Joe's Black T-Shirt (15 page)

“What do you do now?” I asked him.

“Don’t know. Can’t really do much of anything except wait for the results back from the clinic. She named me and another guy as being possibles. I wasn’t going to do it, let them test my DNA, but Little Lisa was out of her mind for it. Said if I didn’t, the case worker would have a fit and her benefits would be less and a whole bunch of other shit that made me wish to God I never did it with her.”

“Do you think it’s you?”

“Knowing my dumb luck, probably.”

“Maybe you’ll get lucky.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

We walked the last few blocks home and my shirt clung to my skin with perspiration. I licked at the droplets of sweat around my mouth aching for a drink. My hands trembled and I was suddenly cold, the first sure signs of heat exhaustion. To me it was a badge of honor to push myself so hard, to test my limits in a vain effort to raise them higher. I figured what didn’t kill me made me stronger. No pain, no gain was my motto. In hindsight, it was just plain stupid.

I found instant comfort when my house came into view. In a moment I would be rinsing off under a cold water shower. After my outer cool down, I would replenish internally with junk food, pot, and cigarettes.

“You gonna’ be okay?” I asked him.

“Yeah,” he said, “it is what it is.”

“I hope you luck out man.”

“Me too,” he said but we both already knew.

Little Lisa sat on the stairs at Danny’s house, crying.

###

No More Bets

Kenneth and James sat on skinny barstools with chrome legs and sparkling plastic seats. For a Wednesday morning, the Hard Times lounge was quiet. Except for the bartender and the sleeper in the men’s room, the place was theirs.

It had been an unusually successful morning. James had struck gold at the bottom of Highway Forty. Holding a piece of stained cardboard, especially careful to write ‘God Bless You’ at the bottom in letters bigger than the rest, a Hummer had stopped. The driver handed him a fifty.

Kenneth saw James hoofing it, honked, and offered him a ride. He had dropped his mother off at work and had time to kill. Mutually they decided James’ good fortune would be best spent on whiskey. The gross amount afforded them the luxury to drink as gentlemen, not as bums from paper-bags.

“It’s an easy score, man,” Kenneth said, knocking back his second shot of bourbon.

“No such thing,” James said.

They had bought a pitcher of draft beer. Generously filling their mugs, careless about foam or spilling, they upheld the bars’ theme:
The Hard Times Lounge. Where good times begin.

“We go in on a Saturday. Ain’t nobody there. Shit, ain’t so much as a camera to watch us,” Kenneth said

“No cameras,” James agreed, “but what about guards?”

“Like I said, man, it’s Saturday. Building is shut down.”

“Then how the fuck do you plan on getting in?” Refreshing his beer, he wished Kenneth would shut-up about it. “The police are lazy, but they ain’t stupid. I would think two fuck-ups carrying computers through a broken glass window might even get those fat bastards to stop.”

“We ain’t gonna’ need to break nothing.”

“I suppose you have a key?”

“No, but I’ve been watching this place. I’ve got it worked out. What I need now is a stand-up guy to do this shit with.”

James held up two fingers. The bartender automatically filled two shot glasses with the bottom shelf bourbon. James peeled off a five, handing it over, refusing the fifty-cent change back. The bartender acknowledged the meager tip with a nod, before he returned his attention to the sports page. The Rams were a joke this year, breaking his heart, and emptying his wallet.

“I don’t know. I’ve heard a lot of these ‘easy money’ ideas in my life. So far, every guy winds up in the hole.”

“That’s ‘cause they were stupid. Too fast and too greedy for their own good. Like I said, I’ve got it worked out.”

“What the hell does that mean?” James asked. He regretted his curiosity as he wiped the foam from his mustache.

“Inside that building, all the way in the back is the film library. You come in, sign a log, and go back passing by all these fancy offices.”

“You want to rip off the library?”

“No. I want to steal the office next to it blind.”

“Sounds iffy to me.”

“I’ve already done a practice job.”

James choked slightly in mid-swallow. In their business of living hand-to-mouth, there was no practice. Trial and error was their teacher.

Kenneth sat straight, grinning smugly at having stumped his pal.

“You have got to be shitting me,” James said. Holding up two fingers again, he peeled off another five.

“I got the idea about six months ago,” Kenneth whispered as if someone might overhear. “I was standing in the film library, checking out the cartoon DVDs. Except for the jerk behind the counter unpacking delivery, ain’t nobody else around. I heard somebody say something and at first I thought it was the library guy, but shit he’s busier than a man at the gates of hell selling bibles, so I know it wasn’t him. Then I heard some laughter and some more talking. It was coming through the wall. Tapping a little here, a little there, the wall separating the film library and the business next door can’t be more than foot thick. Wouldn’t take nothing more than a recip saw to tear open a hole a truck could drive through.”

“Why not use the door?”

“It’s got a motion sensor attached. Saw it when I pretended to get lost looking for the library.”

“Ain’t the library got one too?”

“They got shit. A push bar with a built in alarm. Goddamn thing ain’t connected to nothing ‘cept a nine-volt battery.”

“No shit?”

“No shit. So that got me thinking,” Kenneth said, “how do I get inside. I tried the front door. Used a crow bar on that son of a bitch for an hour. It was useless. Damn door is sealed by a magnetic lock. Couldn’t go in that way without making a real mess. Then I tried a side door where everybody is forced to go smoke, same deal. Now at this point, I’m thinking fuck it, I’m going home when I see two garage doors. I’m standing there with my jimmy tool in my hand at two in the morning when the exit door starts to go up. Shit, man, I froze up like a statue. I thought my ass was grass.”

The bartender ignored James’ two-fingered request, as he talked as into the phone behind the bar. It didn’t take a lip reader to see he was about to waste another three bills on the Rams.

“Then this little silver number comes whipping out. Never saw me. The garage door still hanging open, I walked in. I opened the first door I came to and, presto baby, I was in the building. I went straight to the film library, ready to haul ass if the alarm went off. When it didn’t so much as peep, I could’ve died.”

The bartender set another two shots down and grabbed the five. He reassured himself with all the reasons the team could win this Sunday, at the very least beat the nine-point spread he locked in with his bookie, as he separated his tip from the till.

“The room was mine. I stuffed my coat pockets with movies, then went to leave. When I turned that handle, I couldn’t believe it.”

“What?” James asked.

“The goddamn door was locked from the inside.”

“Holy shit!”

“Tell me about it. I yanked and pulled on that motherfucker, but it was tight. There wasn’t a gap big enough for my tool much less a stick of gum. Walking around the room, I started trying the doors. Gotta be a fucking door every six foot and every one locked. The last door had a panic bar with big letters ‘EMERGENCY EXIT ONLY’ above the handle. Turned out to be another white elephant.”

“Unbelievable,” James said. The story beat the one channel TV above the bar, and Kenneth’s company was far better than drinking alone.

“I walked down the stairwell until I was right back where I started. Walking back to the garage exit, it hadn’t occurred to me how the hell I was gonna get out of there. I figured maybe there was a pressure plate or an electric eye that popped the garage door open when I saw it.”

A new pitcher of beer replaced the empty. The bartender, primed by James’ regular tipping, made sure to give them new frost covered mugs before leaving the bar to wipe off tables.

“A big red button like on that game show with the whammys. All I did was push it, and ‘open sesame’, the thing went up. I was amazed it was so simple. Finally, I went to my van and got the fuck out of there before somebody got nosy.”

James sipped his beer. The buzz from the alcohol mixed well with the story. Definitely, not the first incredible tale told at this shellacked counter, certain not to be the last. First, the windfall from the guilt-laden yuppie, now this. James had read his horoscope this morning before he started his work. The psychic had proclaimed this to be his lucky day. He generally didn’t lend any credence to such nonsense. He read it for laughs. This, however, was too good to be true.

“So, what’s the plan?” James asked.

***

December twenty-third and the streets were deserted. A front had moved in bringing bitter cold and single-digit temperatures. Kenneth sat on a piece of cardboard near the garage door, drawing no suspicion from the occasional police cruiser. The bored cops didn’t see anything but another bum. He was frozen to the bone, yet watched the door with the vigilance of a mother over a sick child. James sat ready in the van, waiting for Kenneth to make his move.

They had made a connection with a fence. He promised seventy per hard drive, twenty-five per monitor, if they were flat-screens, and a willingness to take any miscellaneous items if they were electronic. The way the world was heading, every damn thing worth taking had a computer chip. This haul should be enough to put him on fat street for awhile. He could buy some gifts, even if it would be after Christmas. It would be more than enough to see him through to the spring thaw. After that, he had no solid career plans besides stealing copper from foreclosed homes. It wouldn’t pay off anything like this, but opportunities like these were practically one in a million.

Kenneth stood up as if an electric jolt shot through him. He floated backwards into the darkness like a diver going underwater.

James watched, as a crack of light grew larger. A Hummer, a duplicate of the one from the off-ramp, leisurely drove out. The driver, busy with his cigar, CD player, and his cell phone, never saw Kenneth walk into the garage.

The door closed and for a moment James thought about leaving. It wasn’t too late. As he put his hand on the door handle, needing to merely decide in which direction he would go, the garage door rose open again.

Kenneth stood, posed with his hands crossed over his chest.

James moved his hand from the door back to the steering wheel, gently put the transmission into drive, and steered the van through the open garage door.

***

They sat in the cab of the parked van, sharing a cigarette. Mainly, Kenneth needed to get warm again. He had been almost ready to give up after three hours crouching on the piss and spit stained concrete.

James wished he had remembered to bring a pint, something to calm his nerves, but glad he hadn’t. He needed a stone cold sober mind to do this work. When this was all done, he promised himself a case of top shelf whiskey and week in a hotel. It was akin to the promise given to those raghead assholes, the one that guaranteed seventy virgins in heaven. The difference was his chances living through this experience were far better than Abdul’s.

Kenneth took the last drag from the cigarette and rubbed his hands together. “Let’s go to work.”

James carried a fifty-foot, orange extension cord; a reciprocating saw; a can of red spray paint; and a three-pound sledge. Kenneth, who walked with no urgency, led the way comfortable as a man in his own home, James hoped his friend was right. The last thing he needed was to go back to the joint. A felony B&E was a mandatory five years in Jeff City with guys who had nothing to do all day but beat the fuck out of guys like him.

They used the stairs to get to the first floor ignoring the beautiful, all-glass elevators.

The elevators reminded James of the extravagant hotel in Kansas City where he had honeymooned with his ex-wife. He had almost gotten into a fistfight with the manager over the bill. Seemed an unreasonable cost to him for what amounted to nothing more than a bed and a toilet. Pamela, the ex, got him to pay the bill and apologized to the queer like he had shit in the hotel swimming pool. That should have told him what life was going to be like married to her. Unfortunately for Pamela, it took another five years before she realized he couldn’t change. Last he heard she had went out to Vegas to deal Tarot cards.

They passed the men’s room and followed the signs to the library. Kenneth pointed to the office door behind where their score laid. The slim glass pane in the door offered no insight, and they moved down to the library’s door.

The plain brown handle looked formidable. A lock was built into it presumably to arm its hidden siren that would announce a trespasser with a shrill whistle.

“Here goes nothing,” Kenneth said.

If the damn thing sounded, it was James job to smash it to bits with the sledge.

The clack of the door’s lock released and, as before, the alarm failed to work. It was nice to see such consistency so early into the job. It was a matter of time now before they would get paid.