Alphabetic Karma, Part 5

Serialized Short Story Alphabetic Karma

Over the next few weeks, we're going to serialize Alphabetic Karma, a short story originally published by Hawkshaw Press. Sign in every Wednesday and Sunday to get the next paragraphs. When we left Kimmie last, she's conned her way into Uncle Zack's trailer to avoid sleeping on the street.

***

Uncle Zach joggled my foot as I lay in the rocker-recliner scrolling my phone. “Hey, Iʼm gonna roll on down to the corner market. Want to come?”

I jammed the phone into my back pocket; my friends were cutting me dead now I wasnʼt hanging in their school. I walked beside him to the 7-Eleven. Once there, and it took awhile, he wouldnʼt let me get the door. On the way in, he shouted, “Hey there Angela, howʼs it going? Harry, are they still hanging between your legs, or are you wearing a size smaller in pants?” He bought a frozen pizza, beer, and cigarettes. And a half dozen car fresheners, those green trees on a string. Zach lit up outside, whip antenna extended like a magic wand.

“I thought you used that to avoid getting blown up.”

“Itʼs kind of my style now. There goes Zach, looking like Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Besides, I can keep the smoke away from you.”

“Thanks.” We rolled back down the block, him up on the sidewalk working the joystick on his buggy, me off the curb in the street. I stepped around the dog poo and over a used rubber.

He said again, “This shit isnʼt good for kids.”

I thought about how much better this was than sleeping on a cold concrete step curled up against Zoe. “Iʼm not so much a kid anymore.”

“Donʼt knock it. Being underage gets you a break with the system. It did for me.”

We split apart because of some cars bunched against the curb. I peered in them as I scuffed down the line—two had mounds of sleeping bags and blankets in the backseat. This isnʼt Daddyʼs gated community. We came back together at the fire hydrant. “So youʼre going to smoke on the porch all the time?”

“Maybe not at night. Itʼs a pain to get out of bed into the chair. Maybe Iʼll cut back.”

# # #

Zach and I coasted along for a while. Finances were ugly as I tried to find work at one place or another. Once I tracked down something serious, things eased up at the trailer. We brought in enough money for food, and I could even pay to turn the cable back on.

I stumbled on my new job at Ravenʼs, a five-bay car repair shop. A jumpy guy in olive coveralls escorted me into the office in the back along with my paperwork — most of it was blank, showing how little life Iʼd had. The office enjoyed a large window out to the garage floor, a wall of manuals and three-ring binders, and a desk piled with paperwork in white, pink, and yellow. But thatʼs not what I saw first. I fixed on the tough old woman in a black webbed office chair, gray hair, crepey arms hanging out of a sleeveless T-shirt, and a ball point stuck behind her ear. That wasnʼt what rocked me back—it was the scar on her face. It began a half inch above her eyebrow and ran clear down to her chin. It was bad-ass. I guess she was lucky she hadnʼt been blinded. But I wasnʼt asking.

She glanced up, coughed, and slid on a pair of glasses. A sweep up and down, those eyes behind the gogglers. Not a word.

I launched into it. “Iʼm looking for a job. Iʼll do anything, no matter how shitty. And Iʼm a quick learner.”

“You donʼt look so menial. Pink hair, expensive jeans, three diamond chips stuck in your ears.”

“I dressed up for the interview. My name is Kim. I can work off the books. School wonʼt get in the way.”

Raven leaned forward. “Gimme your hands.”

I leaned over the desk, stuck my fingers out.

Raven rolled them over, to scrutinize the palms. “Not a mark, not a callus on these.”

I snatched my hands back. “I think thatʼs going to change, one way or another.”

“Huh. Hereʼs the deal. You sweep up, do the toilets, maybe inventory the tires.

Itʼs part time, no benefits. Seven dollars an hour, on the books, and youʼll pay taxes.”

Just before closing, Raven set me to spreading out degreaser and hosing down the concrete. After a week of this, her number-two, Chaki, handed me a filter wrench and taught me how to do oil changes. They handed out washed coveralls twice a week. My big chance in life, to crouch under cars and bust my knuckles. Changing spark plugs turned out easy if I picked the wrench with the long handle and laid across the fender. Twice that first month we had to pull a radiator, flush it, and check for leaks. The jumpy guy I met first, name of Twitch, hit on me once. He groped my butt and whispered in my ear, but I whanged his knuckles with a wrench I had in my hand — no one else bugged me after that. Raven gave me a full thirty-three hours a week and a bump to twelve bucks. It was sweet, sweeter than life with Dad and Mom.

# # #

Zach cradled the bowl in his lap, the O2 mask hung off his ear. “This is not so bad. What do you call it?”

“Green mac ʼn cheese. I saw it on the cooking channel.”

“Youʼre sneaking in vegetables on me, arenʼt you?”

“Spinach. I wonʼt tell, if you wonʼt.”

There wasnʼt much to say for awhile, just the clicking of spoons in the bowls. Nevertheless, Uncle Zach couldnʼt leave it alone. “I worry, you know. Are you going back to school in September?”

“Why would I do that? I have a good job. You quit school at fifteen and here you are, doing okay on Social Security.”

“Listen, Kimmie, things werenʼt all that great. The only time things were easy was during about a ten-year stretch, and I ended up doing a nickel.” He shifted in his wheelchair; it squeaked underneath him.

“A nickel?”

“A five-year prison stretch. But I put some money aside and thatʼs what weʼre living on, as much as the Social Security.”

That snapped my head around. “You have retirement?”

“Dow Jones 500, kid. Bringing in four hundred a month.”

“Youʼre kidding. You know about investing?”

“Mutual funds. High dividend, low risk. What else do you need to know?”

I peered around the trailer—it was shaping up. You could detect the counter tops now and see through the windows. Uncle Zach kept buying those tree fresheners, and we did the laundry together at a washateria about two blocks away. I got a hoot, watching him roll with that big basket in his lap, waving at all his friends, and some not-so-friends.

The macaroni had put him in a good mood. I decided to deliver the announcement. “Iʼm thinking about dyeing my hair.”

“Why? You look okay as a blonde, now that the pink grew out.”

The woman next door, as old as the mummies, cut my hair. Mrs. Cisneros gave me a tough shag, all kind of brutal and punk—she was pretty cool for a sixty-year-old. “Mrs. C, she and me are agreed. Iʼd look better in midnight black.”

“What if I say no?”

“You want me cooking for you or not?” Real food cost less than the junk, but I had to trudge ten blocks to the nearest real grocery store. Nobody bugged me if I wore Ravenʼs coveralls and tucked my hair up under a ball cap.

“Well, yes, I guess I do want you to keep cooking. But no more tattoos.”

Thatʼs when I decided to have my nose pierced.