Tomorrow Isn’t Friday
Bob Thurber

Bob Thurber, who works full time at writing and
part time at not much else, has published work in
Zoetrope All-Story Extra, ELIMAE, Z End Zine, The
Melic Review, The Providence Journal, In
Posse Review, and Linnaean Street. His “2
Small Fictions” received the Spring 2000 issue
Linnaean Street Award for Excellence and Clarity in
Writing. He has additional work forthcoming in
Winedark Sea, and a fiction anthology from Agony
Press. He lives with his wife and children in
Southeastern Massachusetts. Contact him
at bthurber@ix.netcom.com
©Copyright 2001
Bob Thurber

The first time ma’s quick change scam flubs I’m in a liquor store
down on Gano Street. The clerk says sorry and right away I get
confused. I don’t panic, not exactly, but my head rocks unsteady for
a beat while my heart starts clanging like there’s a buoy bell
bobbing between my lungs. So I backtrack. I rewind. I pocket the
fifty and I excuse myself and step to one side, allowing a lady
customer to cash and carry while I swallow a giant mouthful of
refrigerated air.
When she leaves I follow. We exit into the soft heat together and
I watch her get into her car, then I try coming in again. But I’m too
buzzed. I’m too high. Twice I make the electric eye on the door
announce my reentry, and twice I approach the register, and twice I
begin from the beginning, trying to make fast change with the clerk,
a dork with thick, black rimmed glasses who amazingly turns out to
be less stupid than he looks. He stares at my crisp fifty and my fake
I.D., grinning like we went to scam school together. A sign
suspended on a chain tells it all: No Credit. No checks. No Rest
Rooms. No Phone. No Change.
He’s about my age, almost my height and weight, with a bowl cut
hair style and a round face pink with pimples. Who knows, maybe
he toe-taps a buzzer, or fingers a switch that causes sirens and
flashing lights to go off in the rear of the store, because in no time a
tall silver-haired man comes out of the back, sizing me up, watching
me mope. I tour the beer and wine section for the fifth or sixth
time, flip-flapping my fifty against my phoney license; I start to
sweat. I strike a pose for the security cameras. Then I have a flash
of watching myself being handcuffed on some idiot cop show. The
old guy slants his caterpillar eyebrows. “Problem, son?”
I think he’s talking to me because at me is where he is looking.
All my standard excuses start spinning in my brain.
But the kid behind the counter answers, “No problem, Mister
Sirois,” hiding half his face behind a fat paperback with a green
dragon on the cover. He is mouthing something to the old man and
suddenly my high is 98% worn off. I blow a middle finger kiss to
one of the cameras. To be safe, I stack a dollar in quarters on the
counter and snap a 99 cent bag of cashews from the rack. I walk
home. The elevator is still out of order. I climb four flights in the
heat, tonguing cashew crud from my teeth.
Ma’s TV is off and she’s knitting in front of the whisper fan which
is streaming warm air on high, lifting her lacquered hair up up and
away like a wing. She doesn’t look at me, doesn’t say hi. She works
her needles, unraveling yarn from one of Dad’s old sweaters.
I go into the kitchen, and splash water on my face. I make a cup
with my hands and slurp a mouthful. Then I splash more water on
my neck and on my eyes and I run my wet hands though my hair. I
go back and stand in the doorway, I comb my hair with my fingers
and listen to the sound the knitting needles make.
In a minute she says, “Did you forget what day it is?”
I don’t answer.
“It’s Friday,” Ma says.
“I know.”
“You got anything for me.”
I shake my head.
“You don’t?”
“Not today.”
“Why is that?”
“I’ll have something for you tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow isn’t Friday,” Ma says.
I walk over and turn on the TV, then fall down on my cot. “We’re
shoplifting at the mini-mart in the morning. Kelly and me. Kelly’s
my diversion. We’ll bring you back those little powdered donuts you
like.”
I check all four channels eight times, then I shut the TV off. Ma
knits slow and steady. I stretch out on my cot and think about
kicking my shoes off. On the floor by her chair the sleeve of my
father’s sweater spins and disappears.
Ma says, “Shut that damn TV off if you’re not watching it, please.”
“It’s off.”
“You aren’t paying the bills and I can feel it heating up the room.”
“The TV is off,” I say.
“Thank you,” Ma says.
Ten seconds later Kelly stumbles in with a man wearing bib
overalls. 
“Don’t help me,” Kelly says.
He looks ill, like he died once already. Roco is stitched in looping
script across the wide pocket.
“Jamie, give Roco your bed.” she says to me.
The man has blotches all over his face, and a sore on his lip and
a dime-size scab in the hinge of his arm. He’s a putrid fellow, at
least a full generation older, with a clean shaven skull.
I tell Kelly, “Don’t you drop that sack of shit in my bed.”
“Watch your mouth,” Ma says. “He’s still a guest.”
“Screw him. Let him sleep on the floor,” I say.
Roco perks his chin up. His eyes are slits. “En Ef Double you,
Jack!”
“What’s he saying to me?”
“Short for No Fucking Way.” Kelly says.
“Who is he,” Ma says.
“He’s a poet I found.” says Kelly.
“Where’d you find a poet?”
“He fed me supper and watched me eat.”
I’m feeling in my jeans for my knife, but I’m not finding it.
“En Ef Double you, Jack. En Ef Double you!” Roco says.
I feel my neck heating up.
“He has an ATM card,” Kelly says. “I watched him use it.”
Ma is chuckling while she knits.
Kelly nearly drops him. “You could help me Jamie! You jerk!”
“Help your sister with her new friend,” Ma says.
I step away from the cot. Kelly drags Roco forward a step as she
struggles to hold him up. She’s taller by almost a foot. He’s thin and
hard to look at; and already his sore is oozing something that could
be blood.
“Shit, shit, shit,” I say.
“Put ‘chu right down here,” Kelly says.”There you go, there you
are, honey.”
“Easy Jack, Easy,” Roco says.
“Who in hell is Jack?” Ma says.
Kelly untangles her arm. There’s blood on her fingers. “He calls
everybody that.”
Roco folds down awkwardly into himself. Kelly lifts his legs and
turns his head a little. For a moment he looks broken on the bed;
then she pushes his knees higher, arranges him in a fetal position.
“Roco? You still with us, baby?” His overalls are trapped, caught
awkwardly beneath him, and his wallet is
popping, his wallet is just bursting to get
out.