SWEAT: Global Warming in a Small Town & other tales of The Great American Westerly Midwest Read online

  But finally, they decided to turn the elevator into a new senior citizens center.

  They formed a committee, the council, Kiwanis, church ladies, and some of the old people.

  The old people told the rest of ‘em what they wanted to do with the center.

  “We don’t want another big, cold room with a few old magazines and card tables,” Mimi said.

  So what they did was open a casino type thing.

  Two hundred feet of vertical thrust, geriatric decadence, they’re calling it.

  On the ground level you have your cards. The second is for darts.

  “Elderly perversion, what’s your limit?” is the official advertising jingle, I guess.

  On the third floor they have whist.

  On fourth, dice.

  Then it’s topless.

  And the top is bottomless.

  That’s kind of cute.

  Hey!

  Hi!

  It’s me Tommy.

  I’m sweatin’ myself to death.

  Somebody took Sweat Sox.

  The Sox baby.

  He’s a boy.

  It’s just a baby, that’s too bad. That makes me sad, kind of.

  Somebody said it just happened.

  “’scuse me, sorry, Hi.”

  That’s why I’m flyin’ over to Carl’s. He would know. He knows everything. No, really. He’s got his own college.

  I’d say it’s about a week old, the baby. The college is older than that.

  I can’t remember when it was born.

  I didn’t even know they had a baby, really, until this morning somebody said it was kidnapped.

  They think is was The Foos who took it. They’re Korean and they’re probably gettin’ even for all of their babies we’ve got. Lots of people have ‘em. We got X-Box. Mom says that’s enough for now.

  The Foos, Mary Woo and Larry.

  They don’t speak American and they don’t look at you and they’re always talking to each other, making secret plans maybe.

  Bobbi, Mrs. Sox, said, she’s my P.E. teacher, she was, I’m not sure if she will be next year, she said that if it was a girl they were gonna call it Sweet Sox.

  “Isn’t that just precious?” she said.

  We said, yeah, kind of.

  And if it was a boy, Jim, Mr. Sox, was gonna call it Sweat, because it would be a boy and playing sports and always working hard and being a good example to everyone about running wherever you were going and giving 110 percent and hustling and always “working up a lather” is how he said it.

  I’m riding around everywhere telling everyone, seein’ if they’ll help look for li’l Sweat.

  I saw Nona, she’s working this morning, since it’s Saturday and it’s busy. She just waved at me out the front window. She’s smart. She knew what I was going to tell her. She wanted me to keep going, telling lots of people.

  I saw Judy, the Lesbyterian minister. She had on her Army uniform. She has to be the Army recruiter too, since it’s a small town. All the ministers do, I guess.

  I waved and she saluted. That’s pretty cool.

  Paul, he’s the janitor at the middle school and high school, somebody else does the elementary building. Paul was in his pickup in the parking lot of Foos Foods. He was getting toilet paper and Pine Sol.

  I told him maybe he shouldn’t go in there, but he did.

  Paul knows everything about every sport or every kid who ever played sports here.

  He lets The Swarm play football with a Pepsi cup full of gravel and folded over, out behind the bleachers during football games. He’s not supposed to, but it’s better to have The Swarm on your side.

  I know.

  The Swarm is about a hundred little kids who run around town doing whatever they want. They surrounded me once on my bike. Lucky for me it started pouring out or I was dead.

  I just saw LaVerna. I went flying through the drive-up. I thought she’d wanna know.

  I skidded out, then sat there waiting for her to look up and smile. Usually she at least smiles.

  A car behind me honked.

  I turned around quick.

  Not a loud honk, more like a beep-Hi.

  “Hey,” I said.

  I came around to the passenger side and walked up with them while Christopher’s mom pulled up to talk to LaVerna.

  “Hey.”

  “Djew-hear?”

  “Hear what?” said Robin, his mom. She’s always listening, even when she’s looking the other way.

  “Yes, it’s unfortunate,” said Christopher.

  Christopher says things like unfortunate and for-too-it-us, depending on whether it’s something good or bad.

  He’s in high school, but he’s short so he talks to me.

  Anyway, he’s the state representative for Jennifer Junction. I think he’s the only one who wanted to do it. His mom drives him to the state capital when the legislature’s in session. When he’s sixteen he’ll probably drive himself. That’s what my mom said.

  The Mexicans walked through, wearing their nice Saturday shirts and jeans, on their way somewhere.

  Then Don pulled up in the cruiser and circled the parking lot.

  “Seeya,” I told Christopher. I pedaled up to Don. He stopped and rolled his window down to smoke.

  “Hey-Tommy.”

  “Heard anything new?” he asked me.

  Well, I told him who I talked to so far and where I was going, nothing else.

  Don sat there with his window down, air-conditioning the bank parking lot, smoking.

  I sat on my bike next to his car.

  I tried to sit and balance without touching the ground.

  There wasn’t much else to say. Don has kind of limited interests.

  He’s okay as a cop.

  Somebody said he likes it.

  “Well, seeya, Tommy. Stay out of trouble.”

  He flicked his cigarette. He always says that and flicks his cigarette butt away from me. If he was a jerk he might flick it at me. But then I wouldn’t stop and talk to him, if he did that all that time.

  I could see Sherman and I was kind of waiting for ol’ Don to flick his cigarette, so I could go see what ol’ Sherman was doing.

  He’s the mailman for this part of town. They give those jobs to service men, my dad told me once.

  I asked Sherman about that once and he laughed, not at me, he said he was a draft-dodger in Canada and never got to go to war. He got the job anyway because the rest of the people at this post office are cool, he said.

  My mom says they are all a bunch of drug addicts and it’s a wonder anybody gets the right mail in this town.

  “Hey, Sherman.”

  “Tommy, my man.”

  Sherman stops and waits for me.

  He’s got a black and grey beard and ponytail, and he wears a Packers cap, with mailman shirt and shorts, long black socks, black Mailman Shoes.

  I tell him right away about Sweat Sox the baby.

  “LaVerna’s got him,” Sherman says, ducking his head to look over the top of his glasses at the bank drive-through.

  “Who else has the motive? Cui bono?” says Sherman.

  I didn’t say nothing. I had to sit on my bike and think about it. Sherman kept going. I just sat there for a while.

  It was getting even hotter, I could tell.

  From where I was I could smell chlorine and popcorn, so I peddled slow, almost falling over, over to the pool.

  Some of the lifeguards were there, putting on lotion and whistles. Some were giving lessons to the bankers kids, while the parents in the cars stared holes in the heads of the lifeguards to pay some attention to their stupid kid that they don’t drown during swimming lessons.

  Linda is the head lifeguard.

  She’s been there for a long time, since I’ve been going. And now that they built the indoor part of the pool to go with the outdoors, she’s got a big job. I wouldn’t want it.

  She also has to buy beer for all the teenagers and she gets other
stuff for other people. I’ve seen Sherman shoving dollar bills through the fence to her. It’s a lot to keep track of with the pool and everything else, I’ll bet. People are always looking for her, bothering her.

  She’s too fat to climb up on the lifeguard tower anymore, so she stands by the fence with her whistle in her mouth and watches.

  I guess she used to be pretty. That’s what Don said. I guessed he was talking about Linda. I don’t know who else it would be.

  Anyway, she said it was The Foos and LaVerna all right.

  She said Don was thinking about going over and arresting LaVerna right now, is what she heard on the scanner in the lifeguard room.

  I need to go talk to Carl.

  I can’t stand that kid.

  Looking in the window all the time. I think he does it at the house too, little perv.

  I’ve got customers. I can’t worry about whether some bimbolicious bank teller stole some little kid.

  Not when I’ve got orders waiting. Call the Red Cross. I’ve got ketchup bottles to fill.

  Look at this.

  This is what I have to deal with. Missing kidnapped kids. Like who’s got the luxury …

  Here.

  See?

  Each friggin’ napkin is stamped with some business name.

  Jack & Jill Plumbing. Fern’s Family Dental Care. Jennifer High School. Jesus Junction.

  And guess who gets to stamp each and every one, between wiping runny noses and filling salt shakers and cleaning off syrup bottles?

  KJEN Radio, Raul & Saul’s Friendly Hometown Bank, Jane June John Kent Marc & Mary Attorneys at Law.

  I’ve worked here at Tony & Tina’s Café for a few years now.

  It does not get old, not really, when you think about it. I’m a people person.

  I need a smoke. Come outside for a sec.

  I hear a lot. People think I’m not listening — and I’m not — but I can’t really help it.

  I guess ol’ Ron was home one afternoon, about four.

  He and his son and daughter and better half all ended up in the kitchen. This was before school let out for summer.

  Yeah, had to be.

  “The weather man insists it’s not getting warmer,” Ron says to everybody and no one, stepping in front of his daughter to grab the milk and getting the famous Rachel Waters evil-eye.

  “No mention of it.

  S’cuuuse me.” He ducks under his son’s arm to reach the cheese.

  “They’d tell us, if it was real. Yes they would.”

  He sat at the table with his milk and sandwich and chips while the other three kept working on gathering their stuff.

  “And yet, the U-U’s keep saying global warming this, the polar monkeys that, those poor glacier guppies there.

  “We’ve got to put our feet down. Enough is way more than enough.

  “Sweat pants.

  “It’s not that warm out. In fact, it’s kind of chilly, especially in the evening lately, after the sun goes down.

  “That is the stark reality we are dealing with here.

  “Could you reach me the pickles, shweety?

  “Thanks.”

  There goes Don.

  Oh. My-God.

  He’s got LaVerna in the back seat.

  She smiles, waves with her cuffed hands.

  This is a big day for her.

  That’s so nice.

  There’s CCC.

  It’s uphill.

  Like Mount Olympus, Carl says.

  It’s almost straight up.

  Prob’ly not straight up, but it about feels like it.

  There’s Carl.

  He’s walking around his yard with his head down, arms behind his back, his pipe in his teeth.

  He’s heard.

  “Hey-Carl.”

  “Hello, young man. Well, what’s to be done?”

  I pull right up to him, in front of him, to maybe make him stop pacing. There’s no way I can follow him all over his lawn on my bike with all the nightcrawler hills.

  He’s actually pinned between me and the peonies.

  White, pink, too.

  I say I don’t know.

  He just wants to talk, I know that.

  His questions are not Socratic, rhetorical. He is not interested in what I have to say.

  That’s okay with me. I didn’t come here to really say anything.

  Carl is wearing a black professor’s graduation gown and he has on an Afghan Pakol Hat. I know ‘cause he told me.

  To me he looks like maybe Sherlock Holmes, in his graduation gown, and pipe, out stalking his yard, unconsciously stepping over and around all the dandelions — now that there is a local murder to be solved.

  Well, not really a murder, yet, but it could be.

  That would be serious.

  There would be lots of pacing required.

  People would have lots to say. There might be outdoor barbecues to talk it over, maybe a circus, big church festivals, parades, candy.

  It is true that Don is on the case and already has the suspect in the back of his car.

  But I don’t think it hurts to have Carl out here in his hat, black graduation gown, brown penny loafers and pipe, anyway. Just in case.

  Cherry.

  The pipe tobacco is cherry.

  Mmmm.

  He takes it out and taps or rather beats — Carl likes us to use specific language — against his palm, then the side of his shoe. I think he probably saw his grand-dad do that. There’s really no reason. It’ll just fall out if you turn it over.

  “The financier is in official custody,” Carl says, not looking at me, but rather over the lawn, in the direction of the fire hydrant, as if it would speak if only someone would listen.

  I am a prop, like the pipe and hat and gown, necessary for the play, but I don’t mind.

  It is what it is.

  Jesse pulls up in the tan ’88 Honda Accord ladder truck.

  He’s trying to get a Dalmation.

  He still lives at home and his mother says they are a nasty breed.

  Jesse says he’s either moving or just keepin’ the dog in the car. I am not sure what that does to the monthly training sessions.

  There’s a lot to consider when you enter the public service field. That’s what Carl says in his public administration course.

  Jesse parks in the drive, rolls down the window and cocks his head.

  He’s chewing gum. I guess he’s trying to quit smoking, something.

  As he tilts his head to look up at Carl and somehow keep the sun out of his eyes, his seed corn cap hits the door frame and now sits on kind of an angle on his head, which turns out is just right for the sun.

  And I’m thinking, Watson, I presume.

  I smile and they don’t see.

  “What about The Foos?” says Jesse.

  Carl flashes a look that is all about “The Foos? Hmmmm.”

  “Foos Foods,” Carl presses those nuggets with his fingertips into the ground.

  “The Foos.” Jesse tamps the ground.

  “You think The Foos took Sweat Sox?” I run over trying not to trip and spill the watering can.

  I was smiling.

  It’s a way small town.

  Carl narrowed his eyes, struck a match on the back of his shoe and lit his pipe.

  I think even he was surprised it worked.

  He gazed at the satellite dish on the side of the house and pursed his lips to make smoke rings, settling for what he could get, which was not that great.

  “They’re Korean,” says Jesse. “Cambodian, like that.”

  Carl nodded, once … twice.

  I silently screamed from the bleachers, urging them on.

  I looked from Jesse to Carl and back, and back.

  “We’ve got lots of theirs. They took back one.”

  “That’s what I heard, too,” I said.

  “And …” Carl began to drawl now.

  “You’re saying this LaRothschild magnate is connected as well?�
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  I stared.

  Jesse squinted even more against the sun.

  Carl puffed.

  “And that it is a ring, a wide, wide ring.

  “Of babies, mere infants, swaddlers. And boxes … noodle boxes, containers, take-home. Ho Chung Noodles.

  “Empty coming in, not so empty going out?

  “Is that what you’re saying?”

  I stared, then sat back on my seat, since my calves were starting to cramp up.

  Jesse put up a hand against the sun and looked at Professor Carl through the space between his fingers.

  Good morning.

  Or, buenos dias, bon jour, gutentag, s’appenin?

  As the case may be.

  I am seated, watching rush hour traffic, as it were, at the main intersection of our downtown area.

  Each of the four corners has a nice, new wooden bench.

  Each is dedicated to the spouse of some prominent local person who felt guilty enough to invest money into a gold engraved plaque and who now knows it will never be enough, not one bench or a hundred.

  All in all, they are most comfortable. I choose where to sit primarily according to the direction of the wind, according to the radio report.

  There is not a shit load of traffic, but some.

  There’s Ed and Earl Edwards, the Edwards twins, heading off for their construction summer job.

  Here comes, there goes, our UPS route driver, Myrna Meyers.

  She’s a little woman, wiry, always moving, always on the go. If she were a Christmas tree it would be most difficult to place a star upon her head. It’s like there’s someone chasing her. She also works at Casey’s, and, and in fact someone is pursuing her. There is usually an attorney or sheriff’s deputy trying to hand her a subpoena to appear in court.

  Well, awhile back she went out for cigarettes and skim milk and actually never came back. She’s got nine jobs, literally, this, that, Pizza Farm. She doesn’t live anywhere, changes in the various employee’s rooms. She still sees her husband and goes to all of the children’s activities. This is something she wanted, so the family is trying to be supportive. They are in counseling, not Myrna, but the husband and kids go every week, I guess.

  On the bench kitty korner from me are a group of elderly hooligans, a gang of them. Ever since they got the casino you don’t want to mess around with them. People almost don’t come downtown if there’s a bunch of them standing around.

  They have been known to shoot steelies, steel marbles, at autos, using wrist rockets.

  They put graffiti on the building sides and doors: FDR, I Like Ike, Ben Hur Rocks. The high school kids find it disgusting.

  Oh, well, here’s something.

  Here comes Michael Sullivan Oh. He farms just east of town.

  Must be bringing the tractor in to get some work done. I see he’s wearing his grey sweat pants already, as am I. I’d say it’s about 70-30 by now, but the momentum seems to be in favor of this thing.