Nickel Plated

by Aric Davis

  “I had a super messed-up childhood. My dad died when I was young, and I bounced around foster care before and after that. Now I just try not to think about all that stuff and just live as good as I can. There are worse things out there than surviving, but sometimes it’s hard to know that I was able to come through it okay when so many kids don’t. That’s why I do what I do. Not every kid that falls through the cracks needs to stay down there.”

  I opened the grill, flipped the steaks, and painted them with olive oil. I took the potatoes off and placed them on a clean plate. Four minutes, final stretch.

  “You live the craziest life of anyone I ever met. Pretty much every kid I know would kill to live like you, but they’d all just waste it. You aren’t messing it up. It’s like we know some secret.”

  “Arrow. Trust me, no one wants to live like me.”

  “I could stay with you. We could help people together, like you did with Shelby.”

  I wanted to say yes, we’ll be crime-fighting buddies and you’ll live here and when I turn eighteen we’ll marry and be the world’s all-time greatest private investigating couple. Instead, I said, “The steaks ought to be done. You hungry?”

  “Yeah.”

  I pulled the steaks off of the grill and flopped them onto the plate with the potatoes. I shut the grill off with supreme confidence, but I had a day of ruined meat behind me. I slid the door open and gestured to Arrow. She glided in the house in front of me and shut the door behind me. I pulled the potatoes off of the plate and set them on matching vessels. I tossed a piece of aluminum foil over the steaks to allow them to tent. According to the guide, this lets the juices flow back in. I didn’t care what it did—if that guide said do it, I was doing it. I handed Arrow one of the plates with a potato on it, grabbed us knives and forks, and set a stick of butter and the sour cream on the table. I took the plates with the steaks and gestured to the table, got my potato and plate in my other hand, and sat. I set my potato in front of me and the steaks in the center of the table. I said, “Let’s eat.”

  That’s exactly what we did. I won’t say that I’d trust myself to just make steaks on the fly in the future, but I did a nice job with those ones. I’m sure part of it was the meat, but part of it had to be the chef, right?

  Chapter 49

  After my steak was about three-quarters gone and my potato was nothing but a jacket, I pushed my plate away from me. Arrow winked and gave me a thumbs-up, and then she soldiered on until her steak was gone. The darkness was creeping in the windows. When she finished, I took our plates and dumped what was left of mine in the garbage. Arrow’s plate went right to the sink. She said, “You said you couldn’t make steaks, you big liar! That was awesome.”

  I grinned. “They did turn out pretty good.”

  “Heck yeah.”

  “You have to go soon.”

  “I know. I don’t want to.”

  “I don’t want you to.”

  She gave me a sad, crooked little smile, the kind that says, “I’ll sure miss you, but if my sister had never been taken, we never would have met and my life would be normal.”

  “I’ll call Lou.”

  “He’s a funny guy.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “He wouldn’t stop talking the whole way over here.”

  Freaking Lou, more secrets than me.

  I showed her my phones, explained how they worked, and she at least pretended to be impressed. I let her call Lou, and when she was done we walked to the gas station. We didn’t talk. I hate that. I guess there was nothing else to say. We sat together on the curb to wait for Lou. After a few minutes, he showed. Arrow grabbed me hard, held on for a minute, and then peeled back, kissed me full on the lips, and shoved me away.

  “Thank you for everything. I’ll see you again.”

  “You know where to find me.”

  She smiled. My Arrow.

  She got in the car. I walked to Lou and handed him a fold of money. “For next time.”

  He nodded. They left. My heart broke. I went home.

  Song at the End of the Show

  So then, if you’re reading this, you must have liked it. The first thanks go to you, for giving me a chance. I’d like to ask a favor, and if you agree to it, then here we go.

  We’re in a club, and either Frank Turner is playing the wonderful break where he addresses the crowd in “Photosynthesis,” Green Day is doing their own break in “Paper Lanterns,” or The Hold Steady is playing “Your Little Hoodrat Friend.” In any case, in our version, the singer is pontificating—that would be me—and the bass player and drummer are playing the nearly unforgettable rhythm bits of those songs ad nauseam. The guitar player looks bored—maybe he’s drinking a beer or lighting a cigarette. Seriously, I’ve seen all of these wonderful bands do this, and the convictions in maintaining the song is just jaw dropping. The front man is talking, massaging the crowd, but they’re ready for him to say 1-2-3-4 at any given second. They’re on edge, but they’d never admit it.

  Are you with me? Can you hear the bass, feel the drums?

  I want to thank my dear family for putting up with me, especially my wife and daughter for dealing with the mood swings that come part and parcel when you deal with a wannabe author who will neither quit nor accept rejection.

  I want to thank my father for dealing with manuscript after manuscript, short story after short story, mostly terrible, but you always read them.

  My mother said not to give up, and I guess she was right. I still can’t believe that I didn’t.

  Cheers to my friends the Mazureks, boys and adults. Cheers to my fellows at Mos Eisleys, who know more than anyone how much sweat creation takes.

  Thanks go to Lukas, who read it first, and Greg, who read it second.

  A deep thanks to Terry, who made me shout with joy in my basement, pour a good beer in my favorite glass, and throw a laptop in front of my wife to read the kind of letter that I’d long ago given up on getting. To Sarah, who introduced herself and said she was going to help me market my book, another hands-shaking, nearly-pass-out moment. To David, who did everything I ever could have dreamed an editor would do, and never thought that they would. To Jessica, who did the copy edit on Nickel Plated and helped me through the last steps.

  To AmazonEncore, for giving me a chance. To everyone else who worked on this thing behind the scenes.

  The bass player looks bored, people are getting drinks—I’m almost done, I swear.

  To you, and I mean it. I hope we talk again. I know Nickel would love that. The amplifiers are buzzing, the room is restless, the bar and the bathrooms are beckoning. “1-2-3-4!”

  About the Author

  Megan Davis, Silver Gallery Photography, 2010

  Aric Davis is married with one daughter and lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he has worked for the past fourteen years as a body piercer. A punk rock aficionado, Davis does anything he can to increase awareness of a good band. He likes weather cold enough to need a sweatshirt but not a coat, and friends who wear their hearts on their sleeves. In addition to reading and writing, he also enjoys roller coasters and hockey. Nickel Plated is his debut novel.