“You sure have, but how do you go to school, work here, and write two to three research papers a week?”
“School, well, I do enough to pass. I’ve never gotten good grades.”
“If you’ve never gotten good grades how…”
“How did I get into our school? I test well. I’m not as dumb as people think I am.”
“Nobody thinks you’re dumb. Don’t say that.”
“But anyways,” Elias continued, ignoring my statement. “I’m here a good portion of the week and when we’re slow, which is often, I do my work. Then I don’t sleep much, so there’s all evening, the weekends when I’m not at work, and I don’t have any friends I really socialize with, so there’s a crap ton of extra time right there. And if ya sit down and focus, it doesn’t take that long to write a paper and many of the topics I’ve done before, so I’m familiar with the information. So, yeah, that’s it.”
“You’re like an evil genius.”
“I don’t think so.”
A couple then walked into the store. The only customers since I arrived. Elias hit a mini gong, and the two looked in his direction. He saluted them, and the guy saluted back and the girl gave a wave.
“You don’t say hi to the customers?”
“Nope, I talk as little as possible.”
“How did you get a job then?”
“My sheer coolness.”
“You just walked in, and they saw that you were so cool and offered you a job?”
“Pretty much. There was a sign in the window, and it said something like you want a job here, try us. So I went to the counter and mumbled something about the sign, and the guy behind the counter pointed to this picture.”
I looked at the picture on the counter that Elias pointed to. It was taped down around the edges and the paper in the middle that was exposed was starting to fade. In the picture was an obese woman sitting in an inflatable kiddy pool.
“I knew what bizarre cult film that was from, and the dude asked me if I talked, and I said when I need to, and I got a job.”
“Dude, that’s kinda crazy.”
Elias laughed. “Kinda is. They prefer us kinda aloof and non-talkative with the customers anyways. I dunno, I think they feel it makes us seem cooler, or some unknown reason like that.”
“Once again, I will say, you’re so different outside of school.” I was wondering if he was pumped up on energy drinks again, or if it related to what he said in school earlier, how I was different. I was starting to think maybe he felt more at ease with me or something, so perhaps Elias saying I was different wasn’t such a bad thing.
Elias shrugged. “See watch,” he said as the couple headed towards the register with some useless household decorations.
They placed their items on the counter, and Elias gave them a head nod. Without saying anything, he rang them up and then pointed to the little screen on the register that said the total when he was done. He clicked his tongue, they paid, Elias gave a little wave, and they were off. “Simple as that,” Elias said, after the couple left.
“So, do you ever talk to anybody besides me?”
“Not really.”
“But don’t you want to be heard?”
“You don’t have to speak to be heard.”
I thought about what he said for a moment and didn’t quite get what he meant, so I responded with, “You are one interesting cookie.”
Elias shrugged.
After a few minutes, a stocky guy with plastic framed glasses and a bowling shirt walked into the store.
Elias looked at the guy, gave him a little nod, and then turned to me. “Mike,” Elias said. “Manager.”
Mike wandered over and leaned on the counter next to me, resting back on his left elbow. “You’re not a customer,” he said, looking from me to Elias.
I immediately thought that maybe Elias wasn’t supposed to have visitors at work and was going to get in trouble.
Elias pointed to the left side of his face where I punched him and then at me.
“Oh man, she did that?” Mike the manager said.
Elias nodded.
“Gimmie a high-five girl.”
I drew in my eyebrows and gave him a look.
“He deserved that right? You’re not an abusive girlfriend are you?”
And before I could even respond, he told Elias he could clock out early.
Chapter Sixteen
We walked down the sidewalk side-by-side. It was still pretty bright outside even though it was nighttime; streetlights lit up the neighborhood. “Okay boyfriend, we are we going?”
“Oh wait, hold on a sec,” Elias said, stopping. He flipped open his messenger bag and dug inside, then pulled out a stack of stickers that were about five inches big. “Here,” he said, holding them out to me.
I looked at them, and it was a profile view of Sasha Santiago’s head. There was a white outline around her profile from where the stickers were cut out. “Thanks, what are these for?” Without saying anything he closed his bag and pulled a sticker out of my hand. He peeled off the back of it—putting the paper in a pocket to the field jacket he wore over his hoodie—then stuck the sticker to a light pole. Elias grabbed another sticker from me and ran backwards down the sidewalk back to the store where he worked. He once again peeled off the back, stuck the paper in his pocket, and slapped the sticker on the glass door. I started to walk towards him where he turned down the alley next to the building. He waved me over, and I handed him a sticker. He slapped it on a sign about parking that was on the side of the building.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Getting the word out.”
“Word out on what?”
“Sasha Santiago and The Society of Prodigious Superbness.”
“Are you allowed to do that?” I asked as we walked out of the alley.
“Well,” Elias said, bobbing his head side-to-side.
“Aren’t you like vandalizing property or something?”
“Technically yes, but if you don’t get caught, free advertising. Just stay away from private property.”
“Isn’t the building you work in considered private property?”
“They don’t mind so much. Now c’mon, think public property.”
“I don’t know about this.”
“Give ‘em back to me then if ya want. I’ll do it, just exposing people to your art.”
“But why?”
“I decided I wasn’t done helping you yet, and its kinda fun. We’re creating an identity for you, branding your comic essentially.”
I looked at the sticker. It kind of did look like a logo or something; under Sasha’s head to the right was S.S. “But how will people know it’s for my webcomic?”
“We start slapping some up, give ‘em to kids at school, your army of nerds, they start getting stuck up everywhere, and people trade and collect these things too. Look around at the light poles, back of signs, stickers are all around. People will eventually get curious and where will they look, online. You now have a larger online presence, so…”
“Does that kinda stuff really work?”
Elias nodded. “We just hit the right neighborhoods, like where young people hang out and stuff.”
“What if we get busted online?”
“Your site and photostream will just be photos of where this stuff is. Online there’s no actual proof that we put it up. As far as we’re concerned, we just took pictures.”
“Okay,” I said, peeling the backing off one of the stickers. I discreetly walked up to a newspaper vending machine and smoothed the sticker on the side of it.
“Awesome,” Elias said with a laugh.
“This is kinda fun.”
Elias smiled, grabbed another sticker from me, and ran ahead, crossing the street. It turned out that he had a crap ton more in his bag, and we ran down the one side of the street slapping them on any light pole, back of street sign, bus bench, or whatever we could find that we deemed appropriate for applying our
stickers to. I don’t know why, but putting stickers on things was really quite fun. Maybe it was some weird thrill from knowing that it was technically illegal, or maybe knowing that people were being exposed to Sasha Santiago.
“Wait up,” Elias called out, jumping down from a bus stop pole that he shimmied up, so he could reach the back of the sign. He told me that the higher the better it was when it came to slapping stickers on things. The city was a little less likely to remove them if they had to put forth some effort in reaching them.
We went quite a ways down the street, so the people dissipated a bit, only a straggler here and there. We were also keeping a watchful eye for police. We were in one of those neighborhoods where cops liked to ride around on their bikes. Elias caught up with me, and we crossed the street heading back in the direction in which we came from.
“How did you make these?” I asked Elias, handing him some more stickers.
“Bought some permanent stick vinyl sticker paper, printed, and cut out with scissors. Quite easy.”
“You’re like a crafter.”
“I do not do crafts.”
“I bet you also own a hot glue gun and bunches of ribbon.”
Elias looked at me, smiled, and peeled off the back of a sticker. He then slapped it on my shoulder and ran away.
“Hey,” I yelled, running after him.
“That’s for calling me a crafter,” he said over his shoulder, jumping up and hitting a no-parking sign with his hand.
I peeled off the back of a sticker, reached up, and smoothed it down where Elias previously slapped. I then chased him down the block. We continued sticking our stickers on things until we got back to the intersection we originally came from. A mix of yuppies, teens, and singles in their twenties meandered about. It was chilly out, and I could see my breath hanging in the air.
“Wanna see something?”Elias asked, chewing on one of his fingernails.
“This isn’t going to be a, you show me yours I show you mine kinda thing is it?”
Elias crinkled up his nose. “No,” he said, entering the crosswalk. I followed him across the street where we turned left and walked past a few storefronts. We turned right at a store that had a bunch of sequined bras like things in the window. We walked down an alley where to the right was the back of the stores my friends and I liked to frequent. Murals of dead rock stars and musicians were painted on the back of some of them, and one store had a yellow and black mural with skeletons, and I do believe the Grimm Reaper. Elias stopped at a spot in the alley where to the right was a cemented patch used as parking. On the back of the building, I saw what he wanted me to see.
“That’s awesome,” I said, taking in what I was looking at. On the left-hand side of the brick wall, a bunch of giant eyeballs were painted. They were surrounded by various colors making them look like eyeballs that belonged to monsters or alien like creatures. To the right of the eyeballs was a giant banana guy. It looked like a man wearing a banana costume while holding a jumbo sized boom box on his shoulder. It was huge. It might have been one of the coolest things I’d ever seen.
“Maybe we’ll work up to something like this,” Elias said, studying the painted brick wall.
“These are awesome.”
“They are, aren’t they?”
“Yeah, somebody just came out here and did this?”
“Yeah, both of them have stuff all over the city.”
“What is this? Is this considered, what?”
“It’s street art.”
“Are they allowed to do this?”
“They mighta got permission. Sometimes some artists do, but usually they find a good spot to stick their art and put it up.”
“That is so cool. They don’t get caught or in trouble?”
“You just have to be careful not to get caught, and they usually remain pretty anoma, uh, anoma, ammony, you what I’m trying to say.”
I nodded. My auto correct filled in anonymous.
After taking in the eyeballs and banana, we went to Gimmieyourbucks Coffee. I was more than happy to go inside—my ears were starting to hurt from the cold wind that was rudely slapping into them.
“Thanks for everything,” I said, as we sipped our ultra strong coffee. I was never going to fall asleep.
Elias nodded in response. I smiled, and we eventually began talking about what we really were meeting up for—our English project.
Chapter Seventeen
It was a little warmer out, so for lunch we just went to the grocery store behind our school and went to the side lawn to eat it. I was actually attempting a handstand. Kate was doing cartwheels. Yes, I’m aware how old we were, but sometimes, well, many times, we had outbursts of weirdness.
“Elias,” Kate yelled across the lawn at Elias, who was walking down the sidewalk that ran along the street.
He looked up, and Kate waved him over. “Why didn’t he eat with us yesterday?” Kate asked me.
“I forgot to ask him.”
“Geez, you’re bad in pursuing the boy you like, and did you forget to invite him today?”
“No, he had to meet up with somebody, and I wouldn’t say pursuing necessarily.”
“Was it a tutoring session? I’ve heard about those,” Kate said, using her fingers as quotation marks around tutoring. “I might have to utilize them one day.”
Elias walked up and gave us all a wave. Roberto said hey, and Reynaldo and Dean waved back, and Brian grunted. Even though he didn’t have our lunch period he was there again. On some days, it was just Kate, Roberto, and me for lunch, but then on many days the cast varied and included a number of the club members. Kate did another cartwheel.
“Seven,” Brian called out.
“Nah,” Reynaldo said. “That was more like a six.”
Kate stood up with her hands on her hips. “I’d like to see you try.”
“Guys don’t do cartwheels,” Reynaldo said.
“Says who?” Kate asked.
“Says me,” Reynaldo responded, pointing a thumb at his chest.
“What about handstands then?” I asked, challenging him.
“Okay, fine,” Reynaldo said, getting up off the crunchy lawn. He walked away from the group a bit, tossed his hands on the ground, and pretty much collapsed in on himself.
Kate started cracking up. Well, we all did.
“How can you have such little arm strength?” Kate asked.
Elias threw his bag on the ground and sat down next to Kate. He had a huge grin on his face.
“Okay, Bickler,” Reynaldo said. “If you think it’s so funny let me see you try.”
Elias scratched the back of his neck and did not respond.
“Just what I thought.”
“Since when did you get all big and tough?” Kate asked Reynaldo. She then looked over at me. “These guys really are nerds. They’re challenging each other to handstands and acting like they’re macho cuz of it.”
Elias let out a deep breath, unzipped his jacket, and shrugged it off to the ground behind him. He got up, walked a few feet from where we were sitting on the grass, lunged forward, tossed his hands on the ground, and kicked his legs up into the perfect handstand.
“That’s what I’m talking about!” Kate shouted.
Roberto clapped, a smile crept across Dean’s face, and Reynaldo shook his head. Brian looked pretty indifferent. Elias’ tee-shirt fell down dropping to his armpits. He quickly kicked his legs to the ground and pulled down his tee-shirt.
“Holy crap Elias,” Kate said. “You got some nice abs.” Elias’ face quickly turned red, and he headed for his jacket.
“I want to see them again,” Kate said, getting up and grabbing for his shirt. Elias ran backwards.
“Come here hotness,” Kate yelled, chasing him in a circle.
Elias got away and sat on the ground next to me.
“I bet you look great without your clothes on. Can I paint you naked?” Kate had this thing for painting people in the nude, meaning she loved it. She was p
lanning on going to art school, so she could fully focus on painting and drawing naked people. I originally met Kate and Roberto in art class, but when we did figure drawing in class, the people always had their clothes on. Kate was constantly disappointed by this, so a time or two she had dragged me to an outside figure drawing class where she could get her naked person fix.
“No,” Elias said with his face a brilliant red.
“Stop being a perv Kate,” Roberto said. “We don’t need to hear about your naked person fantasies. It’s kinda disturbing.”
“You can paint me naked,” Brian said, volunteering himself.
“Really?” Kate said with a huge smile.
Brian nodded, raising his eyebrows up and down.
“It’s on.”
“Oh God,” Dean said, getting up. “I’m leaving.”
“That is one painting I don’t want to see,” Roberto said, pretending to dry heave. I was with Roberto on that one. One of Elias though…might not have been so bad.
Elias reached in his bag and pulled out a freezer bag full of Sasha Santiago stickers. I divided them up amongst my lunch pals and explained what exactly we were doing with them.
*************************
The next day at lunch Elias joined us again and had more stickers. Even though we gave them out just the day before I had already spotted a few around school. One particular one I saw was when I went to do my business in the bathroom. It was on a stall door right above Naomi is a bitch, What does it feel like to be a whore Heather?, and other such pleasantries that had been scrawled on the door over the years. I was also still receiving high-fives and such in the hall. My celebrity was still following me around. What a thing to be known for, but I figured I could use it to my advantage, so when somebody gave me a hey, or what’s up, or an exploding fist bump, I gave them a sticker.
*************************
On Saturday afternoon, Elias wandered over with two copies of the book we decided to read for our English project. He stayed for a few hours, but all we seriously did was read. Well, besides occasionally glancing over our books at each other, and I knew we were both doing the glancing thing because our eyes met for a second the one time I peeped over my book just to get a quick glimpse. A partial smile crept across Elias’ face. We both then looked back down into our books. We also exchanged some ideas for our project and then continued to read. He left to go to work, and I read until I finished the book.
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