I don’t like Dumper Stubbs.
I don’t know if it’s the way he looks or the way he acts or the clothes he wears, or what, I just don’t like him.
My mother always used to say that you should get to know people before you figure out if you like them or you don’t like them. Then she and my father would start talking about exceptions. “But every rule has some exceptions,” my father would start. Then they’d have this funny conversation.
“Of course,” my father would say, “people with very large chins are basically very cruel people. And people with their eyes very close together are very stupid...” And then my mother would say, “...and people with very large heads can’t control themselves and people with big, low ears are gossips.” And then my father might say, while he started to laugh, “and people whose nostrils flare out are perverts and people who walk with their toes pointing outwards never wash themselves properly.” And then they’d both be laughing and saying stuff like people who walked with their hands in their pockets were thieves and people who slouched were cowards, and people with loud voices were bullies and people with bad breath were liars and women who smoked were two-faced and men who wore their pants high were abusers and they’d keep on like that until they couldn’t think of any more and then they’d say, both together, “but you can’t judge a book by its cover!”
And they would laugh all over again and then go across the street to the Village Inn to see their friends.
My mother and father don’t do that stuff together anymore.
My father died last September of a brain tumor.
And my mother, I don’t know what’s wrong with her. She seems different now.
So, here comes Dumper Stubbs to pick up the garbage and change the grease.
And I don’t like him.
Dumper has a large chin, close-together eyes, a big head, low ears, flared nostrils, pointed-out toes, his hands in his pockets, a slouch, a loud voice, bad breath and high pants.
And I miss my father, who was big and handsome and brave.
Oh, if only now I could blow a long note on his trombone and he’d be only ten minutes away!
Maybe that’s why I hate Dumper.
Because he’s alive. He’s alive and my father is dead. It just isn’t fair.
And also, I hate him because he called my father a name.
“Is your father that stupid Abo that used to play that funny-looking horn over at that stupid club?” he said once.
Dumper Stubbs is going to pay for that.