Snow Job

by Charles Benoit

  A lie to Mrs. Moyer and a pass later, I stepped out into the hall.

  Zod’s smile was gone. “What the hell you doing here?”

  I didn’t know if he meant the classroom, the hallway, or the school, so I shrugged.

  “All right, let’s book,” Zod said, walking at a brisk pace toward the fire exit at the end of the hall. As we got closer, I could see the crushed Pepsi can that kept the door from latching shut.

  “Excuse me. Did you sign in at the main office?”

  I didn’t recognize the voice echoing down the hall, but I knew it would only be worse if I stopped to look, so I kept walking. Without turning, Zod raised both hands high above his head, flipping off whoever it was before kicking open the crash bar. His red Camaro sat idling in the space reserved for emergency vehicles.

  “I went by your house, nobody there,” Zod said, leaving me to wonder if he had just knocked or gone in for a look around. “You know Carol, works up in the kitchen? Skinny bitch about thirty? She called last night, looking for some Black Beauties. I don’t normally deliver, but we go way back. I figured that since I was here, I’d see if I could spot you.”

  Last year, when a bunch of us did a thirty-hour round trip to see a KISS concert in Ohio, Jay had brought along a handful of Black Beauties. I had downed three with a warm beer and stayed up the whole trip, too wired to sleep. Working in a school cafeteria kitchen had to suck big-time. I couldn’t imagine how amphetamines would make it any better.

  “Carol called someone in the main office, found out where you were supposed to be if you weren’t skipping. Figured you’d want your slice of the winnings.”

  And just like that, it was all good with me. Lying to get a pass, skipping school, flipping off some adult in the hall? Maybe a week’s detention, tops. No biggie. I’d done a lot more time for no money. For six hundred bucks, I’d do it standing on my head.

  Wait—a slice?

  “Gotta hand it to you, either you really know football, or you’re just crazy. One way or the other, it worked out. Pretty sweet, huh?”

  “I guess,” I said.

  “This guy I know, he picked the money up for me. No problems. He’s got a rep with the frats, so they didn’t give him any trouble. We’ll swing by his place, get the cash, talk some business, maybe get a bite. Have you back at school by ninth period.”

  “There’s only eight periods.”

  “Only eight?” Zod shook his head and sighed. “Kids today have it so easy.”

  AS SOON AS the guy opened the door, I knew it wasn’t going to be good.

  Part of it was the way the guy was dressed—pointy shoes, black polyester pants, white belt, white silk shirt open to the third button, gold chain with a gold chili pepper–shaped Italian horn. Dressed for closing time at the disco, at ten in the morning.

  Another part was the smell—an uneven mix of cigarettes, pot, cheap cologne, wet dog, incense, and whiskey. My stomach rolled with the combination.

  Yet another part was the neighborhood itself, one of those places where the city bumped up against the suburbs, with big, old houses next to vacant lots, next to no-name stores, next to bigger houses that had been chopped into apartments, next to run-down churches that used to be packed on Sundays that nobody went into anymore. Some families stuck around, holding on to the community they remembered, where everybody knew everybody, and you watched out for each other. But too many of those families had left, and the people who moved in didn’t want to be known and didn’t want to be watched. People like the man who opened the door.

  But the main reason I knew it wasn’t going to be good—the part that really mattered—was the way the guy looked at me when he said, “Who’s this shithead?”

  “Relax, Reg, he’s cool,” Zod said, cutting around him to get inside.

  Reg glared at Zod as he went past. “He better be.”

  He was older than Zod by a couple years, taller but thinner, with a droopy mustache, a blow-dry haircut, and a pasty complexion. Reg didn’t smile, but if he did, his small nicotine-stained teeth would have given him a grin somewhere between a rat and a wolf. He leaned out the door, glancing both ways down the street, then grunted and let me into the house, locking the two deadbolts behind us.

  Thrift-store furniture, no paintings on the walls, a coffee table covered in beer bottles, a TV balanced on a pair of overturned milk crates, a three-foot bong by the end of the couch. Pretty much how I’d expected the room to look when the guy opened the door. What I didn’t expect was that there’d be others sitting at the table. Two guys—one short and white, the other black, average height, with a tight ’fro—both of them dressed like Reg, all of them somehow looking alike.

  And then there was the girl.

  No long leather coat this time, no tall boots, just a V-neck sweater and a pair of tight jeans worn low on her hips, red and black striped socks on her feet, a pack of Virginia Slims on the table in front of her.

  Same jet-black shag haircut.

  Same magnetic eyes.

  Same effect below the belt.

  “We’ll do this in my office,” Reg said. “Your little friend can wait out here.” With that, the two guys got up and followed Reg and Zod down the hall and into a room.

  When she heard the door shut, the girl smiled. “Hello, Nick.”

  It was a beautiful smile.

  I smiled back, glad that she had remembered my name.

  “You here to get the ten bucks I stole from you?”

  “It wasn’t my money,” I said.

  “Yeah, but I used you to get it. Some guys would be pissed at that.”

  I shrugged. “I guess I’m not some guys.”

  She laughed. “So what brings a not-some-guy like you to a place like this?”

  “Picking up some money I won.”

  “How much?”

  “Six hundred.”

  “You just keep impressing me, don’t you, Nick?” She pushed out an empty chair with her foot. “Sit with me.”

  I sat.

  “How’d you win the money?”

  “It was a bet on a football game,” I said. “Raiders-Chiefs. I took the Chiefs and three.”

  “I have no idea what that means,” she said, smiling the whole time, her eyes—clear, bright—looking right into mine. “But I’m still impressed.”

  “Don’t be. It was a stupid bet. I just got really lucky, is all.”

  “Then, why’d you make it in the first place?”

  “Zod told me that—”

  “Zod?” She motioned down the hall. “You mean little Stevie back there?”

  For years, I had sweated every time I’d heard the name Zod. But the way she said it, with that laugh in her voice, it sounded silly, clownish. She looked away and chuckled to herself, shaking her head. Then she turned back to me. “So, what did Zod tell you?”

  “We were at a party, and I made the bet with a bunch of frat guys.”

  “You’ve got six hundred dollars to throw away like that? They must pay pretty good at the Stop-N-Steal.”

  Now I laughed. “I don’t have that kind of money. Zod covered the bet for me. To be honest, though, I don’t remember a thing. Zod told me about it the next day.”

  She tilted her head down, leveling her eyes. “And you believed him?”

  I didn’t say anything as I thought it through.

  “If you lost, you would have had to pay him, not the frat guys, right?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “And you don’t remember ever making this bet, or who exactly you made it with.”

  “Nope.”

  “Sounds like a scam to me,” she said. “You lose the bet, he gets paid. You win, he tells you it was just a joke.”

  “Then why did he bring me here to get the money?”

  She tapped a cigarette out of the pack, flicking a BIC to light it. “That’s the part I don’t get.”

  “I’m sure he’ll keep some of it. Maybe most of it. He’s the one who took the risk.”


  “I think you’re wrong about that,” she said. “But maybe it’ll still work out for you.”

  “Why wouldn’t it?”

  She took a long drag on her cigarette, blowing the blue-gray smoke out slow and even, watching me the whole time. “Things don’t always work out the way you want.”

  Then the door opened down the hall, and her smile disappeared. She sat up, crushing the just-lit cigarette in a glass ashtray.

  The black guy led the way. Right behind him, Zod was talking over his shoulder, his words rushed together, his voice almost giddy. “You know the Klassy Kat? Over by the airport? I know all the girls. Smokin’ hot, every one of ’em. There’s this one—Chastity—she’s a fox and a half. A redhead, too—and you know what they say about redheads.”

  Reg came down the hall last, brushing a knuckle along the bottom of his mustache. His eyes were pin-prick sharp, and they darted around the small room.

  “You should check it out, Reg,” Zod was saying. “Tell Chastity that you’re a friend of mine. She’ll treat you right.”

  In a cold, flat voice, just above a whisper, Reg said, “I don’t touch whores.”

  “Naw, Chastity’s not like that. She just likes to party, that’s all. Seriously—”

  “And I don’t have any friends,” Reg said. Then he looked at the still-smoldering cigarette in the ashtray. “What I tell you about smoking in here?”

  “I forgot,” the girl said, and even though she rolled her eyes as she said it, I still heard the quaver in her voice.

  “You forget a lot,” Reg said. Then he looked at me, stared me down. “Hey. You. Shithead. You hittin’ on my girl?”

  I felt my mouth drop open.

  “I asked you a question,” Reg said. “Are you hitting on her?”

  My throat went dry. “No, uh, honest, uh, I, uh, I was—”

  Reg stared hard, his eyes narrowing as he leaned forward. Then he laughed. “Check out Mr. Casanova here, looking to get busy in my house.”

  The others laughed at that. The girl studied her fingernails, her bored expression telling me what she thought of it all. Reg grinned as he put his hands on the girl’s shoulders. “What do you think, babe? You going to run off with this kid?”

  She waved a finger around the room. “And leave all this?”

  Reg’s smile flickered. “Don’t be sarcastic, Dawn. It makes you sound stupid.”

  Zod slapped me on the arm. “Come on, Mr. Casanova. I gotta get you back to school.”

  I glanced back as we headed out the door, half expecting to see Reg glaring at me, but he was still looking down at Dawn, his smile fading, her smile gone.

  “—USED TO MOVE a lot more stuff than he does now. The higher-highers are getting annoyed. And he’s doing way too much product. Makes him paranoid. He thinks everybody’s plotting to—Dude, crank that song—gotta play Zeppelin LOUD. ‘I am a traveler of both time and—’”

  I turned it up and kept my eyes on the road. One of us had to. Zod raced on, talking as fast as he was driving, all over the place, jumping topics and switching lanes, redlining every gear of the cocaine-fueled ride.

  “—and the black dude? He used to be Reg’s muscle, but he got all into this Rasta non-violence crap. That’s how I got the job.”

  The kids I knew didn’t do coke. Not that they didn’t want to, just that it was so expensive. You could buy a week’s worth of weed for a couple hours’ worth of coke. They might be failing math, but even they could figure out the economics behind that one.

  “So she’s like all, call me and we’ll get—Look at this bitch Toyota, cutting me off. I should ram his precious—Yeah, that’s right, I’m flippin’ you off, what’re you gonna do about it, old man? Yeah, that’s right, look away, chief—Whoa, yeah, shit, bro, I almost forgot,” Zod said, laughing, slapping the steering wheel with both hands. “You called it, bro. Frickin’ nailed it. Nobody took the Chiefs. Brilliant move, dude. You scored, big-time.” He reached inside of his coat and pulled out a white envelope, tossing it on my lap.

  I pick it up, pulled the flap free. Inside was a white piece of paper, folded into a tight, three-inch-square origami packet. I pinched the packet and could feel the crystal grains shift. I knew exactly what it was, but when I put the packet back in the envelope, I said, “What’s this?”

  “It’s three-point-five grams of Peruvian rock. It ain’t pure, but it’s only been stepped on a couple, three times.”

  I set the envelope on the armrest between the front seats. “No, thanks.”

  “Hey, that’s not a gift,” Zod said. “You earned it.”

  “I don’t want it.”

  He laughed. “Yes, you do. You just don’t know it yet.”

  “I don’t do coke,” I said. Then—because stand fast was on my list—I added, “I don’t do any drugs at all.”

  “Abstain all you want, Mr. Clean,” he said, still laughing. “You can sell the shit. You got three-fifty, four hundred bucks right there.”

  “I’m not selling drugs.”

  “Give it away, then. Find yourself a couple east-side girls. Get laid all weekend on that packet. It’s your share of the winnings—you can do whatever you want with it.”

  “I’d rather have the money.”

  “That is money, dickhead. You just gotta make the exchange. With the cokeheads at your school, you could unload that before the last bell.”

  “I’d rather have—”

  “And I’d rather you quit your bitching.” He slammed his fist down on the dashboard. “I backed your sorry ass when you made that bet, and this is the thanks I get? I go halves with you—fifty-frickin’-fifty—and but that ain’t good enough. No, you gotta have everything perfect. Well, Nicky,” he said, teeth clamped tight together, “life ain’t like that. You won it, you take it. Do whatever the hell you want with it.”

  I sat there, looking straight out the window, waiting for a sucker punch to the side of the head. Or a knife through the arm. Enough mumbled words cut through the blaring music to let me know he was considering both. Five semi-silent minutes later, Zod turned onto the access road that led to the back of the school. I reached over and picked the envelope up off the armrest. “This is my share, right?”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” Zod said in a mocking, singsong voice.

  “And I can do whatever I want with it?”

  “Yeah, go crazy.”

  I tapped the envelope against my leg and thought it through.

  Two months’ worth of pay at Stop-N-Go wages in a packet that weighed less than a couple sticks of gum.

  I definitely knew kids who’d buy it. Polys mostly, but a few of the jocks, the muscle-heads who’d snort it between reps at the gym. The stoners stuck to pot, but they might buy it to trade up, score some sensimilla or Thai stick. And there were plenty of people who came into the Stop-N-Go who asked if I had “anything, you know, behind the counter,” and others who’d straight-up say they were looking to buy drugs. They’d pay decent money to take the stuff off my hands.

  It would take some time, but I could probably get four hundred for it.

  Then again, I could sell it for three without breaking a sweat. At that price I could sell it in five minutes just cutting through the smoking lounge at school.

  I took a deep breath to settle myself.

  Maybe I’d regret it later, look back on it as a stupid mistake, but at that moment, riding in Zod’s devil-red Camaro, Led Zeppelin blasting on the radio, I knew it was the smart thing to do.

  “Here,” I said, holding the envelope out to Zod. “It’s yours.”

  Zod looked at me. “What d’ya mean?”

  “I can do anything I want with it. I’m giving it to you.”

  “Dude, don’t be stupid.”

  “You said it’s mine to do with what I want, right? Well, I’m giving it to you.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Nothing. I’m just giving it to you. You backed me at the party, gave me a lift,” I sai
d, making it up as I went. “I figure I owe you.”

  “You’re an idiot, dude,” Zod said, “but I’d be a bigger idiot not to take advantage of your stupidity.” He took the packet and shoved it deep inside his puffy down jacket as the Camaro pulled up to the service entrance of the school. The car rocked to a hard stop and I made to get out, but before I moved, he put his arm out across my chest. “Hold on a sec.”

  “We can’t stay here,” I said, scanning the nearby faculty parking lot for any roaming teachers. “If we get caught—”

  “Shut up and listen. I need you to do me a favor.” He reached in a different coat pocket and pulled out a clear box of Tic Tacs, but instead of little white mints, it was filled halfway with triangle-shaped blue pills. “Give these to Carol up in the kitchen.”

  “I don’t know which one she is.”

  He dropped the box in my lap, the pills rattling inside. “Skinny white chick, got Carol written on her shirt. You’ll find her.”

  “Students aren’t supposed to be in the kitchen area, plus if I get—”

  “You’re not supposed to skip school to be picking up drugs you won in a bet, either.” He revved the engine and waited for me to make my move. I could’ve done a lot of things, but what I did was open the door and climb out. Resting an arm on the roof, I leaned back in. “Now we’re even, right?”

  Zod’s smile melted into a smirk. He popped the clutch, and the passenger door slammed shut as the Camaro launched back down the access road.

  Wednesday, December 21

  KARLA SET THE PIZZA BOX ON MY LAP. “I BROUGHT YOU A SLICE.”

  I’d been waiting more than twenty minutes, and my ass was nearly frozen to the guardrail behind the Pizza Hut. I was so cold, the oven-hot cardboard only felt warm. Inside was a medium pizza with double portions of every topping the place offered. “That’s a big slice.”

  “There’s more for your gut . . . at the Huuuuuuuut.”

  It was off-key and the words were wrong, but I recognized the jingle from all the late-night commercials. “Thanks.”

  “It was a prank order. We were gonna toss it anyway,” Karla said, shrugging like it was no big deal. She took out her cigarettes, lit one.