The Bialy Pimps (8 page)

“What do you mean?” said Dicky.

“It doesn’t mean ‘super natural.’ Which is really stupid. I’d be all over something that was super natural, but apparently it means...”

“I know what ‘supernatural’ means.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”
 

“Because I didn’t, and I’m...”

Dicky’s look suggested he might be about to stab Captain Dipshit in the eye with a fork.

“I just mean that the things that happen there are... beyond explanation. It’s hard to explain.”
 

“Try.”
 

“Beyond explanation. Hard to explain.”
 

“What is?”

Captain Dipshit thought for a second. “Well, it’s hard to explain.”
 

“Are you about to ask me who’s on first?” said Dicky, annoyed.

“First what?”

Dicky sighed.
 

“It’s just... weird things, okay? Like the place is a cult. Or a den of evil.”
 

Dicky laughed.
 

“You wouldn’t laugh if you’d been through what I’ve been through today. Have you met the owner?”
 

“Who? Is there a ‘Mr. Bingham?’”

“Yeah.”
 

“No. I’ve never seen him.”
 

Captain Dipshit’s heart began to pound faster. Had it been real? It was too strange to have been real, which meant that at Bingham’s, it pretty much had to be real.
 

Just get on with it,
Captain Dipshit thought.

So Captain Dipshit got on with it, and told Dicky all about the little dirty swearing man with the fiery red beard and his encounter today. He stopped telling his story at the point where he walked out the door at Bingham’s, though, and he didn’t tell Dicky that he suspected that the dwarf might be Satan. That all felt too close for comfort, at least for today.
 

He did, however, tell him all about the strange things he’d seen in the past (the unexplainable was becoming easier to explain with a little practice) and all of the abuse he’d taken and had seen others take. He told him about the deli’s sloppy work and health habits (nobody wore gloves, face masks, or hairnets!) and about his suspicions that the place might be infested with vermin. It’d be hard for it not to, in fact. The Captain had seen the door off of the lobby in the front and knew where it led. It was often ajar, and once he’d seen Philip take a broken steamer through it and down a flight of stone steps. There was an ancient basement under Bingham’s, and anything could be down there. Mice, spiders, unmarked graves, an altar of sacrifice to the blood god.
 

“Okay, that’s pretty messed up stuff,” said Dicky. “I’ve seen a lot of bad behavior at Bingham’s, but none of the stuff you’re talking about. You’re either crazy or I’m not very observant.”
 

“Did you used to be a customer there or something?” said Captain Dipshit. Because it sure seemed like Dicky knew the place. He mentioned the steamers and Dicky knew that Bingham’s had two on each side of the make table instead of one like 3B. He mentioned the bubble-head candy dispensers in the lobby near the basement door (part of a “you had to be there to know how sinister it was” story about two employees practically raping the machines) and Dicky nodded, knowing which ones. He mentioned trying to buy iced tea there today, before his flight from Bingham/Satan and mentioned that the place
used
to sell iced tea, and Dicky said that he knew, and then Dicky looked mad enough to eviscerate the next person he met. Captain Dipshit turned his torso away from Dicky when he saw the look, to protect his vital organs should Dicky snap.
 

“Or something,” Dicky replied.
 

“You were...?”
 

“Never mind.” And again the look in his eyes said to leave it alone.
 

“But when you were in there, you never met Bingham?”

Up until this point, Dicky had been tolerant of Captain Dipshit’s eccentricities. Captain Dipshit had told Dicky about the wisdom of impatience and healthiness and Dicky had ignored it. He’d mentioned that he’d uncovered the secret nature of God and Dicky let it go. He’d mentioned being scorned for his unlimited brilliance, and Dicky, who was certain he was a complete idiot, didn’t say anything. But at this, he had to counter the idiocy.

“That’s not the owner. That’s a homeless guy,” he said.
 

“It’s the owner,” Captain Dipshit said.

“Will you think about it for a second?” Dicky said.
 

But Dicky hadn’t been there. Dicky hadn’t seen the situation for what it was. If the question under normal circumstances was, “Is Bingham’s owned by that frightening alcoholic dwarf,” then of course the answer would be no. But the question was actually closer to, “Is Bingham’s the center of unholiness and sinister happenings?” and so the game changed. The dwarf pretty much
had
to be involved if you saw the whole truth, but this time it was Captain Dipshit who decided not to push. Dicky hadn’t seen what he’d seen. Once he had, his mind would open, but for now he wasn’t hearing, and wouldn’t.

“I’m just saying, that place isn’t normal,” said Captain Dipshit.
 

“Tell me about it.”
 

“I mean, it’s....
sinister
.”
 

Dicky sighed and rolled his eyes.
 

“I can prove it to you.”
 

Dicky added an exasperated roll of his head.
 

“I can. I can go back in there and...” He stopped. And what? First of all, he didn’t want to go back in there, no way. But secondly, what could he do? He really needed to start planning his sentences more. Leaving thoughts hanging like this was sloppy and unprofessional. It was as bad as making decisions and being patient.
 

Dicky was looking at him, basically saying the same thing.
And what?

“What are your hours, here?” Captain Dipshit said instead.
 

“Six to eight weekdays. Eight to eight weekends.”
 

“And when are
you
here? All the time?”

“I have a few employees who work during our nonexistent lunch rush, but I’m here all the time. I have an apartment in the back room. I live here.”
 

“Then you’ve got yourself a regular. And so I’ll see you, and maybe within a few days I can help you out with your... marketing problem.”
 

“How?”

“Well, I’ll just...” And he didn’t know where that one was going, either. Dammit. He let it hang in the air, uncompleted. Then he got up, cleared his table (another first), thanked Dicky for the bagel, and promised to return.
 

Once out on the street, he looked both ways before merging into the foot traffic along High. You never knew what might be barreling down the street around here, and if you weren’t careful, you’d get flattened.

Roger was a tall, gaunt, thin-faced black man of about sixty with dark brown skin and a sallow, mopey expression eternally set on his sad, worn face. Every few days on average, he would drag himself through the door of Bingham’s with a defeated air which clung to him inexorably like a dirty brown cloud. His shoulders slumped and he cast a steady downward gaze as he let the door close behind him and searched despondently for a seat, where he would hang his long tan trenchcoat and place his brimmed felt hat before coming to the counter to order.
 

Roger’s wardrobe and manner placed him as a modern-day, black Humphrey Bogart. His intellect, however, seemed to place him at six years old, tops.
 

The vast majority of the time, Roger was as exciting and upbeat as a stone. His permafrown persisted no matter what anyone said to him, no matter what chit-chat was attempted to elicit a smile. He got his beverage (medium diet coke, eighty-five cents), said little, and kept his mouth shut – something that ended up affording him dignity. During his sober phase, he seemed to regard words as expensive, and spent them judiciously.

But Roger had a weakness. Her name was Beckie.
 

If Beckie was working when Roger came in, he stopped being Humphrey Bogart and started being Jerry Lewis. A somewhat retarded Jerry Lewis.

At these times, his face transformed from despondent to delighted and his voice rose several octaves, becoming nasal. His movements became faster, more purposeful. He waved at Beckie with wild, unashamed arms. And for her part, Beckie adored Roger’s attention despite the fact that it seemed obviously sexual (somewhat retardedly sexual) because he seemed harmless, and because he had the air of the virginal pervert. If she stripped naked and offered him what he seemed to want, it was doubtful that Roger would know what to do with her. Offer to play doctor, maybe.

If Beckie was working during Roger’s visits, Roger’s word-hoarding vanished and he spent his words lavishly, extravagantly, ceaselessly. He’d regale her with tales of his days in the army, of his early work life (always manual labor; Roger didn’t seem mentally ready for astrophysics), and of his daily routine. Especially the latter. Thanks to Roger’s booming, child-like Beckie-voice, the entire staff and front half of the restaurant learned what Roger had done that morning, what he’d bought at the store, if he’d gotten his hair cut (he was bald, but apparently saw a barber anyway) and what he was going to watch on TV later that night.

When Roger came in, Beckie could count on getting nothing done. She didn’t want to be rude, so she’d respond and nod politely to every little thing he said while bagel orders piled up in front of her. Despite her love for Roger, she’d usually end up having to hide in the back after several hours of verbal assault in order to keep things moving.

“It’s for the best,” Philip would tell her. “If he doesn’t go home and watch those reruns of
Kids, Incorporated
, who will?”

Roger was a padlocked enigma, and Beckie was the key. When she wasn’t around, he stayed locked up tight. The dignified older man was all that appeared... and the slow, bubbly kid who shared his skin stayed hidden deeply inside.

“Diet Coke! Medium!” Roger commanded the Anarchist, sauntering up to the counter in his jaunty, despondent way.

“Hi Roger!” said the Anarchist. It was best to end everything said to Roger with an exclamation point. It’s what Beckie did. Maybe the fun Roger would come out.

Roger said nothing and wordlessly offered him a dirty dollar bill, gazing vacantly into space. He smacked his lips, which were filmed with a white residue.

The Anarchist rang up Roger’s drink, pulled the change out of the drawer, and glanced up to see that Roger was staring at him, stoically tapping the rim of the gallon glass jar which served as the Bingham’s tip cup.

“Thanks, Roger!” returned the Anarchist, still following the exclamation point rule. He dropped the coins into the jar, looked up at Roger’s impassive countenance, and smiled again. Roger, saying nothing, resumed his vacuous gaze, and waited.

After getting his drink, Roger plodded back to his seat on his skinny, uncertain legs and made himself comfortable: sideways in a chair, back against the wall, legs crossed, cigarette in hand, the elbow holding it propped up on the tabletop. He was ready.
 

Ready to harass some of the female customers with his innocent, nasal-voiced, old-man charm.

Sometime after Roger had settled in and after he’d begun one of his favorite pastimes – violating the personal space of female customers by scooting toward them until he was sitting too close – the front door opened and Captain Dipshit crawled in on his hands and knees.

Nobody saw him enter. This was, of course, the whole idea. Bingham’s front wall from waist-level up was made of intermittently fogged, terminally splintered windows, and the front door was entirely glass. If you stood up, you were sure to be spotted by both people inside and outside of the deli. But if you approached the door on all fours, darted in, and then scampered into a cluster of tables near the outward-facing counter below the windows, you could enter while being kicked repeatedly and smearing your pants with a goo that was reddish-brown and resistant to antibiotics. And also undetected.
 

Captain Dipshit had been watching the deli from across the street at the undergraduate library all morning, waiting for a time when it would be safe to enter. He was watching for the dwarf – or for any of the other trademark whackos. But the dwarf troubled him most of all, because it was this small man who was responsible, somehow, for all of it. For Captain Dipshit’s humiliation. For the way the deli was run – the sinister, vaguely evil tenor of the place. For whatever caused Dicky Kulane to hate the place, and for 3B’s total and complete failure. And for the ache in his testicles that had yet to go away.
 

Around eleven, Captain Dipshit had seen him – the short, wiry, red-bearded Mr. Bingham. He gone in on the heels of a group of young women, but then must have finished transacting his business early. He’d re-emerged only ten minutes later and had taken up station near the front door, following pedestrians back and forth and trying to shake their hands. Eventually, after drinking something for a while out of a brown paper bag, Mr. Bingham had passed out in the side alley with one hand and one leg sticking straight up against the wall, as if pointing to something up on the roof. Around an hour later, the roof had complied and, in a brisk wind, an avalanche of wet leaves had come tumbling off the roof and had buried all but the arm and leg. Several pedestrians walking by on High had noticed the upraised arm and leg, had done double-takes, and had walked on. One group carrying promotional OSU pennants from one of the bookstores had been more proactive. One boy stuck his pennant in Bingham’s hand and had posed between the spirited pennant-hand and the leg for a photo.