Nowhere Man please listen,
You don't know what you're missing,
Nowhere Man, the world is at your command!

Thursday, a day off for them both finally rolled around but it took a few days of hard work to make it happen. JC was out at the corner each day by 7am and as Jeff promised, he was the first pick on the work crew. He worked with Doug one day and Jeff the next, then a new Crew Leader on Wednesday that he really liked. He was a young guy, about JC’s age. He worked fast and hard, but he liked to teach things, so he was always showing JC something to make the job go faster or easier. JC sopped it up like a sponge and tucked it away for future use. Anything to make him seem like a no-brainer option when it came to future work.

By the time he made it back to the room, he was dead tired and asleep on his feet. He collapsed onto the mattress and snoozed until Phee came in. They talked while she cooked, then ate and watched whatever sitcom she was in the habit of watching. Like normal, Phee would get up to take her shower and then prod him into the bathroom so she could have the room to herself. He figured she had some kind of beauty ritual she didn’t want him seeing. Which was fine… he had a ritual too. It was called scrub himself clean from head to toe and hope she would want to have sex with him.  

It worked every time.

So by the time Thursday rolled around, the last thing JC really wanted to do was ride the bus from one end of town to the other, but Phee was up and moving around, babbling about her friends and a trip to the library.

“Are you getting up? Let’s go, let’s go!”

He groaned and rolled over, as much as he could on the small mattress. “I was kind of thinking I would—“

“Get! Up!”

He gave a half-hearted grumble and kicked his way out from under the blanket. An hour later, they had eaten, dressed and were on the Number 34, headed downtown. It was like déjà vu from the week before—the same bus driver was on the route, the same people were working the front desk at the hotel, and Lola and Shirley were cackling and talking over the Spanish radio station while loading up their carts with more mini-toiletries.

Phee opened the envelope containing her check and frowned at it, since it was void of overtime. Then they went to the credit union to cash it. While they were there, JC picked up some paperwork to open an account. He wasn’t quite ready for that step yet, but when he could do so, he’d have a bank account again. Small steps, he told himself. And don’t take anything for granted.

Instead of visiting Cass, because Phee had gone to see her already that week, they walked to the county library.

“What, you know someone here?” JC teased her as they walked inside. “You get free books or something?”

“It’s a library, dumbass. The books are free, anyway.”

“Oh. Yeah. Forgot.”

He hadn’t been in a library in ages—not since high school, maybe. By the time he got to college, the internet was pretty popular, so any research he needed was at his fingertips. Despite being bright with an analytical mind and a penchant for numbers, he was never a very good student. Spending hours in the library studying when there was drinking to do was a foreign concept to the younger version of him. Now, scanning the sprawling layout and counting ten college aged kids with books spread before them, ear buds in their ears and expressions of deep concentration on their faces, he thought a library seemed like a great place to get some peace and quiet.

Phee led him to a back room with two rows of computer workstations.

“What are we doing back here?”

“I need to use a computer. Pull up a chair.” JC rolled a chair from another station across the aisle and sat next to her. The monitor had a screensaver, a marquee that listed the library hours. She pressed a button and it disappeared. On the desktop were a few icons. She clicked the blue “E” to open a web page.

“Do you know what colleges you want to look at?”

“Kind of. Maybe I should look at a list.”

“Maybe. What do you want to go to school for?”

Phee shrugged, pulling her hands from the computer. “I was thinking Social Work.” She scrunched up her nose as she glanced over at him. “What do you think?”

“If that’s what you want to do, go for it.”

“But do you think it’s a good choice for me?”

He started to give her a flippant answer but remembered her request that he not be an asshole. He modified his answer, saying, “I think if that’s what you really want to go into, that you’d be perfect at that. You’re already kind of doing that, just to the extreme.”

“Well, that’s what I mean. I get so emotionally involved—“

“You’ll grow out of that. Probably.”

She sighed and straightened and returned her fingers to the keyboard. She typed in a search for ‘schools for social work’ and sat back while the machine populated the links. “Okay, I know I’m not going anywhere near California for school. Maybe I should start local…”

Phee mumbled to herself, typed in some other searches and mumbled some more. She was lost in her project, so JC took a minute to look around. Before he ended up on the street, he couldn’t live without his Smartphone and internet. He hardly missed them, but being so close to the chance to just check it out ignited a curiosity.

He rolled back across the aisle to the station he left and pressed a key on the keyboard. The scrolling screensaver popped off and he opened an internet page. His fingers still moved along the keys like it hadn’t been almost two years since he’d used a keyboard. He still used an AOL address because it was his first email account and he didn’t see the use in switching.

You’ve got mail!

An eyebrow rose in surprise. “Hunh.  I actually have email.”

It was probably junk, but he clicked the ‘new mail’ icon anyway and scrolled the list. A familiar name popped up over and over again. He smiled and opened the last email, dated more than a year before:

From: Ernie.Cumberland@msn.com

Subject: Where you at?

Hey, man. I don’t know any other way to get hold of you. Your phone isn’t working. You just disappeared. Let someone know you’re okay. I mean, we’re pissed but nobody said to fall off the edge of the earth.

Call me, man.

Ern.

One from his ex-girlfriend shot daggers through his heart. He didn’t want to open it, but he did.

From: RachelLeavey@gmail.com

Subject: Just to let you know, we got a lawyer

Josh,

Not trying to be a bitch or anything, but we hired a lawyer. Conveniently, I can’t reach you by phone and I don’t know where you went after you got out of jail. Your parents claim they don’t know where you are and I don’t believe that for a second.

I know it was a mistake, but mistakes happen. If you ran over a kid by accident, you’d still have to pay for that. I don’t know why you would think you could lose our money and get away with it. Yeah we knew the risks, but you told us that this would be a wise investment.

Anyway, you should probably get a lawyer, too.

Rachel

The date on that email was a year ago. He wondered if she ever filed that suit and since she couldn’t find him, if she had to drop it. He shook his head at the audacity—did she think he had money stashed somewhere? Why were they losing the apartment? Why had he been living in his car? He steamed for a few minutes before he made himself calm down. From the looks of his email account, she didn’t try to contact him again. It was probably nothing. And anyway, everyone had to sign forms saying they knew the investments were risky. He was pretty sure he was covered… but just in case, he saved the email.

A laser printer clicked on and warmed up, a few stations over. After a few seconds, it began to spew paper from the opening, until a stack had piled up. Phee walked over to it to pick up the pages, flipping through them and sorting them.

“Find some good stuff?”

“Yeah,” she said, absentmindedly, her finger running down the first page. “Some local programs. A couple that are out of state but we’ll see how that goes.”

JC logged out of the email program and closed the page, also drawing a close to an unfruitful trip down memory lane.  He swiveled his chair around toward her. “Really? What out of state ones? “

“Mmmm…” She mused, flipping through the stack. “Columbia, in New York. They have a pretty good Social Work program.”

“You’d go to New York to go to school? Isn’t that kind of… I don’t know…” He lifted his fingers in air quotes around “ ‘Sue and Philip Gredvig’ for you?”

She ignored him. The pages were folded in half and stuffed into her bag. “The other ones are minor programs that don’t seem to be any better than state schools, so we’ll see how things pan out. At least I checked it out. You ready for pizza?”

“I’m always ready for pizza.”

They left the library and set out on the long walk to the Pizza Hut where they would meet up with her group of friends. JC was worried, exceedingly so, about how close he and Phee had become and what her friend’s—mostly Colin’s—reaction would be. It was obvious to JC that they had slept together.  He wondered how obvious it was to other people. They didn’t hold hands and they weren’t a ‘good morning kiss’ type of couple, but every day when Phee walked through the door, he attacked her like he hadn’t seen a woman in years. She responded with the same vigor and was usually naked within ten minutes of arriving home.  On top of that, the mattress was rocking every night. JC hoped there wasn’t an end to that coming any time soon but if he wasn’t careful Colin would make sure he’d never enjoy an orgasm ever again.

Every week, it seemed, the gathering was a big to-do. The group was much more welcoming to JC this time around. There was pizza and beer and soda, an arcade in the game room, and a lot of shit talking, in which JC delighted in taking part. He was careful to not be alone with Colin, even deciding not to use the restroom. He wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice.

A few hours into the afternoon, as the group headed to their usual hang out spots, Jamal sidled up to Phee with a smirk.

“So. Nix.” He sniffed, then paused, then laughed and asked,” Are you gettin’ enough? Is my man JC here doin’ it right?”

JC took a deep breath. It had to happen sooner or later.  Phee seemed unmoved by his comment. Her eyes slid toward him and she said, “I didn’t know you were so invested, Jamal. Jealous?”

The group laughed and waited for his response. “Naw,” he said. “Just making sure you’re uh… taken care of. If you know what I’m saying.”

She huffed, trying to hide her laughter. “First of all? Gross. Get out of my pants. Second, that’s none of your business!” She shrugged his arm off of her shoulder and sped up, leaving him laughing behind her. 

A few minutes later, she slowed again and fell into step beside JC and elbowed him to get his attention. He glanced down at her and she looked up at him. And winked.

He smiled and winked back. And felt it was okay to start breathing again.  

***

Over the next few weeks, Phee spent a lot of time with her head in books and poring over the materials she’d printed out from the library. She made lists and tore them up and then made new lists. Instead of watching her sitcoms, she wrote essays and filled in blanks on applications. On Thursdays, she dragged JC to the library with her while she typed the words she had handwritten the week before.

JC took the opportunity, since it was there, to try and connect with some of his friends that would still talk to him. Ernie for sure seemed glad to hear from him finally—they hadn’t seen each other since JC ran into him at the Subway months before.  Ernie said a few other guys were asking about him lately, so JC sent them all brief messages to let them know he was okay.

He was still working day labor for Jefferson Construction, showing up every day after breakfast at House of Hope in his boots and work jeans and a book in his pocket. Every Saturday, he was sure that Jeff or Doug would tell him he wasn’t needed anymore. Yet every Saturday, they asked him to show up on the corner the next week. He didn’t want to start counting on it, but $75 a day for weekdays and $100 for Saturdays was turning out to be the best gig he’d had in a long while.

Things with Phee were still going strong, too. She let him buy groceries, and if they went out to a movie or to the sports bar, she would let him pay; otherwise she refused to take straight cash. Instead, she helped him open an account at the credit union. He even had an ATM card and didn’t have to carry all of his money around with him.

From time to time, JC would sit in Phee’s room on the mattress next to her, watching her work and sort of step outside himself. His gauge as to whether he was doing well had always been if he was warm, fed, clothed, and working. Compared to who he was before he lost everything, he was still barely making it. But having hit rock bottom, his ability to answer yes to all of the criteria instead of just two or three made him proud. Thanks to Phee, he was making it.

Even his mom remarked on how good he sounded the last time he had talked to her. It had been hard to keep in touch because pay phones were a thing of the past and few business owners would let a homeless kid come and hang out and talk on the phone. At the library, though, there were two payphone booths outside of the building. While Phee worked away inside, typing her admissions essays, JC got into the habit of calling his mom at work. She cried the first time. And the second time. By the third time, she could make it through the whole conversation without tearing up, but then she would start in on how she still loved him and was still proud of him and asked him to take care of himself, which always got him choked up. He would mumble his promises and a gruff ‘love you’ and hang up before his nose turned red and his eyes got wet. He lingered for a few minutes to make sure everything dried up before he went back inside.

After weeks of preparation, writing, typing, running all over town for information and research and letters of recommendation, Phee stuffed several manila envelopes with applications and essays and money orders for admissions fees and sent them off. As soon as they slid through the open slot for metered mail at the post office, she seemed to relax, even allowing herself a very rare public display of affection—she threaded her arm through his and leaned her head on his shoulder while they walked to the bus stop. After about half a block, JC pulled his hand from his pocket and, as if it were natural for them, she let her palm slide over his and their fingers intertwine. They’d never held hands before. He liked feeling her hand in his, to know that even this really strong, assertive person needed someone to lean on, now and then.

“JC?”  They were a few blocks from the bus stop, enjoying their new hand-holding habit. “Do you have… like… plans?”

“Plans?” JC stared down at her, keeping pace. “Plans for what?”

“For… I mean, I know you don’t believe in having dreams and thinking about tomorrow, but you’re kind of living week to week with the construction job. Things are pretty stable for you, right now—“

“Thanks to you.”

She smiled and ducked her head. “Stop. I just thought I could help you.”

“And wouldn’t leave me alone until I let you. And look how things have worked out. Pretty good, right?’

“Yeah.” She was quiet, chewing on her lip, a tell-tale sign. JC sighed and rolled his eyes upward. Did he want to ask, or let it go?

Ask I guess.

“Okay, what do you mean by plans?”

“I mean, what are you going to do with your life? Are you going live in my room and work day labor for the next year? Two years? What happens when you’re not Jeff’s golden boy anymore?”

It wasn’t like he hadn’t thought about it, but the way she was asking was affecting his heart rate.

“Well. I figure I’ll do what I’m doing until I can’t, anymore. And by then I’ll have some money saved up and I can coast for awhile. Are you kicking me out?”

They had reached the bus stop and sat on the bench to wait for the next bus. She huffed a breath and rolled her eyes. “No, I’m not kicking you out. But why are you content? Don’t you want more?”

“Phee…” He shook his head, sucked in a deep breath and exhaled it out, out, all the way out of his lungs before he continued. He had to say this the right way.

“I keep trying to tell you. I had more. I lost it. All of it. What makes you think I deserve that back?”

“It’s not a matter of deserving it back, JC. It’s a matter of knowing that you can do better than you’re doing now. You can be at a better place than where you are right now. No one is saying you can go back to your old life—“

“Good, because that’s not possible,” he said, trying not to snap at her. “I’m doing the best I can, right now. I know your nature is to push, but just… back off, alright?”

He avoided looking at her, because he knew she was wearing the gloss off of her bottom lip from chewing on it. It was going to be another tense evening. They were having more of them lately.

He felt it in his bones, knew it was coming and was trying to prepare for it. Phee was growing away from him, and he was powerless to stop it.