David Wallace - Brief Interviews with Hideous Men

My father said, ‘You’re late.’ His face had zero expression either way. My Mom said, ‘I’m afraid we already ordered, is that OK.’

My father said they had ordered for me already, being as I was a little late getting there.

I sat down, and smilingly asked what they ordered me.

My father said, ‘A chicken presto dish thing your mother ordered for you.’

I said, ‘But I hate chicken. I always hated it. How could you forget I hate chicken?’

We all looked at each other for a second, around the table, even my littlest sister, and her boyfriend with the hair. There was one long split second of all looking at each other. This was when the waiter was bringing everybody’s chicken. Then my father smiled, and drew one of his fists back jokingly, and said, ‘Get the fuck outta here.’ Then my Mom put her hand up against her upper chest, like she does when she is afraid she’s going to laugh too hard, and laughed. The waiter put my plate in front of me, and I pretended to look down and make a face, and we all laughed. It was good.

B.I. #40 06-97

BENTON RIDGE OH

‘It’s the arm. You wouldn’t think of it as a asset like that would you. But it’s the arm. You want to see it? You won’t get disgusted? Well here it is. Here’s the arm. This is why I go by the name Johnny One-Arm. I made it up, not anybody being, like, hardhearted — me. I see how you’re trying to be polite and not look at it. Go ahead and look though. It don’t bother me. Inside my head I don’t call it the arm I call it the Asset. How all would you describe it? Go on. You think it’ll hurt my feelings? You want to hear me describe it? It looks like a arm that changed its mind early on in the game when it was in Mama’s stomach with the rest of me. It’s more like a itty tiny little flipper, it’s little and wet-looking and darker than the rest of me is. It looks wet even when it’s dry. It’s not a pretty sight at all. I usually keep it in the sleeve until it’s time to haul it out and use it for the Asset. Notice the shoulder’s normal, it’s just like the other shoulder. It’s just the arm. It’ll only go down to like the titty-nipple of my chest here, see? It’s a little sucker. It ain’t pretty. It moves fine, I can move it around fine. If you look close here at the end there’s these little majiggers you can tell started out wanting to be fingers but didn’t form. When I was in her stomach. The other arm — see? It’s a normal arm, a little muscley on account of using it all the time. It’s normal and long and the right color, that’s the arm I show all the time, most times I keep the other sleeve pinned up so it don’t look to be even anything like a arm in there at all. It’s strong though. The arm is. It’s hard on the eyes but it’s strong, sometimes I’ll try and get them to armwrestle it to see how strong it is. It’s a strong little flippery sucker. If they think they can stand to touch it. I always say if they don’t think they can stand touching it why that’s OK, it don’t hurt my feelings. You want to touch it?’

Q.

‘That’s all right. That is all right.’

Q.

‘What it is is — well first there’s always some girls around. You know what I mean? At the foundry there, at the Lanes. There’s a tavern right down by the bus stop there. Jackpot — that’s my best friend — Jackpot and Kenny Kirk — Kenny Kirk’s his cousin, Jackpot’s, that are both over me at the foundry cause I finished school and didn’t get in the union till after — they’re real good-looking and normal-looking and Good With The Ladies if you know what I mean, and there’s always girls hanging back around. Like in a group, a bunch or group of all of us, we’ll all just hang back, drink some beers. Jackpot and Kenny’re always going with one of them or the other and then the ones they’re going with got friends. You know. A whole, say, group of us there. You follow the picture here? And I’ll start hanging back with this one or that one, and after a while the first stage is I’ll start in to telling them how I got the name Johnny One-Arm and about the arm. That’s a stage of the thing. Of getting some pussy using the Asset. I’ll describe the arm while it’s still up in the sleeve and make it sound like just about the ugliest thing you ever did see. They’ll get this look on their face like Oh You Poor Little Fella You’re Being Too Hard On Yourself You Shouldn’t Be Shameful Of The Arm. So on. How I’m such a nice young fella and it breaks their heart to see me talk about my own part of me that way especially since it weren’t any fault of mine to get born with the arm. At which time when they start with that stage of it the next stage is I ask them do they want to see it. I say how I’m shameful of the arm but somehow I trust them and they seem real nice and if they want I’ll unpin the sleeve and let the arm out and let them look at the arm if they think they could stand it. I’ll go on about the arm until they can’t hardly stand to hear no more about it. Sometimes it’s a ex of Jackpot’s that’s the one that starts hanging back with me down at Frame Eleven over to the Lanes and saying how I’m such a good listener and sensitive not like Jackpot or Kenny and she can’t believe there’s any way the arm’s as bad as I’m making out and like that. Or we’ll be hanging back at her place in the kitchenette or some such and I’ll go It’s So Hot I Feel Like Taking My Shirt Off But I Don’t Want To On Account Of I’m Shameful Of The Arm. Like that. There’s numerous, like, stages. I never out loud call it the Asset believe you me. Go on and touch it whenever you get a mind to. One of the stages is I know after some time I really am starting to come off creepy to the girl, I can tell, cause all I can talk about is the arm and how wet and flippery it is but how it’s strong but how I’d just about up and die if a girl as nice and pretty and perfect as I think she is saw it and got disgusted, and I can tell all the talk starts creeping them up inside and they start to secretly think I’m kind of a loser but they can’t back out on me cause after all here they been all this time saying all this nice shit about what a sensitive young fella I am and how I shouldn’t be shameful and there’s no way the arm can be that bad. In this stage it’s like they’re committed into a corner and if they quit hanging back with me now why they know I can go It Was Because Of The Arm.’

Q.

‘Usually long about two weeks, like that. The next is your critical-type stage where I show them the arm. I wait till it’s just her and me alone someplace and I haul the sucker out. I make it seem like they talked me into it and now I trust them and they’re who I finally feel like I can let it out of the sleeve and show it. And I show it to her just like I just did you. There’s some additional things too I can do with it that look even worse, make it look — see that? See this right here? It’s cause there ain’t even really a elbow bone, it’s just a—’

Q.

‘Or some of your ointments or Vaseline-type jelly on it to make it look even wetter and shinier. The arm’s not a pretty sight at all when I up and haul it out on them I’m telling you right now. It just about makes them puke, the sight of it the way I get it. Oh and a couple run out, some skedoodle right out the door. But your majority? Your majority of them’ll swallow hard a time or two and go Oh It’s It’s It’s Not Too Bad At All but they’re looking over all away and try and not look at my face which I’ve got this totally shy and scared and trusting face on at the time like this one thing I can do where I can make my lip even tremble a little. Ee? Ee anh? And ever time sooner or later within inside, like, five minutes of it they’ll up and start crying. They’re in way over their head, see. They’re, like, committed into a corner of saying how it can’t be that ugly and I shouldn’t be shameful and then they see it and I see to it it is ugly, ugly ugly ugly and now what do they do? Pretend? Shit girl most of these girls around here think Elvis is alive someplace. These are not girl wonders of the brain. It breaks them down ever time. They get even worse if I ask them Oh Golly What’s Wrong, how come they’re crying, Is It The Arm and they have to say It Ain’t The Arm, they have to, they have to try and pretend it ain’t the arm that it’s how they feel so sad for me being so shameful of something that ain’t a big deal at all they have to say. Often-times with their face in their hands and crying. Your climatic stage then is then I up and come over to where she’s at and sit down and now I’m the one that’s comforting them. A, like, factor here I found out the hard way is when I go in to hold them and comfort them I hold them with the good side. I don’t give them no more of the Asset. The Asset’s wrapped back up safe out of sight in the sleeve now. They’re broke down crying and I’m the one holding them with the good arm and go It’s OK Don’t Cry Don’t Be Sad Being Able To Trust You Not To Get Disgusted By The Arm Means So Very Very Much To Me Don’t You See You Have Set Me Free Of Being Shameful Of The Arm Thank You Thank You and so on while they put their face in my neck and just cry and cry. Sometimes they get me crying too. You following all this?’