17

You Can’t Have a B without an A

Nobody knew what the B stood for. It was simply what everyone called him. Most of the time, B-Man stumbled around Evandale muttering to himself. All year long, no matter the season, he always dressed like it was Christmas. He was never without a hood pulled up over his head. When you put it all together—the stooping, stumbling gait; the bulging layers of clothes; the fur-fringed hood that kept his face in perpetual shadow—he looked less like a human being and more like a creature from under a bridge. If that wasn’t enough to spook the locals, there was always Razor, B-Man’s dog.

Razor was a big, meaty, chocolate-colored mutt. By the looks of her, she had genes that ran the full range of bull—bulldog, pit bull, bull terrier. Needless to say, she came out looking fairly nasty. Despite the ferociousness of her face, however, it was the dog’s other end you had to worry about. Razor was a relentless farter. The only person who didn’t mind the stench, of course, was B-Man (probably because he reeked so bad himself).

“You sure about this?” Calen asked me.

We had parked close (but not too close) to the wall of the Super Center where B-Man was pacing. Calen had cut the engine, but we just sat there.

“If you know that guy, go talk to him. Not me. Looks like if he breathed on you, you’d get AIDS.”

Alana rewarded Calen’s crack about AIDS with a slap to the back of his head.

“Ow!”

Sometimes, you can talk to B-Man and it’s like talking to a regular person. There’s a certain logic to the conversation, or something approaching logic. Other times—or rather, most of the time—it’s gibberish.

I got out of the car and walked over to him. I had a feeling it was a gibberish day. B-Man was pacing back and forth, muttering to himself, Razor following at his heels.

“Solid ground. Fuckers always keep it shifting.” At least that’s what I think he said (apparently, but not necessarily, to his dog). “You find some solid ground, and you stick it.” To demonstrate, he stabbed the air, fingers sharp as a blade. “Never know what’s coming. The machine’ll fuck ya every time. Cuz there’s ghosts in there. Echoes! Wheels within wheels, man, wheels within wheels!”

“B-Man?”

He stopped and looked at me. Razor toddled over and sniffed my crotch. When I shoved her head away, she blasted out a fart.

“Gross!” was Alana’s response, through the car window.

I stepped around the dog and the cloud of fumes. “B-
Man? What’s up?”

He didn’t answer because he was too busy muttering to himself. For a second, I thought it was a mistake coming over. Maybe I should have done what I usually did when I saw B-Man: Ignore him. Instead, I went a bit closer.

“I’m looking for A-Man. He around?”

B-Man paused for a second, then went on pacing. “If you know where he is, could you tell me?” More pacing. More muttering.

“B-Man? It’s me, Kaz. From the Sit ’n’ Spin. I work for Mr. Rodolfo, remember?”

The moment I said “Mr. Rodolfo,” B-Man flinched. I had his full attention. But instead of telling me where A-Man was, he charged at me.

Nomi yelled from the car. “Kazuo!”

I turned to run, but Razor already had a whiff of B-Man’s rage. She was between me and the car, barking and farting for all she was worth. Before I could get away, B-Man grabbed hold of my T-shirt, pulling my face right inside the mouth of his hood. His breath in there was almost as bad as what spewed from Razor’s ass crack.

“You tell John,” B-Man said through gritted teeth, “that A-Man has the money.”

“What are you talking about?” John was Mr. Rodolfo’s first name.

“Money. From the poker.”

I heard Calen start the car, and for a second I thought he was about to bail on me. But he didn’t. He gunned the engine and drove toward us. B-Man’s eyes bugged out, and even Razor was shaken. She let out a skittish stream of little putt-putt-putt farts. Calen screeched to a halt and climbed out. He raised his hands to show B-Man they were empty.

“Hey, guy, we’re not looking for any trouble, okay? Let go of my friend and we’ll leave you alone.”

He started to come around the car, but Razor growled at him. Meanwhile, instead of obeying Calen and letting go of me, B-Man re-tightened his grip on my T-shirt.

“Cool it, B,” said a voice. “Kaz don’t know the first thing about it.”

It was A-Man, B-Man’s only friend (no one knew what the A stood for, either). They were both ex-soldiers and they had served together in Afghanistan. Going over there shattered something in B-Man, or maybe he was already cracked to begin with. Anyway, neither one of them fared well after the big pullout. Now they both live full-time at the Emerson Center.

A-Man strolled out from the far side of the Dumpsters, zipping his fly. He had been back there the whole time, taking a piss.

“I told you before,” he said to B-Man. “It’s all cool with me and Rodolfo. You gotta quit making such a big deal about it. Besides, I got till the end of the month to pay him.”

“You do?” B-Man looked confused. It was possible he didn’t know what month it was.

“It’s really nothing.” A-Man ambled over to us. Seeing the two of them side by side, you really got a sense of what opposites they were. B-Man was a short, squat, muscly white dude, while A-Man was tall, spidery, and black. One thing they shared, however, was a penchant for headgear. A-Man topped off his bald head with a kufi skull cap. It had once been white (I assume), but he wore it so often it was turning more the color of—well, me. Kind of yellowy-brown.

“Let go of him, B. He’s just a kid.”

B-Man obeyed.

“What’s going on?” A-Man asked me. He peered into Calen’s Volkswagen.

I explained how we’d been shot down trying to buy beer for a party, and I thought maybe if we gave him the money, he could buy it for us.

A-Man had a thick black goatee around his mouth. He rubbed it thoughtfully. “Who’s the kid?” he asked.

“That’s my sister.”

“Okay, well, it’s not like I’m above buying booze for a minor, but c’mon—not that minor.”

“Don’t worry, she’s not coming. We’re dropping her off.”

A-Man gave his goatee another rub. He had the sort of eyes that were always still, his lids always heavy and half-closed. It didn’t give the impression he was bored or half-asleep; more that he was calmly considering something. He looked across the parking lot at the liquor store.

“Okay, I’ll do it. But you have to understand that what you’re asking me to do here is break the law. So I think some compensation is in order.”

“Yeah,” said B-Man, who had obviously caught on. “Twenty bucks!”

A-Man agreed. “Sounds about right.”

“You mean twenty bucks for the beer, and then you guys keep the change?”

A-Man smiled at me like I was a child. “I mean you give me the money for whatever moonshine hooch you kids drink these days, and for the service of me buying it, you give B-Man and myself twenty bucks. Ten each, okay?”

I looked over at Calen. “You got ten extra bucks? I’ll split it with you.”

Calen shook his head. “He wants twenty bucks?”

“It’s your fault,” I told him. “You never should’ve grown a moustache. I mean, tried to.”

He sneered at me. “This was your idea. If you want to get this guy to shop for us, then you pay him. I’ll pay for the beer, that’s all.”

“Tell you what,” said A-Man. “We’ll roll for it.”

I knew this was coming.

Calen squinted at me. “What does he mean, ‘roll for it’?”

“Dice,” I said. “It’s how A-Man decides everything.”

“Die,” A-Man corrected. “It only takes one.”

He turned to B-Man, who reached into a zippered pocket in his bomber jacket. His grubby hand came out with a little white cube.

“Put out your hand,” A-Man told me.

I did, and B-Man dropped the die into the pit of my palm. I was surprised to see that the pips on each side weren’t simply spots. Each one was a tiny black-and-white whorl, a yin-yang symbol.

“Whaddaya want?” A-Man asked. “Even or odd?”

“Odd.”

“You got it. If you roll an odd number, you win. I’ll buy you whatever poison you want for free. No surcharge. But you roll an even number, and it’ll cost you the extra thirty.”

“Wait, before you said twenty.”

A-Man nodded slowly. “I did, but the machine craves balance.”

“The what?” Calen asked.

I shrugged helplessly. “The machine.”

It was A-Man’s pet name for the whole universe. To him, we humble humans were nothing more significant than dust, falling between the gears. I think this was his way of making sense of the randomness of life, the fact that there doesn’t seem to be any clear pattern to anything. But A-Man took the idea way too far. Basically, he didn’t see the point of making rational decisions. Instead, he rolled a die.

“Balance?” I asked him. “Didn’t you tell me once that the machine doesn’t want anything, so why does it care about balance? And, how is it balanced if you suddenly charge us another ten bucks?”

A-Man considered this with his usual calm. “All machines crave balance. An unbalanced machine stops working.” He tapped his chest with four long fingers. “I’m giving you something here: a chance. The original twenty was for the service, but now, by rolling for it, you get a fifty-fifty shot at beating the machine. To get something for free. That’ll cost ten more. Total of thirty. Fifteen for me and fifteen for B.”

I felt the twinge in my gut that always came from parting with hard-earned cash.

“Twenty-five,” I said.

A-Man shook his head. “Just roll the die. Let the machine decide.”

“Fine, whatever.”

I crouched down (dangerously close to Razor’s unpluggable sphincter). I sensed Calen and Alana, even Nomi, craning their necks to watch me. I wanted to put them out of their misery. I also wanted to stand up before Razor let one rip.

So I rolled.