Stephanie Doyle - One Final Step

“So you like this girl or what?”

“Charlene is very beautiful.”

“You’ve been with her to two things now. You never see a girl two times in a row. I think you like this one.”

Michael had flown Charlene in for the Solarcomp charity event. Then he’d taken her to dinner at The Whitney where they had been photographed together. Madeleine had been pleased.

“I like her all right.”

“But do you like her like her? You’re not getting any younger, kid. It’s time you start thinking about settling down and getting yourself some kids.”

The concept was so far removed from Michael’s reality there was no point in even refuting it. Instead he said, “My focus is on getting this electric car off the ground. Not getting married. Charlene is hanging around. She likes to be wined and dined. There is nothing serious there.”

Archie offered his hand and Michael pulled on it until the man was sitting and then on his feet. Archie took a rag out of his pocket, wiped his hands more out of habit than need and shuffled his feet a few times.

“I’ve known you a long time, Mickey.”

Twenty years. They’d met back when he’d been Mickey Lang because someone along the way thought the name Langdon was too fancy for 8 Mile.

“You’re not about to lecture me, are you, Archie?”

“I’m saying you’ve come through a lot. And now you’re on top of the world. You’re like that guy…what’s that fellow…the one on the boat. You can hold your arms up and say you’re the king. But still I look at you and I don’t see a happy guy. I think maybe a wife, kids…a family. This would make you happy.”

“You’re my family, Archie.”

“Ah, kid, don’t get all sentimental on me. I’m not dying yet. I’ll let you know when I am and then you can come cry over my bed and say nice things to me. I’m saying a man reaches an age when the money isn’t enough.”

“What happened to you, then? What woman wouldn’t have wanted all this?” Michael looked around the run-down mechanic’s shop. Through rose-colored glasses Archie saw it as a thriving business when in fact it was a dump. Michael had offered Archie all the money in the world to take on more help, to fix the place up nice.

The old man would have none of it. After all, if he actually brought on full-time help, where would the ex-cons go to find honest work when they got out?

“I’m an ex-con, Mickey. I didn’t have much of a choice. You come clean with a lady about that and she’s likely to run the other way.”

“I’m an ex-con,” Michael reminded him.

“Yeah, but you washed all the stink right off. Hell, they talk about you being in prison like you were out on a picnic. You’re like a reformed version of…who was that guy in the movies, the one with the funny voice. James Cagney, yeah, like him. Bad boy makes good. I read the magazines. I know.”

“Prison wasn’t a picnic,” Michael said thickly as a surge of shame and disgust rose up in his throat. This, he thought, this is why I will never have a family. I can never leave it behind.

The irritating part was that he’d accepted that fact years ago, but now when he thought about Madeleine things started resurfacing. Wishes and desires he thought he’d squashed forever. With them came regret and loss. It was why in some ways being around her was pure hell.

“Well, you do what you want. Are you going to see what’s-her-face again?”

“Charlene?”

“Yeah, that one.”

“One more time. She’s accompanying me to the Detroit Revival event.”

Archie laughed. “If I had a nickel every time they said Detroit was making a comeback I wouldn’t need to play the lottery every day, that’s for sure.”

“Maybe this time they’re right. A new type of car, manufacturing on the rise. Hell, even the Lions are winning. Who knows what’s possible?”

Archie shook his head.

Michael reached into his back pocket. “Speaking of the lottery. I almost forgot. These are for you.”

“Kid, why do you keep doing this?”

“They’re scratch offs. I buy them for me and I get tired of scratching.”

Archie took the five cardboard pieces. “You got a dime? Or a quarter? A nickel won’t work on these.”

Michael jangled some of the loose change in his pocket. He pulled out a quarter and watched as the man leaned against the old Chevy to carefully scratch each square.

One of these days he would hit. Michael was sure of it.

“Hey, look at this! Two bucks. I’m on a roll.”

The rest of them proved worthless, but now Archie had cash for two more. He was a happy man.

“Listen, I have to go out of town for a while as soon as the Revival thing is over. When I’m back I’ll stop by.”

“Yeah. Okay. I’ve got a new project coming in a couple of days and it would be nice if you could meet him.”

By “new project,” Archie meant a guy out on probation. Archie liked to think that Michael could rub off on an ex-con and maybe make a difference. Hell, maybe he did, Michael didn’t really know. Most of Archie’s projects came for a couple of months and then left. Either to find a better job that actually paid something or to return to the life they knew before. Michael rarely followed up with any of them.

It was easy to give money to a charity that offered support for people getting out of jail, but it was never easy spending time with actual ex-cons. It reminded him too much of his past.

“Sure. I’ll come over when he gets here. But I’ll check in on you, too, when I get back.”

“Whatever. It’s not like I need to be watched over by you, kid. I do the watching. You hear me.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m saying when I get back maybe we can head over to Darnell’s for some barbecue. We haven’t done that in a while.”

“Darnell’s? It’s a date.”

“A date, huh? I don’t know. You’re nowhere near as pretty as Charlene.”

“Get out of here, kid. Before I show you all the ways I know how to use a crescent wrench.”

Michael lifted his hands in surrender and left the shop. He got into his specially formulated Chrysler, one he’d rebuilt from the ground up, and tossed the kid who had watched it for him a couple of bucks.

Beeker’s wasn’t in the greatest part of town, but it wasn’t in the worst, either. Archie lived right on the edge. And for the most part, people around these parts looked at Michael as a local hero. The money for the kid had been more about finding a way to hand out a few bucks than keeping his rims safe.

Once Michael closed the door behind him, he hit the car’s start button and did one last check to make sure Archie was where he always was. The man joked about not dying, but he was over seventy and he wouldn’t be around forever.

Once Michael had tried to talk him into a place in Florida but that idea went over as well as offering him money to fix up the shop. Archie Beeker wanted to die while changing somebody’s oil. It was the way it was. Michael had to hope his death was a long way off. He wasn’t kidding when he called Archie family. He sure as hell knew Archie was the only family he would ever have.

* * *

“AREYOUready for this evening?” Madeleine asked as she hit the speaker button on her phone and set it down on the coffee table in her hotel room. In an act of small defiance, she shucked off her shoes before sitting on the couch.

As a matter of professionalism, she preferred to be in business dress at all times when dealing with a client, even when she was on the phone. The rule was for her sake entirely. It helped keep her mind focused on the job at hand.

But after a long day of airports and cabs, she was happy to be off her feet. Losing the pumps wouldn’t completely compromise her professional integrity. She was fairly sure. Besides, it’s not like he could see her.