The Man Who Ate the 747 (3 page)

“Phooey,” said Mrs. Bumble.

He knew she worried about him. He could never convince her that his brief, doomed encounters made him feel even more lonely. It had happened many times. He knew the brain chemistry of these ill-fated dates. A whiff of compatible pheromones, a neurochemical rush, giddiness, pleasure, then, as the dopamine wore off, the stark reality. She barked like a dog in her sleep or had a rap sheet as long as the Nile. Or, more often, he would disappoint her. The harder she fell for the man in the gold-crested jacket, the more disillusioned when he turned out to be just an ordinary guy named John Smith.

“There’s more to love than meeting girls,” he said, trying to smile. “You’re looking at a man who inspires women to scale the heights of ambivalence.”

“You take yourself too seriously. You sit there all day with your stopwatch and your measuring tape. You never have any fun. What about the pretty girl from Denmark with the Hula Hoop? I liked her.”

“Not my type,” he said, plunking down on a furry couch. “She wore me out.”

“Okay, what about that beautiful woman, the one with the world’s longest neck. Where was she from?”

“Myanmar. Remember? She spoke no English?”

“Details, details. Let’s see, there’s the girl in 6B. She works in advertising—”

“We bored each other to stupefaction.”

“You’re too picky,” Mrs. Bumble said.

Her attention shifted. “You know, the catalog said these sunflowers were lifelike. But real sunflowers follow the sun across the sky.” She looked up at the light sneaking between the walk-ups across the alley.

“We could get some real ones,” he said.

“This place wasn’t meant for flowers.”

Mrs. Bumble pulled a bottle of Schlitz Malt Liquor from her coat pocket and took a swig. “Mail is on your bed. And you’ve got two messages on the machine.”

“Thanks for keeping an eye on things,” J.J. said. He went to the tiny bedroom, a square cell with an Ikea bed and nightstand. He punched the rewind button on the answering machine. Had the flight attendant tracked him from his airplane seat to his home? It had happened before.

The first message played. The voice was distant, surrounded by static. “Mr. Smith, hello, it’s me,
Mitros Papadapolous. I’m ready for you now. I’ve conquered all the obstacles. You’ll see. I can do it now. Hello? Mr. Smith? Do you hear me? Operator? Is the line still there? Come and see me in Folegandros, Mr. Smith.”

“Who’s he?” Mrs. Bumble asked from the doorway.

“Good guy,” J.J. said. “Wants to break one of the toughest records.”

“What’s that?”

“Standing still.”

“What kind of record is that?”

“Not easy. Trust me. The motionlessness record is 18 hours 5 minutes 50 seconds.”

“Why would anyone do that?”

“A place in history,” J.J. said. “A whiff of immortality.” The second message began. The tape-recorded voice of his boss, Nigel Peasley, slithered through the speaker.

“It’s Peasley here. I want to see you in my office Monday morning.”

Thoughts of a sunny stewardess and the relief of being home vanished as J.J. wondered what evil Peasley was now about to unleash.

“You’re late.”

Peasley’s high-pitched voice carried an impeccable British accent. He wore a chalk-striped navy suit, red braces over a crisp blue shirt with a white collar, and a university tie. Mustache geometrically groomed,
fingers delicate, he had his hands clasped so he could avoid the obligatory, too-vigorous American handshake. And J.J. Smith’s hand, he was certain, would be sticky or damp.

“Jet lag. I overslept,” J.J. said. He dipped his head. “Sorry.”

“No record in Paris.”

“No, sir. No record.”

Peasley examined the poor sod sweating before him. What to do with this burnout? How was he ever going to whip things into shape if his field team couldn’t come up with something big, something truly spectacular? Headquarters dispatched him to grow the business in America, to improve circulation of The Book, and to expand the famous brand far and wide. But now carbonized lumps like J.J. Smith were bringing the company down.

“You’ve been here 14 years,” Peasley said, tossing Smith’s personnel file down on his expansive oak desk. It slid to the far corner of the polished surface. “You haven’t landed anything since the world’s biggest feet—”

“Actually, sir, you’re forgetting the hair-splitting record. Alfred West of Great Britain? Split a human hair 17 times into 18 parts.”

Peasley scrunched his nose in disdain. “That was more than a year ago. Tell me, what’s wrong? You can talk to me.” It was a technique from a weekend management course he had endured. Put yourself on the side of your employee. Imagine wearing his shoes, even if you would never go near rubber soles.

“Nothing’s wrong,” J.J. said into the brutal silence. “What about the world’s fastest snail? You sent me to the World Snail Racing Championships in England. Remember little Archie? Set the record on the 13-inch track in 2 minutes and 20 seconds.”

Peasley glowered. “Do you watch television, Smith? Have you seen
The World’s Most Amazing Videos?
Last night, a man on an American aircraft carrier was sucked into the engine of an A-6 fighter jet. He vanished right into the turbine but managed to survive. Just a few bumps and bruises and a broken collarbone.”

Peasley wagged a long finger at J.J. “That’s our competition. Big stunts. Crowd pleasers. When animals attack. When inmates escape. When Girl Scouts go bad. Do you really expect us to dominate the new millennium with the world’s fastest snail?”

Contempt gurgled in Peasley’s windpipe. He failed to suppress a sneer. “You think you know everything. Well, here’s a little surprise for your database. The home office wants to bring me back. Downsize this branch to two field operatives with laptops. Eliminate redundancies.”

“What are you saying?”

“Lumpkin and Norwack are putting you to shame. They bring in great records. They hunt for the Big One, while you … you split hairs and chase snails.”

Peasley could smell J.J.’s discomfort. The little bugger knew he had been coasting on his old stellar performance reviews. Who bloody well cared if the
drip had memorized all 20,000 records by heart and could recall every staff member’s birthday?

“Great ones don’t come along every day,” J.J. said. “I’ve got ideas, though.”

Peasley looked over the tops of his reading glasses, straightened himself in his chair. He picked lint from his sleeve. “Bring me back a record that will make the public take notice. Must I say ‘or else’?”

“No, you’ve been clear.”

J.J.’s chair scraped the floor loudly as he stood to his feet. “Anything else?”

Peasley flicked his wrist. He had already opened the next file. “Get along, then. Do whatever it takes. As you Yanks say, make it happen, and make it happen fast.”

The Book was born of a bet.

On a grand safari in Africa, two gentlemen debated whether the giraffe’s 18-inch tongue was the longest in the animal kingdom. With no immediate way to resolve their argument, the travelers realized that a book settling the score on this and other factual matters would be a surefire best-seller around the world.
⁴
When they returned home, The Book came to life and over the years was published in 90 countries with 30 foreign-language editions.

Imagine the headquarters of The Book, and you might conjure a venerable institution, an imposing granite building, like a courthouse, with wide steps and brass handrails, and at the great front doors, a long line of people juggling bowling balls and swallowing swords, waiting for an audience with the record keepers. Inside you may well conceive a whirring place with hundreds of researchers poring over submissions from the world’s 190 nations. In short, here would be a haven of miracle and wonder, where brilliant men and women with advanced degrees and eons of experience vet and crown the world’s greatest feats.

Pull back the wizard’s curtain, though, and you would discover reality. American headquarters occupied an anonymous hunk of a building, consisting of a modest suite of offices, like any drab insurance agency, its walls unadorned, cubicles spare, lacking even illuminated display cases for memorabilia. Above the receptionist’s desk, a lonely and rather swollen head of garlic languished on a shelf, the world record holder, weighing 2 pounds 10 ounces.

Enclosed in his work space, wedged behind a gray steel desk, foot tapping the wastebasket, J.J. waited for the fear to pass. Would headquarters truly reduce the U.S. operation to a laptop office? Sacrilege! What would become of him? Fourteen years as a record verificationist prepared him for exactly nothing. There was no life beyond The Book.

He lifted his eyes to the wall across from his desk and the photo of a beaming young woman, Allison
Culler, winner of the biggest Twister game of all time. Next to her stood an optimistic young man in a blue blazer with a gilded crest, surrounded by 4,160 players. How many years had it been? Five? Ten? Where had the exhilaration gone, the rush of witnessing greatness, chronicling moments for all time? Whoa, those thoughts led only to a dead end. He veered sharply. Nothing gained by self-pity. A stack of submissions stood in front of him and a cold cup of coffee beside the silent telephone.

The weekend mail had already been sorted by the Review Committee, an extravagant phrase that actually described Trudy Dobbs, the shapely 23-year-old part-time secretary who answered the phones and processed submissions. Dobbs was a one-person Review Committee. She collated entries worthy of consideration and attached an official cover sheet for internal processing.

By the time the low light of afternoon arrived at the window, J.J. had evaluated nearly all of the submissions. Lumpkin and Norwack, the young hotshots, were out verifying new records. Down the hall, Peasley was surely engaged in some sly sabotage.

He flipped through the remaining pages sent in by strivers and seekers from around the world. A man in Honduras claimed he could contort his intestines to resemble Elizabeth Taylor’s face. J.J. took the enclosed X ray and held it up to the light. There was no movie star in its shadows. He
X
’d the rejection box on the cover page.

Next, a fellow in Canada purported he could make
a high-pitched noise emanate from the top of his head and shatter glass. Ludicrous. He
X
’d the box. Rejection.

A woman in France asserted she could gallop on her hands and knees and jump 16-inch hurdles. Merely a variation on crawling, and there were already plenty of these records in The Book. Rejection.
X
’d again.

A man in Pakistan proposed walking backward from Gilgit to the Mintaka Pass. The Book had plenty of walking-backward records, but who had ever heard of Mintaka? He made a note that the applicant should consider walking backward on the better-known Khyber Pass and it would be considered for a record.

A team of salt miners in Poland planned to set the record for the deepest subterranean hot-air balloon flight. Their goal was to fly the length of a cavern more than one mile underground. An excellent prospect. He marked an
X
: accepted. He would look into it later, but it was hardly the kind of big record Peasley wanted.

A gentleman in Huntsville alleged he could divine water with his private parts. Out of the question. No records were allowed involving private parts.
⁵
This was a book for all ages. The arbiters of decency and decorum always prevailed. Another
X
. Rejected.

J.J. finished the general submissions and turned to
another folder, the Kids’ File. This was the weekly compilation of letters from youngsters across the country, The Book’s most devoted readers. His very first job, entry level all those years ago, had been answering thousands of these letters. Rising through the ranks, he often returned to this file for inspiration. These scrawled notes sprang from hope not yet hardened, from dreamers who still thought everything was possible.

He knew that feeling somewhere deep inside. It touched him first at age ten. It was a hot summer day on the little square lawn behind his house, the day he collected 116 four-leaf clovers. He ran straight to his mother in the kitchen, where she helped him compose a letter to
The Book of Records.
He wrote it longhand, lovingly, and sent it off to the Review Committee. Every day after school, he waited by the mailbox, hoping for good news. At last a letter in a fancy envelope arrived, and he ripped it open to see the blunt words. The world record in this category was set by a Pennsylvania prison inmate who gathered 13,382 four-leaf clovers during his recreation time in the yard. There was not even a thank-you or the slightest hint of encouragement.

He knew then, shaking beside the mailbox, that he would never set a world record. After all, he was just another John Smith from Ohio, ordinary in every respect. From that searing moment, though, he found his life’s ambition. He would work for
The Book of Records.
He would know and bestow greatness.

He shuffled through a stack of messy letters, block printed on scraps of notebook paper.

He turned the page and inspected the crayon drawing of a rooster. Then he scanned the photocopied response that was paper-clipped to the boy’s letter. He had dictated it before he left for Paris.