The Franchiser by Stanley Elkin Page B

man hours that gun into that,” the fellow said, nervously acknowledging him. “Look that Mad Hatter.”
    “Look that Alice,” Flesh said. The man moved to another grouping. Flesh followed silently. “Look that Queen,” he offered.
    “Look that Mock Turtle,” the white-suited man said wearily.
    “Look that Cheshire Cat.”
    “Look that pigeon shit.”
    “Ben Flesh,” Ben Flesh said, extending his hand.
    “Colonel Sanders,” the man said grudgingly.
    Ben pushed his hand out farther. The man took it finally and Flesh grasped the chicken king’s hand in both his own and pulled it toward his face. Before Colonel Sanders knew what was happening Flesh opened his jaws wide as he could and shoved as much of the man’s hand inside his mouth as possible. He sucked the startled man’s knuckles, ran his tongue along his lifeline, chewed his nails, the heel of his hand, tasted his pinky. The Colonel made a fist and fought for his hand, which Ben still held to his mouth.
    “Lemme be. What’s wrong with you?”
    And Ben could not have told him, couldn’t have said that he’d pulled his first stunt, an engram of character and aggression. He stood before the Colonel with the man’s hand still at his lips. He was blushing. “Finger-lickin’ good,” Flesh said. “It’s true. What they say. About Dixie,” he added lamely.
    The Colonel shook his hand about, drying it. He looked down at his suit, changed his mind. Flesh whipped out a handkerchief and waved it across the top of Colonel Sanders’s hand like a shoeshine cloth. He whistled, snapping the handkerchief smartly one last time, and returned it to his pocket.
    “I’ll be damned,” Colonel Sanders said. “You’re a fool.”
    “Listen,” Ben said, “I’m sorry. I don’t know what made me…”
    The Colonel looked at me curiously. Then seemed suddenly to relent. He was taller than I would have expected—six foot one, better. Taller than myself.
    “My height?” the Colonel said.
    “Sir?”
    “My height. People like their avunculars stubbly little Santas. Eb Scrooge’s old boss—what’s his name—he was a shorty. All of ’em, squatty, florid little fellers. Only your father figure is supposed to be tall. Well, you know what my real significance is, Jack? It ain’t the finger-lickin’-good routine. I mean to go down as the first avuncular in U.S. history to break the height barrier, bust six two. One day I’m comin’ out the closet altogether entire, speak the King’s English, iambic pentameter. That’s what I’m really after. Oh, I ain’t fixin’ to put out the twinkle in my eye or extinguish the roses in my cheeks—just very manly, very deliberate and distingué . Stand up straight, unhunch my shoulders, give my backbone its head, let America see what’s been hid from it too long—that a man can be lovable, turn out a good product, and tall all at the same time.”
    “I never realized,” Ben told him, “what an idealist you are.”
    “Shucks,” said the Colonel. “Schucks, pshaw, and…” He drew Ben toward him conspiratorially, looked both ways when they were nose to nose.
    “—and?”
    “—and pshit!”
    They went to lunch at La Caravelle. “Unless you prefer Clos Normand,” the Colonel had said.
    “I’ve never been to either.”
    “ I know. Le Perigord.” Then changed his mind. “No, that’s all the way east.” Decisively. “Caravelle.”
    It was the largest of intimate rooms, and there was, for Flesh, the sense that, remove the tables and cloak room—he thought like this, the franchiser vision, his blueprint imagination—lift the rugs and install the proper equipment, and one would have a gentlemen’s barber shop of the sort found in the basements of immense commercial travelers’ hotels.
    Ben Flesh examined the table linen while Colonel Sanders looked over the wine list and bantered with the sommelier in French. He lifted the bread basket—it was cunningly made bread, baked to look like slabs of