Laura Furman - The O. Henry Prize Stories 2011

They turn to leave, but Player #4, a mammoth redheaded sad sack, looks at me again, this time giving me a morose stare. I gasp. It’s Jorge, my conversation partner from junior year Spanish. I can’t remember his real name. Buenas noches , Marita, he says, before heading toward the door.

Shit, James says, looking first at me and then at the wide back of Jorge.

Marita, Little Fry says after they go. Marita! Marita! she calls, picking up the pipe. RJ, Little Fry, and I retire to the sofa. James goes into his room and slams his door.

When I first moved in, James said, No way do you go upstairs. Of course I go.

There are four freezing bedrooms and an old bathroom with the sink torn out and a shower that drips. The bedrooms are all the same size, one in each corner, but in each one the windows look out on something different: barnyard, road, clump of trees, pasture. You can go from room to room, as I have, and get a 360-degree view of where you are. It’s the opposite of how all of us downstairs live, in our closed fist of work, and that’s why James doesn’t want us up here.

I figured I’d find old stuff up here like newspapers from World War II or tickets to a county fair or receipts for horses and cows, but the place looks as if RJ’s been at it. Not a nail or a shoelace, but I did find a honey-colored curl of hair in a closet once. If I were a different kind of girl, I would have kept it.

I’m up here during a day sometime after the football players’ visit, after break time. Dormitorio , I say to each bedroom; ventana to each window; árboles , I say out one window, then camino out another one, pasto where the cows would be. Translate “barnyard,” Marita, por favor .

Around dawn, James jumped out of bed, crouching and feeling for cigarettes. Fritzie, he barked, how long have you been here? Quick!

I closed my eyes. Six months, I said. No, eight.

Wrong, babe! James said. Ten months, two weeks. You’ve got to work on memorization, James said, and he sounded just like my Spanish teacher, Señorita O’Connor. You’ve got to keep as much in your head as you can, James said. You don’t want to end up like RJ, like a CD you can’t turn off. Or Little Fry, like all you can do is play with paper.

I didn’t say that we were working to his specifications, working for James his very self. I also didn’t say that when you don’t sleep, like Little Fry, RJ, and I don’t, you live in one long hour and that hour takes place during that last minute you’re in a class, when you’re waiting for the big IBM clock on the wall to make its final click. So why not run on like RJ does? Why not cut and paste like Little Fry?

I’m moving you into a supervisory position, James said, shocking me. I can’t afford to hemorrhage any personnel, he says. So you’re in charge of Little Fry and RJ. Make sure they don’t fly away.

Fly away like past chefs and runners, like girls he diddled, like everyone who passes through a business like this.

You’re here for the duration, James said at dawn.

When I go downstairs, everything’s the same. Little Fry: table, soda, tape. RJ: trying to do some speedy old-school break dancing on the living room floor. My work is done.

You’re not going to break anything but your head, I say. I’m going for a walk. Where’s James?

Out, RJ says. Who’s he doing? I wonder before I can stop myself. RJ’s upright now, doing a silly big skip, slide, and sway, like some guy in a boy band.

Little Fry looks up from the table. Take a hat, she says.

Outside the sun is high. It’s colder than a tweaker’s lungs, as RJ always says, but I’ve got my old red down jacket with matching mittens and hat. When I get to the end of the driveway, I stick out my thumb and start walking in the direction of the city, even though no one is coming yet on this dinky road. I haven’t mailed the change of address card yet. It’s in my pocket: Richard von Behren, 653 Oak. I haven’t planned what I’m going to do or say.

Pretty soon, an old car pulls up. It’s an Impala, lumpy with Bondo, and there’s a guy I almost know behind the wheel. Cody, he says when I get in, and I know he’s a local. There were probably thirty Codys in my high school.

I’m Merilee, I say. Are you going all the way in?

Sure are, he says. What side do you want?

North, I say, Stratford Acres, by the river.

He gives a low whistle. Then there’s a long silence. Horses crowd together in the pastures. I see a farmer close by the road, checking a fence post.

Cody clears his throat. I think I seen you before, he says.

Where? I ask quickly. I look to make sure the Impala has door handles that work from the inside.

You’re at James’s place, yeah? I’m a friend of Tommy’s, Cody says.

Tommy’s the best chef in three counties, even James says so. People compete for product, not territory, so there’re no fights, no shootouts on rural routes. Just admiration and awe. Ah, Tommy, James always says when he hears the name. He kisses the air. Ah, Tommy.

I should have guessed anyway. Cody’s got one knuckle rapping the steering wheel and his nondriving foot is pumping up and down. You can see the sinews in his cheeks.

That would be me, I say with a little laugh. I can’t remember the last time I was alone, or with a stranger, someone I had to say new things to.

Who’re you going to visit? Cody asks. We stop at a four-way and he sits there too long.

Just a guy, I say. He owes me some money.

Cody snorts. Don’t I know it, he says. Then he launches in, telling me all about life at Tommy’s place, which he should definitely not do to anyone outside. For miles, he talks about their new satellite dish, his bust last year and how Tommy bailed him, how much product Tommy’s putting out, then, inevitably, there’s the story of some girl who he has the hots for, this one being Tommy’s old lady. Blabbady, blab, blab, blab, goes Cody, as only a meth head can. We get to the city. What will be, will be, Cody the philosopher finally says about life and love at Tommy’s.

That’s fatalistic, I say, pulling out the word from someplace. You can’t do a thing about a life like that, man. Stop here.

Cody pulls into the parking lot at the playground I used to go to when I was a kid. It’s too cold for anyone to be on the swings, and the slide would catch even the tiniest piece of skin. I turn and smile at Cody.

Duck down, he says, pulling the pipe out of the glove box. We laugh.

I race the five blocks to Oak on foot, keeping my head down. I practically do the two-step. I rub my fingers together inside my mittens. On Oak, all of the houses are bigger than my old one. They’re huge blocks of brick-brown, red, cream, with the sun hitting their front windows so the glass glows like porcelain. Richard von Behren at 653 Oak is at the end of the block. The house is two-story, red and brown in alternating groups of bricks, and there are two tall windows in the front, both of them with fake little wrought-iron balconies.

From the skinny window next to the front door I can see back into one of those kitchens that flows into a dining room. Richard von Behren is getting a plate down from a high shelf. When he answers the door and sees it’s me, he scrunches his eyebrows together and purses his lips.

Sorry, he says, but we’re not buying anything. I could have put my son through college on what I’ve paid for candy and magazine subscriptions. A dog snorts and sticks its black muzzle between the man’s leg and the doorjamb.

I’m lost, I say, for lack of something else. My car broke down, I add.

What? Richard von Behren asks. Where’s your car? He sticks his head out and looks up and down the block.