Grams kicked me out. She wants me to call her Kate now, and I have to pay rent.” I said. “She’s never gonna get over that dog. She loved that thing.”
“Whoa. Your mom’s making you pay rent?” Jeremy asked. “That’s fucked up. I guess you’re going to have to get a job huh?”
“Yeah. I went to the fuckin’ mall today to put in some applications.” I said. “It sucked. No one’s gonna hire me.”
“I wish I’d known. We just hired someone over at Kinkos, I might’ve been able to get you the job instead of the dweeb we hired.” Jeremy said.
Michael laughed. “Yeah, right. You’re lucky they haven’t fired you, and you’re gonna put in a recommendation for him? They’d probably assume you met him at one of your twelve step meetings.”
“Oh no. Don’t tell me you’re taking it one day at a time.” I said.
“I have no choice dude. It’s fucking court ordered. That’s what you get for three disorderly conduct charges these days. I don’t care though, it’s better than jail.”
“Hey I didn’t know your mom kicked you out over a dog.” Michael said. “What happened? Did you let it run away or something?”
“You never told him about that?” I asked Jeremy. “I figured you told everyone about it.”
“I did but it was a long time ago. He must not have heard.” Jeremy said. “He didn’t used to come around as much back then.”
“So what happened?” Michael asked.
“My mom used to have this dog, Lilly.” I said. “She had the thing since I was like three or four. She loved it like a baby. She used to call the dog my little sister for fucks sake. Well this little hairy dog was hyper, and it was always into everything. I mean if you were reading a magazine, the dog had to stick it’s nose on it, if you were writing, she would grab your pen and go running off. If you were eating, forget it. We had to put her out when we ate otherwise she’d drive us crazy. One day me and Jeremy were chilling in my room getting ready to drop some acid and do something -I forget what we had planned…”
“We were gonna soap the fountain at PCC.” Jeremy said.
“Oh that’s right. Well I pulled the blotter out of the tin foil and fucking Lilly jumps up and grabs it right out of my hand. It was four hits. It was supposed to be good acid too, it had a pig with a suitcase on it. We freaked out. We both jumped on the dog and I started going through her mouth, but the shit wasn’t in there. It was gone. I guess she must’ve swallowed it right away. We didn’t know what to do, so we started trying to get her to throw up. Jeremy was holding her mouth open and I was sticking my fingers down her throat but it didn’t work. She bit the fuck out of my hand and hid under my mom’s bed.”
“Fuck.” Michael said.
“I know.” I said. “We had no clue what would happen. We didn’t know if it would kill the dog, or permanently fuck up the dog, or if acid would even affect a dog. We thought maybe she might have spit it out right away, so we decided to wait and see if it would do anything to her. About an hour later we went to check on her under the bed and she was shaking like she was made of Jello. When I tried to pull her out, she would do this horrible whimper-growl thing I never heard before. I hated that fucking dog, but still, it was the worst thing I ever did.”
“We were so crazy. We were going to kill the dog before his mom got home.” Jeremy said.
“Oh yeah. We decided that there was no way the dog would recover from dropping four hits of acid, so we were going to run her over with Jeremy’s mom’s car. We thought it would be best to put the dog out of it’s misery, and anyway, then it would look like an accident. Keep in mind neither one of us had ever driven a car at that point. I was going to hold her down and he was going to drive the car over her head. Then we were gonna just leave her there in the road…”
“It was so completely fucked up. I can’t believe we were actually thinking about doing that.” Jeremy said.
“Why didn’t you?” Michael asked.
“We couldn’t get the dog to come out from under the bed.” I explained. “After she bit me a couple more times we gave up. My mom got home and made dinner like usual, and I was trying to act normal. When dinner was ready and it was time to put Lilly out, she wasn’t around. My mom looked all over the place and finally found the dog freaking out under her bed. Lilly shit and pissed under there, so at first my mom was mad. She grabbed her by the collar and pulled her out and Lilly bit her. Lilly never bit my mom before. She knew something was wrong so she took her to the animal hospital. She didn’t come home until like three in the morning. I guess the vet figured out that the dog was dosed. Either that or my mom just put two and two together. The vet had to put Lilly to sleep. When my mom got home she told me I wasn’t human and I had to leave.”
“Wow.” Michael said. “You two are ruthless fucking dog killers.”
“The fucked up thing about it was that she didn’t have any proof that I did anything. She didn’t know. She just assumed it was me and kicked my ass out.” I said.
“It was you.” Michael said.
“Yeah but if she’d bothered to ask, I’d have blamed the whole thing on Jeremy.”
“I knew it man. I was home waiting for the phone to ring.” Jeremy said.
“So how much is your mom making you pay to live here?” Michael asked.
“Three hundred dollars a month.”
“Shit,” Michael said, “you could get your own apartment for that much.”
“For three hundred?”
“Nah, I mean if you had a roommate who also paid three, you could be in a decent place. At least then you wouldn’t have to deal with living at home. I’m getting my own crib as soon as I turn eighteen, I don’t want to be like my fucking brother that’s for sure. He just turned twenty four and he still has to sneak out the window if he’s going somewhere late at night.” Michael said.
“My mom don’t even give a shit.” I said. “She told me I’m just a person who lives in her house now. If I want to leave at three in the morning I’ll be using the front door.”
“For three hundred a month I hope so.” Jeremy said.
“Yeah man. How you gonna come up with that?” Michael asked.
“I have no idea.”
“Seems like everyone I know is getting a job.” Jeremy said. “I got one, then Jason, and now you. Pretty soon you’re going to be the only bum around here Michael.”
“You don’t have to worry about me man, I get money.” He said.
“I know you get money.” Jeremy said. “You’ll probably also get three to five someday.”
“Nah man, listen. You may be okay busting your ass for a tiny little check every two weeks, but not me. You’re losing the game and you don’t even know you’re playing it.” He twisted up his mouth and shook his head. “The object of the game is to get money, right? If you know the rules of the game you can analyze ‘em and figure out how to most easily attain the large dollars. You have to look at it like it was an alien system that had nothing to do with you. The easiest ways to get money are also the most risky, and the least risky ways to get money don’t pay shit. That’s where you’re at Jeremy. If you want to start winning, you have to find a way to get large amounts of money without taking unacceptable risks. Who wants to be the richest motherfucker in jail, right? It’s just a complicated game. Everything is legal if you don’t get caught.” Michael said.
“Yeah, I like the way you think.” I said. “You’re a scientist.”
Michael smiled, glad to have found a receptive audience to his money speech. “Yeah, I’m like a scientist, except I don’t experiment. I always know how shit’s gonna turn out. “
“I’ll tell ya how it’s gonna turn out, you’re gonna end up in the pen.” Jeremy said.
“Minimum wage at Kinkos is my idea of jail. Copier number five is out of toner Jeremy. There’s a woman here who says you fucked up her kid’s birthday invitations Jeremy. It’ll be coming out of your paycheck Jeremy.” Michael said.
“Fuck off.” Jerem
y said. “Are we gonna skate or what?”
On our way down the street toward the grotto, Michael rolled up next to me. “Hey man,” he said, looking to make sure Jeremy was out of earshot, “seriously? I think I know a way we could both make a grip of money.”
“Yeah? How?”
“I don’t want to J to know, I’ll give you a call tomorrow. Your number’s the same right? I have it in my old book.” He said.
“Yeah it’s the same. What’s the risk factor?”
“Try zero.”
When I got home that night Kate was watching the news in the living room. The lights were off and she had a glass in her hand. “Hi Kate.” I said making a b-line to my room.
“Nicky,” she said, “How’d the job search go?”
“Oh,” I said stopping, “it wasn’t going good at all, but then I ran into a friend who said he could get me work with his brother’s landscaping business.”
“Really?” She asked twisting around on the couch to get a better look at me. “Which friend?”
“Michael. Do you remember him?”
“I think so. Is he… African American?” She asked.
“Yeah, he’s a black guy.” I said.
“Yes, I remember him.” She said. “Oh Nick, before you go to your room I have to ask you, did you throw a diet Coke can in the trash?”
“Um. Yes. Why?”
“This is a recycling house, Nicky. It’s very important that all the tin cans we use go in the recycling bin next to the trash under the sink.” She said.
“Oh is