Seeking Carol Lee

by Nace Phlaux

  Outside, the lights were still off for a good number of the town, and the complex hummed with more energy than usual. The craziness in the parking lot of the night before had calmed down to a state more like a composed sardine can, and as I stumbled through my front door, I almost didn’t recognize it in the flashing yellow lights of the emergency power. Regardless of whether it was mine or not, I fell into the first seat I could find, glad to be away from any other living soul.

  Manny 2

  From: Emmanuel Quinn (emmanuel.quinn@episync.biz)

  To: Ro Ortiz (rolandoortiz716@yahoo.com)

  Sent: Wednesday, January 9, 2013 2:33 PM

  Subject: Re: Re: Hey

  > Forgot to reply to this lol. Now who’s forgetting who?

  After the past week, I thought you’d be sick of me.

  > Starting to sound southern, son. Next you’ll be all ya’ll come back

  > now ya here? Ya’ll couldn’t pour water out a boot with instructions

  > on the heel.

  My nana watched Kamica and me every afternoon until Kamica married Kingston’s father and I moved out to go to school. She lived in Atlanta most of her life, so her phrases pop out of either of us when we’re not expecting it. I was fixin’ to snag some vodka tonics in the city down yonder and ish like that.

  > Now you can point her to me and be like “Tall, strong, and Puerto

  > Rican. And hung like a moose. That’s how I roll, sis.”

  You a moose now? Yesterday, you said a pony. Before that you said elephant. Last week it was a baby’s arm holding an apple. You got something wrong with you and your business.

  > You know how I know you’re gay?

  I got videos that say a little something about you, sir. Just FYI.

  > the bedroom. Came home to find my vaporizer was still laying out.

  > Either he didn’t notice it or he didn’t look at it too deep. Hasn’t

  > said anything so far.

  Haven’t thought of smoking since I left my last job. Do they test waiters? Every waiter I know’s is cool, but I didn’t know if or when I’d have to get tested. And now with this hiring freeze BS they got here, I never know if ish’ll change tomorrow and I’ll be filling up a cup.

  > Done and done, papi. That one you told me about last night was funny

  > as ish. “Black people tan?” SMH.

  My boss fired her this week. She’d been missing from her cube for hours, so we had someone check the bathroom and nothing. She took the bus, so it’s not like she’d hop in her car and leave. So somebody tries to go into a conference room and the door stops against something and it sounds like a meeting’s going on, but the person trying to go in doesn’t see anyone through the crack in the door. We find out this girl’s sleeping in there with an old meeting she recorded on her phone playing so anyone’s who walking by thinks the room’s taken. A fake potted plant they keep in the room was propped up against the door. I hear she was out crying at the curb with a box of her stuff 15 minutes from when they found her.

  I’m not trying to come off bad, you know what I mean? But we can’t have these kids running around thinking their feet don’t stink and feeling all clever for finding creative ways for payroll theft. I’m not letting a biddy steal my ish like that. I gotta be a man here and show what I’m worth, otherwise they never gonna hire me full-time.

  > Idk, you might hafta pay me off. And I don’t come cheap.

  Boy... I got a dime to my name and a bag of Doritos I found in the lunch room to sustain me between now and Friday. You can lick the cheese dust from my fingers, but otherwise, you on your own.

  > Think of me, mi Kofi.

  > -Ro

  Would you still love me if I shaved the dreads? Dread shampoo ain’t cheap. Might make me look, you know, more adult and stuff. I’ll let you hold the BIC.

  Thanks,

  Manny Quinn

  Assoc. Mgr – Physician Validation

  t: +1 (215) 680-3747

  41 University Dr.

  Newtown, PA 18940

  www.episync.biz

   Please consider the environment before printing this email.

  FOX 29 News Transcripts for January 16, 2013

  ATM Stolen From Bristol Township Shop

  Aired January 16, 2013 - 6:00 PM ET

  THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

  CARRIE BENNETT: An ATM robbery occurred last night in Bristol Township, but we’re not talking about people being robbed. Oh no, these robbers used a pickup truck to get away with the whole machine. Duane Quinones is live in Bucks County this evening with more on this bizarre crime. Duane?

  DUANE QUINONES: Well, Carrie, just minutes ago, the dinner rush began here at AJ’s Sports Bar and Grill, but customers in need of cash are having a bit of trouble as the ATM across the street—where customers have been going for the past week as AJ’s has been under repair—was knocked over by a vehicle last night and taken away by two alleged suspects. Several witnesses came forth from outside AJ’s and pumping gas at the station next door, but get this: Reports conflict as to whether the vehicle was an SUV or a pickup truck and even what color it was.

  DUANE QUINONES (voiceover): Police have released this blurred video captured on a witness’ cell phone, taken outside Bristol Township’s AJ’s Sports Bar and Grill Tuesday night, in the hopes that someone can come forward with information on at least two suspects accused of driving a vehicle into an ATM and the front of Express Cash, a local check-cashing location and pawn shop at the corner of New Falls and Bristol-Oxford Valley Roads.

  HAK HYOUN KIM, Owner: It was a precise heist. Cash register? Safe? Tech? No. ATM. Very precise.

  DUANE QUINONES (voiceover): It took mere moments, according to eye witnesses, for the crooks to ram a truck into the glass windows of Hak Hyoun Kim’s store and snatch the ATM filled with around fifteen hundred dollars.

  EXXON CUSTOMER #1: Obviously, they had a plan, and it was very effective.

  EXXON CUSTOMER #2: Crooks will go to any limit nowadays, do anything.

  EXXON CUSTOMER #3: People are bold. I would never do nothing like that.

  DUANE QUINONES (voiceover): Hak Hyoun Kim has owned his business for five years. It’s the first time the ATM has been stolen, but unfortunately, he’s been robbed before.

  HAK HYOUN KIM, Owner: It was last August. Three guys in masks came, held me up.

  DUANE QUINONES: No one was injured, and detectives don’t know whether the truck, uh, is stolen or not. No arrests have been made yet, so this story continues, Carrie.

  CARRIE BENNETT: Well, Duane, I have to ask you: Did the pawn shop have any surveillance? Can the cops—have the cops talked about that at all?

  DUANE QUINONES: Police say the cameras on the property were all inside. The ATM was a recent addition, and plans were still underway, they told me, to add working, uh, surveillance outside. The suspects luckily—or unluckily, for Mr. Kim—were only interested in the smash-and-grab of the ATM.

  CARRIE BENNETT: Ah, that’s what the crooks wanted. Thank you, Duane.

  Eddie 4

  “Two visits in one week, Eddie? To what do we owe the pleasure?”

  One punch. One weathered hand around her anorexic neck is all it would take. And after the morning I had, I would’ve loved to let loose some steam on your wife’s smug face. I’d been woken up by another call to my cell that day, this time in my own place and in my own recliner. It was the temp agency, and I’m pretty sure at this point it was the voice of the mousy thing who helped me with the computer parts the previous day. She told me there was a position open for me, but I’d have to interview for it. When I asked why I’d have to interview for a temp job, she said the place usually hired their temps pretty quickly after they started, so they preferred to vet them early. I was still half-awake as we spoke, so I didn’t question any further, and the next thing I knew, I was showered and in a lobby of a research facility in Newtown.

  A guy interviewed
me at first—a pretty standard office ball-buster—telling me about the company and how they received and filed results from medical studies and diagnostics. Ever piss in a cup? These guys were the ones to tell the computers whether your cholesterol was too high. And, according to the nearly balding middle management stooge in front of me, they were looking for someone to work in the mail room. All this seemed fairly normal until the guy says, “Well, everything seems all right so far, so now we’ll bring in the supervisors to ask a few questions.”

  The guy and I were in the only two seats in the room, and when the five women walked in, they formed a semicircle around me. All of them in much nicer clothes—them in mid-management sweater dresses and pencil skirts and me in jeans and the only button-down shirt I own—they asked these questions that sounded like the security questions the mousy girl had asked. My favorite had to be, “Name three things your parents taught you.”

  I smirked at that one and said, “Well, ma’am, the primary thing my father taught me was to always have an open stream of communication. Then, I’d say he taught me constructive criticism got you much further than any other kind. And finally, I’d think the third would be to never jump to conclusions about someone’s abilities. They may just find a way to surprise you if you do.” All lies, really. The opposite of what Dad might’ve said. Definitely the opposite of what he did. But the girl nodded all the same, as if I’d been preaching deep philosophy, and the group ushered themselves out of the room.

  I drove to your place afterwards, craving a cigarette the whole time and contemplating what habit I could replace that urge with. What harm does nail biting really do? But I suppose you run out at some point. Maybe exercise, I figured. I was hoping you were between cars so we could grab a couple hoagies, and my mouth was already watering when I entered the shop. Maybe it’s just an oral fixation, I thought to myself as I crossed the doorway, only to find your wife standing at the cash register bold as brass and eyeing your ledgers.

  “Two visits in one week, Eddie? To what do we owe the pleasure?” She leaned over the counter in a dark wife-beater, and the only thing keeping my eyes from jumping to her cleavage was the unbridled hatred staying my gaze. Her hair was tied back with a wave free and dangling over her thick cat-eye glasses she thought made her seem like a “sexy dork,” and it all just seemed like an actress trying to look exasperated.

  “Just thought I’d take my brother out for a good time,” I said to her with a sweet smile, “seeing as how he hasn’t seen one since…Well. When’s your anniversary again?” It was about that point where she cursed at me loud enough for you to come into the lobby from the garage to ask what was wrong. Shouldering past you, I tapped the door so it’d close some and give you two privacy as you worked her to shut her yap. In the meantime, I saw the jagged and bent screw you were working on, lodged somehow through your customer’s Dodge and holding its headlight in an awkward position, and ripped it out myself.

  I was elbow-deep in the old drawer Dad kept the screws when you came through the door with the same furled brow and flaring nostrils he would’ve had in the same situation. Except where he would’ve stared me down as he huffed and snorted until I said something stupid to start the dance we always did, you just looked at the crooked screw, scratched your buzz cut, and said, “Next drawer up.” Sure enough, I found it. One of the many advances, I guess, from Dad’s shop. Dad’s Shop 2.0: Two Drawers of Screws. Just one of the many reasons I’m proud of you.

  “You got something with a push bumper?” is all I had to ask, and you did this slight nod with a queer little smile going on you probably didn’t know you were wearing.. After securing the headlight with the new screw, I just patted you on the shoulder and said, “See you next Tuesday, brother.” When I pushed the garage door open, a gust of chilled air rushed to replace the staggering amount of heat generated between you and your furnace. I couldn’t help but feel some bitter happiness as I heard your wife cursing through the wall about the draft.

  Four days later? The power’d been turned back on for most of the town, and the complex went back to its dull roar of TV sets and screaming kids. Richter got a handle on his painkillers and went from being straight-out zonked to being what most folk would call a friendly human being. He even gave me cash to pick up groceries and wine and told me to keep the change. But when I came over here early Tuesday night, I never would’ve expected you’d been so busy.

  I’m guessing it was—what?—an ‘87 F-150, parts of it white, black, and other pieces still in primer with a dark gray cap and on the front? Probably the biggest cooler rack I’d ever seen. Save for the rack, it looked like just about every ride our buddies had in high school, except I doubted you threw a blanket and a pack of wine coolers in the back for any ladies we met up with. And just like our old buddies, we would wreck the thing long before we’d ever get a proper paint job.

  I waited until we got food and liquid courage before telling you the target, figuring you’d be more accepting of the idea with a full stomach and a fuzzy mind. If what Hayleigh said was true—and if you had any idea of how bad your situation really was—then that may’ve swayed your mind too. The next thing I knew, we slammed into the front of the check cashing joint and shoved its ATM in the cab of the truck. A couple smokers stood outside AJ’s, but they didn’t pose any threat, the drunks fumbling for their cell phones with one hand each.

  We took out more of the front of the store than I expected, and honestly, the thought crossed my mind to raid the place. But where would we take the stuff? Another pawn shop? Didn’t seem worth the effort. But when we threw the ATM into the back of the truck and you hopped back into the driver’s seat, the tailgate wouldn’t catch for me, and the backup lights were already on, so what else could I do? I hopped into the back, grabbed the machine like a lifeguard would grip a drowning victim, and stationed myself in the bed so I wouldn’t be flung out the back. When it came to hiding in speeding pickup truck beds, this wasn’t my first time to the rodeo.

  New Falls Road flew by from what I could see out the back and through my less than sober eyes. What I distinctly remember is my balls were firmly shriveled into my stomach with how cold it was back there. “Oh shit!” may have passed my lips a few times as you raced through town and over potholes. I relaxed as you pulled up to and opened the bay doors of the lumber yard, but my fingers cramped into awkward claws for a few minutes after we stopped from holding the machine.

  I didn’t even count how much I was taking before heading out. It wound up being a couple hundred in twenties, and I’m guessing you easily had a grand or three. All I needed was enough to get myself a bottle and groceries, and the rest I figured you could use to dig yourself out of whatever hole you let that harpy sink you into. My head was pounding and I wanted to hit Bill’s before they shut down, which is why I told you to hold off on stashing the wreckage of the ATM. “Clean ‘er up while your wife’s spending the cash you earned on shoes or granola or whatever shit she likes,” I said. Christ, I’m a stupid asshole.

  * * *

  I started the next day like I did the previous week, except a bottle with a few of Richter’s painkillers stayed in my pocket, the pills bouncing around when I tried to move, which wasn’t often. Every muscle hated what I’d done the previous night, my fingers and forearms leading the bunch in revolt. I took the train into Center City, switched to the Doylestown line—the longest option out of Philly—and then back. If I thought hard about it, I could vaguely recall seeing lines of salt on the ground while clinging to the ATM, and sure enough, it had snowed a bit in the night. Most of it’d melted by the streets, but the view from the trains are always a little different. Powder bunched in cracks and nooks in the buildings passing along the tracks, and the smell of it wafted in every time the doors opened at a stop.

  The train was heading back toward Trenton, and I was enjoying myself as best I could with the dull roar of muscle ache feuding with pharmaceutical know-how. But as I sat there waiting to hear the Bristol station g
et called so I could get up at my leisure for the Levittown stop, I guess I nodded off, because I jolted awake as someone sat beside me. This was a Wednesday afternoon, long before any rush, and the car was practically empty. Someone sitting next to you in that situation usually meant a drunk or someone looking for a handout.

  “Do you consider yourself a charitable person?”

  A woman’s voice—young enough but with gravel setting in. Stale cigarette smoke and espresso overpowered the scent of snow. I didn’t turn my head, and what I could see from my peripheral vision was a hell of a schnoz poking out from a mass of wavy fake red hair. Everything she wore was black like one of those goth kids Jenny Jones used to give makeovers to. Drowsy, doped up, and sore, I wouldn’t be able to react to a jumping well if it turned that way. Put my hands in my pockets around my cash and pills or keep them out to punch or defend myself quickly?

  “Haven’t got anything you’d find valuable, honey,” I lied. “Might have better luck jumping one of the private school kids at the next stop.” As I said that, the conductor called out Cornwell Heights would be next up. I hoped he’d walk by so I could try to get his attention or stand out to him in some way in case shit hit the fan, but the door snapped shut instead.