Slot Machine (25 page)

And brown jeans. You heard me. Brown. I looked at my reflection in the Puppy Palace and had to just shake my head. Brown jeans. Not the basic boring blue jeans. Not even the now-cliched black jeans. Even the drug-addicted dogs of Puppy Palace sat up and took notice. Right, well they didn’t sit up exactly, not all the way up, but their heads lifted, a couple of them, with the drool making wood shavings stick to their chins like little goat beards.

Maybe somebody would buy them, finally, if they were disguised as goats.

Even the hopeless basset hound—who had been sitting right there in that front window since the mall opened in 1987, who couldn’t even
remember
being a puppy (and judging from his glassy eyes couldn’t remember this morning), who had been reduced to fifteen dollars
with
a coupon for a ten-pound bag of dry dog food—even he dragged himself closer to the glass and checked me out. I read his floppy brown felt lips.

“Wow,” the basset hound said.

Then he fell over dead. Finally, mercifully, dead. I killed him.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is a fashion statement.

“Oh, he is not dead, ya jerk,” Frankie said as he walked on ahead. “He always sleeps like that.”

Mikie went up close to the glass. “I don’t know, Franko. His nose is pressed right up to the window, and he’s not fogging it.”

“He hasn’t been able to fog the glass since that little girl dropped him at the sidewalk sale.”

“Maybe if he’s dead,” Mike mused, “we could go in and see if they’ll let us have him for a fiver. The bag of food is worth that much, and I can bring that home to feed to Freckles, my hamster, for the rest of his life.”

Frankie laughed. Obviously these guys were not as tuned as I to the bigness of this moment. I had just gone from portly ragbag to Killer Joe Ladyslayer in one afternoon. The dance was two days away, and I didn’t even want to go to sleep until then. I picked up the pace and led the boys on a few brisk laps of the mall. We looked like one of those old-dude mallwalker exercise clubs.

“I can’t wait for the Ball now.”

“The
Ball?”
they both yiked at once.

“Elvin, calm thyself, all right?” Mike said. “This isn’t a ball. It’s not even a real dance, really. It’s like... a lab exercise. Almost like a cross between an extra gym class and a social skills seminar.”

“It’s for scouting reports, really,” Franko said. “So they can tell right off the bat who they gotta keep tabs on.” He put his fists on his narrow hips and looked me and Mikie up and down. “You guys are safe. But they’re gonna make me wear one of those electronic monitor ankle bracelets for the whole year once they see me dance.”

I’ve seen him dance. Without a girl, even. Saw him in his basement, demonstrating moves with a full-length mirror reflective version of himself. He
should
wear one of those anklets. He should wear one on
each
ankle. And they should be linked together with a sturdy little chain.

“But it’s so stupid,” I said. “They’re having it Friday afternoon. It won’t even be dark by the time it’s over. How much trouble could we get into?”

Frankie’s eyes went big and bug on me. I was such a challenge for him that he often couldn’t decide whether to get angry at me or pity me. Usually he managed both. “God, are you
ever
gonna grow up to life’s possibilities, El? Bring a notebook and watch me closely.”

I didn’t care if it was a practice dance to grade us on social skills, or a lab experiment to flush out the Frankie among us, or an extra gym class slipped into the schedule. As long as I got to glide into my new duds and lay the new-model Elvin on a batch of captive girl folk.

Might be nice, after all, to get a close-up look at some girls when there was a chance they might actually look back. I felt half stupid for paying so much attention to how I looked, because that was so not me. But at the moment I wanted a little more than just me. Was that something to apologize for?

No. Full steam ahead. I wore the clothes for the rest of Wednesday afternoon. Put them on again to wear around the house for an hour before school on Thursday. Put them right back on when I got home that afternoon. I was primed. The clothes
do
make the man, and they made me into Mr. Slickmaster.

I was so confident I forgot all about my diet. Who needs a diet when you’re Mr. Slickmaster?

“Oh my
god,”
I yelled first thing Friday morning.
The
Friday morning. Dance Friday. Good Friday Great Friday.

Fat Friday.

“No, no, no!” I yelled at myself in that desperate, deathly wheezy voice a person makes when he tries to suck in his stomach and scream at himself at the same time.

“Suck!” I yelled.

“Elvin Bishop,” my mother yelled back, from outside my bedroom door.

“Not the swear suck, Ma, the command Suck!” I explained more calmly. “I’m talking to my stomach. It grew. Ma, it grew, just since last night. Out of no place. Like the virgin birth.”

I yanked. I fell back on the bed. I pulled. You know the method, right? Grab a fistful of material with your right hand and try to haul the button across the great plains over to the other side where your left fist is cattle-driving the buttonhole over to meet it. But what you really do is wind up torquing yourself all over the place like a washing machine.

I looked just like one of those sexy ads with the models pulling on shrink-to-fits by standing on their heads and writhing on satin sheets and... you know.

Just like that.

“Suck!”

“Elvin, that is enough.”

“Poof, Ma. Just like that. Out of nowhere. Just since last night.”

“Out of nowhere? Virgin birth? Just since last night? Just since the pot roast, you mean? And since the cherry pie with ice cream, and the yogurt-covered raisins?” She was fully in the room now, bold and uninvited. I was lying flat on my back on the floor staring up at her with my pants still undone. “Or since the
second
round of the pot roast? Followed by a repeat of all of the above?”

I sighed. “Wouldja get to the point, Ma? I kind of have a lot on my plate today.”

“Self-control, I suppose would be my point,
Son.”

“Fine, point taken. Now would you just step on my abdomen with both feet while I... you know, like with luggage.”

“How could you do this to yourself? I told you to slow down—”

“Stress. I’ve been under a lot of—”

“Put on the blue pants, for godsake.”

“I will
not
put on the blue bus-driver pants. I am not a bus driver. I will not
be
a bus driver. Bus drivers wear their pants fastened
above
the waistline, or
below
the waistline, but Elvin Bishop wears his waistline
at
the waistline. No. I’m almost there now... just another...”

“I can’t watch this.”

“I hadn’t meant to perform it yet for a live audience anyway. Please close the door on your way out.”

She did.

“Suck!”

I heard the doorbell ring.

“Suck!”

I could not believe how fast those two rats got up the stairs and into my room.

“Since Wednesday, El?” Mikie asked, staring at my stomach like he was my doctor watching my heart monitor flatline.

“So kill me,” I snarled. “I baked a banana bread yesterday afternoon. I can’t leave the baking to my mother, because she cannot bake. Do I leave her to starve to death then, my own mother, just so I can get a girl?”

Yes, I could hear what I sounded like. And yes, what I was really trying to say was that I felt like I did the day I played football at camp and got my head slapped until my nose bled. I sort of cried that time, but I sort of would
not
now. Big difference, you know, when you’ve been the one slapping your own head. With a pot roast.

I was thrashing around the room pretty good now, trying to get these pants to close.

“Better watch it, man,” Frankie said. “Remember your condition. My grandmother had the ’rhoids, and every time she got worked up she had a flare-up. The time she found my private stack of magazines, she had to eat standing up at the sink for almost a month.”

“What about the blue pants?” Mikie suggested.

“Shut up with the blue pants, all right? Go downstairs and have breakfast with my mother.”

“Listen then,” Frank said, checking his watch. “Don’t button the pants. Hold them closed with the belt, and keep the granddad shirt untucked to cover it up.”

I had managed to get up to standing position by then. But those words brought me back down onto the bed. I unpuffed my chest, repuffed my stomach, and sat with my face in my hands. “Ah. So I’m back to the tent maneuver. What a disgrace.”

“So what. At least this way you still get to wear the new gear, and if you control yourself for a few hours, you can try again after lunch.”

When I showed no sign of life, Mikie hit me with his own version of defibrillator paddles.

“We can do this, Elvin.”

We. You heard it.

I sucked it in, I sucked it up, I held the tent maneuver, and I would control myself.

As we walked to the bus stop, Frankie was already into the next stage of my development. It didn’t seem to matter to him that with me gaining girth at the rate of two stomach inches per twelve hours, I’d never get a girl to look at me outside a circus. He was already working on what I was going to do with this girl once I got her.

“Dinners are good,” he said, “but don’t go Mexican. Flowers are good. Candy is good, but creams, not caramels. She’d be, like, picking stuff out of her teeth the whole time... and no bowling. Bowling’s cool, but kind of... wait, check that.” Frank got a glassy faraway look. He’s a visualizer. Visualizing a bowling date, apparently. “Do. Do take her bowling. ...”

Then it hit me.

“Wait!”
I said, spun, and ran back toward home.

“What are you doing, El?” Mike called. “You’re going to be late.”

But it didn’t matter. I was already sweating, chugging, steaming my way home even though the bus was only five minutes away.

I burst through the kitchen door, found my mother finishing the last of her coffee.

“Did you wash my pants while I was sleeping?” I demanded.

It is very hard to unsettle my mother.

She took another sip. “Of course I did. You wore them for two days, and today was the dance—”

“Ahhhh,” I said. “Ahhh. You shrunk my pants. You shrunk my pants.” I made a move to the door. Turned back to her. “You shrunk my pants.”

“Your needle is skipping, son.”

“Huh?” I turned to the door again. “My needle?”

“It’s an old album joke. Never mind.”

“You shrunk my pants. Then you let me believe...”

“The fact remains, you ate atrociously.”

“The bus. I’m gonna be late.” I threw the door open and ran out. I’d sweat myself into those pants yet. I would not be denied, whether my own mother was subconsciously trying to sabotage me or not.

I ran back in, kissed Ma on the cheek, ran out again.

The bus, and my friends, were long gone by the time I got to the stop.

Oh well, as long as I was at it...

It was a three-mile run. Well, it was a three-quarter-mile run, followed by a one-mile walk, followed by a half-mile run, followed by a half-mile walk with a side cramp for company, followed by a very, very sweaty quarter-mile run. If you had asked me whether any of that was possible before now, I’d have bet against me.

But I made it. I made it on my own. I made it with my pants buttoned (sweat-to-fit stretch-to-fit denims). Didn’t even matter that I made it twenty-five minutes late.

Didn’t matter to me, anyway. The late lady slid open her glass partition and was already making out a slip for me when I laid myself out on her desktop.

“Latelady, you’re not really going to give me detention, are you?”

“Sure I am,” she said with a smile. She’s not mean, really, just enjoys her job. Everybody who’s not late likes her.

“But I ran. Look at me. You can see that I ran.”

“Maybe not. Maybe you swam.”

“No, listen. You don’t understand. I’ve got a story.”

“Oh a
story.
You’ve got a
story.
Well, that’s a horse of a different color then, isn’t it? Most of the tardies don’t have stories. Come in, come in.”

Latelady likes sarcasm. And she winked at me. Like she knew everything.

It was all over with that wink.

“But it’s Friday,” I pleaded. “I’m a freshman. I’m going to the dance.” In my dripping sweaty delirium, I really expected her to understand. Latelady was, after all, a lady. Somewhere in my world I have always understood that ladies understood. That they were... I don’t know, more willing to appreciate the sap running through a guy like me. That’s why I wanted to get to know more of them, starting with
this
very afternoon. That’s why I was sweating, after all, because this was very important, this dance, and Latelady had to know that, had to know it.

“Here’s your dance card,” she said, handing me my detention slip.

T
HERE WERE TWO OF
us in detention that day. Me, and Metzger. Metzger was an acquaintance from my brief career as a wrestler at camp. That fell right after my football/head slap/nosebleed period, and before my stint in the priesthood reserves. Have I mentioned how much the school’s introductory camp helped prepare me for the real world?

Anyway Metzger. He kind of held a grudge from one time when I gouged him and bit him and stuff before I knew the wrestling rules. I had retired, but ol’ Metz kept trying to coax me out of retirement every time I saw him.

Fortunately detention at our school was a fairly loose business, and as long as you showed up, the monitor left you alone. The monitor was a rotating deal of different teachers, and nobody knows how the assignments get made. Judging by how thrilled the teacher always is to be there, it’s safe to assume that detention monitor acts as a sort of teacher detention system, probably for offenses like eating the last donut in the faculty lounge or showing up in stylish clothes.

Mr. Ferlinghetti was monitor this day. He taught history. He read history. He was history. After he checked your name off the list, he didn’t want to know about you unless your name came up in the book he was reading on the Napoleonic Wars.