POPEYE AND POPS WATCH THE
EVENING WORLD REPORT

by

Eliot Fintushel

 

opeye and Pops kept a dead raccoon in a busted fridge outside the tin hut they called home.  When I asked where the bathroom was, Pops said, "You wanna take a bath?"  He laughed beer smell right in my face.  Popeye was kinder.  He explained that I must mean the toilet, and he showed me outside to the ditch by the windbreak.

They called them "staygrants" in Orleans County, migrants who had come up from the South in buses and car pools to harvest the apples, peaches, plums and pears, and then stayed on through the winter, working at the cannery or doing odd jobs.  They settled in, somehow.  They got hired for pruning in the Spring.  They drank.  People began to take their presence for granted in Holley, in Albion and even in Brockport, and the staygrants were careful to stay  predictable.  Popeye and Pops were like court jesters, for example.  People in town thought they were crazy and harmless, and so they let them be.  They let them work and drink and jabber about their magic poojum.

Myself, I never thought they were crazy or harmless.  From the beginning, I believed that Popeye and Pops knew something that I desperately needed to find out.  One day when my girlfriend was at a dance class, I invited Pops into my rented farmhouse on North Main Street Road.  He was timid at first, but once inside, he acted like he owned the place, and me.

"Why you let someone plant those flowers around you?" he said, taking another pull of his Budweiser.  "Don't you know they making a grave for you?"  It gave me a shiver.  I always felt a little funny about those tulips.  "Sure," said Pops.  "You can't let a body plant flowers around you.  Hey, some folks put flowers around me, my man, and I still here a thousand million year later."  Pops said crazy things.  He liked my house, he said.  He could see how it might come in handy one day.  He wanted to know whether I had a TV, not for now but for later, he said.  Then we sat outside on the front porch to have some coffee.

A hundred yards away down Main Street Road, my middle class neighbor was talking to a friend.  Pops cocked his ear and started talking to them the way a baby talks to angels, bobbing his head and staring into space.  "Yes, yes," he said, "Those pool chemicals got to be changed!  That's right!  Keep that water clean, clean!  You better, hear?  That's right!  What for lunch, honey?  Honey that lunch up, Mister!  You gonna have flowers round you just like my man here.  Mm-hmm!"

He was just like a voodoo man.  Near and far meant nothing to Pops -- that's how I saw it.  The night after I met them, I dreamed of Popeye and Pops in that tin hut that Leland Bower let them use while they worked his orchards.  I dreamed that Pops lay awake nights like a huge satellite dish, picking up gossip from seven counties and sending more gossip back, while Popeye guarded the door and chanted magic words to keep me and the townies away.

One night I was lost in the snow with Corinne in the wide marshy field that separated our place from Leland Bower's house.  Our electricity had gone out and we were sure it must be a blown fuse, but we didn't know where to look for it, and we didn't have a phone.  Leland would know what to do, and he liked to talk to college students like me.  But in half an hour Corinne and I managed to get ourselves lost, soaked to the bone and howling mad at each other for not remembering the way.

That's when we bumped into Popeye and Pops.  I thought I heard a voice coming from the windbreak -- "They here!" -- and then we saw them.  They were doing something awful in the middle of the frozen stream.  Pops was holding something dead.  Popeye had his face in it.  They were doing something that people used to do long ago, before we forgot how or got taught not to.  Corinne pretended not to see; in fact, I never got her to admit that she'd seen anything out of the ordinary that whole night.

Pops looked up at me and grinned.  He knew that I recognized something.  "This could be for you," he said.

"Don't mystify him," Popeye told his friend.  "Don't mystify that boy."  He was cleaning the thing's blood off his face with a handful of snow and wiping it on his sleeve.  Pops shoved the dead thing under his torn cloth coat.  "I'll fix your electricity," Popeye told me.

"How did you know it needed fixing?" Corinne asked him.

There was a still moment.  I could hear branches scraping and creaking in the chill wind.  I could hear the moon rising.  Then Popeye said, "Look!  Your lights is all out."  Pops started laughing so hard, he had to slap a hand over his mouth and nose to hold the laughter in.

"You follow me," Popeye said.  "You don't need no Leland Bower.  I'll fix you."  He started walking, and we followed behind.

"What makes you think we were headed for Bower's?" Corinne asked.

"I just guessed, Miss," Popeye said uneasily.

There was another peal of wild laughter at our backs.  Pops was rolling in the snow, snorting and howling.

"Is he drunk?" Corinne asked me.

"Don't worry about Pops," I said.  "He's just like that."

"That's the truth," Pops said, suddenly very solemn, "Pops is just like that, Miss."  Then he laughed again.

"I think we should still go to Mr. Bower's," Corinne said.  "These guys are nuts."

"Shush," I said.  "Pops hears everything."

"I don't give a damn what Pops hears.  I'm telling you I want to go to Mr. Bower.  What does Popeye know about electricity?"

I shrugged.  I said, "I think he knows something."

"You're not going to Bower's with me, then?"  She was fuming.  She looked at me with disgust.  She knew she couldn't find her way across the field alone.  Corinne stomped away toward Popeye, who hadn't noticed that we'd dropped behind, and after that she made a point of keeping twenty yards between us.

Pops tagged behind, poking me and giggling every now and then.  "We gonna fix your lights," he said.

It was slow going.  The ground was not completely frozen yet; we kept sliding down into trenches of mud, and scrambling up, wet and shivering, into another snowdrift.  When we reached the road, Pops grabbed my coat and held me at the edge of the field while Popeye and Corinne crossed over to our dark house.

"Let me go.  I'm freezing," I said.  He held me.  Pops looked almost sad as he reached into his coat and took out the dead thing to show me.

"We not from here," Pops said.  His face was troubled.  He wanted something from me, but I couldn't understand what it was.  "Looky," he said.  He let go of me so he could cradle the thing in both hands.  He lifted it tenderly right up to my face.  It smelled a little like ether, a smell that seemed to slice through my nostrils and the side of my head and speak directly to my nerves and brain.  It was a smell deep in memory, cellular memory, electrical memory, before the womb, before the egg, before the chromosome.

I don't know what the thing looked like.  I was overwhelmed by that odor.  I just kept staring in amazement right into Pops's bloodshot eyes.  Pops stared back and nodded.  I wanted to bury my face in that thing.

Then Corinne called out.  Pops pushed the dead thing back in his coat and laughed hard.  "Let's git."  The lights had gone on.  I crossed the road with Pops, and we entered the cold house.  Popeye was splitting wood with the hatchet I kept by the wood stove.  He had already gotten a small fire going.  Corinne had started some water boiling on the hotplate for coffee.

"Let me take a hot shower here," Pops said.

Corinne looked at him like it was the craziest thing she had ever heard a human being say.  I said, "We don't have a shower, Pops."

"You got a wash tub and a pail?"

"I'm going to bed."  Corinne turned away.  "You men do whatever the hell you want to do.  Thanks for fixing the fuse.  Don't let the water boil over, OK?"

"Don't go to bed, Miss," Popeye said.

"What?"

Pops said, "The man said, don't you go to bed, Miss."

"She's tired," I said.  "I'll make the coffee."

"She's not tired," Pops said.

"Don't put words in her mouth," Popeye told Pops.  Then to Corinne: "Are you tired, Miss?"

"No," she said, "as a matter of fact I'm not.  I just don't want to be in here with you because I think your friend is out of his mind, and my boyfriend isn't man enough to kick him the hell out of here.  You've been very nice, Popeye, but I'll be grateful if you finish rubbing your sticks together and go home."  Corinne stormed into the bedroom and shut the door.

"This is bad," Popeye said.  "She can't go to sleep."

"Don't fret about it," said Pops.  "No way she gonna sleep now."

"What are you guys talking about?" I said.

"Did you show him?" Popeye asked Pops.

"Just started," said Pops.  "Where's the tub?"

"In the little room off the kitchen," I said, "but why do you need Corinne?"

"We don't need her," Popeye explained.  "We just need that she don't sleep."

Pops was dragging the tub in close to the woodstove.  "I needs a bucket and hot water."

I started drawing hot water for him from the kitchen sink.  The pipes had frozen and burst a few days earlier but were working well enough now.

"I'm glad you like Corinne's company," I said. "So do I."

"We don't like no Corinne's company," Pops scowled.  "Ask him if he still gots the TV," he said to Popeye.

Popeye said, "Pops wants to know do you got a TV?"

"Sure."  I went into the bedroom, where Corinne was curled up under four blankets.  "I'm taking the television in to Pops," I whispered.

"Close the door, Alex."  I turned around and closed the door.  It was dark in the bedroom.  "Come here."  I sat down on the bed and leaned close.  "Alex, I want you to get rid of them.  I want you to get rid of them now."

"He's taking a shower.  You know they haven't got anything over there in that shack."

"We haven't got anything over here in this shack.  Get rid of them, Alex."

"I'm taking the TV."  I unplugged it and carried it out of the room.  When I closed the door again, I heard something thud against it from the other side.  Probably her pillow.  We had lately begun to break things and to throw things at each other when we were angry, which was often.

Pops was standing naked in the tub.  His clothes, except for the coat, were piled up on the floor next to the tub.  He would not let go of the coat; something precious was rolled up in it.  The bucket was flowing over into the steel sink.  I put down the TV and shut off the water, then carried the bucket over to Pops.

Pops was a big man, barrel-chested and muscular, though he sagged around the middle.  Popeye, on the other hand, was skeletal.

"Here," I said, offering Pops the bucket.

"No," said Pops.  "You give the bucket to Popeye to pour on me.  You go plug in the TV.  We wanna see the Evening World Report."

I set up the TV so Pops could see it as he showered.  From inside the bedroom, Corinne shouted, "Is that man naked in the living room?"  No one paid her any attention.  Synthesized strains of Beethoven's Fifth, the theme music for the Evening World Report, were just beginning.  The anchor man, a substitute, someone I didn't recognize, was shuffling papers at his desk.

"Hold the water ready," Pops told Popeye.  To me, he said, "we come from far away, you hear me, boy?  Far, far away!  That's the truth."

"That's the truth," Popeye echoed.  "All Pops says is gospel true."

Something heavy slammed against the door.  "Are they gone yet?" Corinne shouted.

"All Pops says is gospel true," said Popeye.  "It's true in this place.  It was true in the other.  If we stuck here another million million years, it be true.  If we be back home this night, it still be true."

"Tune that in better," Pops told me.  I fiddled with the rabbit ears till the ghosts went away.  Behind the anchor, numbers flashed with percent signs and dollar signs.  There was a pie graph, followed by a bar graph and then pictures of long lines of grey people bundled up against the cold.

Pops started to unwrap the thing in his coat.  "Pour a little," he told Popeye.  "Ouch!  That's hot, hot, hot!"

"Is it too hot?" I said.

"Quiet now," Pops warned me.

I looked at Pops's head, and I couldn't stop looking.  The flesh had melted away where the hot water had hit him.  Pops's scalp was gone.  The skin was folded down over his forehead and ears, hanging over the nape of his neck like damp rubber from a burst balloon.  Nor was there a cranium to speak of.  The bone had scattered like ash, powdering what was left of Pops's face with a fine white dust.

Something else hit the door.  Corinne shouted, "I hate you, Alex!"

Popeye asked, "Can we lock that door?"

"Not from this side," I said.

"Never mind that," Pops commanded. "Turn up the juice on the Evening World Report, you.  And you, Popeye, pour me some more hot."

I made it louder.  "But it's just a commercial," I said.

"It's just a commercial!" Pops laughed as hot water erased his eyeballs, nose, ears, and the upper part of his jaw, burning streaks down to his ankles as if it were nitric acid.  His brain slipped down like liver into a grinder, settling into his mouth and then his throat.  Pops continued to stand erect.  Pops continued to speak, although there seemed no place left for a voice to come from.  "Just a commercial!" he howled.

Popeye said, "We don't know no commercial from no nothin' else.  You see sun and you see sex, but it all just hot to Pops.  If you please, now pinch the poojum before it fall away."  He pointed to the thing cradled in Pops's melting hands.  I pinched the end of it between the thumb and forefinger of my right hand.  There was that smell again, acrid and cutting, reminding me of things no human being has a right to remember.

"Damn you, are you burning something in there?" Corinne shouted.  We could hear her start to get up out of the bed.

"More hot!" cried Pops.  And to me: "You, pull, man!  Pull it to the tube, man!  Give it to the big bow tie."

"To the what?" I said.

"Quick now!" Popeye said, pouring.  "Are you deaf?  To the big bow tie!  Give it to the big bow tie!"

I was still pinching the thing.  I had stretched it away like bubble gum.  The scent made my head spin.  "What are you talking about?" I said.  "I see the bow tie, but how am I supposed to . . ."

"Give, man!  Give it!" Pops sang out.  There was little left of him besides a vertebral column balanced on the coccix, dripping slime, which smoked and ran in rivulets into the old wash tub.  I could not see which part of it held his end of the poojum, but he held it still.  "This my moment, man!  Give it quick, before the sports news!"

"If it go to the sports news, we gots to wait another thousand million years," old Popeye said.

The door pushed open.  Corinne came out in her bathrobe, brandishing an iron lampstand.

"Do it now!" Pops commanded.

I pressed the gummy end of poojum onto the TV screen where the image of the anchor man's bow tie floated.

"Pour!" screamed Pops.  Popeye poured.  The house filled with steam, carrying that strange, ancient smell into every room, into every crevice.  The string of poojum connecting the TV screen with the sliver of Pops sizzled and vibrated in widening arcs.  The TV man droned on.  Corinne was gasping, falling toward the vibrating string.  Popeye leapt toward her, deflecting her from it, so that she fell backwards into the bedroom.  The lampstand clattered to the floor.

"She out!" shrieked Pops.  There was no more of him now than a peak of whipped cream, with the poojum on top, gradually sinking in, just as Pops's brain had sunk down through his old body before.

"She out cold!" said Popeye.  There was fear in his voice.  "She out, Pops!  How'm I gonna leave this place?  How'm I gonna go with my Majesty now?"

"The sports news isn't on yet," I said.  It was as if it were an evening in someone else's life, a dream on the operating table, vivid but remote.

"He right," Pops declared.  "Slap that Corinne.  Wake that Corinne.  She your ticket to ride, Popeye."

"Corinne!" I shouted, trying to be helpful.  "Get up, honey!  Get up!   Wake up!"

"She out cold," Popeye whimpered.  "Goodbye, Pops!  Goodbye, my lord!"

"That's it, Popeye, my dear!  You a loyal servant.  Take the poojum.  I gonna scoop you back to me, Popeye.  Hold the poojum and wait."

On the TV, a woman in a blue blazer was reading football scores.  The string of poojum hummed, then snapped.  The steam, the smell, and the dark, viscous remains of Pops all whirled, roaring, into the insignia on the sportscaster's blazer.

"Goodbye, lord!" moaned Popeye, staring at the TV.

Then there was only the wind rattling the window panes and the dit-dit-dit-dah of the closing music for the Evening World Report.  Popeye was scuttling around, picking up Pops's clothes and putting things away.  He had already secreted the poojum somewhere on his person.

The top of the woodstove was glowing red.  I grabbed Corinne's coffeepot off the hotplate.  All the water in it had boiled away, and the metal was burning and stinking.  I opened the door and laid the pot down in the snow.  It sizzled.  I left it there and went back into the house.

I felt drugged.  Popeye stood before me as if he were waiting for permission to leave.  "She gonna be all right," he said.  "Just a bump on the head."  His face was streaked with tears.

The TV was babbling behind us.  "How did you get stuck here in the first place?" I said.  "Who was it that planted flowers around Pops?"

"You don't wanna hear about them, son.  They big.  They old.  They got more names than your earth and moon.  We don't wanna talk about pyramids now, and big lizards and volcanos and holes in the sky."

"Is Pops back home now?"

"He got through."

"What happens to you?"

"I'll get by."

"What did you need from Corinne?"

"Her anger, son, just her powerful anger.  I don't think you would understand."

"You probably don't want me to talk about any of this."

"It don't matter.  Everybody knows I gots my poojum."

We caught each other's eye.  Popeye laughed, and I tried to.

"I best be going now," he said.

I let him out the door and watched him disappear into the snowy field.

Corinne was moaning and pulling herself to her feet.  "What happened?" she said.

"You fell," I said.  "Are you OK?"

"I think so.  My head hurts.  Where did everybody go?"

"Pops went home after the Evening World Report.  Popeye just left."

"Did Pops take his shower?"

"Yes."

"Alex, please don't let those men in here again."

"OK, Corinne," I said.

Corinne shook her head and lumbered back into our small, dark bedroom.  "Come on," she said.

"Corinne . . . "

"Yes, Alex?"

I looked at Corinne, sleepyhead, in her long, cotton nighty, wisps of brown hair half-covering her face, sweetly drowsy.  There were no big lizards or volcanos in those eyes.  She only wanted me, and a good night's sleep.

"It's a big world, Corinne," I sighed.

"I know it," she said.  She came back out of the bedroom and kissed me.  "You look lost, Alex."

"Your coffeepot's a goner, Corinne.  I burned it."

"Don't worry,"--leaning her forehead against my cheek.

"Do you think our bulbs will make it through the winter?"

"Always have," she yawned.

Tired as I was, I lifted Corinne into my arms--she smiled--and I carried her to bed.