Vintage Veronica (20 page)

I head for the stairs, and I have my foot on the first one when Bill stamps his foot loudly, then calls out, “Hey, Veronica, can you send down some roach spray if you see it kicking around upstairs? And keep an eye out for Zoe and Ginger. I think they’re kind of on the warpath for you.”

“Wait … what?”

“Roach spray,” he repeats, peeking under his shoe.

“No, about Zoe and Ginger.”

“Oh, it’s just something I heard them talking about in the bathroom …” He stops.

“Bill! Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I just did.”

“No, I mean, before.”

“Oh, I dunno. I had important things to tell you. I guess it just slipped my mind.”

I sit down on the stairs and put my hands over my face, spreading my fingers into V’s over my eyes. I really really don’t want to start crying. Because then Bill will definitely hug me, or worse.

But I can’t help it. I am just so totally screwed. Why did I ever let myself get drawn into hanging out with Zoe and Ginger in the first place? It’s like a zebra saying,
Hey, screw the law of the jungle … I can hang out with the lions if I want. They like me!

Why am I so stupid?

“Aw, Veronica, man,” I hear Bill say as his hand awkwardly pats my head. “It’s gonna be okay. Seriously.”

I look up at him. His head is cocked to one side, and his ponytail hangs down over his left shoulder.

“Follow me,” he says. Since what I’m doing—sitting and sniveling on the stairs—is not exactly working for me, I do as he says. We walk past The Pile and the Pickers and step through these huge curtains that hang at the back of Dollar-a-Pound, separating the retail part from the warehouse itself.

I follow Bill past giant towers of clothing items so stained, damaged, and butt-ugly that they have been rejected by even the Pickers. There are these huge, scary-looking industrial machines that take batches of the reject clothing and smush it into gigantic rectangular bricks of fabric, six feet long by four feet square on both ends. The machines then bind the clothing bricks like hay bales, only with metal wire, and then the bricks get stacked by forklift onto wooden pallets, forming these dark, looming towers.

I don’t actually know where they go from here. I’ve heard they get shipped to Africa or wherever people are so desperate for clothing that they’ll take whatever gets sent. I have no idea how much it costs to send them or how the store makes any money off them. But judging by the sheer amount of space they take up, they are a pretty big part of the store’s business.

After we get past a few rows of them, Bill disappears around a corner. I turn, too, and discover a card table next to a broken window. Through the window, I can see that right outside where we’ve ended up is Zoe and Ginger’s beloved loading dock. Their salon.

The card table has two folding chairs next to it. On the table there’s an overflowing ashtray and a rectangular wooden cigar box. “Dominoes,” explains Bill. “Some of the guys in Shipping and Receiving play.”

He gestures for me to sit.

“This is where I go to clear my head,” he tells me. “Especially when the girls’ john is
ocupado.”

“Why don’t you go to the men’s room?”

Bill frowns, considering the question.

“No ambience,” he finally says.

O-kay.

I sit down and Bill takes the other chair. He then pulls a purple bandanna out of his pocket and gives it a shake. A couple of tiny twigs and crumbs fall to the floor. He picks up a little clump of something and offers me the bandanna.

I take it and wipe my eyes, even though they’re already dry. The bandanna smells musty. When I hand it back, I see that Bill has dug a little drawstring pouch out of his pocket. From it, he pulls a small metal pipe.

“Do you still not smoke?” he asks me. Another reference to our movie-watching days.

Instinctively, I shake my head, but already I’m thinking,
Why the hell not? What exactly do I have to lose at this point?
I watch him light up and inhale deeply. He pulls off and nods, holding in the smoke. When he exhales, he says, real soft, “Look, I know it seems like the end of the world to have your friends turn on you. But actually, I think it’s kind of a blessing in disguise.”

“Oh?” I say, surprised to hear him characterize Zoe and Ginger as my friends.

“Yeah, I mean, I was seventeen once, too.”
Fifteen and a half
, I mentally correct him.
But who’s counting?
“Seems like only yesterday.” Bill gazes off wistfully, presumably dreaming about bygone years spent doing, well, probably the exact same thing he’s doing right now.

“Bill, no offense, but it’s kind of complicated,” I start to say. He waves a hand at me, dismissively.

“It always is, man. Like the Great One once said, people are strange.”

“The Great One?”

“The Great One, you know. The Lizard King?”

“Are you talking about Len?”

“Who?”

“You know, Lenny.”

“Lenny?” Bill laughs. “Nah, man. Jim Morrison. Jim Morrison? One of the greatest prophets of our time?
People are strange when you’re a stranger
…,” he croons. I shrug. Bill shakes his head. “Man, you make me feel old sometimes.”

“You
are
old,” I tease him.

Bill winces, then takes another drag and holds it in. “Harsh, dude,” he says when he exhales.

“Kidding,” I say. “Grandpa.”

“Yeah, ha-ha-ha. Now, wait, I was saying something profound. Oh, yeah. When I was your age, I was running all over the place doing whatever the older kids told me to do, having the time of my life and not giving a damn if they were laughing at me or using me or what. But there came a point where I just said, Fuck it. You can live like this, or you can live by your own rules. Dig?”

“Your own rules?”

“That’s right. I’ve told you about my rules, right? The Sacred Rules of The Pile?”

“Uh, I don’t think so.”

His brow furrows. “How is that possible?”

“I dunno. I mean, maybe you have and I just don’t remember.”

“Oh, no. You’d remember the Sacred Rules of The Pile.”

“Are they the rules listed by the cash registers?”

Bill laughs.

“No, man. Those are just the store rules. This is something else entirely. Sacred Rules. You know.
Life
Rules.” He gives me a meaningful look.

“Oh.”

“Are you ready? Okay, listen up. Sacred Rule Number One is: Shit is shit.”

“Shit is shit?”

“Yeah,” says Bill, grinning proudly. “I made it up the first year I started running Dollar-a-Pound. I was in the john one day—”

“I think I’ve got it.”

“Yeah, but dig this. It’s a Sacred Rule of The Pile because it’s about clothes, but …” He pauses dramatically. Jeez, you’d think he was talking about reading tea leaves or tarot cards or something. His eyes are the most un-drooped I’ve ever seen them. “It’s not
just
about clothes.
Capeesh?
”

“Uh, yeah, I guess so.”

“Rule Number Two,” he continues, “is related. It goes like this: Sometimes shit looks like shit, but if you scratch some of the shit away, you’ll see it’s really gold. Covered in shit.”

Bill nods sagely and I nod, too, but just to be polite. I’m tempted to make a joke about “number two” but he seems really serious, so I don’t.

“That’s, um … cool,” I say.

“Wait, that’s not all. Rule Number Three.”

“Rule Number Three?”

“Rule Number Three is: Be very, very quiet.”

“Why?”
I whisper.

“Oh, not now. ‘Be very, very quiet’ is Rule Number Three. You’ve got to spend some time being very, very quiet because, if you do”—he drops his voice to a whisper—“
you will hear the shit talking
.”

I almost start laughing. “Is that the real reason you hang out in the girls’ bathroom?”

Bill gives me a hurt look. “I’m trying to impart some wisdom here, okay? The Sacred Rules of The Pile are all you really need to find your way in this mixed-up world.”

“Okay, sorry,” I say.

Then, without really thinking about what I’m doing, I extend my hand. Bill gives me a questioning look, but allows me to take the pipe.

“It’s still lit,” he says.

I put it to my mouth and suck on it. A tiny ember glows red and I get a faint, sweet, smoky taste.

“Sorry, man. I guess it’s beat after all.” He digs a big crumb out of his pouch and pushes it into the bowl of the pipe. Then he hands it back to me.

“Put it in your mouth,” he instructs. I do. Bill leans in and positions his lighter. “Watch your bangs,” he cautions, so with my free hand I hold them out of the way. Then he flicks the lighter and the flame shoots up.

“Go ahead,” he tells me. This time, however, there is tons
of smoke, far more than I expect. Immediately, I’m coughing and banging on my chest, forgetting about my bangs. The back of my throat feels like it’s on fire.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

“Yeah,” I say between coughs. “Fine.” Bill takes a turn, then hands it again to me.

“Try not to cough this time,” he says.

“You think?” I say. But I focus on this, and somehow I’m able to hold the smoke for a few seconds. This time, I manage to exhale before having a coughing fit. Which for some reason doesn’t hurt as much.

“Hey, Bill?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, what if,” I start out softly, not sure quite how to say what I mean. “What if you spend a lot of time by yourself but you never actually hear, you know, it talking?”

“You will,” he says. “You just gotta trust.”

“Yeah. No, thanks,” I say. “Been there, done that.”

“Huh?”

“Trusting people hasn’t worked out so great for me.”

“I hear that, man,” he says with sort of a bemused smile. “But I’m talking about trusting yourself.” He breaks into song again:
“Don’t trust me to show you beauty/When beauty may only turn to rust/If you need somebody you can trust, trust yourself.”

“Dylan,” he informs me.

“Right,” I say to avoid another music lecture.

“Now, listen. About this thing with Ginger and Zoe. Maybe I could help out?”

“Like how?”

“Well, I could maybe talk to Ginger for you.” He chuckles softly. “She sort of owes me a favor.”

“Oh, yeah?”

Bill keeps his eyes down, adding more to the pipe. “Kind of. I mean, actually, we’re sort of, um, an item.”

I can’t help but laugh out loud. Is Bill actually several times more deluded than I ever thought?

“What? Is that so hard to believe?”

Yes
. “No,” I say. “It’s just that …”

“Yeah, okay, I know. I’m just some old geezer to you, right? Couldn’t possibly make it with the ladies?”

I cringe.
Make it?
Somebody has got to set him straight about the way he talks. Bill takes another turn, but when he goes to pass the pipe to me, I wave him off.

“It’s not that,” I tell him. “It’s just …”

“What?”

“I mean …”
Ugh
. “Ginger is kind of a bitch.”

Bill furrows his brow. “Yeah, I used to think so, too,” he finally says. “She comes off as very Rule Number One. But deep down, she’s not. A prime example of Rule Number Two. And a very excellent surprise, I might add.”

As he stares off dreamily, I decide not to share with him the fact that Ginger and Zoe refer to him as “Barnacle Bill” and that his one-night stand with Ginger has firmly established him as the perennial butt of their jokes. No harm in letting him think he parted the curtains—or scratched off the shit—and caught a glimpse of her kinder, gentler self.

“What about Zoe?” I ask.

“Zoe is one hundred percent Rule Number One. To the core.”

“Yeah, well, that’s the problem.”

“Rule Number Three,” he insists, waving off my concern. “Trust yourself, remember? You can do it.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“Seriously, you can.”

“Um, Bill?” I almost can’t bring myself to ask, but I’ve got to know.

“Yeah?”

“What about Len? Lenny,” I clarify.

“What
about
Lenny?” Bill raises one eyebrow at me, like
hmmm?

I shrug, feeling myself blush and beginning to feel a little goofy.

“Lenny,” he says reverently, “is above The Rules. There is no shit to Lenny. He is the real deal. Solid gold, through and through. As I believe you know.”

My heart lurches. “Bill, I’m such an asshole,” I confess to him. “I’m the one who’s Rule Number One.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Yes, I am. You just don’t know. I did all this awful shit to him. I made fun of him and I called him names and talked shit about him. I mean, that was before I knew him, but still. And then I killed his snake. I mean, I didn’t, you know,
kill
it. But it got killed, and it was basically my fault. And then I was with Zoe while she had this shoe and she was doing this whole ‘Oh, lizard, lizard’ thing, and …”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Veronica, hey, hold up,” says Bill,
interrupting my rant. He gives me this amused look and shakes his head.

“What?”

“You don’t honestly think you’re like Zoe, do you?”

“No. But almost.”

“Veronica, listen to me. You may have done some dumb things. I don’t doubt that. Who hasn’t? But this I know:
you’re not like that
. And once you take the Sacred Rules to heart, you’ll know, too.”

He stands up and hikes up his jeans. “Seriously, kiddo. I may not know shit about a
lot
of shit, but after running The Pile all these years, I know this shit.” Bill tucks a wisp of hair behind his ear, frowns, and raises his eyebrows conspiratorially, as if to show that he’s not bragging or anything. Then he gives my knee two pats.

“Listen, stay out here as long as you want. If you want to duck Zoe and Ginger, just sit tight. They punch out right at five.”

“Thanks,” I tell him, my eyelids starting to feel heavy.

He does this dorky little half salute and leaves.

So I sit there, surrounded on all sides by the giant-clothing-brick walls. I wonder if I’m stoned and whether I’m going to start philosophizing about
talking shit, man
, like Bill. I can’t really tell, although I do feel kind of relaxed. My mouth feels dry and I really, really need an iced mocha smoothie. And some donuts.