Small Steps

Someone else offered seventy-five cents, then a dollar, and before too long it was up to nine dollars and ninety-nine cents. And then someone bid ten dollars, trading his ten-dollar bill for Mr. Warren’s.

  There was a lesson in all that, but Armpit wasn’t quite sure exactly what it was.

  “One year I actually sold it for ten dollars and ten cents,” Mr. Warren told the class.

  Eighteen hundred miles away, Kaira DeLeon was getting her own lesson in economics.

  “I just want to know how much money I made so far,” she said.

  “It’s not that simple, dear,” said her mother.

  “I’m not asking you,” said Kaira.

  Her mother had on an aqua and indigo silk jacket, with a small sapphire pinned to the lapel. Kaira hadn’t seen either the jacket or the pin before, but that wasn’t surprising. Her mother seemed to show up with a new outfit daily.

  “I can’t give you exact figures,” said Jerome Paisley, Kaira’s agent and business manager.

  He had just returned from the hotel’s health club, and was still wearing his running shorts and a V-neck undershirt. A gold chain hung around his thick neck.

  He had a large forehead and a puffy face, which was no doubt the result of taking steroids. At one time he’d been a pro baseball player, although, except for eighteen days, he’d never made it out of the minor leagues. His career was ruined after he was hit in the face by a pitch.

  Kaira always wondered how someone could get hit in the face by a pitch. You have to see it coming, don’t you?

  “Have I made a million dollars yet?” she asked.

  “There are a lot of expenses. Do you even know how many people are on this tour?”

  She was too embarrassed to say she didn’t, so she remained silent.

  “Forty-two,” said Jerome Paisley. “Everyone gets salaries, per diems, travel expenses. And then there are additional costs associated with each venue.”

  “What’s my salary?”

  “You don’t get a salary. You get what’s left over after everyone else is paid.”

  “You’re doing very well, sweetie,” said her mother.

  “How much does the Doofus get paid?” Kaira asked.

  “I’ve asked you not to call him that,” said her mother.

  “I just want to know. How much do you have to pay a babysitter?”

  “Fred gets fourteen hundred a week, plus expenses,” said her business manger, her mother’s husband.

  Kaira laughed. “And what about your new jacket?” she asked her mother. “Who paid for that?”

  “Your money all goes into a trust account,” said her mother’s husband. “Nobody can touch it, not even your mother. You’ll get it when you turn eighteen.”

  “Yeah, well, a lot is going to happen when I turn eighteen,” Kaira said.

  If Jerome Paisley heard the threat, he chose not to acknowledge it. “It doesn’t really matter even if you don’t make a dime on this tour,” he told her. “Right now, it’s all about exposure. Getting your name out there. Getting your songs on the radio. You’ll make more money in CD sales than you’ll ever make on the tour.”

  “Maybe we should charge more for the tickets,” Kaira suggested.

  “Oh, you think so?”

  She didn’t like his patronizing tone.

  “In Philadelphia, tickets went for seven hundred and fifty dollars,” she said, trying to show that she knew a thing or two.

  “Where’d you hear that?”

  “I don’t know,” Kaira said, suddenly feeling defensive. “On the radio, I think.”

  He smirked at her. “I planted that story,” he boasted. “You didn’t even sell out in Philly.” He pointed to his big, fat head and said, “El Genius at work.”

  Kaira felt foolish.

  “The most important thing in this business isn’t talent,” he told her. “It’s all about hype. Hype and buzz.”

  “Well, it still makes me mad that ticket scalpers make the money instead of me.”

  “You let me worry about the business end of things. You just keep singing and shaking that sexy little body.”

  “Listen to what Jerome tells you,” said Kaira’s mother. She gave her husband a kiss on his puffy cheek. “He’s made you what you are.”

  5

  X-Ray picked Armpit up at four o’clock in the morning, and they drove to the Lonestar Arena. “Anything in the first row is pure gold,” he said. “Pure gold. The second row too. Anything in the first two rows.”

  Armpit brought his economics book along. He knew he’d probably miss speech, but there was a test in econ and he couldn’t afford to miss that.

  When they pulled into the parking lot, they saw that a line had already formed at the ticket window. Tickets wouldn’t go on sale until eight o’clock.

  “Man, I told you we should have spent the night here,” X-Ray said.

  “You never said that.”

  “Well, I thought it.”

  They got in line. There were already twenty-nine people ahead of them in line. X-Ray counted it twice.

  Armpit lay on his back in the gravel parking lot with his eyes closed. His economics book was his pillow. He planned to study when there was enough light. A piece of gravel dug into his back, but the more he tried to smooth it out the worse it got, so he did his best to ignore it.

  Somebody in line had brought a boom box, and The Fountain of Youth, Kaira DeLeon’s CD, was playing. Armpit was lying there, his eyes closed, only half listening, when he suddenly heard her sing:

  These shoes, these jewels, this dress,

  A perfect picture of success.

  Oh, you would never guess, Armpit,

  A damsel in distress.

  At least, that was what it sounded like.

  Save me, Armpit!

  A damsel in distress.

  He sat up. “Did you hear that?”

  “Hear what?” asked X-Ray.

  “Never mind.”

  If he told him, X-Ray would never let him live it down. Why would she sing “Armpit?” It was impossible. There was no possible way. He must have fallen asleep for a second and dreamed it.

  In line behind them were five men who seemed especially dirty and ragged. Armpit might have guessed they were street people, except for the fact that they were waiting in line to buy sixty-dollar tickets. From the way they smelled, he thought maybe they worked for the sanitation department and had come here after work.

  “I’m thinking third row,” X-Ray said. “Third or fourth. As long as we’re somewhere in the first five rows we’re golden.”

  Armpit looked at the people in line ahead of him. Nearly all were white, even though Kaira DeLeon was African American. Several wore shirts and ties.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “If everybody buys six tickets—”

  “Not everyone’s going to buy six tickets,” X-Ray interrupted. “Besides, you really don’t want to be too close. It’s better to be a few rows back. The best seats are between row three and row seven. Those are the ones that will bring in the big money.”

  Shortly after sunrise, Armpit opened his book and tried to understand the difference between fixed costs and variable costs. Graphs illustrated how these changed as more goods were produced. The line representing fixed costs was flat, and the one representing variable costs angled upward.

  It might as well have been written in Chinese.

  “Look at all the people behind us!” X-Ray pointed out. “They’d pay a hundred dollars just to have our place in line.”

  “I’ll take it,” said Armpit.

  X-Ray laughed. “We’re going to make a lot more than that, my friend. A lot more.”

  After a while a guy wearing a Lonestar Arena T-shirt came out and tried to adjust the line so that instead of sticking straight out from the ticket window, it went parallel to the building. This caused a lot of grumbling from the grubby guys sitting behind Armpit.

  “What difference does it make?”

  “I was just gettin’ com
fortable.”

  “Just because you got the T-shirt doesn’t make you God!”

  But they got up and moved along with everyone else.

  The mystery of who they were was solved shortly after seven-thirty, when the guys who were paying them showed up. One was a fast-talking, skinny white guy. With him was a big dude wearing a cowboy hat and boots.

  “Now listen up, ’cause I’m not going to repeat myself,” said the skinny guy. He wore a pearl earring and had a face that needed to make a choice—either shave or grow a beard. “When you get to the ticket window, Moses here will give you an envelope containing three hundred and thirty dollars. You don’t have to count it. You just hand it to the ticket agent and ask for six tickets. You then give the tickets to Moses, and he will pay you twenty-five dollars.”

  “Twenty-five dollars!” complained one of the guys. “We’ve been sitting here for five hours! I could make more than that sitting on the corner of Mopac and Spicewood.”

  “You want to go, go,” said the skinny guy.

  The big guy in the cowboy hat—Moses, apparently—had a thermos of coffee and a bag of breakfast tacos, which he handed out. He tried to give Armpit a taco.

  “I’m not one of them,” Armpit said, somewhat offended.

  “We’re not part of your crew,” said X-Ray.

  “Oh yeah?” said the skinny one. “Just a Kaira DeLeon fan, are you?”

  “We’re independent,” said X-Ray.

  “Well, we got a couple of extra tacos if you want ’em.”

  Armpit and X-Ray looked at each other, then happily took the tacos.

  Moses filled a Styrofoam cup of coffee for X-Ray. Armpit didn’t drink coffee.

  “I’m Felix,” said the skinny guy. “This is my man Moses.”

  “X-Ray,” said X-Ray. “And that’s my man Armpit.”

  “Armpit, huh?”

  “A scorpion—”

  “Tell you what,” said Felix. “After you get your tickets, come talk to me.”

  “We’re going to have to leave straight away,” said Armpit. “I got an economics test.”

  “Listen to me, Armpit,” said Felix. “I bring you a breakfast taco, the least you can do is talk to me. If you’re studying econ, then you should know. There’s no such thing as a free lunch.”

  The ticket windows didn’t open until ten after eight, and the line moved excruciatingly slowly.

  “C’mon, c’mon. How long does it take to buy a ticket?” X-Ray yelled at the people in front of him.

  There were two ticket windows. X-Ray went first, and when Armpit reached the one next to him, he could hear X-Ray arguing with the ticket agent. “Are you sure this is the best you got? Well, can you check?”

  Armpit paid for his tickets. They were all in row M. He counted in his head. The thirteenth row. On the back of each ticket, printed in bold letters, were the words This ticket may not be resold.

  “M’s good,” said X-Ray. “It’s the first half of the alphabet. That’s all that matters. Just look at all those fools still waiting in line!” He laughed. “They’ll be lucky if they’re in the same zip code.”

  Armpit pointed out what was written on the back of each ticket, but X-Ray wasn’t concerned. “They can write anything they want. It doesn’t mean squat. This is America. Everything’s for sale.”

  They watched as Moses paid the last member of his crew.

  “Those guys are so cool,” X-Ray said. “That could be us in a few years.”

  Felix headed toward them. “So, X-Ray, you get good seats?”

  “Row M!”

  “M’s good,” said Felix. “First half of the alphabet.”

  “That’s what I was tellin’ Armpit.”

  “The first few rows are reserved for friends and radio stations. It’s a rip-off, but what can you do?”

  “What can you do?” X-Ray agreed.

  “Tell you what. I’ll give you seventy bucks for each ticket. That’s fifteen more than face value. Times twelve, you’ll make a hundred and eighty dollars. Ninety bucks each.”

  “They cost sixty, not fifty-five,” said Armpit.

  “Yeah I know,” said Felix. “There’s a five-dollar service charge. What a rip-off. But the thing is, you try to sell the tickets, and all the customer’s gonna see is the face value.”

  “We’re not interested,” said X-Ray.

  “All right, I’ll pay the damn service charge. Seventy-five a ticket.”

  “We can do a lot better,” said X-Ray.

  “Maybe,” Felix agreed. “Maybe you can. I’m not saying you can’t. But you never know. A bird in the hand. Ninety dollars, Armpit, for just a morning’s work. Hard to beat that.”

  “We’re not interested,” said X-Ray.

  “Armpit looks interested. How about it, Armpit?”

  It did sound pretty good to him. Ninety dollars was more than he made in two days of digging.

  “They sold for seven hundred and fifty in Philly,” said X-Ray.

  “Austin ain’t Philly,” said Felix. “And row M ain’t exactly the front row.”

  “We were ahead of your guys in line,” said X-Ray. “Whatever we got has to be better than anything you got.”

  “Look, I’m not saying you couldn’t make more than seventy-five dollars a ticket. I wouldn’t be talkin’ to you if I didn’t think so. But there’s risk, too. Right now, things are looking pretty good. Big demand. Short supply. The price can only go up. But there was a big demand when Dylan played here a few years back. So you know what they did? They added a second show. You’re the economist, Armpit. You know what happens when supply goes up?”

  “The price goes down?”

  “Like an elevator with a busted cable. I was lucky to unload my inventory. Or what do you think would happen if we learn that sweet little Miss Kaira is pregnant? Or say she burns the American flag in some kind of political protest? I can tell you what would happen. You wouldn’t be able to give your tickets away.”

  “Yeah, well, if it’s so risky, then why do you want the tickets so badly?” asked X-Ray.

  “This is my business. If I lose money on Kaira DeLeon, I’ll make it up next week on someone else. You’re going to have to put an ad in the paper. That costs money. Me, I already got a running ad. It costs me the same no matter how many tickets I’m selling.”

  “A fixed cost,” Armpit said as it all suddenly made sense to him.

  “And I got connections, too,” Felix went on. “Every hotel concierge knows who to call if some guest wants tickets. All I’m sayin’ is, it’s not as easy as you think for a couple of independents. I’m offering you a hundred and eighty dollars, pure profit, and no worries.”

  “We ain’t worried,” said X-Ray.

  “Armpit looks worried.”

  “I’m cool,” said Armpit.

  Felix smiled. “Then why are you sweating so much?”

  “Don’t you worry. We’re going to make a lot more than ninety bucks apiece,” X-Ray assured him as they drove out of the parking lot. “A lot more. Felix wouldn’ta wanted to buy them if he didn’t think so. This is a great day! We’re on our way, partner! We are on our way!”

  By the time they reached the high school, Armpit was already five minutes late for his test. As he was getting out of the car, X-Ray said, “By the way. I’m going to need thirty bucks to put an ad in the paper.”

  6

  He was walking home from school an hour later when a man coming the other way crossed to the other side of the street. It was no big deal, and maybe the guy really needed to cross the street, but that kind of thing happened a lot to Armpit. White people did it more, but African Americans did it too. He usually pretended not to notice, but sometimes he’d give the guy a menacing glare as if to say, “Yeah, you better stay out of my way!”

  This time he just ignored it. He was in too good a mood to glare.

  He’d gotten a ninety on his economics test, thanks to Felix. He’d learned more in the parking lot of the Lonestar Arena than he h
ad learned all year in class.

  “It all just clicked,” he told Ginny as they took their daily walk. “Even the graphs! The questions were all about people buying and selling everything from gasoline to hula hoops, but in my own mind, I put it in terms of tickets.”

  “Hula hoops,” Ginny said with a laugh. “That’s funny!”

  After their walk, he asked her if he could borrow a stuffed animal for his ruler-of-the-world speech.

  Ginny was amazed. Hula hoops, stuffed animals, ruler of the world—high school sounded a lot more fun than the fourth grade.

  She led him into her room, where she had more than thirty stuffed animals.

  “Just give me one you don’t like too much,” Armpit said.

  “I love all of them,” Ginny said, but not in a selfish way. She definitely considered it an honor for one of her lovies to get to go to high school with Theodore, and she carefully considered who was most deserving.

  “How about that one,” Armpit said, indicating a brown owl with huge eyes.

  “That’s Hoo-Hooter,” said Ginny. “He can’t see.”

  “He can’t?”

  “He’s blind. But he can h-hear really g-good and so he never b-bumps into trees.”

  “How can he hear trees?” Armpit asked.

  “The leaves rustle in the wind,” said Ginny.

  Ginny must have said that same sentence many times before because she didn’t stutter over any of the words.

  “This is Daisy,” she said, handing Armpit a basset hound with long, floppy ears.

  “How ya doin’, Daisy?” said Armpit.

  “She c-can’t hear you,” said Ginny. “She’s deaf. But she has a keen sense of smell.”

  Armpit smiled. He liked it that she used the word “keen.”

  The next one she showed him was Roscoe, a fuzzy bear with twisty arms and legs. Roscoe was paralyzed due to a “horrible accident.”

  Ginny sat on the edge of the bed with her legs bowed out and her toes pointed downward. As a baby she couldn’t learn to walk because she was always on tiptoe. She had to wear a special brace just to straighten out her feet.

  Armpit looked over the three animals. Hooter was out. Everyone would just laugh at the name.