Me and my buddy Brandon, who has disappeared inside the house to use the shitter for the umpteenth time, have spent the afternoon adding some fat black racing stripes down the center of my white Mustang. In my head, it had turned out better. In my head, the stripes weren’t as wide and had a crisp edge. I shut one eye to see if it makes the stripes match my vision, but it just adds to the blur. I finish off the beer, contemplating if this can be touched up, or if this is one of those projects the more you mess with it the worse it gets. I crush the can and throw it at the pile on the porch. It rattles against the others. I’m about to get another when Brandon emerges, his body as wide as the door frame, holding replacements. He’s wearing a tank top and is sweating worse than he had before, the dark hair matted on his forearms. I lean against the porch beam.

“That Mexican tore me up,” Brandon holds out my beer.

“Did you wash your hands?”

Instead of giving me a straight answer, he makes a disparaging remark about my mother.

I don’t take offense because I don’t remember my mother, but it wouldn’t matter anyway because Brandon weighs about two of me, and I’m not much of a scrapper. I pop the tab and take a long pull. I drag my forearm across my top lip.

“Just because Taco Bell has a breakfast menu doesn’t mean you should take advantage of it.”

“All that food for six bucks. It’s a hard deal to turn down,” he says.

“And now it’s a soft deal, ain’t it?” I look at my car and wince. A twelve-year-old Mustang with a hundred and forty thousand miles, the door creased in the middle from a hit and run with some dipshit teenager on an electric bike. All four tires are bald.

Brandon takes a drink and nods at my car. “It’s not too bad,” but he follows this with a burst of laughter.

“I should’ve gotten the supplies from an auto body shop instead of Home Depot. Rent one of those professional spray guns instead of two cans of matte Rust-Oleum.”

Brandon taps the bottom of his can against the porch railing, jarring loose a flake of gray paint that shows white underbelly as it flutters to the grass. “Would’ve cost you five times as much. You got that kind of money?”

“You know what kind of money I’ve got.” I take a sip. I watch the old Black guy push the shopping cart full of junk across Queen Street, something he does on the hour. It takes him longer than necessary because the prosthetic attached to his right knee looks homemade.

“You going to Paula’s tonight to surprise Arlo?” Brandon asks. Brandon thinks me and Paula’s relationship is a real one. I’m too embarrassed to tell him that we’ve never done it. That she just uses me to watch her kid.

“Nah, tomorrow.”

Brandon finishes off the beer and spikes it against the pile, sending them scattering like billiards.

I stare at the mess he has made. I think about the bathroom and how I’ll have to clean the bowl good. I am always cleaning up after Brandon. I question the one-way nature of our friendship but quickly remind myself that he came over to help me stripe my car. But I don’t recall him doing any work, just finishing off my beer, crapping up my shitter, and making inappropriate jokes about my mother.

“Paula know you’re doing this?” he asks, removing his keys from his jeans pocket.

“It’s a surprise for her, too.”

Brandon descends the porch steps toward his tan pickup. It has rusted fenders and a crooked bumper. The driver’s side door creaks as he opens it.

“Adios,” he says, then cranks the ignition.

 

 

The racing stripes are for Arlo, but, really, they’re for me. I’m reinforcing my bond with Arlo, so Paula will think twice about kicking me to the curb. I know Paula is sizing up better suitors. Mainly Wayne, this Realtor she texts all the time that goes to her wackadoo church. She says he’s just helping her look for houses, but I’ve seen the way he looks at her when he picks her up in his new truck that costs more than a luxury car. Paula puts on a nice sundress for Wayne whenever he comes over. And she sprays the good perfume on her neck and wrists, the one I bought her after I had cashed in my spare change at the Coinstar.

Paula entered my life seven months ago, at the hospital. She was my X-ray tech. She is twelve years older than me but doesn’t look a day over thirty-four. She has a nice, round ass and bears an uncanny resemblance to my second cousin. The way her blue scrubs fit her, you’d think she had them altered at the hips. Or that she bought them from a cosplay website or one of those Halloween superstores that pop up for a few months every fall in an abandoned building around town. But, no, she buys them at Scrub Depot, no different than any other healthcare worker.

When Paula had asked how I’d broken my arm, I told her about my roofing job and how it was the second time I’d fallen and broken something in the past year. She suggested I find a new line of work, and I’d later take her advice, applying to Home Depot before my workers’ comp ran out. I assumed that day would be the last I’d see of her. I couldn’t stop thinking about her so that evening I went on some adult sites and typed in “sexy X-ray tech” in the search bar. X-ray tech didn’t yield much, so I changed it to nurse and got better results. Being on the sites made me realize life would be hard for the next six weeks without the use of my dominant hand. The sites also made me think about that picture of my cousin in my locked photo collection. I didn’t need to be thinking about that. But that’s what being alone will do. It makes you think about shit you shouldn’t. And to stop thinking about shit I shouldn’t, I started doing some math, as in how long had it been since I’d been out with a woman? Over two years, closer to three. I decided I ought to change that before I got any weirder. I downloaded one of those swipey dating apps. I took a profile photo of myself wearing a hat, but not pulled down so low that you couldn’t see my hair swooped across my forehead. And I made my cast prominently visible to get a little sympathy.

When I stumbled upon her picture, I saw it as a sign that Josh Wesley Allen was about to enter a season of favor. Unlike at the hospital, she didn’t have her hair pulled back. Her hair was slightly wet, almost black, and with a natural curl. With her hair down, she looked even more like my cousin! She wore a cropped shirt that hugged her smallish breasts, and the sliver of stomach that shown above her knit shorts was tan and almost flat. There was a trace of muscle in her legs, suggesting she had once been an athlete. She was out of my league, for sure, but I didn’t know about Arlo at the time. I swiped right and minutes later she reciprocated. Our courtship began.

 

It’s eleven o’clock when I pull into the parking lot of her apartment complex. I could’ve left sooner, but I was consumed with fear of catching Wayne exiting her apartment while simultaneously cinching his belt. I have no proof that Wayne has ever slept over, and I’m trying to keep it that way.

I don’t see Paula’s Civic in its typical spot, but that doesn’t mean anything. Sometimes she parks farther away to throw Zach off the scent. Zach’s the guy who used to watch Arlo before I came along. Zach had developed some stalking tendencies, always showing up at random times with big packages of napkins that he stole from Arby’s. I pull into the closest spot available near her end unit. What’s nice about Paula’s place is the siding all matches and weeds are kept out of the mulched areas. And, the part of town she lives in, you don’t hear gunshots at one a.m.

Her unit is on the second floor. I take the stairs. I knock on the door and wait. No one comes, but I hear Arlo’s low chatter on the other side. Arlo knows my pattern of two knocks and a pause, followed by two more knocks, but he’s been taught not to answer the door. When no one comes, I knock again. I smile at the peephole. Maybe Paula’s in the bathroom. I look down, noticing a grease stain on my shirt. It’s bigger than I would like. Then I realize what day it is—why was I thinking it was Saturday? Paula’s at that church she goes to that doesn’t mention a thing about Jesus. Then who is watching Arlo if it ain’t me? My knuckles are parallel to the door, ready to go again, when Zach opens. We bare the mutual unsavory expression of having just caught whiff of a fart.

“What are you doing here?” I stand with my back straight, trying to look taller. I hate that this turd’s got me by an inch or two.

“Paula invited me to watch Arlo.” He says this with a privileged swagger, like he’s gained access to a private club.

Zach’s thin like me but has a red moustache and red hair that he parts in an unflattering way that shows some thinning. He manages the Arby’s where Paula and I had our first date. I remember Paula not giving it to me straight when I had asked about him. Said he was a friend of her sister, but I could smell the horseshit in that answer quicker than I could smell the Horsey Sauce on my roast beef. The way he kept checking on our table every five minutes to see if we needed more napkins and refills, I could tell he was infatuated with her.  And when he kept stopping by Paula’s apartment, bringing more napkins and packets of Horsey Sauce, I made Paula come clean. She confessed to Zach having babysat Arlo. That’s why she met me at Arby’s on our first date—so he could see he had been replaced.

I try to look around Zach, but he steps to the side, obstructing my view.

“Arlo, come here. I want to show you something.”

“Stay seated,” Zach commands. I hear wheels of tiny Matchbox cars slide across the dining room table. I know Arlos’s shuffling and organizing them by color until they line up in perfect gradation.

I can punch Zach in the face—he’s the one person I’m sure I can take—but then Arlo will start making those noises in the back of his throat, and I don’t want that. Zach hates me because I took his spot in Paula’s queue. Well, I had taken his spot. I don’t know what the hell is going on. I look down at my stain. That’s what I feel like. He should feel like it, too, but for some reason he thinks he’s better than me. There should be a mutual bond with people like us. Instead, we step on each other, competing for the attention of someone who sees us as exactly what we are—beneath her. I take some of the venom out of my voice before reasoning with him this time.

“Look, I’m not here to see Paula anyway. I’m here to see Arlo. You know how much he loves cars. I painted some stripes on the Mustang to make it look like a race car. I just want him to see it real quick.” When Zach doesn’t say anything, I add, “Just think how happy it’ll make him.”

Zach’s smile makes me nauseous. His teeth aren’t great, and neither is his breath, but that’s not it. It’s the smugness of knowing he has the upper hand.

“You think I’m stupid? Like I can’t see what you’re doing? Paula’s pulling away, and you’re trying to pull her back through her son. You’re a sick fucker.”

“I’m a sick fucker?” I’m about to stick my finger in his face when I do something uncharacteristic. I take a deep breath and step back. “We’re being used. You can see that, right? Please tell me you see that.”

His thin lips purse together, his moustache uneven, shorter on the right side. He doesn’t want to agree with me but, as a manager, he prides himself on practicing active listening and demonstrating emotional intelligence. His lips unclench.

“Yes.” He sighs, then scratches an ingrown hair on his neck. “But it’s what we want. Look at us, tripping over ourselves to serve her. Why would we do that if we didn’t want it?”

I would say something to the effect that sex does strange things to a man if it weren’t for the fact that neither of us was getting any. Who knows why we were so desperate? Truth is, I’d grown fond of my time with Arlo. I enjoyed buying him a new Matchbox on paydays and exchanging facts about space and combustion engines.

“She led us on. Who finds their manny through a dating app? She preys upon—” but I cut myself short, careful not to use the term weak and set Zach off. “Just let Arlo come look at my car.”

“I’m not supposed to let him out of the apartment.”

“You think that’s good for him? Keeping him penned up like a goddamn house cat? What’s he going to do? Run off? Dude, I ran like a 4.5 in high school.”

“You ran a 4.5?” His forehead creases and his eyes fill with doubt.

I keep my mouth shut, feeling the pressure of the lie. Was I a member of the football team? Kinda. Brandon had talked me into being the equipment manager my senior year, but I never took part in any drills or games. Zach’s taking too long to say yes, so I pull out my phone.  I promised I’d stop looking at the nude of my cousin, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

I unlock my private collection and show him the picture. Saliva gathers at the corner of his mouth and his eyes pulse with a new energy.

“Is that?”

“Yep,” I say.

“How’d you get that?”

“She needed me to watch Arlo two weekends ago, so she could go look at houses with Wayne. I told her I had work. She pleaded. Then she sent this to persuade me.”

“She sent you that?”

“You’re looking at it, ain’tcha?”

Zach leans in, but I close the window and slide the phone back inside my pocket, knowing if he looks closely he’d see the picture hadn’t been taken in Paula’s room. The comforter in the background is striped instead of floral patterned, and the carpet is gray instead of beige. What he had seen was a photo of a Polaroid I had found in my cousin’s nightstand more than a decade ago. Alexa is her name, and I’d met her just once before. Me and my Uncle Kenny were staying at her house since we were going fishing with her father the next morning. She was away at college, making it easy to snoop around her room after I’d gotten up to use the bathroom late at night. Once I’d taken the photo of the Polaroid, I’d cropped her head out of it so I wouldn’t feel as bad when looking at it. This cousin of mine could pass as Paula’s body double. Same perky breasts. Same thick hips and ass. And she’s got the tan, too, because her mom is Puerto Rican or something.

“You want this photo?” I ask him.

He doesn’t say anything, but the saliva pooled in the corners of his mouth has gained a milkish hue and viscosity.

“I’ll text it to you.” I pull my phone back out. “Give me your number.”

Zach gives me his number. “You’re not going to tell Paula about this.”

“Hell to the no. I told her I deleted it. Tell you what, I’m going to text you this photo. Why don’t you take five minutes to yourself with it while I show Arlo the car. I’ll bring him right back inside.”

“Five minutes?” Zach says. “You’ll bring him right back in five minutes?”

“Yep, right back,” I say.

The pits of Zach’s shirt darken with sweat. He wipes the corner of his mouth with his knuckle. “Alright,” he says. He calls for Arlo.

The boy comes over, stands next to Zach. He’s wearing an overpriced tee shirt, the same brand I used to beg my uncle to buy me that he said we couldn’t afford.

“You want to go see Mr. Josh’s race car?” Zach asks.

Arlo’s eyes brighten. He nods.

I place my hands on my knees, lowering myself to Arlo’s height. “I put some stripes on the Mustang. It’s in the parking lot.” I place my hand on Arlo’s shoulder and steer him toward the stairs. Zach clears his throat. I pause.

“Right,” I say. I remove my phone from my pocket, careful not to let Arlo see what I’m texting Zach. Zach recedes into the apartment, closing the door behind him. I know I only have about thirty seconds, maybe less.

“Walk swiftly,” I say, sliding my hand to the center of Arlo’s back to quicken his pace. Once at the stairs, I tell him, “Let’s take them two at a time. We’ll have a race.”

We clomp down the stairwell, Arlo jumping, clearing the last four steps. We are in the parking lot when I hear the apartment door bang open. Arlo mumbles something as he touches the stripes—cool, maybe something to that effect—but his words are drowned out by Zach’s feet pounding down the hall. I’m thinking it’s the four-leaf clover on my cousin’s arm that had given her away.

“Do the stripes make a difference?” Arlo asks.

“You better believe it. Hop in, let’s see how fast this baby will fly.”

I throw the Mustang in reverse, then peel out of the parking lot. I check the rearview and see Zach panting and getting smaller. I hang a left out of the neighborhood.

“Let’s take it onto the highway and open her up,” Arlo says.

“Okay, but let’s swing by the church first, check on your mom. Did Wayne come by and pick her up?”

“No,” Arlo says. “He didn’t have to swing by. He slept over.”

I try swallowing this information, but my throat is parched. I grab the three-day-old Coke from the center console, unscrew the cap, and take a swig of flat soda. “How come you mom doesn’t take you to church with her?”

“Because I don’t want to go,” he says.

“Shit, no one gave me the choice when I was a kid. My uncle used to drag me there every Sunday.”

“The one my mom goes to?”

“Nah. Your mom’s church is soft. They pray for reform and equality and Mother Earth. My church was all about repentance, pestilence, and plague. You talked to Jesus, and God was your correctional officer.”

“That sounds terrible,” Arlo says.

“It wasn’t great.” I check the rearview for Zach’s gold Camry.

Arlo starts drawing a stick figure in the dust on my dashboard. “Why didn’t you go to church with your mom?”

“My uncle raised me. My mom passed away when I was two.” My phone rings. It’s Zach. I silence it.

“How’d she die?”

“I’m not sure. My uncle never shared the details.”

“How come?” Arlo asks.

“Maybe he thought I was too young.”

“But what about now?” he asks. “You’re not too young now. You should ask him. It’s your mom. You should know about these things.”

“You’re right. I should know about these things,” I say, because it’s easier than telling him I’ll never know. My uncle died of a heart attack last year. In many ways, we were a lot alike, loving women we could never have. The only reason we went to that church was the preacher’s wife, this young brunette built like a brick shithouse. Dimples, voice like honey, green eyes. She might be the prettiest woman I ever laid eyes on. My uncle couldn’t fathom what she was doing with that old preacher when she could have any man in or out of that church. We would get there plenty early so we could sit in the pew behind her, smell her shampoo when she flipped her hair, be close enough we could touch her hand when we got to the peace be with you part. I look back at the dashboard and catch Arlo finishing his stick figure with a frown instead of a smiley face. My goddamn phone rings again, and when I look down, that’s when I plow into the car in front of me. Jesus Christ, who slams their brakes like that for a yellow?

I touch Arlo’s hair. “Are you okay?”

“I’m okay. Your racing stripes,” he says, his voice plaintive.

I look at my buckled hood, my shitty paint job, and it’s his voice that gets me. He cares. What I do, how I feel, matters. To him, I’m someone. It makes me want to turn on the waterworks, lose control, swim in my emotions. And I would if it weren’t for the prick with the slicked back hair getting out of his fancy SUV. I say prick because he looks like one. One of them faces all swollen with rage and entitlement. Type of person who gets equally pissed whether you rearend him or screw up his latte. And fate has chosen me this day to be the sand in the crack of his ass. It pisses me off to see him boiling. Like, pal, your car costs three years of my salary. You’ll get a luxury loaner while the body shop replaces your bumper. You won’t miss a beat. Meanwhile, my insurance will spike until I can no longer afford to drive. So, fuck you. Fuck. You. And Arlo must agree because he’s yelling.

“Go, go, go!”

I crank the wheel hard to the left and peel out, leaving the prick in a cloud of smoke and rubber as he screams obscenities. We’re going fifty in a thirty-five, now sixty, Arlo laughing and slapping the dash, obliterating the frown and the rest of the stick figure.