telling Alex all about the time when he was a little boy and his mother caught him going through her dresser looking at her underwear, at her bras and her soft, pretty panties, feeling with his fingers, and she gave him such a spanking on his cute little bare behind he couldn’t sit down for a week, not for a week, Alex.”

  Paul was slouching now almost horizontal.

  “And this one,” his mother went on, as Alex stepped over to the champion, “he’s telling Alex all about the time he cheated on his young wife and she caught him and it turned out it wasn’t the first time and he ended up joining the marines, even though she was three months pregnant, and got himself blown up in some godforsaken place called Beirut, and yet here he is, a three-time returning champion.”

  She aimed the remote and pressed a button for the sound.

  Along with the tall woman in glasses Paul ran the entire column of classic movie quotes. There was applause from the audience, his mother joining in while sadly shaking her head: “Oh, hon, it breaks my heart, it really does. Someone so special, so gifted, yet here he sits, in his pajamas, in a Halloween mask, in the middle of the afternoon, watching a game show with his mommy. I tell ya, Paul, it just about breaks my—”

  With a Frankenstein roar he got to his feet, the bag falling from his lap, corn chips spilling onto the carpet. He stepped on them as he lurched off, stiffly waving his arms all around.

  “Oh, that’s right, I forgot!” she hollered, getting up and following him, her face thrust forward. “You never had a mommy, you were assembled by a mad scientist, I keep forgetting!”

  He closed the door in her face, locked it, and went lurching and waving his arms all around the room.

  “And he put the wrong brain in your head,” she went on, “from the wrong jar, the brain of a lazy loafer who lives off his mother while treating her like she’s some kind of pest, some kind of nuisance! But that’s not your fault, is it. It’s not your brain, it’s someone else’s. How convenient, Paul, how very convenient!” she shouted, then returned to the den and the rest of Jeopardy!

  Paul stood there. Then he sat at his desk and took up his pen:

  I hate when she thinks she’s on to me, like she has me all figured out. What does she think, I enjoy wearing this thing? It’s hot and has a nauseating rubber smell, that’s how much I enjoy it. She doesn’t know me. Nobody does. I didn’t ask for this, for any of this.

  The telephone out in the living room rang.

  He waited, listening.

  “Hello?” she said. Then: “May I ask who’s calling?”

  Oh Jesus.

  “Just a moment please, I’ll see if he’s in.”

  Oh Jesus.

  She came and knocked. “Paul, telephone,” she said, low and urgent. “It’s a Mr. Cooper, about the job. He wants to talk to you. I think he wants to take you, hon. Hire you. Should I tell him to hold on, you’ll be right there? My son’s been hoping to hear from you? Is that what you want me to say?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Paul? Honey?”

  “What.”

  “Is that what you want me to tell him, that you really want this job? This is something you really want to do? Walk around all night in a gloomy warehouse? Aren’t you gloomy enough, hon?”

  He turned around in his chair and looked at the door.

  “Should I tell him you’re not home? You’re down at the park with your dog, Buster, throwing a stick so he can bring it back in his mouth—what’s the word again for that? So I can tell him.”

  “‘Fetch,’” he said.

  “‘Fetch.’ Couldn’t think of it. That’s been happening to me a lot lately, have I told you? I don’t remember. See what I mean? And now I can’t remember the man’s name on the phone!”

  “Cooper.”

  “That was it. I’ll tell him, ‘I’m sorry, Mr. Cooper, but Paul is down at the park playing fetch with his dog Buster. He loves that dog. And he loves his mother. He doesn’t
think he does but he does. And I love my son. He’s a good boy, Mr. Cooper, a sweet boy, and I’m sorry but you can’t have him. So thank you for calling, have a nice day.’ That’s what I’ll say to him, Paul, that’s what I’ll tell him,” she said, heading back to the phone.

  Paul stood up and yanked off the mask, crying “Waaait!”

  OSCAR

  It was a pleasant early-September evening. I had the car window down, elbow out, a block and a half away from my condo, coming home from work. I’m an attorney at Hampton and Chandler, specializing in wills and estate taxes, been there less than three years and already I’m being mentioned for an associate partner. The car hit a bump. I was busy with the radio—this song I like was on but there was static, so I was fiddling with the dial and took my eyes off the road and hit this bump, which cleared the static—and I shouted out the chorus:

  You! Shook me all! Night! Long!

  Yeah you! Shook me all! Night! Long!

  I pulled up in front of my condo but stayed in the car finishing the song:

  You really took me and you!

  Shook me all! Night! Long!

  Afterwards I’m in the condo, humming the song, hanging up my tie, my suit jacket, trying to decide whether or not to take a quick shower before picking up Megan, just to get rid of the office. Megan was my fiancée, Megan Chandler, the boss’s lovely daughter. We were getting married October 23rd, reception at Ramada Inn, Aruba for the honeymoon, then a house in Glenview, two kids, boy and a girl, Scott Jr. and Brittany, perhaps a Siamese cat named Cleo. For tonight, though, we had dinner reservations at Raoul’s, afterwards a movie—we hadn’t decided which one, something to discuss over dinner.

  There was a loud knock at the door—more of a kick, actually.

  I went over and looked through the peephole. It was Pinkie. That was how I thought of her, this very overweight woman who lives a couple blocks up the road in a trailer painted bright pink, who always dresses in pink, usually in what she was wearing now, this pink sweatsuit. Looking through the peephole it took me a couple moments to figure out what she was holding in her arms. It was this little wiener dog of hers. It was dead. There wasn’t any gore that I could see, but it was dead all right, the way it was lying so limp. Pinkie was sobbing.

  I opened the door. “Help you?”

  “Monster!”

  “Beg pardon?”

  “Monster!”

  “Please explain why you’re calling me that.”

  She held out the dog. “You did this!”

  “I killed your dog? What’re you, nuts?”

  “You ran over him and just kept going! Singing away!”

  That bump in the road.

  I apologized, sincerely. I told her I certainly hadn’t meant to run over the thing, that I hadn’t even known, and if I had known I certainly wouldn’t have gone on singing. I also pointed out that if her dog was going to be running around in the street, she needed to realize the driver can in no way be held liable, provided he was going the speed limit, which I was.

  She repeated I was a monster.

  I took out my wallet. “Let me at least reimburse you. I’m not legally bound to, not in any way, but I would like to. Forty, would you say?”

  She stared at me.

  “Sixty?”

  “Monster!”

  I put my wallet back. “All right, look. I’m very sorry about your dog—did it have a name, by the way?”

  “Oscar!”

  “I’m very sorry about Oscar and I mean that sincerely, but as it happens I’m running a little late right now, so let me just say once again how truly sorry I am and that I hope you can find a way to move on from this unfortunate, purely accidental tragedy,” gradually closing the door in her face.

  “Monster!”

  I looked through the peephole. After giving the door a final kick she went away, Oscar in her arms. I went over to the couch and flopped there on my back. “Jesus,” I whispered, still seeing that fat, red face calling me a monster.

  The phone on the glass coffee table rang.

  I let the machine answer it, in case it was dead dog related. It was Megan. “Hi, sweetheart,” she said. She’d been calling me that for about a month now, ever since we got engaged. I thought I liked it but now it made me cringe a little. “Just checking to make sure we’re still on for tonight,” she said. “You’ll be by at six thirty, right?”

  I picked it up. “Right. See you then.”

  “Guess what I’m going to wear.”

  “No idea. I’ll see you then.”

  “Scott?”

  “Yeah?”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Something.”

  I told her, “I just had a very . . . bizarre encounter.”

  “Oh?”

  “This woman down the road came by.”

  “A woman? What woman?”

  “A big fat woman in a pink sweatsuit, all right?”

  “Why are you shouting at me?”

  “Sorry.”

  “A big fat woman . . .” she prompted.

  “With a dead dog in her arms.”

  She was quiet for a moment. “A big fat woman with a dead dog in her arms came by?”

  “Apparently I killed the thing.”

  “No.”

  “Yes.”

  “How? What happened?”

  “I ran over it.”

  “Oh God, with your car?”

  “Yes, Megan, with my car.”

  “Scott, you’re yelling at me again.”

  “I thought it was a bump in the road. I didn’t think it was a dog.”

  “Did you explain to her?”

  “I tried to. She just kept calling me a monster.”

  “Well . . . I’m sure she didn’t mean it. She was just upset.”

  “I even offered to pay for the thing.”

  “Pay for the dog?”

  “I went up to sixty dollars.”

  “Scott . . .”

  “What the hell else could I do?”

  “Did you at least say you were sorry?”

  “Of course I did.”

  “And were you?”

  “What the hell is this, Megan?”

  “I would like to know, Scott. Did you feel bad?”

  “For the woman, you mean?”

  “Did you?”

  I thought about it. “I guess I would have to say . . . no, not especially.”

  She didn’t say anything.

  “Maybe if she didn’t keep calling me a monster, you know?”

  “What about the dog?”

  “What about it?”

  “Did you feel bad for the dog at least?”

  “You’re starting to piss me off, Megan, you know that?”

  “Well, I’m sorry. It’s just . . . I mean . . .”

  “What. You mean what.”

  “You didn’t care about the woman . . . didn’t care about the dog . . .”

  “And you’re wondering if maybe she was right about me.”

  “I don’t think you’re a monster, Scott.”

  “Well, thank you. That’s about the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

  We were quiet. This was our first real argument.

  “Can I ask you something?” she said.

  “Go ahead.”

  “Do you love me?”

  I thought about it.

  “Scott?”

  “Let me get back to you,” I said, and hung up.

  What a feeling!

  I walked all around the apartment, arms spread wide. “If I am a monster, then I shall be one!” I declared, actually using the word “shall.”

  The phone rang.

  I let it. Megan came on, crying now. “Scott, please pick up? We need to talk. Sweetheart, please? Don’t do this? Please don’t do this to us?”

  She sounded so pathetic I hurried over, but she hung up before I could get there.

  I started poking her number, thinking, I’ll te
ll her how sorry I am, that I was upset, the dead dog, all that, I’ll be over at six thirty, we’ll go to Raoul’s, afterwards a movie, get married next month, fly to Aruba. Before punching the last number I looked off, pictured us lying side by side on the beach: This is so wonderful, Scott, isn’t it? Scott? Isn’t it?

  I set the phone back down.

  I sat on the couch.

  I got up and walked around.

  I sat on the couch again.

  I got up and left the apartment.

  I headed on down the road. It was a pleasant evening, as I mentioned. I knocked on Pinkie’s trailer. I wasn’t sure what I wanted. I knocked again, louder.

  “Back here!” she hollered.

  I went around the back. There was a small yard, hardly any grass, mostly just bare dirt and dog turds. Pinkie was whacking down a smallish mound with the back of a shovel. She looked up and I stopped walking. She went back to work and I stepped up closer.

  She tossed away the shovel. “Kneel,” she told me.

  “Beg pardon?”

  She got down on her knees on the other side of the little mound, put her hands together, and looked at me, waiting.

  I checked around my feet for dog turds, got down, and folded my hands.

  She lifted her eyes towards Heaven. “Lord? I don’t know whether dogs are allowed in Your Kingdom, I don’t know your pet policy, but I’m asking You to let Oscar through those gates. He won’t give You any trouble, Lord, I guarantee. He was a good little dog, a happy little fella. He got run over by this young man right here. He says he didn’t mean it, says he didn’t even know, too busy singing away, singing so loud he couldn’t hear the screams of a little dog he was crushing to death, a sweet little creature who never hurt anyone, Lord, who just wanted to run around and play, that’s all, just run around and play in the sun. Oh look, Lord. He’s crying.”

  She came over and helped me up. She walked me to the trailer, into her little pink-tiled kitchen, sat me down at a pink Formica table, and poured us both some coffee. She asked me if I meant what I’d said earlier about sixty dollars. She’d like to buy a headstone.

  I gladly got my wallet out and laid three twenties down.

  We drank our coffee and considered what the headstone ought to say. She went and got a pen and paper. I suggested something simple: Here lies Oscar, a good little dog.