“Hey! Anybody here?” The man that says this has a scraggly beard and huge dirty hands.
“You got any beer in this dump?” The one next to him spits a long brown stream of liquid onto the tile floor and laughs with another man. They all have greasy blond hair. They scare me.
I put my change in my pocket and turn to leave. The man with the beard grabs me by the arm as I walk past and lifts me up.
“Do I know you?” he says, and breathes into my face. He smells like Keith, but he is not my friend. His fingers tighten on my arm and my Coke drips on his sneakers.
“Shit! You dumped Coke on me! He dumped Coke on my shoes! Tell me you’re sorry you little screwup! You hear me?” He lifts me higher up off the floor. My shoulder is twisting. My arm burns. My soda can flips out of my numb hand, bounces across the tiles, and splashes over the legs of the two other men. They yell and dance backwards into the aisle.
“I’m sorry! I’m really sorry.” I am. I am very sorry and I am very scared. My heart is beating. Thump THUMP THUMP thump. My arm is tingling with pins and needles. I swallow hard because I have to throw up. When the man hears my voice, he smiles so wide I see his gray teeth. It is not a nice smile at all. His eyes get smaller. He looks like Mrs. Jansen’s cat hunting a bird.
“Well, well, well, we have a little retard here.”
His two friends come closer. One of them starts laughing deep and slow. The hand on my arm loosens a tiny bit. My eyes get wet.
“LEAVE HIM ALONE, ASSHOLES!”
I did not know Cherry could holler that loud. I was impressed. The baseball bat she hit the man with was aluminum. It probably hurt a lot, even though she only swung with one arm.
“I called the POLICE, and if you don’t get your sorry butts out of this store, I’m shooting you guys with THIS!” She waves a spray can in her other hand. “IN FACT! I think it’s a good idea to use this NOW! YOU CREEPS! YOU FRIGGING BULLIES!” And she did.
Something comes out of the can with a
whoosh
! Even though I only get a little in my eyes I cannot see. The man lets go of my arm and drops me. I fall to the floor next to the cereal shelf. I can feel tears run down my face from the spray. I throw up again and again. I cannot help it my arm hurts so bad.
I hear thumps as Cherry smacks the men over and over with the bat. THWACK! THUNK! Sirens start soft and get louder.
Cherry told me afterwards there is a special button for the police under the counter at all Handy Marts. That is a good idea, I think.
“Mace is very hard on the mucous membranes.” That is what the officer says. The police are not happy and tell Cherry it was dangerous to do what she did.
“They could have been armed. You did a very foolish thing.” Of ficer Mallory looks at my arm, but he talks to Cherry. She sits behind the counter answering their questions and popping her gum. She does not look at all foolish or scared. She looks bored and blows a bubble.
All three men sit on the floor with handcuffs around their ankles and wrists and wait to go to jail. They have something called outstanding warrants. Outstanding warrants are not good things, or very outstanding. It means the police are looking for you and you do not want to make it easy for them to find out where you are.
The other officer writes my name on the police form, and then looks at my face. “Hey, aren’t you the guy who won the lottery? You are, aren’t you! You’re the guy who just won twelve million bucks?”
“That’s right!” Officer Mallory hoots at the three men sitting on the floor. “You idiots just assaulted Perry L. Crandall. He’s a millionaire. He’ll have your sorry asses in jail forever!” He is still laughing as he helps his partner load the men into a big police van in the Handy Mart parking lot.
“You need to go to the emergency room.” Cherry’s face is all shiny and her makeup runs down her cheeks from her sweat. It is hard work to swing a baseball bat and hit people with it. She looks like a raccoon. “Let me call Keith for you,” she says. “He can take us to Everett General.”
I am so upset I cannot remember the number for Holsted’s. Cherry has to look it up in the phone book. I do not know why Cherry started to cry. I am the one who is hurt. When Keith peels into the parking lot with Yo, she hangs the CLOSED sign on the door and locks the store. She rides with us to the hospital and pats my shoulder the whole way. I do not tell her that makes it hurt worse.
Keith and Cherry talk while I get my X-ray. It is so cool. They have a big machine that takes a picture of inside my arm. The colors on my skin are blue and red, but I do not have a broken bone. The doctor gives me a sling anyway, which is cool. He tells me it is a bad sprain and that I am lucky. I know this. I know I am lucky.
“That’s what the L stands for,” I try to say after the doctor gives me a shot. But it comes out like
“Thash wash the ell shtanns foorrr.”
I cannot talk.
After we pick up my pain pills at the pharmacy, Keith drives us to Denny’s. We have an early dinner together. I lean back against the booth while Keith and Cherry talk.
“I can’t believe I did what I did. I know it was stupid.” Cherry’s voice is fuzzy and far, far away.
“We all do stupid things, but really, what else were you gonna do? You’re quite a gal.” Keith takes two pills out of my bottle and swallows them with his beer. “Quite a gal.” He takes a hand and lifts Cherry’s hair out of her face. “You’ve got beautiful eyes. Anybody ever tell you that you have beautiful eyes?”
Cherry sounds like Gigi when she whines to go outside. I want to say,
Let her out,
or something to make her feel better, but my words will not come out right. All I can say is sorry, but it comes out as
uhhuhh.
“Per’s flying high. Aren’t you, Per?” Keith laughs.
“Uhhuhh?” I try to say
what do you mean
or maybe
I guess so
or maybe
Gram
. I do not know. I do not care.
“It’s just so bizarre I can defend Perry, but I can’t defend myself against my dad. Way he looks when he drinks, the yelling, and when he gets angry he smacks me around.” Cherry’s voice is there, but I have many ears. Many, many ears and no eyes.
My body is on Keith’s boat. I feel it rocking. I try to tell Keith.
“Uhhuhh.”
“You tell me when that happens! Day or night, you let me know! Nobody deserves that shit! Nobody! You hear me? Where do you live anyway?” Keith’s words are mad, but they come out soft. Like a hug. I feel Cherry’s smile, but my eyes are closed. I just feel her smile and it makes me warm. Their voices murmur and surround me like a blanket.
I love Cherry. She saved my life.
27
LOTTERY WINNER ASSAULTED AT MARINA HANDY MART WHERE TICKET WAS PURCHASED
That was the headline in the paper. The next part made me really upset.
RETARDED MAN ATTACKED BY THUGS: THREE ARRESTED
“I am not retarded,” I tell Keith. “I am not retarded. My number is 76. They lied. Can I sue?”
“Why do you want to do that?” Keith is dense sometimes.
“They lied. It’s a mistake. I’m not retarded, I’m slow.” I am embarrassed. I hope Cherry does not see the paper. Gary listens to us talk from the back office. The door is open.
“If people sue other people each time somebody lies or makes a mistake we won’t get any work done at all. You want to call the paper? Make them print a retraction? You can do that, but it’ll just make a mountain out of a molehill,” Gary says, and sniffs his nose bottle. He is practical. That means he thinks other people should not get upset. I bet he wouldn’t be so practical if he was the one called retarded.
Whenever Gary says one thing, Keith does just the opposite.
“I think Per has a point. Hey, Per, gimme that article! What’s the phone number of the paper anyway?” Keith grabs the newspaper from my hand and walks over to the phone.
He must know how I feel. He is my friend.
“I’d like to talk to the reporter who wrote the piece on the lottery winner.” Keith uses his good voice first. He is on hold so long I have to help Manny restock the shelves. I can only use my good arm. My other one is in a sling and hurts. I take my pills only at night to help me sleep. If I take them during the day, it makes me even slower. They are almost gone because I am sharing them with Keith.
“Yeah. This is a friend of Perry Crandall and, yeah, I’ll hold.” Keith has to lean on the counter and all the customers have to go around him. Gary comes out from the back office to ring up.
“Keith, we need that phone. Don’t tie it up,” Gary warns.
“No I don’t want to e-mail! I have been on hold for thirty fucking minutes!” Keith can sound like he is yelling even though he talks normal.
“Watch your language, Keith!” Gary is waiting on Toby, who is a fisherman. I laugh because Toby swears far worse than Keith.
Keith ignores them. “Who do I need to talk to? Well, put her on!”
When it was time for me to get the sandwiches for lunch, Manny came with me because I could not carry them with only one good arm.
I buy everybody lunch on the days I work. It is so cool. I mean when a person can buy lunch for everybody, every day, it makes that person feel rich inside no matter how much money they have. That’s why I like to do it. It makes me feel rich.
“How you feeling, Perry?” Cherry talks to me while Manny picks up beer and soft drinks. The Gilly’s guy is making our sandwiches. We have to go back over and pick them up.
“Fine. I’m feeling fine.” There are at least twenty people in Marina Handy Mart all shaking Cherry’s hand and patting her on the back. She does not really have time to talk to me. Her hair is one more color than usual. Orange or maroon maybe. She is so beautiful, I just stare.
Manny carries the heavy stuff. “You like her, don’t you?” He has that weasel sound in his voice.
“Yeah.” I am uncomfortable telling him this.
When we get back to the store Gary is still waiting on customers. Keith hangs up the phone just as we walk up. He hands me a piece of paper with the name
Marleen Rafters
. There is a phone number written underneath.
“She’s a top reporter. She’s going to do a story on us.” Keith looks excited. He has to pull up his pants twice.
“What kind of a story?” I hand him his sandwich. Keith does not look me in the eye and takes a big bite. He talks with his mouth full.
“You know, having money, being famous and all.”
It sounds like Keith would like to be famous and have his picture in the paper. I know how it is being famous now. I know how it is and I tell him that being famous is not all it’s cracked up to be.
“Be careful, Keith. It’s not what you think it is. It can be embarrassing. ” Keith does not look like he believes me.
“Don’t you want your picture in the paper?” he asks. Tuna pieces hang off his beard.
“Yeah, I guess. I don’t know.” I am confused. That is different from having my name on T-shirts, pens, and key chains. People would know my face.
Keith chews so loud I can hear his jaw crack.
I try to explain it to him and find the words I need out of my head. “It’s just that, before, people didn’t like me when they didn’t know me. Then other people decided they didn’t like me even when they did know me. Now it’s just the opposite. People like me and they don’t even know me at all. Sometimes they haven’t ever met me and they like me.” I am thinking about all the letters I get now. All the letters that people write asking me for things.
“It is the same thing, only the opposite of before,” I say. “The opposite of before.”
It is hard to put it into words. It is complicated. That means your feelings have many parts to them, but Keith seems to understand. A smile slowly comes across his face and he stops chewing.
It takes a lot to make Keith stop chewing.
“You’re wise, Per,” he says finally. “Fucking wise.”
"For a slow guy, you mean,” I correct him. “F-word wise for a slow guy.”
28
John and David come to visit Wednesday on my day off. They have someone with them. I am doing laundry so I do not hear them knock. They walk right in. That is so rude.
“We need to talk. We saw the papers. This is exactly what we were telling you about. You need protection.” John is pacing. He talks softly but his fingers are bunched into tight fists. His face is shiny with sweat and there is white on his lips. I think it is from his Maalox.
“How is your arm?” David asks. He does not scare me as much as John does. There is a short, heavy man with black hair carrying a six-pack of Coke and a bag of potato chips. He hands me a can of Coke and offers me chips. I sit down on my couch. David stands in front of me. John paces. I think he will start biting his nails soon. The stranger sits next to me.
“This is our friend Mike Dinelli,” David says. “He will be coming around to check on you. He’s here for your protection.”
Mike grabs my hand and shakes it hard up and down. He is strong. His brown eyes look all shiny like chocolate pudding in the can, which I like because it is fast. You just have to pop the top off and use a spoon.
“How you doing, Perry? Good to meet you,” he says.
“Hello, Mike,” I say.
“I’ll be coming around to chat with you from time to time, Perry. See how you’re doing. Make sure you’re all right.” Mike’s teeth are small. Like Gigi’s.
“We worry that you may be attacked again,” David says.
“How come Keith or Gary didn’t help you out?” John asks. He is still pacing slowly. “If we had known about it we could have protected you. Maybe you can’t depend on those friends of yours,” he says. “You need to start depending on us more.”
This must be another Family Meeting, I think. Family Meetings should have all the family there. We are missing Louise, Elaine, and CeCe.