New Short Story

Do they have zeppole in Brazil?

(Elizabeth Taylor)

by Jason Wells




I couldn’t stop thinking about Elizabeth Taylor so I had to get out of there. “Thinking” might be a feeble tag to hang on it. Obsessing, obsessed or attempting to book a vacation from reality by naming one’s own price would probably be a more pinpoint description. She was really there with me. She was close, less than a chair width away at all times. It was like the old times when we were stand buddies in the middle school band. Because you see it wasn’t THE Elizabeth Taylor I was thinking of. It was MY Elizabeth Taylor. The Elizabeth Taylor of my childhood. Only now she didn’t whisper her secrets to me when Mr. Hess looked away to scold those asshole snare players for the thirteenth time. (When would they learn that middle school band wasn’t some sort of jungle gym for them to climb their way all over?) She just stared in that way that made you wonder whether it was you or something just past you that had caught her attention.

I wasn’t thinking of her because of some sort of childhood crush gone long. I had probably been the only boy in the neighborhood who HADN’T had a crush on her at some point or another. I had been an Alicia Franks man. And I had been one through and through and to the core. Elizabeth Taylor had been a blonde bubbly thing. She smiled. She bounced. It was the energy and lust for life in her that made her do these things. It was admirable but tiring. Alicia Franks on the other hand . . . Well she was different. When she walked from her desk to the pencil sharpener the whole room just slowed to a near halt. She sucked the energy out of a room, absorbed it and used it to manufacture a lust for life in anyone lucky enough to notice her trek. She tired you out like a tennis game: you may be exhausted but you can’t wait to get back on the court and soon. If Alicia Franks had taken over my life then I would have been be lost in a fantasy. As it was I was just lost.

When I told her I had to take my pants back it was not a lie. I had pants and they had to go back to where they came from. My mother had bought me cargo pants and I had recently made a decision to distance myself from them. It’s not that I was troubled by all of the pockets. I actually respected cargo pants for all of those pockets. It was just that I was sick and tired of being mistaken for a second or third rate M.C. Hammer impersonator every night as I walked home from work. The way those pants waved in the winds you would have thought I was trying to signal the ships with a poor man’s semaphore. They really flapped and I was sick of it. I was going off cargo pants and I was going cold turkey. So I wasn’t lying when I told her I had cargo pants to exchange for regular non-flappy pants. It’s just that wasn’t my ONLY reason for leaving.

I put the cargo pants in a bag and I put the bag in the trunk. And before I closed it I put Elizabeth Taylor in there as well. I had accepted the fact that she was coming with but I couldn’t handle her sitting shotgun. I didn’t like being looked at when I drove. I looked at the trunk and scrunched up my eyes and concentrated really deeply. And with the powers of my mind I placed Elizabeth Taylor, however gently, in the back of our four door sedan. I wasn’t worried about her comfort really.

After all the appropriate papers had been signed our car salesman had walked us out to the back lot to see us off. He handed us the keys and I looked at him and he looked at her and she looked at him and then I looked at the car. Then, after a moment, we were all looking at the car. This felt like a better aragement though it didn’t diminish the awkwardness of the moment. I felt like some words needed to be said. But I took the easy way out and only said one. “Red!” I almost screamed. Then He looked at me and She looked at me and I looked at the car. It didn’t need any explanation, it was a car complete with all of the approprate wheels and gears, but the salesman carried himself with the air of someone who was going to impart something to us. So I stopped looking at the car I wish I was in and not next to and looked at him. I put a look on my face that I hoped conveyed what I was thinking: I wouldn’t actually mind learning something about this car so . . . He looked back at me, popped the trunk and dramatically didn’t say a damn word. So we stood there and for the first few moments I chastised myself for my inability to end awful moments like this. But all of the self deprication in the world could not keep me from noticing that I had just bought a car with a really comfortable looking trunk. In that moment as they stared at the trunk I scrunched up my eyes, concentrated very deeply and put myself into my own trunk. I was then able to drift off and find a brief moment of peace. So due to personal experience I wasn’t worried about putting Elizabeth Taylor into my trunk. Plus she had some comfy cargo pants to lie her head on if she felt so inclined.

I used to play football with these kids from my neighborhood. It wasn’t football as much as it was a marriage of convenience. A handful of the guys actually enjoyed the sport of football. These guys would grow up into young men who would actually play football with helmets and pads and varsity cheerleaders and everything. They had the letter jackets to prove it. The other handful of guys just needed an excuse to ram their bodies into other human beings with out fear of repercussions. These were the guys who smoked cigarettes after the game in the little patch of trees and overgrown bushes next to the field. They were also the guys with mullet haircuts and heavy metal t-shirts. These were the guys who had worked out a deal with our school bus driver. They gave him cigarettes and in exchanged he played whatever cassette tape they wanted. And they usually wanted “ . . . And Justice for All” . . . very . . . loudly. These were the guys who would grow up into young men who would actually work at convenience stores.

On the field of battle I stuck out like the soldier who had missed boot camp but was still invited to the war to provide comic relief for all of the actual soldiers. They didn’t really throw the ball in my general direction nor hand it off to me nor, god forbid, let me take a swing at playing the quarter back. All of this was probably due to this little annoying habit I had of screaming like a small girl and throwing the ball to the side upon the realization that I was about to be knocked to the ground by whatever adolescent ball of fury was headed in my general direction. Like some sort of PTSD case put a football in my hands today 15 years later and I’m sure the feel of those laces and smell of the leather would give me flashbacks worthy of little girl screeching, wonderfully comic arm flailing and cowardly retreat. Flashbacks like the way that maniac Tim’s red hair flapped in the wind right before he knocked me down. The way I could feel Matt’s body smash into my midsection when I looked at his beady dead brown eyes even before he had smashed into my midsection and knocked me down. The musty smell of old cigarette smoke on Keith’s sleeveless flannel shirt after he had knocked me down. The soundtrack of this horror? “. . .And Justice for All” naturally.

I needed a fix. I needed it desperately. Elizabeth Taylor’s stares had brought me down and I needed something to help me crawl back up. Some people drown their sorrows in a stiff drink. Some people drown their sorrows in clouds of smoke. I needed something much more dangerous than all of those things. I needed it desperately so I headed towards the only place that could ease my need: a fast food joint. The fast food joint that I knew was next to the pants store. I was feeling sick. Elizabeth Taylor had made me sick and I needed my medicine: a fast food cheeseburger.

I pulled into the parking lot. It was soggy. The snow from a few days before had melted turning the parking lot into a bog or marsh or some other sort of shallow body of water where cranes might land to take a respite. I took it as a sign and guilt, much like a crane, landed and crawled all over me. What if she found out where I was? What if she saw the charge on our card. Damn it I should have gotten cash. Well maybe they have an MAC machine. Everyone has an MAC machine. Damn it why do I still call it a MAC machine? No one knows why I call it that. I can’t even remember what MAC stands for. And for that matter what does ATM stand for. But really what if she found out what I was about to put into myself? What if she wanted a kiss when I got back? What if she leaned in for a kiss and she smelled it all over me, all over my face, in my beard? What if a fry slipped off the table and landed in my pocket and when she went digging through my pants looking for change for laundry or parking meters she found it? It would be a little shriveled greasy piece of evidence that would put me at the scene. That would be a hard one to explain away. “I have NO idea how that got in there. The . . . wind?”

Even worse what if she found who I had in the trunk? I started the car. I put it into drive. I checked my mirrors. I checked my blind spots. I stopped. “You’re already here,” I told myself, “Yeah your shoes’ll get a tad wet but the pleasure from that cheese burger will warm them and ultimately dry them. Wet shoes are temporary but cheeseburger satisfaction is forever. She won’t know. She’ll never know. Just put on the air conditioning on the way home and stick your face in front one of the air vents. It’ll blow it all out. It’ll blow your sins away. It’ll blow all of that beautiful tasty smell out of your beard and off your face and into the unknown.” The addict in me bought it and the car was very quickly in park and turned off.

I tip toed across the wet parking lot and walked into the establishment. He was there to welcome me. He stood in between the drink machine and the front door. He was an older man, round around the middle with balding white hair. His body screamed jolly with every movement. I walked in after an older couple and upon seeing them he erupted, “THERE HE IS!” He grabbed the man by the elbow, patting him on the back. The man’s wife beamed and looked on. “This one staying outta trouble?” he barked at the woman. Her answer was a larger smile. The other man just shook his head. He let them pass with a belly laugh and next it was my turn. He put his hand on my chest stopping me in place. I was in disarray and in no place for joshing. I just wanted to put a cheeseburger in me, exchange my six pocket pants for the four pocket variety and head back home hoping that, however short, my escape would have cured things even briefly. I was even thinking about trying to leave Elizabeth Taylor in my trunk so maybe I could watch an episode of Sportscenter without having to consider her.

But this man’s hand was keeping me from all of my potential successes. He was the Joe Carter to my Mitch Williams. I hate Joe Carter so I immediately started to go wild. I was angry but I felt powerless to do anything. I was conscious of this powerlessness and it just fueled my anger. So in a few moments, the amount of time it might take a relief pitcher to toss out a misplaced fastball, this man’s hand had created something in me that only breaking irreplaceable objects, difficult math problems, and Elizabeth Taylor were able to create. He kept it there for what must have been an awkward amount of time. I just focused all of my completely inappropriate feelings down towards the floor. I was trying to avoid further human contact but I quickly realized that this tactic was not going to work.

I looked at his hand. I thought that maybe this could be construed as some sort of unspoken sign. Perhaps I could have accidentally tripped upon the international sign for I don’t want to josh around with an elderly man with nothing better to do than work at a fast food joint so please just let me get my cheeseburger and get the hell out of here because this moment of my life is starting to fill me with inappropriate rage. That apparently wasn’t effective because the hand failed to move. Finally I looked up and found myself looking at him in his eyes and I was surprised to realize he was doing the same. “Hey hey!” He barked, “We don’t let just anyone in here son.”

“Yeah . . . well . . I . . .”

“Can I see some I.D.?”

And there was something in this man’s eyes that convinced me to reach into my back pocket in search of my wallet. But before I could find it he laughed and patted me on the chest. Everything about him changed, his stance, his voice. Everything changed but his eyes. They stayed locked on me as if he actually was a bouncer who didn’t like the look of me. I mumbled what I thought was an appropriate amount of laughter and walked by to the counter.

In a booth next to a chubby woman with two little girls I unwrapped the cheese burger and imagined that after the first bite things would return to how they had been before that night when Elizabeth Taylor showed up. I had laid down to sleep that night but before I could even turn the bedside light off she was there. She wasn’t in the bed but she was standing next to it. I shook my head and she wouldn’t leave. I rubbed my eyes and she wouldn’t leave. I turned the bedside light off and she wouldn’t leave. I got out of bed and went into the kitchen for a drink of water and then came back and she still wouldn’t leave. I got out of bed and went into the kitchen for a drink of something a little stronger than water and she still wouldn’t leave. I collapsed on the floor, naked and terrified, and she still wouldn’t leave. I looked up at her from the floor and asked her the first thing that came into my mind.

“Why did I keep going back?” I asked her. She didn’t answer so I clarified. “To the game. The football game. Why? WHY? Everyone was having a vice or a desire fulfilled. The violence. The sport. But me I . . . I don’t know what I got. I could have stayed back and microwaved a Hot Pocket. But I kept going back and I got was . . . Well . . . I got fear and . . . and . . .” I was yelling and she woke up with a start and she was afraid and she wanted to know who I was talking to and why I was yelling about Hot Pockets and why I was on the floor naked in the middle of the night. I, like Elizabeth Taylor, had no answer. I just sat there wondering why THOSE had been my questions and Elizabeth Taylor just stood there next to my side of the bed.

I sliced into the burger with my teeth, swallowed and closed my eyes. But when I opened them all I saw was a chubby woman with two little girls. My world was the same. I didn’t have to look in the trunk. I knew that Elizabeth Taylor would still be in there next to or lying on my cargo pants. I took another bite, defeated, and debated whether she was a baby sitter or teenage mother.

Just as I optimistically decided she was a baby sitter he slid into my booth. He didn’t say anything right away. It was almost as if he was waiting for me to say something. That’s the way I FELT. That’s the way he made me feel. I felt like Mitch Williams might feel if Joe Carter had slid into his booth sixteen years later. Even though I was still angry about the previous situation I understood that it had been simply a game. I felt that I should say something and I understood that doing so was as much for MYSELF as it was for him. This knowledge didn’t make what I came up with make any more sense however. “I can never figure out which to finish first.” Is what came out of my mouth. What made it even more odd was that this string of random words I had just managed to connect together didn’t phase him in the least. He just continued to look at me with a slight smile on his face.

“Fries or burger,” I continued for some reason unbeknownst to myself, “I used to finish the burger first and then the fries so I would leave with the taste of fries fresh . . . in my mouth. But . . . recently . . . I’ve flip flopped. I’ve been finishing with the burger recently. Like in the past few years. It’s what I’ve wanted to leave with. I don’t know why. It’s just what I want to keep with me.”

We sat in what was rapidly becoming OUR booth and he smiled and I wondered if I should keep talking and wished that I could take another bite. It seemed rude to take another bite as he had nothing to eat. I considered offering him a fry but thought that might be redundant. Couldn’t he just get his own brand new fresh French fries? He worked here for Christ sakes. He didn’t need some jerk offering him used fries. It’s just that I had nothing else to offer. Finally he leaned back a bit and spoke. “I used to know this real son a bitch. Real son a bitch. Aw. Sorry. Sorry. Ya don’t mind a little sailor language from an old sailor do ya?”

I didn’t know what to say but once again it didn’t keep me from opening my mouth and throwing out some words. “So you were a sailor then?” I asked.

“Nah. Nah. Just a great excuse to use some saucy language around the ladies.”

And then before I could figure out if he had actually been a sailor or not he let out a large laugh and the chubby babysitter with her two charges looked over at me.

“The ladies they like the saucy language. Don’t care what they say. Don’t care. They ENJOY it.”

I let this comment go. It made me feel UNcomfortable.

“I used to know this real son a bitch. He liked Schaefer outta the can. Wouldn’t drink anything else.”

“I’ve never seen a bottle of Schaefer.” I said and then took a bite out of my burger hoping he wouldn’t find me rude.

“Shit son you’re a child you ain’t seen anything. Anything.”

“Well . . . I’m not exactly . . .”

“A child? Surprised they’d even let you in a package store. That beard ain’t foolin’ me son. Things they exist in this world that ya ain’t seen son. Lotsa things. Tons. Shit. Shit. You see it’s this . . . you see it’s this . . .”

His voiced tailed off and we sat there in silence for a moment.

“SHIT.” And he slammed his hand down onto the plastic table. The thud was loud enough to cause one of the chubby babysitter’s charges to drop a nugget. I felt real bad about that. It struck me as sad because when you are little you only get like five or six of those things in a meal. It’s not like when you grow up and there’s basically an unlimited supply of nuggets available to you most hours of the day. I sat real still holding the burger in front of me hoping it would protect me from whatever was coming next.

“Son it’s that kind of ATTITUDE that makes me want to just walk up to kids and kick them right in their shins. SHINS.” And with the second shins came a second slam. And with the second slam came another dropped nugget. I couldn’t be sure if it was a new nugget or the same nugget that had been rescued from the floor under the safety of a hastily issued five second rule. I hoped it was the previously dropped one because a single nugget down is sad while multiple nuggets lost is teetering dangerously on a tragedy. I didn’t want to turn and count the nuggets on the floor for fear of taking my eye off the crazy man who was sitting in front of me. I thought I remembered something about when being attacked by a bear to look straight at it and not look away. Then I panicked because I couldn’t remember if I was supposed to look at the angry bear or avoid eye contact with the angry bear.

“Son,” he continued, his voice lowering as his rage continued to rise, “just because YOU have never seen a bottle of Schaefer in a bottle do you have the stones large enough to BELIEVE that they don’t exist?”

I put down my burger slowly hoping he would confuse it for an answer. He didn’t.

“Well?”

He dug into me with his eyes. My eyes focused on his and then darted to a specific sesame seed on my bun and then back. I was trying to cover all of my bases in the whole eye contact no eye contact debate that was raging in my head. The sesame seed reminded me of Elizabeth Taylor which just made everything that much worse. I honestly couldn’t believe that I had pissed him off this much because of Schaefer beer. I didn’t even really LIKE Schaefer beer that much. What was I thinking? Of course they make Schaefer beer in bottles. I’m sure they make in bottles. What a fucking stupid thing to say. I’m sure it’s great in a bottle. I’m positive that if I ever had the pleasure and the luck to drink Schaefer out of a bottle it would completely alter my view of this American beverage treasure.

“Aw shit son I’m just f’in with ya.” He said with a huge guffaw. I can’t say that I had ever heard an actual guffaw before. But there it was across from me. I felt like a scientist tripping upon a rare species of aardvark or anteater. At first I didn’t recognize what I had stumbled upon. Slowly, I began to understand what it was I had discovered. Then everything clicked, “Dear me! A guffaw and me with out my camera or sketch pad!” And that’s what it was: a real honest to goodness guffaw. And it was infectious. This guffaw wafted across the table and the next thing I knew I was guffawing. I had never guffawed prior to this incredibly odd moment. It felt great. It felt free. It honestly felt free. My face tingled as if I was riding in a car with the top down. I could swear I felt my hair blowing in the quick breeze.

I hadn’t felt free since Elizabeth Taylor had come to visit. In fact that last time I felt that free was months before on the train to the big city with one 22 ounce of Budweiser down and the second quickly on its way out the door. As I stared out the window of the train it hit me: I could be a college radio DJ. I have always wanted to be a college radio hero because they don’t wear their hearts on their sleeve they wear their TASTE on their sleeve and that, I believe, it very much more daunting. On that commuter train drunk and on my way to where I was headed I realized that my chances of being a college radio hero were as real as the row houses and strip malls that were speeding past my window. The feel of headphones on my ears DIDN’T have to be a fantasy it COULD be a reality. That music on those stranger’s radios COULD be the music I chose. It had always seemed so far away but that day on that train it was like my dream of college radio stardom was sitting right next me. It felt free. I was going to march down there to my local college radio station and volunteer. I’d take anything. The midnight shift. The Three A.M. shift. I felt free. I could honestly say that I felt my hair blowing quickly in the breeze.

But then Elizabeth Taylor came.

I guffawed and he guffawed and I looked over and one of the chubby babysitter’s charges was guffawing. The chubby babysitter was shaking her head at me either because I was partially responsible for riling up this little girl or because I partially responsible for the whole previous nugget dropping incident. I just kept on guffawing. A young African American kid came to our table and disrupted the revelry. “There’s a big spill in the kitchen. Can I get your keys?” He asked the man.

“Of course son. Of course. I’m just f’in with this guy. You should have seen his face.”

“Look like he shit a brick?”

“A big pointy one.”

“You crazy sir. Crazy.”

“I am.” He said turning his head to look at me. “I am.” He handed the kid his keys all the while his eyes locked on me.

“You should tell him about Clancy sir. That shit’ll blow his brick shittin’ mind.”

“Clancy?” I asked still drunk with the joy of the guffaw.

“Blow ya mind man.” Said the boy as he went to clean up a spill in the kitchen.

“Clancy Pendergast,” the old man started leaning back, “was one crazy son a bitch.”

“I think you mentioned that once. Something about Schaefer beer.” I said with the confidence of someone who thinks they are in on the joke.

“You don’t even know the half of it. Half. You see Clancy called me during the night. We were kids. Like you. Just kids. He called me nights in a panic. He always sounded bad. Like real bad. Clancy had these moments. He had these real bad moments. If the phone rang after 11 I knew it was Clancy. Couldn’t be nobody else. Nobody I knew was callin’ after 11 cept for Clancy. It was BAD. REAL bad.”

“He was a drinker? I have a friend he just got himself cleaned up but there was a time when ever the phone rang I was worried that. . .”

“No,” he interrupted, “No and no. No he wasn’t a drinker and no I was never worried when the phone rang. I just knew it was Clancy.”

“I’m sorry it’s just that you said that thing about drinking the Schaefer.”

“Yeah. He liked Schaefer but that’s not here or there or anywhere really. It’s just he had these moments. You see he didn’t like the fact that people confused him for an English muffin.”

I guffawed. I still had some in me and I let it go. I was as high and free as a kite from before and I could not help myself. I threw up my hands and my head and guffawed. One of the little girls next to us joined me. We guffawed together in perfect harmony. I realized my mistake immediately from the look that was greeting me when I lowered my head and my eyes met his. He started to get up.

“No!” I almost screamed, “Please. I’m . . . I’m sorry I thought. . .”

“I was kidding?” He answered hovering in a half sit, half stand stance.

“Yes. No. Yes. No. Okay yes but . . . English muffin?”

“English muffin.” He said staying completely still. He was waiting for me to say the right thing. I could see it in him. Read it in the stillness of his body. I had to choose my words carefully. I didn’t want to loose him. I had no idea why but I COULDN’T loose him. I took a shot in the dark.

“He must have been complex. What with all of those nooks and crannies.”

He slunk back into his seat a smile growing on his face. “Well I wasn’t jokin’ and neither was he.” He continued, “He could hardly walk down the street with out being mistaken for an English muffin.”

He shook his head and looked out the window. I decided to keep my mouth shut and just let him stare or talk or do whatever it was he felt was right. I had a feeling that he knew best.

“You see Clancy was always being mistaken for an English muffin and some days he was okay with it and some days he just wasn’t. He would go long stretches where it just became unbearable. He wouldn’t leave his house. He left the curtains pulled down tight as they could get. You’d go over and there’d be no light other then the occasional fridge light from when you opened it to get a beverage or a snack. You see he lived in this one room apartment and when you opened the fridge it would cast light on the whole place. Once I tried to light a candle and he blew it out. This made me mad because my wife had bought him this candle. It was scented and she thought that maybe the scent would help him. It was supposed to be soothing. But I suppose he didn’t find it soothing or whatever and he blew it out. But not with his mouth. No. I lit that candle and he took one look at it and got up like a mad man and threw open the door to the fridge. And then he threw it closed. You see he kept doing this until the wind created from that door going open and then closed blew that candle right out. Then he sat down. But he left the fridge open almost like he was making a point. I think it was a point he was making. But, you see, I’m really protective of my wife. He might as well of been blowing my wife out. Which I just wouldn’t have. So I took it real personal and I called him a real son a’ bitch and stormed outta there tellin’ him I wasn’t gonna go back and to stop callin’ me so damn late. But god damn it he knew me better than that. Clancy could really read ‘em. He could really read ‘em. He called me that night cause he knew I was gonna answer. And I did. I did.”

He stopped and stared out of the window. He stayed like that for what seemed like hours but was probably a minute and a half. The kid came back and put the keys down on the table. He didn’t move his head even when the metal clicked gently with the plastic. I was fascinated because it really struck me strange. I just felt that most anyone would have shoved the keys at him, made him TAKE them from him. Or they would have thrown them down on the table. This kid had PLACED the keys on the table as not to disrupt him. I took my cue from this kid who was obviously more something than his 15 or 16 years. I stared at that sesame seed that reminded me of Elizabeth Taylor and thought about what I always thought about when something reminded me of her.

It’s like watching a memory in fast forwards. You can only pick up a bit here or there. The wind is blowing the leaves of the trees that Tim and Matt and Keith would soon use to hide and smoke cigarettes. It’s a cold afternoon and winter’s premature darkness is creeping in. Elizabeth Taylor is sitting, cross legged, on the grass in a light grey “Newark, Delaware” sweatshirt watching our game like she did almost every day. Then there is a play. A handoff? It’s hard to see. It’s blurry and happening so fast. A pass? The ball is in the air? A catch? And then: A HIT. And then someone hits the ground hard and can’t get up. They are actually down. They are actually hurt. No one moves. Everyone just stops and looks. No one knows what to do. Everything is still. Except for Elizabeth Taylor. Elizabeth Taylor jumps up and runs towards him. I can’t remember my first kiss. If I sat in a still and dark room for day after week after month I couldn’t fetch it back from where ever these things go to die. I can’t remember how it felt. I can’t remember how I felt. But I can see Elizabeth Taylor running across that field to come to the aide of that injured player as clear as that sesame seed on my bun.

I THINK it was me. I THINK it was me laying on the field. I think I hit the ground hard and I think I got the wind knocked out of me and I think that as I lay there I turned my head to see Elizabeth Taylor, in that light grey “Newark, Delaware” sweatshirt, running towards me to comfort me and play nurse to me. But that’s what’s been eating at me. That’s what’s brought me here to this booth with this man. I THINK. I can’t be sure. I can’t fetch the truth from where ever these things go to die. I’m not sure. The only thing I’m sure of is that Elizabeth Taylor ran to the aide of that injured player. I just can’t remember who it was. I just can’t figure out if I THINK it was me or if I WISH it was me. If it was me then the fact that I could relive this minor moment in my life in vivid detail would make sense. If it wasn’t me then . . .

“You see it wasn’t that he really minded being confused with an English Muffin.” He continued. “Some people might not like that all that much. Hell can’t say that I would much enjoy it. He handled that all in stride. It was just that he didn’t see him self as an English Muffin. When he looked in the mirror that’s not what he saw. He saw a zeppole. Have you ever had a zeppole? I used to get them from this hole in a wall pizza shack in Sunset Park when I lived in Brooklyn. Delicious. It’s like funnel cake but more doughy. Covered in powered sugar. I can still remember the way the hot dough gently melts the powered sugar. Can’t say I’ve one in years. Not years. But that’s what he saw. He wasn’t an English muffin he was a zeppole and he just wanted just once someone to realize that. He just wanted just once someone to walk up to him and say, ‘Zeppole! Yeah! Zeppole!’ But you see they never did. They never did. It was just day after day of comments about his nooks and crannies and how they’d like to slather him in jam and some days he could take it and other days he couldn’t. He just couldn’t. The thing was the bad days were turning into bad weeks and bad months and there would be stretches when I would forget that he even HAD good days.”

He stopped and I thought he might be headed to where ever it was that he retreated to before. Instead he looked down at the keys and was surprised to see them there. He picked them up, tossed them weakly in the air and stared at them as he continued. “My daughter, Lydia, was born in the middle of the night. I had to rush my wife to the hospital in the early evening. We were there for days. There were . . . complications. Yeah. Complications. When we got back there was a note on the door. Ya see this was before message machines and the like. It was from Clancy. He had been calling and I should have known. He didn’t say that in his note. I mean I should have known. I should have given him a call to check in. He had been having a tough week. The note was hard to read. The handwriting it was really shaky. I always joked he had the handwriting of a serial killer. I could make out about three quarters of it. He had had enough. He had done some research and found out that there were no English muffins in Brazil. It just wasn’t part of their culinary culture he said. His words. Culinary culture. So he was gone. He was gone to Brazil. I went over to his place. To see if it wasn’t too late. But it was. The door was open. The shades were drawn shut. He was gone. I opened the fridge for light cause I thought you know maybe there’d be some kind a clues or something. Did he really go to Brazil or . . . I couldn’t see anything. The bulb had burned out. I sat down at the table and I wept.”

He stopped and stared out the window. I tried to follow his gaze and fix on what it was that he was seeing. But I quickly realized I would never know. I reached down and picked up my cold burger. I needed a fix. I needed a bite for courage. I chewed slowly and quietly. I laid the burger down on the paper and with the rustling of the paper he looked back at me.

“It’s okay. You can ask.” He said looking at me.

“Did you . . . did you ever hear from him?”

“Do you want me to clear that for you?” He said standing up, clipping his keys to his belt. And with the snap of the dog clip I had my answer.

“Um. Yes. I’m done. Thanks.”

“You know,” he said leaning over and grabbing my tray, “it’s funny but I still to this day ask myself this ONE question.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Do they have zeppoles in Brazil?”

We looked at each other and he said goodbye with his eyes like some people can. I can’t so I just nodded and then watched him walk away. He took up his place at the door and in mere moments a young couple walked in, the woman carrying a baby girl. He beamed. He tickled her on the tummy. She laughed. Her mom laughed. The old man laughed. Her dad looked at this old man warily. The old man laughed and tickled the baby again. The baby laughed. The dad melted and laughed as well. They walked by. The old man rose up on his toes and then settled back down smiling. I sat for a while. The chubby babysitter gathered up her charges, wiped their faces, made sure each had their happy meal boxes and took them to her Ford Focus. I sat for a little longer. The African American kid left talking on his cell phone. He stopped at the door and shook the old man’s hand. The old man didn’t say anything he just smiled and then laughed. The African American broke up, shook his head and left. I continued to sit there until it hit me: I had pants to return. I stood up, put my jacket on and thought seriously about letting Elizabeth Taylor out of the trunk.