When Sandra was the manager, it was different. She was older—thirty, forty, fifty, who can tell?—and she was as close to cool as somebody that age was going to get. She smoked in the store, swore more than I did, ordered pizza and paid for it from the register, and you would’ve had to be twelve for her to proof you for beer, and even then she would’ve let it slide. Plus, she cranked the radio. It was southern rock, stuff like Molly Hatchet, the Outlaws, 38 Special, and the Marshall Tucker Band, so it was tolerable. She was fired back in August. The cops were involved, and there were rumors that she sold weed at the store, which I never saw but didn’t doubt. That’s when George got shifted to nights, and the music went to hell.
Moving out had been in my head since my older sister, Eileen, had done it back when I was in sixth grade and she was seventeen and pregnant. She didn’t go far, moving in with Aunt Patty, moving home again before Connie was born, then moving out to live with Allen.
Gail got shipped off back in spring, my parents giving up on trying to straighten her out, hoping that living with Aunt Norma and Uncle Bud in rural Vermont would calm her down and put some sense in her head. Or they just hoped it was so far off she wouldn’t find her way back home.
The way I saw it, Gail’s only problem was that she didn’t play by the rules. She had her own, I guess, or she made them up as she went. She was funny as hell and could be really sweet, but, man, could she argue—about anything with anyone—and not just shouting, although she was good at that, too. She’d use facts and logic, and she was a master at throwing your own words back in your face. My parents said she was defiant and belligerent—which Gail saw as compliments—and when she took a swing at a mall cop, they decided that the country air would be good for her nerves. Or theirs. I didn’t think Gail was all that bad, but we liked each other, so she took it easy on me. I wasn’t there the day they drove her away, but she left a two-word note, written in permanent marker on the wall of my room.
SAVE YOURSELF.
It’d taken me the better part of a year to get started, but I was trying.
My parents thought about me moving out probably as much as I did. They couldn’t say hello without asking about “my plans” once high school was over, code for “When are you getting out of here?” College wasn’t an option. Not a realistic one, anyway. By the time I realized what I had done—or, more accurately, what I hadn’t done—I’d picked up enough D's and F's that I’d need two years of straight A's to make it to the low-middle of the grading curve. My father liked to point out—sometimes daily—that a few years in the military might be just what I needed. Joining would be easy. Recruiters were calling twice a week. But the army didn’t sound all that different from living at home, only with a lot more rules and a lot less freedom.
When the whole Zod thing went down, you’d think my parents would have been so concerned for their only son’s safety that they would have moved to another town. But even at the time, they didn’t think it was such a big deal. Easy for them to say—they weren’t the ones Zod would be looking for when he got out. Maybe Karla was right. It was years ago. If Zod was still pissed, he would have done something by now. He had that reputation. But then he also had a reputation for patience, and I could totally see him waiting a couple years so he wouldn’t get the blame if I suddenly had an accident.
But it wasn’t worrying about Zod that kept me up at night. What really scared the shit out of me was that I might end up doing nothing with my life. Ever. One thing would lead to another, and the next thing you know I’m getting a dumpy apartment with Jay and Gordie and OP, maybe even Vicki or Frenchy—a bunch of us sharing the space and splitting the rent until we reached a point where we were sick of seeing each other.
Only thing was, I’d already passed that point.
So what did I want? I didn’t know. I just knew I could do better than this.
Maybe it wasn’t about moving out.
It was about moving on.
I WAS KNEELING on the floor, restocking the pet supplies, when I spotted my father in line at the register. I leaned around the display and said, “Hey, Dad,” loud enough to be heard over George’s fake-friendly banter. My father gave a startled jump, scanning the store for the voice. He spotted me, but I could tell that it didn’t click right away. He stepped out of line and walked over to my aisle.
“You’re early,” I said. “I’m here till closing.”
There was an awkward pause and a telling head tilt. Then he said, “Oh.”
I could guess the rest.
“I didn’t know you were working tonight.”
“You’re the one who left that note on the fridge,” I said, leaving out the details, how he had written that he was sick of me dragging my ass in late Sunday morning, and how he’d be there himself to pick me up, so don’t get any smart ideas, mister.
He made an oh-shit face. I kept stacking cans of Friskies cat food, thinking how to play it.
He took a second, then said, “They asked some of us to come back tonight, get some repairs done to the line.” They were the bosses at Delco. As for repairs and the line, that could have meant anything. My father had worked there since before I was born, but I only had a vague idea of what he did. Whatever it was, the bosses were incompetent, the new guys were lazy, and the whole place was going down the toilet. At least that’s how he described it.
“Technically, we’re off the clock, but we’re getting comped for it, you know, time off later, leave early on a few Fridays. Hard to pass that up. But I don’t want to leave you stranded.” That’s what he said. The way he said it said something different. The Stop-N-Go was a solid four miles from home, and there were no streetlights until you got close to the mall, no sidewalks until you turned onto our street. It was December, and even if it wasn’t snowing, it was cold and the wind was howling off the lake. I had a hoodie and that post-frat-party black jean jacket, a pair of cheap gloves, and a black knit cap. And no ride home. But I knew that if I bitched about it now, I’d pay for it later. My parents were already this close to charging me rent as it was. Better to act like it didn’t matter at all, so I said, “It’s okay. Jay was gonna drop by. I’ll catch a ride with him.”
“Well, as long as you got a ride—”
“Yeah, no problem,” I said, the long, cold walk still four hours off. Anything could happen before then. Even Jay dropping by.
My father checked his watch, mentioned again that he’d be at the factory, maybe even all night, got back in line, bought a carton of Tareytons at the counter—which made no sense, since he smoked Marlboros—waved in my direction, and headed out the door. I went back to stacking cat food cans. I was right by the front windows and expected to hear a quick horn toot as my father drove off.
But I didn’t.
And that’s what made me look out in time to see my father—waaay over at the dark corner of the almost-empty parking lot—climbing into our full-size, luggage-rack-on-the-top, wood-on-the-side, impossible-to-miss 1975 Chevy Caprice Estate station wagon, the dome light popping on just long enough, just bright enough, for me to see the woman in the passenger seat.
Then the door closed, the light went out, and my father drove away.
THE WORST PART of the job—other than George—was restocking the freezer.
It was colder outside than it was in the freezer, but I swear there was something about the ten-by-twelve-foot steel-and-glass box that made it worse. Maybe it was the way the fans blew frigid air right down the back of your neck, or the way the cans of orange juice concentrate stuck to your gloves, or how in the summer you could look out through the frost-coated glass doors and see customers in shorts and tube tops. In the winter you saw people with thicker coats and warmer feet. Or maybe the whole store was built over an ancient Indian burial ground, and this was the portal to an icy underworld.
I fumbled open a box cutter and ran the blade down the top of a case of Green Giant Peas in Convenient Family-Size bags. There’s an art to using a box cutter—slice too de
ep and you cut into the package itself. It was an art I had never mastered. I put the cut-open bag of peas on the shelf marked “Damaged Goods” and crammed the other bags in the case onto the display shelf. After kicking the loose peas into a corner, I moved on to the open space where the yet-undamaged case of TV dinners would go. I rubbed the ice off a spot on the glass and looked out into the store. Down the main aisle I could see the register where George was busy making change for a black-haired, dark-eyed girl in knee-high boots and a leather trench coat.
Her.
I bumped over the stack of boxes I’d set by the door, yanked open the handle, and stumbled out of the freezer, flinging off the gloves and struggling with the zipper on the Stop-N-Go parka, my fingers too cold to get a grip.
By the time I got the coat off and made it out of the back room, she was gone.
And there was George, recounting a thin stack of money I knew would be ten dollars short, trying to figure out what the hell just happened.
I waited until I was back in the freezer to laugh.
AT 11:40 P.M. Geralyn walked into the store. George was taking his second hourlong bathroom break of the night, so I was at the register. I looked at her, then glanced up at the clock over the door. “I thought you couldn’t drive after nine.”
“Obviously I can,” Geralyn said. “Just not legally is all. Where’s your boss?”
“Where he always is.” I made a loose fist and gave it a shake.
“Uh, disgusting. Give me a pack of Newports.”
I reached for the cigs without turning and tossed a pack on the counter, punching in seventy-seven cents on the register keys. I watched while she scraped the bottom of her purse for change, slapping the coins—one by one—on the counter.
“Where’s Cici?”
“I don’t go everywhere with her, you know,” she said, then, two dimes and a penny later, “She’s in the car. With the Roach.”
“No way.”
“I wish I was kidding.”
I laughed. Cici’s standards had hit a new low. “So where you off to?”
“Jay’s. Where else.”
“Just you guys?”
She found a quarter and that put her over a buck, so she took back some change. “Everybody,” she said. “Jay, Tony, Gordie, OP, Dan-O and Frenchy, Sperbs. Louie, maybe. Cici and numbnuts out there. Arlene. Oh, and Vicki.”
I nodded as I dropped the coins in the register, hip-checking the drawer closed. That was just about everybody. “I might swing by on my way home.”
“Don’t bother.”
That got my attention.
“We all talked about it,” she said. “We don’t want you hanging around anymore.”
I paused. “Oh, really?”
“Yeah. Really.”
“And why’s that?”
She shrugged.
I waited for her to smile, make some joke, but all she did was wedge the cigarettes into her purse as she held my stare.
“You wouldn’t want to hang out with us,” she said. “We’re just gonna get high and listen to records. You’ll have a lot more fun hanging out with Karla and her college friends. They’re so much cooler than we are.”
So they knew.
I could deny it, laugh it off, but she wasn’t laughing, and, besides, the way she said it—putting it out there just like that, smartass sarcastic—well, it sounded about right to me. I looked at Geralyn. I’d known her since ninth grade and we’d had plenty of fights over the years and they’d always blown over. I knew if I said nothing, this too would pass. Same with the other bangers. In a week the whole thing would be forgotten, and, if I wanted, I’d be back, as if I was never gone.
Only thing was, I wanted more.
On my list it said stand fast, my way of saying that from now on, I would stop giving up on things just because they got hard, that I’d see things through to the end and not back out. I’d stood fast before, years ago when I agreed to testify against Zod. My parents had told me I didn’t have to, but something in my gut told me I did. I remembered how it felt going through with it, and I wanted that feeling again. Giving up now would be easy, but giving up was what everybody I knew did. And look where that got them.
“Anyway, don’t bother coming over.” She kept her eyes in her purse, shuffling things around, waiting for me to say something. She gave it another moment, then got the hint, slung her purse over her shoulder, and walked out.
I watched her taillights disappear into the night, then looked around the empty store. It felt good to be alone.
TEN MINUTES AFTER midnight, George flicked off the lights, punched 4-3-2-1 into the alarm keypad, and locked the front doors. It was a clear night, cold, nothing but stars and a half-moon. My hoodie and jean jacket were better than nothing, but not by much.
George’s rusted-out Gremlin was the only car in the lot.
I knew where George lived. Not the exact address, but the neighborhood. George would have to drive right past the street that led to the subdivision where I lived. A five-minute walk home from there, tops. And I knew that if I asked, George would give me a ride. He wouldn’t be happy about it, but he’d do it. But I also knew that George would use the time to run down all the things I had screwed up that night and all the things I didn’t get done. Or he’d talk about my lack of ambition or my lousy attitude, how I wasn’t gung-ho enough cleaning the toilet. Or, worse, George would get all buddy-buddy, asking me all about school or my family or the girls who stopped by at the store.
An hour walk home or a six-minute ride with George?
I said, “Later,” stuffed my hands in my jean pockets, and started walking.
I was in front of the dark liquor store next to the Stop-N-Go when a car pulled into the parking lot, catching me in its headlights. Instead of driving past, the car stopped and the driver hit the high beams. I brought a hand up to shield my eyes. Then a voice I hadn’t heard in years said, “Get in.”
I thought about running—and I probably should have—but I knew I wouldn’t get far. Even if I did, he would catch up with me eventually.
“Let’s go,” the voice said.
I stood there, blinking, trying to come up with an option.
“Dude, get in the frickin’ car.”
I willed my legs to move and made my way to the passenger door of the devil-red Camaro. I expected others in the back seat, but it was just the driver. I didn’t know if that made it better or worse. I climbed in, the door shutting with a heavy thud.
“Bet you thought I forgot,” he said.
His first name was Steve, but nobody I knew called him that. Since middle school he’d gone by his last name, but he was the only one to use the full thing, everyone else cutting Zodarecky down to Zod.
“Admit it,” Zod said. “You thought I forgot.”
I didn’t know the right answer, so I sat there.
Zod smiled. “You were pretty hammered, though. Hell, we all were, weren’t we?”
A dim refrigerator-bulb light went on in my head. “You were at that party? The one in the city?”
“Holy shit,” Zod said, looking at me, laughing now. “You don’t remember, do you? That’s frickin’ awesome.”
I thought back as hard as I could, but my memory bank hit the same blank space as before.
Zod stomped the clutch and shifted into reverse. “You were drunk-tank ready when I got there, but I thought you had sobered up a bit. Kinda chatty for most of it, especially with the ladies. Talkin’ tough, too. Well, up until you blacked out.”
“Wait,” I said, tying the little threads together. “I talked to you at the party?”
Zod slapped the steering wheel with both hands, eyes crinkled shut as he laughed. “Dude, stop. You’re killin’ me.”
“I . . . I guess I don’t . . . I don’t really remember.”
Zod popped the clutch and the back tires chirped against a dry spot on the asphalt. “Not even the ride home? The drive-thru? Cutting across that guy’s lawn?”
I felt
my head shake no.
“How do you think you got in your bed?”
What?
“No way,” I said, not ready to picture Zod in my house. Because that would mean Zod knew where the key was hidden and how to find my room. In the dark.
He pulled out onto the main road and punched it, blowing past the speed limit while still in first. “You should have skipped the tequila shots. Those’ll get you every time. That’s probably why you don’t remember telling me how you needed a ride tonight.”
“I didn’t. My father was supposed to pick me up. But he had to work,” I said, a second later adding, “or something.”
“Then, it’s a good thing I stopped by, ain’t it?” He downshifted hard at the curve, the car skipping sideways as he made the turn. “Where to?”
Right here is fine, I thought. Just let me out here. Then drive off and leave me alone.
“It’s only midnight,” Zod said. “We gotta do something.”
We? I felt my stomach twist.
Zod slowed as he came to an intersection, rolling through the stop sign, then revving back up to cruising speed. “Get a plate at Tahou’s? What do ya say?”
Two grilled hots, macaroni salad, and baked beans, all piled on an order of home fries, topped off with onions, mustard, and meaty hot sauce. The Garbage Plate. Midnight snack of champions.
I said something about it being late and me having to get up early, but the stereo was louder now, cranked to be heard over the red-lined engine, AC/DC wailing on about a problem child.
“WHAT THE HELL,” Zod said, turning away from the counter. “The dude won’t take a fifty. Can you break it?”
I looked at the cash in my hand. “I got four dollars and some change.”
Snow Job Page 4
