Brock Clarke - The Happiest People in the World

The stranger opened the menu. Kurt watched his eyes travel down it. “Two eggs,” he said, “with a side of hash?” He said these last words slowly, and definitely with a question mark at the end, as though he wasn’t sure of their pronunciation or meaning. Or maybe he just wasn’t sure he really wanted the hash. That, Kurt understood. Who knew what that stuff really was? Kurt could see Doc in the kitchen, baseball hat and gut straining, yellow-armpitted white T-shirt and no apron and no rubber gloves, dumping the hash out of the can and onto the griddle. The can looked rusty, too, although it was hard to distinguish between the color of rust and the color of hash.

“How do you want your eggs?” Crystal asked.

“How do I want them?” he repeated. On a plate, Kurt thought. Next to the hash, Kurt thought. “How do I want them?” the stranger asked.

“Scrambled,” Crystal said. “Poached. Sunny-side up. .”

“Sunny-side up,” the stranger said. Crystal nodded, snatched the menu, stored it somewhere underneath the counter, and walked away from the stranger and toward the kitchen. When she did, Kurt watched the stranger look around the place: First, to his left, was the cooler labeled LES DESSERTS. Then the stranger turned to his right and regarded, at the far end of the counter, four analog clocks over the door to the men’s bathroom. The clock labeled BERLIN said it was 10:10; the clock labeled CAIRO, 5:47; BROOMEVILLE, 4:59; MOSCOW, 1:22. There was no clock for London, just the word LONDON and an empty space where the clock should have been. Time was correct and moving only on the clock labeled BROOMEVILLE. The stranger looked at these clocks for a long time, as though he had never seen one before, just like he’d looked at the counter like he’d never seen one before, and the cooler, and the menu, and the Crystal. Kurt was starting to change his mind again: Maybe this guy was just retarded. Because there was nothing odd about any of these things. They were normal. They had been there for as long as Kurt could remember.

After staring at the clocks for a while longer, the stranger shook his head, then took a pad and pencil out of his jacket pocket and began scribbling. Soon, Crystal brought out his eggs and hash. The stranger looked at the food, shook his head again, and then started shoveling the eggs and hash into his mouth. This was about right, as far as Kurt was concerned: the food in Doc’s looked disgusting, but Kurt knew from experience that it tasted delicious. When the stranger was finished eating, he pushed the plate aside and then resumed his scribbling. Kurt could hear the scratch of the pencil on the page. He could hear Crystal laughing with Doc in the kitchen. The lights dimmed in the restaurant. Or maybe it was just the sun going down. The stranger didn’t seem to notice; he scribbled on, hunched over his pad, all by himself, looking lonely. It was the kind of loneliness so powerful that it was contagious.

I’m so lonely, Kurt thought, and then, to counter that thought, he thought, Fuck that shit. And then he thought, Counter. The stranger didn’t seem to know what Crystal had meant when she’d said, “Counter?” Kurt had been taking Spanish for three years in school; he tried to think of the Spanish word for “counter.” There had to be one. It was such a simple, common word. He must know it. What was the Spanish word for “counter”? And then he thought, Why is the cooler full of soda labeled LES DESSERTS? And what’s with the clocks? Why do none of them work except for Broomeville? Why those four cities and not four others? What happened to the London clock? And for that matter, why was Doc called Doc? Because he definitely did not look like someone who had ever been a member of the medical profession. Why, why, why? Kurt thought. It wasn’t the first time he’d asked why, of course, but it might have been the first time he’d asked why for a purpose other than being an absolute pain in the ass. For the first time, he really did want to know. Why, for instance, did the stranger order his eggs sunny-side up and not scrambled or poached?

Suddenly the stranger was standing in front of him. That smile still on his face, the pad of paper sticking out of his jacket pocket. The stranger didn’t seem to be surprised to see Kurt there. It was impossible to tell whether he recognized Kurt from the bar, or knew he’d been standing there the entire time, or cared. Except for that goofy, hopeful smile, there wasn’t anything on his face, not even a chunk of hash, a smear of egg.

“Why did you order your eggs sunny-side up and not scrambled or poached?” Kurt asked.

The stranger didn’t hesitate. “Because it seemed the most optimistic and least violent of the three choices,” he said. He then stuck out his hand and Kurt took it. “My name is Henry Larsen,” he said. “I’m going to be your new guidance counselor.”

“My name is Kurt. And I’m definitely going to be needing your guidance counseling.”

Henry’s face suddenly grew serious. But still goofy and hopeful. He patted Kurt on the shoulder and said, “Don’t worry. I think everything is going to be just fine.”

“I really hope you’re right,” Kurt said. But just in case, he sneaked the pad of paper out of Henry’s coat before Henry crossed the street and went back into the Lumber Lodge.

Ellen was in the bar talking to Matty on the phone. In the background, she could hear the sounds of baseball. Not the game itself, which hadn’t started yet, but the warm-ups. The lazy thud of a ball hitting a mitt. The ping of a metal bat hitting a ball. Someone apologizing for mishitting, or misthrowing, or miscatching. Someone complaining about how cold it was. Because it was cold . It was supposed to snow, too. Matty had told Ellen why this faculty-student baseball game had been played in October, right in the middle of football season. He had told her many times. But the specifics always eluded her. It had something to do with Cornell. A campus tradition. A morale booster. An official good-bye to summer. If it’s good enough for Cornell, it’s good enough for Broomeville. Something like that. She pictured rich white boys wearing red shorts and white sweaters with the big red letter C on the chest and drinking beer out of pewter steins in one hand while catching the ole horsehide with weathered old-timey leather gloves with the other and calling each other by their nicknames, which were all Tripp. Ellen sensed this mental picture was unfair and ridiculous. Which was not to say it was inaccurate.

“Your new guidance counselor is here.”

“What’s he like?”

“He asked for you.”

Matty must have heard something in her voice. He didn’t say anything at first. Ellen could tell he was trying to figure out where the trouble was and how he might steer away from it. That was marriage, pretty much. “Heads up!” someone yelled in the background. Ellen could hear the ball hitting someone or something. Then someone else yelled, “Hey, that fucking hurt!” And then the first person said: “I think you’re overreacting a little. But anyway, I’m sorry.” That was pretty much marriage, too.

“He asked for you,” Ellen repeated.

“Did he ask in Swedish?”

“He said, ‘Is Matthew here?’ ”

“Because he’s from Sweden.”

This was news to Ellen: all Matty had told her was that the new guidance counselor would be showing up this afternoon, and to please have one of the rooms ready for him. “Sweden?” she said.

“Originally,” Matty said. “I bet you’re wondering how a Swedish guy ends up a guidance counselor in Broomeville.” This was not what Ellen wanted to talk about. But yes, now that Matty mentioned it, she was wondering that. God, he made her hate him for sometimes making her forget why she still sometimes hated him.