by Mia Archer
Not that I ran into too many girls who weren’t interested in yours truly, thank you very much, even if they wouldn’t admit it to the world. Wouldn’t want rumors getting started about them, now would we? I snorted again.
John shrugged, completely oblivious to my tortured inner monologue. “The way you were staring at her and almost getting in a fight with sheriff junior over there I figured someone needs to bring you back down to earth.”
“I already said thanks,” I muttered.
What I hated more than anything was I knew he was right. Girls like Mari Thompson didn’t get with people like me, never mind the whole same gender barrier. To say we were from different sides of the tracks would be so very wrong. Partly because the old train tracks had been ripped out when all the factories left, but mostly because we were from two different worlds.
Mari was beautiful. Perfect. The good little church girl who wondered why I wasn’t in church on Sunday. The kind of girl who came over to the convenience store to get some snacks before she went back to learn about God or whatever it was they talked about over there.
Me? I was bad news for a girl like her even if she did act all weird and make me think she might be interested. I came to the alley behind the convenience store on a Sunday morning because most of the cops were asleep or in church at this time of day which made it easier for me to conduct my business.
The sort of business that would have Mari running from me if she had any inkling what I was doing. Sure it was just a little pot, but I’m sure that would be enough to blow her goody-two-shoes mind.
Not that I wouldn’t mind blowing her mind. Damn it was unfair that such a tight little package should come from a girl who was so totally off limits. Both because of who I was and because the universe wouldn’t be kind enough to make a girl like Mari Thompson and turn her into a lesbian.
“You okay Robin?” John asked.
I shook my head. I needed to be in the game today. Sure the business wasn’t as dangerous as I’d heard it could be in some of the cities, but there was still the chance someone might try to rip us off or threaten to go to the cops or something. That was a big reason why we had the alley so conveniently located next to our place of business.
Made it easier to straighten people out if they even thought about double crossing us. Though John did most of the straightening out. I wasn’t exactly what you would call intimidating myself.
“I’m fine,” I said. “Just thinking about some things.”
“I know what I’m thinking about,” John said.
“What’s that?”
“I’m thinking about what it would look like if that pretty dress your girlfriend was wearing got hit by a gust of wind and…”
I smacked his beefy arm. Not too hard. He could be just as quick to anger as I was sometimes, and John was not the kind of guy you wanted to piss off. Even if we had been best friends for most of our lives.
“Don’t talk about her like that man,” I said.
John shrugged. “So you really do have the hots for her?”
“I do not have the hots for Mari Thompson,” I said.
“Seems like you wouldn’t be so upset hearing about what I’d like to do to her if you didn’t…”
“Just shut up. We’re about to get busy,” I said, nodding down the street to an older guy glancing in every direction but towards us as he made his way down the sidewalk.
I wanted to laugh. Old dude should’ve been used to the game by now. He was probably smoking up back in the good old days. Or maybe he needed the stuff because he was so nervous. I could see why he’d be a little crazy. Making a deal in broad daylight seemed crazy.
If you didn’t think about the churches. That was the thing. I figure if you’re going to be in a high risk business like this you needed to be smart about it. I’d heard about a couple of guys who got roughed up by the local 5-0, and I didn’t want any part of that.
Better to do business when they were all in the pews letting the world know how great they were because they were talking to their imaginary friend and giving him ten percent of their paycheck.
The guy stopped at the edge of the alley and leaned against the wall like this was some stupid shit straight out of a movie or something.
“You got the stuff?” he whispered.
I shook my head. “How many times have we done this Spock?”
The guy winced at my favorite nickname for him. His real name was Leonard, but it had been a short jump from Leonard to Nimoy to Spock when I was coming up with a nickname. Didn’t help that he was tall and thin with dark hair that made him look like the dude from that show my dad was always watching when I was a kid.
“I fucking hate it when you call me that,” he said. “One of these days…”
“One of these days what? You’re going to get your pot from someone else? Please. Do me the favor. Then someone else will have to deal with your nervous ass instead of me. The money’s not worth it. Now are we making a business transaction or not?”
Leonard looked around again. Probably searching for fucking cops. As though there was a single cop or sheriff out at this time of day. They were all either asleep or singing about how their God was an awesome God or whatever the fuck it was people did when they went to church.
My family had never been the churchgoing type so I’d never really learned beyond what I saw in movies and on TV.
“How about you just give me what I want and stop calling me Spock,” he said, his weaselly face suddenly getting more determined and more nervous. It was a weird combination that didn’t suit him. Leonard wasn’t the kind of guy who had a backbone.
“Why the hell would we do something like that, Kirk?” John asked.
“No, Spock,” I said.
“What?”
“Spock. The dude with the pointy ears. Kirk was the other one,” I said.
“The one that’s always getting with those hot ass sixties chicks?”
“Yeah, that’s the one!” I said.
Leonard looked between the two of us as though we were insane. I guess in a way we were insane. Standing here discussing the finer points of ancient sci-fi when we should be focusing on the deal.
“My oversized companion here does bring up a good question,” I said. “Why would we want to give you our product without any sort of financial compensation?”
Briefly an image of old Spock here holding out his hand and saying “because I’m holding a thermal detonator” played through my head. Damn it. Why did my dad have to watch so much of that crap growing up?
Probably for the same reason I was out here dealing. Because it was an escape from our absolute shithole of a life for a little while. Dad’s escape was his TV shows. My escape was selling this stuff.
Mom’s escape had been doing the stuff. At least it had been until she moved on to the harder stuff. It’d been five years since she injected a bad batch, and I’d hated the harder stuff ever since. A little pot here and there didn’t seem so bad. Hell, the stuff was on its way to being legalized everywhere, but the harder stuff? I wanted to beat the shit out of the guys I saw dealing it.
I didn’t, of course. Getting my own ass beat or maybe killed for knocking off one of those guys wasn’t going to help anything.
“Robin? You with us?” John said.
I shook my head. Damn it. Why did I keep losing track of things? I was usually on point. Today I was distracted, and I had a pretty good idea what was distracting me. It was all her. Seeing Mari in that sun dress was enough to completely throw me off. Thinking about her now was enough to distract me from the business at hand.
“I was just telling you that if you don’t give it up I’m going to the cops and tell them exactly what you’re doing, you little punk,” Leonard said. “I’m sick and tired of you pushing me around and calling me names. Not anymore!”
I shook my head. “Leonard. You’re breaking my heart here. How long have we been in business?”
“A couple years? Why the fuck does
that matter? Give me what I want!”
“A couple of years together and now you’re trying to knock me over?”
“I’m not knocking you over. I’m just getting some revenge,” he said.
I stepped forward and wrapped my arm around his shoulder. He glanced at me and if anything the nervousness factor went up by another hundred percent or so. Good. Let him be on edge. It would make this easier. I’d never had to do more than threaten someone, and I didn’t want to start that today.
Of course his eyes also ran down my body. Damn. I guess there was no escaping who I was even when I was trying to be intimidating. It was a curse looking this good. Especially when it had old creepers like Spock here giving me the eye.
“Here’s the problem with you trying to knock me over with a threat like that,” I said. “Because the cops are out there somewhere and they’re a threat, sure, but John and I are here in this abandoned alley with you right now and I can assure you that if you threaten us then we become a very real threat to anyone else in the alley with us.”
I glanced over to John. He had a big grin on his face. He always liked it when we got to this part. “John? Would you maybe explain to him what happens to people who threaten us?”
John held up his hands and popped his knuckles. His muscles flexed and Leonard’s eyes went wide. I could see him imagining what those muscles would do to him if John got it in his head to get violent. We’d never gotten violent and the idea that a couple of kids just out of high school could intimidate an actual adult still felt ridiculous, but it looked like it was working.
I wasn’t exactly a stranger to the system. I had bad memories of winding up in the juvenile system a few years back. There was a lady cop by the name of Jenkins who took a shine to me back then, and by “take a shine” I meant she’d made it her mission in life to try and catch me reoffending.
Not gonna happen.
If a little intimidation kept us out of jail that was just fine with me. Oddly the thought that me going to jail would disappoint Mari floated out and above the more pressing concerns. Weird. I really couldn’t get that girl out of my head.
“So do we understand each other, Spock?” I asked. “Because the cops are out there, but even if they pull us in there’s a chance they don’t find anything. You can be sure we’ll come to pay you a visit as soon as we get out on bail or whatever it is, though. Got it?”
“I think I do,” he said, his shoulders deflating. “The usual amount?”
“Price just went up by twenty percent,” I said. “Let that be a lesson in how to carry yourself appropriately in business dealings.”
I always felt like an old time gangster saying things like that. I even put on a little accent sometimes without realizing it, but John always gave me shit about it after.
Maybe it was silly, but it was also fun. I figured you might as well have some fun in life. Spock handed the money over and I pocketed it quickly as John handed him our side of the bargain.
I’d be able to buy something really nice for Kelly with this money. Sure she was a little brat, especially now that she was going into middle school, but I still loved her. Besides, I was about the only person in her world getting her nice things. Dad was too checked out and mom had decided the needle was more important than her kids.
Damn it. As Spock scurried out of the alley I found my attention returning to the church on the other side of the convenience store. I saw Mari walking up those steps looking gorgeous in her sun dress. She had the sort of body that could distract a dead man, and the way that dress clung to her showed of all her considerable assets, if you catch my meaning.
“That was pretty fun,” John said. “I always like it when we get to threaten them a little.”
“Yeah, pretty fun,” I echoed, but my mind was elsewhere. It was over at that church where Mari was doing whatever the hell it is people do at church when the service or whatever it is was over. I wondered what it would be like to live that life.
Well that life wasn’t going to come looking for me. I was what I was and Mari was what she was. I had a feeling our paths weren’t going to cross again. Even if she was interested, fat chance of that, I didn’t think Alan the asshole would ever approve. One word to her parents and it would all be over.
One more thing to be pissed at Alan over.
I turned away from the church and back to the business at hand. I had another client coming by at one o’clock, and hopefully the business transaction would go much better this time around.
No point whining to myself about a life I was never going to have with a girl who deserved better.
3
Mari
Another week gone. Another week closer to going off to college. A week where I’d been preoccupied for most of the time thinking about Robin. Wondering what she was doing at the gas station that day.
Wondering if I would see her again.
“We ready for the usual candy run?” Richard asked, coming up behind me and slapping me on the back.
I turned and grinned. I was glad it was Richard and not Alan. Richard was fun. Funny. Most importantly neither one of us was interested in dating the other. Mostly because he wasn’t particularly into the ladies, something he kept on the down low, but it worked for us.
Sometimes I felt ashamed that I hadn’t told him I wasn’t into the guys. He’d confided in me, after all, and that’s what really cemented our friendship. I just wasn’t ready to tell the world. I wasn’t ready to admit it to myself, really.
“Back from camping?” I asked.
“You know it,” he replied.
“So did anything interesting happen while you were out in the great outdoors?”
Richard put a finger to his lips and shook his head. “Not something to discuss here my dear.”
“Better than my love life lately,” I muttered.
Alan had been shooting me looks during the entire service and I’d been doing my best to ignore him. Every time I did pass over his part of the sanctuary he’d wink at me as though he had a chance. I sighed.
“Come on,” Richard said. “Let’s go get some candy or breadsticks or something and you can forget all about that jerk.”
Forget all about that jerk. The problem was there was someone else I couldn’t get out of my head. No matter how hard I tried,
“We’re going on a food run?” Alan’s voice came from just inside.
Damn. And here I’d hoped I might actually get to go over there without him.
“We’re going on a food run,” Richard said. “I don’t remember inviting you along.”
“I don’t remember you being the one I asked,” Alan said. “I’m sure Mari would love to have me along, wouldn’t you Mari?”
I looked down. I was about to cause a scene, but I really didn’t want him coming along. I hated the way he was always putting his hands around me like we were together or something. The way he tried to hold my hand even after I yanked it away. The way he assumed we were dating or something just because we were thrown together because we happened to be the same age going to the same damn church.
Damn it.
“I don’t want you to go,” I said.
“What?”
“I said I don’t want you to go. You can go get candy or something, not like I can stop you, but I’m hanging with Richard today,” I said.
Alan moved in closer. Close enough that he got disapproving stairs from some of the silver haired old ladies walking past. They shook their heads and I’m sure they were tutting under their breath. I’m sure they thought it was my fault, too. I never asked for this jerk to get interested in me.
“Come on Mari, I thought we had a good thing going? I was thinking of asking you…”
Oh God above. He was thinking of asking me out. On a date. Where he no doubt expected to get even more up close and personal. The idea of spending that much time with him doing something like that made my skin crawl. It made me want to climb to the top of the steeple and throw myself off just
to avoid that fate.
“No,” I said. “We’re not happening. I’ve tried telling you before and you just won’t listen. We’re not an item.”
Alan stared for a moment and then he started to look pissed off. Like really pissed off. I took a step back.
“You’re nothing but a tease and a bitch,” he said, though at least he had the good sense to keep his voice down just enough that the old people streaming past us out of the sanctuary didn’t hear him. There’d be hell to pay if he got too loud around that crowd.
“Hey, I don’t think that was justified,” Richard said. He took a step forward as though he was about to do something about Alan being such a jerk. Alan seemed to sense the impending danger and he ducked past us and out through the front door.
I took a deep breath. Held it for a moment and counted to ten before letting it out in one long sigh.
“Sorry about that,” I said.
“What are you apologizing for?” Richard asked. “He’s the asshole.”
“You’re right,” I said. “Now how about we go get some candy and caffeine? I’m going to need the stuff if we’re going to sit through the Sunday school lesson today.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Richard said.
We stepped out of the stuffy old church, the place always smelled like a mixture of dust and old people no matter what, and into a bright sunny day. Not even a cloud in the sky. It was just as perfect as last week. Even more perfect, in a way, because I had my friend here with me and not Alan creeping on me.
“I’m kind of surprised he tried to go over there with us,” Richard said. “Usually he doesn’t want to come near me.”
I shrugged as we stopped and looked both ways before crossing the road. It was technically a highway and so there should’ve been more traffic, but the only people driving at this time of day were the semi drivers. Everyone else was at church or at home.
