so janitor was his best shot at a normal life. "Johnny, when did Partners Pharmacy become Big Boy Steaks?"
Johnny looked across the long manicured lawn of the courthouse square to Main Street. He glanced back to me and said, "What do you mean?"
"Johnny, come on now. What's wrong with you? Partners had been there for a hundred years. What happened to it? It was there yesterday. I freaking ate there yesterday. I had their special jalapeno burger and fries. Now it's some steak house. And how did KTBR become..." I stared down Main at the dark windows. "...KTAH? I feel like I'm having an acid dream, but I don't do acid."
"But it's always been Big Boy's and KTAH." He said this with a little awe and a little worry in his voice. It wasn't him that wasn't acting right this time, we both knew that, it was me .
When Johnny said that I knew it was God's truth. At least for him. Because Johnny has no lie reflex. He just doesn't lie, never did, didn't have the ability. If he thought Partners had always been Big Boy, then, at least for him, it had been.
Which meant...I didn't know what it meant. It meant something bad was going on and I didn't like it.
When Johnny went back in to work, I sat a while longer but the more I tried to think through the problem, the more confused I became. Were things really disappearing and sometimes disappearing to be replaced by something similar, but different? What on earth could that mean? Or was I just more hungover than I originally thought? Something was either not right with the world or not right with me and I didn't know which one it was.
Back at work I kept my nose down and my mind blank. I had work to do and if I didn't do it right, I wouldn't get paid. Tonight was payday and I needed the money, no way around it. I deliberately drove down another street toward home so I wouldn't have to look at the two odd businesses on Main.
I worried the problem now I had free time, worried it like a bone, chewing hard, busting my molars on it, and still nothing was coming to me. At home, through the front door, and...
...and where the coat rack had been now stood a tall, skinny wooden cabinet with dull silver knobs.
I froze, holding my breath. I finally got the door closed behind me. I stood looking at the cabinet, a piece of furniture I had never seen before in my life. This was feeling serious. And bad. Worse than bad, like maybe a catastrophe. I brought my hands up and rubbed my cheeks hard. The cabinet still stood there, a silent reminder that it existed just as much as I did, as if to say, Get over it, boy, I'm here, so accept it .
I went slowly to it and took a silver knob in my fist. It turned easily. Inside the cabinet were shelves. On the shelves were things I recognized and some things I didn't. On the top shelf was my baseball cap printed with the legend, WOLVERINES, our high school baseball team. Next to it was my beat up catcher's mitt I hadn't seen in probably ten years and which I thought was in a box of things still packed in the attic. On the second shelf was a small collection of rocks I did not recognize. They weren't mine anymore than the cabinet was. Next to the pile of rocks, was a stack of photographs. I was afraid to touch them, but nothing could stop me from sliding them into my hands and flipping through them like a man in a hurry. Here was a picture of my mother and father when they were first married. Here was a picture of me sitting in a field with my legs around a giant pumpkin my mother had grown for the fair we had every fall. A photo of Davey on his first day of school. Davey and I swinging in the back yard swing set. The rest were like that, old photographs I hadn't seen in years, but that had originally been kept in an old suitcase in the closet of my bedroom. And now they were here, neatly stacked next to somebody's rocks.
I put them back and carefully inspected the third and last shelf. It held a pair of work boots that had seen better days, but they hadn't seen
Johnny looked across the long manicured lawn of the courthouse square to Main Street. He glanced back to me and said, "What do you mean?"
"Johnny, come on now. What's wrong with you? Partners had been there for a hundred years. What happened to it? It was there yesterday. I freaking ate there yesterday. I had their special jalapeno burger and fries. Now it's some steak house. And how did KTBR become..." I stared down Main at the dark windows. "...KTAH? I feel like I'm having an acid dream, but I don't do acid."
"But it's always been Big Boy's and KTAH." He said this with a little awe and a little worry in his voice. It wasn't him that wasn't acting right this time, we both knew that, it was me .
When Johnny said that I knew it was God's truth. At least for him. Because Johnny has no lie reflex. He just doesn't lie, never did, didn't have the ability. If he thought Partners had always been Big Boy, then, at least for him, it had been.
Which meant...I didn't know what it meant. It meant something bad was going on and I didn't like it.
When Johnny went back in to work, I sat a while longer but the more I tried to think through the problem, the more confused I became. Were things really disappearing and sometimes disappearing to be replaced by something similar, but different? What on earth could that mean? Or was I just more hungover than I originally thought? Something was either not right with the world or not right with me and I didn't know which one it was.
Back at work I kept my nose down and my mind blank. I had work to do and if I didn't do it right, I wouldn't get paid. Tonight was payday and I needed the money, no way around it. I deliberately drove down another street toward home so I wouldn't have to look at the two odd businesses on Main.
I worried the problem now I had free time, worried it like a bone, chewing hard, busting my molars on it, and still nothing was coming to me. At home, through the front door, and...
...and where the coat rack had been now stood a tall, skinny wooden cabinet with dull silver knobs.
I froze, holding my breath. I finally got the door closed behind me. I stood looking at the cabinet, a piece of furniture I had never seen before in my life. This was feeling serious. And bad. Worse than bad, like maybe a catastrophe. I brought my hands up and rubbed my cheeks hard. The cabinet still stood there, a silent reminder that it existed just as much as I did, as if to say, Get over it, boy, I'm here, so accept it .
I went slowly to it and took a silver knob in my fist. It turned easily. Inside the cabinet were shelves. On the shelves were things I recognized and some things I didn't. On the top shelf was my baseball cap printed with the legend, WOLVERINES, our high school baseball team. Next to it was my beat up catcher's mitt I hadn't seen in probably ten years and which I thought was in a box of things still packed in the attic. On the second shelf was a small collection of rocks I did not recognize. They weren't mine anymore than the cabinet was. Next to the pile of rocks, was a stack of photographs. I was afraid to touch them, but nothing could stop me from sliding them into my hands and flipping through them like a man in a hurry. Here was a picture of my mother and father when they were first married. Here was a picture of me sitting in a field with my legs around a giant pumpkin my mother had grown for the fair we had every fall. A photo of Davey on his first day of school. Davey and I swinging in the back yard swing set. The rest were like that, old photographs I hadn't seen in years, but that had originally been kept in an old suitcase in the closet of my bedroom. And now they were here, neatly stacked next to somebody's rocks.
I put them back and carefully inspected the third and last shelf. It held a pair of work boots that had seen better days, but they hadn't seen
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