Blues for Zoey by Robert Paul Weston Read Free Book Online

something. He looked ac ross the parking lot at the liquor store.
    â€œOkay, I’ll do it. But you have to understand that what yo u’re asking me to do here is break the law. So I think some compensation is in order.”
    â€œYeah, ” said B-Man, who had obviously caught on. “Twenty bucks!”
    A-Man agreed. “Sounds about right.”
    â€œYou mean twenty bucks for the beer, and then y ou guys keep the change?”
    A-Man smiled at me like I was a child. “I mean you give me the money for whatever moonshine hooch you kids drink these days, and for the service of me buying it, you give B-M an and myself twenty bucks. Ten each, okay?”
    I looked over at Calen. “You got ten extra bucks? I’ll split it with you.”
    Calen shook his head. “He wants twenty bucks ?”
    â€œIt’s your fault,” I told him. “You never should’v e grown a moustache. I mean, tried to .”
    He sneered at me. “This was your idea. If you want to get this guy to shop for us, then y ou pay him. I’ll pay for the beer, that’s all.”
    â€œTell you what,” said A-Man. “ We’ll roll for it.”
    I knew this was coming.
    Calen squinted at me. “What does he mean, ‘roll for it’?”
    â€œDice,” I said. “It’s how A-Man decides everything.”
    â€œ Die ,” A-Man corrected. “It only takes one.”
    He turned to B-Man, who reached into a zippered pocket in his bomber jacket. His grubby hand came out with a little white cube.
    â€œ Put out your hand,” A-Man told me.
    I did, and B-Man dropped the die into the pit of my palm. I was surprised to see that the pips on each side were n’t simply spots. Each one was a tiny black-and-white whorl, a yin-yang symbol.
    â€œWhaddaya want?” A-Man asked. “Even or odd?”
    â€œOdd.”
    â€œYou got it. If y ou roll an odd number, you win. I’ll buy you whatever poison you want for free. No sur charge. But you roll an even number, and it’ll cost you the extra thirt y.”
    â€œWait, before you said twenty.”
    A-Man nodded slowly. “I did, but the machine craves balance.”
    â€œThe what ?” Calen asked.
    I shrugged helplessly. “The machine.”
    It was A-Man’s pet name for the whole uni verse. To him, we humble humans were nothing more significant than dust, falling between the gears. I think this was his way of making sense of the randomness of life, the fact that there doesn’t seem to be any clear pattern to anything. But A- Man took the idea way too far. Basically, he didn’t see the point of making rational decisions. Instead, he rolled a die.
    â€œBalance?” I asked him. “Did n’t you tell me once that the machine doesn’t want anything, so why does it care about balance? And , how is it balanced if you suddenly charge us another ten bucks?”
    A-M an considered this with his usual calm. “All machines crave balance. An unbalanced machine stops wor king.” He tapped his chest with four long fingers. “I’m giving you something here: a chance. The original twenty was for the service, but now, by rolling for it, you get a fifty-fifty shot at beating the machine. To get something for free. That ’ll cost ten more. Total of thirty. Fifteen for me and fifteen for B.”
    I felt the twinge in my gut that always came from parting with hard-earned cash.
    â€œTwenty-five,” I said.
    A-Man shook his head. “Just roll the die. Let the machine decide. ”
    â€œFine, whatever.”
    I crouched down (dangerously close to Razor’s unpluggable sphincter). I sensed Calen and Alana, even Nomi, craning their necks to watch me. I wanted to put them out of their misery. I also wanted to stand up before Razor let one rip.
    So I rolled.

18
    Now for Those Next Two Letters (The Ones That Come after A and B)
    Both of Topher B riggs’s parents