Charming Grace by Deborah Smith

architecture would have left Armand alone with a lot of bad ideas and the wrong friends. Believe it or not, it was me who kept him out of the worst trouble.
    “The only thing that scares me is something happenin’ to you,” he’d admit once in a blue moon, when just the right combination of scotch and pot took the edge off his cocky crap. “I’m not ever gonna let you get hurt, little bro.”
    “And I’m not ever gonna let you down,” I’d answer. Just myself. Let me down.
    By the time I turned twenty I had a whole list of excuses why I’d been rejected by all the big southern universities. I told myself it was because I hadn’t spent a day in any kind of school since I was eight years old; all I had for an academic record was a night-class GED with none of the side dressing colleges look for, like a varsity letter or president of the science club or even a Boy Scout badge, holy merde . My SAT scores were lousy, and the Why-I-Want-To-Attend-This-Fine-Institution essay I sent with my applications probably made me look about as smart as a swamp rat. I wrote like I talked.
    Education, she’s a dream of mine .
    A damned fine sentence in my opinion, but not to the college admission boards.
    “Boonie, hon,” a girlfriend told me, “what do you need college for? Be like your brother. Live high on the hog with a handsome smile.”
    “I’m not handsome.”
    “Boonie, hon,” she cooed (Back then I had a lot of girlfriends who cooed,) “Boonie, hon, that’s all right. You’re so good you make up for being smart.”
    Damned by faint praise.
    “Bro, no damned college deserves you.” Armand was mad on my account. He couldn’t steal me a college admission, and he couldn’t buy it off the back of a truck, and he couldn’t barter for it with a gambler or charm it out of a stripper. So he decided to do an end-run around college all together.
    “Screw it, bro,” he announced. “I been researching this architecture thing. Architects don’t make shit. I mean, the famous ones do, you know, the big dogs who design big office buildings or museums or something, but most architects don’t pull down the big cash.”
    “They make good enough money. I’m gonna be a famous one. If I can just get into college.”
    “What do you need college for? You already know how to draw houses. And barns. You don’t think big enough, bro, that’s all. Big buildings. What you got against skyscrapers?”
    “People need houses. And barns. People need homes. I like to draw homes.”
    “Okay, but here’s the thing, bro. See, you need backing. Financial backing, so you can be a developer , not just an architect. That way you get all the money and attention. Women love the man with the money and the plan.”
    “That’s now how the architecture business works.”
    “Oh? The man with the money is always the man in charge. You leave it to me. We’re partners. Right? You always say so.”
    “Right.” I looked at him warily.
    “Okay. I’ve got an idea for a new line of income. We’ll stick with it for the next few years, stash our ill-gotten money in some fat bank accounts, and then we’ll go straight.”
    “That’s what Michael Corleone said.”
    “Cross my heart. We’ll go legit. Just gimme a few years. Then we’ll start buying land and building houses. You’ll get to draw any kind of houses you like. And barns, too. We’ll have the cash to be the Noleene Development Company. Buy us some land. Build some houses to sell. Just like you want.”
    Armand’s ‘new line of business’ turned out to be the old line with bigger paybacks. We gave up stealing cars and took up stealing tractor trailers. Not just any tractor trailers, but loaded ones, full of expensive goods like televisions and that hot new electronic toy, the home VCR. A loaded tractor trailer is the gift that keeps on giving. Drive it to a dark warehouse, unload, then drive the rig to a deserted road in the woods and leave it for the cops to find. And the best