“My friend’s name was Dan Brown,” Norm would say. “Maybe you’ve heard of him?” At that point the listener was suddenly staring slack-jawed at Norm like he or she had just seen Medusa. Operation Occupation Revelation Avoidance complete!
Norm’s shade of the truth was enough to ease his conscience and spin a wildly entertaining tale, all while sidestepping the question. Who wants to hear that I work at a call center and sometimes fake an Indian accent when customers get curt with me? he asked himself. And besides, is it all that important that my friend’s name is William Daniel Brown or that the book we were going to write together before I was too lazy to help and he kicked me off the project was called Troubling Tribbles and Other Inconsistencies in the Star Trek Galaxy and never sold more than 200 copies outside of regional Trekkie conventions? Norm reasoned to himself.
Norm lived a whimsical life – but it was all up in his head. Lacking motivation as well as someone in his life who showed even the remotest bit of confidence in him resulted in a staid existence. Combine that with his penchant for making poor decisions – which usually were disguised as the inability to decide – and you had a guy going nowhere at breakneck speed.
Even his own name said it all. Norm. In creative writing assignments, Norm was what you named the guy at the end of the bar who never had anything really all that interesting to say. He was chatty and obnoxious. He fancied himself as an all-important figure in the lives of everyone he met. But he wasn’t a hero, tragic or otherwise. He was simply a guy who just got by as life passed him by.
And that’s exactly how Norm felt. Every. Day. Of. His. Life.
Except this one.
***
The cries for citizens to help began to fade as the police officers scrambled to keep up with Norm. At least I’m faster than those cops, Norm thought and smiled as he began to realize just how far ahead his legs had taken him. The moment unfolding before Norm was now all of two minutes old but it felt strangely familiar to him. This was exactly how Norm imagined this moment in his head, though he never knew how he would muster up the nerve to execute his plan.
Norm rounded the corner carefully as to not collide with a busy shopper while maintaining as much speed as possible. The slick sheet of ice on the sidewalk made this a challenging obstacle to navigate, but Norm succeeded. He headed north on Clark Street.
Norm began to feel a more intense burning sensation that included not only his lungs but now his thighs and calf muscles. Adrenaline coursed through his body and at any moment Norm felt like he might simply punch a fist skyward and launch into the air like a comic book superhero. This must be what it feels like to be alive, Norm thought.
Despite the throbbing pain, Norm wondered if he could run any faster.
Then the faint cries for help were suddenly drowned out by piercing police sirens. Back up was on its way.
Norm found another gear.
***
Working at a call center and helping people figure out how to get their Blu-ray DVD players functional again wouldn’t be so bad if not for the loneliness Norm had to endure. When the only people you talk to on the phone are the ones calling you because they can’t find the power switch, you’ve got more than a relational problem – you’re at DEFCON 5 when it comes to your social life. Your life flashes before you and you can begin to picture yourself as Gollum, a ghoulish balding creature climbing up the side of craggy rock face and muttering “my precious” to himself.
Norm shuddered when he thought about his likely future. Sadly enough, Norm’s loneliness only seemed to compound upon itself. The more Norm felt sorry for himself and lost all confidence in his ability to make friends, the less Norm felt like making an effort. Excruciating was the level of pain Norm experienced when being even the least bit vulnerable to someone. He found it much easier to hide behind his embellished versions of himself. But so obsessed was Norm with creating an alternate version of himself, that he clammed up when an opportunity to make a new friend came his way. A real friend? Norm didn’t see it that way. He merely saw the potential friend as someone who would discover that Norm’s hot air capacity rivaled the Hindenburg’s. What kind of friend would that be? Norm thought, wondering how he could possibly befriend someone who exposed his life as sheer fiction.
Norm still longed for a friend like William, someone with whom he could talk about his passion for writing and his dream of one day ditching the call center to become a best-selling coming-of-age novelist. But he preferred it in the form of a woman. However, the mere thought of such a relationship only dredged up deep pain.
There was rarely a time in Norm’s life when he didn’t think he was ugly to look at. A shaggy mop of dark brown hair with deep set hazel eyes seemed like the beginnings of a handsome guy. But a protruding square jaw and a pointy nose offset such positive traits, dominating them into submission. And in the end, it was all anybody saw when people looked at Norm.
It didn’t help that one night as a small child while his mother was reading the book I Love You Stinky Face to him that Norm’s father said, “Elaine, why are you reading that again to him? It’s bad enough that the book is about him, but does little Stinky Face need to have it drilled into him?”
“Mom, is this book about me?”
His mother didn’t answer. She slammed the book shut and hurried out of the room, unable to reply as tears gushed forth.
***
As Norm glanced over his shoulder again, he fought back his tears. But these weren’t tears of joy—or pain, for that matter. They were unstoppable tears, the kind that only make an appearance when you’re racing into the wind.
However, they might as well have some emotion connected with them because Norm had plenty of things worth crying about: the burning pain in his legs, the regret of making stupid mistakes in his life, the ever-growing lump in his throat. How would he explain this situation to his co-workers who might be peering onto the street below?
Norm figured there was sufficient time to concoct a believable story later. No time to waste any more brain waves on something that wouldn’t help him accomplish his immediate goal. If only he had back all those hours he had already spent in his life trying to attain unachievable goals …
***
The knockout blow to Norm’s self-esteem and perception of his looks came his junior year of high school through a sinister plot by some diabolical classmates. He should’ve known that the light at the end of his tunnel was most definitely a screaming freight train, not glimmering hope.
Despite his homely appearance, Norm still clung to some shred of hope that one day he would find a girl to go out with him that wasn’t named Eunice Snodgrass. Her name in no way belied her beauty—and Norm knew if he were to ever get a date in high school, she would be it. But even he struggled to hold his nose and swallow that reality.
One day Norm spouted off in the locker room after P.E. class in an effort to seem tough and began talking about what a ladies’ man he was. The room erupted into laughter at the mere suggestion. But one group of jocks decided to do more than mock Norm – they wanted to utterly humiliate him.
With Norm playing into their hands by bragging about his prowess with the lady folk, this cruel group of guys set an evil plan in motion. First, there were anonymous love notes. Then there were phone calls in which the jocks coerced a vicious cheerleader to join in their plot. She called Norm once a week at first and then more frequently, telling him how cute she thought he was. Norm enjoyed their conversations until one day he said they should meet and she should shed the anonymous veil since it was clear that they were meant to be together.
As Norm’s affinity for his secret lover grew, the plan only became more diabolical in nature. The hook was firmly set in Norm – and once they reeled him in, it would devastate him.
Finally, the mystery lover agreed to meet Norm at lunch in the school cafeteria in a week. She said she would be wearing a pink blouse with the word “Norm” plastered across the front.
In P.
E., Norm talked up the arrival of his “hot” girlfriend, confident that the caller’s voice was anyone other than Eunice. And for Norm, any girl other than Eunice was considered “hot” by his standards. The guys only laughed at Norm, knowing what embarrassment lay before him.
At the prescribed noon hour in the cafeteria, Warren Hogan – an offensive lineman on the football team – sashayed out of the bathroom wearing a green skirt with a pink blouse with the word “Norm” emblazoned across the front of it. Norm was horrified.
He quickly stormed out of the cafeteria, fleeing ground zero of his social life at a rapid rate. As he was running, he quickly awakened to the fact that his regular phone conversations with his mystery girlfriend were nothing more than a devilish prank. Thoroughly eviscerated by pubescent punks, Norm knew his dating life was finished. His confidence level when it came to talking with girls plummeted from very low to non-existent. Norm resigned himself to the fact that casual dating would have to wait – and events like the prom would have to go on without him.
But who was he kidding? Stinky Face needed to come back to reality.
***
The bitter wind howling off Lake Michigan abruptly ended painful reflections on Norm’s past. So far his entry into this impromptu foot race was going well, but the sprint was beginning to feel like a marathon.
Until his next destination became apparent – the U.S. Post Office parking garage.
Dashing across the street, Norm took the most direct route down into the underground facility. Instead of racing through an endless maze of unknown streets in a heavily populated area, Norm felt comfortable in a place he knew so well.
His father had worked as a mail carrier for more than 20 years at the downtown building adjacent to this parking garage. Through accompanying his father to work on many snow days and other official business, Norm knew the layout of the garage as well as anyone. Once you entered the bowels of the parking deck, there was only one way out – and Norm headed straight there.
As he raced down the spiraling ramp to the bottom floor of the deck, his heart began to thump at an alarming rate. What’s going to happen to me? he thought, trying to push aside the uncomfortable thought. Will I live or die? If I die, will I be shot or suffer some other unpleasant death? Norm struggled to escape the undertow of negativity threatening to pull him under. This is your moment, Norm, he tried to convince himself as the moment of reckoning drew near.
There was only one question that really mattered: Would the door be open?
Norm rounded the final corner and his most pertinent question was answered. His heart began pounding even more. The door was shut tight.
***
After Norm’s public humiliation reached full throttle in the school’s rumor mill, the teasing he endured went from casual to spiteful. There was a time when most people left Norm alone because, while incredibly scrawny and geeky, he was harmless. Those days vanished when Warren Hogan skirted up. A drive-by put down of Norm earned classmates high fives and ten seconds of popularity. But the game grew increasingly more abusive.
Verbal attacks eventually escalated to something much worse – physical beat downs. It started with “Norm Noogies”, where members of the football team held Norm in a headlock while one appointed torturer rubbed Norm’s head so hard and so long that Norm was sure he would be bald before he graduated. Super wedgies then became popular, resulting in Norm hanging for sometimes as long as 15 minutes on locker room coat hooks before a compassionate soul helped him down. Then there was the Dump and Dash where Norm found himself drawn before being flung into the dumpster as his perpetrators made a quick getaway.
That was the final body blow Norm was willing to absorb.
Norm told his dad that he wanted to learn karate to help defend himself at school. After watching his son return home day after day crying over painful bruises and hurt feelings, Norm’s dad didn’t hesitate to sign him up for classes the next day. Aside from memorizing the entire bios of the original Star Trek’s cast and crew, martial arts became Norm’s new passion in life. The discipline he learned from restraint and suffering to become better quickly paid dividends. In 18 months, Norm earned a black belt – but he didn’t wait that long to exact revenge on his unsuspecting tormentors. It only took one event six months later to end the ruthless cruelty.
Calm and calculated was Norm’s approach when it appeared a Dump and Dash was in order for him one afternoon. He didn’t resist when two jocks grabbed his feet and two more grabbed his arms. They made comments about his mother and called him a few choice names. But Norm waited to unleash his fury. He wanted to make sure the epic beat down he was about to deliver would forever end his daily brazen ridicule.
When the four henchman and their leader arrived at the dumpster, a crowd had already gathered to watch impending the comedic moment where Norm emerged from the dumpster covered in schoolyard trash. But that moment never arrived. Instead, Norm squirmed free before delivering two roundhouse kicks that stunned the boys who only moments before were holding Norms’ feet. Then two swift punches to the guts of the pair of slack-jawed boys who had held him by the arms. A pile of bruised egos lay at Norm’s feet. Then he delivered his message – as if it wasn’t already clear.
“Stop. Picking. On. Me!” Norm said to the ring-leader turned get-away-plan mastermind. The gawkers scrambled for their cars.
The thoroughly beaten boys scrambled to get up and took off as well, still unsure of what just happened. Norm felt a sense of pride for being able to defend himself but held contempt for the means.
And that was that.
Norm finished the remainder of his high school career just like he started it – and just like he came to like it: everyone steered clear of him and no one said a word to him.
Of course, he liked it that no one would talk to him with the exception of Rebecca Alford. He could never muster up the courage to start a conversation or at least give her any indication that he shared air on planet Earth with her. The way her shiny brown hair swung from side to side just above her shoulders as she walked down the hall …
Norm would catch himself staring at her walking away, only to turn red from extreme embarrassment when she looked back over her shoulder in his direction. He was sure that Rebecca had seen him with her radiant blue eyes and that his status as a stalker would be known. Yet, his assumptions proved false when he finally mustered up the courage to talk to her after spotting her shopping alone at a nearby mall.
This was Norm’s perfect opportunity to introduce himself. No school hall shame or humiliation would befall him. Though he couldn’t become any bigger of a pariah than he already was, he had a chance to take a risk-free leap and showing her he existed. So he walked steadily toward her as she stood frozen staring at her phone while typing out a text message.
As Norm grew within conversational earshot, he spoke.
“Hi, Rebecca,” he said, stammering and turning beet red.
“Uh, do I know you?” Rebecca asked cautiously.
“Well, kind of. We’re in the same class at Washington High.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I don’t recognize you,” she said.
“Well, sorry to bother you.”
Norm put his head down and quickly slinking off before making an attempt to explain himself.
She still didn’t know his name.
And that was the last significant risk Norm had taken – outside of ditching his normal Spock costume for a James T. Kirk get up at a Trekkie convention two years ago – until now.
***
Upon realizing the door was shut, Norm had only two remaining fears – that the purse-snatching assailant he had been chasing for three blocks had either an access card or a weapon. When the thug furiously yanked on the door handle to no avail, he turned around to meet Norm’s foot, which had been sailing through the air for the better part of four yards.
Thwack!
The attacker’s head ping-ponged against the locked door thanks to Norm’s flying front k
ick. The thief slunk to the parking deck’s concrete floor and received two more swift kicks to the stomach before going limp.
Norm rolled the attacker over and wrapped his arms behind his back, anxiously awaiting the police to arrive.
While the adrenaline high Norm experienced was quickly crashing, a wave of doubt began to wash over him. What if this guy still has a weapon and is about to jump up and attack me? Norm pondered to himself. It was all too unlikely after the way Norm’s sneak attack quickly rendered the man immobile. But then again, this was Norm. Confidence was something he held in surplus.
After 45 seconds – which seemed like 15 minutes to Norm – the police arrived on the scene.
“Great work, kid,” said one of the officers as he gasped for his breath. “We’ll take it from here.”
Norm got up and admired his trophy catch – a thug in handcuffs. Of course, it would have to happen in a parking garage, out of the public eye and devoid of any chance that he might be hailed as a Christmas Eve hero for that old lady.
The old lady! Norm thought. Where is she? I can at least give her the purse back!
Intrigue (Stories of Suspense) Page 10
