Tin.Can.Goat

Chester and I propped the hood up with a stick I’d found in the gutter. Cars passed by. Some drivers honked, and others yelled obscenities. Chester ignored them; I waved as they swerved around us on the two lane overpass.

“I thought you put gas in this morning,” I said, waving at a guy who’d whistled as he passed by.

“Can’t you smell it?” Chester said, and backed out from under the hood. He wiped his hands on his pants, and left black grease smears on the white cotton. “It’s pouring out everywhere.”

I looked to where he pointed, and saw the gas pumping out of a fuel line onto the hot engine. “Don’t you think we should back up a bit? I mean, in case it catches on fire?”

“I can’t believe this.” Chester wiped his greasy hands against his temples. “I’ve got the date tonight.”

“The date?”

“Yeah, I’m going to ask her.”

“The witch?”

“Yes, but she’s not a practicing member.” He leaned under the hood. “Here it is. This hose right here.” He pushed the rubber hose onto the metal connector.

“Where’s the clamp?”

“It fit on there pretty tight. It’ll be ok.”

“You want to wash off the engine?” I said, and closed the hood. Chester shook his head, and sat down in the VW.

“Can’t,” he said, and closed the door. “I’ve got to pick her up in an hour. Push.” I did.

I walked along the shoulder of the road and watched as Chester coasted the brown bug down the other side of the overpass and into the service station lot. I caught up and jumped into passenger seat as Chester started the engine.

“Can I drop you off at your aunt’s,” Chester asked, and navigated towards her house.

“That’d be fine,” I said.

†

Early morning; I sat in my mother’s herb garden, pulling weeds. Chester pulled up in his mother’s gold Chevette, and stopped on my mother’s dill. He rolled down the window, and leaned out.

“You busy?” he said, and I stood and wiped my hands on my backside.

“Nope, just playing with myself,” I said, and held out my hand to shake. Chester backed in the window.

“Seriously?”

I shook my head, and sighed. “I have a feeling something exciting happened last night. Did you loan her the Beetle?”

Chester drew a deep breath. “We broke up,” he said.

I stopped smiling. “Oh man, sorry. Why?”

“Cumulation of things, but it was probably the fire.” He looked at me, and I stared back. “The car. It caught on fire.”

“Seriously?” I rubbed the back of my hand across my mouth to stifle a smile.

“Yes. It all started out so well too.” Chester opened the door, and stood next to the car. “See, after I dropped you off, I was running real late. So I stopped at K-Mart and bought some pants, but they didn’t have my size.” I nodded. “So I saw a rack across the aisle and picked up a pair, but when I tried them on I noticed the buttons were on the wrong side.”

“Girl pants?”

“Yeah, but they looked like a man’s, so I bought them anyway. I figured no one would notice. The waiter did though,” he said, and I chuckled. “Yeah, funny now, but it wasn’t when I was putting out the fire.”

“And then?”

“Ok, so I bought the pants and picked her up. She complimented me on them—“

“Of course she did.”

“—at first, but made of fun of them after we broke up.”

“That’s a given,” I said, and laughed.

“Anyways,” Chester said. “I picked her up and took her to Olive Garden.”

“By the mall?”

“Yeah, is there another?”

“I don’t know.”

“Wish I had known that ahead of time.”

I shook my head. “No, I mean I really don’t know.”

“So, we waited a bit for a table, but they gave us a pager, so we sat outside in the car and made out a bit,” Chester said, and made like he was kissing an invisible girl. I twirled a finger. “Yeah, so we’re making out and she’s all hot on me, but then stops cause she said she smelled smoke. I assured her it was nothing, but she wouldn’t believe me. So she made me go back inside to wait inside the restaurant.

“We sat down and the waiter comment on how much he liked my pants, she smiled at it, but I thought it was cool at the time. Maybe I was starting a trend.”

I shook my head. “Doubtful.”

“So, we get some sparkling wine. You know—the non-alcoholic kind.” I nodded. “And we’re drinking a toast when some guy yells a car is on fire. She looks at me and said, ‘I told you’, but I ignored that and stood up to see if I could see who’s car was burning.

“I see the hostess talking to the man, and then she says into the mike—“

I interrupt. “That it’s a brown VW Beetle?”

“—that a brown VW Beetle is on fire in the parking lot. Well, I grabbed a water pitcher off the waiter’s tray next to our table and run out there. The manager is running beside me, and he’s holding a fire extinguisher.

“Needles to say, we both get the fire out. You shouldn’t throw water on an engine fire, by the way.”

“Kind of knew that,” I said.

“Yeah,” Chester said. “It really spreads the flames.”

“But you got it out?”

“Yeah, we got it out, but then she and I had to wait around for two hours.”

“What?”

“Yeah, my uncle and mom said they’d come tow us, but it took them that long to get there, and then they didn’t even bring the chain. We finally towed it this morning.”

“When did you break up then?” I said.

Chester ran his tongue across his teeth, and sucked on a piece of food stuck there. “We had some time to talk. She figured it was a sign.”

I laughed. “Hell yes it was a sign; witches aren’t too partial to fire; the whole New England thing and all.”

“What’s that?”

“Never mind. So what are you going to do now?”

Chester climbed into the driver’s seat, and closed the door. “Mom needs her car back, and I’m going to see if the engine on my Bug is salvageable.” He reached over and twisted a screwdriver handle on the other side of the steering column, and the engine roared to life.

I laughed, and leaned in the window. “What is that?” I said, and pointed at the handle.

“My nephew thought it would be funny to throw the keys out the window last night,” he said.

“Were you parked?”

“No, the key didn’t fit well—kind of loose—into the ignition. We were driving down the highway, and he just reached over, and whoosh!, threw them out the window.

“Mom’s had him out all day next to the highway looking for them. He hadn’t found them when I drove past a while ago. He was just sitting there eating Aspargus.”

He put the car into gear, and pulled away, but stopped at the end of the driveway and leaned out the window. “Let’s do something later,” he said. “It seems I have a lot of free time now.”

[1226]

“Come up here,” I called to my wife at the back of the line and she walked up behind me, third in line. The dark-haired woman I had brushed earlier called foul. “No, it’s roast beef,” I assured her with a smile, but she shook her head and whispered something to her partner. Which was fine, she’d see for herself once she up here.

“There sure is a lot of paprika in this creamed corn,” my wife said, licking the sauce from her plate.

“Mmm, yeah,” I replied, dabbing at the corners of my mouth with the cloth napkin. “It’s sure good though. That’s the farmer’s daughter’s third trip.”

My wife looked over at the buffet table. “The farmer’s what?”

“Never mind,” I said, and walked over to grab seconds.

The maître d’ started making rounds, clearing plates from the tables of the couple who’d finished their meals. The female next to us received their dessert first—cherry cheesecake—and they entwined arms nibbling the sweets off the ends of their forks.

“That’s sweet,” my wife said, eyeing the couple.

“Sweet or not,” I said, “I’m holding out for the fresh-baked cookies.”

“I meant the…nevermind.”

“Alright,” I said, shoving more corn into my mouth. “Hey, being creamed corn and full of paprika and you know I’m a little lactose intolerant and this IBS thing I…”

My wife eyed me angrily and slapped the next spoonful of corn from my hand. “If you fart—for the love of God—I will kill you.”

“What if you changed that to if I fart again?”

“Oh damn you…it smells like rotten eggs back—“ she was cut off as our candle erupted in a methane-injected whoosh! of flame.

The other couples turned and stared. They once red-faced man who had earlier dumped his plate on the floor, now smiled openly. My wife hid behind her napkin, the red from her face blazed through.

I smiled, a little red-faced myself, and said, “Paprika” with a shrug.

From my left I hear the plate-dropper say “Thank God” and I turned in time to see his candle Vesuvius atop his table. Someone nearby giggled and the heat of their candle warmed the right side of my face, but I didn’t look; I was too busy watching my wife, who from behind her napkin, laughed in hysteric snorts and gulps of hiccupped air.

I heard a cough and turned to look at the brown-haired female. She winked at me and flashed a thumbs-up sign as her candle lit up the dim room; her partner—red-faced and smiling—slapped her shoulder and mouthed, ‘Oh my God’.

The maître d’ walked out around and blew out the few remaining candles; a house-maid followed, fumigating the air with a can of lemon-scented Lysol. “I think we’re done here,” he said, and with a snap of his heels, he turned and marched from the room.

My wife looked at me over the top of her napkin. “You are an ass,” she said.

“What?” I asked, innocently picking at my roast beef with my fork. “That’s way too much paprika in that corn.”

[514]

We were the first in line for the dinner, my wife and I. But we stepped aside for the more eager toothless old man and his obese wife, their two friends who stepped out of American Gothic, and the blonde and single heavy-set lady in sweat pants and flannel shirt could take up the three tables at the start of the room.

“Smells great in here,” my wife said through clenched teeth and exhaled wheezes as she raised her butt and tip-toed to squeeze her hips between the chair of the American Gothic father and the single blonde lady.

I followed her through without tip-toeing, but my front rubbing against the neck of the single lady. She turned around and stared up at me. I made my apologies with a blushed smile.

“My pleasure,” she said, looking me up and down; beef, it’s what’s for dinner.

I smiled and turned, my back blazing hot, following my wife across the paisley-carpeted floor.

“This one looks good,” my wife said, pointing at the table nearest the food.

I shook my head and pointed to another table nestled by itself in a hollowed out and multi-windowed turret. “Now that’s a nice one,” I said. “Let’s grab it before that other couple does.”

My wife looked to our left. “The two ladies?”

“Yeah, them.” I picked my way nimbly through the other tables and in the process; accidently brushed the short brunette woman of the lesbian couple on the shoulder. Her grey-templed partner gasped and she scowled, but I was polite and nodded a hello as I sat in the chair she reached for.

“That was rude,” my wife said as she sat next to me.

“Totally,” I said, tucking my napkin in my lap. “Is it that difficult to return a greeting?”

My wife shook her head.

“What?” I asked.

“It’s freezing back here.”

“Really? I’m freaking hot.” I took off my coat and air from the vent under my chair rippled the sleeve of my shirt. She looked at me, shivering under crossed arms, and sighed.

The maître d’ walked by carrying a bag of trash out the door and returned wiping his hands on the towel at his waist. “Welcome to the annual February banquet,” he said with a smile. “We’ve got something special for you tonight—” He rattled off the menu, pointing to each large silver container on the buffet table as he did. “You may all begin when ready.”

No one moved.

“Go,” my wife whispered, nodding her head towards the buffet.

“I’m not going first,” I replied, looking around the room at everyone else looking around at each other trying their hardest to no look too hungry.

A few minutes passed with no one moving. The maître d’ clasped his wrinkled and veined hands at his waist and looked from table to table to table. Finally, the silver-haired woman with the medical boots click-clacked her way to the front of the line. The rest of the cattle followed in a stampede.

[503]