The Animators(68)

He stares. “What.”

“It’s awesome because we made it,” Mel says.

He looks confused. “You made it?”

“We made Nashville Combat. Me and skinny over there. This is our movie.”

“No shit,” the guy says. “You’re Mel Vaught.”

“I know.”

“Wow.” He pushes his noodles aside. “I’ve watched your cartoons for, like, ever. Like since middle school.”

Mel leans over, shakes his hand, bobs her head. The switch has been flipped. “That’s really cool to hear,” she says. “That’s great. So you’re into animation?”

I hang back. It doesn’t happen much, but when we’re recognized, at a party or a convention, Mel always handles it more smoothly than I ever would. Providing she’s not tanked.

The bald kid reappears from the back. “Ryan, we need to know where you strategically misplaced the invoices.”

“Dude, I dunno. Ask Ted.”

Ted. I feel my stomach surge.

Ryan gestures at us. “Look. They made Nashville Combat.”

The bald kid perks up. “Really? That movie is incredible.”

“Thank you,” I say.

He points to Mel. “Wait, are you Mel Vaught?”

“I am.”

“Wow. You look just like her.”

“Hey, thanks.”

“So did all that really happen?”

“Yeah. Mostly.”

“Even the Grand Ole Opry Riot?”

“Oh yeah. None of that’s made up.”

“Wow.” He shakes his head. “That was a mindfuck to watch.”

Mel shrugs. The wrinkles around her eyes bear in a little deeper. “It was a mindfuck to be there.”

“So what are you all doing in Louisville?”

Mel points to me with both hands. “She’s Kentucky-born and raised. Sharon, what the hell are you doing? Come over here.”

They ask me where I’m from. I tell them Faulkner. “That’s close to Morehead, right?” Ryan says. He turns to Baldy. “Didn’t Ted live around there when he was a kid?”

At this, a tall, wiry man strides out of the back room. “Ryan, we really need those invoices, man,” he says. “I don’t want to have to perform voodoo to track them down.”

Later I would realize that of all the good things my stroke did—sealing Mel and me back together, returning me, as much as was possible, to my family—giving me the ability to see Teddy clearly was the best.

The stroke slowed me down. For the sake of my own survival, I was forced to take in the outside world exactly as it was, without expectation or distortion, in order to exist in it without breaking myself in half. For once, I fought for realism, a state of mind that seemed the exact antithesis of who I was, what I did, but that allowed me to handle a toothbrush, go to the bathroom, walk without stumbling. I hated this—having no fantasy to soften the blow—but to survive, I did it. And sometimes, in return, the world gave me gifts.

So it is with Teddy. He is not subjected to any construction or treatment before I meet him. I no longer have the will to imagine what I want. The experience rises clean, without my greasy fingerprints all over it. When I meet Teddy, I meet him as he is.

I am surprised to find that I would know him, actually know this man, if I saw him as a stranger. The assertion of his nose, the sharp little chin, the pale skin on which I can see the faint outline of stubble as he stoops under the counter. This is the ghost of the boy moving through the world. This is his face, this is his body. He has become, as an adult, handsome. Square, solid, confident. A good-looking guy, looking for something as he dips behind the register, his shoulders shifting as things are socked and thudded down below. My entire body prickles.

Ryan ducks his head and shuffles over. “I’ll get em,” he says. “We got superstars in the house, man. Check it.”

Baldy points to us. “They made Nashville Combat.”

The shoulders stop. Teddy’s head tilts. His eyes appear over the edge of the counter, wide, train on me. He slowly rises, face soft and open, a little anxious. I am amused to see that Ted Caudill is wearing suspenders.

“Sharon?” he says.

I nod. Give a lame little wave.

He doesn’t move.

I scan my brain for something to say, anything. Feel it begin to fold up. Not again. Fuck.

He blinks. “Is that really you?”

“I had a stroke,” I blurt.

Mel coughs. “Jesus,” she sighs.

He comes around the counter and takes me by the shoulders, looking me hard in the face: first one side, then the other.

“You look exactly like yourself,” he says slowly. “I’d know that face anywhere.”

He puts his arms around me. We fall into each other.

It’s like remembering how something tastes, hearing a sound gone unheard for years; touching him is a sensory experience I haven’t realized I missed until it comes back to me, all that unfelt loss hitting me at once.

My face has disappeared into his shoulder. I manage to unearth it. Say, “I like your trampoline.”

—

Teddy suggests a bar near Weirdo Video. Two high school guys arrive to take over the store and we head out: Teddy, Mel, Ryan, and the bald kid, whose name is Tatum. (“It’s a girl’s name,” Teddy whispers to us, prompting Tatum to yell, “Shut the fuck up.”) It’s Friday night and Bardstown Road is alive with traffic. After-work crowds clog the bars, pack the pizza joints and coffeehouses. I spot a bookstore filled with people along the way. “Oh yes,” Teddy says. “Very literate city we have here.”