I Am the Cheese (9 page)

“… he’s such a good boy. I feel bad about what’s happened …”

“Now, Louise, you’re in a black mood tonight—please, cheer up a little …”

“I know, I know. We have so much to be thankful for—
I
have so much—David and Adam and, of course, you, dear Martha—”

A noise caught Adam’s attention: his father’s footsteps. He removed the receiver from his ear but realized he couldn’t simply hang up—the click would echo like an explosion across the wires. The footsteps grew closer as his father came up the stairs. Adam excruciatingly watched his own hand, with the receiver in it, approach the instrument. He put the receiver in the cradle, softly, gently, with tenderness. And then whirled as his father walked into the den. Thankfully, his father was reading one of his insurance contracts as he walked along and did not notice Adam standing guiltily at the telephone. But more than that, he did not see the terrible look of astonishment that Adam knew was shining in his eyes.

They’ve been lying to me
, he thought with horror.
All my life, they’ve been lying to me
 …

END TAPE OZK006

There are three of them.

They are huddled around a table in the corner near the jukebox, eating popcorn. They toss the popcorn in the air and catch it in their mouths as if they’re onstage and expect people to applaud. The jukebox is old and decrepit, no neon lights, no fancy touches. I wonder if it has “The Farmer in the Dell” but that is impossible, of course. “The Farmer in the Dell” is not a jukebox kind of song. I am worried about the three guys eating popcorn. They glance my way once in a while and then whisper among themselves.

This is a small restaurant, a lunchroom really, and we are the only occupants. The counterman is a small thin fellow with a toothpick sticking out of his mouth and he is always on the telephone. No sooner does he hang up the phone than it rings again and the toothpick dances in his teeth as he talks.

The clam chowder is hot. It burns the roof of my mouth and I take a gulp of water and then chew the small soda crackers. The chowder soothes my stomach and dissolves the rock there.

I look at the three guys and I am glad that my bicycle is at the police station. When I arrived in Carver a few minutes ago, the first building I saw on Main Street was a combination post office, police department, and fire department. I went inside and asked the policeman at the desk if I could leave my bike for safekeeping while I found a place to eat. He was reading a newspaper and didn’t even look up. “Sure, kid,” he said, “we aim to please.” The weird thing is that he didn’t look at me at all. I mean, I could have had two heads or been carrying a rifle or anything and he wouldn’t have cared. I didn’t leave my father’s package with the bike. I untied the belt that held it to the bike and took it outside with me. On the street, I noticed that Carver is such a small town that it doesn’t even have parking meters. I spotted the lunchroom—the faded sign said
Eats
, that’s all. I like that kind of thing—Amy does, too—nothing phony or fancy about it.

The counterman ladled out the clam chowder while talking on the telephone. The telephone was cradled between his chin and shoulder. I figured the chowder would be good for sustenance on my journey, all that milk and stuff. The man dropped a huge chunk of butter into the chowder and grimaced at me. I realized the grimace was actually a smile. The butter immediately began to melt. I don’t particularly like butter melting in my clam chowder but he seemed to think he was doing me a favor so I smiled and said “Thanks.” He waved me away, still talking on the telephone, his voice so low I couldn’t hear what he was saying.

Something hits my arm as I eat and I look down at the floor and see where the piece of popcorn has landed. Another piece arrives, barely missing the chowder. Like in school, when the wise guys threw spitballs. I don’t look at the troublemakers and I concentrate on my chowder. I blow on the chowder to cool it off. I remove my father’s package from the other chair at the table and put it on my lap. For safekeeping. I hear the popcorn guys giggle. You can tell them a mile away, the wise guys. I recognized them as soon as I stepped into the place. They are everywhere in the world, in schools and offices, in theaters and factories, in stores and hospitals.

Now one of them gets up and walks toward me. He’s about sixteen or seventeen and he has freckles and straight white teeth and he looks like a million other kids his age except for that subtle difference that marks him for what he is.

“Never saw you around here before, kid,” he says, stopping at my table. Looming above me.

I take a spoonful of the chowder. It’s getting cooler and I can swallow it without burning my throat.

“I’m just passing through,” I say.

“Where you from?” he asks.

“Monument. In Massachusetts.”

“And where are you going?”

He is asking questions but it’s obvious that he is not interested in the answers. The questions are only a prelude to what he really wants: trouble.

“Rutterburg. Rutterburg, Vermont.”

“You hitching?”

“No. I’ve got my bike.”

All the time I’m talking, I’m gulping down the chowder and chewing the clams and the crackers.

“Well, where’s your bike?”

He walks to the window and looks out into the street. He looks back at his friends, who are still at the table tossing popcorn into their mouths and missing most of the time. “I don’t see no bike.”

“It’s at the police station,” I say. “I left it there for safekeeping.”

I realize immediately I have made a mistake by saying that. He had been walking away from the window, toward my table, and now he stops in mid-motion. He shakes his head, as if tremendously puzzled. He looks again at his friends. “The police station?” he asks, in mock amazement. “To keep his bike safe?” I know what is coming. And it comes: “I guess he doesn’t trust us,” he says, shaking his head, his voice phonily sorrowful. “I guess this boy from Massachusetts don’t trust the people in Carver, New Hampshire.”

I swallow the last of the chowder and cram my mouth with crackers. My hand trembles as I put down the spoon. I should have taken my pills this morning. I look at the counter and the man is still on the telephone, the toothpick still in his teeth.

The wise guy hovers over me. “Is that the real reason you left your bike with the cops—because you don’t trust us?”

“Look,” I say, pushing away the bowl of chowder. “I’m on my way to Rutterburg and the bike is my only means of transportation. If somebody takes it, I’m dead.”

“Can’t you hitch?” he asks. “Hell, me and Dobbie and Lewis, we hitched all the way to Montpelier the other day. Right, fellas?” Glancing over his shoulder at them.

“Right, Whipper,” one of them calls.

I wipe my lips with the napkin and pick up my father’s package from my lap. My hands are shaking slightly.

“What’s that?” Whipper asks.

“What’s what?” I ask back, my voice quivering.

“That package there. In your hands,” he says, impatient. “You’re carrying it like it’s a bomb or something. So careful. Have you got a bomb there? You planning to blow up Carver, New Hampshire?”

“No,” I say. “It’s a present. A gift. For my father. He’s in Rutterburg, Vermont, and I’m bringing it to him.”

I stand up, pushing the chair away. The legs of the chair scrape the floor. The other fellows stand up, too. My heart races: I am such a coward. The counterman is still on the telephone, turned sideways from us.

“I’d like to know what’s in that package,” Whipper says, his voice low and deadly.

We face each other. I realize now that he is shorter than I am but heavier. His shoulders are wide. There is a scar on his forehead above his right eye. His eyes are small, imbedded in his face. My heart is beating dangerously and I feel the blood rushing to my face.

“Yes sir, that package must really be something,” he says. But he isn’t looking at the package, he is looking at me. Our eyes are locked.

I clutch the package. I think of my father and I
stand there, not moving. My heart is threatening to explode in my chest and my lungs scream with pain—I realize that I have been holding my breath—but I look him in the eye. The package is for my father and nobody, nobody is going to take it away from me or prevent me from bringing it to him. I stand there like a tree. I will not bend. I will not give him the package. I am the package.

Finally, he takes his eyes away from mine and steps back, a pitying look on his face.

“Shit on your old package,” he says, shaking his head.

“Hey, what’s going on there?” the counterman calls. Finally. He still hasn’t hung up the telephone, it’s still cradled on his shoulder, but at least he’s become aware of what’s been going on in his lunchroom.

“Aw, nothing, Luke,” Whipper says, and fades from my sight, going back to his cohorts at the table.

I exhale. Then I draw sweet air into my lungs. The air caresses them. My heart is still pounding dangerously but the beats are beginning to soften. I grab my father’s package and I get out of there. Quick. Without looking right or left.

He had awakened from sleep as if shot out of a cannon. Out of the everywhere into the here. And now. The room, the bed, the cold moonlight chilling the room. He was in the bed and aware of the cold sheets but he was also suspended, isolated, inhabitant of an unknown land, an unknown world and he himself unidentified. Caught and suspended in time. Who am I? I am Adam Farmer. But who am I? I am Adam Farmer. But Adam Farmer was only a name, words, a lesson he had learned here in the cold room and in that other room with the questions and answers. Who is Adam Farmer? He didn’t know. His name might as well have been Kitchen Chair. Or Cellar Steps. Adam Farmer was nothing—the void yawned ahead of him and behind him, with no constant to guide himself by. Who am I? Adam Farmer. Two words, that’s all. He was oozing perspiration, floating in his own body fluids, the pajamas soaked with sweat. Lie still. Lie still, lie still and the panic will pass. That’s what they told him and sometimes the panic passed. But only with a pill and, some desperate nights, with a shot, the needle bringing peace at last.