“Yep! Totally,” he nods.
She smiles a Cheshire grin at him. “See! Something in common! Who would have guessed the Amish and the Cholawould hit it off so well?”
They pull into the check cashing lot. She rummages through her bag and emerges with a wad of hundred dollar bills. He looks at the money and then at her.
“It’s not…I don’t have a checking account so I have to do everything cash.”
“What?!”
“I know.”
“How do you not have a checking account?”
“It’s a long story.”
“Wait, do you not have any type of bank account? Credit cards? Savings?”
“…Lots of people don’t, okay? I like to know where my money is.”
“That’s so dangerous!”
“Yeah, probably, if I had millions like some people. But this is pretty much it and it’s all bills. Just-don’t judge me, okay?”
Her face flushes and she rapidly tucks her hair behind her ears as she shuffles through her paperwork, no traces of her earlier humor remaining.
“Hey,” he says, placing a gentle hand on hers, genuinely worried he may have fucked things up so soon. She stops and tilts her head to him without looking up. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to judge you.”
She beams up at him again, melting his heart. “Thanks. Come on. You’re in for a real treat. There’s nothing more humbling than waiting in line to pay your bill!”
The room is hot with the early afternoon as the sun blazes through the plate glass windows and cooks the people inside the small room. Large fans blast the crowd, twisting in a sweaty, discombobulated line towards the door, most of them of Latin descent. The chatter of conversations in Spanish flitters about the hum of the fans, periodically imposed with sharp laughter or coarse swearing. Children run in and out of their legs in an attempt to fight their boredom. Julian stands feet above everyone, completely, uncharacteristically self-conscious and out of sorts. Nobody takes notice of him in a specific way. Most of them initially shoot him sidelong glances before completely ignoring him. He has not felt so misplaced and insignificant in a long time, and it is refreshing. He sighs and relaxes, letting himself pretend to belong. However, after nearly thirty minutes in the suffocating heat, he is bored and annoyed, realizing he wears the same expression as the rest of the room, and is no longer pretending at all.
“You go through this every month?”
“No…every three months. I only come in when I get the 15-day notice. I’d kill myself if I had to do this every month,” she whispers as her fingers rapidly text on her phone.
“Who are you texting?”
“Work. They want me to come in. I am telling them very politely to fuck off.”
“Your work texts you?”
“No, well, kind of. My supervisor is also my friend so, yeah. Sucks, huh? And I can’t tell her I’m sick or anything because she knows I’m lying. Guh.”
Her ring tone goes off loudly as a call comes through.“Shit.”
“Who is it?” Julian asks.
“The car.” She shoots him a look, and answers sweetly. “Hi, Anthony…I know. I was going to call you last night but I had Michelle’s party…No….no…I know….I’m sorry…It broke down and you were close enough that I could tow it for cheap. I wouldn’t have gone there otherwise, trust me. I know….listen, can you fix it or not because I need to make arrangements if you can’t, I need it by tomorrow...Anthony, don’t...I know but I can’t get into that right now. What? Seriously?? Why?...Are you joking?...Ay, pues, fine! I’ll stop by after I pay rent…I don’t know, Anthony, an hour? Two hours? Do you need me to text you when I’m on my way?...Ay, fine! Bye!”
Her face is flushed again and she shakes her head as she steps up to the counter.
“Who was that?” Julian asks again.
“My ex,” she says, and then to the clerk,“Hi, Kim. I need to pay fifty on this account, please.”
The clerk sits behind plexi-glass in a room clearly air-conditioned. Alice pushes her paperwork through a tiny slot with the accompanying payment. The clerk, a round woman with a frizzy perm poofed up off her head and heavy make-up plastered across her face, shuffles through the bill and then looks at her in reproach.“The bill is for a hundred.”
“Yes, I know, thank you. I’m paying the minimum due,” she mumbles.
“But if you just pay the other half, you’ll be clear. You obviously have it,” she says, gesturing to the wad of money Alice shoves in her front pocket.
Alice stops and stares hard at the woman, her attitude changing instantaneously. She narrows her eyes and draws her mouth tight, her brow dropping dangerously. Julian freezes, unsure of the sudden anxiety welling in him at her transformation.
“Oh, oh you mean this money?” she asks, holding up the wad. “This? You suddenly know where all this needs to go, huh? You wannabalance my check book, Kim, is that it? Pay my groceries? Feed my dog? Who you talking to right now?”
“You don’t need to get crazy,” Kim sighs, hits the button on her microphone and types the information into her computer,“I was just trying to be helpful.”
“Every time, lady! Every time you bust my balls about my bills! Why? Why me and not the thousands of other poor bastards that waitforever in your line while you move like a snail, taking your time behind that bullet-proof glass! What makes you think I need or want your help?”
“Have a nice day, Alice” Kim says through a cold smile as she hands Alice her receipt.
“Yeah, you, too. And next time you come through my line, I’ll be sure and hook you up with our sugar-free shit.”
Kim hits the microphone button and glowers at Alice. “What’s that suppose mean?!”
“It means you need to watch your blood sugar,‘cuzyou acting crazy!”
“Whoa, hey, let’s go,” Julian laughs, grabbing her arm as the crowd around him snickers.
Before Kim can retaliate, they rush outside and burst into laughter.
“Shit, I have to find a new pay station again!” Alice says as they climb into the car.
“What did your ex say?”
She chews her upper lip and frowns as they make their way towards Chinatown.
“He says I have to stop by and give him a‘down payment’ to fix my car,” she answers, playing with the radio nonchalantly. “He was pissed, as usual.”
“Why? Hey, you know, last night, you said he was your boyfriend.”
“I never said he was my boyfriend...when?”
“When you told the driver to drop off your car at you boyfriend’s shop.”
“Oh…yeah, that’s just semantics. He’s my ex. We broke up a while ago. But I still, we’re still friends, I suppose. It’s complicated.”
“On again, off again.”
“What? No. Not on again, never on again. He wants to be friends and like, close friends, but I’m not…ready for that. So, we hang out a little bit, then I disappear and then we hang out again. But no hooking up or anything. He thinks I just use him.”
They park on the street in front of a pool hall. She rummages through the middlecompartment in search of change, finding his phone instead. “Do you need this?”
“Probably. How do you use him?”
“You ask a lot of questions. People who ask a lot of questions are usually trying to distract themselves from something,” she says as she hands him his phone with five more missed calls from CeCe.
“That’s pretty good, I like what you did there. You diverted the attention from my question, which was diverting my attention from myself. It’s cool. You don’t have to tell me,” he says, frowning down at his phone as he notes the urgent text messages he has yet to read.
“Jesus! Do I need‘lawyer up’? Fine, I’ll answer, I got nothing to hide detective. He thinks I use him to fix my car. Which I do and don't hide it. “
“That’s not so bad. At least you’re honest about it,” he says.
“Well…he also thinks I use him as an excuse to
keep myself single. Which is none of his business.”
She swings out of the car before he can respond and heads for the door.
He follows her, studying the dilapidated building before them; a peeling, aged sign that reads‘Pool Palace’ hangs over a long, tinted glass storefront, too dark to see into. He suddenly notes his surroundings, the long stretch of street facing a chain link fence enclosing train tracks, the absence of people or cars, debris scattered along the gutters, and feels a certain amount of uncertainty and danger. He looks to his new friend once more, playing with the alarm on the car like a child with a new toy.
“The red button, right?”
“You only need to hit it the once,” he says.
“I know, but I hit it the once and then again to make sure so…do I hit it again?”
“Yeah, one more time. And then stop playing with it or I’ll take it away,” he smiles.
She swats at him and points the keys at the car, hitting the button with a serious intensity. “Shit!”
“What?”
“See…you and all your questions distracted me too much,” she grumbles, scrimmaging through her pockets as she races back to the car, with the change for the meter.
“Hey, look, before we go in I think I should kindawarn you...I don't know you all that well, I hope you're not too sensitive,” she says. “My landlord can be a bit abrasive. Don’t take anything he says too seriously. And…don’t make too much eye contact. He’s a total alpha.”
“What does thatmean?”
She opens the tinted glass doors into a room trapped in a décor decades old. The smell of beer, cigarettes and dirty carpet wafts up to greet them. The felt on the tables is old and worn, the walls painted a bright orange and covered in faded beer advertisements of bikini models with long, frizzy hair from the 80’s and 90’s. A bar runs the length of the room, lined with empty bar stools still turned over on the counter. Talking Heads blares through old, dirty speakers perched adjacent to the doors. The pool hall is a long, dark room, empty except for a small group of men in the furthest corner who circle slowly around their table in deep concentration. They look up at the two and don’t smile or frown, just watch, shifting their weights onto their cues. Alice moves confidently in long strides towards the men, her hands shoved casually in her pockets, Julian trailing after her like a hesitant guard dog.
“Well, well, my favorite tenant has graced us at last.”
“Hi, Rolando.”
Rolando is a lanky Asian man in a lavender dress shirt and slacks. His head is shaved, his face scarred with a knife cut across his upper left cheek and over the bridge of his crooked nose. There is a tenderness in his regard for her, but nothing else about Rolando denotes kindness. His eyes flash over Julian, his eyebrows dip for a second. The men at his side swell and lean in towards the couple as he relaxes and returns to his game. He smiles lazily at her, two gold caps on his incisors, before leaning down for the shot and knocking two solids into parallel pockets.
“Ay, chingado!” his friends exclaim, slapping money down on the table in defeat.
He spreads his long arms and embraces Alice, holding her long before pulling away and scrutinizing Julian. “New boyfriend? Guerro, huh? You’re breaking my heart, girl!”
“This is my friend, Lincoln. He’s not my boyfriend,” Alice says.
“What’s with the disguise?”
“He’s shy.”
“Yeah? Somehow I doubt that. Rolando,” Rolando says, taking Julian’s outstretched hand in a crushing grip as Julian pulls off his sunglasses. His tiny black eyes lock on Julian, who remembers Alice’s words and quickly looks away. “Yankees, huh? That’s pretty ballsy in this town. You from New York?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s good, then. Gottarepresent no matter what, stay true to your hometown. How do you know Alice?”
“We met at work,” Alice says, quickly.
“You work at Healthy Grocery, too? I don’t remember seeing you there.”
“No, he works outside the store. He spins signs. He’s a sign spinner.”
Rolando looks at her in disbelief and then back at Julian before laughing. “Get the fuck out! That ain’t no sign spinner! No fuckin’ spinner has teeth that white.”
“I swear! He spins all over the place. Really good.Tosses it up and catches it and everything.”
“Really. Show me,” Rolando says, tossing the pool stick to Julian who catches it.
Julian stares at him and then Alice, who smiles wickedly. Julian smirks and begins spinning the stick hand over hand slowly, picking up speed before he spins it up over his head and catches it without breaking stride. They all laugh as he tosses the stick back to Rolando.
“I never knew a spinner who dressed so sharp! They must be paying well these days. I’m in the wrong business, I think. Speaking of which, you have something for me, young lady?”
“Here you go,” Alice says triumphantly as she hands him the wad.
He counts it swiftly and hands it back to one of the men beside him. “You’re late again. Where’s the late charge?”
“I’ll get it to you tomorrow, I promise. I have to get my car fixed.”
He shakes his head and chalks his cue. “You’re pushing it. This is the third time in a row.”
“I know. What can I say?”
“You can say,‘it’s the third and last time.’ But we both know that’d be a lie, right?”
“Rolando-”
“You know how I feel about being late, lady. It’s the principle. It’s your home, but it’s my property, and I take care of what’s mine. My money, tomorrow. No more excuses. And bring me a box of those fuckin’ Lacey’s. I can’t get enough of them.”
She steps to him and gives him a quick hug and kiss on the cheek. “You got it, boss. See you guys later.”
“Let’s go,” she whispers hurriedly to Julian.
“Ey, amigo!”
Julian turns to back to him, studying the way he stands, confident and dangerous, casually aggressive. He imprints the image of the man, his tiny eyes, his scar and gold smile, leaning his great, long frame on a thin, weathered pool stick, surrounded by real men, the character forever locking into a place Julian can access. “Yeah?”
“Take care of her, understand? She’s my favorite.”
They pull away from the pool hall in silence. Julian glances sidelong at the girl, realizing fully for the first time the person next to him was not just a true human, trudging through her fucked up life, but someone who did so with a certain amount of power and control he sought desperately for himself, living alongside characters who were more real and true than he could ever know. She smacks on gum, fiddles with the radio, sips her drink and drives all at once, with complete oblivion to the field of land mines she navigates. She looks back at him and then twice, noticing his attention.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“That was weird, right?”
“A little.”
She smiles.“Yeah, Rolando’s intense. I’ve known him since I moved out here, a few years back. He helped me come out of my shell. I spent a lot of lonely nights in that pool hall. I taught him to knit, you know.”
“Him?” Julians laughs.
“Yeah…he was trying to wean himself off coke and mollies. It was the only thing that kept him focused. He would sit in that corner and just knit the whole night in complete silence with me, even after closing. We made scarves for his entire family and that man has family, let me tell you.”
“I can’t picture him knitting, honestly. I can’t even picture it a little bit.”
“Well, that’s because you got the gangster version. He was playing his gangster bit because you were there. And he totally is, don’t get me wrong. But he’s also a million bazillion other things.”
“Yeah, I can see that. Most people are.”
“What about you?”
“What about me, what?”
“Where’d you learn to spin like that?
Were you really a sign spinner before you made it big?”
He laughs and shakes his head. “Naw. I had martial arts training for a movie I was in.”
“Oh yeah!‘Saint Blood Fall’! That was a good one. You were a real asshole in that movie.”
“Thanks, I think.”
“Weird how that stuff can come in handy. You think you could kick some guy’s ass if you had to because of that training?”
“No, not because of that. Maybe because of the six years of Krav Magatraining I’ve had, though.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. That, and Tai Kwon Do. They’re very meditative. They teach you to control your movements completely. Makes you really aware of your muscles and your body moving through space, the action and consequence sequence.”
She is quiet a moment, studying the road.“Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
She takes a drink and pauses. “It’s strange, don’t you think?”
“What is?”
“You, this, being here.Last night. It’s bizarre. I mean, I don’t know much about you‘cept what the tabloids say and shit on the internet. I’ve seen a few of your movies. I loved‘Heights,’ it was totally badass. I mean, I really loved that movie, great script,great director, good plot and you were really good. ‘Time Away’ was a little too‘chick flickie’ for me, but it was still pretty good.”
“Thanks,” he smiles, turning his gaze out the window as he disconnects from the compliment, as usual.
“No, but, that’s not…I’m saying…that’s all I really know about you, and that’s not much. I don’t meet very many people and just hang out with them like this.”
“Me, neither.”
“Well, yeah, that’s what I mean. Why are you?”
“Why am I what?”
“Why are you running errands with me?”
“…Because you said you needed a ride.”
She glances at him from her driving. “Really? That’s it? Because I needed a ride?”
“Yeah. Why not?”
“I don’t know…”
“Well, okay, why do you think I’m here?
“Honestly?”
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