Dan the Tomato Man

Dan the Tomato Man. That’s what all the kids called him. It was Peggy from down the street, who lost her left front tooth last week, who came up with the name. They had all gotten tomatoes from him at one point or another. In fact, just last week, Alberto from the end of the cul de sac had made a tomato basil quiche out of them, and while playing with the others he swore it was the best thing he’d ever tasted and that it’d made him grow two inches besides. Peggy said that the extra two inches had come from all the hair gel he used, and Lila, sitting on the curb, had slammed her book shut and gone to read somewhere else.

Angie, the youngest of the group, had piped up and said she’d never seen him before. 

“Well… he looks like… what does he look like?” Alberto turned to Peggy for help.

Peggy tossed her mass of red hair back self importantly. “He looks scrunched up, like a grandpa. You know what grandpas look like. But he looks a little… more scrunched up. Like… a ball of plastic wrap that’s so tangled up you can’t use it anymore.”

“I don’t really get it”, Angie frowned. 

“You know, like plastic-wrap.” 

“But how can a grandpa be like plastic-wrap?”

“He just is, ok?”

“But…”

“He looks like”, Lila had drifted back into the conversation, “death.”

They were all silent for a moment. 

“What does death look like?” Angie said finally, looking at Lila expectantly. Peggy was, for once, silent, and even Alberto stopped staring at his reflection in a parked car for a moment. 

Lila looked thoughtful. “Death looks old, and smart, but also sad. That’s what Dan the Tomato Man looks like. Like he’s seen a million sad things. He doesn’t even smile when he gives us tomatoes. He just looks at them for a long time, then hands them over one by one. Until you can’t hold any more of them. Then, he’ll put one last tomato on top of the stack you’ve already got in your arms, and walk away. I don’t even know where he goes.” 

“He doesn’t live here?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen him go home anywhere.”

“I’ve seen him go home.” Peggy chimed in, crossing her arms smugly. 

They all turned to her. “Where does he go, then?” Lila said, her voice tight with measured disbelief. 

“He goes down the end of the street.” Peggy smiled triumphantly. 

“And then what?” the rest chorused. 

“And then…” Peggy frowned uncertainly, “And then…” 

“You don’t even know,” Alberto turned back to the car. 

“I do too! I’ll just show you!” Peggy spun around, not bothering to check if they would follow. Angie padded loyally behind her, taking the opportunity to stomp down so her sketchers lit up. Alberto tore himself away from the window, running a hand through his spiked hair one last time. Lila followed last, grudgingly, face buried in her book. 

They walked past Alberto’s house, which was tall and skinny and built of bright red bricks. It shone in the midday sun like the screen of a television, the windows a glinting grid of kaleidoscopic squares. If you squinted, you could catch glimpses of scenes playing out in each pane. A black-haired, tan-skinned boy laughing over a bright pink birthday cake. The same boy painstakingly straightening his collar in front of a bathroom mirror, cracked in the corner. A kitchen table covered in sketches of jackets, zooming onto a hand coloring a long coat purple, with teal buttons shaped like flowers. Up in the very top, right corner, a speeding car whooshing down a road and colliding with something, over and over. 

They walked past Peggy’s house, a short and pudgy trailer, white sides stained a buttercup yellow. Shadows flickered on and off of the long slats, blending into shapes and sounds. If you focused on them, you could see the smudge of a pale girl with a halo of curls skipping rope on black asphalt. You could see her singing and skipping down the street, followed by an entourage of smaller children. You could see her bending down to bandage a little boy’s skinned knee, or jump up to spin a skinny toddler around and around in the air. At the bottom of the trailer, blades of grass shifted back and forth in the breeze, casting longer shades on an image of the girl being thrown into those yellow-white walls by a tall, muscled figure. As the wind continued to blow, the shadows pushed her into the wall again and again. 

They walked past Angie’s house, a grey apartment complex that seemed to them to soar into the sky, brushing against cotton ball clouds. The sallow cement was covered in spindling cracks that seemed to dance and shift like ribbons in the changing light, dappled from the nearby oak tree. If you looked at them from just the right angle, the cracks would twist and turn themselves into loops and lines, drawing a girl with a bowl cut of black hair and small feet that spinning around and around on a shaggy carpet, copying the movements of adults in pointe shoes on a flickering tv screen. They became a vision of the same girl perched on the shoulders of a teenage boy, chattering to the birds outside the window. As the oat leaves fluttered, the cracks splintered into the girl reaching for the birds, alone and unafraid, and tumbling forward. The leaves twitched, and the girl fell, down and down. 

They walked past Lila’s house, a sprawling hospital complex, with little courtyards in between buildings and sterile hallways lined with men and women in white. The buildings hopped and bounced around in a jumping maze of rooms and beds, and if you were standing above them, you would see them as pixels patterning a movie of a young girl with blonde hair and skinny arms, squinting to puzzle out words in the dark. You would see her hair thin and her eyes grow big and dim, eternally focused on the next line of text. You would see the sun rise and fall, rise and fall, rise and fall, on the curtains next to her bed, until it was rising and falling without her. 

They walked on, and finally, reached the end of the street. Peggy eyed the road ahead hesitantly, and the rest hovered behind her.

“Are you sure this is where you saw him go?” Alberto said in a hushed voice. There was no other noise here, no wind, no birds, no leaves hovering above them. The street simply ended, like the edge of a sheet of paper, ahead lay a pearly fog and silence. 

“Yeah”, Peggy whispered back, squinting into the fog, as if she expected the brilliant, ripe red of the tomatoes to suddenly materialize out of it. 

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Angie said, backing up a few steps, nearly bumping into Lila. 

“Watch where you’re going!”

“Sorry.”

“There’s no way he came from here, Peggy.” Alberto pressed. 

“He did come from here. I know it.” Peggy hissed back. 

“Well then, go and find him.” 

“What, are you too chicken to go?” 

“No.” Alberto puffed his chest out. 

“This is dumb,” Lila mumbled.

Angie stomped her feet down to light up her sketchers. The fog seemed to eat up the neon pink glow, stifling it with milky white. 

 “Fine, if you guys are too chicken,” Peggy clenched her fists and took a big step forward. 

She disappeared. 

“Peggy?” Alberto called tentatively. Lila closed her book, Angie stuck her face into the fog and swung it from side to side. She pulled back.

“You can’t see anything in there!”

“I’m going after Peggy,” Alberto said, his voice shaking slightly, then half stumbled, half jumped forward. 

Lila and Angie exchanged a look. Angie grabbed Lila’s hand, and they both followed. 

Peggy, walking ahead, arrived at the garden first. Alberto popped up next to her, nearly falling into the soft, dark dirt, and Lily and Angela trotted up last. In front of them, floating in that milky mass, a little white picket fence framed rows and rows of plants. Brilliant green leaves circled soft wooden pikes, which were crowned with fat, bright, jewel-like tomatoes. They glowed like lanterns in the dim light. 

An old man sat hunched among the crops in rough burlap gloves, weeding. 

“That’s Dan the Tomato Man,” Peggy murmured smugly. 

The man’s head rose slowly, and he peered at them from his position squatting among the plants. His face was lined with wrinkles so deep that his dark skin seemed to be tucked under his bones, head resembling that of a skeleton. His eyes were the same milky white as the fog, and he blinked at the children slowly, his long, dark lashes fluttering. 

“Are you kids back for more tomatoes?” his voice sounded like a rattling last breath, a baby bottle clattering against the floor. 

“No,” Peggy replied, “We just wanted to see where you lived.” 

“Oh,” the old man scratched his chin, the sound like nails on chalkboard, “You don’t want any tomatoes?”

“Not really,” Peggy said, absentmindedly kicking a loose stone. 

“If you don’t want any tomatoes, you can’t stay here.” 

“Why not?” Lila stepped forward a bit. 

“Because you have to be at home.”

“Why do we have to be at home?” Lila questioned. 

“That’s just the way things are here. How are you liking the neighborhood?”

The children exchanged a look.

“It’s nice,” Angie said finally. 

“Well then,” the man grinned at them, his mouth a toothless, black hole that looked much bigger than it should. “Take a tomato.”

He stood up with a loud creak, then, with long, spindling fingers, slowly handed them each a tomato. His long nails cut into the tomato’s skin, causing little drops of juice to bubble up. 

“Thank you,” Peggy said after a moment. A chorus of ‘thank yous’ from the rest rose after hers. 

Then, together, they walked back. 

“He was kind of like plastic wrap,” Angie said thoughtfully. 

“I told you so! He’s super wrinkly.” Peggy grinned. 

“I’ve got to get home,” Alberto said. 

“What, is your hair gel wearing off?” 

Alberto scowled at Peggy, “So funny. No, my Mom said to be back early. We’re having a movie night.”

“How’s your Mom today?” Angie asked.

“Still talks a little weird, but she’s been weird ever since we moved here.”

“Right? My big brother’s still weird too.” Angie mused. 

A tangle of, “Well, see you guys tomorrow.” and “Yeah, see you.” ensued. 

Then the children walked off their different ways, each holding a tomato.