I Am the Cheese (6 page)

Amy. Amy Hertz. Who loved mischief and was always on the prowl for mischief. Amy said that everybody
took life too seriously. When he first met her, she said, “Know what’s the matter with you, Ace? You don’t laugh enough. You have this long look on your face. But there’s hope, Ace, there’s hope. I see the possibility of laughter in your baby blues.”

She talked like that. Wise-guy talk but she had her serious moments. She could isolate herself with books for hours at a time. That’s how they met: the books. She was going into the Monument Public Library and he was coming out and they collided at the door. The books they held in their arms spilled all over the place.

As they bent to retrieve them, Amy said, “Know what this reminds me of? This reminds me of those old Hollywood comedies you see on TV where the hero and the heroine meet ridiculously. I mean, you can picture the writers sitting around the studio saying, ‘Well, how do they meet this time?’ And somebody says, ‘I’ve got it. How about she’s going
into
the library with all these books and he’s coming
out
with all these books …’ ”

They were on their knees at the library’s entrance with people coming and going, stepping around them, and she was talking a mile a minute and he was wondering, Who is this crazy girl, anyway? By the time they had gathered their books—“Don’t mix up yours with mine,” she said, “it’ll cost you a mint because mine are all a month overdue at least”—anyway, by the time they stood facing each other, out of breath somehow, he was madly in love with her. She told him that her name was Amy Hertz (“No car-rental jokes, please”). She was short and robust and freckled, and
one of her front teeth was crooked, but her eyes were beautiful, blue, like the blue of his mother’s best china. She also had wonderful breasts—she told him later that her breasts were an embarrassment to her, too large (“Try lugging these things all over town every day”), but he was in love with her even before he noticed them. He also loved her because she didn’t laugh when he told her that someday he was going to be a famous writer like Thomas Wolfe. And he loved her even more when she didn’t ask who Thomas Wolfe was. Or didn’t confuse him with the hip writer Tom Wolfe. Later, of course, she confessed that she hadn’t the slightest idea who Thomas Wolfe was.

“You look like a great candidate for the Number,” Amy said that first day, appraising him through squinted eyes. She was farsighted but hated wearing glasses. “Shy maybe, but I think you’re the type who doesn’t lose his cool. And cool is needed for the Number.”

“What’s the Number?” he asked, bewildered and delighted at the same time, having never met anyone like Amy Hertz before.

“You’ll find out, Ace. Tomorrow—after school. Meet me at the front door. If you’re available, that is.”

He literally spun out of the library, books clutched in his arms, taking a moment to watch through the window as Amy Hertz proceeded to the circulation desk to return her books. He felt exuberant, wanting to burst into song, his usual shyness gone. He wanted to speak to complete strangers and tell them what a marvelous day this was, how beautiful the sunshine
was as it poured forth on Main Street, dazzling in its brightness, turning the world golden.

The next day he was waiting for her when she emerged from the school. “Glad to see you, Ace,” she said, and he was swept along in her wake as she prattled on about school and classes and a terrible test in algebra that she was certain she had failed.

She stopped abruptly and turned toward him. “You’re a shy one, aren’t you? And you don’t say much. Or is it because I haven’t given you a chance?” Her eyes were blue flowers.

“I’m shy,” he said, marveling how he really didn’t feel shy in her presence. Ordinarily, he shunned strangers. His marks often suffered in school because, although he did well in written tests and compositions, he was terrible in oral recitations, speeches, anything that required the spotlight of attention to be focused on him.

“How come I’ve never seen you around?” she asked as they walked along.

He shrugged. “I don’t know.” But he did know, of course. He was seldom “around.” He usually went straight home after school. His mother was home, waiting for him, withdrawn in her room, upset if he arrived a few minutes late, tense and nervous if she didn’t always know his whereabouts. He sometimes wondered what had happened to transform his mother from the laughing, tender woman to whom the scent of lilac clung into the pale and subdued and antiseptic woman who seldom left the house, who lurked behind window curtains. Adam could feel her eyes following
him when he left the house. But he didn’t want to tell Amy Hertz about his mother; he’d feel like a traitor to her. Anyway, his terrible shyness, his inability to feel at ease with people, had nothing to do with his mother. He felt it was his basic character; he preferred reading a book or listening to old jazz records in his bedroom than going to dances or hanging around downtown with the other kids. Even in the fourth or fifth grade, he had stayed on the outskirts of the schoolyard watching the other kids playing the games—Kick the Can was a big thing in the fourth grade—anyway, he had never felt left out: it was his choice. To be a witness, to observe, to let the events be recorded within himself on some personal film in some secret compartment no one knew about, except him. It was only later, in the eighth grade, when he knew irrevocably that he wanted to be a writer, that he realized he had stored up all his observations, all his emotions, for that purpose. How could he possibly tell Amy Hertz all this without sounding like some kind of a nut? Yet, the funny thing, the strange thing, was that he wanted to tell her.

They arrived at Amy’s house and he waited while she changed into jeans. Amy’s mother, a tall thin woman, acknowledged her introduction to Adam without really looking at him—she was on the telephone making arrangements for a committee meeting of some sort—and then she dashed out of the house on the way to another committee meeting. Adam wondered whether he should call his mother. He had told her he’d be late today, detained at a meeting of the
Literary Club, but he was a terrible liar and guilt assailed him now. He wondered whether he had made a mistake, meeting Amy Hertz after school like this. What did a girl like her want with someone like him? She was lightning, he was cloud. Gray cloud. He sensed a poem lurking in the words and wanted to scribble them down.

“I’ll be right out,” Amy called, distracting him. He decided not to call his mother. Amy was in the bathroom and Adam wandered in that direction, summoned by her voice. He could hear all the noises she made in there and he tried not to listen, his cheeks warm. He heard the noise of a toilet flushing and the water faucet running. Amy stepped out and saw the blood staining his cheeks. Amused, she said, “Look, Ace, don’t let a few farts bother you. It’s all part of nature and being alive.” Later she told him that she had chosen the words deliberately. “A bit of shock therapy,” she explained.

They made their way to the A&P and the Number. The basic idea of the Number was simple: to fill a shopping cart with as many items as possible and then abandon it somewhere in the store and leave the store without being detected. Amy, however, had gone far beyond this basic premise. She had concocted all kinds of variations. First of all, the conditions were different at various times of the week. For instance, a Tuesday afternoon was a serious challenge because there were few shoppers around and it was easy for store personnel to spot any suspicious actions. Thursday nights and Saturdays were
busy times, but Amy also increased the risks. She’d insist that only canned goods could be loaded into the cart, or another time, only jars, and she’d rule out gallon jugs. Once she loaded an entire shopping cart with baby food; it must have contained five hundred jars. She abandoned it in front of the Kotex display.

God, but Amy Hertz was beautiful to watch when she was doing a Number. The process had to be carried out seriously, with no hint of mischief. Sometimes she’d carry a shopping list, a
real
list that they’d jot down at her house after school. She’d consult the list frequently as they shopped, frowning over brand names, muttering about prices. One time, she and Adam took along a little kid, a neighbor of hers, to give the Number a family countenance. Amy said the important thing was to act natural, as if they belonged there, and always to act a little angry, a little impatient, because that always intimidated people. Sometimes she even asked a clerk for assistance. “Hey, where are the sardines, anyway?” she’d demand, annoyed at the store for hiding the sardines somewhere. That Amy.

Amy was at her best on those busy Thursday nights. She would attempt to fill as many shopping carts as possible. “Listen,” she told Adam, “with your help we can break all existing records.” They proceeded to do just that. They established the record one Thursday night during a big anniversary sale. Working individually, they filled twelve carts—eight for Amy and four for Adam. The carts were piled dangerously high, and Amy topped each of them with a
bunch of celery, like some grotesque centerpiece. They had abandoned the carts all over the store and were delighted when a clerk went by, glanced at a cart, looked puzzled, and then continued on his way. But Amy wasn’t content to end it all so casually. She insisted that all the carts be brought together in the last aisle, where the fruits and vegetables were displayed. They lined them up like soldiers at attention. “Don’t rush, act nonchalant,” Amy cautioned. She pronounced
nonchalant
the French way, without sounding the
t
.

Later they sat on the fender of a parked car in front of the store. From their vantage point, they could see the row of shopping carts. Every now and then, a shopper would notice the carts and stare curiously for a while, as if looking for a sign to explain their presence. One woman lifted a bunch of celery from one cart and placed it in hers. After a while, there was a flurry of activity from the clerks. Two of them had discovered the carts and stood there, hands on their hips, puzzled. Within a few minutes, five or six other clerks were looking at the carts, puzzled, mystified, scratching their heads, looking around suspiciously. The manager finally arrived, a small bald harassed-looking man. He exploded with fury. He waved his arms. He jumped up and down like a figure in a cartoon. The sheepish clerks began to move the carts away. All of it delighted Amy—her laughter was marvelous to hear.

“We did it, Ace,” she said. “We did it.”

That night, when he took her home, he kissed her for the first time. She was the first girl he had ever
kissed and he swelled with a love and desire that caused his body to tremble.

Amy’s voice was vibrant on the telephone.

“Are you busy, Ace?”

“No, what’s going on?” A call from Amy was always exciting. Sometimes she had an idea for a new Number. Like going to the Holiday Inn early in the morning and ghosting through the corridors removing the
Do Not Disturb
signs from the doorknobs or turning them to the side that said, in three different languages,
Please Make Up Our Room Early
. Sometimes she only wanted to talk. She’d tell him the entire plot of a movie she’d just seen on television. Other times, she’d say, “Talk to me. Read me poetry.” His voice quivering, he would read her a poem he had written, pretending it was the work of an obscure poet: “My love for you is like a searching wind …”

But this call was different. “Look, Ace,” she said, “I’m at the newspaper. I dropped in to see my father
and he has a visitor. An editor from Rawlings, Pennsylvania, who was passing through and decided to drop in for a visit. Isn’t Rawlings where you’re from?”

Once again, Adam was swept with a series of vivid impressions, the bus ride at night, the sense of hurry.

Amy went on. “Listen, this guy says he’s lived in Rawlings all his life and he can’t remember any Farmers there. Not
farmer
farmers, but your kind of Farmer. He says he’s always known everybody in town. Didn’t you say your father sold insurance in Rawlings?”

“I don’t know,” Adam said. “Why is it important?”

“Well, it’s not important, really. This man’s just visiting and when my father told him your family was also from Rawlings he thought he’d drop in and see your folks. Kind of like a reunion. Then he couldn’t remember any Farmers ever being in Rawlings, not in the insurance business, and I figured I’d call to check. I thought you’d be curious about your old hometown.”

“I am curious,” Adam said. But he was more puzzled than curious. He tried to sound cool—he didn’t want Amy to hear the puzzlement in his voice.

“Well, how about your mother? What was her maiden name? Maybe he remembers your mother.” Amy giggled. “Some men are like that.”

“My mother’s name was Holden. Louise Holden.”

“Hold on. I’ll see if it strikes sparks.”

He heard muffled conversation as Amy apparently reported her findings to the visiting editor.

“Nope,” Amy said, returning to the phone. “That doesn’t ring a bell, either. Hey, how long did you live there, anyway? Didn’t you say you were born there?”

Adam was about to say: “I
was
born there. And my parents were, too.” But something made him remain silent. The memory of flight …

“You still there, Ace?”

“Look, Amy, I said we came to Monument from Rawlings—but I didn’t say I was born there. You must have misunderstood. We lived there, oh, only a few months, I guess. And my father wasn’t working during that time. He’d had an accident, hurt his leg. We came to Monument when we heard that there was an insurance agency for sale.”