Pay It Forward (17 page)

“There doesn’t seem to be one. That’s why I’m so excited about this, Roger. Thing is, it’s a bitch to track down, because apparently there are no names involved. People go around saving lives, sparing lives, giving money away, and most of them never know who it was that helped them. No records kept.”

He’d learned more about this last part from his visit to Stella than his Sidney G. interview. Sidney remained sketchy on details.
Stella had looked at the five one-hundred-dollar bills in his hand and opened right up.

“That’s weird, Chris. This is weird.”

“Damn right it’s weird. That’s why I love it.”

“But, Chris. I mean…if somebody saved your life, wouldn’t you get their name? So you could pay them back? You know, what goes around comes around?”

“But that’s what this is about. You never pay it back. You always
pay it forward.
Like, what goes around goes around even faster.”

“That makes no sense.”

“Why doesn’t it?”

“What good is it to the person who started it?”

“Well, this is the world they have to live in. Right?”

A long silence on the line. “So this gang banger is real altruistic?”

“No. Hell, no. I told you. He’s full of shit.”

“So, who started it?”

“I don’t know. But I’m going to find out. I’m going to do a major puff piece on this jerk. On
Weekly News in Review.
Make him out to be a total hero. Then I’ll put out some kind of eight-hundred number or P. O. box or something, for people with more information. This thing must have touched a lot of people’s lives by now.”

“Chris. If the guy’s full of shit, why do you want to make him out a hero?”

“Because he’s a liar, Roger. And somebody out there knows it. Somebody out there might take offense when they get a whiff of his attitude. Might want to set the record straight.”

“Sounds like career suicide. You’ll come out the fool.”

“Anybody can be taken in, Roger. My career’ll survive it.”

“It’s a long shot, Chris.”

“Life is a long shot, Roger.”

He hung up the phone. It would work. It had to work.

I
t feels like there’s something wrong with not liking your own father. Like I should be ashamed about that. But it’s true, and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do about it.

Yesterday I said that to my mom. That I just don’t like him. I thought I might feel better to say it out loud.

I thought she would yell at me or hit me or send me to my room.

Instead she just looked tired.

S
he bumped into Reuben one Saturday morning at a gas station on the Camino. She hadn’t seen him in months.

She didn’t see his white Volkswagen until after she’d gotten out of her car, and when she did, she almost got back in and drove away. She’d left the engine running because the old Dart didn’t always start again after you turned it off. The sign said not to do that, but Ricky, who always smoked while he filled his tank, told her that almost never goes wrong.

Knowing he was there, her heart got to pounding so bad she could hear it in her ears. She felt dizzy and strange and couldn’t decide what to do.

And then he came walking out of the convenience store and he saw her. He turned his gaze down to the asphalt and headed toward her, toward his car. She could tell he wanted to walk the other way—that showed—but she was parked close to his car, so there was no way out for either one of them.

“Reuben,” she said, thinking her voice sounded scared. He didn’t look up. He didn’t say anything. She could still hear her heart. “Reuben, say something, okay? Yell at me or swear or something. Please?”

He looked up. She met his eye. It made her dizzy again. He looked away.

“Reuben, I just had to try, you know? I had to. Thirteen years, Reuben. He’s the boy’s daddy and all. Scream at me and tell me I hurt you and I’m not even fit to live, ’cause I know it’s all true. Don’t just stand there and say nothing.”

He walked around the pump island, right up to where she stood. The toes of their shoes almost touched. He looked deadly calm and she figured he was going to hit her. It would almost have been better if he had. She looked at his face, so close up like that, and it struck her that she’d missed him. Struck her so hard it almost knocked her down.

“He impregnated you,” Reuben said. She’d never heard his voice like that before. Deep. Scary, almost. “In what other way has he been a daddy to that boy?”

“Well, that’s just it, don’t you see? He wants to make up for that now. He wants to pay back what he took from me.”

She winced, sure she was about to be struck. Reuben turned away. He walked to his car and drove off without looking back. That was a lot worse.

W
HEN SHE GOT HOME
Ricky was lying on the couch, watching TV. “You moved any muscle at all since I left you?”

“I don’t need a lecture today,” he said. He barely moved a muscle to say it.

“Thought you was gonna look for work.”

“On Saturday?”

“Any old day would do. And if you ain’t gonna do that, at least pick up your clothes and do your own damn dishes.”

He swung around and sat up slowly, like it hurt him to do it. “What the hell got into you this morning? I ain’t never heard so many complaints come out of you all at one time.”

“I been saving ’em up.”

“I will look for work,” he said slowly, “when I have me a little more time sober. Ain’t easy, just cold turkey like that.” He lit a cigarette, a little unsteady at it. “When the shaking stops, say. Right now I’m taking on about all I can.”

“Yeah, well if you’d kept it up you’d have almost four months sober instead of just a handful of days. When I had me just a week or two sober I had to work two jobs to keep up the payments on that goddamned truck you ditched me with. And take care of a kid on top of that. I didn’t have no goddamn choice.”

“Thought I told you I didn’t need no goddamn lecture.” It came out so loud, so strong and angry, she wouldn’t dare say anything else. Which she guessed was probably the point. “What the hell got into you? Huh, Arlene? You hear me talkin’ to you? Can’t I do anything right anymore?”

“I dunno, Ricky. Can you?”

“Even in the sack now, where we always got on good before, I just can’t do nothing right with you. Not that we ever do now.”

“We do, sometimes.”

“Lady, what you give me ain’t hardly enough to starve a man.” He crossed the room and stood close, which felt vaguely threatening. “Used to you’d say I was the best you ever had.”

She stood up to him anyway. Kind of quiet, but she said what she needed to say. “Sad commentary though it may be, Ricky, I suppose that was true at the time.”

Then she stood, without backing off, and blinked too much, waiting to see what he would do. He didn’t explode the way she expected. Just brought his hand up to his face and rubbed his eyes, like the whole thing made him feel tired. She watched his face and wondered why she used to think he was so handsome. He wasn’t, really—at least, not taken one feature at a time.

“I just wish to God you hadn’t said that. This is about that colored man, right? I hate to even talk about that. How could you let that man in your bed? For God’s sake, Arlene. First time I saw him
sitting there on the couch I thought, well, at least I know she ain’t sleeping with him. Every time I think about it I just—”

She looked up to see Trevor standing in the kitchen doorway. “I thought you were playing outside.”

“No, I was in my room.”

He turned and slipped away again. She followed him down the hall and into his bedroom.

“Trevor, honey? I’m sorry you had to hear that.” She waited for him to say something back, but the waiting hurt, so she couldn’t do it for very long. “I ran into Reuben this morning.”

“Oh, yeah?” But said with little emotion.

“I thought you’d be interested in that.”

“I see him at school all the time.”

“Oh. Right. Does he ever ask about me?”

“No.” That’s all he said, just no. Kind of flat and cold. He didn’t go on to say, Why should he? But Arlene could hear it anyway; she could feel that place in the air between them that those words didn’t fill.

“Honey, I know I made a mistake.”

“So, fix it.”

“I don’t think you understand, Trevor.” Tears took hold against her will. They felt hot and angry. She could think of all kinds of things he wouldn’t understand, including some she didn’t understand herself. Like why she wasn’t ready to give Ricky the boot, even as bad as things were going. She chose to state the one reason that lay completely out of her hands, the part she could not change if she tried.

“Reuben’s real upset, honey. He got hurt. No matter what I said to him, he wouldn’t take me back now. No way. You didn’t see him this morning, honey. He’s real upset. He ain’t never gonna forgive me.”

“You don’t know that he wouldn’t.”

“I know.”

“You don’t know until you ask him.”

“I know now.”

“You should ask him.”

“I can’t, Trevor.”

“Why not?”

“He’d say no.”

“So? You could ask.”

“See, honey. You don’t understand. Like I said. I guess it’s a grown-up thing.”

She looked over her shoulder on the way out of his room. Trevor looked down, picking nervously at the bedspread.

“Maybe I don’t want to be a grown-up, then.”

“Well, honey, nobody really does. God knows it got shoved on me against my will.”

She closed the door quietly behind her.

When she got out to the living room, the TV was still blaring, but no Ricky. His GTO was missing from the driveway. The dirty dishes and clothes were all still there.

S
HE WAS HALFWAY THROUGH THE DISHES
when she heard a knock on her kitchen door. She opened it and Bonnie came through like a freight train. Might have mowed her right down if she hadn’t jumped out of the way.

“Girl, are you actually
trying
to be the stupidest woman on the planet, or did it just happen that way by accident? My God, girl. You had that honest, decent man who loved you and wanted to marry you. What’s the matter, afraid you might get happy?”

“It’s been going on for months, Bonnie. Why get on me now?”

“I just now heard it. You conveniently forgot to tell me. Just so happens you haven’t called your sponsor since October. What a coincidence. I got news for you, girl. You don’t call your sponsor for more’n four months, you don’t have a sponsor.”

Arlene took a deep breath, bent on remaining calm. Her blood
pressure had been an issue lately. She poured two cups of coffee and set them on the kitchen table.

“Then why is it I got a lady in my kitchen yelling at me?”

“You don’t want me here, I could go just as easy.”

“I want you here, Bonnie.” She sat down in front of her own cup and put her hands over her face. Life kept taking too much out of her. She was going to run out any minute. She could feel it. “I just want you to say you’re still my sponsor.” The tears wanted to come back. Probably she’d be too tired to stop them.

Bonnie sat down in front of her coffee. “If you’re still halfway interested in taking my advice.”

“Tell me how to undo all the mistakes I been making.”

“That’s a good start. Okay. Number one. Pack up all his stuff and put it out on the lawn.”

“He’s trying though, Bonnie. He really is. He’s sober, and going to meetings. It takes a while to change, you know that.”

“Girl. Unlike you, I go to every meeting they hold in this town, every day. If he was going to meetings, don’t you think I’d know it?”

“He says he’s going.”

“And you’re just stupid enough to believe it. Want to know where he’s been?”

Something about the way Bonnie said that told her that she held some kind of card. Arlene didn’t want to see the face on that card. She tried to answer, but nothing came out.

“Hanging out over at Stanley’s.”

“Who’s Stanley?”

“Wake up, girl. Stanley’s, the bar. On the Camino.”

“He’s been drinking?”

“With his ex-wife. Cheryl what’s-her-name.”

“You’re making that up.” There was a buzzing in her ears like a mild shock, and a numb feeling to go with it. Lots of lies in a small town; this was just one more. “How the hell would you know anyway? You never go to bars.”

“Me’n Loretta had to go by, make us a twelve-step call. I didn’t
know the guy from Adam, ’cause it’s not like I seen him at any meetings or anything. Loretta, she told me who he was. She didn’t want to tell you. Now, you ready to put that fool’s clothes out on the front lawn?”

Arlene took a breath and tried to know what she felt. She knew she
should
be ready now. They’d hit low enough. “If it’s true.”

“Would I tell you if it wasn’t true?”

“I’ll just ask him right to his face.”

“Oh, right. And he’ll tell you the whole truth.”

“I’ll see what he says.”

“And if he says one thing and I say another? Then who you gonna believe?”

Arlene folded her arms onto the table and let her head fall into that dark cradle. It wasn’t nearly comfort enough. “I didn’t think he’d do this to me, Bonnie.”

“Why not? He always did before. And you know what I always say—”

“Yeah, yeah, sure, Bonnie. If nothing changes, nothing changes. If you always do what you always did, then you’ll always get what you always got. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and every time expecting a different result. I’m up to my ears in little slogans, Bonnie. It ain’t doing me no good. I really screwed up everything, didn’t I?”

Silence, then she felt Bonnie’s hand on her back. “I’ll just leave you to hold that good thought for a while.”

Arlene heard the kitchen door close. She didn’t bother to raise her head.

T
HAT SAME EVENING,
A
RLENE WAS SITTING
on the couch watching TV with Trevor. Watching that program called
Weekly News in Review
—which she never found all that fascinating anyway—and her thoughts ran elsewhere.

She knew pretty much what Ricky would say when she mentioned Cheryl Wilcox. He’d say Arlene had given him no choice. That if she wanted him at home she should have given him a little more to stay home for.

She was thinking she should have talked to Bonnie about the sex. Tried to explain that she couldn’t make it work with him now. They had, of course, they did, but it didn’t really work for her. There was something about it. Something…heartless, maybe. Yeah. Maybe that was just the word.

And Bonnie would have said, Yeah, well, everything changes. But it wasn’t a change. It was just how it had always been with them. The only thing that had changed was her.

Anyway, none of that mattered now.

She pulled her attention back to the program.

Trevor said, “This might be interesting.”

“What might? I missed what he said.”

“Next story coming up is about how gang violence might be about to become a thing of the past. Because, like, one person came up with an idea to change everything.”

“I’m sorry. I forgot to pay attention.”

“That’s like what I was trying to do. Only not with gangs. Just, you know. One person changing everything.”

By now the program had gone to commercial.

She heard the loud, unmuffled motor of Ricky’s GTO in the driveway. Her heart jumped.

She reached for the remote control and shut off the TV. “Go on into your room now, honey.”

“I wanted to watch this program.”

“I’m sorry, honey. This is important. I gotta have a private talk with your daddy.”

He left the room like he’d been told.

When Ricky swung the door open, she could tell he’d been drinking. He was trying to hide it. Maybe that’s how she could tell. He was trying too hard to hide it.

“We need to talk, Ricky.”

“Not now, hon. I’m gonna take a hot shower.”

“That’s good. You do that.”

While he did, she packed up all his belongings, which really wasn’t much, and loaded them into his GTO. She left him one pair of jeans, one shirt, and one pair of socks, which she laid out on the bathroom sink.

“Don’t need those, hon, I’m going right to bed.”

“Fine. I’ll call Cheryl and tell her you’ll be right there. I’ll tell her to turn down the bed.”

And she did.

Ricky dressed and left with no words spoken, and remarkably, no trouble.