Easy Street

by Jeff Ross

  “You mean you’re leaving again?”

  “The last time I left, it wasn’t my choice,” Adam said. He took a swig from whatever he’d been drinking. “This time it will be.”

  “You’re just going to leave us again?” I repeated.

  “You can come with me.”

  “What kind of plan is that?” I asked. “Where do you think you can go on three thousand dollars?”

  “It’s a start, Rob,” he said. “I have to be somewhere else.”

  “So that’s how you’re going to spend the rest of your life? Running from place to place whenever things get too difficult?” I think my anger surprised him. But then, he didn’t know everything I had been through. How could he?

  “What are you getting all bent out of shape for, Rob?”

  “It was your stupidity that got you into jail last time,” I said. “Trying to be the man or whatever was going on there. Do you know how hard it was on Mom, having a son in jail? Never knowing what was going to happen to him?” Adam looked away, but I wasn’t going to let him off the hook. “And me. I had a brother, and then I didn’t.”

  “I’m still here,” Adam said weakly.

  “But you weren’t. And now you’re going to leave again.” We had to yell our conversation over the beats. A couple of guys who had been sitting near us had left. We were virtually alone in a little corner of the bar. The crowd was cheering for the DJ.

  “If I learned one thing in prison, Rob,” Adam said, “it’s that you have to be your own man. You have to think for yourself. And you have to do what is right for you.”

  “That’s great. Forget about your family, your friends—just look out for number one. Great lesson.” I was pissed, but I also understood that there was no way I was going to change Adam’s mind. He was going to do this. I checked my phone. My set would start soon.

  “I’m not supposed to go back there until just before six,” Adam said. “They shut the doors at six thirty and then the bouncer takes the last of the money back to the office. There should be piles of it.”

  “I don’t care what you’re going to do,” I said.

  “This doesn’t have anything to do with you, Rob!” Adam yelled.

  “It has everything to do with me, Adam. But you go ahead and just think about yourself.” I stood and took one step toward the booth. He grabbed my arm. He looked me in the eye. I remembered all the times that he had been there for me. Beating up bullies at school, talking me through things when Dad left, answering my never-ending questions. Just being there. And now here he was, deciding again not to be there.

  “Don’t screw this up for me, Rob,” he said.

  I shook off his arm and stormed up to the booth.

  Chapter Ten

  Nobody wants hard, heavy beats at five o’clock in the morning. Or, at least, those who do are generally not welcome in a club at that time. Mine was the first “chill” set. Music designed to slow everyone down. To ease into morning. The thing with people who enjoy this kind of music, these kinds of clubs, is that they hold on to their desires for an entire week before letting loose for one night. So they make the most of it.

  I wasn’t surprised to see the crowd thinning slightly and then, as I stepped into the DJ booth, begin to grow again. Most clubs close around four a.m. But the odd club, like this one, runs until daylight and beyond.

  I started out with one of my favorite old chill tunes from Orbital. I could have let that dreamy track play for its full ten minutes. I figured everyone in the crowd would have been absolutely fine with it. Instead, after two minutes I began looping other tracks over it. I fed songs in and out of the mix, moving the jittery beat forward and back until it began to sound as though every song was this one song. It was a trick I’d picked up years before, and it took me as close as I could ever get to actually making my own music.

  The DJ booth sat high in one corner of the club, giving an incredible view of the crowd. I kept the lights flashing in subdued tones but bright enough that the entire club floor was lit every few seconds. The dancers looked as though they were jumping through time, their movements quick yet blurred.

  As I was turning up the treble, I noticed more people coming in the door. A group of girls, a couple of guys who looked as though they’d had a very, very long night already, then Ben. He was with two other guys. I couldn’t be certain, but they looked like the guys I’d seen in the grow op.

  I thought I remembered Ben saying he couldn’t be seen in this club. But there he was, shaking hands with the bouncer. Then, very quickly, the four of them moved along the wall, behind the bar and through the door near the green room.

  I leaned over the console, looking for Adam. Hoping he’d just seen what I had. He was close to the booth, lazily drifting back and forth. There was no way he would have seen Ben and the other guys come in. Not from where he was. Unless you were at the front door or where I was, up high in the booth, it would have been impossible to see them enter.

  I kept mixing, trying to figure out what I should do. Why were they here?

  Ben exited the back room first. He was carrying a full-looking backpack. The other two guys followed, carrying backpacks too. They all hurried out the door, and the bouncer held it open for them. Only one of the bouncers was at the door. I scanned the room, looking for the other one. I spotted him lounging on a couch, surrounded by a small group of people. He was laughing and talking animatedly. I watched as he pulled his phone from his pocket, looked at it and stood up. He returned to the door.

  In a flash, it all began to make sense to me. The way Ben had been so quick to set us up with this “opportunity.” The way he had rushed us from the grow op. He had told us they wanted to start a different business. That this was all Robin Hood stuff. Stealing from the rich, giving to the poor. He’d made all the right sounds, but his actions weren’t adding up.

  I mixed a track that would run to the end of my time and, thankfully, found the next DJ mounting the stairs. “Want that to run out?” I asked. “Or stop it?”

  The guy barely looked at me. “I’ll deal with it.” He held a fist out, and I gave it a bump. “That was a sweet set. Very chill.”

  “Thanks.” I darted down the stairs, looking in both directions for Adam. He wasn’t where he’d been. Nor was he at the bar. I spun around, trying to locate him. Then I zeroed in on the door to the green room just in time to watch it closing behind my brother.

  Chapter Eleven

  Adam was in front of the little fridge when I ran in.

  “It’s a setup, Adam,” I said.

  He turned and looked at me. He seemed confused. “Shut up, Rob.”

  “I just saw Ben and those two other guys from the grow up leave the club with full backpacks.”

  “So what?”

  “Ben said they couldn’t come in here. That they were banned or something. Which was why we had to do this. But they were just here with one of the bouncers.”

  Adam moved to the door that separated the green room from the office. The backpack he’d been given, almost identical to the ones I had just watched Ben and his friends leave with, was slung over his shoulders.

  It struck me that if there actually was fifteen thousand dollars in five-dollar bills, a single backpack couldn’t possibly hold it all. All three of those other guys had been carrying backpacks, and they’d all looked very, very full.

  “It’s not a setup,” he said. “I just watched the bouncer come in here with a lockbox.”

  “I don’t know how it’s a setup, but it is. I swear to you it is. How would you even fit fifteen thousand dollars in there?” I said, pointing at the backpack.

  “There’ll be other bags in there. How else would they get it all out?”

  “Think about fifteen thousand dollars, Adam. Even in hundreds, it wouldn’t fit in three of those bags.” I thought of the last guy leaving the club, two backpacks on him. One slung over each shoulder.

  “Rob, I need this capital. There’s a lot you’re not getting here.
” He closed his eyes and then opened them again. “Aren’t you still supposed to be DJing?”

  “I’m done,” I said.

  “You’re screwing everything up. Just go. Go out the front. Wait for me at the car.”

  “No,” I said. “It’s a setup, Adam.”

  “Saying it over and over again doesn’t make it any more true.”

  “I know it is.” My throat got itchy and raw. I was suddenly sniffling. I pulled my sleeve across my eyes. “You’re going to end up back in prison.”

  “I’m not. You’re wrong. I’m getting out of here.”

  I took a step toward him. “I forgive you for what happened,” I said.

  Adam froze.

  “All the time we lost together. All the times I really needed a brother. But if you do this, I won’t forgive you again. You’re being set up. And even if you aren’t, it’s not right. It’s not the way to turn things around.”

  He stood there staring at me. His hand on the door handle.

  “I swear, Adam, you’ll be dead to me if you go in there.”

  He kept staring. I had no idea what was going through his head right then. What he was contemplating. But after a few seconds he let go of the handle.

  “We’ll talk to Ben,” he said. “Tell him this was just to scope things out. We can do it next week.”

  “We’re not doing it,” I said.

  “If it’s a setup, Rob, then we’ll know. Right? We’ll know right away. Then we can talk about it.”

  It was all he had to offer, so I had to take it. “Let’s get out of here,” I said.

  As we turned, DJ Virtu came through the door. She seemed surprised to see us standing there. “What are you two still doing back here?” she asked.

  Adam held up the water bottle. “Grabbing a drink before we go,” he said.

  DJ Virtu tilted her head to one side. I could see she was looking at the door to the office. “Anyone in there?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” I replied. “Isn’t it, like, a storage space or something?”

  “It’s the office,” she said, crossing the room. As she reached for the door handle, Adam and I left the green room. “Where are you two going?” she called.

  “My set is done,” I called back. “We’re out of here.”

  “What were you doing in here?” DJ Virtu asked. “Rob, what were you doing in here?”

  I froze at the sound of my name. I hadn’t told her my name. All I’d said was that I was pretending to be DJ Oaklay. Nothing else.

  “How do you know my name?” I asked. Adam was a couple steps ahead of me. He stopped.

  “You told me,” she said.

  “No I didn’t.” And even though I wasn’t certain of much at this moment, I was sure of that. I remembered the conversation perfectly. “I never told you my name.”

  She slammed the door shut and followed us out of the green room. “You were doing something in the office,” she said. “I know you were.”

  “I thought that was a storage room,” I said. “Like I told you.”

  She scrunched up her face and grabbed my arm.

  “I know you were doing something. You were—”

  But she never got the chance to finish because the room suddenly filled with light and the music ground to a halt.

  Chapter Twelve

  “Sorry, everyone. This is Jared, the manager here.” Everyone looked toward the DJ booth, where the manager was speaking into the microphone. “There have been some difficulties, and we’re going to have to close early. Please move to the exit doors in as orderly a fashion as possible.” He must have realized he sounded too official because he followed this up with, “Feels like a school fire drill, doesn’t it? Our bouncers will give you a card on your way out. You can use it for one free entry at any time.” This seemed to get people moving.

  DJ Virtu let go of my arm and stepped back into the green room. Adam and I joined the line of people heading toward the door. I watched as the bouncer handed out cards. He kept looking up, scanning the people coming toward him.

  “What do you think this is about?” Adam asked.

  “I don’t even have to guess,” I replied. It was all clicking into place. We were being played. I figured Ben, or whatever his name was, had asked his buddy in jail for the name of someone who was going to be released soon. Someone he could easily hang a theft like this on. Then he’d made a deal with the bouncer and the other two guys. Which meant they would have left some of the money in the office. Not much, but it would look like a lot. Adam wasn’t dumb, but he would have grabbed whatever he could when he got in there, that much I knew. Which would have been exactly what those guys were expecting. I bet there wasn’t even a DJ Oaklay who suddenly couldn’t play that night.

  Which meant DJ Virtu had been in on it as well.

  “Why do you have a pack?” the bouncer asked as we stepped up in front of him.

  “He brought some records,” Adam said, pointing at me.

  “Where are the records now?”

  “Up in the booth,” I said. “I didn’t know there weren’t real turntables here.”

  “What’s in the pack?” The bouncer I’d seen go into the office with Ben and his buddies was suddenly beside us. He grabbed the pack and ripped it open.

  “Like I was just saying,” Adam said, “there were records in it. Now it’s empty.”

  “Records?” the bouncer said. He looked baffled. The line had come to a complete halt.

  Jared was suddenly behind us. “What’s the holdup?”

  “This guy has a backpack,” the bouncer said. His face had gone white, his eyes wide.

  “And what’s in it?” Jared asked.

  Adam took his pack back from the bouncer. “Nothing. Like I just told your bouncer, it had records in it. But you don’t have real turntables here.”

  Jared laughed. “Who uses real turntables anymore?”

  “I guess no one,” Adam said. He zipped up the pack.

  Jared looked at the bouncers. “Find anything yet?”

  The bouncers shook their heads.

  “Keep looking.”

  The bouncers separated so we could get past, and a moment later we were out on the street.

  It’s always strange coming out of a dark club and into daylight. The light seems that much more bright. The breeze that much cooler. The street noise dulled.

  We walked to the car and got in. Adam sat for a while, staring straight ahead. We could see the club from where we were. People were exiting and being shocked by the brightness of daylight. It was almost comical.

  I didn’t say anything to Adam. I just let him sit there and think. Then I noticed something I hadn’t before. Something we really should have seen earlier, but in our hurry to get inside just didn’t see.

  “Look at the side of the building,” I said.

  Adam shook his head as if to clear it and then looked to where I was pointing. “Yeah, what about it?”

  “Notice anything?”

  “Like what?” The alley had garbage bins, a couple of old bikes and some exhaust pipes for air conditioning. But something was missing.

  “No exit doors,” I said.

  Adam looked closer. “Holy shit.”

  “It was a setup,” I said, but with absolutely no satisfaction.

  “It was,” Adam replied. He started the car, but before he put it into Drive he glanced at me. “Thanks,” he said.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Someone has to look after you.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  We stopped at the college on the way out of town. There weren’t many people around, but we found all the program information we needed.

  “It’s actually pretty cool here,” Adam said. We wandered the campus before going into a café to get some coffee and something to eat. We sat outside and watched people walk past.

  Adam flipped through the program information.

  “What do you see me as?” he asked. “An electrician? A graphic designer? A hairdresser
?”

  “Did you pick up that last one by mistake?”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  “Graphic design,” I said.

  “I might do electrician. It says they offer apprenticeships. I could do that for a while and then start to think about graphic design.”

  “Probably a good idea,” I said. I looked at the brochure for the electrician program. It seemed like it would be interesting. And totally something I could see Adam doing. But it didn’t matter to me what he was doing as long as he was in school and not trying to figure out a new way to get rich quick.

  I was incredibly tired, and my stomach clenched against the coffee.

  “I have to hit the washroom,” I said, standing. Adam was still looking at the brochures. He nodded.

  The quiet and peace of the single-stall washroom was such a relief that I spent more time in there than I needed to. I threw water on my face and dried it off a couple of times. We had been so close to disaster. So close I didn’t even want to think about it.

  When I got back to the table, Adam was staring into his coffee.

  “You okay?” I asked as I sat down.

  “That was stupid,” he said. “So stupid. Why am I so stupid?”

  “You’re not,” I said.

  “Prove it.”

  “You’re sitting here, not going back to jail.”

  “That’s only because of you.”

  “You made your own choice back there. You decided not to do it.”

  He nodded but didn’t seem convinced.

  “It was close,” I said.

  “Really close. I never should have trusted Mike. He was always dodgy.” He looked up at me, his eyes bright and glistening. “I guess I wanted to believe it could be that easy.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “Maybe I should stop looking for the easy way.” I didn’t reply. “You have no idea what it’s like in prison.”

  “I don’t.”

  “You have to get hard to survive. You have to look for ways to get ahead. Just little things. An extra shift in the library or kitchen to have something to do. The right friends so you don’t always have to be looking over your shoulder. It’s so tiring, Rob.”