Chapter Eight

Jason eyed the photos on the walls of Forget-Me-Not Bail Bonds and thought he recognized a few of the rugged criminal types. Most of them were tattooed, thick, brown like him, with shaved heads that revealed thick veins, but with friendly faces. Some of their smiles sparkled with gold grills. One had no front teeth, but still he possessed a sunny disposition. He had a sparkle in his eyes.

“This your lawyer?” asked Manuel, the bail bondsmen, from behind a desk piled high with papers. He chuckled and showed his stained teeth.

Jason was dressed in the suit that his mother had bought him for Aunt Marta’s wedding. It was brown, and against his brown skin, it was difficult to tell where his complexion began and his suit left off.

His mother chuckled. “No, he’s not my lawyer. He’s my son, Jason. Tomorrow we’re going to a wedding,” she shared.

Manuel joked, “They’re getting married younger and younger.” He reached for a box of breath mints on his desk. He popped a few in his mouth, but didn’t offer Jason or his mother any.

Jason’s mother’s false mirth vanished. The suggestion of her son getting married didn’t please her one bit. She would have told him that, but quickly remembered where she was: a bail bondsman’s small and suffocating office adorned with photos of men with criminal records. She was there for one reason: to get her brother out of jail.

“Of course he’s not getting married.” She smiled at Jason, and then told him to quit swinging his legs.

Jason smoothed the pants of his stiff suit and looked down at his legs. Not only had he been fitted into new duds, but he also sported new shoes that cut off the blood flow to his feet. His entire lower body had fallen asleep.

“So, what do we have here?” Manuel asked, done with the chitchat. It was time for business. “Is it serious?”

“What do you mean?” the mother asked.

“Your problem,” he replied. He waited. When she didn’t spill the goods about what tragedy had brought her to his place of business, he lowered his gaze to his interlaced hands. All of his fat fingers sparkled with gaudy rings.

“My little brother had warrants out for his arrest, and now he’s in jail,” Jason’s mom stated. Her purse was in her lap, her hands on top of the purse. “He just won’t grow up.”

“How old is your ‘little brother’?”

“Thirty-two or three—I don’t know. But he’s acting like he’s twelve.”

Jason was offended. What was wrong with acting twelve? He did that every day. Still, he watched the bail bondsman for his take on his uncle.

Manuel twisted a paperclip into a shape that resembled a giraffe. He furrowed his brow and whistled as he worked on the paperclip. “What kind of warrants?”

“The usual,” his mother answered vaguely.

Manuel tossed the paperclip aside. He stated that he dealt mainly in minor family squabbles, such as afternoon barbecues in which a brother-in-law punched out another brother-in-law, or the mayhem when fists flew over a parking space at a mall. Now and then, he bailed out jokers who considered themselves bank robbers, con men, or specialists in breaking and entering. But most of them were sloppy: fingerprints everywhere, smiles stored in video security cameras, their DNA left behind on Big Gulps. “I’ve seen them all, and eventually they all see me.” His personality warmed up as he recounted such incidents.

“But Mike isn’t a criminal. He’s mostly stupid. He just makes mistakes.”

“Mrs. Rodriguez, could you be more specific?” Manuel demanded. “If it’s something serious, like murder using a pair of electric scissors, I’m not the guy.” He hooked a thumb at the photos on the walls. “Now, these fellas here, well, some are bad hombres and others are hotheads. They too, like you say, made mistakes, and some of them were honest mistakes, like when you accidentally roll out a computer from the warehouse without paying for it. It happens all the time.”

Jason again scanned the wall of photos, and then looked at Manuel, a man with stubble rising from his fat, shiny jowls. For some reason, Jason thought that Manuel’s face would fit in nicely among the photos. He could see him rolling out a computer and a printer from a warehouse and then being stopped by security. He could see him patting his front and back pockets, and then palming his forehead and crying, “Oh, wow, I forgot to pay for it!”

“It’s like unpaid parking tickets, my poor brother!” His mother appeared flustered, but Jason could tell that she was acting. She was throwing her hands about and reeling them back in. She dabbed her eyes, but there was no runoff of tears. “The problem is that he dropped out of high school.”

“Statistically, most of my clients are high school dropouts.” Manuel glanced at Jason and smiled—a dissolving breath mint showed up on his tongue. “I presume you’re a scholar, that you’re getting As and Bs in school.”

“Nah, more like Cs,” his mother volunteered.

“Mom, that is not true,” Jason braved. Insulted, he had to defend the honor of his inflated grades. “I only had two Cs last quarter!”

“And what was one of the Cs in?” Jason’s mother asked. “Would you like to share that with us?”

Jason lowered his head, pouted. He folded his arms across his chest and muttered, “Art.”

“What’s that?” His mother cupped her hand behind her ear for the answer. “I didn’t hear you. Was it finger painting, by chance?”

“Art. I got a C in Art. It happens, even with geniuses. I bet if Picasso had gone to our school, he would have gotten a C.” Jason wished he hadn’t come with his mother, but he had been curious about this bail bond stuff.

Flustered again, his mother’s hands flew about. She was no longer acting. A storm raged behind her eyes. “Now, who in the world gets a C in art? It’s just coloring, isn’t it?”

“Mom, I have to correct you.” Jason sat up and defended his C, stating that the practice of art was more than coloring inside the lines. “It involves hand and eye coordination, and I’m no good.” He admitted that he didn’t possess an artistic bone, at least when it came to drawing or shaping clay into some sort of recognizable object, like a dog raising a leg to pee against a tree.

“You must be good at sports,” said Manuel. He smiled as he once again took a paperclip and began to wrench it one way and then another.

“No, I’m not good at sports either.” This pronouncement came out easily, but his next utterance was a little heated. Why were they grilling him? “Mom, we’re not here to listen to the story of my life, but to help Uncle Mike. Remember?”

“That’s right,” Manuel said in agreement. He tossed another mangled paperclip aside. “What about your brother?”

Jason’s mother brought out some papers from her purse. Manuel flipped through the six pages, let his fingers tap across a calculator, and finally concluded, “He’s as good a citizen as the next fella, except…”

He let the sentence remain incomplete. The clock on the wall hammered away for a few silent seconds before Manuel said, “Here, look. Let me show you.”

Jason’s mother rose and hovered over the papers, then looked at the calculation at the bottom of the page. Her face became distorted. “To get him out of jail will cost about $5,000? Why? He’s not worth that much.”

Jason was hurt by her declaration. True, his uncle didn’t possess much in the way of material things, but he was family! Plus, he has his talent—the guitar! But Jason remembered that he didn’t possess the guitar anymore. No, it hung in the pawnshop window on Tulare Street.

“Well, he has warrants totaling $4,300, and my cost is…” Manuel popped more breath mints into this mouth before he completed the sentence. He had to sweeten the experience of explaining the risks and duties of a bail bondsman. “You see, it’s going to cost this much for my services.”

Jason figured out the cost of his so-called “services.” Manuel stood to make over $700 for signing some papers? Jason blurted out the answer, which made Manuel’s bushy eyebrows jump up. “Wow, kid, you might be lousy at art, but you’re good at math. That’s right.”

“You mean to tell me that you’re going to get over $700?” A storm once again brewed behind Jason’s mother’s eyes. It looked like lightning from her eyes was about to strike the thief sitting across from her.

“That’s true,” Manuel answered. He shrugged. He said, “I got to eat like everyone else.”

Jason’s mother snorted, stood up, and spat, “We’re not that dumb, mister. In fact, we’re not dumb at all!”

“Sit down, Mrs. Rodriguez,” Manuel ordered softly. “I know it seems high, and, in fact, it might be. But you have to consider the risks I take in this line of work. I’m working with the criminal element.” He smiled.

“What risks are those?” Jason asked as he stood up. “You have everything to gain. You’re earning tons of money from each dude you represent.” Jason was not surprised by his outburst—he knew unfairness when he saw it—and the words had rolled out perfectly from his mouth. Maybe there’s a lawyer inside me, he reflected as he continued with a story about a greedy ant that tried to bring a log home, but couldn’t fit it down its chute.

Manuel bobbed his head and smiled at Jason. “So you must think I’m the ant? I live on crumbs? I got two ex-wives I got to take care of, three kids in college, and a dog that sees the veterinarian each month.” He picked up another paperclip and began to wrench it.

“No, you’re not an ant,” Jason answered. “But you get my point, right? Your eyes are bigger than your stomach.” Jason looked at Manuel’s stomach—the satchel of fat was impressive. The man obviously ate well—and often.

Manuel smiled as he pointed the paperclip, now a silvery wand, at Jason. “Not only do you look like a little lawyer in your new suit—you sound like one.”

“That’s because he’s smart,” his mother cried. “We don’t come from a family of dumb-dumbs.”

Jason wasn’t about to argue. He figured that the family was sort of smart—heck, his sister was back East in college, his uncle could play guitar and live on next to nothing, and his aunt had lassoed a million-dollar lottery winner. Plus, his father could figure out to the penny how much a roof would cost to re-shingle. And his mother possessed the common sense to pull a lottery ticket from a pile of smelly clothes before they headed to the wash. Not every mother could do that! Indeed, the family demonstrated smarts—everyday smarts—and this led them to rush out the door without a goodbye.

* * *

Out on the street, Jason’s mother, pink-cheeked from anger, roared, “Can you believe that crook? He thinks we were born yesterday.”

“A crook! Mom, you got that right,” Jason agreed. Now he definitely thought that this Manuel fellow should go ahead and hang his own photo on the wall. He snapped his fingers. He had been trying to remember where he had seen one of the guys in the photos. Now it came to him. “One of those guys was from Los Blue Chones.”

“Huh?” his mother asked. She was bringing out her cell phone from her purse.

“You know, the photos on the wall.”

“Huh?” she repeated. She looked at her cell phone: no calls.

“I think it was the bass player,” Jason remarked. He made the crab-like motions of a bass player running his fingers up the neck of his instrument.

“What are you saying?”

Jason explained that one of the guys—his name was Danny Something-or-Other—played in Los Blue Chones and may, in fact, have been the founding member of the group.

“Great,” his mother replied. “The people my brother hangs with. Scientists, no! Business people, oh no! Teachers or nice priests, certainly not! Or girls with jobs! No, my silly brother has decided to hang with people who end up in jail!” She pinched at the sleeve of Jason’s brand new suit and brought away a white string. She let it float from her fingers to the ground.

“Maybe they’re in jail together,” Jason remarked hopefully. He could see them on a bunk bed talking about old times when they were almost famous—except for the difficulty of the F chord. Maybe they were yakking it up as they recalled the good ole days of sleeping in their van as they went from town to valley town.

Jason sighed at the image of Uncle Mike and Danny Something-or-Other playing air guitar under the dim lights of a ten-by-ten jail cell.

* * *

The next stop: the downtown office that dispersed checks for lottery winnings. They drove there, found free parking at a jammed meter, and rode the elevator to the fifth floor. His mother instructed Jason to be quiet, that she would do all the talking.

They exited the elevator and were immediately greeted by Aunt Marta.

“Marta, what are you doing here?” Jason’s mother smiled as they embraced, their arms not quite reaching around each other. They gave each other a smooch on each cheek.

“I’m here with Billy,” Aunt Marta announced. She pointed toward the office area where workers did paperwork, answered phones, and gossiped.

“Your husband-to-be?” Jason’s mother asked. She jumped up and down, and clapped her hands. “I want to meet him. We can’t believe it—a wedding!”

Aunt Marta nodded her head. She was on the verge of tears and wiped her eyes. “I’m so lucky. He’s a fine man.”

“And I heard that he won the lottery,” Jason’s mother uttered loudly, then whispered, “Oh, I should keep my voice down. What’s the matter with me?” Her attention was then drawn to the diamond on Marta’s finger.

“Oh, my god,” his mother squealed. “It’s beautiful. I’m so happy for you.”

“It is, isn’t it?” Aunt Marta became embarrassed. She lowered her face and played with her engagement ring.

“Let me see it, girl,” Jason’s mother asked. She brought Marta’s hand up to her face.

Jason drifted away as the two women began to talk about wedding stuff. He made his way toward the photos on the wall—photos of those wanted by the law. Jason gulped. His uncle smiled from a black-and-white photo.

“Oh, man…” Jason whispered. His uncle was a good guy. What had he done except maybe not pay his parking tickets for a dozen years? He never hurt a fly, or if he did, at least he deposited its smeared body in the toilet. Jason felt like crying. Sure, his family was smart, and possibly lucky—he had won money in the lottery, and Aunt Marta was about to say, “I do,” to a millionaire.”

Then Jason spied Danny Something-or-Other two positions below his uncle’s photo. Danny’s last name was Rivera. According to the warrant, he was charged for stealing a tractor. A tractor? Jason thought. His aliases included Daniel, Dan the Man, Danny, and D.D. Rivera. Identifying tattoos: Raider Nation on both biceps and the names of his first two wives.

When his mother called, he hurried over as best he could in his painful new shoes. They were purchased at half-off and were a size too small, because, his mother argued, he had already had his growth spurt. Plus, she argued, he could just walk in them until they stretched and fit his feet. If that didn’t work, she had a home cure: stuff the shoes with wet newspaper until the leather expanded.

“He’s so darling,” Aunt Marta uttered. She ran a hand across Jason’s cheek, and gave him a hug.

Jason didn’t like being hugged, especially by a woman with whiskers on her chin. But now that she was marrying “up,” he would let her hug him and deal later with the whisker jabs.

After the hug, Marta’s future husband appeared from behind the counter with papers in his hands. He was smiling as he approached them. A large man, he had a gait that made him appear to be rocking from side to side.

“What did they say?” Aunt Marta asked, her hands pressed together as if in prayer. “No, wait a minute. Let me introduce you to my sister, Rebecca.” She beamed down at Jason standing stiffly in his suit. “And this shining knight is my nephew, Jason.” She plucked at a piece of string on his new suit. “Isn’t he darling?”

“Like an altar boy,” the gentleman remarked. He stuck out a meaty hand, and Jason clasped it and gave it a single shake.

“Congratulations,” his mother gushed at Aunt Marta’s fiancé. “I know you’ll be happy.”

“Thanks, honey,” the gentleman said.

“No, Bill, you can’t call any woman ‘honey,’” Aunt Marta reprimanded him with a smile. “That’s reserved for…”

“That’s right—for you, honey bun.” He gave her a peck on the cheek, which immediately reddened from embarrassment. He then turned to Jason’s mother. “What brings you here?”

Jason’s mother swiveled her eyes left and right, brought the two lovebirds close in, and whispered, “We won the lottery.”

“No way!” Aunt Marta’s fiancé nearly screamed, “Me, too!” He then grinned at Aunt Marta and corrected himself, “Us, too!” He looked cautiously around the room before he showed them the check: $648,000. He was about to complain about the taxes the state siphoned from the real amount of $967,000, but he read in Aunt Marta’s face that he should clam up.

“We heard,” Jason’s mother said. “We saw you on TV.” She turned to Jason. “Actually, Jason saw you. Aren’t we blessed?”

Bill asked, “How much did you get?” Just as the question spilled from his mouth, he could tell by Aunt Marta’s frown that it was a no-no to ask such a question of a person you had just met. He pulled his suspenders from his large body and snapped them against his chest. “Boy, I never learn, I tell you. I’m too nosy.” He chuckled and spanked his chest harder by stretching his suspenders and letting them really whack his chest. “I’m just the happiest man on earth.”

“And I’m the happiest woman in the universe,” Aunt Marta countered. She fluttered her eyelashes, and the two brought their faces together to kiss.

* * *

Jason’s mother received the winnings right there on the spot, all $2,700 from the $3,700 winning ticket. They’d had to pay taxes, but his mother didn’t argue. His father would have pulled up his pants, hammered his fist against the countertop, and hollered at the staff that rich luxury-box season ticket holders of professional sports teams didn’t pay taxes. But working stiffs like himself, people who did real work, they had to pay through the nose! No, his mother discreetly slipped the check into her sleeve and moved along to the next window, where she signed over the check. This window was for paying outstanding tickets.

“And who do I write the check to?” his mother asked. Uncle Mike’s outstanding tickets were more than the payout of the lottery ticket. She was ready to make up the difference with her own check.

“The State of California,” answered the woman behind the counter. She was filing her fingernails, the dust of pulverized nails collecting like fine dust. A bottle of nail polish was sitting next to a stapler.

Jason could tell that the woman, about his uncle’s age he figured, was bored. She took the check, ran it through a merry-go-round-like scanner, and handed it back. She then said, “Oh, I remember his name. Wasn’t he in a band? Played guitar?” Her large eyes shone with excitement. She became animated, as she patted her fingertips together in applause. Roses spread across her cheeks. “I think my sister went to school with him.”

“Yeah, my uncle played in Los Blue Chones,” Jason said proudly. He was happy that someone had recognized his name and remembered the good times they brought to the people. “They broke up but they might get back together again once they…” He didn’t want to say, “Get out of jail.”

“Cool,” the woman chirped. She jumped off her stool, exited the short fence-like partition through a swinging door, and clip-clopped in high heels to the wall, where the photos of fugitives were posted behind glass. She unlocked the case, plucked out the pushpins, and pulled away the photo of his uncle’s warrant arrest.

For a second, Jason thought she was going to kiss the photo of his uncle—or press it to her thumping heart.

“Are you going to see him when he gets out?” she asked.

“Yeah, of course.”

“Great!” Could you get him to autograph this for me? My name is Ashley.” She pointed at the name tag on her blouse.

“Sure thing, Ashley.” He took the leaflet from her. Up close, with the description of all those misdemeanors, his uncle did look like a bad guy.

“Please ask him to do it in red,” Ashley begged. “Please, please, please.”

“Why red?”

“It’ll be a nice contrast to the black and white photo.” Ashley’s smile was so wide that Jason could see the piece of blue gum at the back of her white molars. He would relay this to his uncle right away. Somewhere in Fresno, he was making someone happy.