IA: Initiate (11 page)

As Naz walked down an aisle, he continued to hear Antonio’s words, “
Seize the day, seize the day.”
He could also hear Mr. Tesla one aisle over in the middle of an intense conversation with someone. He couldn’t quite make out what was being said, but the other man was clearly upset and Mr. Tesla was trying to explain something to him. Naz was curious so he went to the next aisle where Mr. Tesla was talking to a man dressed in work clothes. Naz figured he wasn’t eavesdropping; he was just someone shopping in the garden aisle and looking for a water hose right next to the two men engaged in a disagreement.

Mr. Tesla was trying to convince the man that he would be getting a shipment in sometime soon that very day. It just hadn’t arrived yet. The man was obviously losing his patience, complaining this had happened too many times and not just at MeeChi’s, but with other Market Merchants as well. He said he was just about done supporting the Market Merchants and was threatening to take his business to Major General, one of the Mega Chain discount department stores. The man’s business must have been landscaping
, or something like that,
Naz assumed while looking at the empty space on the shelf in front of the two men and eyeing the goods the man already had in his cart.

Naz could still hear Antonio at the front of the store; he was repeating, “
Seize the day, seize the day.”
These words in the back of Naz’s mind finally came to the forefront and made sense. As the disgruntled and disgusted man headed to the checkout with the other things in his cart, Naz came up with an idea.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

SEIZE THE DAY

Naz
didn’t have a plan yet, only an idea and very little time, so he went to work. He closely examined the empty space on the shelf where Mr. Tesla and the man had just been standing. The sticker on the shelf read:

Henzi’s

GrubGone

Season-long Grub Killer

14.5 lbs.

$19.95

He read it twice so he wouldn’t forget it, then quickly left MeeChi’s and began to run down the street. He still could hear Antonio's words in his mind,
seize the day, seize the day.
He said it aloud one more time to himself. “Henzi’s GrubGone Season-long Grub Killer 14.5 lbs. $19.95.”

Four blocks south and a half-mile away in Section 29 was Piccolo’s, another market Naz frequented. As Naz ran, he formulated a plan. He knew that all the markets in that area sold the same goods and used the same suppliers. Naz liked playing the odds, and he figured the odds were in his favor that Piccolo’s would have what MeeChi’s did not. He knew that he could run a mile in less than six minutes because he had done so in school the year before. He knew that he would be back at MeeChi’s before the man could complete his purchase. The only flaw in his plan was how he would pay for the grub killer. He didn’t have any money. His only option was to steal the grub killer and somehow pay for it later. He thought about what his mother had told him.
It’s not always about right or wrong; sometimes it’s about having a good reason,
and in his mind this was as good a reason as any. He knew that he didn’t have much time. He knew that he had to throw caution to the wind, trust his instincts, and get in and out in a hurry.

When he got to Piccolo’s, he walked straight to where he knew the grub killer would be. His gamble paid off. As he predicted, it was there. He looked around. No one was watching. He didn’t think about the surveillance system. He figured if someone there was watching, they could never catch him once he got outside and ran. He picked up the grub killer, which weighed almost fifteen pounds, and walked to the door as if it was already paid for. When he got to the door, he backed out, turned around, put the bag on his shoulders, and took off running. He never looked back. He was used to running with Meri on his shoulders so the almost fifteen pounds felt like no weight at all for the half-mile run back.

Just before Naz walked into MeeChi’s, he took another minute or two to catch his breath. When he came in, he saw the man in work clothes at the register. The cashier was ringing up his items as he was placing them back into his cart for transport. Naz slipped in through one of the unused checkout aisles, went down one aisle, and came back up the next aisle as if he had come from the back, all the while still catching his breath. He could still faintly hear Antonio saying, “
Seize the day, seize the day.”

He approached the man from the rear and called to him to let him know he had forgotten something. The man saw the grub killer as Naz placed it on the counter for the cashier to ring up. Naz told him he had found the grub killer in the back. The man thanked Naz and complimented Mr. Tesla who was now assisting the cashier on a neighboring register. He wanted to let Mr. Tesla know how much he appreciated the staff at MeeChi’s for their diligence. He then apologized for ever doubting Mr. Tesla’s integrity and assured him he would not be taking his business over to Major General.

When the man left, Mr. Tesla took Naz down an empty aisle to let him know in private that he knew he did not get the grub killer from the back because in MeeChi’s there was no back. Mr. Tesla continued by expressing his gratitude to Naz for preventing the loss of a loyal customer to one of the Mega Chains. He handed Naz twenty dollars for what he called “Naz’s troubles,” and then another twenty dollars for what he called “unfinished business.” He told Naz to go and pay for the grub killer wherever he got it from and that he would see him the next day about that job.

Before Naz left MeeChi’s, he pulled a handful of sunflower seeds out of his pocket, put them in Antonio’s cup, and thanked him. Antonio didn’t respond. Naz thanked him one more time, but there was still no response. He smiled at the bird and then walked out the door. As he was leaving, he heard Antonio say, “
You’re welcome,”
and laughed.

He couldn’t remember ever feeling so good, at least not since his mother had died. He had forty dollars in his pocket—more than he ever had before—and he had prevented the loss of a loyal customer to the Mega Chains and in the process earned himself a job at his favorite market: MeeChi’s.
All in a day’s work
, he thought, as he walked down the street feeling very proud of himself.

Then it hit him. His day’s work was only half complete. That was the easy part. How would he square the situation at Piccolo’s? He didn’t even know the owner there. Maybe he could get Mr. Tesla to call. No, he got himself into this so he had to get himself out of it. Maybe he wouldn’t do anything. It looked like he had gotten away with stealing the grub killer. If he could just lay low for a few weeks, or even a month, and not go in Piccolo’s, it would all blow over, and it would be just like it never happened. But he himself would know. Somewhere along the way he had developed a conscience. In his mind, if he didn’t go back to Piccolo’s, he would then be no more than a common thief and no better than the drug dealers on the street. He finally decided on just handing twenty dollars to a cashier at Piccolo’s as if he had found it near the register. That way it would be as if it had never happened, and his debt would be paid. He could live with that.

It was the slowest he ever walked in his life, but he seemed to get to Piccolo’s faster than when he had run there almost an hour earlier. When he walked into Piccolo’s, it was just as it was before with no one noticing him. The store was half full, and everyone seemed fairly busy so he figured his quick fix would be a piece of cake. He stood in line as if he was going to purchase something. He figured to make it look legitimate he should buy something, so he picked up a candy bar while he was in line. The closer he got to the cashier, the hotter he felt all over. His heart seemed to beat even faster than it did when he was running.
But
how could that be?
he thought. He began to hear the voice mixed in with all the voices around him.

Just before Naz got to the cashier, he separated the two twenties that were in his pocket. He put one back in his pocket and palmed the other one. When he got to the register, he handed the candy bar to the cashier, and she rang it up. He pulled the twenty out of his pocket and gave it to her. While she was making change Naz dropped the other twenty on the floor. Just as he was about to reach down, a man in back of him told him he dropped his money. Confused, Naz picked up the money and handed it to the cashier, while she was trying to hand him the change for the other twenty. Finally, for the first time she looked up at him and recognized that he had just been there an hour before. He was caught. She pushed a button on the other side of the register, and in what seemed like seconds a tall man came from a booth near the front of the store. He had dark eyes and dark, long, stringy hair.

Naz’s greatest success had just turned into his most embarrassing failure. He was about to pay for the grub killer all right, with his freedom. He wouldn’t need that job anymore because he was going to jail, and Meri would be alone. The walk to the booth was even longer than the walk back to Piccolo’s as people began staring and pointing at the boy who was caught stealing a bag of grub killer. He actually felt relieved. It was over now. He was a criminal, a juvenile delinquent, something Meri’s father had told him he would end up being anyway.

In the booth, the stringy-haired man picked up the phone and began to dial. Naz figured he was about to have his third run-in with the police, and he was fairly confident this third time would be no charm. Instead, it would be the third strike in a game he had played well but ultimately lost. Suddenly the man stopped dialing and looked at Naz suspiciously. He was confused. He wanted to know why an eleven-year-old boy, or anyone else for that matter, would steal a bag of grub killer and then come back an hour later with the money to pay for it. He was going to give Naz one chance to explain. Naz had nothing to lose so he told the truth. The man put the phone down for a minute, then picked it up again. He called Mr. Tesla to confirm what Naz had told him. Naz watched as the man was having an unusually long conversation with Mr. Tesla. Naz remembered hearing words like resourceful, impeccable, and altruistic, words he wanted to look up in a dictionary when he got home or back to school.

In the end, four of the Market Merchants: MeeChi’s, Piccolo’s, Bellarusso’s, and Mercado’s hired Naz as a supply link to make sure they stayed supplied through the sharing of resources and settling up once a week. They employed Naz between two and three hours a day after school and on Saturdays on an on-call basis. For Naz’s part, he received significantly more money than he would have received had he worked for only one of the markets, and even then he would’ve had to work a lot more hours. The Market Merchants also paid for the use of two phones for him and Meri. And so the Market Merchants became an inseparable part of the world of Naz Andersen.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

MR. TESLA & MEECHI
‘
S

MeeChi’s
was more like a home to Naz than any of the foster homes in which he had lived, and Mr. Tesla was the closest thing to a father that Naz had ever known, or at least could remember. When Naz came in with the bandage on his neck the tone of the argument between him and Mr. Tesla was more that of a father and son than an employer and employee. While running his errands Naz always made MeeChi’s the first and last stop of the day. That way he could get a snack right after school or therapy, and often Mr. Tesla would treat him and Meri to dinner before they went home in the evening. Naz felt important at MeeChi’s. Mr. Tesla trusted him with everything, and that sometimes made the other employees jealous.

Like Piccolo’s, MeeChi’s had a large booth in the front of the store that was elevated. You could see almost everything in the store through a large two-way mirror. The booth was more like a room. There was a surveillance system of cameras that fed into ten monitors mounted on the wall next to the two-way mirror. There was a control panel just beneath them. Next to the wall, opposite the monitors were a refrigerator and conventional stove with a microwave oven on top. There was also a small television on a dresser. Next to the dresser was a desk. The booth also included a small cot. In the middle of the room was a small table with a worn picture in an old frame as its centerpiece.