“Nice place,” I said.

“Yes, they treat me kind.”

I recognized his accent from TV interviews, but it startled me all the same. One rarely imagines French giants. Napoleon’s influence, I suppose.

“Do you always eat this early?”

“Most of the time.”

“Avoiding crowds?”

“That’s part of it. People stare, you understand.”

I nodded. Few famous men have stood 7’4″, 520 lbs. An elephant might comparatively pass through a room unnoticed.

“Part of it is the training regimen,” he continued. “I eat only one large meal, in the afternoon. Nothing after dark, especially the day of a match.”

“Is that typical?”

“For many of the bigger guys, yes.”

The waitress returned. She uprighted my wine glass, filled it from the carafe.

“Are you gentlemen ready to order?”

“I haven’t looked at the menu,” I said, unfolding it as I spoke. To André I added, “You go first.”

“Mister Rusamov is a regular here,” she said. “But I can come back.”

“That’s alright. Spinach omelet, please. With salad.”

She emptied the wine into my companion’s glass before exiting.

“Mister Rusamov?”

“It’s pronounced Roussimoff, actually.”

“Your last name. Somehow it never occurred to me you had one.”

“You assumed it was Giant?” He laughed deeply.

Our waitress brought more wine, bread for the table, soup and salad for the giant.

“So,” he said, tearing open a roll. The bread halved at the merest suggestion from his ample wrist. “Shall we talk wrestling?”

“If you like–that is, if you’re not tired of it.”

“Tired of it?”

“Many people find their jobs trivial to discuss.”

“I must be lucky, then.” We smiled at this. “Why, what did you have in mind?”

“Anything.”

“My love life? The books I’ve read? My childhood desires?”

“Why not? I mean, what did you wish for as a child?”

“Hmm.” He chewed a mouthful of salad thoughtfully. “To be invisible.”

“Yeah?”

“I’ve always wondered how it would be to get lost in a crowd.”

“So anonymity, then. Not true invisibility, like a superpower.”

“No. Though maybe every boy wonders what he’d do with proper invisibility? Steal candy, raid cash registers, sneak into ladies’ dressing rooms?”

I laughed in agreement, adding, “I suppose you wouldn’t make the most inconspicuous thief.”

“Good thing I found honest work,” he responded, grinning slightly.

He finished his salad, began his soup. His motions were astonishingly elegant for a man his size. Just as in the ring.

“Okay, I am curious about one match,” I admitted. “Your most famous, I believe.”

“Detroit? Me and Hogan?” He swirled his broth with his spoon before continuing. “It was strange, turning heel. It’s supposed to be more fun, acting the villain. Not for me.”

“You moved the crowd.”

“I play the role I’m given. Still, my heart is more like the lover than the killer.”

“Like the tale of the Big Friendly Giant?”

“Yes, yes.” He paused, smiled. “You wanted to ask me?”

“The body slam.”

“‘The Irresistible Force topples the Immovable Object,’” he quoted with a flourish.

“You,” I said, extending my hands, gauging the man’s proportions. “He lifted you. Over his head.”

“A very uncertain thing. Hogan didn’t know until that moment whether he was capable. The adrenaline helped, of course. The crowd, the hundred thousand pleading voices.

“As for me, I had back surgery not six months before. I’m usually fearless in the ring, but I don’t mind saying the Hogan fight made me nervous. Yet when he slammed me, I felt no pain; the hurt came later, in the dressing room, as I lay on the floor. Excruciating.”

“But how is it possible? There’ve been accusations–”

“What, needles? Pills?” He fingered the rim of his wine glass. “Not me, not ever. Others.”

“No, I didn’t mean. Obviously not you.”

“Others did. Had to. Not me.”

“No.”

Our main course arrived. My order came on a single plate, the salad and the omelet with its side of herbed potatoes. For the giant, the dishes were many: roast chicken with mashed potatoes and green beans, filet of sole with wild rice and asparagus, fettuccine in a mushroom cream sauce. A salad, identical to the one he finished earlier. A fresh basket of bread, and the promise of more wine.

“Bon appétit,” he said, raising his glass. I ate slowly, watching with fascination as he moved from one plate to another, attacking each one with evident joy.

“You like it here,” I observed.

“It’s hard to eat enough, to feel satisfied. Here I can.” He gestured over the array of food with his fork. “You like?”

“It’s excellent.”

“Good, good.” He clasped his hands together, pointing the utensil at some obscure corner of the ceiling. “Listen. You brought up steroids.”

“Was I wrong to?”

“Not at all. We spoke earlier of superpowers; is this not what the audience expects of us? To fly through the air, to move mountains, to perform with a speed incompatible with our size. To embody absolute good, or absolute evil.

“Roland Barthes said the key to the contest is the body of the wrestler, that the public must be overwhelmed with the obviousness of our roles. Naturally, wrestlers were able to achieve this obviousness before steroids, but hardly to the same degree.

“Were I a smaller man, I imagine I’d be tempted by steroids. As it is, my body suffers enough under its own mass.”

“Have you thought of quitting?”

“Only every morning. If it takes an hour to lift myself out of bed, I spend that hour weighing retirement.”

“But you’re still at it.”

“It’s not easy to leave things you love behind, even when they cause you pain.”

“It’s true,” I said, then added, “You could always do film.”

“Ah.” He speared the last of his asparagus with his fork, as though punctuating the syllable. “You’ve seen The Princess Bride?”

“Many times.”

“That makes me happy.”

“I’ve wondered why so few wrestlers act. It seems a natural transition.”

“All wrestlers are capable actors, yes, but only at the extremes of emotion. Few grasp the subtleties between.”

“What makes you so different?”

“Hmm.” He took his time in answering. “I told this story to Cary Elwes, actually, on the set of The Princess Bride. This happened in France, in the Marne region, at the end of the fifties. I was twelve years old and already six feet tall, two hundred fifty pounds. No school bus could hold me.

“Fortunately, Samuel Beckett, a neighbor and a friend of my father’s, drove a big truck, and was able to give me a lift on his way into town. Most days I learned more in the cab of that truck than I did in school.”

“Wait–the Samuel Beckett?”

“That’s right.”

“You knew Samuel Beckett?” I shook my head, trying to imagine the elder playwright and mammoth youngster side-by-side. “What was he like?”

“A quiet man, but pleasant. Not at all dark, like his plays.”

“And he taught you lessons about acting?”

“Not really. He once mentioned some difficulty in finishing Endgame, that he found our little hamlet distractingly quiet and needed the filth and chaos of Paris in order to write. Beyond that he rarely discussed his work, or anything personal. We mostly talked cricket.”

“Cricket?”

“Sure. Sam was a decent bowler in his youth, starring at Dublin University. He even has his own stat listing in Wisden. But then, I suspect you don’t follow cricket.”

“Nope. What’s Wisden?”

“Sort of the cricketer’s bible.”

“Did you play?”

“I tried, but with limited success. Clearly I was meant for other things.”

“And talking cricket with Samuel Beckett made you a better actor?”

“Not directly, no. But perhaps I’ve a richer wealth of experience to draw upon than other wrestlers.”

The waitress came to clear the table, to refill André’s wine yet again. My companion was sopping up pasta sauce with a hunk of bread.

“Room for dessert?” asked the waitress.

“What are the choices?”

“Chocolate mousse, crème brulee, lemon tart, apple tart.” André recited the list in a singsong voice.

“Crème brulee, please. And coffee.”

Our plates now gone, the giant shifted his weight, stretched a little. Though he sat on a bench built for two, it seemed barely capable of supporting him.

“I’m supposed to lose tomorrow night.”

“Against?”

“The Ultimate Warrior. I’m in the twilight of my career now. The great has-been. Taking on the next superstar, the next Hulk Hogan.”

“Sounds frustrating.”

“Nobody can beat me if I don’t let them.”

“Ever tempted to just pin your opponent anyway?”

“I’ve done it before. I can get away with it as long as the match isn’t televised.”

Our waitress brought coffee, my crème brulee, and all four desserts for André. Plus the check, which he insisted on covering.

“This is my great pleasure in life, treating others to fine food and drink.”

“How generous.”

“It’s nothing. You need tickets for tomorrow?”

“I’m afraid I have a class to teach. I saw you the last two times you came to town, though.”

“I fought Big John Studd last time, right?” He concentrated a moment on scraping up the dregs of his chocolate mousse. “The other–remind me?”

“Jake ‘The Snake’ Roberts. You bolted from the ring after the match, claiming to be terrified of snakes.”

“I’m not.”

“I figured.”

“Not the most convincing storyline, I suppose.” He shrugged. “But tell me–this class you’re teaching?”

“Some creative writing, some journalism. My wife Debby works during the day, so teaching at night means I don’t see her much during the week. But it helps towards the bills, and gives me time to write.”

“Any kids?”

“Not so far.”

“I wouldn’t mind settling down myself someday. Get married, raise a family. It’s next to impossible when you’re on the road three hundred days a year. I adore children, so the worst for me is seeing them act frightened. I try to say hello after every event, shake a few hands, but some kids are scared to go near me. Sometimes even the women are wary of my size, thinking I might hurt them.”

“Yet word is you’re still quite the ladies’ man.”

The giant grinned, but said nothing.

We passed the rest of the meal in silence. I sipped my coffee while André finished his desserts. It wasn’t until we stood outside the restaurant that he spoke again.

“Are you parked here?”

“I rode the bus.”

“When I was younger, and my back was stronger, I had a knack for lifting cars. My friends would exit a bar or restaurant to discover their car facing the wrong direction.” He laughed aloud at the memory. “But hey, I can give you a ride home if you like.”

“I appreciate that. But haven’t you–”

“Drank too much wine? For a man my size, wine is like aspirin. When I’m serious, I drink vodka.”

“If you’re sure.”

He answered by walking a straight line down the length of a parking bumper. His balance was flawless.

I followed him to his car, a big white Lincoln with the front seat removed. I felt like a child seated next to this enormous man, his dashboard beyond my reach. He drove with exaggerated caution, as though still demonstrating his sobriety. We rode down familiar streets, yet they appeared distant from the strange perspective his backseat offered. I hardly recognized my own neighborhood until we were nearly at my house.

“Thanks for the ride, and the meal.”

“My pleasure.”

“It’s too bad I can’t watch you wrestle tomorrow night. I get the feeling the Warrior doesn’t stand a chance.”

“You may be right.”

We shook hands. His grip was warm, but it was shocking to see my hand disappear completely into his. I felt again like a child.

When I finally came in, Debby was home from work. And I told her everything about my dinner with André the Giant.

“Did I ever tell you about my job stocking shelves?”

“Mmm,” she said.

“A summer job, during college. One of those warehouse membership stores. I mention it only because a man worked there named Porn.”

“Mmm.”

“He was a cashier. Asian, I guess. His English wasn’t great, but he could count the money okay. And welcome customers, thank them for shopping today, point them to the right aisle for ten-gallon drums of mayonnaise or whatever. But I never asked where he came from.

“Not that my friends and I didn’t talk shit about him. Nothing so clever, just mock dialogue: I went skydiving this weekend. Wow, that’s hardcore, Porn. Or maybe when he was a kid, his mother placed a classified ad for a sitter: Get paid to watch Porn. Stupid shit, you know? It doesn’t take much to keep your head in the gutter when you’re nineteen.

“As I got older, if I thought of him at all, I’d test his name in simple phrases. Porn’s just trying to make a living, or Porn turned a year older today. Imagine ringing the man’s doorbell: I’m looking for Porn. Porn please.

“I mean, what do people do every day? Porn drove to the gas station to buy cigarettes and beer. Although in that case I couldn’t help but hope he’d pick up a nudie mag on impulse. Not Playboy, one of the gross ones. Swank, or High Society. Would his ID entitle him to a discount? If so, would he feel ashamed to use it?”

I looked at the wall. She keeps this alarm clock beside her bed with luminescent dials. I couldn’t see the time, just the reflected glow from the second hand as it swept its circle. A minute passed before I spoke again.

“I used to swear I’d make myself important, that I’d never settle for a peripheral role in other people’s stories. Like this man Porn: it seemed he had no family, no desires, no existence beyond my field of vision. If not for his name, why remember him at all?

“Of course, the reality is I’ve probably had a similar impact on most people I’ve met. After all, most of us can’t spend our lives being memorable. It’s exhausting.”

I studied my hand, the one that wasn’t touching her body. My skin looked sickly blue in the light of the clock dials. “Maybe I should introduce myself as Porn at a few parties. If I can keep a straight face–” My voice trailed off as I realized she had spoken.

“What’d you say?”

“I said, do you always get this agitated when you think about Porn?”

I swatted her backside, lightly, then turned towards the opposite wall. Though the more I thought about it, the less certain I became that I had understood her meaning.

I spent all day yesterday fretting about the missing deposit, then drank enough after work to chase it from my mind. A Humphrey Bogart film was on when I came home from the bar, but I fell asleep and missed the ending. It worked its way into my dreams, though. I was climbing a lonely hill at night, and had a raincoat pulled tightly around me. It was windy and the clouds sailed past the moon at an insane speed. I wore loose dress shoes with poor traction, and I would periodically slide back a few steps and have to scramble to my feet. When I finally reached the top I came to a bus stop beside a deserted street, where dead leaves and plastic bags whirled past rusted cars. The weathered remnants of handbills for last month’s carnival were pasted to the reverse of the bus stop’s glass partition; the mirror image of a torn clown, its pointy-hatted head pinned in the jaws of a tiger, grinned obscenely at me. A payphone stood nearby, and though it didn’t ring I held the receiver to my ear. I could hear Bogie over the line, telling someone a good love scene involved him slicing grapefruit, dopey and half-asleep. I can’t recall how I reacted to hearing this, but when I woke the film was over and static filled the screen.

I flipped past a few envelopes destined for the junk pile – get this credit card, save that creature, elect some city councilperson – and found a letter from my job. This one felt unusual: my address and theirs were typed directly on the envelope rather than visible through a glassine window, and it weighed next to nothing.

The letter inside was terse:

Dear sir,

We regret to hear of your untimely passing. Effective immediately, all deposits to your account are hereby suspended.

Sincerely,

I held the letter towards the kitchen ceiling light, as if a change in angle would reveal new truths. The paper felt suspiciously thin, but the company’s logo was faintly embossed about two-thirds of the way down the page – a seal of authenticity, I supposed. But I didn’t feel dead. I pressed my thumb into each finger on one hand, then the other. Five fingers per hand, all with feeling. I cleared my throat, coughed; the sound was staged, hollow, but at least I had made it. I had seen enough bad comedy films to know better than to run face first into the bathroom door, but I did run my hand down its surface. Decaying paint was peeling off firm plywood – I scraped a few flakes loose with my thumbnail. So I couldn’t pass through solid matter, anyway.

I imagined human resources could sort this out, but all of a sudden I didn’t feel like going to work. I lit a burner to put a kettle on for tea, and waved my hand into the flame, which if anything hurt more intensely than I expected. Apparently I could outwit the walls but not the stove.

As I rinsed my sore fingers, I contemplated the existence of the letter. Why bother informing me I’m dead? If my job intended to reach a close relation I had none, and I lived alone, except for my cat. I half-suspected Baxter could read, but he in any case lacked the manual dexterity necessary to open an envelope. I hadn’t seen him this morning, but I didn’t seek him out. I felt confident cats could see ghosts, so a conversation with Baxter wouldn’t prove anything.

I sat staring out the window, nursing my tea for the better part of an hour. I wasn’t really thinking, just allowing my eyes to wander over the rooftops of shorter buildings in the neighborhood, watching weak sunlight reflect off miserable old patches of snow. It felt liberating to hear the clock strike nine. I hadn’t called in sick in years, and couldn’t remember the last time I was home when others weren’t.

At nine-thirty I reread the letter but discovered nothing new. I wandered downstairs to check the mailboxes, searching for my name; it was there below my mail slot, just the same as all the other residents. I leaned against the wall, not necessarily reassured, and noticed a lingerie catalog sticking out of box 3B. I wiggled it gently until it came loose and began thumbing through it. I didn’t feel particularly moved by the images, but I couldn’t say that meant much. One model was pretty enough, with a vaguely exotic face, generous curves, actual hips. The others looked unbalanced: stick frames, massive tits. And the airbrushing was out of control – the blemishes, the wrinkles and the stretch marks had been predictably erased, but so had the nipples, the pubic hair and the labia, the tiny islands in a sea of skin that could send nations to war. Or something. I dropped the catalog on the floor and went back upstairs.

An alien feeling settled over me as I reentered my apartment, as though I had chanced upon a meticulous recreation of my living room in a foreign museum. I turned around slowly – with the bathroom door open I could see almost the entire space from where I stood. I could sense a labored authenticity in the most trivial details: the ten-and-two o’ clock arrangement of teacup handle and sugar spoon on a saucer I left on the kitchen counter, the accumulation of dust on the books and records lining the shelves, the patterns of wear on the floorboards. I wanted to sit down but seemed unable to comprehend the utility of the sofa; the fabric bristled under my hand the way the skin of a frightened creature in some exotic petting zoo might.

The clock radio was playing softly in my bedroom, though I couldn’t remember turning it on. A voice as flat as newly minted paper money announced that today was the anniversary of the death of jazz trumpeter Lee Morgan. It seems his wife shot the poor bastard following an argument outside a club where his band was relaxing between sets. A curiously mid-tempo number followed the story; it was neither an upbeat celebration of the trumpeter’s life nor a mournful reflection on death. Just a song.

Baxter emerged from behind the bed, brushed across my legs. “I am here,” I told him, louder than intended. He looked at me funny, then wandered off to the kitchen and stuck his face in his food. “I am here,” I said again, softly this time.

My cell phone rang. I almost didn’t answer, thinking it was my job investigating today’s absence. But they thought I was dead, didn’t they? I picked up after six rings.

“Hey.”

“Jane?”

“Yeah.”

“What time is it there?”

“We’re in the same time zone, mister. What’s with asking me that, anyway?”

“I don’t know,” I mumbled.

“So how are you? You busy?”

“No. I’m not at work.”

“You sick?”

“No.”

“Then what’s the matter?”

“Jane. I think I might be dead.”

“How so?” She answered calmly.

“It’s my job. They sent me this letter canceling my paychecks. It said I was dead.”

“But you’re talking to me.”

“I know it’s absurd, but it sounds plausible. How do I know I’m living?”

“Does your heart beat? Are you breathing?”

“Ghosts breathe.”

“I wonder. You can’t talk to someone at your job?”

“What for?”

She was silent. Through the wall I could hear the muffled sound of radiator pipes banging in my neighbor’s apartment. It sounded like chains clanking on a jailhouse floor.

“I wish you were here, Jane. Since you left the city I can’t seem to figure anything out.”

“So go to the office.” Her calm sounded forced now. “Let someone there figure it out for you.”

“I don’t mean just the letter. It’s–”

“I know. But you have to start somewhere. There must be someone at work who can explain the error.”

“But who goes to the office to prove they’re alive?”

There was a long silence as we considered this. When she finally spoke it was to ask if I’d been outside today.

“I went down to the mailbox, but I suppose I haven’t properly left the building, no.”

“Do. Walk around, interact with people. Call me later.”

She hung up. I grabbed the barest necessities – coat, keys, wallet – and, after a moment’s hesitation, folded the death letter into my pocket.

The streets were quiet for a weekday. The few people I saw hurried one place after another, eyes down, shoulders hunched against the wind. I tried wishing it were summer, but it was impossible; I couldn’t remember how it was to feel the sun.

I trudged down familiar avenues for hours, never once considering where I was going. I stopped once for coffee and a sandwich, but the guy serving me moved so swiftly, so mechanically, that I felt less than certain I was present at the meal. I felt warmed by the coffee, but couldn’t taste the sandwich. I wasn’t hungry when I ordered it and I wasn’t full after I finished it. I felt like a cigarette afterwards – probably the strongest sensation I had felt all day, and the strangest. I’ve never been a smoker, but a slow, satisfying post-meal cigarette, the kind Humphrey Bogart might have in the movies, sounded like just the thing. The feeling lasted only as long as an empty plate was in front of me; by the time I left the café and walked past a market I desired nothing.

Soon I reached the park. It was dusk and the light was pathetic; the stripped branches of the trees bent forward like talons, low and sharp. A fog enveloped the east end of the park, and as I moved towards it I could hear voices, murmured conversations. I stood closer; the words grew louder but I couldn’t understand a thing. The sound was like the tower of Babel, a confusion of tongues. And yet for a moment I distinctly heard the voice of my grandfather: as an old man suffering from dementia he told stories of his youth during Prohibition, of moving cases of bootleg liquor on the Philadelphia trolleys. “Bring me my gangster hat,” he once insisted in a state of confusion, and this is precisely what I heard in the fog: “Bring me my gangster hat.”

The murmuring resumed. I stood still for a time, facing the fog. I listened but didn’t recognize another word. My hands were in my pockets and I felt along the folded edges of the letter with my fingertips. I thought about my grandfather, about the fog; I wondered what it would be like to take another step forward and maybe disappear forever.

I was still thinking long after the fog pulled away from me, receding like the remnants of a wave, leaving behind damp, clammy ground. I was alone and I was cold and I had nowhere to go, nothing to do. No – I corrected myself – Baxter needed me to feed him. And Jane asked me to call her back. That was at least something.

I turned around, away from the fog, and started walking home.

“Nope. You gotta live, man. Taste the rainbow. You get a story worth tellin’, you look my friend Lewis up. Works in publishing out in L.A.”

He pushes a Doors tape in and I study the cassette case. I figure I got twelve minutes ‘til “Light My Fire” comes on. Song drives me fuckin’ bananas. “Drop me off in the next town.”

He does with seconds to spare; I can hear that godawful organ intro as he peels away. It’s sunset now and I duck into some shitkicker bar for a beer and a sandwich, and as it arrives a comedy show starts, of all things. This guy Freddy Something gets introduced and he seriously takes the stage in a Groucho Marx getup and I can tell there’s gonna be trouble. Sure enough his lousy act gets him booed, then threatened; one drunken fool launches a bottle at him and nobody does shit about it, though it draws laughs as it explodes behind him. I form a sort of vaudeville hook with my hand, pull Freddy off the stage before someone kills him.

“Thanks, friend,” he says. “What’s your story?”

“Thumbin’ rides. Headed to Los Angeles,” I say, though truthfully I hadn’t considered where I was going.

“I got a Studebaker.”

“Yeah?” I look at him funny, but he’s serious. “You probably could use a career change anyhow.”

“You got that right.”

So we drive. Things are quiet on the interstate, but the first time we stop for gas we get into a wreck with a truck driven by a wiry fellow with a huge mop of curly hair, so black it’s almost blue, wearing these crazy mismatched patterns. Calls himself The Weirdo. We like him.

Both cars are fucked so we trade ‘em in for a station wagon. There’s three of us so we drive in shifts, one person asleep in the back, and we ride until The Weirdo gets hungry and makes us stop at this county fair. I meet Missy, a proper country girl; I buy her ice cream and she ends up heading West with us. She’s curvy – Freddy calls her porky under his breath, so I punch him. Just hard enough.

We’re gassing up again in Eastern California when I get jumped outside the station bathroom. “Been chasin’ you for days,” this dude wheezes, all beady-eyed and drunkenly. He’s got a knife, and I don’t see Missy or The Weirdo or Freddy anywhere. Just as my attacker lunges, a dog emerges from nowhere and bites his leg, snarls, chases him off. He acts all sweet with me and seems stray so we put him in the wagon.

In the end it turns out there is a Lewis in publishing; I tell him this story and he digs it. There’s a rainbow hanging over the bookstore parking lot during my book signing, and as I consider tasting it I get to hoping Mister Smartass will come tearing through the embarrassingly large “Meet The Author!” banner. I think he’d like my new friends.