Santa Cruz Noir

by Susie Bright

  “Dad, we don’t need this much toilet paper!”

  “We’ll give it to people. It’s something everybody wants.”

  “I’m not taking it to school!”

  “Stop complaining.”

  Overages were his pride and joy. People on loading docks often didn’t know how to count, it seemed. About every other month, my dad would find himself with an extra pallet of some junk. One time, we had five cases of Mr. T–head piggy banks. They were super tacky but he made me take them to school and give one to everybody in my grade. That was embarrassing, though some kids liked them. Another time, he had a bunch of cases of potato chips, which kept us going for months, not to mention all the bags we gave away.

  “We need to go do something,” I told him. “Right now.”

  “Okay.”

  That was a good thing about Dad: he perked up at any reasonable request.

  I ran back inside and grabbed the hanging coat before I climbed into the truck. I hadn’t been inside my dad’s “office” in a while. It was full of the crumbs of hundreds of sandwiches, cookies, and chips he ate while exercising his daily duties—a thousand cigarettes and a legion of old rancid coffee cups. He liked to horde brochures, so there were a bunch of those from anywhere brochures could be found, stuffed into the door pouch and the crack of the seat, advertising hot tubs and wild animal safari parks and colon cleansers.

  I told him which way to drive, and I liked how he didn’t asked me a single question. It’s like he knew he owed me somehow.

  We pulled up at the church on High Street. Peace United. I decided to wear the brown coat. My dad followed me in and sat in back while I went through the line where they were greeting people. When I got to Teddy we hugged again, like it was starting to become normal. When I came to his mother, she stared at me for a second, then said, “I just lost a coat like that.”

  It was hard to tell where the creep meter was finally going to land. I shrugged. “Huh,” I said to her, “I guess it’s hard to think about a missing coat right now, when there’s so much to think about for Teddy.”

  She frowned, and I moved on to sit in the back.

  I couldn’t help wishing Joe had never gotten me involved with this one. I couldn’t let go of it. For weeks after, I’d see Teddy slouching around school, and stupid fear would nag at me, that something wasn’t going right for him.

  But what was I supposed to do, worry about him the rest of my life? Run around hugging him every second? And anyway, no matter what you do, what could ever be right?

  DEATH AND TAXES

  by Jill Wolfson

  Mission Street

  This is Cody’s first day as a sign dancer. He pops a tab of Adderall at the beginning of his shift and stands at the corner of Mission and Swift in a Statue of Liberty costume, urging people driving by to get their taxes done by this outfit called Liberty Taxes. The spiky plastic crown on his forehead leaves an indentation, but the crown adds inches to his height, which he’s touchy about, always wanting to be taller, at least 5'11", like Tyler, Stepfather #3, who Cody doesn’t chill with that much anymore, due to Tyler’s my-shit-don’t-stink attitude and their whole family situation being fucked up.

  This Liberty gig has got to be the best job ever. Smell the ocean air, throw your head back, and pound your chest like a surfer dude. Open your arms wide and feel the sun on your face. The flowing green fabric of Cody’s gown catches the early-spring wind and for a second it holds the sleeves out stiff.

  Does Tyler, that lazy dickhead Mr. Stepdad of the Year, get to work all afternoon in the great outdoors? No, he doesn’t.

  Red light turns green and cars rev up. Here they come: Ford, Chevy, Toyota.

  Sure, Cody’s kind of nervous, being just seventeen and his first day on the job and all. But he’s ready.

  Ready for what?

  Ready to blow the drivers’ minds with extraordinary feats of sign-twirling never before seen anywhere. Not even if there are sign twirlers on a planet in a whole other universe. And yes, human-type beings ARE up there with all those stars, and people who think otherwise, dickwads like Tyler, should get their fat heads out of their dumb asses and do the math.

  Showtime!

  Spin that tax sign clockwise like it’s a Boardwalk ride. Toss it in the air, hurl your body around in a one-footed, tiptoed 360, and catch the sign behind your back. Ta-da.

  Holy crap on a strap! He actually caught it! Thumbs-up from a Prius driver.

  Another Prius, another Prius. Is there a fuckin’ sale on Priuses or what?

  Yesterday, this corner was just another place. Cody must’ve eaten a million slices of pepperoni at Upper Crust. Carved his initials into the oak by the U-Wash-It car place. Felt up that hippie chick Sequoia by the dumpster behind the Chinese place.

  But now? Cody owns this corner.

  Cranks up the death-metal drum solo playing in his head: Ba-dum-bum-CHING ba-dum-pump chsh-ba-dump-dump-chshshshshshshsh-Ba-dun-DUN.

  His mind switches channels to an outstanding game he invented. Yes, he invented it himself even though Tyler says the game’s too sick, that a stupid kid like Cody must’ve ripped it off from someone else.

  Did not!

  Here’s the game: add the word “anal” before the name of each car passing by.

  Anal Probe! Anal Hummer! Anal Rover!

  Cracks himself up.

  Is this a lame job like Tyler said it was? Is this a job that only a kid right out of juvie would take? Could anyone stand on a street corner and get total strangers to go see Mr. Liberty—check it, that’s his real name, Frank Liberty—who does taxes fast and cheap?

  First day on the job and Cody’s already learning stuff. Important info you need. Like how taxes are one of only two things in life you can’t avoid, the other one being death. Words of wisdom from the best fuckin’ boss ever, Frank Liberty.

  Cody’s feet do a happy, crazy tap dance for an Anal Fit with a dent in one of its back doors.

  So today is Saturday and in six more days, it’s payday. Best day ever!

  Is Cody gonna spend his big fat paycheck on weed? That’s what Tyler thinks, ’cause he said, “You’re just gonna go down to the levee and get wasted, little dude. Get caught with a dirty pee test by your PO ’cause you always get caught at everything.”

  No! Cody is not going to blow his money on weed! ’Cause he’s not a selfish douchebag asshole who only thinks about himself anymore.

  He thinks about his mother. How her birthday’s coming up. He thinks about what he did for her birthday last year.

  Busted. Vandalism. Went apeshit in the middle of the night at Santa Cruz High. Expelled for life.

  He looks down at his kicks. No wind in his sleeves now. That one night earned him six months in Hotel California, which is what the guys call juvie up there on Graham Hill Road.

  But this birthday? He’s a new Cody, a mature Cody who thinks about what mothers like for their special day.

  Chocolate. Not from the drugstore but the expensive kind from Marini’s on the Boardwalk. A big red box with a red bow.

  No, a glittery gold bow!

  One thing, though. His mom’s got this problem. When he goes up to her place and hands her the box, she’s gonna get all mental about her weight and lift her shirt and pinch about ten inches of blubber around her belly and he’ll have to look at how the flesh is white with a little pink, like a bloated earthworm.

  So he’ll say, Oh, Ma. You’re fine the way you are. Eat a chocolate.

  And she’ll eat half the box in like ten seconds and say, The only thing I ever got from my mother were these fatty-fat genes.

  Shit!

  A Nissan Versa with a mattress tied to the top whizzes by too close and forces Cody to jump back on the curb.

  Anal Versa Asshole!

  He hikes up his pants under the costume. Clothes always slip over Cody’s skinny hips. Burns calories just standing still. At least he didn’t get the family pork genes.

  And the family bad-luck genes
are gonna stop with him too. He’s got X-factors going for him. Like the Cody smile, which females of all ages go crazy for because his teeth are straight and white, not like Tyler whose teeth are ugly black Jujubes from all the meth.

  A minivan honks and he sees like a hundred kids cheering him, their faces pressed against the window. Bet most of them have shithead stepfathers too.

  Do it, Cody. Brighten their day.

  Triple-pumping motion with the arrow-shaped sign and fancies it up with high karate kicks.

  “Anal Excursion!” Cody yells.

  “Anal Prowler!”

  A mom-type lady in a silver Camry flips her signal and turns into the Liberty Taxes parking lot.

  Fist pump! Success! A customer. His first!

  He pretends to fish and hook the Camry. Reel it in.

  Driver laughs. With him, not at him like Tyler does.

  He leaps in the air, a cheerleader split with bent legs. Drops the sign and flips into a wobbly, rubber-legged handstand just for her.

  Liberty crown hits the pavement. Green gown hikes up to show size-ten sneakers, one of them untied, laces dangling. And flashing something—his good luck charm, insurance—tucked into the waistband of Cody’s jeans.

  * * *

  A few minutes after Cody starts his gig at Liberty Taxes, another seventeen-year-old arrives for his shift, right up the street at Ferrell’s Donuts.

  Milo, small-boned and on the shorter side for a high school junior, exits the front passenger door of his mother’s silver Camry. Runs his fingers through the lock of hair that flops over his forehead, popular-boy-band style. Milo is not especially popular nor in a band, but he does have great affection for music, mostly classical.

  He studies the Camry and, hit by inspiration, flips on his video phone.

  Slow zoom, tight close-up of subject in driver’s seat. Uber-cinematic. But not too artsy. Milo abhors anything too artsy. Hates it even more than he hates being derivative.

  Is he being insensitive for casting his mother’s face in what’s shaping up to be a genre-breaking art-house horror film? If Mom could get inside his head right now—and sometimes Milo thinks that she can actually do that, a two-member support team ever since Dad died—Milo and Mom, Mom and Milo—her feelings would be uber-hurt.

  So yes, he is definitely being an insensitive person.

  Milo presses the delete button.

  He hears the hum of the driver’s window rolling down.

  Mom and Milo are eyeball to eyeball now. “My workingman,” she says, then orders: “Head bump!”

  He leans in even closer. Their foreheads gently connect. Her face, full-screen, huge. Like this dream he had—keeps having, the same dream ever since Dad died—where their foreheads, Mom’s and Milo’s, have magnets in them and no matter where he goes, their faces lock, her north to his south, blocking his view of everything but her.

  Milo moves back a few steps to the curb. Mom pulls out into traffic, heading off to get her taxes done.

  Behind him, a voice-over fading in, meow-y and sexy.

  No, the opposite of that.

  His coworker Melissa. Black polyester pants, white shirt tucked in, donut-shaped name tag, a dot of red jelly on her upper lip. He remembers her from back in Bayview Elementary, a tiny, quiet girl who he imagined having a river of deep thought running through her.

  “Jesus, Mylar, you gonna stand out here all day?” Melissa says. “I wanna clock my ass out of here.”

  The camera in his head clicks on.

  He follows, recording her walk in those unattractive pants.

  The buzzer sounds as the Ferrell’s door opens.

  Quick montage. The glistening sludge of the classic glazed, the perfect doughy circles with their centers missing.

  “Symbols,” Milo says under his breath. “The emptiness of human existence that hungers for connection.”

  Fade out.

  * * *

  Reel ’em in, boy! Show ’em how it’s done!

  Two more customers. Then Mr. Liberty, the man himself, pats Cody on the back, tells him, “Great job; break time, buddy.”

  Cody feels so proud and so full his heart wants to burst out and leave a valentine-shaped hole smack in the middle of the Statue of Liberty.

  The next twenty minutes are all his. A Man with a Plan. Dash over to Ferrell’s and see if that girl Melissa from last night’s party works there like she said. If Melissa’s there, whip out the charm. Flash his smile. Turn down the free maple bar she promised him. Pay for it himself ’cause he’s a workingman now. Wink as he drops a gigunda tip into the jar.

  The buzzer sounds as Cody enters the shop. Smell the sweet grease.

  Nope, no Melissa. Figures. Fuck Melissa. Whatevs.

  Hey, check out the geeky nerd behind the register, bent over a book. Kid doesn’t look up. What? Is he deaf?

  Hold on. Cody knows this kid. Same grade at SC High. Before the apeshit incident.

  Hold on again. Time warp. Fourth grade. Bayview. Yeah, he sat in back of this dude all year. Damn, he’s still got the same LEGO hair like back in the day. What’s with that? Man up, get a buzz or something.

  Miss Merlotti’s class.

  What’s his name? Silo? J-Lo?

  Milo. Yeah, that’s it.

  He’s in Drama Club, something faggy like that. Only don’t use faggy, Cody. Not cool. Not mature. Not worthy of the New You. Live and let live.

  But there’s something else about this Milo.

  Tap tap, Cody’s heel of his hand against his forehead.

  Oh yeah. Kid’s got a dead dad. Cancer or something mega-fuckin’ depressing. ’Bout a year ago. Weird how much you know about someone’s shit you don’t even talk to. Bad news gets in the air like a fart.

  Dead dad. That’s gotta suck.

  Sure, plenty of times Cody prayed Tyler croaked in some gruesome way, like choking on a ham sandwich while also being chewed up to his nuts by a pit bull. But Tyler did get him his first BB gun—taught him to roll a joint the very best way.

  Cody’s eyes turn up to heaven in prayer. Tells God he wants to take back the Tyler death wish. Really! A psycho dad is better than a dead one.

  This sudden appreciation of the good things in his own life does something to Cody’s insides. A melting sensation all through his chest.

  What’s with him today, opening and expanding with such tender feelings?

  Here’s what he should do: Say something nice to this Milo. Reach out dude to dude. Milo’s one of those sensitive types, for Chrissakes. Those people feel. What do you say to someone whose dad is RIP?

  He rehearses in his mind: Milo, may I take the occasion of my work break from Liberty Taxes to offer my sincere condolences on the loss of your most beloved father?

  Nice.

  Cody raps on the counter to get the kid to look up from his book.

  Milo looks up.

  * * *

  Milo’s mind-aperture clicks open. Master shot.

  Some guy in a dress? Yes, in a polyester gown, with a crown, who—no polite way to say this—reeks really bad.

  Oh, it’s the sign-dancing guy from down the street. That must be the worst job ever. Only not the same guy as yesterday because this one has close-cropped blond hair. Yesterday’s Liberty had stringy dirty-brown hair.

  Zoom in. They’re multiplying! Cloning themselves in a plot to repopulate the world with Statue of Liberty look-alikes!

  Statue’s lips are moving. He is not saying: Give me your tired, your poor. He’s saying: “May I take the occasion to . . . ”

  No way!

  He knows this guy.

  Crazy Cody! His nemesis from Miss Merlotti’s class. Made Milo’s life a living hell. Spent the entire year behind Milo flicking his ears. Went into his backpack. Stole money and pencils. Singled him out every dodgeball game and smacked him so hard that Milo nearly peed himself one day.

  Okay, he did pee himself. In front of the whole class.

  Does Cody still have that problem where his
eyeballs vibrate in their sockets?

  Milo sneaks a quick look. Yes, he does.

  Be careful. Tread lightly.

  Be uber-polite: “Can I help you? Is there a particular donut that catches your fancy?”

  * * *

  Holy crap in a sack!

  Cody just screwed open his heart and poured out every pity thing he could think to say to a fag kid with a dead dad, and does he get a thank you?

  No, he does not.

  Milo with his stupid-ass haircut. What the hell?

  Ba-dum-bum-ba-donk-a-donk-dum-chssk.

  Something else. Tap tap on his forehead. It all comes back to him. Fourth grade. Who ratted on Cody? What little shit was all Teacher, teacher, Cody stole from me? Who turned Miss Merlotti and every kid in the class against him? Whose fault was it that the principal called and Tyler beat the shit of Cody to teach him a lesson?

  Cody takes five giant steps down the length of the counter. A blur of donuts. Apple-filled. Custard-filled. Special of the day: pink frosting and sprinkles. Ew.

  Cody asks: “Donut dude, how much for six of the ones that cost the most?”

  “The most?” the kid asks.

  Like he can’t believe Cody can afford a half-dozen donuts. Like Cody doesn’t have a real job. Like he’s a piece of trash who just got out of juvie and sponges off other people’s donuts.

  Cody reaches for his waistband. Tap tap, pat pat on his good luck charm. He imagines the heft of it. The sound of it. Assurance against unwanted surprises. He straightens his crown.

  Face to face with Mr. Donut. “Only two things in life are unavoidable. Guess what they are. Guess!”

  Milo’s face is all twitchy.

  “Taxes,” Cody says. “And death.”

  * * *

  Don’t say it, Milo orders himself. “I beg to differ,” he says.

  Do not add any more dialogue to this scene with Crazy Cody. Do not say: What about defecating? We all have to poop.

  No, too late. Milo said it all out loud.

  He puts his hand over his mouth. He notices: Cody’s fist hardening into a ball. His feet doing this strange agitated shuffle, then coming to a pigeon-toed stop.