75. Eternal Scapegoat-Eric




• Harvey, A jaded and apathetic young man, who always seems to be life's doormat is convinced by his so-called friend to start a business, capitalizing on society's all to often need to find a scapegoat.



• Harvey Rodriguez doesn’t frown or protest as the manager fires him, her bleach-blond hair bouncing as she defines and gesticulates the reasons for his termination.
  
  He casually unties his blue frock and throws it into the hamper behind the convenience store’s grimy counter. The counter is etched deep with doodles, and initials and whatnots, long abandoned and forgotten by their owners.
  
  “I’m sorry, but this is the third time this month that the drop’s been short,” Marissa says, tonguing the remains of a dark green vegetable stuck between her teeth.
  
  She looks away from him, counting money from an envelope. She finally looks up and says, “Someone has to go, and it sure as hell isn’t going to be me.”
  
  Harvey doesn’t mention his perfect attendance record for the last six months here at Barker’s Stop-N-Go. More importantly, he doesn’t mention that he didn’t steal the money and that the bank drop for his last shift was actually a few dollars over. There were plenty of other likely culprits who should have been fired instead of him. Her boyfriend Brian, the felon with a mile-long track record of theft and aggravated larceny, just for one example.
  
  “It’s okay,” he says, walking toward the clock with his manila timecard.
  
  She snatches the timecard from his hand and says, “I’ll take care of it, good luck.”
  
  A brief, cool silence wells between them. He begins to open his mouth, but instead smiles and walks out of the door. The doorbell chimes with his departure. He shoves his hands in his pockets and buries his chin in his gray hoodie, as if it were cold. The wind rustles his shiny-black shoulder-length hair, as the sidewalk seems to propel him down the street to his apartment.
  
  ***
  
  “You’re joking…right?” says Carlos.
  
  “No.”
  
  Carlos leans back in the tan, leather sofa and stubs out his cigarillo. His hair is dark and long like Harveys and they are often mistaken for brothers. He props up his feet on Harvey’s shiny, mahogany coffee table. Little flakes of dried mud thread the lining of his boot soles and fall out intact, on the surface of the coffee table.
  
  “Of course you’re not,” Carlos says, shaking his head.
  
  “It was bound to happen,” Harvey says.
  
  Harvey rolls over and curls up on his black, metal futon and clicks on the television. His eyes glaze over.
  
  “Oh my god. You always say that. How many jobs have did this to you in the past two years?”
  
  “Hmm, don’t know. You heard back from that diner?” says Harvey.
  
  “Don’t change the subject on me.”
  
  “Okay.”
  
  Carlos sighs and lets his feet drop, littering the polished, wood floor with more clumps of crud from his boots. He sighs at Harvey and lights another cigarillo.
  
  “No,” Carlos says, as he exhales a big cloud of blue-gray smoke toward Harvey.
  
  “What?”
  
  “I want you to change the subject,” says Carlos.
  
  “Huh?”
  
  “I want you to haggle me about my jobs.”
  
  Harvey clicks off the television. He rolls over to Carlos and says, “Okay, how is your job going? And have you heard back from that diner yet?”
  
  “Harvey, you’re really something.”
  
  “What?”
  
  “I haven’t had a job for two years dude. I haven’t had a job since I’ve lived with you.”
  
  “Oh.”
  
  “Don’t say oh.”
  
  “Okay.”
  
  “Jesus, say whatever you want,” Carlos says, lighting the edge of the cigarillo box with his Zippo. Green-bluish flames slowly rise from one of its corners.
  
  “But you just said not to say it.”
  
  The flames rise higher, engulfing the entire cigarillo box. Carlos gasps and lets it drop on the seat of the leather couch. Harvey and Carlos watch the box for a time until it finally smolders out, leaving a charred square mark on the nice leather.
  
  “I should have had it upholstered with that stain resistant stuff,” says Harvey.
  
  Carlos laughs. Harvey rolls back over and faces the television. He clicks it on again.
  
  “Dude,” says Carlos.
  
  “What?”
  
  “I just told you that I’ve basically been sponging off of you for the last two years and I just burned a hole in your fifteen-hundred-dollar leather sofa.”
  
  “Ah, don’t worry. You’ll find a job.” Harvey says.
  
  “No, I won’t. I don’t like to work and I want to sponge off you for the rest of my life.”
  
  “Oh yeah?”
  
  “For fuck sake, grow some fucking balls will you!”
  
  Harvey clicks off the television, but continues staring away from Carlos, watching the blank screen.
  
  “What are you getting at,” Harvey says, still staring at the blank screen.
  
  “I just burned a hole in your sofa and you blame yourself for not getting a stain resistant one, like it would matter anyway. My point is dude, you never take initiative. And you let people walk all over you and then you blame yourself. You’re like some kind of eternal scapegoat.”
  
  “Hmm, you think so?”
  
  “When you worked for that oil change place and your boss’s wife got mad because he spent every weekend at the bar, he blamed it on you. And you just sat there and took the rap for it, and didn’t even stand up for yourself when he fired you just to make her happy. And this is just one of the many examples.”
  
  “She didn’t believe him.”
  
  “Of course she didn’t, but that’s not the point. She wanted to believe him. People don’t want to believe it’s their fault and they’ll look for anyone or anything to blame for their misery. And for some strange reason you always seem to show up in the nick of time. You’ve been like this since I’ve known you.”
  
  Harvey rolls over and faces Carlos.
  
  Carlos continues, “My dad always said society has always been built on two classes of people, the oppressors and the downtrodden. It’s been keeping the earth spinning since Cain and Abel.”
  
  Harvey says, “It’s the only thing I'm good at.”
  
  Carlos picks up an empty cigarillo box from underneath the coffee table, and lights a corner of it. He says, “No, you’re not good at it. With all due respect, even Jesus got something out of it.”
  
  Blue-green flames engulf the box, filling the air with its pungent odor. Harvey strains a soft sigh from his lungs. Carlos drops the box on the coffee table. They watch it burn.
  
  “So burning down my apartment will make me more assertive?”
  
  “You should start a business,” says Carlos.
  
  The box finally smolders out, gray and black flakes of ash litter the table.
  
  Carlos continues, “You should put an ad in the paper and say something like this, is your wife haggling you about a drug problem, did you screw up at work? Don’t take the rap, call me. No problem is too large for me to become a patsy. Reasonable rates, call me at…”
  
  “You were always creative, Carlos.”
  
  Carlos’s eyes widen, a smile plays at the corner of his lips.
  
  “Dude, no, this would be cool! I mean some people might think it's a joke. But who knows, maybe someone will actually call. Would you be down for it?”
  
  “I guess.”
  
  “Cool, just give me some money so I can put the ad in the paper.”
  
  Two weeks go by without a call. One morning the cordless phone rings. Carlos answers it.
  
  “Was your ad a joke?”
  
  “Huh? Oh, the ad. No, no, it’s for real.”
  
  “I don’t want to talk over the phone, can you meet me downtown at the bridge?”
  
  “Sure.”
  
  Carlos puts the phone back on the receiver and nudges Harvey, who is snoring, fast asleep on his futon.
  
  ***
  
  Days turn into weeks, and Harvey slowly gathers clients. One week he was the alleged supplier of Percocets and Oxycontin for the husband of an embittered wife. It didn’t solve his drug addiction but it bought him enough time to find another excuse. The husband told his wife that Harvey had been arrested and that their troubles were over. Harvey was paid to call her and confirm this, and to apologize for turning him on to the pills.
  
  Another week he allegedly, accidentally burned down a coffee shop so the owner could collect insurance on his failed business. Harvey received a hefty chunk of the claim, less Carlos’s cut, of course.
  
  One of the last assignments, before the calls started petering off, was to take the rap for a better who had welched on a horse race outside of Louisville. Days before the actual race he had already planned on running if he lost and made all of the arrangements with Carlos, who furnished the man with a duplicate of Harvey’s driver license.
  
  “Dude, you’re like Jesus, except with a bank account,” Carlos says, arranging a new, red, leather sofa. The old leather sofa is gone.
  
  Harvey lies on the futon and clicks the television on.
  
  “Dude, aren’t you tired of that old rusty futon.”
  
  “No.”
  
  “You should live a little, you’ve got plenty of cheddar now. Who would’ve ever thought you could turn blame and guilt into a business?” says Carlos.
  
  Carlos plants his feet on the new, glass coffee table and continues, “Wait, organized religion has already been doing that for thousands of years. I guess I'm not as original as I thought.”
  
  Carlos pulls out the last cigarillo in the box and lights it. He says, “I thought you were going to pick up some things from Barker’s.”
  
  “Oh, sorry.”
  
  Harvey lifts himself off the futon and grabs his hoodie. He pulls it over his head, tangling his long hair in a heap. He grabs his keys and pats down his pockets. He looks to Carlos.
  
  “Here man,” Carlos says, reaching into his pocket. He throws his own wallet to Harvey.
  
  Carlos says, “I think it’s my turn anyway. But don't lose my wallet, and don't spend too much.”
  
  Marissa looks up from counting money as she hears the bells on the door chime, and stares Harvey down. Brian peeks around the corner from a back room where the safe is kept. Harvey wanders the aisles, looking at everything and nothing.
  
  Finally, he comes to the counter. Marissa rings up his hot chocolate and two boxes of cigarillos and tosses them on the counter. She pulls out a plastic bag and tosses it at Harvey and says, “Bag it yourself, I’m busy.”
  
  Harvey leaves the bag on the counter and walks out. He walks behind Barker’s and unravels the cellophane on the box, and pulls out a cigarillo. He pats his pockets for a lighter and realizes he doesn’t have one. Brian comes out of the metal door next to him, smoking a cigarette.
  
  He looks at Harvey and hands him a lighter.
  
  “Thanks.”
  
  “That’s the least I could do for you,” Brian says, chuckling.
  
  Harvey takes a drag and gags. He coughs, and coughs, his eyes dripping with tears. Brian laughs at him. Suddenly, Brian looks down the road, up to the sky. Billows of black smoke swirl as high as he can see.
  
  “Wow, look.”
  
  Harvey stops coughing and looks up, his eyes watering less now. He drops his coffee and boxes of cigarillos and dashes toward the smoke. Red and orange flames lick the walls, completely engulfing his apartment. Embers pop this way and that way, like shooting stars. Someone screams from inside.
  
  Harvey dashes toward his front door, which creaks and falls forward when he is five feet away. A gust of fire and wind shoot out from behind it. Harvey falls to the ground. He quickly pulls himself up and tries to run in, but the smoke is too thick to see and it is too hot. He coughs and trips on something, stumbling on top of the burning door.
  
  Sirens wail in the distance and a dark car with tinted windows peels off down the road.
  
  Two months later Harvey stands behind a counter and rings up an order, smoking a cigarillo. His hair is cut short and slicked back with a nice sheen.
  
  The customer, a young brunette woman with a Monroe piercing says, “So, are you finally acclimating to the country of California?”
  
  Harvey chuckles, and bags her carton of cigarettes. He hands her the bag and says, “Well, it’s definitely different than Kentucky. I think the women here are prettier too.”
  
  “Wow, you're cute and not a bad liar. You'll be right at home here in LA...” she says, smiling and looking at the nametag pinned to his frock, “...Carlos.”
  
  “You like Shoe Gazer music? Me and some friends are going to hit Hotel Café this weekend,” Harvey says.
  
  She smiles, and scribbles her number on the back of the receipt. She hands it to him.
  
  “Maybe,” she says, still smiling.