“Smile Like You Mean It”

Sav-A-Lot Foods

Providence, Rhode Island

1951

Two older guys sit facing 17-year-old Charlie McCarthy in the Sav-A-Lot’s back room.

Ben is stocky, crew-cut, all business. Darren is thinner, greying, and carries himself like the English teacher he wishes he was.

Ben Thanks for coming in.

Charlie Yup.

Charlie seems unbothered to the point of having been lobotomized.

Darren How you doing today, Shakespeare?

Charlie ‘bout as well as the day wants me to be.

Ben Sounds good.

Charlie If you reckon.

Darren You like working here, Charlie?

Charlie It’s fine and well.

Ben How old are you?

Charlie It’s been seventeen years since I was birthed.

Ben Why are you asking him his age?

Darren My own reasons.

Darren scoots his chair closer to the table.

Darren You know Stacy from the warehouse?

Charlie She the one from out there in the wild, rustic yonder? Where the land rolls and crests like the waves of an ocean?

Darren Christ.

Ben She’s from Philadelphia. Anyway, she found some pages by the ditto machine yesterday.

He slides the mimeographed pages, each a radiating light purple toxicolor hue, across the table.

Charlie They’re mine.

Ben You know what we said about using the ditto.

Charlie Yup.

Darren Please don’t.

Ben She was worried.

From the inside pocket of his coat Charlie withdraws a stalk of wheat.

He begins to chew on it with dramatic slowness.

Ben Where’d you get that from?

Charlie I ordered it special. Keep on, please.

Darren So here’s what we got:

This town has you finished. Blood on the ground. Spit in the stones. Nothing remembers you.
Not the houses, not the road, not the earth that took you in. What is gone has gone where
no rider returns.

Charlie barely understands what he has written – and uncertainty flickers across his face.

Ben It’s a bit much.

Darren The Happy Family Bakery asked, “What makes Providence the best place to live in America?” This is what you came up with?

Charlie Right.

Darren rips the pages in disgust and throws them in the trash.

Darren You didn’t win. No surprise there.

Charlie Don’t matter none. I’m leavin’ for school in Texas come September.

Darren But that’s another five months.

Ben You sure Sav-A-Lot is the right place for a person with your –

Darren – self-indulgent bullshit

Ben I was going to say strengths.

Charlie World’s already on fire. Just ain’t lit yet.

Darren World’s on fire...ain’t lit...I know. That’s a favorite of yours.

Charlie seems a little uncertain.

Charlie True is as true does.

Darren slams his hand down loudly on the table. Ben is startled. Charlie cracks the barest smile.

Ben Darren, can I talk to you for a second?

Darren Fine.

Ben and Darren step off to the side.

Ben What the hell is wrong with you? You were the first wave at Omaha Beach. You’ve faced worse than him.

Darren I just can’t with this guy. I hate him.

Ben No kidding. He’s a kid. Won’t amount to shit the way he’s heading. Just let him be.

Darren Okay.

A lonesome harmonica begins to wail. Darren looks up and sees that Charlie is playing along.

They walk back and sit at the table.

Ben Sorry about that. You were saying?

Charlie It’s gone on the breeze.

The meeting winds down in the way such meetings do: toward a conclusion no one believes but everyone agrees to.

Ben What do you say, d’you think you can try a little harder?

Darren Or quit?

Charlie stands. The chair legs drag softly across the linoleum.

Charlie Don’t see why not.

Charlie begins to leave.

Darren Hey, Charlie, what’s ‘Cormac’?

Charlie That’d be me.

Ben You want people to call you Cormac McCarthy instead of Charlie McCarthy?

Darren You sound like an asshole.

Charlie Gessum I’ll be finding out if you’re right.

Darren You’ll always be Charlie to us.

Charlie And that’s on you, Bill.

Darren It’s Darren. And he’s Ben, not Bill.

Charlie Adios, compañero. Nos veremos donde termina el sendero…

Charlie drifts out of the room, down the hall, with each step closer to Texas.