Finders Keepers

‘This isn’t a Monster Truck Jam, or a concert in the park, or a fireworks show. This is our lives.’

Pete looked up from his homework and briefly met his little sister’s eyes. Tina’s shrug was eloquent: Just the parents. He went back to his algebra. Four more problems and he could go down to Howie’s house. See if Howie had any new comic books. Pete certainly had none to trade; his allowance had gone the way of the cable TV.

In the kitchen, Tom had begun to pace. Linda caught up with him and took his arm gently. ‘I know it’s our lives,’ she said.

Speaking low, partly so the kids wouldn’t hear and be nervous (she knew Pete already was), mostly to lower the temperature. She knew how Tom felt, and her heart went out to him. Being afraid was bad; being humiliated because he could no longer fulfill what he saw as his primary responsibility to support his family was worse. And humiliation really wasn’t the right word. What he felt was shame. For the ten years he’d been at Lakefront Realty, he’d consistently been one of their top salesmen, often with his smiling photo at the front of the shop. The money she brought in teaching third grade was just icing on the cake. Then, in the fall of 2008, the bottom fell out of the economy, and the Sauberses became a single-income family.

It wasn’t as if Tom had been let go and might be called back when things improved; Lakefront Realty was now an empty building with graffiti on the walls and a FOR SALE OR LEASE sign out front. The Reardon brothers, who had inherited the business from their father (and their father from his), had been deeply invested in stocks, and lost nearly everything when the market tanked. It was little comfort to Linda that Tom’s best friend, Todd Paine, was in the same boat. She thought Todd was a dingbat.

‘Have you seen the weather forecast? I have. It’s going to be cold. Fog off the lake by morning, maybe even freezing drizzle. Freezing drizzle, Tom.’

‘Good. I hope it happens. It’ll keep the numbers down and improve the odds.’ He took her by the forearms, but gently. There was no shaking, no shouting. That came later. ‘I’ve got to get something, Lin, and the job fair is my best shot this spring. I’ve been pounding the pavement—’

‘I know—’

‘And there’s nothing. I mean zilch. Oh, a few jobs down at the docks, and a little construction at the shopping center out by the airport, but can you see me doing that kind of work? I’m thirty pounds overweight and twenty years out of shape. I might find something downtown this summer – clerking, maybe – if things ease up a little … but that kind of job would be low-paying and probably temporary. So Todd and me’re going at midnight, and we’re going to stand in line until the doors open tomorrow morning, and I promise you I’m going to come back with a job that pays actual money.’

‘And probably with some bug we can all catch. Then we can scrimp on groceries to pay the doctor’s bills.’

That was when he grew really angry with her. ‘I would like a little support here.’

‘Tom, for God’s sake, I’m try—’

‘Maybe even an attaboy. “Way to show some initiative, Tom. We’re glad you’re going the extra mile for the family, Tom.” That sort of thing. If it’s not too much to ask.’

‘All I’m saying—’

But the kitchen door opened and closed before she could finish. He’d gone out back to smoke a cigarette. When Pete looked up this time, he saw distress and worry on Tina’s face. She was only eight, after all. Pete smiled and dropped her a wink. Tina gave him a doubtful smile in return, then went back to the doings in the deepwater kingdom called Bikini Bottom, where dads did not lose their jobs or raise their voices, and kids did not lose their allowances. Unless they were bad, that was.

Before leaving that night, Tom carried his daughter up to bed and kissed her goodnight. He added one for Mrs Beasley, Tina’s favorite doll – for good luck, he said.

‘Daddy? Is everything going to be okay?’

‘You bet, sugar,’ he said. She remembered that. The confidence in his voice. ‘Everything’s going to be just fine. Now go to sleep.’ He left, walking normally. She remembered that, too, because she never saw him walk that way again.

At the top of the steep drive leading from Marlborough Street to the City Center parking lot, Tom said, ‘Whoa, hold it, stop!’

‘Man, there’s cars behind me,’ Todd said.

‘This’ll just take a second.’ Tom raised his phone and snapped a picture of the people standing in line. There had to be a hundred already. At least that many. Ru

Behind Todd Paine’s rusty ’04 Subaru, someone laid on his horn.

‘Tommy, I hate to be a party pooper while you’re memorializing this wonderful occasion, but—’

‘Go, go. I got it.’ And, as Todd drove into the parking lot, where the spaces nearest the building had already been filled: ‘I can’t wait to show that picture to Linda. You know what she said? That if we got here by six, we’d be first in line.’

‘Told you, my man. The Toddster does not lie.’ The Toddster parked. The Subaru died with a fart and a wheeze. ‘By daybreak, there’s go

‘I’ll settle for a job.’

Linda had been right about one thing, it was damp. You could smell the lake in the air: that faintly sewery aroma. And it was almost cold enough for him to see his breath. Posts with yellow DO NOT CROSS tape had been set up, folding the job-seekers back and forth like pleats in a human accordion. Tom and Todd took their places between the final posts. Others fell in behind them at once, mostly men, some in heavy fleece workmen’s jackets, some in Mr Businessman topcoats and Mr Businessman haircuts that were begi

His eye was caught by a woman with a baby hanging off the front of her. They were a couple of zigzags over. Tom wondered how desperate you had to be to come out in the middle of a cold, damp night like this one with an infant. The kiddo was in one of those Papoose carriers. The woman was talking to a burly man with a sleeping bag slung over his shoulder, and the baby was peering from one to the other, like the world’s smallest te

‘Want a little warm-up, Tommy?’ Todd had taken a pint of Bell’s from his pack and was holding it out.

Tom almost said no, remembering Linda’s parting shot – Don’t you come home with booze on your breath, mister – and then took the bottle. It was cold out here, and a short one wouldn’t hurt. He felt the whiskey go down, heating his throat and belly.

Rinse your mouth before you hit any of the job booths, he reminded himself. Guys who smell of whiskey don’t get hired for anything.

When Todd offered him another nip – this was around two o’clock – Tom refused. But when he offered again at three, Tom took the bottle. Checking the level, he guessed the Toddster had been fortifying himself against the cold quite liberally.

Well, what the hell, Tom thought, and bit off quite a bit more than a nip; this one was a solid mouthful.

‘Atta-baby,’ Todd said, sounding the teensiest bit slurry. ‘Go with your bad self.’

Job hunters continued to arrive, their cars nosing up from Marlborough Street through the thickening fog. The line was well past the posts now, and no longer zigzagging. Tom had believed he understood the economic difficulties currently besetting the country – hadn’t he lost a job himself, a very good job? – but as the cars kept coming and the line kept growing (he could no longer see where it ended), he began to get a new and frightening perspective. Maybe difficulties wasn’t the right word. Maybe the right word was calamity.