Rob Thurman - Slashback

“Of course you have a phone. Don’t be absurd. Everyone has a phone. Fetuses are issued one with a friends-and-family plan two months before they pop out of the womb. Are you after money? You are rude, but hustling me for money does make you a con man after my own heart. I’ll pay you to use the phone.” The irritation was now smoothed over by a mellow flow of amusement that made me think of a symphony’s rich sweep, the velvet thrum of a satisfied cat’s purr, the warmth of a fire in a huge hearth in an expensive house. All good things, all comforting things. The best con artists had voices like that. Our mother sounded like that-to everyone but us.

Cal had grown up listening to her voice pouring the richest of verbal chocolate, sex, and brandy over marks. He was immune to it. He switched feet and scratched his other calf, squinting in suspicion. “I’m eleven and you want to give me money? Are you a pervert?”

The amusement vanished as the unseen man squawked much like a startled rooster. I knew the sound as we’d once squatted at an abandoned farm for three months. “ No. I am not a pervert.” There was a pause. “Technically. . no, that’s only been with consenting adults, always has been, which is legal or should be. Therefore not a pervert.”

With a very obviously unconvinced expression as he loved nothing more than poking people, mentally or physically, Cal crossed his arms and looked up and down at the man that I couldn’t see. “Your clothes are kind of fancy, like a pimp in those old cop movies. You don’t belong in this part of town and you’re giving away money. Yeah,” he announced his conclusion, “you’re some kind of weird door-to-door pervert.”

“Pimp?” There was an audible grinding of teeth. “Have some respect. This suit is Versace . I’m not a pimp and I’m not a pervert, you foulmouthed little. . oh.” The exclamation was ripe with surprise and what I thought sounded like eagerness. “I know you. I know you. Where’s your brother? May I speak to him?”

“How do you know I have a brother?” Cal wasn’t playing anymore. The suspicion was real and I was already moving, the switchblade hidden in my hand.

“You always do. Or a cousin or a best friend bonded by blood. Something of that dramatic overwrought nature. Someone who is virtually attached to you at the hip. Let me speak to him. He’s invariably more reasonable.”

“Nik, the pervert wants to talk to you.”

“And I am not a pervert,” the man declared. I was at Cal’s side by that time to see him when he said it.

He had wavy brown hair, green eyes that every chicken saw right before red-furred jaws snapped their necks, a mobile face, and a wide grin that could’ve sold pornography to the Pope. A con man through and through, but from his clothes and car-a screaming red Jaguar-a much more successful one than Sophia. There were all kinds of con men. He could be a politician or a talk show host or a car salesman.

I rested a hand, the one without the hidden blade, on Cal’s shoulder. “What do you mean you know him? I know everyone my brother knows and I don’t know you.” The threat was audible, just as I meant it to be.

He waved a hand that was holding a pair of sunglasses I thought cost more than the house we were living in. “Like him. I mean I know kids such as him. With attitudes like his. . very. . ah. . lively, yes, precisely the word I was looking for. . which means that they usually have someone who makes certain everyone shows appreciation in nonviolent ways for their smart-a- their challenging attitudes.”

“You can say smart-ass. He knows what he is and, worse, he’s proud of it.”

The stranger was suddenly enthusiastic and friendly instead of demanding, but that didn’t mean the man was harmless. He was too balanced on the balls of his feet, a nonstop mouth yet a stillness within and an awareness of everything around him from the periodic rapid flicker of his eyes to take in the street around him. He reminded me of some of the older and more lethally skilled teachers I’d learned under over the years. I wasn’t there yet. I hoped to be someday. No, this one was not harmless at all, but he didn’t have any reason to be dangerous to us personally that I could see.

He looked down at Cal and the grin changed to a smile you’d have to be blind to see wasn’t full of affection. “Proud. Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

It should’ve made me tense and on edge. Cal had been toying with the guy in his best cat-and-mouse style, but in our world molesters were a real threat. You had to be careful and willing to cut off someone’s balls in a heartbeat. Cal and I were good enough with the threat and the flash of a blade that we hadn’t had to castrate anyone yet, but there was always a first time.

Past history should’ve made me wary, but I wasn’t. I knew the monsters, otherworldly and human, when I saw them. There was nothing twisted in that smile and the affection was what you’d show a close friend or a family member. I knew because it was the same as Cal showed me. “You know kids like us?” I glanced at his car. Flat tire. He hadn’t been lying.

“I had friends who had to be kids like you. I know because when they were adults, they were very much still like you.” The smile faded somewhat, but he remained cheerful enough. “But friends go and they come.” The smile faded further at that. “About the phone?”

Go and they come? That was an odd way of saying it and the opposite of the usual “they come and they go.” “Sorry. Cal’s right, mister. We don’t have a phone.” Sophia had a cell phone, but she was elsewhere and there wasn’t a landline in the house-not one that had been paid up and worked. I aimed another look at his woefully deflated tire. “Why don’t you just change it?”

“Call me Robin. . Rob Goodman, I mean, and hello?” He spread his arms, hands flicking inward then out to cover all of what I highly suspected he thought of as his glory and magnificence. He could be a televangelist. There was the same strong self-loving vibration coming off of him that I saw in quick flashes Sunday mornings as Cal channel surfed.

He repeated the “behold the splendor that is me” gesture, making sure I didn’t miss it. “As I said, Versace. Oil, grease, and the essence of manual labor do not come out of Versace. Ah, idea.” He fished out a wallet that was made of alligator, ostrich skin, velociraptor hide, who knew, I reflected bemused. The most exclusive of choices to be sure. “I’ll pay you fifty dollars to change it for me. You look as if you could make use of fifty dollars.” He was studying our clothing. The smile was gone now as he switched his gaze from us, stepping back on the porch to get a better look at the house that was held up by spit and the million husks of dead termites. I knew what he saw. I hadn’t lived in better, you would think I’d be used to it-accustomed-think it normal, but I didn’t. People didn’t let you. People judged. People never failed to judge.

Poor. Worthless. Lacking.

Goodman’s lips flattened and this time I couldn’t read the emotion behind it. “You know, you’re lucky. I’m in a hurry. Someplace I have to be. Important man, that’s me. In constant demand. Busy, busy, busy. There would be hell to pay if I’m not. . wherever. I’ll pay you five hundred dollars to change the tire.”

Charity.

I would rather he’d judged instead.

I had a thing about charity. Issues. We were clothed thanks to Goodwill and the Salvation Army. Our lunches at school were free thanks to the county. Half our furniture came off someone’s curb or out of a Dumpster, but that didn’t mean I liked it even when it was anonymous and to accept it from someone standing in front of me feeling pity for me, that I hated. The humiliation burned through me to curl down deep inside like an ill-tempered cat with claws slicing into my stomach.