When I climbed onto the bus after work it was not jam-packed, but by the time I got to the back there was only one seat left. It was on one of those long bench seats, in between a burly guy with a Harley t-shirt stretched over his huge belly and a man in a grey business suit. The seats on the bus are always too small; I can never sit with my shoulders square but have to maintain a crooked, twisted position that ends up making my back sore. And because of the belly with the worn black Harley shirt and the broad, bony frame of the guy in the suit, there was hardly any room left at all. The seat looked so uncomfortable that several people had rejected it already, and chosen instead to stand vacant-faced with an arm stretched up to the bar. But my foot was hurting because I dropped a coffee pot on it the day before when the handle came off in my hand, so I thought to heck with it and I squeezed into the seat.
I looked out the window across from me but then more and more people got on the bus and eventually all I could see was damp armpits and backpacks and Walkman wires and shopping bags. It was as if my universe had shrunk so it included just me and the Belly and the Suit, and all those other people were just a wall of human flesh and clothing and plastic and sweat. I glanced at Belly but he had his eyes closed. I glanced the other way, and Suit had a smile on his face but he was reading a folded newspaper that he clutched in his right hand. I looked to see what he was reading and it was the Food section. I looked away but there was nothing else to look at, so I just faced straight ahead and let my eyes go out of focus.
"Have you ever had your stomach pumped?" a voice said. I blinked and turned. It was Suit who had spoken but he was still looking at the newspaper. I faced forward again.
"What for?" he said, eager to hear, "What did you eat?" I looked at him again and he was still staring at the same page, still smiling but the smile was disappearing, as if whatever was funny was already forgotten. If that was the way he wanted it, fine. People can talk without looking at each other. I faced forward again.
"It was mixed with cereal to attract the rats. I thought it was just cereal."
"So you weren't trying to kill yourself?"
"No. I was just a kid. You know how kids put things in their mouths. Eating soap and stuff like that."
"Oh, okay." He sounded disappointed.
"Why do you ask if I've ever had my stomach pumped?" I looked at him again and the smile was gone and replaced by pursed lips, as if he was trying to concentrate while something was annoying him. He kept staring at the paper. I looked away again.
"I get my stomach pumped a lot," he said, "I eat lots of weird things."
I laughed. "I like it when people eat weird things," I said, "I used to work at a fast-food restaurant and there was a guy who worked with me who would eat anything. We used to pay him five bucks, and he would let us fill a shoebox with any combination of condiments from the restaurant and he would eat the whole thing."
"Yeah, but much more, too. They had lots of sauces in that restaurant, like rib sauce for the rib sandwiches and tartar sauce for the fish sandwiches. They had honey, and we used to crack a couple of raw eggs in there."
"Only once. He threw up into the deep fryer. The boss made me clean it up, so I let it fry for a few minutes first, just to see what it looked like."
"Most of it just sort of disappeared into the oil."
"So he never got his stomach pumped?"
"I don't think so. But once a whole busload of tourists had to go to the hospital because our mayonnaise was bad. Most of them got their stomachs pumped."
"Did you go to the hospital with them?"
"Hmm." He didn't seem interested. I stopped talking for a while, wondering if he had grown tired of me. Then I thought of the contents of my jacket pocket.
"You say you get your stomach pumped a lot," I said, "Is this because you enjoy eating things that people should not eat? Or is it usually an accident?"
"Oh no, not accidents," he said, "I like it. My hero is the guy in the World Records book who ate an entire bicycle."
"In that case," I said, conspiratorially, "I feel you might be interested in what I have in here." I reached into my pocket and pulled out a handful of raw hamburger meat that I had been bringing along gently for the last few days. It was grey, and there were small maggots crawling around in it, trying to burrow into its depths to escape the light and the drying action of the air. I held it up where he could see it.
Now he was looking at me angrily, offended and disgusted, but this did not bother me at all anymore. I had grown accustomed to his peculiar way of expressing different emotions visually than he expressed audibly. But he was not the only person who was looking at me now. Belly had opened his eyes and was staring blinky-blurry at me and shifting in his seat. A couple of the people standing in front of us were looking at me too, and they did not seem to approve of my rotten hamburger. I held it close to myself protectively, and they gradually looked away from me. They were looking at each other now, and seemed to be communicating with their eyes.
But I forgot about them when I heard Suit's voice.
"Please," he said, breathless, "May I eat that? That looks like just the ticket, right now. Oh please, kind stranger, I would be forever in your debt if you allowed me to swallow that perfect, tantalyzing, nauseous mess."
How could I refuse him when he asked so nicely? I lifted the handful of raw, rotten, poisonous meat and placed it gently, lovingly against his mouth. Slowly I began to push it inside. He squirmed in rapturous enjoyment, his jaws moving ecstatically. I held the meat for him and waited for him to finish eating it, but this was taking a surprisingly long time. Not very much of the food was getting into his mouth. He must have some kind of eating disorder, I thought. Sympathetic to this tragic possibility, I decided to expand my efforts in helping him consume my gift. I climbed onto his lap and held his head against the glass of the window, then used my entire strength to shove the food against his contorted mouth. He jerked and twitched, apparently made spastic by the conflict between his sad eating disability and his overwhelming desire to swallow the hamburger and maggots, to ecstatically endure the subsequent nausea and cramps and shits and of course, the inevitable trip to the hospital and a rendezvous with his friend and lover, the pump-tube. I was winning the battle, though, and could see the squished meat straining between his teeth into the welcoming cavity behind. Smiling, I redoubled my efforts.
And all at once the level of noise in the bus skyrocketed. It was as if someone had pressed a Mute button a few minutes before and now had released it. Behind me and beside me I heard shouts and screams and the sounds of a scuffle. Vaguely I became aware of hands gripping my body from all directions, of Belly clasping me in a bearhug and wrenching me backwards, and of Suit shoving mightily against me with his hands pressed violently against my chest and my neck.
It took several people to wrestle me to the ground and hold me there, which is usual in situations like these. Belly sat on my chest and glared angrily into my face. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" he shouted.
"I was just feeding him a snack," I said, "He wanted it. He asked me for it. You must have heard him."
He grimaced, and his eyes narrowed. Somebody was kicking me, but I could not see who. All that was in my universe now was the back of my head held against the dirty floor of the bus, and the bustle behind Belly's face, and the sounds. The sound of someone retching and crying at the same time, the sound of a dozen angry voices, the sound of a siren, growing louder, and the sound of Belly's answer, as he said what he said what he said what he said.
"You asshole! You maniac, you despicable, filthy, stinking pig!" he said, "He never asked you for anything! He never said a word to you! You were talking to yourself and he was just trying to ignore you like everybody else! The poor man was just trying to get home!"