Christopher X. Ryan
Midnight. I’m hungry. Flipjacks at the North Gaslin Airport is open until two in the morning. Even though their pancakes taste like silicone and the maple syrup is fake, I like the atmosphere. I like watching the little planes bouncing on the tarmac in the dark. The bent old men hauling crates from one end of the terminal to the other. Occasionally a bunch of people connecting with a flight to a place that doesn’t smell like bacon dipped in paint.
I get on my jacket and lock up my house and climb into my truck. The tires up front slip and skip as I get up to speed. They’re baby spares. I put them on months ago when I got one flat and then another and just left them there. I feather the pedals, let the engine belch a few times. The gas was stolen off the back of a landscaping truck, might be dirty. Then I switch on the radio. Immediately I land on a song by Knock Knock and The Funny Bones called “Basketball Helmet.” It’s fun, happy.
At the first stoplight I count the dimes and nickels in the console. Four bucks and seventy-five cents. Enough for the short stack with coffee.
Driving, driving. Then the airport rises up. A plane crash would be terrible. But a spectacle I find myself pining for.
I park. The lot is nearly empty. So is the airport itself. The gift shop recently went out of business. They used to sell little toys that look like oil-digging machines and also fuzzy mascots called Gassy Gary. My dream as a kid was to work in the tower here. I’d tell the captains where to drop their planes and where to park them and which chute to take back to the sky. Maybe it’s not much of a dream but sometimes dreams are normal, like you’re walking down a blue sidewalk or washing pennies in the sink. And now there is talk of knocking down the airport and putting in a cardboard box factory. No one dreams of making boxes all day. Cardboard planes maybe. Real planes for sure. But not squares made from tree powder.
My feetslaps echo across the empty linoleum floor and carry to the far end of the airport. Flipjacks is across the way. It’s lit up with pink and blue neon lights on the outside. The insides are plain though. Brown tables. Beige chairs. Yellow placemats. Only one other customer is there, a goofy baldy who keeps calling the waitress Mrs. Love.
“Mm?” she says when it’s my turn to order.
I point to the menu: Short stack. Coffee.
“Coupla minutes.”
Across the airport a door opens and a golf cart zips past, then disappears behind another door.
The radio is belting out some scratchy country music by John Boy and the Truck Robbers. You polished my saddle and then you said skedaddle. Baby, love don’t have to be such a battle. The server walks past, dropping off my coffee along the way. Her butt is shaped like a lemon that’s been stepped on but her legs make sense.
I sip, trying not to slurp.
One time two floor polishers got into a fistfight. No one saw it but me. They were evenly matched but at the end one lay slumped on the floor and the other guy went on polishing.
Mrs. Love arrives with the short stack. Turns out her name really is Mrs. Love. Says K. Love on a pin near her boob. I leave the pile of coins for her, apologize in my head.
I’m happy at Flipjacks. No one can find me. And I’m halfway toward being somewhere else. I also like to draw on the napkins. I have ideas for things. Creatures, fighters, worlds. I dig into the short stack, try not to moan with joy as syrup dribbles down my chin. This goes on for a while until a phlegmy shadow says, “Ahem” as it overtakes my table.
I look up to see the baldy who was sitting at the counter. He’s got his own plateful of pancakes and a cup of generic Coke with flaky ice floating around in it. “Didn’t mean to scare you, buddy,” he says, rocking on his heels. His camouflage belt is at my eye height, holding up saggy jeans. His belly is pushing out a flannel shirt. The feet down low are inside chunky white sneakers. “Mind if I join?” he barks.
I have a decision to make. Awkward chatter or awkward distance. I shrug. As he sits down the sharp stink of his minty skin overtakes the pleasantry of my woodsy maple syrup. In the background Mrs. Love leans against the counter doing those games where you circle real words in a jumble of fake words. ILLICIT. BOOTY. DIGEST.
“The name’s Carl Jake,” baldy says.
I look at him, unsure what I’m being told. He detects the question mark on my face.
“Carl Jake Dunham,” he says. “Pleased to greet you.” He offers a hand.
I nod, ignore the sticky digits.
“And you?”
I present to him another question mark.
“Got a name?”
I nod and continue my work but very slowly. I like it when the pancakes reach the edge of staleness but don’t fully commit.
“I see. The quiet type. A lone wolf, like me.” He laughs long and hard. I look around and study the cafe. The faded old airline posters. Mrs. Love’s scrunched up face as she erases a circle. PROBOSCIS. WARPER. The cook drinking a beer in the dark hallway. I know I’ll never come back here. It’s ruined for me now. I’ll find someplace else. A bowling alley maybe. A train station perhaps. Or an arcade that still has Qua-Babliconicus or Devil Donkey. A place where people arrive and do something and then leave.
“I get it, believe me,” the guy Carl Jake continues. “You can’t find places like this anymore, where some blathering idiot doesn’t corner you and ask what you do for a living. So, what do you do for a living, Mr. Silent?”
His face is serious. He expects me to talk. I set down my fork. It’s not a rude enough sound though. Just sounds like I’m finished with the pancakes. Which I’m not. A yellow quarter moon remains to be consumed. I run a napkin around my mouth, take a sip of coffee, and loosen my tongue. “Fuh fuh fuck aw aw off.”
This guy Carl Jake stares at me like I just shit in my hand and showed it to him, then pitches forward and lets out a hiccuppy laugh that goes on forever. Mrs. Love and the cook look over. I start sweating and use my right foot to push down the Velcro straps on my left shoe, then the other side.
“Is that Chinese?” Carl Jake says, slapping the table. “Fukoo. Hello, I Fukoo. Who you? I Fukoo.” His is face is so red it might explode and tomato the whole place.
I get back to work on the sliver. Carl Jake eventually comes back to Earth and sucks on some flat soda, saying, “Good stuff, good stuff.” Doesn’t get it. Just sits there like we were in the War together. Soon he’s vacuuming the bottom of his cup dry and Mrs. Love swings by to replenish it.
He goes on.
“I like to sit here and think, you know? You ever do that? It’s like, imagine something, anything. A cow. A refrigerator. Or better yet, a Swiss Army knife. Who was the guy who decided to cram all those gadgets and junk in there? So now every time you need the stab someone, first you have to uncork a champagne bottle or pick your teeth or saw off some poor schmuck’s limb, right?” He laughs, then starts draining his new soda, but the fizziness gets to him and he coughs up another thought. “Or think about language, you know? Our stupid words. You can relate to this. I’m sure of it. Me, I’m Polish, dumb as a rock, so I’m a Pole. Why aren’t people from Holland called Holes? Ha ha. What crock. Language. Thppt. Thppt. Hello, I Fukoo.” He snorts. “Man, I wish they had something stronger to drink here. It’d make this dreck go down easier. That reminds me, why do my feet smell and my nose runs?”
He sets off another epic giggle jag. I scratch at some dried syrup on the table. I’m done but not full. I think about heading back to the truck to dig around in the seats for some more change, then coming back for a Onesie, a pancake roughly the size of a planet but cheaper than a short stack for some reason. But I know I won’t. Not with this invader breathing onto my plate.
“So, who died?” Carl Jake says. “Or is this your standard state of mind?”
I shrug.
“Look, if it’s about the spee — spee — speeth impedimenth, don’t worry about it. I’ve got a son whose face looks like a pizza that got thrown into a volcano. Every time I hand over his lunch money I want to fold him up and stuff him into the toaster. We’ve all got issues, you know?”
I nod, though I don’t know.
“I’m all ears if you want to lay it on me. I mean, I’m a blubberbutt with a healthy smile, but to you I’m just one big wax-filled ear. Tell me what’s up. Give me the rundown. Tell me your life story. Tell me your dreams. What do you love?”
I ponder his inquiry. The answers would be my beagle Bugle. Comic books. Drawing. And a girl named Elinor who had a locker three doors down from mine in high school and once let me borrow a pen with tassels. She said I could keep it. Probably because I’d chewed on it.
“Puh puh pancakes,” I say instead.
He smiles so wide I can see his gums. “Keep going. Now what do you hate?”
I think about that while studying his expectant face. Like he’s Jesus and I’m a fish. “Yuh yuh you.”
His mug is as blank as a movie screen when you show up too early. His shoulders rise like he’s going to sneeze or hurl, but then the guffawing erupts again. He goes on for so long that his face puffs like a medicine ball.
Mrs. Love turns up the music. Now we’re listening to Gangrene Lunchmeat, which is just guys on surfboards playing guitar noise over and over. Bwooonnngg, bwooooong.
“That’s a good one, friendo.” His throat makes a dry sucking sound and he wipes away tears. Then he leans in. He’s sober now, his bubble of a face haunting me like a math teacher. “Look, I see you here late at night and I assume you’re just like me. Round. Pale. Soft. Disturbed from crown to your big toes. What you’re feeling is sunlight sucking life out of your body and skin. You feel destroyed by that thing in the sky. The sun. The giver of life. But also the thing that will end us. When it dies we die. Not today. Not tomorrow. But eventually. Whoosh. Or bzzzt. Who can say what sound it will make. I see the sun-repellent goop on your nose. I see your big old floppy hat on the seat. And look at your jacket. How long does it go? Past the knee? I assume you’ve got some alpine goggles at home or the kind old folks use, with the little windows on the side.”
I shrug. He laughs but it’s not unkind. He’s also not wrong.
“You’re a heliophobe, just like me. Just like my friends.”
I look at him. Through him. Like it’s a superpower. He relaxes, sitting back and sucking at his genericoke. “It’s a hell of a disease, this heliophobia. We are less than human because of this fear. That’s why I go to Heli-Non. And you should too.”
“Hee — hee — Heli-Non?”
“For folks like us to discuss our fear and help each other out. You’ll never meet a more authentic group of people.”
I don’t like groups. Or people. They always expect something. Like money.
“I — ”
“Don’t make a decision now. Just come to a meeting. We meet at the old schoolhouse on Winton Ave. every Wednesday evening at six. Go around back, up the ramp. And take this.” From a magic place he produces a wine-red book with gold lettering on the cover. Like a bible but less weird. Rays of Hope – Living With Heliophobia. “Read it. Take it in one lesson at a time.”
I look at it. I touch the gold letters. Then I flip open the cover and see all the words squiggling on the pages like bacteria. It sells lessons. Information. People telling me how to think, be, act. I close the cover. Slide it back.
“Nuh no th — th — thanks.” I dab my chin. Take my last sip. Put on my floppy hat. Get ready to stand up.
“Woah, woah, woah,” Carl Jake says, his hands buffeting the air between us. This time his eyes turn into little bloody moons. There’s no guffawing. The smile drops. “Just like that? You reject this wisdom in this book?” He taps on the cover.
I shrug. Time to go. “Sss — sss — stupid stuh — stuh — stuff.”
“Hey, hey. Look, you can insult me. You can insult my wife — hell, I do it just breathing — but you can’t insult the organization that saved me.”
I toss my crumpled-up napkin onto my plate.
“Come on, pal. You don’t got to be like that.”
I dig around in my pockets for a few more coins. I come up with two nickels and three pennies. I slap them on the counter and nod to the cook. He salutes me with his spatula. Doesn’t know I’ll never see him again. Doesn’t know that one time I saw him fondle a cockroach. That’s life I guess.
“Bye, hon’,” Mrs. Love says as I sweep past.
The fake maple syrup has a metallic aftertaste. I would like a candy bar to follow up the meal with. If the cushion coin situation will allow for such. I cut through the silent airport along polished corridors. The place is so quiet I wonder if the planes’ computers will be able to find it.
I push open the big doors and step out into the night air. Only a few cars sit in the parking lot. When I reach my truck I get out my keys but my hands are shaking and they vanish from my fingers like it’s a magic trick. I drop to my hands and knees and molest the grimy pavement beneath the truck, slapping around in the shadows until my pinky catches them. I drag them back. I stand up.
“Hey, you big jerk.”
Carl Jake is slapfooting toward me, his belly bouncing in the moonlight.
“Listen. Hey, listen to me. I’m a nice guy. People like me. Look, I talk, but you’re not the conversational type. I get it. But that — that was something else, embarrassing me like that in front of a lady and — and — and rejecting my life’s work.”
I unlock the door, study all the junk heaped on the seat. Behind me Carl Jake’s sneakers slow down.
“If you’d given me a chance, you’d see that I have thoughts, man. I have feelings. I like connecting with people. Hell, I got money too. I would have bought your pancakes and coffee, maybe a refill. All I ask is that you open yourself up to the wisdom in this — ”
I grab hold of a phone book from three years ago, spin around, and drive the spine into his face. He reels backwards. When he’s done staggering he looks up at me with those bright red eyes.
“Why, you — ”
He lunges but I jerk the door toward me and the edge smashes into his elbow.
“Aw, fuck!”
While he rubs his bones back to life I bring the phone book down on the back of his skull. It’s not that hard or anything but I guess harder than I thought because he drops straight down and his chin pops on the pavement. He bellows and spins on his knees and punches the air. Then he produces the red book with gold lettering and hurls it at my head. It bounces off the tender spot between my eyes. I see stars. Above us. Inside me. Everywhere. Maybe he’s right.
Mrs. Love appears from nowhere, yells, “You’re animals!” then hops into a car, disappears.
Carl Jake catches me as I’m climbing in behind the wheel. He drags me out. I pop him on the ear with the book and punch him in the gut and he shoves me against the truck and knees me in the thigh. We tangle and grapple and push and scrapple. It’s nothing like the fights Chuck Rollins and my other heroes have on TV. Ours is a battle of rubbing bellies and soft fists and kicks and stomps and spitting and panting until finally I catch him square in the eye. He blinks exactly eleven times, grabs his face, then falls onto the pavement in a heap.
He doesn’t move.
I dig around in his pockets. Take his driver’s license. His cash, thirty-seven bucks. Stand up. Spit sticky spit all over him.
“Mm mmm Murray. Duh duh don’t ff ff forget it.”
I wipe blood from my mouth and get in the truck, hit the gas so hard the baby spares judder and swerve. Soon I’m up to speed though and I roll down the window. The radio’s playing a song called ‘Pedophilia is a Touchy Subject’ by The Retardants. It’s punk, the lyrics like Fuck you! Fuck you! Blah blah blah. Fuck you!
Driving, driving. There’s another Flipjacks on the far side of town. It’s open all night. If I drive fast enough I’ll get there before dawn.
CHRISTOPHER X. RYAN was born on the island of Martha’s Vineyard. He now lives in Helsinki, Finland, where he works as a writer, editor, and ghostwriter. So far in 2019 his stories have appeared (or will appear) in 15 journals, and he earned second place in the 2019 Baltimore Review winter contest. In past years his work has appeared in journals such as PANK, Copper Nickel, and Matter, among many others. He can be found at TheWordPunk.com.
