Reality Boy

“Hey, Crapmeister. Can I have a Molson?” He throws down a five-dollar bill.

I stare at him. I imagine how easy it would be for me to pull him over the counter, drag him behind the fry table, and press his face into the hot dog rollers. How fun it would be to dunk his head into the deep-fat fryer.

“Dude. Did you hear me?” he yells, too loudly. I can feel Beth’s attention from the other side of the stand, and I know there is no way Nichols is getting his Molson.

“I heard you. Sorry. My Molson is tapped,” I say.

“I just saw her tap one a minute ago!” He points at Register #6 Lady. My hand reaches out toward him just a little and he sees it. His expression changes. I can’t tell if it’s fear or anger, but suddenly my heart rate goes up and I get ready to pounce. Everything goes silent in my head.

“Is there a problem here?” Beth asks.

Nichols smiles. “No. No problem. I was just asking this young man to get me a beer,” he says. Like a bigger moron than the moron he already was.

“Can I see your ID?” Beth asks.

It’s nice to see Nichols scurry off like a scared insect.

Beth says, “Do you know him?”

I say no, but she can tell I’m lying, and then she has to go over to #2 to check a hundred-dollar bill with her magic pen. I watch her walk away and catch myself staring at Register #1 Girl as she works. She even works beautiful.

I face the next customer. “Can I help you?”

“Can I have a pretzel?”

“Sure,” I say. “That’ll be four dollars.”

The kid fumbles with a handful of quarters and hands me sixteen of them.

Nichols shows up at the side of my register, now with Todd. “Yo, Crapper. How about that Molson now?”

“Excuse me. We’ve been waiting for five minutes,” the lady in front of me says to him. She’s in her full hockey-fan outfit, complete with this year’s new jersey, a pair of stonewashed jeans, and a pair of shit-kicker construction boots.

“Yeah, well, I waited, too, and now I’m back,” Nichols says, leaning into my face, right over the counter. I lean into him—so close I can feel his breath. You can’t bully a bully. I’m the Crapper.

I feel my right arm tense up. My fingers tingle. My adrenaline has already left the building. It’s heading to my fist, which is ready to fire in three… two… one…

Hockey Lady grabs Nichols by the collar and says, “Little prick,” and pulls him back to the end of the line. Then she returns and smiles at me.

“Thank you,” I say. I flex my right fist to get the feeling back. My insides feel woozy from the rush.

“No problem,” she answers. “They should know not to mess with hockey fans. We don’t take any shit.”

This makes me want to become a hockey fan. I would love to not take any shit.

She orders a bunch of stuff and while she’s waiting on the buffalo wings, she scoots over so the next person can go. While I’m filling that person’s drink refill, the buffalo wings appear on the hot tray and I reach back and grab them. Then, as I’m handing them to the hockey lady, Nichols pops up in the back of the crowd. “I hope he crapped on those wings for you, bitch! That’s what the Crapper does best!”

She looks at me and I can tell—she recognizes me. I avoid eye contact, but she doesn’t go away. When I look back at her, she has this look on her face. I can’t describe it.

I hand a soda to the customer in front of me and ignore her even though she’s still staring at me. As I’m making nachos for the next guy, one of her kids comes up and says, “Mom? Are you coming?” and she leaves with the kid.

During the first period, we get a chance to clean up our counter and refill the condiment stations. Because I’m brawny, I always take the big bottles of ketchup and mustard over to the stand and fill them. Plus, it gets me away from the other six cashiers, who tend to want to talk and get to know their coworkers. Most of the time, they talk about TV shows.

And I don’t watch TV.

Ever.

As I’m filling the second container of ketchup, the hockey-fan lady in the shit-kicker boots from before comes up to me and puts her hand on my shoulder.

“You’re Gerald, aren’t you?”

I stop and look at her. I can feel my face drop, and I nod.

She has tears in her eyes. “You are?”

I nod again.

She squeezes my arm and says, “I am so sorry for what those people did to you.”

I find myself paralyzed. It’s been more than ten years since it first aired, and I’ve tried to make it part of someone else’s childhood and move past it, like Roger says. I’ve tried to forget Network Nanny by not watching TV and by writing her pretend letters to tell her how I really felt. I’ve done all that. None of it made it go away. But this hockey lady is something brand-new. She just says it and I can’t move. Can’t speak.

“You okay?” she asks. “I know it’s none of my business, but I couldn’t help it.”

All I can do is nod.

“I always wanted to find you and take you up into my arms and give you a hug. You poor boy,” she says.

I nod again. I try to get back to my ketchup, but I can’t see anything through the glaze on my eyeballs. Everything is blurry.

“Do you mind if I hug you?” she asks.

I shake my head no.

And when she hugs me, something really weird happens. Before I can even figure out what’s going on, I’m crying. Like, really crying. It’s like someone is twisting open a spigot. I’m facing the ketchup containers, so no one at stand five can see this. And the harder I cry, the more she hugs me and the softer she is. The longer I cry, the more I realize what’s happening.

I am being hugged. In ten years, I have been recognized, scrutinized, analyzed, criticized, and even terrorized by a handful of the millions of Network Nanny viewers. Never was I hugged.

I am completely silent as I cry. She is completely silent as she hugs me. After a few moments, she reaches behind me and grabs a few napkins and hands them to me. Beth comes over and asks if everything’s okay and when she sees I’m crying, she pats me on the back and tells me she’ll take register #7 for the rest of the day if I need her to.

“No,” I say. “I’m fine.” I face the wall and the condiments and blow my nose and wipe my face. Beth goes back to the stand. I take a few deep breaths.

Hockey Lady squeezes my arm and says, “I’ll stay in touch.” Then she walks away.