“We’re not really from the valley. I am, like. Born here. But my mom came from out of state, back in the sixties.”
“And your old man?”
“Fucked off.”
“He from here?”
“Don’t know where he was from. He was just some hippie, with one of those hippie names.”
“Like what?”
“Walrus. They called him Walrus.”
“Googoogajoob,” said Saul Medeiros.
Freedy, suspecting that Saul Medeiros had lapsed into Portagee, remained silent.
“Lot of hippies came here back then,” Saul Medeiros said.
“Must have been a fucked-up time.”
“Hell, no. Never got laid so much in my life.”
That surprised Freedy. Then came another surprise: a mental picture of this toad with the hair on his nose putting it to his mother. “What was your nickname back then?” he asked.
“Some people don’t get nicknames,” Saul Medeiros said. He stubbed out his cigarette. “That it, then?”
“What?”
“Just getting acquainted, or you got something for me?”
“The second one.”
“Thought so. Let’s go out back.”
Saul Medeiros offered him seventy bucks for the HDTV.
“What’s this,” said Freedy, “the Comedy Channel?” A good line, real quick, real cool, showing that California polish.
“Seventy bucks,” said Saul Medeiros. “Take it or leave it.”
Just what Ronnie had told him, probably where Ronnie had got it from. Freedy decided right then he didn’t like negotiating with the Medeiroses, didn’t like negotiating at all, when it came down to it. For a second or two there, he’d had enough, enough of negotiating, which always meant somebody-like the spics at A-1-cutting a piece out of him. Come to think of it, what was the difference between a spic and a Portagee? Not much, which had to be a brilliant observation, made him feel better and forget all about the speedy little movie that had just flashed through his mind, a movie that ended with Saul Medeiros on the floor. No matter what, bottom line, he himself was no spic or Portagee. He was… whatever the hell he was, kind of depended, it suddenly occurred to him, on who his father actually was. What the fuck: he could be any goddamned thing.
“In a coma or just thinking it over?” said Saul Medeiros.
“Another good one, Saul. I like a sense of humor.”
Saul checked his watch.
“Know what these things cost new?” Freedy said.
Saul shook his head. “Means nothing. Like with a car. Drive one off the lot, it’s worth half. What you pay for that new-car smell.”
“I don’t think it’s half.”
“Don’t tell me. I’m in the business.” He lit another cigarette. “But I’m a soft touch,” he continued behind a cloud of smoke, “so I’ll tell you what. Think you can get more?”
“More what?”
“Stuff.”
“Sure.”
“You got some kind of contact?”
“Trade secret, Saul.”
“Very smart. Thing is, if you’re in a position to get more stuff, then maybe we could build us a working relationship. You follow?”
“Yeah. A working relationship. I can get stuff. Don’t you worry about my end.”
“Good. Then what I’m going to do, an investment in goodwill like they say on Wall Street, is give you ninety for the goddamn TV.”
Freedy smiled. Didn’t actually smile on the outside, much too sharp for that, or if he did he wiped it off his face real quick, but, hey-here he was not just negotiating but negotiating the shit out of an operator like Saul Medeiros.
“Appreciate your sentiments, Saul. Sincerely. But you know what sounds better than ninety?”
Saul smiled that nicotine smile. “Some round number, Freedy?”
Freedy smiled back, on the outside this time. He himself had great teeth. “You got it.”
Which was how Freedy squeezed a C-note out of Saul Medeiros. He really was an amazing person.
On the way home, meaning on the way back from Fitchville to his mother’s place in the flats, all that talk about Cheryl Ann gave Freedy an idea. Cheryl Ann hadn’t made the cheerleading squad-lost by two or three votes, as Freedy remembered-and even then had been kind of chubby, and maybe a little annoying with that loud laugh of hers, showing the fleshy thing that hangs down at the back of the mouth and all, but none of that was important about her. What was important about her was that she’d meet him behind the field house after practice sometimes-and that she must still be around. The fact was that Cheryl Ann remained the only girl who’d given him a blow job; meaning by that a complete one and for free. And she’d still be around, for sure: Freedy’d done some growing up by now-hadn’t he carved out a place for himself across the country? — and knew that a girl like Cheryl Ann would never go anywhere.
Cheryl Ann didn’t live in the flats. Her place was actually on College Hill, on the dark side but still almost halfway up. What was her father? Plumber? Septic guy? Something like that, enough to put them on the Hill. Freedy drove past the Glass Onion, the last of the boarded-up buildings at the bottom, turned onto her street; no need to even think where he was going, not like LA. He parked in front of her house.
Only it was gone. And so were the houses around it, replaced by a huge rounded thing, all glass and smooth red-brown concrete. Freedy drove to the end of the block and checked the street signs. He was in the right spot; everything else was wrong.
Freedy got out of the VW van, walked up to the main entrance, read the bronze plaque: The Avner K. and Rita M. Budnoy Multicultural Studies Center. What was this? Some college shit where Cheryl Ann’s house used to be? Since when was the college on this side of the Hill? He crossed the snowy lawn to the first normal house and knocked on the door. An old bag answered.
“Lookin’ for Cheryl Ann,” Freedy said.
“You don’t mean Cheryl Ann Crane?”
“Why not?”
The old bag gave him a long look. “Do I know you from somewhere?”
“Nope.”
“But you’re looking for Cheryl Ann Crane?”
“Yup.”
She waved her hand at the new building. “Long gone. The Cranes sold out to the college, as anyone can plainly see.”
“Long gone where?”
“Florida. What with the money they got paid they set themselves up in Florida. Why couldn’t the college have planned that place just a tich bigger is what I want to know.”
“And Cheryl Ann, she went too?”
“She surely did. Climate must of agreed with her. Hadn’t been there more than three months but she married a doctor. One of those Cubans, but still, a doctor.”
“Cheryl Ann married a doctor?”
“They sent me a picture from the wedding. One of those real dark Cubans, but a doctor.”
“With that fat butt, she married a doctor?”
“Some men can’t resist a fat butt-don’t you know that by now?”
