Nobody's Hero

by Melanie Harvey

  “Or you could fish a real one out of the Olentangy River.”

  Neil fell silent long enough for Henry to start a list on the back of the envelope.

  “Why Mickey Basswood?” Neil finally asked.

  “Because of the shoplifting.”

  “The shop … oh! That’s what it really is, just shoplifting. Exactly!”

  Henry tightened his grip on his pen. “Well, he’s never been caught.”

  “Not even once?”

  Henry made a mental note not to yield to the temptation to buy the cheapest faucets. “He lifted a fully dressed mannequin from the old downtown Lazarus on a bet, walked it right onto the number two bus on High Street.”

  “Nice,” Neil said. “Well, that’s three then.”

  Neil wasn’t the sharpest tool in the spare room, but Henry was sure he could count to two. “Come again?”

  “Me and Bass and you.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Neil looked at him blankly. Henry looked back.

  Finally, Neil said, “I thought you were interested.”

  Henry shook his head.

  “What? You sounded interested.”

  “Me interested would be more like, ‘Man, Neil that sounds tight. Count me in!’”

  Neil thought for a moment, probably trying to remember if Henry had said anything like that. “But we been discussing the job all this time!”

  Henry reached for the hammer to nail back the plywood panel on his closet. “No, you’ve been discussing the job,” he said over the pounding. “I’ve been trying to figure out how to fix leaky shower faucets.”

  He stood up, worked out the kink in his knee that no amount of gym time seemed to help, stowed the hammer in the toolbox, and headed out of the bedroom.

  “Well, that’s a problem then,” Neil said.

  “Nah, you’ll find somebody else.”

  “But I kinda told Freddy …”

  Henry’s gut tightened. “You told Freddy what?”

  Neil was wiry and strong, and for some reason Henry couldn’t figure out, girls really liked him, but now he looked like a mouse about to scurry into a corner to dodge any trouble.

  “What did you tell Freddy?” Henry asked slowly.

  “He kinda wants to see you today.”

  He shouldn’t have closed that hammer up in the toolbox. “Say again?”

  Neil shrank back on the cot. “I thought you were interested.”

  Henry spun around, with no destination in mind except away from the spare room, Neil, and the claw end of his hammer. Freddy Cabrese wanted to see him.

  He slammed the plumbing book down on the kitchen table. Freddy Cabrese wanted to see him. Unless Freddy had changed significantly in the last ten years— and Henry didn’t believe most people ever changed much— he could not call Freddy and say sorry, man, but I’m too busy repairing a shower. You refused Freddy, you did it in person.

  Except he couldn’t recall hearing of anyone who’d ever refused Freddy at all.

  Henry gritted his teeth. “No way in hell I’m driving my car all the way out there!”

  “No, man, no. We’ll take mine.”

  “Not with the gas at these prices.”

  “I said I’ll drive, okay? And I’ll take you to the store after to get your pipes.”

  “Faucets.”

  “Yeah, right, faucets. He said one o’clock, it’s twelve-thirty now.”

  * * *

  Henry sank down in the cracked upholstery on Neil’s front seat, stared out the window, and waited for Neil to start complaining about driving. He lasted until they hit the freeway.

  “You know, it’s not like you don’t drive out to the airport every day. Reynoldsburg’s not much farther than that.”

  “First of all, my job is at the airport. So I get paid to go out there.”

  “You gonna get paid for this. Much better, too. I mean, we do this, you can put a Jacuzzi in your own bathroom instead of faucets in Miss Daisy’s. And don’t tell me black people don’t buy Jacuzzis. You know Jay-Z has a Jacuzzi.”

  Henry didn’t know any such thing. Next Neil would say was there was probably a Jacuzzi in the White House, and Henry was probably supposed to know that, too.

  As if he could possibly care. What he cared about was finding a way to get out of this mess the dimwit behind the steering wheel had dragged him into.

  “I think this could be a good thing for you, Henry.”

  “Well, if you think so.” Henry flipped the visor down. The sun was making a rare April appearance.

  “Yeah, I do. If you don’t mind my saying, I’m thinking maybe your job at the car rental place isn’t impressing the ladies too much.”

  “I don’t have a job at the car rental place,” Henry said. “I’m the assistant manager of the car rental place. And I do mind you saying.”

  Neil held up his hands in surrender. The car listed into the next lane.

  “This is an improvement,” Henry said. “Getting killed on the way.”

  Neil grabbed the wheel. “I’m just saying, when a girl asks what you do, is ‘assistant manager’ getting the response you looking for?”

  Henry stared out the window at the freeway traffic, trying and failing to keep from looking at the courthouse on the southern edge of the downtown skyline. Today started out a good day. For three months, Wednesdays were always good. He’d seen plenty of impulse joiners come and go at the gym, but this girl had stuck. She hadn’t asked what he did, because he’d never said a word to her, not even to find out her name.

  Now he could say he might be planning a job that could send him back to prison.

  “Neil, you know what the worst day of my life was?”

  “Ah, today?”

  Henry snorted. “No, Neil. Today’s the second worst. The first was when the DRC made you my damn cellmate.”