Making It

“You’re not gonna make it,” he said, looking up from the crinkled folder he held in those soft, stubby fingers of his. He smiled when he saw that I had jumped at the sound of his voice. I wanted to tell him that he didn’t scare me. Not this squat little dump of a dude. But the truth was, he did scare me.

He had called me into his office and let me stand behind the chair in front of his desk for what seemed like an hour, but was probably just three or four minutes. It was long enough for me to start itching, and shifting my weight from one foot to the other. Then I rested my hands on the back of a chair, raising up high on my toes while he flipped through the pages in the folder and pretended to ignore me.

He looked pretty busy, thumbing through my folder with jerky little movements, papers scattered across his desk. But after looking at the papers I realized they had been there for a while because they had that kind of a settled in look, like dirty sheets on an unmade bed. The black frames holding the seal of the State of Alabama and the dork’s diploma from UAB were all crooked, making me think for a second the room was tilted.

His pale scalp shone between thin strands of graying black hair combed in straight rows and sprayed stiff as wires across his head. A brown spot the size of my thumb peeked through a crease in his comb-over. It was probably just a birthmark or a mole or something, but I was standing there wishing it would move around some when his sharp voice cracked through the hum of the flickering light overhead. “You’re not gonna make it.” That’s why I jumped.

“I hope you weren’t expecting some bleeding heart social worker type who tries to sugar-coat everything,” he said and then paused, his lower lip wrapping over his upper lip, looking at me with squinty little brown eyes. Then he poked his chest with his stubby thumb. “I’m the kinda guy who believes in telling it like it is.

“You know passing a drug test is a condition of your probation, don’t you?”

I nodded, my heart gaining a few beats, remembering that just before court I had eaten the last four Lortabs left over from my recent prescription-writing career.

“I’m gonna let you slide today. One day, when you’re sitting around Donaldson Correctional Facility, you’ll remember I’m the kinda guy who’s tough, but I’m the kinda guy who’s fair.”

I was aching to tell him I’d always remember him as the kinda guy who likes to tell what kinda guy he is, but he was my probation officer. And even if he was a dork, he had me by the balls.

“Even after I give you every break in the world, you’re not gonna make it. You know why?”

“Oh, I’m gonna make it, Mr. Mobley,” I said, in my best ass-kissing tone, getting his name from the “A. C. Mobley,” carved into a wooden nameplate among the debris on his desk.

“No, a doper like you’s not gonna make it through a year of supervised probation. You know why?”

My concentration had shifted to my buzz that was leaving me, so I was a little slow at realizing he just wanted to preach. So I let him preach.

“Values,” he said, his voice calming. “You know what values are?”

Now I knew he didn’t want an answer, so I shrugged.

“I didn’t think so,” he said after sucking air through his teeth, pushing back from the desk and settling into the chair. “Everybody’s got values. You’ve got values too—just the wrong goddamn ones. When most people talk about values they talk about faith, patriotism, hard work, honesty. The only things important to people like you are drugs and sex.”

I’d been stuck in the waiting area of the probation office for a couple of slow-crawling hours after spending all morning in court. Now I was standing there listening to this pie-faced dork, feeling my buzz shrink like an ice cube in the sun. I had wondered for years where a buzz went when it was over and became convinced it left on my breath. If I didn’t have to breathe, the buzz would stay forever. His tight little lips moved, and he was really getting with it, leaning forward, looking me in the eye, pointing to the paper in the file. But all I heard was blah, blah, blah as I held my breath and felt the buzz grow for a moment till I had to breathe again. Then the buzz rushed from my lips, leaving behind a gnawing itch, and a rising fear that I needed to be somewhere else.

“You all right?” he said, watching me gasping for breath.

“I’m O.K.,” I said, a little louder than usual, talking over my heartbeat pounding in my ears.

“Sit down,” he said. “Damn, you look like you’re ‘bout to pass out.”

“I’ll be all right,” I said, dropping into the chair.

He studied my face for a moment, then continued his sermon. “There’s a lot of reasons why you won’t make it. The main reason is, you’re stupid. The pharmacist over at Walgreen’s was very complimentary, though. She says you write a good-looking prescription, but she started getting suspicious when she saw it was for a hundred Lortabs. ‘Course what really raised her eyebrows was when she noticed the doctor on the script was her gynecologist.” Then he tilted his head back, sending a volley of cackling laughter toward the ceiling

“No,” he said, his eyes now on me, shaking his head, the cackles dissolving into chuckles, then a scowl. “If you don’t get caught holding, you’ll stop going for testing, and you’ll forget to come around here for our regular meetings. If not that, you'll get caught selling stuff that’s not yours. Even if by some miracle you pass your drug tests and you don’t get busted for stealing, you still won’t make it. You know why?”

I was hearing his voice, but at least half of my brain was trying to remember if I still had those ten pills I had wrapped in aluminum foil and stuffed in the pocket of my old jeans at the bottom of my bureau drawer a couple of days ago. If they were still there when I got home, I could get all mellowed out and think this shit through.

He poked his lower lip out and watched me shake my head.

“Hell, you don’t believe in working. The last job you had was eight months ago at a dog kennel over in Trussville.” He shook his head. “Two years of college and that’s the best you can do? Boy your mama must be proud of you.”

A few years ago, I would have told him to leave my mama out of it, but I’ve learned these bastards are going to get their licks in. The more you disagree, the longer it takes. So I sat there, catching my breath, fighting off the urge to scratch while he spelled out the conditions of my probation. “Remember,” he said, pointing his finger at the probation order. “You’re going to have to get a job. Being the kinda fair guy I am, I’m gonna give you thirty days. If you’re not employed within that time I’m gonna recommend the judge revoke you. You know what that means, don’t you?”

I nodded. I knew what it meant.

***

The skinny dude looking down at the blue plastic strip in his hand was shaking his head. “Positive for hydrocodone again, Mr. Clayton,” he said, then he jotted something on a form attached to the clipboard in front of him.

Why hadn’t I tried to kick? I was asking myself while he studied my face. I was going to, but just thinking about it got my heart racing and made me feel like running somewhere. Hell, there wasn’t any sense in rushing it. Besides, guys like this liked it better when you tested positive the first couple of times. He could shake his head and tell me about self-determination, willpower and shit. Willpower. Here he was with a master’s degree hanging on the wall, and all he did everyday was wait around for guys like me to come in and piss.

The main reason I hadn’t kicked was because I had moved into a little apartment on Birmingham’s Southside with Sandra. She was a heavy girl with mousy brown hair and front teeth that wanted to catch on her lower lip when she talked. Just watching her butt straining against the seams of that white uniform as she left the apartment in the mornings made me want to swear off chocolate cake for the rest of my life; but at night I became lost in the folds of her soft warm flesh with the help of an active imagination and the unlimited supply of hydrocodone from the hospital where she worked.

I glanced at the date on my drug test when I walked out of the office. I had been so involved in the full-time job of maintaining my buzz, I had let a month drip by without noticing it. I could put off getting clean, but I just had till tomorrow to get a job. My throat burned as a bitter taste rose in my mouth. What kind of job could I get in one day?. The freezing prospect of having to get clean shot through me. Can’t do it right now, I thought. I’m under too much pressure. But then my heart thumped as I remembered what Mobley said about violating my probation and the horrible picture of me as the homecoming queen at Donaldson Correctional Facility flashed before my eyes.

***

Sweat trickled down my forehead as I sat in my car, browsing the employment ads in the newspaper. I looked for something dealing with pets. That was the ideal gig—dump a little food out, scoop a little shit, maybe scrub a mutt down now and then. I could stay high and do that job. No, that was the wrong idea. I had to come up with a clean piss test next time. Besides, there wasn’t anything to do with pets in the paper.

Everything required experience. One year experience as an electrical engineer; Two years of progressive experience in food service management; A minimum of five years experience in pharmaceutical sales. I looked down where the sweat had rolled off my brow and dotted the paper over an ad announcing, Automobile sales trainee. No experience necessary. Apply in person. Quality Automotive 9863 Bessemer Superhighway. They wouldn’t hire me, all sweaty and sticky, I thought, taking a quick sniff at my underarms. But I had to try, so I started the car and backed out into the street, making the little whistling sound a boiler makes to relieve pressure.

***

I drove past a busy intersection with banks, restaurants and a shopping mall that looked like an oasis of prosperity among the ragged signs and used car lots along the Bessemer Superhighway. Not far from there, automobiles lay rusting in piles behind the chain-link fence of a junkyard. There were fast food joints, beer joints, seedy motels, a bowling alley, even a fortuneteller. But automobile sales was the dominant enterprise on the highway, and shiny plastic banners waved over little clusters of used cars on both sides of the road.

Some of the car lots were identified by their owner’s name. Some had no names but claimed “We Finance,” or offered to “Tote the Note.” It looked as though I was in the right place to learn about the values Mobley had talked about; there were “Reliable Motors,” “Honest Dave’s Used Cars,” and “Trustworthy Auto Sales.” I turned into the lot with the sign that revered “Quality,” parking between the “Cream Puff of the Month” and the “Fire Cracker Special.”

The rusting blue trailer anchored in the center of the lot had a glass storm door and two windows in front. A tarnished air conditioner bulged from the window on the right, moaning in the August sun and pouring a stream of condensation from the overflow.

I approached the trailer, climbed the wobbly stacks of cinder block steps, then hesitated for a second on the top stack before swinging open the glass door.

The man facing the door was slumped on a worn couch with his thin legs outstretched, balancing the heels of his brown cowboy boots on the floor. His dingy gray hair was combed back flat against his scalp. Dark glasses were perched on his long nose, and a cigarette dangled from the tight crease of his lips, sending a stream of smoke back into his gaunt weathered face.

The young black man at the other end of the couch had friendly eyes, but his generous lips looked as though they had been formed into a tight sneer to keep from smiling. His head was cocked defiantly under a black baseball cap that he had turned backward. A red T-shirt revealed a slender torso and a pair of lean, muscular arms.

“Is the owner here?” I addressed the black man. The man in the dark glasses didn’t appear to be taking any questions.

“Busy,” he replied, pointing to the door behind the green metal desk to my right. A toilet flushed, the sound of running water gurgled through the pipes, then the door opened.

The face of the man at the door was flushed a shade darker than the fringe of carrot-colored hair that outlined his bald head. A blue golf shirt stretched across his barrel chest, straining at the seams around his thick shoulders as he walked toward me.

“I’m Doug Whisenant, call me Red.” he said, wrapping a broad, freckled hand around mine and pumping like he expected me to rise up off the floor. His grip didn’t hurt, but I could feel his strength. His voice was deep and friendly, and his smile was so wide I could see the fillings in his back molars. “That’s Hound Dog over there,” he said, freeing my hand and pointing to the thin string of a man in the dark glasses. “And that’s Junior,” he said, pointing to the black man.

“I’m David Clayton,” I said. “I’m here about the job you had in the paper.”

“Good! Good!,” he said, nodding, smiling as though pleased to hear this news. “Have a seat.”

“We got a hot one comin’, Red,” Hound Dog said in voice that sounded like it was being sifted through broken glass.

“‘Scuse me a minute Dave,” Red said.

The storm door banged against the wall and a tall man in a T-shirt and a baseball cap charged through the doorway. “Which one of you is the owner?” he snapped.

“My name’s Doug. My friends call me Red,” Red said, holding out his hand. “I remember you. Leon, ain’t it?”

“Yeah, you the owner?”

“Well, I’m the manager. See, Quality Automotive is a corporation. It’s kinda like you go over to U.S. Steel. You ain’t gonna find the owner over there. You see what I mean?”

“You were here when this old bastard sold me a car,” the man said, pointing an angry finger at Hound Dog.

“Wait just a minute, Leon,” Red interrupted. “I got a picture of my mama in my pocket. You wouldn’t wonna disrespect a feller’s mama with a bunch of cussin’ would you?”

“No, sho’ wouldn’t,” Leon said.

“Well set down ‘ere, Leon.” Red said, dropping into the chair behind his desk, the smile never fading. “When I saw you walk in the door, I said to myself, ‘they’s somp’m botherin’ that feller.’”

“They’s something bothering me all right,” Leon said, easing into a chair in front of Red’s desk.

“See! I been in bidness a long time, and I can tell when somp’m’s botherin’ a feller. How’s that little Dodge Dart you bought from us? Bet you really proud of that thang.”

“That’s what I come in here for. That man over there,” he said pointing to Hound Dog again, “told me it was a local car. That thing was eat up with rust.”

“What?” Red bellowed.

Hound Dog stood and walked over to Red’s desk. “It was rusty?” he growled.

“All the way through to the door panels,” Leon said.

Junior walked into the bathroom.

“This makes me so mad, I could spit,” Red said, pounding the desk.

Hound Dog’s face was as somber as death. “Who’d we buy that Dodge from, Red?” he asked.

“We bought it from that preacher from Tuscaloosa. He told me that car never been outa’ Alabama,” Red said, shaking his head. “Leon, I want you to know, we at Quality Automotive ‘preciate this information. We know now not to ever buy another car from that preacher. If they’s ever anythang we can do for you, just come by and see us.”

Red stood, but Leon didn’t budge. “Anythang else we can do for you?”

“Well,” Leon said, “Can’t I get my money back?”

Red looked as though his heart had been broken. I thought for a second he was going to cry. “You know, Leon,” he said, “I’m just the manager here. I ain’t authorized to give nobody money back. Hell, I’m the one got lied to by that preacher. The board of directors probably gonna fire me for buyin’ that thang in the first place. Wors’n that, it’s the kinda thang makes you lose your faith in mankind. I mean, this hurts. It hurts bad. I just wish they’s somp’m somebody could do to help both of us.”

“You know, Red,” Hound Dog said, easing stiff-legged around the desk, now standing beside Leon. “They’s a way we could help Leon, and make all of us feel better at the same time.”

“How’s that, Hound Dog?”

Hound Dog rested a hand on Leon’s shoulder. “We could give ol’ Leon a real good deal on some quality transportation.”

“You know, Hound Dog, we could do that. Tell you what, you take Leon out there, let him pick out anythang he wants. Twenty-five percent off.”

“You mean any car on the lot, Red?” Hound Dog asked, his voice rising, his mouth gaped open.

“Anythang ol’ Leon wants. Shoot, I might git in trouble with corporate headquarters, but I always heard you could git forgiveness easier’n you can git permission.”

“Let’s go on out there, Leon,” Hound Dog said, patting Leon’s shoulder, “before Red changes his mind.”

“I appreciate it, Red.” Leon said, walking out the door with Hound Dog.

When the storm door shut, Junior came out of the bathroom laughing.

“Junior, I thought I was gonna hafta kick your ass.” Red said, smiling.

“Shit! Dog look over at me, I almost bust. I ain’t bullshittin’ you.”

Red stood at the window, smiling. “Com’ere Dave,” he said, crooking his finger.

When I got to the window he put his hand on my shoulder. “Right now Hound Dog’s tellin’ Leon that I’ve been hittin’ the bottle a little, and he thinks he can git him another ten percent off. Ol’ Leon wouldn’t know ten percent from a hog’s ass.”

“You need to cut it out, Red.” Junior said, shaking with laughter and wiping tears from his eyes.

Red walked around his desk, sitting down in the ragged swivel chair. “Have a seat, Dave,” he said, still smiling. He turned toward Junior, who had settled back down on the couch. “Junior,” he said, “I know you need to git up off your dead ass an’ quieten that Buick down we got at the sale last night.”

Junior stood, scowling.

“You gonna learn a lot about sellin’ from Hound Dog, Dave. Ol’ Hound Dog can turn ‘em loose, can’t he Junior?”

Junior walked close to my chair, regarding me with narrowed eyes. “Dog a sellin’ mothafucka,” he said, giving his head a quick twist, then he turned and strutted toward the door.

Red opened one of the desk drawers, pulled out a pint bottle of whiskey and unscrewed the top. “I ain’t bullshittin’ you, Dave, that boy right there is a artist with a junk automobile. And he’s right about Hound Dog. He can sell ever’ car I can drag on this lot. If it looks like a car, Hound Dog’ll put it on some sumbitch. Wonna drank?”

“No, I don’t drink,” I said, still trying to catch my breath from what I’d just seen. “Have I got the job?”

“Yeah,” he said. Then he raised the bottle to his lips, sending bubbles gurgling upward. “Whew,” he said as he put the top back on the bottle and placed it in the desk drawer. “Tell you the truth, I had that ad in the paper for three months, and you the first one to come by. Ever sold anythang?”

“Some,” I said, shrugging.

“How ‘bout cars?”

“No,” I said. “No cars.”

“Cars is different. Even this junk we sell got a big price on it next to most stuff folks buy. Customer takes a look at it, scares him to death. Takes a special feller to unload a car. Takes a better one to unload a bunch of ‘em. It’d be good if you could learn to sell a car, but it ain’t necessary. Sometimes we have two or three folks on the lot, and as good as Hound Dog is, he can’t take care of but one at a time. I’d want you to try to sell ‘em, but if you can’t sell ‘em, hold on to ‘em till Hound Dog can git there. Wonna give it a shot?”

“I sure do,” I said, thinking I might hold on long enough till I could find a kennel somewhere with an opening.

***

After a month I was still itching, but it wasn’t as bad as before. I took a few hits out of Red’s bottle when I got that running feeling too bad, and started keeping a bottle of my own in the car and one at home. Mobley was blown away by my steady employment and clean urine tests—or almost clean. “You showed positive for alcohol,” he said. “Hell, I won’t sweat that. I have a beer or two myself every now and then. But this won’t last,” he said, leaning back in the chair. “You’ll fuck up. You just don’t have it in you to make it all the way.”

I was getting nervous over my inability to sell a car. I got along well with the customers who came on the lot, but I just couldn’t get one inside the trailer to sign. Red didn’t seem to care. “You’re doing fine, Dave,” he said, patting my shoulder. “You’ll catch on to it one of these days.”

Red would walk out on the lot to sell a car every now and then, but most of his time was spent trying to find cars. He had cars hauled in from Chicago and New Orleans and attended every auction for miles around, but he could barely keep ahead of Hound Dog, who was selling every one of them. As Red said, he could “turn ‘em loose.”

Hound Dog would slouch on the end of the couch, his legs straight, supported by the worn heels of the same old brown boots he wore every day. He would rise occasionally to go the bathroom or to the percolator behind Red’s desk where he would fill his cup with thick, black coffee that smelled like a burning truck tire. The only sounds he would make for hours would be a hacking cough and the click of his big Zippo as he lit another cigarette.

Hound Dog shook his head at most of the people he saw through his dark glasses. “Goddamn tire kickers,” he would growl. But when he saw a prospect, he resembled a cheetah that had spotted a wounded gazelle in the middle of a herd. He would lean forward, his hands resting on his knees, following some movement or expression that years of selling cars had taught him to recognize. When he saw what he was looking for, he would fix a smile on his face and descend upon the lot. In a while, he would return with the customer, talking to him or her as though he had known the person all of his life, and make that customer the proud owner of a Quality Automotive car.

“Gotcha a goodun,” he would tell them, patting them on the back. When they left, he would pop a cigarette between his thin lips, light it with a flick of the big Zippo, and resume his place at the end of the couch.

***

Two weeks into October, the weather became mild enough to turn off the air conditioner and open the windows to the office trailer. The air from the Bessemer Superhighway wasn’t fresh, but it was pristine compared to that of Quality Automotive.

Red, Junior and Hound Dog made me feel as though I had been at Quality Automotive forever. Junior had shortened my name to “D.” Hound Dog nodded at me in the morning on his way to the coffee pot. “How’s it hangin’, Hoss?” he would growl, looking at me over the dark glasses.

When Red had time he would lean back in his chair, taking long pulls at the bottle he kept in his desk drawer while lecturing me on the art of selling. “All kindsa thangs can happen after you sell a car, Dave. Believe me, I’ve seen it all. Had radiators boil over; wheels come off. Had one drive off the lot and the transmission fell out of it, right out there on the highway. Remember that one, Junior?”

“I remember, Red.”

Red shook his head. “Had traffic jammed up all the way to Brighton. But you don’t worry ‘bout none of that, Dave. Your job is to sell. I’ll guarant-damn-tee-you, you set around worrying ‘bout consequences and you’ll never get anywhere in this world. You damn sure won’t sell a car.”

I nodded, watching him turn the bottle to his lips. When he put the bottle down he said, “Dave, did I tell you ‘bout Hound Dog sellin’ that little Chevy Malibu to this big sumbitch?”

“I don’t believe you did, Red.”

“It was beautiful, Dave.” he said, his eyes crinkling into little crow’s feet at the corners. “When Hound Dog brought him in here to sign the bill of sale an’ git the title transferred, he turned to Hound Dog and asked, ‘Now, this car don’t burn no oil, does it?’ Hound Dog can git this serious look on his face. You’d thank he was ‘bout to tell you your mama had cancer of the heart or somp’m. Hound Dog looks him in the eye and tells him, ‘Mister, I’ll drank ever’ drop of oil this car’ll burn.’

“Next week the big sumbitch come tearin’ in here in a pickup truck. Hound Dog saw him comin’ and hauled ass out the back. He busted in with a case a oil on his shoulder yellin’, ‘Where’s that old bastard said he’d drank ever’ drop of oil that piece a shit he sold me’d burn?’ Me an’ Junior was ‘bout rollin’ on the floor, wadn’t we, Junior?”

Red and Junior were doubled over, laughing. I found myself joining them, thinking of the stiff old man running for his life.

***

“I don’t believe it.” Mobley said when he glanced up from my latest drug test report. “Eight negative tests in a row. You still got a job. Come in here wearing a tie. You know, Clayton, you’re making some progress here. But you got a long way to go.”

I did have a long way to go. I still had the itch every now and then and would catch myself being scared for no reason at all. Deep breaths and a hard slug of vodka seemed to help.

The real problem now was Sandra. I knew as long as I was staying with her I could have Lortabs anytime I wanted. Stealing from the hospital had made her feel guilty at first, but she had gotten used to the extra money I gave her from selling the pills I couldn’t eat. Every night or so she would ask, “could I get you some Lortabs, baby?”

“I’m trying to kick, Sandra,” I scolded.

“I’m talking about selling them,” she said. “We got oxycontin. You could get some big money for that.”

“Goddamn, Sandra,” I yelled. “I don’t want to get caught holding. I’m under a three year sentence. I get caught blowing my nose wrong, I’m gone.”

I’ll admit I had just stayed with her because of the dope, but I started getting this raw feeling inside, knowing I had to cut her loose. She had started to lose weight for me and said she could get braces to straighten her teeth if I would sell some more pills. When she lost twenty pounds, she celebrated by buying new clothes.

She danced from the bedroom one day, modeling a pair of jeans. “Look at this,” she said, turning with her hands on her shrunken waist, emphasizing the soft curves of her hips. “I haven’t worn jeans in years.”

“I’m leaving,” I said, turning from her before I could change my mind.

It got real ugly, with her calling me a shiftless doper and a sleazy used car salesman, and me saying something about humping a mountain of Jell-O. She was still pissed at me when they caught her the next week leaving the hospital with 500 Lortabs.

***

“I’m sorry about this, Red,” I said, feeling like crawling under the couch and curling up with the dust balls when the cops came to the lot for me.

Red put his arm around my shoulder and turned me away from the officers waiting at the door. “Dave,” he said, “you got a job at Quality Automotive as long as you want it.”

“I appreciate it Red, but it’ll probably be a long time before I can come back.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Well, I mean, what can I do? I’m sure Sandra’s going to say that she stole dope and I sold it.”

“Dave, I’ll tell you what you can do—deny it.”

“Deny it?”

“That’s right. If they accuse you of eatin a horse and you got his tail hangin out of your mouth—by God, deny it.”

***

The cops let me cool my heels in a cell for a couple of hours. Then they came at me pretty hard, especially the short one in the green T-shirt and the ratty jeans. He had this long brown hair, all slicked back and pulled into a pony-tail with a rubber band. Every time he strutted by the mirrored window on the wall, he would flash a little smile at his reflection and flex his muscles.

“Sure you don’t want a lawyer?” he said.

“What do I need a lawyer for? I’d just have to tell him the same thing I’m telling you. I haven’t done anything wrong.”

“You know Sandra Willis?” he said.

“Yes, sir. I know her. Used to live with her.”

“She stole dope for you, didn’t she?”

“No, sir!” I said in bullshit surprise. “I don’t believe that girl would do such a thing. She’s a nurse, you know, at a hospital. She helps people.”

“Yeah, she helped you with a shit-load of Lortabs.”

“Not me,” I said.

“Not you?” he said, chuckling, a smirk twisting his lips. “You didn’t think anybody at the hospital ever counted that shit, did you? Listen, Clayton, we been watching you. We know you been slinging Lortabs out of that apartment ever since you hooked up with Miss Tons of Fun.”

“If you’ve been watching me, you’ve seen me go to work six days a week. You’ve seen me go for drug testing every Friday. Officer, I’m a recovering drug addict. I can’t even be around that stuff without taking it. I’ll take any drug test you want me to take. You’ll see I’m clean.”

He shook his head, checking his profile in the mirrored window out of the corner of his eye. “Not going to work, Clayton. Not only have we been watching you, but your girl friend ratted you out. She said you got her to steal dope for you. Said she never did anything wrong till she ran into your sorry ass.”

“When I broke up with her she took it pretty hard,” I said. “She said she was going to do something to hurt me. I didn’t think she would go this far. She could go to jail for this, couldn’t she?”

***

They turned me loose about nine that night without charging me. So I stopped off for a couple of beers to celebrate getting out and wound up dragging back to my apartment around three the next morning. I woke to the buzzing of the telephone and looked down at my ankles propped on the arm rest of the couch, the toes of my shoes hiked toward the ceiling. When I swung my legs around and raised up off the couch, I felt the room spin and had to stop for a second before I could reach for the phone.

“D?” Junior’s voice danced in my ear. “Shit! Man, I been callin’ all over. We thought they still had you up in that jail.”

I felt “No,” come growling up from my throat. “They let me go.”

“You gotta come down here, man,” he said.

“What’s wrong?”

“I tell you when you get here.”

Junior was pacing the floor when I got to the trailer.

“What’s wrong, Junior?” I asked.

“The Dog had a heart attack.”

“What?”

“He ‘bout to sell that little Buick. Customer in the office gonna sign when Dog start grabbin’ his chest. The Dog somp’m else. I mean, you shoulda seen him, D. He regular closin’ on that mothafucka, same time chokin’, turnin’ purple and shit. Customer trip out and hauled ass, Dog motionin’ for him to come back. Trip me out, too. Shit!”

“How is he?”

“Red say he gon be all right. I wanna go see him, but we got Millican comin’ in with a couple cars from Chicago. Can you stay here and get the keys from Millican, D?”

“Yeah,” I said, plopping down in Hound Dog’s place on the couch. “I think I can do that. It’s about all I can do. Tell the Dog I asked how it was hanging.”

Junior smiled and opened the door, then he turned and looked down at me. “Hey D.”

“Yeah.”

“When you get the keys from Millican, lock up and go home, man,” he said, giving me a quick smile. “You look like shit.”

I slouched there for a while, legs outstretched, feet resting on my heels, watching the traffic on the highway through the glass door. A white Ford Taurus slowed down and pulled onto the lot.

Mobley got out of the Taurus and had started toward the office when he became distracted by the blue Pontiac Bonneville Junior had dubbed “a major piece of shit.” I had heard him tell Hound Dog he would have to sell the car before November because the oil required to keep it from smoking and to silence the valves was so thick the engine wouldn't turn over on a cold day.

Mobley walked around the car, testing the doors and kicking the tires before turning toward the office.

I sat up straight when he pushed the door open.

“I came here to tell you that you came that close to going down the road,” he said, holding his finger and thumb close together.

“Somebody was telling lies on me,” I said.

“Sure they were. You put that girl up to stealing dope for you. When they corroborate her statement and charge you, the judge’ll violate you, and you’ll be doing three years, just like that,” he said, snapping his fingers.

“I’m sorry you feel that way Mr. Mobley. I understand, though, with my record and all. You may not believe this, but at times like this, I’m glad you’re my probation officer.”

“Bullshit,” Mobley said, shaking his head.

“Yeah, it’s true,” I said, pushing myself to my feet. “You’re just the kind of probation officer a guy like me needs. I mean you’re tough, there’s no doubt about that. But I know when all the facts are in, you’re going to be fair, give me all the breaks. Somebody outside your office asked me the other day what to expect from you, and I told him you were tough but fair. Those were the exact words I used.”

“I am fair,” he said, his lips straining against the smile that was trying to form.

“I know you are. I know you say a lot of tough things about how I’m not gonna make it and all. But I believe you hope I do make it.”

“I’m always glad to see a guy turn it around,” he said, shrugging and glancing toward the floor, a hint of a blush still on his chubby cheeks. “I don’t get to see much of that.”

“When you told me I wasn’t gonna make it, I took it as a challenge. Now that I know you really want me to make it, I’m gonna do everything I can to make sure you don’t get disappointed.”

“I’ll be damned,” he said. “You might’ve learned a few values after all.”

“Oh, I have. Learned ‘em from you. Speaking of values, I saw you looking over that little Pontiac out there.”

“Yeah, my brother-in-law was talking about needing a car. That looks like something he’d be interested in.”

“Oh, it’s a goodun,” I said. “I know how busy you are, but if you’ve got a few minutes, I could show it to you.”

“Why not,” he said after looking down at his watch.

I took the key to the Pontiac from the rack and walked with him onto the lot.

“Can I look under the hood?” he said when we got to the car.

“Sure.”

I walked around to the driver’s side and opened the door. I pulled the release, walked back around the car and opened the hood.

“You must know something about cars,” I said.

“I know something about cars, all right,” he said, the lip sticking out proudly. “Be all right if I drive it?”

“Drive it as far as you want,” I said, tossing him the key. I slammed the hood down and wondered if the car would even make it to the first traffic light. It surprised me when it started. Junior really was an artist, I thought, as Mobley pulled the car out onto the highway.

While he was gone I smiled, thinking about the engine locking up, leaving him stranded in a cloud of smoke. In a while, though, he drove back onto the lot and got out.

He walked around the car, shaking his head. “It’s got a few miles on it.”

“Well, it’s not a new car. But most of those miles are highway miles. We bought it from a preacher outside of Tuscaloosa.”

“I’ll get my brother-in-law to drive by and take a look at it.”

A cool breeze kicked a swarm of dry leaves across the lot. Traffic moaned along the highway. I glanced over my shoulder as though we weren’t the only two on the lot. “You know what we could do,” I said, now looking straight into the slits of his squinting eyes. “I could cut the price of that car by twenty-five percent. You could sell it to your brother-in-law at a bargain and stick a few bucks in your own pocket.”

“Hmm,” He said, nodding, dropping his eyes toward the ground.

“Usually they won’t let me discount more than ten percent without the manager’s OK. But we picked that car up at a bargain last week, and I figure the manager’s not here, so I do what I have to to satisfy the customer. Besides,” I said giving his arm a pat. “You can always get forgiveness easier than you can get permission. Know what I mean?”

He jabbed the lip out and nodded. “You know, I’m the kinda guy’s always on the lookout for an extra buck.”

“I thought you were. We’ll need to do some paperwork.”

I turned toward the trailer, listening to his shoes crunching the gravel behind me.

“Oh, David,” he said, in the tone of a doting uncle, touching the back of my arm. “You don’t think that car burns any oil, do you?”

I stepped up on the first stack of cinder blocks, then turned to look down into his face. I was towering over him.

“You know, I’ve learned a lot from you, Mr. Mobley,” I said. “And like you, I’ve become the kind of guy who tells it like it is.” He swallowed hard. A little blue vein throbbed under the pale skin of his neck. The lip was poked out, all full and pink, and his eyes had turned soft like those of a doe in a petting zoo. I rested a hand on his shoulder, giving it an affectionate squeeze. “Mr. Mobley, I’ll drink every drop of oil that car’ll burn.”