The next day Jenny Wade confirmed Steve Lucas's prediction. She cornered me in the high school's lobby. "Listen, I figured a way out of this mess. You cough up three hundred bucks and all is forgotten."
"Where am I going to get three hundred bucks?" I averted her gaze.
"That's not my problem. I need it by next Friday, Cabeache?"
I stared at my shuffling feet. "I don't have it."
"Listen Dick Wad," She mimed through a stiff upper lip. She grabbed my shirt and shoved me against the wall. "I don't care how you get it; I need three hundred bucks next Friday!"
The beginning of a moustache sprouted above her chapped lips. I thought of crabgrass in a cracked sidewalk. She is going to have a hella thick rug. "But, I…"
"Rob a bank or something." Jenny's mousy voice was deceptive "Ask your little bitch girlfriend," she sneered. "When this nightmare is over, remind me to tell you what a dead-end that bitch is; she's going to break your heart, and stomp on the pieces."
I was silent. Around us the lobby bustled. To a passing eye we looked like a couple eking a moment's privacy. "Three Hundred Bucks! Next Friday!" she released my shirt. The glimmer in her eye vanished. She turned away, disappearing into the tidal flow of bodies flowing down the halls.
As the days dwindled, Steve Lucas assumed the role of my conscious. "Man, don't fuck this up. She's leaving you off easy. You don't want her old man finding out. You'll be run out of town like your predecessor at 907 Cemetery Street."
"How did you know about that?" I cried.
"Nothing happens in this town that I don't know about," Steve Lucas boasted. "Anyway, don't worry about my snooping ass. Don't fuck this up," Steve warned - his eyes serious.
That evening, around the Ortolan's kitchen table, Diane asked, "What's wrong James?" I considered telling them. The words were forming on my lips when I changed my mind. Shannie studied me. She sighed and returned to sketching. Her work, a self-portrait, would eventually appear as the goddess Venus on a Feminist Jeweler's Website - an unknown entity in nineteen-ninety.
Later, sitting in my perch, I pondered my problem. My father and the Ortolans were out. So were the Millers. It was too late to ask Count. Bear and Flossy probably would help, if they had money to spare. Which left me with old man Lucas - the Detroit Lions had a better chance of winning the super bowl than I had of getting a nickel out of that corpse creamer. Bingo - the little twat himself - Steve Lucas, he saved every penny he ever made. So sure that my friend would bail me out that I fell into a deep dreamless sleep.