Alligators May Be Present: A Novel

Stop Calling Me Shuman, Son

Stop Calling Me Shuman, Son W here had Shuman gone? Didn’t he know that Glassman needed him? Why did he come out from under his rock at all if he only planned to disappear again, and then again, for weeks at a time? If he had no real intention of helping Glassman, or himself? What good could come of things if the old man refused to take that extra step and reveal himself? Not just for Glassman’s sake, but for his mother’s sake, and for his Aunt Janet’s. And, of course, for Teenie’s sake as well, for surely the old man knew that his wife was still alive. Things, of course, would never be the same between them. It was one thing for Glassman to forgive him, another thing for his wife, and there was no way the indefatigable Teenie would take Abe Fishbein back. Of this Glassman was certain. But she at least deserved an explanation. An apology. Perhaps their last encounter at the Everglades was too much for Shuman. Perhaps he had simply snapped. Snapped again. Glassman forced himself to consider that he might never again see the old man. What would he do, in this case, with the knowledge he now possessed. Should he tell his mother? His grandmother? Rebecca? Yes, Rebecca. He would tell his wife, the one both closest to him and the furthest removed from his grandfather, the one least likely to be 226 227 injured by his revelation. Rebecca would know what they should do. He would tell her over dinner at Pumperdore’s. They reached the stripmall where Pumperdore’s was located. Rebecca parked between a blue minivan that read Leon’s Pet Massage in large, red script, and an ambulance. Glassman read the word printed on the ambulance’s sloping hood, ecnalubma. Like most of the drivers in south Florida, he was slowly becoming inured to the privately owned fleets of ambulances that sped all over the streets, sirens blaring, at all hours of the day and night. Pumperdore’s was something of a Ropa Gatos landmark. Its claim to fame was that diners ordered all of their food at a bar area, brought it to one of the formica tables, consumed said food, and when they were finished, simply told one of the four cashiers what they ate, paid, and were on their way. The honor system. Pumperdore ’s, no doubt, was rooked by plenty of people, but managed to make it up, and then some, by the sheer novelty of the system, which attracted quite a following, and their copious corned beef sandwiches, stacked to an obscene height, for which they were also famous. As they entered the restaurant, Glassman could tell immediately that something was wrong. There was a throng of people near the door, but they weren’t in any sort of line waiting to be seated; nor were they paying for their meals at one of the cashiers. Rather, they were all massed together in a clump looking in toward the dining room, which seemed eerily empty. Or, rather, as Glassman stood on the tips of his toes to see what it was exactly that they were looking at, there was a figure prostrate in the center of the dining room, and another crowd of onlookers spread out against the rear wall of the restaurant. Two other figures in light uniforms and latex gloves (paramedics from the ambulance, Glassman surmised) attended to the victim, a man. One paramedic, crouching behind his patient in a catcher’s stance, had the man’s head propped up and was applying pressure with a white cloth to a spot toward the back of the cranium . The other paramedic was kneeling beside his patient, gingerly holding a wrist to test its pulse. The paramedic with the white cloth was helping the stricken man to sit up. “I saw the whole thing,” he heard an older woman tell someone next to her. “He just fell backwards in his chair and hit his head against the corner of a table. Wham! What a sight.” She shuddered as if from a sudden chill. “Let’s just go somewhere else,” he heard Rebecca plead from somewhere behind him. “The paramedics are here. There’s nothing we can do.” “Just wait a sec’ honey, okay?” Glassman struggled to gain a better vantage point. Nearly the tallest person in the...