Five Hundred Poor

by Milligan, Noah;

  Rainbow Pennant

  IT WAS A SMALL PLACE, A MANUFACTURER OF PENNANTS AND FLAGS, HOUSED IN A 15,000-SQUARE-FOOT metal building. In the front was a retail store, banners posted to corkboard walls, screen-printed sales signs declaring 15% off this week only, emblazoned in red, 360-point Tahoma. Out front was one of those inflatable men, three stories tall, flapping and waving in the breeze, despite the fact walk-in sales only accounted for about eight percent of gross revenue. It had been Harold’s son-in-law’s idea. Craig was a good kid. He really was. A good husband to Harold’s daughter, a good father to Harold’s grandchildren, even if he was a bit slow. Could be worse, Harold thought. She could’ve married some guy who moved her to New York or California, someplace he wouldn’t be able to see her and her kids whenever he wanted. Yeah, he thought, could be much worse.

  Harold had dreaded coming into the store that morning, the first time in decades, really. He knew everyone was going to make a big deal about his retirement, even though they’d promised they wouldn’t. Sharon, his daughter, would bake a cake. Sugar free so as not to get his blood sugar too high. There’d be speeches, probably. Mack, from the printing office, Harold’s longest-tenured employee, would probably be corralled into giving one. Harold remembered the day he’d hired Mack, as a pimply faced kid fresh out of the University of Central Oklahoma with a degree in graphic design. Hardworking guy. Loyal. If Harold had his way, he’d be the one taking over Rainbow Pennant, not Craig. But life was like that—there were things that had to be done, and so they were. All you could do then was just hope for the best.

  It wasn’t long before his employees began to show. Susan arrived first. She’d been with him for six years. During that time, she’d gone through a divorce and put two kids through college. She was a good woman. Strong woman. Determined and smart. She chewed Copenhagen and was a whiz with the equipment, and Harold considered her family. When she walked in, she had tears in her eyes.

  “It’s not a sad day,” he said, partly to comfort her, partly to persuade himself. “It’s not.”

  Then came Buzz, a twenty-year-old kid who worked in the warehouse; Charlotte, who kept the books; and then Mack. He was disappointed, Harold knew, and who could blame him? Harold never thought Mack had assumed he’d get the store one of these days, but maybe he’d hoped Harold would sell it to him, work out some carry-back note and get him set up to put aside a nest egg. Harold would’ve liked to, that was sure, but it was never said aloud, and he had responsibilities to take care of. The last to show, of course, was Craig, and he was all smiles when he walked in. A salesman by training, he’d worked with the Oklahoma City Thunder prior to coming to work for Harold, selling season-ticket packages to oilmen and bankers. Now he hocked signage and banners and would be, alongside Harold’s daughter, the owner of this place.

  Despite it being Harold’s last day, the store opened as usual. Susan powered up the registers, and Charlotte the network. Craig spoke aloud to no one in particular, shouting out the discounts of the day: ten percent off on two-color banners, buy one get one free on sports pennants, new customer thirty-dollar discount on six feet or larger storefront signage. Buzz piled the early morning shipments next to the freight docks, and Harold was pouring himself his third cup of coffee when a young woman pushed through the front door.

  “My sister,” she said. “She’s missing.”

  The woman looked frantic. She was young, maybe early twenties. She had been crying. Eyes purple and puffy. Cheeks stained. She wore a University of Central Oklahoma sweatshirt and couldn’t catch her breath. At first, everyone in the store froze in shock. In the forty-two years that he’d run the place, Harold hadn’t seen anything like it. The most excitement they’d ever had was when they’d found a squirrel in the warehouse tearing up inventory about a decade back. Other than that, days passed by in relative peace and quiet.

  Susan got to her first. She held the young woman up, telling her oh honey, oh sweetheart, and patting her on the back while leading her to a chair. The whole store gathered around. Charlotte got the woman a cup of coffee, and after she calmed down a bit she told them her story.

  Her name was Sprout, her sister River, and they were identical twins, sophomores at UCO, living a block over at the Apple Tree Apartment Complex. Last night River had gone out on a blind date through Tinder, and didn’t come home.

  “It’s a dating app,” she explained. “And the cops won’t help me. Said she has to be missing for twenty-four hours.”

  “Maybe she just had a good time,” Craig said. “Stayed over at the guy’s place.”

  “She would’ve called,” Sprout said. “She would’ve let me know.”

  “Did you call her?”

  “Her phone’s dead.”

  “Did you try contacting the guy through the app?”

  “He’s deleted his profile.”

  Silence followed. Craig scratched the back of his head. Susan put in a dip. Charlotte flipped through papers on the desk, and Harold, despite not wanting to, felt relief—what luck, he thought, at least for a moment, everything wouldn’t be about him.

  SPROUT HAD A PICTURE OF River. It was a recent one, taken at homecoming a couple of weeks back. She looked happy in it. Her smile wasn’t forced or contrived, plastered on her face for the benefit of a picture. It truly was genuine. There was just no way to fake that kind of happiness. Harold tried to remember back when he’d last been that happy, and it took him a while to pinpoint a time. Probably the birth of his grandbaby, Eva, eight years ago. He’d been happy since, sure, when they had a good year at the store or when the Thunder had a deep run in the playoffs, but it wasn’t face-aching happiness. He hadn’t been bursting with joy to the point he couldn’t help but smile. It was just there, small waves of pleasure, bookended by years and years of mundane contentment. And now he’d have to face retirement. Dear God, he thought. How would he spend his time? Playing backgammon?

  Mack printed Sprout some flyers with River’s name, height, weight, a description of what she’d been wearing and her last known whereabouts: Cheever’s. It was a nice restaurant a few miles south. One of Harold’s favorites, it had a chicken-fried steak to die for. Jalapeño gravy and breading, it could literally change a life. They figured that’d be the best place to start.

  “You really don’t have to help me,” Sprout said. “Honest. I’ll be fine by myself.”

  “Nonsense,” Harold said. “Happy to help.”

  Harold feigned his motivations were altruistic, but they weren’t. Really, he was just glad for an excuse to leave the store, if only for a few hours. He wanted to avoid the long eyes of Susan and Charlotte, mourning him as if he suffered from terminal cancer, and the pained expression of Mack, clacking his computer as if he wished to hurt the keys. Most of all, he desired nothing more than to avoid the gleeful prancing of Craig. Despite his best intentions, he couldn’t help but resent his son-in-law. He knew he shouldn’t, but Craig had put zero risk into the business, never having to spend long nights worrying whether he’d be able to sign enough customers to pay the bills, to keep the lights on, to feed his wife and daughter. He’d never know the sick, twisted feeling of failure, or the sweet taste of a pork chop after weeks of foregoing a good meal. Instead, with a flick of the pen, he’d have a nice little nest egg built in for him, a living and retirement married into. And Craig wouldn’t let him forget, either.

  “You’ll be back to sign the papers, right?” he asked before Harold left with Sprout. “The attorney’s supposed to be here by three.”

  “Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Harold said.

  Craig looked like he might swallow his tongue. “Okay. Just wanted to make sure. That’s all.”

  It was cold out, but Harold didn’t mind. He enjoyed it, actually. He’d spent his childhood in Iowa, in a little college town called Grinnell where his father had been a salesman for a local Anheuser-Busch distributor, and the winters there were frigid. Snow ten feet high at times. Ice hung from awnings. The entire landsca
pe brilliant and sparkling. Nothing like the winters in Oklahoma. It hardly snowed that far south. Mostly, everything just died, turned brown and spindly, wind blowing so hard it gave him nosebleeds. It wasn’t so bad that morning, though. It could even been called nice out.

  “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this,” Sprout said.

  “Don’t mention it,” he said.

  He got in his ten-year-old Honda Accord, and Harold fired up the engine. Sprout hesitated before sitting, though, standing there staring at the seat, at the floorboards, into the backseat.

  “I won’t hurt you,” he said, immediately regretting it. He feared it sounded worse than saying nothing, but it seemed to work. Sprout got in the car, buckled her seat belt, and they headed for Cheever’s.

  It was a small place. Decades before, it had been a flower shop. The owners had lived in an attached residence in the back, and sold roses to lovers and tulips to the aggrieved. Harold remembered the store, had been a patron a few times even. Valentine’s Day. An anniversary. His wife had always loved fresh flowers in the house, God rest her soul. This early in the morning, the restaurant wasn’t open yet, so Harold had to knock on the front door. Not once, but three times.

  A young kid opened the door.

  “A manager in?” Harold asked.

  The kid looked confused, perturbed even.

  “Listen, kid. A girl’s missing.” Harold handed him a flyer. “Can we please speak with your manager?”

  The kid took the flyer and let them in.

  “Wait here,” he said, and then disappeared into the back.

  The front house lights were off, chairs upside down on the tables. Sprout walked around the dining area as if trying to glean some type of clue. The way she looked so earnestly, Harold half expected her to find something, a smoking-gun piece of evidence like in those police procedurals his late wife used to like to watch. Sprout reminded him of her in a way. It wasn’t so much her appearance. Sprout was the typical blond-haired, blue-eyed American girl, a strange contrast to his wife’s Lebanese olive skin and black hair. But her demeanor was familiar. She seemed mesmerized with the world, as if she could see things no one else could.

  Harold’s phone rang. It was his daughter, Sharon. He muted the ring and put his phone back into his pocket. It wasn’t that he was ignoring his daughter; it was just he didn’t want to talk with her right then. Lately, since he’d announced that he would, finally, retire, after all these years after his wife’s passing, after so many years of Sharon asking him to, she’d started planning. She planned for vacations to the Boston Tea Party site and the new Ford Explorer she wanted to buy and the private school she wanted to put Eva into. It was like she’d already decided how she was going to spend his money after he died.

  “How can I help you?” the manager asked. He was young, red-faced, unshaven. He stunk of booze and his eyes were bloodshot. He was clearly hungover.

  Sprout told him the story.

  “The guy’s name is Chuck Marlon. I was thinking, maybe if he paid with a credit card—”

  “We can’t release any customer information without a court order.”

  “Or if someone remembered them? Saw what car they got into? What direction they went.”

  “I can ask around, but the waitstaff won’t be in until later today. A lot who worked last night don’t even work today.”

  “Call them in. An emergency meeting. Something.”

  “It’s their day off, lady.”

  “My sister is missing! Please. Won’t you help?”

  “And I’m real sorry about that. I am, but I’m not the cops.”

  “Listen,” Harold said. “This is serious here. A girl could be in danger.”

  “Like I said, buddy. I’m real sorry about that. I am. But what do you expect me to do about it?”

  THEY LEFT A DOZEN OR so flyers with the manager to hand out to the staff and placed one at the hostess table for the guests to see, but it was all they could do. Once outside, Sprout tried her sister’s phone again, but it went straight to voicemail. She left another message, her voice full of worry and angst, clinging to a vestige of hope. When she hung up, she tried social media, posting to her and her sister’s Facebook page, asking anyone anywhere to let her know if they heard anything. As soon as she typed it, her phone lit up with messages of condolences and promises to keep their eyes open, the offerings of thoughts and prayers, but nothing tangible. No reported conversations. No sightings. Nothing.

  “I don’t know what to do,” she said. “I feel so helpless.”

  “Let’s put up flyers,” he said. “Let’s stay busy.”

  She nodded. They stayed together and walked up and down 36th Street. Used to, it had been the hippy hangout in the city, a place where Harold could score a little weed to share with his wife after a long day at the shop. Now it was full of tattoo parlors, chipped-paint dive bars, and dilapidated old theaters. A few developers had taken notice of the area in recent years and had started to inject some capital into it, so there were pockets of upscale retail outlets and restaurants, but it was slow going. Many of the tenants were fighting the so-called gentrification of the neighborhood, their rents becoming unaffordable because of it. Harold didn’t blame them for this. They’d been there for years and years and years, and now they were told to either pay up or move on. It wasn’t a welcoming feeling, being told to leave after spending so much of your life there. Downright heartbreaking. But then again, it was good for the city, wasn’t it? Progress?

  They started out with the stores on the streets, asking businesses if they could put up the flyers on their doors. Most agreed. Even gave them the tape to stick them to the glass. Some said no, though. Young people mostly, clerks who feared their bosses’ reprimands for making a decision on their own. Outside, most of the people they handed the flyers to were uninterested. They either walked on past without even looking at them, or they discarded them in the nearest trashcan they could find. Some feigned interest. Women mostly. Older. Ones who had lost someone before. Harold could tell in the way their faces would pucker up when they read the flyer, eyes and mouths and cheeks turning inward as if their bodies were trying to keep themselves together. “Oh, sweetie,” they’d say. “Oh, honey. I am so, so sorry.”

  Turned out, Sprout’s parents lived out of state. “That’s why they aren’t here,” she said. “In case you were wondering.” Harold was, he had to admit. Young kids like this, he figured the first call Sprout would’ve made would be to her parents. Then again, maybe not. He didn’t know their relationship. Could be she feared their response, the backlash of anger and resentment rather than comfort and concern.

  “They moved to the Virgin Islands right after we graduated from high school,” she said.

  “That must be nice.”

  She shrugged. “We’ve only been once. Dad opened up a company down there. The government is giving him a tax break to do it. Employ eight people, give some money to local charities, and they’ll give you a ninety percent tax break.”

  “Not a bad deal.”

  “More like legal money laundering.”

  “So that’s where they’re at now?”

  Sprout nodded, handed a flyer to man passing by. He grabbed it and looked at it, but he didn’t stop. He didn’t even slow. Just kept on marching down the street without breaking stride.

  “You might want to give them a call. Let them know what’s going on.” Harold immediately regretted saying it. Wasn’t his place to meddle in Sprout’s family affairs. “Who knows, maybe they’ve heard from her?”

  Harold’s phone rang again, and again it was his daughter. He wasn’t ready for that conversation just yet. He declined the call, and put his phone back into his pocket. It immediately buzzed again.

  “You can get that,” Sprout said.

  “It’s unimportant.”

  “Really, I don’t mind.”

  “You don’t think your sister would’ve called your parents?”

  “Doubtful.” />
  “You don’t talk often?”

  “We don’t get in their business, and they don’t get in ours.”

  “That’s sad.”

  “It isn’t anything.”

  “A family should be close.”

  “It is what it is.”

  “They’re still your parents.”

  “Can we just stop talking about it? Please?”

  Harold dropped it, and continued to hand out flyers to strangers who didn’t care. The search was fruitless, but it was best to do something, Harold supposed, rather than nothing. Idleness bred hopelessness. He didn’t know much, but he did know that.

  For about an hour they continued, moving from 36th to 23rd to 10th. In midtown, the streets were cleaner, the shops newer, little apartment complexes housing young, affluent professionals walking dogs and drinking from tall, steaming coffee cups. He and Sprout were already low on flyers, and they were a few blocks away from the store when his phone rang for the fourth time. It was his daughter, again. He wasn’t going to answer it, but Sprout stared at him expectantly. In a strange impulse not to disappoint her, he answered.

  “Where are you?” Sharon asked.

  “Craig didn’t tell you?”

  “He did. Some missing girl. But Dad, this day was supposed to be important.”

  Harold raised a finger to Sprout, indicating it would be a second, and took a few steps down the street.