“That’ll work,” Zod said, snatching the money, slapping it on the counter, and picking up the tray, all in one fluid move. He cut around the people in line and grabbed an open booth by the door.
I eased in across from him, eyeing the mounded plates Zod was unloading, the grease pooling on the table, turning crumbs into tiny, stale islands. Outside the frost-coated window, women in bright leather jackets and shorts paraded past on nine-inch heels.
A midnight Garbage Plate run to Tahou’s Restaurant was a tradition when my grandfather was in high school. But back then, this part of Main Street still had stores and offices, an ice cream parlor right across the street. Now the only legitimate businesses were a pawnshop, a tattoo place, and a twenty-four-hour bail bondsman, the other storefronts dark, burnt out, or boarded up. But there was still a lot for sale on the street, and when a car drove by slow or crept to the curb, the women on the sidewalks let the drivers know what it would cost.
“I love this shit,” Zod said, shoveling a plastic forkful of mac salad and hot sauce into his mouth, washing it down with a long swig from a can of Coke.
I pulled a stray hair off one of the hot dogs and flicked it to the floor. “It’s all right, I guess.”
“Not this,” Zod said, pointing to our plates. “This.” He waved above his head, the grand gesture taking in the restaurant. “The stoners, the night-shift workers, the slumming east siders, the preppy college girls.” He nodded to the window. “The working girls. All of this. I love it.”
I took a look around.
In a booth to the left, four black guys in matching parkas and matching scowls nursed coffees. To the right, a red-faced woman with a blond afro chain-smoked Camels. At the counter, a fat man whispered to a wispy Asian girl, one stool down from a sweating businessman who stared at the wall. Drunks staggered in line next to stoners, who read and reread and reread and reread the chalkboard menu, forgetting what they wanted when it was their turn to order. Huddled tight together, the sorority sisters changed their order to take-out, somehow avoiding eye contact with the tall guy in the cowboy hat who kept a running commentary of seedy compliments and bedroom suggestions. Above it all, flicking fluorescent tubes, a pair of slow-moving fans that pushed smoke around the ceiling, and, miraculously, a small swarm of houseflies in the dead of winter.
“It’s the ambiance,” Zod said. “Nothing phony here. This is just about the only place you’ll find it anymore. It’s a rarity.”
As I watched the busboy crush a bug with the bottom of a ketchup bottle, I thought that rarity was a good thing. Then, despite everything, I dug into the Garbage Plate, unable to resist its spicy-greasy goodness. Five minutes later, I was stabbing the last of the baked beans.
Zod pushed his empty plate to the edge of the table. “Good time last night, huh?”
I nodded, still trying to remember.
“You end up nailing that German chick? The one with the accent?”
German chick? I shrugged, no clue.
We sat there long enough to watch the line form and clear twice, then Zod chugged the rest of his Coke, burped, and said, “I was surprised to see you at that party.”
Here it comes, I thought.
He’d been waiting for it.
Waiting for years.
Waiting since the detective told me I had nothing to worry about, that nine months was a long time to hold a grudge.
“Look,” I said, “I’m sorry about—”
“Forget it,” Zod said. “It was a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.”
“I just wanna tell you—”
“I said forget it,” Zod said, a little harder this time. I sensed something, and for a moment wondered if that was what forgiveness felt like.
Zod said, “How’d you know about the party?”
“I didn’t. I just came along with a, uh, friend.”
“Some friend, leaving you there like that.”
“Yeah. Uh, thanks for the ride,” I said, still not able to picture Karla leaving me behind or Zod coming to my rescue.
“I figured it was for the best. You weren’t making any new friends with those frat boys. Another five minutes and one of them would have taken a swing at you. And you wouldn’t have gotten up. They grow ’em big at Pi Kappa.”
“Well, then, thanks for that, too,” I said, and then yawned, last night catching up with me in more ways than one.
“All right, lightweight, I get the message.” Zod climbed out of the booth. “I’ve got some business to take care of, and you’d only be in the way. Besides, you’ve got a big day tomorrow. I’m sure you don’t want to miss any of it.”
I sat there a second, thinking, getting nothing, then I scrambled to follow Zod out the door. On the sidewalk, a woman in red hot pants and a long rabbit fur coat shouted something about a two-for-one offer. I caught up to Zod as he rounded the corner to the parking lot.
“What do you mean I got a busy day?”
“Maybe not the whole day,” Zod said. “Only the afternoon. If you ask me, don’t waste your time. It’s not like the score’s gonna be any different if you’re watching it.”
I grabbed Zod’s arm, letting go the instant he flinched, his stare telling me not to do that again. “Sorry. I’m just trying to get it all straight in my head.”
“The football game,” Zod said, fishing for the right key, unlocking the driver’s-side door of the Camaro. “Kansas City against Oakland. You took the Chiefs.”
What?
Zod got in the car and started it up, then reached over to unlock the passenger door. I dropped into the seat, mouth still hanging open like the idiot I was pretty sure I was.
“I don’t know how much you follow the AFC West,” Zod said, “but I’m figuring you know that the Chiefs suck.”
I didn’t know that Kansas City and Oakland were in the same division, let alone their standings, but the matter-of-fact way Zod said it made it seem that Kansas City’s record was the kind of common knowledge stat any fool would consider before making a bet.
The car started with a roar. Zod maneuvered by the hookers and pulled out onto West Main. “At least they’re giving you three points. Now if it was me, I would have held out for the line at kickoff or eight points, whichever was higher, but you seemed to know what you were doing. Sort of.”
I tried to match the bet up with a face, a name. “Was it some guy named Eckles?”
“Maybe. I didn’t ask.”
“Well, who did I make this bet with?”
“Not so much a who. More of a what. It’s you against Pi Kappa.”
“The whole frat?”
“Noooo,” Zod said, waving his hand. “Just the ones who wanted in.”
“How many?”
“Twenty, twenty-five, tops. But really, it’s less a case of how many as how much.”
I looked at Zod. If my eyes got any wider, they’d fall out.
Zod let me wait as he cut through the sparse late-night traffic, racing under a flashing yellow before turning to meet my slack-jawed stare. “Six hundred dollars.”
I laughed. “That’s stupid. I don’t have six hundred bucks.”
“I figured that,” Zod said. “That’s why I fronted you.”
I stopped laughing.
“You seemed confident. You even had those frat guys second-guessing themselves. But in the end they went for it.”
“How much?”
“I just told you. Six hundred. Not a bad payday, huh?”
“They won’t pay.”
Zod grunted. “They’ll pay. Trust me. You don’t let things that big slide.”
“But what if they . . . what if the Chiefs . . . what if . . .” I stopped, unable to get the rest out.
“What if they lose? Then I’m out six hundred.”
“You’d pay them?”
“Of course I’ll pay them,” Zod said, downshifting, swerving hard to miss a slow-moving van. “And then you’ll pay me.”
Sunday, December 18
IT WAS ONE THIRTY IN THE MORNING WHEN ZOD FINALLY dropped me off.
At first, I tried to fall asleep. That wasn’t happening, so I tried to think of anything but football and Zod and the bet, but the more I pretended I wasn’t thinking about it, the more I did. I dozed off around four but snapped awake a couple hours later when the neighbor kid tossed the Sunday paper on the front porch. So I lay there, waiting for it to get light outside, and thought about how awesome it would be if I won the bet.
Six hundred bucks.
Decent money. Not millions, but a lot more than I had.
At my whopping $2.65-an-hour job, I’d have to work 225 hours to make that much. Something like that. Given the hours I had, it’d take sixteen weeks—all the way into April—to earn it. Six hundred just handed to you? That’d be sweet.
Better yet, my parents would never know about it, so there wouldn’t be any extra ammunition on the you-should-be-paying-rent front. I could spend it any way I wanted. I’d have to be careful, not buy anything too expensive. That would lead to questions, and right away they’d think I was selling drugs. They did anyway, no matter how many times I told them I didn’t even do drugs. Okay, beer. And liquor, when somebody had it. But not real drugs.
I was thinking about all that stuff when it hit me.
What if I lost?
What if the Raiders beat the Chiefs?
Lying there in bed, hands behind my head, my stomach curdling, I thought about that. I wasn’t worried about the college guys. They didn’t know who I was or where I lived or anything about me.
But they obviously knew Zod.
And Zod knew me.
We had met—if that’s the right word—the summer before I started high school. Zod would have been going into eleventh grade if he hadn’t dropped out the week he turned sixteen.
Didn’t matter. Everybody knew about Zod.
Zod was the one you saw about buying a stereo—still in the box—as long as you didn’t ask where it came from.
The one a certain type of girl saw if she was looking to do a “modeling job” for fifty bucks.
The one stoners saw for hash or speed or whatever they were looking for.
Zod was the one I saw stick a knife through a guy’s arm.
Saw him good enough to pick him out in a lineup.
Good enough to tell the judge what I saw.
Yeah, I knew Zod.
And Zod knew me.
MY HAIR WAS still wet from the shower when I came down the stairs and went into the kitchen. My mother, cigarette in hand, looked up from her coupon clipping, little bits of cut-up newspaper and glossy magazine pages littering the table. “Well, what do you know, he’s alive.”
I got a cereal bowl and a box of Wheaties from the cupboard, a spoon from the drawer, a gallon of milk from the fridge, and took my usual seat at the table.
Mom balanced her cigarette on the edge of the ashtray and picked up her coffee. “How was work last night?”
I shrugged and shook the last of the cereal out of the box and into the bowl, a little pile of Wheaties dust sliding on top.
“How’d you get home? You didn’t have to walk, did you? And don’t tell me you hitchhiked. I’d rather not know when you do that.”
“I got a ride,” I said.
“Was it Jay?”
“No, someone else.” I knew she’d pry, so I made up the details as I poured the milk. “A kid from school. He asked me to help load some band gear into his van after a show. Then he gave me a lift.”
“Was that the same boy who dropped you off Friday night?”
“Yeah,” I said through a mouthful of cereal.
She flipped a page in the “Lifestyle!” section, then picked up her scissors and clipped a coupon for some kids’ clothing store, doing my sister’s work for her again. “That boy, he seemed nice.”
I stopped chewing. “You saw him?”
“No. I heard you talking.” She glanced over and gave me that look. “You get a little loud when you’ve had a beer or two.”
“Sorry,” I mumbled. “Uh, what were we talking about?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Something about middle school. And football.”
I went back to my Wheaties, but the cereal tasted like cardboard now, and all the thoughts that had kept me awake half the night floated into focus. I didn’t hear the car door slam, but my mother did.
“That’ll be your father,” she said, folding the newspaper section closed. “Did he tell you they had a few of them working all night again?”
“He mentioned it,” I said, remembering my father’s story, the family station wagon. And the woman in the front seat.
My mother said, “There’s something wrong with the assembly line.”
Sure there was.
“As if he wasn’t putting in enough late nights as it is.” She took one last drag on her cigarette and stamped it out as the porch door squeaked opened.
I wasn’t ready to deal with my father and was getting up from the table when I heard Karla say, “Morning. Hope I’m not intruding.”
I wasn’t ready for Karla, either.
My mom had been calling Karla her third daughter for as long as I could remember. She wasn’t the only girl in the neighborhood, and she was never really friends with either of my sisters—Eileen was a little too old and Gail was a little too weird—but Karla had always felt welcome hanging out at our place. My mother liked having a girl around who didn’t shout at her or tell her how much she hated her and how she couldn’t wait to be out of this stupid house. Karla did her share of that, but she saved it for her mother and her house. To my mother, Karla was the kind of girl any mom would want her son hanging around with—polite without being a suck-up, smart but not arrogant, fun but not dangerous, attractive but virginal. It wasn’t all accurate, but when she was around my mother, Karla seemed to change, either playing the role my mother had created for her or not playing any role at all.
“I was just going to pour myself some more coffee,” Mom said, all smiles, clearing a space next to her at the table. “You wanna cup?”
Karla shook her head as she sat down, took off her mittens, and unzipped her bright blue ski jacket. Then she looked at me. “Hey, sunshine. You’re up early.”
I glared and made a low growl, and that made her laugh. But I knew that laugh and the attitude that hid behind it.
“If it’s all right with you, Mrs. B, I’m gonna steal your son for a couple hours. I’ve got some Christmas shopping to do, and I need a pack mule.”
“Take him,” my mother said. “I’d go with you, but Jerry’s gonna be home any minute. He worked all night again. There’s something wrong with the assembly line. I guess it’s easier to fix it at night.”
“Geez, he’s gonna be exhausted,” Karla said. “We’d better get going, Nick.”
I glanced at the clock on the stove. “The mall doesn’t open for another hour.”
“I know,” Karla said, smiling at me as she kicked my leg under the table. “But you know how I hate to be late.”
KARLA SWERVED AT the last second and hit the pothole straight on, rattling the front end and launching the Queen eight-track out of the player, mid-song. It was at the “we will not let you go” part of “Bohemian Rhapsody,” so I was happy to leave it on the floor by my feet.
It was snowing now, just enough to be annoying, and with every pass of the worn-out wiper blades, a new streak appeared on the windshield. I pushed in the dashboard lighter, and when it popped, I lit one of Karla’s Newports, then leaned over and placed it between her lips. It was better—meaning safer—than having her try to light it herself. She drew in a long breath, blew it out sideways toward the cracked-open window, and said, “So how long has he been screwing around?”
I knew what she meant, but I said, “What do you mean?”
“Your father. How long has it been going on?”
I didn’t want to think about it, ever, but my brain did the math, counting back to when the late nights started. �
�Four weeks,” I said. And I could have added something about the last time this happened or the time before that, but I let it pass.
“I don’t know why your mom puts up with it.”
“She doesn’t know.”
“Oh, please. She’s not stupid. The way she talked about it? That whole bit with the assembly line? She knows. She just doesn’t care.” Karla gave me a glance, the car swerving with her. “I don’t blame her. No offense, but your dad’s a real bastard.”
I could’ve agreed—and I could’ve told her to mind her own damn business—but instead I ignored it, the polite way to send a message.
A few potholes later, she said, “So, the other night . . .”
“What about it?”
“Not your finest hour.”
I smirked at that. “How would you know? You were busy.”
“Not as busy as you think.”
“Your friend wasn’t there?”
“He was there. We spent the night talking.”
“How special.”
“Almost as special as your night.” She tapped her cigarette ash out the window. “Seriously, what were you thinking?”
“It’s no biggie.”
She laughed, and this time it sounded real. “You get hammered, then drive off without telling me with the guy you sent to jail for years for stabbing somebody, and all you can say is that it’s no biggie?”
“I didn’t send him, the judge did. And it was only nine months. The other four years got added on when he was there.”
“Which he wouldn’t have been if it wasn’t for you.”
“He’s over it.”
Karla shook her head. “I don’t believe it. He’s not the type.”
I reached behind the driver’s seat and rummaged through the pile of eight-tracks, knowing that she didn’t have anything I wanted to hear.
“Look, you’re a big boy, you can do whatever you want—”
“Golly, thanks, Mom.”
“It’s just that you don’t know Zod,” Karla said. “You have no idea what he’s really like, the kind of business he’s into.”
“And you do?”
She sighed and closed her eyes, the car drifting to the right, jerking back to the centerline when she opened them. “No, I don’t know what he’s into. And I don’t care what he does or what happens to him or any of his little friends, okay? But I do care about you, asshole. And for some stupid reason, I don’t want you to get hurt.”
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