Previously In Favor For A Favor: 15-year-old Erica visits her 24-year-old brother Jesse in rehab where he asks her to do him a favor in exchange for a favor named by Erica at a later date. But first she has to do Jesse’s favor…
The fact that Erica’s 24-year-old brother still lived with his parents was a frequent topic of conversation between Jesse and their Dad. Personally, Erica wanted him to move out so she could take his bedroom. Not only did Jesse have the larger room, he had the one with a window that opened out onto the roof. Jesse used it to sneak out all the time. Erica would use it to stargaze.
Today, though, Erica thanked God that she could just go into Jesse’s room and get what she needed and didn’t have to figure out how to break into an apartment or something. Erica’s Dad had dropped her off and headed to work not five minutes ago from their little trip to see her brother and she was already up the stairs and in her brother’s room.
Despite her brother’s absence for the last two weeks the place still had a dank smell to it, like the inside of a catcher’s mitt or something. There was no denying her brother had a permanent funk that managed to linger in his room. She opened a window before continuing her search.
Now with breathable air and the house to herself she set to searching. Her brother had to be desperate to both agree to a favor of her choosing and give her the combination to the lock on his filing cabinet. She recognized the number as a date. It took her most of the ride home to figure out that it was Lesley’s birthday.
Lesley had been the closest Jesse ever got to moving out. She and Jesse had been an item for almost a year. Jesse had been serious about her. Or as serious as he got. He spent about half the nights of the week over at Lesley’s place. She got him a job working at her Dad’s lumber yard. But he couldn’t adjust his lifestyle. Calling out the morning after an all night bender became more frequent. And then one day last October Jesse had been driving a forklift and accidentally put the forks right through a customer’s parked pick-up truck. After any accident, everyone involved gets alcohol and drug tested. Jesse blew a 0.08. When he got home and told Lesley what happened she dumped him. And after some legal finagling by his court appointed attorney, Jesse got sent to court mandated rehab.
Erica wondered if Jesse had just never bothered to change the combination or if he still held hope for a reconciliation with Lesley. The room might be hers yet.
Now Erica selected the correct combination, the lock popped open, and she removed it, swinging the locking mechanism out of the way. She opened the third drawer down as her brother had instructed. Underneath a stack of comic books, she found an envelope stuffed with cash. Right where he said it would be. She pulled the envelope out of the filing cabinet.
The envelope was not sealed. She peaked inside. And saw that she was holding more money in her hands than she ever had before in her life. She quickly stuffed the envelope in her inside coat pocket.
Then she opened the second drawer. She could identify the bags with what looked to her like green moss as marijuana. She had no idea what the bags of little pink pills were. He also had a scale and small empty bags. It was like a drug dealer starter kit, Erica thought, amused. She shut that drawer and the drawer she’d retrieved the money from. Now she opened the top drawer and wished she hadn’t.
It was underwear. Women’s underwear. Like a dozen or so pairs. Were these, ew, souvenirs from her brother’s conquests? Ick. She shut the drawer reflexively and swung the locking mechanism back into place. She grabbed the lock and had just slipped the combination lock back on when she decided to look in the bottom drawer.
She took the lock off again, swung open the locking mechanism, and opened the bottom drawer.
It wasn’t the same gun Jesse had hidden in her room a couple of years before. This one was sleek and small. Not a revolver. An automatic? That’s what she thought they were called.
Amal’s house was ‘the mint chocolate chip house.’ This is what Jesse referred to it as. The two story house in South Tacoma had been painted chocolate brown with mint green accents. With the notable exception of the paint job, it looked like every other house on the block.
Nice lawn. Nothing in the yard. You’d never know Jesse’s drug connect lived here. Or that the place was apparently dangerous according to Jesse.
Erica looked at it from the passenger seat of Simone’s Taurus as she parked across the street. The windows had curtains across them. It wasn’t exactly Simone’s. Her Mom just let her drive it. Erica had only told Simone she needed to stop by a place to do her brother a favor. She didn’t like involving Simone, but needed a ride.
“That’s the place?” Simone asked.
“Yeah. Thanks for doing this.”
“No problem. Want me to go in with you?” Simone said, putting the car in park and turning it off.
“No. I want you to call the police though if I’m in there for more than five minutes,” Erica said.
“Seriously?”
“If I’m there for more than five minutes something has gone very wrong.”
“Oh,” Simone said. “I thought this was going to take longer. I’ll call Kyle and tell him to meet us at Crossroads in twenty minutes. I can see if his friend, Chris can join us. I know you like him.”
“I don’t like him,” Erica said while getting out of the car. “I just like him better than Kyle.”
“Good. Because Kyle’s mine,” Erica heard her friend say, she looked back at her friend who was already on the phone.
As Erica approached the house, she tried to anticipate potential problems. She heard her dad’s voice in her head.
“You got to deliver a package to someone you don’t know who could be anything from the world’s friendliest dude to Osbama bin Laden. How do you guarantee they don’t just kill you, take the package, and move on with their day?”
Dressed in jean, t-shirt, and a denim jacket, she reached inside the jacket to pull out the envelope. Sure, Jesse had told her not to go into the place, but she expected that maybe Amal won’t want to do his business on a residential porch where anyone can see. She’d never actually met Amal. No matter what though, the exchange shouldn’t take more than five minutes.
She hopped up the steps to the porch, opened the screen door and knocked.
After about thirty seconds, a short, stocky guy in his thirties with a buzzed bald head and a bushy mustache opened the door. Erica matched his height.
“Whadayouwant?” He said as all one word.
“You Amal?”
“Nah. Name’s Chet. Who’re you?”
“I’ve got a package for Amal.”
Chet looked Erica up and down.
“You got a package? I’ll say. Whatchyu got for Amal? How about you give it to me instead. I tell Amal all about it.”
Erica’s heart beat so loud she could feel it in her ear. Could he hear it? Her right hand went towards her outside coat pocket instead of the envelope in the inside pocket, but stopped when she head another voice from inside.
“Who’s at the door?” the deep voice sounded annoyed.
Chet rolled his eyes.
“Some girl. Says she’s got something for you.”
With that, Chet walked away from the doorway and back into the house seemingly uninterested in whatever happened next. She thought to step in, but remembered her brother’s words. She shouldn’t go in unless she has to. She gave a look towards Simone who remained on the phone with Kyle, oblivious.
When Erica turned back a man, at least 40 years old, dressed head to toe in a matching blue tracksuit with white lines going down it. He wore sunglasses despite being inside and had his black hair slicked back. He seemed to be in the middle of sizing her up like Chet had. Unlike Chet, this man had a build more like her Uncle Stu, who had played college football in the 1980s.
“You got something for me, honey?”
“Are you Amal?”
“Yeah. And you’re Jesse’s kid sister, right? C’mon in.”
Erica hesitated, but walked in. Chet appeared from nowhere and shut the front door. Was Chet like this guy’s butler or something?
“Haven’t heard from your brother in a while and now you show up. Must be a story.”
The place reeked of pot smoke. A joint lay slowly burning in an ashtray on the glass coffee table. Amal flung himself back into his leather couch.
“Take a seat,” Amal said. “Tell me where Jesse’s been and why he’s sending his sweet little sister to do his business.”
Erica remained standing. She reached into her inside coat pocket slowly and pulled out the envelope. She placed it on the glass coffee table.
“Jesse’s out of town for a while. He asked me to drop this off. That’s what I’m doing. I gotta go. A friend’s waiting for me in her car.”
When Amal did not initially respond and she saw Chet still standing by the shut front door she added, “Other people know I’m here.”
She was trying not to sound scared and probably failing.
Amal held his hands up in mock surrender. “Honey, you’re safe. I just need Chet here to count the money make sure we’re correct before we send you on your way. Don’t want no misunderstandings.”
Amal picked up the joint on the table and took a hit. Chet dutifully grabbed the envelope, yanked the money out of the envelope, and walked off, letting the envelope fall to the floor.
Amal grabbed the joint out of the ashtray and took a hit. He heled the smoke in and offered the joint to Erica. Erica shook her head. He blew the smoke out directly at Erica.
“Your name’s Erin, right?” Amal said.
“Erica,” she corrected.
“Erica, okay. Listen, Erica, you’re making this into a thing it isn’t. Just chill. Relax. Get a little hight. And let my little man count. You and I can get to know each other.”
Erica didn’t move. She stayed standing.
“I really gotta get back to my friend,” Erica said noticing that with Chet counting the money, the path to the front door was open.
“You could invite your friend in. We could all have a real good time.” Amal suggested, then said a quieter, “I know Chet seems lame. Get a few drinks in him and he’s a blast.”
Erica began to come up with another excuse to leave when Chet’s voice from the other room interrupted her.
“PROBLEM!” Chet bellow. “GOT A PROBLEM HERE!”
Erica’s felt sweat in the small of her back and on her head. Her right hand went into her pocket and felt the weight of the pistol she’d brought with her. She had no idea what Chet had found and didn’t care.
Suddenly Amal got on his feet. His pleasant demeanor gone. He eyed her suspiciously.
“What did you-” Amal began just as Chet walked in holding the small stack of cash like it was evidence. Amal turned his attention to Chet.
“What’s the problem?” Amal asked
“Thirty five hundred dollars here,” Chet said as if that explained everything. He dumped the cash back on the table.
Amal and Chet looked at Erica accusingly. Erica furrowed her brow. She didn’t take her hand out of her pocket.
“I don’t understand,” Erica said. “What’s the problem?”
“Like you don’t know?” Amal said. “There’s supposed to be four thousand five hundred dollars there. So…what? You and your friend thought you’d just steal a thousand bucks from your brother?”
Erica took a step towards the door. Had it been five minutes yet? Chet stepped over to block her way. She looked at Amal.
Amal walked closer to her. At this range she couldn’t miss if she pulled the trigger in her coat. But so far nothing had happened. And she didn’t want to shoot anyone. She just wanted to leave.
“I don’t care if you steal from Jesse. Go for it. But that money isn’t your brother’s, honey,” Amal said as he got within arm’s reach. “It’s mine. And no one steals from me.”
His brown eyes stared daggers into hers. He seemed so sure that she’d stolen it that she tried to imagine some scenario where a thousand dollars fell out of the envelope. Did Jesse set her up? That seemed impossible. Then she remembered the contents of the second drawer.
“I think,” Erica said, still putting it together herself, “that Jesse had to leave town before he could sell all the pot and pills you gave him to sell and that’s why the money is short.”
She took her hand out of her pocket. A nice simple explanation solves the whole thing. She turned away from Amal and walked towards the door confident that Chet would let her pass. Mission accomplished.
“He’ll get you the rest when he gets back- Hey!”
Amal had grabbed her from behind in a hug and lifted her up off her feet. She tried to break free, but he held her too tight. It hurt and he wasn’t letting her go.
“What are you doing here, girl? You wearing a wire? You come in here talking about drugs?”
Chet began to approach them. Erica kicked her legs.
“Put me down!” she yelled. Amal promptly did as he was told. Dropping her, causing her to fall on her butt. Jesse’s gun fell out of her coat and though she went to grab it Amal got to it first.
Erica slowly got to her feet. She heard Chet laugh and saw Amal with Jesse’s gun in his hand. He examined it. Erica wanted to run or hide or dive through a window or anything, but she couldn’t move from the floor. Her blood seemed suddenly ice cold. She hoped Simone had called the cops.
Amal took his eyes off the gun and looked at Erica.
“Want me to check her for a wire?” Chet asked. Amal ignored him.
“This your gun?” Amal asked.
“J-Jesse’s,” was all Erica could manage to say.
Amal nodded as if they’d somehow just made a deal.
“Well no way they send you in here with a gun if they send you in with a wire.”
Erica slowly got to her feet.
“This is a nice piece,” Amal said, then put it in the pocket of his track suit. “Tell Jesse we’re even.”
Amal walked her to the front door.
When Erica got to the car she found Simone on her phone, oblivious to anything that had just occurred. Erica got into the passenger seat without a word. She knew she should be mad or at least on some level annoyed with Simone having not paid attention to what was going on at all, but she didn’t feel that. All she felt was the same dumb, cold shock she felt at the moment she saw Amal pick up that gun.
When Jesse came back to rehab two weeks later and Erica told him what had happened, Jesse shook his head and said, “I’m sorry, chipmunk.”
She sat on his bed while he meticulously rolled a joint on top of the filing cabinet.
“Amal’s a good guy, but paranoid.”
“When he grabbed me off the ground and then dropped me and he got the gun I froze. I just froze. I couldn’t-” Erica didn’t finish. Jesse stopped what he was doing, walked over to her, and motioned for her to stand up.
He gave her a big warm hug.
“I just- I don’t want to be in another situation like that.”
“You won’t,” Jesse said. “I promise.”
They ended their embrace. Jesse smiled at her mischievously and said, “That’s two guns you’ve lost me now.”
Erica grinned right back at her brother and said, “Let me know when you get another one.”
NEXT: Josh and Erica has out their problems. One way or another.
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