The Hardyman | Page 6

got to the office, the revolving door at the entrance
would break free as he bulldozed through it. This time, when he arrived
on the twenty-seventh floor in an elevator fairly bursting at its seams to
contain him, he would careen down the hallway to Mr. Bigsby's office
where, much to his boss's surprise, Jack would tear the door from its
hinges, grab Bigsby by the clavicles, climb out the nearest window, and
clamber up the side of the building until he had reached the antenna at
its peak. There, Jack would swing from the skyscraper in the Hardyman
suit like a newfangled animatronic King Kong, waving Mr. Bigsby
around as his boss shrieked like Fay Wray. Eventually, a cadre of
helicopters would shoot him down as the whole city watched it all play
out live on their T.V. screens. The woman who drove the garbage truck
would weep for him over her T.V. dinner as the credits rolled. She
would be very sorry, indeed, that she had left him standing at the curb.
That night, Jack writhed and pitched in a dream, lost in a maze of
hallways within his childhood home. He was a boy once again, and
small, running from empty room to empty room, screaming at the top
of his lungs. Something was chasing after him and, without ever
looking back, by its monstrously thundering footsteps and its distant
angry call, Jack knew what it was. It was his long dead father, steering
for him at the helm of the great and terrible Hardyman. If his father
ever caught him, Jack knew, he would pin Jack under the awful weight
of his massive metal arms and breathe death into Jack's face until he
could no longer bear to inhale.
The next morning, Jack woke up and realized he was all alone.
9
That week, Jack took the train home, sandwiched between bodies
crammed into swinging loads of sweat boxes. In a strange way, for the
first time, it was a comfort to be a part of this teeming mass of people.
When the train reached his stop, Jack didn't disembark, instead using
his employee status to ride deadheading trains as their drivers aired
them out on return runs. The doors at either end of the trains stood

wide-open, the wind sweeping in as the men barreled through the dark
night, diving into black tunnel mouths, clattering across elevated tracks.
Sometimes Jack sat up front, next to the driver in the railfan's seat,
peering out at the coming distance as they drove headlong into it.
Whether the system was filled to overflowing or solitarily empty, if the
train was making stops or not, no matter the hour of the night or
morning, Jack searched for the woman. Maybe she drove the garbage
truck everywhere she went, picking people and cars out of the way with
her robot arm. Maybe she was chauffeured at all times by a gigantic
boyfriend from Herculaneum, Missouri, who punched people for a
living. Maybe she was hiding from him, somewhere inside this cement
and steel labyrinth of a city. No matter what he did, he could neither
locate her nor expunge her from his consciousness.
It was not until almost a week had passed that, at the corner-store, an
idea came to him. In the rows of greeting cards announcing, "You Have
a Boy!" and "What a Friend You Can Find in Jesus!", Jack found a card.
On the cover was a drawing of two robots eating ice cream cones.
Inside, the card was blank.
That night, Jack made his way out to the curb, dragging his garbage can
behind him. Once there, he attached the envelope with the card inside it
to the top of the can. Back inside, he looked out his bedroom window
to make sure the card was still there. He could see the white square
floating in the darkness. HELLO, he had written across the front.
The following morning, the sound of the garbage truck woke him like
an alarm. Without turning on the light, Jack made his way hurriedly
over to the window. He could see the shiny metal grill of the garbage
truck plowing its way down the street. In the half-light, the truck came
closer. It seemed to be slowing as it neared. By the time it reached his
driveway, it was crawling. Finally, it stopped in front of his house. The
truck sat there, as if it was debating.
With a sudden snap, the truck's arm darted out towards the garbage can.
For a moment, Jack thought it was going to grab the garbage can and
chuck its contents and the card into its belly along with all the other

rubbish. But it was reaching for the envelope, grasping and grabbing.
She was trying to