The Flip (An Angel Hill novel)

by C. Dennis Moore

  “How long have you been there?” she asked. There was mischief in her eyes and the hint of a come-hither grin.

  “Just got here,” he said.

  “You just gonna stand there gawking or are you coming in?”

  He stepped closer.

  “Are you sketching?”

  “No,” she said, “I’m baking cookies. Of course. You can’t see it til it’s done, though, so don’t peek.”

  “I won’t.”

  She closed the sketch pad, then turned back.

  “Well, have a seat,” she said, and Steven sat on the floor in front of her.

  His fingers felt the fabric of the carpet, but it still felt like he was sitting on hard, cold concrete. He couldn’t figure out why the feeling was so weird, what was wrong with this moment.

  “Nothing’s wrong with it,” Amy said, startling him.

  “There’s not?”

  “Of course not. Unless you don’t want to be here with me now.”

  “Of course I do,” he said.

  “Then come closer.”

  He leaned in. He could smell the honey butter lotion she’d used after her shower, a scent he hadn’t smelled since he fell in love with that girl Mandy when she worked front line at Burger King. He hadn’t thought of her in years. But every day when she worked, he walked past her just to smell the honey butter on her skin. She never gave him a second glance, but Steven would have done anything for her back then, if she’d just asked.

  “Why are you thinking of someone else,” Amy asked. “You’re here with me.”

  “I’m not thinking of anyone,” Steven said. “Just old memories. Nothing to worry about. You’re the one I love.”

  She smiled.

  “How much?” she asked.

  “More than I’ve ever loved anyone, more than I ever could love anyone.”

  “Show me,” she said.

  “Anything. How?”

  “Promise me something,” she said. “Promise and don’t break it and I’ll believe you.”

  “Okay.”

  “Finish what you started here.”

  “Of course,” Steven said. “You mean the house? Of course we will, why would we not?”

  Amy shrugged. Her eyes darted around the room. He wanted to kiss her.

  “Finish the house and I’ll let you,” she said. She smiled.

  “I will. I promise.”

  “Thank you,” she said.

  Something banged overhead and Steven looked up, startled, and when he looked back down he realized he was sitting alone in the room. He got to his feet and looked around, hoping for something to prove she’d been here, but the room was empty.

  “Pizza!” he heard Mike call out from upstairs.

  He shook his head and took a deep breath, trying to determine how long he’d been asleep, and how he had fallen asleep sitting up anyway. But he didn’t feel like he’d just woken up. So where had she gone? Even more, how did she get here, because he knew she was dead and had been for several years.

  He climbed the stairs, thinking She may be dead, but a promise is a promise, so don’t flake out at the end and leave it undone.

  I won’t, he promised himself and Amy.

  Mike set one pepperoni and one sausage pizza on the floor, flipped open the boxes and said, “We don’t have plates.”

  Brian said, “Who cares, I’m starving,” and grabbed a piece of pepperoni.

  “Me too,” Keith said. “No need for plates tonight.”

  He took a beer from the plastic bag Mike had set down and managed to get the cap twisted off without losing his pizza.

  Steven appeared from the kitchen, closed the basement door, and said, “Damn, that smells good.”

  He joined his friends and grabbed a slice of the sausage and a beer.

  “Oh, I almost forgot,” Mike said, then got up and ran out to his car. He came back a second later with a bundle of papers folded into thirds, which he handed over to Brian.

  “These are for you, my friend. Sign em and this grand palace belongs to you.”

  “Cool,” Brian said, taking the papers from Mike and setting them aside to look over later.

  They all gathered on the floor, eating pizza and drinking beer (except Brian who had to work later), but something was off about the mood. This didn’t feel like it usually did when everyone got together, and after a few minutes Mike realized what it was and he asked, “What’s up, Keith? You’re more quiet than usual.”

  “Just thinking bout shit,” Keith said.

  “Tell us a story,” Brian said.

  “About what?”

  Brian shrugged. “I don’t know, whatever story you haven’t told us yet. Who’d you bang last week?”

  “Nobody,” Keith said.

  “Dry spell?” Steven asked.

  “I guess,” Keith said.

  “Dude, what’s up?” Mike said. “You’re all depressed and shit.”

  Keith shrugged. “Really, just thinking about shit, like I said.”

  “Well, like what?”

  “Thinking about my daughter.”

  “Courtney? She didn’t come home for the summer, did she? She staying with her mother or something?”

  “No,” Keith said, “she’s fine. She’s staying with her boyfriend for the summer in Columbia. No, my other daughter.”

  Brian, Mike and Steven exchanged glances that asked “OTHER?”

  “I’ve known you how many years, you never mentioned another daughter.”

  “I haven’t seen her since she was six months old,” Keith said, “and her mother always said I never would.”

  “What the fuck?” Mike asked. “What are you talking about?”

  “Brianna,” Keith said. “You guys know I was married before I met Court’s mother.”

  “Not really,” Mike said, shaking his head.

  “Well, yeah, I was eighteen. I fucked around on her a lot, though, and she found out about it when our daughter was six months old. She moved out, divorced my ass and filed for child support, but never let me see her.”

  “That doesn’t sound fair or legal,” Brian said.

  “That’s how it is,” Keith insisted. “I make my last child support payment at the end of this month when she graduates college.”

  “So you gonna get hold of her, or what? Obviously she’s old enough to make that decision now.”

  “I was thinking about it. Thought about it for years. But I don’t think I’m going to.”

  “Why not?” Mike asked. “She’s your daughter.”

  “She’s my daughter,” Keith said. “But her mother made sure she was never my kid. Or maybe I made sure of it. No one made me bang all those whores but me. I was a big boy then, even if I was only eighteen. No one else to blame, really.”

  Well, that killed the mood, Mike thought.

  Then Steven chimed in.

  “At least you know what it’s like.”

  “What what’s like?”

  “Any of it. Falling in love, getting married, having kids.”

  “It ain’t all that,” Keith said.

  “I’ve never even had a girlfriend.”

  “Yes, you have,” Mike said. “You had all kinds at BK.”

  “No,” Steven said, “I had girls I liked, girls I did everything for, but that was it.”

  “I thought you were banging that Krista chick. You used to give her rides home all the time.”

  “Yeah,” Brian said, “I thought it was because you were fucking her.”

  “I would have loved to.”

  “Dude,” Keith said, “she wanted you to!”

  Steven shrugged. “If she did, she never said anything.”

  “Because they never do. You gotta go after that shit, man.”

  “I don’t know how.”

  “Pretend you’re me next time.”

  “Fuck her in the back seat, then make her walk home?”

  “That’s only when they start giving me shit.”

  Brian chuckled at
that.

  Mike said, “You seriously weren’t fucking Krista?”

  “Never laid a hand on her,” Steven said.

  “That totally changes the entire dynamic of my universe,” Mike said. “I thought you were laying pipe left and right.”

  “I just can’t talk to em.” He shrugged.

  “Me neither,” Brian said. All eyes went to him now.

  “Now I know you’re full of shit,” Mike said. “You fucked that chick in high school, you told me about her.”

  “No, yeah, I did,” Brian said. “Once.”

  “And that’s it?” Keith asked.

  Brian nodded.

  “Yeah,” Mike said, “but you’re problem is like Steven’s, lack of confidence. You’ve been out with chicks, you took Alana out when we worked together. To a movie you had already seen, and what happened?”

  “What do you mean what happened?” Brian asked.

  “Just what I said. What happened when you took her to that movie?”

  “Nothing,” Brian said.

  “Exactly. You watched the movie again and don’t think I’m ever going to let you live that one down, that chick wanted you. Granted, it was probably gonna be an anger fuck cuz she had just broken up with that Parker kid, but--”

  “Anger fuck works just as good as a regular one,” Keith said.

  “Exactly.”

  “I don’t know,” Brian said. “I mean, I guess. I don’t know. But then I hear Keith’s stories and it makes me wonder if they’re all crazy like the ones he finds.”

  “Oh yeah,” Keith said, “every one of them. But there ain’t nothing like them.”

  Mike nodded, then said, “I can’t believe you have an entire grown daughter I didn’t know about.”

  Keith shrugged. He grabbed another slice, took a bite.

  “So what’s yours?” he asked Mike. Steven and Brian looked at him.

  Mike shrugged, let his eyes wander as he thought.

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “There’s gotta be something we don’t know yet,” Keith said.

  “I’m sure there is, but whatever it is I can’t think of it.”

  “Hey now,” Steven said, “it’s your turn, you gotta have something.”

  “Um,” Mike stalled, still thinking. Then he said, “I’m ill-equipped for life.”

  “Huh?” Steven asked.

  “The hell’s that mean?” Keith asked.

  “Means just that,” Mike said. “Sometimes I feel like I’m not properly prepared for life, like every day since birth, I’m just along for the ride, holding on for dear life, hoping to make it out alive.”

  “Like how?” Brian asked.

  Mike thought for a second, then said, “The first day of kindergarten, I had no idea what school was. I remember my mother taking me to class, introducing me to the teacher, then saying she would be back in a while, and she took off. And it was scary, but it was fine; we had all kinds of cool stuff for kids to do in there, and at the end of the day, or half day, I guess, I went home and that was that. But then I went back the next day. And I went back again after that. And I just kept going back every day, and pretty soon it’s not about playing and snacks and naps, pretty soon we’re learning shit, and then I went again the next year, only this time there was no playing, it was all about learning, and then again the next year and the next and before you know it I’m in middle school, then high school and I’m looking around every fucking year and I’m thinking I did not sign up for this shit, man, I was a little kid just minding my own business, playing in the dirt with my Hot Wheels and shit and next thing you know, I’m in school nine months out of the year. I mean what a fucking gyp.”

  “And that makes you, what did you call it, ill-equipped for life?” Keith asked.

  “Well, it’s not just that. That’s just an example. But, I mean, yeah, that’s how I feel pretty much all the time, like life’s just coming at me and I’m trying to make it through in one piece.”

  “What else?” Brian asked.

  “Well, like at Burger King. I still don’t know how the hell I got the job running the show. I didn’t apply for a job there because I wanted to be in charge, I wanted to make some money and support myself with a job I didn’t take seriously, because my plan was to start a band and make it big.”

  “What the fuck?” Keith said.

  “Yeah,” Mike said, “All through high school I just wanted to be a singer in a rock band. Because I wasn’t qualified for anything else. I wasn’t good with computers, I’m not smart enough for anything in medicine. I mean, what are people doing with their lives when they don’t know what they want to do with their lives?”

  “Pretty much what we all did,” Keith said.

  “Yeah, but you left and went to Fett as an engineer, dude. I couldn’t do that shit if I had to. I’m just not wired for it. So I got a job to pay for gas money while I honed my craft and sought likeminded individuals who shared my vision and my dream. I guess I was good at taking those orders, though, because I’m getting offered a promotion and it’s more money, and more money will definitely help out when I get the band together, right, for equipment and shit, so sure, I’ll be a supervisor. It’s just telling people what to do, right? Then I’m running the whole store and, man, I don’t know how to run a damn store like that. What the holy hell makes these people think I have any business making sure this restaurant runs smoothly?

  “So I just held on and plowed through and tried the best I could and, again, before you know it, it’s a million years later, I haven’t thought about ‘the band’ in five years and my biggest concern is running reports every hour and making sure the drawers all come up right when I count them. But the truth is, I have no idea what the fuck I’m doing.”

  “That’s comforting,” Steven said, “Mr. Business Partner.”

  Mike shrugged. “Same thing here. I don’t know the steps involved in buying a house, or in finding a crew to remodel it, nor in putting it on the market when we’re done. But it’s working out pretty well so far, and you ask me, we killed it in this house.”

  “It’s a million times better than that first day we looked at it,” Brian said.

  “You got that right.”

  They finished the pizzas, but had only one beer each, save Brian, when, around nine, Brian climbed off the floor, rubbed his full belly and said, “Alright, I gotta get a shower, then head to work. Y’all ain’t got to go home--”

  “We know, we know,” Mike said, “but we can’t stay here. That’s gratitude for you.”

  “You know you’re my homies. But you in my house, now.”

  “Ain’t nothing yours till we see a signature,” Mike said. “But I’ll let you have it for the night.”

  “Too kind,” Brian said, ushering everyone to the door. He closed it behind them, locked it, and went into the bathroom. He turned on the hot water, stripped, and got under it.

  He was glad to have a house again, one he wasn’t paying $60 a day for, and one he wasn’t afraid to open doors in. He made a mental note to sign the papers. He would have to take them to work and do it there, read through them on lunch, and he didn’t have a pen here yet, anyway.

  He wasn’t sure how to get his things from that house to this one. He thought he would hire a moving company, but the first problem was that they didn’t know what he wanted to bring and what he wanted to leave, and he wasn’t going over there to direct traffic.

  But there was an added worry. What if she was hiding? What if she got into something they brought over here and then got loose in this house?

  Sell it and move back into the old house.

  No, he thought, he couldn’t do that. She’d gotten in once over there, she would do it again if she wanted to. That house wasn’t secure.

  And this one is, a voice in his head asked.

  Isn’t it?

  What did you see that night?

  When?

  The first night, when you left your house, when you came here
, what did you see?

  He didn’t remember.

  That’s bullshit. It’s there. You don’t lose something like that, you just have to remember.

  Okay then, he thought, I don’t want to remember.

  Well don’t go fooling yourself that you’re safer here. You heard what she told you.

  How could he forget? The sound of it haunted his dreams still, his mother’s shrieking voice, telling him to Stay out of the house!

  But now that he thought about it, now that he was forced to think about it, he had to wonder, which house had she meant?

  Ed Mason was having a terrible week. It seemed everyone he knew was literally dropping like flies. Paul dying had been the worst way to start the week, but he thought he could take comfort in Andrew and Gary, his friends. They’d only been working with Kevin a short time, but they had all known each other for a while, especially Ed and Andrew, and now he was laid up in bed trying not to puke his guts up.

  Ed had gone over there with Kevin to see him, but they hadn’t gotten further than the front door. Andrew’s wife Angie wouldn’t let them in, she said he was too sick, that it was pointless to come by, thank you for the thought, but please don’t disturb him, he needs to rest.

  They had relented and said “Just tell him we came by to check up and we hope he feels better,” and she said she would. Kevin got into his Firebird and Ed got into his Durango, and they both drove off in separate directions. Kevin said he wanted to go by Gary’s house and check up on him, too, but Ed was tired and hungry and just wanted to get home.

  He was a block from Andrew’s house when the glowing yellow light on his dashboard got his attention. His low fuel light had been on since yesterday, but he kept putting it off. He’d better stop now while he was out and thinking about it, if for no other reason than to make sure he got home. His house was on Ellison while Andrew lived on Daisy Ave, about as far as you could get from Ellison and still be within Angel Hill city limits.

  The closest gas station he could think of was back the other way on Grey, so he doubled back. The pumps were all empty so he pulled to the closest one and got out. He almost paid there, pumped his gas and drove away, but his stomach rumbled so he decided a bag of Funyuns or some donuts might be in order and he went inside.