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GRAPEFRUIT
by BUD TANT
April 26, 1991
Cummins Unit
Nobody knew where he
came from. Nobody ever bothered to ask. Nobody knew his name, either, but
it didn't matter because everyone who knew him called him "Grapefruit."
Grapefruit was a newspaper vendor by trade, and early each morning
the cabbies would pull their battered hacks to the curb, lean over toward
the passenger's window and shout, "Hey, Grapefruit, gimme a Times!" or
"Hey, Grapefruit, how 'bout a 'P.I.' this morning." Just as he'd done for
more than 25 years, Franz "Grapefruit" Heiisel would dutifully hand the
cabbie a daily newspaper and the cabbie would roar away from 3rd and Olive
Streets, eliciting a cacophony of blaring horns from the angry motorists
so rudely cut off entering the rush hour traffic.
Now, admittedly
"Franz" wasn't the finest sounding name in the world, and even had they
known his Christian name, it's doubtful that anyone would have used it to
address the newspaper vendor. Franz Heiisel was a man whom Fate had
selected at random to wear a five pound goiter on his neck. It rode him
the way a skilled rodeo cowboy rides a bull. It sat tenaciously on the
back of his neck and bounced up and down with his every movement and
twitch.
Oh, sure, he tried to hide it. He covered it as best he
could with a baggy nylon windbreaker and thick, moth-eaten sweaters. But,
have you ever tried to hide a bowling ball beneath your shirt or jacket?
Or a grapefruit? Franz Hiisel had tried. He'd tried to hide it for more
than 25 years.
When the unsightly growth first appeared, it wasn't
too difficult to hide. When he was a teenager it had been but an ugly
wart-looking affair. Even then Franz wouldn't have won any beauty
contests. He had a short, wide forehead and his coarse hair grew down the
middle of his massive forehead into a widow's peak. His nose was too wide,
and seemed perpetually sun burnt. His large yellow teeth protruded from
between liver lips, and the Good Lord must have been fresh out of necks
when He made Franz Heiisel. His head sat solidly in the middle of his
back, directly atop his shoulders, so that if he moved just right the
goiter would swing around and momentarily give Grapefruit two heads.
For 2-1/2 decades he'd sat on the corner of 3rd and Olive and
watched millions of cars pass, laden with passengers. He'd seen tens of
millions of pedestrians breeze past his tiny news stand and never, never
had he seen another person with a goiter such as the one cruelly riding
his back. It was like winning Mother Nature's Lottery or something. The
odds of being born with such a grotesque deformity had to be better than a
million to one. It was the closest Franz Heiisel had ever come to winning
anything in his life.
Grapefruit took one last look around his
tiny apartment. Yes, he'd turned the hotplate off. He touched it to be
certain, but it was off, alright. Once he'd left it on and burned up the
$8.00 hotplate and the $5.00 coffee pot, roughly a day's wages for a
newspaper hawker.
Grapefruit slipped his transister radio into the
pocket of his yellow oilskin slicker and pulled his wool watch cap over
his wide forehead. Satisfied that all was, indeed in order, he reached
above his head and pulled the string on the naked lightbulb dangling from
the ceiling, mercifully enveloping the seamy room in darkness.
Grapefruit picked up his small, battered black overnight case from
a shelf beside the door. The case contained everything essential to a man
who would spend more than twelve hours on a city sidewalk. There were
rolls of nickels, dimes and quarters for making change for his customers,
along with a chrome change dispenser which he wore on his belt. There was
aspirin to combat the exhaust fume-induced headaches which were an
occupational hazard of street vendors all over America, a rollof bratwurst
and a half-loaf of black pumpernickel bread for his lunch, a collection of
old magazines to be thumbed through during the lull between morning and
afernoon rush hours, and last, but certainly not least, a pair of
fur-lined brown leather gloves.
The gloves were made of soft
leather and were obviously expensive. Grapefruit had found them on a bus
stop bench one day when he was returning home from work. He'd secretly,
and perhaps correctly, thought of that particular day as the luckiest day
of his unlucky life.
Grapefruit tucked the case beneath his arm
and left the stale-smelling hotel room. As he closed the door he removed a
large Yale padlock from his overnight case and slipped it through the
heavy-duty hasp on the door frame. He snapped the lock shut and gave it a
firm tug to make certain it was secure. It was locked, alright.
Grapefruit had paid more than $5.00 for the lock after his tiny
room had been burglarized several years earlier. The burglar or burglars
had taken nearly everything Grapefruit owned. They'd taken his Motorola AM
radio. They'd taken his portable black and white television set (which
he'd paid $45 for after saving for nearly a year.) Buy worst of all, the
conscienceless thieves had stolen the silver pocket watch which had been
given to him by his father more than 30 years before.
Each time
Gratefruit had to leave his apartment, his thoughts would drift to the day
of that dastardly crime and he would sigh with sadness at the loss of his
treasures. He turned and slowly walked away from the door just as Miss
Swenson was exiting the communal bathroom at the end of the dim hallway
with her personal roll of toilet tissue tucked safely beneath her bony
arm. Her steel gray hair was covered by a frilly nightcap and she held her
threadbare floral-print housecoat tightly around her neck with a
liverspotted hand.
Grapefruit automatically removed his watch cap
and shyly said, "Good morning, ma'm."
Miss Swenson clutched her
personal roll of toilet paper more tightly and gave an almost
imperceptible nod of her narrow head. She hurried past and disappeared
into a nearby room. Grapefruit heard her clicking a number of latches,
deadbolts and other security devices intended to keep her virginity in
tact.
He tugged the watch cap back onto his head and plodded down
the six flights of creaking, wooden stairs to the lobby of the Blackstone
Hotel. Thirty-five dollars a week, in advance. Furnished. If you could
call a thin matress over a bedframe of springs, a lone and elderly
overstuffed chair, a wooden kitchen table, two rickety kitchen chairs and
a tiny cube of a refrigerator "furnished". Each floor came equipped with a
bathroom at the end of the hall, and dozens of assorted pensioners,
prostitutes, transvestites and winos.
Reaching the lobby,
Grapefruit gave a perfunctory wave of his large, stubby hand to Mr.
Carlton, the day desk clerk. Mr. Carlton sat on a high stool behind the
cigarette-burnt oak counter. He was a thin man, dressed in shiny brown
slacks, a white shirt frayed around the collar, and an ageless brown knit
necktie.
Mr. Carkton considered himself to be an intellectual. It
was he who decided who must leave the hotel and who could stay. He was The
Law, and he sat on his stool like a Supreme Court Justice each morning,
ruling on such matters as how late was "too late" when it came to a
tenant's past-due rent.
In the evenings he was transformed into an
eagle and his stool became an aerie overlooking his kingdom. His small,
beady eyes were shiny black dots sitting beneath the green teller's visor,
and anyone attempting to sneak past those eyes after 6 o'clock p.m. had
damned sure better be invisible.
His skin was translucent and the
harsh light in the hotel lobby pierced the bill of his green plastic
visor, giving his waxy face the appearance of a creature from another
planet. Hell, he might as well have been from another planet, because when
an unfortunate tenant came to Mr. Carlton with a hardluck story about why
he or she couldn't pay the rent on time, it was as if the hapless resident
was speaking in a foreign tongue.
Now, Mr. Carlton gave Grapefruit
a judicious nod of his raptorial head, which meant that Grapefruit was
current with this month's rent.
Even though it was barely 5
o'clock in the morning, the lobby was already partially filled with hotel
residents. Half a dozen pensioners sat around on the motley collection of
semi-antique overstuffed chairs and couches which were situated around the
nicotine-stained walls of the lobby. Some read early morning editions of
the local newspapers. Some sat smoking filterless cigarettes held between
leathery yellow fingers. One ancient crone sat staring vacantly at the
peeling wallpaper, avidly discussing events long since past with some
invisible friend.
Grapefruit hobbled past the old woman and exited
through the swinging doors of the rundown hotel. Reaching the sidewalk,
Grapefruit pulled his yellow slicker tightly around his goiter and walked
through a convention of pigeons gathered on the wet sidewalk. The pigeons
resented the intrusion, but they yielded grudgingly to the human and flew
briefly a few feet above the sidewalk, complaining loudly, then returning
to their original location to finish picking through discarded cigarette
filters and other debris just as soon as Grapefruit's oil and
water-resistant shoes carried him past their trashy breakfast.
Grapefruit trudged the few short blocks to his news stand the same
way he trudged through life; slowly and cautiously. The city streets were
nearly deserted at this early hour of the day,but when Grapefruit did
happen to pass an occassional derelict or street person, he watched each
move the person made and unconsiously hugged his shabby overnight case
tighter.
Even though he was a fraction of an inch over six feet
tall and weighed well over two-hundred poounds, Grapefruit had learned
long ago that he was prey for the human wolves that roamed these city
streets. Twice he'd fallen victim to strongarm robberies, and once his
news stand had even been set afire by a gang of street toughs.
When he arrived at 3rd and Olive Streets, Grapefruit fished a key
from his pants pocket and unkocked the padlock hanging from the door of a
6' x 6' metal shanty that served as his news stand.
Entering the
tiny building, he began removing the metal racks that would hold his
newspapers and setting them up on the side of the metal building. No
sooner did he have his racks in place than a large truck rumbled to the
curb.
The back of the truck was covered with the "Seattle Times"
logo, and a youngish man wearing a Seattle Seahawks jacket tossed four
bundles of newspapers out the back of the truck.
"Hot off the
press, Grapefruit!" he shouted cheerfully as the truck roared away from
the curb.
No sooner had Grapefruit picked up the bundles and
placed them inside his newsstand than a second truck, this one bearing the
"Seattle Post-Intelligencer" logo, pulled to the curb with another young
man tossing more bundles of newspapers toward Grapefruit.
"Have a
good day," the swamper yelled as the P.I. truck nosed back into the street
and rumbled down 3rd Avenue toward its next appointed stop.
Grapefruit methodically arranged his newspapers with the practiced
precision of a man who had been performing this same task for 25 years.
When all was in order, Grapefruit pulled his aluminum lawn chair out of
the small metal building, removed his change dispenser from his overnight
case and sat down in the chair in the same spot he had for 2-1/2 decades.
He took the rolls of change from his case and loaded the change dispenser.
Then he carefully removed the transistor radio from his slicker pocket,
turned it on, and placed it on a shelf inside the news stand.
A
crackly voice fought through the radio's static as the radio talk show
host gave the day's weather forecast; cloudy, with a chance of rain. The
same forecase given approximately 300 days out of each year in Seattle.
Grapefruit scanned the gray morning sky and decided that it wasn't
going to rain this day. He then sat himself on the lawn chair and began
his work day.
To say that Grapefruit didn't have any friends
wouldn't be an accurate statement. It was true that nobody engaged in any
lengthy conversations with the vendor, but nearly all of his customers had
a comment or something kind to say to Grapefruit when they bought their
daily papers. Grapefruit's business was mostly regular customers. He
prided himself on knowing which paper most of his customers preferred, and
would hand the proper newspaper to most without being asked.
Sitting as he did in the same spot year after year, Grapefruit
became a fixture. He was as much a part of the city scenery as Pioneer
Square, the Space Needle, the Monorail and and the King Dome. Seldon did
five minutes pass when someone didn't wave to Grapefruit, or in some other
small manner acknowledge his presence.
The fact of the matter was
that Grapefruit was content with nearly every facet of his life, with the
exception, of course, of the unsightly growth bobbing around on the back
of his neck. Yes, life would be good if only God would somehow take back
the cruel gift that Mother Nature had bestowed upon him. But Grapefruit
had long since accepted the grotesque goiter with the same grace and
equanimity that he displayes in accepting every other aspect of his meek
existence. Grapefruit's illusions were as few as his worldly possessions.
The even rush hour was over and, just as he'd done for many years,
Grapefruit removed the unsold newspapers from their racks and rebundled
them. Each evening both leading newspaper companies sent trucks around to
collect the unsold papers so that they could be recycled. Grapefruit
wasn't exactly sure just how they made one newspapers into new newspapers,
but he was grateful for the credit he received each month for returning
the unsold papers, so he never questioned the recycling procedure.
Grapefruit was tying the last knot on the last bundle of
newspapers when he heard a scream. It was a short, sharp cry which had
been cut off by something or somebody. He looked across the street and saw
a pretty dark-haired woman he recognized as being an employee of the large
department store which was located directly across 3rd Avenue from his
news stand.
A large American Indian man was choking the woman and
dragging her toward the alley situated between the department store and a
jewelry store. The woman was struggling fiercely as the greasy-haired man
dragged her toward the dark alley.
Without hesitation,Grapefruit
dashed into the street and was nearly run over by a taxi driver who leaned
angrily on his horn as he slammed on the taxi's brakes. Grapefruit never
took his eyes off the woman being dragged around the corner leading into
the alley. He reached the sidewalk and sprinted into the alley.
The woman was lying on the ground and the man was kneeling beside
her, rifling through the contents of her purse.
"HEY!" Grapefruit
cried, as he grabbed the Indian by one shoulder and raised him off the
ground.
The Indian twisted in the air and spun quickly, lashing
out at Grapefruit with his free arm. A searing white pain flashed through
Grapefruit's right shoulder, and he let go of the assailant.
In a
fury, the Indian leaped toward him with his arm flashing again,and
Grapefruit felt a burning sensation on his cheek. He blindly gropped for
his opponent, but the Indian was far too quick for the old newspaper
vendor, and his only reward for trying to grab the man was yet another
fiery pain, this time in the chest.
Grapefruit collapsed on the
cluttered asphalt in pain and confusion. He was dimly aware of the young
woman scurrying past the Indian as that terrible arm rose and fell again
and again, each blow sending lightening bolts of pain wherever the arm
landed on Grapefruit's helpless body.
Grapefruit heard someone
yelling, "HELP HIM! HELP HIM!" but the cries sounded miles away. Finally,
the blows ceased raining on his body and Grapefruit heard running
footsteps as the Indian fled down the alley.
Grapfruit raised
himself to his hands and knees and began crawling painfully back toward
the street, toward the only place he knew to go; his news stand. But it
was no use. He felt far too tired to crawl that interminable distance, and
collapsed on the sidewalk. Just before darkness mercifully closed his
pain-filled eyes, Grapefruit looked across the street and saw a young
black man running from his news stand with the black overnight case tucked
beneath his arm.
When he awoke, Grapefruit was completely
disoriented. There were tubes taped to his body, and his head, neck and
chest were encased in guaze bandages. He tried to cough, but it was
difficult because there were tubes stuck up both of his wide nostrils. A
frightening few seconds passed before Graapefruit realized that he was in
a hospital, safe from the terrible, illusive arm that had ripped his body
time and again.
Too frightened to move, Grapefruit allowed his
eyes to survey his surroundings. Some of the tubes connected to his body
were attached to plastic bags suspended from metal holders. He watched the
bags as a clear liquid dripped into the lines leading to his body.
There was some sort of machine next to his bed, too, and tiny
wires ran from the machine to Grapefruit's chest and head.An oxygen bottle
was connected to the tubes running into his nostrils. Grapefruit had never
been admitted to a hospital before, and everything about the medical
equipment was terrifying.
Grapefruit was trying to decide what he
should do, when the door opened and a young nurse clad in white clothing
entered the antiseptic-smelling room.
"Oh, you're awake!" she
chirped.
Grapefruit nodded his large head and tried to sit up.
"No, no! Don't get up!" the nurse ordered. "You just lie quietly
and I'll tell the doctor you're awake." Having issued her orders, turned
and padded from the room on her white crepe-soled shoes.
Within
minutes a second person entered the room. This time it was a young
studious-looking man with a stethoscope draped around his long, thin neck.
He wore thick horn-rimmed glasses but not even the thick prescription
lenses couldn't conceal the good-natured twinkle in the doctor's eyes.
"How do you feel?" he asked pleasantly.
Grapefruit was too
overwhelmed to speak, so he just smiled weakly and nodded his head.
"You probably feel like you got run over by a lawn mower," the
doctor said sympatheically, "but you're goimg to be alright. You'll have
some soreness for a while. We had to sew you up like a baseball, and your
left lung was punctured, but we were able to patch all that up without too
much difficulty."
The doctor removed an aluminum folder from the
end of Grapefruit's bed and studied it carefully. Grapefruit watched the
doctor's every move. Satisfied with what he saw on the clipboard, the
doctor placed it back on the end of the bed and moved to where
Grapefruit's head was resting on the pillow.
"How does your neck
feel?" the doctor inquired.
For an instant Grapefruit's eyes
registered confusion, then the realization of what the doctor was saying
made his eyes widen in shocked amazement. His mouth dropped open and,
ignoring the tugging tubes in his right arm, his hand flew to the back of
his neck and felt gingerly at the thick white bandages.
It was
gone! The spot where the grotesque goiter had ridden for so many years was
now flat! Grapefruit's throat constricted and his eyes instantly filled
with tears. His mouth opened to speak, but no words came out. The tears
overflowed their banks and rolled shamelessly down his reddened face. He
reached for the doctor's hand and squeezed it in silent gratitude.
The doctor's voice was filled with emotion, too, as he said, "Yes,
I thought you'd like that, Mr. Heiisel. It won't be back."
Within
a week Franz Heiisel was discharged from Harborview Medical Center. He
immediately went back to work at his news stand on 3rd and Olive Streets.
And even though the unsightly growth was gone from his neck forever, I'm
afraid the good folks of Seattle continued to call him "Grapefruit." Like
I said, that was the only name he'd ever had as far as the general public
was concerned.
But no matter what they called him, Franz Heiisel
was a new man. He received a heroic citizen citation from the Mayor of
Seattle, and the following December both major daily newspapers in Seattle
named him their respective "Employee of the Year".
So the next
time you're in Seattle and you see an old newspaper vendor standing on a
corner, wave to him. Who knows, you might be waving at a genuine hero. You
may well be waving at Franz "Grapefruit" Heiisel, the bravest newspaper
vendor in the world.
Blood
Cows
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