'Be happy,' Louis said. 'What else you want?'
'What else do you want?' She reached out the joint and Louis reached out a hand and she passed him the cigarette.
'Money,' Louis said. 'That's all.'
'Ooooh no,' Mickey said. 'That's what everybody thinks, but money has nothing to do with happiness. What about your health?'
'Well, say I had a yacht,' Louis said, 'great big cruiser. See, I could sit on the fantail there and throw up and have the maid bring me an AlkaSeltzer and it would beat the shit out of laying in the weeds down on Michigan Avenue. I know a guy I went to school with, he ended up down there drinking Thunderbird, no teeth, half his stomach taken out. I was down at one of those Ethnic Festivals, you know, on the river? I think it was the Polish or the Ukrainian Festival. I see him there, filthy dirty, staggering around, I couldn't believe it. I said to myself, I'm never gonna be like that, ever.'
Mickey was surprised at the way Louis let the cigarette burn as he spoke, not worrying about wasting it. She said, 'He could've had money and lost it because he was drinking.'
'He didn't have shit,' Louis said. 'He worked at Sears in automotive service, putting on the new polyglass radials. He was frustrated because he didn't have any money.'
'Why didn't he get another job?'
'Where?' Louis passed the cigarette to her and she kept it.
'I don't know. Where do people work? They work all over, do all kinds of things.'
'You ever work?'
'Of course I worked.'
'Where?'
'At Saks.'
'How long?'
'Well, the last time'--the only time--'it was a little more than five weeks.'
'Five weeks?'
'I was part-time. A flyer. Let me tell you something,' Mickey said, 'you talk about frustration--' 'Five weeks--'
'Let me tell you, okay? You think you can sit quietly and not open your mouth and listen for a change?'
'Go ahead, tell me.'
'God, I left my purse there.'
'Richard'll go through it, see if you got any Tampax or a diaphragm.'
'I was praying all these past four days I wouldn't get the curse. I'm overdue.'
'Maybe you're pregnant.'
'No way. God, I hate that expression. No way. I mean there isn't any possible way I could be. Well, he can have it--God, he was awful. He smelled. I know my wallet's at home on the kitchen table, with my car keys.'
'So you had this terrible frustrating job--' 'You weren't allowed to carry a purse,' Mickey said. 'You had to carry a Saks Fifth Avenue shopping bag so this little snip in Security could look in it if you were walking around the store or you were leaving and make sure you weren't stealing anything.'
'I bet there were ways,' Louis said.
'She was a little snippy snitch,' Mickey said. 'Fat little company snitch, with acne.'
'I can see her,' Louis said.
'She'd say'--Mickey effected a snippy tone-- ''You have anything in that bag?' And pull it, almost pull it away from you, and look inside.'
'I'd tell her to put it where the sun don't shine,' Louis said.
'I'd say, 'No, I don't have anything in it. I carry it around empty, you dumb shit.' That's what I wanted to say.'
'Why didn't you?'
'Why didn't I? I'd get fired.'
'So, you were just working there for fun, were you?'
'I was proving something to myself.'
'When was this, before you were married?' 'Last year.'
'Jesus Christ, you're living in that big fucking house, you drive your Grand Prix to work--'
'It wasn't for money, you dumb shit. No, it wasn't for that at all.'
'What was it for?' He got up and left.
What was it for?
To get out in the world. No, he wouldn't accept that, Saks Fifth Avenue as the world, or even as a step into it. But it was.
He came back in with two fresh drinks. She didn't remember finishing the last one.
'I still don't feel it,' Mickey said, 'the grass. Maybe just a teeny bit.'
'A teeny weeny bit?' Louis said.
'A teeny-weeny weeny weeny-weeny bit,' Mickey said. 'What got me the most wasn't the snitch with the acne or the other salesgirls in Young Circle who'd, you'd have a customer and they'd try and steal her after you practically broke your ass showing her clothes. The woman'd say, 'Oh, now, what goes with this?' Helpless, making you think for her. Or this fat fat broad would come in, 5-feet tall weighing about 200 pounds and she'd ask for, because she's only 5 feet or about 4-11?, she'd ask for petite.' A nasal sound. ''Let me see what you have in Petite.' Petite, she couldn't get a petite over her left boob. The slobs you had to wait on--they'd take a bunch of dresses and things into the booth, walk out and leave everything on the floor. But the worst, you know what the very worst was? What really got me?'
'What?' Louis said.
'These women who threw their charge plates at you.'
'They threw'em at you, huh?' Louis said.
'They'd sort of flip them.' Mickey twisted sideways in the chair, raising her shoulder and gave him a backhand motion with her hand. 'Like that. Like, 'I'm hot shit, I've got this Saks charge plate.' Christ, who doesn't?'
'You throw it back?'
'No, I didn't throw it back.'
'Why didn't you?'
'I wanted to. God, I wanted to so bad.'
'So you quit instead,' Louis said.
'I couldn't stand it.'
'Well see, most people,' Louis said, 'they don't have that choice you did. They got to stay there and take that shit, cause they don't have a big house to drive home to.'
'Nobody has to take it,' Mickey said. 'It isn't worth it.'
'No, you can steal a Grand Prix if you haven't got one,' Louis said. 'Or you can stick up supermarkets. I stuck up a liquor store one time, got $742, but it scared the shit out of me and I went back to hustling cars till I ended up in Southern Ohio Correctional. Then I did, oh, different things till I got sent to Huntsville and down there I said that's all, man, no more.' He was silent a moment. 'And here we are, huh?'
Very seriously, squinting at him, Mickey said, 'Those are prisons?'
'They sure are. I've spent--well, it's almost a quarter of my life in one joint or another. Wayne County, Dehoco, Southern Ohio, Huntsville. I haven't been to Jackson yet and I'm not going. I promised myself that.'
'What if you get caught?'
'If I have to I'll put the gun in my mouth first.' 'Really?'
'Cross my heart. You got a button unbuttoned there and I can almost see your titties.'
'You wouldn't see much,' Mickey said, looking down as she fastened the button she'd missed. 'Where's Huntsville?'
'Texas. I was down there, I was hanging around McAllen and Brownsville waiting for a load of grass, like about a ton of it. I was never into anything like that before, but I was doing it for a man I knew, just bringing it back, not dealing or anything. I was sitting around there in the bars listening to the radio, all that cucaracha music.