Rhett McLaughlin - The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek

“That’s why I keep ’em displayed on the counter out there. This jar ” — Big Gary held it as close to the camera lens as possible, filling up the frame with a blurred nothingness—“is a symbol of all the pain I went through. Shows how tough I am. You know that expression Look at the stones on that one ?”

Big Gary paused, as if he was waiting for Janine to answer.

“That’s actually the bumper sticker on my car,” she said, calculating that Big Gary wouldn’t detect her sarcasm.

“Well, then, all right!” Big Gary said. “So you know what I’m gettin’ at: Look at the stones on this one! My stones!”

Janine couldn’t help but smile, though not for the reasons Big Gary thought. She turned to see if Donna was smiling too, but nope: She was sliding a rack of glasses into the industrial dishwasher and pushing it closed, initiating a loud splashing and humming.

“So tell me,” Big Gary said, speaking louder to compete with the running dishwasher, “is this gonna be, like, in the movie theaters and whatnot?”

“Definitely,” Janine said, doing her best to wipe the smile off her face as she lowered the camera.

“Wow,” Big Gary said, nodding excitedly and releasing a barrage of mmm s. “That’s—”

“Mr. Gary!” A panicked teen boy held the door to the kitchen open, his acne-riddled face resembling the generic pizza pictures scattered throughout the restaurant.

“Can’t you see I’m busy, Tommy?” Big Gary said.

“Is she from the news?” Tommy asked. “Are we gonna be on the news?”

“No, it ain’t the news. This lady’s makin’ a movie about me,” Gary said, turning to Janine and smiling. “What is it, Tommy?”

“Uh, you better just come and see.”

“It looks like we got a situation I need to attend to,” Big Gary said to Janine, with a smile that failed to hide his annoyance. “But I’ll be back in a hurry. Feel free to take the stones out and touch ’em. Just don’t lose any.”

“As tempting as that is, I think we’re actually done,” Janine said.

“That’s it?” Big Gary said, seeming a little hurt.

“Well.” Janine suddenly felt bad, imagining how disappointed Big Gary would be when his stones never made it to the big screen. She also knew the earliest flight she could book probably wouldn’t be until tomorrow anyway. “Maybe I’ll stick around to get a little more footage.”

“Attagirl!” Big Gary clapped three times and let out his biggest mmm yet. “Hey, I’ll have our cook fix you a personal pizza. On the house.”

“Oh, you don’t have t—”

“Ron!” Big Gary shouted as he waddled away through the kitchen. “I need one PP! Extra cheese!”

Janine wondered for the eighteenth or nineteenth time that day what she was doing with her life.

She was about to say something snarky about Big Gary to Donna, but caught herself when she saw how engrossed her cousin was in her work. Janine watched as Donna grabbed a plate, angled it toward the trash, dumped a couple of pizza crusts, blasted it with a powerful sink nozzle, and added it to a rack, all within a couple of seconds. She was remarkably efficient.

Janine was reminded that Donna had been doing this since she graduated from high school. So: ten years. As Donna joylessly grabbed the next dish, her two-sizes-too-big Li’l Dino’s polo shirt damp from the splashing water, Janine could think of no starker contrast to the old Donna. If the twelve-year-old Janine had been present, she would have thought that Donna was simply acting, perfectly playing the role of “dejected dishwasher” in one of their movies.

“He’s a character, huh?” Janine finally said.

Donna didn’t respond. Janine couldn’t tell if she was being ignored or if Donna was just in the zone.

“He’s a character, huh?” she repeated, a little louder.

“Who?” Donna said without pausing in her work.

“Big Gary.”

“Oh. He’s all right.” She aimed the power nozzle at the sink, creating fast-moving streams that picked up all the food scraps in their path and deposited them neatly in the drain.

He’s all right? It was the most un-Donna response of all time. Janine remembered the man running Li’l Dino’s when they were younger, with his thick glasses and an obvious toupee. Donna had ironically nicknamed him Fabio. She would always tell him how great his hair looked, and Janine could never keep a straight face.

It was surprising to Janine, even a bit embarrassing, to realize that some part of her was still holding out hope that her relationship with Donna could revert back to the way it had once been.

“We used to have so much fun together,” she finally said.

Donna turned the power nozzle off. Janine’s breath caught in her chest, though she wasn’t sure if Donna had paused because of what she’d said or if she’d just happened to finish her task at that exact moment. Donna said nothing and kept looking straight ahead at the wall.

Janine pushed a little more. “You know, um…you’re the reason I went to film school.”

Donna put her power nozzle down. Her head still turned away from Janine, she said, “I used to like hanging out with you, too.”

Janine didn’t know how badly she’d wanted to hear those words. They meant she wasn’t crazy, imagining a closeness with Donna that had never existed. “So what happened?” Janine asked, her voice tender.

Donna was silent for a moment. “A lot,” she said quietly. “A lot happened.”

“What— What was it?”

Donna’s shoulders tensed up and she lowered her head. As Janine stepped forward to comfort her, Big Gary reappeared, holding a plate covered with a sloppy mess of sauce and cheese. Donna immediately resumed her work.

“Your PP’s ready! And I’m ready for more quest—” Big Gary’s eyes darted back and forth between Janine and Donna. “Everything okay back here?”

“Not exactly,” Janine said, sniffing as she wiped her face, annoyed at Big Gary for interrupting right when she and Donna were finally getting somewhere. “It’s that time of the month. For both of us. And it’s really intense.”

“Uh,” Big Gary said, at a complete loss for words.

Janine thought she saw, for a millisecond, the slightest smile on Donna’s face before it disappeared. “But also,” Janine said, “I’m just…excited about the movie.”

“Oh,” Big Gary said, nodding, grateful for the subject change. “I get that. Like when the Bleak Creek Gazette named us best pizza restaurant in town. I was so proud, I cried. Just like you.”

Janine was pretty sure Li’l Dino’s was the only pizza place in town.

“Anyway, sorry about the delay,” Big Gary said. “Those two troublemakers from yesterday just showed up. I’m sure you heard about it…knocked Mr. Whitewood right into his pig smoker.”

“Oh,” Janine said, remembering GamGam’s excitement. “Only kind of.”

“Wow, where you been? Under a rock?” Big Gary asked, though he was obviously delighted as he proceeded to lay out for Janine his version of what had gone down, breathlessly detailing the impudence of these “miscreants.” “At least that girl they hang around with was sent away,” he finally concluded, as if it was this story’s equivalent of And they all lived happily ever after .

“Sent away?” Janine asked. “Where?”

“Where else?” Big Gary asked, this time disappointed that she didn’t know. “To Mr. Whitewood’s reform school.”

“Wait,” Janine said. “The guy they accidentally knocked into a grill also has a reform school?”

Big Gary turned to find Tommy or someone else with whom he could exchange a “This woman truly doesn’t know anything, does she?” look, but came up empty. “Of course he does! That man is a hero to this town.”