NEWSLETTER

In ’69 Gangemi wrote Olt, a 55-page speedball that you should be fined for not having read. He is also the author of The Volcanoes From Puebla, another criminally underappreciated title that critics like to label “transfiction” when really it’s just a damn good book. He sent Vice an entire unpublished, untitled novel made up of loosely connected short stories that are all amazingly funny and dirty and dark. If life were fair he’d be selling millions of books. As it is, he should be your new favorite author.

Story Read By: Comics artist Victor Cayro after drinking a bottle of Tuaca, two glasses of gin, and four beers. Click here to open the player in a new window

The Pet Store
Nick joined a mixed group of people looking in the window. They were smiling at a litter of dachshund puppies, only eight weeks old, tumbling and playing. He loved looking in the windows of pet stores. All kinds of people, total strangers, became captivated by the puppies or kittens and started talking to one another. He had read that psychologists used the term “primitive comradeship” to describe the phenomenon. It could happen after a movie, during the intermission of a play, in a stalled elevator or subway car, at the scene of a fire or traffic accident, when people found shelter from a thundershower, or in front of a pet-store window.

A young woman was standing next to him. She was enchanted with the cute puppies as they played and tumbled. Most of them were males. “Oh, I’ve just got to have one,” she said. “But what color? A black dachshund with red balls? Or a red dachshund with black balls?”

Nick looked her over. She was slender, wore no ring, had blonde hair and blue eyes, was somewhere in her twenties. She had a tanned, exercised figure, perhaps from tennis, and was dressed simply but in good taste. She wore a strand of pearls. Her understated appearance was just about perfect: hair, shoes, makeup, clothing, handbag, everything. Nick was impressed with her patrician good looks. He figured horses, country clubs, junior year in Paris, weekends in Newport, Palm Beach, and Southampton. A New York aristocrat, perhaps a socialite, from a wealthy family and exclusive schools, on her way to a lunch date.

“Do you know how to punish a bad parakeet?” he asked.

“No,” she said.

“You beat him with a wet noodle,” Nick said.

She smiled politely. He would have to do better. They talked about the dachshund puppies, the origin of the breed, their curiosity and intelligence, and what good pets they made. Then he accompanied her when she walked inside to inquire about buying a puppy. The pet-store clerk was a middle-aged man with thinning hair. He wore a short-sleeved shirt with a pocket protector and five or six types of pens.

The clerk was eager to make a sale. “We’ll give you a generous trade-in on your old dog,” he said. She had a boxer. Nick wondered if there was a breed of dog called a wrestler.

The young woman smiled and looked warmly at the clerk. She began to barter with him. When the clerk looked away for a few seconds, Nick saw her quickly open the top button of her blouse.

“Would you trade a dachshund puppy for a pair of mated horned toads?” she asked.

The clerk was resistant. “I’d have to see the toads.”

She parted her lips. “I’ll throw in a Gucci lizard carrier,” she said, “with his-and-her compartments.”

“Those puppies are purebred,” said the clerk.

“So are my horned toads,” she said. “They’re both registered with the American Lizard Association.”

Nick listened while the young woman bargained with the clerk. She was poised, graceful, spoke well, and had lovely manners. It figured that she would have blue-blooded lizards. When the clerk began to give in, Nick left them to browse the store.

He saw a cat owner looking at Klaw Kontrol in the catalog. Then he watched a dog owner reading about dog health plans in the dogalog. The rear of the store, filled with aquariums, was called “Planet of the Fish.” A customer who had a problem with low voltage brought in his electric eel. Nick saw a pair of black-and-white Scotties, the male named Midnight, the female Snowflake. He looked at the gourmet birdseed, a pen of dwarf rabbits, jars of ointment for wombat mange, electric “heat rocks” for lizards, dried pigs’ ears and lambs’ lungs, and a cage of piranha parakeets—a flock could reduce a man to a skeleton in minutes.

He looked at a cage of white rats, one of them running in an exercise wheel. Clean, friendly, and curious, they made good pets. Above the cage of a tabby with kittens was a tabloid headline, “Swimming Cat Saves Drowning Child.” A Samoyed puppy had just been bathed. White and fluffy, he resembled a polar-bear cub. Nick stood beside a sad-eyed woman looking at a cage of capuchin monkeys. “I wanted to buy one,” she told him, “but I heard they jerk off all the time. So instead I got myself a boyfriend. What a mistake!”

He moved on, admired the plumage of a blue-and-gold macaw, then gazed deeply into the eyes of a sulfur-crested cockatoo. A litter of cocker-spaniel puppies looked at him with worried eyes. In the next cage were two English bull terriers, a breed called “the clowns of the canine world.” Nick smiled just looking at them. Then he saw a chocolate-point Siamese kitten with a note on its cage: “Desirable young female into petting seeks companion into same.” He respected the independence of cats. Once he read, “A dog comes when it’s called. A cat takes a message and gets back to you.”

Nick looked for the owner of the pet store. He found him leaning in the doorway, watching the people on Eighth Avenue, dreaming of a parrot on each shoulder.

A customer interrupted him with a question.

“Don’t feed your canary too often,” advised the owner. “You don’t want him to become fat.”

Another customer asked, “What should I do when a parrot bites me?”

“Let out a squawk,” the owner said.

Nick remembered the joke about the Frenchman who walks into a bar with a parrot on his shoulder. The parrot is wearing a baseball cap.

“Hey, that’s neat,” says the bartender. “Where did you get that?”

“France,” says the parrot. “They’ve got millions of them there.”

Nick went back into the store. He saw that the clerk and the young woman were finishing the deal, so he continued browsing. A man picked up an application for a rabbit permit. A woman leaving for Europe brought in her cat: She wanted an ID card, paw prints, and passport photos. Nick saw that it was a rare Norsk Skogkatt, or Norwegian forest cat. He took out his notebook and wrote: “Why so quiet, Kitty? Cat got your tongue?”

He moved on, looking at a twenty-pound Maine coon cat with kittens. Then he saw a pen of Arctic cats, as white as snowy owls and polar bears. He had always wanted a Cheshire cat, the kind that Lewis Carroll wrote about. It would be so nice to look up to the top of his bookcase and see that big smile.

A few minutes later Nick and the young woman left the pet store. She was smiling and talking to the dachshund puppy that she carried in her arms. Nick looked back. Through the window of the store he could see the clerk looking at a slip of paper. It was an IOU for a Gucci lizard carrier and two mated horned toads. They headed east on 57th Street. After they crossed Broadway she let him carry the happy, affectionate puppy.

Nick walked with the young woman to an expensive restaurant near the end of the block. It was known as a hangout for agents, editors, and publishers. She took the puppy and gave Nick a warm smile. “If he ever stops breathing,” he said, “give him mouth-to-snout resuscitation.” She laughed, said goodbye, kissed him on the cheek, and went inside. Nick could see the interior of the restaurant with its mirrored walls and white tablecloths. He watched her walk over to join a tall man in a dark gray suit. On her way she spoke to the maître d’ and handed him the puppy.


The Seafood Waitress

Story Read By: Comics artist Victor Cayro after drinking a bottle of Tuaca, two glasses of gin, and four beers. Click here to open the player in a new window

Nick saw her at a nearby table. She had a slim waist and attractive hips. He remembered how witty and personable she had been while he was waiting for a table at the bar. He had to talk with her and get her phone number. But how? What would Harry do? Nick racked his brains for a plan, for some kind of opener. Order seafood! That was it! If he ordered seafood, then he would be able to talk with the Seafood Waitress.

He looked at the menu. First he considered the steamed flounder with ginger sauce, one of Allen Ginsberg’s favorite dishes. His birthday had been a couple of weeks ago, and flounder was in season. Nick then read about the shrimp Cartesian, which was served on graph paper. Finally he decided on squid. But which one? The Firestone squid or the BFGoodrich squid?

When the maître d’ heard his question, he immediately sent for the Seafood Waitress. She smiled at Nick, recognizing him from the bar.

“Forget the domestic squid,” she said. “Go for the imported, either the Pirelli or the Michelin.”

Nick would not order the imported squid. He was too patriotic to do anything to help foreign competition and contribute to the trade deficit.

“What are the fish specials?” he asked.

“We have porgy and bass.”

Nick looked at the other seafood dishes on the menu.

“Why are they called shrimp scampi?”

“Because the shrimp are still alive,” the Seafood Waitress said, glaring at him. “And they scamper all over the plate.”

Nick winced. Maybe she had caught him looking at her Neptune t-shirt. He asked about the blackfish and this time she gave him a straight answer. She told him it was also called tautog and was related to the wrasses. He asked about the word scungilli on the menu. She said it was a dialect corruption of the Italian word conchiglia, which means “shell.” It was the interior meat of the whelk, a large gastropod.

Nick swallowed and took a deep breath. It was now or never. “Seafood,” he said, “the bartender told me you’re completing your doctorate in marine biology.” She nodded. “Would you like to play with a walrus?”

“What do you mean?”

“My friend Pete is a marine biologist at the New York Aquarium. Last month he gave me a tour behind the tanks, the areas that visitors never see. The best part was the walrus, a 1,200-pound female with the personality of a puppy. She came splashing over, happy to see him, blowing water through her whiskers. She loves Pete because he raised her since she was a pup. Every day he fed her minced clams and heavy cream.”

“Is it a Pacific walrus?”

Nick hesitated. He did not expect that question. “I don’t know,” he said. “It was rescued by a fishing boat, an orphan they found on an ice floe. It was just a walrus. It was peaceful, if that’s what you mean.”

“You probably saw Odobenus rosmarus divergens,” she said, “which is native to the North Pacific. It is also more numerous. Odobenus rosmarus rosmarus is found in the North Atlantic.”

“They’re different?”

“Yes,” she said. “The tusks measure about 17 percent of the body length, as opposed to 12 percent for the Atlantic walrus. Odobenus rosmarus divergens also has a jutting chin, a deeper muzzle, and a squarer snout. Its nostrils are higher on the head, and it is much larger. The bulls can weigh up to 3,700 pounds when carrying maximum blubber.”

“The scientific name is Odobenus?”

“Right,” she said. “The plural means ‘those that walk with their teeth.’ It’s a contraction of the Greek words odontos and baenos, meaning literally ‘tooth-walk.’ The walruses use their tusks to jab into the ice and haul their bodies out of the water.”

Nick saw that Seafood was very interested. “Would you like to go to the aquarium next week?”

“Will I meet your friend?”

“Yes, of course,” Nick said. “Pete will take us behind the tanks and give us a tour of the entire aquarium, including the seals, penguins, sea otters, and Beluga whales. You’ll see a baby manatee, held carefully in the curve of a flipper. And an octopus with only seven arms. Pete says it either lost one to a predator or has an undescended tentacle.”

She asked if he was also a marine biologist.

“No,” said Nick, and told her what he did.

“You don’t look like a poet.”

“I express myself in my writing,” he said. “I have no need for wild hair, bizarre clothing, or outrageous behavior.”

She seemed to be satisfied with his answer.

“We can also visit the trained dolphins.”

“The ones that jump out of the water and pass through hoops?”

“Yes,” he said. “Because they perform daily before an audience, Pete says they have a sense of porpoise.”

She smiled, wrote her phone number on a slip of paper, and gave it to him. “Don’t call when I’m taking a bath.”

“I won’t,” Nick said. He put the slip of paper into his pocket. “Thanks, Seafood.” The bartender had told him that nobody knew her name, and that everyone called her Seafood.

She looked at him warmly. “My name is Alicia,” she said.

Nick decided on the grilled king salmon with Pinot noir sauce. Alicia recommended it, saying that it was flown in from Alaska that morning. “Oncorhynchus nerka,” she said, “is one of the best of the six species of Pacific salmon.” Dessert came in a chilled metal dish: French vanilla ice cream topped with coffee liqueur and shaved chocolate. Everything was delicious! “Would you like anything else?” she asked. Nick shook his head. What he wanted to eat next wasn’t on the menu.

When he had finished he left a generous tip for Alicia, then took his check and the Free Lunch voucher to the cashier. She accepted it with a big smile and asked for his autograph. Nick paid the tax on the check. He turned around for a last look at Alicia, but his view was blocked by a fat woman in slacks talking on a cell phone.



© Kenneth Gangemi, 2008


CONTINUED
SIX STORIES | 1 | 2 | 3 |

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