Giant Banana Over Texas (eBook)

BEWARE THE GRATEFUL MAN

Look.

Here comes the Grateful Man.

He’s smiling.

He says, “I am grateful for the sunny sky.”

See how dark billows gather and pour torrents of rain on the Grateful Man.

He continues to smile. He says, “I am grateful for liquid sunshine that makes the flowers bloom.”

See how the deluge sweeps away topsoil, taking with it tulips, daffodils, marigolds, and calla lilies.

“The rain carries the flowers down the hill so that people at the bottom can enjoy them, and for this I am grateful.”

The flowers swirl and disappear down a sewer grate.

“I am grateful for sewers,” says the Grateful Man.

He is relentless.

Beware the Grateful Man.

***

My name is Lance Tinley. After ten years in New York, racing around Manhattan with the other rats, my wife Barb and I were burnt out.

“Lance,” she said, “I hope you’re not going to say, ‘It’s time for us to make a fresh start.’”

“Why don’t you want me to say it?”

“Because I want to say it!”

She said it. Then she squealed and I squealed, and we jumped up and down for an hour.

We sold our condo in Chelsea and looked for the ideal upstate town to begin our new lives.

Slag City was a Rust Belt town, no longer thriving, which meant there were real estate bargains galore. We bought a three-story building on Main Street. Our plan was to live on the upper floors and use the first floor for our new business: Creative Names by Lance and Barb, Inc.

I loved drinking craft beers with names like Hop Devil, and Hop Demon, and Double Dark Hop Demon. I thought, I could do that, I could name beers. I would become a professional craft beer namer. Slag City alone had six craft breweries.

Barb always loved the funny names of hair salons like Julius Scissors and Shearlock Combs, so she would handle that end of our naming business.

We were so excited about starting our own business that we failed to notice the town’s homeless problem, as well as its domestic abuse and murder and obesity and alcohol problems.

One day a fat man in an ill-fitting suit came into our shop. I’d seen him in the town square, conning the homeless with three-card monte.

He was trembling.

“I need a drink bad,” he said, looking at the sample labels on the wall. “Gimme a pint of Hop, Skip, and a Jump.”

“Sorry,” I said, “I don’t sell beer, I just sell beer names.”

“That’s fine, I’m trying to cut down anyway. Gimme the label.”

I served him, then asked, “Are you okay?”

“Do I look okay?” he said, nervously licking the sticky side. “I heard a rumor. He’s coming back. Same again.”

I served him his second label and said, “Who is he?”

He stared at me. “You really don’t know, do you?”

The fat man pointed out the front window with a shaking hand.

“Who do you think made Slag City the way it is?”

“Someone named Slag?”

The fat man snorted. He backed up to the door.

“You’ll see. He’ll come back, and then you’ll see.”

And with that he was gone, off to find another beer-label shop.

“That was weird,” I said.

“How’s this for a hair salon name?” said Barb. “The Hoppy Hairport.”

“I don’t think you should use the word ‘hop’ in a hair salon name. That’s just for craft beers.”

“Okay. Thanks for the feedback.”

I considered the domestic abuse and drug deals and the other Slag City problems, many of which were visible through our front window.

“This town really is sort of depressed. And the fat guy said one man was responsible. Who was he talking about?”

“Beats me. You know,” said Barb, taking down the hair salon signs with the word “hop” in them, “usually in these towns there’s an irascible old man who can tell you the town’s history. I saw that in a movie.”

“Jaws?”

“Yes, and Star Wars too.”

“I bet we can find an irascible old man at the local tavern.”

“Yes!” said Barb, getting excited. “He’ll be sitting in the corner, scratching his stubbly beard.”

“And spitting on the floor.”

“What are we waiting for?!”

***

We hung a sign on our front door that read, gone fishin’—for information.

In the town square, the fat guy was running the same three-card monte on the same homeless people who apparently had yet to learn their lesson.

At the end of Main Street stood the Slag City Tavern.

As we entered the old dark establishment, we were assaulted by the odors of peanuts, stale vomit, fresh vomit, and craft beer.

Our eyes adjusted to the dark, and we saw him. The irascible old guy. Then our eyes further adjusted, and we saw more irascible old guys. There were more irascible old guys in the bar than there were corners for them to sit in.

“Pick one,” I said to Barb. She pointed to an old guy with more teeth than the others.

“My name is Old Peck,” he rasped, “and I’ll tell you the town’s history if you buy me a shot of rotgut hooch.”

“You sure you wouldn’t rather have a pint of”—I squinted at the craft beer menu behind the bar—“Hop-a-Doodle-Doo?”

Old Peck vomited on the floor.

“Rotgut hooch,” I said to the bartender.

We took our seats. Old Peck began his tale.

“This used to be a thriving Rust Belt town,” he began. “Everybody worked at the plant. We made not only rust-colored belts but sienna, tawny, burnt umber—every shade of brown you can imagine.”

He took a sip of his hooch, coughed, and continued.

“Everybody was happy. America was on top. We wore bell-bottoms and danced to REO Speedwagon. Everyone owned a pocket calculator. We didn’t think life could get any better.”

Old Peck’s face clouded.

“Then everything changed.”

He looked at me with pleading eyes. “Gimme a pint of Hoppy Hoppy Joy Joy.”

Old Peck sniffed his beer, vomited, and continued.

“One day we decided to have a little fair in the town square. The theme of the fair was ‘It’s an REO Speedwagon World.’ There would be hot dogs, cotton candy, games with prizes, and lots of dancing to REO Speedwagon.

“There was this new guy in town. We called him Smiley ’cause he smiled all the time. He worked on the belt-buckle line, and he was terrible, always putting buckles on crooked or backward, but I guess he got the job ’cause of his smile.

“Well, he was setting up cutouts of the band with the faces removed so people could put their heads in the holes and pretend they were in REO Speedwagon. And he suddenly stopped.

“‘Hey, everybody!’ he shouted out to us, smiling his big smiley smile. ‘I just want to say I’m grateful, so grateful, for everything. Grateful for this wonderful town. Grateful for the belt factory. Grateful for our prosperity and our families. I’m grateful for this beautiful sunshiny day. Grateful for my bell-bottoms and my pocket calculator. Man, am I ever grateful!’

The old man fell silent.

“So what happened?” I said.

Old Peck took a sip of Hoppy Hoppy Joy Joy and managed to keep it down.

“The sky turned dark. Rain poured down. A wind blew away our pocket calculators. Then it blew away our houses and our wives and our children.”

“Must’ve been a strong wind,” said Barb.

“You ain’t lyin’, sister. All of a sudden, we went from having everything to having nothing. We couldn’t believe it. And then he did it again.”

“Who did what again?” I said.

“Smiley,” said Old Peck bitterly. “He said, ‘Sure, the wind blew away everything we have. But look at us.’”

Old Peck was shaking so much his teeth rattled.

“Then he said, ‘At least we have our’”—Old Peck swallowed hard—“‘health.’”

“I was there,” said a one-armed old guy who had been listening in.

“I knew it was trouble when he said it,” said another old guy with no legs.

“Brap ssss ttt,” said a fourth old guy through a faulty mechanical voice box.

Barb and I glanced around at the bar filled with the aging, unhealthy, unsightly victims of Smiley’s gratitude.

“We did our best to run him out of town,” said Old Peck. “Not an easy task with our lungs failing and our limbs dropping off. But we did it!”

“Yeah!” said the other old guys.

“And he’s never coming back!” declared Old Peck.

“That’s not what the big guy in the town square said,” I told them.

“You mean Three-Card Monte Monty? He’s called Three-Card Monty for short. What did Monty say?”

“There’s a rumor he was coming back,” I said.

Panic gripped the room. The bar patrons ordered drinks and knocked them back faster than the bartender could serve them.

“Everybody be on guard,” warned Old Peck. “If he shows up again, he’ll find something else to be grateful for, and we’re doomed.”

“What does he look like?” I asked. “Big smile?”

“You’ve seen him!” shouted Old Peck.

Everyone ran back to the bar for another drink.

“I’m just guessing,” I said.

“Brrr zpp,” said...