Eating People

 
Glenn gave himself a splinter when his father yelled out a curse word. He had heard his father’s unexpected expletive in the darkening garage the day Uncle Ben, Aunt Dinah, and his three cousins showed up. Glenn’s uncle and his dad stood silhouetted in front of the open garage door, and with the sky muting, the street lights spastically blinking on, the whole place gradually turned cavernous. Out on the narrow driveway Uncle Ben’s worn-out Duster remained parked crosswise, its two doors and trunk open, the green car looking like a gigantic insect ready to jump. Glenn had hid behind the workbench when the two men entered the garage from a door leading out of the house. He had been looking for the tape measure for his cousin Tina. Earlier she had dropped her pile of clothes in the middle of the den, her new bedroom for the time being, and shouted that she needed a tape measure to validate what little space she had. Glenn was off to the garage. Trapped in his spot behind the bench for the time being, Glenn started playing a game before his father’s outburst. He noticed that his father and uncle, the two brothers, were the same exact height and built with the same pear-shaped frames. Even their longish hairstyles, like cresting waves from the left side of their round heads to the right, were similar. Glenn imagined his uncle and father’s inside parts—lungs and hearts and brains and stomachs—instantaneously trading places, aptly dropping into each other’s husks of skin. Back and forth, back and forth, sometimes their innards switching and staying in each other’s bodies for more than a few seconds, sometimes longer. Up to this point Glenn couldn’t catch much of their conversation, only agitated mumblings.
       Then: “Ben, my lord. What…what…shitheadedness.”
       Glenn’s hand slid across the blocky side of the weathered bench. He’d never heard his dad, a mostly dull, ineffectual man, a deacon in their church and humorless college professor say such a thing. The curse word coming out of his father’s mouth exhilarated Glenn. The whole house had become so charged after Uncle Ben’s family showed up. What would his dad do next? He crouched and chewed at the splinter embedded his finger. Glenn’s uncle stomped off, leaving his father in the near darkness. The door leading into the house slammed a tremor throughout the garage.
       Glenn held his breath, thinking about getting back to Tina, but had to wait for his father to stop pacing from the washer and dryer over to aluminum trashcans and go in first, which he finally did. Glenn opened the freezer and stuck his finger against one of the iced covered walls. When he’d go in the house, he would go very timidly. He knew his uncle must have royally screwed up in some way. Now his small, boring family was involved with his Uncle Ben’s disaster, his shitheadedness. Glenn laughed at the word he’d never heard before from his father, or anyone else, and repeated it again and again under his breath.
       The hallway was dark and Glenn pressed the side of his face against his parents’ cool bedroom door. He heard his Aunt Dinah and his mother’s muffled voices going on like distressed birds high in some distant treetop. The TV roared from down the hallway, around the corner. Scooting passed the kitchen, Glenn saw a glimpse of his uncle and his father huddled by the sink. Their heads were bowed toward each other, their long bangs curtaining their foreheads.
       Tina was in the living room saying, “I’m done with this. I’m bailing myself out for a change.” She was seventeen, four years older than Glenn, and he could hardly believe it: Tina is living in my house. Tina, the girl he had worshipped since he could remember. Over the years, he made it his mission to stick close by her in various dining and living rooms, over board games, sitting at massive restaurant tables. Glenn watched her digging through one box after another that everyone unloaded from the Duster over an hour ago. His other cousins, Vincent and Sydney, the twins, were shooting spit-wads all over the TV screen.
       “I nailed the Fonz right in his sideburn,” said Vincent.
       “I plugged up his nose,” said Sydney.
       The twins were Glenn’s age. They had a way of upping the volume, both in appliances and people, regardless of what room they were in.
       “I couldn’t find the tape measure,” said Glenn loudly.
       “I was being smart ass,” Tina said without turning around. She was rummaging through boxes. “I was making the incredibly obvious point that I’m now living in a shoe box. Worse than a shoe box. A matchbox.”
       “Where are the matches?” Vincent called out from across the living room.
       “And lighter fluid?” Sydney called out.
       “This is just like New Year’s,” Glenn said loudly.
       Tina turned from the boxes. The mascara running down her cheeks reminded Glenn of spider webs, only thicker.
       “This is nothing like New Year’s. It’s the beginning of summer, nimrod.”
       “No, I mean, remember how you guys came here last New Year’s Eve? Playing Monopoly all night. And after the sun came up, we made pancakes and then you guys went home. But now you’re living here instead of going back home.”
       “We can’t go back home because I blew up our house with an atomic bomb,” Vincent called out.
       “I want to go back to the motel room,” Sydney said. “This house smells like warm pickles.”
       Tina ripped into another box. “Dad was high when he packed these.”
       Uncle Ben loudly said, “Ex-act-ly,” from around the corner.
       Glenn wondered if Uncle Ben had heard his daughter and was agreeing.
       “Can I help? What are you looking for? Can I help, please?” Glenn would search every single box for Tina.
       “Sure, you can help.” Tina spun around, a hysterical glee overtaking her tearful face. “Loan me some of your pads for my period.”
       Glenn blushed; he was an only child. His mother had never mentioned feminine products in front of him before or bought any in his presence at Vons, and in his searching around the house, opening drawers and cabinet doors in every room, delving between the tight bellows of clothes in all the closets, he’d never found a box of pads. During those times when he was all alone in the house, usually after getting home from school, Glenn wasn’t sure of what he was searching for, but somehow knew when he found whatever it was he would probably stop looking. And he thought he was being inconspicuous, making sure to leave items seemingly untouched, until one day his mother told Glenn because of his snooping his father couldn’t have a gun in the house.
       “I’ll go check the bathroom,” he said, hurrying away.
       “Your mom’s too old to have any around,” Tina said after him.
       His face was hot and prickly. He closed the door of the hallway bathroom and locked it. He smiled such an exaggerated smile at himself in the mirror that soon the sides of his face throbbed. He imagined Tina taking him out for fish and chips at the place near the Brea Mall. Vincent pounded on the bathroom door.
       “Choke off the rope already,” Vincent said through the door.
       “So you’re the one stinking up the place,” Sydney said through the door.
 
 
       The next morning, Tina noticed a bold typed advertisement in the classified section. It announced open auditions for multiple summer positions at King Binky’s Magical Court and Coasters. Open auditions had begun the day before and continued until 4 p.m. that very afternoon. Glenn and Tina leaned further over the La-Z-Boy Uncle Ben was lounging in, himself also looking for a job.
       “I know this place,” Glenn said. He spoke of the crude kiddy rides. The other rides (flinging and twirling death-traps) that were most likely held together by paper clips and rubber bands, and the “adult” roller coaster was perpetually closed for repairs. The arcade games and pinball machines were rigged and always covered in spilled soda.
       “But miniature golf,” Glenn said, “now that’s what makes the place bearable.” Tina was listening. So Glenn talked even faster. He was definitely challenged and amused by the two miniature golf courses meandering throughout the park. He excelled at the bank and ramp shots on Queen Binky’s course, blasting his colored balls straight up the narrow drawbridges, easily outrunning the lowering portcullises.
       “I’m good at sinking putts,” Glenn spoke without taking a breath, “at every single hole on the Jester’s course—the hardest course out of the two, I personally think—no matter the ball placement on the—”
       “Daddy, give me the Duster keys and watch me land this job.”
       Glenn liked how Tina told her father, not asked.
       “I want to contribute,” Tina told her mother.
       Aunt Dinah, sitting on the couch nearby, said, “You should’ve contributed three months ago when it mattered.” Glenn thought his aunt’s sadness made her look like she had the flu, with her red nose and swollen eyes, her robe tight around her neck.
       “I’m out of high school and ready to work. The quicker more money comes in, the quicker we can find another house. Daddy, I’m miserable here, and it’s only been one day.”
       Glenn knew Tina had a valid gripe. She was sharing the tiny den, actually more like a storage room, with Sydney. Obviously, Glenn’s parents stayed in their own room, and Uncle Ben and Aunt Dinah took over his bedroom, leaving the rest of the house for Vincent and Glenn to find a place to lay their heads. They decided to sleep anywhere except the torturously lumpy couches in the living room. Eventually they had spread out across the hassocks in front of the TV, the volume turned down by Glenn’s father before he went to bed. Early the next morning, due to the inaccessibility of the two bathrooms, Vincent went out to backyard, Glenn following. They pissed into the ice plant growing on an incline near the yard’s back wall. Vincent cackled and Glenn was exhilarated peeing out in the open, something he had never done before. Glenn hosed a patch of ice plant as if frantically battling an uncontained brush fire creeping toward his house.
       “This is temporary,” Aunt Dinah said warily to Tina. “We are only here for a short time until things get going again.”
       Glenn didn’t like the sound of temporary and short time.
       “I’m not staying here,” Tina said, pushing off the back of the recliner. “And if we’re not back in our old neighborhood within days, hours, I’ll kill someone. It’ll be a blood-bath, I swear.”
       “Be selective in your slaughter,” Uncle Ben finally said in his airy way. “If you take out your dear uncle and aunt, you truly will be homeless.”
       Glenn’s head was just above Uncle Ben’s shoulder, and he breathed in the powerful reek from his uncle’s small pipe, ribbons of purple and green swirling inside the glass like smoke. Glenn’s father, who was teaching a summer session course at the nearby university during the day and cutting meat at a grocery store at night, wouldn’t smoke with his brother. And his mother worked at a bank all day, and specifically told her brother-in-law to lay off the grass while they were gone. Glenn’s whole frame of reference began tilting slightly to the left, his scalp thickening.
       “I know this is the right job for me,” Tina said.
       “Open auditions?” Uncle Ben said. “King Binky’s Magical Court…well that could mean a juggler or a lute player.” Uncle Ben then made plucking sounds.
       “Whatever it is,” Tina said, “I can do it.”
       “Oh, my dear. I’m sure you are correct.” Uncle Ben began fastidiously refolding the classified section. “As for me, I’m not spying that particular trade which would showcase my varied talents and/or meet my long-term aspirations.”
       “Stand up and let me kick your aspirations in gear,” Aunt Dinah said.
       “No, this is what I’m going to do,” Tina told her father. “Give me the keys and watch me get a job and then watch me move out and get my own apartment.”
       Glenn rested his head sideways on the back of the recliner. He saw the twins over in the formal dining room. They were messing with his mother’s teapots, a fussy collection taking up every inch of the bureau’s top. His cousins were swapping lids, trying to force square ones into round holes and vice versa.
       “Don’t move out, Tina.” Then Glenn said vaguely, “I want a job, too.”
       The twins left the lids to sort themselves out and joined everyone else.
       “I want to ride on a sorry excuse of a roller coaster,” shouted Vincent.
       “I want to puke all over everyone,” shouted Sydney.
       “Yes, great idea,” Aunt Dinah shouted. “Yes, Tina, take everyone.”
       “Mom, I—”
       “I’m sick of all of you. Have you ever thought about that, Tina?”
       “Please listen and—”
       “That I’m as sick of—”
       “—don’t make me take them. They’ll—”
       “—how things have turned out as much as you are?”
       “—blow it for me and I won’t get a job and I’ll live here until the earth explodes.”
       “Go get your precious job,” Aunt Dinah shouted louder. “Find a nice place, with all the amenities. And I’ll be there with bells on.”
       Glenn stood up straight and called, “Shotgun.”
       Everyone stared at him.
       “Are you all deaf?” Aunt Dinah wanted to know. “Everyone get out.”
       Uncle Ben dug around in his pocket and pulled out his key ring, dangling it from one finger.
       “Daddy, please. Let me go on my own and I’ll get a job and I’ll share—”
       “Take all the honyocks and the keys are yours.” Uncle Ben jingled the keys.
       “I’ve got a lazy eye, so I can’t work,” Vincent said.
       “I’ve got a curled tongue,” Sydney said and demonstrated her curled tongue.
       “Pick up the trash,” Aunt Dinah said. “A five-year-old can do that.”
       Tina said, “Fine. I give, I give,” and Uncle Ben tossed her his keys.
       “Minuscule,” said Uncle Ben, along with a puff of smoke. “All of your paychecks combined might buy us pizzas and sodas one night a week.” He waved as if dismissing everyone from the living room. “Thanks for contributing.”
 
 
       A sign at the main gate pointed the way to a warehouse at the far end of the park where the auditions would take place. Tina parked in the already crowded lot. She made an exasperated noise and checked her hair in the rear-view mirror. Vincent and Sydney were already out of the Duster, throwing handfuls of gravel over the tall wood-slat fence, small stones raining down on the kiddy coaster and its kiddy passengers. Glenn waited until Tina exited the car, and quickly followed.
       “We should loosen the bolts on the mini-Ferris wheel,” said Vincent.
       “Like a giant wobbly tire, rolling down the road,” said Sydney.
       Like Tina, Glenn shook his head and made a noise of disapproval.
       They all headed for the long corrugated building. A signed leaned against the wall next to an open loading bay door. The bold script read:  OPEN AUDITIONS HERE.
       “If I don’t get a job because of you two,” Tina said to her siblings, “I’ll kick both of you so far up your asses it’ll take an operation to get my feet out.”
       “Moving target,” said Vincent, bent over, his backside bobbing and weaving.
       “We’d be circus freaks,” said Sydney.
       Vincent and Sydney launched another volley of rocks over the fence. They cackled and yipped like coyotes encircling their prey. Adult voices cried out over the rising churn and jarring plummet of nearby merry-go-round music. The twins scattered, eventually joining Tina and Glenn again by the loading bay door. Tina pulled Glenn, Vincent, and Sydney aside as groups of people hurried into the warehouse.
       “Do not blow this for me,” Tina said, her jaw showing severely through her skin. “Please, go wait in the car. Or better yet, Glenn likes to play miniature golf. All of you go play. And I’ll meet you guys later.”
       Glenn couldn’t believe it. She had heard everything he said earlier that morning.
       “Doesn’t that take money?” said Vincent. “Give us lots of money.”
       “We can sneak in,” said Sydney.
       “Yeah, go, just go,” said Tina.
       “No, I want a job, too,” said Glenn.
       Tina put her hands on his shoulders. Glenn, without hesitating, placed his hands on her shoulders.
       “You can always get a job,” she told him. “I need this job right now.”
       “I know. I want to help you, Tina. I’ll get a job—maybe picking up trash. And I’ll give you all the money I make. And then we can move out and find an apartment, like you said.”
       “That’s sweet, Glenny. But you have a house already. You don’t have to move out for a long time.”
       “You have a house, too. My house.”
       “You can’t possibly help me,” Tina said. She turned abruptly, pulling her hands away from Glenn as he still tried to hang on.
       “Shitheadedness,” Glenn said under his breath.
       Glenn stuck close to Tina.
       A large crowd wandered around inside the warehouse: teenagers and hippie college students and dancers in tights. At one end of the warehouse sat several miniature golf castles of different shapes and sizes and an enormous clown face, a ramp coming out of its guffawing mouth. And at the other end was a junkyard of wrecked bumper cars. The crowd milled around the middle open space.
       An older man in coveralls walked among the crowd and spoke into a blow horn, directing everyone to form several long lines. Along with the entire racket the people made in the echoing warehouse, huge air conditioner units rumbled above as if every inch of the roof was covered with vacuum cleaners, going full blast. Tina ended up in the back row, at the very end of the line, with Glenn beside her. Vincent and Sydney were on the other side of Glenn, pointing and cackling.
       Soon everyone moved out across the length and breadth of the concrete floor. The rows and rows heaved and receded. Everyone in the middle of the lines worked at straightening up with those at the end of the lines.
       A small, young Chinese woman, who introduced herself as the King Binky character, shouted into the blow horn, letting everyone know that several auditions would take place throughout the afternoon to pick four new park characters: the Jester, Queen Binky, the Knight, and the Friar. Glenn couldn’t believe that such a tiny woman could carry King Binky’s enormous crowned head on top of her skinny shoulders, wear the elaborate velvet costume, and heavy purple robe. Glenn’s mom one time took a picture of Glenn on King Binky’s lap. Glenn was forever caught in a yawning scream in the picture. King Binky’s large oblong eyes and creepy grin and sharp funnel-like goatee scared the wits out of him. But this was years and years ago. Glenn figured some other person wore the costume back then. The first audition would begin immediately. King Binky’s plan was to weed out the clumsy and unimaginative, moving only the most animated onto the next audition.
       “Everyone acts like a Godzilla destroying a city,” she shouted. “My assistants and I will walk around the lines, dismissing people by tapping them on their shoulders.” She put down the blow horn.
       Everyone in the crooked rows stared at each other, some beginning to giggle. Vincent and Sydney cackled and nudged each other to try something, a swing of an arm, a growl. King Binky and her assistants strolled up and down the rows, in and out of the lines. Most everyone copied each other, stomping and screeching and lolling their heads around, showing all teeth. Two women beside the twins bent over and swished their backsides like their long tails were knocking over buildings.
       When one of the assistants appeared in front of Vincent and Sydney, they stopped cackling and began moving like drunks climbing up a ladder. The assistant simultaneously tapped both of their shoulders.
       “Go,” she said.
       The twins were dumbstruck. The assistant took it upon herself to march Vincent and Sydney out of the line.
       “We have nowhere to go,” Vincent said.
       “Our parents are in prison,” Sydney said.
       Tina acted like she didn’t notice her siblings leaving. She concentrated on swishing her backside, too. Glenn was glad the assistant left with the twins. He was having major problems starting. He also tried a tail swish, but knew he looked hopeless.
       In front of Glenn, two longhaired boys stood with their hands in their pockets. He overheard one say to the other, “Man, I’m not dressing up in some over-heated fairy suit to get punched and kicked all day by brats.” They quickly moved out of the line.
       Tina leaned into Glenn. “See, those guys are your age,” she told him. “This isn’t for you. Go outside and wait with my brother and sister.”
       Glenn wasn’t budging. He pretended like he didn’t hear Tina and let out a wild growl. Tina moved a few steps away and clawed at the air in front of her.
       Glenn was desperate. He frantically searched the rows of people and noticed an older man for the first time. He was standing two rows up, at the very end of his line. He was probably in his forties, and wore a three-piece gray pinstriped suit. He quickly removed his jacket and draped it over a briefcase sitting beside him on the concrete floor. He left on his matching pinstriped vest over his white button-down shirt. His solid navy blue tie remained knotted securely around his neck. When the man lifted one leg and then the other his trouser cuffs raised, exposing the small garters holding up his gray socks. He now faced sideways, obviously trying to get the attention of King Binky who was slowly moving down his line. Glenn watched how the man contorted his body into several fierce poses. Next the man tried something new, confusing Glenn at first. The man quickly scooped up invisible miniature people from under his shiny black shoes and shoved them into his gaping mouth. Glenn tapped Tina’s shoulder and pointed. When King Binky finally strolled by the man in the pinstriped vest and dress pants, she grinned and gave him two O.K. signs with her small hands. Tina quickly bent over and grabbed a big handful from under her flip-flops. Her deadly jaws unhinged and then gnashed away. Glenn peeled off a few bodies stuck on the bottom of his shoes.
       “Tasty,” Tina said, smiling at Glenn for the first time.
       Glenn couldn’t help but smile himself, despite his full mouth. After swallowing, he scooped up more tiny people from the concrete floor to eat.