Five Hundred Poor

by Milligan, Noah;

  “This is important, too, Sharon.”

  “You know what I mean,” she said, her tone biting, accusatory even. “We were supposed to have a party. We were supposed to celebrate. God, Dad. Sometimes, I don’t even know what to do with you anymore.”

  He loved his daughter. He did. But sometimes she could be dramatic. High strung. Selfish. Even as a child she’d been this way. Her mother refused to see it, but it was there, simmering just below the surface. Harold remembered a birthday party one year—she must’ve been about eight or nine—at a splash pad at a local park. Harold had forced her to invite every kid from her class, even though there were a couple she didn’t care to include, a little girl by the name of Denise, especially. Denise was a quiet girl, nerdy, prone to walking pneumonia and clumsiness, and she didn’t have many, if any, friends.

  “It’ll be social suicide,” Sharon had said before the party. “Please, don’t make me invite her.”

  But he did, and about an hour into the party, he regretted it. The girls, led by Sharon, had circled Denise in the middle of the splash pad so that the parents couldn’t see her from the edge. It was there they held her down, pulled her chin back, and poured water down her nostrils, simulating drowning. Later, Harold would hear of this practice called waterboarding, torture even, but that day he called it the only thing he knew: frightening.

  “I’ll be back soon,” he said. “A young woman needed help.”

  “That’s what the police are for!”

  Harold heard yelling behind him. A woman’s voice. He couldn’t quite make out the words—they were muddled, broken, syllables jumbled and incoherent.

  “Please,” Harold said. “Please don’t do this, Sharon.”

  “Do what?”

  “You know what.”

  “No, Dad. I don’t. Do what? Expect you to spend time with your family? On the day of your retirement? For you to once do what you promised you would do? Why would I ever do a thing like that, Dad?”

  The screaming became clearer, more coherent. It was Sprout screaming, and her tone was panicked. Something was wrong.

  “I have to go, Sharon.”

  “Dad. Don’t. Listen. Dad. Dad! Answer me!”

  Sprout took off sprinting. People were staring now, jumping out of Sprout’s way. She flailed her arms as she ran, screaming for somebody to stop, hey, stop that man, he had her sister. Harold followed, slowly at first, making his way through confused and startled passersby, but then he spotted him. He was blond, young, cheeks red, hair disheveled, clothes wrinkled. He looked sleep-deprived, hungover, and scared. He took off running, but Sprout had already hit her stride and soon came up on him, jumped on his back. He went down, and so did she, and as soon as they hit the ground, she started to punch and to kick and to bite.

  “Where is my sister? Where is she? What did you do with her?!”

  Harold reached them. The man was trying to say something, but Harold couldn’t understand him over Sprout. She straddled him, and he lay on his side in the fetal position, forearms shielding his face from Sprout’s clenched-fist blows. A crowd started to gather. No one was there to help. A few of them filmed the fight with their phones, laughing and egging Sprout on. Kick his ass, they yelled. Dude was getting beat up by a girl.

  “What did you do with her, you sick fuck?!”

  Harold pulled her off of him. She was strong and angry, and he had a hard time holding her back. The guy rose to his knees and then to his feet. His balance seemed off, and he held his head with his right hand.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you?” the man asked.

  Sprout went for him again, and this time Harold’s grip slipped. She swung at the man, and he raised his arms to block the blow. Then it happened. The man pushed Sprout, hard enough to knock her to the ground. Her head cracked against the pavement, and she grimaced in obvious pain. Everyone looked shocked. The bystanders looked shocked. The man looked shocked, but it didn’t matter. Harold punched him right in the face, connected on the apex of his cheekbone. Harold could feel the bone underneath. It was spongier than he had expected, more malleable, like it absorbed his fist by bending in on itself.

  The man stumbled backward, and Harold pounced. He swung again, and again, and again, until the man fell to the ground. Harold jumped atop him, and his face was getting harder now, more calloused, wetter. Blood covered his face, his left eye closed, and again Harold swung, and again Harold swung, until his knuckles hurt and Sprout yelled at him to stop, stop, please, just stop.

  Harold did. He stood, and he was breathing heavily. Dizzy. Disoriented. Couldn’t tell if the blood on his hand was his own or the man’s.

  Sprout grabbed the man’s shirt and pulled him to a sitting position, yelling, “Where is my sister? Where is she? Tell me where she is!”

  “At my place! Okay? She’s trying to get away from you! Is that what you want to hear? She’s running away from you.”

  Sprout let him go, and he scooted backward and stood, cussing Sprout, cussing Harold, calling them crazy. Bat-shit nuts. No wonder River wanted to just disappear. He pushed through the crowd and continued down the street. Sprout remained sitting on the pavement. The man’s blood covered her hands, her sweatshirt. After a little bit, the spectators lost their interest and dispersed as quickly as they’d arrived. Harold went to help Sprout to her feet, but she declined.

  “Just leave me here,” she said, and Harold did.

  WHEN HAROLD RETURNED TO RAINBOW Pennant, everyone was there: Mack, Craig, Susan, Charlotte, Buzz, and Sharon. They looked shocked when he pushed through the door. He hadn’t seen himself since the fight, but he imagined he looked strange. The blood for sure. It was everywhere. But that didn’t bother him so much. His hands did, though. They hurt. They throbbed, actually, and he was afraid they might be broken. He could feel them swelling, and he couldn’t quite make a fist with either of them anymore.

  “Jesus, Dad. Oh my God. What happened?”

  His daughter ran to him.

  “It’s nothing.”

  “Nothing? Look at you.”

  His employees didn’t say a word. Craig looked at him like he was afraid. Mack seemed amused. Happy even. He smiled, and he raised a fist in the air like he was proud of Harold. He thought this strange, but he smiled back at Mack just the same.

  “I’m tired,” Harold said. “That’s all.”

  “That’s all? That’s all? Today was an important day, Dad. A happy day. Everyone’s here. And you’ve been gone all day. All day. And you come back looking like this? I baked a cake, for Christ’s sake.”

  “The cake? That’s what you’re worried about?”

  “That’s not what I mean, and you know that.”

  “Not that I’m hurt. Or someone else could be hurt. Your first thought is the cake?”

  “Dad, you’re not hearing me right.”

  “Where’s the cake, then? Where is it?”

  Harold looked around. It wasn’t in the showroom. It wasn’t in the break room. He found it in his office atop his desk. White cake with white icing, it said, “Happy Retirement, Harold. Here’s to the Golden Years.” Next to it was the contract, bequeathing the store to his daughter, and to her husband.

  “This is what you wanted? For us to eat cake?”

  Harold grabbed a handful of cake and jammed it into his mouth.

  “Dad, there’s no reason for this.”

  He had to admit it was good. Vanilla, a subtle hint of cinnamon. Cream cheese icing. He grabbed another handful and jammed it into his mouth, chewing loudly, letting her see him enjoy it.

  “Dad, please. Just stop.”

  “Anyone else want some?”

  He held his hand out. Mack came in and grabbed a handful. Then Susan. Buzz. They all did. No fork. No plates. Just their hands and their mouths and icing all over their faces. Handful after handful, Craig and Sharon simply staring at them as if in disbelief. Harold picked up the contract. It was a short thing, ten, maybe fifteen pages at most, what his entire life’
s work boiled down to, an enumeration printed on legal-sized paper, wrought together by some pimply faced kid barely out of law school. He stopped when he found the signature block. There was his name printed in twelve-point Times New Roman, right above the words “President, Rainbow Pennant.” He dipped his finger into the icing until he had a good amount dolloped at the end, then signed the contract with one quick swoop.

  Life Expectancy

  THE JOB WAS IN OKLAHOMA, AND THE WIND THERE WAS SOMETHING UNFORGIVEABLE. IT WAS HARDENED, stubborn, biting, and it blew across the plains so hard I thought gravity an unequal match. I’d never experienced anything like it. It drowned out all other noise. It roared. It whistled. It taunted me, reminding me how small and inconsequential I truly was. For a time, I was convinced I could bottle it up, that I could take it with me, and if I faced something daunting, I could unleash the wind upon it, and whatever it was would be destroyed. Silly, I know, but that’s how damn hard that wind blew.

  I got the job through a friend of my brother’s. I’d be working for a young entrepreneur named Sayer, a bald-headed adrenaline junkie who got rich through his buy-here, pay-here auto dealerships and who was buying up life insurance contracts on the old and dying.

  “Ninety-eight percent of life insurance policies lapse,” he told me, standing on the outskirts of Duncan, Oklahoma, this blue-collar town reeling from depressed oil and gas prices. The land was dotted with abandoned wells, parked trucks, and crumpled Busch cans, all shining underneath the midsummer sun. “That means these life insurance companies, these bloodsucking large conglomerates, take these hardworking people’s monthly premiums year after year, then as soon as they can’t pay, their policies are cancelled. Those poor bastards pay thousands of dollars over years and then poof, their investment is gone, surrendered to the pockets of strangers who ride in private jets and drink eighteen-year-old Scotch for breakfast. It’s not right. And that’s why we’re here to help.”

  There was a doctor with us, an old guy by the name of Dickinson, and he carried with him a bag full of equipment to give our clients a physical on the spot; that way he could estimate just how long our client may have to live. A “life expectancy evaluation,” he called it, and it was essential to determine Mr. Sayer’s return on investment. If the insured lived too long, Mr. Sayer might lose money. The three- to five-year window was the sweet spot. Pay the insured a percentage of the face value, have him or her sign over the beneficiary rights to Mr. Sayer, and he would continue to pay the premiums until the insured passed, hopefully sooner rather than later. Then Mr. Sayer would reap the rewards. He called them uncorrelated assets, investments that didn’t rise or fall with the stock market. It was smart, I had to admit, yielding returns damn near triple digits if underwritten correctly.

  The first call I ever went on was at a small house sitting on an acre. Ranches surrounded the lot, the lazy moos of cattle audible between wind bursts, the smell of cow pies stinging my nostrils. A drought had scourged the southwest part of the state in recent years, so the land was cracked, blades of grass burnt brown and crunching beneath my footsteps. Though it was a small house, it was well cared for and neat. I could tell it had started out much smaller. The owners had added on a couple rooms—one on the north side, another on the west—and there was a large, newly built detached garage. Out front was a modest pontoon, an F-250 Super Diesel, and a used, but still impressive, RV.

  Mr. Hannahan greeted us at the door. Rotund but tall, he had a shiny hairless head and a granite mouth. He seemed gigantic, his head nearly touching the door frame. Inside, the house was dim, illuminated by uncovered bulbs, their light oscillating through lazy, undulating fans. Walls covered in floral wallpaper, stained with cigarette smoke. Ceilings low, popcorn textured. In the kitchen, Mrs. Hannahan stood nearly as tall as her husband, readying a tray of finger sandwiches.

  “Forced retirement,” Mr. Hannahan explained once we were all settled in the formal dining room, sipping on sugary iced tea. “Oil companies started laying off. Tax revenue went south. Thirty-seven years at the high school, and they told me during finals week this year would be my last. Should’ve saw it coming but didn’t.”

  “We understand,” Mr. Sayer said.

  I was here to observe, that was all. Learn from Mr. Sayer, note his inflection, his concern, his empathy, so that I’d be able to do the same.

  “Times are tough. You have to look out for your family. For your wife.”

  Mrs. Hannahan offered him a refill, and Mr. Sayer accepted with a warm and friendly smile.

  Dr. Dickinson began his physical, measuring blood pressure, heart rate, blood sugar, checking his pupils and listening to his lungs, testing them relative to the medical history we’d already studied. Mr. Hannahan had had his first heart attack seven years prior, his second just a year before our visit. High blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, still smoked a pack a day. We gave him two to three years tops, and he was sitting on a term life policy worth half a million with premiums inching up toward three grand a year. We offered him twenty grand to take that burden off his name.

  “Upside down on the house. Upside down on the truck. Upside down on the RV. Can’t hardly make the payments on my pension. It was stupid.” He shook his head and stared at his drink like he was talking to it. “Stupid.”

  “You don’t have a crystal ball. You aren’t psychic. How were you supposed to see this coming?”

  “Just stupid.”

  “But that’s all about to change.”

  Mr. Sayer pushed over the contract. It was a short document, just ten pages long. A tab marked where Mr. Hannahan was to sign. He flipped through it, glancing over the terms and conditions, the fine print, masquerading as if he were reading it but not taking the time to fully understand. He then grabbed his pen and held it over the signature block, pausing for a moment like he was remembering how to sign his name, and put pen to paper in a short, quick stroke.

  BEFORE THIS GIG, I’D HELD several jobs, never one that actually took: used car salesman, personal banker, fast-food restaurant GM. Each had its perks; each had its downfalls. Probably the worst was being a recruiter for Hertz. My job was to pack in as many bodies as possible, all on thirty- or sixty-day temp contracts. Their job was simple: to detail the cars. I’d find these kids all over by trolling Facebook for anyone complaining they were out of work. Bail bondsmen would send me referrals, kids who’d been arrested for public intox or street racing. All of them were desperate; all of them needed something to hold on to. And so that’s what I sold them, stability. A chance for them to better themselves.

  Problem was it hardly ever turned out that way. The company I worked for, Singular Temp Associates, had a cash flow problem. A year prior, their CEO had been sued over a commercial real estate deal that went south, and he had a judgment placed against him. That left him with his revolving line of credit called due but a contract to fulfill. He had temps to pay in thirty days, but Hertz didn’t pay until sixty, a problem he never was able to fix.

  The kid who got to me the worst was a boy named Eddie. Seventeen years old, he’d been busted for a B&E a couple of months prior. Wasn’t the kid’s fault, really, if you believed his lawyer, just started hanging out with the wrong crowd, got dragged into something that wasn’t his idea. We worked with the DA to get his charge reduced to a simple trespassing if he kept his job for ninety days and completed a year’s probation. Day sixty-eight rolled around, Eddie didn’t get paid, and so he quit. Couldn’t blame the kid, working for nothing. This sprang the terms of his plea deal, though, and the kid wound up getting charged as an adult and spending a year behind bars. Once released, he showed up at my doorstep.

  Eddie was a wiry kid, malnourished, the veins protruding from his arms an indigo blue. Wrapped in his hand was a crowbar.

  “You fucked me,” he said.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You stole a year of my life.”

  “I’m sorry. I really am.”

  Didn’t matter though. Ended up wi
th a four-inch laceration on my forehead, a black eye, a fractured cheekbone. I could’ve turned the kid in to the cops, got him sent back to the pen on an assault and battery charge, but I didn’t. Instead I just made myself a promise: I’d never fuck anyone over like I had Eddie. Not knowingly, anyway.

  MY GIRLFRIEND AT THE TIME, Callie, collected vintage action figures and comic books, selling them to nerds throughout Oklahoma City and Tulsa, usually at trade shows or on Facebook. Pimply faced teenagers, middle-aged men reliving their childhoods, divorced dads looking for something cool to get their kids for their birthdays. It was a lucrative business, actually, hocking mint condition, still-in-the-box C3POs and Green Lanterns. She had nice things, smelled nice, drove a nice car, had a nice IRA. She was just a nice girl.

  “You’re not going to believe what happened to me today,” she said. We were at dinner, celebrating my recent hiring, at this upscale comfort-food joint called Cheever’s. They had this jalapeño chicken-fried steak that could change a life, but Callie never would order it, regardless of how many times we came, regardless of how many times I asked her to just try it.

  “What do you think you’re going to get?”

  “I got a call from this guy, and he was looking to sell a Spawn #1. Mint condition. Never been out of its sleeve he said, and so I said sure, bring it down.”

  “Everything just looks so good.” I flipped the page of the menu: smoked chicken fusilli, molasses roast chicken breast, five-spice trout.

  “So I wait for this guy all day. Like all day. Finally, I get tired of waiting and decide to close up shop, but as soon as I go to lock the door, there he is.”

  “You’ve tried the chicken-fried steak, right?” I asked, even though I knew she hadn’t.

  “I tell him to come back tomorrow, but he gets all pissed off, screaming that it’s like an hour drive for him to get here and blah blah blah, so I’m like fine, whatever, and let him in.”