The Poacher
Christmas was over and the new year had begun, but Vicki had yet to begin her search for work. When he’d asked about it she’d snapped at him. She said she’d liked being a stay-home mom the past few weeks and wasn’t ready to go back to waiting tables. “Besides,” she’d said, “you’re making enough money for us to get by.”
The weight on his shoulders threatened to crush him.
He still hadn’t been able to bring himself to tell Vicki he’d been fired from his welding job at the oil and gas company. Even if he could bring himself to tell her, she’d want to know why and when, and then she’d ask how he got the money he’d handed over to her and how he’d paid for all those nice Christmas presents he’d bought. If he got a new job, he could tell her he’d left the other job voluntarily for a better opportunity. But he hadn’t heard back from any of the jobs he’d applied for, and the cold calls had led nowhere.
Each weekday, he continued to pretend to go to a job he didn’t have. He’d even had to pretend to be working out of town on the nights he’d pulled the zoo heists. She’d been especially disappointed that he’d purportedly been called to handle an out-of-town emergency on New Year’s Eve. She’d bought a bottle of cheap champagne so the two of them could celebrate. Luckily, she seemed appeased when they’d celebrated last night. He might have been a day late, but for once he wasn’t a dollar short. That antelope had brought him enough cash to last a few weeks.
Maybe the new year will bring me a new job, he thought as he rolled slowly down Industrial Avenue, an appropriately named street in a warehouse district southwest of the I-30/I-35 mix-master. He planned to make more cold calls today, see if maybe he’d stumble upon something. If he couldn’t land a welding job, maybe somebody would need some help in their warehouse.
By mid-afternoon, his hope was gone. Nobody was hiring full-time. Nobody needed help on a part-time or temporary basis, either. They’d keep him in mind in case something came up. But if something didn’t come up soon, he’d find himself out on the streets. What’s worse, he might cause Vicki and the kids to end up out on the streets, too.
His only option seemed to be self-employment. Here in Texas, people had a lot of state pride. They went gaga over anything in the shape of the state or a star, which not only stood for the Lone Star State but also represented the Dallas Cowboys. Heck, in prison they’d learned to weld by making star- and Texas-shaped metal wall art. If you added the words “God Bless Texas,” even better. The prisons sold the inmates’ work in their gift shops. He could buy some scrap sheet metal for next to nothing and try to make a go of it, maybe sell the stuff at the flea market or a craft show. Of course he’d need a place to ply his trade.
As he headed out of the area, a freestanding garage with a FOR RENT sign posted on it caught his eye. The metal pull-down door was dented in several places and the cinder-block walls were covered in graffiti, but that didn’t much matter. If he rented this small garage, he could do work here and store the trailer in it, too. He’d originally planned to resell the trailer after using it to transport the antelope, but he’d changed his mind and decided to hang on to it. It could come in handy for transporting tools and supplies and such. He hadn’t yet registered the trailer in his name. The tax and registration fees would set him back another hundred bucks he couldn’t spare right now. He’d incur a small penalty when he finally filed the paperwork, but keeping the trailer out of his name could also reduce the risk of it being traced to him if someone reported seeing it near the zoo. Of course, Vicki didn’t know about the trailer. He hadn’t told her. She’d only ask what he needed it for, why he’d spent good money on it. He’d rented a unit at one of those public storage places for stowing the thing, but he couldn’t use that space to work in. It was against the rules. But if he could move the trailer to this garage, he could kill two birds with one stone. Two birds. Ugh. He thought of the macaws and felt a twinge of guilt in his gut.
He turned into the asphalt drive, cut his engine, and pulled out his phone. He dialed the number on the sign. When a man answered, he asked. “How much you askin’ for the garage on south Jones Street?”
“Four fifty a month, plus three hundred damage deposit. Cash only.”
The $750 would take a big bite out of his remaining cash, but what choice did he have?
“Will you do month to month?” The Poacher didn’t want to be stuck with a long-term lease if things didn’t work out and he ended up not needing a workspace.
“Long as you pay in advance,” the guy said. “If I don’t have the next month’s rent by the twenty-fifth of the month, you’re out and I get someone new in there.”
They arranged to meet at the bay first thing the next morning to exchange cash for keys. Maybe the year was off to a promising start, after all.