Scam (3 page)
I almost didn’t recognize her when I saw her twenty minutes later. She had on an old flannel shirt and dirty ripped jeans and men’s work boots. Her hair was kind of stringy, and she was wearing a Boston Red Sox ballcap.
She walked up to me and gave me a hug. I think I pulled back a little, remembering what happened the last time. But I tried to relax. Her body felt good against me.
“How do you like the way I look?”
“I don’t know. You look okay, but I almost didn’t recognize you.”
“It’s all part of the game.”
“What game?” I asked.
“Look around. Can you tell which people on the street are tourists?”
I looked around. “No. How could I tell?”
“Check it out,” she said. “That guy there with the Disneyland T-shirt and the expensive backpack. And his wife in the sunglasses. Tourists for sure.”
“Why does it matter?”
“Watch.”
So I watched as she walked toward them and said something. They stopped. She talked for a bit, and then it looked like maybe she was about to cry.
That’s when the woman opened her purse and took out a wallet. I was freaking out, thinking Lindsey was about to grab it and run. But it wasn’t
like that. The man stood there frowning, but the wife handed over a bill. Lindsey must have kept talking, because then the woman handed over a second bill. And a third. Lindsey bent over and kissed her hand and then turned, looked straight at me and flashed the money.
When she came back, she grabbed my arm and ushered me down a side street, a big grin on her face. “Like taking candy from a baby. Look. Twenty bucks.”
“What did you say to them?”
“I told them I was living on the street and was sick of it. I wanted to go home and needed money for bus fare.”
“But that was a total scam.”
“Totally.” She was smiling. I guess I was frowning.
“Josh. Lighten up. I’ll admit it wasn’t my most creative moment, but I can do better.”
“No. It’s not that. It’s just that you lied and cheated those people out of their money.”
“Relax, preacher boy. It’s just a game. I’m not hurting anyone. Think of it like acting. I’m a good actor, right?”
“You’re a good scam artist.”
“I don’t like that term,” she said and looked hurt. Then angry. “Hey, do you want to hang out with me, or should I just go home and leave you alone?”
I hung my head. No, I didn’t want to be alone. And I could see I had pissed her off.
“This is who I am,” she said. “So get over it.”
I tried a fake smile.
“That’s better. Now let’s go get a coffee and something to eat. My treat.”
At the coffee shop, we sat by the window. Lindsey bought us each a fancy coffee drink. It tasted like nothing I’d ever had before. “Cappuccino,” she said. “My favorite.”
“What if that tourist couple came in and saw you sitting here with me, drinking cappuccino?”
Lindsey shrugged. “Hey, homeless people need to live a little once in a while, I’d tell them.”
“How come you didn’t just ask
me
for money the other day? Why did you steal my wallet?”
“Well, you looked like an easy target at first, and I was gonna do the sob-story routine, but I realized I wasn’t dressed for it. And then, as I was talking to you, I thought you were kind of cute. So I gave you a hug.”
“And then stole my wallet.”
“I call it lifting. I lifted your wallet. I guess I got carried away, and I wanted to see if I could get away with it.”
I looked down at my cappuccino. I was thinking that this girl was trouble. Why was I hanging out with her?
“I see that look on your face,” she said.
“Why do you do it?”
“I told you. It’s a game. It’s a challenge. I try out new techniques. New angles. I like the buzz I get from doing it.”
“What if you get caught? What if you get in trouble with the police?”
“I haven’t so far. Besides, it’s all part of the challenge. The trick is to get away with it.”
“I suppose you like to shoplift too?”
Lindsey laughed. “I used to. But that was too easy. If I got caught, I could always talk my way out of it. But enough about me. What about you? Tell me what you do for fun.” But as soon as she said it, a curious look came over her face. I think she realized, knowing what I had been through, that I wasn’t having much fun these days.
I told her about the group home, about Darren and about the four guys I had met.
“I guess there’s not much fun there,” she said. “How are you gonna live in a place like that?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted.
And then she surprised me again, this girl who liked to rip people off and scam anyone and do anything she thought she could get away with. She said, “What can I do to help?”
I swallowed my drink and thought about it. Aside from being here with Lindsey, I had to admit to myself, I really didn’t have anything good in my life. And I did like being with her. “Be my friend,” I finally said.
“Girlfriend?” she asked, shocking me.
“Maybe.”
She smiled again. “I don’t seem to have much luck with guys. Or maybe, to put it another way, they don’t have much luck with me.”
I almost laughed. I was imagining the kind of games she could play with a guy. How could you ever know if she was sincere or just role playing? “I guess they get pissed off when you steal their wallets.”
“Shush,” she said. “No. Usually, I just lose interest when I realize how shallow they are. And they all seem to be shallow. Are you?”
“Am I what?”
“Shallow. Superficial. Trivial. Small-minded. One-dimensional.”
“Look,” I said. “I don’t even know. Maybe I’m like all the rest. But I’ve spent most of my life just trying to hold my mom and me together. It was mostly about survival and working the system—the social workers—so that my mom wouldn’t go to jail and I wouldn’t be sent away. I didn’t have any time to be shallow. Or trivial.”
“When you say
work the system
, what do you mean?”
“You know, say what the social workers wanted to hear. Tell them my mom had no problems, that everything was okay, that she wasn’t spending welfare money on drugs. You know?”
“No, I don’t know. But it sounds like you had to lie to them.”
“I did what I had to do.”
“So in your own way, you are not that different from me.”
“What do you mean?”
“You learned to be a scam artist of sorts. You had to be creative. You had to lie. You had to play the game, and you learned to play it well.”
“I never thought of it as a game. It was serious.”
“Okay, but now I see another side of you. I can work with that.”
“What do you mean?”
“I can teach you things. We can do some stuff together. Take it up to the next level.”
I didn’t know what she meant or how to respond, so I just kept my mouth shut, sat there and stared at her.
Lindsey made me promise to meet her back at the coffee shop the next day at one in the afternoon. “I’m going to have on a different outfit. So I want you to dress up. Wear something nice. Something formal, if you have it.” She kissed me on the cheek when she left.
I headed back to the group home with a weird mix of emotions sweeping
through me. The loss of my mom. The new living situation. This girl, who I really liked but might never know if she was telling me the truth or just being a good actor. And why had she told me to wear something nice, something formal?
On my way back to the group home, I noticed all the graffiti on an overpass and more nearby on a school wall. Most prominent was
Yo-Yo
. I’d seen it before, but now there was a connection. Lindsey’s brother Caleb was doing this—tagging in big bold letters, in some really difficult locations. What the hell did he do? Use ladders, hang over the side by a rope? I wondered why on earth anyone would take chances just to scrawl his nickname on a bridge or wall. But then, I guessed Caleb and Lindsey had grown up in one crazy little family.
I hung out in my room for a while and tried to get to know Noah. He was still lying on his bed, reading a
science-fiction novel that must have had five hundred pages. “You like to read, huh?” I said, trying to strike up a conversation.
“Takes my mind off things,” he said and then added, “Sorry about your mom.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“My mom left when I was little. She got tired of being beat up by my dad.”
“Ouch.”
“So he took it out on me.”
“What was he so angry about?”
“I never figured it out.”
“How’d you end up here?” I asked.
“He nearly killed me.”
“My father left a long time ago. I hardly remember him.”
“Man, are you lucky,” Noah said. “I wish my father had left.”
“How do you like living here?”
“It’s okay, really. No one hits me. Connor is a pain in the ass, but Darren keeps a lid on things. Brian’s the only
genuine criminal in the house, but he’s really okay once you get to know him.”
“What did he do?”
“Tried to burn down his school. Aside from that, he seems pretty normal.”
Despite the fact that Noah seemed like he was hurting, I thought he might not be so bad as a roommate. I sized him up and realized he was about the same height and weight as me. “Noah,” I asked, “do you have any nice clothes I could borrow? Just for tomorrow.”
“What do you mean,
nice
?”
“I don’t know. Like formal.”
He got off his bed and opened the closet. He held out a white shirt, a tie and dress pants. “I’ve got some shiny shoes in here somewhere,” he said, rooting around the bottom of the closet. “You’re welcome to them, if you want. I never have a reason to wear them.”
“Thanks, man,” I said. “I really appreciate it.”
“No problem,” he said. He never asked me what I wanted them for.
Dinner was that Connor special Darren had mentioned. It wasn’t great, but I hadn’t eaten much since my mom had died, so I ate like a pig. “The new boy has an appetite,” Connor said in a smart-ass way. “He shovels more in his face than Kyle does.”
Kyle gave him the finger and snarled. Noah looked at me and smiled. I couldn’t quite figure out Brian. He just looked at his food and ate slowly.
“I’m going to work on you guys,” Darren said. “Turn you all into vegetarians. Wait and see.”
“Frig off,” Connor said, but he said it in such a way that we all laughed, even Brian.
“Healthy body, healthy mind,” Darren said.
“Sick body, sick mind, is more like it,” Connor chimed in. “How come I’m
not getting a bit more appreciation for my cuisine?”
Truth was, the hot dogs and macaroni slathered with ketchup tasted good.
“Sorry, Connor,” Darren said. “I can tell that you made this meal with love.”
“Hey, at least I didn’t spit in it.”
“We all thank you for that,” Darren said and laughed.
It was clear that Darren got along with the guys. He had a light touch.
After dinner I sat down outside on the steps as the sun was setting. Darren came out and sat down beside me. “So far?”
“So far, okay.”
“We need to come up with a plan for you.”
“What kind of plan?”
“I don’t know how long you’ll be here. Could be a while. But then, in the not-too-distant future, you’re gonna be out there. And your fate will be your decision.”
“So far, nothing in my life seems to have been my decision.”
“Feel like a victim?”
“You bet I do.”
“What if I said there are no victims?”
“Then I’d say bullshit.”
“I mean, if you feel like a victim, you stay that way. If you take charge, no matter how hard it is, then you control your future.”
“Sounds good on paper,” I said. “Not sure it will work for me.”
“Just think about it. Anyway, I’m glad you’re here with us. Be brave. Trust me, there will be some rocky moments.”
“Like dinner?”
“Dinner was nothing. That was easy.”
“Will Brian try to burn the place down?” I asked.
“I don’t think so. He likes us. And besides, we hide the matches.”
That night I dreamed I was back living with my mom and everything was okay. Or, at least, as okay as it ever was while she was alive. It seemed like everything that had happened in the last week was a dream and not real at all. Then things kind of got jumbled up as to what was real and what wasn’t—until Noah started shouting in his sleep. That woke
me up. And at first I was more confused than ever.
“No! Don’t! I didn’t do it!” Noah yelled.
I shook myself awake and sat up, realizing where I was and being suddenly reminded of my mom’s death. The room was dark, but there was light coming in from the hallway.
“No! Please!” Noah pleaded, still in some kind of nightmare. My guess was that he was reliving scenes with his father. I didn’t know if I should wake him or not. What was the right thing to do?
Darren appeared in the doorway with a flashlight. He saw me sitting up in my bed.
“Sorry about this, Josh. I warned you that Noah does this sometimes.”
“What do you do?”
Darren sighed. “Sometimes I do nothing and wait for the dream to go
away. If it’s really bad, I sit beside him and try to gently wake him up.”
Darren sat down in a chair by Noah, and we sat in silence for a minute. Noah seemed to settle back down, and soon he was snoring. Darren looked at me and laughed quietly. “Dreams are a way of processing some of the bad stuff in your life. Noah had it pretty rough. He’s still working through it. What about you? Having any bad dreams?”
For some reason I didn’t want to get into it. “Nah,” I said. “I’m okay.”
“Good,” he said. “Just remember, you’ve had a major loss. You have to let it out somewhere. Otherwise, you explode. You’re gonna feel bad and feel sorry for yourself for a long time, but you also have to face the world.”
I was beginning to see that this was Darren’s way. He played his role like an older brother, one with lots of advice to dole out. But I didn’t mind.
Noah continued to snore. Darren said, “Good night,” and left.
