E MILY GOT US THE FIRST JOB. James had business cards printed with my cell phone number. I guess he thought we’d just pass them out and everyone would call.
HAVE TRUCK WILL HAUL. 555-4628
It was supposed to be that simple. It almost was.
“Furniture, clothes, machinery, junk, whatever somebody wants hauled, we can do it. You’re the salesman, Skip. When they call, close the deal.”
I’ll be honest. The first thing I thought about was hauling illegal merchandise. When you grow up in South Florida you don’t read about waving palm trees and white sandy beaches. The people up north read about that. You read about drugs, contraband, stolen goods, and hijacked commodities. You hear about shady characters, organized crime, and boats, planes, and trucks that make unannounced rendezvous at strange hours in the morning. Bales of marijuana floating on a black ocean and Colombian drug lords who import their form of terror into the United States through Florida. And you think about Cuban refugees who are escaping a life that must be hell. But, what the hell , it was another James Lessor scheme and since I’d bought into all of them before, there wasn’t much to lose. Or so I thought.
James had bought the used truck for $12,000, an inheritance from an aunt who lived in California.
“I met her once.” He sucked on his cigarette, letting the ash grow an inch before he flicked it off. “I must have left some impression, or else she just doled out $12,000 to everyone in the family.”
“James, you should have paid off some of your student loans. They’re going to hang over our heads for half of our lives.”
We were sprawled on cheap plastic lawn chairs on what passed as our apartment patio. It was a slab of cracked and pitted concrete, stained with a lot of beer, wine, and black smudge marks from ground-out cigarette butts. Some of those stains had actually been there when we moved in.
James took a slow swallow of beer from the brown bottle and gazed over the top of his sunglasses at the two girls three apartments down. Dressed in shorts and halter tops, they worked over a charcoal grill, trying to fan the briquettes into hot coals. “Skip, it’s that old adage about giving someone fish, or giving them a fishing pole. Give ’em a fish, they eat one meal. Give ’em a pole, they can catch fish the rest of their lives. If I put the money toward the loan, I wouldn’t have any money left. But,” he held up his index finger for dramatic effect, “but if I buy a truck, then I can use the profits from our little business venture to pay off the entire loan and at the same time build a business empire.”
“Empire?”
“I’m not thinking one truck here. Think Ryder. Think U-Haul, Penske. Think big, Skip. People are more mobile than ever, and they have more stuff than ever. Stuff, buddy. Stuff. They need trucks to haul that stuff.” He stood up, stretched his six-foot, lanky frame, pulled his baggy green shorts up around his bare waist, and walked barefoot down to the girls’ patio. I could see him showing them how to get maximum heat without stinking up the meat with charcoal lighter. Four years of culinary college had paid off. He could pick up girls by dispensing barbecue advice. The phone chirped. I checked the number. Emily.
“Em. How goes it?”
“Whatcha doin’ for dinner? Want to grab a pizza?”
I looked down toward the girls’ patio. James was laughing, drinking one of their green labels, and they seemed to be amused at something he’d said. “Sure. I think my roommate has plans.”
“Oh, so I’m runner up?”
“No. Just an observation. Sure, let’s get a pizza. I want to run a business idea by you.”
“Me?”
Her, indeed. Emily’s dad owns a construction business in Carol City. Carol City Construction. He’s built some of the most palatial homes in the Miami area, and runs a very successful company. When Em graduated from the University of Miami with a computer engineering degree, she was offered about a zillion jobs, with salaries approaching $150,000. But she went to work for Dad and figured out how to make the main guy in her life another gazillion dollars. If anyone knew good business, she did.“You.”
“What about Jaystone?”
“I’m not quitting. Jaystone Security is still paying the bills.”
“Barely. You know you could always work construction, Skip. Dad could put you on at about a dozen sites right now.” Dad didn’t realize I couldn’t drive a nail even if I had a sledgehammer. And furthermore, he didn’t like me a whole lot. It wasn’t necessarily that I was dating his daughter or that I had a crummy job. It was more about not dating his daughter seriously. And I’m not sure he knew that was by her choosing. Em liked different guys. She liked to flirt, to party, to have her little affairs. She’d been that way since she went away to some hot-shit private school as a junior in high school and we’d broken up. But she still liked to get together with me and just get comfortable. And sometimes it was very, very comfortable.
“James has an idea-”
“Oh, Jesus.” I could picture her shaking that pretty little head, her short hair bouncing around that kissable face. “He’s always got ideas. You’re not buying into something with him are you?”
“Em, let’s go get a pizza. We can talk when my minutes aren’t on the line, okay?” Cell phone minutes, just like money, meant nothing to her. It’s the problem with rich people. They don’t think about how tough it can be on the others, trying to keep up. Every now and then I’ve got to bring her up short.
“I’ll be by in half an hour.”
“Dutch treat, Em. There haven’t been a lot of sales this month.”
“Then I hope to hell this business venture pans out, Skip. If it doesn’t, you might just starve to death.”
Did I mention that besides being rich, she has this sarcastic streak a mile long? Still, when she’s comfortable, she’s very comfortable.
Half an hour later to the minute she picked me up in the T-Bird convertible, the tan top already down and the red paint job waxed to a blinding shine. If I have to rely on a woman for my ride, I’m glad it’s a classy ride.