32
Adamsville
Pastor Will Kessler stood shivering in the doorway, shaking hands as the congregation filed out. “My closing was a little long, wasn’t it?” he said.
“Oh, it was fine,” Thomas said, but Grace squeezed his elbow.
“I think he wants you to be honest, Thomas.”
“I do, sir! Please!”
“All right; I do feel you made your point long before you finished. And the point had been made throughout the program anyway. All you needed was to make certain it was clear. . . .”
“And get out of the way.”
“You said it; I didn’t.”
“I really want your counsel, Reverend Carey. I want to get better.”
Thomas and Grace chatted the whole way home about what a wonderful man Pastor Kessler was.
“Strange though,” Grace said. “It’s different to have a pastor so much younger. I mean, he’s supposed to be our shepherd, not you his. And would you feel comfortable going to him with our heartache?”
“No, I wouldn’t, but that’s just pride. I’m ashamed to say we’ve lost our own daughter.”
“We haven’t lost her, Thomas. Don’t say that. I’ll never concede her to the enemy.”
A few minutes later Grace was puttering in the kitchen as Thomas was changing in the bedroom. Noticing something sticking out of one of Grace’s bureau drawers, he opened it to tidy the contents and found a packet of pamphlets—all about natural treatments for leukemia symptoms.
Thomas stopped breathing, stepped back, and slumped onto the bed. He felt violated, betrayed, almost as if he’d discovered she was seeing another man. What kind of a husband did she take him for if she did not feel free to confide her deepest fears?
She seemed better lately, so maybe these natural treatments, whatever they were, were working. But Thomas couldn’t shake the feeling that his beloved had left him out of the most dire season of her life.
Addison
“We’re happy to hear your side, Darby,” the cop said. “But it’s only fair to tell you that we know Tatlock. He teaches self-defense at the police academy. He was an Eagle Scout, then a marine, then an Olympian. Not so much as a parking ticket on his rap sheet. He’s told us the whole story, and your pretending the check somehow didn’t get to him isn’t going to fly. Now, you owe him; you threatened him; you vandalized his door. Yet he’d rather ask us to talk you into making it right than hurt you. And he could hurt you. He could rough you up or press charges, and he wants to do neither. So, is he lying?”
Brady suddenly felt a lot younger than sixteen. “He’s not lying. I’ll make it right.”
“How? And when?”
“How much is it for the door?”
“Fifty on top of your balance.” The cop checked his notebook. “Which he says was down to eighty bucks before he quit hearing from you altogether.”
“So a hundred and thirty?”
“You’re better at math than I am, kid.”
Brady pulled out a wad of twenties. “I can take care of that right now and be done with it.”
The cops both eyed him without smiling. “You got a good job?”
“Two of ’em. I’m a supervisor at one and a foreman at the other.”
“Uh-huh. And you take your pay in cash?”
“Nah, not usually. I just cashed my checks this week because of Christmas. I gave my ma several hundred and my brother a hundred for gifts.”
“Nice. And now you’re gonna take care of this with Tatlock?”
“Sure. Can you give it to him for me?”
“You ought to do it yourself.”
“I’d rather not. I’m kind of embarrassed, you know.”
“I understand.”
“I mean, once he’s paid off I won’t feel so bad running into him around, see?”
The cop nodded and took the cash. He looked at his partner, and neither moved.
“Anything else?” Brady said, standing.
“Matter of fact, there is.”
Brady sat back down. “What?”
“Are you really this stupid, or do you think we are?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You’d trust us with $130 in cash?”
“Why not? You’re cops.”
“So we take this and give it to Tatlock and when we get back to headquarters, what, we find you’re charging us with shaking you down?”
“I wouldn’t do that.”
“We can’t take your money without giving you a receipt. You really don’t know that?”
Brady shook his head.
“Tatlock says he sees something in you if you can control your temper. I hope he’s not just seeing naiveté.”
“Well, I wasn’t trying to pull anything on you. I’ll take a receipt, sure.”
“And it will stipulate what we’re to do with the money.”
“Okay, good.”
The cops left shaking their heads, and Brady waited a few beats before retrieving his grass from the kitchen. He tucked it back into his belt, then hollered to Petey, “Headin’ out, man. Be good!”
Peter padded out. “What was that all about?”
“Oh, they’re checking out one of the Mexicans I’m living with. They think he’s pushing drugs or something.”
“Is he?”
“Not that I know of. I just told them I didn’t know anything. They were cool.”
“Don’t forget your book, Brady.”
“Yeah, that’s right! I’ll start it tonight.”
Brady arrived back at the trailer park with Stevie Ray about three in the morning, noticing that his mother’s car was parked askew near the trailer. He considered checking to be sure Petey was all right but decided against it.
“Want me to drop you at the shack?” Stevie Ray said.
“Nah. I’ll walk.” He retrieved his book from Stevie Ray’s living room and lit out.
As Brady approached the shack, he was not surprised to see lights on. These guys knew how to party, especially when they had no work the next day.
But when he entered, he met the same scenario as when they confronted him about his job at Burger Boy. Someone turned off the TV, everyone went quiet, and Pepe pulled Brady into a corner. “You a snitch?” he said. “A cop?”
“You kiddin’? I’m sixteen!”
“What were the cops doing at your place tonight? They on to you? asking about me?”
“No, it was about my mother. She’s late on some payments or something. They got it all straightened out.”
“You sure? We can’t have ’em coming around here.”
“They won’t.”
“They’d better not. It’ll be on you, muchacho.”
“Don’t worry.”
“Now, Manny’s looking for the rent, and I’m looking for my money.”
“Yeah, about that. I’m a little short. I had to help my ma with her late payment, so this is all I have.” Brady produced about half what he owed each guy.
“Manny, come’re, man,” Pepe said. “Look at this garbage.”
“Oh, no, no, no,” Manny said. “This isn’t going to go, Brady. What do you think you’re doing? You got three jobs, dude, and what you do for Pepe pays more than the other two put together. And now you’re short? No.”
“It’s just temporary,” Brady said. “In fact, a guy owes me. I can have it by tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Promise.”
“No credit this time,” Manny said.
“From me either,” Pepe said. “You give me the money tomorrow or you owe me a kilo.”
Giving back the kilo would have been easy and gotten Brady off the hook. But he needed some weed himself, and he could make a lot more selling the rest than returning it.
When Manny and Pepe and the others lost interest in him and turned back to their partying, he slipped away to find his favorite customer. The college kid lived above a garage, and Brady woke him.
“What’re you doing here?” the kid said. “I don’t need anything.”
“You can help me out.”
“Why should I?”
“’Cause I always get you what you need.”
“I don’t have any money to lend you.”
“I’m not looking for a loan. I have a bargain for you because I need some quick cash.”
“What kind of a bargain?”
“Twenty-five percent off of almost a kilo. Let me smoke two joints with you, and you get the rest.”
The kid seemed to study him. “No deal.”
“Why not? Come on.”
“I don’t have that much money here, and I don’t want you smoking dope here. Make it 50 percent, roll yourself a couple, and get out.”
As Brady made his way back to the shack, he stepped in not one but two puddles of slush, freezing his feet to his shins. He couldn’t wait to get back and smoke one of the joints. Maybe the high would curb his fury. He hated everybody in his life except Petey and his aunt and uncle. Even Tatlock drove him crazy. What was with that guy?
He sees something in me? What a sap!
It made no sense, Brady knew, to be so bothered by a man who kept giving him breaks. But Tatlock’s kindness made him face himself and realize that he had become a criminal. He was a bad kid, a horrible brother. He hated his jobs, hated his bosses—and that was ludicrous too. Alejandro was one of the good guys. But why hadn’t he found more work for Brady so he could leave Burger Boy and quit selling dope?
It wasn’t Brady’s fault he’d had to resort to that. Hadn’t Alejandro promised him? Pretty soon he was going to have get tough with the foreman and tell him he needed more work or he was going to have to move on.
But where would Brady go? He’d have to find a new place to live. That would be all right too, if he found work that allowed him to afford someplace half decent. It was no fun living with a bunch of scary guys who didn’t like him anyway.
By the time Brady got to the trailer park, he was so antsy for a joint that he was about to burst. And when he passed the Laundromat, he was reminded of everything Tatlock was and he wasn’t.
He stopped and stared at the place, all quiet and dimly lit under a single fixture over the sign. Tatlock was tidying the place himself these days, and it looked like it would pass military inspection.
Livid, Brady looked around till he found a frozen chunk of dark snow. He hefted it in his bare hands and guessed it weighed at least twenty pounds. When he heaved it through the plate glass window, it set off a ringing alarm that sent him slipping and sliding into the night.