Good Things on the Way
Goin' way back with a short story from 2004
Here’s a short story from way back in 2004. It was originally published in lichen: a literary journal, which paid upon publication. Two hundred bucks, if I’m not mistaken! Wow. This was my first real “sale” of a piece of fiction, though not my first publication (I’ll do what I can to keep that first one from the light of day, you guys!). It felt pretty good, let me tell you, when I got the cheque and the contributor copies (2) in the mail. Little did I know it would be over a decade before I’d sell another piece of fiction.
I don’t actually remember writing this one. Not the details, anyhow. But I must have written it when I lived in an apartment on Pandosy Street, in downtown Kelowna, if I have my personal timeline remotely correct. I would have been 20 years old, working at Boston Pizza and attending Okanagan University College part-time, drinking a lot and reading Raymond Carver (obviously).
Fast-forward to these dark corona times. I wasn’t so sure how this would hold up, having not read it for at least a decade. But, apart from a few touches to the dialogue, and a sentence or two trimmed from the last couple paragraphs, this is what you’ll find starting on pg. 91 if you can ever track down a copy of lichen vol. 6 no. 2. I am given to understand the magazine has been out of print for some time, so that may prove difficult. More than a few spots made me cringe, a little or a lot. But overall, I think it holds up nice enough, for a story about a handful of unlikable losers.
In many ways, this an early Ditch Creek story, one that takes place in the same fictional and emotional place as Coach of The Year, not to mention countless other stories I’ve written that died on the vine over the years (RIP). Since I’ve gone through a few computers in those intervening years, not many of those have survived (which, really, is not such a bad thing).
Hope you enjoy it, awkward zits and all. Cheers.
Good Things on the Way
By Sheldon Birnie
(Originally appeared in lichen: a literary journal vol. 6, no. 2, fall/winter 2004)
She worked mornings at a restaurant just down the street, and on her lunch break she’d come back to their one-room apartment and make him breakfast. She’d cook eggs on the hot plate, and make toast and instant coffee. She wouldn’t let him eat in bed because, when he did, he went right back to sleep after he was finished, so she made him get up and dress, and they ate their meal on TV trays on the couch. If she could, she’d bring a copy of the daily paper back from work with her. If she did, he sat and read through the classifieds.
“Anything today?” she’d ask. Usually, he’d say “No, not today.” But sometimes he chewed his bottom lip and nodded his head, and that’s when she knew there was something. Today there was something.
After they’d finished she’d gather the dishes and stack them by the sink, and he would tidy them up after she’d gone. Then they’d sit around and share a cigarette, and maybe talk about how her shift was going, so far. When the cigarette was finished, she’d go to the washroom, and then she’d be off to work again. Before she left, she’d give him the tips she’d made so far that day, and he’d use the tips to buy whatever they needed most. Toilet paper, condoms, cigarettes, beer. Sometimes, if she’d done real well that morning, he’d treat himself to a Hustler, or buy a bottle of rye and some cola. If there was anything left over, and he didn’t think she’d notice, he’d score a gram off a guy he knew at the pool hall and get high before she got home. On her day off, she did the grocery shopping. Today she gave him thirty bucks. She needed tampons, and they were low on smokes.
Once she left, he’d usually sit around the apartment a while, jerk off, then go out and do the shopping.
Sometimes, if he’d found anything in the paper, he’d go to the pay phone downstairs and call about a job. A while back he’d gotten on with a road construction crew for a month, but then winter had come along. Since then, nothing.
It was cold and windy today, and his body was frozen beneath his denim jacket. At the corner store he picked up her tampons and a pack of Player’s Light, which left just ten bucks for booze. He walked the next three blocks to the liquor store and bought a sixer of Alberta Genuine Draft, which left him with a pocket full of change. They saved the change from her tips in an empty sixty of JD beside the bed. When it filled up, they’d empty it, rolled the coins, and took them to the bank. Usually, the money went to paying overdue bills, but once they were in the clear, they used the cash to get a couple ounces, which she’d sell to coworkers. He’d sell to friends of his younger brother, kids still in high school who didn’t know any better if he shorted them. They’d make their money back, and he’d smoke for free for a month or so.
Sixer under his arm, tampons and smokes in the pockets of his jacket, he started walking back to the apartment. Halfway there, an old Lincoln Town Car pulled up next to him. Tony leaned across the seat and opened the door. He hopped in.
“How’s it goin, Tony?” he said. He and Tony had grown up together, their mothers having been best friends in high school and having both gotten pregnant their final year.
“Not so bad, bud,” Tony said. “Headed home?”
“Yup.”
“Anything goin on today?”
“Nope.”
“Wanna make some money?”
“Hell yes.”
Ever since they were sixteen or seventeen, Tony’d been one of those guys who could find easy money. Once he found out how to get into the music room of the little Baptist private school on the hill after hours. They went by after dark one night and made off with the PA and another grand worth of musical equipment. Another time, he’d gotten them into a big auto parts shop, and they made off with nearly ten grand in gear. Tony also knew how to find people who would pay for the stuff. Sometimes, Tony’d need a hand.
“Right on,” Tony grinned.
“Anything special?”
“Not really,” Tony said. “But she’ll pay.”
Tony went on to explain the plan, which involved a shipment of snowmobile parts being delivered to the Yamaha dealership that evening, and how, if they worked it just right, they could make off with a good haul.
“I can throw you $500,” Tony said. “Maybe a little extra, see how she goes.”
“I’m in,” he told Tony.
“Beauty,” Tony said, pulling up to the apartment block. “Pick you up at eleven.”
“Sure thing.”
When he shift was over at two that afternoon, she came home and they had a beer together. Over a smoke, he told her about the job Tony’d lined up. While she worried about Tony and the job, she was glad he was doing something. The cash would cover the bills, and some of the interest that was piling up, too.
“Don’t worry,” he’d say every time. “Tony knows what he’s doing.”
“Yeah,” she’d say, and that would be the end of it. If they talked about it anymore, it made them both nervous and probably they’d fight, so they just let it be.
Sometimes, in the afternoons, after her shift and the beers and the smokes were finished, they’d make love and then nap a while. Somewhere around five, she’d fix something, usually consisting of frozen veggies, potatoes, some instant pasta or soup. Sometimes they’d head down to the diner before it closed up. But even with her getting half price, it was still costly. Tonight, they splurged on the diner, and he had a steak sandwich, while she had fried chicken.
Tony picked him up at eleven. They parked his car a block from the Yamaha dealer, and when the time was right, he made the move, Tony waiting behind the wheel. When he gave the signal ten minutes later, Tony pulled up into the shadows and they made off with a trunk full of parts. Two days later, Tony swung by his place with $800 cash.
“Good work, buddy,” Tony said.
“Fuckin rights, Tony,” he said, grinning like a fool.
Three hundred went right to rent. Then some more went to cover a prescription she’d had to get for a bladder infection the month before, and some other bills that had piled up. Together, they decided to squirrel the rest away, in case something came up over the next couple months. But first, they’d do a little celebrating.
Whenever they felt like good things were on the way, they’d celebrate by drinking some decent whisky, doing a gram of coke, then hitting Snappers, their favourite bar. He’d get the blow from Scotty, an old buddy from high school, and she’d pick out the whisky.
She had Wednesday off this week, so they decided to hit Snappers Tuesday, which also happened to be cheap shooter night. When her shift was finished Tuesday, they had their beer, and each had their own smoke instead of sharing. Then they broke out the Johnny Walker. After they finished half the bottle, they started doing lines and getting ready to go out. By nine, the bottle was empty, so they called a cab and finished most of the coke while they were waiting, leaving just enough for a bump or who when they got home.
Snappers was packed, but they got in because the bouncer was an old buddy of her brother’s, and they hit the shooter bar straight away. They each had a shot of tequila and then started dancing. They danced and drank and danced and drank and somewhere along the way they ran into some old friends and they all started drinking together. They laughed and talked and drank and cursed the forces they felt were aligned against them all: the government, rich bastards, the cops. Eddie, who’d been a year behind them in school, was also out of work and off EI. They talked of ways in which they could make some quick money, though nothing would ever come of it in the end.
As the night wore on, they kept drinking and dancing and laughing and scheming, and as last call approached, they were both far gone. She could not stop laughing, and he was having trouble keeping them both upright. When they heard the bell, they rushed to the shooter bar and had one more tequila for the road. Right away, she felt sick, and so she headed for the john. On the way, she bumped into a guy in a Fox Racing jacket, spilling his drink.
“Watch it, bitch,” Fox Racing said. His buddies all laughed.
She didn’t hear what Fox Racing had said, but he did.
“What the fuck did you just say?” he asked.
“I told your woman there to watch it. Spilled my drink. Wanna buy me another?”
“No,” he told him. “I don’t.”
“Then fuck right off,” Fox Racing said, and his buddies all laughed again.
“I’m lookin for an apology, pal,” he told Fox Racing, whose buddies laughed all the louder. They were all drunk and feeling the way young men feel when they’re drunk and together.
“I’ll give you an apology,” Fox Racing told him, shoving him into a table. Fox Racing was the bigger man by far. After knocking the table over, he fell to the floor. As he was getting up, a work boot cracked into his ribs. He rolled over. Pushing himself up off the floor, he grabbed a bottle off the nearest table and hit Fox Racing in the face. The bottle did not break, but Fox Racing started bleeding anyway, so he kept at him. She came back, screaming, from the washroom just as Fox Racing got a few shots in. Soon they were both on the floor, rolling and punching. One of Fox Racing’s buddies got another kick in as the bouncers broke through the crowd that had gathered around the fight. The lot of them were thrown outside into the bitter cold of early morning, bouncers standing between the two groups, yelling at them to get the fuck out before the cops showed up.
His face was bloody, his side throbbed. He felt a little like puking. She was crying and raging and swearing to God she would kill those motherfuckers. They walked the six blocks home in the cold.
He cleaned his face up, put a bag of ice peas on his side. After he did the bump he’d been saving for himself, his nose started bleeding again. But the pain abated enough that he could sit back and almost relax. She did her bump and started raging about the fuckers in the bar again. They were probably fuckin homos, she kept repeating. After a while, she went into the bathroom and got sick. When she was through, she came back and slumped down beside him on the couch. She was pale, paler than usual, and she smelled like puke.
“I love you, baby,” she said, her face buried in his blood-stained t-shirt.
“I love you too, sweetheart.”