Free Brief Encounters with the Enemy by Saïd Sayrafiezadeh Page A

brought him. He took motor oil. He took nail polish remover. He took apples and oranges.
    About an hour later, I tracked down Joey Joey in the break room, talking to three cashiers. He had his feet up on the chair like he owned the place, like an asshole. When he saw me, he stood up and saluted. The girls laughed. Jenna and Haley and Lisa Marie. He was putting on a show for them.
    “I’m going to need your help with something,” I said.
    “You got it, cap’n!” he said.
    He calls me “cap’n” all the time and I’m not sure what he intends by it other than to irritate or possibly humiliate me. When he isn’t calling me “cap’n,” he’s calling me “sarge” or “colonel.” It might have been tolerable if there’d been some trace of irony in his voice. We’re friends, after all, we grew up together, we played Little League together, we graduated from high school together. But I’ve been promoted three times and he’s remained an associate. “You know why, right?” he said once. “It’s because you’re good-looking.” No, it’s because I’m more diligent than he, more industrious, and somewhat more intelligent. It’s also because while I was working my way up at Walmart—beginning with cleaning the bathrooms—he was selling prescription drugs, dressing as if every night was prom night, carrying a roll of money the size of a baseball, and driving around the city in an SUV with ROAD TO THE RICHES hand-lettered on the side. He was sure that this was it, that he had found his calling and the good times would never end. But the good times ended when he got arrested and the fear of God was put in him. I went to visit him twice at the county jailwith Chip, who also went all the way back to Little League. A window with fingerprints separated us and we had to talk over a telephone, Chip and I taking turns. There was a disconcerting hitch in the mechanism so that Joey Joey’s lips moved before I heard the words in the receiver. It was like I was watching a movie that had been dubbed in English. He was wearing a baggy green shirt and an ID bracelet, and if you didn’t know any better, you would have thought he was a patient in a hospital, which I guess in some ways he was. He had a small bruise on the side of his head, and when I asked him how he had come by it, he told me he’d dropped a dumbbell lifting weights. It was a story I found hard to believe, since he’d never worked out in his life. He spoke at length about his innocence, about how it was all a misunderstanding. He was facing six to eight years, but he managed to affect an assertive, nonchalant voice, highly enunciated designed to persuade the authorities who were presumed to be listening in on the conversation (which may have accounted for the delay on the telephone). But his eyes were the opposite of confident; they were wide, white, and tense. The next time Chip and I went to visit, the warden had locked down the jail and visiting hours were suspended. We left Joey Joey twenty dollars on his account, along with a porno magazine. Not long after, he went to court with a decent lawyer and pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor. He ended up serving eight months. Ever since then he’s had some catching up to do.
    At six o’clock I left the store with my spreadsheets and a cup of coffee. “See you tomorrow, Mr. McDonough,” the cashiers called out sycophantically.
    A long line of customers was filing in with their shoppingcarts and their babies and I had to jostle my way to get through. It was chilly outside but getting warmer day by day. It had been a rough winter and now we were hoping for a nice spring. The clocks had just been set ahead and the sunshine was pleasant but disconcerting. It made me feel like the last ten hours spent indoors had been doubly squandered. I drove my car around to the back where the garbage dumpsters stood in a row. No one was around. No one had any business being around. I turned on the radio and drank my coffee