Pay It Forward (4 page)

“What the hell kind of question is that? Of course I talk to him.”

“It just seems odd that you would come all the way down here to find out what ‘Paying Forward’ is. When Trevor could tell you.”

Leaving the room was becoming a more and more appealing option. “I guess this was a mistake.” Obviously nothing was being accomplished here, except for the ongoing process that was making Arlene feel stupid and small.

“Miss McKinney?” His voice hit her back a few steps into a long stride to safety and freedom.

She almost kept walking, but like ignoring a ringing phone, it was too contrary to human nature. She spun around to face this man, whom she openly, immediately disliked, and not because of his face or his color, either.

“What?”

“I hope you’ll forgive my asking this. But is Trevor’s father dead?”

Arlene blinked as though she had been slapped. “No. Of course not.”
I hope not.
“Did Trevor tell you that?”

“No. He said something strange. He said, ‘We don’t know where he is.’ I thought maybe he was being euphemistic.”

“Well, we
don’t
know where he is.”

“Oh. Well, I’m sorry. I just wondered.”

Bewildered now, she struck for the door, and nothing could have stopped her. What a way to feel like a complete idiot.

Not only did she just admit that the father of her child hadn’t so much as sent a Christmas card home, but now she’d have to go find a dictionary and look up the word “euphemistic.” See what he’d just accused her son of being.

It better not have been an insult—that’s all she could think.

S
ometimes I think this idea is gonna be so great. And maybe it is. But then other times I remember other things I thought would be great. Like when I was real young. Like ten or something. And now that I’m big I can see what a crock it is. So then I think, What if this all bombs out? Then Mr. St. Clair won’t be all impressed with me. And then in a few years I’ll look back and think, Boy, was I stupid.

It’s really hard to know what’s a good idea when you’re growing and these ideas don’t hold still and neither do you.

Mom hates Jerry. Which is funny, because he’s a lot like Dad. Except Dad is cleaner. But if Mom would let Jerry in the house, he’d be cleaner too. Maybe if she didn’t keep letting Dad in he’d look just like Jerry. Maybe, wherever he is, he already does.

H
e was just getting set to bunk down for the night, and there she was. Like the damn police. Or the landlord of a building whose cellar he might try to use for shelter. Like she’d made up her mind. He was a bug and she didn’t want her damn place infested.

He’d just gotten done on the truck. Taking the engine loose. Not from its mounts, but unhooking all the smog and the wiring. All of which there was way too much of. Not like the old days. The way they made them anymore, like a piece of crap.

And he’d gone into the garage. Rolled out an old Oriental rug in a corner. Against a wall. Barely got his eyes closed.

She came in, flipped on the lights. Made him blink.

“It’s only me, ma’am. Jerry. Just takin’ a quick break. Just a nap. Then I’ll get some more work done on your truck.”

“I know you been living here, in my garage.”

“No, ma’am. Just a quick nap.”

“Then where are you staying?”

“Down at the shop where I work. They let me sleep on the couch in the waiting room.”

“Get up. I’ll drive you down there.”

Damn. There were two bad things about the way she treated him. One was, she was so damn pretty. Didn’t look old enough to have a kid Trevor’s age. Late twenties from the look. And real small and cute, built like a little doll. Until she opened her mouth. Personality like an amazon, someone ten times her size. But she was so damn pretty. If they were in a bar together and he had enough money on him to buy them both a drink…if things weren’t like this, like they really were right now…it wasn’t so out of the question. The other bad thing about her treating him like vermin was that he couldn’t really hold it against her. Couldn’t argue against it, because how? With what?

Getting into her car, her in the driver’s seat, the dome light on as he got in beside her, he saw her face clear. Looking at her, he thought, You and me, we’re not so very different, and maybe you know it. But he knew better than to say it out loud.

They drove in silence down the Camino, the main street of town. A ghost town at this hour. The street was long and deserted, with traffic lights changing color for no reason he could see.

“Damn good car you got here.” Old green Dodge Dart. Serve you forever if you took care of it. Hell, even if you didn’t.

“That supposed to be some kind of sarcastic?”

“No, ma’am. I mean it for a fact. That slant six engine, best they ever made. Couldn’t kill it if you tried.”

“You might want to, though. Sometimes.”

What you got out of her was always harder, colder than what you were set to expect. Pretty lady, though. Cute.

“I know you don’t like me.”

“It’s not that.”

“What, then?”

“Look. Jerry.” Standing at a red light, idling. Even though there was no one around. No one to go on the green while they waited. “I’m trying to raise that boy on my own. No help from nobody. I can’t watch him all the time.”

“I don’t mean no harm to your son.”

“You don’t
mean
none.” Light turned, squeal of her tires. Just hit the gas too sudden.

She pulled up in front of the Quicky Lube & Tune.

It was cold out there. He didn’t want to get out. Kind of thought he wouldn’t have to. Anymore. No more sleeping out in the cold. He didn’t really have the key to the shop. Would never in a million years have told his bosses he needed that couch to sleep on.

“Thanks for the ride, ma’am.”

“I don’t have anything against you personally. I don’t.”

“Right. Whatever.”

He stepped out of the warm car. Into the wind. A minute later she was behind him.

“Look, Jerry. In a different world, who knows? We could have been friends even. It’s just that—”

He spun around. She had to look at his face. Only for a second, then at his shoes. If only she wouldn’t have looked at his shoes. He hadn’t had enough money to replace the old sneakers. Saw a great pair of lace-up work boots but couldn’t afford them. But tomorrow. Tomorrow would be payday. No, today. It was after 3
A.M.
Later today, work boots.

“Pleased to hear you say that, ma’am. The way you been acting, I’da thought only one of us is people.”

“I never meant that.”

“Never
meant
it.”

She turned to go back to the car. He turned to watch her go. So they both saw it. Like a long streak, starting at the top of the sky. Drifting down, but fast. Lighting up the night like lightning. A ball of fire with a tail.

“Holy cow,” she said. “Did you see that? What was that, a comet?”

“Meteor maybe, I don’t know. When I was a kid, we used to call that a falling star. I used to think if you saw one, you’d get your wish. You know, like all your dreams’d come true?”

She turned back to look at him. All softness in her face. Maybe
it had never occurred to her that bums used to be kids. Or wanted their dreams to come true, like everybody.

She said, “Don’t you hate moments like this?”

“What moments is those, ma’am?”

“When you get that feeling like we’re all just the same?”

“No, ma’am. I like ’em.”

“Well, good luck.”

“Ma’am?”

“What?”

“I get my first paycheck today. And I’ll go get a cheap room. Be out of your hair. Your boy won’t be sorry he made the effort. I don’t think you will either. I’ll do just what I’m supposed to do. Pass it along, you know.”

She stood there a long time, like she was trying to decide whether to say something or not. And she said it. “Will you explain to me about that? How that Paying Forward thing goes?”

He kind of blinked. “Didn’t he tell you?”

“I didn’t exactly ask.”

From
Those Who Knew Trevor Speak

So, I explained Paying Forward to her. I got me a stick. Sketched it out in the dirt. In the dark. We both had to squint to see. It was cold, but she had a choice. Could have been home in a warm house. That made a difference. How do I know why?

I drew them three circles. And explained them. Like the kid explained them to me. “See, this one, that’s me,” I said. “These other two, I don’t know. Two other somebodies, I guess. That he’s gonna help. See, the trick is, it’s something big. A big help. Like you wouldn’t do for just anybody. Maybe your mother or your sister. But not nobody else. He does that for me. I got to do it for three others. Other two, they got to do for three others. Those nine others, they got to do it for three others. Each. That makes twenty-seven.”

Now, I ain’t so good with math. But that kid, he worked it out. It gets real big real fast. Like you can’t believe how fast. Up in the thousands in no time.

So I’m on my knees there. Drawing all these circles in the dirt. Counting by threes. Running out of dirt. You can’t believe how fast. And you know, it happened again. And we both saw it. A big comet, or whatever. Did I mention about that first comet we saw? I guess I did. So we see another comet. Falling star. Falling, shooting, I don’t know. But I ain’t never seen two all in one night. It was kind of spooky.

We’re looking at these circles, thinking this whole thing could be great. Except it won’t be. Because, well, we all know it won’t. Because people, they are no good. They won’t really pay it forward. They will take your help, but that’s all.

I know we were both thinking that. And then the sky lit up again. That big comet. The second one, I mean. I ain’t sayin’ there was a third. Maybe I made it sound that way. But two, anyway. That’s a lot. Spooky.

You know, it’s a big world out there. Bigger than we think.

Then she starts to tell me it’s hard for her to talk to that kid. I couldn’t believe it. Telling me. Me. She says he’s just like his father that way. She hates to question him. Can’t get mad at him. Don’t want to seem like she don’t trust him. So things just go by. She just lets ’em go by. She told me all this. It’s like we were…I don’t know…communicating. For the first time. About all kinds of stuff. It was so amazing. I told her I was gonna do big things. Maybe not big to somebody else. But from where I was. Get me an apartment. Drive a Dodge Dart. She said I could have hers. Dirt cheap. I told her again how it was payday. Payday. The day everything changes.

After a while it was all the same stuff we was saying. Over and over. But I liked it anyway. After a while she went home. But after that, the night was, like…different. Like…not so…you know…cold. Or something.

A
T NINE-THIRTY HE GOT HIS PAYCHECK.
Didn’t have to stay and work that day or the next. So he took it to the bank.

Way over $100, cash in his hand.

Time to buy work boots.

He stood at the bus stop a while. Too long. But it was a nice day. He could walk down to the Kmart. Walking with all that money, that big lump in his pocket. And he’d earned it, too. A whole new day. Comets in the night, who knows?

Then he walked by Stanley’s, that little bar he used to like. Thought a beer would go nice. Good day, pocket full of money. If you can’t take a minute to celebrate over a beer, then why? Then what was it all for?

And he was right. It went down real nice.

Saw two of the guys, too. That he knew when he was mostly on his feet. And now he was on them again. And they never had to know otherwise. They wanted to know where he’d been. San Francisco, he said, because he’d always wanted to go there.

Bought them each a beer so they would know he could. So they would see that roll come out of his pocket, unfold real nice. Bought himself another so they would see he was in no hurry. No place he really had to be.

Yes sir. New day for sure.

They played a game of pool or two, for money. Then one of them phoned up Tito, a guy they used to know. Told him Jerry was loaded. Come on down.

He did, with some product.

Said to Jerry, “I know you looking to buy. Don’t tell me you don’t got a taste for the stuff.”

“Not no more,” Jerry said.

“Oh, come on.”

So they played a few more games of pool. The other three
went into the bathroom to fix. That didn’t seem fair. They could and he couldn’t, how is that fair?

I mean, what is the point, really? Why have a whole new world all caught up in rules? Where you can’t even feel good. Have what you like. So he had another beer, and Tito came back out. And Jerry said maybe just a dime bag. Not enough to get in trouble on. Not so much that he couldn’t afford the boots.

It was his day off. After all. Had to borrow a rig off Tito, didn’t even have his own. Didn’t know how much he missed that little sting, that needle sting, till he felt it again.

Then it was closing time. How could that be? It was just yesterday morning a minute ago. What day was it now?

Then it was a whole day later in a Denny’s, drinking coffee. Hungry now, with stubble on his face. Sick. Feeling bad.

Breakfast, that would have gone good. But he couldn’t have any. Because that cup of coffee had tapped him out.

Dug deep in his pockets twice, but it was no use. That money was all used up.

W
hen he arrived in his classroom on a Monday morning, Trevor was already seated. He’d taken a place in the front row, which he had never done before. They looked at each other briefly, Reuben sensing something unsaid on the boy’s part.

“What’s on your mind this morning, Trevor?”

“Mr. St. Clair? Are you married?”

“No. I’m not.”

“Do you ever wish you were?”

Reuben remembered Trevor’s mother standing in his classroom, remembered something she’d said when he referred to her son as very honest and direct: “Yeah, he’s all of that, all right. Only, you say it like it’s a good thing.” In fact, Reuben remembered Trevor’s mother often. At odd moments, with no seeming connection, she would return in memory. How, like a little storm cloud, she’d blown into his classroom one morning.

“That’s a hard question to answer, Trevor. I mean, there’s marriage and then there’s marriage.”

“Huh?”

“There are good ones and bad ones.”

“Do you sometimes wish you had a good one?”

“Okay, I give up. What’s this all about?”

“Nothing. I just wondered.”

Mary Anne Telmin wandered in. Not surprising that she would be the next to arrive. She was the only other student that Reuben knew for sure had accepted his extra credit assignment, because she’d stayed after class one day and described it at great length. A recycling project. She was a cute, popular girl, very white, very potential cheerleader, about which Reuben tried to hold an open mind. But her approach to his class and assignment seemed insincere and staged, reminding him that Trevor’s project remained secret.

And a good secret it might prove to be. Paying Forward. He should have asked about that before the rest of the class began to arrive, but Trevor’s agenda had thrown him off his game.

A
FTER CLASS
T
REVOR FILED OUT LAST
and Reuben raised a hand to flag him down, opened his mouth to call Trevor’s name. But once again Trevor proved quicker on the draw.

“I want to talk to you again,” Trevor said, turning and stopping in front of Reuben’s desk. He jammed his hands deep into his pockets and waited until the last of the other students had gone. Little sweeps of his eyes and a slight rocking on his heels revealed something, but Reuben wasn’t sure he could properly decipher it. A little nervousness maybe.

Finally, convinced that they were alone, Trevor said, “My mom wants to know if you’ll come to dinner tomorrow night.”

“She said that?”

“Yeah. She said that.”

And that little place in Reuben, the one he could never properly train, jumped up to meet her kindness, despite his caution.
Maybe she didn’t dislike him as much as he thought. But even Reuben’s heart could sense when something didn’t fit.

“Why does she want me to come to dinner?”

“I dunno. Why not?”

“She doesn’t like me very much.”

“You met my mom?”

“I met her temper, yes.”

“Well…maybe she wants to talk about Jerry. My friend Jerry. He’s part of my project. But she doesn’t like him. At all. I think she wants you to help her, you know. Sort of work it out. About that.”

This invitation was becoming grounded now, in Reuben’s mind, in something that made sense and fit with everything else he knew so far. “Couldn’t we have a little private parent-teacher conference here at school?”

“Oh. Here at school. Well. I asked her. But she said, you know. She works so hard and all. Two jobs. She just said it would be nice if you could come over.”

“I guess that would be okay. What time?”

“Uh. I’ll have to ask her. I’ll let you know tomorrow.”

T
HE FOLLOWING MORNING, EARLY,
just before his first class, it happened again. Lightning striking twice in the same place.

She was angry again, and Reuben wondered if she had ever settled down in between. He didn’t even have to open his mouth this time, because her anger was all prearranged and complete, needing only to be delivered. Reuben admired that in her. Envied it, actually, maybe even felt tempted to ask for lessons. She’d be a good tutor in righteous indignation for people like Reuben, who had no natural talent in the field.

And she was pretty, but not the kind that made him hurt.

“Why did you tell my boy we had to meet at my house?”

“I didn’t. I didn’t say we had to meet at all.”

“You didn’t?” She stopped in midcharge, obviously thrown, her anger a sudden liability, all fired up with no target. “Trevor told me to make chicken fajitas because you were coming for dinner. Because you wanted to talk to me about his project.”

“Really?” Interesting. “He told me that
you
invited
me
over for dinner, and he thought it was because you wanted to talk to
me
about his project.”

“Well, what the hell’s he doing, then?” she said disconnectedly, as if Reuben were not in the room at all.

“Maybe he wants to talk to both of us about the project.”

“But why not here at school?”

“He said you work two jobs and it would be easier if I came to the house.”

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

“I’m only telling you what he said.”

“Oh. Okay. Why’s he trying to get you over, then?”

It would be a risk to say it, but Reuben guessed that he probably would anyway. It would get her going again, most likely, which was okay, because he didn’t mind her anger. It was clean and open and you could always see it coming.

“Yesterday morning he asked me if I was married. And then he asked me if I’d like to be.”

“So?”

“I’m just speculating.”

“He was probably just curious. I’m telling you that kid don’t never know when to keep shut.”

“I just thought…”

“What?”

“I just thought he might be trying to fix us up.”

“Us?”

She seemed to freeze in place, everything running across her face at once, waiting to be read. Another risk, another defacing for which he’d left himself open. Us? You must be joking.

“I realize we’re the world’s most unlikely couple, but after all, he is just a boy.”

He watched her stumble back up through herself, clumsily, to a place that could speak again. “Trevor would never do such a thing. He knows his daddy is gonna come home.”

“Just speculating.”

“Why did you even say you would come to dinner?”

“I felt guilty after you left last time. You were asking me to help straighten out some problems that might have been caused by my assignment. I’m afraid I was a little dismissive.”

A beam of morning sun slanting through the window caught Arlene and made her brighter than anything else in the room. It glowed on a strip of bare midriff below her lacy tank top. Untanned, vulnerable skin, like a china doll’s. Something fragile, relegated to the shelf for fear of breakage in handling. She appeared so vulnerable until she opened her mouth. “I know you don’t like me.” It was the last thing Reuben expected her to say, especially as he admired her. He felt transparent at almost all times, yet his intentions never seemed to be correctly read by those around him. Not even at close range.

“What makes you think that?”

She made that noise again, that rude little snort. “You just said we’re the most unlikely couple in the world. What does that mean, if you’re not looking down on me?”

It means I assumed you were looking down on me. It means I knew you were thinking it, so I had to say it.
But Reuben couldn’t bring himself to give those answers, so she went on.

“You think I’m too stupid to see the way you look down on me? Well, I may not have your education and I may not talk good like you, but that don’t mean I’m stupid.”

“I never said you were stupid.”

“You didn’t have to.”

“I never thought it either. It never occurred to me to wonder how much education you have. I think you’re being overly sensitive.”

“What the hell would you know about what I’m feeling?”

“When it comes to oversensitivity, I’m something of an expert. Anyway, none of this was my idea, and if you don’t want me in your house I won’t come.”

“Uh, no. You know what? That’s okay. Truth is…” Reuben knew from her pause, the strain in her face, that if she ever finished this sentence, she’d tell him something difficult. Something that was hard for her to say to anyone, but particularly to him. “Truth is, I’m not doing so good talking to him about this. I could use the help. Six o’clock?”

From
Those Who Knew Trevor Speak

I went to her house. It wasn’t at all what I expected. Her house. Well, any of it, but I meant her house. And that made me examine my own expectations and admit that perhaps in some small way I
had
been guilty of looking down on her. Though God knows I never meant to.

It was a modest house, but scrupulously clean inside and out, and fussed over, and tended. No plant life growing over the walkway. Not a single streak on those white-trimmed windowpanes. Except for a wrecked truck in the driveway, every part of her home existence brought back an expression my mother used to use in reference to herself: house proud.

I never expected her to remind me of my mother.

The whole thing made me nervous. Her pride in her home reminded me of the pride that flew behind all that rage of hers. Which made me feel overmatched and overwhelmed, as if I’d relinquished strength by meeting on her home turf.

She answered the door looking distressingly nice. She was wearing this blousy, cottony dress in a flower print, as if she took dinner guests rather seriously. I stepped into her living room, holding flowers that I couldn’t bring myself to give her. Frozen.
Every part of me frozen. For the longest time neither of us could seem to talk about anything.

And then Trevor showed up, thank God.

A
S SOON AS
A
RLENE CLEARED
the dinner dishes from the table, Trevor ran to his room and got his calculator. He’d put off explaining his project all through dinner because, he said, it was too hard to explain without a calculator.

“This all started with something Daddy taught me.”

Arlene’s ears perked up at that and she pulled her chair around, as if to watch the calculator over his shoulder.

“Remember that riddle he used to do? Remember that, Mom?”

“Well, I don’t know honey. He knew a lot of riddles.”

Reuben’s stomach felt warm and nicely full. He watched them both across the table, feeling surprisingly relaxed. The flowers he’d brought her sat in a vase on the table. Not roses—that would have been too personal, too much. A mix of dried flowers and sunny things, daisies and the like, which he’d presented with an apology for having made a bad first impression. Intended only as a friendly gesture, it had embarrassed her and made them both feel awkward. It had been a mistake, one he’d take back if he could, and every glance at them sitting in the porcelain vase reminded him that he could not.

“Remember that one about working for thirty days?”

“No, Trevor, I don’t think I do.”

Their voices seemed a little distant to Reuben, who felt himself becoming disconnected from the scene in a subtle way.

“Remember, he said if you were going to work for somebody for thirty days, and you had a choice—you could take a hundred dollars a day, or you could take a dollar the first day, and then it
would be doubled every day. I said I’d take a hundred dollars a day. But he said I’d lose out. So I worked it out on my calculator. A hundred dollars a day for thirty days is three thousand dollars. But if you double that dollar every day, you’d make over five hundred million on your last day. Not to mention everything between. That’s how I thought of my idea for Mr. St. Clair’s class. You see, I do something real good for three people. And then when they ask how they can pay it back, I say they have to
pay it forward.
To three more people. Each. So nine people get helped. Then those people have to do twenty-seven.” He turned on the calculator, punched in a few numbers. “Then it sort of spreads out, see. To eighty-one. Then two hundred forty-three. Then seven hundred twenty-nine. Then two thousand, one hundred eighty-seven. See how big it gets?”

“But, honey. There’s just one little problem with that.”

“What, Mom?”

“I’m sure Mr. St. Clair will explain it to you.”

Reuben jumped at the mention of his name. “I will?”

“Yes. Tell him what’s wrong with the plan.”

“I think your mother is upset because, even though it’s good to want to help Jerry, she’s…worried. About that situation.”

“No, no. Not that. Trevor, I know I gave you a hard time about Jerry, but then I had a long talk with him. And I might’ve been wrong about him. He’s a pretty nice guy. Besides, I think he got a place to live. He hasn’t been around for a few days.”

Trevor’s forehead furrowed down and he clicked off the calculator. “Actually. He sort of got arrested.”

“For what?” Arlene said suddenly, and sounding startled. Reuben saw, for a brief flash, her genuine disappointment, sensed some thin cord between her and this faceless man. Something that might have caused her, just for an instant, to be on Jerry’s team.

“I’m not sure. I went by his work. They said he never came back after they paid him. They said he got picked up on some kind of violation.”

“Honey, I’m sorry. See, that is the very part Mr. St. Clair is about to explain to you.”

Reuben took his napkin off his lap and threw it on the table. This pattern between Arlene and her son—it had not only come deadly clear, it had come around to bite him. Here’s Mr. St. Clair, son, to tell you all the things you don’t want to hear.
I’m sorry, Miss McKinney. If you want your son to believe that people are basically selfish and unresponsive, you’ll have to tell him so yourself.
He smiled tightly and shook his head, saying nothing.

She fixed him with a look that burned in silence, but he was not afraid of her anger, or so he intended to prove to them both; so he noted instead that her eyes were almost the same color of brown as her short, baby-fine hair.