They start to talk among themselves.
Did you get the police record of the assault?
Why do we need that?
For evidence. To prove incompetence.
Can you leave that alone, John? Didn’t you listen to Elaine? We’re wasting time even thinking about it.
Listen to her and be pussy-whipped the way you are? No, thanks! What do you think I’m doing anyway? Sitting on my ass? Like you?
Screw you, John!
Screw you, David!
ENOUGH! Look, John. You played fast and loose with the wrong client’s money. David, we won’t stop with one brother if we see our way clear to get the other, if you get my drift. So you both need to get a grip and stop bickering. It won’t get you anywhere and you don’t need to frighten your brother. Am I making myself clear?
Mike rises, walks up to John, grabs his arm, and twists. John drops to his knees. David backs up. It is very interesting.
Now, I listened to you both. You assured me he would sign by now. It is obvious to me you don’t have the influence you think you do. It’s time for me to get involved. You need to do what I say, and stop wasting time arguing. If this doesn’t work out you are going to have much more to worry about than each other.
Capisce?
I do not know that word.
Capisce?
Mike says this again and releases John’s arm. He sits back down next to me. John and David close their mouths and nod their heads. Mike speaks in a whisper but I can hear him clearly. I feel shivers down my back.
Mike turns to me and smiles.
“Perry. I’m a financial adviser. Do you know what that is?” He leans back. “Nice couch,” he says, and pats the back. “This afghan looks homemade. It’s nice work. I have an aunt that crochets like this. Did your Gram make it? That’s her name right? Gram?”
Mike is cool. He likes Gram’s couch. He also likes Hershey’s Kisses. He is just like me except he has black hair, sunglasses, and wears polo shirts. We sit and talk while David and John look out my window and hiss at each other. They sound like hoses.
When they leave, I go back downstairs.
“Who were your visitors?” Manny asks loudly. He is so nosy.
“Visitors? What visitors?” Gary’s head lifts up.
“Probably those fucking brothers of his again,” Keith snorts. “Am I right, Per?”
“No, there was also a guy named Mike,” I say.
Gary and Keith sit with me in the back office, while Manny is in charge at the front of the store watching the register.
“You’re so suggestible, Perry.” Gary says this just like Gram used to.
“Damn right!” Keith pounds the desk with his fist. It does not scare me. Keith likes to pound tables with his hand. That is how he broke it once. His hand, not the table.
He comes over to me and says, “You have to
not
talk with your brothers or let them into your house unless one of us is around! Okay?” He holds my cheeks together just like Gram.
“They’re my cousin-brothers,” I tell him.
“Keith, you may be overreacting,” Gary says.
“And you may be fucking naive,” Keith says. He squeezes my face harder. “Just be careful, okay?”
“Okay,” I say, and laugh because he still has a hold of my face and it is hard talking through fish lips.
Gary hands me a piece of paper at the same time Keith lets go of me.
“Here, Per, I have your new phone number. It’s unlisted.”
“I don’t want a new number. I like my old one. It’s got only twos, threes, and eights.” I am upset. It takes me a long time to not forget my numbers.
“Complete strangers are calling collect and you’re accepting all the charges! The bill last month was over eight hundred dollars! The apartment phone is a Holsted number. It goes to the company. I had to change it and pay extra to have it unlisted. Here. I wrote it down for you.” Gary puts the paper in my hand and closes my fingers around it.
“This is such a gyp! Those people said they knew me!”
“Get back to work.” Gary waves me out of the office. I put the paper into my pocket and go back to work unpacking boxes. Taking advantage is something other people do a lot of. I grumble to myself and complain.
It is good nobody can read my mind.
29
There is a lot of unpacking to do, and it gives me ideas for where to put things on the shelves so they are easier to find. This cheers me up.
“We need to put the covers and short lines by the fenders. It makes it easier,” I say to Manny.
He just says, “Whatever.” And gives me his nasty look. I know he does not like to listen to me. He walks away even though there are still three more boxes to unpack.
I make a little place and organize fender covers by color and size. I look for a piece of cardboard and some colored markers to make a sign.
DON’T FORGET! I write big block letters. DO YOU HAVE LINES? And then underneath, DO YOU HAVE COVERS? YOUR FENDERS WILL LAST LONGER IF YOU DO. This is true. Gramp told me. I do not have room for anything else and I tack up my sign with a strip of duct tape.
Manny snickers and rolls his eyes at me. I stick my tongue out at him and quickly walk back to where Keith stands behind the counter so he won’t come after me.
I heard Gary complaining to Manny three days later.
“Where’d all the lines and fender covers go? I can’t find any more in the back.”
“Perry moved them by the fenders. Talk to him.” Manny looks like he hopes I will get into trouble. But I know I won’t. The fender covers are all gone. Sold. Two customers told me it reminded them they needed new lines too, and thanked me.
“We sold out,” I say to Gary. He looks at my signs, then at me, and then back at my signs.
“This is a really good idea.” He sounds surprised. “How about we order some more?”
“I already did.” I have good ideas. Gary and Keith both say so.
During lunch, I have some more ideas.
“People like to eat and drink when they buy things,” I announce.
“How do you figure?” Gary usually eats his lunch at his desk. Sandy, his wife, always tries to make him eat healthy and fixes him salads in plastic bowls.
“That’s fucking rabbit food, Gary. Eat like a real man!” Keith says, and buys him a Gilly’s BLT, then threatens to tattle on him after he eats it.
After unpacking boxes all morning, I was too busy doing trash duty to go buy our sandwiches. I gave Keith a fifty-dollar bill and he went to Marina Handy Mart and then to Gilly’s. He was gone for a long time. He brought me back a fake crab sandwich.
“At the grocery store customers buy stuff and walk around eating it and then they have cups in their cars and McDonald’s and stuff. People eat all the time.” I say this to Gary while I eat. Gram said eating was for mealtimes and at tables. I do not eat when I shop. Gram would not like it.
“Kitchen tables, Perry! That’s what kitchen tables are for!” Gram said. Gram and I ate only at our kitchen table unless we went out to somebody’s house and then we ate at theirs.
“He’s got a point.” Keith pulls open a beer and it makes a
pop
sound. Gary sticks his lip out. He looks like the boxer, Tandy, from Carroll’s Boatyard, except he is not brown and white, and he is alive. Tandy was hit by a car last year and died. I liked Tandy.
Keith does not let me drink beer because Gram told him not to. Gary lets Keith drink one beer for lunch, but I know he drinks more outside Marina Handy Mart because Cherry tells me.
“I swear if you give my grandson any alcoholic beverage I will lambaste you from breakfast to Sunday!” Whenever Gram called me her grandson in front of Keith, we both knew she was serious. Lambaste means beat up. It does not have anything to do with lambs or with cooking. I do not drink alcoholic beverages because they taste like crap, Gram said.
“Drinking is something other people do a lot of.” Gram would preach like she was Father Jacob.
“If you drink too much and are rich, then you are an alcoholic. If you drink too much and are poor, you’re a drunk. Being an alcoholic is a disease and being a drunk is because you’re weak and have regrets. Our friend Keith is a drunk,” she would say.
After lunch, I take pieces of my sandwich and feed the birds. Nobody likes it when I do this. I do not know why. Birds have to eat too, especially seagulls. They eat a lot. I watch them fight with each other over my sandwich. One big white-and-gray one looks like the meanest and has a hook and line on his foot. I try to pull it off, but he flutters away, flapping his wings.
“Rats with wings, Perry! Rats with wings. You shouldn’t feed them.” I didn’t hear Marty come up behind me and I jump.
“I know,” I say. I always feel guilty, but feed the birds anyway.
“You can tell Keith his engine is fixed. You want to take him my bill?” Marty staggers like he is drunk only he is not. He has a bad hip.
“I get the bill. It goes to me,” I tell him.
“Okay. Well, I replaced all the filters. I scrubbed the tank and practically had to rebuild the whole thing. The guts were all screwed up.” Marty always calls the inside of an engine the guts. He hands me a paper with Keith’s name at the top and a list of all the parts he used for Keith’s engine.
I pull my checkbook out of my back pocket and write Marty a check for one thousand one hundred three dollars and seventy-three cents for parts and labor. He has to help me with the zeros.
“Parts and labor.” I laugh. “That is funny. I mean, can you just have parts or just have labor? Would someone buy only parts?” I ask him. Marty does not answer and just shakes his head. I walk back to the store and give Keith the copy of Marty’s bill. It is marked
paid
in Marty’s cramped handwriting.
“Shit! You didn’t need to spend all that money! He ripped you off!” Keith blows up, but he is still in one piece. He checks everything on the invoice. “I probably needed the filters, but holy fuck! He charged us extra for our own gaskets. Look!” Keith is always happiest when he can yell and complain about something. He looks almost cheerful and gives me a slap on the back. That is his way of saying thank you. He raps me on the back again two more times, burps, and looks satisfied.
“Keith, let’s sail to Kingston or up to Anacortes or somewhere.” I want to go on a sailing trip. It will be like being with Gramp again.
“It’s pretty cold now, but yeah, when the weather clears we’ll go up to Whidbey and anchor out.” Keith starts looking at rope for new lines on his boat. His are chafed. That means they could break at any time. I laugh to imagine Keith’s face one morning if he woke up and found himself and
Diamond Girl
floating free in the middle of the Sound.
I was so excited about fixing
Diamond Girl
that I made him take Yo up to Ron’s gas station at the corner to repair the heater and get a tune-up. It was one of the things on Gram’s lottery list. She always told me that it was important to show people that you appreciate them. Keith always took us places in Yo. It was only fair.
“It’s the first time Yo has been worked on since I bought him.” Keith sounds amazed. Like he won a prize. Yo is a
him
and
Diamond Girl
is a
her.
“Are all cars
hes
and boats
shes
?” I ask Keith.
“Pretty much.”
“No, I don’t think so. Some cars are
shes
. Gary’s Jeep Cherokee is a
she
,” I say.
“Manuel’s Dodge is a
he,
” Keith says back.
I cannot think of any
he
boats.
“What about Marty’s car? What’s that?” Marty’s car has not been out of the parking lot in two years.
“That’s an
it.
When cars don’t run they’re
its.
Like
it’s
a lemon or
it
won’t run.” Keith is very smart.
When I show Keith the final bill from Ron’s, he gets all upset again. He jumps up and down then rips the invoice up into tiny pieces. They scatter all over the floor.
“You going to sweep those up?” Gary looks disapproving. I run to get the broom and dustpan.
“Shit! Five hundred dollars for a fucking tune-up!” Keith’s face is purple.
“Watch your language, Keith,” Gary says for about the hundred millionth time. He wants us to be polite around customers. We can be as rude as we like around each other.
“It’s okay, Keith, I took care of it. It’s a fair thing. Gram would want me to,” I say while I sweep the pieces up and put them in the trash.
“I’m doing this for Gram! It was something she always wanted to do for you,” I say. “It was on her lottery list.”
Keith would take her to the doctor whenever she needed to go. We could ask him to take us to Costco for TP and paper towels. Those things are very hard to carry on the bus because they are so big. We both always appreciated the rides even though Gram would complain about Yo’s heater. We offered money for gas, but Keith would never take it.
“If we won the lottery, I’d fix that goddamn heater!” Gram would promise him. In Everett, you always need a heater. It is cold even in the summer, especially early in the morning or when it rains, which is most of the time. Gram would be happy that Yo’s heater is fixed. I start to wonder how it was before. Before I had the lottery money. I almost forget.
Marleen Rafters, the reporter, calls Keith back and schedules an interview for the following week. Keith starts combing his hair and tucking in his shirt. He even shaves every day, which is both strange and a miracle. That is what Gary says.
“It’s a miracle! You’re starting to look presentable. I may even make you manager.” Gary looks pleased, like he is responsible for Keith’s new appearance. I do not tell him it is because of Marleen the reporter. That would be tattling and it is not nice to tattle.