Donald Pollock: Knockemstiff

I flushed the commode and stood there holding my breath, pretending to take a leak. Bits and pieces of movie dialogue drifted in from outside and I was trying to imagine the parts I was missing when the old man started banging on the flimsy door. “Damn, boy, what’s taking you so long?” he yelled. “You beatin’ your meat in there?” He pounded again, and I heard someone laugh. Then he said, “I tell you what, these fuckin’ kids will drive you crazy.”

I zipped up and stepped out of the stall. The old man was handing a cigarette to a porky guy with sawdust combed through his greasy black hair. A purple stain shaped like a wedge of pie covered the belly of his dirty shirt. “I shit you not, Cappy,” my father was telling the man, “this boy’s scared of his own goddamn shadow. A fuckin’ bug’s got more balls.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Cappy said. He bit the filter off the cigarette and spat it on the concrete floor. “My sister’s got one like that. Poor little guy, he can’t even bait a hook.”

“Bobby shoulda been a girl,” the old man said. “Goddamn it, when I was that age, I was choppin’ wood for the stove.”

Cappy lit the cigarette with a long wooden match he pulled from his shirt pocket and said with a shrug, “Well, things was different back then, Vern.” Then he stuck the match in his ear and twirled it around inside his head.

“I know, I know,” the old man went on, “but it still makes you wonder what the fuck’s gonna happen to this goddamn country someday.”

Suddenly a man wearing black-framed glasses stepped from his place in line at the urinal and tapped my old man on the shoulder. He was the biggest sonofabitch I’d ever seen; his fat head nearly touched the ceiling. His arms were the size of fence posts. A boy my size stood behind him, wearing a pair of brightly colored swimming trunks and a T-shirt that had a faded picture of Davy Crockett on the front of it. He had a fresh waxy crew cut and orange pop stains on his chin. Every time he took a breath, a Bazooka bubble bloomed from his mouth like a round pink flower. He looked happy, and I hated him instantly.

“Watch your language,” the man said. His loud voice boomed across the room and everyone turned to look at us.

The old man whirled around and rammed his nose into the big man’s chest. He bounced back and looked up at the giant towering over him. “Goddamn,” he said.

The big man’s sweaty face began to turn red. “Didn’t you understand me?” he said to my father. “I asked you to watch your cussing. I don’t want my son hearing that kind of talk.” Then he said slowly, like he was dealing with a retard, “I…won’t…ask…you…again.”

“You didn’t ask me the first fuckin’ time,” my old man shot back. He was tough as bark but rail thin back in those days, and he never knew when to keep his mouth shut. He looked around at the crowd starting to gather, then turned to Cappy and winked.

“Oh, you think it’s funny?” the man said. His hands tightened into fists the size of softballs and he made a move toward my father. Someone in the back said, “Kick his ass.”

My father took two steps back, dropped his cigarette, and held up his palms. “Now hold on there, buddy. Jesus, I don’t mean nothing.” Then he lowered his eyes, stood staring at the big man’s shiny black shoes for a few seconds. I could see him gnawing on the inside of his mouth. His hands kept opening and closing like the pincers on a crawdad. “Hey,” he finally said, “we don’t need no trouble here tonight.”

The big man glanced at the people watching him. They were all waiting for his next move. His glasses started to slide down his broad nose and he pushed them back up. Taking a deep breath, he swallowed hard, then jabbed a fat finger in my father’s bony chest. “Look, I mean what I say,” he said, spit flying out of his mouth. “This here is a family place. I don’t care if you are a damn drunk. You understand?” I sneaked a look over at the man’s son and he stuck his tongue out at me.

“Yeah, I understand all right,” I heard my father say quietly.

A smug look came over the big bastard’s face. His chest puffed out like a tom turkey’s, straining the brown buttons on his clean white shirt. Looking around at the pack of men who were hoping to see a fight, he sighed deeply and shrugged his wide shoulders. “I guess that’s it, boys,” he said to no one in particular. Then, his hand now resting gently on top of his son’s head, he started to turn.

I watched nervously as the disappointed crowd shook their heads and began moving away. I remember wishing I could slide out the door with them. I figured the old man would blame me for the way that things had turned out. But just as Godzilla’s screechy, door-hinge roar echoed through the restroom, he leaped forward and drove his fist against the temple of the big man’s head. People never believe me, but I once saw him knock a horse out with that same hand. A sickening crack reverberated through the concrete room. The man staggered sideways and all of the air suddenly whooshed out of his body like a fart. His hands waved frantically in the air as if he were grabbing for a lifeline, and then he dropped to the floor with a thud.

The room went quiet for a second, but when the man’s son began screaming, my father exploded. He circled around the man, kicking the ribs with his work boots, stomping the left hand until the gold wedding ring cut through to the bone of his finger. Dropping to his knees, he grabbed the man’s glasses and snapped them in two, beat him in the face until a tooth popped through one meaty cheek. Then Cappy and three other men grabbed my father from behind and pulled him away. His fists glistened with blood. A thin string of white froth hung from his chin. I heard someone yell to call the cops. Still holding on to my father, Cappy said, “Jesus, Vern, that man’s hurt bad.”

Just as I looked up from the body lying on the floor into my father’s wild eyes, the man’s son turned and drilled me in the ear. I covered up my head with my arms and hunkered down as the boy started to flail away at me. “Goddamn you!” I heard my father yell in a hoarse voice. “You back down, I’ll blister your ass!” The hot dogs I’d eaten started to come up, and I swallowed them again. I didn’t want to fight, but the boy was nothing compared to the old man. I rose up to face him just as he smacked me in the mouth. I drew back and swung wildly. Somehow I managed to strike him in the face. I heard my father yell again and I kept swinging. After three or four punches, the boy dropped his hands and began blubbering, choking on his bubble gum. I looked over at the old man, and he screamed, “Fuck him up!” I hit the boy again and bright red blood sprayed out of his nose.

Breaking loose from the men holding him, my father grabbed me by the arm and pulled me out the doorway. He ran across the parking lot, dragging me along, searching for our car in the dark. Suddenly he stopped and knelt down in front of me. He was gasping for air. “You did good, Bobby,” he said, wiping the sweat from his eyes. He gripped me by the shoulders and squeezed. “You did real good.”

When we found the car, my father shoved me in the backseat and lifted the speaker off the window. He let it drop to the ground with a bang and jumped in and started the engine. My mother jerked awake. “Is it over?” she asked sleepily. A crackly voice came over the speaker system pleading for any doctors or nurses to report to the concession stand immediately. “Lord, what happened?” Mom said, straightening up in the seat, rubbing her face.

“Some fat sonofabitch tried to tell us how to talk, that’s what,” the old man said. “But we showed their asses, didn’t we, Bobby?” He gunned the motor. We all looked up at the screen just as Godzilla bit into a high-voltage tower. “Holy shit, boy, that thing’s got teeth this long,” my old man laughed, spreading his arms wide. Then he leaned over and told my mother in a low voice, “They’ll call the law on this one.” He reached down and dropped the Chevy into gear.