Beer&Wives
Daveed Gartenstein-Ross
The little man wanted to see, so he tugged my slacks at the ankles. I almost didn’t notice him. I wondered if he lived in constant fear of begin trod upon by somebody’s sneakers. When I did notice him, I couldn’t hear him, so I lifted him up by his little shirt. I wondered where he got a shirt that small.
‘Excuse me, sir,’ he yelled into my ear. ‘Excuse me, sir, I can’t see. Could I please sit on your shoulder?’
I let him sit there for the duration of the film. It felt awkward, like how people usually don’t broach the subject of physical deformity - Excuse me, sir, how did you lose your leg? Hey man, how long have you had that unsightly growth protruding form your forehead? (You know, I once knew a man with five penises. At this point you should My God, how did his pants fit him? Answer: Like a glove.)
But you don’t just ask a midget, ‘Gosh, how did you get so short?’ This seemed all the more difficult. He’s asking to sit on my shoulder, which is some acknowledgment of physical abnormality. But do I ask how he got so small?
I didn’t, at any rate. I almost forgot about him as the film ended, when he grabbed onto my earlobe and hauled himself up to scream directly into me ear. The voice still wasn’t much more distinct than a whisper, but I could make out what he was trying to say. Excuse me, sorry to bother you again, but I have to use the restroom.
I’d taken down a large Coke during the picture, and thus I myself had to urinate. So I carried him into the men’s room with me and asked if he wanted me to put him on one of the stalls. ‘Oh, no,’ he said. ‘That would be difficult. I might drown.’ He wanted me to just place him behind one of the trash cans. ‘And, uh,’ he asked, blushing slightly, ‘could you tear off small bit of toilet paper for me?’
I tore a single sheet of toilet paper in half, but he laughed. ‘No, that would be more like a bath towel for me!’ So I ripped out the tiniest chunk imaginable and he thanked me, scurried out of sight.
After I had finished taking a leak, I went to check on him. He was finished as well and said ‘Okay, let’s go.’
Go? Where? I didn’t like the way he simply assumed that since I allowed him to watch the film from my shoulder, we were now inseparable companions. I’d promised Jacob that I’d give him a call, but somehow this little guy (oh so little) did intrigue me.
‘Would you like to go out for a drink?’ he suggested, as I stepped into broad daylight, the little man nestled in the collar of my flannel overshirt. Funny how the light always hits me, after sitting in the dark theater for two hours - I expect a dusky exit, but instead we emerge in blinding daylight, cars buzzing by on Main Street and a sidewalk cramped with people discussing American cinema. The world, alas, is still in full throttle.
‘Drink?’ I asked. ‘Are you drinking age?’
‘Of course I am,’ he assured me. I wasn’t, actually, but I’d gotten into the Mark Antony bar before without them carding me. It was a cool trick at the time, and now I again slipped inside. It’s not too difficult, really - just dawdling at the door and acting like I’m sort of lingering, lingering leaving and not lingering entering, then changing my mind, smiling at the people around me and walking up to the bar.
‘Hey, Henry!’ the bartender, a plump man with a dark mustache, exclaimed.
‘Hey, Ted!’ the little man from my shoulder shouted right back. I wasn’t sure if Ted the barkeep could hear him; I could barely make it out over the din of clinking glasses and general laughter. I took a seat.
‘So what’ll it be?’ Ted asked, leaning over the counter, close to my face.
‘A beer. Whatever kind, doesn’t make a difference.’ Shifted in my seat. ‘Gimme and MGD Light. I saw on e of their commercials last night.’
‘The usual,’ Henry answered and with two fingers, Ted placed on the counter the tiniest mug of brew I’d ever seen, with a Bud Light insignia on the side. Henry took a huge gulp, for his size.
I got my beer and took Henry in hand, walked to a table near the back of the bar. Henry sat right on the table and we drank together. Silence.
‘Uh, how ëbout the film?’ I asked.
‘Hated it,’ he replied.
A drunk sidled up to our table, a short-haired guy wearing a trench coat with brass-rimmed glasses and an acne-pitted face. ‘Eyyy, Hank!’ he said, running an appreciative pointer finger over Henry’s hair, tapping up and down as gently as possible, as though toying with a miniature doll.
‘Hey, Josh,’ Henry replied, trying to brush the finger away from his head. Josh tried to relate to us some fight he’d gotten into in Medford the other weekend, some jocks had dragged him across the parking lot and he’d hurt his knee there (he walked with a limp now) but he and Blake had beaten up the three of them in the end; they’d been driving with Rob Shapiro, you see, and they passed a hick truck cruising slowly along the street, bass pumping, and passed it and flipped off the Medfordites, then cut them off and got out, and there were three guys there to fight, but Rob wasn’t man enough to get out of the car, so two of them got on Josh while Blake took down the other one, then came over to help . . .
Eventually Josh finished his semblance of a story and staggered off. Henry asked me to carry him to the counter for another beer, and when we returned to the table, I looked at him intently. I’d really never seen anything quite like this before . . .
‘So,’ I said, ‘You live here? In Ashland?’
‘Oh, yeah,’ he answered. ‘Been here mosta my life. That’s howcum I know most everyone round here. You new? I ain’t seen you before.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I’ve been here, oh, I think I had my fourth birthday here. So fourteen years at least.’
‘Funny. Woulda thought I’d known you then.’
A country fashion couple walks in and takes seats by the bar. He’s wearing a straw hat and she’s draped in a terrible puffy red dress.
‘So, um, what’re you gonna do now?’ I asked.
‘You mean, like . . .’
‘Oh, just like when we leave the bar. You know, in the next few hours,’ I said.
‘My wife’s coming to . . .’
‘You have a wife?’
‘Oh, yeah. Yeah, I gotta wife. Oh, there she is now.’ I turned, and to my utter dismay she looked perfectly normal. Normal size, most notably. I actually found here rather attractive, wearing a black ankle-length dress, short blonde hair approximately shoulder length, a Hillary Clinton type of look.
‘Do you have, uh, kids?’ I asked.
‘Oh, yeah. Two,’ he replied, as she approached the table.
‘Oh, hi Henry,’ she enthused. ‘I missed you.’
‘I missed you, too, dear,’ he said , proffering a kiss.
She pulled a small packet from her purse and placed him inside. Flashed me a smile and swinging her purse, left the bar.
