Free Candy

Chapter Four

CHAPTER FOUR

Steven got his coat on and pushed some things around the kitchen counter to find his keys. He briefly forgot which vehicle he was driving this month, and then he remembered, The Kidnapper Van. Since he wasn’t tied down to a nine to five desk job, Steven was free to follow his muse in an attempt to garner fame and fortune. His most recent project involved a website about keeping children safe from strangers who might just be driving a windowless, maroon, Chevy van.

He put up a website that had a few pictures and tips for people to peruse, but Steven was really trying to sell his services as a deterrent to child abduction. For forty bucks, cash, he would drive up to your kid’s party and scare the pants off of them so as to make them deathly afraid of anyone they had not spent at least half their life with. He got this idea from some parents at the mall who seemed to try to shield their children from him when he walked by. He had already done three birthday parties since he put the website up, so he had earned one hundred and twenty bucks. A raging success as far as Steven was concerned.

He had purchased the van from one of the car dealers up on Lake City Way in North Seattle. The pickup truck that he had driven all summer had spun a ring bearing and he knew it was going to die an imminent, painful death. He drove the pickup to the gates of the last junkyard in North Seattle and asked the guys for fifty bucks. 

“You want me to give you fifty bucks?” the junkman said.

“Sure, look at these tires. This canopy is practically middle aged. I’ll even leave the tape deck in it,” Steven said with a flourish.

“I’ll give you thirty, if you have the title.”

“I do have it, and it is yours for thirty dollars,” Steven said, brandishing the title, already signed.

Steven walked to the nearest arterial and caught the crosstown bus. He knew he could find something else to drive over on Lake City Way since there were at least forty car dealers on that strip. The bus drove past Northgate Mall and turned left mere blocks from Auto Row. He stayed on the bus until it got to 123rd and hopped off to grab something to eat at Dick’s Drive In. Dick’s was a Seattle institution, serving burgers, fries and shakes the old fashioned way, hot, greasy and creamy. Two cheeseburgers, fries and a chocolate shake set him back a little over six dollars, but it was money well spent.

So, left with twenty four dollars from the remains of his pickup truck, Steven went on his hunt for a new chariot. When he saw The Kidnapper Van, he knew that he must have it. It wasn’t on display, seeing as it was parked behind the auto dealership, but it was the only thing Steven could see over the sea of shiny new Kias and Hyundais. Even though he was dressed in dirty jeans and an old VW shop jacket, the salesmen still worked themselves into a lather, seeing an actual human walking onto the lot.

“Hey guy, I’m Jason,” the salesman said, extending his hand.

“Hey,” Steven replied, keeping his hands in the pockets of his jacket. He still had some chocolate shake and mustard on his fingers and didn’t want to gross the salesman out. “I want that van.”

“Where? Do we have a van?”

“It’s in the back, behind the fence.”

“Oh, that van,” Jason said rolling his eyes.

“I have, let’s see, twenty four dollars in cash,” Steven said with a smile.

“Heh. How about three hundred?”

“Do you take Visa?” Steven said, whipping his credit card out of his pocket.

“We do. Let me make sure it’s running,” Jason said as he trotted off to find the used car buyer.

After they swapped a battery from another junker behind the building, the mechanics got the van to roar to life. Someone had traded the van in on a new subcompact the last time they ran the “Push, Pull or Drag your Trade In” promotion and it was only days away from being sent to the crusher. Steven had saved another classic American car, and he felt good about it.

As he made his way down the streets of Seattle from the U-District to Georgetown, he got the usual dirty looks. He was used to them, and he should be, it was his own fault. When he started thinking about offering The Kidnapper Van service he scrawled “FREE CANDY” on the side of the van with fluorescent spray paint. Every mom in a Volvo station wagon or minivan sped past while giving him the evil eye, and every stoner in an old Volkswagen van flashed him a peace sign. He saw Marie give him the thumbs up as he parked across the street from the Six Pound Cleaver, and it made him feel warm and fuzzy.

“That always makes me laugh,” Marie said, pointing at the side of the van.

“When you have children, it will make you cringe,” Steven said as he sat down and waved to the bartender.

“Children? My biological clock hasn’t even been completely assembled yet.”

As usual, Gretchen was tending bar at the Six Pound Cleaver. Gretchen Maxwell was another refugee from the rat race that preceded the Great Recession. Somehow she had managed to pay off her small 1940’s house with money she had earned as a contractor for Microsoft and now she only worked hard enough to keep up with her real estate taxes and her wardrobe needs. She dressed like she had raided someone’s closet from 1988, all flannel and denim, so that didn’t require a vast fortune. 

“Steven, do you want the graffiti crew to paint that heap?” Gretchen asked when she walked over to the table.

“No, I need it to be scary and dark. It’s perfect,” he said, twirling a coaster.

“He’s doing child abduction prevention seminars with it,” Marie said.

“Nice. I’m sure you can find plenty of scared white people up in Ballard for that kind of thing,” Gretchen said to Marie.

“There are scared white people all over Seattle. It’s kind of the vibe around here, haven’t you noticed?” Steven said.

“I guess,” Gretchen said as she looked around the bar. There were five white guys, three white girls and one Native American guy playing darts. “We’re kind of low on cultural diversity in here tonight. What would you two like to drink?”

“I’ll have a Rainier Stubby,” Steven said.

“Do you still have RC on tap?” Marie asked.

“Yes, Dennis won’t serve anything else,” Gretchen said as she went back to the bar.