Нил Шустерман - The Schwa Was Here

Waldbaum’s was a twenty-four-hour supermarket, I guess so if you had a sudden need for hair gel or Haagen-Dazs at three in the morning, relief was only minutes away. That also meant that I could avoid the manager during the off-hours—and chances were, if the butcher knew something about the Schwa’s mother, other people who worked there knew something, too.

It was almost midnight by the time I got there. I walked down the frozen-food aisle and turned left, heading toward the meat department. The little counter where the butcher took custom orders was unlit—but that didn’t necessarily mean no one was there. Supermarkets had whole back areas like they’ve got at airports, where employees hang out, rummaging through lost luggage and stuff. Not that lost luggage would be in a su­permarket, but considering how airlines work, it wouldn’t sur­prise me to find socks from yesterday’s flight to Cleveland in with the veal chops.

In the dark display case, the unpackaged meat was arranged like perfect works of art. Pork chops were layered in a left-right alternating pattern. Rib-eye steaks were neatly pushed together like interlocking floor tiles. Someone had taken great care with this meat. It was weird to think that a butcher would care enough to be so particular. When you think about it, being a butcher has got to be one of the most unpleasant jobs in the world, except for maybe those ladies who cut toenails. I mean, who’d want to spend all day chopping and grinding animals into little pieces? But then, on the other hand, it probably gives guys that would otherwise be ax murderers a healthy outlet. As it turned out, this theory was about to be proven.

I heard a noise coming from one of those “employee-only” back rooms. It was a high-pitched whine, like a vacuum sucking helium. I followed that sound through a pair of floppy double doors and found myself in a white tile and stainless-steel room, full of meat-cutting equipment. The place had an unfriendly fermented smell, like an old refrigerator crossed with my brother Frankie’s feet. A guy in goggles and a stained white smock stood at the far end of the room at a stainless-steel table, cut­ting up a side of beef with what looked like a band saw. He did it with such concentration, you’d think it was brain surgery.

This was the last guy in the world you’d want to see near a sharp object. He was tall but hunched, his neck sticking for­ward at an angle that made my own neck hurt just watching him. His hair was thin and unkempt. I couldn’t tell if it was white or just very, very blond. I could see patches of red scalp through his hair.

“Excuse me,” I said, but he didn’t hear me. He just kept on cutting the meat. The machine let off a grating whine whenever it hit the bone.

“Excuse me,” I said again, a bit louder this time.

Without looking at me, he turned off the saw, and it buzzed itself silent. “You are not supposed to be here!”

He had a strange accent. Almost German, but not quite.

“I just want to ask you a few questions. You’re the butcher here, right?”

“I am the night butcher,” he said.

Okay, now here’s the part of the movie where a kid with any brains gets out of there, unless he wants to end up in neatly arranged portions in the display case, because no kid with any brains is gonna stand alone in a room full of knives, saws, and grinders with anyone who calls himself the “Night Butcher.”

“You come to taunt me more, eh?” he said, raising his voice. “You and your friends. Letting the air out of my tires, scribbling rude words on my windows. This I know! You think I don’t?”

“I can see it’s not a good time. I’ll come back tomorrow.”

I backed up, but missed the door and knocked over a broom. The handle hit the floor with a nasty thwok, and my heart ran to hide somewhere in my left shoe.

“No!” he said. “You have business with me, you tell me now. We settle this here!”

He came toward me. I could see that his neck was scaly, and red as raw meat.

“We have nothing to settle,” I told him. “I didn’t let the air out of your tires, or anything. Trust me, I’ve got better things to do than mess with the Night Butcher.”

He scratched his neck thoughtfully. “And I should believe you?”

“Yeah.”

He took off his goggles to get a better look at me. His eyes were as wild as his hair. Then he said, “I believe you. For now. What is it you want?”

“I’m trying to help a friend,” I said. “How long have you worked for Waldbaum’s?”

“Flemish!” he shouted.

“Huh?”

“You are wondering about my accent. It is Flemish. I come from Belgium. All you know from Belgium is waffles and chocolate. Now you know me.”

“Great, got it—waffles, chocolate, and you. So how long have you worked for Waldbaum’s?”

“Nineteen years. I was here when cuts were thick, and you could still get a lamb chop with a nice big fillet, back when meat was meat.” He looked off for a moment, nostalgic for the good old days, then said, “Gunther!”

“Huh?”

“You are wondering what is my name.”

“Well, not really, but thanks for telling me.” This was the only human being I’d ever met who had more trouble than me stay­ing on the subject. “Did you always work in this store, or did you get moved around?”

“Always here,” he said.

“Good. So you were here about nine years ago when a little boy got left in a shopping cart.”

Suddenly his whole attitude changed. “No.” He turned back to the beef he had been cutting. “I was not on duty yet. I do not remember.”

“If you don’t remember, how could you know you weren’t on duty?”

He scratched his peeling neck. Little flakes fell to the cutting table. I’m never eating meat from Waldbaum’s again.

“Eczema,” he said.

“Huh?”

“You are wondering about my neck. Why I scratch.”

“What you do with your neck is your business.”

He stopped scratching and looked at me for an uncomfort­ably long time. “You are this little boy from the shopping cart?” he asked.

“No, but I’m his friend.”

Gunther nodded, then went to remove his smock and washed his hands. “This friend of yours. He is okay now?”

“Not really,” I told him. I thought of what story I could make up to get Gunther to spill his guts, and then I figured the truth would do the job just fine. “He thinks his mother disappeared into thin air, and he never got over it.”

Gunther sighed. “I am very sorry to hear that.” He pulled up a chair and sat down, then pulled up one for me. “Sit.”

Although I really didn’t want to, I knew I might finally be onto something. I sat down, and Gunther took his time before he spoke again.

“You have to understand, this was none of my business. I had nothing to do with it, I only saw.”

Bingo! “So you saw what happened! She didn’t disappear after all, did she?”

Gunther sighed. “She did disappear, in a manner of speak­ing,” he said. “And she was not the only one who disappeared that night.”

I waited for more, but then he sat back, thought for a moment, and said, “No.” He stood and returned to his meat cutting.

“What do you mean ’no’? You can’t start and not finish.”

He slammed the side of beef back down on the cutting table. “I tell this story only once. Your friend should be here when I do. Bring your friend and I will tell you both about that day.”

Then he gave me four pork chops, cut thick like they used to in the days when meat was meat, and he sent me on my way.

Just as she had promised, Lexie sprung a top-secret trauma attack on her grandfather. It came without warning (without me being warned, that is) the morning after my visit to the Night Butcher. It was Saturday. A day I should have been able to sleep late. As I was tossing and turning all night with unpleasant dreams about meat, I was dead to the world when the phone rang. My mom practically had to use heart paddles to wake me up.