For a little while, things almost felt normal.
Not normal like they used to be.
A different kind of normal.
Crystal was back in the house.
I was still getting up every morning and going to work.
Dre still called.
People still needed rides.
Money still showed up in my pocket that wasn't on any paycheck.
But somehow I'd gotten better at keeping everything in its own box.
At least that's what I thought.
Then one afternoon Dre called me with a problem that had nothing to do with rides.
"I need a job."
I laughed.
"I'm serious, JC."
"Doing what?"
"I don't give a fuck."
That made me laugh harder.
I'd never heard Dre sound so defeated by the idea of legitimate employment.
"What happened?"
"Probation."
That got my attention.
"What about it?"
"They on my ass."
I leaned against my car.
I'd just gotten off work and was standing in the parking lot, trying to decide whether I wanted to go straight home or grab something to eat first.
"What'd you do?"
"I ain't do shit."
"Obviously."
"Fuck you."
"So what's the problem?"
"I gotta pay these fines."
"Then pay them."
There was a pause.
"I can't just walk in there with a bunch of cash."
I understood what he meant.
"Why not?"
"You know why."
"I wanna hear you say it."
"JC."
I laughed.
"Come on. Say it."
"Fuck you. I'm hanging up."
"All right, all right."
He didn't hang up.
"So you need a job because you need to show where the money's coming from?"
"Basically."
That was different.
Most of what Dre needed from me involved a car.
This I could actually help with without wondering what was in somebody's pocket.
"We might be hiring."
"Doing what?"
"Same shit I do."
"Which is?"
"Concrete."
Dre went quiet.
"Hello?"
"I'm thinking."
"About what?"
"How much concrete?"
I laughed.
"Enough."
The place I worked wasn't anything glamorous.
We poured concrete for septic tanks and storm shelters.
Heavy shit.
Dirty shit.
The kind of job where you could take a shower after work, scrub yourself twice, and still find concrete dust somewhere on you later.
In the summer, it was hot as hell.
In the winter, everything was cold.
Your hands.
The tools.
The steel.
The concrete.
Everything.
Nobody showed up because it was their dream.
You showed up because they gave you a paycheck.
And Dre needed a paycheck.
More importantly, he needed paperwork saying he got one.
The next day I asked around.
"Got a buddy looking for work," I said.
"Any experience?"
"Not really."
That wasn't completely true.
Dre had experience working.
Just probably not the kind of experience they were asking about.
"He reliable?"
That question took me a second.
"Yeah."
It was strange having somebody else's reputation attached to mine.
Up until then, if Dre did something stupid, that was Dre.
If Smoke did something stupid, that was Smoke.
If Stackhouse did something stupid, that was Stackhouse.
But now I was putting my name behind somebody.
"Tell him to come in."
That easy.
I called Dre on my break.
"Come up tomorrow morning."
"For what?"
"What the fuck you think?"
"You got me the job?"
"I got you an interview."
"Same thing."
"No, it isn't."
"It is if they like me."
"That's what I'm worried about."
"Man, everybody likes me."
That was actually pretty close to true.
Dre could talk to anybody.
Young.
Old.
White.
Black.
Didn't matter.
He had that ability to make somebody feel like they'd known him longer than they had.
I'd seen him do it a hundred times.
Sometimes I wondered how much of it was real.
Eventually I realized that was the wrong question.
With Dre, it could be completely real in the moment.
That didn't mean it would matter tomorrow.
He showed up the next morning fifteen minutes early.
That surprised me.
What surprised me more was what he was wearing.
Work boots.
Jeans.
Plain shirt.
No flashy shit.
No jewelry other than a chain tucked underneath his shirt.
He looked almost respectable.
I met him outside.
"Look at you."
"What?"
"Nothing."
"Why you looking at me like that?"
"You look like you're going to work."
"I am going to work."
"We'll see."
"Fuck you, JC."
He followed me inside.
The interview wasn't much of an interview.
Can you show up?
Can you lift?
You got transportation?
Dre answered yes to all three.
Technically, only two of those answers were guaranteed.
The transportation question depended heavily on me.
Then came the question I knew was coming.
"Any issues with a background check?"
Dre leaned back.
"What kind of issues?"
The guy looked at him.
"The kind that show up on a background check."
Dre smiled.
"I mean, I ain't perfect."
I looked at the floor.
The guy laughed.
"None of us are."
"I'm on probation."
"For?"
Dre gave him the short version.
Very short.
Short enough that I almost wanted to hear the full story myself.
The guy nodded.
"You gonna have a problem showing up every day?"
"No."
"Probation appointments?"
"I got 'em."
"You tell us ahead of time, we'll work with you."
Dre looked at me.
I shrugged.
"All right," the guy said. "We'll give it a shot."
That was it.
Dre had a job.
His first day was Monday.
At 6:03 in the morning, my phone rang.
I knew who it was before I looked.
"What?"
"You coming?"
I sat up in bed.
"What the fuck are you talking about?"
"I'm outside."
I looked at the clock.
Then toward the window.
Sure enough, Dre was standing beside my car.
I laughed.
Crystal rolled over.
"Who is it?"
"Dre."
She opened one eye.
"Why?"
"Apparently he's ready for work."
She looked confused.
"Dre works with you now?"
I realized I hadn't told her.
"Oh. Yeah."
Both eyes opened.
"Since when?"
"Today."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"I forgot."
"You forgot your drug-dealer friend got a job with you?"
I put my pants on.
"He's not dealing drugs at work."
"That's reassuring."
"He's on probation. He needs a job."
Crystal sat up.
"Wait."
I looked at her.
"He actually got a real job?"
"Yeah."
"Like a paycheck?"
"That's usually how jobs work."
She threw a pillow at me.
I caught it.
"Asshole."
I tossed it back onto the bed.
"He has fines and shit. Probation wants him working."
Crystal seemed to think about that.
"That's actually good."
"See? Dre's turning his life around."
She gave me a look.
"I didn't say all that."
I laughed.
"I'm leaving."
"Be careful."
"I will."
"And don't bring half your job back here after work."
"What does that mean?"
"It means you know exactly what it means."
I smiled.
Then walked outside.
Dre was leaning against the passenger side of my car.
"You ready?" he asked.
"Why are you at my house this early?"
"We got work."
"You're way too excited about this."
"I got responsibilities now."
"You've had a job for zero days."
"Still counts."
We got in.
Halfway there, he fell asleep.
Working with Dre was different than hanging out with Dre.
At work, I got to see a version of him I'd never really seen before.
And to my surprise, he worked.
Actually worked.
He didn't stand around complaining.
Didn't disappear every twenty minutes.
Didn't act like he was above anything.
If somebody told him to shovel, he shoveled.
If somebody told him to clean something, he cleaned it.
The first time we poured a septic tank together, he looked into the form and shook his head.
"People shit in this?"
"Eventually."
"This big-ass thing?"
"That's generally the idea."
He stared at it.
"That's disgusting."
"You're the one who wanted a job."
"I didn't know we were building shit boxes."
"It's a septic tank."
"It's a concrete shit box."
I laughed.
"Grab the vibrator."
He looked at me.
"The what?"
"The concrete vibrator."
Dre smiled.
"Man, y'all got some freaky shit going on around here."
"Just grab it."
By lunch, everybody liked him.
Of course they did.
Dre had learned three people's nicknames, knew who was married, knew who hated the boss, and somehow had one guy offering to sell him a set of rims.
It took him four hours.
I'd worked there much longer and didn't know half that shit.
"You talk too much," I told him.
"It's called networking."
"It's called not shutting the fuck up."
"That's why you ain't got no connections."
I looked at him.
"I got you this job."
He paused.
"Okay, you got one connection."
Something else changed once Dre started working with me.
We spent more time together without doing anything illegal.
That might sound like it should've pulled me away from everything else.
In some ways, it did the opposite.
Before, Dre belonged to a separate part of my life.
I'd go to work.
Then I'd see Dre.
I'd come home.
Then I'd see Crystal.
There were lines.
Now Dre was there when I clocked in.
He was there at lunch.
He was there when we clocked out.
Most mornings, I picked him up.
Most afternoons, I dropped him off.
Sometimes we'd go straight home.
Sometimes we wouldn't.
And that's where things started getting blurry.
One afternoon we clocked out and got into my car.
I started toward Dre's place.
"Go straight," he said.
"Your place is left."
"I know."
"Where are we going?"
"Need to stop somewhere."
I looked at him.
"Dre."
"What?"
"I'm covered in concrete."
"So am I."
"I wanna go home."
"Five minutes."
"It's never five minutes."
"Ten."
"No."
"JC."
"What?"
He smiled.
"I'll give you fifty."
I looked at him.
"You're paying me to drive you after I just drove your ass to work?"
"Yes."
"That's stupid."
"Then do it for free."
I turned right.
Dre laughed.
"That's what I thought."
It was funny.
That's how it felt.
Funny.
Normal.
We were two guys getting off work.
Dirty clothes.
Work boots.
Concrete dust on our arms.
Except instead of stopping for beer or food on the way home, Dre sometimes had other stops to make.
And because we had just spent eight or ten hours doing legitimate work, those stops somehow felt less serious.
Like the workday had washed everything clean.
We had paychecks now.
Well, Dre had paychecks now.
He could show his probation officer where money came from.
He could pay his fines.
He could point to a job.
He could say he was doing what he was supposed to be doing.
And technically, he was.
That's another thing I learned.
People think you either live a normal life or you don't.
That's bullshit.
You can do both.
You can wake up early.
Punch a clock.
Bust your ass all day.
Pay taxes.
Complain about your boss.
Come home exhausted.
And still be doing things that could destroy your life.
One doesn't cancel out the other.
If anything, having a normal life can make the other one easier to hide.
Crystal liked the job.
Not mine.
Dre's.
That surprised me.
One evening, Dre came inside with me after work.
We were both filthy.
Crystal was in the kitchen.
She looked at us.
"Holy shit."
"What?" Dre asked.
"You actually worked."
Dre looked offended.
"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"
Crystal laughed.
"I've never seen you dirty before."
"I work."
"Apparently."
Dre held his hands out.
Concrete dust covered them.
"Honest living."
Crystal looked at me.
I started laughing.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"See?" Dre said. "She don't believe in me."
"I believe you went to work today."
"That's a start."
Crystal handed him a bottle of water from the refrigerator.
Dre took it.
"Thank you."
He sat at the kitchen table.
That was the first time I remember the three of us being together in the house and it not feeling tense.
Nobody was hiding anything.
Nobody was whispering in another room.
Nobody was sleeping on the couch unexpectedly.
We were just talking.
Dre told Crystal about the septic tanks.
Crystal laughed when he called them shit boxes.
He told her about one of the guys at work almost falling into a form.
I corrected half the story because Dre was exaggerating.
Dre told her I was full of shit.
She agreed with him.
For probably an hour, the house felt normal.
And I could tell Crystal saw something different too.
Dre wasn't just the guy who showed up with Smoke and Tone anymore.
He wasn't just the guy calling me at weird hours.
Now he was the guy who got up early and went to work with me.
That mattered.
Maybe more than any of us realized.
When Dre finally left, Crystal stood at the sink washing a glass.
"He's different at work."
"What do you mean?"
"I don't know."
She shrugged.
"Normal."
I smiled.
"I told you."
"Don't get excited."
"I'm just saying."
"I still don't trust everything he does."
"Neither do I."
She looked at me.
That answer seemed to surprise her.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"You think I trust everything Dre does?"
"Sometimes."
"I don't."
"Then why do you keep doing stuff for him?"
There were a dozen answers I could've given.
Because he was my friend.
Because the money was good.
Because I liked feeling useful.
Because I liked being around him.
Because whatever Dre was involved in made my regular life feel less boring.
Instead I shrugged.
"I don't know."
Crystal dried the glass.
"As long as you keep working."
"I work."
"I know."
"And I'm here."
"I know."
She walked over and put her arms around me.
"You smell like concrete."
"So do you now."
"Get off me."
I pulled her closer.
She laughed and tried to push me away.
For a minute, everything was good.
More than good.
I had Crystal back.
I had money in my pocket.
I had my job.
And now Dre had one too.
It felt like maybe all of this could actually work.
Like we'd figured something out.
Dre could handle his business.
I could help when I wanted.
Crystal could have me at home.
And Monday morning, we'd still get up and go pour concrete.
I didn't know it then, but Dre getting that job would change more than his probation situation.
It gave him a reason to be at my house in the morning.
A reason to be there after work.
A reason for Crystal to get used to seeing him.
A reason for the three of us to start feeling less like separate pieces of my life.
Little by little, Dre stopped being somebody who came over.
He started becoming part of the routine.
And once somebody becomes part of your routine, it's amazing how quickly you stop noticing how much space they're taking up.