Ask the Dark Read Online Free

whizzing by.
    Richie, he’s smoking a cigarette, window open, listening to the radio, some country singer. He’s big, Richie. Not tall, but big arms, big chest. Burly, I mean. Short hair and looks neat, ’cept all his teeth are brown’n busted. From when he was drinking, I s’pose.
    Titans gonna win the pennant this year I bet, you know that? he says, looking forward.
    That’s a year off, I said.
    Bet they do, he said. They got some good players coming up. He nods his head and grins, thinking ’bout it.
    He’d know. Used to be captain of the Titans, his old football team—quarterback, he was, and got a scholarship to boot. Ten years back. Folks say he used to look good, drivin’ in a convertible, girls just stuffed in it, all fawnin’ on him. Say he used to be rich. Wouldn’t know it now. He told me what happened to’m. I’ll tell you too, but not just now.
    When we got to the store I took a cart from outside and went in. Richie walked beside me in the aisles, holding a list in his hand with what he needs scribbled on it.
    So I say, Richie, I need forty-eight thousand dollars.
    He sort’f just stops right there and looks at me.
    What the hell for? he says.
    My daddy’s gonna lose the house, I say.
    Hold up a minute, he says, and moving aside he gets one of them ladders with wheels on it and brings it over. Okay, Monkey Boy, climb up there, he says.
    Now you know why he calls me Monkey Boy. He don’t never climb no ladder, has me do it. Makes him dizzy, so he says, something left over from back when he was drinkin’.
    I climb and he watches, and when I’m up top I look down and ask what he wants.
    You gotta see my daddy, Richie says. Gimme those nails, flatheads, the two-and-a-halfs.
    I read the numbers and grab a bag.
    Here goes—flatheads, I say. Why’s that?
    He runs banks, Richie says.
    I hand him down the nails.
    Makes a lot of money, he says. Hell of a lot more than what you’re after.
    He ain’t gonna see me, I said.
    Why not?
    ’Cause what I done to his car. What you need now?
    Them eyebolts. Thought you paid for that?
    Nope. Never did, I said.
    I climb down and wheel the cart over to the aisle where they got concrete and plaster. Richie, he brings the ladder.
    Gimme that bag of plaster, too, will ya, Monkey Boy? Big one.
    Got it, I said.
    Damn thing’s heavy. But I lug it.
    Come see him, Richie says. See him at the bank. He’s there all day.
    You mean a loan? I climb down beside him.
    Yeah, that’s one way, he says. You just gotta have collateral. Push the cart, will ya?
    I start pushing the cart. I push fast and make motor noises and yell, Beep beep! like I’m a truck and if I gotta back up I make the other beeping sound and say, Hold up, hold up, and Richie’s there right beside me, laughing. What’s collateral? I ask.
    Something you put up against the money you get, he says.
    That’s what my daddy already done, I say. I ain’t doing that mess come nothing.
    Well, then there’s credit, Richie says. That they just give ya. But you gotta be eighteen.
    Eighteen? That’s too far off for me, I say. I need the money now .
    Richie laughs. Then you best get a job, he says. Good one.
    I’m trying, I say. And I push the cart to check out.

Chapter Five
    So that’s what I done.
    Tried to find a job.
    It was still early after I left Richie, just ’bout eleven. So I went around. I tried the grocery store up on the avenue, Lowry’s, I tried the cleaners on Burton Way. I went to the gas station there on Bellsprint, and crost over the street where they got that little market run by the Chinese lady. They all said no. Mr. Potecki, who cuts meat up the grocery, he told me to get out. Knows me ’cause I go to school with ’is daughter and I got her once to hook school with me, and she got caught.
    By the time I was done I felt real beat, so I took a drink of water from a yard hose and lay down on the grass.
    Grass got me thinking, so I got up. Went and rung the doorbell. Hey, Mr. So-and-So, you