Pour Some Magic on Me: A Shoplifter's Guide to Wizardry, page 12
The doors to the gym opened promptly at nine. At one end, tables were in place with the alphabet divided between them. Amanda and I split up, with her going to the A-E section while I went to the G-L table. There were only six people ahead of me. There was also a severe-looking woman in heels and a tight bun directing people to a longer line if they had not pre-registered. I had my tentative schedule in front of me.
I handed my paper to the counselor at the table when it was my turn. He was a heavy-ish, middle-aged guy with glasses. He began going through a box of manila folders. After his second attempt, I began to worry.
"Do you have a driver’s license?” he asked.
“Sure.” I took it from my purse. “What's wrong?”
“Just a second.” He compared it to a list of names I assumed to be those who had pre-registered. “Hmm, that’s weird. I can’t find you.”
“What do you mean? You’ve got the paper with the schedule the counselor helped me fill out.”
“Have you completed your financial aid?”
“Of course, I have. I should be all set.”
He waved to the woman directing those without paperwork. She clicked her way over. “What’s the problem, Mr. Howard?”
“Dr. Whipple, this young lady has her pre-registration signed by Mr. Thorn but is not on my list to register. I also don’t have a file on her.”
“Did you complete your financial aid, miss?”
“He already asked me that, and yes, I had it done before I met with, who did you say it was? Thorn. Yeah, it’s been done for over a month.”
She took my registration paper. “Let me see if there’s been an error. Please stand aside for now until I get back.”
Some of the people in line behind me were grumbling, but I didn’t care “She should be right back. Go ahead and step out of line for now and as soon as she returns, you can cut back in.”
I glowered at him but stood aside. I watched Dr. Whipple leave the gym with my paper in hand. I didn't see the guy who signed my form. I restlessly watched the lines grow longer. The largest was the one for those who had not pre-registered. It was already stretching out of the gym’s front doors.
Maybe fifteen minutes later, the woman returned with nothing but my paper in hand. “Did you find anything out?” I asked anxiously.
She held up her hand for me to wait a minute. When Mr. Howard finished with the guy he was working with, she stepped in front of the next person in line. “One minute, please.” She then waved me closer.
“Mr. Thorn was in and didn’t have any recollection of filling this out…”
“Are you saying I made it up?”
“No, he agreed that it is his signature. He pre-approved hundreds of high school students so he probably wouldn’t remember this one in particular. The issue that we are having is that you do not have any paperwork on record.”
“I told you, I had it done before I graduated.”
“Unfortunately, until we can get proof, or you redo it, you cannot officially be registered.”
“What? What do you mean? You're telling me I can’t attend…”
She held up her hand like I was a toddler. “No, I’m saying you cannot officially register. You can be slotted for your classes, tentatively. However, if you do not redo your financial aid then you will be responsible for paying for classes, and you won’t be eligible for any grants or loans.”
I held up my list of classes. “So, for now, he can sign me up with this?”
“He can put you in your classes, if they are open, pending the rest of your paperwork. However,” If she said ‘however’ one more time I was going to clock her, she pointed to the longer line, “you’ll need to get in that line and complete all the entrance forms. You will also have to check with your parents to re-accomplish your financial aid.”
“Great. Thanks,” I said flatly. She walked off to put out another fire, and I handed my classes to Mr. Howard. He flipped through a long list of courses and wrote my name next to the ones I’d identified.
“The pre-calculus has a prerequisite. You can’t…”
“I passed trig my senior year. My high school counselor had to sign off on my original paperwork.”
“Okay, good. Here you go. You’re all set.” He handed me back my original.
“Except now I get in that monstrosity,” I said pointing to the long line out the door.
“Yeah, sorry, hon. Got to get you into the system. Good luck.”
I stopped to find Amanda before I joined the line. She was next to see her own admissions counselor. “Hey, you’re already done?”
“Nope. They lost my paperwork.”
“You’re shitting me?”
An older woman in front of us gave us a dirty look. “Mind your own fucking business,” I said. She turned around angrily.
“So, you couldn’t register?”
“No, I get a tentative schedule, but now I have to get in that line and redo all the rest of the forms, and I have to reapply for financial aid.”
“That’s insane.”
“Yeah, it is. Listen, there’s no need for you to hang around when you finish. I’ll catch the bus.”
“As if. You promised me lunch, right?”
I handed her the ten. “Go without me.”
“Not happening. Go get in line, and I’ll wait with you. It looks like it’s moving.”
“You sure?”
“Go.”
I spent the next two hours creeping along and another half hour filling out forms right there. There was nothing I could do about the financial aid, though. I’d have to take it home and have Mom fill it out with her taxes, again. Amanda left at one point and brought us both back a couple of Big Gulps. As it turned out, we finished right about lunchtime.
Standing for close to four hours in total had made me hungry, so we stopped at the first Mickey D’s we spotted. Our ten dollars went a long way there. Afterwards, Amanda and I discussed how the school could have lost my paperwork as we drove home.
“Just unlucky,” Amanda said.
Wait a minute. No, that rat-faced bastard couldn’t have. Could he? I had my answer when Amanda stopped in front of my house.
Mom’s Chevy Chevette was in the driveway. “She’s way early,” I said. I jumped out of the car, and Amanda hurried after me. I was almost to the front door when Amanda called me back.
“Hey, look.”
The front right-side bumper of Mom’s car was smashed in. “Shit.”
I ran into the house. Mom was sitting at the dinette with a bottle of vodka. “Mom, are you all right?”
“Fine. I’m fine. You saw the car?”
Amanda appeared, “Did someone hit you?”
“Obviously, but it happened when I was parked. Somebody must have hit me and took off, didn’t even leave a note. I was able to limp it home but couldn’t finish my route.”
“We’ve got insurance,” I said.
She took a long drink and poured herself another one. “And a $500 deductible. That will wipe us out.”
“Shit. I’m sorry, Mom.”
“Not your fault. Funny thing, though, it was parked with the front end toward a building. I don’t know how in the hell someone was able to run into it. Maybe it was a motorcycle or, I just don’t know. Insurance is sending over a tow this afternoon. Hopefully, they can fix it. If it’s totaled, we’re sunk.”
“What about your job?” Mom needed a vehicle to set up her displays for Nabisco.
“The office secretary, Barbara, said I can use hers. She’ll get me tomorrow, and we’ll carpool in together. She’s fine with letting me use the car to restock my stores. It’ll mean getting home a little later most nights until ours gets fixed, but it’ll all work out.” She took a sip of her drink. “How’d registration go? You get all the classes you wanted?”
“Yeah, yeah I did. I have some more forms to fill out, but that can wait until later.” I looked at the vodka bottle; the financial aid could wait for now. “I’m going to walk Amanda out. I’ll be right back.”
In the drive, next to the injured car, I stopped. “That bastard. That thieving bastard did this.”
“Who, you mean the one who stole your jewelry box?”
“He said bad things would happen if I didn’t give him back his bracelet.”
“Is it possible that it's all a coincidence?” Amanda suggested.
“I seriously doubt it. I got suspicious when the school lost my paperwork, but now, this confirms it.”
Amanda knelt next to the damage. “You know, it doesn’t really look like another car smashed into it. It sort of looks like--”
“Like someone beat the shit out of it with a sledgehammer,” I said. “Can you run me around? I’ve got a couple of ideas.”
Amanda looked worried. “Why don’t you give back the bracelet?”
It was a legitimate question. I had thought about it, especially if I could guarantee I’d get a car. However, my silver frog meant a lot to me, more than I could explain even to myself. If that wasn’t enough, now I was just pissed. “Not now. How about it?”
I had to leave Mom alone. Even drinking, normally I would have stuck around, but I had to trust that she’d be okay until I stopped being Fraggle Rock’s punching bag. The first place Amanda took me was the bank where I had to take out some of my hard-earned savings. Nothing I could do about it, and what I withdrew wasn’t going to get me a car anyway. Next, we ran to the hardware store before returning home.
The car was gone by the time I got back. I sincerely hoped the repairs wouldn’t be too extensive. It was my fault, so if I had to take out the rest of my savings to help us get through, I would. Meanwhile, Amanda and I had to wait for Mom while she watered her plants. I watched from the side of the house where she couldn’t see me. By now, she was listing a little. I heard her talking to her pets. Sometimes it was cute; sometimes it was sad.
When she finished, Amanda and I snuck into the yard and unwrapped twelve rat traps. I had explained my idea to her on the way. She very carefully set each one and handed it to me, and I very carefully placed them inside and just outside the entrance of the doghouse. If the rat bastard came back, he’d be in for a surprise.
“Think it will work?”
“Not forever, but maybe he’ll think twice before coming back. Hopefully, this will give me a little time.”
“Okay, so what’s next?” Amanda asked.
“Is it too late for us to pick up some weed tonight?”
“Whoa girl, I don’t think that’s the answer.”
“Not for me, for some yard ornaments.”
Chapter 19
Amanda’s source didn’t allow people to show up unannounced at her house. That meant Amanda had to keep trying her house phone. The woman had a pager like any reputable drug dealer, but if she didn’t recognize the number, Amanda said she wouldn’t return the call, and we were using a payphone. We decided to kill some time at Taco Bell. They had a payphone in the parking lot, too.
As evening arrived, Amanda finally reached her connection. She was the most unlikely drug-dealer I’d ever heard of. A grandmother of six, she worked as a waitress at the Stalking Tiger. She was a sweet, tiny Chicano lady who happened to sell a lot of dope. Normally, she dealt at work, preferring to keep her side job away from her home, but Amanda had been buying from her for a few years, and the woman relaxed a bit for her regulars.
We drove into a nice neighborhood of large Spanish-style homes with stucco walls and fancy wrought-iron railing. Esmeralda’s house had a huge, covered boat parked in the driveway. Amanda parked on the street. “You better wait here.”
I didn’t argue. Although I knew Esmeralda, I’d never bought drugs from her. She was already doing us a favor, so I didn’t want to weird her out.
“How much do you want?”
“I have no idea. What do you think, a quarter?”
“Maybe a half ounce. Those little bastards look like they could smoke Bob Marley under the table.” I handed her over most of my cash.
“That should cover it. I can’t promise she’s got Puna, though.”
“Just make sure it’s not skunk weed,” I said. “I don’t think they’ll turn down anything decent.”
Amanda quickly returned. She pulled out a plastic bag from beneath her shirt. "Let's go. We're all set."
"That was quick."
"She was waiting for me. Had it ready. She wasn't too happy with me."
"It’s not that late."
"She’s getting a little paranoid lately, worried about getting busted. She sells a lot of pot."
I looked at her house with its fancy Spanish roof tiles and its stucco arches and its two-car garage door and the big boat in the drive. "Victim of her own success?"
"She keeps saying she's going to quit, but I don't think she will until she's caught. So, where're we taking our premium Acapulco Gold? Back to Freddie's?"
"Yeah. We'll see if Barney's there first."
It didn’t take long to get to the trailer park, though it felt like it did. Amanda drove just below the speed limit; she was always a little paranoid when carrying drugs. When she finally parked the car, I jumped out. "I'm going to walk around and see if I can find Barney. You want to stay or come with me?"
She slid the weed back under her shirt. "I'm coming."
Freddie wasn’t home, so apparently the D & D gang were not scheduled to play tonight. That meant searching the trailer park. I wasn’t exactly sure how dark it had to be to allow the gnomes to come alive, but the sun had dipped sufficiently so that the only light was a squashed bit of twilight, all orange, red, and yellow. We hadn't gotten far when I caught something moving in the burgeoning darkness, next to a big, double-wide trailer home. At first, I thought it might be someone's cat. I put my arm up to stop Amanda. "Hang on a sec." Then I pointed to a concrete parking slab next to the house.
I watched as the gnome drug a plastic kiddie pool from the yard to where a hose was wrapped around a water faucet poking out of the ground. He was stripped down to his tighty-whities, although he still wore his pointy red hat. He was having trouble reaching the knob on the faucet. "Here, let me get that," I said, sneaking up on him.
The gnome flipped out and fell on his tiny butt. "What the fuck? Who are you?" he demanded.
"Sorry. I didn't mean to scare you…"
He quickly got to his feet. In that gravelly voice that they all seemed to have, he said, "You didn't scare shit. You startled me, that's all. What do you want?"
I reached past him and turned on the hose before handing it to him. "I'm a friend of Barney's. Can you tell me where I can find him?"
"Can't help you. Don't know any Barneys." He turned his back on me to fill up the small, purple octopus-shaped pool. I looked to Amanda who had come closer.
"Don't ask me," she said. "All I see is you talking to a cat."
The gnome set the hose into the pool and turned around. In the weak light, I couldn't see his face too clearly, but he seemed to be sniffing the air. Before I realized it, he was standing right next to Amanda. "Whatcha got there, sister?"
"Something for Barney," I said. "Now, maybe…"
The gnome reached up and snatched the bag of pot from beneath Amanda's shirt. The little bastard was so fast that he was already sprinting off the patio before either of us realized what he was doing. "Come on. He's ripping us off," I yelled.
I didn't wait for Amanda. I sped after the gnome. Thankfully, his white undies and red hat reflected just enough light to keep him in sight. I saw him turn past a trailer across the gravel street and then start running down another row. It was like chasing a rabid toddler. Despite my huge leg length advantage, he was getting way ahead of me. I was watching my bribe disappear, and with it, a good chunk of my hard-earned money.
As he slipped further and further away, I knew I was going to lose him. A sudden thought popped into my head. I reached down to the packed gravel that made up the trailer park's streets and grabbed a handful of small rocks. That delay meant the gnome was getting further away, but I had to risk it. Amanda caught up at that moment. "Go, go, that way," I pointed. "Try and cut him off."
Amanda didn't argue and ran where I had pointed while I redoubled my efforts to catch him. The gnome had gone left at a dead end. Not only was he fast, but he knew the park, and he was so small that there were dozens of places he could hide if he wanted. Still, I caught sight of him as he zipped between two older houses. I rounded the same corner and nearly slammed into a short chain-link fence. The gnome was already to the other side of the yard and about to climb over the fence. Only, he didn’t climb it; he sprang over it, like in one bound. I felt my hopes die; I wasn't going to catch him at this rate.
Suddenly, a porch light turned on, and it must have caught the gnome off guard because he momentarily froze. At that same moment, with the dazzled gnome illuminated by the light, I took a shot and let one of my rocks fly. Shit! I missed. I wanted to peg him, but instead, I knocked off his conical, red hat. Then, to my utter surprise, the creep didn't grab his hat and run. In fact, he didn't move at all.
I jumped the fence and hurried across the yard to where the gnome was striking a modified Heisman pose, only his face was turned upward toward the single high-watt bulb beneath the trailer's eve. I approached warily, expecting a trick, or at the very least, the house’s inhabitant to come out and yell at me for sneaking around his property.
Neither happened. I picked up the hat, and I swear it zapped me, like a static shock. I dropped it immediately. Still, the gnome didn't move. I ran my hand in front of his face and got nothing except his look of twisted incredulity. I must have surprised the shit out of him. I knocked on his bald head and heard a tink, like I was tapping on a piece of china. Whoa!
