"Cackleberry"

25th Annual Writing Contest Fiction Runner-Up

by Erica Hoffmann

Hours have passed and I am still smarting from the Pizza Barn incident. I have yet to fully recover from the service inflicted upon me by their gum-cracking and offensively pregnant waitress. The distended navel poking through her maroon stretch polyester uniform almost caused me to flee, but hunger kept me miserably in my seat. I'd been trying to catch her attention since I placed my order but could only watch helplessly as she drifted around the tables like an unmoored parade float. Maybe her cow-eyed indifference was caused by actual brain damage, I pondered, staring openly. I tried tilting my head in what I imagined to be a compassionate way. Perhaps it was the result of frequent beatings by her pockmarked boyfriend — who, judging from the amateurish public canoodling I was forced to observe, was also the Pizza Barn's dishwasher.

You can imagine the anxiety I suffered as I watched her shuffle slowly about, circling away from my table with no acknowledgement of my polite but urgent groans of impatience. It took nearly half an hour for the limp, runny lasagna platter to arrive and when she finally slung it onto the table, I couldn't bear to look at it. From the corner of my eye it resembled an imploded deep sea creature of some kind, its pale body burst from being raised to the surface too quickly. There was no recourse but to scurry off to the restroom, paw at my crevices with both hands and plan to fondle all of the serving tongs at the salad bar.

There were at least a dozen air freshener discs smacked haphazardly on the bathroom walls like pustules, oozing jaundiced citrus goo. I had to turn away in order to complete my task. Still wreathed by the faint tang of lemony stink, I spied the waitress through a service window as I crept back down the hallway. She was grappling under her drooling beau's apron as if attempting to snare a catfish in some shit-colored Southern creek. I engaged in some rapid blinking to dispel the image and then proceeded to the salad bar to nonchalantly caress the tongs. Discovering the scrap of toilet tissue clinging to my finger was a stroke of luck indeed! It was hard to disguise my satisfaction as I dropped it neatly into the crouton bowl and strode in triumph to my table to await the check. Not only did I refuse to tip the oily waitress, I made sure I left a dollar too little, folding the bills into the receipt and pinning them under the salt shaker. Ha!

I suppose it served me right for straying from my usual dining establishment, but what was I to do? The Griddle House has been closed for almost a week now and although I try my best to make wholesome, delicious meals at home, my efforts pale in comparison to their exemplary fare to which I am accustomed. Who can blame me for losing my head somewhat? Just why I stumbled into that unfamiliar salmonella hole, I'll never know. Maybe it was the Pizza Barn's saucy red roof, beckoning like a street corner harlot with a burning secret in her crotch, or the once-tantalizing aroma that now nauseates me with shame. If I had known that my tiny, almost friendly Dumpster fire would damage the Griddle House so severely, I would have reconsidered and just smashed a window or two. The fire was meant as a suggestion, really. The manager should have taken seriously my numerous complaints that the soap dispenser in the restroom had become sluggish — and to discuss such delicate matters in public would have been nothing short of vulgar. Certainly I couldn't have been the only customer distressed by the insulting trickle of watery pink hand soap, a meager reward for minutes of energetic nozzle pumping. But my letters pertaining to the subject and frequent subtle hand gestures were ignored. Although I am terribly fond of the Griddle House, I believe in a little tough love when all else fails. Hence the flaming Dumpster. I never dreamed it would spread to the batter-colored siding and eventually destroy a good portion of the faux country kitchen-style interior. The sign on the door says that it will reopen soon, so I will have to be patient and make do with the contents of my pantry. I allow myself to pine briefly.

But really! Is it unreasonable to think that the situation has reached crisis proportions? My visits to the site have produced no visible evidence of rehabilitation. I have returned home after spending the morning inside an empty refrigerator box ("Headquarters"), strategically placed mere yards from the Griddle House's great unblinking eye of a door. Oh how I long to stride through into the fragrant warmth of that interior! Yet from inside my handsome cardboard structure, I saw nary a clipboard-toting official, not a single burly construction worker. Perhaps the crew works only during the evening hours so as not to overexcite the patrons who are no doubt anxious for the Griddle House's resurrection. My helpful lists of improvements have piled up in the entryway — I wonder if sliding them underneath the door has caused them to be mistaken for advertising supplements or neighborhood watch updates. Surely the proprietors are aware that this disruption to the community is unacceptable. I soothe myself by imagining the grand re-opening, the pomp of the ribbon-cutting ceremony. Maybe there will be a brass band! I shudder with anticipation and think passionately for a few moments of Lamb, my recently lost and only confidant. We were frequent patrons of the Griddle House, it being one of the few acceptable dining options by my exacting standards. I do occasionally venture (on bad days) into the labyrinths of the Taste O' China delivery menu but am often perplexed by what actually arrives at my door, as the staggering array of choices causes me to panic and blurt out random numbers from the side of the "Specials" column. To this day I feel faintly queasy when exposed to the number 11, as the corresponding dish from Taste O' China turned out to be either some kind of flayed squid torso, or maybe a placenta. I much prefer a cozy booth at the Griddle House where one can dilly-dally over the menu, analyzing the color pictures of meatloaf platters and pancakes as if they were crime scene photos. The last time we met there for a meal, Lamb was describing her blind date of the night before, which produced in my belly a small twist of jealously, or maybe relief, just which I still have yet to discern.

"No lashes. No eyelashes at all," she moaned, "like those redheads with all them blue veins on their lids. His eyes looked like raw eggs." I imagined chicken fetuses writhing behind see-through lids and clutched at my water glass. She drew her lips back and ran a pinkie along her bottom gum.

"I'm getting a canker sore," she said. "I was chewing a toothpick and it slipped and stabbed me right here." I knew this was a lie. She was concerned I thought she was unhygienic enough to cause the spontaneous eruption of an oral infection. Her squirming tongue seemed unable to resist prodding the aggravating little pit on her gum. Secretly I worried that it was the beginnings of mouth cancer. Or an abscess.

"Put some plain yogurt on it," I said, "It will eat away the bacteria." She was picking the breading off a piece of fried calamari and pushing it into a heap at the side of her plate. We were having a summit meeting. Blind date, blind date! I sang in my head, in the same rhythm as "Last call, last call!"

"So where did he take you?" I asked, in measured cadence like a robot. Lamb didn't answer but instead dropped her forearms onto the table, spreading out her hands.

"I've got one finger on each of these little pictures," she said, staring down at the folksy pattern printed on the tablecloth. "Look, one on the chicken, and the wooden bridge, and on the big yellow sun." Her voice was wobbly and I noticed for the first time a scattering of fresh bruises on her wrists.

"So, did you guys, you know. Do it?" I asked, shredding the corner of my napkin. She was silent, just sniffing a little. I was reaching for a tiny tub of jelly when she suddenly lurched out of her seat, whacking a meaty hip on the corner of the table and sending the silverware dancing. I agonize daily over my last glimpse of dear Lamb, wondering if I should have gone after her when she bolted across the parking lot and flung herself into that shabby little hatchback. She's been missing for two weeks now and I need her to come back. If she knew about the fire, she'd have returned already, I know it.

My kitchen window glows with that flat gray sunlight usually found in bars full of sour old men and reminds me that the afternoon is wearing on. I mix a few cold packets of oatmeal together in a bowl, long for the Griddle House's Big Man Omelette and think glumly of Lamb, how she is the only person who understands that an egg is really a cackleberry. I happen to know that her given name is Linda but she is really Lamb.

It thrilled me, this word "cackleberry," an antiquated term for egg that Lamb used once while we breakfasted. It made me grin suddenly, my vocabulary scrambling and dissolving. I was a secret decoder ring, fitted with a twirling lexicon wheel. Cackleberry. I said it aloud, again and again and Lamb laughed as she pinged her juice glass with a spoon. She was always startling me, like a sudden hole in the sidewalk, or an obscenity scrawled in some ashy hymnal, and so eventually I stumbled, and broke something. Not like breaking a bone but more like breaking ice on a pond, to see the bright and the murk beneath. You smelled the stringy wetness of the plants, saw the tiny minnows drifting in the winter water and could barely remember the shoreline. That is the effect that Lamb's cackleberry set upon me. It has been like a dog at my heels ever since.

When I met her she was carrying a six-pack and a bag of pistachios still in the shell and a teeny tiny green glass, so thin and tall it was almost a beaker. She was sitting on the curb of the Griddle House and snatched at my pant leg as I passed by. I had no choice but to comply. I brought her home and she told me the saga of the little glass. She'd picked it up at a junk shop that had the requisite battered guitar and dusty typewriter cluttering the window. The man behind the counter had greasy white hair scraped back into a thin, silly ponytail and kept peering at her so when she was hidden by a chest of drawers she'd scraped her keys across its mahogany finish. Then she'd stolen the wee green glass, slipping it into her pocket before scooping six mismatched coffee cups off the shelf and bringing them to the counter. She'd paid, accepted the paper bag the man proffered without a sound and then shuffled away, already reaching into the sack as she stepped out the door. One by one she'd smashed the mugs against the sidewalk in front of the shop, flinging the last one over her shoulder as she trotted off — just as the furious owner reached the threshold. What a burn! She was delighted with herself. I was enchanted. She had thick blond hair and a face like a bulldog. She smoked. The big party-size ashtray on my coffee table served as a receptacle for both cigarette butts and discarded pistachio shells — Lamb's shiny and moist, mine dry as little beige bones. I split the hulls with my fingers; she was a shell-sucker, making soup of salt and saliva in her mouth. My TV was ancient and huge, partially blocking the doorway that led to the bedroom and bathroom. There was a fake plant on it, and a set of rabbit-ear antennae. We watched a nature show about killer whales. It showed how the orcas use their powerful tails to slap seals into the air, loosening the hide from the meat. The slow-mo shots were spectacular, seal bodies spinning limply across the sky like little stunt men. Wheee! We threw our hands up with each toss, each sickening, hilarious twirl. There were other things on the program too, spiders mating and killing, camouflaged reptiles submerged in the dust or blending into brown rocky surfaces. We got drunk, made spaghetti, topped it with leftover Kung Pao chicken. I was secretly dismayed by this unorthodox combination but she had a way of making me feel scandalous and so I bravely twirled it around my fork and waved it about like a wand. I don't think she noticed that the bastardized pasta never actually breached my facial perimeter.

Around midnight we dragged the television into the yard and smashed out its screen, then tore around the block, giddy and shrieking, looking for things to cram into it. We filled it with whatever debris we could find scattered in the street; aluminum cans and wads of sodden newspapers, pebbles from a neighbor's planter, brightly colored junk mail pilfered off someone's front step spilling out of our hysterical hands. After she finally teetered home with that green glass shoved in her back pocket, I lay in the dark grinning until dawn. Why she continued to seek my company, I'll never know. But she did and I worshipped her for it. Maybe she was just lonely, too, or crazy or bored, but I didn't like to think of her that way. Our breakfast meetings became like church to me. I prepared for them with zeal, shaving twice until my jaw gleamed like an opal, smoothing my eyebrows over and over with my middle finger and watching the clock grind slowly toward 11 a.m., the absolute earliest that Lamb could manage. She had a vigorous night life, I suspected, though she tried to play it down. We talked over milkshakes about nonsense. I got really, really used to it.

Now I stand trembling in the kitchen, dizzy with nostalgia. My face feels like it's swelling, fat white hives like larva bulging from my forehead and cheeks. I am sure my lips have become mottled and dark as earthworms. I burst through the screen door, panting, arms flailing, stumbling to the side of the house where old paint cans hold up a plywood shelf of rotten plants. I yank the cans free and run for the Griddle House full bore, the devil himself after me. There's no time for brushes. I open the cans with my penknife and start pouring out one huge word across the parking lot, anointing its asphalt, smearing the paint with my sorrowful feet into the shape of four letters, the only four letters that matter, summoning her, as loud as I can. My stomach hurts. I feel so stupid. Then the sudden sound of a car growling around the back of the Griddle House sends me leaping and scuffling for cover.

I'm curled up in the headquarters box when first her shadow and then her little feet come plodding into view. Am I weeping when she finds me? Bent in two with grief, clutching the memory of her tiny green glass to my gut-shot belly? My hands are slippery, vomit or blood or seawater pulsing from my mouth, singing her name in a gurgle — Lamb, Lamb, Lamb! Repeat. Repeat again. She crouches and gets in the box with me. "That's enough," she says, reaching out to push the hair back from my forehead. "Stop it now. That's enough." She presses a dried orange starfish with "Atlantic City" scrawled on it in glittery paint into my hand. I turn it over in my palm and know immediately that it will look perfect on top of the TV, this miracle.