Steve Romagnoli

The Sign

He was very tall. He held a large sign across his chest all day long. Nobody knew who he was or where he came from. He wasn’t seen entering town, much less leaving it. But all that day, he did create quite a stir—on that everybody seems to agree…
“Have a little pride in your height, brother!”
“Height-pride, worldwide, motherfucker!”
“Somebody better tell that munchkin lover to get outta here or he’s fuckin’ dead.”
He never responded to anything anybody had to say. No matter how loud they shouted or shook their fists, he remained still. At first, the cars and pickups would just slow down and then go on their way. But as the word got around, people not only stopped to yell through their windows but physically got out of their vehicles to confront him directly. As the day grew longer, many of the longnecks commenced to spitting or throwing assorted garbage at him. Then, after the sun started to set, things accelerated…
“In about ten minutes, I’m gonna be back, and you better be fucking gone.”
“What about tall lives? We matter too. And you’re a tall man, you fucking pike.”
Through it all, he stood tall and still, holding his sign. Just stood there on that browned patch of grass in the shadow of the giant billboard, “Tall Pride Radio: Good News for Kismet,” advertising the local preacher (and DDD grand dragon), Buck Johnson.
“You dumbass, motherfucker, don’t you realize you’re fuckin’ tall?”
“All lives matter, you fucking terrorist.”
“Explain to me, how the fuck does a munchkin’s life matter?”
Hey look here—you smartass, tall boy. Don’t you realize you’re surrounded by longnecks in the tallest town in the country?”
“Find Jesus.”
“Get your ass outta town. That short shit don’t mean a pile of beans here, tall boy.”
“Hey! Hey, all lives matter! You racist motherfucker.”
Yet through it all, like the queen’s guard, the tall guy with his sign did not twitch a muscle, just stared straight ahead….
“You are a tall man talkin’ about short lives…. What the hell is that?”
“I’d be ashamed to be a tall boy like you carrying that stupid fuckin sign.”
Although I spent my childhood in Kismet, like the nightmare that dissolves in the waking, my fears lost their potency shortly after moving away. Unlike most people in Kismet, I was short. Born short from two short parents. Short and proud of being short in a world that seems to be finally changing in this new millennium. Or maybe not. Maybe some things never change, but rather take on new forms in ways not so easily perceived. But still, change or no change, I seriously doubt much has changed in my hometown. They say Kismet is still the tallest town in the country. To this day, they are not only proud, but actively promote this fact. My family was one of only three short families in the entire town, all our parents working for the tallest and richest families that could afford us.
I had heard about the tall guy and his sign a couple of years back. For a few weeks, it was all over the news, especially Weasel News, that kept running the story long after the other news outlets lost interest. It was one of those big, surprising stories that suddenly rises up and blooms like a desert wildflower after a rainstorm. But just like those desert flowers, it just as quickly faded and withered away in the bright light of the next outrageous thing… Of course, since it happened in my hometown, it took on a personal interest for me. Yet what really piqued my curiosity was not so much about what happened to the tall guy with the sign—that was no real surprise at all. I mean, what did he expect? What could anyone expect in the tallest town in the country, filled with angry longnecks? No, what really interested me was the second story, the aftershock story, if you will. This was barely touched upon by all the news outlets because it was so quickly covered up by the townspeople themselves, becoming no more than a drunken remark or a whispered rumor within the borders of Kismet itself.
So, there I was, driving cross country on my way to a new job on the east coast. I had tuned into a local affiliate of NQR when I heard the host talking about the incident of the tall guy and his sign. It was one of those talk shows talking about unsolved and grisly crimes. Of course, I had heard it all before. And, just like before, a crucial element of the story went unmentioned.
As chance would have it, Kismet was not more than 30 miles out of my way. Shortly after sunset, I pulled into a Motel 5, a few miles before the Kismet turnoff. My plan was to have a solid sleep and decide in the morning if a quick detour was in order.
It rained like hell all night and I slept right through my alarm. When I finally got up it was still dark outside and still raining hard. No thunder, no lightning, just a hard, hard rain. I peered through the drapes and the parking lot was pocked with giant puddles glistening like dark mirrors. Certainly not the best of conditions to be make good time on the highway. I felt as if my decision had been made for me. I would make a quick jaunt into Kismet and then later, today or tomorrow, be back on my way to the east coast. I closed the drapes and the rain roared with a zealous applause.
I didn’t know what to expect or who I might run into. It had been well over ten years now and I wondered if anybody would remember me. Although, I hadn’t changed much, looks-wise, since I was that shy short boy of 15, attending Kismet High School. Back then, I was very shy, in part, for the obvious reason of being a short boy in an extremely tall town. But also because, in addition to my stature, I had a particularly long nose. I still do. You could say, back when I was a kid, having a long nose was just as bad as having a short body. I was teased mercilessly over my nose and I used to often daydream about another world, another universe, that instead of height, status was determined by nose length, making me a king. Back then, everybody called me “the shnozola” or “shnoz,” for short, a name given to me by my childhood nemesis, Dirk McCracken. Dirk lived on the same block as we did and was considered “tall trash” and I think a large part of his resentment toward me was the fact that my secondhand clothes were always better than his as my mom was always gifted the old clothes from the Baldwin’s, the rich tall family she cooked and cleaned for. There was also the fact that Dirk’s entire family was considered on the “shortish” side which placed a big chip on Dirk’s shoulder from early childhood. A lot of people say that the worst, the cruelest, of all tall peoples are the shortish ones because they always feel like they’ve got something to prove and the one thing that vexed Dirk more than anything, was when older kids would tease him about how he and me looked related because we both had the same brown skin.
“Hey Dirk, is that your munchkin brother?”
Most often, Dirk would respond by punching me in the head. Followed by vehement denials and more punches to the head every time a comparison between us was made. Yet no matter how many times he knocked my noggin, the taunts did not relent until young Dirk realized that my nose was not only much longer than his, but longer than anybody else’s in town.
And so, I was baptized, “Shnozola” by my nemesis, Dirk McCracken, a name that fit and followed me all of my days while living in Kismet.
It has been many years since I have even thought of that name, much less being called by it. But to tell you the truth, I’m just as proud of my long nose as I am of my short body. So let somebody say something about my nose. It will do nothing but make me smile…
At the center of town is the Kismet, “Height Pride Diner.” Of course, back in the day, only tall folks could eat there. Even though many today would love to, nobody can actually enforce such a rule, even if Kismet is still the tallest town in the country, and so I decided I would venture inside. Something I would never even have considered back when I was living there.
I pulled into the parking lot and as I got out of my car, the rain suddenly stopped. I looked up and watched the sun come out and smiled to myself, thinking it as some sort of sign. Bathed in sunlight, I crossed the lot feeling warm and powerful but still acutely aware that I was still a very short man in a very tall town. I then hesitated a second at the front door, spying the faded but still visible, red arrow and hash mark, a vestige of the old days indicating all those below the line were not allowed… I took a deep breath and went inside, the bell on the door jing-jangling my arrival.
It was like I was walking into an old John Kane movie, the bad guy entering the saloon and everybody stopping and staring. Yep, there’s a new munchkin in town, folks! I sat down on a swivel stool in the middle of the counter. I felt all eyes on me. Back in the day, I would have been literally tossed out into the street. And worse. But not today. I picked up a menu. As soon as I started to peruse the options, it was immediately snatched out of my hands and handed to a longneck, sitting a few stools down.
“He was here first,” sneered the waitress, handing my menu to the longneck who grinned across at me.
“Is there another menu I can look at?” I asked.
“Sure,” said the waitress, who winked at the longneck and they both laughed as she poured him some coffee and disappeared back into the kitchen.
But I didn’t show the slightest discomfort or anger. That’s obviously just what they wanted, what they always wanted. I thought about the sign guy and smiled to myself, thinking about how vexed everybody was just having me sitting there amongst them.
As I sat and waited, I wondered if Dirk still lived in town. Maybe. Where else could a tall trash longneck like him go to anyway. No matter what the rumors about what he did or didn’t do, he was still one of Kismet’s own. He was probably working in the prison now, just like his father and his grandfather before him…
Shortly before we moved away, Dirk no longer had to worry about any comparisons with me, nose or no nose, because he underwent a miraculous growth spurt. In less than a year, he grew almost a foot and by the time he was sixteen, he stood a solid six foot nine—a true Goliath—although there were some unfounded rumors that he secretly wore lifts. According to the preacher, Buck Johnson, Dirk was graced by God to do great things for tall people everywhere and indeed, Dirk became a Kismet legend, bringing Kismet high school championships in both headbricking and basketbrick. With his newfound fame, my nemesis no longer needed me to torment anymore. Which is not to say his cruel streak was left behind with his shortishness. In fact, you could say, as his fame increased, so did his cruelty. I stared up at him on the wall behind the counter, in his high school uniform with a brick on his head in a gold framed photo now faded with age, his face crossed out with a large red “X.”
The waitress passed me by three times now as the longneck who got my menu slurped down the last of his grits along with his second cup of coffee. It was late Saturday morning and the diner was packed and people moved and buzzed about me, keeping their distance but maintaining their obvious distaste of me being there. I thought I heard and then knew that I heard muttered references to lawn jockeys and munchkin stew. I could feel their hate, but I refused to let it bother me. I was actually enjoying myself because I knew that they knew that I knew that the times have been a changing and there was absolutely nothing they or anybody else could do about it.
Basking in their hatefulness, I thought about the first love of my life: Delia Smalls, another very short person born in one of the few short families living in Kismet. I wondered if she or her family still lived here. Wouldn’t it be great to see her again! Although we lived on the opposite sides of town, my father was good friends with her father and so I got to know her from a very early age and you could say, it was love at first sight. For as long as I can remember, I loved her with a passion that was immediate and innate and unexplainable. She certainly was no looker, that’s for damn sure. Nor did she have a heart of gold. It was Delia who used to proudly show me her pet collection of butterflies and frogs and snakes and baby birds that she kept in jars and tanks until she got the notion to pull off their wings or set them on fire. I used to watch her do these things in fear and amazement and only after becoming an adult did I realize how truly disturbing this behavior was.
In addition to being short, Delia and me shared another thing in common. Like me, Delia got her nickname, Seacracker, named after the famous racehorse, from Dirk. But while cruel, you could not deny that Dirk was not on target because Delia had a face that looked as close to a horse as humanly possible without actually being a horse herself. The Seacracker sobriquet immediately stuck. But unlike me, Delia relished her nickname, oftentimes tossing her head to snort or whinny or rearing back her hands and stomping her feet with loud heehaws, especially when Dirk was around. Which at first confused but then ultimately amused both Dirk and his friends. I always loved Delia, maybe still do, despite the animal torturing, despite her obvious infatuation with Dirk, and despite the fact that she looked and sometimes acted like a horse.
I flinched when I felt a hand on my shoulder. Turning round, I saw that it was Jimmy Baldwin, the youngest son of the Baldwin family that employed my parents when we lived in Kismet.
“Oh, my lord! Is that you, Shnoz? Is that really you?”
“Yes, it is,” I said and I smiled back at him as he was genuinely happy to see me, despite the sudden elevation of hate that immediately impregnated the air, catalyzed by the warm graciousness between Jimmy and me. And I thought to myself that I must keep reminding myself that not all tall people are evil. Jimmy was a bit older than me, but you could say we were childhood friends and I will always remember his kindness for not only teaching me how to ride a bike but then giving me his own bike after I learned my lessons. Of course, me being seen riding on a tall boy’s bicycle (modified) made my neighbor and nemesis, Dirk McCracken see nothing but red rats of hatefulness. Which in turn, curtailed my bike riding days, finding it a week later, mangled and beyond repair, hanging from a cottonwood tree.
“Do you still like cow foot soup?” he asked me.
“Sure,” I said. Although I haven’t had it in a long, long time.”
Jimmy waved to the waitress, “Hilary! Hey, Hilary: two bowls of cow foot soup and a couple of cups of jamoke…. Please.”
Hilary, the waitress, stared, frowned, but then put in the order. Jimmy smiled and I smiled and Jimmy said, “Yeah, well…. You know how it is around here.”
“I sure do.”
“Although Burt, the chef? He makes the best cow foot soup north of the Mississippi River!”
“That sounds great.”
“Sure is great to see you,” he said, a little too loudly. It was clear he was enjoying himself by egging on all the sourpusses huffing and puffing to themselves around us. “How’s your parents doing?”
“They’re doing fine, thanks Jimmy.”
“I remember how your pop could fix just about anything and how your mom could make even the filthiest clothes sparkling white!”
“They don’t work doing menial jobs anymore,” I said.
“Hey, oh damn,” he said. “I’m sorry, Shnoz. I didn’t mean for it to come out like that.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I know you didn’t. I guess in a way, we’re all victims of the world we’re brought up in.”
“That’s for damn sure,” he said.
As we waited on our cow foot soup, we exchanged pleasantries and small talk and the more we chatted the quieter it got around us. But even though we both knew that they were hanging on our every word, it did not slow us down or stop us and we continued to chat right through our two bowls of soup and slices of apple pie for dessert. At one point, Jimmy asked me what brought me back and I explained to him that I was only passing through, deciding to check in on my old hometown after listening to a news story on the radio about the sign guy.
As soon as I mentioned the sign guy, the quietness distilled into a thick and menacing silence, saturating the diner with an anger and hate fueled not only by the topic of our conversation but by the sheer audacity of it even being discussed between a tall and a short.
But I did not relent. I pushed the envelope even further. With my chin, I gestured towards the photo of Dirk. “Good ol’, Dirk McCracken. Kismet’s golden boy. Or former golden boy…. What ever happened to him? I see they got his face “X’ed” out. I wonder what that’s all about…”
At this, Jimmy Baldwin drew the line. Like a startled hermit crab, he quickly withdrew into his shell of tallness. He motioned to Hilary for the check. He checked his watch. “Damn, I’m late. Gotta get going…. But it was really, really great to see you again, Shnoz. And I do wish you all the best.”
“Same to you, Jimmy.”
Jimmy took the check and I didn’t protest but thanked him and wished him well, letting him leave ahead of me so as to not to burden him with any further awkwardness in the parking lot. As I slowly finished my coffee, I thought: what the hell, why not, might as well see how far I can go with this before getting back on the road to the east coast.
The Tallboy Saloon had been an establishment in Kismet for as long as anybody could remember, going back to the prewar days when munchkins like me were kept in chains. For the past couple of generations, it was owned by the Stumps, a wild family of fearsome and violent tall boys with roots in the country’s foundations. It was early afternoon, and the place was empty except for a tall guy sleeping in a booth and Ginny Stump, the bartender, watching a college headbrick game on the TV. I clearly remembered Ginny and I’m sure she remembered me. You could say she was my first tall crush. Although we never spoke a word between us, we did share a secret connection. Ginny was once in my biology class and I used to let her cheat off me. It started with her looking over at my quiz paper and me shoving it to the edge so she could see it better. Ginny never once shined me a smile, much less a word of thanks for my help. But despite the lack of conversation, our “relationship” accelerated at an exponential pace, first with me writing my answers in very large black strokes to eventually passing her the answers on a tiny cheat sheet that she would ball up and eat before the end of the test. Of course, the teacher would never suspect any sort of communication between a short and a tall so that was never a fear.
“Hi Ginny.”
“Hey, I know you,” she said. “Shnozola, right?”
These were the first words she ever spoke to me. “Yes, that’s what they used to call me.”
“Funny seeing you in here. Might not be such a good idea though. Especially when people start comin’ in.”
“I don’t plan on staying long.” She was staring at me in a strange way and I could tell she was drunk or high or both and thought that this could either play to my advantage or lead to something extremely unhappy. “Any chance on me buying a beer?” I pulled out a new fifty dollar bill. I placed it on the bar.
“Maybe one, I suppose,” she said, glancing at the bill before shooting a look to the longneck still passed out in the booth. “But make it quick and then you best be on your way.”
“Thanks, Ginny.”
She took the fifty and poured me a beer. She didn’t offer any change.
“Yeah, I didn’t forget,” she said. “I didn’t say anything about it back then but I’ve since grown up some. Seen the world a bit and I don’t see no harm in talking with a munch from time to time.”
“Traveling can be an eye-opening experience,” I said.
“Yeah, makes you realize how the rest of the world fucking sucks and there’s no place like home.”
Not if you’re a short from this longneck town, I thought. “I suppose so,” I said.
“What brings you back around, Shnoz?”
“Oh, I’m just passing through.”
“That’s nice,” she said, as she walked unsteadily to the other end of the bar. With her back to me, I watched her lay out and snort up a long line of powder before pouring a whiskey for herself, downing half of it and then refilling it to the brim. She sauntered back to where I was sitting. She looked up at the headbrick game on the TV.
“You follow college headbrick?” I asked.
“Na. They make me keep this shit on for the customers,” she scowled, glancing at the tall guy, now snoring loudly. “Fucking stupid if you ask me. You ever think how fucking stupid sports are in the first place?”
“Ah, yeah…. Maybe…. I don’t know…. I used to be pretty good at basketbrick, if you can believe that.”
Ginny snorted. “It’s all so fucking stupid. You gotta a bunch of dumb asses runnin’ up and down a field and everybody is trying to murder the one guy with a brick on his head before he can drop it in the bucket. Now if you were from outer space and looked down on such a spectacle, would it seem fuckin’ stupid to you or not?
“Well, when you put it that way.”
“And motherfuckers getting paid millions just to run around throwing or catching or hitting bricks with sticks and stones and we call that sports. I call it goddamned fuckery.”
“That’s a very insightful observation, Ginny. Did you study philosophy in college?”
Ginny snorted. “Ha! College? Fuck no. I get all my ideas from inside my head. Don’t need no goddamn college munchkin lover to give me any big ideas.”
“Your brother Jess used to be pretty good though. At headbrick.”
“Yeah, he was good. He was really fuckin’ good. This is true.”
“He ever play any college?”
“Hell no. He’s got a regular paycheck and regular job he can count on out at the prison where he can knock short heads without worrying about anybody knockin’ his own brains out in some stupid ass game.”
“I hear ya.”
“You ain’t so bad, Shnoz. For a short, you ain’t so bad at all. And I do remember what you did for me in algebra class. Although I never ended up finishing high school anyway.”
I chose not to correct her regarding the difference between math and science. “Your brother Jess, he used to play with Dirk McCracken, didn’t he? They played east and west wingbats, or was it north and south?”
“East and west,” she said. “They were some fuckin’ pair. Nobody could stop those two.”
“My family moved away before they won any championships. So I never got to see them in their heyday.”
“They were unstoppable.”
“So I’ve heard. But I never heard what happened with Dirk…. I would have imagined him in the pros by now but I never saw or read anything about that.”
“That’s because Dirk ended up being a fuckin’ munchkin lover—excuse me Shnoz. But that’s what happened. And you know how that goes in Kismet.”
“You don’t say?” I said.
“That’s right. You didn’t hear about that tall guy with his sign a few years back?”
“I saw something about it on the news. But I figured he got what was coming to him. I mean, what kind of tall guy is gonna be stupid enough to carry a sign like that in the tallest town in the country?”
“Height-pride, worldwide! Damn straight!”
“I may be a munch, but I know what time it is.”
“I always knew you was all right, Shnozola—for a munch, that is.”
“Thank you, Ginny.”
She poured me another beer and I watched her go do another line before returning to our conversation…. She looked me up and down, “But hell, you still do got one long ass nose, Shnoz. Parden me for sayin’ so but I always say what’s on my mind. I’m blunt like that.”
“I admire blunt in a person, Ginny. And you’re right, I do have a long one.”
Ginny snorted, “Hahaha…. You are one funny munch, Shnoz! But I always wondered if it was true about that, about what they say about some of youse short guys.”
“There’s only one way to find out, Ginny.”
“Hahahaha! But don’t go too far with me now, short boy. I mean, you know what I’m sayin’, don’t ya.”
“Sure, Ginny. I was just joshin’ ya.”
“I know it, Shnoz! Here, have a whiskey on me.” And she poured us both a full glass of rack whiskey. I sipped mine and tried not to wince as she shot hers down in a gulp.
“So you were sayin’ about the tall guy with the sign?”
“What? Oh. Yeah, right. So, yup, deader than dead and burnt to a crisp, hangin by a rope from the preacher’s billboard. ‘Course, the preacher didn’t especially like the fact that his billboard got charred and had to be repainted along the bottom.”
“Yeah, that would piss off anybody.”
“No doubt.”
“They said the body was never found.”
“Of course they said that. Had to say that. You know that. No body, no crime.”
“But what has lynchin’ that tall boy got to do with Dirk McCracken? That’s the part I don’t get.”
“You mean you didn’t hear about what your boy Dirk did?”
“No. I moved away, remember.”
“You D & D, right?”
“Of course! I was born in this town, Ginny. If you’re a short like me, you know and fear the call of the DDD.”
“Tell me,” she said. “Say it out loud.”
“Deaf, dumb or dead.”
“Okay then.”
“So with Dirk?”
She hesitated a moment and then smiled before pouring another round of whiskey. “It was late in the day and Dirk and his boys pull up in that old Chebby pick-up he used to love like it was his fuckin’ girlfriend.”
“The red one, right?”
“That’s right! You gotta great memory Shnoz!”
“Thanks, Ginny. So Dirk pulls up and—”
“Yeah, and Dirk pulls up and he and his boys surround the sign guy and the stupid ass is too stupid to run at this point, just stands there like he was standing there all that day long…. And Dirk goes right up to him and he says, ‘Didn’t I tell you I was gonna be back you goddamn munchkin lover?’ And some say that for the first time that day, the tall boy with the sign, he cracks a smile. And that, I do believe, was the brick that busted the cat’s back. And so Dirk, he doesn’t punch him like you’d think he might do, right?”
“That’s what I would have thought,” I said.
“No, he don’t punch him. Instead, he gives him two pimp slaps with the front and back of his hand. And this got all his boys gleeful and fired up and they all commence to taking turns pimp slappin’ this tall boy who, I’ve got to admit, took those slaps like a tall man. It was almost like he was some kind of superhuman because it didn’t seem like those slaps were doin’ nothin’ but jerkin his head to and fro. I mean, he didn’t make a sound through it all.”
“Maybe he was D & D.”
“Ha—you so fuckin’ funny Shnoz! You should be a short comedian, you really should! I bet you’d be great at sit-down.”
“I’m too shy for that, Ginny. So what happened after all the pimp slapping?”
“Things gotta outta hand. As they are wont to do, as you well know.” “Sure.”

“When that tall boy didn’t seem to pay those slaps any mind, then came the punchin and the kickin and you can figure out the rest.”
“Dangling at the end of a rope.”
“Fuckin’ A.”
“And Dirk?”
“Oh, yeah. Right! So before they hid—I mean, before the body disappeared—a lot of folks went out to gawk at it, you know—just havin’ a few drinks, kids breakin’ bricks, frolicking and partying, a couple a small barbeques goin’… You know, just a some good ol’ tall boy fun, that’s all.”
“Sure.”
“And wouldn’t you know it, none other than Seacracker shows up, riding a fuckin’ horse!”
“No! You mean Delia Smalls?”
“That’s right. The munchkin with the face of a horse, riding a fuckin’ horse, in the middle of our tall fuckin’ town!”
“What the hell got into her? And where did she get the horse?”
“Didn’t you know? She won the fuckin’ lottery and bought herself a horse ranch just over the county line, in Hooterville. That’s a short town.”
“Yeah, I know of it. So what happened?”
“Well, little miss horseface comes riding up into the midst of everything and hops down off her high horse, like she’s miss lady muckity-muck, just as fuckin’ pretty as you please. And she stomps right up to Dirk and she looks him in the eye and she motions for him to come closer, like she’s gonna tell him a secret or something.”
“Really? And then? What happened then?”
“She kissed him.”
“What? No! She kissed him?”
“She kissed him on the mouth, got back up on her high horse, and fuckin’ rode straight outta town.”
“Holy smokes!”
“You got that right, Shnoz! Nobody knew what to make of it. Especially the fact that Dirk didn’t do a thing about it. A short kissin’ a tall in the middle of a tall town? In the middle of this tall town? Get the fuck outta here!”
“He didn’t say anything to her? He just let her kiss him like that?”
“That’s right. And nobody knew what to do about it. Nobody was gonna say anything to Dirk’s face, that’s for sure. At that point, he was still the town legend and hero. Nobody was gonna do shit about it. Not right then, anyways.”
“I can’t believe it, she actually kissed him?”
“Yup. I suppose a lot of folks figured it had something to do with the prom joke.”
“Prom joke?”
“Oh, right. You wasn’t here anymore. Before any of this sign business happened, Dirk had invited Delia to the prom as his homecoming queen. Of course, everybody knew that was just Dirk being Dirk, making a big joke outta everything. You know how Dirk can be.”
“I sure do.”
“But that was only the foot of the icehill.”
“What?”
“That kissin’ business was nothin’ to what came next. Nobody but nobody knew what to make of it. At first, everybody just thought it was just another joke. But then, when it was clear that he wasn’t jokin’ people were completely flummoxed. Flummoxed and then vexed.”
“What was the vex?”
Ginny poured herself and me another shot of whiskey. She nodded and we drank the whiskey down. “Listen to me good now.”
“I’m listening.”
“Dirk McCracken, without word or explanation, took up the sign.”
“The sign. You mean—”
“I mean, he took up the same exact fuckin’ sign as the tall guy who he pimp slapped.”
“No!”
“Yes! I mean, I don’t know if it was the exact, exact same sign. That might have been burnt up with the tall guy they lynched. But the words were the same. And Dirk, he just stood there like the first tall guy, holding that sign on that same patch of grass under the preacher’s billboard. Just showed up there about a week or two later, holdin’ the sign. Nobody could understand what got into him. I mean, this was Dirk fuckin’ McCracken, town fuckin’ hero. Holdin’ a short lives matter sign. Unfuckinbelievable. It was truly a fuckin’ world class conundrum. Although, this time, it didn’t take all day for folks to do something about it.”
“Get outta here! Really?”
“When it was obvious he wasn’t just foolin’ around, they ripped that sign right out of his hands and beat him to a bloody pulp. Beat his brains into grits. Probably would have died out there but my brother, Jess, softhearted lug that he is, called an ambulance when it looked like he stopped breathing. Dirk spent close to six months in a coma and when he came out, he was a dumb and as calm as a fucking porcupine. Completely moronified. Couldn’t tie his shoes or put on his clothes right. His folks, embarrassed to hell over the whole thing, didn’t know what to do with him…. For a long while, you could see him selling candy bars out of shoe box in the supermarket parking lot. People poked and laughed at him but he didn’t mind because he had no mind to lose anymore. I guess you could say that the joke was finally on him.”
“Wow.”
“And then, one day, he just disappeared. Vanished into thin air. Some say he might have just walked away to parts unknown. Or maybe he got what was comin’ to him, if you know what I mean. But as far as I know, nobody knows what the hell happened to him. Maybe he just crawled under some rock somewheres and croaked.”
“I never heard anything about that. About Dirk carrying a short people sign.”
“That’s because we didn’t let it get outta hand like it did with the first guy. You gotta nip these kinda things in the bed.”
“WHAT THE FUCK!”
Turning, I saw the tall guy in the booth, now dangerously conscious, rushing straight at me with unkind intentions. Instinctively, I covered my head but instead of striking me, he grabbed me by the throat, lifting me bodily from my stool. I dangled and gagged but before things got worse, Ginny grabbed the longneck by the ear, telling him to let me go. Reluctantly, he complied and I fell to the floor, gasping for air.
“What the hell is goin’ on here?” said the longneck. “You got this lawn jockey sittin’ in a tall man’s bar? Your daddy be smellin’ under in his grave!”
“Relax, Willard. He just came in here askin’ for directions. He got lost and didn’t know where to go. You know how fuckin’ dumb these fuckin’ short folks can be. He’s just on his way out.”
“Still,” said Willard. “This munch has no business being in here in the first place.”
“You a hundred percent correct, Willard. A hundred percent. Have a beer on the house. And you—you munchkin you—get the hell outta this establishment before I let Willard here bless you with a tall man’s justice.”
Just like Ginny said, the Seacracker Horse Ranch was located just over the county line. Although I was still a bit shook up by Willard’s zealousness, I was eager to see Delia again. Why? To this day, I still don’t know. It doesn’t really make sense because outside of being short people, we really had nothing in common. And there was also the fact that she had the face of a horse. Not to say that I’m a handsome munch, by any means, or that looks are everything. My attraction to her will always remain a mystery. Like a famous munchkin once said, “the heart wants what the heart wants” and there’s no way of understanding such things without lies of the mind.
I pulled into the parking lot and could see the big house up on a ridge about a half mile up to the north. Between the big house and the parking lot, there was a large corral, filled with horses of many colors. The sun was big and hot and glaring relentlessly. There were tall horses and small horses, wildly galloping around, whipped into a frenzy by what looked to me as a horse riding a horse. Of course, there was no such animal but only Delia on her favorite stallion, Rambo, standing head and shoulders above all the rest. Shading my eyes, I watched as she dashed to and fro and all about that corral. It sure was a sight to see….
No sooner had I seen her did she see me and she let out a whoop and a holler before jumping her great stallion clear over the corral fence and down to where I was standing dumbfounded in the parking lot. Approaching slowly, Rambo did a prance-like dance across the asphalt until stopping inches away, his hot breath blowing across my forehead. With her head blocking out the sun, Delia held out a black- gloved hand. I took it and she hoisted me up behind her and we were off like the wind, galloping straight up that ridge to the big house she called home.
We sat in tall wicker chairs on a shaded veranda overlooking her grand hacienda. A tall servant in a white tuxedo served mint juleps and deviled eggs.
“Life is good,” she said.
“You’ve come a long way, Delia.”
“I certainly have.”
“Wasn’t too long ago when it would be shorts like us serving the juleps.”
“You got that right.”
“Crazy how many people—short and tall—were saying how everything had changed after electing a short president.”
“Can’t just paint over rust. If you don’t scrape it all out, it will just continue to rot below the surface until the whole structure crumbles from within.”
“Some rot goes real deep though…”
We sipped our mint juleps and feasted on the deviled eggs and Delia said, “So what brings you out here, Shnoz? You don’t mind me calling you that, do you?”
“Not at all,” I said and I told her about how I had decided to make a detour into Kismet and how I ran into Jimmy Baldwin and, trying to be as delicate as possible, mentioned Ginny’s story about Dirk disappearing…. Surprisingly, she smiled when I brought Dirk into the picture.
“Yeah, you know, Dirk,” she said. “Always the practical joker.”
“Ginny said something about you and him going to the prom?”
“That’s right,” she said. “Just another one of his crazy jokes. But no matter what people said, no matter what people thought, I knew he was just making a joke outta the whole thing. He was always a real yuckster.”
“Then why would you go along with it? Why be the butt of some tall boy’s hoax?”
She didn’t hesitate to answer. “Because I loved him. Still do.”
“Loved him? After the way he treated you?”
“Love is never without a certain amount of suffering. Without pain, I don’t think it’s possible to love. To have true love, that is.”
“That’s a very strange definition of love.”
“You don’t know the half of it, Shnoz.”
“No?”
“What if I told you that on the night of the prom I was raped by all of Dirk’s friends, by the entire headbrick team.”
I didn’t know what to think, what to say. But I did know that it would not have been the first time that a short girl was raped by a pack of longnecks without being held accountable…. I took a few deep breaths before turning to her, “I’m so sorry, Delia, and I know that words can never be enough for the suffering you went through. But I can tell you that I always cared for you and I would never want to see you hurt ever again.”
“No way getting around being hurt. It’s just what you do with the hurt that makes all the difference. Sometimes you just gotta ride with the hurt, let yourself be completely swept away by it until it runs its course and you find yourself in a place of peace.”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t know, I don’t understand, what you’re talking about, Delia. But it seems like you are in a place of peace now. And for that, I’m happy for you.”
“Peace never lasts. Just like the hurt. But I do appreciate your love for me, Shnoz. Always did. Just didn’t have any of my own to give back to you. That is, after I fell for Dirk.”
“Dirk was always an evil son of a bitch.”
“Those that judge, don’t understand and those that understand, don’t judge.”
“I’m not judging anybody. I’m just stating a fact that Dirk, ever since he was a little boy, was always a brutal, no-good tall bastard with a mean streak a kilometer long.”
“Yes, you’re right about that. But was it his fault? You say he was always that way. So maybe he was born that way. And who’s fault would that be then? What kinda Creator comes up with that kinda plan? Shnoz, you just gotta understand that some people are just born a certain kinda way. Have certain inclinations. Or did you forget how I used to blow up frogs and light snakes on fire?”
“I remember all of it. But people can change, Delia. It seems like you changed.”
“What if I told you that Dirk was sorry—truly sorry—for me being raped by his friends. Just hear me out! Don’t just answer without thinkin’ about it. I’m just asking…. I’m just asking you please, to hear what I gotta say and think it all through. Can you do that for me? I’m asking you. Okay… So Dirk plays this big joke by taking me to the prom. Not so very nice. Okay, that may be true. But it was not his intention for things to get outta hand, for all his buddies running a train on me after we all got shit faced drunk—and that’s me included.”
“Whether or not you were drunk or stone cold sober—there is never an excuse for that!”
“Easy, Shnoz. You are completely correct. But I’m not talking about excuses. I’m talking about intentions. Dirk never for a minute thought something like that was gonna happen. And after it happened, he felt bad about it. Real bad. You don’t have to believe me. But I know what I know. And I can tell you he was sorry.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because he told me so. He came to me and told me he was sorry. Really sorry about all of it. And, for what it’s worth, Dirk never took a part in that part of it that night. That’s another thing to consider.”
I was astounded, speechless.
“I know what you’re thinking. Or I think I know. And I understand your anger and why you judge him like you do. They say love can put on blinders. But love can sometimes make you see things, to perceive things, that you couldn’t even consider otherwise. It’s all about perception, Shnoz. And wrong perceptions. Right now, it seems like you are blinded by your hate and sense of justice. But have you thought about what happened with the sign? How Dirk took up that tall boy’s sign himself. And then suffered his turn for it too? In some ways, Dirk became a saint.”
“A saint? Dirk McCracken? That son of a bitch beat the shit outta me for my entire childhood. And his cruelty only seemed to stop after he was nearly beaten to death under the preacher’s billboard.”
“He was beaten because he took up a sign saying that short people, people like me and you Shnoz, that our lives matter too.”
“I’m sorry, Delia. I just can’t get with your line of thinking.”
“That’s okay, Shnoz. I can respect that.”
“I’m just happy that you are doing good.”
“That I am. I’ve got my land and my horses and I am just waiting on having some children of my own, hopefully one day soon.”
Then it suddenly struck me, “You married, Delia?”
“Yes. I’ve been happily married going on almost a year now.”
“Congratulations.”
“Don’t sound much like you mean it,” she said.
“Sorry,” I said.
Delia smiled. She put down her mint julep and got out of her chair. She came over to where I was sitting and straddled me, kissing me deeply. I went with the kiss and things got hotter and hotter until the chair tipped over and we found ourselves on the floor, still kissing and tugging and ripping at each other’s clothing. But then, just as it all suddenly started, I pulled myself away. I crossed my arms against my chest and breathed in and out, deeply. “Sorry, Delia. But this is all too much for me to handle right now.”
“Why? What’s wrong? I know you always had feelings for me.”
“What about your husband?”
“He don’t care. He’s not the jealous type.”
“I should get going.”
“Already? I want you to meet my husband first.”
“I really gotta get back on the road, Delia.”
“It will only take a minute. He’s out around back. Please. I really want you to meet him.”
After much pleading and cajoling, I agreed to go around back to meet Delia’s husband. It was the last thing in the world I had wanted to do, as I was still quite excited and lustful, my mind a writhing ball of confusion.
Set about twenty yards from the back of the big house, there was a roughhewn shed, maybe eight-by-eight feet square, with a small, padlocked door and a tiny, barred window high and to the right of the door. As we got closer there was a groan and a heavy jangling and then, what looked like nostrils, snuffling loudly from between the bars of the window.
Delia unlocked the door. As it slowly yawned wide, the hinges squealed like a dying thing and I was hit with an awful animal stench of feces and sour sweat. The odor was so strong and rancid that I instinctively staggered back, covering my nose. At first, I thought it might be an emaciated pig or some kind of diseased baby horse that came crawling out below the low overhead beam of the stunted doorway. But then, it became clear that it was a human. A tall human. A very tall human that could only exit on hands and knees.
Crawling out from the darkness and into the light, he strained towards us, held back by the chain cinched to the collar around his neck. He twisted upwards into an apelike, half-standing position, stretching open his mouth in a grin or a grimace, it was really impossible to tell, before he started to bellow and bay and I could see that he did not have a tongue. He wore the ripped and raggedy remnants of an old high school uniform that hung in threads about a body completely covered in filth. But despite his hacked tongue and acute squalor, it was clear that it was Dirk McCracken, not looking much different than I remembered him, putting aside the weight loss and his perverted state of existence.
As he continued to bellow, Delia grabbed a bullwhip hanging by a hook at the side of the shed and snapped it. One crack was all that was needed for him to immediately simmer down and sit in the dirt, looking up at us like a child in grade school waiting for instructions.
Delia then unlocked his collar and allowed him to run about the yard, clearly something he knew how to do and longed to do after spending who knows how long chained up in that dark shed. There were no further words between Delia and me. We just stood and watched him running full speed in wild figure eights and loopy circles, ecstatically happy for the freedom of the moment. Dirk was still quite graceful– nearly seven feet tall and dashing about in a state of ecstasy, all his nerves and sinews and muscles working in unison and perfect harmony. I’m not sure if it was some kind of epiphany or a whole bunch of mixed feelings that added up to more than the sum of their parts, but I do know that it changed me even if I really don’t know how. A moment of grace perhaps, a terrifying beauty forcing me to stop thinking and allow things to be just as they are.

Steve Romagnoli teaches Ethics and Literature at the Bedford Hills Maximum Security Prison for Women and Fordham University. Before that, he taught at-risk youth at homeless shelters, drug rehabs and incarcerated programs throughout New York City. His novel, Ghetto Dogs, was published by the Alternative Book Press (August 2016). His short stories have appeared in numerous magazines including: The Mid-American Review, The Carolina Quarterly, Gargoyle Magazine, and Beat to a Pulp. He’s had five plays produced in New York City, including, Stealing Heaven, running off-Broadway at the Samuel Beckett Theater. His play, Skip to My Lou, opened at The Theater for the New City in February, 2016

Steve Romagnoli

The Sign

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