Running on Empty

by Don Aker

  LaFarge went to stand beside her and rested one of his large hands gently on her shoulder. “How’re you feelin’?”

  She slid one arm around him, stained wife-beater and all, and leaned against his huge body. “Puked again,” she said.

  LaFarge looked at Ethan. “We’re expectin’,” he said.

  Ethan nodded. “Yeah, I heard.” He wasn’t sure if he should say “Congratulations” or “Tough luck,” so he offered neither.

  LaFarge put his other hand on Shawna’s belly, covered by a long housecoat that had seen better days, and patted it gently. “I’m gonna be a daddy,” he said.

  That single action, that simple caress of Shawna’s slightly swollen abdomen, tugged at Ethan’s memory, and suddenly the sounds around them—the water refilling the tank of the flushed toilet, a muffled voice from the apartment above, traffic on the busy street outside—receded, leaving him in a pool of muffled silence. Something about that big hand on Shawna’s stomach. The gentle caress. The shared smiles—

  And then the moment ended as Shawna’s hand darted to her mouth and she disappeared into the bathroom again.

  “First trimester’s the worst,” said LaFarge, turning to Ethan, who was surprised all over again that Filthy knew the word. Here he was standing in a basement apartment talking with Filthy LaFarge about fetus development. It couldn’t feel any weirder if he were to suddenly find himself standing in that painting Moore-or-Less had hung in her classroom, the one with the watches melting over tree branches. What had she called it—The Persistence of Memory? Dumb name. Nothing in it reminded Ethan of memory. In fact, there was something in the centre of the painting that he’d prefer to forget, something Ethan now felt looked a lot like a rotting fetus. Whatever it was, he didn’t think it was something expectant parents should spend a lot of time looking at.

  LaFarge turned back to the cupboard drawer and resumed digging for a pen. “Got one,” he said, pulling out a Bic medium point. “Now for somethin’ to write on.”

  “Look, don’t bother,” said Ethan. “I know you won’t screw me over.”

  LaFarge nodded. “Just so you know, though, I need the rest by Christmas or I’m puttin’ her on Kijiji. We clear about that?” “We’re clear,” said Ethan. “Thanks, Filthy. See you around.” He went out and closed the door and was surprised to hear it open again, the big guy coming up the steps behind him.

  “Wanna check her out?” LaFarge asked, pulling on a jacket. A piece of its lining dangled below the hem.

  “Sure,” replied Ethan. He’d already stood looking inside the locked Cobra for several minutes before knocking on the apartment door, but he jumped at the chance to sit in her again.

  LaFarge took keys out of his pocket and unlocked the driver’s door, then stepped aside to allow Ethan to slide in.

  Settling back in the bucket seat, Ethan put one hand on the steering wheel and the other on the stick, and for a moment he was seeing open road instead of the back of another apartment building, feeling the air rush past the windows instead of blowing in the open door from the northeast. The weather forecast called for high winds and flurries that evening—the first of the season—and LaFarge shivered in his jacket with the ripped lining. Seeing the grimace on his face, Ethan reluctantly pulled himself out. “Sorry. You’re probably freezing.”

  LaFarge nodded, but it turned out that his expression had less to do with the cold than the car. “Hate to part with her. I pestered Kyle about her for a long time. She’s somethin’, huh?”

  Ethan grinned. “Yeah, she’s something, all right.”

  “Don’t make ‘em like this anymore,” said LaFarge, hugging his arms around himself.

  Ethan nodded in return, admiring the car’s lines. Even the rust along the rocker panels didn’t mar the vehicle’s classic beauty.

  “Ahh,” muttered LaFarge, “it’d be a hassle gettin’ a kid in ‘n’ out ‘a that back seat anyway. Definitely not a family car.”

  “You’re right about that,” said Ethan absently. “My mother bought one after she and my old man broke up. Her gift to herself in the separation.”

  LaFarge turned to him. “Puttin’ herself back out there, huh?” he asked. “Set ‘a wheels like that would sure do the trick.”

  Still looking at the car, Ethan shook his head. “I think it had more to do with pissing off my old man.”

  LaFarge grinned. “That why you want one so bad?”

  Ethan shrugged. “It’s a bonus.”

  Later, walking to the bus stop, Ethan thought again about Filthy’s question. Not that pissing off his old man didn’t have its own reward, but that wasn’t the real reason he’d longed for his own Mustang. And not just any ‘Stang. A 1996 Cobra SVT. His mother’s car.

  She’d bought it used but in mint condition, a private sale from some guy who, like Filthy, was having his first kid and needed a more practical ride. Ethan’s mother had taken him with her when she’d gone to look at it, and he’d been awed by the way the colour on the car changed. “It’s called a Mystic finish,” said the owner. “Cost me a whole lot extra, but it was worth it.” He’d seen Ethan walking around the Mustang, watched him moving back and forth, back and forth, following the colours of the car as he altered the angle he viewed it, mesmerized as they melded from green into purple and then brown into gold. “Paint’s got the same colour-changing pigments they use in American money,” he explained to Ethan’s mother. “If a person wants to repaint one ‘a these, an inspector’s gotta come and figure out how much paint you need, and then you gotta send back any you don’t use. And the guy who paints it has gotta be Michelangelo if you want it to look good.” He paused. “But you don’t need to worry about that. See?” he said, pointing out their reflections in the gleaming door. “I keep her covered whenever I’m not drivin’ her. And I’ll throw in the cover with the car. I’d hate to think of the sun dullin’ that finish.”

  Later, during their drive back to the Herring Cove house his father had moved out of, Ethan had begged his mother to get the car, but his pleading had been unnecessary. She’d told him she’d already made up her mind to buy it, adding something his eight-year-old brain didn’t understand at the time, something about the Mystic finish being a lot like what her life had come down to. “Nothing stays the same, Ethan,” she’d told him. “The one thing you can count on is that everything changes.”

  Even then, even as an eight-year-old, he’d realized she was sharing something important with him, something grown-up, and he’d wanted to pay attention, wanted her to know that he understood what she was saying to him. But he didn’t. All he could think about were those colours, how his reflection looked like it was trapped inside a rainbow.

  Not long after, his mother had ended up trapped inside that rainbow herself, the crumpled car like a metal W around her lifeless body.

  Chapter 22

  As usual, Ethan was the only person getting off the bus at the entrance to Cathedral Estates. Despite the whole environmental awareness movement and the push to use public transit, he figured no one else living on Seminary Lane, Cloister Drive, Monastery Road, or any of the other streets in his subdivision ever took the bus. As if to underscore that point, a Lexus GS450, an Acura ZDX, and a Mercedes SLK350 drove past him, each carrying only the driver. Watching them cruise by—all of them probably going to the same frigging place, one of those big box stores out at Bayers Lake—Ethan couldn’t help wondering when vehicles started getting names with numbers instead of nouns. Cobra, Corvette, Beretta, Stealth—now those were names that grabbed you. Hell, even place names like Sonoma and Santa Fe were better than combinations of letters and numbers that looked like something you’d see on a pharmacy prescription. He shrugged and kept walking.

  Not knowing the people on his bus was actually an advantage—it meant he didn’t have to talk to anyone. Like always on a Sunday, he had run flat out at The Chow Down, so he liked being able to close his eyes and let the motion of the bus ease some of the stiffness from his body. Even thoug
h this was his sixth Sunday working there, he still found himself wiped afterwards. But the good news was he rarely messed up orders now, he hadn’t dropped a meal in quite a while, and Ike hadn’t bellowed at him in nearly a week, which in itself was cause for celebration. He had yet to see evidence of the “sweetheart” that Lil claimed the cook could be, but Ethan was just grateful not to have a strip torn off him every time he entered the kitchen.

  And there was another improvement: the tips were even better since he’d gotten to know some of the regulars. A lot of them he called by name, and he knew without asking what their orders would be. Boots McLaughlin wasn’t the only one who got the same item again and again, and Ethan found it funny how people could get locked into patterns, like always ordering the All Day Breakfast. Would it kill them to try the Philly Steak With Fries once in a while?

  Some of the regulars could be a pain in the ass, and he felt like he was earning an Academy Award whenever they showed up, pretending he actually gave a shit to see them. But there were some he looked forward to, like “the girls,” who’d been in that afternoon. Evelyn, the one with the wig, had asked him again whether he and Allie were still a couple because her granddaughter was still between boyfriends. She’d even shown him a picture that she carried in her purse, and Ethan was surprised by how pretty the girl was—so pretty, in fact, that if he and Allie weren’t together, he might have been tempted to let Evelyn set him up. Of course, the moment that thought flashed through his head he felt lousy, and not just because it was disloyal to Allie. It suddenly made him feel like his old man, whose belief in Appearances are everything bordered on the fanatical. Like father like son? Christ. Too bizarre even to think about.

  Something else that was bizarre was that conversation he’d had with Link Hornsby in his Echo. He’d been thinking about it a lot and, as he walked down Seminary Lane now, he replayed it in his head. The whole idea seemed crazy, but the way Hornsby had explained it made it seem like the answer to his money problems.

  When Ethan had asked him that night how he’d been able to win so much money at the casino, Hornsby had told him about a negative progression system called the Martingale. “One of the oldest bettin’ systems around,” he’d said. “And it’s foolproof, as long as you follow it to the letter.” He’d explained how it was based on the law of averages, that a person can’t lose all the time, just as he can’t win all the time. “A gambler usin’ the Martingale decides how much money he’ll bet and, if he wins, he bets the same amount again. He continues bettin’ the same amount each time ‘til he loses.”

  “What’s the negative progression bit?” Ethan had asked.

  “If the guy loses a hand,” Hornsby explained, “he doubles his last bet. If he loses that one, he doubles the previous bet, and so on. When he eventually wins, that bet earns him back all he lost so he can go back to bettin’ the original amount.”

  Ethan had been skeptical. “But all you ever hear about gambling is how often people lose. Their homes, their jobs, everything. If this Martingale system is such a sure thing, why don’t we hear about gamblers getting rich?”

  “First,” Hornsby had explained, “not everybody knows about it. Matter of fact, most people do just the opposite of the Martingale. When they lose, they get nervous and start reducin’ their bets. So when that law of averages finally kicks in and they start winnin’ again, those smaller bets don’t cover their losses. They got way too much ground to make up before they start turnin’ a profit again. But it can’t happen ‘cause that law of averages don’t let it.”

  The explanation had made a lot of sense to Ethan as he’d sat listening in Hornsby’s Echo.

  “And there’s other reasons why you don’t hear about gamblers makin’ a killin’,” Hornsby had continued.

  “Like what?”

  “A lot of ‘em gamble online.”

  “So?”

  “Not many people want their picture in the paper for gettin’ rich doin’ somethin’ illegal.”

  “Online gambling is illegal in Nova Scotia?”

  Hornsby’s eyes had gleamed in the light from the Echo’s dash. “Online gamblin’s against the law for everybody in Canada. The States, too.”

  Ethan was confused. “I’ve seen hundreds of pop-ups online for gambling sites. If they’re illegal, how do they get away with it?”

  “They’re set up offshore.”

  Ethan had let that thought sit for a moment. Then, “Why’re you telling me all this?”

  Hornsby had shrugged. “You got a stake now,” he said, nodding toward the wad of bills in Ethan’s hands. “Try it yourself.”

  “I’m underage.”

  “So?” Hornsby had let the question hang there.

  Ethan was stunned. “How can teenagers gamble online?”

  “You never surfed porn?” asked Hornsby.

  Ethan reddened. “I’m a guy, right?”

  Hornsby nodded. “You clicked a button that said you were an adult before you could get on the site. Same thing with online casinos.” To prove his point, he got out of the Echo, went around to the trunk, and then slid back in with a laptop that looked out-of-the-box new and even more powerful than Ethan’s at home. Hornsby booted it up—during the log-in process, Ethan saw the username, Samantha, appear in a window and wondered who the hell she could be—and then started the car and backed it out.

  “Where’re we going?” Ethan had asked.

  “Look for a signal,” said Hornsby, pointing at the Network Center icon on the laptop’s toolbar.

  “You don’t have a mobile Internet stick?”

  Hornsby glanced at him like he’d just asked if he bought air. “Why pay for something when you can get it free?”

  Ethan shrugged. Made sense. He was so used to his old man paying for everything that he took things like Internet access for granted.

  They cruised the streets for a few minutes until they found an unencrypted wireless signal. Hornsby pulled over to the curb, turned off the motor, and took the laptop from Ethan, showing him how easy it was to log into various online casinos, set up an account, and deposit money with a bank card or credit card. Some sites, Ethan was surprised to see, even offered sign-up bonuses, crediting money into your casino account to be used for gambling. He’d thought about the rush he and his buddies got when they played dice at lunchtime, masking the game whenever a teacher or monitor strolled by—kids’ stuff compared to what Hornsby was showing him now.

  But Ethan still wasn’t convinced. “How do winners get their money?”

  “Adults have them transfer it into accounts set up for their winnings. That can be a problem, though, if it ends up bein’ a lot, so some of ‘em do what kids do.”

  “What’s that?”

  “They get the casino to mail them a cheque.”

  Ethan had shaken his head, amazed. “Sounds simple enough.”

  “It is simple.”

  Parked beside the curb, Ethan found it hard to believe that a person could make a lot of money doing what Hornsby was explaining, especially given the ruined Echo he was sitting in. If Internet gambling was such a cash cow, why wasn’t Link Hornsby driving something like that Saab he’d seen back at the Park ‘n’ Pay? But, then again, wasn’t his old man always saying Waste not, want not? Hornsby’s Why-pay-for-something-when-you-can-get-it-for-free philosophy was the same kind of thinking, wasn’t it? But something was still bothering him. “You said the Martingale was foolproof as long as you follow it to the letter. Why wouldn’t people follow it? Where does it break down?”

  “Two things: balls and bankrolls.”

  Ethan already knew about the balls, how losing gamblers had to fight the natural instinct to reduce their bets, but he didn’t understand the other. “Why should bankrolls be a problem?”

  “Law of averages again. You can’t win all the time, so you gotta be able to lose, and you gotta be able to keep doublin’ your last losin’ bet so you’ll win back everything you lost. It’s all long-term, kid. Go big or go home.�
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  And now here Ethan was going home. He turned into the driveway, surprised to see his father’s Beemer—a new M3 he’d bought the week before—sitting in front of the garage. His old man always kept his cars parked inside, so Ethan guessed he and Jillian must be heading out somewhere shortly. And then he remembered hearing something about a fundraiser for his father’s campaign. Ethan scowled. Jack Palmer had the cash to throw at a brand new BMW, yet this evening he’d be attending a fancy dinner with his hand out for political donations. Ethan’s scowl suddenly morphed into a grin as he imagined an event like that being held at The Chow Down. Hell, he probably could have gotten his father a deal: All You Can Eat Philly Steak With Fries. Of course, it would have meant cramming Ike into a tux for the event, but that sight alone would have been worth the price of admission.

  Opening the kitchen door, he saw his father getting water from the refrigerator’s dispenser. And wearing a tux. Ethan snorted, shaking his head.

  “What’s so funny?” asked his father.

  “You had to be there,” said Ethan, removing his jacket and draping it over a chair.

  “Speaking of being there,” his father said, “are you home for the night?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “Raye’s babysitting for the Loebs, and I don’t want her coming back to an empty house. There was another robbery last night not far from here.”

  “A house this time?”

  His father shook his head. “Gas station, but who knows what’s next?”

  “Isn’t that what you paid the big bucks for?” asked Ethan, nodding at the electronic keypad by the door.

  “Those places all had security systems, too, but it didn’t stop the thieves. Do you remember Hank Cavanagh?”

  Ethan vaguely recalled a lawyer at his father’s firm. “Yeah.”

  “Hank’s got a friend on the force, and he says the police are checking into whether someone’s leaking security details that help the thieves circumvent the systems.”