5 days passed and Oliver had begun becoming accustomed to working at the office. Each day he'd come without fail at 4PM right after school times. And every day the first thing he'd tell me was how things were going with Grace.
"She talked to me again today!"
"Oh yeah? What did she say?"
"She asked me what sort of books I read!"
"Nice nice, what did you tell her?"
"Fantasy!"
"And what did she say after that?"
"I don't know, I ran away!
"Ahaha, is that so?"
On most days I would give him things like pictures of my sister sleeping or books I stole from her room. But even an experienced swindler like me couldn't offer only that.
"Here," I said handing Oliver a $50 at the end of the day.
"What's this for?"
"Oh, just a little extra payment. You'll be getting these at the end of days from now on."
"But this is so much. I couldn't possibly…"
"No no, I insist. Why don't you get yourself some nice cologne with that money? That should impress Grace."
"Really, you think so? But I've never bought cologne before. What kind does she like?"
"The girly kind. In fact, get women's perfume instead."
He looked at the 50 I gave him with tears filling his eyes.
"Oh, master! This is the best gift anyone has ever gotten me! Thank you, thank you!"
He went up and hugged me tightly.
"Don't… don't mention it," I replied looking away. Of course, I didn't tell him this was the minimum law required wage for an employee. Just in case something happened I didn't want another audit from the pesky IRS. Was a real bitch last time, a lot of photoshopping.
In any case, things were going smoothly all around. I'll just skip to the next part of the story then. The part with conflict. Hmm… actually conflict might be too strong of a word. More like… entertainment point? The next part where you get to make fun of us. Whatever you want to call it. It all started one Tuesday afternoon.
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-Tuesday Afternoon-
*Knock knock*
"Come in,"
Entering the room this time were two younger teenage dudes who I did not recognize.
"Oh hello, welcome to my service shop. Please have a seat."
They walked into my office, one of them sitting down in the customer chair and looking at the menu I handed him and the other standing next to him.
"So, any particular requests you're looking for or…"
"We're trynna get this option."
The guy sitting down pointed at the bottom part of the menu.
"Oh, you're trying to throw a party?"
"Hell yeah," the guy sitting said, "We heard you know how to throw a banger."
"Real banger!" the guy standing up added.
"Right right, well I do try my best. Do you want to host one here?"
"Nah I got a sick crib,"
"Sick crib!"
"It's a decked-out lake house, with a beach,"
"For the babes!"
"Uh huh right… does he just ad-lib after everything you say?"
"Hell yeah, need the boys to hype up everything I say!"
"You know it,"
"Can he stop doing that? It's getting annoying."
"Nah we ain't about that life."
"No sir!"
"Okay… Oliver,"
"Yes, master?"
Would you please accompany uhh…"
"His name's Rock."
"Like stone!"
"Yeah uh-huh right, Oliver can you accompany Rock to my room to play video games while I talk to uhh…"
"Neo,"
"Like the Matrix!"
"… While I talk to Neo here about planning a party."
"Yes master," Oliver said as Rock followed him to my room.
"Ah shit, what games y'all got?"
"You like Monopoly?"
I breathed a sigh of relief closing the door behind them.
"Now then," I said turning back and sitting down across from Neo, "You're trying to purchase the plan a party package for $500 correct?"
"Yeah fosho, what does that include though?"
"Well, about $200 is the actual planning fee. $200 is the allocated budget we usually use for food and drink costs. Another $100 is for decorations. If you have any specific requests or want more food and decorations you'll have to pay 20% commissions for extra setup. How many people are you planning on inviting?"
"Shit I don't know, a hundred?"
A hundred? How fricken big is his lake house?
"Very well," I replied, "For a party that large I recommend perhaps allocating more funds for food and drinks. Though I suppose we could buy for you convenience store pizza and print bring your own food and beers on party invites."
"Nah nah this gotta be a banger!"
He took out a wallet from his pocket. Just from looking at it, I could tell it was bursting at the seams.
He reached into it and took out some cash.
"1, 2, 3, 4," I began counting internally as Neo began manifesting 100-dollar bills.
"12, 13, 14, holy…" laying in front of me Neo took out 20 hundreds in total.
"Huu… Huuu…"
I could feel the drool coming from my mouth.
He suddenly then reached into his other pocket and pulled out another wallet as equally thick as the first.
"1, 2, 3, is this for real?"
One by one Neo began taking out more 100-dollar bills.
"18, 19, 20,"
I picked one of the bills and held it up to the light.
"Holy… these are real."
"Yeah sorry, reached my ATM limit for the day. I can get more tomorrow if…"
"No no! This is more than eno… Ahem, I mean,"
I looked at him with a blank expression trying to maintain my best poker face.
"It'll have to do for now, do you have any specific requests? Any restaurants you want to cater from? A bounce castle maybe?"
"Hmm… get me… a lot of alch."
"… huh?"
"Yeah, I'm talking kegs. I'm talking bottles. I'm talking wine bags."
"Uhhh...kegs... right right. Anything else?"
"Yeah like hellaaaaa zaza"
"Zaza?"
"Yeah, the good herb man. The type of shit that sends you to Mars!"
"Herb? Herb... oh you mean marijuana? Sure, that can be arranged."
"Dope"
"Anything else?
"Hmmmm... shit you think I could get a chocolate fountain or something?"
We talked for another 30 minutes after that as Neo went through each one of his "banger" requests which I wrote down. Most of it didn't seem too bad to be honest; I could just order the stuff online.
As for the weed and alcohol I couldn't legally buy yet though...
"I'll see you Thursday then for set up!" I said opening the door for Neo and Rock to exit after Neo listed all his requests and we made plans for set up at his lake house.
"Alright bet,"
"Bet"
I closed the door behind the two of them.
"What are you going to do master?" Oliver asked.
"About?"
"About the alcohol and weed."
"Ohhh that's simple. I'm going to need you to do some extra photoshopping though Oliver."
"Huh?"
"And if you don't mind... taking out your driver's license too."
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-2 hours later-
I sat in the driver's seat of my car at the parking lot of a weed dispensary with Oliver next to me sitting shotgun.
"Alright, you got it? When the budtender does all this fancy talk about strands, how much THC and CBD ratio there is, and other marketing gimmicks, just nod your head and smile. Understand?"
"Sure but…"
"And purchase 2 pounds of their cheapest strands and 100 pre-rolls got it?"
"I have that written down but…"
"And make sure to say you're from where again? Recite it."
"2317 Maple Street,
Gary Indiana 70375,"
Impressive, Oliver had only just made the fake card.
"Good you're ready," I said," Go get them."
"Wait wait! But Debra I still don't get it. Why does it have to be me that gets the weed?"
"I told you already. Grace will like you more if you do."
"But how does that make any sense."
"Grace is a huge pothead don't you know? Plus I'm banned here after I resold to middle schoolers."
"What?
"Nothing nothing, go get them, tiger!"
I opened the automatic door of my car and gave Oliver a little push out the door. I looked at him and gave him a smile and a thumbs-up. He nervously gave me a thumbs up back and began walking into the dispensary. What could possibly go wrong?
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-10 minutes later-
"Come on get the stop get the stop!"
Like most Sundays and most days in general, I was obsessively refreshing my phone to check on the basketball games I had bet on for the day.
"Alright if I can hit the under, Hornets make a comeback and uhh… let's see… Mavs Suns are at 113 at half so I need… 120 in the second. That's doable, yeah if those hit that should put me 5/8 on round-robin parleys. Think that'll break me even at least. NOOOO what the fuck Pistons why are you fouling. It's an 8-point game just run the fucking clock out. You're tanking anyways!"
**Bang**
"What the…"
I turned to my right to see Oliver's distraught face on my car's window as he banged the glass. I unlocked the door and motioned Oliver to come in.
"Yo did you get…"
"Leave."
"Huh?"
"We have to leave, now!"
He turned around.
"Hurry!"
"Alright alright got it," I said quickly starting up my car. With the record I had with the police, I wasn't going to take any chances. I hit the accelerator bolting us out of the dispensary parking lot. The paranoid expression on Oliver's face seemed to confirm my suspicions.
"Don't worry, I've dealt with this before," I assured Oliver as he turned his head checking behind him before turning back around and nodding his head. Finally, after about 10 minutes we stopped at the parking lot of a McDonald's.
"Alright, think we're safe."
I looked over at Oliver whose face still looked visibly shaken from the experience.
"Yeah maybe that was a bad idea," I said, "You're pretty young looking, not surprised the police were suspicious."
At the statement, Oliver's expression turned to a puzzled one as he looked at me.
"The police?"
"Yeah, that's what happened in there right? A security guard was susing you out?"
He shook his head.
"Far scarier."
"What? Don't tell me, they had a squad in there too?"
He shook his head again.
"Then?"
"A girl,"
"… huh?"
"I've seen her type before; her sly smile, her all too friendly gestures. I know exactly what she was."
"A corporate drone?"
"No far worse, a succubus."
"… A what?"
"The type of woman that lures you in slowly with her appearance acting all coy, shy, and appealing to your every fantasy until she slowly takes the soul from your body when you're not looking."
"Did they let you smoke some free samples?"
"What? No."
"You sure?"
"100%. Girls are just naturally terrifying."
"Again, you realize I'm a girl right?"
"Yeah, but you're like the friendly tomboy type who everyone knows is super chill and basically another guy anyways."
"… right, you know what forget it. I guess since we're here, you want some McDonald's?"
"Hell yeah, I want a Mcflurry!"
Yeah, so that didn't go very well. Honestly, I still didn't really understand half the words Oliver said but at least it was kind of entertaining watching him rant at times. In any case, later that day I decided to call the teacher that gives me test answers instead to buy all the party necessities.