Stained
Warren Dunsmore nibbled at his pastrami on rye while everyone around him babbled, yammered and cavorted as if everything they had to say was either amusing or of some importance. He had mustard on his fingers and under his nails, but he didn’t dare suck on them or, heaven forbid, try to lick off the pesky condiment. The flimsy paper napkin that came with his sandwich proved useless. His fingers, unsightly, yet not exactly disgusting, merely a nuisance, would have to wait until he returned to his desk at work. The can of Diet Mountain Dew, clutched tightly in his left hand like a grenade in the grip of a corporal in a foxhole, made his wrist cramp, but at least he wasn’t about to spill the doggone drink, as he had a few months back, an embarrassment that, to this day, continued to vex him. He had no idea how it could’ve happened. It just did. Just like he couldn’t explain how he got mustard on his hands. Most people thought of him as finicky. It had taken more than a month for Warren, a proud man if ever there was one, to gather up the gumption to return to his favorite lunch spot after the unfortunate mishap with the spilled soda. He suspected that today all eyes were on him in anticipation of yet another flub. He wasn’t about to give the jerks the satisfaction.
His mother had advised him at the time of the Mountain Dew fiasco, “There are far greater concerns in this world than a spilled soda. It was sugar free, wasn’t it? What’s the big deal? It wasn’t sticky. These things happen. People get paid a pretty penny to clean up after other people. That’s what they do. There’s a pecking order in this world, and you should be at the front of it. Besides, I don’t see why you insist on eating in that greasy old deli in the first place. You could take a sandwich from home and save yourself a heap of money.”
Still, it wasn’t that easy to put the miscue behind him. And now there was the matter of stained fingers.
Warren hunched over his sandwich like a vulture over roadkill, glimpsed from table to table then guardedly took another bite. If nothing else he had excellent table manners, drilled into him by his mother and the teachers at the school he had attended for twelve years. The long narrow room was packed. A bunch of blabbermouths, thought the shipping and receiving clerk at Miller’s Hardware and Supply. That’s all they are. They think they’re so cool. I’m better off eating alone. This way I don’t have anyone to disturb my lunch with a lot of foolish claptrap. I need to concern myself with more important things than who’s sleeping with who or what brand of beer is best or what club or bar I’d prefer to waste no telling how many hours capering in like some wild-eyed deviant. Fools. Doofuses. Imbeciles. Sol, if there is a such a person, should put up a sign reminding these nincompoops that this is a lunchtime eatery, not some gathering spot for hedonistic nitwits. The sign out front says “Sol’s Deli,” not “Sol’s Pickup Bar.”
The other patrons, trendily-decked-out gadabouts who worked in the downtown offices of lawyers, accountants, insurance agents and other hotshots, certainly not any clerks who worked in hardware warehouses, other than Warren, seemed to know each other—a little too well to suit the twenty-seven-year old. They all seemed a little too sure of themselves, more than a little too smug.
Big deal, he thought. I could know a bunch of people if I wanted to be as superficial as these yahoos. I grew up right here in Clayton just like they did. Shucks, I went to grade school, middle school and high school…at Grace Christian Academy, no less. I’m a member of the Church of the Redeemer. I have friends, at church, in the choir, in Sunday school, in our weekly prayer group, mostly my mother’s friends, true, but friends nonetheless, decent folks that I see every Sunday, and, shoot, Mother and I get out for dinner at Golden Corral every Wednesday, then to church for the prayer meeting. Not to mention choir rehearsals on Thursdays. We’re far from hermits. We socialize. And the people we know are good people, god-fearing, good-hearted folks, not a bunch of losers like these simpletons. If I’d gone to Clayton High I might know more people, but my mother was wise. She wanted me to get a proper Christian education, even if it nearly broke her, what with my good-for-nothing father off to God knows where doing God knows what and Mother’s job at the Hy-Vee barely keeping the wolves away from our door. And a proper Christian training I got, unlike these halfwits who seem to care about one thing and one thing only, meeting other hormonally-obsessed cretins in the hopes of having some kind of fling. Thank goodness—and thanks to my mother and Reverend Hobson—I don’t have to stoop to their level.
Warren sighed, wrapped what was left of his sandwich in the paper bag the smart-aleck kid behind the counter packaged it in, leaned back in his wobbly chair then rubbed his eyes. When I spilled my drink, it was that same bratty kid who had such a fit when he had to come out from behind the counter and fetch the bucket and mop. Like it was some great calamity. I could see it on his kisser as he handed me my sandwich today. He thinks I’m some kind of klutz. Anyone could spill his drink, darn it. Even some minimum-wage bonehead like him.
With all of the commotion around him it was hard for Warren to keep his wits about him. He couldn’t get his mother off his mind, on what he would fix for their supper, something that she wouldn’t gripe about. Something that might actually please her for a change. Meatloaf perhaps? Salmon patties? Sauerkraut and sausages? She loves sauerkraut but it is hard on her nervous stomach. Poor Mother. She’s come to rely on me to do the cooking and the housework while she works so diligently on her letter-writing campaign to our good-for-nothing congressman and the new president she worked so hard to get elected as well as to the governor and the attorney general of this on-again, off-again state when it comes to matters of morality and decency. She doesn’t have time to dawdle in the kitchen. And I don’t mind doing the household chores. I really don’t.
When he opened his eyes Warren was startled to discover a woman looking down at him, a tall woman of his own age, a blue-jeans, halter-topped woman with far too much makeup on her narrow face and a smile that Warren was seldom on the receiving end of, other than on the withered faces of the sour-breathed seniors at the Church of the Redeemer. She stood casually beside his table, her fake Navajo-rug handbag dangled from her right arm like a rucksack on a doughboy in an old black-and-white movie. She would’ve looked almost stylish if it was nineteen-twenty instead of post-Covid two-thousand-twenty-five.
“You’re Warren, aren’t you? I forget your last name. We both went to Grace Christian Academy.” The woman crinkled her nose like a bunny, blinked then tilted her head quizzically, perhaps flirtatiously.
Warren blushed. “I’m Warren… Warren Dunsmore. I am Warren Dunsmore. What I mean is my last name is Dunsmore” He trembled slightly, a recent affliction. His mother blamed his jitters on too much Mountain Dew. He, without letting his mother know, suspected that it might be her constant nagging about his posture and his lack of conviction that made him twitch. “And, yes, I did go to Grace Academy.”
“You probably don’t remember me,” she said. “I’m Martha Houser. We graduated the same year. Two thousand sixteen, right?” She smiled. “Everyone calls me Marty now.” She chuckled. “Go Crusaders, go, right?”
“Yes, twenty-sixteen.” Warren coughed into his hands. He didn’t remember her or anyone else from high school. He’d been somewhat of a loner. The bag with the sandwich tucked safely inside for an afternoon snack slipped out of his grasp and onto the black and white checker-board linoleum floor. Warren shuddered. Clumsy fool. Stupid clumsy fool.
“Let me get that for you,” said Martha Houser… Marty. She bent like a gymnast on a balance beam then straightened up. Warren caught a glimpse of a good portion of her breasts, the upper half. From what he could see they were small, but still, the only breasts—other than his mother’s whenever she walked from the bathroom to her bedroom after her shower—that he’d ever come close to getting a peek at. No, not quite the only breasts he’d laid eyes on. There was that one time, his sophomore year at Prairie View Bible College in Grand Island, when a girl, a fellow student, obviously drunk or high on something—or both—flashed him along with three fellow dorks as they came out of chapel, but Warren had turned his head instinctively. He didn’t get much of a gander at her chest. Sometimes he wished that he hadn’t looked away. The girl, he found out the following day, was expelled. He never knew her name. He wished that he had. He should’ve looked when he had the chance. A missed opportunity.
Why do women have to make a public display of their bodies? Warren wondered. A decent woman would be a bit more discreet. Even my own mother. Does she really think I enjoy seeing her traipse from the shower to her bedroom with nothing but a towel wrapped around her? “It’s good to see you again, Martha.” He fumbled his soda can but caught it before it tumbled to the floor. Thank God, it’s empty, he thought. That’s all I need, to look like an oaf in front of a former classmate, a female classmate at that, and in front of a room full of hellions… and not to mention that fresh-mouthed clown behind the counter.
The young woman looked around the room, then said, “My friends say they saw you on the internet. Is that true? They said you chained yourself to the gates of Planned Parenthood in Lincoln.”
Warren shrugged. “I did,” he said, then winced. “I’m afraid I did do that. There was supposed to be a slew of us, but I was the only one who showed up, so I thought, ‘What the heck,’ and went through with it.” He chuckled. “I wasn’t very good at being a rabble-rouser though. It was a chain-link gate, and it still opened and closed with me hanging on to it. People just stepped over me and went about their business as if I wasn’t there. Then the police arrived and arrested me.”
“Wow,” said the young woman. “That takes dedication. And courage… I guess. I don’t do that sort of thing anymore, not since high school.” She grinned. “You’ve got guts, Warren.”
“Not really,” said Warren, “I was merely doing what I thought was the right thing to do. I’m afraid I looked a little silly.” He stopped, then glanced over at the table where moments ago Martha sat with the crew of miscreants. The eight or nine goofballs at her table stared at him as if he was the Elephant Man or Charles Manson or one of the Menendez brothers. Three men, a little older than he was, seemed to enjoy the show far too much, smirking and giggling like third-graders. “My mother’s on the board of the Nebraska Committee for Decency,” Warren said when he turned back to his former classmate. “She’s more dedicated than I am. She’s a bit of a fanatic.”
“To do what you did takes guts, if you ask me.” She grinned. “Remember, in high school, how those dopey teachers lectured us on martyrs and saints, like Stephen and John the Baptist? I’m afraid I lost my zeal when I went off to college. At Creighton.” She paused. “I became desensitized… or liberalized… or something. College can do that to you.” She shook her head. “Where did you go to college, Warren?”
Like when Peter denied that he knew Jesus, a sin if ever there was one, Warren didn’t want this girl to know that he’d gone to a dinky Bible college out in the middle of nowhere. His mother’s idea. “I went to a small private college no one’s ever heard of. I didn’t get to go to one of the better known schools.”
“Which school?”
“Oh,” said Warren, “you probably never heard of it. It’s out of state.” He shifted in his chair. Lying was an abomination, but he couldn’t let her know that he’d gone to the infamous college in Grand Island, a school that had been in the news recently for losing its accreditation. The school that was forced to lock up its doors. None of the professors had credentials, or so it was alleged. Warren couldn’t see how this could be true, but what did it matter now? He had his degree in Bible studies and a decent enough job working for Mr. Alvin Miller, a deacon at the Church of the Redeemer, a friend of his mother.
“Did you play in the band in college? You played in the band at Grace Academy, didn’t you?”
Warren sat back in his chair. “No,” he said. “The college I went to didn’t have a band. I played the clarinet at Grace, but, if you remember, there were only eleven of us in the band, including the seventh and eighth graders. We were hardly a real band. Like our football team, we were lousy.” He laughed. “The school’s fight song was ‘Onward Christian Soldiers,’ We were a pretty sorry bunch. We were hideously bad.”
Marty grimaced. “I don’t even remember that.” She paused. “Warren, some of us get together for happy hour every Wednesday at the Oasis Bar on Cincinnati Street.” She took a deep breath, then continued. “Not any of the old gang from high school but a group of people I know. Maybe you’d like to join us. After happy hour we go to the Rathskeller and dance.” She leaned toward him. “You do dance, don’t you?”
“I haven’t in years.” He lied. Grace Academy never had dances nor did Prairie View Bible. Certainly, no one at the Church of the Redeemer danced. He sighed. “Wednesday’s a bad day for me. I have a commitment every Wednesday.”
Again, Marty blinked. “Couldn’t you change your plans? Just for one Wednesday.” She laughed. “The gang would get a kick out of it if I brought a Jesus freak.”
Warren nodded. Why? Why would they get a kick out of a believer like me? Is that what I am? Some curiosity to be put on display? “I don’t see how,” he said. “It’s an arrangement I’ve had for years.” He couldn’t explain that his mother would have a conniption fit if he was to tell her that he wouldn’t go with her to dinner and to the prayer session. That he was off to some bar to meet a floozy.
“Warren, I’m just kidding about the Jesus freak thing. It would just be fun hanging out with you. No one really knew you at Grace. You were more than just a little standoffish. Everyone thought of you as some kind of saint taking in all of the drivel those teachers fed us.” She grinned. “I always suspected that beneath that sanctimonious exterior of yours there beat the heart of a hellraiser.”
Warren shook his head. “Hardly.”
“Well,” she said,” let’s put my theory to the test. This is Monday. You’ve got two days to get out of whatever you usually do. It’ll be fun.”
It’s not going to happen, thought Warren. Not in a thousand years. Yet it might be interesting. My chance to step out from under Mother’s shadow. I could order a soft drink, Mountain Dew, if they have it. If not… a Diet Coke.
“I don’t see how I could make it, Martha. It’s something I can’t get out of. I wish I could.”
“Marty,” she said. “Call me Marty. Remember? Martha was that weirdo at Grace Academy.” She took a deep breath. “Today’s Monday. Why don’t you let me know tomorrow. We’ll meet right here at Sol’s. Same time, same place, as they say. You’ll have a good time. I promise you.” She took a step toward her cluster of party goers then turned back to Warren. “Oh, and, Warren, try a little lemon juice or vinegar to get that mustard off your hands. You don’t want to show up on Wednesday with yellow fingers.”
Tonight, thought Warren, on my way home. I’ll stop at the Hy-Vee store for some bread and lunchmeats. I’ll miss coming here, but I can’t face Marty. Going out with her friends would be nothing more than a distraction from what really matters. Still… it might’ve been fun. But how would I tell Mother that I can’t go to the Golden Corral? That I’m going to skip out on our prayer meeting? Someone might see me with that bunch and word would get back to Mother that her son’s a fallen man. I’ll buy some ham, some cheese, some rye bread. We have mustard in the refrigerator. At least we had plenty the last time I checked. Also, I’ll pick up some vinegar, just in case this stain won’t wash off with cold water.
Or… I could… if I felt like it…go to the mall and buy myself a pair of jeans and a couple of shirts. Slacks and a white shirt just wouldn’t cut it if I were to meet Marty and her friends. There’s no reason I couldn’t go to the grocery store and to the mall. No reason at all.
~