Seeking Carol Lee

by Nace Phlaux

  I stepped toward the desk, but a woman the girth of you and half the height barked at me in this angry Wizard of Oz munchkin voice that there was a line. I took a free spot on the wall by the water cooler, the carpet squishing every time I shifted my body, and watched as this guy straight from the Huxtable clan—right down to the argyle sweater—sashayed his way around the office.

  Now you know I don’t have a problem if you’re black, white, gay, Muslim, whatever; all I care about is, Can you get the job done? I seen plenty of every race working at the steel, and none of them do it any better than anyone else. We didn’t get many gays there, at least not any that were open about it, but still, what’s the difference? All that matters is the job. But this Cosby kid wasn’t doing his. According to him, it wasn’t his anyhow.

  “The official word is the employees are in the middle of a restructuring process while the new owners integrate the site with their company’s standards,” he says to the munchkin. The whole time, he’s talking like he’s placating an unseen force, like we’re all in on the joke of how much bull he’s spewing for them. The guy tries to talk loud so he doesn’t have to repeat himself a thousand times, especially to this one guy on his cell phone, but the cell phone guy just plugs his finger into his other ear and walks out into the hall.

  Theo goes on to describe the situation everyone’s facing using as many acronyms and technical terms as he can muster, me not understanding a damn one of ‘em. Like I’m the idiot here. Like he could tell you the difference between blister or crucible steel or take apart a transmission like you could. He’s saying their computer system’s switching from the old company’s to the new one, but I guess something went wonky. They already fired anyone who knew anything about the old way, and everyone running the office now’s just temps.

  “Even if they brought someone back, they’d have to know Unix,” he says and wiggles his foot. I don’t see it, but I can hear the squishsquishsquish. And someone walks through, and all the drying papers bristle against the walls, and the munchkin says something like she knew what he was talking about, and I just want to ask her, “Shouldn’t you be starring in a midget toss somewhere?”

  “The money’s gone. Gone like see ya later,” he tells everyone. No one knows what account it went to, so no one can get a refund for the foreseeable future. There’s shouting and threats and a lot of chest-pounding and the squishsquishsquish and I just keep wondering how I’m going to pay Richter back and maybe get a haircut. My head was starting to look like that chinchilla Cousin Jodi had when we were kids.

  I finally had enough of that freakin’ room and pushed my way out the door. The lost Huxtable was still going on about the company contacting those affected as soon as they know something. “Well, I would hope so,” I hear the bowling ball of a woman say. “How’re my kids supposed to eat?” And as I get out into the hallway, the cell phone guy’s there, looking up to see me and say, “Just let ‘em check under your jowls for crumbs, right?” And he laughs hard at himself, and I decide it’s time to visit you. If I don’t soon, I figure, I’m libel to take one of these assholes out.

  * * *

  I didn’t see Hayleigh’s car in the driveway or on the gravel in front of the shop, but I still knocked on the door per our so-called boundaries conversation. Those’re our height notches on the kitchen doorway. That’s Dad’s TV in the living room. Ma’s throw is still over Dad’s chair—but I guess you’d call that yours now, huh? Good for you. Good for you for drawing a line somewhere. She thinks she can pack up all Ma’s stuff into the basement and call this place hers? Fuck her.

  When the door opened and you were backlit by the lamp in the living room, for a second I could’ve sworn you were Dad, as if he came back to give me a good ass-kicking for messing up my bank account. But as soon as you stuck your head out far enough for the garage light to catch your face, I could see the key difference: I don’t think I ever saw Dad smile like you do. Mom would’ve joked and said it was a shit-eating grin, but we all knew better. You’re a simple guy like Dad was. But where he always looked like he was being punished for something...I don’t know. I never understood the man.

  I followed you through the house to the living room and asked you where the wife was. Even then I thought you saying she was at her book club sounded weird. Who went to a book club on a Tuesday night? Better yet, who went to a book club? More red flags flew up when you said she usually comes home late sauced. I imagined a group of ladies talking about their latest book; a bottle of wine gets opened; and faster than you can pop the cork, they’re bitching about their husbands or jobs or whatever. But that girl’s another one I can’t understand, so I didn’t think too much of it. I was just grateful when you asked if I wanted to go to Bill’s and then—I guess I must’ve made a face—said it’d be your treat.

  I knew it was all for show, all to make me feel better. Walking down the street to Bill’s and getting a six pack; cracking open a beer and slowly sipping it; making me order first. You’re not much of a drinker, so the rest was going to me. And if I couldn’t gauge how much you were spending on yourself, I’d have to order what I actually wanted. With the day I was having, I didn’t argue. And if I did, well, that was for my part of the show.

  There seemed to be a lot of truckers in the place that night. The cold from the beer fridges fought with the heat from the kitchen, but the cold won out every time one of these burly long-haulers parked in the empty lot next door and walked through the doors. ESPN was on the TV and the reporters were talking about the end of the hockey lockout, but it wasn’t an actual game, so why would I give a shit? So all I had to look at was the comings and goings and your ugly mug.

  That night, you looked especially like Dad—you know, if he grew another foot, gained a hundred pounds, and had the thought like you did to create your own uniform. I would’ve busted your balls for still wearing the garage’s onesie so late into the evening if it’d been any other situation, maybe crack wise about needing something with your name on the chest so you wouldn’t forget it. But it’d been an exhausting day, and as I told you about what was going on lately, the empathy that wasn’t Dad at all—that was all Ma—really showed on your face.

  The food came as I bitched about the temps in the complex’s office, which is hilarious now given the circumstances, and when we finished eating, you got up to use the restroom. I knew what was and definitely what wasn’t in my wallet, but I pulled it out anyway to make sure there wasn’t a dollar stuck in a hidden fold. That’s when I saw the laundry card.

  You’ve always lived in a place with a washer and dryer, and the TV always shows people putting quarters into the public machines, but other places have a different setup where you put in a twenty and a credit card looking thing pops out. Orangewood had one like that, but I was already familiar with them before I got there because VoP had one too. I had the card between my fingers, kinda staring through it, when you got back.

  I remember the look on your face—one might call it incredulous, but who knows what kind mine was making—when you sat down and I said, “You still got Dad’s Sawzall?” And I’ll be damned if that look didn’t get even stronger when I added, “I’ve got an idea. If you’re up for it.” Now, what I was giving at that moment, that was a shit-eating grin.

  * * *

  Within the hour, we were driving across town to the Village of Pennbrook in one of the clunkers you keep behind the garage. As soon as I asked what was wrong with it, I regretted it, ‘cause once you said it couldn’t shift into fourth, all I could think about was car chases. It was late on a weeknight, so I don’t know who would’ve been chasing us, but I guess I was feeling paranoid.

  Driving a beat-up mid-80s Corolla hatchback with a Sawzall and extension cord behind the seats, work gloves and ski masks in your lap, and unbranded coveralls making us look even fatter than we were? Yeah, I had reasons to feel paranoid. The brand new inspection stickers and hacked-together tags didn’t ease my mind. But everything you did looked spot on, wh
ich made me wonder if this was your first time to the rodeo.

  Ideally, we would’ve had a third guy with us to watch the entrance to the VoP complex. With the place shaped like a Q and the office where the squiggle meets the O, we could’ve made sure there weren’t any cops coming in well before they’d reach us. The nearest police station is at least five minutes away, but one of them could’ve been patrolling.

  But I didn’t see any cops on the drive over—I didn’t see anyone, come to think of it—and I was starting to feel confident about the operation. Then we had to see that jackass in the sweats. Can you imagine the look on that guy’s face if he’d seen us, sitting in the car with the ski masks on, all dark in the car except for our bugged-out eyes?

  I was kinda glad he showed up when he did, though, since he saved us some trouble. There we are driving up to rob the place, and I’m not even sure we can get in. But here comes Mr. Sweatpants holding on to his laundry card and he walks right through the door without swiping at the RFID plate. In the years I lived there and ever since, I’ve only seen that door lock for one week. The local kids who use the gym as a hangout don’t take kindly to it being closed off.

  Once the guy left and you pulled the car up to the door, I bolted out with the bag over my shoulder. I had to peek in through the door to make sure no one was inside, and even that didn’t guarantee anything since the room broke off to the left on the opposite side of the small building. That’s where the laundry card machine hung on the wall too. If someone was over in that corner and saw me in my getup with the Sawzall in my hands, what could I even say? I swallowed the lump in my throat and swung open the door.

  Someone had left the TV on one of those Lifetime movies where my baby daddy done did me wrong and turned up to a goddamned obscene volume. I made my way to the other side of the room, the walls covered in mirrors reflecting back the rusty unmaintained exercise machines strewn carelessly around the room. My heart jumped when I caught the sight of a bizarre hunched-over creature out of the corner of my eye, only to realize it was me. A couple steps in and I could breathe easily again; the room was empty.

  I plugged the saw into an outlet underneath the card machine and tore into the drywall. A keener mind—like someone Jimmy Stewart or George Clooney would play—might’ve done something about the camera on the wall or figured out a simpler, quieter way of removing the machine. Maybe had an elaborate scheme to steal the money without anyone noticing, so it’d be a honeypot of funds. Me? I just wanted to unleash a little rage.

  With the Sawzall growling in my hands, I imagined I was cutting through the desks of the Jamaican bitch and the asshole temp at Orangewood until the sound of sirens tore me out of my dream world. I jerked my head toward the door without stopping the blade and realized it was only the TV. But with the sound blaring in my ears, I couldn’t hear if any real sirens were coming. I didn’t know if the camera could record sound, so I shouted, “Brother! Brother!” but no one came.

  I couldn’t rush the blade without threatening to break the saw, so I dug my gloved hand into the drywall until my fingers could get into the cut I made and wrenched the machine—wall and all—to the ground. I jolted back to avoid it landing on my toes, and it gave a heavy clank as it hit. That heaviness made me a little giddy, as you may’ve noticed when I kicked open the door with the machine on my shoulder and flung it into the glass of the Corolla’s rear window.

  I didn’t care about the car; I just needed to punctuate the moment. Like a triumphant fist thrust in the air at the end of a movie or smashing a guitar into an amp in the final encore of a concert. But those didn’t seem strong enough. I felt good. I felt real good. And that feeling made me want to wreck something.

  That chaotic energy was still flowing when we sat down in the car, which is why I had to tousle the top of your mask a bit like the hair wasn’t covered. Once you readjusted yourself and peeled out of the complex, you had this big grin on your face like you just won the lottery. Come to think of it, I guess you had that same feeling that was consuming me. Maybe it’s in the blood. The Mazzaro boys? Born for trouble.

  * * *

  I forgot how freakin’ creepy the lumber yard could be at night. How long’s it been since that film crew shot the movie here? Five or six years, I think. I remember you getting sweet with the girl in props, but I talked more with the contractors, and one of them told me they had to work the entire place before filming since people had stripped all the copper wiring. Judging by the dead light switches, someone had done it again.

  The front half of the old place was still decked out to look like the liquor store the film crew had set up. With the broken beer bottles on the floor, I imagine the place became something of a Venus flytrap for kids looking to score free alcohol. Crack open any of those bottles, though, and all you’ll get is skunked beer or flavored water. The crew made sure to strip the place of anything worth drinking.

  Something about the front made me uneasy—maybe the low drop ceilings—so I made my way to the back. I wish we’d had access to the place when we were kids. I mean, it was right next door, but I guess it wasn’t ‘til years later we got over breaking and entering. Can’t you just imagine us in middle school climbing all over the pallet racks? They’ve gotta be thirty feet tall, and most of them still have pieces of wood left.

  I looked up at the one set of racks and said “Huh” out loud ‘cause I didn’t think that desk would still be up there. I don’t know who would’ve put a desk on top of a thirty foot tall rack system, but there it sat—undisturbed somehow all these years. Hell, even me, I’ve got the urge to kick the thing off the side. You’d’ve thunk one of the local kids would’ve done it years ago for shits and giggles.

  My ears were still humming loud with nothing but my heartbeat pounding in them. I closed my eyes for a second to take a few deep breaths and try to relax, and of course that’s when you came and slapped a hand on my shoulder, scaring me half to death. But there you were with a bag of tools and a smirk bordering on a whole smile, so you must’ve gotten me pretty good. Lucky you, I didn’t even smack you back. I just wanted to get that machine cracked open. And once we did and found a couple hundred dollars in the change box, I was feeling a lot better about my situation. And God bless ya, Bri, I try and give you half of it and you refuse. “Get me next time,” you tell me. Son of a bitch, like you knew I wasn’t done.

  * * *

  I knew it was getting late, but I was feeling pretty good after getting another six pack and relaxing in your living room. It didn’t take long to regret that decision, especially when a crash came from the kitchen. You were in the upstairs bathroom and I must’ve been staring off into space with my beer when the backdoor sprang open and slammed into the fridge. Your wife muttered a string of slurred curses and looked up to see me standing in the doorway.

  She didn’t even get startled. She just paused for a second and said, “You’re not my husband,” then continued fumbling with her jacket. Her purse kept going from hand to hand, and I don’t think she realized she’d have to set it down to get the coat off. I watched to see her continue that stupid dance of hers, and she finally got herself clear, adjusting her shirt to cover the exposed skin of her sides. When she turned to find me still standing there, she snorted and said, “You wish.”

  I swear to God, Bri, I wasn’t checking her out. Hayleigh goes against one of my key rules for women: I can’t write her name down without thinking her parents were morons. Not to mention she looked like she’d been ridden hard and hung up wet that night. Her thick makeup was giving her the raccoon eyes, and her reddish brown wavy hair was puffed up like a scared cat. It’d take a lot more than the sight of her bare side to make me think that psycho hose beast was attractive.

  But she’s your wife. To each their own.

  You were taking your sweet time upstairs, I swear. Hayleigh sat down on the couch and took out her contact lenses. Not a single Mazzaro has ever had eye issues, Bri. Just sayin’. As she’s taking them out, with me trying
to look anywhere other than the disgusting eye poking, she says, “I saw your car parked outside your place the other day. They finally get rid of you at the steel? ‘cause I’ll tell you right now.”

  She stopped to dig the meat of her palms into her eyes, pulling her hands away to blink hard. With all the rubbing, the raccoon eyes changed to full-blown mime on crack makeup. And she wrinkles her nose and says, “Your brother. If you think you can get any money out of him? Uh uh, Mister Man. Not happening. We don’t have a dime to our names.” The upstairs toilet flushed, and the wry grin she wore turned into a grimace. “Especially not for you.”

  That’s the scene you walked in on and why I got out of there so quick. I forget what I even said to you, but it was probably nothing more than incoherent mumblings. You told me to take the rest of the six pack, and as I did, I tried to subtly pat my pockets to make sure the money was still there. Satisfied I had everything I needed, I told you, “Good seeing you, Bri,” and I meant it. We hadn’t had fun like that in years.

  Driving home, I kept thinking about what your wife said. I didn’t think the shop had been doing bad, but I never really paid attention to it. I never heard you complain, but you’re not the type anyway. I wondered if you even knew. If Hayleigh was in charge of the finances like Ma used to be, then you might not’ve known how deep in the red you were. Maybe you wouldn’t have turned down your half of the night’s loot.

  I couldn’t take the chance she was lying. I figured I’d need a bigger payout sooner than later too, and I sure as shit wasn’t holding my breath on the complex crediting my account any time soon. Getting another job wouldn’t help you out any, and that could take weeks. We all could be on the streets selling kidneys in the time it’d get to find and score from a job. But we couldn’t keep ripping off laundry machines.