“Hold it, Porky,” I said. “Hold it!”
“Huh?”
“I don’t think we have to worry about a hamburger trend,” I said.
“No?” he said. I could see the hope in his eyes.
“No,” I said. “Look at the logic of it. People can get hamburgers just about anywhere, can’t they? You said yourself that you thought of going to the diner for one.”
“Sure.”
“So with hamburgers so readily available, do you think people would come to a place that served nothing but hamburgers?” I folded my arms and regarded him with a mocking smile.
“Well, they might,” he said, “if—”
I was shaking my head and mouthing the word no.
“They wouldn’t?” he said.
“No,” I said. To tell the truth, I had no idea whether they would or not, but I had seen the sadness in Porky’s eyes, and I knew that it came from having his plans for a lighthouse misinterpreted as a watchtower. I had seen the fear, and I knew it came from thinking that his work might collapse in a heap of scrap. “People don’t want the same old thing,” I said. “They’re looking for something different. It may take them some time to realize it, but they will.”
“Really?”
“Sure,” I said. “If we went a hundred percent hamburger, we’d lose our shirts.”
“You really think so?” he asked.
“I do,” I said. “Besides, you’re misinterpreting the data.”
“I am?”
“Yes. Look. You personally accounted for half of the hamburger sales. And you didn’t take into account the fact that everything else on the menu has clams in it. So you and three other people bought hamburgers. Everybody else came in here for clams.”
“You’re right,” he said, wiping the back of his hand across his brow. “Why didn’t I see that? What’s wrong with me?”
“Nothing’s wrong with you,” I said.
“No?” he said. “Something like that right under my nose and I don’t even see it? And you think nothing’s wrong with me?”
“I think it was probably just a temporary blindness,” I said. “Your vision was kind of blinded by—um—a craving. You had hamburgers on your mind, and that blinded you to the obvious. You know how that can happen. Sometimes you get hungry for one specific thing, and nothing else will satisfy that hunger, like—”
“Women.”
“I was going to say toasted marshmallows,” I said, “but I guess it’s the same principle. You just get so that you can’t think of anything but toasted marshmallows.”
“Or women,” he said. “I see what you’re getting at. It gets so bad sometimes I seem to see beautiful women everywhere. You know what I mean?”
“Sure,” I said. I was beginning to know what he meant. “Anyway,” I said, “I think we should forget about hamburgers. There are just too many places selling hamburgers already.”
“You might be right,” he said. “I know you’re right about that craving business. You get hungry for them, and it’s as if the women you see every day had suddenly undergone some kind of transformation. A metamorphosis. Wham! All of a sudden they all look gorgeous. But, as you said, it’s just a kind of blindness brought on by hunger.”
“Maybe,” I said. “Anyway, I know I’m right about this. Since just about every diner sells hamburgers, people are not going to go out of their way to drive to another place that sells hamburgers. I tell you, Porky, we’d lose our shirts.”
“Of course we would,” he said. “I don’t know what came over me. It must have been what you said, a hunger, just a craving. Blurred my vision, distorted it, just like seeing beautiful women everywhere. But wait!” he said, brightening suddenly. “That reminds me—that craving might have paid off. Not the hamburger one, the other one.” He poked me with his finger and winked. “Before I went into hamburger blindness,” he said, “I had an idea. An excellent idea. Excellent. It’s going to make us the big money. Take a look at this.”
[to be continued]
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