Losing Joe's Place

  Wouldn’t you know it — brass knuckles was just exactly what Jessica had always wanted. What good were flowers and candy and all the little luxuries if you couldn’t protect yourself? (Her words, not mine.)

  Things were getting tense. Don almost went so far as to join Jessica’s tae kwon do class, but backed out when he found out that he had to wear the gi.

  “There’s no way I’m running around in public in a pair of pajamas, just for a girl!” he announced firmly. “And that’s the name of that tune!”

  * * *

  The only person who didn’t have a comment on the soap opera that was our lives was the one guy who normally stuck his nose into everything.

  On Saturday morning, while Don put in some overtime at the car wash, Ferguson, Rootbeer, and I treated ourselves to breakfast in the deli. There we found Plotnick in a state of wild despair.

  “Can you believe it?” he was raving. “That bum, that snake, that Hamish! Why him and not me?”

  “What are you talking about, Mr. Plotnick?” asked Ferguson.

  “You mean you haven’t heard? You don’t know? Sit down. No, you don’t want breakfast. You’ll throw up your guts when you hear this.”

  I sighed. “Okay, what happened to Hamish?”

  “Hamish, who already has a fortune from gouging from his tenants and his customers, Hamish the parasite just got a $200,000 urban renewal grant from the city to help him buy more buildings and rob from more people.” He shuddered. “Hamish is a rotten gangster, and to him comes $200,000. And what do I get? Plotnick, who slaves every day in the restaurant, and gives to charity, and is nice to everybody? For Hamish, money; for Plotnick, aggravation.”

  “What’s to stop you from applying for one of those grants?” I asked.

  “I have no interest in stealing from people,” said Plotnick righteously.

  “Actually,” said Ferguson seriously, “to qualify for such a grant, you would have to invest in improving the neighborhood, which you are dearly unwilling to do —”

  “Lies!” Plotnick interrupted. “Look how I renovated my staircase!”

  “We renovated that staircase!” I exploded.

  “Could I please have some coffee?” Rootbeer asked politely.

  Plotnick cast him a burning look. “Shouldn’t you be out volunteering for scientific experiments?”

  “No offense, Mr. Plotnick, but please lay off,” I said. “Lose yourself in your work. If you sell enough coffee, you’ll have as much money as Hamish.”

  Plotnick waddled off in the direction of the counter. “Listen to him, the President of the Stock Exchange, a layabout too lazy to get an honest job, he’s got something to say.”

  “Hey!” I howled. “I’m looking for a job!”

  “Oh, yeah? How many interviews did you go on this week, Mr. Cardone? Five? Ten? None, maybe?”

  “Listen!” I seethed. “I’ve been cooking, and cleaning, and shopping, and that’s important stuff! A house doesn’t run itself, you know —” What was I saying? This was my mother’s speech, right down to the tone of voice. I stopped before I got to the part about how unappreciated I was.

  As Plotnick brought the coffee, Don burst in, wild-eyed. He stomped up to our booth and sat down so loudly I’m positive he must have fractured his derrière. None of us said anything, so he stood up again and bellowed, “Well, if you must know, I lost my job!”

  “Good idea,” approved Rootbeer. “If you don’t love what you do, don’t do anything.”

  Plotnick placed cups in front of the three of us. “Coffee for Mr. Champion the loser?”

  “Leave him alone!” I exploded.

  “Yeah, sure,” Don told our landlord. He slumped down again, resting his head on top of his arms like grade-school kids do when the student who stole a book or something is given a chance to return it without being seen. From down there, he told us what had happened.

  “This moronic rich kid is showing off for his girlfriend by making me polish all the chrome a thousand times. And she’s giggling away like an idiot, thinking he’s the cleverest guy in the world. So he tells me to do the hubcaps again — he can’t even see the dumb hubcaps. I say they’re fine, he says do them anyway so I wax up my cloth with the polishing gunk, and throw it right in his face!”

  “Aw, Don,” I groaned.

  “You know what your problem is, Mr. Champion?” called Plotnick from behind the counter. “You don’t know your place. You’re a nobody. You should have said, ‘Sure, mister, I’ll polish your hubcaps.’”

  “And let him get away with it?” Don challenged.

  Plotnick brought Don his cup. “Dummy! When you’re down there scrubbing, you let the air out of his tires, the shtunk! No one can prove it was you. So you keep your job, and on the first of the month, when your landlord, such a nice man, asks for the rent, you have it.”

  “Did you get the license number?” inquired Rootbeer. “I’ll bet we could track him down, and then maybe he’d have some bad luck.”

  “No!” I blurted out. “I mean, no thanks, Rootbeer.” To Don I added, “Don’t worry. You’ll find something else.”

  “Big talk from the unemployment line,” piped Plotnick, his spirits improving.

  Rootbeer was going on about the joys of not having a job. “When cash gets tight, you can always pick up a few bucks here and there.”

  “Rootbeer,” I said, “not everybody has a stomach that can withstand a two-by-four.”

  “Okay,” said the giant thoughtfully. “Could you handle maybe a brick dropped on your head?” He snapped his fingers. “I once made five hundred bucks just for eating twenty-six pounds of bananas.”

  “Did you get sick?”

  “Oh, yeah,” said Rootbeer. “But when I came out of the bathroom three days later, the money was still there.”

  “The part that bums me out,” Don said, “is where am I going to get some cash to take out Jessica?”

  “I can spot you a few bucks,” said Ferguson generously.

  Don snorted. “That’s not funny.”

  But the Peach was sincere. “No, really.”

  Don’s eyes narrowed. “What’s your game, Peachfuzz? You’re trying to come off as the big father figure — ‘oh, here’s a quarter, sonny, go get yourself an ice cream cone.’ Then, before I know it, you’re using it against me with Jessica. It’s all tactics. Well, forget it. There are plenty of inexpensive places a guy can take a girl.”

  “Sure!” I enthused. “The park, the botanical gardens, the museum; you can have conversations, get to know each other —”

  Don made a face. “Maybe I’ll tell her I’ve got the mumps.”

  EIGHT

  That rotten Plotnick would never again be able to say I wasn’t looking for work. I had an interview for a busboy job at a downtown family restaurant, and I could just feel that today was my day. The guy on the phone sounded really impressed with my personality.

  I put on my best slacks, and a clean white shirt, and was giving myself a last once-over in the mirror when there was a knock at the door. I opened it up to reveal the last person on earth I wanted to see — Jessica Lincoln. She was carrying two large shopping bags, and smiling with all thirty-two teeth.

  “They’re both out,” I said coolly. Ferguson was at work, and Don was pounding the pavement.

  Undaunted, she pushed past me into the apartment, and set the bags down on the kitchen counter.

  “Oh, Jason, I’m in big trouble!” she greeted me. “If I don’t have a casserole by eleven o’clock, I’m finished!”

  “So make one,” I said indifferently.

  Her warped mind interpreted this as my offer to help. She began to unpack the bags. “Thanks, Jason! I knew I could count on you! Now, I bought all the ingredients — at least, I think I did —”

  “Wait a minute,” I interrupted her. “You’ll have to do this at home. I’ve got an interview.”

  “I picked the fastest casserole,” she said briskly. “Mexican Taco. It’ll only take two seco
nds.”

  Disgusted, I looked at my watch. Fortunately I’d left plenty of time to get to my interview. If this was really a fast casserole, I could oblige this pain in the butt, and still make it downtown by ten-thirty.

  I joined her in the unpacking. “I don’t see why you don’t ask Don or Ferguson to do this stuff,” I muttered sarcastically.

  She didn’t get the point. “Oh, can they cook?”

  She was totally inept. She had the wrong kind of flour, pepper instead of peppers, and where the recipe called for tabasco, she’d bought tobacco — the chewing kind that baseball players wad into their cheeks.

  Her total participation in this makeshift casserole (don’t worry, I didn’t use the tobacco) consisted of looking over my shoulder while I chopped, stirred, and improvised. Not that I was such a great cook. But at least I could follow a few simple instructions. When it came to home ec, Jessica had a fifteen-second attention span. She’d be watching me one minute, staring at the ceiling the next, and before long the TV would be on.

  Finally the casserole was in the oven. I sent Jessica to the store to pick up some corn chips to decorate the top, and I went to change my shirt, which was spattered and sweat-soaked. It was going to take a mad dash downtown to get me to my interview on time, but I would make it. I stepped into the bathroom for some last-minute grooming.

  I heard Jessica come back, and called to her, “Take it out of the oven. It’s ready.”

  Two minutes later, a voice that was definitely not Jessica’s said, “Thanks a lot, Jason. It was delicious.”

  I burst out of the bathroom and arrived in the kitchen at the same instant that Jessica returned with the corn chips. There sat the casserole dish, completely empty. Rootbeer stood over it, pulling stray tendrils of cheese out of his shaggy beard. Jessica’s project had gone straight out of the oven and down the hatch.

  “My homework!” she wailed.

  “Aw, Rootbeer,” I moaned, “why’d you eat the casserole?”

  He was mystified. “You said it was ready.”

  “I meant ready to come out of the oven! Jessica needed it for her home ec class!”

  Rootbeer looked contrite. “I can maybe go to school with her and tell them how great it was. Although it could have used a little tabasco.”

  “No!” cried Jessica.

  “Okay, I’ll leave out the part about the tabasco.” She was so upset that he added, “Well, could you maybe make another one?”

  She consulted her watch. “There’s still time —”

  “Not for me,” I said firmly. “I’ve got to leave right now.”

  But her distress halted my progress for the door — that and Rootbeer’s plea.

  “Aw, come on, Jason,” coaxed the giant. Then he belched, and for some reason I felt that the whole misunderstanding was, in a way, my fault. After all, it had been I who spoke the fatal words, “It’s ready.”

  “All right,” I sighed. “Wash the dish. We’ll start over.”

  “Oh, Jason, you’re wonderful!” Jessica breathed.

  “Yeah, yeah, tell me about it.”

  In celebration, Rootbeer keeled over into Manchurian Bush Meditation.

  Jessica jumped back in shock. “The casserole! We poisoned him!”

  “Good. Let’s make another one, and we can poison your whole class,” I said, gathering the ingredients.

  By the time I shipped Jessica off to school with the new casserole, ten-thirty had come and gone, along with my interview. I phoned to reschedule, but the job was already taken. Just another grievance to chalk up to Jessica’s account.

  I figured there must be hundreds of family restaurants in Toronto, so I started phoning out of the Yellow Pages in search of one in need of a busboy (who could double as a casserole chef). Soon, though, my mind started to wander, and I found myself pacing around between calls, turning the TV on and off.

  In a blinding flash, I recognized the symptoms. It was just like Jessica and her home ec. I hated looking for a job so much that I could only do it when I absolutely forced myself, and even then, for only two or three minutes at a stretch. For the first time, I felt sorry for her, having to sit in a hot classroom two hours a day, learning about something that interested her absolutely zero.

  Well, at least she had a casserole to hand in. If it wasn’t for me, she’d be the only person in the history of high school to fail home ec twice — including summer school, where they give you points for spelling your name right. The grade she got on this project would probably carry her through the whole course.

  Or would it? How did I know I’d get an A on that casserole? It wasn’t like I was one of the great chefs of Europe. The only person besides me who had ever eaten my cooking was Rootbeer, and you couldn’t go by him. Rootbeer would eat a bus if it slowed down in front of him. What if my casserole got a lousy mark?

  I stood up and started pacing around the room. What did I care? If she flunked, it would be no more than she deserved. Without so much as a cooking lesson, under time pressure, and with the wrong ingredients, I had come up with a casserole. That was an accomplishment, no matter what grade I got. Besides, surely it was worth at least a B. A C?

  I made a few more calls, but I was watching the clock like crazy. At five to one, I could bear it no longer. The job search would just have to wait until I found out how I was doing in home ec. I ran out to Bathurst Street, hoping to intercept Jessica on her way home from school. Since I didn’t know her address or telephone number, I had to catch her here, or wait to find out through whichever of my roommates had a date with her tonight. I wouldn’t be able to stand the hours of not knowing!

  Then I spotted her, across the street, down the road, climbing up the front steps of her house. I put on the afterburners to catch up, and got there just as she was opening her door. I reached out and tapped her on the shoulder.

  “Hey, how’d —?”

  She pivoted like a prizefighter and bashed me one in the face with her brass knuckles keychain. It wasn’t a very hard punch, and thank God for that, because I caught all metal. I went down heavily, seeing stars. I tried to call her off, but in my haze, I couldn’t put the ideas together. So I struggled to get up. But she’d already grabbed an aerosol can from her belt, and I was getting a snootful of hair spray. A loud, piercing siren cut the air, emanating from a small black box in her free hand. Then, and only then, did she look down at her victim.

  “Oh, my God! Jason! I’m so sorry!” She hustled me upstairs and pushed me into the kitchen, which was at the front of the apartment. “I feel so bad!” she said. “It’s just that, when you reached for me, I thought my number was up.”

  “I felt the same way,” I said, “only it turned out to be true.”

  She got most of the blood off my face, but you could just see where the shiner was going to swell up and blacken.

  She shook her head sadly. “This is the result of a city that’s filled with crime!”

  No. This was the result of getting punched in the face by an idiot with a brass knuckles keychain. I was more convinced than ever that the day I met Jessica Lincoln was the worst day of my entire life.

  I was in such a hurry to get out of there that I almost forgot the reason for this fatal visit. I paused on the porch, and asked about my casserole.

  “Oh, it was great!” she enthused. “I got an A.” And she slammed the door in my face.

  “You’re welcome,” I told it.

  * * *

  My black eye turned 1 Pitt Street into a hospital. I started out in God’s Grandmother’s apartment with an application of ice. Then Wayne Gretzky’s Sister ran in with the perfect ointment. The Ugly Man advised me to prepare myself for excruciating pain. When I finally got back to the second floor, the Stripper was waiting for me. She had overheard the various conversations through the ventilation duct, and was positive I was receiving inadequate care. Heat, not cold, should be used to reduce swelling. This was loudly applauded by the Phantom through his closed door.

  E
ven Plotnick got into the act. He sent up a bowl of chicken soup, along with a bill for $1.75.

  I got sympathy in apartment 2C, too, especially from Don, who was the last to arrive. “Jason!” he whispered at the sight of me. “You didn’t have — bad luck!?”

  I glared at him accusingly. “It was your woman who did it. I highly recommend that you never come up on her from behind.” Then to Ferguson, “Some idiot gave her a souvenir keychain from Murder Incorporated!”

  “A girl did this?” said Rootbeer, impressed. “Got her phone number?”

  “She’s with me,” said Don.

  “On her off-days,” Ferguson conceded.

  “You’re about to have an off-day, Peachfuzz!” growled Don. “It starts with my fist, and ends in the cemetery!”

  And they were at it again, bickering back and forth over who should get the girl and who should bow out.

  My eye throbbing, I went to the bathroom to refill the Stripper’s hot water bottle. How come the people with the least to complain about end up doing all the whining?

  * * *

  “So we drive to this sleazy bar that’s attached to this gas station, and inside it’s all truckers, and Rootbeer points to this humungous truck tire on the wall, and goes, ‘Twenty bucks says Old Puncture Proof can’t last thirty seconds with me!’”

  It was Monday morning, and the three of us were having breakfast in the deli. Don had been Rootbeer Racinette’s assistant in last night’s “work.” He had gone along at Rootbeer’s insistence. Our giant roommate felt he could draw extra inspiration and strength from someone who had so recently lost his job.

  “The whole bar goes nuts, and all these truckers are breaking their arms handing over twenties, and babbling about how they’ve driven over broken glass, and nails, and diamond drill bits with that brand of tire, and never had a flat. So they get Old Puncture Proof down of the wall and roll it out to the gas station — it’s taller than we are, and I’m freaking out because there are, like, thirty of them, and only two of us. And there’s no way anybody could burst that tire with a bazooka, let alone bare hands. Jason, you’re not going to believe it!”