Page 2 of Jensen

That astounds me. I was always a hot lunch kid, arguing with the school over my unpaid bills. There was a lunch lady, Miss June, who gave me my meals even though I couldn’t pay up.Fuck that, she’d say, even though she wasn’t supposed to swear in front of us.They’ll just throw it out anyway.

As a growing boy with a hole in his belly the size of the US of A, I was pretty grateful.

Now, here I am, with my grandmother packing my lunch. Unbelievable. I grab it and vow I’ll pay Cherry back by keeping in line and trying to catch up on all the school I’ve missed.

Things go real smooth for the spring.

Then, it’s summer vacation.

Enter Holly and Kyle. Like my mother, Miss Holly was a victim of a man who sowed his seed and took no responsibility for it beyond court-mandated checks. She never married, just supported herselfand her son by doing hair out of her camper until she got a job working at Cherry’s salon.

First, I meet Miss Holly. Or, I see her from across the room and thinkhot damn. She’s gorgeous, red-brown hair stacked up on her head, makeup all done like Angelina Jolie or something. Then, the door behind me swings open, and in walks Kyle.

I want a friend so damn bad.

Kyle is a cool guy with a pickup truck and a sparse mustache. He’s about two years older than me, but he was held back two grades, so he just wanders around high school, a whole ass adult among the kids, flunking all his classes. I’m sure Cherry cringed when Kyle and I became best friends right off the bat, but I was good for him. At least, that’s what Miss Holly told me.

Kyle and I are inseparable. Being broke and fatherless bonds us immediately. Inspired by his elite truck ownership status, I swing my focus on the thing that becomes my obsession for the entire year: getting myself one too.

Nobody has money for a truck at our age. The economy is flatter than flat, with no prospects of relief. None of us kids have anything to do but loiter and steal magazines from the dollar shop. Jobs are a rare commodity. Apparently, Miss Holly scraped together the money to get Kyle his truck, which Cherry is not about to do.

So, I decide if no place will hire me, I’ll make my own luck. I go into the salon after school one day and announce I can do handyman jobs. One of the ladies says she needs somebody to paint her deck.

“How much?” I ask.

“Fifty bucks, if you strip the paint too,” she says.

Done.

I shake her hand and show up the next day. That night, I have fifty bucks in my pocket. Holding that money feels like winning the lottery.

After that, it takes off. Anytime I’m not at school, I’m doing odd jobs for the salon ladies, and it all adds up.

I store it in my pillowcase. Then, after thinking it over, I go down to the gas station by Cherry’s house. The gas station is at theintersection where the trailer parks meet the edge of town. It’s walkable to the salon if you cut through a few backyards. Kyle comes along so he can buy cigarettes. I get a bucket of Crisco for one dollar and fifty cents.

We walk home. Kyle sits on the back stoop and smokes a Camel while I clean all the Crisco out and put it in gallon bags, wash the tin clean, and secure the lid on firmly with a pound and a half of duct tape. Then, I cut a slit in the top, big enough so money can go in, but not come out. One by one, I slide all my bills inside. Four hundred and thirty-seven dollars. I need about three thousand, five hundred more to get a truck.

Kyle and I spend the rest of the day talking about how to get more money. He’s thinking of moving to Lexington in a few years. I want a truck by eighteen.

We both have goals.

So, we start a handyman business. Cherry has a printer we can make cards on. Using her sewing scissors, I cut them all out, earning myself a smack across the back of head when she finds out. Then, we hit the streets and put them on every doorstep in Byway. We’re flexible, and our prices are competitive. By the end of the week, we’re booked solid.

Every penny I earn goes into the Crisco tub. Then, the hot water heater breaks in Cherry’s house, and we have to take some out, setting me back several hundred dollars. I couldn’t say no to Cherry. She took me in without question when my mother passed. She keeps food in my belly, clothes on my back, and makes sure I’m getting an education. That makes her the first person to do that, and I owe her on that account.

I’m down about it for a day or two, but I get a new Crisco container and take it in stride.

My eighteenth birthday draws near, a momentous occasion. I graduate with incredibly average grades. Kyle, nonplussed that I’m no longer at school with him, drops out. Miss Holly grinds her teeth at the salon for weeks over that one, but Kyle doesn’t give a fuck.Instead of moving to Lexington, he decides to give up and blow all his money on booze.

Our handyman business is lopsided after that. I’m from nothing, but I know now what it tastes like to have money, and I want that damn truck so I’m not walking all over town for work, especially now that Kyle isn’t showing up consistently. It’s tough dragging all those tools around by hand.

My birthday comes and goes. I’m still four hundred dollars behind. Deflated, I trudge over to Kyle’s house to play video games. He’s in the living room, feet propped up on the couch. I take my boots off in the pristine hallway, grab the second controller, and sink down on the other end.

“Hey,” Kyle says, not looking up.

We spend so much time at each other’s houses, we don’t knock. Miss Holly’s place is a lot nicer than Cherry’s. It’s a real house, the walls painted white with cream rugs on wood floors. There’s a hard and fast rule of no shoes inside and no beer out of the kitchen. Everything always smells like fresh flowers from the garden out front.

“I think we should cram some last minute jobs,” I say.