Hick - Andrea Portes [27]
The glass door crashes behind me and rattles me back to my next thought, which is, How the hell am I gonna pull this off? But I will not naysay myself into inaction. I will proceed as planned, by hook or by crook, more like crook, in my own private movie.
I clench my jaw and walk up to the counter, where an elbow-faced man of about one hundred and sixty years stands squinting at me. I flash my piggy smile and tilt my head like I’m an idiot.
“Hey there.”
He smiles back. He is missing not one but two of his front teeth. There’s a twinkle in his eye, though, like he’s been standing there for fifty years without a customer, like he’s used to being invisible and maybe doesn’t exist at all.
“Do you have Hubba-Bubba?”
I hear myself talking like Minnie Mouse, like a cartoon version of myself. This is the way girls talk in movies, like they need help tying their shoelaces.
“Sure thing, pumpkin.”
He winks and I turn my wince into a smile. I feel guilty. He seems like a nice man, pure kinda. Not like the sort of bad egg you want to pull a fast one on. I am starting to have second thoughts. The music to my movie is getting warbled and now the record is just about to scratch.
I steel myself. No naysaying. I can’t hold out much longer so I make up my mind to just get it over with. I feel like rotten cotton candy.
“What flavor, Missy?”
“Watermelon,” I say, too quick.
He fumbles around with his hands, using the counter for support, trying to rouse his ancient bones to turn and inspect the Hubba Bubba display. He looks like a man who’s forgotten something. Puzzled. I wait for what seems like an eternity. With every millimeter he moves, my heart beats louder. By the time his back is to me it’s not that hard to hit the deck and start shaking. I’m skittish on the inside so I just turn myself inside out and Bob’s your uncle. My epileptic starring role comes perfectly natural. My heart feels like it’s gonna pop right out of my chest smack-dab into the middle of the white tile floor.
The square tiles are cold under my back and I’m hitting them hard with my shoulder blades and elbows, getting carried away. I got to remember not to crack my own skull. You should see it, I am dedicated tooth and nail to this here show. I try to make spit come out the corner of my mouth. Think of a lemon. Think of a lemon, switching from a lemon to a sour-tart to a rhubarb pie and then back again. Finally my mouth starts to spill over with drool and I almost burst out giddy with my latest talent. This is really something. Boy, I am drooling now and I could not be more proud. I wish Glenda could see this. she’d be proud as punch. Tammy, too, she’d say, “Look at her go, I taught her everything she knows.”
In the corner of my spastic eye, I see the old man waddling towards me, just as fast as a waddler can waddle. I see him in flashes through my strobe-light vision. He struggles down to his knees beside me, a Herculean effort, whispering something I can’t understand. I see the fear in his eyes in bits and pieces. His shock is weird and contagious and makes my eyes pop open a second and then spaz around even more. He tries to grab me, but his toothpick arms are just too weak for a young epileptic like me. My cheeks and chin are covered in drool. I wiggle harder.
And then something strange happens. The whispering stops. The grabbing stops. The earth stops.
I sneak open my eyes to see what’s the problem and nearly faint as I witness the last breath exhaled by this ancient creature, born before time and raised before television, as he covers his heart with his hand and keels over smack-bang on top of me.
TWELVE
Not exactly what I had in mind, kid.”
She towers over me, staring at the picture I made for her. The old man slumps on top of me like a white rag doll.
“Get him off me.” I grunt out, trying to lift off his flailing limbs but failing.
Glenda sighs and shoves him over, grabbing my hand and pulling me up towards the door.