Trash Can Heart

“Oh, wow,” Jake had said, because you were not allowed to say whoa-ly fuck to a five-year-old. “That is, uh, that is a little bit insane. Mari Strawberry, that is kind of a job for insane people.”

Marisela had wrinkled her nose.

“Papi says he’s loco,” she’d said.

“Yeah, well, I for one think your father is extremely correct,” Jake had told her, and then Clay had appeared out of nowhere and said, “What the hell are you doing?” like it was okay to say hell in front of a five-year-old, and then said, “Your break’s over, get the hell back to work,” and Jake had gone back to his station at the main desk just to get Clay away from impressionable young minds. Jesus Christ: Jake might be fucking up kids’ futures with his bad career advice, but at least he wasn’t teaching them to swear.

Jake had accidentally told her that her crazy fucking uncle was cool, though, so it was probably going to be his fault when she turned eight and decided bungee jumping was a great idea, or tried to ollie down the railing on the library steps and broke her arm.

Shit, Jake probably needed to teach her how to skateboard.

—

Marisela and her older brother spent every weekday from two to four pm at the library. What was Jake supposed to do, neglect his young friend? Vanish from her life in a cloud of shame at his misguided approval of her daredevil relatives? Leave her to wonder if he’d been fired, or worse, stopped thinking she was awesome? No. No way. He was loyal, and he was brave, and he was maybe going to mess her up for life but she obviously had a good support system so she’d figure it out.

Also, she turned six in a month and six was totally old enough to learn to skateboard.

Sometimes Jake’s sister brought his niece, who was only nine months older than Mari and already knew how to skate, and they spent their breaks outside in the garden area, very very carefully skating around the circular section of sidewalk with the little fountain the middle. Well, they spent his breaks. Kids didn’t need breaks because they didn’t need jobs, but life wasn’t fair like that.

—

Sometimes Pooch met him for lunch, which is to say, Pooch drove his food truck to the library and parked it by the garden area so Jake and Marisela and Alice could very carefully skate over and get barbecue. 

“I like the helmets,” Pooch said, leaning out the window of the truck. If he hung around long enough Clay would come out and get lunch for the research librarians.

Jake didn’t know why Clay never sent Roque or Aisha: nobody ever asked Roque to look up anything. Nobody ever asked Aisha to look up anything twice. 

Jake worked at the main desk, and people asked him to look things up all the time, because the central branch was super fucking huge and super fucking busy. He could not responsibly imagine reassigning any of the research team to the main desk, though.

“Yeah, they’re good, right?” Jake said. “They picked their own. Alice wanted flowers because her soccer team, you know, they’re doing really well this year. She’s big into repping them. All her cupcakes gotta have flowers these days.”

“And the other one’s just a pyro?” Pooch asked.

“That’s for her uncle,” Jake said, shoving the rest of his barbecue into his face. “He’s a firefighter.”

“I don’t wanna rag on a five-year-old —”

“She’s six now, but okay, yes.”

“— six-year-old, fine. But I don’t feel like that helmet is supporting her uncle right now.”

“Well, they didn’t have a helmet that represented the dampened ash of a well-extinguished blaze,” Jake said. “Or one that supported fire safety. It was a bleak picture, the children’s wheel-sports helmets section of Target, Pooch, and I did what I could.”

“It’s actively against her uncle’s whole line of work,” Pooch argued.

“If there wasn’t fire, he’d be out of a job!” Jake protested. “She understands supply and demand, she’s a smart kid, she’s just trying to keep him in airplanes — not in airplanes, but jumping out of them —”

“She’s six, she doesn’t understand supply and demand!” Pooch cut in. “Oh, shit, dude, he’s a smokejumper?”

“Yeah, I keep expecting her to come in one day and tell me he’s dead or something,” Jake said. “She thinks he’s cool, though. I may have told her he was cool, before I learned a few critical pieces of information about the specifics of his job description.”

“What? It’s still cool,” Pooch said. The main doors opened, and in the middle distance Clay’s figure stumped down the marble steps, glaring out at the sunlight.

“No, it’s crazy,” Jake said.

“When has that ever stopped you? Jensen, you’re out here teaching six-year-olds to skateboard.”

“With helmets!” Jake said. “Look, I’m afraid of heights, okay? Getting very close to a very large fire: okay, I admit, I’ve been there. We’ve all been there. It is admittedly badass. But flinging yourself out of an airplane? Just to get closer to a very large fire? No. I have limits.”

“You have a job,” Clay grunted from behind Jake. Fuck! “So go do it.”

“I’m on break,” Jake whined.

“Break’s over,” Clay said. “Pooch, gimme the usual.”

—

Four days after Easter, they had a families-exploring-the-library charity event and Jake got to hang out in the kids’ section during his shift.

Clay was walking around begrudgingly glad-handing the donors, Aisha was manning the main desk, and Roque was left up at the research desk because nobody was letting families explore the library near him.

Which is why Jake was the king of the packed kids’ section. He knew where everything was anyway; so far he had found five hundred books about horses, four hundred books about trucks, and one little guy had asked him for a book about bugs that ate dead people and Jake had delivered. 

Medical maggots were a well-researched and time-honored treatment modality, and young mister ‘CAMDYN’, according to his nametag, seemed like the kind of man to appreciate that.

The adults mostly wanted to know where the bathroom was, but Jake was here to help everyone. 

“Jake!” somebody tiny yelled, and Jake spun around in circles, hunting for the voice. Was that Mari? Was she dying? Was she in desperate need of another book about fire? Jake was starting to worry that Pooch had been right and that actually Mari was a soon-to-be-dangerous pyromaniac, but until that potential danger came to fruition, Jake was still committed to the expansion of young minds. In any case, he had at least made a list of more fire books for her. 

“Mari Strawberry?” he called, because there was no fucking way he was finding a three-and-a-half foot tall child in this crush.

“Jake!” she said again, appearing like Moses and dragging, wow, not her brother, that was not her brother.

“Uh,” Jake said eloquently. Whatever, focus on the children. He was bad for children’s futures but they were good for him, in that he could probably maintain a conversation with a six-year-old right now if he ignored her incredibly hot — father? No fucking way. He’d met Marisela’s father at least once and he would have remembered.

“Jake,” Mari said impatiently.

“Yeah, hi,” he said, leaning down. “What’s up, kiddo? Do you want another book?”

“No,” she said. Jake smiled.

“You don’t want a book? Are you sick?” he asked, pretending to check her temperature. “Oh my gosh, you must be sick, I gotta find a doctor!” She wrinkled her nose at him. She’d never stopped wrinkling her nose when she thought he was being dumb, and it was so fucking cute.

Oh, wait, genius idea: “Do you know where any doctors are?” he asked her as she dissolved into giggles. “Is this a doctor?”

“That’s my uncle,” she giggled, wrinkling her nose even more, like how could Jake be so stupid, obviously that was not a doctor, because of course it was her uncle, who had not yet flung himself out of an airplane to a fiery or possibly traumatic death and was instead attending a ‘families explore the library’ event with his niece.

“Oh!” Jake said, because you also were not allowed to say where does your hot, insane uncle fall on the Kinsey scale? to a six-year-old. “Are all the fires out? Does he get a break to hang out with you?” He looked up at Marisela’s hot uncle. “I spend all my breaks with Mari, so I’m pretty she thinks that federally-mandated work breaks were invented so that adults could hang out with her.”

Marisela’s hot uncle’s face shifted, and the standard blank, disinterested look that Jake usually mustered from adults melted very slightly to allow an extremely small smile.

Whoa. Could Jake say is your hot, insane uncle single to a six— 

“I’m looking for the bathroom,” Marisela’s hot uncle said.

“He’s visiting. From California,” Mari said, apparently not that worried about her uncle’s bodily needs. “For Easter.”

Marisela tugged on his hand, maybe because Easter was important? Or maybe because she was six and she was excited that her uncle was visiting and not out trying to die in a wildfire. Her hot uncle looked down at her, his smile blossoming into a grin. He had nice teeth.

Marisela wrinkled her little nose at him. He did it back, still grinning. Jake’s body considered throwing up, then settled on sweating profusely instead.

This was a man who threw himself out of airplanes? Seriously? Did he just think that the ground would be hopelessly smitten, and catch him gently? If Jake tried that he would slam face-first into a rock and die, no question. There were certain distances the human body was not meant to fall.

“I’m afraid of heights,” Jake said. Marisela’s hot uncle just stared at him, for way too long for it to be flattering.

“I’m not,” he said finally.

“Well, that’s good,” Jake said. “that would be a real liability, you know, in your line of work. That and flammability, although as far as I know all human beings are roughly equally flammable. I guess you would know better than I would, I don’t need to be telling you this.”

Marisela’s hot uncle raised one eyebrow.

“Not that you set things on fire,” Jake said. “But you do see things burning. I hope not people, actually, that would be pretty fu—messed up,” he corrected rapidly.

Marisela’s hot uncle didn’t have anything else to say to that. Probably for the best; Jake was going down a horrible immolation-death pathway that was, again, not appropriate for children. Children and Jake: a mistake actively in the making.

“The bathroom is over there,” Jake said, pointing.