edublerps, llc

A Different Job

I was leaning over the fence in the backyard, talking to the neighbor’s pubescent daughter, who lay on a chaise longue tanning herself in a tiny string bikini, when a strident honking from the street intruded on our social interlude. I etched a quick memory of adolescent nubility, excused myself, and went in the back door.

Helen was parked in her La-Z-Boy in front of the flat screen, watching a bunch of desperate idiots receive their fifteen minutes by airing intimate grievances to a national audience. I told her back that I was going out for a while. She lifted a hand in farewell, eyes glued to the television, then, since it was in motion anyway, used it to grab a handful of Doritos from the bag in her lap and stuff them into her face.

My business partner, Daryl, was sitting out front in his beat-up pickup, pressing the horn repeatedly.

“Jesus, give it up, would ya?” I climbed in and slammed the door, which I had to do a few times to get the latch to engage. “Fuck, dude, I gotta live in this neighborhood. You’re pissing people off.”

“What took you so long,” Daryl said. “I got a new job for us to scope out.” He cranked the engine and we rattled down the street, trailing oily exhaust and sparks from the partially-detached tailpipe dragging on the asphalt. 

I’ve always been partners with Daryl. When we were kids, our moms both said we were more like brothers than if we’d been born that way. We have a bunch of stuff in common, like we both prefer Bud Lite, but will pretty much drink whatever’s available, if it ain’t that sludgy English crap. We like pickup trucks better than cars, four-wheel drive if possible. We’d skip eating, sleeping, and maybe sex to watch Nascar on TV. Don’t even ask what we might do to see it live. We like dogs and guns, hunting and fishing, and  hate tourists, politicians, and tree huggers.

We’re different in some ways, too. One is that I like to read a lot at the public library. Daryl comes with me, but he spends the whole time at a computer, cruising the Internet for fun facts and YouTube videos of teenagers doing dumb shit that’s likely to get them killed. Another difference we have is that I like girls. Daryl thinks he does, too, but he just hasn’t come to the realization yet that is so obvious to everyone who knows him, that he is of the opposite persuasion.

His library time isn’t all frivolous, because he found our current business that way. I was sitting in one of the easy chairs the librarians have strategically placed for comfortable browsing, deeply into Anna Karenina, a book by this Russian guy, Tolstoy, who I’ve heard had a few interesting quirks. I’ve been reading it for a few months, twenty or thirty pages at a stretch, because old Miss Snyder, the head librarian, won’t let me check out books anymore. When I was a kid, I had a large problem with returning books by the due date, and she finally took away my library card, for good. One problem with not leaving your hometown is you kind of get stuck at about thirteen years old in everybody’s mind, and that’s how they treat you, forever. So, I have to do my reading in fits and starts.

“Hey Kev,” Daryl said, in a voice loud enough to get dirty looks from all the library staff and about half the patrons, “take a gander at this.” I dug an expired two-for-one cheeseburger coupon from Burger King out of my jacket to mark my place in the book, and wandered over to where Daryl sat, attention fixed on the monitor.

“What is it?” I said, using my inside voice. “And, by the way, you’re in a library. Keep it down, will ya?”

“Uh, yeah, sorry. I got excited. Check this out.” He was looking at a Web site put up by the state government, listing building code regulations, violations, and penalties. His finger was on the part I was supposed to read. 

Turns out, all businesses are required to be handicapped accessible, which is defined by certain guidelines developed by the state legislature, which is made up mainly of politicians, if I have my facts straight. You can just about guess how hard it is for the average business to follow every single regulation, without hiring a battery of lawyers to interpret them.

It also happens that if someone decides that a store or restaurant isn’t handicapped-accessible, or is not sufficiently so, they can report that establishment to the state, and if the investigators agree, will receive a large chunk of the fine levied for non-compliance as a reward. Best part – you don’t even have to be handicapped. 

So we had a career. And now, we were on our way to check out a place Daryl’d heard about that, hopefully, would not be up to speed with all their requirements for the accommodation of the disabled. Sometimes I feel a little bad about what we do. Most owners of small businesses do the best they can, but like I said, the laws are confusing, and by going through them with a fine-toothed comb, we can usually get a few bucks from reporting a place. Occasionally we run into some rich bastard who just doesn’t give a rip whether or not he’s following the rules, and we really enjoy nailing those pricks. The payday tends to be bigger, too.

I should qualify here. We don’t actually report anyone to the state, unless they refuse to cooperate. What we do is, me and Daryl find a place not up to code, then we got this lawyer, goes in and tries to negotiate a settlement with the owners, usually half what the fine would be, for us to not turn them in. We go along to act as backup – muscle might be too strong a word – but mostly to make sure the lawyer doesn’t screw us.

Daryl found our lawyer from the TV, if you can believe that. The guy is one of those ambulance chaser types that will work for a share of whatever money gets awarded to someone in a court case. He represents us for a percentage of our take. A pretty big percentage, but then we wouldn’t be able to do it without him or some other piece of work just like him. Our attorney’s name is Carter Harvey, and we were meeting him at the joint we were going to threaten with code violations.

Daryl pulled the truck into the parking lot in front of an old railroad dining car that some entrepreneurial soul converted into a cafe about fifty years ago. It was up on blocks, sitting by the tracks just outside the gates of the rail yard. Most of its customers were probably yard workers and train crews, jobs which are generally not filled by those with much in the way of physical disability, so they just hadn’t bothered to comply with all the regs. The one concession was a marked handicapped parking spot  right by the front door, which was empty. The lot was otherwise about three-quarters full, mostly well-used family sedans and pickups, the kind of vehicles driven by railroad workers and other people who do semi-skilled physical labor. The lone exception was a dented old Mercedes Benz convertible with a serious case of rust rash and a skinny, booth-tanned man in mirrored aviator sunglasses leaning against it, smoking a cigarette. He was dressed in a frat house style popular among college boys in the eighties, and his cheap toupee did not quite match the color of his remaining hair.

“Hey,” Carter said, dropping his cigarette to the ground and stubbing it out with a worn Topsider, “s’about time you guys showed. I’ve been here fifteen minutes, for God’s sake.”

I pulled my phone from my pocket and glanced at the display for the time. “Quit bitching, Carter, we’re here five minutes ahead of when we agreed on. Not our fault if that piece of gaudy costume jewelry isn’t accurate.” 

Carter glanced at the watch on his wrist, pissed. It was a gold Rolex knock-off, and ran several minutes fast. It galled him that I knew. “If you’re finished ridiculing my accessories, Kevin, let’s go in and have our little talk with the proprietor of this establishment, okay?” He pulled a copy of the appropriate building codes from his briefcase, a fancy-looking affair with gold-colored latch and hinges and a built-in combination lock. The gold plate was flaking, and the blood-colored leatherette cover was torn in a couple of places. We walked through the door, Carter in the lead, me bringing up the rear. Most of the eaters in the place didn’t bother to look up from their plates and bowls to check us out, but the few that did looked at Carter like he’d just beamed in from the Twilight Zone. 

There were two people behind the counter, a tiny, wrinkled Asian woman and a much younger man, thin with greasy blonde hair flopping in his eyes and a pale, acne-scarred face. The woman glanced at us, and said something in a language I couldn’t even begin to fathom. The young man, apparently having deduced that Carter was in charge, addressed him. “Mrs. Park says that she already paid her protection money this month. She says you should go away before she calls the cops.”

“You tell Mrs. Park that we are not here as representatives of the local mob,” Carter said. The man relayed this to the small woman in the same incomprehensible language. She shot Carter an evil look, and replied.

“Mrs. Park says, in that case, either sit down and order something  or get the hell out,” the blonde man translated, without a trace of giving-a-shit-what-we-did in his voice.  He pulled a pad from a pocket in his grease-stained white apron and a pencil from behind his ear. “So,” he said, putting pencil to pad, “what’ll it be?”

“Ask her if we could maybe talk in private,” Carter said. The man chattered at the old lady again. She looked at us fearfully and answered him, anxiety in her voice.

“Mrs. Park wants to know, did somebody in her family die? Are you here to deliver bad news?” The man still showed no emotion at all. I noticed a tattoo on the back of his right hand, a home job done with a ballpoint pen and sewing needle. In a really poor attempt at Gothic script, it read ‘Satan’. A  small silver ring graced his pencil-holding ear.

“Well…,” Carter waffled. “Not really. Let’s all sit down somewhere and I’ll explain why we’re here.” Mrs. Park nodded when the young man translated this for her, and pointed at a booth in the corner. We sat, and Carter opened his briefcase, pulling out the building codes. “Now,” he started. “These are copies of the state requirements as pertains to handicapped access.” The blonde man quietly interpreted for the old woman as Carter spoke. “Your restaurant here,” he gestured broadly, taking in the well-used interior of the diner, “ is in violation of these specific ones.” He took a yellow highlighter from the briefcase and marked the relevant passages. “No wheelchair ramp, not enough space inside to maneuver wheelchairs, crutches,etc., doorway not of legal width. We’re here to acquaint you with these problems. We are not from the state. Once the state is briefed on your non-compliance, they will be johnny-on-the-spot to levy a huge fine upon you, of which we, my associates and I,” he gestured again, indicating Daryl and me, “will receive a significant share.” As she took all this in, Mrs. Park’s face darkened. Her companion remained unreadable. Noticing her discomfiture, Carter went on. “There is an alternative. May I borrow your pad and pencil?” he asked the young man, who nodded and handed them over. “Here is approximately what the state would pay us for turning you in, based on the violations that I have indicated.” He wrote a number on the pad, and showed it to the cafe’s proprietor. Her scowl deepened. “Now, we can leave here today, and never darken your fine enterprise’s doorway again, for exactly half that amount.”

Having been given the choice, Mrs. Park’s visage cleared, and she smiled at Carter. She got up, nodding as if in agreement, and Carter flashed us his ‘thumbs up’ look. The old woman went behind the counter and bent low, looking for something beneath its Formica surface. With a satisfied grunt, she straightened and came up, not with the cash box we were expecting, but with a sawed-off twelve-gauge shotgun cradled in her hands. She pointed it directly at Carter and said, in stilted English, “You being dead first one, flocking asshole.”

As one, we dived for the scant safety of under-the-table. Judging by the condition of the cracked linoleum floor, Mrs. Park had more to worry about from the health department than from the likes of us. I think stuff was moving against my skin. 

Neither the translator nor any of the diners joined us. Either they were more afraid of what might be found growing in the filth covering the floor, or they were used to seeing the old lady go off like this. After an embarrassing interval, we crawled from under the table, red-faced. Carter was sputtering non-specific lawyer crap into the general atmosphere, threats with lots of style but no substance. I think he memorizes  lines from John Grisham books just for these occasions. 

The translator gave us the same non-committal look, saying, “You don’t gotta worry about Mrs. Park firing that thing, it’s all for show. She whips it out and waves it around couple, maybe three times a month. Just in case, I took the firing pins out – don’t tell her, okay?”

Daryl said, “Umm, sure…okaaay”, stretching it out, like he wasn’t sure the guy was putting us on or not.

“You clowns,” – the blonde man emphasized the ‘clowns’, and Carter bristled like a pissed alley cat – “have gotta understand something. Mrs. Park has had a pretty tough life, been through a few bad things make you assholes look like mosquitos – pains in the ass, but not life-threatening, and easily swatted.”

“Oh yeah?” Carter considered himself to be street-tough, in spite of a bunch of evidence otherwise. “Like what?”

“Well, for instance, remember a few years ago, all those stories came out in the news about how the Japanese kidnapped some Korean women during World War Two, kept them locked up and forced them to give sex to Japanese soldiers? Mrs. Park was in the first batch they shipped to Japan, spent more than five years there. Try and imagine that hell, then compare it to some stupid pissants thinking they can threaten you with some piddly-ass code violations. Don’t quite measure up, does it?”

“Well, gee,” Carter said. “We’re real sorry to hear that. Tell the old biddy…”

“Mrs. Park.” The skinny man interrupted Carter, and for the first time, his face betrayed emotion. One that promised unpleasantness for someone. “Have some respect, mister lawyer.”

“Uh…Yeah,” Carter said. “Sure. Mrs. Park. Anyway, please convey to her our sympathies for her  previous life, but that in no way excuses her from following the building codes determined to be necessary for the general well-being of the citizens of our great state by our duly-elected leaders.”

By this time, Daryl and I were giving each other the look that means maybe we should just give this one a pass, get out while the getting was good. 

When the man finished translating Carter’s comments, Mrs. Park, who had relaxed a bit during Carter’s dissertation and lowered the shotgun, tensed again, and with reflexes incredible in a woman of her age, flipped the weapon in her hands and gripped it by the barrels. She scuttled around  the serving counter crab-quick and smacked Carter in the head with the gun’s butt, dropping him like Raggedy Andy, face-down on the linoleum. Then she started for me, the gun raised in classic home run style.

“Shit, man,” I said to the blonde guy. “Call her off. Tell her we give up, we ain’t gonna report her.”

“Yeah,” Daryl chimed in. “I didn’t sign on for any violence. We gotta get out of this racket, Kev. It’s starting to be unhealthy.”

We waited for Carter to come around, chatting with the translator, and through him, with the old lady. His name was Jeff, and he was Mrs. Park’s great-grandson. 

Turns out, she’d been married to an American G.I. just after the Korean conflict. She’d been sneaking out of North Korea, and he found her starved, frozen, and unconscious on the south side of the Demilitarized Zone, cradling a dead infant in her arms. He’d nursed her back to health, love blossomed, and subsequently, a union was formed.  Jeff was right, this was one tough woman, not easily intimidated. I was sort of starting to admire the old lady, in spite of her nasty floors. I think Daryl was, too, and was also maybe feeling a little something for Jeff.

About that time, Carter stirred. “Mmmm…Oh, yeah, baby, do it just like that…” His tongue came out and started caressing the floor. “Oh, yeah,” he mumbled. “That’s so…YUCK. What the fu…?”

He jerked upright, completely awake now, spitting and wiping at his tongue with his fingers. Daryl, Jeff, myself, and most of the patrons lingering over after-lunch coffee were convulsed with laughter, but Mrs. Park wasn’t having any. She lifted the shotgun again, screaming “You not filthy spitting habit in my excellent dining cafe,” and smacked him upside the head once more. He went from sitting to supine, back to the land of Nod, his head twisted around to the side, drool pooling from his open mouth. The old restaurateur raised her weapon a second time and headed in for the kill, but her grandson managed to twist the shotgun from her bony hands. She attacked Carter with her fists, striking him repeatedly in the torso, berating him for continuing to dribble all over her floor: “I just mop that floor, shiny clean, six-seven day ago. You stop filthy habit.”

In response, the flow of drool ceased. A few seconds afterward, a huge urping sound left his mouth, like a wrong-ended fart, followed by the contents of Carter’s stomach. He’d eaten ham and eggs for breakfast. Looked like two helpings. 

As Mrs. Park headed for a new level of ballistic, Daryl and I each grabbed an arm and began dragging him toward the exit. Jeff ran over to hold the door open, and as we dragged Carter through, I saw him jam a slip of paper into the back pocket of Daryl’s jeans. His hand lingered there just a skosh too long for comfort if it’d been me, but Daryl just smiled at Jeff and winked, and we continued on our way, dragging Carter across the rough asphalt to his car. We shoved him in the back seat, checked to make sure his breathing was unobstructed, got into the pickup, and left.

“Ya know, Kev,” Daryl said, as we pulled onto the street, “we’re goin’ back to the library.We gotta find us a different job.”