Chapter 28
Stu: Snack Time
“We’ve got a god damn bonanza here, Mrs. Beasley!” Stu is snatching up candy bars and snack cakes by the handful. He loads up his arms, looks to stuff some in his pockets and suddenly remembers he’s wearing a Santa suit. He looks down at himself, at his protruding belly, his white, hairy legs sticking out of the tight boots. He fingers the white cotton around his collar, the fake leather belt that hangs on either side of the red felt pants.
He stops breathing. He just sucks his breath in and holds it as if exhaling will somehow make things worse. He drops all the candy and cakes on the floor, cellophane snacks raining down around his feet. Stu stands still with his mouth agape as everything that has happened since last night plays out in his head in fast motion. It’s a highlight reel of madness and for the first time since he saw Maurice Fetterling walk into the radio station, he sees it all with clarity. He knows why everything has happened and what needs to happen from here and he’s supposed to make all that happen. Yet here is, standing in a gas station in a half assed Santa suit, stealing HoHo’s because he hasn’t eaten in about 24 hours. His chest begins to hurt and he recognizes that feeling, remembers the startling pain of having something so mortal happen to him back in North Bennington.
“Stu?” Mrs. Beasley walks up to him, shakes him. He stands still, not saying anything, not moving; he’s a demented Santa Claus mannequin wading in a sea of Hostess Snoballs and Hershey bars.
“Stu!” Mrs. Beasley yells at him now, shakes harder and as she’s shaking him she’s seeing him, the way she saw all those people who paid her for these special moments. She instinctively closes her eyes and feels the electricity in his body, feels the current making its way through every muscle and vein. She can see it, in her own way. The currents manifest themselves in her vision as tiny lightning bolts striking every nerve in Stu’s body. The bolts land, explode and set Stu McLundy’s heart on fire.
When Mrs. Beasley finally takes her hands from Stu, he falls face up into the pile of snacks.