4,083 Words
Copyright © 1997 by Justus E. Taylor
"I consider this dedication today as possibly the
most meaningful tribute, I, as President of these United States have ever
paid to the body politic of this great nation. That is because this
monument, to the Unknown Person, symbolizes the toils, struggles,
disappointments and bravery of the ninety-nine percent of our people who
pay their bills, raise their children, clean their houses, wash their cars,
use Hamburger Helper and do a thousand other difficult things during their
anonymous lifetimes. They are heroes. We never hear of them,
but they are sitting next to each of us right now. We will never
see them on TV, but collectively they are more important than any president,
any general, any star or athlete. They are the real America,
and this monument here in Arlington National Cemetery is for them!
Thank you."
The scene on the TV immediately shifted to a news
anchorman who began commenting about the fact that it was an election year
and there seemed to be no act of grandstanding that was too corny or facetious
for the vote hungry President or his opponents. Delroy got up from
the table in the air-conditioned lunchroom of the Richter Mercedes Benz
dealership of Hudson, New York, and switched off the old black-and-white
TV that sat on a high shelf in a corner of the room. In the middle
of the few seconds of silence while he did this, his stomach loudly announced,
"pergloogle, pergloogle, pergloogle." The four other workers in the room
broke into peals of laughter and Knuckles, the company joker, asked Delroy
the familiar question, "You had somethin fishy for dinner again last night
Delroy?" And the laughter broke out anew, as it had been doing for at least
three weeks.
Dr. Havytmaid's partly cleaned 1997 E-Class Mercedes
looked almost inviting to Delroy Baker as he returned to his work station
in a corner of the dealership's garage. The corner contained the
pressure washer, the hoses, the vacuum cleaner, the steam cleaning machine,
assorted brushes, soft towels, glass cleaner, body wax and a tire sidewall
glaze called "Armor All." He felt he had been at war with his twenty-two-year-old stomach for several weeks and that he was losing. That is, if you judged by how often his stomach was making those weird noises and by how
loud they were getting. He opened all of the car's doors and began
checking for litter between the seat cushions and under the seats too,
feeling glad that since the doctor brought the car in every month, he never
had that much cleaning to do.
"Probably takes it off his taxes," he was muttering
to himself as his hand swept beneath the driver's seat-and pushed out a
folded copy of the Wall Street Journal. He picked up the paper and
unfolded it, revealing the front page, and also causing a pair of silk
panties to fall to floor. A used and dried condom was stuck to the top
of the page, partly obstructing the word "Journal," so that at first glance
the name of the paper seemed to be "The Wall Street Urinal." After
he picked up the panties, and before he threw them in the trash, it crossed
his mind that maybe he should save them. They might be worth some
money to the doctor...or to his wife! But he threw them in the trash
because, in truth, he was afraid of the doctor. Afraid of losing
his job. He needed this job even though he considered it his punishment
for dropping out of high school with still a year to go. And although
he was a well-built five-foot eight and a half, no amount of fantasizing
had ever made him believe that he would someday be a TV or movie star.
Not even in porn.
As Delroy was about to chuck the newspaper into the
trash, the word "Brain," in a title on the front page caught his eye and
he stopped to read the column. In moments he was transfixed by the story of a report in a medical journal that said that it had recently been
discovered that every person had two brains--one in the skull and
one in the stomach and intestines. They called the new discovery
the, "Visceral Brain," and it was said to be able to sense danger
and well-being. It could cause the other brain to experience fear,
along with a desire to dash to the nearest toilet. Delroy was fascinated.
This information seemed especially intended for him. He considered
that he had not been able to manage in school with the only brain he thought
he had, but now all of a sudden here was this miracle that said
his body had a second thinking place. A place where he might
be a genius! His stomach happened to growl loudly at that very moment,
"urp!"
He became so engrossed in his reading that he failed
to notice the approach of one of the assistant managers, Mr. Stenson.
Stenson ripped the paper from Delroy's hands and glared at him. Delroy
frantically rummaged through his mind for some plausible explanation, while
Stenson looked at the paper and realized he had grabbed a handful of dried
condom. He grimaced, somewhat daintily, and threw the paper aside
as he impishly asked Delroy, "Looking through the want ads, I hope?" "No
sir, no sir," Delroy yelled after Stenson as he walked away.
Fear of losing his job made Delroy work faster than
usual on the doctor's car the rest of the afternoon. But it also
gave him the idea of playing the Lotto daily number that evening so that
he might get some extra money in his pocket, just in case Stenson was going
to fire him. He tried to think up a good three-digit number, to play
"straight" for a dollar that might bring him as much as five hundred.
By five minutes of five, he hadn't decided on any
numbers. He started to get desperate. Then he realized what
would be the perfect number to play, the doctor's license plate number,
MD 069. Just as this thought passed through his mind, his stomach
commented on the choice with, "zurb, wugup, rrrrrrr."
By six o'clock that evening Delroy had already stopped
in at a drug store and played 069 straight and in every possible combination.
He had also downed two Whoppers and a soda at Burger King, on Columbia
Street, only a block from Morley's bar, his favorite hangout. The
clock behind the bar said 6:03 as he entered, to find his neighbor and
fellow Mercedes worker, Knuckles, holding forth to five or six beer drinkers
who were willing to listen, with his free advice about everything.
Delroy almost immediately exited, for fear of some of Knuckles's teasing
about his stomach, but reconsidered when he noted that Knuckles was totally
involved with his little audience. He asked Smitty the bartender for a beer and slipped into the corner of the bar's return, by the wall,
where he could listen to Knuckles's stuff--which was often very funny,
as long as it wasn't about you. Knuckles himself was comical
to look at since he was this huge six-foot-two-incher with a mid-life belly
that pushed his belt buckle down to where his fly once was, causing his
jeans to bunch up on his thighs, and making the belly look like a boxer's
medicine ball about to drop in between two elongated bananas that were
his legs. He had years ago gone bald on top and had mixed gray on
the sides. He used his stentorian voice to the fullest, hoping to
always drown out everyone else's thoughts and perhaps to rattle the glasses
on the back bar.
"Young women say 'no' too much, "Knuckles intoned,
while loudly smacking his beer mug down on the bar. "But you can get used
to that. The trouble is, old women say "yes" too much,
and who needs them? I'd rather have a cold beer! Ha,
ha, ha. When you're talkin about old women, men need the fore-play!
When it comes to those old mamas, all they can do for me is point
me to where the young babes are. He, he, snort! When you're
young, pussy is a prize to be won. When you're an old married man,
it's a job to be done. I've got this friend. He likes
me, says I'm so smart. He's so rich he never sees shit--has a guy
on salary to flush his toilet. Yeah, no crap! I mean it.
Ha, ha. Well he says most people are simply too lazy to get
rich. They think the world owes them a living. My friend says
there's only two times when the world owes you a living, when you're just
born, and when you've worked long and hard enough to qualify for your pension!
I asked him the other day how he made so much money and he told me it was
the stock market. So I asked him what he thought of the stock market
now, and he said, 'bye, bye, buy, buy, bye, buy! You get it?
He, ha, ha, ha, gulp, ha."
Delroy had nearly spit out his beer a couple of times as he listened,
but his stomach had been totally silent until the last bit, about the stock
market. Then it had made a loud comment of, "oooo, ook, flimp," which
he took to mean that there might be some future in trying to learn about
stocks. Happening to glance up at the clock, he was surprised to
see that it was already 7:45. He immediately felt rushed, since he
was planning to drive his highly polished, but old, Chevy out to the community
college in Greenport. There he would attend a public lecture on support
groups--for people who have no problems, and for people who don't have friends.
He often attended lectures at the school, not to learn anything, but simply
to meet intellectual types of girls who would usually feel so superior
to him that they were very comfortable in going to bed with him.
Dashing from Morley's, Delroy started up the Chevy
on the first try and swiftly pulled out into the flow of traffic.
At first he was going to follow Columbia Street all the way down to Third
and then cut over but he got a bad feeling about that and decided to cut
over at Fifth and go down Warren. At the very moment that he made
this decision his stomach seemed to approve with, "uggle, dirap, rop!"
When he made his left turn onto Third from Warren, his attention was caught
by flashing red lights in his rear view mirror and he heard the sounds
of pistol fire coming out of the block that he had by-passed.
At the lecture, Delroy carefully chose a seat next
to a girl who happened to be plump and wore glasses, but who also appeared
to be alone. He was reassured when she gave him a nod and a tiny
smile as he took his seat. She was wearing a sleeveless cotton top
of deep blue with white pants and white strapped sandles that had minute
flecks of red. Noting that her shoulder-length hair was very well
groomed, he glanced at her hands and was satisfied to see that she wore
only a school ring. He calculated that her outfit coordinated well
with his blue denim shirt, open down to the third button, giving only a
glimpse of the small winged dagger tattoo on his chest. He had on
blue jeans and low-cut deck sneakers and he was careful in crossing his
legs, away from her, so that the bottom of his shoe wouldn't be a threat
to her white pants. As he did this his gut agreed, giving him, "eee,
rumph," which was loud, in and of itself, but happened to coincide with
a smattering of applause for a point that the speaker was making.
So it went unnoticed by everyone except Delroy himself.
The lecture ended promptly at nine and this pleased
Delroy. He always suffered during lectures that dragged on and made
him wait to get to his real business. As the audience filed
out of the lecture hall, he made sure that he stayed close behind his quarry
and he sensed her tracking his location out of the corner of her eye.
As soon as there was a little space to maneuver, he eased up next to her
and said, "Excuse me, but ..." and then he asked what he always asked the
girl he had picked out to try and screw. "Could you explain to me
what he(she) meant when she(he) said, "Society cries out for a better solution
to this problem?" By the way, my name is Delroy. What's yours?"
Clara happily identified herself and then charitably
began explaining, "Well, I don't know if he said exactly that, in those
exact words I mean, but generally what he meant was...."
Clara was starved for attention. She was a five-foot-four
bundle of raw emotional bruises. For the prior four of her twenty-six
years she had been living with her medical student boy friend and footing
all the bills from her job as an assistant-to-the-editor of a medium size
literary magazine. It wasn't merely understood, she was always told
by Arnold that when he finished medical school they would get married.
Held make it all up to her by letting her stay home and be a writer, mother
and homemaker. But a few weeks before graduation, Arnold couldn't
stand her being over-weight ("so fat," he actually said) hated everything
she cooked, complained that the house wasn't clean enough (even though
she could have been diagnosed anal compulsive) said she was smothering
him and nagging him and that he was "Outta here!" On graduation day he
was already moving in with one of his graduating classmates, a trans-sexual
future plastic surgeon from a wealthy family.
By 10:05 p.m., Delroy was sitting at Clara's spotless kitchen table in
her one-bedroom apartment a few miles from the school. Nursing a
cup of "instant cappuccino," he was convincingly playing the role which
usually brought him success. "I'm kinda embarrassed to tell you this,
but I quit in my third year of high school because my mom got sick and
couldn't work any more. She had supported me all my life. You see,
my father was a union organizer, in the South. You know, textile
mill workers in Alabama, Georgia and places like that. Know what
I mean? So what happens? The owners frame him for killing a
manager of one of the mills and he winds up dying in a fight in prison.
I was only two at the time. Can't even remember what he looked like. But
that's life. I don't feel sorry for myself. All I've ever wanted
is just to have somebody to love, besides Mom, you know what I mean." He
happily made a mental note that Clara's eyes had misted over. He
passed her a tissue from one of several boxes near him and she used it
to dab at the corners of her eyes.
The thoughtful side of Delroy recalled Knuckles's
mention of foreplay as he rolled around and caressed and massaged Clara
in her bed, while smugly complimenting himself on his patience. After
all, the next day was Friday, a work day, and it was now past one in the
morning. It kept occurring to him that he had to drive all the way
back home.
To complete the softening-up process and to distract
Clara while he entered her, he relied on a line that he always used.
Abruptly staring into her eyes, he intoned gravely: "So we meet again Professor
Moriarty! Allow me to compliment you on a very clever disguise!"
Clara burst out laughing, but quickly subdued that impulse just in case
Delroy might think she was too superficial for the intimate moment.
But she made a mental note of how masterful he was.
Presently, he eased himself into the saddle and began
a series of motions which he was sure he had invented, since so many girls
had told him what a great lover he was. But then it started.
"Blaw, wurgup, ooguliump! Wonak, gupup, ooot! sisss, purgle, sisss,
peep! glunk, urnk, ooohh!" They were so loud that there was no hope of
ignoring them. Clara even stopped the purring noises and her heavy
breathing which were so soothing to his ego minutes before.
What to do? Delroy's rate of perspiration doubled
in an instant. The noises didn't stop. He imagined he was about
to get that old cramp in the muscles of his butt. The noises continued.
He stopped all the kissing and put his face past hers, down into the pillow,
to think. The stomach pursued him with, "clid, clop-clid, ssss!"
Finally, in desperate panic, he burst loudly into song. Somehow,
the only song he could force into his head was "Old McDonald Had a Farm."
But he gave it his best tenor anyway. Anything to cover those damned
stomach demons! "With a moo moo here and a moo moo there, here a
moo, there a moo, cluck cluck here, and a cluck cluck there, here a cluck,
there a cluck, everywhere a...."
Clara was speechless. Her whole body tensed
so strongly that she could have fired him out of her like he was a rocket
from a bazooka! But her intellect took over and she regained control
an instant later. While she continued to roll her hips and ease up
and down in halting rhythm with him, she thought about the situation.
Since she had been with Arnold for so many years, she allowed that she
might be behind the times. Or maybe it was a class thing? Something
among only blue-collar people, she speculated. Maybe the simple folk
had discovered a turn-on the intellectuals had never dreamed of?
In any case, it might not do any harm? At least this guy wouldn't
be able to say she was too snooty. She managed to chime in, right
on the beat, with, "an oink oink here and an oink oink there, here an oink,
there an oink, everywhere an oink oink...."
Delroy didn't get home until three in the morning.
He didn't disturb anyone else's sleep. He lived alone, and his father
hadn't died in prison, or ever been a union organizer. He was still
the town drunk in Kinderhook. The tired Delroy was simultaneously
very depressed and also elated that he had escaped Clara without her telling
him to his face that he was a nut case! (But between you and me
that was exactly what she thought. In spades! It even occurred
to her that maybe it was something contagious, and she should throw out
the sheets and mattress and sleep on the couch until pay day.) Delroy lay
awake most of the wee hours trying to figure out what to do about that
stomach of his. On the one hand, it was causing all kinds of embarrassment.
On the other, he had come to believe there was some kind of special knowledge
there, like what they called ESP. But if it was gonna kill his sex
life, what good was it really? But maybe it was gonna make him hit
the daily number and held have two weeks extra pay by the end of that same
day.
Being late for work didn't help to settle his mind,
of course. He slipped past Stenson, to punch his time card and hurried,to
his work station. Dr. Havytmaid always picked up his car a little
before lunch time, so Delroy wanted to be sure it was ready. He would
have to drive it around front to deliver it to the doc and he hated
to do that, although he liked the five dollar tip held get. The last
time he had deliveredthe car to the doc-showing off to his twenty-two-year
old slut of a girl friend-had loudly said that Delroy was probably some
hick from the sticks where hospitals didn't have ICU's. They had
I seen youse! And the two of them had laughed at Delroy like
he was some kind of show.
By chance, just as Delroy was about to drive the
car around, Knuckles happened along and asked Delroy to give him a ride
up to the front, near the show rooms. Since he didn't like Knuckles,
Delroy wasn't happy about this but he preferred to get on Knuckles's good
side as much as possible. So when the doctor saw his car he saw the
giant Knuckles riding next to Delroy and the doctor su ddenly remembered
making fun of Delroy when he picked up his car the month before.
Was that hick bringing up the reserves? He hadn't really meant any harm
by the little joke, he assured himself. When the car stopped and
Knuckles got out and went directly into the show room, the doctor breathed
easier, although he was still doing an unaccustomed amount of sweating.
He was standing with his young squeeze, and with his long slender build,
the graying at the temples and the black bag in hand, he was the image
of a successful father perhaps driving his over-dressed daughter to her
drama class.
A stern faced Delroy hopped out of the car and began
to inch his way backwards, away from the open door, expecting Dr. Havytmaid
to press a five-dollar bill into his hand and slide behind the wheel, as
he usually did. But today was different. The doctor took Delroy
by the arm and walked him about ten feet from the car, where he began a
rambling discourse that totally surprised Delroy.
"My good fellow, did you happen to, uh, what I mean is if you find
...things in cars, would you, I mean do you sort of save them for
the owner, or would they go into the trash, sort of automatically...if
they didn't seem valuable or were simply like ... uh ... newspapers, or
things? My wife said.I forgot to bring home the Journal after
I dropped off the car yesterday, and I was wondering if..."
By this time, Delroy had gotten the drift of what
the doctor's problem was. His instinct told him this was a chnace
to make a killing. At last, the big bucks, and at the expense
of a real prick. He resolved that he would start by playing cat-and-mouse
with the doc, by pretending his memory wasn't quite clear as to whether
he had found anything in the Mercedes. "I kinda think I mighta ..."
he began. But then it started! "Gurgle-li-glonk. Ooook.
urgle, b-lurp." The sounds were so startling that the doctor's eyes widened
and he jumped backwards in a pure reflex, hoping to figure out what species
Delroy was.
Partly out of embarrassment and partly out of fear
of the doctor's customer power, Delroy switched his intentions in
mid-stomach-growl and said reassuringly, "Oh, now I remember. I found some
old newspaper under one of the seats and I threw it away. I didn't
even open it to look at the date. Maybe I should have, uh?" And Delroy
winked at the doctor.
Dr. Havytmaid's sense of relief flashed across his
face, then resonated through his body with an obvious relaxation of his
shoulders. He took back his jump away from Delroy, while he also
pulled his well-stuffed money clip from his pocket. He extracted
a fifty-dollar bill from the top and pressed it into Delroy's hand, just
as he slid behind the wheel of the Mercedes. "By the way," the doctor
added to Delroy, "let me write you this prescription for an extra strong
simethicone. It'll get rid of that gas, or whatever it is on your
stomach. See you next month, my good man."
Receiving the fifty reminded Deiroy that he had never
checked to see if he had won any money with the doctor's license plate
number. Since it was the lunch hour, he punched out and headed for
the drug store. As he walked he thought about getting the doctor's
prescription filled while in the store. He wasn't sure whether he
would. It didn't help him to decide when he arrived at the store
and learned he had hit the number for five-hundred dollars. He also
worried that if he took the simethicone he might wind up feeling guilty...
like he'd had an abortion! He waited for his stomach to comment.
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