Chop Shop

by Andrew Post

  “I thought I was here so we could do business.”

  “Hold on. Let’s finish this. I was getting somewhere. You’re pissed off – on my behalf – because the air conditioner only comes on when my wife is home. You believe me, your friend, is being stiffed on the deal or neutered somehow. I got my home-life shit handled, brother. I don’t need you to get riled for me, seeing me as some victim. I do appreciate the concern, even if it is coming from you projecting your ass off.”

  “All I meant was—”

  “Let’s not do that shit, man. It’s too early for it.”

  “You fucking brought it up,” Frank said.

  “I did. But now I’m bringing it back down. Kelly Ripa is still talking in the other room. Minute her fine ass leaves my TV screen then we can talk about shit like that, if we must. Bad for digestion. And would you mind taking those off? It’s disrespectful.”

  “I thought that ‘a man’s house is his castle’ bullshit didn’t fly here,” Frank said, pulling off his shades again and setting them aside. He wanted another smoke already.

  “It doesn’t. Not with me and not with my wife, but I’m asking you to be polite to me, in my home, because that’s just a plain matter of respect, man to man. But let’s go back a second. I was getting to my point.”

  “Were you?”

  Ted sat forward, broad shoulders settling over his elbows. Frank, instinctively, sat back. Ted may’ve noticed this shift in body language, or maybe not – he still grinned for a second before speaking.

  “You gotta let all that shit go, man,” Ted said. “That old life, that old you? He gone. That life is gone, wherever it was headed ain’t where you is heading now. You’re starting from the ground up. And, so far, I think you’re doing a bang-up job, if you don’t mind your old buddy giving you an assessment like that – that and I think one man complimenting another, on anything, is uncomfortable as fuck. But, to my point, I think you trying to make your old self cut alimony to the you now on account of you having gotten accustomed to a certain standard of living. And that, without a single solitary doubt, is what’s gonna fuck you up faster than anything. You liked eating out every night. Who don’t? You liked driving a nice car, seeing people at the light rubberneck at you in their shitty rust-eaten beaters all green-eyed full of envy and shit. Again, who don’t? You liked going to the golf course gabbing about whatever white guys talk about – yogurt and camping or whatever. But that asshole fucked up, hard, and he, far as the you now should be concerned, is dead as fuck. The you now has to be realistic. And though it may stick it up your ego’s ass a way that ain’t particularly pleasant, it’s what has to happen. I’m just saying this to you because I wanna continue to do business with you, man, and see to it we both have long, long, long, successful careers.”

  Frank stared at Ted. “You finished?”

  Ted laughed. “Fuck you, man.”

  “Look,” Frank said, taking his turn to lean forward on his elbows, “I went from pulling in a shit-ton of money every year to having no medical license, a huge red stamp on my permanent record that says felon, and having to work at a fucking grocery store for something to put down on taxes. But I think, if I may say so, I’m doing pretty well – relatively speaking.”

  “Work-wise, sure, relatively speaking,” Ted said. “But I think you’re not transitioning very well into this life – or even trying that hard to. Not as far as the important shit is concerned, anyway. But I get it, you’re white and you come from money. Which is now all gone, yours and your daddy’s, but look at it this way: if you didn’t have that, your ass would still be sitting in prison. You’re out, you’re free, you’re not sharing a cell with some gangbanger who sold his soul before the pacifier came out his mouth. Unlike a fuck-ton of brothers I know, you got a second chance.”

  “Fine, fuck it, okay?” Frank threw up his hands. “You’re right, Ted, I’m out of prison and I should be clicking my fucking heels. It doesn’t mean my prospects are all that great.”

  “Not to be a dick—”

  “Here it comes.”

  “—but you only owe all of this, your station in life now, to yourself. Nobody else. Not a solitary fucking soul asked you to do what you were doing or twisted your arm to do it. Ain’t nobody was breathing down your neck or putting the squeeze on you. It was you. That was your stupid idea to start doing that shit you were doing and it was you who got caught red-handed doing it.”

  “You don’t think I know that?”

  “I don’t think you do, no. You wanna blame somebody, I know that for fucking goddamn sure. And for whatever reason you come in here with all this fire behind your eyes after I made you breakfast, gave you some of my coffee, and continued to put up with your fucking shitty attitude this early in the fucking day. You’re lucky to have me in your corner, Frank. Because without me, where would you be? Huh?”

  “All hail Ted, patron saint to fuck-ups.” Frank feigned a deep bow.

  “Damn straight. But since I’m just that much of a friendly motherfucker, I’m gonna do something extra special nice, as a friend, for you, right now. The morning is usually my time. I sit out back, have my coffee, read the news, after which I come in, take a shit, start the laundry, and put on another pot of coffee while I’m filling orders on the laptop. But because I am that aforementioned friendly motherfucker, I’m going to allow you some of that time to get shit off your chest. Because I don’t believe anyone else has offered you the opportunity. And, just so we’re clear, this is a thing I do not allow any other motherfucker to do in my home. Get your own shit straight, I usually say. But, since you are among my oldest of friends, and we are set to make each other some money, that inclines me to be a touch more generous and hospitable with you. So, with that said, please, I implore you: unfurl that shit you’re holding on to and give it its much-needed air.”

  Frank blinked. “What exactly are you asking me to do here?”

  “I’m asking,” Ted said, “that before we get down to business – which requires a clear head – you vent. In this household, we share our feelings. We get shit off our chests. We do not bottle things up. We do not bury them neither, only to let them fucking fester and poison the groundwater and kill every other damn thing around them. Which, in the ecosystem that is Frank Goode, includes me. I don’t want my grass to go yellow. I work hard on my lawn. So, tell me, what do you miss most about the old life? And don’t say surface shit like your fucking office chair or the few fucking coworkers you happened to actually enjoy the company of and talked about whatever was on HBO last night with. I mean the life, what do you miss about the life? Big picture.”

  “Like work itself or…?”

  “Whatever comes to mind first.” Ted stood and brought the coffeepot over to the table, filled both their cups, and sat again. “Speak it. I’m here all ears. Think of this kitchen as your confessional, brother. Divulge, disclose, confess.”

  Frank sat back and folded his arms. He didn’t have to think too hard.

  “Honestly,” he said, “it’s having to worry about the equipment so much now. At the clinic, I never had to use the same scalpel twice. I don’t even know what happened to them, if it was one and done or if they actually disinfected anything or just chucked them in the trash. Now, I obsess over my tools. Keep everything sharp, use the disinfecting oven you got me from when that tattoo shop went under.”

  “I recall it,” Ted said, nodded. “Continue.”

  “And I guess it’s all right, this way,” Frank said. “Makes me appreciate what I have. I miss being able to just throw something down on the pan and let it be someone else’s concern. I worry about keeping my O.R. clean, which was never my job at the old O.R. It’s sort of like I’m the doc in some Western movie, one all-purpose room ready for whatever walks in bleeding.”

  “You sound like you like it this way.”

  “Well, it’s mine. I have total ownership over it.
I just wish I’d found something else for the on-the-books job than the grocery store. My boss just turned twenty, if you can believe it. Not old enough to drink yet, but he sure can tell me, somebody twenty-three years his senior, when I need to tuck in my shirt.”

  “You’ll get there. Just gotta let word of mouth do its thing. I tell people about you. My cousin, who still runs with a crew. I guess they just do clean work since they never need a slug tweezed out of their asses.”

  “I hate wishing for more work now – even though putting food on the table depends on it.”

  “Why?”

  “I never used to think about it at the clinic – people just came in and we treated them as we could – but I never stopped to think that our livelihoods depended entirely on the imperfect design of the human body. If it wasn’t for shit failing inside them, I’d have nothing to do. And now, when I hope for more work, I’m hoping for suffering.”

  “Suffering that you get to fix,” Ted said. “And I get to help keep you stocked up with supplies to make sure you can fix said suffering. We’re doing good work, man. I don’t think you see that. That whole shit about pre-existing conditions was one of the best things to happen to us.”

  Frank stared somewhere over Ted’s right shoulder, lost in thought. “I didn’t really care what was wrong with them when they came in. I just looked at them like problems that needed solving.” Frank blinked, focusing again. “You get perspective on somebody’s troubles when they’re sleeping on your couch screaming ‘Don’t shoot me!’ in the middle of the night.”

  “You were numb to it. Nothing wrong with feeling shit, even if you’re just starting out now. Death is inevitable, for all of us, but it gives contrast to being alive, man. There’s an ending we’re all trying to stay ahead of.”

  Both men were quiet for a moment – the kind of quiet talking about death will often inspire, as all present minds wonder about how they will go, and when, and why, and what they’ll leave behind other than a slab of rock with their name (hopefully spelled right) chiseled into it.

  “You want some more coffee?” Ted said.

  “I’m good. Think I might step out for a smoke though.”

  “I’ll join you.”

  They stood out on the back porch, the morning sun warming their faces. Frank offered Ted the pack.

  “Naw, I just meant I’d stand with you while you blackened your lungs. I had my breakfast smoke before you got here. Would’ve been happy to join you if you’d got here on time.”

  “Eventful morning.” Frank added, “Not that I’m suggesting we return to that topic.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I made my point.” Ted, careful of his back, sat on the porch swing. He rocked lazily forward and back, pushing off with one sandaled foot, slow and easy. “So, that all you miss?”

  “Pretty much. Other than the obvious stuff, like Rachel and Jess. But that’s sort of unrelated.”

  “They’re part of it, the old life, sure. You had them when you were still practicing – legally, that is.”

  “Barely. I mean, I had Jess. But Rachel was halfway to the door, even then. Me getting sentenced just gave her that last shove.”

  “Say, have you two got that custody bullshit squared yet? I remember last time you were by you said something about a hearing.”

  “We haven’t had it yet. We talk to a judge next month.”

  “How old’s your girl now?”

  “Sixteen. Seventeen in November.”

  “Goddamn.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Where does the time go? So, wait, she don’t have any say who she stays with?”

  “No.”

  “On account of you being an ex-con and all, huh?”

  “Exactly.”

  “So you can’t see her till y’all talk with the judge, at all?”

  “I can see her. She works up at the Dairy Queen in the Mall of America. I swing by once in a while. Rachel doesn’t know. She only lets the ‘official visits’ happen because it’s court ordered and even then she makes it sound like she only lets me come over when she feels like I’m allowed, or deserve to or whatever. She knows it kills me.” Frank flicked the gray ashes from his smoke over the porch railing to the green, green grass below. “I wanna call her heartless for it, but maybe I do deserve it. I can’t imagine what Jess hears at school. Word travels. Couple of her friends’ parents work at the clinic.”

  “What’s that thing about ‘sins of the father’ or whatever?”

  “Gee, thanks. That makes me feel real good, Ted. I appreciate your kind heart so very much.”

  “No, I just meant—” Ted started, laughed. “My bad. I take that back. But, hey, you did your time, right? Repaid your debt to society and all that. Breaking rocks in the hot sun, you fought the law and the law won?”

  “You think teenagers give a shit about that? They just know Jessica Goode’s dad did two years in prison. Some probably know more details than that; fucking clinic was about as bad as high school, all that gossip and shit-slinging everybody did.”

  “Fuck it. Fuck what kids say to other fucking kids. Doesn’t mean nothing anyway. It’s all Minecraft and fucking Littlest Petshop anyhow.”

  “For yours now it might be just toys and video games, but the twins are both in kindergarten. Just wait until they’re in high school, man,” Frank said. “Then shit, for the parents, gets real interesting. Boys and drugs and worrying some little bitch is going to put a picture of your kid on the internet – something that’ll come back to bite your kid in the ass when she’s applying for a job somewhere.”

  “Sure glad we didn’t have the internet in school. Some of the shit we did, man? Yikes.”

  Frank drew in a deep breath, put his cigarette butt in the planter with the other he’d put there already, and sighed. “Mind if we get down to business?”

  “Soon as you take those cigarette butts you’re cramming in my wife’s hydrangeas and walk them over to the garbage can by the garage there, sure.”

  Frank put his butts where they belonged and stepped back up onto the porch. “Care if we talk out here?”

  “Not at all. So, what do you need?”

  “You’re not going to write this down?”

  “Should I?”

  “Busy weekend. Supplies got nearly wiped out. Used my last pair of latex gloves this morning. I also need about ten of the STD test kits.”

  “Ten?”

  “The more hypochondriac-prone girls are seeing me twice a week.”

  “All right, ten blood-test kits, latex gloves. Fuck it, gimme a sec, I’ll get a pen and paper.”

  Lighting another cigarette, Frank stood at the top of the stairs overlooking the yard. He could hear the highway from here, the low hum of commuters heading off to jobs they may or may not like, but most, if not all, were upstanding, over-the-table occupations, clean. He was here, when he should be at an office, feeling expelled from the great flow of having normal, upstanding purpose. The kind he could tell his kids about, brag about at dinner parties. Not anymore. But that was fine. He was rebuilding things, one day at a time. One pregnant prostitute who paid in food stamps. Or working bullets out of some kid’s leg who couldn’t have been a day older than Frank’s daughter. But he was saving lives. And even if it wasn’t work approved by the American Medical Association, he was doing what Frank felt he was meant to do.

  The five grand he’d gotten this morning got cut in half but his truck was filled with gloves, various antibiotics and painkillers, IV tubing, bags, a new set of clamps, ten blood-test kits. You’ve got to spend money to make money.

  With his Lexus’s AC at full blast, windows up, Frank sat at a red light, smoked, drummed his fingers on the wheel, and waited.

  This particular light always felt like it took longer to change than any other in town, so he had time to look around.

  He
used to drive this way to the clinic. Now, the only time he crossed through here was to go see Ted. So many things had changed, businesses had opened or closed, entire buildings gone and replaced with new, shinier ones.

  He felt relatively the same, as a person, but his world, in a blink, had shifted. He adjusted the mirror to look at himself. He’d only had a little gray when he was sentenced. Now he looked like his dad. The stress of it all, he guessed, bleaching him from the inside. Maybe he had changed. But on good days, though they were few and far between now, inside, he felt fifteen still – until he looked in the mirror and was a little surprised, each and every time, that he sure as hell wasn’t.

  His phone thrummed in his pocket. It wasn’t a number he recognized, so he let it go to voicemail, not in the mood to have anything threaten his mood, which was approaching what resembled feeling good now that his inventory situation was figured out. He had the day off from the grocery store too. No stocking fruits and vegetables only to return home with an aching back and a want to strangle his prepubescent manager to death and leave him lying among the expired bananas. Not today. Today was his.

  The light changed and Frank went another block and stopped again at the next light – he always hated this stretch of town for this exact reason, all stop and go. He’d forgotten all about the caller when his phone beeped the voicemail beep.

  He turned down the gale-force winds of the AC, watching for the light to change through his dark sunglasses.

  Fuck. He couldn’t not know. He brought the phone to his ear.

  “I don’t know if you remember me,” the voice said, “but we bunked together a couple years back and you told me what you do and I thought maybe you still, you know, do some medical shit now you’re out. See, thing is, I’ve got my cousin in the car and he’s, well, he’s fucked up real bad. I hope you’re home, dude.”

  Hands and scalp going tingly, Frank rushed to call him back. He remembered the guy’s voice but not his name. Young guy, young voice with just a drip of an Eastern European accent.