“So, what are you willing to do?” I ask him. “If you’re going to stay here, I’ll help you, but only if you stop all the scamming and get a real job.”
“Oh, like the ‘real job’ you’ve got?” he asks. “Just invite me to one of your fights and I’ll see if I can’t get my new career off the ground. I can’t wait to work with my little bro!” he mocks.
“If I thought for a second that you had anything like the discipline and determination to fight, I’d train you myself,” I tell him. “That’s not going to happen, though.”
“Hold on a minute,” he says. “We’re just going to gloss right over that? What you do isn’t any more legal than what I do. Where you get off acting like you’re better than—”
“The difference is that I don’t trick anyone into fighting,” I tell him. “I don’t lie or make up stories to get through the door, and if someone wants to back out, that’s on them. The money I make, I make because people bet on me. They know that I get things done. It’s not even the same thing.”
“Potato, tomato,” he says. “It doesn’t matter, only…”
Why did I have a feeling there was another shoe just waiting to drop?
“What?” I ask curtly.
“Well,” he says. “I’m sure you noticed I don’t have my car[3] with me this time.”
“Yeah,” I answer. “I assumed you’d stolen it, though, so I wasn’t expecting to see it again anyway.”
“I didn’t steal it!” he protests. “It was on loan[4].”
“Uh huh,” I yawn. “Who loaned it to you?”
“Well, it was more of an ‘I borrowed it’ thing than a formal loan,” he says.
“Okay, so you stole it then,” I state.
“No—gosh, will you listen to me?” Chris says. “I was working with this guy who works at a dealership. We were doing a new take on the Spanish Prisoner, but when I got that bag of jewelry—”
“Hold on,” I tell him, rubbing my forehead. “So you’re telling me you got this guy to let you use one of the dealership’s car’s, you and him start scamming people together, at which point, you decide to then scam your partner?” I ask.
“In the business world, they call that initiative,” Chris says.
“In the real world, they call that twenty years in a cell with a large roommate,” I respond.
“I’m just trying to get back what’s mine,” Chris says ambiguously. “I know you think you had things hard growing up, but things were worse for me.”
“They were not!” I shout. “Even if they were—which, again, they’re not—that doesn’t entitle you to just start ripping off everyone you meet.”
“Oh right,” he says. “You know you were mom’s favorite.”
“Mom’s favorite was a half-gallon bottle of cheap vodka, with a splash of Everclear in every shot,” I snap back. “What does that have to do with anything anyway?”
“I’m just saying that you and I grew up in different worlds and mine’s not easy to get out of[5], you know?” he asks.
“If you’re trying to get out, I’ll help you get out,” I tell him, “but I’m not going to let you con me into thinking you’re going to change when we both know you’ll just look for the first chance to take a shortcut.”
“Then what do you want from me?” he asks. “If wanting to get out is the only way you’ll trust me, but you wouldn’t trust me if I said I wanted to get out, where exactly does that leave me? You’re going to just throw your own brother out onto the—”
Line: crossed.
“Do you know how many times I’ve taken you in?” I ask. “I’m only twenty-one and you’ve already used up more chances than most people get in a lifetime.”
“Whatever, dude,” he says and finally stands. He walks over to me and I’m almost expecting him to throw a punch, but he just reaches out and grabs at the remote control in my hand.
“Let go,” he says.
“We’re