Sean Beaudoin - Welcome Thieves

“Harsh. You okay?”

“No.”

“What’s all that noise?”

All that noise was the taxi to the airport, the driver carelessly banging Jack’s matching brushed-chrome Vuittons down the lacquered steps.

“My roommates are going on a trip.”

“Where?”

“Jersey City. I gotta go. I’m gonna be late for work.”

“Hold on. I was thinking maybe I could swing by. We need to talk.”

There’s a vintage Mr. Spock clock on the wall, his pointy right ear the minute hand.

Not a good idea, Spock says. You’re already on thin ice.

“Not a good idea,” Penny says. “I’m already on thin ice.”

“Nah, Uncle’s cool. I’ll bring beer. We’ll go in late together, tell him there was a bus strike.”

Penny still hasn’t figured out why she let Kurt take her into the stock room to begin with. Unless it was to punish Jack and Francis. Unless it was because she dreaded being alone, even for an hour, stuck in the big echoing house with all eight thousand framed pictures vying for her attention.

On the other hand, maybe she was the one who grabbed Kurt’s elbow. Maybe she was the one who winked and tossed the bolt, mashed him against sixty pounds of red onions, the Imbecile’s Seduction, strains of imaginary flute punctuated by cooks hammering at the door.

Kurt, with his way-blasé hair and trigger grin.

Kurt who really does smell like teen spirit.

Kurt, who takes arty portraits with discontinued film stocks, who was born to be in the liner notes, who probably owns a shiny kayak and has an interview lined up at that new animation studio down by the water.

“I don’t want to,” Penny says.

“C’mon. Why not?”

“I don’t like you very much.”

He laughs. “Yeah, right.”

“No, for real. You need to shave your stubble. It’s so obvious. And wear less-tight shirts.”

“Hang on, let me write these down.”

The Charmin has turned to gum beneath Penny’s sweaty thighs. She puts down the receiver and goes to her room, where her sister’s picture is tacked above the bed.

May looks annoyed. Asking for trouble, as usual.

Penny loves May, but girlfriend has her own problems. Like for instance no husband and then two feral boys who eat a pound of macadamia brittle a day and refer to their sister as “Stink Crevice.”

Joel is older now. Todd sees a professional on Fridays. But forget that, you’re gonna get yourself canned.

Penny has lost plenty of jobs before, but she likes Food 4 Thought. She even likes Uncle, who was mean about the condiments but has a big belly and rainbow suspenders and nips off a flask of Southern Comfort while telling funny stories about once being a roadie for Canned Heat. On the other hand, it’s only a matter of time before she gets fired anyway, some cash or expensive knife set will go missing and she’ll be too easy not to blame.

You want to start looking for another place to live? How’d that work out last time?

“Crappy,” Penny says.

Then why take the chance?

Because Rousseau said that all is chaos and contentment is death.

Because Locke said that men deserve reparations for the injustice of their labors.

Because Penny’s framed picture of David Lee Roth does a scissor kick and gives her a raging thumbs-up.

It’s party time! Go for it, babe!

Only a fool ignores Diamond Dave.

Penny has forty minutes to get dressed and make her shift. She puts on a double-coat of lipstick, goes back to the bathroom, and picks up the phone.

With any luck he hung up, Spock says.

“You there?”

“Yeah, baby,” Kurt says.

“I’ll be ready in twenty minutes.”

“Righteous.”

“But if you say righteous again, it’s off.”

“Solid.”

“Same.”

“Okay, okay, Jesus.”

Penny hangs up and goes downstairs to say good-bye to the boys.

KURT TAKES IN the brownstone’s facade, whistles. He’s wearing chinos and a dirty shirt. Lean, unshowered. A cook’s hands. Grill burns. Forearms all veins, an interstate from wrist to throat.

“Sweet place. And let me get this straight, you kick it with two dudes?”

“I thought you were bringing beer.”

“I said we’d go get some.”

“No, you didn’t. Besides, it’s too hot to walk to the grocery store.”

“Walking’s for the impoverished underbelly. Anyone owns this place definitely has a ride.”

It’s true. Twin Volvos. Jack pressed the keys to the blue one into Penny’s hand before getting in the cab, stage-whispered, Only for emergencies, chica!

“They don’t drive.”

Kurt winks. “You sure?”

For a second she hates him with the strength of a thousand dying suns.

Then it passes.

“Fine. It’s parked around back.”

Kurt adjusts the mirror, ejects the CD from the player, flings it into traffic.

“Not cool.”

“I know, but seriously, Seven and the Ragged Tiger ?”

They go a dozen blocks, pull into the empty lot with a chirp. There are crackheads and drunks. Fondlers and purse snatchers. And then just people.

“Safeway’s probably safer,” Penny says.

“We’re already here,” Kurt says.

The market smells like a complaint to the lettuce distributor. An old guy in a bloody apron chops at something that might be fish, slit slit slit. There’s a nudie calendar on the wall, the kind auto parts companies send out for free. July looks like Angela Davis. She gives Penny a wink, How’d you like a taste of this, honey?

“I don’t swing that way.”

“What?” Kurt says.

Penny flips open her tarot deck. Little Boy Lost.

A little boy tears around the corner, slides to a stop.

He’s wearing thick glasses, shirtless, chest heaving.

Penny offers him a grape.

“That washed?” his mother asks, forces her cart between them.

“No.”

“Then what you giving it to him for?”

Penny sniffs the grape, puts it back.

“I dunno.”

“That’s right, you don’t.”

“Shit,” Kurt says, hefts a case of beer. “I forgot my wallet.”

“You gettin’ paper ’cause we out of plastic,” the register girl says, rings them up.

AT THE FAR END of the parking lot a guy leans in the Volvo’s window, broken glass at his feet.

“The fuck?” Kurt says.

The guy turns, a tire iron in one hand. He’s wearing orange shorts and Timberlands, beard shaved so precisely it looks drawn on with marker.

“Oh, man, is this your ride? No wonder my key don’t work.”

“Fight!” someone yells.

A pack of teenagers amble over to watch, hands in pockets and backward visors. Some wear big nylon coats, frowning under the sun.

“Not cool, Sinbad,” Kurt says.

“Kick his ass, Lavelle,” a girl with blue lips says.

“Let’s just go,” Penny says.

Someone throws a bottle. Kurt puts up his fists, circles left as a cruiser speeds into the lot. The old guy in the bloody apron points from behind glass doors. A blip of siren sends the crowd in every direction. Half walk off with a mannered lope: fuck you . The rest run, flat out, into the alley.

“There a problem?” the cop asks.

“Negative,” Kurt says. “Locked our keys in the car. Dude here was helping out.”

The cop in the passenger’s seat laughs.

“Don’t you think you boys are on the wrong side of the river?”

“No, sir,” Kurt says.

“I’m not a boy,” Penny says.

“You got ID, Mr. Goodwrench?”

“You bet,” Lavelle says, reaches for his wallet.

The cop waves it off, gets in the cruiser, guns back into traffic.