G AS AND GROCERY was about three minutes from our pink stucco apartment. I had no idea where Angel lived, but there were very few times I stopped by for a six-pack or cold cuts that Angel wasn’t there. This time I was not disappointed. For all I knew he might have slept in the back room. Actually, that would have been impossible. The squat cement block building wasn’t big enough to have a back room.
“Angel!” He was speaking with a customer in the gravel sixcar parking lot in front. He turned and nodded, his shaved head glistening in the afternoon sun. The man he was talking to ducked his head and quickly walked away, headed up the street.
“Hey, man.” Angel gave me a vacant stare.
Angel was black. Coal black. His sleeveless pullover showed off his bicep tattoos, a marijuana plant on his massive left arm and what probably was the Ethiopian flag on his right arm. I assumed it was the flag because I’d seen pictures of Bob Marley posing with the national flag. Angel’s colors were faded, but the same colors nonetheless.
“Sup?”
“James and I are unloading a truckload of stuff into a storage unit in about an hour. If you’re free-” Angel seemed to be free his entire life, “we’d like you to give us a hand. It’s worth fifty bucks.”
“I thought you didn’t want any money comin’ out of the kitty.”
“There was a little more money than we anticipated.”
“I’m there.”
“I’ll pick you up in about fifteen minutes.
Angel nodded. “Should I bring something for the journey?”
I didn’t know what he had in mind, but the last thing we needed was an illegal substance. Somebody was already running our plates and checking out James and Em. We didn’t need to encourage them.
“No. Thanks anyway. We’ll be by with the truck. Pick you up here?”
He nodded again.
Fifty bucks would save us maybe an hour. I guess the thought of $1,500 for the load and the $5,000 we hoped to be paid by Fuentes was making me feel like I could spare a little of that to shorten the job time.
I drove the green Prism back to the apartment and waited for James. He rolled in ten minutes later, and ten minutes later Angel, James, and I were squeezed into the cab of our one-ton moneymaker, rolling down I-95 to the storage units.
Billboards whizzed by, advertising everything from retirement communities to radio stations.
PALM ESTATES STARTING AT $189,000 Z92! CLASSIC HITS FROM THE ’70S, ’80S AND ’90S
Then there would be a couple of miles of gleaming white shopping malls, factories, and clustered housing developments with small pale houses and orange-tile roofs.
We passed my favorite billboard.
MR. BIDET FOR A CLEAN, HEALTHY TUSHY
Em has one. I mean, she has a bidet. But I assume her tushy is healthy and clean too.