Flat Broke

by Gary Paulsen

  Wheels and the other guys were just as happy to go back to playing for points in the lunchroom. Much safer.

  I was still kind of hoping to be able to keep the hockey team’s game up and running. But then Auntie Buzz popped into the office to pick up a color wheel, saw the cards and the chips and the mess that I hadn’t cleaned up yet and went all psycho on me in a text. I read it in the golf cart while JonPaul and Sam sold our munchies.

  “U R gambling in my office! Ill talk 2 ur mthr l8er! Stop rite now!”

  Saturday morning, I was busy dragging sleds full of junk from various garages in my neighborhood to the Dumpsters in the alley.

  I was also thinking that my neighbors were lazy or they all suffered from a hoarding complex, because I must have single-handedly rid our subdivision of several tons of worthless stuff.

  As I was chucking out an ancient space heater, some fondue forks and a stack of old magazines (nothing good—I checked), a huge guy jumped out from behind a tow truck parked in the alley.

  “You! Stop putting garbage in that Dumpster!”

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m the manager of the motorcycle repair garage, and I’ve been sitting out here for three hours waiting to see who’s been dumping all the crap in my Dumpsters.”

  Your Dumpsters? Oh.

  “Why?”

  “You’ve been overloading them! I’m getting charged a fortune in extra fees and penalties by the garbage company for going over our contracted trash allotment.”

  “You mean hauling away garbage isn’t free?”

  “No way, kid! Nothing is free.”

  I should have known that.

  Long story short: I was now responsible for an insane garbage bill. The guy gave me a card with the garbage company manager’s phone number so that I could make arrangements.

  Then he watched me while I climbed into the Dumpster and removed the junk I’d deposited, replacing it on my sled.

  I dragged the sled back to my house and stuck it in the back of our garage. Maybe this was part of the reason all those garages had gotten so cluttered in the first place: it’s not easy to dump your stuff.

  I didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to spot the downward momentum. I’d been forced to give up my poker games, my clutter-removal days were probably over and I had to call Amalgamated Waste Management to get on a payment plan.

  I talked to a nice guy in accounts receivable who gave me the option of paying the bill or working it off. Work is, all evidence to the contrary lately, a good thing. So is hanging on to the money I’d made. We made a deal: I’d come down to the offices twice a week for a while until I’d gotten square with them. I didn’t even ask what I’d be doing. It was garbage. It couldn’t be good.

  I cheered myself up by remembering that all great men took pride in starting at the bottom. This would build character. And make a great story when someone eventually wrote my biography.

  It’s looking on the bright side that sets the successes apart from the failures.

  Good thing I didn’t have the poker games to worry about anymore, because otherwise I wouldn’t have had the time to work for Amalgamated Waste Management.

  11

  The Successful Person Is Frequently Misunderstood and Unappreciated

  The next evening, everything was going fine, or what passed for fine in a collapsing universe. JonPaul, Sam and I were preparing for a busy night of sales.

  We started putt-putt-putting along from dorm to dorm, making only right-hand turns at no greater speed than 3.8 miles an hour.

  Until a gung-ho security guard zipped up on a Segway.

  “You! Stop in the name of the law!”

  We stopped.

  “I’m ordering you to cease and desist all movement.”

  The three of us didn’t move except to look at each other and roll our eyes.

  “Refrain from further mobility in the name of the college.”

  Well, now, this was getting interesting.

  “By the powers vested in me by Carl, the chief of security, I hereby place you under arrest.”

  Oh, come on now. “Arrested” by a college security guard. Who was riding a Segway and didn’t even have a Taser or a nightstick. All she had was a radio. And what was she going to do, turn up the volume really loud, talk at the same time someone was speaking to her and static us into submission?

  “I’ve been watching you. You filth peddlers and destroyers of fine young minds! You should be ashamed of yourselves!”

  Crazy lady on a nifty scooter say what?

  “Whatareyoutalkingabout?” Sam asked.

  JonPaul did his best impression of a tree stump: said nothing. Sat motionless. I’d like to think it was because he knew that letting me handle things was the best course of action.

  “Illegal substances.”

  “The sugar, butter, chocolate or caffeine?” I asked her.

  “Don’t get smart with me! I’ve read all about people like you. Drug pusher!”

  I was flummoxed. “You think we’re selling drugs from the back of a golf cart?”

  “You have the ideal setup, and those baby faces of yours are the perfect cover.”

  “We’re fourteen years old. We’re selling cookies and coffee.”

  “And besides,” Sam piped up, “I promised my mother I wouldneveringestpharmaceuticallyimpure substances, much less sell them.”

  “You sound sincere.” The guard was disappointed.

  “We are.”

  She finally noticed that we were not on foot.

  “Do you have a license to drive that thing?”

  “It’s a golf cart; I didn’t think I needed a license,” I said from behind the wheel.

  “You need a license to operate a motorized vehicle. That’s the law.”

  I tried to explain how our crappy little golf cart really could hardly be considered a motorized vehicle. “It doesn’t go over three-point-eight miles an hour, we can’t put it in reverse and the steering wheel sticks if you try to turn left, so we can only make right-hand turns.”

  “Where’d you get it?”

  “The golf course near my house. They, um, had retired it.”

  Her eyes widened.

  “Grand theft auto,” she whispered slowly, and I saw her tremble slightly.

  “I wouldn’t go that far. I return the cart every night, I only borrow it when it’s dark and no one’s playing golf anyway and I refill the tank before leaving. It doesn’t even have an odometer.”

  “Well, when you put it that way, I guess you haven’t really broken any laws …” She trailed off sadly.

  Her dreams were tanking. She made one last stand.

  “You have got to be in violation of something. Maybe some kind of food-handling codes? I can’t believe you haven’t trashed health department stand—OH, SWEET FDA REGULATIONS! You’re not wearing plastic gloves! You are touching the food with your bare hands.”

  “You think that’s a problem?”

  “Only if you don’t want to spread salmonella, botulism, and possibly Legionnaires’ disease.”

  “Oh. I’m sure that’s not an issue.” I tried to remember if I’d always washed my hands. The odds were not in my favor.

  I looked back at the remaining cookies and brownies in the plastic containers on the back of the golf cart.

  “They’recrawlingwithfoodcooties!” the security guard said, sounding an awful lot like Sam, who wasn’t saying anything.

  How come JonPaul, the king of germs, hadn’t thought about this? I glanced over at him, annoyed. The guy has one obsession in life and he forgets it when it could have helped us out. Geez.

  “How’d you get into this line of work, anyway?” I asked the guard. Everyone’s favorite subject is themselves, and if you turn the focus on them, they usually forget where the conversation was headed.

  “I need my days free so that I can pursue my real passion,” she said, smiling. “I bead. I make jewelry by hand.”

  “Big future in that?”<
br />
  “It’s a nice sideline. I want to save up enough so that I can invest in my business and go full-time.”

  “What kind of clasps do you use?” JonPaul finally spoke up.

  “You know about beading?” She beamed. I tried not to tip over in surprise. JonPaul beads? Just when you think you know a guy, he goes and pulls something like this. Sam’s influence? She was smiling, not looking surprised by Bead Boy at all.

  We made introductions. The guard’s name was Renee. And then JonPaul and Sam exchanged contact info with Renee so they could get together and make jewelry.

  As they talked to Renee, I studied JonPaul. He hadn’t just lost three businesses in two days, and he actually had a real girlfriend instead of just plotting ways to impress someone like I did with Tina, and he seemed to have picked up a new hobby that he enjoyed.

  Yeah, I know that even the best businesspeople feel down from time to time, but I was starting to wonder: did I really have what it took to get filthy, stinking rich at age fourteen? Nothing had gone like I thought it was going to.

  Nah, I just needed a good night’s sleep. I’d feel better in the morning and would come up with a new plan, a better plan, a foolproof plan.

  JonPaul, Sam and I putt-putt-putted back home—but only after we emptied the unsold cookies into a trash can on campus.

  They were so jazzed about beading with Renee that they didn’t seem to realize we didn’t have a munchie business anymore. Or maybe they did and they were glad. Neither of them had been as set on getting rich as I was. They’d been working for minimum wage, but I had been pursuing my calling in life. There’s a big difference between working for a paycheck and striving toward a dream, I realized.

  12

  The Successful Person Knows His Limits

  I didn’t want to get out of bed the next morning. I lay there and thought.

  Okay, I was down, but I still had the management positions with Sarah and Katie and a notebook full of ideas. Still … I was getting a little panicky. I just had to get some new ideas hatched.

  I texted JonPaul and Sam: “Emergency meeting @ HQ l8er 2day. Discuss team status.”

  After school, I was pacing back and forth, or what passes for pacing in a broom closet, waiting for them to arrive.

  My hopes and dreams and plans for the rest of my life hinged on the prompt rebuilding of Kevin L. Spencer Corporation. V.2.0, of course.

  They finally arrived, and I pulled them into the office.

  I struggled to shut the closet door, then remembered that the frame was warped and the door didn’t shut all the way, which was why Buzz didn’t use the space.

  A pep talk was in order. I had to instill confidence in them. They were depending on me. I had to set a good example. Everyone would naturally look to me for guidance.

  JonPaul leaned against the wall, picking raisins out of an oatmeal cookie. Sam was nowhere to be seen.

  “Where’s Sam?”

  “Down here,” came a tiny voice.

  I crouched down and saw her hunched under the desk with a thermos balanced on one knee and a plastic bag of grapes in her hand.

  “Look, Sam, just because we’re faced with unexpected challenges is no reason to hide under the desk.”

  “She’s not hiding,” JonPaul pointed out. “There’s no room with the door even half shut.”

  “Oh. Well. I have a plan for reorganization and refocus,” I announced in a voice that sounded too high and nervous to be mine. I cleared my throat and took a deep breath. “Things haven’t quite worked out, so I’m advancing in a new direction. Hence my New Plan. My Better Plan.”

  “Sam and I have been talking, and we think your goose is cooked,” Jon Paul said. He might have sounded mean, but he’s not like that. Still, that’s not the kind of thing a guy wants to hear.

  “No, wait, don’t make up your mind too fast,” I told him. “Hear me out.”

  “Buddy, I want to be supportive, I really do, but your whole moneymaking thing is a bad idea.”

  “I just need to reevaluate.”

  “Look, Kev: I hate to let you down, but Sam and I aren’t going to be able to keep working for you.”

  This blatant act of insubordination would go in their personnel records! I hoped they knew we’d be discussing this at their annual reviews.

  “I’mreallysorryKev,” came Sam’s voice from under the desk, “but … umph, um, you guys? Some help, please, I’mkindofwedgedunderneathhereandIcan’tfeelmylegs.”

  We helped Sam crawl out from under the desk and held her up until the pins and needles went away.

  “We’re just not cut out to work with a mogul,” JonPaul said.

  “Wetalkedaboutitandweagreedthatwe’renotrightforyourcompany,” Sam said. “It’s not you, it’s us.”

  Wow. I’d never even had a girlfriend and yet I was getting dumped with the oldest line in the book.

  I couldn’t think of a single reason they should stay with me. That wasn’t like me; usually I can come up with twenty good reasons to do anything.

  Sam hugged me and JonPaul punched my arm before they left. I knew they cared. But I crossed them off my list of people I was talking to.

  Sure, they weren’t supposed to have my vision or bravery, but they were supposed to be loyal and supportive. They were supposed to follow my lead for a little longer than a week.

  I slunk home to go back to bed and sleep the rest of the week away.

  Instead, I found Katie Knowles, Sarah and her boyfriend, Doug, at the kitchen table.

  “I’m terminating our working agreement, Kev,” Sarah said. “Doug here is going to handle the bookings. He charges less than you do. And the whole thing about me paying you part of my earnings because you suggested I charge a fee is ridiculous. I’ve paid you enough already.”

  When I opened my mouth, she held up a hand. “You’re not in a position to argue. Be smart enough to know when you’re ahead and let it go.” Doug nodded and patted the laptop in front of him.

  I looked over at Katie. “You too?”

  She nodded. Guess she still wasn’t speaking to me.

  “Doug,” Sarah informed me, “is also going to be doing Katie’s tutoring appointments, since he knows the computer system already.”

  They got up and left the kitchen. I heard them go into our/Sarah’s bathroom. Sarah was saying, “Let me show you how to highlight your cheekbones.”

  Well, I should consider myself lucky to be rid of them. I was better off. No dead weight. Now I could launch the Kevin L. Spencer Corporation without any friends and family holding me back.

  Things looked bad. But I knew I would have to find a way to make this my finest hour. Somehow, I’d have to dig down deep to rally in an admirable manner that spoke to the quality of my character and the unquenchable strength of my dream. Or however businesspeople put it.

  And then they’d all be sorry they’d turned on me.

  Great men are never appreciated in their time. I’d read that, but now I was living it. It sounded kind of cool, but it felt kind of crummy.

  13

  The Successful Person Is Steadfast in the Face of Disaster, Can Cope with Multiple Crises at One Time and Learns from His Mistakes

  I went back to my room and looked at my piles of military history and business books on the floor for new ideas about what to do next.

  Nah. I needed something stronger than a book.

  I needed my parents.

  I found them reading in the family room.

  “Hey, Kev, how are you?” Mom asked.

  “Abysmal.”

  “When last I checked, ‘fine’ was still the standard answer,” Dad joked.

  “Not in my world.”

  I told them what had happened: how all my dreams had crashed, how I never wanted to talk to JonPaul and Sam and Sarah and Katie again and how the feeling was probably mutual.

  “I’ll give you this much: when you mess up, it’s always in a big way,” Dad said.

  “Everything sounded like such a
good idea.”

  “Everything always does, hon.” Mom smiled.

  “Why do things like this happen to me?”

  My mother and father looked at each other. Each clearly hoping the other had a good answer.

  “Forget I asked. I know why things like this always happen to me: I make them happen.”

  “Well, son, you’re never boring. No one could ever say you were a dull person. And that counts for a lot.”

  “How do I turn things around?”

  My mother and father looked at each other. Each clearly hoping I’d come up with the answer myself.

  I sighed.

  “I’m going to have to apologize again, aren’t I? Go around undoing the bad things and making things right again, aren’t I?”

  “Well, yes,” Dad said. “But look at the bright side: you’ve done it before and it’s bound to be easier the second time around.”

  “There’s no other way?”

  “Not that I know of,” Mom said.

  “I was afraid you’d say that.”

  “Getting out of trouble is a whole lot more of a hassle than staying out of trouble,” Dad said.

  “I’m starting to figure that out.”

  I wasn’t ready to make the amends tour again just yet, and I was half-hoping there was an easier way out of this predicament. So I did what had seemed to make sense the last time I’d been in a jam: I went to see Markie.

  He’d take my mind off things. He always does. There’s no way Markie has any idea what’s going on, and he won’t remind me what a lousy, greedy person I’ve been lately.

  “Hey, Dutchdeefuddy,” Markie called from his swing set as I walked to his backyard. “S-O-R-R-Y. Sorry.”

  I stopped dead in my tracks.

  “What did you just say?”

  “Wanna play Sorry?”

  “You’re kidding me, right?”

  “No, Sorry is a great game. And it’s easy, too.”

  We’ll see about that, Markie, we’ll just see about that.