26
26 I was standing next to one of the coolers at Furlow's, trying to decide what kind of ice-cream bar to buy,when I looked up and saw a man standing at the counter, holding out a paper bag. I couldn't see his face, but his head was mostly bald, and the little hair he had left was stubble. He was a big man—maybe six-six, probably two-fifty. He wore aT-shirt with the arms cut out, brown pants that did not reach his ankles, and heavywork shoes. The girl behind the counter shouted, "How many you got in here?" She took the bag and dumped out the contents and counted. "Twenty, it looks like. So that's ten dollars, right?Ten dollars?" The man didn't answer,just stood there. The girl opened the cash register and handed him a bill. He gave two sharp nods of his head, then turned abruptly and walked straight down the aisle toward me. I took a step back, and the girl said, "Don't worry, he won't hurt you." I stared down into the cooler, and the man came and stood right beside me, slid open the coolerstop, reached in and pulled out a single ice-cream bar, the same kind I'd decided on. He made a soft noise, barely audible, with every breath he let go, almost an ohsound, but not quite, likethe beginning of agroan cut short. 96 26 I was standing next to one of the coolers at Furlow's, trying to decide what kind ofice-cream bar to buy, when I looked up and saw a man standing at the counter, holding out a paper bag. I couldn't see his face, but his head was mostly bald, and the little hair he had left was stubble. He was a big man- maybe six-six, probably two-fifty. He wore a T-shirt with the arms cut out, brown pants that did not reach his ankles, and heavy work shoes. The girl behind the counter shouted, "How many you got in here?" She took the bag and dumped out the contents and counted. "Twenty, it looks like. So that's ten dollars, right? Ten dollars?" The man didn't answer, just stood there. The girl opened the cash register and handed him a bill. He gave two sharp nods of his head, then turned abruptly and walked straight down the aisle toward me. I took a step back, and the girl said, "Don't worry, he won't hurt you." I stared down into the cooler, and the man came and stood right beside me, slid open the cooler's top, reached in and pulled out a single ice-cream bar, the same kind I'd decided on. He made a soft noise, barely audible, with every breath he let go, almost an ohsound, but not quite, like the beginning ofa groan cut short. Parts of his face looked rubbery and slick. There was an oblong sunken spot, like the imprint of a tablespoon, a few inches above where his left ear should have been, where now there was a hole much larger than an ear canal, a grape-sized knot of melted skinjust behind it. A raised purple scar ran from his left eyebrow backwards to the sunken spot. The right side of his mouth opened in a sneer, and the lips on the left side of his mouth seemed fused together. His right eyelooked normal, but the left was a puckered socket. I sawall this when he turned and looked directly at me and paused before walking back to the counter. He paid for the ice cream, and the girl shouted the amount of his change at him and told him to come back. The man did not react to anything she said. I watched him walk off in the opposite direction from the motel. The girl picked up one of the carved figures she'd dumped out of the bag. "More dang fish. Every one of them. That's the way it's getting to be, all the time. Why don't he do more little dogs and stuff?" I put my ice-cream bar on the counter and handed her a dollar. She said, "Sort of scared you, didn't he?" I nodded. "It happens to everybody the first time they seehim. But he won't hurt you. He's real nice, just retarded. Don't you...
OR
