[Sidebar] The Worcester Phoenix
May 8 - 15, 1998

[Tales From Tritown]

Urban outfit

Hollis the Mountain Man visits the city

by Sally Cragin

Illustration by Lennie Peterson

[Tales From Tritown] Hollis the Mountain Man is enjoying his new job driving for Tried-'N`-Tru Chips. Every Tuesday and Friday afternoon, he loads up the truck and delivers cartons of Regla, Vinega-Dubl-Salt, and Bahbeque all over Tritown. He likes sitting high up in the driver's seat and even makes his deliveries with a modicum of courtesy. The manager of Tried-'N`-Tru finds Hollis more reliable than Whitey Leblanc (now drying out in a halfway house near Tritown), as he takes great care not to jostle the chips.

Hollis realizes that he likes being out and about, and his long-standing distaste for the more urbanized parts of Tritown gives way to a grudging tolerance. Thus acclimated, he is less than hostile when Delia Ellis Bell the Partial Yankee (there was a questionable great-great-grandmother) proposes a trip to Boston.

"There's no good presents for Mother's Day here," she explains. "I want to go to Newbury Street and see if I can't get my mum something snazzy."

Hollis disagrees. "You could go to the Ant Barn and see what they have," he suggests. (The "Ant Barn" is actually the "Antique Barn," but crucial letters fell off long ago.)

"Oh gahd," she sighs. "There's no shortage of antiques, clutter, bric or brac at my mother's house. C'mon -- you've been doing all this driving -- we can take the Winkster. Let's head into town and see what we find."

Hollis's last trip to the metropolis occurred longer ago than he can remember. An exhibit about hydrology at the Science Museum lured him east, and he remembers fascinating layer-cake models of glacial strata. He also recalls traffic, expensive parking, and no street signs. But there is nothing wrong with trying something new before deciding he hates it.

When he arrives at Delia's, she looks rueful. The Winkster needs a new alternator. Reluctantly, he agrees to drive his truck. The ride into the city is mostly uneventful, though he gets nervous when the highway opens up into four lanes. "Jeez-um," he swears, following the badly marked route to Storrow Drive. "I haven't seen so many bad drivers since graduation night."

But Delia is excited. She wears a new pair of white painter's pants and has blow-dried her hair into a modest pouffe. Hollis wears a worn pair of khaki pants, his workboots unlaced, and a checkered feedstore cap. Delia was going to sing the theme to Green Acres when she first saw him that morning, but bit her tongue. He agreed to drive, after all.

Hollis turns off Storrow and makes his way cautiously through Back Bay. There is no time to admire the closely packed brick buildings before they park. After a few close calls ("Resident parking only" and a space too small for the truck), they find a parking garage. Hollis almost backs up when he sees the prices. "I could eat lunch and dinner on that," he squawks.

But Delia remonstrates: "Look, how often do we come into the city? Just chalk it up to pavement tax."

Once they are out and walking, Hollis starts to calm down. But he needs coffee. "Look," he says, "Dunkin' Donuts! I need a cuppa joe."

But Delia shakes her head. "You come all this way for franchise coffee? Let's try something different."

Hollis rolls his eyes, and Delia, discreetly consulting her map, leads him to Newbury Street. "Look!" she says. "Javarium -- let's go there!"

They descend into a narrow brick-walled enclosure pulsating with weird music that sounds like the Tried-'N`-Tru potato-chip machines. "Hmmm," says Delia, gazing up at the menu. "Lots of different coffees. Expressino, moccacaffeinated, cappulatte, with `flavor shots.' That sounds cute."

The line is long and moves slowly. Then Hollis notices, with a moment's horror, a washer through the clerk's eyebrow. No, he thinks, looking more closely: a fishing hook. He nudges Delia. "Kid got into a casting accident."

Delia glances at the clerk. "No," she whispers. "That's intentional. Haven't you heard of that piercing thing teenagers do if their parents don't pay enough attention? Jeez, aren't you glad we're not 17?"

Hollis refrains from saying that even if he were 17, he still wouldn't look like he wished he landed that smallmouth bass.

When it is their turn to order, Delia has a lot of questions, which the clerk is happy to answer -- part of his job training includes heavy memorization of these crazy brews, but nobody in Boston ever wanted anything exotic. "So," Delia concludes. "You'd recommend a mocha java double latte with a shot of almond? Sounds good to me," she says happily. "Hollis, whaddya want?"

Hollis comes out of his reverie. He is trying not to stare at two girls with purple hair, and instead his eyes alight on photographs showing an autopsy-in-progress taped to the bare brick walls. "Appetizing," Hollis thinks.

"Hollis!" Delia barks. "You gonna order?"

"Sure," he replies grandly. "Whatever she's having." Who says he can't be adventurous?

"Six dollars," says the clerk, putting cups on the counter. Hollis is shocked. At Happy's Coffee and Quick-Stop (30 kinds of doughnuts, 20 kinds of lottery tickets, one kind of coffee) the joe is 60 cents. "Pavement tax," he sighs, turning over some bills.

Delia claims an empty table, but as she does, one of the purple-hair girls approachs Hollis.

"Are you the drummer for Monopuff?" she giggles.

"Mondo-what?" he asks.

"Oh, c'mon, Lolly," says her friend. "We gotta go feed the meter!" She takes her by the arm, but as they leave, Hollis hears: "I swear he's in Monopuff, Stacey, hey, you're hurting my arm!"

Hollis joins Delia at the table, and gingerly raises his cup to his lips. "How is it?" she asks, having missed the fracas.

"Okay," he says. "But for three bucks, you kinda expect something special."

Delia sighs. You can take the boy out of Tritown . . .

They finish and go to explore the street. Windows are filled with things you never see in Tritown: wind-up toys, uncomfortable-looking underwear, used CDs, and Japanese food.

"Bait," Hollis mutters. "Crazy city folk."

Delia tsk-tsks, and they cross the street where Hollis is entranced by a window showing raincoats and boots: "Ruff Terrain."

Delia motions that she'll be next door at the boutique with colored soap and dried flowers in the window.

Hollis enters and sees a row of parkas. A few other customers might pass for Tritownies -- baggy pants and hats with earflaps -- but their boots are suspiciously new and shiny. His old gunga boots are duct taped and Shoe-Goo'd to within a quarter-inch of their lasts. But he needs a new parka.

A dark green model with extra-large patch pockets catches his eye. He shrugs it off the hanger -- it is as light as a cobweb. A voice tells him, "That's all poly-carbon, extra- lite, Silkalon." Hollis wheels around and stares at a rake-thin saleswoman wearing gold hoop earrings.

"Well, not all the city youth get into casting accidents," he thinks but just says, "Uh-huh."

"It's insulated to 40 below zero and can withstand a wind chill factor of 200," she continues. "You'd be toasty in that at the top of Mt. Washington."

"If ya didn't blow off," Hollis retorts, trying on the parka. It crackles quietly.

"They've been flying out of the store," she says.

"Pretty nice," he says grudgingly, but then notices other people in the store giving him curious looks. He turns around -- did he have a leaf in his hair? That always happens at Myrt's, when you're sitting at the bar. Someone would ask if you'd been doing yard work. But, no leaf. Hollis lifts a sleeve to inspect the price tag, a folded parchment sheet. He squints twice -- no, those are two zeros. And here he thought he had a bargain. "Four hundred bucks?" he asks, his voice rising.

"That's reasonable for this grade of parka," the saleswoman says soothingly. "It'll keep you warm on the next Monopuff tour."

Hollis starts getting the creeps. He wriggles out of the jacket and hands it to the saleswoman. "Gotta feed the meter," he mutters, backing out of the store.

He nearly bumps into Delia emerging from "Sudsy Tubs Ltd." She carries a pink shopping bag tied with a silver ribbon.

They walk back to the truck. "Find anything good?" Delia asks, noting her friend's empty hands.

"Just a lot of thin people hoping for a brush with fame," he replies. "Quite a change from Tritown, that's for sure."

Sally Cragin teaches Creative Writing at Fitchburg Art Museum.



The Tales From Tritown archive


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