Good Luck, Fatty

payday loan store, a liquor emporium, and a Baptist church.
    “Whatcha got for me?” I ask, trying to sound nonchalant. The phrase “roll up your sleeves” has me hoping Harvey’s going to let me do more than spiff up displays or punch sales into the computer.
    “I need you to design some fliers,” he tells me. “I tried to do a mockup, but it didn’t go very well, I’m afraid.” He frowns, gestures at the counter. “Have a look-see.”
    I wander toward the register, dip my hand in a fishbowl of Milky Ways and pull one out. “A race?” I say, more to myself than Harvey, as I eye the stick-figure drawing he’s scrawled across the back of a paper grocery sack. I peel the wrapper from the candy and pop it (the candy, not the wrapper) in my mouth. As I chew, I gurgle, “You’re having…a bike race?”
    “Not until spring,” he says. “I want to give folks a long lead-time, so they can train. Plus, I’ve gotta iron out some kinks with the town clerk. Permits and such.” A slippery grin tugs at the corners of his mouth, as if he knows what I’m about to say next.
    “Can I…?” I ask, tucking my lip under my teeth. “Do you think I’d be able to…?”
    He shrugs. “No reason why you couldn’t,” he says optimistically. “But this is going to be a pretty rigorous affair. Not for the faint of heart.”
    The paper sack advertisement, in its charming, childish way, informs me that competitors in The Pit’s inaugural “Yo-Yo” race will zing from Industry to Desolation, North Carolina and back (hence, the Yo-Yo moniker, I assume). “How far is it?” I wonder aloud. With just one car and forever-limited gasoline, Orv, Denise, and I seldom venture beyond a three-mile radius from home.
    “Twenty-four miles and some change,” Harvey says. “Clocked it myself the other day. Of course, I’ll have to get a more precise measurement before the starting gun blazes.”
    There’s a tub of art supplies jammed in the back of the closet in The Pit’s grubby office, including a quality array of acrylic paints I hauled down here myself (a final gift from Gramp) and used to decorate the display windows with exploding fireworks and lopsided, wavy American flags. That was back on Independence Day, and the damn paintings are still there. You’d almost think this place is too busy for me to take them down.
    I duck out and return with the tub balanced on my hip, its handles digging into a roll of flab around my midsection and compressing my liver. “What about the windows?” I ask. I shuffle over to the bigger of the two panes and struggle to tuck the tub into a corner, where the few customers we get in this place won’t be bound to trip over it. “I could paint a sign up here.” I give the glass a friendly tap. “Something eye-catching and colorful. A kid on a bike, walking the dog? ” I suggest, referencing the yo-yo trick.
    Harvey shakes his head, smirks as if I’m the smartest person he’s ever known. “That’s why you get the big bucks,” he says, and we both laugh.
    Harvey doesn’t pay me in money. He can’t afford to. Instead, he keeps the fishbowl stocked with candy and slips me a few cans of cat food here and there, which I pass along to Buttercup.
    The truth is, Buttercup is about as much of a stray as I am, since he’s always welcome at our falling-down door. (Not inside, though. Orv claims to be allergic.) At least the cat’s got people who care about him, I figure, even if they’re not the ones who are supposed to.
     

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    Tom Cantwell is waiting for me outside The Pit when Harvey locks the place up for the evening. Tom wants to screw me. He’s a virgin. And my friend. I don’t do friends (another rule). Virgins, on the other hand? My specialty.
    “Night,” I call over my shoulder at Harvey, who is already strapping his helmet on and mounting his Trek. (He doesn’t own a car, only the most awesome bike known to man.) He throws me a courtesy wave and vanishes.
    I turn to Tom. “What’re you doing here?”
    He stares into space and kicks his stumpy BMX’s front tire, which is underinflated, as I unchain the Schwinn. “Nothing,” he says.
    I roll my eyes, straighten up and, with a sigh, say, “Not this again.” The whole lack-of-screwing thing has driven a wedge between me and Tom, one of the few people in town I can count as a friend.
    “What?” he says with mock confusion, as if screwing me wouldn’t dial down the tension between us.
    “You know very well