VenCo(87)

“Just take the damn note.” Arnya flapped the cardboard towards Lucky, who took it along with the folded twenty. “Tell Tommy they’re for me and that he goddamn well knows it. Spent enough money over the years on his expired milk and used lighters.”

Arnya had very particular ideas about how the world should work, that there were rules the neighbourhood should follow. Everything was a series of debts and payments, asides and handshakes, all in delicate balance. “Plus tell him I could just as easily get smokes from the rez.”

“But we don’t have a rez, you said half-breeds don’t even get leftovers,” Lucky started.

“I know that and you know that, but you think Tommy knows that? Just say that if you have to. Start with it being no big deal. People are less likely to fight if they don’t think you have skin in the game. Then just be kid sweet—not too sweet—don’t let him think he’s better than you. Then bust out the threats if you have to.” She was having a bad day. She was hot and cold at the same time, her polyester nightie stained with yellow sick-sweat, her teeth chattering. Lucky watched her lower herself onto the couch as if she were made of small folds in thin paper.

“Maybe you shouldn’t smoke anyway.”

“Okay, then, Surgeon General Luck. You wanna stay home and I’ll go? How you gonna get your buck’s worth of candy, then? ’Cause if I go, there’s no payment owing.”

Lucky slipped out the door with her instructions and the money before another word was spoken.



They were living above an electronics store on Queen Street East. It was a great score, since they could hop on the streetcar right outside their door and get anywhere they needed. Also because, being above TVs and computers instead of a restaurant, like their last place, meant way fewer cockroaches. Instead, they had mice, who liked the cardboard boxes in the basement storage rooms. But mice were better than roaches. That was the hierarchy of rentals: mice—tolerable; roaches—terrible; bed bugs—run!

Lucky felt different walking down the hall by herself. She had no one to chase after. No impossible pace to keep up with. So she slowed right down, running a hand along the water-stained walls as she went.

She jumped from one grey-carpeted stair to the next, holding the rail for balance, liking the way her shiny red boots broke the monotony. The front door was heavier when it was only her pulling it open, and she muttered her mother’s usual words to herself: “Come on, flex those noodles!”

She waited for a break in the foot traffic and then joined the current, clomping down the sidewalk towards the store. The block and a half felt like miles. She stopped to admire store displays and to pet a dog, then heard her mother’s voice in her head. Don’t be walking without purpose. That’s when the assholes think they can approach you. She picked up her pace.

Tommy’s store was long and narrow. Two lines of shelves ran its length from front to back. If you had to pass someone in one of the aisles, you both had to turn and suck in your gut. Lucky had never gone all the way to the back, where the frozen pizzas and ice-cream cartons collected freezer burn, so that was where she decided she would go, because she was a grown-ass lady and she could do what she wanted.

She hurried past Tommy, who was behind the counter arguing with a short woman pulling a buggy full of groceries from the dollar store.

“I don’t care what you think you heard on the news, this lottery ticket is not a winner. Take it. Go ahead. Go check at some other store. It’s a dud!”

The woman snatched the ticket back from him, grabbed her buggy, and pushed it out the door in a huff.

She heard Tommy muttering, “Crazy old bat. Tries that every week. With the same ticket, even.”

She ran a hand along the kitchen sponges, the garbage bags, and then the envelopes. When she let it rest on a package of unsharpened pencils, she felt eyes on her and looked up. Tommy was standing at the top of the aisle, arms crossed above his paunch, watching her. He ran both his hands through his greasy grey hair and flipped it over his shoulder. With his arms raised, patches of black hair stuck out the sleeves of his Motocross T-shirt. It made Lucky think of fuzzy black spiders. She picked up the pencils, took the time to study them, put them back, and then moved around the end of the aisle and into the next one. She looked up. Tommy had moved too. She could feel her heart beating in her throat, like that time she accidently swallowed a Life Saver whole.

She pretended to browse the cheap shampoo and the stack of hamburger buns as he slowly came towards her. By the time she was at the chips, he was directly in front of her. So, as per the unwritten rule, she turned to face the centre of the aisle and started to sidestep. He turned too.

“You need any help?” He loomed over her.

“Nope.” Her voice was small around the lump in her throat.

“You by yourself today?”

Suddenly she didn’t want to declare her independence. But he was an adult and Stella said never to lie to adults. “Yup.”

“You live around here?” There was maybe two inches between his belly and her. She felt the tightness of that space like a threat.

“Yup.”

“Huh, I don’t remember seeing you around. You sure you’re all alone?” He reached out and put a hand on her shoulder. The heat from his meaty palm, half on the collar of her romper, half on her bare skin, made all her muscles tense at once. It made her stomach flip. She didn’t have words for it, just the image of something rotten seeping through her pores. She couldn’t move her feet.