American Morons Page 10

  “Watch the master, Big Screen. Learn.” Striding around front, he stood with his hands on his hips, gazing into the yards like a gunslinger as the sound rained down on him. Then he bounded around the van, pulled open my door, flicked the lever on the control panel, and danced backward as the clown leapt off its stilts and started unfolding.

  I staggered from the van as the first children of the entire day swept around the curve of the cul-de-sac on their skateboards and bore down on us. My ears finally filtered enough distortion for me to register the tune the van was blaring.

  “‘Classical Gas’?” I babbled, as Randy stepped carefully around the clown. It hung still now, STOP sign jabbed over the street.

  “What about it?” Randy threw open the sliding door and began pulling up multiple bin lids.

  To my amazement, I felt my lips slip upwards. “I’ve got a friend who claims this is the only music on earth it’s impossible to make a girl have an orgasm to.”

  If my own smile surprised me, Randy’s nearly blew me backward with its brightness. “Wish I had enough experience or knowledge to challenge that statement. Always been kind of shy, myself. And lately, I’ve been too busy making money. My man, Joel.”

  He stuck one huge hand past me, and the first skateboard kid to reach the van smacked it with his own. “Pop Rocket, Randy,” the kid said, straightening the cargo shorts from which his watermelon-striped boxers billowed.

  “Cherry, right?” Randy had already handed the kid his popsicle without waiting for an answer. “What-up, Empire?”

  The reasons for that nickname never revealed themselves to me. What became immediately apparent, though, was how much this second kid liked that Randy knew it. He gave his board a kick-hop and wrapped it in his arms and stood close to the van, looking proud, as Randy gave him his ice cream. By the time that group had departed, twelve more kids, ranging in age from maybe five to no younger than me, had emerged from houses or backyards or neighboring streets. No one seemed to mind the racket roaring out of the rooftop speaker, and a few customers even turned their bodies and faces to it, arms outstretched, eyes closed, as though accepting a cooling blast from a garden hose. Every single person knew Randy’s name, and he knew most of theirs.

  “You Randy’s new helper?” said a soft voice so close to my ear that I thought for a second it had come from inside me.

  Turning, I found myself confronting a freckle-faced girl of maybe fifteen, with a yellow drugstore Wiffle bat over her bare shoulder. Self-consciously, she wound the wild strands of her strawberry-blonde hair back into her scrunchy with sweaty fingers. Her eyes, green and soft as the squares of over-watered lawn fronting the houses of this block, never left mine.

  Too much time passed, and I had no answer. I wanted to borrow her bat, dare her to try to pitch a ball past me. I also wanted her to stop flirting with me because she was too young and only adding to my anxiety. I thought of my mom peering down from the Heaven she didn’t believe in, and had to smother competing impulses to wave and whimper.

  “You should be,” the girl finally said, in that same breathy voice. “Hey, Randy.” From her pocket, she withdrew a wad of bills, palmed them, and passed them into the van. Randy ducked inside and returned with a baggie, which disappeared into the girl’s shorts pocket.

  “Go easy, Carolina,” said Randy. “Say hi to your sis.”

  The girl wandered away, wiggling her bat once at both or neither of us.

  I sat down on the curb under the Safety Clown’s arm, and the sunlight dropped on my shoulders like a sandbag. For the first time, I let myself ask the question. Could I do this? Did I want to? It’d pay for next semester, all right. And it would certainly qualify as a story to tell. Once the statute of limitations ran out.

  We were close to an hour in that one cul-de-sac, then nearly two in the fire lane of the circular parking lot of a little league complex with four grassless fields that looked stripped bare like shaved cats. Kids just kept coming. Mostly, they bought ice cream. Every now and then, one or a little group would lurk until a lull came, then dart or sidle or just stride forward and pop $75 or sometimes an envelope into Randy’s hands.

  At one point, feeling oddly jealous as yet another group of kids clustered around and jabbered at Randy, I asked him, “What happens if you’re not sure?”

  “What’s that, Big Screen?”

  “What if it’s a kid you don’t know? You wouldn’t want to make a mistake.”

  “Oh.” He turned to me, grinning. “I’ve got a system.”

  Not twenty minutes later, I got to see the system in action. The kid in question looked about eleven, despite the pimples peppering his forehead and leaning off the end of his nose. He hovered near the swing-set just off the parking lot, sweating and jumpy in his long-sleeved, webbed Spider-Man shirt. Finally, he came forward, eyes everywhere.

  Randy glanced at me, mouthing Watch this. Then he stepped from the van to meet the kid, folding his arms across his cliff of a chest, and said, “Yo, friend. What’s your name?”

  “Zach.”

  “Yo, Zach. Did you need ice cream or…ice cream?”

  I stared at Randy’s back. He swung his head around and beamed proudly before returning full attention to his customer.

  “Ice cream,” the kid said, flung $75 into Randy’s hands, and fled with his treat.

  Randy employed exactly the same technique a little later with a pale, teenaged girl with black lipstick and what appeared to be at least five different henna tattoos applied one on top of another on her bare ankles under her long skirt. The resulting mess looked like hieroglyphics, or a gang tag. When Randy asked his question, her mouth unhinged, as though he’d bonked her on the head. He gave her two Drumsticks for her dollar, called it his “Welcome to Randy Special,” and directed me to shut down the music and reel in the clown. I did both, leaned out the window to watch the clown fold, and nearly slammed into the scowling woman’s face with my own.

  She wore a navy blue button-up shirt, tight blue slacks, and for a second, I thought she was a cop. She’d pulled her red hair back so tightly that the wrinkles in her forehead seemed to be splitting open. As I stared, gargling, she banged my door with her hand, rattling the clown on its stilts. Beside me, Randy settled into the driver’s seat. Then his hand crossed my chest and pushed me gently back against the peeling vinyl.

  “Ma’am. Something I can get you?” Randy asked.

  “How about a brain?” the woman hissed. “How about a conscience?”

  “Now, ma’am, I’m sure you have both those things.”

  The woman nearly spat in our faces, and my legs started shaking. Abruptly, my head jerked sideways, checking for Randy’s other hand. It was on the steering wheel, not feeling around under his seat. And on his face was a smile gentler than any I’d seen all day.

  “That’s your natural color, isn’t it?” He didn’t even turn the key in the ignition. “Beautiful. Almost maroon.”

  “Ever seen someone die, Mr. Smarty-Arty Ice Cream Man? I have. When I was nine years old. Janitor at my school. Want to know why he died? Because some service asshole like you was parked in the fire lane and the ambulance couldn’t get up the driveway.”

  Randy made a pop with his cheeks. “Right,” he said. “Absolutely right. I’m sorry, and it won’t happen again.”

  The woman blinked, hand half-raised as though she might slap the van again. Instead, she shook her head and stalked off.

  “Never understand it,” Randy murmured, starting the van. “Why are moral people always so angry?” Pulling out of the lot, he glanced my way, saw me ramrod straight against the seatback with my legs still trembling together. “Know many people like that, Big Screen?”

  My tongue felt impossibly dry, as though it had been wrung. “Um.” I put my hands on my legs, held them until they quieted. “I think I thought I was one.”

  “You?” Randy grinned. Then without warning he reached out and patted me on the head. “Not you, Big Screen. You don’t have it
in you. And you don’t treat people that way. Trust your buddy Big Randy.”

  We stayed out four more hours. Around six, Randy began cruising family pizza restaurants, the multiplex lot just before the 7:30 shows, a 24-hour workout gym where he sold only ice cream (no ice cream) to exhausted soccer parents and desk-drones desperately stretching their bodies. Most of these people knew Randy’s name, too.

  Finally, a little after nine, on a residential street overlooking Moonlight Beach, Randy shut off the van, then turned to me. Out on the water, even the moon seemed to be burrowing a straight, white trail to his door.

  “You haven’t eaten a single goddamn thing, have you, Big Screen? I’m sorry about that.” Almost as an afterthought, his hands slipped under the seat between his legs and came up with the rifle.

  My breath caught, but by this point I was too tired to hold it. “You either,” I murmured, watching his hands.

  “Yeah, but…you’ll see. Tomorrow. There’s this charge people give off when you’re not judging them, just giving them what they want and letting them be. It’s a physical thing, man. It pours out of their eyes, and it’s more filling than any food. I’m so charged, most days, I barely even sleep. Not to mention richer.”

  It was true. I’d watched it happen all day. I wasn’t sure anyone in my entire life had ever been as pleased to see me as Randy’s customers were to see him. And he felt the same way.

  The rifle slid into his lap, muzzle aimed just over my legs at the center of the door. “You’ll be back?” His voice bore no apparent threat.

  Eventually, when I’d said nothing for long enough, Randy nodded. “You’ll be back. You’re the thoughtful sort. Like I said.”

  “Does it ever bother you?” I asked.

  Randy stared at me, and the moon lit him. “Does what?”

  Dropping the rifle back in its place, he drove us straight to the freeway and back downtown. He didn’t turn on the radio or say another word. White and red reflections from the dashboard and passing cars flared in his skin like sparks.

  In the lot, we found all the other vans not just parked but empty, clowns locked into cockroach position at their sides. A single low light burned in Jaybo’s trailer. I wondered if he lived there, then why he would. He had to have plenty of money.

  “Go home, Big Screen,” Randy told me as soon as he’d backed the van into its space at the head of the right-hand row. “I’ve got to wipe out the bins and finish up. You get some food and sleep.”

  I didn’t argue. My head hurt, and a loneliness less specific—and therefore all the more suffocating—than any I’d experienced before crept into my chest and filled my lungs. And yet I found myself turning to Randy, who flashed me his blinding, affect-less smile. I thought he might burst into one last chorus. We’ll all have chicken and dumplings when she comes. But he just smiled.

  The only thing I could think to say was, “Looks like we’re the last ones back.”

  “Always. Going to give me a run, Big Screen?”

  Slipping from my seat, I stood blinking on the pavement while the fast-cooling air pushed my grinding teeth apart and drove some of the deadness out. My fingertips began tingling, then stinging, as though I’d just come in from sledding. I was trying to remember where I’d parked my car—could it really have been earlier today?—when the door of Jaybo’s Airstream opened and his goldfish eyes peered toward me. I froze.

  “Max?” Out he came. His shorts had flowers on them. Maybe all Safety Clown employees slept here. In their vans. In the freezer bins, which doubled as coffins.

  “You have a good time, son? Learn a lot?”

  “Tired,” I managed, watching him, listening for any sign of Randy stepping out to trap me between them.

  “Randy’s a madman.” Jaybo smiled. “No one expects you to work like that. But I thought you’d enjoy learning from the best. Like my clowns?”

  I resisted the urge to look at one and shook my head.

  Jaybo’s smile got wider. “Got to admit they’re memorable, though. Knew they’d be our logo, our signature, as soon as I saw them.”

  “Loubob’s. Right?”

  “You know Loubob’s? See, I knew it, Max. No one comes to us by accident. I went there looking for belts and hoses for these babies.” He waved his stump at the vans. “And there were the clowns just lying in a heap. I asked what they were, and he says, ‘Project. Didn’t work.’ Ever heard Loubob speak?”

  I shook my head again, checked Randy’s van but saw no sign of him, just the passenger door hanging ajar. Jaybo took another step closer. “Not many have. I got the whole lot for 50 bucks.”

  To his left, at the very end of the row, one of the clowns had come open, or been left that way. In the shadows, at this distance, I couldn’t see its face, but it was shivering like a scarecrow in the salty ocean breeze.

  “See ya,” I heard myself say.

  “Tomorrow. Right?”

  Without answering, I turned, waiting for the rush of footsteps or flick of a rifle safety-catch, and started for the street. Just as I reached the gate, I heard a thud from Randy’s van, couldn’t help turning, and found Randy’s face filling the windshield. When he saw me looking, he pressed one gorilla-sized hand to the glass, fingers open. Waving. I got in my car and drove home.

  I’d tiptoed halfway up the entry stairs before remembering it would take more than that to wake my mother. I made myself a tuna sandwich and ate a third of it, seeing Randy’s last wave, his wide-open grin. The condo felt even emptier than it had for the past month. Even the ghost of my father’s smell had drained from the walls. My mother had left no smell, ghostly or otherwise. I crawled off to bed and miraculously slept until after four before bolting awake hyperventilating.

  Flipping onto my stomach, I curled into myself like a caterpillar and managed, after ten minutes of total panic, to get myself calmed enough to start to think.

  As far as I could tell, I had three choices. I could get up and join Jaybo and Randy and the gang spreading joy, ice cream, and ice cream throughout San Diego County, have a hundred or more people of all ages and types rush out to greet me by name whenever they saw me, and make more money in a couple months than my mom had in any one decade of her life. I could call the police, pray they found and arrested all Sunshine Safety Clown employees, and then spend the rest of my days hoping none of them got out, ever. Or I could do neither, hide here in the fog with the horses and hope Jaybo understood the absence of both me and the police as the don’t-ask-don’t-tell bargain I was offering.

  Instead of choosing, I got sick.

  For the first few hours, I figured I was faking it, or manufacturing it, anyway. Then, when the chills started, I dug around in my mother’s bathroom, found a thermometer in the otherwise empty cosmetic drawer, and checked myself. I got a reading of 102, climbed back into bed, and stayed there two days.

  No one called. No one knocked at the door. No one parked by the complex’s sauna and played a blast of “Classical Gas.” Around midnight of the second night, the phone rang, and I dragged myself out of bed. Passing my mother’s doorway, I half-believed I could see her tucked into her usual corner in the king-sized bed she’d once shared with my father, not moving or breathing, as though she’d snuck out of her grave to get warm.

  The fever, I realized, had gone. Beneath my feet, the hardwood floor felt cool, the air gentle against my itching legs. This was just the world, after all. Big, thoroughly mapped place to sell joy or buy it, hunt company or flee it, trust yourself or your friends or your instincts, stretch the hours as much as you could, and one day vanish.

  Pulling my mother’s door shut, I padded into the living room and picked up the receiver just before the sixth ring, beating the answering machine. But on the other end I found only electrical hum and a distant clacking sound.

  The next morning, I got up, broke eggs into a pan, and flipped on the pocket television on the counter for company. Then I stood, staring, wet yolk dripping from the end of my wooden spoon onto my mother�
�s once-spotless hardwood floor.

  Under a flashing banner that read LIVE—BREAKING NEWS, a camera scanned a downtown parking lot. Red and blue lights flashed and reflected in the windows of ten white vans, illuminating what looked like spatters of mud all over their metal sides and grilles.

  “Once again, a scene of incredible, despicable violence downtown this morning as police discover the apparent massacre and dismemberment of as many as fifteen employees of the Sunshine Safety Clown ice cream truck company. Police have long targeted the company as the key element in a major Southland drug trafficking ring, and department spokesmen confirm that this vicious mass slaying appears to be drug related. No additional specifics either about the trafficking ring or the nature and timing of the murders have been released as yet.”

  I put my hand down almost inside the frying pan, jerked back, and knocked egg everywhere. My eyes never left the screen.

  “We’ve had our eyes on these people for months,” a police department spokesman was saying, as the camera prowled jerkily, restlessly behind him, capturing lights, an open van door, a helicopter overhead, body bags. More lights. “Arrests are forthcoming. Imminent, in fact. We’re disappointed and also, obviously, horrified. An attack of this ferocity is unprecedented in this county. These people are savages, and they must be rooted out of our city.”

  “Randy,” I whispered, surprised that I did.

  Suddenly, I was bent forward, so close to the tiny screen that it seemed I could climb into it. I waited until the camera pulled back to scan the lot again.

  Then I was out the door, not even buckling my sandals until I’d driven the Geo screeching out of the condo lot to the bottom of the hill to wait for the endless, stupid light at the lip of the freeway onramp. Traffic clogged the interstate, and I was nearly an hour getting downtown, but I don’t remember thinking a single thing during all that time except that I had to have seen it wrong. The cameras just hadn’t showed everything. Even the idea was juvenile, an idiotic thing to be thinking about right this moment.