One Door Away From Heaven

Chapter 12

INSIDE THE RESTAURANT, which must have the capacity to seat at least three hundred, the boy, without dog, glides past the distracted hostess.

Quickly glancing around as he moves, he notices only a few children here and there, all with their families. He'd been hoping for more kids, lots of kids, so he won't be so easy to spot if the wrong people come looking.

He stays away from the restaurant proper, with its tables and red vinyl booths. Instead he goes directly to the lunch counter, where customers occupy fewer than half the stools.

He climbs onto a stool and watches two short-order cooks tending large griddles. They're frying bacon, hamburger patties, eggs, and mounds of crispy hash browns glistening with oil.

As if there's already something of the dog's heart twined with his own, the boy finds his mouth filled with saliva, and he swallows hard to keep from drooling.

"What can I do ya for, big guy?" a counter waitress inquires.

She's a fantastically large person, nearly as round as she is tall: bosoms the size of goose-down pillows, fine hulking shoulders, a neck made to burst restraining collars, and the proud chins of a fattened bull. Her uniform features short sleeves, and her exposed arms are as big as those of a bodybuilder, although without muscle definition— immense, smooth, pink. As if to provide the illusion of height and to balance her spherical body, she boasts a colossal mass of lustrous auburn hair, twisted and braided and flared and folded into an amazing work of architecture, high at the top of which is pinned a little yellow-and-white uniform cap that could be easily mistaken for a resting butterfly.

The boy marvels, wondering what being this woman would be like, whether she always feels as great and powerful as she looks, rhino-powerful, or whether sometimes she feels as weak and frightened as any lesser person. Surely not. She is majestic. She is magnificent, beautiful. She can live by her own rules, do as she wishes, and the world will treat her with awe, with the respect that she deserves.

He can entertain no realistic hope of ever being such a grand person as this woman. With his weak will and unreliable wits, he's barely able to be poor Curtis Hammond. And yet he tries. He says, "My name's Curtis, and my dad sent me in for some grub to go."

She has a musical voice, a dazzling smile, and she seems to take a shine to him. "Well, Curtis, my name's Donella, 'cause my dad was Don and my mom was Ella — and I think what we serve here is a few notches above plain grub."

"It sure smells fantastic." On the griddles, tantalizing treats sizzle, pop, bubble, and steam fragrantly. "Boy, I've never seen a place like this."

"Really? You don't look like you've been raised in a box."

He blinks, thinking furiously, striving to comprehend what she has suggested, but he can't avoid the question: "Were you?"

"Were I what?"

"Raised in a box?"

Donella wrinkles her nose. This is virtually the only part of her face that she can wrinkle, because everything else is gloriously full, round, smooth, and too firmly packed even to dimple. "Curtis, you disappoint me. I thought you were a good boy, a nice boy, not a smart aleck."

Oh, Lord, he's put his foot wrong again, stepped in a pile of doo-doo, figuratively speaking, but he can't understand what he's done to offend and can't imagine how to get himself admitted to her good graces once more. He dare not call undue attention to himself, not with so many murderous hunters looking for someone his size, and he absolutely must obtain food for himself and for Old Yeller, who is depending on him, but Donella controls his access to the grub, or to whatever you call it when it's a few notches above plain grub.

"I am a nice boy," he assures her. "My mother was always proud of me.

Donella's stern expression softens slightly, though she still won't give the enchanting smile with which she first greeted him.

Speaking his heart seems the best way to make amends. "You're so fabulous, so beautiful, so magnificent, Ms. Donella."

Even his compliment fails to pump the air back into her deflated smile. In fact her soft pink features suddenly appear stone-hard, and cold enough to bring an early end to summer across the entire North American continent. "Don't you mock me, Curtis."

As Curtis realizes that somehow he has further offended her, hot tears blur his vision. "I only want you to like me," he pleads.

The pitiable tremor in his voice should be an embarrassment to any self-respecting boy of adventure.

Of course, he isn't adventuring at the moment. He's socializing, which is immeasurably more difficult than engaging in dangerous exploits and heroic deeds.

He's rapidly losing confidence. Lacking adequate self-assurance, no fugitive can maintain a credible deception. Perfect poise is the key to survival. Mom always said so, and Mom knew her stuff.

Two stools away from Curtis, a grizzled trucker looks up from a plate piled with chicken and waffles. "Donella, don't be too hard on the kid. He didn't mean nothing by what he said. Nothing like you think. Can't you see he's not quite right?"

A fly line of panic casts a hook into the boy's heart, and he clutches the edge of the counter to avoid reeling off the stool. He thinks for a moment that they see through him, recognize him as the most-wanted fish for which so many nets have been cast.

"You hush your mouth, Burt Hooper," says the majestic Donella. "A man who wears bib overalls and long Johns instead of proper pants and a shirt isn't a reliable judge of who's not quite right."

Burt Hooper takes this upbraiding without offense, cackles with amusement, and says, "If I got to choose between comfort and being a sex object, I'll choose comfort every time."

"Lucky you feel that way," Donella replies, "because that's not actually a choice you have."

Through a blur of tears, the boy sees the glorious smile once more, a smile as radiant as that of a goddess.

Donella says, "Curtis, I'm sorry I snapped at you."

Trying to regain control of his emotions, but still blubbering a little, he says, "I don't know why I offended you, ma'am. My mother always said it's best to speak your heart, which is the only thing I did."

"I realize that now, sugar. I didn't first see you're. one of those rare folks with a pure soul."

"So then… do you think I'm 'not quite right'?" he asks, fiercely gripping the edge of the counter, still half afraid that they are beginning to recognize him for the fugitive he is.

"No, Curtis. I just think you're too sweet for this world."

Her statement both reassures and strangely disconcerts the boy, so he makes another effort at compliment, speaking with sincerity and emotion that cannot be misconstrued as anything else: "You really are beautiful, Ms. Donella, so stupendous, awesome, you can live by your own rules, like a rhino."

Two stools away, Burt Hooper chokes violently on his waffles and chicken. His fork clatters against his plate as he grabs his glass of Pepsi. Sputtering, with cola foaming from his nostrils, face turning as red and mottled as a boiled lobster, he at last clears his throat of food only to fill it with laughter, making such a spectacle of himself that it's evident he would be a lousy fugitive.

Perhaps the trucker has just now remembered a particularly funny joke. His unrestrained hilarity is nonetheless rude, distracting Curtis and Donella from their mutual apologies.

The divine Donella glares at Burt with the expression of a perturbed rhino, lacking only the threat of a large pointed horn to make the comparison perfect.

In the same way that a clatter of laughter had knocked its way through the last of Burt's choking, so now a rattle of words raps out of him between guffaws: "Oh, damn. I'm splat… in the middle. of Forrest Gump!"

They boy is puzzled. "I know that movie,"

"Never you mind, Curtis," Donella says. "We're no more splat in the middle of Forrest Gump than we are in the middle of Godzilla."

"I sure hope not, ma'am. That was one mean lizard."

Burt is spluttering again, half choking, even though his throat was clear a moment ago, and his deteriorating condition causes the boy concern. The trucker seems on the brink of a medical emergency.

Donella declares, "If anyone around here has a box of chocolates for a brain, then he's sitting in front of a plate of chicken and waffles."

"That's you, Mr. Hooper," Curtis observes. Then he understands. "Oh." The trucker's tears of laughter are this poor afflicted man's way of dealing with his loneliness, his disability, his pain. "I'm sorry, sir." The boy feels deep sympathy for this truck-driving Gump, and he regrets being so insensitive as to have thought that Burt Hooper was simply rude. "I'd help you if I could."

Although the trucker looks vastly amused, this is, of course, purely sham amusement to cover his embarrassment at his own shortcomings. "You help me? How?"

"If I could, I'd make you normal just like Ms. Donella and me."

The intellectually disadvantaged trucker is so deeply touched by this expression of concern that he swivels on his stool, putting his back to Curtis, and struggles to master his emotions. Although to all appearances, Burt Hooper is striving to quell a fit of giddiness, the boy now knows that this is like the laughter of a secretly forlorn clown: genuine if you listen with just your ears, but sadly fraudulent if you listen with your heart.

Exhibiting rhinoscerosian contempt for Mr. Hooper, Donella turns away from him. "Don't you pay any mind to him, Curtis. He's had every opportunity to be normal his whole life, but he's always chosen to be just the sorry soul he is."

This baffles the boy because he's been under the impression that a Gump has no choice but to be a Gump, as nature made him.

"Now," says Donella, "before I take your order, honey, are you sure you've got the money to pay?"

From a pocket of his jeans, he extracts a crumpled wad of currency, including the remaining proceeds from the Hammond larceny and the five bucks that the dog snatched from the breeze in the parking lot.

"Why, you are indeed a gentleman of means," says Donella. "You just put it away for now, and pay the cashier when you leave."

"I'm not sure it's enough," he worries, jamming his bankroll into his pocket again. "I need two bottles of water, a cheeseburger for my dad, a cheeseburger for me, potato chips, and probably two cheeseburgers for Old Yeller."

"Old Yeller would be your dog?"

He beams, for he and the waitress are clearly connecting now. "That's exactly right."

"No sense paying big bucks for cheeseburgers when your dog will like something else better," Donella advises.

"What's that?"

"I'll have the cook grill up a couple meat patties, rare, and mix them with some plain cooked rice and a little gravy. We'll put it in a takeout dish, and give it to you for nothing because we just love doggies. Your pooch will think he's died and gone to Heaven."

The boy almost corrects her on two counts. First, Old Yeller in this case is a she, not a he. Second, the dog surely knows what Heaven's like and won't confuse paradise with a good dinner.

He raises neither issue. Bad guys are looking for him. He's been too long in this one spot. Motion is commotion.

"Thank you, Ms. Donella. You're as wonderful as I just knew you were when I first saw you."

Surprising the boy, she affectionately squeezes his right hand. "Whenever people think they're smarter than you, Curtis, just you remember what I'm going to tell you." She leans across the counter as far as her fabulous bulk will allow, bringing her face closer to his, and she whispers these teaberry-scented words: "You're a better person than any of them."

Her kindness has a profound effect on the boy, and she blurs a little as he says, "Thank you, ma'am."

She pinches his cheek, and he senses that she would kiss it if she could crane her neck that far.

As a desperate but relatively unseasoned fugitive, he has been largely successful at adventuring, and now he's hopeful that he'll learn to be good at socializing too, which is vitally important if he is to pass as an ordinary boy under the name Curtis Hammond or any other.

His confidence is restored.

The loud drumming of fear with which he has lived for the past twenty-four hours has subsided to a faint rataplan of less-exhausting anxiety.

He has found hope. Hope that he will survive. Hope that he will discover a place where he belongs and where he feels at home.

Now, if he can find a toilet, all will be right with the world.

He asks Donella if there's a toilet nearby, and as she writes up his takeout order on a small notepad, she explains that it's more polite to say restroom.

When Curtis clarifies that he doesn't need to rest, but rather that he urgently needs to relieve himself, this explanation touches off another emotional reaction from Burt Hooper, which appears to be laughter, but which is probably something more psychologically complex, as before.

Anyway, the toilet — the restroom — is within sight from the lunch counter, at the end of a long hallway. Even poor Mr. Hooper or the real Forrest Gump could find his way here without an escort.

The facilities are extensive and fascinating, featuring seven stalls, a bank of five urinals from which arises the cedar scent of disinfectant cakes, six sinks with a built-in liquid-soap dispenser at each, and two paper-towel dispensers. A pair of wall-mounted hot-air dryers activate when you hold your hands under them, although these machines aren't smart enough to withhold their heat when your hands are dry.

The vending machine is smarter than the hand dryers. It offers pocket combs, nail clippers, disposable lighters, and more exotic items that the boy can't identify, but it knows whether or not you've fed coins to it. When he pulls a lever without paying, the machine won't give him a packet of Trojans, whatever they might be.

When he realizes that he's the only occupant of the restroom, he seizes the opportunity and runs from stall to stall, pushing all the flush levers in quick succession. The overlapping swish-and-lug of seven toilets strikes him as hilarious, and the combined flow demand causes plumbing to rattle in the walls. Cool.

After he relieves himself, us lie's washing his hands with enough liquid soap to fill the sink with glittering foamy masses of suds, he looks in the streaked mirror and sees a boy who will be all right, given enough time, a boy who will find his way and come to terms with his losses, a boy who will not only live but also flourish.

He decides to continue being Curtis Hammond. Thus far no one has connected the name to the murdered family in Colorado. And since he's grown comfortable with this identity, why change?

He dries his hands thoroughly on paper towels, but then holds them under one of the hot-air blowers, just for the kick of tricking the machine.

Refreshed, hurrying along the corridor between the restrooms and the restaurant, Curtis comes to a sudden halt when he spots two men standing out there at the lunch counter, talking to Burt Hooper. They are tall, made taller by their Stetsons. Both wear their blue jeans tucked into their cowboy boots.

Donella appears to be arguing with Mr. Hooper, probably trying to get him to shut his trap, but poor Mr. Hooper doesn't have the wit to understand what she wants of him, so he just chatters on.

When the trucker points toward the restrooms, the cowboys look up and see Curtis a little past the midpoint of the hall. They stare at him, and he returns their stares.

Maybe they aren't sure if he's his mother's son or some other woman's child. Maybe he could fake them out, pass for an ordinary baseball-loving, school-hating ten-year-old boy whose interests are limited entirely to down-to-earth stuff like TV wrestling, video games, dinosaurs, and serial-flushing public toilets.

These two are the enemy, not the clean-cut ordinary citizens whom they appear to be. No doubt about it. They radiate the telltale intensity: in their stance, in their demeanor. In their eyes.

They will see through him, perhaps not immediately, but soon, and if they get their hands on him, he will be dead for sure. As one, the two cowboys start toward Curtis.