Putz

Mr. Lebowitz sits contently in a train car. He wears a pince-nez on his nose which is always buried in a crossword puzzle, as it is at the moment. He folds his paper to the side and starts setting out an assortment of little tupperwares just so. When he is satisfied with this arrangement, he dips a baby carrot into some hummus. With a relishing crunch, he closes his eyes and at this moment all is right in his world.

In a flash of color and a whirl-wind of shopping bags, a stranger enters and strews all his earthly possessions around the car. It’s an odd assortment, none of these things seem like they go together, much like the man they belong to. The man, who could be anywhere between the ages of 22-72, wears absurdly mismatched clothing. Mr. Lebowitz looks down in disbelief to see that he has a different shoe on each foot.

“Putz! ...Oh, not you. Me! Steven Putz, that’s my name. At least it is for now. Up until the moment I got on this train, I’ve been Steph-ahn Pütz: a tragic widow who lost his wife and child in a hot-air balloon accident. Steph-ahn’s a real hit with the ladies, so much so that I found myself in the position where I was going to marry one of those ladies. It’s all about the backstory!”

He taps his finger to his temple knowingly and winks. Mr. Lebowitz is entirely unsure how he should respond to this.

“Oh baby carrots! Can I-”

Steven Putz doesn’t wait for a reply and reaches over with a grubby hand.

“I’m a pretty shallow person, actually. Completely ordinary!”

He crunches noisily as Mr. Lebowitz cowers behind his crossword puzzle and decides to remain so for the duration of this interaction.

“Mr. Putz, good ol’ dad, he was a traveling salesman. Sold the x-ray specs and the fake dog poop like you would see on the back of magazines. We moved around a lot, nowhere particularly interesting. Corn fed, white picket fence kind of places: a lot of the same. Never was around long enough to build relationships or anything else for that matter. My personality is just little bits and pieces of things I picked up here n’ there.”

He takes off his shoes and props his feet up on the bench across from him. A toe sticks out of a hole in his sock and Mr. Lebowitz notices that it’s dangerously close to the baby carrots.

“When you first move to a small town, there’s a moment when you are the shiny new thing. Everybody wants to know you and hear what you have to say. But they’d find out how boring I am pretty early on, and it’d never last. I had to find a way to hold their interest! When we moved to Wichita Falls, I spoke in an affected British accent the entire year.”

He sticks his nose up in the air and delivers that last sentence in a ridiculously posh accent.

“A bold choice, but it’s not like I was going to see any of those bozos ever again. I realized there were no repercussions, hell I could be whoever I wanted to be! I’d practice alone in my room for hours. Your eyebrows can change your whole face, ya know?”

He brings his eye-brows, high, low, then wiggles them about.

“I’d hold my mouth like this, or like this.”

He makes his mouth small and tenses his jaw, then he juts it out and grimaces.

“And your eyes need to reflect who you are!”

He makes his eyes bulge out disconcertingly.

“Then how do I carry myself?”

He puffs out his chest, then slumps his shoulders.

“I’d walk around the room on the balls of my feet, flat feet, toes pointed in, toes out.”

He starts walking around the car, crunching on everything he steps on as Mr. Lebowitz cowers in the corner.

“Every time I went somewhere new, I would shed my skin and become someone else entirely. Told my therapist I was more comfortable in someone else’s skin than I ever was in my own. Course I was going by Stevie at the time, a reformed car thief with a gambling problem.I keep a record of everybody that I’ve been, see?”

He produces a small black book from his orange cargo shorts.

“Hmmm… Stevo, the bank robber from Baltimore with a foot fetish… Oh, then there’s Sven the scandanavian cheesemonger… But I gotta say I enjoyed being Steph-ahn Pütz the best. -You’re really easy to talk to, y’know?”

He rummages around in his shopping bags spilling things onto the floor, he takes up more space and the environment gets more chaotic. Finally, he produces a shopping bag clinking with small liquor bottles. He holds it out to Mr. Lebowitz who silently declines. He cracks open a tiny whisky, downs it in one go, and chucks the bottle into the chaos.

“I met Rhonda in Cambridge. I was wandering the grounds of the University trying to look like I was a part of the scenery, and she was on a tour passing through. Everyone went for a drink at the pub afterwards, I wanted to know Rhonda that night and that night only.

I brought out the big guns. Told her my sob story of how I used to be a promising young professor at Cambridge University but after my wife and child were killed in a terrible hot-air balloon accident, the pressure was just… too much! Sorry! I’m not usually like this but coming out to the university today was so very triggering! Can I... lay my head on your shoulder… yes, let’s just stay like this for a minute…”

Mr. Lebowitz is appalled as Steven Putz makes to lay his head on his shoulder. It’s a very uncomfortable moment that seems to go on forever.

“See? Pretty good, huh? We didn’t end up doing it though. She just held me… all through the night. I felt so vulnerable being the little spoon, and guilty at how much I enjoyed her sympathy. I wanted it to last as long as I could make it.”

Then to Mr. Lebowitz’s dismay, Steven Putz starts disrobing as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. Stripped down to a pair of greasy tighty-whities, he starts trying on different articles of clothing he procures from his shopping bags.

“Fast forward two years and we have a flat and two labradoodles. She starts dropping hints, and suddenly I’m asking her to marry me like it was my idea in the first place! From there it was a whirl-wind of fittings and cake tastings and dance classes, because on top of having to plan a wedding we have to come up with a whole goddam dance number!

And then comes the time to send out the invitations. I had managed to keep my worlds separate all these years. What was I thinking?! It’s tomorrow, by the way. I’m supposed to be at my rehearsal dinner right now.”

A voice comes over the INTERCOM. “Attention ladies and gentlemen, we will be arriving at Three Ponds Station shortly.”

“Three Ponds! Not a damn soul on this earth will find me there! I think I’ll go by… Steve. Hard-working, country man. Salt of the earth.- Is the hat too much?”

He holds up a raccoon cap. By this time he’s dressed in dungarees, parka, and heavy boots. Mr. Lebowitz shrugs weakly.

“You’re absolutely right! You’re alright, old man.”

He clasps Mr. Lebowitz roughly on the shoulder and gathers his belongings at record speed. As an afterthought, he tosses a shopping bag to Mr. Lebowitz.

“Steve won’t be needing this.”

Mr. Lebowitz watches Steven step onto the platform. He places the hat on his head and a transformation takes place in his whole body. Mr. Lebowitz continues to stare awestruck at his back as he takes off into a loping gate and disappears into the crowd.

Mr. Lebowitz dips a carrot into some hummus and chews thoughtfully. The plastic shopping bag is the only evidence of the encounter, like a dream. Unable to concentrate in his crossword puzzle, he opens it to find cold hard cash rolled up in rubber bands. There has to be at least $20,000 in there, some of the bills are speckled with blood.

Mr. Lebowitz chokes on his baby carrot.