The Inflatable Saviour (part two)
grooveamatic
Posts: 1,374
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Alfred drove home from work in his modest hatchback, usually taking the country routes instead of the freeways. He’d often been heard telling folks how the freeways scared him. So many trucks, he would say, and leave it at that.
On alternating days, he would stop at Tina and Tim’s, an old-time diner on Luss Street. It’s the type of diner that is decorated to look “retro”, with pink and blue neon all over the place and shiny chrome surfaces where there shouldn’t have been surfaces at all. Like most of these retro places, the menu wasn’t retro at all, but included everything from low-carb beer to Gardenburgers, and all the greasy, fat-laden choices that have been common to American food since they came up with the name America.
Alfred Monshocky had stopped at Tina and Tim’s for the first time a few weeks after he had moved to his home on Mooney Lane. The atmosphere had pleased him. Not understated, not overstated, he had said to himself. The food had been agreeable. It hadn’t been as good as his own cooking, but Alfred would be the last person to admit that.
He began to eat at Tina and Tim’s on a regular basis soon after his first visit. Tina got to know Alfred almost immediately; she was the main waitress.
“ Can’t justify payin’ nobody else to do what I can be doin’, you know what I mean, Alfred?” she said to him today; she said this to Alfred nearly every day.
“ Sure, Tina. You can be doing it.”
“ You ever work in a restaurant, Alfred?”
“ Well, no. My father, he sure loved to eat, though.”
She was good with keeping Alfred’s coffee filled. She’d come back around at least once every five minutes, and she was always full of something to say when she did.
“ What do you make of these burglaries round here lately, Alfred?”
“ Burglaries?”
“ You don’t know about them?”
“ Um…”
“ Been five burglaries in the last two weeks, all right around here.”
“ I don’t read the paper much.”
“ You live out on Mooney Lane, right?”
“ Never did read the paper much.”
“ There was even one out there on Mooney. You better watch out.”
“ No one would want to steal anything from my house, Tina.”
Tina shifted her position from in front of Alfred’s booth to standing parallel to him, as though she were sitting in the booth with him, and made a face of perverse curiosity, first at Alfred’s plate, and then at Alfred.
“ Are you playing with your food, Alfred Monshocky?”
Alfred seemed as surprised at this as Tina was. His face reddened slightly, as a thumb will when held onto an ice cube. He had corralled his mashed potatoes into three separate piles, and in these piles he had dug holes. He had inserted his peas into the holes. “ Well I…I suppose I was playing with my food. My apologies, Tina, it wasn’t meant as a…reflection-“
“ Don’t you worry about it, dear. I didn’t take no offense. It’s just I never seen you do it. You got big gestion matters on the brain? Home life in your head?”
“ Oh no, none of that, none of that at all. I don’t know if I had anything on my mind at all.”
Alfred noticed that Tina played with her hoop earrings whenever she talked. It couldn’t be sanitary. “ Well, I think a man who plays with his food has got something eating at him, don’t you?”
Alfred looked around; none of the physical objects in the room helped him figure out what to say. His eyes told Tina he was stranded.
“ I don’t mean to bug ya, Alfred. It’s just the waitress in me, is all. You go on ahead and finish up your food, whatever you want of it. I’ll be back with coffee.”
“ It’s churches,” Alfred blurted.
Tina jumped. “ What’s that, dear?”
“ It’s just the churches in town. By the agency. They’re so huge.”
“ Well you gotta build somethin’ big to put God inside it, don’t ya?”
“ Danny and I ate at a new place today, and then we walked past a huge church.”
“ Danny-that’s your partner, right?”
“ Yeah. We ate somewhere new today. I didn’t know they made churches that big.”
Tina slid into Alfred’s booth and sat her tray down on his table. “ Did you ever go to church, Alfred?”
“ Only for a cousin’s wedding. And that church wasn’t any bigger than your restaurant.”
“ I guess they had a smaller God, right Alfred?”
“ Really?”
“ No. Or…I guess so, depends on what you believe. Why don’t you go to church sometime, Alfred? You could go to the big one in town, even.”
“ I don’t think I could. Not now.”
“ Why’s that, dear?”
“ Because I bought a woman today.”
Most weekends, Alfred Monshocky busied himself about his home, solitary and usually humming or whistling his favorite tunes. He did a lot of gardening. He grew cabbage and tomatoes, and all sorts of flowers. Perrenials, mostly, but of course, he had his share of Annuals, also. He had once toyed with the idea of a rose bush, but he had thought that seemed presumptious.
This summer, he had even got all new equipment. He purchased brand-new gardening gloves. He had gotten them one size too small, and had to return them. Eventually, though, he got the right size. He had also got two new trowels, one with a brown handle, and one with a gray handle. He bought a brand-new tackle box, in which he kept his seeds, and assorted other gardening toys. He was a good gardener, too. His vegetables were always fabulously plump, and his flowers beamed with color and strong stems. The small plot of land that he set aside for the plants was the most ordered, symmetrical and lush garden in the whole town. He took silent pride in knowing this.
His neighbor, Miss Garble, would traverse her lawn to Alfred’s garden now and then to talk shop with him.
“Looking good again this year, Alfred. You do have the touch.”
“Why thank you, Miss Garble.”
“What else do you have the magic touch in?”
“Well, not to brag, but I do cook a fairly good lasagna.”
“Is that all, Alfred?”
“I’m alright at canning, I guess.”
“Those are pretty plump tomatoes, Alfred.”
“Why thank you, Miss Garble.”
“I like plump things.”
“Me too. I like my mushrooms plump. And my pillows.”
“Oh, Alfred Monshocky, you are a dense man, God love ya!”
“I like my spaghetti sauce dense.”
When he wasn’t outside gardening, Alfred spent a lot of time indoors. One of his favorite pasttimes was to play one-man Scrabble. He’d set up a board for four players, and then take turns being all four, actually moving around his dining-room table to each of his four chairs, competing against himself. Sometimes, he’d start to root for one of the “players”, usually an underdog who had started out with bad letters. However, he never let the presence of an underdog undermine his fairness. If one of the other “players” had a great wordscore possibility, he took it, sometimes to his own dismay. He kept score, not just of individual games, but of overall statistics, so that he figured, at the end of each week, which chair had the best win-loss percentage, and the highest overall score. He would break it down into percentages for that week, for that month, for that year, and all-time. Sometimes Miss Garble would come over for coffee, and they’d play a two-person game of Scrabble.
One Saturday, in the middle of a rather intense game of one-man Scrabble, Alfreds’ doorbell rang. Expecting it to be either Miss Garble or perhaps the postman with a package of fertilizer he had ordered, he calmly but not slowly crossed his living room, and answered the door.
It took a few painful seconds before Alfred recognized his guest; it was a man of Alfred’s age and height, and the bells of recognition were clanging their hardest to be heard in Alfred’s head.
“ Renny Harrison, is it?” he finally managed, with all the confidence he could muster.
“ That’s right, Al! How ya been? It’s been years since GBU, but you still look the same to me!”
“ Wow, Renny. I haven’t seen anyone from college since we graduated.”
“ Since you graduated, m’boy. I didn’t make the cut. But I saw you walk up on that stage, remember? You sent me a ticket in the mail. Can I come in?”
“ Oh gosh, of course! Where are my, ah…”
“ Manners?” Renny offered.
“ Yes, that’s right…where are my manners? Geez, have a seat. Do you play Scrabble?”
“ Trying to quit. Remember, I got kicked out of college cause of too much Scrabble.”
“ I thought it was too much booze, too few classes?” Alfred said, puzzled.
“ Oh, so you do have a memory, when it comes to unearthing the naked past? Well, we’ll just fix that. How’ve you been, Al?”
“ I go by Alfred now.”
“ So go buy him, how much does he cost?”
“ Um…”
“ Nevermind. I bet you’re wondering why I showed up here, and how I found the place, and what I want?”
“ I was just wondering about the Scrabble, really…”
“ Remember in our sophomore year, that time you drank the fifth of vodka and threw the chaise lounge off the balcony?”
“ That was a long time ago, Renny.”
“ Not so! What-ten, fifteen years? Not so long at all. Why, a boy that was born on that day doesn’t even have pubic hair yet!”
“ But he’d have a full vocabulary, and wouldn’t believe in Santa anymore, Renny.”
“ What’s that have to do with it? Listen, Alfred: I’ve got the chaise out in my truck.”
Alfred stifled a cough, and recovering, managed: “ What in Heaven for?”
“ It’s got nothing to do with Heaven, Al. Listen: help me to bring it in here.”
“ I can’t fathom why, Renny. There’s not even a space for it.”
Now Renny fell silent, and glared at Alfred with a look that was equal parts confusion and desperation. His eyes seemed to dance.
“ Because, Alfred, it’ll be like old times.”
They cleared a spot for it by the fake fireplace. It never would have done to leave it there permanently, but for awhile, Alfred thought, it was cozy enough.
So they sat together on the chaise lounge and reminisced. It was obvious to Alfred that Renny had gone completely mad in the years since they’d known each other.. He spoke quickly, and often nonsensically, and he reeked of libraries. He insisted that Alfred relive his younger days, when he had-for two months-been a member of Renny’s fraternity. In actuality, he had barely known Renny. The Greek life simply wasn’t for Alfred. He hadn’t mixed well with them. The incident with the chaise had been the most outrageous thing he had ever done at the frat house, and unbeknownst to the other frat members, the whole thing had been an accident anyway. He hadn’t even drank the fifth of vodka-he had fed it incrimentally to an innocent cactus in the back hallway. It was, of course, too late now to reveal the truth, and Alfred doubted Renny would believe him, anyway.
“ So, Al m’man, what is it you do nowadays, anyway?”
“ Statistics, mainly. Gestion mainly. And temporation.”
“ But not temporation mainly?”
“ Um…?”
“ Nevermind all that. I don’t really care. So, will you keep the chaise?”
“ Um…”
*********************************************************
Alfred drove home from work in his modest hatchback, usually taking the country routes instead of the freeways. He’d often been heard telling folks how the freeways scared him. So many trucks, he would say, and leave it at that.
On alternating days, he would stop at Tina and Tim’s, an old-time diner on Luss Street. It’s the type of diner that is decorated to look “retro”, with pink and blue neon all over the place and shiny chrome surfaces where there shouldn’t have been surfaces at all. Like most of these retro places, the menu wasn’t retro at all, but included everything from low-carb beer to Gardenburgers, and all the greasy, fat-laden choices that have been common to American food since they came up with the name America.
Alfred Monshocky had stopped at Tina and Tim’s for the first time a few weeks after he had moved to his home on Mooney Lane. The atmosphere had pleased him. Not understated, not overstated, he had said to himself. The food had been agreeable. It hadn’t been as good as his own cooking, but Alfred would be the last person to admit that.
He began to eat at Tina and Tim’s on a regular basis soon after his first visit. Tina got to know Alfred almost immediately; she was the main waitress.
“ Can’t justify payin’ nobody else to do what I can be doin’, you know what I mean, Alfred?” she said to him today; she said this to Alfred nearly every day.
“ Sure, Tina. You can be doing it.”
“ You ever work in a restaurant, Alfred?”
“ Well, no. My father, he sure loved to eat, though.”
She was good with keeping Alfred’s coffee filled. She’d come back around at least once every five minutes, and she was always full of something to say when she did.
“ What do you make of these burglaries round here lately, Alfred?”
“ Burglaries?”
“ You don’t know about them?”
“ Um…”
“ Been five burglaries in the last two weeks, all right around here.”
“ I don’t read the paper much.”
“ You live out on Mooney Lane, right?”
“ Never did read the paper much.”
“ There was even one out there on Mooney. You better watch out.”
“ No one would want to steal anything from my house, Tina.”
Tina shifted her position from in front of Alfred’s booth to standing parallel to him, as though she were sitting in the booth with him, and made a face of perverse curiosity, first at Alfred’s plate, and then at Alfred.
“ Are you playing with your food, Alfred Monshocky?”
Alfred seemed as surprised at this as Tina was. His face reddened slightly, as a thumb will when held onto an ice cube. He had corralled his mashed potatoes into three separate piles, and in these piles he had dug holes. He had inserted his peas into the holes. “ Well I…I suppose I was playing with my food. My apologies, Tina, it wasn’t meant as a…reflection-“
“ Don’t you worry about it, dear. I didn’t take no offense. It’s just I never seen you do it. You got big gestion matters on the brain? Home life in your head?”
“ Oh no, none of that, none of that at all. I don’t know if I had anything on my mind at all.”
Alfred noticed that Tina played with her hoop earrings whenever she talked. It couldn’t be sanitary. “ Well, I think a man who plays with his food has got something eating at him, don’t you?”
Alfred looked around; none of the physical objects in the room helped him figure out what to say. His eyes told Tina he was stranded.
“ I don’t mean to bug ya, Alfred. It’s just the waitress in me, is all. You go on ahead and finish up your food, whatever you want of it. I’ll be back with coffee.”
“ It’s churches,” Alfred blurted.
Tina jumped. “ What’s that, dear?”
“ It’s just the churches in town. By the agency. They’re so huge.”
“ Well you gotta build somethin’ big to put God inside it, don’t ya?”
“ Danny and I ate at a new place today, and then we walked past a huge church.”
“ Danny-that’s your partner, right?”
“ Yeah. We ate somewhere new today. I didn’t know they made churches that big.”
Tina slid into Alfred’s booth and sat her tray down on his table. “ Did you ever go to church, Alfred?”
“ Only for a cousin’s wedding. And that church wasn’t any bigger than your restaurant.”
“ I guess they had a smaller God, right Alfred?”
“ Really?”
“ No. Or…I guess so, depends on what you believe. Why don’t you go to church sometime, Alfred? You could go to the big one in town, even.”
“ I don’t think I could. Not now.”
“ Why’s that, dear?”
“ Because I bought a woman today.”
Most weekends, Alfred Monshocky busied himself about his home, solitary and usually humming or whistling his favorite tunes. He did a lot of gardening. He grew cabbage and tomatoes, and all sorts of flowers. Perrenials, mostly, but of course, he had his share of Annuals, also. He had once toyed with the idea of a rose bush, but he had thought that seemed presumptious.
This summer, he had even got all new equipment. He purchased brand-new gardening gloves. He had gotten them one size too small, and had to return them. Eventually, though, he got the right size. He had also got two new trowels, one with a brown handle, and one with a gray handle. He bought a brand-new tackle box, in which he kept his seeds, and assorted other gardening toys. He was a good gardener, too. His vegetables were always fabulously plump, and his flowers beamed with color and strong stems. The small plot of land that he set aside for the plants was the most ordered, symmetrical and lush garden in the whole town. He took silent pride in knowing this.
His neighbor, Miss Garble, would traverse her lawn to Alfred’s garden now and then to talk shop with him.
“Looking good again this year, Alfred. You do have the touch.”
“Why thank you, Miss Garble.”
“What else do you have the magic touch in?”
“Well, not to brag, but I do cook a fairly good lasagna.”
“Is that all, Alfred?”
“I’m alright at canning, I guess.”
“Those are pretty plump tomatoes, Alfred.”
“Why thank you, Miss Garble.”
“I like plump things.”
“Me too. I like my mushrooms plump. And my pillows.”
“Oh, Alfred Monshocky, you are a dense man, God love ya!”
“I like my spaghetti sauce dense.”
When he wasn’t outside gardening, Alfred spent a lot of time indoors. One of his favorite pasttimes was to play one-man Scrabble. He’d set up a board for four players, and then take turns being all four, actually moving around his dining-room table to each of his four chairs, competing against himself. Sometimes, he’d start to root for one of the “players”, usually an underdog who had started out with bad letters. However, he never let the presence of an underdog undermine his fairness. If one of the other “players” had a great wordscore possibility, he took it, sometimes to his own dismay. He kept score, not just of individual games, but of overall statistics, so that he figured, at the end of each week, which chair had the best win-loss percentage, and the highest overall score. He would break it down into percentages for that week, for that month, for that year, and all-time. Sometimes Miss Garble would come over for coffee, and they’d play a two-person game of Scrabble.
One Saturday, in the middle of a rather intense game of one-man Scrabble, Alfreds’ doorbell rang. Expecting it to be either Miss Garble or perhaps the postman with a package of fertilizer he had ordered, he calmly but not slowly crossed his living room, and answered the door.
It took a few painful seconds before Alfred recognized his guest; it was a man of Alfred’s age and height, and the bells of recognition were clanging their hardest to be heard in Alfred’s head.
“ Renny Harrison, is it?” he finally managed, with all the confidence he could muster.
“ That’s right, Al! How ya been? It’s been years since GBU, but you still look the same to me!”
“ Wow, Renny. I haven’t seen anyone from college since we graduated.”
“ Since you graduated, m’boy. I didn’t make the cut. But I saw you walk up on that stage, remember? You sent me a ticket in the mail. Can I come in?”
“ Oh gosh, of course! Where are my, ah…”
“ Manners?” Renny offered.
“ Yes, that’s right…where are my manners? Geez, have a seat. Do you play Scrabble?”
“ Trying to quit. Remember, I got kicked out of college cause of too much Scrabble.”
“ I thought it was too much booze, too few classes?” Alfred said, puzzled.
“ Oh, so you do have a memory, when it comes to unearthing the naked past? Well, we’ll just fix that. How’ve you been, Al?”
“ I go by Alfred now.”
“ So go buy him, how much does he cost?”
“ Um…”
“ Nevermind. I bet you’re wondering why I showed up here, and how I found the place, and what I want?”
“ I was just wondering about the Scrabble, really…”
“ Remember in our sophomore year, that time you drank the fifth of vodka and threw the chaise lounge off the balcony?”
“ That was a long time ago, Renny.”
“ Not so! What-ten, fifteen years? Not so long at all. Why, a boy that was born on that day doesn’t even have pubic hair yet!”
“ But he’d have a full vocabulary, and wouldn’t believe in Santa anymore, Renny.”
“ What’s that have to do with it? Listen, Alfred: I’ve got the chaise out in my truck.”
Alfred stifled a cough, and recovering, managed: “ What in Heaven for?”
“ It’s got nothing to do with Heaven, Al. Listen: help me to bring it in here.”
“ I can’t fathom why, Renny. There’s not even a space for it.”
Now Renny fell silent, and glared at Alfred with a look that was equal parts confusion and desperation. His eyes seemed to dance.
“ Because, Alfred, it’ll be like old times.”
They cleared a spot for it by the fake fireplace. It never would have done to leave it there permanently, but for awhile, Alfred thought, it was cozy enough.
So they sat together on the chaise lounge and reminisced. It was obvious to Alfred that Renny had gone completely mad in the years since they’d known each other.. He spoke quickly, and often nonsensically, and he reeked of libraries. He insisted that Alfred relive his younger days, when he had-for two months-been a member of Renny’s fraternity. In actuality, he had barely known Renny. The Greek life simply wasn’t for Alfred. He hadn’t mixed well with them. The incident with the chaise had been the most outrageous thing he had ever done at the frat house, and unbeknownst to the other frat members, the whole thing had been an accident anyway. He hadn’t even drank the fifth of vodka-he had fed it incrimentally to an innocent cactus in the back hallway. It was, of course, too late now to reveal the truth, and Alfred doubted Renny would believe him, anyway.
“ So, Al m’man, what is it you do nowadays, anyway?”
“ Statistics, mainly. Gestion mainly. And temporation.”
“ But not temporation mainly?”
“ Um…?”
“ Nevermind all that. I don’t really care. So, will you keep the chaise?”
“ Um…”
*********************************************************
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