Will the Thrill

 

His name was Will, but I called him “Will the Thrill” because he always had something exciting to say or do. He was a big, loud, brash American. The way Americans are supposed to be. He had two solid tree trunks for legs, above them was a huge barrel chest, and screwed onto a thick neck was a square chiseled face.

When Will said something you believed it without question. When he spoke people listened and then commented. He knew where he came from, where he was going, and what he stood for.

He grew up in Iowa and then moved to North Carolina where he studied briefly at Chapel Hill. He wanted to be an international businessman, but quit school after a few years, got bored of it.

He had to be a first-born child. You can’t help but imagine him giving orders all his life. And teaching? He said he taught English to kids for a year in Japan. I tried and tried to imagine him teaching children: “A is for apple! Get it. A. Apple. SAY IT! Drop and give me twenty you whimpering snot-nosed twerps!”

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Excerpt from “Will the Thrill,” a short story in Hillel Groovatti’s new book of short fiction entitled Totally Losing Face and Other Stories.