by Jeff Johnson
“Sorry about your dog,” I volunteered.
Nothing.
“What, ah, what was his name?”
“She.” He took a drag, blew it out. “Bella.”
“Bella,” I repeated.
“Who’s Suzanne? Your old lady?” He glanced over at me with the same blank expression. The convict dead eyes. He had them already.
“You have any idea how much shit I went through to be in this fuckin’ van right now?” I asked. The glaze in his eyes wavered. “I’m under federal surveillance right now, homie. Had to do all kinds of shit to give them the slip and they’re gonna be pissed tomorrow if they find out. Then, then!” I stopped. He angled a little bit in my direction and I realized he wasn’t wearing his seat belt. It shocked me that I’d noticed. I wasn’t wearing mine, either.
“Then?” A hint of a smile, and not an arrogant one, either. Young Santos appeared to enjoy a good yarn with fuckery involved.
“Then we have a plan to smuggle Bella out of your uncle’s bar that involves, I shit you not, a dude in bright red pants. In a mad convolution of reason, this same guy hotrods the fuck out of the scene wearing my pants! That’s a side story we can get to later. But boom, we pull it off, and—”
“There!” he said, pointing. “The big Fred Meyer’s! For a shovel, ese.” He looked at me and winked. “And some cerveza.”
I took the exit. As I did my phone started ringing again. Santos picked it up and read aloud.
“Dirt Mouth.” Delia.
“Answer and tell her I’ll call her back.”
Santos nodded.
“Hello, this is the phone for Darby, the furious white man.” Santos paused and listened. “No, Mrs. Dirt Mouth, we are currently free on our own recognizance.” Another pause, this one longer. He looked at me. “Yes, he still wears the cowboy hat.” Pause. He turned the phone away and before I could grab it he snapped a picture and hit send, all with the unnatural karate speed kids have with phones.
“Dick,” I snapped.
Santos listened more. “Yes, Madam. I will do my best.” He hung up and put the phone back in the cup holder. “I’m to keep us out of jail today. Evidently you have to help that foul-tempered woman go chicken shopping tomorrow.”
I pulled into a parking space and cut the engine, turned to him.
“Guard Bella. You a Mexican that actually drinks Mexican beer?”
“Not even,” Santos replied scornfully. “Think twelve-pack, maybe Stella, like a Euro lager.”
“Figures. You gonna lose your shit and steal this van, anything dumb like that?” I gave him a pained expression. “I mean, you cracked in the head? Fragile and whatnot? I just don’t know what I’m dealing with here, like I said.”
“Dude.” Santos blew out a breath. “Listen. I just talked to someone on your fucking phone that makes me think I should be asking you the same questions. So shovel, beer, don’t fuck up in there.” He squirmed uneasily. “Jesus, you want me to go in there with you, fuckin’ babysit? I’m nineteen, dog. I go, we don’t get the beer. No beer is no bueno. So chop-chop.” He clapped his hands together and turned forward, went still.
I picked up my phone and calmly got out. If he stole the van and went broken arrow on the operation, I’d be able to call a cab. Plus, he struck me as the kind of kid who would look at all my messages.
Fred Meyer’s was the Oregon response to Walmart, a giant place that specialized in nothing in particular. I had a bad history with them, too, going way back. My first violation on their turf had come right after I moved to Portland. I was the mop guy at the Lucky in those days, no older than Santos, and with a few bucks in my pocket I’d gone to see the Butthole Surfers and Smegma. Afterward on the way home I’d cut through the local Fred Meyer’s parking lot, where I got jumped by two drunk guys, right in the middle of the empty lot. The comical conflict ratcheted up a notch when the night security guard showed up to see what the hell was going on. The situation warped and we all three decided to fight the guard instead of each other. In later years, I’d been banned from two more Fred Meyer’s for various incidents. But not this one.
Not yet.
I’d parked by the home improvement entrance. There was no greeter, but I got an informal nod and a second glance from the first clerk I passed. Unfortunately for all, it was the upper-middle-class franchise abutting the Raleigh Hills, and they didn’t see much in the way of middle aged punks with impressive facial scars. I saw rakes pointing out of the top of a distant aisle and headed that way.
Right on the money, and five different kinds of shovels to choose from, too. I could never really understand why there were so many. Obviously, I didn’t need a snow shovel. The shovel with the broad, flat head looked like it was more for scooping, so I immediately moved past it as well. The remaining three had spade-shaped heads, with what looked like varying weight and minor differences in size. I selected the one that would make the best weapon and took it out of the rack.
The heft was good. I visualized a foe in front of me and made a few practice stabs and a lunge or two. Not too heavy, but just heavy enough. Then I whirled it and whipped it around, tossed it up and caught it in a spear throwing position. That was when the first security guard appeared at the end of the aisle.
Satisfied, I put the shovel over my shoulder and headed in his direction. He glowered at me as I approached, so I stopped in front of him to say hi.
“Gotta go bury a dog,” I explained. “But it’s a crazy fuckin’ world man. Crazy. A mofo needs a shovel to double as an edged weapon.”
I headed for the beer. Behind me, the security guard kept a discreet distance as he called in reinforcements. It had been some time since I’d been inside one of the really big stores. There were more advertisements than ever, packing every available surface, and many of them were electronic. There were also many more cameras, and not just the black half globes on the ceiling. The electronic ads surely had cameras in them, if my tech customers were to be believed, but I’d read in one too many places that there was also a camera or two wherever there was a cash register, and the damn things had multiplied.
I paused in the first food aisle. Chips and more chips. Santos might enjoy suckdog fare, but he had good skin so he likely wasn’t a junk food kind of guy. I strolled past without entering it and had made it past cookies and then lukewarm jumbo plastic multicolored sodas without incident. The security complement had grown to three, and when my phone rang we all paused together so I could answer it. Delia.
“Fred Meyer security,” I answered, leering back at them. “Is this the jackwad’s lawyer? Cause this motherfucker is—”
“Don’t tell me you’re in a Fred Meyer’s,” Delia snapped. “Where’s the fuckin’ kid?”
“He’s safe.” I turned around and headed straight for the three security guards then. They were big, but in the way their mothers might have described as husky. Overweight, mostly around the middle, and too young to have ever been real cops. “I didn’t want him to have to deal with these”—I was right on top of them, so I fake lunged at them—“spastic rookies!” All three of them jumped and I laughed.
“Sir,” one of them began. I kept going. I’d finally seen the beer.
“Did you just do that right in front of them?”
“Yeah.”
“Darby.” She took a deep breath.
“What the hell is this shit about a chicken? Because if that was the first sign of dementia in young Santos, it’s not too late to turn around.”
“Did Suzanne call today?” she asked, neatly changing the subject.
“Three or four times. She sent a bunch of messages, too. She sends these really, really, really long ones.” I hit the beer aisle and turned into it. “Suzanne knows I don’t have email, but she’s somehow figured out how to send massive letters that can only be considered letters, or emails as it were, to my message thingy.”
“Everyone can do that, dude. We will get you to join this century. I’m working on it. Consider it my go
ing away present. The gift of technology.”
“The chicken,” I repeated. I stopped in front of the Stella Artois and I’ll be damned if they didn’t have it in twelve-packs. I lowered the shovel and managed to grab it with the same hand. Then I turned and headed back toward the security guards.
“The chicken,” Delia began, “is a small piece of a larger—” She kept going, but at that moment I was close enough to the guards for them to hear the phone. I held it away from my ear and mouthed in a hoarse whisper, “My boss talks and talks. WHICH WAY ARE THE DONUTS?”
They scowled and I blew past, headed for a line of registers at speed.
“. . . the sanctity of the ceremony.” Delia ended on a firm note, as though she had said something reasonable.
“Gotta pay for this shit,” I said. “Call you later. Any word from Chase?”
“He’s somewhere near Salem. I told him to head back in about an hour. My car is in the parking space right now. When he gets close, we’ll swap and he can run right back inside. If they bust him it won’t matter at that point, but I figured it’d be good to at least try.”
“Right on. Okay then. Shovel, beer, smokes, we’re set.”
“Jesus.”
We hung up on each other simultaneously. I put the phone away. The line at the register I picked went fast. I paid without saying another word, and all three of the guards followed me to the exit. There were two more waiting outside. I stopped.
“You guys gonna follow me to my car?” I asked. “I didn’t steal anything. Paid in cash, right in front of you.”
None of them replied. By then I had the shovel in one hand and the beer in the other. I raised the shovel.
“Anyone follows me to my ride gets a spankin.’”
One of the new guards stepped forward and took a picture of me with his cell phone, then stepped back.
“Don’t return,” he said. “We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone. It is the policy of Fred Meyer’s to ensure the safety and security of—”
I started walking. It was raining a little harder, but the temperature had gone up a notch. When I got in the van, I handed Santos the beer and gently put the shovel next to the dog. As I started the engine, he tore open the top of the case and took a beer out, cracked it and passed it to me, then opened one for himself. He gestured at the cluster of security guards by the exit, who were still watching.
“’Sup with those guys?”
“Bored,” I replied. He shrugged.
“You call your woman back?”
I pulled out and headed for the freeway, thinking. He had a point. The longer I put Suzanne off, the worse it was going to be. But calling her from the road seemed like the wrong thing to do. If she asked what I was doing, I’d have to lie about it and I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to tell her that I was driving around with a young criminal, drinking beer and chatting about the high burnout rate in crime, the merits of calculation, the philosophy of true freedom, the ethos of a life unchained by “responsible” behavior, or how to deal with the weight of individuality. I was making all of it up as I went, and talking to her of all people mid-ramble would derail me. That was telling, in a bad way, in a way Delia would point to as proof that she was right about my relationship with Suzanne. But if I called her tonight and she asked what I’d been doing all day that was so much more important than her, I could truthfully tell her that I’d been helping some kid bury his dog and leave it at that.
“No,” I said finally.
Santos drank and said nothing.
“You got a gal?”
“Sometimes,” he replied. “Big family picnic last month. You know a waitress named Cherry? White girl? Big butt? Works at the Rocket every once in a while?”
I knew her. Cherry was a sweetheart. She liked dogs too, I recalled. At least she talked about them sometimes. Blond hair, blue eyes, maybe ten years older than Santos. She’d been a regular waitress at the Rooster Rocket before the explosion that changed all of our lives. I was glad she and Gomez were close enough that she still went to his family BBQs.
“Sure. I know her.”
“She gives good head.”
“I hope she says the same of you, young Santos.” I glanced at him. “Does she? Cause if not, you should shut up about her cock-smoking chops.”
“I bet she does,” he said lightly. “I hope so, anyway. But that is as close as I can get. The flirting, then the dancing, then the small love.”
“Probably a bad thing, dude. You gotta be ready to have your guts ripped out. That kind of prophylactic thinking is a sign of the times. People confuse sad with depressed, think it’s unnatural. It isn’t.”
“You’re happy?” He was actually curious. “I mean, really?”
“Nah. But I’m full. S’okay for now, and who knows. It might lead to this ‘happy’ we all dream about. I’m trying.”
“And you believe this is wise.”
“I didn’t say that.” I glanced over at him. “But it’s smarter than swapping head in a parking lot. You gotta think to the future, kid.” I put my eyes back on the road and considered. “Here’s one thing. Little bit of insight. Lemme ask you a question. You think being in juvie gave you the right view of women? Take Cherry. She’s sweet. Little too old for you, but who cares, really. A woman like that could be a good thing. Talk. Tell me why not.”
“You first.”
“What?”
Santos finished his first beer at the same time I finished mine. While he got us another round I lit a cigarette. Once we were both drinking and smoking, he continued.
“You have more to say than I do on the topic of women. First, you have one you say is the one you are with. She calls, you don’t answer. And you’ve been doing it all morning, evidently. Then you have another, Mrs. Dirtclod or whatever, who calls and you answer immediately. She also speaks as though she’s your wife. So what is it, white boy? Tell me something about women I should know. I’m listening.”
“Jesus.”
City was gradually giving way to countryside. I relaxed into my second beer and tried to enjoy myself. The road was clear of traffic for the most part. It was a weekday. So what if the kid was a smartass? I was too, and it never faded. I thought about what he’d said. Women, well. They weren’t a topic, like rocks or trees or rain or wind, as near as I could figure. They were more like something I could only approach with a telescope and never understand in a real, concrete, tangible way. But that didn’t make any sense, because I touched them all the time. Or at least I wanted to. Had. Intended to in the future. It was all very confusing.
“It’s all very confusing,” I said at last. “Here’s how it shakes out. Suzanne, that’s the woman I’m with. In the same way you were with Cherry, but in a bolder, more consistent way. We can’t keep our clothes on for too long in each other’s company. I love her, but in this one way. And that way? That is a strange way. Unique.” I paused, considering what I was saying.
“Go on,” Santos prompted.
“Maybe it isn’t unique. Maybe it’s the same shit all over again, or worse, maybe it’s what I expected. But either she’s too good for me or she isn’t, ah—we can’t get on the same page in the deep down way. She either wants me to be something I’m not or believes I’m something I’ll never be.”
“I see.” He finished his second beer but refrained from a third and smoked instead. Eventually—“And the other one? The rude one?”
“Delia. She’s my friend. She’s getting married to some sack of shit I should probably have brought with us to bury, but she’s—she is one of a kind. A total fuck-up on the surface, but so not once you get to know her.”
“Ahh,” he said knowingly.
“Don’t ‘ahh’ me, dumbass. I have women problems. Real ones. External ones, like on the outside. Yours are in your head, little dude.”
“Hm. And I should export these problems, you say. Share them with the world and make them real, as you’ve done.”
I glared at him. “W
hat are you, some kind of idiot? Of course you should. Haven’t you been listening?”
Santos laughed, and eventually I did too.
“I thought you were going to be a hard-ass,” he said after a minute. “My Uncle Gomez, he speaks of you like people speak of him.”
“And how do your people speak of my friend Gomez?” I couldn’t help it, I was curious.
“My uncle is a hero to many people. Here and in Los Angeles.”
“He is?”
Santos looked at me. “You didn’t know?”
“Well, I ah, you see—”
“This is part of my problem with the family. So many heroes. So many legends. My brother Miguel and me? Fuck, ese. No way we could live up to any of that shit.”
“Huh. That why you guys robbed a, what was it? A gas station?”
“A gas station. A gas station.” Santos said it bitterly. “Miguel, he was three years older than me. We had this little apartment, me an’ him. The bedroom was his. We had this old couch we found an’ that was mine.”
“I lived like that when I was your age. Sucks.”
“Yeah. We could have called Flaco and bitched. Uncle Gomez would have come and brought us up here, to the rain and all the church on Sunday, do this, do that, go to school, blah blah, you know? But fuck that. It was too late. Hard to convince people that you aren’t a man but you aren’t a boy either. And people talk to you a certain way after they know you were hungry. So fuck that.”
Unfortunately, I knew exactly what he was talking about. He could tell, too.
“Yeah, dog. You know. I can smell it on you. So Miguel, he gets this idea one day when he finds a gun.” Santos laughed. “Right there! In front of this little store! Just fuckin’ laying there, like it fell out of a bag and someone just kept on walkin’, man. He picks it up, walks right the fuck into that little store and it’s like shopping! Three bills, just like that!”
I didn’t say anything. When I glanced over, Santos had his eyes closed.
“We ate chicken that night. A whole chicken, man. And we had beer, too.” It came out quieter, and I could tell that he had savored that memory many times. “A few days later, maybe a week, we used the last twenty to buy another gun. So now we had two guns.”
