Agents of Change

  Chapter Five

  Rule number one: An Agent of Influence shall not change his or her form while in an A of I facility. Rule number two: An Agent of Influence shall not change his or her form in the presence of a civilian.

  The Agency of Influence manual has about a dozen of these kinds of rules. Most of them are common sense. Some are ridiculous. Usually, though, for every ludicrous-sounding rule, there is at least one person who committed that infraction, thus necessitating the need to write the rule. One in particular stands out: rule number eleven, an Agent of Influence must not knowingly and intentionally use their ability to assume a second life. If I were so inclined, I could use my power to help support my matchmaking practice, using my power to deliver highly-attractive and very eager matches. I’d have the highest percentage of satisfied clients ever.

  Oh well.

  After a long night of perusing the manual, which includes a section on how to work with despondent parents, I manage to get a few hours of sleep before waking up and calling out sick at Maxwell. If today goes well, I’ll submit my immediate resignation tomorrow. I sign my contract but intentionally leave it at home when Jimenez picks me up. Richardson was right; I’ll definitely make more money as an Agent of Influence than the six figures I was earning as director of business analytics at Maxwell. I wouldn’t be a millionaire but I’d never have to worry about another cent for as long as I live. Still, I don’t want to put all of my eggs in the shape shifting basket yet.

  After a silent car ride, Jimenez slides into a parking spot along one of Nicetown’s narrow streets. Just before she silences the radio, the jingle of a special news report grabs her attention.

  “Disappointment for some,” says the anchor, a male, “relief for others as City Hall remains intact this afternoon. A special city commission appointed to investigate accusations of corruption on the part of Mayor Terry Haslett and Philadelphia’s City Council has cleared both parties of any wrongdoing.”

  “Ay,” Jimenez says with a wave, her Cuban heritage on full display. She then looks through her window at nothing in particular. “No surprise.”

  I’m not one to keep up with current events so I can’t say I fully understand the hatred being hurled towards our civic politicians. Philadelphia, as has been the case with most metropoli, has had its share of villainous political figures. That said, I’ve never seen a populace grow as venomous toward a group of elected officials as this one has to the ones who have just been exonerated.

  “Haslett and City Council were accused of, among other things, embezzlement and failure to follow personnel policy. This includes a perceived lack of discipline taken against police chief Gregory Sears and six other top cops following a string of accusations of sexual assault.”

  Now I get it.

  Jimenez pops off with something vengeful-sounding. I wish I had taken Spanish instead of French.

  My focus on the radio is broken when I hear a sudden racket. Carla Andrews has opened her front door and stands on her porch, three houses from where we’ve parked.

  “Don’t go nowhere,” she sternly says into the house, holding her door open, “I’ll be right back.” She’s not much for safety, this Carla Andrews. If I was a deviant walking down the street, waiting to kidnap a few kids, I’d be salivating after hearing what she said.

  “How old are her kids?” I say.

  Jimenez responds without looking at me. “Six, five, and three.”

  “Wow. She sure spread them out, didn’t she?”

  She shakes her head. “You think you’re so funny.”

  I ignore my partner and focus on Carla. She wears a pair of stained sweatpants, most likely laced with the same layer of filth I noticed on the monitor back in the Control Room. Up top, Carla sports an oversized Philadelphia Eagles T-shirt, replete with the team’s midnight green coloring and some kind of faded print on the front. Carla’s not fat but she’s not thin.

  She lets the security door close behind her as she bounds down the stairs walks in our direction.

  “She doesn’t have a car,” Jimenez says, “so she’ll probably take the bus.”

  “Which store is she going to?”

  “Thrift Rite, I believe.”

  Just before passing our car, Carla starts running. I look in the sideview mirror and see a bus on the corner. As the traffic light turns green, Carla waves her right arm at the driver. The bus stays put, opening its doors to her.

  Jimenez starts the car. “Let’s go.”

  We take a shortcut, reaching Thrift Rite before the bus does.

  Still in the car, my eyes shift from side-to-side, scoping out the parking lot for any potential witnesses before changing into a tall, handsome black man of about thirty-five to forty years old. While I haven’t taken his form exactly, I’ve always liked Denzel Washington’s style. Since studying the manual last night, I’ve had him in my mind as the inspiration for my first shape shifting assignment. Besides, name me one woman who doesn’t care for the guy.

  “Don’t go in like that,” Jimenez says, her emotionless tone providing no additional feedback.

  “Like what?”

  “Like a man.”

  “Why? I’m supposed to get her attention and draw her in, right?”

  “Yes, but if you were a struggling single mother, whose advice would you take?”

  Elena’s right. I know that I got a huge lift from Denise when I needed a pick me up, but this is different. This isn’t about a boy who was cheated on by a girl he probably would’ve dumped a couple months later.

  This is serious. This is a woman’s issue.

  If I want to empower Carla with the knowledge that she can be a successful mother of three with a good head on her shoulders, I need to engage her as someone who’s been there.

  Swoosh!

  The new form I take is modeled after Oprah. Articulate, fashionable, urbane, successful. She’s my inspiration now and she’ll be Carla’s inspiration in Thrift Rite. I’ve made myself around forty years old with a sharp white blouse underneath a designer suit jacket. I’ve borrowed Jimenez’s sense of style and have gone the way of the pants suit.

  “Better?” I say.

  “Yes.”

  As Carla steps off the bus, navigating the loose debris on the corner, Jimenez reaches into the inside pocket of her suit jacket and pulls out a small device. “This goes in your ear,” she says, handing it to me. “We’ll be able to communicate with it.”

  When I put the device in my ear, I can’t help but think that, to my knowledge, Roger Moore, Sean Connery, and Pierce Brosnan never got to do anything like this in real life.

  “Be friendly, but do it naturally.”

  “Okay,” I say, watching Carla enter the store. I open my door and climb out of the car. Not only do I look different, I feel different. My form is a bit heavier than I actually am, so my movements feel a little slower. As I close the car door and turn towards the store, I feel the extra eleven years my new persona has added to my body. My knees feel creaky.

  After the store’s automatic door acknowledges my presence, I keep one eye on Carla as she navigates through the produce section. I grab a shopping cart and head in her direction.

  Thrift Rite is one of those discount grocery chains you’d only imagine impoverished people frequenting. The carts are rickety and unwieldy, their handles filmy. The floors are dirty, the milk is two days expired, and the air smells like spoiled meat. Despite this, it’s a good place to save a few dollars.

  I went to bed last night pondering what I was going to do to gain Carla’s trust. Even with the curveball Jimenez threw in my direction, I’ll still be able to execute my plan, which will kill two birds with one stone. Fortunately, Carla’s at the store at a time when it’s slow, making it easier for me to work my magic, in a manner of speaking.

  After Carla places a bag of broccoli in her cart, she turns around and scopes out the tomatoes in the middle of the produce section. I slide next to her, avoiding eye contact, and check out the bro
ccoli right behind her. I bag a nice, healthy group of them and start walking away as I float the bag into Carla’s cart. After I let it down quietly, Carla turns back to her cart but is otherwise oblivious as to what I’ve just done.

  This telekinesis thing is quite easy. You mean I can tell an object what to do in my mind and it will actually do it? Awesome. Dangerous.

  Carla picks up a carton of cherry tomatoes, places it in her cart and moves on, heading toward the canned food aisle. She stops her cart in front of a section of generic, no frills Spaghetti-Os. She drops about four or five cans into the cart before studying a shelf canned green beans behind her.

  Taking Carla’s spot at the tomato stash, I fixate on three more cans of the generic Spaghetti-Os and let them slowly fall into her cart. Still oblivious, Carla then drops a pair of green bean cans into the cart and moves on without hesitation.

  I follow Carla further down the canned food aisle. When she reaches its halfway point, I break out the heavy artillery. “Excuse me, miss.”

  She stops in front of the soup section and looks over her shoulder at me.

  “Can you tell me where I can find milk and butter?” I say, abandoning my cart. “I’ve never shopped here before.”

  She turns her back on her cart. “Yeah, it’s at the other end of the store.” As she says this, I drop a few cans of soup to her collection behind her.

  “Oh, wait,” I say before she turns around, “what about cereal?”

  “Next aisle,” she says as six packs of ramen float into her cart.

  I crack a wide smile. “Well, thank you very much. You’ve been very helpful.”

  “No problem,” she says.

  I turn my cart around and round the corner, turning into the cereal aisle. The shelves are stocked with the generic, no frills knock-offs of otherwise popular cereals. Corn Puffs, Toasted Cinnamon and Lucky MarshmellO’s all wait to be taken home. None of the knock-offs come in a box, either. They’re all contained in large plastic bags.

  I take a bag of Toasted Cinnamon for myself when I see Carla turn into the aisle from the other end. She pulls a large loaf of white bread off the shelf before pushing past me. I turn my cart around again, going toward the front of the store. When I see Carla slide into a checkout lane, I take my cue and slot in behind her.

  Carla places all of her produce and cans on the lane’s belt, still ignorant to my generosity. I’ll give her credit; most impoverished parents don’t even look at produce. Carla and I exchange smiles when she drops her last item on the belt.

  The cashier, a young man in his early twenties, scans the items with gusto, letting the cans slide to the end of the lane where they wait to be bagged. Not surprisingly, this particular grocery store doesn’t employ baggers.

  After he scans the last item, the loaf of bread, the boy begins the bagging process. “Twenty-eight thirty-seven,” he says.

  Carla digs into the left pocket of her soiled sweats, whips out what looks like a government-issued card and swipes it through the reader in front of her. The boy looks at his register, tilts his head slightly and says her to swipe the card again. She obliges.

  “It was declined,” he tells Carla. Her jaw drops, more out of embarrassment than surprise, I suspect.

  I took a chance that she would have insufficient funds if I dropped more groceries in her cart than she had planned. Be that as it may, her trip through the store was quicker than I expected. And although this has gone according to plan, I’m surprised as to how little she could actually afford.

  “I’ll pay for it,” I say, handing my bag of Toasted Cinnamon to the cashier. I shimmy my way between Carla’s cart and the candy and gum shelf as I make my way to the front of the line.

  “Oh, you don’t need to do that,” she says.

  “No, let me get this for you.”

  The cashier scans my cereal.

  “It’s my fault, I got more food than I thought.”

  “No worries. I got it.”

  “Thank you.” She shuffles aside to allow me to step up to the credit card reader.

  I pull out my bank card and swipe, typing in my PIN. The boy’s register opens and a receipt slides out of its printer. The boy rips it out and hands it to me.

  “Have a nice day, Ms … Newsome,” he says, looking at the receipt.

  “You too.”

  The boy finishes bagging our items and places them in Carla’s cart before we move on.

  “I’m Lisa Newsome,” I say, shaking Carla’s hand. “Do you live around here?”

  “A couple blocks down on Erie.”

  “A couple blocks?”

  “I live on Seventh.”

  “Seventh?” I say, trying to sound surprised. “That’s more than a few blocks, girl! How are you getting home?”

  “The bus.”

  I nod towards Jimenez’s Volkswagen Jetta when we walk through the doors. “No, no. I’ll have my chauffeur drive you home.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to do that.”

  “No. Allow me.”

  “Why are you doing all this?”

  “I don’t know,” I say, shrugging. “Just paying it forward, I guess.”

  I walk around the front of Jimenez’s Jetta, her eyes following me the entire time. I step up to her door before she engages the power windows. My reflection disappears as the window’s glass slides out of view.

  “What are you doing?” Jimenez says with a whisper.

  “I’m helping her out,” I say, bending down to the window. “Pop the trunk.”

  Jimenez simply rolls her eyes.

  “Please,” I say.

  Jimenez sighs under her breath before springing forward when she sees something in her rearview mirror. “I don’t think we’ll be taking her home.”

  I stand up and watch Carla, grocery bags in hand, take off toward the street while a bus pulls up to a red light, ready to take her home.

  As I start to yell her name, Jimenez puts her hand on my forearm and shakes her head. “Don’t.”

  I give her a questioning look.

  “You probably scared her off. We’ll try again tomorrow.”

  “That’s it?”

  “For today, yes. These things take time, Calvin. You’ve planted the seed. We’ll see her again tomorrow.”

  “Unbelievable,” I say, throwing up my hands. “She even took my cereal.”

  Jimenez gives me a look of insincere pity. “Sorry.”

  Once I get over the initial disappointment of not finishing my first assignment, I reflect on what happened as I watch Carla’s bus disappear down the street. Assuming I finish my assignment, I can now firmly say, after just a few minutes on the job, that this has the potential to be the most meaningful job I’ve ever had. It felt good to be back in my community, trying to lend a helping hand, even if it was just for a few fleeting moments.

  I can make a career out of this.

  “C’mon!” Jimenez says. “Get in the car!”

  I climb into the passenger seat and shut the door. “Wow. And I get paid how much for this? Where does the funding for this operation come from?”

  “Donations, mostly,” she says, turning the ignition and driving away from the store. “That, and a large endowment that’s been maintained throughout the centuries. Both agencies were formed by a select few who owned replicas of the Arrowhead. When they did that, they poured a ton of money into the agencies to help them stay afloat.”

  “I’d say they’re doing pretty damn good for ‘staying afloat. Hey, how’d I do on my first day?”

  “Not bad. I’ve seen much worse.”

  “Wow, a compliment!”

  “Every dog has his day,” she says in a mocking tone.

  When I start to recall the last time I said that, a thought pops into my mind. “I have to call Ronni.”

  “Wait. You’re going to tell Ronni about this?”

  “Hell no.” I dial her number on my cell phone and listen to it ring twice before she picks up.

  “This is Veron
ica.”

  “Ronni, it’s Calvin.”

  “Calvin? What happened to your voice?”

  “Oh,” I say, nearly swearing. “Let me call you right back.”

  When I hang up the phone, Jimenez is actually smiling. “So, that’s what you laugh at? Other people’s mistakes?”

  Swoosh!

  I dial Ronni’s number again. “This is Veronica.”

  “Hey, Ronni. It’s me.”

  “What the heck was that?”

  “I—I just inhaled some helium. Crazy, right?” I trade glances with Elena.

  “Interesting,” Ronni says, unfazed. “What’s up?”

  “Well, I wanted to see if we could hang out tonight.”

  “Tonight? I don’t know.”

  “I’ll bring dinner.”

  She groans. “Fine. Six o’clock,” she says. “Don’t be late.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Cool. See you.”

  “See you.” I hang up the phone and look over at Jimenez to find her staring at me. “What?”

  “You love her, don’t you?”

  “No,” I say, as though she told me I was from Mars. “I mean, I do, but not like—I love her like a sister.”

  She nods her head, skeptical. “Right.”

  “What’s it to you, anyway?”

  She shrugs.

  I look down at my phone and lower my voice. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Maybe I do. Maybe I don’t.”

  As Jimenez rounds a corner, I think about my encounter with Carla Andrews. If this is what it’s going to be like, day-in and day-out, consider me hooked. If I can get through to Carla, this is the tangible impact I talked about. If she gets to watch her kids walk across a stage—mortarboards and tassels on their heads—I can say that I, Calvin Newsome, was the one who turned all of their lives around.