Dirty Work | Page 7

me. If you're...I mean, if things are the way you say they are, I would maybe like to help a little if I could."
She stared a while longer, and then she said, very quiet, "If you want to help, just go away. Just get the fuck away from me and stay out of my life."
"I can't do that right now," I said. "I have this job to do and it's the only thing I've got. All I want is to try to make the best of it."
Her eyes teared up. "Make the best of it. Oh God. What do you know about anything?"
She walked away and there was no use calling her back. I got my true crime book again and took it over by the card catalog, where I could see her if she left the building but she wouldn't have to watch me hang around all day. At eleven I followed her to her class at the Music building and back again after. I had an eggroll lunch while I waited and if she noticed me she didn't let on.
It was another nice day. I sat outside until she left at two, watching the clouds move around in the sky. She got on her shuttlebus and I sat there a little longer, wishing things were different but not knowing what exactly I would change. Just a mood, I guess. Then I started the long uphill walk back to the Dobie Garage.
Dobie is the only place a non-student can park anywhere near the library. It's across from Dobie Mall, which is this combination shopping center and dormitory. Kids can eat, shop, sleep, go to movies, have sex, live and die there without ever going outside. The garage is always full so I had to park on the fourth level, one down from the roof. Homeless guys, what we used to call winos, what the kids call Drag worms, sleep in the stairwells, which smell of them peeing and throwing up there. I can't stand to see those guys, I want to knock them down to get away from them. If it wasn't for Charlene that could be me. No work, no future.
I got up to level four and even from the end of the row I could tell something was wrong. The truck was not sitting right. I felt sick. It goes back to my days on the rigs. Your wheels are your livelihood. If you can't get around, you can't work, if you can't work you can't feed yourself, if you can't do that you're not a man anymore.
I wanted to run over and see what was wrong and at the same time I wanted it not to be happening and the two things were pulling me in opposite directions. By the time I got to the truck my heart was pounding and my eyes were blurry.
It was all four tires flat. They weren't cut, not that I could see. The valve stem covers were off and they'd let the air out with a Bic pen or something. In addition they had taken their car keys or something and put long, ugly scratches down both sides of the body. I walked all the way around and then I started kicking one of the tires, which was stupid. It wasn't the tire that had done it.
It wasn't Lane that had done it either. She wasn't out of my sight all morning.
There was a note under the windshield wiper. It was in block capitals on lined yellow legal paper. It said GO AWAY.
*
I called the Triple A and they sent a truck. The driver said something about those fucking college kids and I nodded along. While he was doing the tires I looked under the frame and inside the hood to make sure there wasn't a bomb or anything. Then I had the guy wait to make sure it started, which it did.
I stopped off at Airport Auto Supply and got some white primer and sprayed it on the scratches and it didn't look quite so bad. Then I went home. I wasn't shaking this time, not outside. It was all inside. It's like the constant vibration from the rotary table out on the drilling platform. It goes right through you. The kids were already there so I went out in the back yard and looked at the dead yellow grass. There were patches of green coming through and every one was a weed.
Call Dennis. He can get the note fingerprinted.
Sure. Students use legal pads, but so do lawyers. Maybe it was his cocaine buddy Javier did my tires. I can handle him one on one, but I know he's the kind of guy carries a gun.
The house needs a paint job, the lawn needs a gardener. The kids are