by Nic Stone
No overbearing rich-boy response this time.
“I’m going inside now.” I start to push the (heavy) door closed, but then:
“Rico, can I please say something?”
“Oh, now you’re asking?”
He sighs. “It just bums me out that one of the people who know I don’t always get what I want would say that I do.”
“What?”
“The only other person who knows the real reason I’m not going to college is Ness.”
Now I’m the one with nothing to say.
Can’t seem to move either.
“Rico?”
GOD, he’s infuriating. “WHAT, Zan?”
“What if you didn’t have to work?”
“Didya miss everything I said about helping my mom?”
“What if you got a paid vacation day?”
“I don’t get those, Macklin. I’m going. Insi—”
“What if you did this week? What if”—his gaze drops to his lap—“it were already arranged?” He braces like he’s expecting me to throw something.
Which I might be considering. “What are you talking about?”
“I might’ve already asked Mr. Z if you could have the afternoon off. With pay.”
“ARE YOU KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW?”
His head drops. “I’m sorry.”
I huff. Hands on hips. (I can instantly hear Jax’s voice in my head: “Eww, you look like Mommy.”)
He looks at me. Sheepishly.
And I have to look away because to be honest, I feel like a gaping, festering wound.
Still don’t trust him any further than I can throw him, but I do want—need—to get to Birmingham, and he is offering to drive.
Hate to admit it, especially after I just detonated on him, but he is nice to be around most of the time.
Not that I should let that part distract me…
One-oh-six, one-oh-six, one-oh-six.
(Plus six zeroes.)
I can cut him off once we get back. “We’ll be leaving right after school?”
His head snaps in my direction. “You’re serious?”
“Zan.” Why is he looking at me like I offered him a trip to the moon?
“Okay, okay. Yeah,” he says. “Straight after.”
“Fine. Good night.”
He smiles. Like really big. “I’ll see you at school tomorrow, shrimp.”
“You did not just call me shrimp.”
“Oh, I did.”
I clench my jaw and slam the door without another word.
Zan is waiting at my locker Friday afternoon, and as much as I want to maintain my force field of anger, excitement about this Birmingham trip manages to seep through.
“You’re such a creep,” I say once I get it open. “How do you even know where my locker is?”
“I find it hysterical that you think you’re invisible, Danger.”
“If you went to a school where nobody ever spoke to you, you’d feel invisible too.”
“Goes both ways, though, doesn’t it?”
“Huh?”
He waits until our eyes meet before he says: “Do you speak to people who don’t look like they want to be spoken to?”
I don’t say anything to that. Just finish swapping out my books and push the locker door shut.
“Ready to rock, Queen of Ice?” he says. “The day is ripe for a glorious adventure!”
“You’re ridiculous.”
He smiles and extends an elbow, and despite my inner protestations, I take it.
I was right to be reluctant: we pass a group of girls—Jessica’s literal (cheerleader) #squad, though she’s not with them—in the parking lot, and they give me stank-eye so intense, I have to fight the urge to do an armpit check.
Pretty sure Zan doesn’t even notice. Which gets my gears spinning. Not that I’ve allowed myself to think of him in any way other than a means to an end (Is that awful? That’s probably awful.), but I’m curious now. “So are you dating anyone?” I say the moment the Jeep doors are shut.
He starts the ignition, and some rap song about various types of checks comes pouring out of the speakers (fitting). He turns the music down and reaches for his seat belt. “Nope.”
Huh. “Dated anyone recently?”
“I have not.”
“When’s the last time you dated someone?”
“What’s with the line of questioning, Detective?” He taps around on the screen in the center of the Jeep’s dashboard until the GPS pops up. Inputs an address and a route appears.
Should I tell him the truth? Guess it couldn’t hurt. “The, uhhh…pep squad didn’t seem too happy to see me with you.”
Zan snorts. “I wouldn’t date those girls. Got nothing in common with any of them.”
I stifle a laugh at the irony. A disgustingly wealthy, good-looking boy having “nothing in common” with disgustingly wealthy, good-looking girls?
Okay.
“I see.”
“They’re about as deep as puddles, Rico. Wouldn’t be too concerned if I were you.”
“Who said I was concerned?”
He doesn’t respond, but I see him grin. Jackass.
He takes the left that will put us on the highway, and reality comes into glaring relief: I’m about to be alone in a car with Zan-the-Man for two-plus hours on what could very well be a wild-goose chase.
Something I hadn’t considered until just now: What if we can’t find this Beau guy? Will Zan be super pissed because he wasted all this gas? Does he even think about gas? According to him, he bought this Jeep…does that mean he pays for the gas too?
And what are we even going to talk about? If anybody has “nothing in common,” it’s him and me.
“You catch the first episode of JACKPOT!?” he says, yanking me back from the ledge of the freak-out pit I was about to topple into.
“I didn’t.” Wanted to, but we don’t have that channel.
“You didn’t miss much.” Zan shifts the Jeep over into the HOV lane and settles down into his seat. “Mark my words: Wally Winkle will be flat broke in five years.”
Wow. “Well, that’s epically pessimistic.”
“I speak only the truth,” he says. “The first show was basically an episode of MTV Cribs. We got a tour of the seven-million-dollar house he bought, complete with an indoor pool and racquetball court.”
“So he wanted a nice home” is my tempered response. “He’s still got forty million to live on.”
Zan shakes his head. “The place was full of expensive furniture and electronics. He’s already bought two luxury cars for himself, and a car and house for each of his three kids.”
“What’s your point?”
“Rico, giving forty-seven million dollars to a person with no financial acumen and little impulse control is a horrible i—”
“Little impulse control?” My voice totally cracks. “You don’t even know this guy!”
“I don’t have to. People who go from rags to riches overnight tend to be clueless about money management,” he says. “There was this guy who worked at our factory ten years ago. He had a freak accident on one of the machines and wound up losing three fingers on his right hand. Got a five-million-dollar settlement.”
“Okay…”
“Well managed, he should’ve been able to live a pretty good life for fifty-plus years—that’s a little over eight thousand dollars a month. Honestly, invested properly, he could’ve stretched it even further.”
“You sure know a lot about this…” (said semi-sarcastically).
“My dad’s been drilling ‘financial responsibility’ since I was old enough to know the different coin values in my piggy bank. Read Rich Dad Poor Dad aloud to me for the first time when I was in pre-K.”
“Like I was saying, this guy who lost his fingers should’ve been set for a while, but within three years, he was begging to be hired back because he’d totally blown the money. Just like Wally Winkle, he bought a big-ass house and a brand-new car. Turns out he was also an alcoholic with a gambling problem.”
I don’t reply.
“People see the lotto as this Holy Grail that’ll solve all their problems, but it’s really nothing more than an ugly system preying on the hope of the poor and destroying lives. Wally Winkle has no idea what the hell he’s doing, man. It’s gonna get ugly.”
I still don’t say anything. This is the first time he’s ever said this much unprompted, and…well, I’d be fine with him never speaking again.
If I open my mouth right now, fire might come out. What the hell does Alexander Gustavo Macklin know about “the hope of the poor”? I tuck my hands beneath my thighs and stare out my window at all the cars we’re blowing past.
No clue how much time goes by, but suddenly he says, “You’re mad at me.”
“What?”
“I can feel it. You’re mad at me because of what I said.”
I sigh. “Can we talk about something else, please?”
“I wanna hear your thoughts,” he says. “And don’t tell me you don’t have any because I know you do.”
He’s right. “It’s just funny that the boy who’s never wanted for anything has all this shit to say about people who spend most of their lives with next to nothing.”
And there’s that calculating look that gets under my skin.
“You have no idea what it’s like to be poor, Zan.”
“Fair enough. Please continue.”
“People like Wally Winkle and the guy from your factory don’t have the luxury of taking stuff like home and car ownership for granted,” I say. “You probably never even think about it, but there are people who can’t take it for granted that they’ll have food on the table every week—”
“Like you and Jax?”
My mouth snaps shut.
He knows he said the wrong thing because he doesn’t say anything else. After a few minutes of contemplating whether or not I should leap and barrel-roll out onto the shoulder of the highway when we change lanes, I muster the courage to peek at him. He’s staring straight ahead with his lips sealed.
“Why are you helping me, Zan?”
He peeks over. “Huh?”
“With this whole thing. If you think the lottery is evil—”
“I didn’t say it was evil, geez.”
“ ‘Ugly.’ ‘Preying on poor people.’ Whatever. If that’s how you feel about it, why are you helping me look for the lady who has the ticket?”
Loooooong pause. “Because you asked me to?”
Mmmm…“Last I checked, all I asked for was help with the Gas ’n’ Go security footage. You’ve initiated everything else, this road trip included.” So what are you after?
He swallows. Like, more than once. Adam’s apple looks like one of those bobbing ocean buoys.
Why do I feel like a bomb is about to drop?
He sighs. “Don’t hate me, all right?”
“Ummm…”
“I was bored.”
He—What? “Come again?”
He sighs. “Boredom,” he says. “That’s why I’m helping. I’ve been in that town doing the same things with the same people for as long as I can remember.”
I pinch my lips together. Of course something that could change a person’s whole existence would be nothing more than a boredom cure for Alexander Macklin. Clearly the endless crap he has access to All.
The.
Time.
isn’t nearly enough to provide him with adequate entertainment.
He keeps going. “You dragging me out of that cafeteria was the most exciting thing to happen to me all year. Felt like being called upon to embark on some epic hero’s quest.”
I don’t—
“So this is just a game to you?”
“I mean, not exactly. But also kind of?”
No idea what to feel. I guess on the one hand, I’m slightly relieved he’s not after the ticket for himself. (At least I think he’s not….Who can really say at this point?)
But also: If this is a game to him, what does that make me?
I gulp.
“I said the wrong thing again, didn’t I?”
I sigh. Like, involuntarily.
Can I really be mad? I’m basically using him, aren’t I? Though he has been volunteering.
“Can I say one more thing?” he says.
“We’re in your car, Zan.”
“Okay. Well, just know this is the happiest I’ve been in a long time.”
“Huh?”
“This…journey we’re on. It’s fun, yeah. But it’s also nice. Being at home—let’s just say it’s not always my favorite place.”
“Really?” Now he’s got my attention.
“It can be lonely and kind of stifling. With you I feel freer.” He pulls his eyes from the road to stick them on me for a moment. Smiles in a way that turns my defensive mechanisms to vapor. “I’m living for it a little bit at this point.”
And for a different reason than usual, I have to look away.
* * *
—
There’s very loud, very upbeat music shaking the walls of the little clapboard house at the address Delores gave us.
So loud, in fact, we ring the doorbell and bang on the door, but nobody answers.
“Well, this is interesting.” Zan looks at me. “What do we do now?”
I lean to the right and try to peek into one of the windows. Curtains are too thick to see through. “I have no frickin’ ide—”
“Somethin’ I can help y’all with?”
Zan and I both whip around. At the opposite end of the walkway leading up to the house is a tall white man so skinny, it’s almost as if someone stood on his toes and pulled him up by the ears to stretch him out. His pants hover just at the top of his well-worn boots, his flannel shirt is misbuttoned, and there’s enough hair on his forearms and sprouting out of his collar to replace all that’s missing from the top of his head.
He looks petrified.
I’m standing there staring at him—his eyes are the palest blue I’ve ever seen—when Zan jabs me in the arm with his elbow.
“Oww!” I glower at him.
He moves his eyebrows up and down. (Dear lord, this boy is so obvious.)
“I’m sorry, sir,” I say to the man. “We’re looking for Beau Wilcox—”
“No Beau here!” He drops his head and makes a beeline to the door.
Zan and I part for him.
“Wrong house, wrong house,” he says, fumbling with a set of keys. “Y’all get outta here now, will ya?”
The door flies open, and a heavyset woman as tall as Zander with a face as red as a tomato puts her hand on her hip. “Beau, where the hell have you been?”
“Woman!” The man straightens his spine and lifts his chin. “I’m the man of this house! Do not question me in front of guests!”
The woman frowns at Beau, then sweeps her sour gaze over Zan and me. “And who are you?”
“Don’t question them either! That’s MY job!”
She rolls her eyes and shuts the door. He doesn’t turn around.
“Umm…Mr. Wilco—?” I start.
“Who are ya and whattaya want?”
“We’re students from Metro Atlanta, sir,” I say. “You drove a taxi there, right?”
He doesn’t respond, so I go on: “I work at a gas station in Norcross, and you had a passenger on Christmas Eve. An older black lady. I have a picture here….We’re trying to find her, and we’re wonder
ing if—”
“I took her to the big church. We done here?”
Zan and I look at each other again, then back at Beau. “The big church?”
“Victorious Faith, or somethin’ like that. She was my only passenger that night.”
“Okay—”
“You’re going now, right? That’s everything I know.”
Zan makes a circular motion around his ear with his index finger. Mouths “weirdo.”
I shove him. “You’re sure this was a small-framed, older black lady?”
“Well, yeah! I know who I drove.”
“Short white hair?”
“Like a mini-Afro, that’s right,” he says.
“Victorious Faith Church?”
“That’s what I said, ain’t it? It was her first time there. She told me so.”
“Oka—”
“Y’all get on now.” And he walks into the house and closes the door.
Impound lots are pretty depressin’, but I ain’t never seen nothin’ sadder than good ol’ Beau the day he removed all his stuff from inside me. He was sobbing like a baby.
If you ask me, it’s nothin’ short of a travesty that they fired the fella. Lotto jackpot was $212 million buckeroos—course the guy couldn’t resist stopping to buy a ticket! “Gambling on the clock.” Tuh! That measly wage they paid was hardly enough for him and his family to scrape by! What the hell did they expect?
I sure do miss him and our adventures. That last lady we drove was sweet as pie too. There’s still one of those little lightbulbs from her sweater sittin’ on my backseat. She bought a lotto ticket too, and nobody gave her any flack for it.
People always talk about how badly blacks have it in this country, but Beau’s skin’s the same color as most CEOs and he sure ain’t gettin’ no legs up.
Poor guy.
I know I ain’t been cranked in a while so I’m gettin’ a little rusty, but I still think it’s downright shameful the way working-class folk get treated round here.
When I get home from work Saturday afternoon, Mama and Jax aren’t there. Since my next adventure with Zan-the-Mack—a trip to the church Beau mentioned—isn’t until tomorrow, I kick off my boots, stretch out on the couch, and try to relax.
