Snow Job

by Charles Benoit

  I nodded at the restaurant. “What’s it like in there tonight?”

  “Slow. Some families with bratty kids, breaking all the crayons. Some blue-hairs from the nursing home. I’ll be lucky to make five bucks in tips.” She turned her head and blew the smoke behind us, gave a little cough, and said, “I’m moving to Florida next week.”

  Bam.

  I took a breath, felt my chest tighten, then went back to wiggling a slice free, lifting it straight up, the mozzarella stretching with my reach, and the mounded-up toppings sliding off the sides. I swept a finger around the slice, snagging the mozzarella strings, looping them around, keeping my focus on the pizza.

  I could feel her stare.

  She waited until I had taken that first big bite, until my mouth was full, the cheese clinging to my lips, before saying, “Wow, Florida! How exciting! I’m so happy for you, Karla.”

  I chewed faster.

  “What, you gonna pretend you can’t hear me now?” She took an angry drag on the cigarette. “You can be such a baby, you know that?”

  I swallowed hard. The scalding lump stuck halfway down for a dozen heartbeats before dropping into the empty pit that was my stomach. I took in a shallow breath. “When’s this?”

  “We’re leaving Christmas morning.”

  “Who’s we?”

  “Who do you think? Me and Scott.”

  I remembered the first guy Karla dated. Mike something, way back in sixth grade. That lasted almost a month. Then there was that kid from her church, then nobody for a while, then Redhead Randy, then Joel, then the Korean exchange student. The first time she went all the way was with a guy from Hently, in the parking lot behind the Cineplex on their one-and-only date. Since then there’d been a steady string of guys, a few years older, all of them with names I’d heard, since Karla didn’t have a girlfriend she could trust and she had to talk to somebody. It had been that way for years, our friendship built on her telling me things I’d rather not hear, me letting her talk, letting her cry on my shoulder the rare times it got to her. And now she was moving away. With Scott. A guy she had never mentioned.

  I took a smaller bite of the slice. Despite all the toppings, there was no taste to it now. “Why Florida?”

  “Scott’s brother lives in Venice. Got a place four blocks from the ocean. He’s getting Scott a job at the hotel where he works. He thinks he can get me in as a waitress.”

  “Hmmm.”

  She blew smoke out across my face. “What the hell’s your problem?”

  I took another bite, mumbling a nothing as I chewed.

  “Aren’t you happy for me?”

  “I am,” I lied. “It’s just that it’s, you know, sudden, is all.”

  “No, it’s not,” she said. “Scott and I have been talking about it for a month.”

  A month? Damn.

  “And you know Scott. Once he gets an idea in his head . . .”

  No, I didn’t know Scott, and I didn’t know what was in Scott’s stupid head. But knowing what most guys thought when they looked Karla up and down, I had a pretty good guess.

  She closed her eyes and stretched her arms out above her head. “This time next week, I’ll be on the beach.”

  This time next week.

  How many times had we sat like this, side by side?

  How many weeks?

  How many different places?

  All the talking we did, all the talking we didn’t have to do, not having to say anything just to fill the space. All the nights I lay alone in my room, thinking about her—no, fantasizing about her—wishing we weren’t “just friends.”

  I glanced over at her.

  That twenty-dollar Farrah Fawcett haircut.

  That stupid Pizza Hut hat.

  Too much blue eye shadow, too much Windsong perfume.

  Her smile dulled by all the Newports.

  Still.

  More beautiful now than ever before.

  And at that moment, the only friend I had.

  I felt my jaw tighten.

  Fine.

  Book out.

  Piss off.

  Go.

  But first . . .

  “What are you gonna do when this Scott guy screws you over?”

  She opened her eyes and gazed up at the clouds, then closed them again, shaking her head. “That isn’t going to happen. Scott’s not like that.”

  “Yeah, right. Isn’t that what you said about Garry?”

  “He’s nothing like Garry—”

  “Or Steve? Remember Steve, the one who stole your mother’s purse?”

  “Let’s not—”

  “Or that guy Todd? Him and his twin brother? Remember them? Remember that party?” I tossed the half-eaten slice into the box, then flung the whole damn thing over my head, the pizza landing in the snow with a muffled thump.

  I could tell she was looking at me, and I braced for a shouted one-sided argument, but instead she hit me with a half-whispered question. “Can’t you just be happy for me?”

  I sighed, stared at my hands. A minute later, “All I’m saying is—”

  “I know what you’re saying. But I have to do this. I have to get on with my life.”

  “You don’t have to move away to do it.”

  “Yes, I do. If I stay here, nothing will change and I’ll fall in the same rut everybody else does, and that’ll be it. No, if I’m ever going to get my own life, I need a fresh start. And I’m not going to find it here.”

  I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t put the words together, couldn’t put a thought together.

  “You got your list, the things you want to change in your life, right?”

  I grunted.

  She stood up, brushed the snow off her ass, and started for the back door of the Pizza Hut. “Did you ever think that maybe I had one too?”

  WALKING HOME, hands stuffed in my pockets, head down watching for ice patches on the sidewalk, stomach growling, and thinking about Karla and that pizza I tossed, I didn’t see the car until it was too late. But there it was, on the wrong side of the road, pulling up to the curb next to me, Zod’s devil-red Camaro.

  “Get in,” he said.

  I stayed on the sidewalk. “Thanks, but my house is right up here.”

  “I know where you live. Just get in the damn car.”

  Running was an option—not a good one, but an option. So was walking away. I glanced down the street to my house, then got in the damn car.

  He said, “Any problems getting that stuff to Carol?”

  “If there were problems, you think I’d be sitting here?” It came out more sarcastic than I had meant it to, but he didn’t seem to notice.

  “You got balls, Nicky. I’ll give you that.” He revved the engine, then raced down the short street to power-slide around the corner. “I knew it when I heard you make that bet with those frat boys. I said to myself, ‘That kid’s got balls.’”

  Ah yes, the bet. It all came back to that. If it ever happened.

  Zod took a drag off his cigarette, blew it out. “No. Before that. Years ago. In court. Remember?”

  I remembered.

  “I was a real badass back then. Thought I was sooo tough.” He moved his hand like it held a knife, stabbing the air as he laughed. “Funny thing, dude? You were the tough one.”

  I looked around. “Me?”

  “Hell yeah, you. Going to court, pointing me out. You had to know I’d be looking for you.”

  And here it comes, I thought, bracing myself, ready to pop the door open and roll out.

  Zod laughed again. “I would have, too. But I got locked up. And once I got in there, well, I found a few ways to get in trouble all by myself. By the time I got out, I had a whole new perspective on lots of things. Like you.”

  I felt for the metal end of the seat belt. A poor weapon, but it’d be something.

  “Turning me in like you did,” Zod said, “that took balls. I realized I had to respect that. Then I start hearing things about you, how y
ou wouldn’t let your friends take stuff from the store, that you don’t get high, but that you’re not a dick about it. I had to respect that, too.”

  Not what I expected. And I didn’t expect to like hearing it so much.

  “Okay, enough memory-lane shit,” he said, saying it in that jokey now-back-to-business voice teachers like to use. He downshifted hard, slowing to the speed limit as he went by the stop sign. “You know Jumbo, right?”

  It was a weird question, and it took a second to realize he wasn’t talking about the Disney elephant. I shook my head.

  “Yeah, you do. The fat guy at Mr. Pretzel. You know who I mean.”

  I did. At four-hundred-plus pounds, he was hard to miss. He worked at the soft pretzel kiosk near the record store in the mall, and by work I meant he sat on a stool by the counter and watched girls go by. I didn’t know that was his name, but it fit, even if the elephant was smaller.

  “There’s a paper bag on the back seat. I’ll drop you off at the entrance by the camera shop. Go to the pretzel place, give Jumbo the bag, he’ll give you four hundred. Be sure you count it. Twice. I’ll pick you up behind Woolworth’s. And get me a large pretzel with cheese.”

  I laughed. It was that stupid.

  “No way. I’m not running drugs for you. I don’t care what you say. Forget it.”

  He sighed, all dramatic. “You’re not running drugs—you’re dropping them off is all.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Look, it’s simple.”

  “Then you do it.”

  “Can’t. I’m barred from the mall,” he said, his voice somewhere between sarcastic and pissed. “And Jumbo needs his weed.”

  “Well, I’m not doing it.”

  “Yeah, you will, so stop pretending. I’ll give you twenty bucks.”

  “I don’t want your—”

  “Aaaannnd . . . I’ll call us even.”

  My list said stand up, and saying no to Zod was the kind of thing I should stand up for. But the thought of having Zod out of my life? Too good to pass up.

  “For real? That’s it, we’ll be even?”

  “Sure,” he said. “I backed you at the party; you’re helping me out now. We’re cool.”

  So I did it.

  I thought I’d puke the whole time, and when I stood there counting all those bills at the pretzel counter, the cold sweat soaking my shirt, my hands shaking, I was sure the mall cops would bust me. But they didn’t, and five minutes later I was in Zod’s car, heading toward my house. I didn’t laugh when Zod joked about me forgetting his pretzel, but I lost it when he did this impersonation of Jumbo.

  I didn’t want him thinking that I enjoyed any part of it or that I’d ever do it again.

  So why did I say, “Thanks,” when he handed me that twenty, and, “See you around,” when he dropped me off at home?

  Saturday, December 24

  “START WITH HAULING OUT THE TRASH. YOU’LL HAVE TO shovel the snow off the dumpster first. Be neat about it for once. While you’re at it, clear all that slush away from the back door. And don’t make a frickin’ mess this time. When you’re done with that, some punk kid pushed a six-pack of Odenbach off the rack in the cooler. Just reached in and shoved it. Punk’s lucky I didn’t catch him. Anyway, there’s beer all over everything in there. And don’t go and get cut on the glass. The last thing I need is you bleeding on the produce. When you’re done with that, see me. I got more.”

  GEORGE WAS RIGHT—there was beer all over everything. Odenbach VTO Premium Lager. Top shelf, of course, so when the bottles hit the metal floor inside the cooler, they exploded, spraying the cramped space with glass and beer. There were also a dozen broken eggs, but by the look of them, they’d been there for much of the day.

  I shook open a plastic bag and started with the soggy six-pack carton, then moved on to the bigger pieces, taking my time so I didn’t slice off a finger on one of the shards. That, and the longer I spent in the cooler, the less time I’d have to spend listening to George and the nonstop easy-listening Christmas music.

  Another brainless Saturday night at the Stop-N-Go.

  Which capped off another brainless week at school.

  It was the week before vacation, and nobody wanted to be there. Not the students, not the teachers, not the maintenance workers—not even Mr. Kerner, who was happy to let us catch up on our sleep while he played Beatles records and graded papers.

  The study hall monitors were giving away passes for the asking, and I’d taken every one offered, more out of habit than need. I’d planned to crash in the library, but both Thursday and Friday it was filled with squealing freshmen. I could’ve hung out in the cafeteria, but the smell in that airless, sweaty room was always nauseating. The smoking lounge was just as bad. Besides, there was nobody in either place I wanted to see.

  In the end, I’d wandered the halls for two days, sitting alone in stairwells, rereading the paperback copy of The Warlord of Bimskala I’d had since eighth grade.

  I’ll be honest, I’d bought the book because of the cover—an exotic, olive-skinned woman leaning against a marble pillar, gold bracelets up her arms, a little tiara in her flowing black hair, a chainmail bikini that barely covered her tight body, and a pair of breasts that ignored the laws of gravity. But what sold it was the look of raw get-over-here lust in her dark eyes. It was a look that my thirteen-year-old self didn’t really understand but instinctively obeyed.

  Oh, and there was a guy in the picture too. Lots of muscles, bloody sword in one hand, laser pistol in the other, the look on his face saying that he didn’t give a damn what they threw at him. Jack Morgan, the warlord from the title. Still, not as interesting as the princess.

  I had second thoughts about buying it when the store clerk told me it was a “classic,” which is librarian-speak for boring, but the princess stared me down, and as soon as I got home, I dove into the book.

  It took me an hour to get through the first two chapters.

  That pulse-pounding cover was covering up for a painfully slow story filled with impossible-to-pronounce characters, an SAT-level vocabulary, and zero sex. I had stayed with it, though, and by the middle of the book I could follow the plot enough to keep up with the warlord and, more importantly, the half-dressed princess.

  Since then, I’d read the book a dozen times, and each time it was easier to swap out Jack Morgan and stick myself in the story. The plot still dragged, but there were some decent battle scenes that I could imagine joining in on, heroically taking on the evil villain’s army. As for the missing sex scenes with the princess, I had no problem imagining myself in those, either.

  So there I was, sitting in the stairwell, rereading the book I pretty much knew by heart, when it hit me.

  This was where my list came from.

  The way Jack Morgan acted in the book, the things he did that made me cheer him on? They were the same things that I thought I’d come up with all on my own. The more I thought about it, the more it became obvious.

  In the book, the hero stood out, mostly because he was a six-foot-tall Texas Ranger who woke up one day on another planet where people averaged just over five feet—don’t ask, it’s too crazy to explain—but he was different, and that made him more interesting.

  The hero stood up, defending the people of Skalopios by leading an army of flying walonks against the dark forces of Castle Symarip. Yeah, it all sounds stupid, but here’s the thing—when it came down to it, when someone really needed him, the hero was there.

  The hero stood by the princess, which sounds easy, but she was being hunted by assassins, and the princess’s evil twin sister was doing everything she could to lure him away. But he stayed by the princess’s side, even when she had to flee with nothing but that silver metal bikini.

  Jack Morgan stood fast, sticking with the attack he and his flying pals launched, even when it looked like it may get them killed. It didn’t, and in the end they won, but he didn’t know any of that at the time, just that he had to see it throu
gh.

  Stand out. Stand up. Stand by. Stand fast.

  My big plan for the rest of my life, stolen from the pages of a sixty-year-old fantasy novel.

  Did it make my list stupid, or did it prove it was inspired? I didn’t know, but I wasn’t going to give up on it yet.

  JUST BEFORE TEN, George buzzed me to the register and told me to take over, that he had some important calls to make back in the office. That meant that he would spend the next forty minutes in the one-toilet bathroom, just him and his Hustler magazines, and that was fine with me. George could sit in there all night. At least he’d be outta my way.

  It was snowing like crazy outside. There’d be a white Christmas, whether we wanted it or not. The few customers who came in were stocking up on the basics—milk, bread, diapers, cigarettes, beer—in case the storm dumped more than the predicted five inches. I didn’t expect to see anybody I knew that night, and then in walked Karla.

  She shook the snow off her knit cap. “People who don’t know how to drive should stay off the road.”

  A week ago, I would have jumped on that, making a joke about her driving or asking if that’s why she decided to park, but now I just said, “Yeah, it sucks.”

  “I can see maybe going a little slower, but come on, people, thirty miles an hour?”

  “The speed limit’s thirty-five.”

  “I know. They’re crawling out there.” She smiled at me, and I tried to smile back, but it wouldn’t stick, the corners of my mouth fighting me to stay pissed.

  “Your boss in the back?”

  I nodded.

  “You busy?”

  I shook my head.

  “Hey, listen,” she said, stepping up to the counter. “I know you’re upset at me for leaving—”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “But you are, right?”

  I grunted something, then got busy pretending to straighten the candy next to the register.

  She sighed. “I don’t want it to be like this between us.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like this. All . . . all distant. Like I’m gone already.”

  I nudged the Tic Tac display a tad to the right, slid the cheese cracker packets forward.