One Good Hustle

TWENTY-FOUR




THIS STUFF HAPPENED ages ago, only a couple of months after the whole Mel debacle in Toronto. Drew doesn’t know all the players and I find myself circling around and stuttering. I have to break it down, as if I’m speaking Latin, explain what it means when I say that Peggy is a booster, my father is a rounder and Fat Freddy is a fence.

Drew sits quietly, watching me. He looks so innocent and clean-cut and I’m embarrassed to be the one to explain this stuff to him.

I try to keep it simple, keep it to the story of how I single-handedly brought down the whole family. I tell Drew a bit about how Sam would stay out all night playing cards and Marlene would get so pissed off with him that she’d storm out of the house and stay out all night herself, just to get even. Like the time we ended up at Mel’s place. But this particular time when Marlene took off, she actually had a legit excuse. She was in the hospital.

“What was wrong with her?” he asks.

“Female problems,” I say. “Cysts on her womb.”

At least that’s how I remember it: Marlene explaining to me that she had this womb with lumps on it. Thing is, you recall an old story enough times, over enough years, and you start to wonder if you’re making up the details that aren’t there for you any more. Or were never there for you in the first place.

Whatever was wrong with her, Marlene had to be in the hospital for a few days. I was home alone one of those days, watching TV. I remember Bob Barker had just asked each contestant on The Price Is Right to guess the actual retail price of the lawn mower on stage. I remember because I guessed it exactly right—exactly!—and I wished someone had been there to witness my feat.

Just then, the front door opened and Sam and Fat Freddy banged into the front hall, hoisting a small sofa. They hustled it into the living room and set it down between me and The Price Is Right.

“Holy cow,” I said. The sofa looked fancy and expensive: wine and cream-coloured upholstery, gold thread around the piping. “Is it a coming-home present for Mommy?”

“It’s for you!” Sam lifted the cushions. The cushions were attached to the wood seat and the seat was actually the lid to a secret chamber. “Pretty cool hiding place, eh. Give her a try. See how you like it.”

Climbing inside the pine box, I could have exploded from the thrill. “This is mine? Only mine?”

“Of course it’s yours. You’re my girl, aren’tcha!”

That same day, Sam and Freddy took me over to Freddy’s place. I had never been to Freddy’s before and my eyes nearly fell out of my head when I got a gander at his basement. It was like a cramped luxury department store. I was scared to move, afraid I might break something. I saw most of Freddy’s inventory that afternoon, though, gold and crystal, fancy urns, Hummels and Royal Doulton figurines. Sam pushed all kinds of jewellery under my nose, chunky necklaces and fine bracelets, diamonds, jade and pearls. He detailed the difference between junk and gems and had me pay particular attention to one piece I would need to recall later.

He said he had a pal named John Reynolds. “John’s that fella I played cards with the other night,” he explained as though I’d been at the poker table with him. “How’d you like to help your old man play a trick on John? He’s going to laugh, boy. He’s going to get a real charge out of what you do.”

“Me?”

“You got so smart studying all that game show stuff. Who else could do it but you! See, look, you’ll climb right inside and then we’ll put the lid down so it looks just like regular furniture. Then me and Freddy, we’ll carry the sofa into his house, put you down in the fella’s living room and you’ll be hiding in there just like a secret present!”

I stared at him, excited. Yes, yes, yes! I wanted to help my old man. I wanted to be the one—the only one who could do it.

The next afternoon Sam and Freddy put on coveralls and loaded the sofa into the back of a cube truck. I rode inside the box, lounging on a furniture blanket, anticipating my big moment. Marlene’s face flashed to mind, looking jealous. She always complained about being left home and here I was, going to work with Sam.

Sam needed me.

The brakes squealed as the truck stopped. I heard the back doors creak and open up. My belly did cartwheels when Sam lifted the lid and looked in at me.

“Should be just the fella’s maid there this afternoon, okay?” he said. “Listen carefully. Wait till she goes upstairs. You have to be real quiet. There’ll be the two statues in the den, remember the fat Buddha ones I showed you? Like them, except gold. They’re heavy, so you take ’em one at a time. The other important thing is in the last bedroom down the hall. The jewellery box on the dresser. You take the whole thing. You got it?”

I nodded, though his words swirled in my head.

The sofa’s lid came down and the pine box lurched as Freddy and Sam carried me toward the house.

The bell rang. Eventually the front door opened.

“We got a delivery here for Mr. Reynolds,” Freddy said.

“I’m sorry but Mr. and Mrs. Reynolds are not in this afternoon.” A woman’s voice. I figured she was the maid.

“Uh-oh.” This was Sam playing Farmer Lug. “Mr. Reynolds don’t get his prize now.”

Freddy interjected, “Ma’am, this is a gift from the Shriners for Mr. Reynolds’s outstanding community service. Shipped in special from Italy. Just got to have you sign here and she’s all yours.”

It was quiet a moment. Then the maid said, “Nobody called.” She sighed. “All right. Where should I sign? … You can set it in that dining area.”

The sofa lurched again as they carried it inside.

“Gee,” Sam said. “This is the biggest house I ever saw!”

They set the sofa down. I was happy that the rocking stopped.

Sam started to hum, “Tie a yellow ribbon round the old oak tree.” That song was a signal. Sam picked it because of how much I loved Tony Orlando and Dawn. When I heard “Tie a Yellow Ribbon,” he said that would mean that everything was copasetic.

The maid thanked the men. The men thanked the maid. I heard a heavy door slam.

In the dark of the box, I fidgeted with the musty furniture blanket; the smell of wood was sour all of a sudden. The pine began to shrink and squeeze around me. I manoeuvred my back around splinters.

“Tie a yellow ribbon, hm hm hmm,” the maid sang. I could hear her getting farther away, the creak of feet on stairs. I froze. My heart banged. I had not expected to be afraid. This is my job, I told myself. Only I can do this job. I wouldn’t be the one left home alone. Sam would think I was a genius.

A vacuum started somewhere in the distance.

I inched the lid up and peered into the room. Slipping out, I crouched on the hardwood. Sam wasn’t kidding. I had never been in a house so big, and with so many fancy things. Just like the home showcases on The Price Is Right. I caught sight of the two gold Buddhas. The other important thing is in the last bedroom down the hall.

I stared down the hall. Miles of shining hardwood floor.

Overhead, the ceiling creaked and my guts twisted. Looking back toward the Buddhas I noticed a ceramic lady in a red dress standing right between them. She was just like the Royal Doultons in Freddy’s basement.

I tiptoed to the hutch where she stood. The figurine’s honey hair was swept back and a white sash crossed her chest. I picked her up.

She looks just like Mommy, I thought.

I imagined giving her to my mother, presenting the lady like a prize when she came home from the hospital. The picture of my mother’s thrilled smile was just forming in my head when the figurine fell through my hands and shattered on the hardwood floor.

The vacuum cleaner stopped.

I glanced up at the ceiling, turned too quickly and knocked another figurine onto the hardwood.

“Hello?” the maid called.

I reached for one of the gold statues. It took both hands just to drag it to the edge of the hutch. I tried to lift it off but it was so heavy I couldn’t manage.

“Who’s there?” the maid called.

Rushing back to the sofa, I fought with the lid.

The stairs creaked.

I climbed into the box. I lowered the lid.

Seconds later the lid rose again. The maid stared in.

I tried to remember what I was supposed to say if someone caught me: something about a cat. “I found John Doulton’s cat … Mr. Royal’s cat?”

“I think you better come out of there,” the maid said. Her eyes were hard.

“My dad dropped me at the wrong house.” It was the only thing I could think of—because it was supposed to happen like this: Sam and Freddy would ring the doorbell again. “There’s been a mistake,” they’d say. “This sofa has to go to a James Reynolds in Forest Hill.” They would pick up the sofa and carry me away with all the fancy things I’d nabbed.

It didn’t come off, though, and it was all because of me.

The maid ordered me to sit at the kitchen table, dialled the operator and asked for the police. Then she folded her arms and stared as we waited.

I started to cry. “I have to go. I need my daddy.”

“The police will find your daddy,” she said.

Outside, the squeal of the brakes: Sam’s truck. I jumped up from the table and raced to the front door, beating the maid.

On the street out front, Sam was opening the back of the truck. He looked over his shoulder, saw me ripping out of the house and down the stairs.

I tripped off the last step and landed on the pavement. “Daddy!”

“Get in the f*ckin’ truck,” Sam yelled.

Freddy dashed back to the passenger side. The maid ran past me down to the road.

Back in the driver’s seat, my father turned the ignition. I screamed from where I lay there as the truck roared off down the tree-lined street.

The two cops who arrived minutes later asked me what my parents’ names were.

I don’t know, I said.

What’s your phone number?

I don’t know.

Where do you live?

I don’t know.

When they put me in the back of the squad car, I panicked and told them my address. They drove me back to the house.

Sam and Freddy’s truck was not out front and I was so relieved I thought I might wet my pants.

“Okay, then. Thank you for driving me,” I said and reached for the door.

One of the cops gave a nasty chuckle. “Not so fast, kiddo.”

“We’re going to have to speak with your mother,” the other said.

They tried the doorbell. No one answered.

There was a key to our front door hanging on a string around my neck but I kept it hidden under my clothes, afraid I’d get in big trouble if I let a couple of cops inside.

Finally I told them that Marlene was in the hospital. “She’s sick. Maybe you could drop me off there,” I suggested.

“What hospital?”

That one I really didn’t know.

“Remember your mother’s name yet?”

I started to cry.

Once I had confessed my mother’s name, one of the cops went back to the squad car. From the porch, I watched him talk into a little black gizmo attached by a cord to the dashboard.

“What grade are you in, kiddo?” the cop beside me asked.

“I don’t know,” I said.

He huffed through his nose and glared down the road.

I watched the cop in the car some more and tried to think what to do. Eventually he returned to the steps and said that my mother had checked out of Toronto East General about two hours ago.

“See, she’s coming home,” I said. “She’s on her way. Maybe in around ten minutes. I’ll be fine here if you need to go.”

The two cops and I sat on the front steps, waiting for my mother. It was nearly four in the afternoon when Marlene showed up. She got out of the cab and I watched her long slim legs, the high heels on her feet as she stood and stared up at the porch.

I rushed down the path toward her. Her nervous eyes darted to the police as she grabbed hold of me. “What the hell’s going on,” she whispered.

I couldn’t speak.

She glanced behind her and down the road at the disappearing taxi.

The two cops followed us inside and stood in the front room while my mother sat on the couch and I slumped against her. The cops explained how they had found me.

“What do you mean he put her inside a sofa?” she asked. “No.” She shook her head as if to make them take it back. “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus …” Her arms wrapped tight around me. “No one would do that. No one.”