Mani He

by Joseph Carrabis

Table of Contents parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

part 1

Anthony Morelli saw the badger across the street as he came out of South Station, where the MBTA’s southern terminus washed people towards One Financial Place. Anthony was wearing his St. James suit — bright grays with a black pinstripe — with cream oxford shirt and red and gold pumped satin tie, diamond studs, stockings which blended with his trousers, and black wingtips.

It was an early Boston fall, and Channel 4 had forecast a light drizzle. Morelli’s raincoat was draped over his left arm, and his accountant’s case pulled down his right arm like a ship’s keel in a storm. Today he would make the presentation showing the errors in Thompson’s plan.

The badger sat on a pretzel wagon. People were buying soft pretzels with mustard, soft pretzels with cheese, soft pretzels with extra salt. The badger was passing small talk and change and nobody else seemed to notice.

Morelli stopped and stared. The smell of coal-cooked chestnuts, peanuts and pretzels came over the diesel and street-level smog of Boston. His mouth watered and he remembered his father teaching him how to flip peanuts and catch them in his mouth.

The badger looked at Tony and hollered, “REDhots! PRETzels! GETcha-GETcha REDhots! PRETzels!”

If Anthony had been wearing his glasses, he would have adjusted them. Today he was wearing his contacts, but his hands went to his face anyway.

The badger waved at him and laughed, mimicking Tony’s hand movements. The badger started pedaling his pretzel wagon and rolled away, calling out: “REDhots! GETcha REDhots!”

* * *

Tony went into One Financial Place, made his presentation, shook hands, got his back patted, and was thanked personally by the Old Man. Brumhall, the Old Man, looked fifty and was well past seventy-five. His eyes were clear and sharp and his mind had never dulled.

Haggedorn, Brumhall’s number two, stopped Tony outside Thompson’s door. “Anthony, excellent! You planned this? Excellent. Impressed me, right here,” Haggedorn tapped his heart. “The Old Man and I gotta talk. It’ll be excellent. Thompson. Have to let him go. Too bad. It’ll be excellent.”

Just then Thompson opened his door, stared at the two men, excused himself, and walked towards the restroom.

Tony looked at Thompson, the way the man’s shoulders sagged, the way his chin quivered. Tony swallowed and felt a lump like a badger claw etch its way down his throat, crashing into his stomach like a bus into a pushcart. He wanted to say that releasing Thompson wasn’t part of his plan. Instead, he dug into his pocket for the roll of Tums his wife, Grace, had given him when he had left the house, popped one in his mouth, and made a note to pick up a fresh roll when he went for lunch.

The Old Man came up to them a few moments after Thompson returned to his office. “Mr. Morelli, take the afternoon off. You come in tomorrow, you stop here.” Brumhall pointed at Thompson’s door and nodded to his number two, acting as if Tony no longer existed. “Mr. Haggedorn...” The Old Man opened Thompson’s door without knocking.

Haggedorn nodded. Before entering Thompson’s office and while the door was opened, he said, “The American Express office. Third Floor. Our branch, right there. Excellent. Stop in there. Big surprise. It’ll be excellent.”

Tony said, “I need to get my things.”

Haggedorn said, “Already taken care of. Third Floor. American Express. Excellent,” and closed Thompson’s door.

Tony, still stunned and feeling hollow, took the stairs. There was a Platinum Plus card with the company name on it waiting for him on the third floor. He smiled, lifted the card to his nose and inhaled as if it were a roll of bills and he were an old-time gambler. Another whiff and the smell of platinum plastic rubbed the sting of Thompson’s misfortune away. “Excellent.” He sniffed the card again.

He took a cab home. From the Financial District to dying but ethnic Revere, even though his mail went thirty miles away to a Post Office box in affluent and upscale Newton. When the cab went through the Callahan Tunnel, the lights went out. The cab starting bucking and kicking, as if the gas and brake had suddenly become alien to the West Somalian cab driver. The cab started to weave and horns blared in front, in back, and to the sides of them.

Tony leaned forward and tapped on the glass. The driver looked over his shoulder. and Tony slumped back into his seat. The driver was a moose, The driver's hair wove through a moose's antlers.

The driver bellowed apologetically in his pidgin English, “Sorry. In my country, we have nothing like this.”

Outside his home, Tony gave the West Somalian moose a fifty-dollar tip. The driver lifted the bill to his nose much as Tony had done with the Platinum card, inhaled, kissed the bill, then inhaled again. He smiled at Tony and Tony thought he said, “Ganja.” Tony couldn’t be sure, because he thought he saw grass and weeds dripping from the driver’s mouth. The driver pulled a U-ey, waved at Tony and left.

Tony waved until Grace called him inside. “Why’re you home? Are you okay? You didn’t get fired, did you?”

He explained. They celebrated. Later, they went to a quiet little bistro back in the North End, a place they knew from childhood, a place where they were part of the family. They spent the day sipping espressos and talking their first generation Italian-American English with Danté, the owner and the man who introduced them.

Tony jumped up from his chair and hurried Grace into her coat when Danté brought some antipasto and linguine pesto.

“Anthony, what’s wrong?” asked Grace.

“Nothing. I... I don’t feel good. Too much strain. I have to go home.”

A long, thin, pink tongue snapped out of a lizard’s face atop Danté’s body. “Antonio, stai male?” The lizard said.

Tony’s face blanched and he wouldn’t look the lizard in the eye. The lizard grabbed the water pitcher and a bowl from an empty table. He put the bowl down in front of Tony and poured some water in it, then sprinkled some olive oil on top of the water and placed the salt shaker beside the bowl. He made the sign of the evil eye and motioned Tony to pick up the salt. “Malocchio.” The lizard stared fixedly at the bowl of water and oil, waiting for Tony to finish the evil eye ceremony.

At hearing the intervention against misfortune, Tony looked up again. Danté was once again old Danté, the man they’d both known since childhood. The scaly lizard’s face and great round eyes, seen for a moment, were gone. His tongue was hidden in his mouth and not whipping about casting for flies as it had been a moment before.

Not believing in the old ways but honoring his friend, Tony sprinkled some salt in his hand, pressed it to his forehead, made the sign of the Cross with his thumb against his forehead and dipped the thumb into the oily water. The oil separated, fleeing from the salt as it lowered the specific gravity of the water. Tony knew the science but couldn’t bring himself to shatter the old man’s faith. “Si, amico mio. Si.”

* * *

Later that night, Tony and Grace were lying in bed. “It sounds like you’ve been working too hard, Tony. I don’t mind being rich, but I don’t want to be rich alone.” She rolled on top of him and straddled him. “You die, Mister, and I’ll have somebody else in this bed before your breath is cold.”

It was an old joke. They both laughed. Up against the wall on the other side of the room and in a line of sight behind Grace’s head, a spider built a web above Tony’s closet. Tony’s eyes focused and zoomed on the spider like camera lenses. Grace was still laughing and rocking on his hips. He saw the spider look up from her web building, hold a pedipalp in front of her eyes and shake it like a finger, shaking her head, “no,” as if in warning.

Then the spider was just a simple spider, building a web. Tony’s last thought as he went to sleep was, “How did I know it was a ‘she’?”

He woke up before the alarm went off. It was daylight and he saw by the clock he had about ten minutes of sleep left. He rolled over, towards his dresser and away from his wife. The badger was picking through the things on his dresser.

The badger looked up at him and said, “You got any Jujubees?”

Tony shook his head, no.

“How about toys, you got any toys? Coyote likes toys. That dumb shit’s always playing with toys.”

Another voice called from the hallway. The voice echoed and Tony knew it was coming from the pulldown stairs that led to the attic. “Found ’em.” He heard something bumping up in the rafters then the same voice squealed, “Hey, look at this! Tonkas! The kid’s got Tonkas!”

The alarm brizzed over Tony’s head, and Badger said, “See you later, kid. Gotta go.”

Grace swacked the alarm silent and said, “Wake up, hon. Time to make me a millionaire.”

Tony opened his eyes and reached on his dresser for his glasses. They weren’t where he had left them the night before. They were shifted a few inches to the right. A coldness shivered him despite the warmth of the bed. On his way to the bathroom, he saw the attic stairs bolted and secured in the ceiling and laughed at himself. “Probably got up last night and moved my glasses myself,” he mumbled.

In the bathroom he started the shower, turned to the toilet and fell backwards into the tub when he lifted the seat.

Grace called from the bedroom, “You okay, hon?”

“Yeah. Yeah, sure. Just slipped.” He turned the shower to cold and held his head under the blast of frigid water. “Okay. I’m awake,” he whispered. Drops of cold water trickled down his face, chest and shoulders as he looked back in the toilet. A child’s bow and arrow were wedged in the seat.

His old bow and arrow. The bow and arrow which he’d packed under the Tonkas in his toy chest in the attic. The old bow and arrow his grandfather had given him. Holding them he remembered his grandfather’s smell, a laborer’s smell, his grandfather strong like a farmer. “My people use to be warriors,” he once told Tony. “That was long before I met your grandmother.” He remembered going to meet other old men with his grandfather, other old men who wore the strange turquoise and silver, bone and bead jewelry his grandfather wore. Then, too soon, it seemed, Grandfather John died, and the bow and arrow and the old men with the funny jewelry were no more.

The arrow was rubber-tipped, and the rubber suction cup was old and cracked. The plastic feathers were stripped in places. The bow was also plastic, with a string made of heavy thread. Feathers and thunderbirds and Indians on horses were painted on the bow. He picked them up and memories of playing Indian as a child came back, as if the memories were waiting like mountain lions in the bow and arrow, waiting to pounce as soon as he touched it.

He lifted the bow and arrow to his shoulder and took aim, hearing himself and others chanting childhood rhymes and verse, mixes of broken English and Hollywood Indians, as he swept the bow and arrow around the bathroom, his arms somehow tiny once again so the toys became big and real and he wasn’t Tony Morelli anymore but Little Chief White Feather once again.

He stopped smiling when he took aim at himself in the bathroom mirror. Behind his reflection, a mountain lion pulled back the shower curtain, held out a paw and pointed at the sink. “You wanna hand me the soap there, buddy?”

* * *

Tony skipped breakfast and went to work. Haggedorn met him as he got off the elevator at the eighteenth floor. “Anthony. Excellent. New office. Right here. It’s yours. It’s excellent.” It was Thompson’s office. A corner office. Two walls of floor-to-ceiling tinted windows with blinds tied to the environmental system. All Anthony had to do was set the amount of light and heat he wanted and the blinds would open and close to accommodate. When necessary, lights and ventilators took up the slack.

The nameplate on the door — his door, his name. Excellent! — was gold, as was the one on his desk, which was huge. The desk was as big as his bed, and the office — his office. Excellent! — was the size of his living room. Along one wall was a multiplexing entertainment system and, at the press of a button, a bar which could rotate from fully alcoholic to totally dry, depending on whom he wamted to impress.

The other wall had a full-length black brocade leather couch. The walls were dark oak, matching the desk. The upholstery of both Tony’s chair and the two opposite his desk matched the couch’s black. The rug, an inch-thick plush, was gray. He had two computers on his desk and a twenty-channel phone system. The phone’s listings were all the ones he’d had in his old office. His accountant’s case was there. Along the walls were plants and floral arrangements from various people in the firm and clients he didn’t know he had.

After Haggedorn left, the office procession began. Several people came through, all shaking his hand and congratulating him. He looked into their faces as they came and left; this one was too hungry, this one would wait. This one would ally with whoever offered the most, this one would remain loyal.

He stayed late, enjoying the feel of a vibrating, reclining, twelve axes of movement, heated chair and kicked his legs up onto an oak desk so thick it would take six strong men to lift. Somebody knocked on his door. “Yes?”

“Cleaning crew, Mr. Morelli.”

Tony checked his watch, a gift from Grace from their dating days when wishes were horses and the two of them rode. “Come on in. You guys don’t waste any time, do you? Office has only been closed about an hour.”

The door opened, and a hawk pushed a cleaning cart into the room. A hummingbird followed in behind the hawk. Both were dressed in clean and neatly pressed “Ace Cleaning Services” uniforms. The hawk’s uniform had a white name tag over the right breast pocket which held an Ace Cleaning Services pocket-protector filled with pencils. Stitched in red signature was “Sparky”.

The hummingbird was obviously new because he had no pencils and his name was a red iron-on tag and not stitched in, therefore showing no permanence. He was “Bob.” The hummingbird wore earbuds and hummed a tune Tony couldn’t place.

“We try not to waste any time, Mr. Morelli,” said Sparky the Hawk. “Sometimes, though, people keep us waiting their whole life.”

Hummingbird Bob nodded: “Yeah.”

They took out spray bottles and stain removers and went to work.

Haggedorn came in with the Old Man. He looked around the office, told Sparky the Hawk and Hummingbird Bob they were doing a good job and he appreciated their consistency as if there was nothing strange about them, then faced Tony. “You like it here, Mr. Morelli?” asked Brumhall. “This office satisfy you?”

“Yes, sir, thank you. And please call me ‘Tony’.”

Brumhall nodded slowly, measuring Tony with some internal gauge. “May I see your watch then, Tony?”

“Beg pardon, sir?”

“Your watch.”

Tony peeled it from his wrist. Brumhall inspected it. “This watch have any significance to you?”

Tony, his eyes on the watch, swallowed. “No.”

“Good.” Brumhall tossed the watch into the trash basket on Sparky the Hawk’s cart and turned back to Tony. “Mr. Haggedorn.”

Tony watched Haggedorn open a black case. Out of the corner of his eye he watched Sparky the Hawk grab Hummingbird Bob’s hands as the latter dove for Tony’s old watch. Brumhall said nothing until Haggedorn gave Tony the black case.

A new watch. Rivier platinum, with more dials and gauges than Tony imagined he’d find in a fighter cockpit. The back had his name, the date, and “Welcome to The Club.”

“You play tennis, Tony?” Brumhall asked.

“No, sir.”

Brumhall brow creased. “No? What about racquetball?”

“No, sir, not that either.”

Brumhall turned briefly to Haggedorn then back to Tony. “Golf?”

Tony was about to answer in the negative when Haggedorn interrupted, his voice slightly higher and his face a little whiter than usual, “Outdoorsman. And excellent, Mr. Brumhall. Our Tony. Gun in hand. Right, Tony?”

Before Tony could answer, Haggedorn continued.

“Hiking. Camping. Being alone. One man against nature. The outdoor thing. And excellent.”

Brumhall considered this for a moment. “You like to hunt?”

Behind Brumhall, Haggedorn stared into Tony’s eyes and nodded vigorously. Tony answered, “Yeah.”

Hummingbird Bob dropped his spray bottle into the bar’s sink. “Sorry.”

Brumhall stared at Bob for a second then said, “The company’s got a cabin up in New Hampshire.” His looked back at Tony, “Did you know that?”

“No, sir.”

“Is it hunting season, Haggedorn? Is there something he can go up there and kill?”

“Yes, Mr. Brumhall. Something. Something excellent.”

“Good. Give him the keys, Haggedorn. Call ahead and make sure he’s got provisions for three days. I’ll see you on Monday, Mr. Morelli. I’d like to see something strapped to the hood of your car when you come back. Am I understood?” The Old Man’s eyes were clear crystals beaming into Tony’s face.

“Yes, sir. I think so.”

“Good.”

* * *

Proceed to part 2...

Copyright © 2022 by Joseph Carrabis