It was the summer of 2003, a typical summer in San Tomas where the sidewalks melt up into the sky and it’s more likely that the Angels refuse to take the field out of misery than they get a reprieve from rain. The White Stripes were on every radio that wasn’t playing corridos and there was an air of discontented excitement in the flats and hills as the former sent its sons to hotter deserts halfway around the world to liberate someone or something. It was a simpler time.
Of course, there was no work. There’s never work. And the work there is sucks. That’s the dirty little secret around here. Maybe it’s everywhere, all the time, in all timelines. But we only know our own little corner of this universe, hence the motto “this town sucks.” I was pretty sure that San Tomas sucked in every timeline, sucked in every parallel universe, had always sucked, would always sucked, that God himself had created the concept “suck” in the image of this place.
“Wait what?” I said into the phone.
“We brought him on in March. He’s mostly interested in wheeling and dealing on eBay, but he has all the hours on the calendar.”
“Dave,” I shouted, exasperated, “The last time I saw him, you yelled at him to ‘go do his thing on the corner and not in your store!’”
“Yeah, well,” drawled Dave, “With all the Koreans playing golf around here, it seemed...”
“I get it,” I interrupted. “He’s here all year, he speaks the language, and he’s willing to go along with those ‘no tax’ sales you guys do.”
“Awww, come on Hank. Don’t be like that.”
“Like what? You told me to call you as soon as I got back from college.”
“Yeah, well, things change in business. Maybe when you grow up a bit you’ll get it.”
“Okay, thanks Dave. I’ll make sure to let you know.”
I slammed the phone into the cradle and took stock of things. For starters, I was saw my bed, an air mattress in my best friend Mike’s house. More accurately, Mr. and Mrs. Levinson’s house. Fucking hell. I saw my two bags full of my clothes and the few other things I thought worthwhile to take with me after my folks parted ways and—intelligently—moved out of San Tomas as soon as I was out of the nest. I saw my two hardshell guitar cases and my tube amp, bought courtesy of Dave’s golf shop last summer. Fucking hell again. I rifled through one of the bags, found my shorts and a fresh pair of underwear among the laundry, and got myself ready to go play basketball with people from high school I didn’t particularly like.
Nelson was the best—and worst—of the bunch. Had his height not topped out at five-eleven, he probably could have played D1 college ball. His ball handling skills were second-to-none in our part of Orange County and he was the peskiest defender this side of Gary Payton. His trash talk rivaled The Glove’s too. Earthchild Nelson Peters was a dick, plain and simple. His mom had spent a bit too much time in Berkeley in the 1970s and her house—and his name—reflected it. But Nelson was a natural-born contrarian. He wore his light blonde hair short, and his interests seemed to consist entirely of sports, school, and making money, to his mom’s dismay. On his eighteenth birthday he legally dropped “Earthchild” from his name and threw a party featuring a cake modeled after the cover art from Atlas Shrugged.
Nelson was also smart. He was home from Yale, where he was studying something that would presumably help him make more money in his future.
I got to the park early. I knew that Nelson would be there before anyone else, honing his shot.
“What’s up, bitch,” he offered, a statement more than a question, as I strode onto the court.
“Hidy-ho to you too, motherfucker,” I shot back. He tossed me the ball and I clanked it off the backboard from 18 feet.
“First of many bricks you’re gonna lay today,” Nelson mused.
“I don’t doubt it,” I laughed. “But you’re still gonna pick me because you need a gorilla to snag your rebounds.”
“Yeah, looks like the food in Westwood is doing you good,” he joked, noting my obvious freshman fifteen. “But seriously, did you grow more? Your arms look even more apelike.”
“Yeah, somehow I went from a bit over six-even to six-two, all limbs. Getting outta this place does a body good,” I said as I jumped, snagging Nelson’s near-miss from three-point range. I laid the ball into the basket from underneath, then passed it back out to the arc.
“In other news,” I said, watching Nelson line up from the top of the key, “guess who’s jobless.”
“What the fuck?” he asked, swishing his shot. “I thought you had that cush job at the golf shop again.”
“Yeah, so did I,” I said, hucking it to him on the wing. “But that guy, Dong-hyun, who sells the clubs on eBay?”
“Yeah?” he asked, dribbling.
“He’s working there now I guess.”
“Wait, so your job literally got taken by an immigrant?” Nelson burst out laughing.
I stared at him and started laughing too. “Well, technically, I guess that’s true.”
“I’ll have to give that one to my more populist Republican friends,” he cackled. “It’ll be the first confirmed account of this happening here in Orange County.” He lined up and sunk his shot. I collected the ball and swung it to him in the corner.
“Well, if you don’t have anything else, the 24-Mart is hiring,” he said. Nelson had worked part-time at a 24-Mart convenience store in our old neighborhood the summer before. Apparently—and shockingly, to me—Nelson was so beloved there that he’d promised to come back the following summer. He’d planned to so anyway—despite all his long-term scheming, Nelson wanted to spend the summer working on his poetry, because when else was he going to have time to do that? (This was his little secret, not known to the basketball crew nor, I suspect, to his Ayn Rand Society friends at Yale.)
“I mean, I don’t have much else. How bad does it suck?” I asked.
“Pretty fuckin bad,” he said. “But whatever. It’s not as bad as the last couple jobs I had. The boss is kind of a dick but he’s not around a lot. Mostly it’s just doing dumb shit like stocking the cooler, mopping up, working the register. Not much to it.” He lined up and shot from the corner. The ball bounced off the rim and I snagged the rebound.
I dribbled up to the free throw line. “I mean, that sounds OK. I need money.” I dribbled a couple more times, then shot. Surprisingly, it went in. Nelson threw the ball back.
“Well, I work tomorrow morning starting at 10. Just meet me there then,” he said.
I dribbled out to the three-point line. “Uh, hypothetical question for a friend,” I said. “Drug test?”
“You fuckin stoner,” Nelson laughed. “No, the boss is too much of a cheapskate. Seriously, if you want the job, show up tomorrow morning, but don’t come if you don’t want it. He’ll give it to you on the spot if you show up with me.”
“No, no,” I said, shooting. The ball bounced off the rim and Nelson jumped for an impressively athletic rebound. “Like I said, I need the money to do what I want to do this summer. I’m in.”
“Sweet!” said Nelson, showing a rare moment of his appreciation of our friendship. “We’re actually gonna get to work together. This will be fun.”
“I mean, working at the 24-Mart?” I asked, moving into the key. “Fun?”
“Yeah,” he said, driving past me, laying in a gorgeous finger-roll. “It’s gonna be a fun summer.”
Of course, there was no work. There’s never work. And the work there is sucks. That’s the dirty little secret around here. Maybe it’s everywhere, all the time, in all timelines. But we only know our own little corner of this universe, hence the motto “this town sucks.” I was pretty sure that San Tomas sucked in every timeline, sucked in every parallel universe, had always sucked, would always sucked, that God himself had created the concept “suck” in the image of this place.
“Wait what?” I said into the phone.
“We brought him on in March. He’s mostly interested in wheeling and dealing on eBay, but he has all the hours on the calendar.”
“Dave,” I shouted, exasperated, “The last time I saw him, you yelled at him to ‘go do his thing on the corner and not in your store!’”
“Yeah, well,” drawled Dave, “With all the Koreans playing golf around here, it seemed...”
“I get it,” I interrupted. “He’s here all year, he speaks the language, and he’s willing to go along with those ‘no tax’ sales you guys do.”
“Awww, come on Hank. Don’t be like that.”
“Like what? You told me to call you as soon as I got back from college.”
“Yeah, well, things change in business. Maybe when you grow up a bit you’ll get it.”
“Okay, thanks Dave. I’ll make sure to let you know.”
I slammed the phone into the cradle and took stock of things. For starters, I was saw my bed, an air mattress in my best friend Mike’s house. More accurately, Mr. and Mrs. Levinson’s house. Fucking hell. I saw my two bags full of my clothes and the few other things I thought worthwhile to take with me after my folks parted ways and—intelligently—moved out of San Tomas as soon as I was out of the nest. I saw my two hardshell guitar cases and my tube amp, bought courtesy of Dave’s golf shop last summer. Fucking hell again. I rifled through one of the bags, found my shorts and a fresh pair of underwear among the laundry, and got myself ready to go play basketball with people from high school I didn’t particularly like.
Nelson was the best—and worst—of the bunch. Had his height not topped out at five-eleven, he probably could have played D1 college ball. His ball handling skills were second-to-none in our part of Orange County and he was the peskiest defender this side of Gary Payton. His trash talk rivaled The Glove’s too. Earthchild Nelson Peters was a dick, plain and simple. His mom had spent a bit too much time in Berkeley in the 1970s and her house—and his name—reflected it. But Nelson was a natural-born contrarian. He wore his light blonde hair short, and his interests seemed to consist entirely of sports, school, and making money, to his mom’s dismay. On his eighteenth birthday he legally dropped “Earthchild” from his name and threw a party featuring a cake modeled after the cover art from Atlas Shrugged.
Nelson was also smart. He was home from Yale, where he was studying something that would presumably help him make more money in his future.
I got to the park early. I knew that Nelson would be there before anyone else, honing his shot.
“What’s up, bitch,” he offered, a statement more than a question, as I strode onto the court.
“Hidy-ho to you too, motherfucker,” I shot back. He tossed me the ball and I clanked it off the backboard from 18 feet.
“First of many bricks you’re gonna lay today,” Nelson mused.
“I don’t doubt it,” I laughed. “But you’re still gonna pick me because you need a gorilla to snag your rebounds.”
“Yeah, looks like the food in Westwood is doing you good,” he joked, noting my obvious freshman fifteen. “But seriously, did you grow more? Your arms look even more apelike.”
“Yeah, somehow I went from a bit over six-even to six-two, all limbs. Getting outta this place does a body good,” I said as I jumped, snagging Nelson’s near-miss from three-point range. I laid the ball into the basket from underneath, then passed it back out to the arc.
“In other news,” I said, watching Nelson line up from the top of the key, “guess who’s jobless.”
“What the fuck?” he asked, swishing his shot. “I thought you had that cush job at the golf shop again.”
“Yeah, so did I,” I said, hucking it to him on the wing. “But that guy, Dong-hyun, who sells the clubs on eBay?”
“Yeah?” he asked, dribbling.
“He’s working there now I guess.”
“Wait, so your job literally got taken by an immigrant?” Nelson burst out laughing.
I stared at him and started laughing too. “Well, technically, I guess that’s true.”
“I’ll have to give that one to my more populist Republican friends,” he cackled. “It’ll be the first confirmed account of this happening here in Orange County.” He lined up and sunk his shot. I collected the ball and swung it to him in the corner.
“Well, if you don’t have anything else, the 24-Mart is hiring,” he said. Nelson had worked part-time at a 24-Mart convenience store in our old neighborhood the summer before. Apparently—and shockingly, to me—Nelson was so beloved there that he’d promised to come back the following summer. He’d planned to so anyway—despite all his long-term scheming, Nelson wanted to spend the summer working on his poetry, because when else was he going to have time to do that? (This was his little secret, not known to the basketball crew nor, I suspect, to his Ayn Rand Society friends at Yale.)
“I mean, I don’t have much else. How bad does it suck?” I asked.
“Pretty fuckin bad,” he said. “But whatever. It’s not as bad as the last couple jobs I had. The boss is kind of a dick but he’s not around a lot. Mostly it’s just doing dumb shit like stocking the cooler, mopping up, working the register. Not much to it.” He lined up and shot from the corner. The ball bounced off the rim and I snagged the rebound.
I dribbled up to the free throw line. “I mean, that sounds OK. I need money.” I dribbled a couple more times, then shot. Surprisingly, it went in. Nelson threw the ball back.
“Well, I work tomorrow morning starting at 10. Just meet me there then,” he said.
I dribbled out to the three-point line. “Uh, hypothetical question for a friend,” I said. “Drug test?”
“You fuckin stoner,” Nelson laughed. “No, the boss is too much of a cheapskate. Seriously, if you want the job, show up tomorrow morning, but don’t come if you don’t want it. He’ll give it to you on the spot if you show up with me.”
“No, no,” I said, shooting. The ball bounced off the rim and Nelson jumped for an impressively athletic rebound. “Like I said, I need the money to do what I want to do this summer. I’m in.”
“Sweet!” said Nelson, showing a rare moment of his appreciation of our friendship. “We’re actually gonna get to work together. This will be fun.”
“I mean, working at the 24-Mart?” I asked, moving into the key. “Fun?”
“Yeah,” he said, driving past me, laying in a gorgeous finger-roll. “It’s gonna be a fun summer.”
