T. Boyle - Budding Prospects

The waitress nodded her ravaged head. “That’s right, honey.” She must have been seventy, thin, with a sunken chest and flat feet. Her hair was dyed moonlit brown, and it played girlishly across her cheek as she bent forward.

“I’ll take the Super Chili Beef Burger, too,” Phil said. “On the side. And another glass of milk, please.”

I ordered tuna on rye and a bowl of soup. Violins, converging on the maudlin strains of yet another country hit, whined from hidden speakers. Clouds expanded and contracted along the backbone of the sky. A fly batted at the window.

Then the door swung open behind me, footsteps scuffed across the floor, and the grid of seats heaved as a pair of oversized hominids settled into the booth at my back. I stole a glance out the window and saw that the cruiser was empty. “I’m telling you, you just can’t operate that fast,” a voice snapped in my ear before descending to an urgent rasping whisper. A second voice, also whispering, interrupted to hiss a reply. The back of my neck began to itch.

I reached for my coffee cup, found that it was empty, and signaled for the waitress. She looked up alertly, slid the Pyrex pot from the stove and started down the aisle — only to continue past as if she hadn’t seen me. She halted opposite the newly occupied booth at my back. “Can I get you boys some coffee?” she said. There was a pause in the disputation as both voices broke off to breathe “Please,” and then the rasping continued, covered momentarily by the splash and trickle of hot liquid. Phil reached across the table to nudge me, then indicated a point over my right shoulder and broke into a grin. “You see who just joined us?” he whispered.

I scanned the front page of the local paper, trying to ignore him. FUNDS CUT FOR RODENT CONTROL, I READ. HARRIET SEARS HONORED BY FATIMAS OF THE FEZ. DROUGHT IN NAMIBIA. And then, with a shock that built in my chest like the thump of a boxer’s speed bag, I came across the following:

ALL IN A (FIRST) DAY’S WORK

Officers of the CHP detained two Bay Area men early this morning when a routine traffic stop turned up nearly 3 kilograms of marijuana seeds and a small quantity of cocaine. Esig “Bud” Jones, 29, of San Francisco, and Aurelio Ayala, 26, of Daly City, were apprehended near Pt. Cabrillo on the Coast Highway. A spokesman for the Highway Patrol speculated that the seeds may have been intended for local cultivation in the highly lucrative “sinsemilla” marijuana trade that many feel has become one of the county’s biggest cash crops. Both men are awaiting arraignment in the county jail. Bail has not yet been set.

This is where the story ends. But it had its beginnings in the Ukiah substation yesterday evening when patrolman John Jerpbak reported for his first day of duty with the Ukiah division. Officer Jerpbak, a native of Willits who many will remember as a star halfback for the Willits Wolverines, had requested the transfer from his post in Lake Tahoe because, in his words, “I wanted to do my part in fighting this thing right here where my friends and family ( Cont. Page 2 )

My fingers were trembling. We were thirty-five miles from the ocean, and yet the surf was roaring in my ears. Phil leaned across the table and gestured toward the young mother: “You know, she’s not half bad.” I didn’t answer, couldn’t answer. I scanned the room like an impala checking the high grass for movement, the presence at my back swelling to nightmare proportions, and then turned the page.

There he was. Jerpbak. Clipped hair, cleft chin, eyes like arrows in flight. The story went on for two columns. I read about Jerpbak’s intrepidity in identifying and apprehending the suspects, I read about Jerpbak’s father, who’d sold insurance in Willits for thirty years, about his sister, his mother, his wife (the former Jeannie Jordan). And finally, the conclusion of the piece, familiar, congratulatory, an editorial backslap: “Welcome home, John.”

I ate tuna fish, but I didn’t taste it — I could have been chewing cardboard smeared with mayonnaise. My stomach contracted, acid rose in my throat. I looked up to see the waitress flirting with one of the old men at the counter — leaning into him like a dance instructor — while his counterpart stared dolefully into his coffee cup. Phil waved a monstrous, chili-dribbling burger in one hand, and a fork in the other. He was relating the plot of the science-fiction trilogy he’d begun two nights ago. I wanted to leave. Split, vanish, dissolve. Toss my money on the table, hunch down in my jacket and slink out the door.

“So Bors Borka, he’s the hero, finds himself on this planet where instead of only two sexes, they have five, all of which are necessary — all together — for an orgasm.” Phil took a bite of his burger, delicately lapping the extruded chili from between his fingers in the process. “There’s this penislike thing, the omphallus , that sticks out of this lake made of protoplasm, and it branches into three stalks. Then there’s this viridian creature sort of like a female, only instead of a vagina—”

“Phil,” I said, pressing both hands to my temples. “Let’s get out of here.”

“What’s the matter?”

I tucked the newspaper under my arm. Strings and oboes tugged at the chords of “Jailhouse Rock,” rain began to natter at the window, the old man at the counter slipped his hand up the waitress’s dress. “I’ve got a headache.”

Phil gave me a look of shock and dismay, as if I’d just suggested he share his food with everyone in the restaurant and then mail the leftovers to the Underfed Orphans Society. He took a quick bite of his Super Chili Beef Burger and a forkful of stuffed cabbage. “Christ,” he muttered, digging for another hurried mouthful. “You sure?”

The booth trembled as one of the patrolmen shifted in his seat. I nodded at Phil, then glanced up nervously and found myself staring into the young mother’s eyes. They were black, those eyes, soft and ripe as pitted olives. But I didn’t want olives, I wanted escape, seclusion, anonymity. I looked away in confusion, focusing on the Campbell’s Soup display and making a show of moving my lips as I read the labels: Chunky Mediterranean Vegetable, Turkey with Avocado, Plantain Broth. “All right,” Phil said, frowning. “All right — just let me finish what’s on my plate. I can take the burger with me.”

I pushed away my half-eaten sandwich and motioned for the waitress. She was poised over the second old man now, refilling his cup while he stared morosely into the knot of his hands. “The check,” I pantomimed. She ignored me. Jerpbak, I thought, the name howling in my ears. This was bad karma, malicious fate, the beginning and the end. I waved my arm. “Check, please,” I mouthed, fighting for restraint. Behind me, the rasping continued unabated, officers of the law engaged in private business, their flesh and mine wedded by a thin slab of plywood and Naugahyde. Someone coughed. And then, as if a hot wire had been applied to my temple, a nasty certainty leapt through my brain: Jerpbak was sitting behind me. Jerpbak himself. Of course. Who else?

Suddenly I was on my feet. Jerpbak, Jerpbak, Jerpbak: the name beat with my pulse. It all became clear in that instant — he’d tracked me down, spider and fly. He was a Heat, a Holmes, a Javert. He’d seen the guilt on me like a dye, like the thief’s tattoo, and he’d known in that moment what I was doing in Tahoe. Yes, and now he was waiting, that’s all, waiting till the plants were grown and the buds mature, biding his time till he could swoop down on us when it would hurt most. Phil looked up at me, a smear of chili at the corner of his mouth. “I’m, I’m …”I stammered, digging a five from my pocket and flinging it down on the table. Then I took a deep breath, steeling myself. At the count of three I was going to swing round, lower my head and stride out the door.