Please (13 page)

"Fresh," she said.

"And then -" I said.

"And then I go inside," she said. "Alone."

"Really?" I asked.

"We have to leave something for the next date," she said.

I WORKED EVERY DAY for the man with the van. We bought things all over town with his credit cards, opened more post-office boxes, even went into banks and cleaned out people's accounts with their own bank cards. I was making more money working for him than any other job I'd ever had.

One day, as we drove away from a Wal-Mart with a load of vacuum cleaners, I asked him what his wife did.

"What do you mean?" he asked, staring into the rear-view mirror.

"Does she work? Does she stay at home with the kids?"

"What wife?" he asked. "What kids?"

"You don't have kids?" I asked.

"What makes you think that?" he said, looking at me now.

"The baby seat in the back," I said. "I thought ..."

He laughed and shook his head. "What makes you think this van is mine?" he asked.

ONE NIGHT, WHILE we were eating dinner and watching television before Rachel had to go to work, I asked her if she'd had any interesting calls lately.

"I have this broker who keeps calling me," she said, not taking her eyes off the television. "He asked me out on a date the other night."

"What did you tell him?" I asked.

"I told him no," she said.

"Really?" I said.

Now she turned to look at me. "Isn't that what I should have told him?" she asked me.

"Of course," I said.

She looked back at the television. "So," she said, "how's the job hunt going?"

"It's tough out there," I said. "No one's hiring." When she didn't say anything, I added, "I might have some interviews next week."

"That would be good," she said.

"Yes," I said. "It would."

I didn't say anything else for a moment. Then I said, "So tell me what this broker is like."

BUT I HAVEN'T TOLD YOU about the incident with the other man yet, the one that made me stop working for him.

He picked me up at the park one morning but then didn't take me anywhere. We just drove around the neighbourhood again and again. We went past where I lived twice, and I imagined Rachel inside, sleeping in the bed I had just left.

"You're not a cop, are you?" the man asked after we'd been doing this for maybe twenty minutes.

"After all we've been through," I said, "you could think that?"

"I had to ask," he said. We drove around in silence for a few minutes more. Then he asked, "So what do you charge, anyway?"

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"You know," he said. "When you're working."

"Do I actually hear what I think I'm hearing?" I asked.

"It's all right," he said. "I'm not a cop either."

"Where did you get the idea that I was ..." I didn't know what to say.

"Well, you were in that park," he said, looking at me. "I thought you were working."

"I wasn't working," I said, "I was looking for work."

"What's the difference?" he asked.

"Oh, there's a whole world of difference," I said.

"Anyway," he went on. "What do you charge?"

"That's not what I do," I said. "You couldn't pay me enough."

"No?" he asked.

"No," I said.

"What about if I gave you everything in my wallet," he said. "Would that be enough?"

THE NEXT TIME I called Velma, I asked her to marry me.

"This is a bit sudden," she said. "We haven't even met in person."

"I feel like I know you," I said.

"I don't think I'm ready for marriage," she said.

"I've even got a ring," I said.

"You've got a ring already?" she asked. "But I haven't even said yes yet."

"But you will," I said.

"How do you know?" she asked.

"Because this is my call," I said.

"What would we do if we were married?" she asked.

"I don't know," I said. "Happily ever after, I guess."

"Well, that doesn't sound so bad," she said.

"Why don't we meet somewhere?" I said. "In real life?"

"I'm not sure if I'm ready for that kind of commitment," she said.

"When's your next night off?" I asked.

"Tomorrow," she said.

"I'll meet you at the mall downtown," I said. "The south entrance. Six o'clock."

"How will you know what I look like?" she said.

"I'll know," I said.

"All right," she said. "Maybe."

"And don't tell your boyfriend about this," I said.

"Who said I had a boyfriend?"

I REALLY DID have a ring. I'd bought it from an old man in the street. He'd been trying to sell it for months. Every day he stood in front of the Starbucks by my place and offered the ring to anyone who walked past. He was there even when it rained, wearing a black wool overcoat and cap despite the fact that it was summer at the time. He never spoke, just held the ring out in his hand. It was a thick golden band with no markings on it. He looked as if he hadn't talked to anyone in years.

Once, an older woman started yelling at him. "How dare you," she said over and over. She was leaning on a walker herself. The man just stood there, holding the ring out to her. Together they blocked the entrance to the Starbucks. A crowd formed around them, waiting to get in. "What would your wife think?" the woman shouted at him. "What do you suppose she's thinking right now?"

I bought the ring from him a few days later. I went inside, bought a latte, then went back out and asked him how much he wanted for the ring. He still didn't speak, just shuffled a step closer to me. His brows went up and down, like he was signaling something to me in code.

I took a ten out of my wallet. "Is this enough?" I asked.

He took another step closer. Now I could smell his sweat. His mouth worked but still nothing came out.

I pressed the ten into his hand, took the ring out. "All right?" I asked. He kept shuffling toward me. I took out another ten and put it in his hand, along with the first. His hand clenched into a fist around the money.

I backed away from him, but he kept coming. All the way down the sidewalk he followed me, shuffling at the same pace, staring at the ring I held in my hand. I crossed at the corner just as the light changed, but still he came on, straight into the traffic. That was the last I saw of him, standing there in the middle of the street, amidst all those cars, hand still stretched after me.

AFTER I STOPPED GOING to the park, I spent a few days at the art gallery downtown. The first morning, I stood in line to see how much it would cost to get in. The woman behind the counter told me it was pay-what-you-can.

"What if I can't pay anything?" I asked. "Do I get in for free?" I still had some money from working for the man with the van, but I didn't know when I'd work again.

She adjusted her glasses before answering. "There are suggested minimums," she said. "Most people pay five dollars."

I put a dollar on the counter and she stared at it. "It's all I have," I said.

"All right then," she said, printing me a ticket.

"Really," I said.

The inside of the gallery was cool and dark. There was hardly anybody else in the place at this time of day. I wandered from room to room and looked at paintings I didn't understand.

After about an hour or so of this, I found myself in the medieval room. The walls were covered in wood carvings of people in churches, and there was a large Christ on a cross on one wall. I sat on a bench in front of the Christ. The room was completely silent. I couldn't hear anything but my own breathing. It was like the city outside of the gallery didn't exist at all.

I lay down on the bench and stared up at the Christ. It was made of some sort of painted wood, and it hung slightly off the wall, like it was about to fall on me. After a time, the overhead lights turned off and I was in the dark, except for a small spotlight in the ceiling that lit up the Christ's face. It kept on staring at me, until I closed my eyes.

I don't know how I long I slept. I was woken by a woman in an art gallery uniform. "There's no sleeping in here," she said. "You have to go somewhere else to do that."

"I wasn't sleeping," I said. I sat up and rubbed my eyes. The lights were back on now. "I was praying," I told her.

She backed away from me, putting a wooden altar covered by a glass case between us. "Don't make me call security," she said.

RACHEL TOLD ME she had to go to work the night I was supposed to meet Velma at the mall.

"I thought it was your night off," I said. "I thought maybe we'd do something."

"I got called in," she said. "We need the money."

"True," I said.

"Maybe someday you'll get a job too," she said.

"I'm sure," I said. "Any day now."

AFTER SHE LEFT, I drove downtown and parked in the mall's parking lot. I went into the coffee shop across the street from the south entrance and bought a coffee, then sat in a window seat. I watched for Velma. Six o'clock came and went. Then seven. At eight, I gave up. Velma never came.

I went home and phoned the chat line until I reached her. "What are you doing?" I said. "We had a date."

"You can't keep calling here," she said, and now her Russian accent was completely gone.

"What do you mean?" I asked. "The whole point is that I keep calling."

"I'm working," she said. "Do you understand that?"

"So it's over? Just like that?"

"I'm working."

WHEN I WENT BACK to the art gallery, I didn't go anywhere near the medieval section. Instead, I went to the modern art section. There was another man there, sitting on a bench and drinking a coffee while he looked at a life-sized picture of Elvis dressed in a cowboy outfit. Behind him, on the floor, was a pile of empty fast-food containers.

"Someone's left some garbage here," I said.

The man looked over his shoulder. "That's not garbage," he said. "That's an exhibit."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"That's art," he said.

I looked down at the pile of containers. There were even little bits of food left in some of them. "Are you sure?" I asked. And there were other little bits of garbage mixed in with the containers: crumpled photographs, movie ticket stubs, a doll's head.

"They paid almost ten thousand dollars for it," he said.

"They paid ten thousand dollars for garbage?" I said.

"They paid ten thousand dollars for art," he said. When I just stared at him, he added, "It's an installation piece."

"I've never had that much money in my life," I said.

"Who has?" he said.

"How do you know all this stuff?" I asked him, sitting beside him on the bench. "Do you work here?"

He shook his head. "No, I'm more of a collector."

I looked at the picture of Elvis. Actually, there were four pictures of Elvis, side by side. He was in the same pose in each, pointing a gun at me, but the colours were progressively more washed out as the panels went along, until he was almost invisible in the last one.

"What do you think this one's worth?" I asked.

"That one's a Warhol," the man said. "It's priceless."

I stared at it. "I don't understand," I finally said.

He moved closer on the bench. "It's about commodification of the individual," he said. "See how Elvis is repeated so many times, until he becomes nothing more than a product?"

"Like those soup can paintings," I said.

"Exactly," the man said, nodding and smiling like he was my teacher.

I shook my head. "I could do this," I said.

"But you didn't," the other man said. He sipped from his coffee again and then looked at me. "So what do you do?" he asked.

"I'm a broker," I told him.

He studied my clothes for a moment. "You don't look like a broker," he said.

"I'm on vacation," I told him. I looked at him. "What do you do?"

"Ah, well, this is where things get awkward," he said. He finished the coffee and set the cup down on the floor, then stood up. "I'm a mugger," he said.

I stared at him for a moment, until he pulled a gun out of his jacket pocket and pointed it at me, much like the Elvii were pointing their guns at me.

"Is this some sort of art thing?" I asked him.

"I'm afraid not," he said.

"I don't have any money," I said.

"You're a broker," he said.

"I was just making that up," I told him.

"Why don't you make this easy on the both of us," he said, "and give me your wallet."

I looked around for anyone else but there was no one in sight. "Help!" I called. "I'm being robbed!" My voice echoed through the empty rooms, and then the man hit me across the head with the gun. Suddenly I didn't have control over my body any more. I fell to the floor and curled up in the fetal position.

"I'm sorry about all this," the man said, "but I have a wife and kids to feed." He took my wallet from my pocket and walked away with it, disappearing into the gallery.

I don't know how long I lay there before I could move again. When I touched my forehead, my fingers came away with blood. I heard footsteps and sat up. An old couple with cameras around their necks were wandering through the room, but they stopped when they saw me. I tried to call to them for help, but I could only croak. I waved a bloody hand at them instead.

"Must be one of those performance pieces," the woman said.

The man grunted. "Well, I don't like it," he said. "I don't like it all."

WHEN RACHEL CAME HOME the morning after I was supposed to meet Velma, I was waiting for her. I was wearing my suit, the one I'd bought for all the job interviews I'd never had, and I had the old man's ring in my pocket. I'd lit candles and put them all over the living room, and put a bible on top of the television.

Rachel stopped in the entrance to the living room and stared. "What's all this?" she asked.

I took the ring out of my pocket and held it out to her. She didn't look surprised to see it.

"Is that what you really want?" she asked.

"That's what I really want," I said.

She rubbed her eyes for a moment. "All right then," she said. "All right."

ARE YOU SURE YOU DON'T WANT TO KILL HIM? By Peter Darbyshire