Mr. Charm and Mr. Scrambled Eggs

Blake Best skillfully spoons a hefty portion of scrambled eggs onto a veteran’s plate.

“Thank you for that.”

“What?”

“Giving me a little extra.”

“You look like you could use it today, Terry,” Blake says. “You keeping up with your appointments?”

“Yes, sir. I go to an AA meeting every afternoon. Tomorrow I’m goin’ for my glasses. Thanks again for settin’ that up. You’re a good man, Blake. This place used to be empty. Since you were made liaison to the Director, this place has become the top vet’s club in the county.”

“How about some bacon?”

“Yeah. Do me a favor, Blake. You got any pieces with fat on ‘em?”

“I guess so.”

“Save those for Bellinger.”

Blake looks over at Karl Bellinger, who is sitting at a table by himself, his head bowed.

Blake takes a break from the serving line to say hello to his old friends.

“There’s our hero,” Marc Marx says. In his youth, Marx was asked so many times if he was related to Groucho Marx that he decided to grow a mustache, style his hair like him, wear granny glasses, and smoke cigars.

Sticking an unlit stogie in his mouth, Marx says, “I heard you were in Albany this past week with the Director, fighting to get vets better medical benefits.”

“I think we’re going to get them,” Blake replies. “The senators all agreed to support my proposal.”

Roland Riley raises his glass of orange juice in a salute. The bulky Brady brothers nod with approval between bites of bacon.

“Breakfasts, barbecues, Vegas nights, and now legislation,” Roland comments. “No wonder you were named the county’s top volunteer last year. And I bet you get voted number one again this year.”

“The Director always says she’d be lost without you,” Marx adds “Is there anything you can’t do?”

Blake looks over at Bellinger.

“I can’t reach him.”

The others look over at Bellinger, moaning with disgust.

“Why bother?” Marx asks. Scarfing down a forkful of eggs he adds, “Man, these are good.”

“I wonder what Mr. Charm thinks of your eggs?” Roland asks.

“Let me find out,” Blake says.

“You’ll be sorry,” Roland warns Blake as he walks toward Bellinger’s table.

“Enjoying breakfast, Karl?”

“These eggs are powdered, aren’t they?

“No, they’re real.”

Whenever Karl Bellinger wanted to frighten someone, all he had to do was threaten to take off the black hood covering his mangled features. Resembling an executioner’s hood, the mask leaves only his yellow teeth and cruel bloodshot eyes visible.

Bellinger reaches for the hood, hesitating when he sees compassion, rather than fear, in Blake’s eyes. 

Bellinger pushes his plate away. “You need a new cook. This stuff ain’t fit for pigs.”

“If you don’t like the food, Karl, why do you come here? It’s not like you come to speak to the other vets, and when you do it’s usually to make some nasty comment or a threat.”

“I come here ‘cause I got a right to.”

“It’s all right to want to belong, Karl, but you have to make an effort to fit in.”

“Go fornicate yourself, Best, Leave me alone.”

The other vets notice Blake’s befuddled expression as eases down in his seat.

“I’m starting to understand why you call him Mister Charm.”

“He’s the king of surly for sure,” Roland replies.

“And don’t call him surly,” Marx jokes.

“Why’s he like that?”

“Well, duh, Best, he’s horribly maimed,” Marx says. “He started showing up in here occasionally about ten years ago. But he’s been a mean cuss since he came back from ‘Nam forty years ago.”

“I heard he was dishonorably discharged,” Roland adds. “Got everybody in his company killed. He’s not fit to be in here with us.”

Blake drops an envelope on Olive Petrie’s desk.

“What’s this?” Olive asks.

“Money from the tickets I sold for the raffle. And Roland Riley donated a thousand dollars toward next month’s barbecue.”

A retired librarian who’s known Blake for sixty years, Olive has been the administrator for the Woonsocket Veteran’s Club for the past fifteen years, and a champion for Blake’s volunteer work in the community.

Olive pats her short-haired blonde wig, giving Blake her usual flirty smile of approval.

“You’re amazing, Blake. Only you could charm a thousand bucks out of that baldheaded skinflint.”

“Roland may be cheap, but he served.”

“Yeah, in the ROTC.”

“He understands the suffering veterans have gone through.”

“Yeah, he may be a blowhard, but he cares,” Olive agrees.

“You know what I’d like to do with part of that money? Start a meals-on-wheels for vets. Maybe if we bring a guy like Karl Bellinger lunch, he might be more civil when he comes to the club for breakfast on Saturdays.”

“Mr. Charm? His heart would stop from shock if he were ever nice.”

“He can’t be as bad as people say he is,” Blake says.

“I take it back. He doesn’t have a heart to stop.”

“You know, I’ve lived here almost all of my life, and I don’t know anything about him.”

Olive shrugs. “My dear departed husband tried to get to know him. He was an eternal optimist like you. He said Bellinger suffered some sort of trauma while he was in Viet Nam.”

“Like seeing his company wiped out?”

“No. Like leaving them to get wiped out. Guess I’d be upset too if I had to wear the scars of my cowardice.”

“He really left his fellow soldiers to die in order to save himself?” Blake asks.

“That’s what Roland Riley says. Some folks can’t be redeemed, Blake. Even by you.”

The doorbell of Riley’s Hardware jingles happily as Blake passes through the front door. Roland gives Blake a blinding white grin with his new dentures. Grabbing his cane, Roland ambles toward him.

“You come to put the bite on me again? That’s not like you, Best.”

“No, of course not. I’ve come to tell you how much your fellow vets appreciate your generosity.”

Roland’s grey eyes squint. “I’m smelling something else mixed in with your praise.”

“Karl Bellinger.”

“That cowardly scum!”

“He’s suffering for what he did, Roland.”

“Good. You know what they do with wild animals that suffer? They should do the same to him. He’s like the Blob. For the first thirty years, he kept to himself in a cabin outside of town. Then it burned down, and he’s been oozing closer and closer to the center of town ever since.”

“What happened to him in Vietnam?” Blake asks.

“I heard he was hit with a grenade, then he turned and ran. The grenade blasted his features clean off his face. That’s why he has to wear that mask.”

“So, you heard a rumor, but you don’t really know what happened, or what he was like before he was disfigured?”

“Oh, I know. We went through grade school and high school together. Mister big shot. Mister motorhead with the fancy cars. He was the star running back with the football team. Got more girls than Hugh Hefner handing out hundred-dollar bills. But he was a self-absorbed bully. He beat me up practically every day after school for fun.”

“Doesn’t sound like the actions of a coward.”

Roland scoffs at Blake’s comment. “Well, I say he was. Are you going to take that drunken slob’s word over mine? Do you want me to void that check I gave you?”

“No, Roland. I’m just being curious. Maybe I need to hear his side of the story.”

“He’s less than human. He even beats his dog. As far as I’m concerned, he got what he deserved.”

Blake wobbles down the street, slowed by his new orthotics and the nagging pain in his seventy-four-year-old left hip. He spots Marc Marx’s always-grinning wife Rose, who met Marc while on leave in Taiwan.

“Hi, Rose. How’s Marc today?”

“Stiff, like all you old G.I.s. You guys can’t party like you used to.”

“You got that right. I’m buying stock in Advil. Say, have you seen Karl Bellinger?”

“That disgusting drunk? If I did, I’d run the other way,” Rose replies. “Try Frankie Cincinnati’s liquor store. It’s practically his home.”

Frankie Cincinnati stands in front of his store window, his hands on his hips, cursing in Italian as he waits for Karl Bellinger to appear.

As always, Bellinger tries to bring Sandy, his skittish German Shepard, in with him.

“I told you before, Karl, you can’t bring Sandy in here.”

“All I ever get from everybody in this town is crap.”

Bellinger reaches into his pocket. Pulling out a rumpled twenty-dollar bill, he slaps it on the counter.

“Gimme two bottles of Old Crow Rye.”

“First, Sandy goes outside. Sorry, girl.”

Sandy gives Frankie a woeful stare as she turns and walks out. Cursing, Bellinger follows her, tying Sandy to a parking meter.

“I wish you were as smart and obedient as your dog,” Frankie says upon his return. “I hope you remembered to put in a quarter.”

“You’re a regular Dave Chappelle, piason. Gimme my bottles of rye.”

Sighing, Frankie hands him two bottles of his lowest-priced whiskey. Picking up the twenty, he offers it back to Bellinger.

“I should pay you for drinking this rotgut.”

“I got no reason to worry about my health,” Bellinger says, snatching the twenty.

Melissa Morgan catches a glimpse of Bellinger spitting streams of phlegm at passing school kids.

“Sitting in the gutter again, right where you belong,” she comments.

“Maybe I should’a earned my reputation on my back, like you.”

Well-proportioned, with layered red hair, and an expensive smile, the mayor’s wife feels she has paid a heavy price to get where she is, and she’s not about to stand for Bellinger’s insult.

Melissa slaps Bellinger so hard that he drops his drop his bottle.

Rising with previously unseen agility, Bellinger clears his lungs, spitting a brackish wad of phlegm in Melissa’s face.

Sitting behind the wheel of the mayor’s limousine, waiting for Melissa to return, former police officer Desmond Holly sees the altercation. Racing to the corner, he grabs Bellinger by the collar.

“That’s assault. I’m callin’ the cops.”

“Yeah, my spit’s been classified as a deadly weapon,” Bellinger replies, pushing Holly away.                                                                                                                          

Holly bloodies Bellinger’s features with a rapid volley of punches. Bellinger smiles, blood dribbling down from the cuts over his eyes and lips. He waves Holly on, laughing at him.

Balling up her fists, Melissa batters Bellinger. “You know who I am? You think you can laugh at me?”

Bellinger let out a belly-busting laugh.

Holly gives Bellinger a magnificent beating. Passersby laugh, making comments like, “He deserves it,” “You’re not hitting him hard enough,” or “Can I take a shot?”

Bellinger never fights back, finally collapsing in a pool of his own blood.

“It’s like he felt he deserved it,” an exhausted Holly says.

Blake sees Bellinger splayed out on the sidewalk.

“Jesus, who did this to you, Karl?”

Bellinger’s massive bulk begins to shiver then shakes violently, twisting back and forth.

“LOOK OUT LYLE! OH, GOD! HE’S GOT NO HEAD! HE’S GOT NO HEAD!”

Frankie helps Blake carry Bellinger to the back room of the liquor store.

“You keep a cot in here?” Blake notes.

“Yep. So, he can sleep it off from time to time.”

“Who’s Lyle?”

Frankie’s dark features pale. “I don’t know.”

“You do. You just won’t tell me.”

“If he was conscious, he wouldn’t want me to tell you, so don’t ask.”

Bellinger begins to stir. Slowly sitting up, he sticks his hand under his mask, scratching his face.

“Dyin’ to get a peek at what’s underneath the mask? Think you can handle it?”

Bellinger’s bloodshot eyes tighten. “Do I know you?”

“…It’s the booze and the pills,” Frankie whispers. “…They ease his pain, but they make him forgetful.”

“It’s me, Karl, from the veteran’s club.”

“Mr. Scrambled eggs. You served in Vietnam, didn’t you?”

“Yes. I was wounded in the hip.”

Bellinger reaches into the pocket of his work shirt, pulling out a medal.

“The Battle of Khe Sanh,” he says sadly.

Blake enters the Veteran’s Club office wearing a dumbstruck expression.

“Did you know Karl Bellinger was at the Battle of Khe Sanh?”

Olive looks up from her ledger book. “Didn’t the army retreat in that battle? It would explain how Bellinger wound up with the reputation of being a coward.”

“They don’t give cowards the Medal of Honor.”

“No, if anything it’s given for acts of extraordinary bravery,” Olive says, patting her wig and smiling.

“Karl Bellinger’s got one.”

“Sounds like it’s time we learned more about the man behind the mask.”

Melissa Morgan enters Frankie’s store, nodding cordially at Frankie and Roland Riley, who are kibitzing at the counter.

“It’s not fair. My wife’s built like a zeppole,” Frankie says.

“Yeah? Well, my wife is like an old car,” Roland replies “Everything’s been replaced, but I’m still not getting my money’s worth.”

Bellinger staggers out of the back room, moving slowly toward them.

“You let that bum stay here?” Roland asks.

“You want him sleeping in the street while your grandkids walk by?”

Seeing Bellinger, Melissa holds up her bottle of vodka like a weapon.

“Get him out of here, Frank. Now!”

“How about a little love, Melissa?” Bellinger says. “C’mon, I used to stick twenties in your G-string when you were a stripper at Club Teasers”

Frankie and Roland give Melissa lascivious looks.

“That’s a lie!”

“Leave her alone, you lush!” Roland says.

“Listen to the fat man, all brave in the hope that the stripper wants to see his crippled body naked.”

“You’re as shameful as you are cowardly,” Roland says.

“Shameful? You want shameful? How about a man who joins the ROTC to be an officer, then has his folks buy his way out of the program just before they ship him off to Nam? As for that store of yours, you married the owner’s daughter, borrowed money to the hilt, then took all that money and put it in an offshore account in your name for a rainy day.”

Roland’s eyes widen and his skin pales. He leans against his cane, panting. “It…It’s a lie…”

Frankie swallows hard. “And me?”

Bellinger moves toward the counter. Roland and Frankie move away.

“I suppose I could talk about how you get your liquor and who you get it from, but you’ve been a good egg, Frankie. You're one of the few decent people in this whole town of hypocrites.”

“How do you know all these things about us?” Melissa asks.

“I’m a real good listener. Guess it never occurred to you that when I’m half passed out in the street or sittin' alone on a bench I can hear what everyone says.”

Reaching under the counter, Bellinger pulls out the gun Frankie keeps to ward off robbers.

Blake enters the store. His smile fades when he sees Bellinger pointing a gun at him.

“It’s Mister scrambled eggs.”

“What are you doing, Karl?”

“Looks like I’m holding you hostage.”

“Why?”

“These two have been spreading lies about me,” he says, pointing a shaky finger at Roland, then Melissa. “For a long, long time.”

“What do you want from them?” Blake asks.

“An apology. A thank you.”

“A thank you for exposing yourself in the park and peeing on the statue of General Patton?” Roland squawks. “A thank you for lying in the gutter drunk?”

“How about a thank you for his service,” Blake says. “Karl Bellinger is a hero.”

“A what? No!” Roland shouts. “He just threatened to blackmail me. He’s a beast, a coward!”

Roland’s body shakes as he tries to steady himself with his cane.

The sound of police sirens catches their attention. They watch as a heavily armed team of cops surround the store.

“Good. Somebody saw us. Now you’re going to get what you deserve,” Roland declares.

“Have you been so hell-bent on getting even with your childhood bully that it’s come to this, Roland?” Blake asks. “You lied to everyone for years. Karl was never a coward. Karl was a hero in Vietnam. He single-handedly killed four of the enemy in hand-to-hand combat. A motor shell hit him in his face, and he saw his best friend’s head blown off. Then he stormed an enemy encampment by himself and took half a dozen prisoners, despite being disfigured and wounded three times.”

“You?” Melissa says, astonished. “You were a good tipper, but you’re the town drunk. He’s got to be lying.”

Bellinger slowly pulls off his mask. “Am I?”

Bellinger’s patchy, raw skin is burned blood red and charcoal black. His eyebrows and eyelids are gone, and his veiny, dark eyes bulge from their sockets. The smile that had once charmed high school cheerleaders is locked in a rictus of pain, accented by the gaping hole in one of his cheeks. 

“He suffered to protect all of us,” Blake says. “Then he came home and was treated like an outcast.”

“I’m sorry, Karl,” Melissa says. “I had no idea what you’ve been through.”

Roland stares at Karl’s mutilated features. He begins to hyperventilate, swaying back and forth on his cane.

“So wrong…,” he gasps. “…I was jealous, bitter... I was so wrong… I’m sorry.”

Roland’s clutches at his heart. His eyes roll white as he falls backward.

Karl moves to help Roland up. A bullet crashes through the glass, passing through what remains of his skull. Karl slumps to the floor next to Roland.

Struggling to breathe, Karl gestures to Blake.

Reaching into Karl’s shirt pocket, Blake places the Medal of Honor on his chest.