Losing Joe's Place (4 page)

“Just watch. And take notes.”

Who was I to argue with the guy who dumped Teresa Barstow? Finally, after all that walking and staring, he headed over to the soda bar.

“I guess it's not our night —” I began sympathetically.

“Are you crazy?” he gasped. “I can't miss!” He ordered the Moontrix Mountain, the most expensive drink in the place, a giant whipped-cream-topped milkshake float that would fill a toilet bowl. Then he stuck two straws into the concoction and went off to share it with — who?

You had to give Don credit. After carefully scouting out every human female in the building, when he went after his quarry, it looked totally spontaneous — guy sees girl, guy offers drink. He didn't even say a word. He just pushed a straw in her direction and grinned an invitation.

You saw it coming, but you couldn't stop it — two thirsty people and a Moontrix Mountain. She lunged at her straw, and Don lunged at his. There was a crack as loud as a gunshot as forehead met forehead. Don staggered back, but the girl crumpled to the floor, unconscious. The entire Moontrix Mountain slipped out of his hand and plopped down right on her head.

There was a lot of screaming and scrambling, and suddenly Mr. Wonderful was at my elbow. “I think we'd better get out of here,” he said. “I just killed that girl.”

“You can't leave now!” I raged. “She's out cold!”

Don rubbed his brow. “But when she wakes up, she's going to be
mad
!”

I grabbed him and started dragging him into the fray. “We have to find out if she's okay.”

We pushed through the crowd of spectators to where the victim lay. Guess who was at the center of everything, directing traffic, barking orders, and applying wet towelettes to the girl's forehead? Ferguson Peach.

Pretty soon she was on her feet again, although dripping with Moontrix Mountain. She cleaned up a little, and we hustled her out for some air. Even after that vicious coco-bump and a drenching with a giant drink, you could tell she was great-looking. She was tall and slim, with a really natural look to her. She didn't put on makeup with a trowel like the Stripper. Also, it didn't hurt that she was wearing a miniskirt, revealing fantastic legs.

We introduced ourselves, and she told us her name was Jessica Lincoln. I booted Don in the back of the leg and looked at him sternly.

“Uh — yeah,” he said, studying his shoes like a four-year-old admitting he'd thrown his Tonka truck through a picture window. “I'm sorry about — you know. It was an accident”

“Don't worry about it,” she said. “I left myself open.”

“Open?” queried the Peach.

“In my
tae kwan do
class, they teach us always to expect an attack, no matter how safe you think you may be.”

“So you're into martial arts?” I jumped in quickly. If we ran out of conversation, she might
leave,
and I didn't have her phone number yet.

“Only as self-defense,” said Jessica. “There are all kinds of criminals and lunatics on the streets of this city. I don't want to become a statistic.”

“Have you ever been mugged?” I asked.

“That's what scares me,” she admitted. “I've lived in Toronto my whole life and I've never had the slightest problem.”

“That's good,” I said. Wasn't it?

“It means my number could be coming up any minute!” she reasoned. “The law of averages is against me.”

“Actually,” the Peach began, “according to probability theory —”

“What good is probability theory when some drug-crazed maniac is ripping off your watch?” she interrupted.

“We've had kind of an incident,” I said, almost proudly. “My brother's car was stolen.”

Jessica looked triumphant. “Society is one big smelly cesspool. You want to go out somewhere?”

My head snapped to attention. I'd been contemplating the cesspool when she threw out this curve. She was looking straight at Don. No question who she was asking.

Suddenly Mr. Wonderful was alive in the conversation. In ten seconds, he had a taxi. Don, who had been ready to leave Jessica unconscious in a pool of melting milkshake, got the girl. I got “it was very nice meeting you.” I hated both their guts.

“Hold it,” said Jessica as Don was about to climb into the cab beside her. “What do you think you're doing?”

Don was mystified. “Going with you.”

“Not like that you're not.”

Don surveyed himself in anxiety. Could it be that there was a flaw in the outfit he'd spent hours selecting?

“Your wallet's in your back pocket!” exclaimed Jessica. “Do you want to make yourself a target for a pickpocket?”

“No way!” agreed Don. This was the guy who refused to carry anything in his front pocket because it threw off the visual symmetry of his lower body. Not only did he move his wallet, but Ferguson and I had to move ours, too.

I stood fuming as they drove off. “I can't believe it! Why would she go with
him?”

Ferguson shrugged. “Maybe society
is
a smelly cesspool.”

“Don was right about one thing,” I seethed. “Girls really don't want nice guys. If it wasn't for us, she'd still be out cold, wearing dessert.
He
was ready to head for Switzerland. And what do we get? Anti-pickpocket advice!” I pulled out my wallet and jammed it into its former position. “Hey, pickpockets, lookee here! It's party time!”

The Peach put a sympathetic arm around my shoulder. “At least we know he's safe from crime. I pity the poor sap who tries to mug
her
.”

* * *

Since July 1st was Canada Day, and Plotnick refused to do business on a holiday, our rent was due the next morning. I broke in our new checkbook — number 001, to Plotnick, $685. Writing checks makes a guy feel very independent. It almost made me forget my telephone call from my parents, who made boring small talk for twenty minutes, leaving long pauses so I could break down and beg them to come and take me home. I filled in this dead air by raving about Plastics Unlimited, telling them everything about the company except the fact that Don and I didn't work there anymore.

Don was still bragging about his enchanting evening with Jessica Lincoln. “I was ‘on' last night, and Jessica knew it. I was the perfect combination of hipness and coolness. You want to know the best part? She lives right near here, just up Bathurst. Convenient or what?”

“Great,” I mumbled, without enthusiasm.

Don didn't get the message. “I could tell she was really impressed when I bought her a single perfect rose from this vendor on the street.”

“She must have been devastated,” put in Ferguson. “She had her heart set on a bullet-proof vest.”

“Shut up, Peachfuzz,” Don said mildly. Last night had put him in a mellow mood, and not even the Peach could rile him. “You're just jealous. We've got to work on scaring up a woman for you.” He looked thoughtful. “There must be some boring people around. Maybe a lady professor of Stonehenge.”

I was determined not to show it, but my guts were churning. If Mr. Wonderful said one more word, I was going to pop him. Obviously Jessica had no taste at all. Any idiot could see that I would treat her like a queen, and Don would treat her like a customer at the ice cream parlor — take a number and wait — “Now serving number twenty-three.”

I tore out the rent check. “Let's go pay up.” With the walk to the deli came a pleasant surprise. Plotnick had finally gotten around to having the stair fixed. In fact, he'd had all the stairs fixed, and a new bannister installed. And carpeting.

God's Grandmother was flitting up and down barefoot, enjoying the new luxury. “Isn't it lovely?”

“Yes, ma'am,” I agreed. “I never expected Mr. Plotnick to do all this.”

The bill came to $319. Plotnick handed it to me, skewered on the end of his meat fork.

“Wow,” I said. “How much do we owe you?”

“You're maybe having trouble with your eyesight, Mr. Cardone? It says $319.”

“Yeah, but that's for the whole job,” I protested. “What's our portion?”

Plotnick was patient. “A staircase is like a chain, Mr. Cardone. If one of the links is broken, the whole chain is
kaput.”

“Then,” put in Ferguson, “fixing one link would save the whole chain.”

“Better to get a new chain,” said Plotnick evenly. “And that costs $319.”

I could feel my face flaming. “I won't pay!”

Plotnick shrugged. “That's your privilege. And just to show you I'm a reasonable man, I'll hold off my eviction proceedings so your brother can be present in court.”

In Owen Sound, people like Plotnick go to jail. But in Toronto, here he was, holding all the cards. I remembered my brother's message:
Whatever you do, DON'T lose me this lease.
Whatever you do. Even if you have to hand over three hundred bucks to this hoodlum in a greasy apron.

“But it was only one stair,” I managed weakly.

Plotnick nodded sympathetically. “Prices these days. Out of sight. Your brother, also Mr. Cardone, used to say that a lot. Nice boy. Big muscles. I'd miss him if he moved away.”

I'll say this about Plotnick. He certainly knew how to get to the heart of the matter. I looked at Ferguson and Don, who nodded. I wrote him another check, number 002, and felt even more independent — like I was alone on a desert island surrounded by crocodiles.

With two of us unemployed, and Ferguson's next paycheck six and a half long days away, we were left with exactly $17.60 to live on — $5.86 per person for next week.

 

 

    
    

Living for a week on seventeen bucks was a special talent. Fortunately we still had some groceries left — nothing fancy — soup, sandwiches, Kraft Dinner, and cereal for breakfast. A care package of bran muffins from Mrs. Peach arrived by mail, and we were really thrilled until we found out that Ferguson's mom bakes hockey pucks. It was agreed, even by the Peach, that only after going through the garbage would we resort to the muffins.

Every penny counted. We had enough cash to send Ferguson on the bus to and from stupid Plastics Unlimited, but if Don or I got jobs out of the neighborhood, we would have to walk. As for entertainment — forget it.

We were still stinging from the big rip-off, especially Don. Things always went perfectly for Mr. Wonderful, so he had no experience in dealing with anything less than sunshine and roses. He seemed more bewildered than upset. Plotnick had overloaded his brain.

“I still don't see how he can get away with it!” Don seethed. “Surely there must be some board of review or something that we can complain to!”

“I'm sure there is,” I said. “We'd probably win, too. But by the time all the technicalities got straightened out, it would be months — maybe years! And Joe would be back from Europe, kicked out of his apartment, and we'd be wrapped in plastic, sitting in the supermarket with the rest of the hamburger!”

“Well, maybe,” said Don. “But it stinks. I mean — things aren't supposed to go this way.”

It didn't make us feel any better when an envelope arrived from my brother in England. Inside was a snapshot of Joe, carrying a gorgeous blonde through the surf. On the back was scribbled:
Me and Daphne at Brighton. P.S. I forgot to warn you. If you break something in Plotnick's building, don't tell him, or he'll fix up the whole place and try to make you pay for it.

We cursed the mail. Why couldn't these words of wisdom have gotten here three hundred and nineteen bucks ago?

On Monday morning, I was taking a shower, trying to conserve soap when, through the shower curtain, I thought I spotted movement out on the fire escape. Shocked, I turned off the water, wrapped myself in a towel, and jumped out of the tub. I watched in horror as the air conditioner was lifted out of the window, and a hairy arm, big as a tree trunk, reached in and flipped the lock.

My mind screamed, “Help! Police!” but nothing came out of my mouth. I stood there cowering as the window was raised, and in climbed the biggest guy I'd ever seen. He looked at me with blazing eyes, and roared:

“You've got five seconds to get out of Joe Cardone's apartment! After that you're going to start having
bad luck
!”

That's when I recognized the intruder. Semi-relief flooded over me. It wasn't a burglar. It was worse. Whenever Joe wanted to scare me, he'd tell stories about his craziest friend, a guy named Rootbeer Racinette, who was half man, half Bigfoot. I'd always figured he was exaggerating until this very moment. The person standing before me was almost seven feet tall, and his long black hair and beard looked as though he'd just stuck his finger in an electric socket. There was no doubt about it. The man, the myth, the legend, Rootbeer Racinette, had surfaced in our toilet.

“I'm Jason,” I said in a small voice. “Joe's brother. Are you — uh —?” For some reason, I had trouble making my mouth form the word — “Rootbeer?”

“Jason! Yeah!” He gave me a “friendly” slap on the back that sent me reeling into the wall. “I thought someone broke into Joe's place. It's not that hard, you know.”

I watched him replace the air conditioner with one hand. It had taken all three of us forty-five minutes to get it from the closet to the window.

“Well, I was kind of scared at first,” I said with a nervous laugh. “We've had some crime in the neighborhood. Joe's car's been stolen.”

Rootbeer looked shocked. “
Already?
I just parked it two minutes ago!”

I looked out to Pitt Street. There, in front of the deli, was the Camaro, gleaming like an aerodynamic black hole. “
You
had it?”

“Sure. Joe and I are really tight. We share everything. I grabbed the Camaro and took a spin down to Florida. I had some business to take care of with this guy and, wouldn't you know it, he had
bad luck.”

“But
we
had the keys!”

Rootbeer shrugged. “Oh yeah. Keys. Never use 'em.”

I glanced at the window. “I can see that.”

Rootbeer reached into his shirt, actually a voluminous poncho, and pulled out a crumpled paper grocery bag. “Where should I put my luggage?”

Life did this to you every so often. Here I was, so happy that the car wasn't stolen after all — I could have danced a jig, except my towel would have fallen off. How long did I get to enjoy this bliss? Less than thirty seconds before being hit with the news that this ponchoed grizzly bear was moving in.

I cleared my throat very carefully. “Uh — just how long are you planning to stay?”

Rootbeer stuck his great ugly face into his paper bag and counted up his underwear. “Four pairs. Yup. I'm here from now on.”

At that moment, there was an insistent knocking at the door. “Quit talking to yourself, Jason, and let me into the can before I bust a gut!”

Rootbeer flung the door wide, and Don jumped back with a gasp. Even the unflappable Peach was staring at me as if to say, “You went into the bathroom to take a shower, and this came up out of the drain, right?”

“Ferguson, Don, this is Rootbeer Racinette. Uh — he brought the car back. Isn't that great?”

Rootbeer chased down my two roommates and awarded each one the how-do-you-do wallop. “Any pals of Joe Cardone's brother are pals of mine.”

Poor Ferguson and Don alternated between terror and confusion.

“He's Joe's friend,” I supplied.

“I'm here to make a change,” Rootbeer announced. “My old job really took a lot out of me.”

“What line of work are you thinking of getting into?” asked Don with a quiver in his voice.

“None,” said Rootbeer honestly. “See, that was my whole problem. The same job, day in, day out, no excitement, no variety.”

“What did you do?” ventured the Peach.

“I wrestled alligators. Don't try it. What a grind.”

The three of us all agreed to take Rootbeer's advice.

Our new roommate yawned and stretched, which was a sight I won't attempt to describe. “Well, I'm going to crash for a while,” he said, then threw himself down on the floor, and fell asleep instantly.

There was a second's pause, and then a mad scramble for the bathroom. The idea was that the first guy washed and dressed would be the first guy out of the apartment. Don beat us there, slammed the door, and locked it.

“No fair!” said Ferguson. “You said you wanted to sleep in this morning.”

“I've got to go to work!” came Don's voice through the door.

“You don't have a job,” I retorted. I didn't, either, but who was thinking straight?

“Yeah, but I have to find one. I want to start pounding the pavement at nine sharp.”

“He's just scared,” I told Ferguson.

“I don't blame him.”

Rootbeer slumbered on, his poncho draped around him like a blanket. It was a patchwork affair, made of what looked like old flannel pajamas, and it was big enough for two of him. I laughed nervously. What a concept! Two of Rootbeer would get its own area code from the phone company.
Three
of Rootbeer — well, I didn't know too much about physics, but three might have so much gravitational attraction that his atoms would collapse in on each other, and he would achieve critical mass — a tiny neutron star in a poncho.

The summer was heating up, but even as the mercury crawled past 95° F, Don and I stayed away from the nice cool apartment. We bought a
Toronto Star,
and found a reasonably shaded park bench on which to begin our job search.

We never got to the want ads. En route to the classifieds, a headline caught my eye:

ALLIGATOR TYCOON'S BMW THROWN IN EVERGLADES

“Rootbeer!” I blurted out.

Don jumped.
“Where?”

“This article! It's him!”

The piece stated that the disgruntled employee suspected of being the culprit was an alligator wrestler fired for being too hard on the alligators.

“I don't like this, Jason,” quavered Don. “Maybe Joe could kick him out. Call Europe.”

I had to laugh. “What am I supposed to say? ‘Hello, Europe? Could you please put Joe Cardone on?' And even if I could reach Joe, then what?
He's
the idiot who invited Rootbeer in the first place. He probably said ‘Come anytime,' and forgot to mention he'd be gone all summer. Knowing Joe, he gave the guy
carte blanche
 — the place, the car,
us
 — let's hope Rootbeer doesn't believe in human sacrifice.”

Don slapped the paper. “Look what he does when he's disgruntled! Can you imagine when he gets really mad? It's bound to happen! Nobody stays gruntled forever!”

“Look,” I said, “pretty soon we'll both be working, so we'll only be hanging around the place at night. Rootbeer'll be doing his own thing, and we'll hardly ever see him. For all we know, he might pick up and blow off to Florida or somewhere again. Joe always talked about Rootbeer being flaky. So don't worry about it.”

I sounded confident, but that still didn't give me the guts to go into the apartment. For lunch, we split a small order of McDonald's french fries, all we could afford on $5.83 per person per week. Between the hunger and the heat, we were limp as rags by the time Ferguson stepped off the Bathurst streetcar and found us sitting on the front stoop.

“Just enjoying the sunshine,” Don told him.

“Oh sure,” said the Peach. “And it's got nothing to do with the fact that you don't want any one-on-one with our guest, Mr. Racinette.”

There's safety in numbers, and we had as many as we were going to get. I'd have felt a little more secure being backed up by a crack platoon of Marines, but there are times you just have to go for it. Besides, if we didn't eat something, Don and I were going to faint. “Let's get up there! I'm starved!”

We paused to watch Plotnick burst out and net a hubcap from a speeding station wagon.

I waved. “Nice catch.”

Waddling back to the deli, our landlord scowled at me. “Mr. Cardone, I don't want to mix in, but I think you should know there's a gorilla in your apartment. Remember, no pets.”

“Come on, Mr. Plotnick,” I said, “you know it's a person.”

“That's your opinion,” said Plotnick. “Another houseguest?”

I nodded.

“What a host you are, Mr. Cardone. Just so you know, when I open my hotel, I'm going to start charging by the head.”

We ran upstairs, but paused before opening the door. I was in agony. What if that lunatic had trashed the apartment? I clicked the lock, and we went inside. The place looked exactly as it had when we'd left this morning, only Rootbeer had picked himself up off the floor, and was seated on the couch, watching television.

He looked up at us. “Hi. I hope you don't mind. I ate your food.”

“No problem,” I said. “There's plenty for everybody.” Ravenously I went to the kitchen to investigate the prospects for dinner. That's when I found out that when Rootbeer Racinette eats your food, he
really
eats your food. All of it, right down to the last cracker. Even Mrs. Peach's bran hockey pucks were gone. We were bare to the walls.

“Uh — Rootbeer,” I said cautiously, “what happened to all the food?”

“I ate it. That's okay, isn't it?”

“But we had eight cans of soup,” I protested.

Rootbeer rubbed an area at the vague epicenter of the poncho. “I love soup.”

I began opening cupboards at random. Even the salt and pepper shakers were empty. Don and Ferguson were in the kitchen, too, now, searching.

“What about the cereal?” lamented Don, who had gotten the smaller half of our lunch fries. “We had Snappy-Wappies! We had Toasty-Flakes!”

“Breakfast is the most important meal of the day,” said Rootbeer. He stood up, his face all concern. “Hey, this isn't a problem, is it?”

“Well,” I said, choosing my words carefully. I didn't want to insult Rootbeer and end up with that alligator guy's BMW — at the bottom of the Everglades. “You kind of caught us on a bad week. The fact is, we're all flat broke. We were depending on this food to last till payday.”

“Okay,” said Rootbeer cheerfully, “I'm broke, too. I guess I'll have to work.”

Ferguson risked a complaint. “Your getting a job won't help us now. We have no dinner.”

“Yeah, I feel bad about that,” said Rootbeer. “You guys are going to have to hang out for a couple of hours.”

A terrible hush fell over the three of us. What kind of job, lasting a couple of hours and yielding instant cash, could Rootbeer be talking about? It didn't make us any more confident when he said he had to wait until it got dark. But how could we face him and say, “Rootbeer, which bank are you going to knock off?” because on the chance, however slight, that his plans were lawful and honest, he'd be pretty insulted. And even though we'd only just met him this morning, we'd already learned that people who insulted Rootbeer Racinette invariably ran into
bad luck
.

“I'll need one of you to come with me,” Rootbeer announced when the sun began to set.

That did it. Don suddenly developed a terrible headache, and Ferguson locked himself in the bathroom, obviously with no intention of coming out. I could have made a fuss, demanded we draw straws or flip a coin, but I didn't. It was Joe's apartment and Joe's friend, and the job of going with him fell to me.