Flat Broke (6 page)

I tried to nod, I meant to nod, I wanted to nod, but some wires in my brain must have gotten crossed when I fell, because I felt myself shaking my head.

Tina waved as she got into the front seat, and then her mother pulled away, leaving me standing in the middle of the sidewalk. Where the wires got uncrossed and I blurted a perfectly good speech to no one but a golden retriever that’d been sitting by a parking meter.

“I think you’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever met, I’m starting a business to try to impress you and I’d like to ask you to go with me to the dance that’s coming up soon,” I said in a perfectly normal voice.

“Woof.”
The golden retriever wagged her tail.

Well, it was a start. My line worked on the dog, and Tina and I had shared A Moment, A Look and Two Helpful Lies. What a girl! Next time: no falling and no gurgling.

The next time I talked to Tina, everything was going to click into place.

5

The Successful Person Is a Carpe Diem Kind of Guy

H
iring Sam earlier that afternoon had given me food for thought. If I could make good use of employees, maybe I could partner up with other successful people.

I walked home from The Moment with Tina and studied my family over the dinner table. I’d already decided my parents were nonstarters in terms of ideas to exploit—my mother manages a bookstore and is always saying there’s no money in what she does, that working on behalf of literacy is a labor of love. And I wanted to impress my dad, not ask him for help being impressive.

I studied Daniel and Sarah over my mac-and-cheese casserole and green beans. Nothing came to me as I watched them chew.

As soon as dinner was over, Sarah headed to her place of worship. Our/her bathroom.

As I’ve mentioned, my sister, Sarah, is sixteen. And vain. My mother says that’s typical of a girl her age. Daniel and I think it’s typical of a pain in the butt, because we share a bathroom with her.

Our/her bathroom is more or less equidistant from all three bedrooms. I measured; I’m three-sixteenths of an inch closer than Daniel, but Sarah is directly across the hall from the bathroom, which we are
supposed
to share with each other.

There are three sets of hooks for towels and three separate plastic bins under the sink for each of us to keep our stuff in. But Sarah has taken over all the drawers and the counter space around the sink. Which is where she keeps hot, spiky hair-fixing things that hurt.

Her showers take forever, and I think she sleeps in the bathroom too. Probably hanging upside down by her heels from the shower rod because it’s some beauty secret she read about.

And she’s always having her coven over before parties and dates and sporting events to do their makeup and fix their hair.

Daniel finally gave up on trying to use our/her bathroom and troops down to the basement to use the funky, leaky shower that Dad installed in the laundry room, which smells like monkey butt.

I resort to drastic measures like licking Sarah’s makeup, powdering my unmentionables with her makeup brushes and flushing the downstairs toilet while she’s in the shower.

But that night, watching Sarah head into the bathroom to plug in a flatiron when I knew she wasn’t going out, I got curious about girls and their addiction to beauty routines. The next day after school, I trotted down to the closest beauty salon and sat in the front, pretending to be waiting for someone. I studied what went on and I listened to the rip of the credit card scanner as everyone paid.

On the way home, I stopped by a beauty supply store and used some of my poker money to buy Sarah a tall director’s chair, a three-sided, lighted countertop mirror and an electric hot wax pot. I lugged everything home. Did Bill Gates or Donald Trump or Sam Walton or any of those other hugely successful business guys ever go to this much trouble for supplies?

As soon as I got home, I set everything up in our/her bathroom and sat working at my computer and waiting for Sarah to appear.

“What’s with the stuff in her bathroom, Kev?” Daniel asked after hockey practice.

“Part of my Master Plan,” I said mysteriously.

Daniel shrugged. “Hey, I’m supposed to tell you: the guys like grape soda and we want tortilla chips, not pretzels, next time.”

I nodded and made a note. I’d started carrying a notebook around with me so that I could jot down great ideas. Or shopping lists.

“What’s with the stuff in my—I mean,
our
bathroom?” Sarah asked when she got home.

“I’m helping.”

“Helping what?”

“You. You already have what amounts to a beauty parlor in our bathroom.”

She stared at me with slitted eyes.

“When your friends come over, they have to sit on the countertop, the mirror over the sink doesn’t have magnification, and you’ve been buying little jars of wax to melt in the microwave in the kitchen. I bought you a client chair, a lighted mirror and a salon-grade wax pot that plugs in. More volume.”

“Why?”

“I upgraded your skinny butt and—”

“You think my butt’s skinny?” She twisted around to try to see her rear end.

“—and so it’s only fair that I, um, reap part of the profits.”

“What profits?”

“What are you talking about?” Even Daniel had started paying attention.

“Your friends need to start paying you. You’ve been doing their hair and makeup for free. Charge them.”

“But, Kevin, they’re my
friends.
I can’t ask them for money. That’d be gross.”

“What’s gross is the way you run your business.”

“My … I’m doing makeup for my girlfriends. That’s not a business.”

“Everything’s a business.”

“You’re repellent.”

“Whatever. I’ve, um, enhanced your resources. I should, uh, see some, whattayoucallit, benefits from my … investment.”

“What?”

“I want a cut.”

“You’re a greasy little bully, you know that?”

“You’ve been a bathroom hog for years, and now I’ve figured out how to make some money from it.”

“But—”

“Look, Sarah, are you a charity or are you a, a, an enterprise in the making?”

“What are you talking about!”

“Making money.”

She opened her mouth to answer and was cut off by the doorbell. Mom answered the door. It was Connie Shaw, my debate buddy. She of the Scary Monobrow.

“Sarah. Have you met Connie?” Sarah’s face lit up when she caught sight of Connie’s eyebrow. And the twenty Connie had clutched in her hand. “I told her you were a beauty whiz.”

“There’s more where that came from,” I whispered to Sarah after she got Connie settled in her director’s chair in front of the mirror and plugged in the wax pot.

She looked sympathetic. “Yeah, eighth grade is a tough time in a girl’s life. But zipzip that brow and she’s gorgeous.” Sarah patted my arm. “Leave it to me, Kev, I’ve got this covered.”

“Give me your client list.”

“My what?”

“Your address book.”

“Why?”

“I took a good look at the computer at the beauty salon and was able to replicate the calendar system they use for making appointments. I’ll start calling your clients and getting them on a routine.”

She shook her head and started to speak, but I cut her off. “I also set up an email address where everyone can ask for time slots. You won’t have to do a thing but makeup and hair. Which you’re doing anyway. And collect the money.”

Sarah looked at me the way I’ve seen her study the gobs of gunk my father pulls from the shower drain. “You are a piece of work, you know that?”

“I’m your agent. And don’t forget that you’ve got a client sitting in your chair. Remember the upsell—ask if she wants to try out other services you provide. We’ll talk about my commission later. Don’t worry, it’s reasonable.”

I walked back to my room, thinking it was kind of too bad that Tina’s already perfect. Everything about her is just right—I don’t know how tall she is, but it seems like she’s not too tall and not too short. Blond hair with about a hundred different shades of gold, eyes that are this blue-green or green-blue, I can’t tell, but I’m sure there’s not even a name for it. Someday I’ll have to invent the names to describe her hair and her eyes.

There’s not a single thing on her that needs fixing except maybe the freckle, or Sarah’s new salon would be a great way to get her into my house. But Connie’s one of her best friends, and I’m sure Tina will be pleased Connie’s not rocking the monobrow any longer and then she’ll ask Connie what happened and Connie will tell her that I saved her from ugliness and Tina will realize that I’m not just clumsy and tongue-tied, but very thoughtful, too.

So, yeah, Tina will start to think good things about me and that’s when I’ll swoop in and tell her what I told the golden retriever.

I love it when my plans start to come together.

6

The Successful Person Finds Gold in What Others Consider Dross

J
onPaul and I rode our bikes to the hot dog stand for a bite on Saturday. It’s the only time of the week when JonPaul’s not counting carbs and calories and sugar grams; usually he eats organic, free-range, preservative-free food. But Saturdays he pigs out with me. It’s great. A real bonding experience.

We weren’t really hungry, so we just had a light snack. Jumbo dogs, fully loaded—mustard, relish, sport peppers, extra onions, tomatoes, celery salt—with a couple of sides of extra-large chili-cheese fries and handcut onion rings. Amazing belches. Ah-may-zing.

“I think we overdid the onions today, JonPaul. Because I can’t smell anything anymore.”

He shrugged, sniffed and said, “Weird, huh?”

We were sitting on the curb, licking the last of the hot-dog ooze off our fingers, when shouts came from the storage facility across the parking lot.

JonPaul, although wussy about his health, is really brave. He jumped up and hustled over. I sighed and followed. Slowly. Hoping that everything would be resolved by the time I got there.

Turns out some guy hadn’t paid his rent because management hadn’t prevented some mama raccoon from having her babies—her un-potty-trained babies—in his storage locker, ruining his tent and hiking boots and anorak.

“Look, pal, you gotta clean out your own locker,” the manager bellowed.

“I’m not touching that stuff—this is your responsibility,” the renter hollered back.

“I’ll touch it,” I said.

“You’ll what?” They turned to me.

“Yeah, sure, I’ll clean it out for you; how bad can it be?”

“You’ve never smelled raccoon urine.”

“I can’t smell anything; I think the onions on the hot dog I just ate burned out my smell sensors or something.”

JonPaul peered into the space. “Looks like a one-man job, Kevin. I’m gonna head off now and catch you later.” He jogged away.

He’d probably read about germs and wild animals. Now he’d gone home to plunge his entire body into a large vat of disinfectant. I shrugged and turned back to my new job.

I have never seen two happier faces than on those guys. They offered me a hundred bucks to empty the locker and drag the contents to the Dumpster. The manager loaned me some work gloves, and they went to the office to sign papers.

It only took me twenty-five minutes to throw everything away. I couldn’t smell a thing, but my eyes were watering and I itched where the wild-animal pee had come into contact with my skin.

I collected my cleaning fee and headed home to disinfect. A hundred dollars, and it was still early afternoon on a Saturday.

On my way, I walked past Mrs. Middlebrook, out in front of her house. She waved me over.

“Kevin, I’ll give you fifty dollars to do to my garage what you did to that storage locker. I saw you cleaning it out as I drove by.”

“I just threw everything away.”

“You drive a hard bargain, my young friend, but okay, seventy-five dollars, and that’s my final offer.”

I peeked inside her garage. Unlike in the storage space, I didn’t see any barfed raccoon goo or other clumps of crud that would have meant animals had nested there.

“Mrs. Middlebrook, you’ve got yourself a deal. I’m going to need some large plastic trash bags, work gloves and a bunch of cardboard boxes.”

She nodded in the direction of a pile of supplies in the corner, jumped into her car, which was standing in the driveway (it didn’t fit in the garage because of all the clutter) and drove off.

Turns out I like getting rid of junk. I found an old radio in the first layer and turned it on. The music was blaring, the sun was shining, and I was finding floor and wall surface that hadn’t been exposed to fresh air in decades. I just dragged everything to the end of the driveway and made neat piles for the garbage truck to pick up.

When I was done, Mrs. Hedrick from across the street asked what my price was to clean her garage. I screwed up my face and scrunched my eyes in what I hoped looked like the intense concentration of an experienced professional.

“Let’s see,” I muttered, just loudly enough for her to hear, “the structure is, say, twenty by twenty, and …”

We haggled for a few minutes and I headed into her garage. I took Mrs. Middlebrook’s former radio with me.

An hour later I was squaring up the last of the piles at the end of Mrs. Hedrick’s driveway when her husband drove up. Mr. Hedrick looked perplexed when he saw me. He looked worried as he studied the piles. When he saw his beautiful, cavernous, spotless garage, his face turned bright red.

“You threw everything away.”

“Not everything; I hung the tools back up on the pegs on the pegboard and I left the lawn mower and the trash cans against the far wall.”

“But the boxes …”

“How important could that stuff have been, anyway?”

“There were items of great sentimental value.”

“They’re still sitting on the driveway wrapped in papers that predated the moon shot.”

“Young man, I don’t think you appreciate the seriousness of this issue.”

“Can you make a list of the items?”

“A list?”

“A detailed inventory of what was in the garage.”

“Er, well …”

“Just look at your garage—you can park both of your cars in there! And you haven’t even looked in your garden shed yet.”

“You went into my shed?”

“Sure. Originally I quoted your wife seventy-five dollars for the garage, but I got done so fast that I threw in the shed for free.”

“What are we going to do with all those piles of garbage?” Mr. Hedrick asked. “You can’t just leave them; trash day is a whole week away and all that junk downgrades the value of the neighborhood.”

“For an extra forty dollars, I can take care of that.”

He gave me the money. I pulled a broken sled out of the pile and started loading. I dragged the sled two blocks over to the alley behind the motorcycle repair garage, which is full of industrial-sized Dumpsters.

Then I jogged back to Mrs. Middlebrook’s house and pocketed another forty dollars for taking her stuff to the Dumpsters.

It was still only late afternoon. By dusk, I had gutted two more garages, and the Dumpsters in the alley were overflowing.

Not only was I a really hard worker, but I had psychological insight into people; my talents were more about getting them to let go of stuff than just cleaning their garages. What can I say?

I’m a people person.

I wished Tina lived closer to my neighborhood so that I could work my way to her house, one filthy garage at a time.

Then I took a whiff of myself and was glad she lived on the other side of town.

But I’d made $475 in one day. Unbelievable! That was more money than I’d ever had at one time. I’d have to take a few bucks off the bottom line for work gloves, and the hydrogen peroxide and anti-infection ointment I’d need to treat the raccoon potty itch, but still, I had launched another business.

This getting rich thing was turning out to be a snap.