Knucklehead & Other Stories (4 page)

“Hi Walter,” he said, hardly looking up. He was heavy, short grey hair, in his forties. He was like my dad but his voice was soft. No matter how bad he smelled, he always seemed neat and clean in the morning—laundered green-denim work shirt and pants, clean-shaven, good fingernails.

“Bob—Mr. Campbell wants you in the coffee room. All of us are there. I think he's got some kind of announcement.”

Stinky Bob folded the paper and hefted himself up. He was barely taller standing than sitting. When he got up he pushed his smell towards me. Like just the act of moving generated some sort of reaction with the atmosphere. Danny would say it wasn't just the smell—Stinky Bob was a total sensory experience. And Danny knew, because he had to work with him most. You could almost see it, like a cloud drifting from him, with hot spots at his crotch, his armpits. Until the full force hit you, then it was bright lights. You could feel it touch you. At first gradually, like a wet hand brushing you in the dark, making goose bumps pop on your arms. Then it would punch you hard, a jab of stink in the gut. And I swear, you could taste it, a garlic burn on the end of your tongue. Unless you were unlucky enough to gulp a big breath, when it sat in the back of your mouth like a rotten egg. Stinky Bob.

Bob ran both his hands through his brush cut. The smell of sweat released from his armpits—whew! I nearly staggered, choked back a gag, pretended to cough. “I suppose it's either raises or pink slips,” Stinky Bob said. Punctuated his joke with a burp.

I retreated, turned down the aisle, getting a head-start to outrun Bob, “Sure. Whatever,” I said over my shoulder. “I guess it's serious.”

Back at the coffee room nobody was saying much. When Soupy was around, he had a way of killing conversation, unless he was doing the talking. Soupy was sucking on his cigarette—my cigarette—like his life depended on it. Squatting on his heels, alone against the wall. The rest of us—twenty-five or thirty or so—sitting around the tables or slouched against the opposite wall. I ducked over and leaned against the Coke machine. Stinky Bob was a ways behind. In a minute or so, he stood at the door. He was huffing and puffing. Soupy stood up, said, “Bob, please join us.”

Stinky Bob shuffled a little, tilted in the doorway until the exhaust fan caught a whiff of him and sucked it into the room. I think everybody in the room, except maybe Tattoo Terri, was holding their breath. He moved back a bit, mumbled, “If it's all right with you, Mr. Campbell, I'll just stand out here.” There was an audible sound as everybody let go a lungful of air at the same time.

Soupy kept it up: “I insist, Bob. We're all family here. We're on the same team. When I say ‘pull' we need to pull
together.
I want all of us to hear what I have to say, and to share our feelings.” Stinky Bob shuffled a little more, took a half-step. His eyes darted to and fro, trying to figure our reactions. Rose with the Nose, the receptionist, let out a groan, and Stinky Bob hesitated. My nose wrinkled involuntarily as his smell wafted in.

It was Tattoo Terri who spoke up. “Look Max”—she was the only one who ever bothered to call Mr. Campbell “Max” and not “Mr. Campbell,” even though he knocked himself out trying to get us to—“Look Max,” she said, “let's be realistic here. Let's face this challenge and find a solution where we all can feel good. You know, win-win, all green lights, no blocking.” Tattoo Terri was using the lingo she'd picked up at the team-building workshop the week before, when Soupy had brought some guy in to teach us all to be our own managers. Soupy nodded. He sucked this stuff up like a sponge. Terri went on: “Bob isn't comfortable coming in to join us. He's just trying to be sensitive to our needs. Right Bob?” Bob looked a little lost—he'd skipped the workshop. He probably couldn't figure out what she was talking about. Hell, I was there and I was having trouble following it. But he took his cue from Tattoo Terri and nodded. She continued: “And some of the others have expressed their needs.” Terri looked hard at Rose with the Nose. “That is, if you consider a grunt or a groan an expression, from someone who is obviously so fucking insensitive to others.” Soupy shook his head, and looked like he was trying to figure out what to say. Rose with the Nose rolled her eyes. Tattoo Terri ground out her cigarette—my cigarette—and finished: “Why not let Bob listen outside?”

Soupy was all fidgety-like again. Cleared his throat, said, “Yes, well Terri, aside from the hostility, I guess you've articulated one position.” He blew out so his cheeks puffed up. He was pale, except for a big red blotch on his forehead and another on his neck. “I don't want hostility. Christ, not now.” Talking to himself.

Stinky Bob had already backed out the door. “I'll stay out here, Mr. Campbell.”

“Well sure, I guess if you're comfortable with that—”

“In fact,” Bob said, “I'll just go over to the loading dock and listen to you all on the intercom.”

“You can do that?” Soupy looked around.

“With the phone,” Tattoo Terri said. “This phone is set so you can access it to listen as an intercom-speaker from another line.”

“Right,” said Soupy.

“I do it all the time.” Stinky Bob was saying. “At coffee time. I mean I usually take coffee by myself, sometimes I like to hear people. Talking and stuff.” His own voice trailed off as he moved away.

Soupy was having trouble with his smoke—my smoke. He'd already dropped it about three times, and finally crushed it with the toe of his shoe. He stared at the door after Bob, rubbed his palms together. The red blotch on his forehead had grown all the way back into his hairline. Suddenly Bob's voice squeaked out from the speaker on the telephone on the wall behind Soupy. “Hi,” Bob said, and we all jumped.

“You can hear me all right?” Soupy said, stooping over a bit to speak at the phone.

“Loud and clear like always,” Bob said. “You don't even have to stand that close. I can hear all the way across the room just fine.” I think all of us were racking our brains, trying to remember what we'd ever said to regret. Wondering if Stinky Bob had been listening. Lots of times Danny and I trashed everybody. Rose's nose, Terri's tattoos, Soupy's bowties. Bob's smell.

Finally, Soupy came out and told us that Danny was dead. I'll say this much for Soupy. He kept it simple for once. “I've got a tragic, unfortunate announcement. Daniel Weybourne died last night. In a car accident. Let us all take a few minutes to remember him. I'll let everyone know details of the service as they become available. Let us remember him.” He left it at that. No speeches. No sermons. Soupy turned to face the wall. Bowed his head. Rubbed his face. I moved to the table and sat down, pulled out my smokes and gave one to Tattoo Terri without her asking. She cleared her throat and I thought she might say something. But she didn't.

About half the room started bawling. Rose with the Nose led the chorus. At first I thought the air conditioning had gone on the blink, a bad bearing or something. She was screeching really high but not too loud, with a kind of
ka-chunk
when she breathed in. I didn't join in. I didn't know enough to cry when I had the chance, back then.

Tattoo Terri didn't cry either. Not quite. I found myself staring at her, and she stared back. I could see tears welling up, how green her eyes were. Usually when I looked at her I just saw tattoos, but this time I saw her eyes. She broke off the stare. She ran her hand under her smock and rubbed her neck, barely moving the shirt collar enough to show a wing of butterfly over her collarbone. “Rose,” she called out. It was the first thing anybody had said. “Rose, cut it out.” Rose kept at it. “Rose!” Tattoo Terri was almost yelling. The cords on her neck stuck out.

“Terri,” someone said. A small voice, coming from the speaker on the phone. Stinky Bob. “Terri,” Bob said. “Calm down. Be cool. Don't do anything you'll regret.”

Terri jumped up, knocked the chair over. Grabbed the handset, screamed into the mouthpiece. “Shut up, Bob. He's dead, Bob. Shut the fuck up.” Slammed the phone down, stormed out. She took her cigarette—my cigarette—with her. Technically, she could have been fired for that. Smoking in the warehouse outside the coffee room.

Bob's voice came out of the speaker. “Good-bye.” A click.

We had to go back to work. We couldn't stop working because Danny was dead. There were orders to fill, stock to be inventoried, deliveries to be dispatched. Cars and trucks kept breaking down out there, mechanics in garages phoned for parts, and we shipped 'em out. I spent the morning unloading trailers with Tattoo Terri. It was a job that I would usually do with Danny, or that Danny would do with Stinky Bob. Danny always drove the forklift. The forklift was Danny's baby. He had even installed an 8-track. Liked to play Led Zep tapes or BTO. Strung a row of dingle balls along the roll cage, stuck a chipped plaster statue of the Virgin Mary to the dashboard with a knot of duct tape. That was Danny. He wasn't even Catholic.

I let Tattoo Terri take the forklift. She just got on and started off-loading pallets and I didn't try to stop her. She was a good lift operator. We kept working right through coffee, Terri driving and me swamping, breaking down the loads, stacking loose crates on skids, arranging the stock by zone, double-checking the counts the receiver had signed for. Hardly said six words to each other, except maybe “This one,” or “Move that there.” No tunes.

I was busting a nut and sweating hard, even though it was cool in the trailers, November and all. I snuck a quick sniff under my arm for B.O. thinking Terri was out on the dock. But she had got down from the lift and was right behind me. “He's got some kind of problem with his glands,” she said.

Startled, embarrassed, I spun around. “Huh? No, I was just—” What was I just doing? How do you say that?

“Bob,” Terri said. “He's got something with his glands or organs. It's natural, he can't help it.”

“Oh.” I didn't know what else to say. I was thinking I didn't smell too bad.

We knocked off at five minutes to noon, made for the time clock. Most times at lunch, Danny and I would head across the street to the Dairy Queen. He'd grab a burger, fries and a shake. I'd eat the sandwiches my mom packed for me in waxed paper. We'd talk hockey, cars, music, girls. Maybe I'd pick up a banana split for dessert. Other times I'd just stay in the warehouse at lunch, read westerns or do crosswords. I liked the ones where you solved puzzles. Acrostics.

Stinky Bob and Tattoo Terri went up the road to the Ti-Jaune Tavern lunchtime every day and I asked if I could go along. I didn't much feel like going across the street by myself and didn't want to hang around the warehouse either. The noon buzzer sounded and Terri clocked both her and Bob's cards. “Hustle your ass, Walter,” she said, “we only got a half an hour.” I punched out and chased after her. Bob had ducked out early to fire up his rusted Datsun and was waiting at the door. Terri dove in the front and pulled the bucket forward and I scrambled in. Stinky Bob popped the clutch and we were moving before the door was closed. I got a noseful of the inside of the car and tried to hold my breath. It was like being inside a hockey sock that had never been washed.

Terri hit the On button for the radio. A Bee Gees song. Over the music she called “Fag!” and stuck her hand between the front seats. At first I thought she meant Andy Gibb, then it registered. I figured what the hell and dished a cigarette out, stuck it between her fingers. It was the rose hand. Maybe the smoke would cut through Stinky Bob's smell. The back window wouldn't open. About ten pine trees dangled from the rearview.

A five-minute ride—one light up 49th and across the tracks — Stinky Bob drove in less than three. Pulled up in the fire lane right outside the tavern entrance, just under the sign that said “No Parking—Towaway 24 Hours.” Tattoo Terri had the door open before the car lurched to a stop and so did Stinky Bob. I fiddled to find the lever that moved the seat forward. “Hey, I forgot my lunch,” I said. “Too bad,” Terri said. “Barley sandwiches for Walter,” Bob said. “Don't bother to lock it.”

At that time, I hadn't been in too many beer parlours, and the Ti-Jaune looked like all the rest. Round tables with terry-cloth covers, battered chrome and vinyl chairs, jukebox, cigarette machine, pool table. Just as we sat down, a waitress plunked twelve glasses of draft beer on the table. “I think we'll be needing another dozen, Mitzi,” Stinky Bob said, and drank one down in a gulp.

“Work up a thirst, eh,” Mitzi said. She balanced her empty tray on her hip.

“Remembering the dead,” Bob answered, picking up another. Tattoo Terri raised a glass and tilted it towards Bob. “To Danny,” she said. She glanced sideways at me and gave a little nod. I grabbed a beer too and sipped.

Mitzi shifted her weight again. “Five-forty.” Tattoo Terri and Stinky Bob drank. I fumbled in my pocket. Pulled out two twos, two fives. “Your round,” Terri said. I gave Mitzi seven. She shuffled four quarters from the change dispenser at her waist and slapped them on the table. Kept the other sixty cents for a tip without me telling her to. Terri and Bob were into their third beers and I was barely finished my first when Mitzi brought the next round. Terri opened her bag, counted out five ones, picked up a couple of quarters from the table. “Keep the change,” she said.

“Yeah right,” Mitzi said. Folded the bills in half along the long edge, added them to a bunch already woven through her fingers. I looked at the clock. Already ten after twelve. “How we gonna drink all these?” I asked.

“With great haste,” Stinky Bob said, and drained another glass. “Hurry up,” he said.

“I gotta go talk to Steve,” Tattoo Terri said. She got up and took two fresh beers with her. Walked over to the pool table, talked to some guy. Biker type, black leather vest, black
T
, big wallet chained to his jeans dragging halfway down his ass. He gave Terri a cigarette, she gave him a beer.