Page 7 of Bobby Green

“Yeah. It’s hot. We’re not getting much sleep,” he defended.

“Rest of the guys don’t bitch.” Collins smiled meanly. The rest of the guys were illegal immigrants working to send money home to their families. Even if they felt like risking deportation, they spoke very little English and weren’t aware that they were supposed to be protected, immigrant or not.

“They’re afraid you’ll turn them in,” Vern said. “Which sucks.”

Collins glared at him as he held his hand poised over the affidavit. “Sign the fucking paper,” he snarled.

But Vern was ready for this—he hadn’t sucked Frank Gilmore’s brother’s dick without a contract either. “Give me the check,” he snarled back.

Collins shoved it off the edge of the desk, making Vern pick it up with his good hand. Once he got it back, he folded it in half and tucked it in the front pocket of his jeans.

He stood up then, half turning to make sure he had a clear way out to the door, because he didn’t trust Collins not to pay guys to beat him up and take his money as he left.

“I’ll come back and sign the paper when it’s deposited,” he said decisively.

“You’llwhat?” Collins yelled.

“You heard me.” Vern stood his ground. “Look—I’m not signing shit until I get this thing to the bank. I’ll come back to collect my tools.”

Collins shook his head. “You leave now, don’t bother coming back.”

“Then I’ll bring my tools with me,” Vern said decisively. “I don’t trust you, and I need the fucking tools.”

“You got your money, you little prick.” Collins reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a gun. The guy next to Vern—Vasquez, who had been putting the bandage on as Vern tried to pull his brains back into his ears—put both hands over his head and backed up so fast he upended his folding chair.

“I do,” Vern said, hoping this worked. “Look, you can’t shoot me. My mom knows where I work, she knows I got hurt, and I told her about this little operation here. You shoot me, she sends the cops here. Let me get my tools, and let me get the fuck out of this hellhole, and you and me are done. I’m gonna find someplace legit.”

Collins lowered the gun and spat. “You go ahead and try, you dumbass cocksucker. I’ll make sure no outfit in the state’ll pick you up. Not a greenhorn like you. No certification, no training—what in the fuck did you expect for eleven bucks an hour?”

Vern’s thumb throbbed viciously. “A boss who wasn’t a scum boil on a rotting snake’s ass,” he replied, just loopy enough with pain to say something that awesome. “You have a lousy fucking day, you hear?”

He backed out of the room then, sparing a thought but not a look for poor Vasquez, who had tried to be a decent guy. He backed down the stairs and turned to run through the site, going to the house in the project he’d been working on when he’d nailed his thumb.

To his surprise, his tools were all gathered in their chest, and it sat on the edge of the foundation. He looked around miserably at his coworkers, who mostly had spoken to each other but not to him because they didn’t speak the same language, and they were all too tired to try.

“Uh, thanks,” he said to the listening air around him. He looked up and caught Gomez’s eye and smiled faintly through the pain. Gomez was a young guy, Vern’s age, who had a really sweet round face and the beginnings of a mustache.

“De nada,” he said with a sad little smile.

Vern got slammed in the gut with a protective streak he didn’t know he had. “You can come with me?” he asked, wondering if these words at least would translate.

“No,” Gomez said, shaking his head. “Mama… Mama needs money.” He grimaced again and gazed at Vern with the same sort of look Vern had seen in Keith’s eyes—but, oh God, with the tenderness Keith had always lacked.

Oh. Well, hell. Those nights in his truck, and….

You could have cheated on your girlfriend and taken advantage of a guy without power too, you bastard!

But it wouldn’t have been like that, would it?

“Take care,” he said softly. “Gomez, just… don’t let this guy beat you down.”

Gomez nodded and shrugged, turning back to his job.

THE FIRSTplace Vern went was the Y for a shower and a chance to wash at least one load of clothes. The next place he went was a coffee shop. Then another. Then another. Then another. Then McDonald’s. And Carl’s Jr. And Round Table. And Jamba Juice.

Most of them told him he had to apply online—but he’d left the computer with his mom, and his phone wouldn’t update enough to fill out the app, so he’d suckered an actual pen-and-ink application out of the day managers and at least put his name on a piece of paper that said he wanted a fucking job.

He slept in his truck that night, visited the Y the next morning, and tried again.