“Not a lot here worth stealing,” he finally said, shrugging at the pegboard on the wall, the giant mess of border tape rolls and X-Acto knives.
“Meaning what? If you did have, I would?”
He looked me in the eye. “I signed on to partner with you. I have to trust you, Demon.”
“Okay,” I said. “And?”
Tommy looked as sad as I’d ever seen him. And we’d seen some sad shit, we two. He told me it was about my capacity to function. He had to think about me possibly getting hurt, with all the machines in there, razor knives and such. I knew it was killing him to say this, and even still I said mean things. I was damn well functioning enough to live in a real house with my real girlfriend and not a garage with pitchforks and gas cans. Then I apologized and fell apart and admitted I was a little strung out on the junk. But was fully intending to clean up my act.
“How are you going to do it?” he asked. Elbow on the light table, chin on his hand.
“I’ll just do it. Quit the dope. It’s just, my knee. It still hurts like hell.”
The sad hound-dog eyes, the chin propped on the fist.
“But I can cowboy up,” I said. “It’s time. I’ve been thinking that lately. I’ve been through worse, I mean, Jesus, Tommy. We got through Creaky’s S&M camp.”
“I don’t think it’s all that simple. I think it’s better to have help.”
I laughed. “Help. Where’s that at.”
“There’s an AA in the church basement two doors down from here. A lot of nights of the week. If you started going, we’d probably be okay with you coming here after.”
“So you’re fucking bribing me to go to AA.”
“I didn’t mean it like that. Sorry. I know, it’s supposed to be anonymous.”
“What the hell do you know about it?”
He got up from his light table and walked around, hands shoved in his pockets. “Sophie,” he said. “Both her parents were drinkers. But her mother got sober.”
“Good for Sophie’s mother. All mine got from A fucking A was the hard sell on giving it all up to a higher power. Which was the sum total of her life, Tommy. Never thinking she had any power herself. Just taking the shit life threw at her, till the last round of bumps took her out.”
Tommy sat back down at the light table with his head in his hands. I told him I wasn’t going to live like my mom did, letting everybody tell her she was worthless. I’d stayed alive so far by standing on my own feet, and wasn’t about to give that up now.
“Another thing,” Tommy said very quietly. “Sophie’s mother had to leave her dad, to get sober. She says as long as you’re living with an addict, you’re addicted.”
I punched my fist into my hand a couple of times and walked out of there before I did worse. Why didn’t he just say it? Didn’t matter. I wasn’t leaving her.
Tommy was as good a man as I was not. That’s all I can say. We had a contract. I went back over there the next evening, and we made our peace. Tommy gave me a key to his garage house, to prove he trusted me. I started working over there, just me and the pitchforks and gas cans, until he finished up his layouts, then he’d come home and we’d work together.
Being alone there was much like being back in the McCobb dog room. Complete with surprise appearances of Haillie, popping in to scare the bejesus out of me. Thirteen-year-old version, picture the sparkle-Barbie vibe and hit fast-forward. She showed me the Howliie Fairie drawing she’d kept all this time. I was trying to work, but what can you do. I asked her what the squaller twins were up to, and she said kindergarten. The next night, came back with those brats on each hip like she’s the little mama. I tried to ask the normal questions, how was Ohio, did she have a boyfriend. She said she had four. Toting those kids half as big as herself, giving me this sultry eye like I just might be number five. Shew-ee missy, I thought, you’ll get there soon, no help from me. Eventually Mrs. McCobb would come shoo Haillie back to the house. Then she would stand there in her triple-XL sweatpants and mom hair and talk my ears off. Her husband is a genius, his Wate-o-Way enterprise is about to take off, same old same old. I wasn’t depending any more on this nutbar family for my calorie intake or anything else, so I tuned it all out.
Except for this one crazy thing. She said she was scared Mr. McCobb had got into something over his head. Some deal he had with a man she didn’t know, but he had come over and she did not like his looks. Given my football connections, she wondered if I might know this individual. U-Haul Pyles. Fuck me. I told her to steer clear by all means. But couldn’t stop wondering. Was it real, was she trying to yank my chain. Was U-Haul trying to find me here.