Slob - Ellen Potter [17]
“Watch where you’re going!” the man said.
“Big oaf!” the woman muttered.
Big oaf. Big oaf. The sound of that played back in my head as I ran across the wide street and east, away from Broadway and the crowds. Big oafs were frightening. Big oafs were the mean, sweating guys dressed in Speedos tossing other big oafs into the air inside pro-wrestling cages. Why wasn’t I that sort of oaf? Why wasn’t I that sort of fat?
Because you are the boulder. Boulders just sit there and let people do what they want.
All of a sudden I didn’t care about the demolition site anymore. I didn’t care about the forty-decibel amplifier.
I didn’t even care about Nemesis anymore.
The only thing I cared about at that moment was that I was starving. It was a sudden burning, aching hunger that left me dizzy. The empty space in my gut where the three Oreo cookies should have been had doubled, tripled, despite everything that I had eaten back home. I dug through my pockets, but all I found were two dimes. Not enough for anything. I counted the blocks that I’d have to walk to get back home: eleven. Too far.
But Nima’s momo cart was only three and a half blocks away.
6
I crossed over to Columbus Avenue and then walked a few blocks downtown to the Museum of Natural History. There were three or four people in line at Nima’s cart, which stood to the left of the wide steps that led up to the museum entrance. Hanging by a cord around the front of the cart were brightly colored flags, and printed on the red awning were the words NIMA’S AUTHENTIC HANDMADE MOMOS. Nima was behind his cart, as small as a kid and so skinny. I could see his hands furiously working away at forming his dumplings and dropping them in the huge steamer pot. My stomach responded to the sight by cramping with hunger. I walked faster.
“Owen!” Nima spotted me even as he toiled away. He smiled, then looked confused, although his hands never stopped working. “Why you not in school?”
The other people in line looked at me too.
“I got out early,” I told him. Not a lie really. My eyes anxiously flitted to the dumplings that he had just pulled out of the steamer with a spider spatula. Nima noticed—he noticed everything—and he plunked a half dozen of the dumplings on a paper plate, squeezed out some dipping sauce from a squeeze bottle into a little paper cup and handed them to me. This produced some grumbling from the line of people, and one of them actually walked away.
“No worry, no worry,” Nima assured the rest of the people in line, smiling in his good-natured way. “I work fast. Not wait long time.” His small hands worked even faster. At any other time I would have felt very guilty. But today I didn’t care. I sat on the steps of the museum and devoured the dumplings in minutes. I was still hungry afterward, but I felt better.
Gradually, the lunch rush dwindled and then stopped altogether. Nima came over and sat beside me on the steps. He pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, shook one out, and lit it. I probably shouldn’t mention that he smokes because it gives a bad impression of him, but he’s trying to quit and anyway, it’s his business.
“So crazy at lunchtime!” he said after blowing out some smoke and glancing at me with his bright, dark eyes. “I need two more hands, I’m thinking. But I can’t afford to pay two more hands. So here’s my plan: I make momos with my feet. I have nice, long toes. Wiggly nice. I keep them clean. Not even hairy. Smooth as Pema’s cheek. The cheek up top, I mean. What do you think?” He kept a perfectly serious face. It took me months before I could tell when he was joking. When I first met him, I just thought he was a little insane.
“I think the Board of Health would take away your cart,” I said dryly.