Boys

  "Who has smokes?" Alfonso said. He looked at me then Warren then Laura Ann. We all shrugged. "You cheap motherfuckers! Why am I always the one handing out cigarettes?" He stomped his feet.

  "Because you're the best!" Warren said, his hands in his pockets, rocking back and forth on his heels, his teeth yellow and slick through his Cheshire Cat smile.

  "Fuck all of you, bastards," Alfonso said, pulling a crumpled pack from his pants pocket with a huff, opening the top, and revealing four not-so-perfect, white cigarette filters. "But you're in luck. Look at that! Four motherfucking cigarettes for four cheap bastards."

  The three of us said 'Horray!' in sarcastic unison. All of us got a cigarette and Alfonso lit them all, displaying his ninja skills again, opening and lighting his brass Zippo with one hand. He really was a master at that--by the way--something that is harder to do than it looks. The four of us sucked our smokes to life, releasing nicotine smoke to the night sky. It was chillier than it was when we arrived for work earlier in the day. Laura Ann shivered a bit while she smoked her cigarette and I tempered my urge to put my arms around her and snuggle her.

  "Thanks Alfonso," Warren said. "I know the perfect way to make it up to you."

  "Oh yeah? Wha' cha got for me? You've bummed at least $100 worth of my tobacco."

  "I'm having a party at my place later. Wanna come?"

  Alfonso didn't skip a beat and said, "Shit, yeah I wanna come but I'm bringing my homies right here." He motioned to me and Laura Ann. "Cool with you? I'm not going to no party without my homies."

  "Yeah, I have to give him a ride since his car won't start," I said.

  "It starts, goddamn it!"

  "Barely," I said, snickering.

  "That's fine," Warren said. "You are all welcome to come. We'll have a keg and some booze and some weed, maybe some ecstasy but I'm not sure yet about that."

  "That's all you had to say, bolillo. We'll be there. Want us to bring anything?"

  "Nah, only if you want to." Warren said. Puzzled, he continued, "What's a bolillo?"

  "It's Spanish for white bread."

  We all laughed at Warren's expense. He laughed too, a little, slightly uncomfortable laugh. It was pretty funny, though.

  "Well, I'm going to start my side work," Warren said. "I want to get out of here and go pick up the keg." He flicked his smoke down the alley, its cherry bursting into fiery dust on the ground, and went back in the P.W.

  "What do you say, home slaps? Wanna go party at Warren's pad? He owes me--us! I mean, he's bummed so many smokes I can't even count."

  "I'm in," I said, looking over at Laura Ann. "Want to go?"

  "Sure, I don't have any plans tonight. I'll call my roommate and tell her not to expect me home til later. She waits up sometimes."

  "Great! It's settled," Alfonso said, then taking a deep drag off his cigarette.

  As he exhaled, the back door to the P.W. slammed open and in the doorway stood Levonne, his backside facing us, his leg propping the door open as he maneuvered the plastic cart through the doorway. It was stacked high with aluminum trays, more than usual, probably because it was an unexpectedly slow night. Once through the door and out a few feet, he stepped around to the back side of the cart and slowly pushed it onto the landing area, careful not to let the trays spill over the side of the cart. I looked at my two friends and they looked at me and we knew we were all thinking the same thing: it's time to fill our refrigerators. Alfonso nodded at me and Laura Ann winked. I knew exactly what to do.

  "Hey Levonne!" I said, tossing my cigarette to the ground then jumping up on the landing area. "Need some help?"

  "Nah, thanks my man. I go it." He continued to slowly push the cart toward the dumpster.

  "Seriously. I finished all my side work," I said. I lied.

  Levonne stopped and took a few labored breaths, wiping some olive oil-infused sweat from his brow onto his shirt sleeve.

  "Are you sure, my man? There's a lot of shit here to deal with."

  "I don't mind at all."

  "Seriously?! Shit, negro. That's all you gots to say. It's all yours."

  "Cool," I said, taking a hold of the cart. Levonne shuffled back into the building and I looked at my friends and they looked at me and it was time.

  "What do we do?" Alfonso said, tossing his smoke to the ground and crushing it under his shoe.

  "Here," I said, taking my car keys from my pocket and tossing them to him. "Go get my car and park it behind the dumpster." He ran off--at top speed--to go find my car.

  "What do I do?" Laura Ann said, looking clueless and excited at the same time. She looked sexy too but that had nothing to do with what we were doing.

  "I think you should keep a look-out at the door, maybe keep anyone from coming out here?"

  "Seriously? What would I say?"

  "I don't know. Make up a story."

  "But you're the story teller."

  "True, true. But you're WAY better looking than I am and WAY more convincing. They'll listen to you."

  "Not Paula. She hates me," she said, putting her hands on her waist.

  "Paula is too pregnant to come out here."

  While we were arguing over details that didn't matter, Alfonso sped my car into the alley and passed us on his way to park behind the dumpster.

  "Oh shit!" I said, frantically pushing the cart toward the dumpster. "Just keep a look-out. OK?"

  She waited by the door, her foot propped at the bottom to keep it from opening. I made my way toward the dumpster. The cart was so overloaded with aluminum trays that the wheels went every which direction but straight, one spinning in circles, another angled left, another jammed with hair or something that looked like hair. It made for a difficult push to the dumpster. Alfonso parked my car behind the dumpster and got out, his head poking up from behind the metal trash container.

  "What's taking so long?" he said, excited but trying to keep his voice down. He saw me struggling with the cart which must have been a sight. "Do you want me to help you?"

  "No, I got it. Stay down there." I tried to keep my voice down too but it was hard with all the struggling. I eventually got next to the dumpster and Alfonso stood on the ground next to the landing. He had already popped the trunk open and my car waited there, patiently, like a hippo in a shallow pond waiting for kids to dump bags of peanuts in its mouth. I quickly passed a tray of food down to him. It was still quite hot, hotter than I expected. "Here--FUCK!" I sucked on my fingers quickly after giving it to him then got back to work.

  "Oh man, it's hot!" he said.

  "Yeah!"

  "What are we going to do with all this food? I don't think it'll all fit in our fridge."

  "We'll give some to Laura Ann," I said, handing him another, then another, as he placed them in the trunk. "She told me she'd take some. Her fridge is empty."

  "I don't think she'll have room for the rest. We'll have a lot leftover. There's a shitload."

  I handed him another, then another. He was right. There was a shitload, more than would fit in two crappy, apartment refrigerators. It seemed absolutely ridiculous to me that so much food was being wasted on a daily basis, just marked for tax purposes then tossed in the trash. What a waste.

  "Maybe we can take some over to Sarah and Arthur. They're nice people and would appreciate it," I said.

  "Sounds good."

  I handed him the last one, 17 trays in all, and he closed the trunk, then swung my key ring around his index finger as if he was ready for a high-speed getaway from dozens of encroaching police cars.

  "Now what?" he said.

  I put one hand on my waist and scratched my head with the other, then said, "Go park around the corner. I'll take the cart back in, tell Laura Ann, then clock us both out. Give me your card."

  He handed me his employee card, the one I would need to swipe on the computer and clock him out, then he hopped in my car and sped off. I turned around and pushed the cart back to the door. All of its wheels were cooperative, none stuck, all turni
ng in the same, easy direction. Fucking cart.

  Laura Ann was gone, disappeared. Maybe she saw someone and went in to distract them or maybe she had to go to the bathroom. I don't know. But as I started to push the cart into the door, there was good ol' Levonne, trying to come back outside. He was so big he clogged the doorway. I couldn't get passed him.

  "Lemme check to see you did it right, home boy," he said, trying to grab the clipboard from the side of the cart. I swatted his hand away and put an arm around his massive frame.

  "We're going to a party at Warren's place. You going?" I attempted to maneuver his body, to turn him around. He was a granite boulder to my skinny, twig-like arms.

  "Don't know about no party," he said, still trying to get the clipboard.

  "I did it right. Relaaaaaax," I said, soothing the man. He was pretty hot under the collar for some reason.

  "I just needs to know," he said, looking me serious in the eyes, pulling me close by my shirt. "Did you do it right?" He looked like he could pulverize me with the flick of the wrist.

  "Yes, of course." I lied but he relaxed, eased up. I could tell he was really worried about it. He was a good employee, really. He was proud of his work ethic (which was weird to me since it was just the P.W. of all places), something I didn't have.

  "OK... Thanks, home skillet. Say, where's the party at?"

  "At Warren's."

  "Where's dat?"

  "Shit, I don't know. Let's go find out."

  We both walked back to the kitchen, my arm draped over his massive shoulders. The back door slammed shut behind us.

  ***

  I drove north on Loop 360 in my Civic with Alfonso riding shotgun, looking for the entrance to the neighborhood where that mooch Warren lived, while Laura Ann and her roommate followed behind in her car. There weren't many lights on Loop 360 so I knew it was going to be difficult to see where the entrance was at night. During the day, Loop 360 took you through a scenic view of west Austin, complete with rolling hills covered with oak and cedar trees and upscale neighborhoods with McMansions speckled across the landscape like gaudy ornaments jutting from the branches of a Christmas tree. At night, the drive was a dark road stretching into the abyss. Alfonso did his best to lookout for the entrance, squinting his eyes at each passing sign or telephone pole or boulder, but he wasn't a very good navigator since his eyesight was so bad. It would have been just as good if he didn't try to navigate at all.

  "I don't know why you never wear your glasses," I said, annoyed.

  "They make me look funny," he said, still squinting. I thought of that old cartoon character Mr. Magoo and his stubbornness at admitting he couldn't see shit without his glasses. Alfonso was my Mexican version of Mr. Magoo.

  "And you think the way you look right now without them isn't funny?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "Nothing." I looked in the rear view mirror to find the familiar shape and glow of the headlights of Laura Ann's car. She followed close enough that another car couldn't slide in between us but far enough that I couldn't make out her face through the windshield. I occasionally saw silhouettes of her and her roommate in the car. "What was her roommate's name again?"

  "You got me. I already forgot."

  "That won't bode well for you if you're going to mack on her."

  "Man, I don't need to know a girl's name to mack on her," he said, pounding his chest with his fist. "I got game! I got ALL the game!"

  "Mmm hmm. You can barely see past your nose."

  "I'm not going to let you disparage me and my slight visual impairment," he said, sarcastically. "You, my friend, are jealous of my good looks."

  "Ha! That sure is some shit you're talking about. Besides, her roommate has a boyfriend anyway. He's the dude Laura Ann was talking to at Levonne's party--There, there it is!"

  Pointing with my left hand and steering with my right, I pulled my car into to the turn lane and Laura Ann followed behind. We turned left into the neighborhood and slowly made our way up into the hills, my Civic's engine rattling at the sudden steep incline. Unlike Loop 360, a street lamp appeared here and there, illuminating brick mail boxes sitting in front of vast yards with very large homes at the far edge of the lamp's glow. I couldn't tell if they were mansions but they were big houses, a lot bigger than I could ever imagine that mooch Warren being able to afford.

  "Maybe I should put my glasses on," Alfonso said, reaching into his pants pocket then putting on his large, coke-bottle glasses. "Ah! Much better. What's the address?"

  "He said it was on this road, that we wouldn't miss it, to just drive up the hill a ways and it's on the left."

  "You gonna make the moves on Laura Ann tonight?" he said, pretending to cast a fishing line out into an imaginary pond of eligible ladies and then reeling it back in.

  "Maybe."

  "Your window of opportunity is closing."

  "Why do you say that?" I said, annoyed.

  "Women's windows are always closing. Don't you know anything?"

  "Oh, shut the fuck up."

  I could tell I was getting to the top of the hill because the road started to level out and my Civic stopped rattling so much then we found ourselves in front of a house with dozens of cars parked in the street as well as in the driveway and on the front lawn. The house was a sprawling, ranch-style, one-story place made of tan stone and tan siding and tan shutters galore. The roof had a low pitch and hung long from the sides of the house, like a sombrero that had been mushed down and rained on quite a bit. At one time, early in its history, I imagined this house to have been a pretty fancy place. It had remnants of its fanciness but was starting to look a little haggard, like a party-girl heiress who smoked and drank too much through her youth but was edging past 40 with wrinkles and skin spots and dark circles under her eyes. I rolled my window down and I could hear the faint thump of rap music and the buzz of people talking and laughing. There was definitely a party going on.

  "This has to be it," I said, looking for a spot to park my car. There were cars everywhere. Down a little ways from the house, the property extended into the distance, cedar trees and cactuses and rocks fading to black from the edge of the street into the night, with a random car here and there parked haphazardly as if they'd fallen from the sky or been randomly shat out by a prehistoric monster who'd recently stomped through. I found a place between a cedar and a live oak and parked my car. As Alfonso and I got out, Laura Ann parked a few trees over, her front bumper scraping against a large rock jutting from the ground. When she turned off her engine, I could hear Tone Lōc's Wild Thing, faintly thumping in the distance.

  "This should be interesting," Alfonso said, pushing his hair into some semblance of a style. "I'm going to ask Laura Ann's roommate what her name is."

  "Good idea."

  They appeared quickly, unexpectedly, like cats.

  "What's a good idea?" Laura Ann said.

  "Oh, he wants to know your roommate's name," I said, extending my elbow towards her. She interlocked her arm within mine and I escorted her towards the house, leaving Alfonso dumbfounded with her roommate, who looked about as excited as a kid with a bowl of pea soup in front of her. "What is her name again?" I said, whispering.

  "Constance. It was her grandmother's name but I call her Con."

  "I see. Is she cool?"

  "Most definitely. But she has a boyfriend, remember?"

  "I told him that already."

  We walked along the street then through the front yard of what we believed was that mooch Warren's pad, empty beer cans and crushed cigarette packs strewn across the Bermuda grass, the smell of spilt beer and marijuana smoke in the air, the buzz of conversation. The front door was already partially open so we just walked inside.

  The music was considerably louder but there weren't as many people as we expected in the living area, a massive, wide-open room with a sunken area in the middle, a humongous, brown sectional couch big enough to seat 20 people--at least--and a large screen TV surrounded by cabinets of
Hi-Fi stereo equipment. One couple sat on the couch drinking beer. Another couple stood near the stereo. There wasn't a thing on the walls or any other furniture. It was a bachelor pad, for sure. Nintendo Zelda was on the TV but nobody was playing and the song Wild Thing morphed into Bust a Move.

  "Sounds like more people are back there," Laura Ann said, shouting and pointing to where the kitchen seemed to be. "Let's go check it out."

  I nodded and looked back to see if Alfonso and Con were behind us. They weren't. Maybe Alfonso's mack game was as strong as he claimed? We made our way to the kitchen where we found that mooch Warren as well as the other mooch Paul and that bastard Fred, playing a game of Quarters on the kitchen island. The Three Fucking Mooch-keteers. I had a feeling they all lived here in this monster house but I wasn't quite sure. I really didn't know them all that well. They were all wearing Levi's and Izod shirts and loafers like some kind of preppy gang. It was weird and kinda creepy. Warren saw us and smiled.

  "Ah!" he said. "You made it. Come in. Want some beer? There are kegs on the patio." He tilted his head toward the back of the kitchen and out a large window above the sink, I could see dozens of heads bobbing outside. "Or I have some whiskey here. Wanna shot?"

  "Sure," I said, looking at Laura Ann. She nodded. Warren opened a door under the island counter and pulled out a bottle of Jack Daniel's whiskey, then opened a drawer which contained loose bottle caps and wine corks and cigarette butts and cork screws and church keys and shot glasses. He fished around in the drawer and pulled out two shot glasses, a glass one that said on its side, 'I got shipwrecked in Port Aransas!' with a cartoon of a pirate who looked drunk and sunburned. The other shot glass was a little ceramic one in the shape of a woman's boob, flesh-toned with a large, pancake-shaped, bright pink nipple. It didn't say anything on the side; the nipple was statement enough. He filled them up and slid them to us--me getting shipwrecked and Laura Ann getting the ugly boob cup. "Drink up!"

  I clinked glasses with Laura Ann and we drained the shots.