11/22/63: A Novel (4 page)

“I want you to see something before we sit down again. It’ll be quicker that way. Only
seeing
isn’t the right word. I guess
experiencing
is a lot closer. Drink up, buddy.”

I drank half the water. It was cool and good, but I never took my eye off him. That craven part of me was expecting to be jumped, like the first unwitting victim in one of those maniac-on-the-loose movies that always seem to have numbers in their titles. But Al only stood there with one hand propped on the counter. The hand was wrinkled, the knuckles big. It didn’t look like the hand of a man in his fifties, even one with cancer, and—

“Did the radiation do that?” I asked suddenly.

“Do what?”

“You have a
tan.
Not to mention those dark spots on the backs of your hands. You get those either from radiation or too much sun.”

“Well, since I haven’t had any radiation treatments, that leaves the sun. I’ve gotten quite a lot of it over the last four years.”

So far as I knew, Al had spent most of the last four years flipping burgers and making milkshakes under fluorescent lights, but I didn’t say so. I just drank the rest of my water. When I set the glass down on the Formica counter, I noticed my hand was shaking slightly.

“Okay, what is it you want me to see? Or to experience?”

“Come this way.”

He led me down the long, narrow galley area, past the double grill, the Fry-O-Lators, the sink, the FrostKing fridge, and the humming waist-high freezer. He stopped in front of the silent
dishwasher and pointed to the door at the far end of the kitchen. It was low; Al would have to duck his head going through it, and he was only five-seven or so. I’m six-four—some of the kids called me Helicopter Epping.

“That’s it,” he said. “Through that door.”

“Isn’t that your pantry?” Strictly a rhetorical question; I’d seen him bring out enough cans, sacks of potatoes, and bags of dry goods over the years to know damn well what it was.

Al seemed not to have heard. “Did you know I originally opened this joint in Auburn?”

“No.”

He nodded, and just that was enough to kick off another bout of coughing. He stifled it with the increasingly gruesome handkerchief. When the latest fit finally tapered off, he tossed the handkerchief into a handy trash can, then grabbed a swatch of napkins from a dispenser on the counter.

“It’s an Aluminaire, made in the thirties and as art deco as they come. Wanted one ever since my dad took me to the Chat ’N Chew in Bloomington, back when I was a kid. Bought it fully outfitted and opened up on Pine Street. I was at that location for almost a year, and I saw that if I stayed, I’d be bankrupt in another year. There were too many other quick-bite joints in the neighborhood, some good, some not so good, all of em with their regulars. I was like a kid fresh out of law school who hangs out his shingle in a town that already has a dozen well-established shysters. Also, in those days Al’s Famous Fatburger sold for two-fifty. Even back in 1990 two and a half was the best I could do.”

“Then how in hell do you sell it for less than half that now? Unless it really
is
cat.”

He snorted, a sound that produced a phlegmy echo of itself deep in his chest. “Buddy, what I sell is a hundred percent pure American beef, the best in the world. Do I know what people say? Sure. I shrug it off. What else can you do? Stop people from talking? You might as well try to stop the wind from blowing.”

I ran a finger across my throat. Al smiled.

“Yeah, gettin off on one of those sidetracks, I know, but at least this one’s part of the story.

“I could have kept beating my head against the wall on Pine
Street, but Yvonne Templeton didn’t raise any fools. ‘Better to run away and fight again some other day,’ she used to tell us kids. I took the last of my capital, wheedled the bank into loaning me another five grand—don’t ask me how—and moved here to The Falls. Business still hasn’t been great, not with the economy the way it is and not with all that stupid talk about Al’s Catburgers or Dogburgers or Skunkburgers or whatever tickles people’s fancy, but it turns out I’m no longer tied to the economy the way other people are. And it’s all because of what’s behind that pantry door. It wasn’t there when I was set up in Auburn, I’d swear to that on a stack of Bibles ten feet high. It only showed up here.”

“What are you talking about?”

He looked at me steadily from his watery, newly old eyes. “Talking’s done for now. You need to find out for yourself. Go on, open it.”

I looked at him doubtfully.

“Think of it as a dying man’s last request,” he said. “Go on, buddy. If you really are my buddy, that is. Open the door.”

I’d be lying if I said my heart didn’t kick into a higher gear when I turned the knob and pulled. I had no idea what I might be faced with (although I seem to remember having a brief image of dead cats, skinned and ready for the electric meat grinder), but when Al reached past my shoulder and turned on the light, what I saw was—

Well, a pantry.

It was small, and as neat as the rest of the diner. There were shelves stacked with big restaurant-sized cans on both walls. At the far end of the room, where the roof curved down, were some cleaning supplies, although the broom and mop had to lie flat because
that part of the cubby was no more than three feet high. The floor was the same dark gray linoleum as the floor of the diner, but rather than the faint odor of cooked meat, in here there was the scent of coffee, vegetables, and spices. There was another smell, too, faint and not so pleasant.

“Okay,” I said. “It’s the pantry. Neat and fully stocked. You get an A in supply management, if there is such a thing.”

“What do you smell?”

“Spices, mostly. Coffee. Maybe air freshener, too, I’m not sure.”

“Uh-huh, I use Glade. Because of the other smell. Are you saying you don’t smell anything else?”

“Yeah, there’s something. Kind of sulphury. Makes me think of burnt matches.” It also made me think of the poison gas I and my family had put out after my mom’s Saturday night bean suppers, but I didn’t like to say so. Did cancer treatments make you fart?

“It is sulphur. Other stuff, too, none of it Chanel No. 5. It’s the smell of the mill, buddy.”

More craziness, but all I said (in a tone of absurd cocktail-party politeness) was, “Really?”

He smiled again, exposing those gaps where teeth had been the day before. “What you’re too polite to say is that Worumbo has been closed since Hector was a pup. That in fact it mostly burned to the ground back in the late eighties, and what’s standing out there now”—he jerked a thumb back over his shoulder—“is nothing but a mill outlet store. Your basic Vacationland tourist stop, like the Kennebec Fruit Company during Moxie Days. You’re also thinking it’s about time you grabbed your cell phone and called for the men in the white coats. That about the size of it, buddy?”

“I’m not calling anybody, because you’re not crazy.” I was far from sure of that. “But this is just a pantry, and it’s true that Worumbo Mills and Weaving hasn’t turned out a bolt of cloth in the last quarter century.”

“You aren’t going to call anybody, you’re right about that, because I want you to give me your cell phone, your wallet, and all
the money you have in your pockets, coins included. It ain’t a robbery; you’ll get it all back. Will you do that?”

“How long is this going to take, Al? Because I’ve got some honors themes to correct before I can close up my grade book for the school year.”

“It’ll take as long as you want,” he said, “because it’ll only take two minutes. It
always
takes two minutes. Take an hour and really look around, if you want, but I wouldn’t, not the first time, because it’s a shock to the system. You’ll see. Will you trust me on this?” Something he saw on my face tightened his lips over that reduced set of teeth. “Please.
Please,
Jake. Dying man’s request.”

I was sure he was crazy, but I was equally sure that he was telling the truth about his condition. His eyes seemed to have retreated deeper into their sockets in the short time we’d been talking. Also, he was exhausted. Just the two dozen steps from the booth at one end of the diner to the pantry at the other had left him swaying on his feet. And the bloody handkerchief, I reminded myself. Don’t forget the bloody handkerchief.

Also . . . sometimes it’s just easier to go along, don’t you think? “Let go and let God,” they like to say in the meetings my ex-wife goes to, but I decided this was going to be a case of let go and let Al. Up to a point, at any rate. And hey, I told myself, you have to go through more rigamarole than this just to get on an airplane these days. He isn’t even asking me to put my shoes on a conveyor.

I unclipped my phone from my belt and put it on top of a canned tuna carton. I added my wallet, a little fold of paper money, a dollar fifty or so in change, and my key ring.

“Keep the keys, they don’t matter.”

Well, they did to me, but I kept my mouth shut.

Al reached into his pocket and brought out a sheaf of bills considerably thicker than the one I’d deposited on top of the carton. He held the wad out to me. “Mad money. In case you want to buy a souvenir, or something. Go on and take it.”

“Why wouldn’t I use my own money for that?” I sounded quite reasonable, I thought. Just as if this crazy conversation made sense.

“Never mind that now,” he said. “The experience will answer
most of your questions better than I could even if I was feeling tip-top, and right now I’m on the absolute other side of the world from tip-top. Take the money.”

I took the money and thumbed through it. There were ones on top and they looked okay. Then I came to a five, and that looked both okay and not okay. It said
SILVER CERTIFICATE
above Abe Lincoln’s picture, and to his left there was a big blue
5
. I held it up to the light.

“It ain’t counterfeit, if that’s what you’re thinking.” Al sounded wearily amused.

Maybe not—it felt as real as it looked—but there was no bleed-through image.

“If it’s real, it’s old,” I said.

“Just put the money in your pocket, Jake.”

I did.

“Are you carrying a pocket calculator? Any other electronics?”

“Nope.”

“I guess you’re good to go, then. Turn around so you’re looking at the back of the pantry.” Before I could do it, he slapped his forehead and said, “Oh God, where are my brains? I forgot the Yellow Card Man.”

“The who? The what?”

“The Yellow Card Man. That’s just what I call him, I don’t know his real name. Here, take this.” He rummaged in his pocket, then handed me a fifty-cent piece. I hadn’t seen one in years. Maybe not since I was a kid.

I hefted it. “I don’t think you want to give me this. It’s probably valuable.”

“Of course it’s valuable, it’s worth half a buck.”

He got coughing, and this time it shook him like a hard wind, but he waved me off when I started toward him. He leaned on the stack of cartons with my stuff on top, spat into the wad of napkins, looked, winced, and then closed his fist around them. His haggard face was now running with sweat.

“Hot flash, or somethin like it. Damn cancer’s screwing with
my thermostat along with the rest of my shit. About the Yellow Card Man. He’s a wino, and he’s harmless, but he’s not like anyone else. It’s like he
knows
something. I think it’s only a coincidence—because he happens to be plumped down not far from where you’re gonna come out—but I wanted to give you a heads-up about him.”

“Well you’re not doing a very good job,” I said. “I have no fucking idea what you’re talking about.”

“He’s gonna say, ‘I got a yellow card from the greenfront, so gimme a buck because today’s double-money day.’ You got that?”

“Got it.” The shit kept getting deeper.

“And he
does
have a yellow card, tucked in the brim of his hat. Probably nothing but a taxi company card or maybe a Red & White coupon he found in the gutter, but his brains are shot on cheap wine and he seems to thinks it’s like Willy Wonka’s Golden Ticket. So
you
say, ‘I can’t spare a buck but here’s half a rock,’ and you give it to him. Then he may say . . .” Al raised one of his now skeletal fingers. “He
may
say something like, ‘Why are you here’ or ‘Where did you come from.’ He may even say something like, ‘You’re not the same guy.’ I don’t think so, but it’s possible. There’s so much about this I don’t know. Whatever he says, just leave him there by the drying shed—which is where he’s sitting—and go out the gate. When you go he’ll probably say, ‘I
know
you could spare a buck, you cheap bastard,’ but pay no attention. Don’t look back. Cross the tracks and you’ll be at the intersection of Main and Lisbon.” He gave me an ironic smile. “After that, buddy, the world is yours.”

“Drying shed?” I thought I vaguely remembered
something
near the place where the diner now stood, and I supposed it might have been the old Worumbo drying shed, but whatever it had been, it was gone now. If there had been a window at the back of the Aluminaire’s cozy little pantry, it would have been looking out on nothing but a brick courtyard and an outerwear shop called Your Maine Snuggery. I had treated myself to a North Face parka there shortly after Christmas, and got it at a real bargain price.

“Never mind the drying shed, just remember what I told you.
Now turn around again—that’s right—and take two or three steps forward. Little ones. Baby steps. Pretend you’re trying to find the top of a staircase with all the lights out—careful like that.”

I did as he asked, feeling like the world’s biggest dope. One step . . . lowering my head to keep from scraping it on the aluminum ceiling . . . two steps . . . now actually crouching a little. A few more steps and I’d have to get on my knees. That I had no intention of doing, dying man’s request or not.

“Al, this is stupid. Unless you want me to bring you a carton of fruit cocktail or some of these little jelly packets, there’s nothing I can do in h—”

That was when my foot went down, the way your foot does when you’re starting down a flight of steps. Except my foot was still firmly on the dark gray linoleum floor. I could see it.