Wrong Thing (16 page)

Woody looked blank.

“When you came in this morning? I had a box of cookies on my desk, and you took one?”

Woody nodded. “Oh, yeah. I remember.”

“Well, I think that was kind of rude. You didn't ask, you just took one. I mean, I bring them in here to share, I like people to eat them. But I don't like somebody just eating them without asking.”

“Is it that big a deal?”

“It ain't the cookies, it's just you not asking. It's cool if you eat as many as you want, as long as you ask me. All the sales guys ask.”

“I'm not one of the sales guys. I employ you.”

“Yeah, but you don't employ me to make cookies.”

“Okay. I apologize. I'll never touch your sacred fucking cookies again.”

“You can, as long as you ask.”

“Okay. Get back to work.”

“I'm on my lunch break.”

“Okay. Go and eat some lunch and let me work.”

The next morning, the Kid was answering a phone call when Woody walked in. Woody waved a hand at the Kid and, as he walked by the reception desk, he took three cookies from the box and kept on walking.

“I'm sorry, I have to go,” the Kid told the customer, and hung up the phone. He stood up. “Hey,” he yelled after Woody. “Hey!”

Some sales people and customers stopped talking to each other and looked around. Woody stopped walking, turned and looked at the Kid. “Are you talking to me?”

“Yeah, I'm talking to you. Bring those back.”

“Bring what back?”

“The cookies you took just now. They're mine. Bring them back.”

Woody smiled, started to say something smart, then realized that the Kid was walking towards him. His smile disappeared. “What?” he said. “You going to fight me for some cookies?”

“If you want to,” the Kid said. He reached Woody, stopped, held out his hand. “Give them to me.”

“Are you threaten—?”

“They're mine. Give them to me.”

Woody handed the cookies to the Kid. He started to say something, but the way the Kid was looking at him made him stop.

He went to his office and called the police.

The Kid was sitting at his desk when a cop walked in. “Is Mr. Lutgen here?” the cop asked.

“Yeah. I'll get him for you.” The Kid picked up the phone, dialed Woody's extension, told him there was a police officer asking to see him. “He'll be right with you,” the Kid told the cop.

Woody appeared about twenty seconds later. “I'd like you to take this guy out of here,” he told the cop.

The cop looked at the Kid. “This guy?”

“Yeah, this guy. He threatened me with violence just before I called you.”

“Then what's he doing sitting here working?”

“I didn't tell him he's fired. I don't know what he might do. I wanted to wait till you got here.”

During this, the Kid said nothing.

“Did you threaten him?” the cop asked.

“No,” said the Kid.

“He's a liar. I want him out of here,” Woody said.

“Okay,” the cop said to the Kid. “Whether you threatened him or not, he says you're fired. It'll save any trouble if you just leave.”

The Kid nodded. He stood up, took his jacket from the back of the chair where it was hanging, put it on. He picked up the box of cookies from the desk, and walked towards the door.

“Don't come back here,” Woody called after him. “I don't want you in this building. We'll send you your last check.”

The Kid kept walking. He went out of the door and down the steps to the parking lot. He got in his car. The morning was cold and icy, and he had to let the engine idle for a minute. Then he drove out of the lot. As he paused at a corner, he looked once at the building. He had worked there, it had been good, and now he didn't work there anymore.

He wasn't sure where to go. It wasn't yet noon. Vanjii would be at work in the Woolworth's restaurant. He wasn't sure he wanted to go there and talk to her right now, but he didn't feel like being in the apartment either. He drove around for a while, just looking at the streets and houses and overcast sky. He ended up at the Cowgirl, eating a bowl of tortilla soup.

He felt as though he should think about what had happened, and what to do next, but he didn't know what to think, and he couldn't think of anything to do about it. He felt like he didn't know where he was. He wasn't where he had been, living with Miguel and selling drugs and doing favors for certain people, and he wasn't where he had been after that, working at the dealership six days a week. He was still with Vanjii, he knew that, but it felt like he was between places. It didn't even feel bad, it was more like he didn't feel anything, didn't know what he should feel.

When he'd finished his soup, he drove home. Catboy was glad to see him.

When Vanjii got home, the Kid was making a stir-fry. He told her what had happened.

“What an asshole. He called the cops on you?”

“Yeah. Guess he was too scared to just kick me out.”

“Fuckhead.” She came up behind him where he stood at the stove and put her arms around him. “What you gonna do?”

“Look for another job, I guess.”

“What kind of a job?”

“Don't know. Same kind of job I was doing, probably.”

That turned out not to be so easy. When the Kid applied for jobs, they would usual check with his last employer, and Woody would tell them what had happened, that the Kid was bad news. He managed to lie his way into a short series of jobs waiting tables, but he didn't last long at any of them. He was physically clumsy, and his memory wasn't methodical enough to keep track of different customers at different tables. He seemed to spend half the time apologizing to the tolerant customers, and the other half telling the intolerant ones to blow it out of their ass. And these jobs didn't make him enough money to live on. The job at the dealership hadn't paid a lot, but he worked so many hours that it added up. With the waiting jobs, it was impossible to get enough hours. It was manageable at first, because he still had a little money in the bank. But when that ran out, things got impossible. He and Vanjii were often late with the rent, which meant they had to pay late fees, which got them in even deeper.

One time, it all came together. They drove to the supermarket and spent the last of their money on food. The Kid's car ran out of gas just as he pulled into the apartment complex. And when they went into the apartment, they found that the electricity had been cut off.

Vanjii thought about calling her dad to see if he could lend her some money, but she knew he was broke and he'd already lent her too much. The Kid called Miguel, who said he'd come over right away with some cash. Then the Kid called the electric company and asked them to put the power back on. At first they refused, but the Kid said he was diabetic and needed the fridge to store his insulin. “If you don't turn it back on, you're gonna land me in the hospital,” he said. When he promised to drive to their offices the next day and pay them, they gave in and the power came back on.

Vanjii went to bed early that night. The Kid stayed up late, stretched out on the living room couch, watching TV. He didn't know what to do. He thought about going back to the life, but there were two good reasons he didn't want to do that. One of them was in the bedroom, asleep after crying for a while. The other was sitting on the Kid's stomach, purring.

All you need is love, it says in a song. The song was written by a man who was rich, and it was probably true for him. But it wasn't true for Vanjii or the Kid. The love was there, but they stopped noticing it.

It was a Saturday afternoon, and Vanjii had suggested that they go to a movie. The Kid said okay. They were just about to leave when Vanjii counted what money they had and looked dubious. “You got any more money on you?” she asked.

“Yeah, I got about seven or eight bucks in my jacket.”

“Give it to me.”

He got the money from his jacket, which was hanging on a hook by the door. “Can we afford to go to the movie?” he said.

She ignored the question. “Give me the money.”

“I asked you if we can afford to go to the movie. Answer me.”

“I told you to give me the money. Give it to me.”

The Kid threw the money at her. It hit her in the chest and fell to the floor. She picked it up, put it in her jeans pocket and walked out of the apartment without a word.

She drove to the theater and watched the movie by herself. When she got home, the Kid was reading a book. They didn't say anything to each other.

Vanjii went to bed, but she couldn't fall asleep. She got up and went into the living room. “Hey,” she said to the Kid. “I was thinking about something.”

“What?”

“You know the stuff you were doing before you met me? Maybe you should do something like that again.”

The Kid didn't say anything, and he didn't look at her. “Why not?” she said.

He still didn't look at her. “Because I don't want to be scared no more.”

Vanjii moved out a week later.

S
he went to Phoenix. She didn't tell the Kid where she was going, probably because she didn't know at the time she moved out. She wrote him a letter when she got there. He didn't write back, not because he was angry with her, but because he didn't know what to say.

He was sitting in the food court at the mall, reading her letter, when he felt someone looking at him. He looked up, at a young woman who was standing there with a baby in a stroller. She was smiling at him, and it took him a few seconds to recognize her.

“Hey, Lisa . . . ”

“Hey yourself. How you doing?”

“Okay,” he said, not wanting to tell her anything else. “How about “

“I'm good. I got married. And . . . ” She motioned at the baby. “I got him.”

“You still boxing?”

“Nah. I miss it, but you know . . . I gotta think about the baby. When he's ten, I don't want him having to tell his friends that the reason Mommy talks funny and drools on herself is ‘cause she got whacked in the head too many times back when she used to be a boxer.”

The Kid laughed. “Did you have many more fights since I saw you?”

“Hell, yeah. I won nine and lost four.”

“Hey, you want to get some coffee or something?”

“Yeah, but I ain't got time. I just stopped in here quick to get something from Radio Shack. But it's good to see you.”

“You too.”

She grinned and ruffled his hair, then walked away, pushing the stroller.

The Kid walked out of the mall and got in his car. Before he started the car, he sat there and read Vanjii's letter yet again. It was only a page long. She said she hoped he was all right, and she said she was sorry for suggesting that he go back to the life. She was staying with a friend of a friend in Phoenix, and expected to be at that address for a while, if he wanted to write to her there.

He put the letter back in its envelope, and put the envelope in the glove compartment of the car. He thought about Lisa, what she was doing now, taking care of her baby. He thought about Miguel, and he didn't know what to think about himself.