Bad Haircut

My mother opened the freezer door and stared for a long time at the jumble of ice cube trays and frozen meat. White vapors swirled around her head. If my father had been home, he would have yelled at her for wasting electricity.

“He was nice.”

My words startled her. She shut the door without taking anything from the freezer. “I've always thought so,” she said. She went to the table and plunged her arm into the empty bag. “Did you see a can of tomato sauce in here?”

“No.”

“Darn,” she said. “I'll have to make the pork chops. Your father won't be too thrilled about that.”

While my mother cooked, I sat on the couch and read Strange But True Football Stories, a book I'd just checked out of the library. The first one was about Jim Marshall, a defensive end on the Minnesota Vikings, who picked up a fumble and ran the wrong way for a touchdown, actually scoring a safety for the other team. I couldn't make up my mind whether his mistake was funny or sad. He got spun around after picking up the loose ball and lost his bearings; the roar of the crowd drowned out his teammates' desperate cries. Marshall was totally happy as he ran: it was every lineman's dream, nothing but green grass between him and the end zone. He did a joyful touchdown dance and didn't begin to understand the enormity of his mistake until players from the other team swarmed all over him shouting congratulations. His own teammates clutched their helmets; the stadium echoed with laughter. Even the referee was smiling.

The phone rang in the kitchen. A few minutes later my mother came into the living room and asked if I was hungry. I told her I wasn't; I'd eaten a Wonderful Wiener before we left the mini-mall.

“Good,” she said. “Mr. Amalfi wants us to drop by before he goes. I'll just stick the pork chops in the oven. We can pick up your father at the store and all eat together for once.”

The mini-mall was almost deserted when we returned that evening. A few cars were clustered near the entrance of Stop & Shop. Beyond them, the Frankmobile stood alone in the corner of the lot. My mother squinted, as though it hurt her eyes to look at it.

“What a hideous color,” she said. “It looks like chewed-up bubble gum.”

She glanced around to make sure no one was watching, then knocked on the side door. It swung open and the Wiener Man helped us climb inside. Only he wasn't the Wiener Man anymore. He was this normal-looking guy, just a little taller than my mother, wearing tan corduroy pants and a blue sweater. He had removed the gloves and scrubbed the makeup off his face. He was still wearing the beat-up sneakers.

The Frankmobile looked pretty big from the outside, but inside it was close and cluttered, like someone had taken an entire house and squashed it into one room. The three of us stood huddled between the door and the sink that jutted out from the opposite wall. The carpeted floor sagged beneath our weight.

The Wiener Man smiled at my mother. He had dark curly hair and a boyish face. “Ann,” he said. “You look terrific. You haven't changed a bit.”

“It's a nice place you got here,” she said. She turned to get a better look and her purse swung into the side of my head.

“This is the kitchen,” he said. “I don't use it much.” There were cabinets above the sink and a tiny refrigerator next to the door. A small wooden table folded down from one wall. An unplugged toaster sat on top of it, along with a stack of magazines and a houseplant in a red clay pot.

“Let me give you the grand tour,” said the Wiener Man.

The trailer swayed gently, like a boat, as we followed him through the bead curtain into his bedroom. We stood single file between the wall and the bed. There wasn't much to look at, except for a portable TV—it had aluminum foil flags attached to the rabbit ears—plopped in the middle of the sunken mattress. My mother asked the Wiener Man about his parents.

“Pop passed away two years ago,” he said. “Cancer.”

“I wish I'd known,” she said. “I could've at least sent a card.”

“It was bad,” he said. “We weren't even on speaking terms when he died. He never forgave me for not taking over the business.”

“How's your mother?”

“She's a pain in the ass, as usual. All she does is complain. Like I don't have enough problems of my own.”

He opened the bathroom door. My mother peeked inside and laughed. I couldn't see what she was looking at.

I sat next to my mother on a padded bench behind the kitchen table and played a game called Hi-Q while she talked to the Wiener Man. It was a neat game, something like Chinese checkers, but harder. The Wiener Man told me that he used to spend hours playing it on nights when he couldn't sleep. After a while it got too easy for him, so he took up crossword puzzles.

I listened to their conversation between jumps. Mostly it was about people I'd never heard of. Harvey owned an appliance store. Dolly finally got divorced from Phil. Someone named “Neemo” got transferred to Chicago. Angie had three beautiful daughters and a no-good husband. They both laughed when she told him that Louise had married a dentist, this little dumpy guy.

I didn't get the joke, but I laughed anyway. I was really enjoying myself. I liked the coziness and dim light inside the Frankmobile, the feeling of being hidden from the world but not alone. It reminded me of a trip I'd taken with my parents the summer after kindergarten. We rented a pop-up camper—the kind that emerges magically from a box when you turn the crank—and took it to Cooperstown, New York. It rained the whole time we were there, but we didn't mind. We spent our days browsing through the Baseball Hall of Fame, touching old uniforms, buying souvenirs, talking to Babe Ruth on a special telephone. We couldn't barbecue because of the weather, so we ate all our meals at this diner that had a revolving glass case filled with the biggest cakes and pies I'd ever seen. When we got back to the camper my father would fall right to sleep, but my mother and I stayed up late playing Go Fish by flashlight, whispering our questions and answers over my father's slow breathing and the steady patter of rain on the roof.

Staring at the Hi-Q board and listening to their voices, I let myself imagine we were a family. It seemed like a fun way to live, a permanent vacation, the three of us inside the Frankmobile, playing games and eating out all the time. I saw us zooming down the highway, a pink blur passing through a landscape of cactus and snow-capped mountains on our way to the next supermarket. But I saw something else, too: my real father wandering through our house, checking in the closets and under the bed, wondering where we'd gone without him.

My mother touched my hand. “Buddy, Mr. Amalfi wants to know if we're happy.”

I shrugged. “Sure. I guess so.”

She laughed and messed my hair, like I'd just done something cute. She pretended to count on her fingers. “I can't believe it, Mike. I've been married for nine years now.”

“That's a long time,” said the Wiener Man.

“I wish you could meet Jim,” she said. “I think you'd like him.”

The Wiener Man nodded. “Jim's a lucky man.”

“What about you?” she asked. “Are you happy?”

He uncrossed his legs and sat up straight on top of his little woodgrain refrigerator. “Happy?” he repeated, as if he hadn't understood the question. “I don't know about that. This is a decent job. I like seeing the country and meeting the kids. But it gets kind of lonely sometimes.”

“Why don't you get married?” my mother said. “You're still young.”

“I don't feel so young,” said the Wiener Man.

There was a long lull in the conversation. They just looked at each other. My mother took the gray purse from her lap and set it on the table. She unclasped it and took out her wallet. I thought she was going to give some money to the Wiener Man, but she looked at me instead.

“Buddy, could you do me a favor? Run into Stop & Shop and pick up a can of tomato sauce, okay? Contadina. The smaller can, not the big huge one. That's in aisle six.” She pressed a crumpled dollar into my hand. “You can get a candy bar with the change.”

I glanced at the Hi-Q board. There was no way I could win. “Right now?” I asked.

She nodded. “Wait for me outside. I'll only be a few more minutes.”

I stepped out from behind the table. The Wiener Man stared glumly at his feet. I wanted to cheer him up.

“Tell her about that kid you pounded today,” I suggested.

* * *

The night had grown cooler. High up, the sky remained a deep daytime blue, but near the ground it was dark. All the lights were on in the parking lot. I went over to the front window of Stop & Shop and stood on tiptoe to peer inside the dazzling store. I couldn't see any customers, just two checkout girls in green smocks talking across three empty counters.

I shoved the dollar into my pocket and hopped a ride on a nearby shopping cart. I glided toward Grand Avenue, gathering speed on the downward slope. I found the can of tomato sauce right where I thought it would be, lying against a concrete parking barrier. It wasn't even dented.

I walked past the Frankmobile and sat down on the curb in front of the launderette. I amused myself by tossing the can into the air with one hand and catching it with the other, enjoying the swift pull of gravity as it smacked into my palm. Across Grand Avenue, a chalky fingernail moon hung at a strange tilt over the jagged line of housetops.

“Hi.”

The voice came from Harold Daggett. Like me, he was still wearing his uniform. He was also carrying a gym bag. “I saw you sitting here,” he explained. He sat down beside me and set the gym bag between his feet. “Thanks for sticking up for me today. I didn't think you liked me.”

“You were right,” I said. “Billy was acting like a jerk.”