Working Without A Net
by Kirk Bjornsgaard

WORKING WITHOUT A NET

The shrill ring of the telephone jerked Matt from the bittersweet memoir. He sighed and let the New Yorker magazine slide to the bathroom floor. Randy was cradling the phone by the time Matt buttoned the fly of his bell-bottomed jeans and stepped into the service station office.
"It was Mrs. Henderson," Randy reported. "I told her you'd pick her up in 15."
Randy propped his motorcycle boots on a desk covered with too many payment-due notices and too few work orders. The high school kid's face bulged with a cheeseburger that added a fried-food stink to the smells of brake fluid and motor oil. Matt glowered. At least his tee shirt and jeans look like they've been washed in the last month. What the hell­­he's Bob's problem!
"You and Bob get your motorcycle together yet?" Matt asked.
"Engine's finished. I have to get the fenders painted and wire it up." Randy's smile vanished. "What do you care?"
Wariness seized Matt. "You and my partner have had our service bay tied up with that bike all summer."
"And all summer, you been takin' like you didn't think we'd never get it done."
Matt leaned against the cigarette machine. The memoir's narrative structure bobbed in his brain. The kid perceives those around him in his own fashion­­in his own point of view. "Randy, I ought to make you the lead character in the screenplay I'm writing."
Randy's frown vanished. "Cool! We talkin' real money?"
"My writing professor at the community college knows an agent in LA." Matt narrowed his eyes through dusty plate glass windows. The summer sunset formed an orange halo behind Decatur's post office. Maybe he can help me write my way out of this dump.
"Make me into the guy in that new movie, boss­­Easy Rider!"
Matt chuckled. From the time he first held a pencil, he had transcribed tales from his imagination. First, he entertained schoolmates during show-and-tell, and then earned extra credit in high school. But in the four years since graduation, admitting to his creative writing felt like confessing some kinky pastime, at best. "But doesn't he get killed at the end?"
Randy's grin radiated little joy. "Might beat workin' here."
They were interrupted by the clang of the bell hose; a car had rolled to a stop at the two gasoline dispensers. The desk chair squealed and Randy's boots hit the concrete floor. "Ah, get lost!" he snorted.
Matt followed Randy outside. "That's one way to end my story," he said. "You snarl at the lady behind the wheel, she smiles in reply, and the next thing I know, you're beside her in the front seat and rolling out of town."
Randy grinned. "I like the way you think, boss!" He glanced back toward the service bay. "But I'm gonna ride that bike outta here when I go."
Matt waited while Randy received instructions from the driver and began pumping the gas into the late-model sedan. "So, what's the point of a motorcycle besides some dangerous fun?" he asked.
The kid stared as if certain Matt was kidding. "Same as your screenplay, boss! To get the hell out of Pennsylvania."
For the second time that evening, Matt understood that he had misjudged his partner's employee.
"I mean, I dig working here," Randy went on, "but between you and me, when I get that bike finished, I'm gonna grab all the cash I can lay my hands on and split."
Matt shot a glance at the cash register inside the office. He hoped Randy did not notice.
He hadn't. He was still talking. "Gonna go to the West Coast, where dreams and bikes don't need mufflers. Get as far away from my folks and this town as I can without crossing an ocean. Try working without a net."
"Working without a net?" Matt savored the words as he repeated them, as if they had come from a favorite writer.
Randy clicked off the gas nozzle and hung it up. "Don't you need to be gettin' after Mrs. Henderson?"
Matt shook his head, as if to clear it. "Rightsee you later, man." He gathered his keys and change purse from the office and stalked to the taxicab parked next to the building. From behind the wheel he studied Randy one more time­­wiping the customer's windshield with a dirty rag, scraping his belt buckle on the fender as he did so. Or, maybe Randy's just an idiot!
The notion rattled around in Matt's brain as he hustled across town in the saffron-colored sedan. and maybe the prospect of his quitting is simply more bad news. He thought about the regional recession, lingering like an economic head cold no one seemed to be able to medicate. Glancing at the decal on his windshield­­"1970 Decatur Chamber of Commerce"­­Matt finished the thought: Maybe this business enterprise isn't as wise as Bob and I thought.
Easing the car to the curb in front of a brick apartment building, his mood soured further. I wonder what old lady Henderson's piss-off is going to be tonight? I'm sick of her complaints about "the colored" moving into her neighborhood and the Mexican families that Decatur's meatpacking plants keep bringing in. I just hope she's pissed off in a half-interesting way that I can steal to help me develop story characters.
He held open the back door for the frail woman. She wore a blue dress and hobbled from the lobby on an aluminum cane. He had always guessed her ailment to be arthritis but she carried herself with a gentle step that suggested grace and breeding foreign to her rundown abode. Could be she's an heiress left to fend for herself after the ex-husband screwed away the family fortune. He logged fantasies about his regular customers in a large spiral-bound notebook he kept on the front seat at all times. Matt rarely engaged his passengers in conversation anymore. Their mundane truths, like Mrs. Henderson's bigotry, only frustrated him.
From the back seat, Mrs. Henderson said, "I'm going to Harter's Restaurant."
"Yes, ma'am." Matt had parked so that the cab was pointed in that direction. Mrs. Henderson always went to Harter's storefront cafeteria on Saturday evenings. The night she doesn't, we can wake up Sunday morning with the sun rising in the west! The trip was worth 80 cents and she never tipped. He glumly accepted the exact change and helped her out of the back seat when they arrived. Nothing more to write about HER!
Instead of driving off, Matt sat behind the wheel and stared hard at the crescent moon. The uneven roll of the engine sounded like the distant drums of unhappy natives. My problem isn't my regulars. The problem is that I'm playing it safe­­using the cab as back up while I go to school and try to sell my writing. It feels too much like I'm working with a net!
Randy's voice crackled over the two-way radio. "Matt, after you're clear with Mrs. Henderson, you have a pick-up in front of Kinder's Bar and Grill."
Matt groaned. "The bar hoppers are starting early tonight," he said.

His flippancy evaporated when he rolled up in front of the tavern and saw a man slap a woman's face. Her head snapped back and her hands flailed as if she were electrocuted. She had been gesturing, trying to explain something, Matt guessed. The man glanced up, locked eyes with him, and then grabbed the woman by her right shoulder and dragged her to the car. Matt wrapped his left hand around a lug wrench on the floor. He had thought about getting a gun but had settled for the wrench to help even the odds.
The man yanked open the back door and shoved to woman onto the seat. He slammed the door with enough force to rock the vehicle. She laid on the seat, weeping in short, breathy bursts. The rotund man's face filled the front passenger window. "Ridge Trailer Court," he barked. "She'll show ya where­­if she sobers up long enough to remember where she lives!"
The woman issued a piercing wail.
Matt kept his gaze locked on the man. A stale stink of beer and cigarettes invaded the cab, making it hard not to blink. "Shouldn't come to more than four dollars," he said.
The man grimaced, then reached into a pocket and threw a five-dollar bill onto the seat. "Just get her outta here!"
As he walked back to the bar, the woman popped up like a Jill-in-the-Box. "Pig!" she screamed. "I'll getcha for this, ya pig!"
The man lurched around like a wounded rhino. Matt floored the accelerator and with both hands spun the wheel to the left to execute a "donut" in the middle of the street. A couple of cars swerved around him, horns honking. Once he straightened his steed and headed north, out of town, he grabbed the radio microphone. "Delivery to Ridge Trailer Court, Randy."
Matt felt his face redden as the woman began weeping again. He realized his take-off had bounced her to the floor. "I-I doe wanna go there!" she blubbered.
"It's where your date told me to take you," he said.
The woman's laughter sounded like fingernails raked across the dashboard of his cab. She clambered onto her knees and hung over the back of the front seat. "Sammy's my husband. Common-law, anyways. He ain't no date!"
Matt's heart thudded in his chest. He glanced over and made a quick study of his fare. What's this one about? She was tall and thin, dressed in a satiny, powder blue cocktail dress with spaghetti straps. Her red hair was cut short and mussed from her encounter with "Sammy." Make-up too generously applied. The perfume scenting her bare shoulders purged Sammy's beer-and-cigarette signature. She was younger than Matt had originally figured. Mid-30s, maybe. Might even have been pretty before she started on her gin diet.
"You're dressed up like you're on a date," he said. "That's what I meant." His voice sounded awkward to his own ears.
"Why­­thank you!" she crooned.
Matt saw gratitude blossom in her drunken smile. His confidence grew. He displayed the tire iron. "I thought I was going to have to teach Sammy some manners!"
The woman's laugh crackled in his ear. "God! I wish't you'd a'done that!"
What's her tale? As with all the others, he felt the urge to ask, but resisted, fearful she would disappoint him. He glanced at the notebook. She hooks up with Sammy to escape her West Virginia hometown. She's desperate to get out of the holler when Daddy died after too many years' work in the coalmines. They come north to seek work but Sammy still won't marry her, because...
"Momma's just gonna kill me when I git back to the doublewide," the woman said through a sigh.
...because he insisted that her Momma come along with them, so he could get his hands on the insurance settlement she'd gotten from the coal company. Sammy can't hold a job; he drinks too much...
Matt's mental narrative short-circuited when the woman touched his shoulder. "Could you be a doll and stop at the roadhouse up here? I have t'buy a bottle for Momma. I told her I'd bring her a bottle and plum forgot when Sammy got so mean..."
Matt suddenly noticed he had forgotten to turn on the meter. I only ever do that for someone like Mrs. Henderson, where I already know the fare. He held up Sammy's five-spot. "How 'bout we let Sammy pay for Momma's bottle and we call this a free ride?"
"Use Sammy's money t'pay fer...oh! That's just trick!"
As Matt wheeled into the gravel parking lot of the rural bar, the woman caressed long fingernails through his hair. "Yer a doll, mister. One sexy doll..."

When he returned to the station, Matt was mildly surprised to see the tarmac alive with cars. Downtown Decatur was usually deserted by 9 o'clock on a Saturday night. Parking the cab, he went inside and immediately bought and consumed several breath mints from the candy machine with coins pilfered from the cash register. Sliding into the desk chair, he turned off the noisy rock'n'roll station Randy had dialed up on the office radio. Despite the White Horse whiskey galloping through his brain, he felt focused. Confident.
Five minutes. I'll give myself five minutes before I get the disinfectant spray and towels from the washroom and wipe down the back seat of the cab. Matt smiled as he pictured old Mrs. Henderson sitting where Sherry had performed her magic on him. Yeah, five minutes...clean it up...then go home and get to work in the notebook. Start organizing what to take and what to leave behind. He grew sanguine wondering if he would miss his hometown­­his mother, the business­­any of it­­after he had been gone for several months or years. Will anyone remember me?
Randy breezed in. "Where the hell have you been for the last hour?" He opened the cash register and disgorged dollars into it. "Did you turn off the two-way? I called you a dozen times!"
"I was entertaining a client."
Randy squinted at him. "That last pick-up­­"
"Was exactly that."
"Yer kidding! You scored in the freakin' cab?"
"Momma was waiting up in the doublewide so I drove around the back of the trailer park, behind the sewer plant. Best tip I ever got­­even though I had to spend it in the back seat."
If Matt had levitated to the ceiling, Randy could not have stared at him any harder. He finally slammed shut the cash register and laughed. "Let's try your story this way. You went to the bar, you parked, you went inside when the fare didn't come right out. Turns out the guy who called for the cab­­and it was a guy!­­wasn't ready to shove off yet. He buys you a couple of rounds before you take him home. Right?"
Matt forced a grin. "Can't fool you. How many fares I miss?"
"Yer gonna hear good from Mrs. Henderson! She called here three times from Harter's then said she was gonna call her daughter to come take her home. A couple bar hoppers called. I told 'em you got sick."
"Thanks, Randy."
The kid perched on the edge of the desk. "Yer in a hell of a mood tonight, boss."
The whine from the overhead fluorescent lights seemed to grow louder. Matt leaned back and clasped his hands behind his head. "Randy, I spend three mornings a week in a classroom, trying to learn how to become a writer. I go home at lunch and get all depressed that I have nothing to write about. I come in here, drive the cab, do the books for the business and get even more depressed. Then I go home and sleep. I never have the energy to go out after work with my buddies, most of whom I'm tired of being around. I'm finally old enough to go into the bars but every time I do, I know I'll turn into one of the bar hoppers if I stay here."
"Man! Are you drunk, or what?"
Matt pulled himself to his feet. He slowly put his change purse and cab keys in a desk drawer and locked it. "Randy, do you know anyone selling a motorcycle? I want to personally deliver my screenplay to the agent. I need to try working without a net."

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