Small Steps Page 4

  “Oh, I know!” Ginny suddenly exclaimed as she brought both hands to her face. “You need Coo!”

  Coo was a sort of bunny creature lying next to Ginny’s bed. It had arms and legs like a person but had bunny ears.

  “I’ve had Coo my whole life,” Ginny said.

  “I better just take Roscoe,” said Armpit.

  Ginny frowned.

  “I think Coo’s great,” Armpit assured her. “I just don’t want to take your favorite. It’s just a stupid speech. What if something happens?”

  “Coo isn’t scared,” said Ginny. “He is always strong and brave. H-he will be the b-best ruler of the w-w-world!”

  “Well, I wouldn’t count on Coo winning,” Armpit cautioned. “I get real nervous when I have to give a speech.”

  “Coo will help you,” said Ginny.

  Armpit held Coo in one hand. It was soft and spongy, the kind of toy given to babies because it was easily held on to by tiny fingers. “So is there something wro—” He caught himself. “Does Coo have a disability?” he asked.

  “Leukemia,” Ginny whispered. “But we don’t talk about it.”

  7

  Friday, with the concert just eight days away, Armpit went to the Stop & Shop after school to buy a newspaper. He had paid thirty dollars for the ad; he might as well pay another fifty cents to see it.

  He dropped two quarters into the newspaper vending machine and pulled up on the handle, but it wouldn’t open. He pressed the coin return and got back nothing. He pulled harder on the handle. He slammed his hand against the coin return.

  He was already mad that X-Ray had waited two days to buy the ad because he only wanted to pay for one week, and now the machine had eaten his money. He shook it so hard he might have broken it, but then a voice in his head reminded him that it wasn’t worth going to jail for fifty cents.

  Instead, he went into the store and told the clerk what had happened.

  “You have to wait for the coins to drop,” the guy told him, and wouldn’t give him his money back.

  Armpit asked him for change for a dollar.

  “No change.”

  So he bought a bag of chips for a dollar and nineteen cents, then used part of the change to buy another paper.

  This time he listened for each quarter to drop before pulling on the handle. When the door opened, he took three copies of the Austin American Statesman, just to get even, and left two of them on top of the machine.

  Back home, he spread the classified ads out across the kitchen table. He’d told X-Ray not to ask for too much, since they only had a week. There were a number of ads for Kaira DeLeon tickets. The prices ranged from seventy-five to a hundred and ten dollars. Then he came to the one with X-Ray’s phone number.

  KAIRA DELEON TKTS. $135

  Close to the front. 555–3470

  X-Ray answered on the second ring.

  “Are you insane?” Armpit shouted.

  “Yes, but it hasn’t stopped me before!”

  “Did you see all the other ads in the paper?”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “So they’re all at least twenty-five dollars cheaper.”

  “And your point is?”

  “I told you to keep the price low.”

  “It is low. They sold for seven hundred and fifty in Philly.”

  “We’re not going to be able to sell any tickets.”

  “You’re thinking east Austin,” said X-Ray. “You got to think west Austin.”

  “What?”

  “See, you and me, we’d buy the cheapest tickets. But that’s not how they think in west Austin. They don’t worry about money over there. They just want the best. And the ones that cost the most got to be the best, right?”

  Armpit had installed enough sprinkler systems in west Austin to know that people worried about money over there just as much as they did east of I-35. Their homes might have been worth half a million dollars, but they still expected Armpit’s boss to reimburse them five bucks if Armpit accidentally stepped on a daffodil.

  “Okay,” Armpit said. “Even if somebody wanted to pay a little more to be up front,” he said, “row M is not the front!”

  “The ad doesn’t say it’s in the front. It says close to the front.”

  “It’s not close to the front. Row F is close to the front. G maybe.”

  “So then they’re close to close to the front,” said X-Ray.

  “Just call the paper and tell them to lower the price,” said Armpit.

  “You need to relax. I promised you I’d double your money, didn’t I? Didn’t I?”

  Double or nothing, thought Armpit.

  “Besides, it’ll cost another ten bucks to change the ad.”

  He didn’t sleep that night, or the next night, or the night after that. X-Ray didn’t sell a single ticket over the weekend.

  He wondered how he had ever let X-Ray talk him into this. Why didn’t they sell the tickets to Felix when they had the chance? Now he was out another thirty dollars for the ad in the paper, and it would cost ten more to change it.

  But at three o’clock Monday morning, he decided that was what they would have to do. Just change the ad. Seventy-five dollars. They’d still make a small profit. Maybe if they had gotten seats in the first or second row they could have held out for more money, but now they just needed to get rid of the tickets before it was too late.

  At four o’clock in the morning he decided on seventy dollars a ticket.

  “That’s five dollars less than Felix offered!” X-Ray said when Armpit called him before going to school.

  “Well, we should have sold them to Felix when we had the chance,” Armpit said. “But we didn’t, and now I just want to get the things sold.”

  “For seventy dollars?”

  “We’ll still come out ahead, even after the cost of the ad.”

  “So you don’t want to sell them for a hundred and thirty-five?”

  “That’s what I said. Look, it’s my money on the line.”

  “That’s a problem,” said X-Ray.

  “I’ll pay the ten dollars!”

  “It’s not that,” said X-Ray. “It’s just . . .”

  “Now what?”

  X-Ray heaved a heavy sigh. “Well, a guy just called and he wants to buy two tickets at a hundred and thirty-five. He’s meeting me after he gets off work. I guess I’ll just call him back and tell him they only cost seventy.” He laughed. “I mean, if that’s what you want me to do.” He laughed again.

  Armpit managed a smile.

  Later at work he had to remove a red tip photinia from someone’s yard, and its root was enormous. He first cut off the bush at the base, then started on the root, but no matter how deep he dug, he never could seem to get to the bottom of it. It was like an octopus with thick, long tentacles that hugged the ground.

  He went at it with an axe, hacking off many of its offshoots, but to no avail. Finally he wrapped a chain around it and attached the other end to the back of a pickup truck.

  He climbed into the cab, put it into four-wheel drive, and shifted into first gear. There was a moment of uncertainty, and he worried he might destroy the engine, but then the root popped out of the ground.

  He lifted it into the back of the pickup along with the top half of the bush. He was hot, tired, sore, and covered with dirt and sweat.

  But he felt good. He had a feeling of satisfaction that he could never explain to X-Ray. It was good clean work. Scalping tickets felt dirty in comparison.

  8

  He and Ginny waited out front for X-Ray to bring the money from the ticket sales.

  “Two hun-hundred and seventy dollars,” said Ginny. “If you s-sell ten more . . .” She did the math aloud. “Ten times one hundred and thirty-five is one thousand three hundred and fifty!” Her eyes widened. “You’re rich!”

  Armpit laughed. “Well, I’ll have to split the profits with X-Ray. When we sell all the tickets I’ll make a profit of four hundred and thirty-five dollars.” He had done
the math too. “You know, you didn’t stutter at all when you were adding,” he pointed out.

  “I only stutter when I t-t-t-talk.”

  “You were talking.”

  “That was math. I’m g-good with numbers. Not w-w-words.”

  “Well, you’re pretty smart,” he said.

  “And you’re pretty rich.”

  “And you’re pretty cute.”

  “And you’re pretty pretty.”

  She laughed at her own joke.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “I s-said you were pretty.”

  “So?”

  “G-girls are pretty. Boys are handsome. That m-means you’re a girl!”

  “And you’re pretty silly,” said Armpit.

  He noticed a woman watching them from the parking lot of the Stop & Shop. He wondered if she was suspicious because he was with a little white girl. Did she think they were on drugs? Maybe she was memorizing his face, in case it turned out the girl had been abducted.

  He stared back at the woman, who then quickly got into her car and drove away.

  Or maybe she just enjoyed seeing two people smiling and laughing.

  The X-Mobile passed her coming in the other direction.

  “There’s X-Ray,” said Ginny.

  Not bothering with a U-turn, X-Ray parked facing the wrong way. He slid over to the passenger side, climbed out, then walked around the car.

  “Hey, Ginny. You taking good care of Armpit?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, did you sell the tickets?” Armpit asked.

  X-Ray smiled. “See, Ginny, that’s what I like about Armpit. Straight to the point. No bull—” He stopped himself. “No bull.”

  “He d-doesn’t like to be called Armpit.”

  “I mean it with great respect and affection,” X-Ray said, his hand on his heart.

  “Did you sell the tickets?” Armpit asked again.

  “Say, Ginny, did I ever tell you what happened to my car?” X-Ray asked, pointing to the big gash in the driver-side door.

  “No.”

  “I’m driving along Mopac, and this dinosaur leaps out and takes a big bite out of my door! Scared me half to death!”

  Ginny laughed.

  “Look, do you see the teeth marks?”

  Ginny pushed back her glasses on her nose. “Yes.”

  “I think it was a T. rex! Can you believe it?”

  “No.”

  X-Ray laughed.

  “So you didn’t sell the tickets, did you?” said Armpit.

  “Okay, here’s the deal,” said X-Ray. I was supposed to meet the dude in the parking lot of the H-E-B at five-fifteen. Hey, Ginny, you know what H-E-B stands for?”

  “No.”

  “Howard E. Butt. Seriously. That was the man’s name. That’s why they just call it H-E-B. Would you want to buy your groceries at a place called Butt’s?”

  Ginny cracked up.

  Armpit glared at X-Ray.

  “Okay, so anyway,” X-Ray continued, “I get there at five o’clock, fifteen minutes early. So then I wait. The guy said he’d be driving a white Suburban. Five-fifteen: no white Suburban. Five-twenty-five. Five-thirty. It’s like a hundred and fifty degrees in the parking lot, but still I wait ’cause I don’t want to let my buddy Armpit down. Finally, at five-thirty-five, I hear this guy screaming out, ‘X-Ray! X-Ray!’ like some kind of maniac. So I give a couple a toot-toots and then this obese vehicle pulls up beside me and two ol’ rednecks get out. ‘Are you X-Ray?’

  “‘No, I’m just some dude who happens to have X-Ray on his license plate’—but I don’t say that. I say, ‘Yeah, that’s me,’ and I’m just about to hand over the tickets when he asks, now get this, Ginny, he asks who he should make the check out to.

  “I tell him he can make the check out to the tooth fairy for all I care. He goes into this whole riff about losing his ATM card, which was why he was late, but I don’t want to hear it.”

  “So you didn’t sell the tickets?” asked Armpit.

  “They still want ’em,” said X-Ray. “They’re going to meet me back at the H-E-B at ten tonight. They say they’ll have the cash this time. Only, you better come with.”

  “I can’t. I got econ homework, a speech to write—man, I thought you were supposed to do all the work. I just put up the money.”

  “They were two big white guys. And there won’t be too many people around at ten o’clock. I just think it’s a good idea to have some backup.”

  Armpit didn’t like where this was heading.

  “Don’t worry. One look at you and there won’t be any trouble.”

  For better or for worse, Armpit knew that was probably true.

  He worked on his Coo speech until it was time to go, first making an outline, then putting his key points on three-by-five cards. His speech was mostly about Ginny and how important Coo was to her. He came up with a sentence he really liked: Coo gives her comfort, courage, and confidence.

  He realized he might be taking the assignment a little too seriously. The people who had given their speeches earlier today had treated the election as if it was a big joke, which of course it was. One girl had urged everyone to vote for Milford the Monkey because if he became ruler of the world, he would plant a million banana trees, and that would stop the destruction of the rain forests and help prevent global warming. Another kid urged everyone to vote for Wilbur the Pig because he would bring about world peace, and if he didn’t, then at least everyone would get a ham sandwich.

  But Armpit knew he wasn’t good at making jokes, and if he didn’t write his speech down, he would just stand there, sweating and babbling nervously. Besides, he really wanted Coo to win, for Ginny’s sake.

  X-Ray showed up a little before ten.

  “Where are you off to?” Armpit’s mother demanded.

  “We just got to do something,” Armpit said as he hurried outside, knowing he’d have to submit a sample when he returned.

  It was the same H-E-B where his mother worked, although it had been a few years since she’d had to work the night shift. There were only a few cars in the parking lot, and no white Suburban.

  “Man, I’m getting sick of getting jerked around by those jokers!” X-Ray complained.

  “Just give ’em a couple of minutes,” said Armpit. “He did say he lost his ATM card. Maybe he’s having trouble getting the cash together.”

  “A couple a minutes,” X-Ray agreed. “And then we’re out of here. It’s disrespect. What, they think we got nothing better to do than wait around for them? Disrespect.”

  Armpit was feeling claustrophobic in the car and stepped out to stretch.

  “Good idea,” said X-Ray. “Let ’em get a good look at you.”

  He looked up and down the aisles. “Maybe they’re waiting at the other end of the parking lot,” he suggested.

  “I’m in the exact spot where I was earlier. The exact spot.”

  At a quarter after there was still no sign of them. “That’s it,” X-Ray announced. “We’re leaving.”

  “Just wait a few more—” Armpit started, but X-Ray had already started the engine.

  Armpit climbed back in, and they had only just started moving when a large white SUV pulled into the lot.

  “Is that them?” Armpit asked.

  X-Ray continued to drive away.

  “Wait! It’s a white Suburban.”

  “Too late!” X-Ray said as they bounced over a speed bump.

  The horn sounded on the Suburban.

  X-Ray yelled an obscenity out his window, then lurched out of the parking lot and into traffic.

  “Are you nuts?” Armpit yelled. “That’s two hundred and seventy dollars!”

  “Our respect is worth a lot more than that,” said X-Ray. “Who do they think they are?”

  “If you don’t sell the tickets, I’m going to kill you,” Armpit warned him.

  X-Ray laughed. “Always the joker.”

  9

  Armpit felt pretty silly carrying
Coo to school on Tuesday, and wished he had taken his backpack. He was still mad at X-Ray, but he was even madder at himself. The concert was four days away and no tickets had been sold. Six hundred and ninety dollars down the toilet.

  “Hey, Armpit, want a ride?”

  He glanced over to see a yellow Mustang slowly moving along beside him.

  “Where you going, Armpit?”

  There were five people in the car, three guys and two girls, and although he only recognized the two guys in the front seat, he knew he didn’t want anything to do with any of them. The driver was named Donnell, and the guy beside him was Cole. Both were three or four years older than he was, and he was sort of surprised they knew his name. It was not good news.

  “Come on, hop in,” said Cole. “We’ll take you where you want to go.”

  The trick was to say no without offending anyone, especially Cole, who was known to be a little bit crazy.

  “It doesn’t look like you got much room,” Armpit said.

  He wondered what they were doing out so early in the morning, then realized they must have been up all night. They were probably high.

  “Always room for a brother. Sharese can sit on your lap.”

  “That’s okay,” said Armpit as he continued to walk. “I’m fine walking.” He continued to walk and the car rolled slowly alongside him.

  “What’s the matter? You don’t like Sharese?”

  “Hi, Armpit,” called a girl in the backseat.

  “I just like to walk, that’s all.”

  The car pulled ahead of him, and for a second he thought they were through with him, but then it swerved sharply into a driveway, blocking his path. The passenger door opened.

  “You know, when a brother offers you a ride,” said Cole, “the right thing to do is accept.”

  “I didn’t mean any disrespect,” Armpit said.

  At least they all remained inside the car. He tried to act casual.

  “What’s with the bunny?” asked Sharese.

  Armpit tightened his grip on Coo. “Something for school.”

  “School! It’s summer!” shouted one of the guys from the back.