Two Months Later
Mario and Luigi limped back down into their basement apartment. "If we have to fix, ugh, Ms. Winterbotttom's toilet, one more time, I'm jumping off the roof." Luigi said. "That's the third time this month!"
Mario set his tool bag down, pretty exhausted himself. "Its because she likes you bro! I saw the way she was checking you out as you were working."
"Yeah, as I was working. You were gone the whole time! Where were you?" Then Luigi noticed the marks running up and down Mario's body. "How did you get those bruises?"
"While you had the easy job of plumbing and being eye candy, I had to babysit her kids and that dog."
"The dog bit you?!" Luigi said in shock.
"I WISH these were from the dog!" Mario said exasperatedly as he melted onto the couch. "The damn kids used me as a punching bag! First they tied me up with the wire, then shot me with those airsoft guns, and when I finally broke free, two of them started biting me, and the other was choking me out. And the entire time, that dog would just not shut up. Yapping my ears off running around the apartment. It almost jumped out of the window because someone left it open."
Mario started counting the money. "Well you know what? It ain't all bad, at least she tips well. And now that I think about it, her husband did leave her with quite the fortune. Maybe you want to try to get with her."
"Yeah, you get the hot babe you dated in high school, I get the 50 year-old widow with three feral kids and an annoying dog. That seems quite right for you and me." He looked absolutely disgusted.
"Hold on, that's not true!" Mario said, putting the money away. "She's 47."
Luigi went over to the calendar. He crossed out another day. "It's our two month anniversary."
"Woo-hoo." Mario said from the back.
"Not woo-hoo. If you haven't noticed, we've been slowing down on business lately. We gotta get our names out there, expand the business."
"Well, we can't exactly do a TV spot."
"I know. I'm not sure what to do." Luigi ran his fingers through his hair.
"Sleep on it."
"Won't exactly sleep well with debt on my mind. I am exhausted though after dealing with Ms. Winterbottom. Yeah, I'll probably get some sleep." He saw Mario go towards the door. "And where exactly are you going at this hour of the night?"
"Gonna go meet my crack dealer," Mario replied. "We had a long day, and I'm just going out to relax and think. You get some rest. We ain't dead in the water yet."
Before he closed the door behind him, Mario said one last thing. "Besides, if things go really bad, you can always go back to Ms. Winterbotttom. I'm telling you, she wants that Green Thunder."
Walking through the borough with the dusk sky overhead, Mario's head was in the clouds. Luigi was right. They needed to do something different. Two guys in a small business in New York City wouldn't last long. The treadmill of a life of getting by was staring them dead in the face.
Luigi, what have I gotten you into this time? Mario didn't want to lead Luigi to failure, but it seems like all of it was going nowhere. We can't do this ourselves. Maybe I can ask Pauline for help.
There was a rustling to his side as he walked past an alley. Mario turned, reaching into his pocket for a switchblade.
A couple of stray cats hissed as someone swatted them away. They jumped onto some trash bags and bounded over the alley fence. The figure had their back turned to Mario. They were wearing a puffy black bomber jacket and dirty brown cargo pants with several holes ripped into it.
"Hey, you," Mario called you. "Yeah, I'm talking to you, turn around."
Mario kept his hands in his pockets, right hand firmly clenched on his still-sheathed knife. Hobos in New York were nothing to mess with. The wrong one would give you a disease or bite your face off. Potentially both.
"Don't hurt me. Please." The figure said as they slowly turned to face Mario.
"I don't plan on it." Mario looked around to see if anyone was looking at him. A little ways down the block some people were blasting music on a boombox. A woman was pushing a stroller up the street. On the other side of the streets, a group was just walking by.
Mario moved into the alley. "Take off the hood."
Taking a step back, the figure slowly removed the hood of the jacket. It was a kid. A scrawny boy. Didn't even have hair on his face, and it's not like he was getting a shave. He was a taller than Mario, but that wasn't saying much. About Luigi's height. Dirt and grime padded the sides of his face like makeup. Dust heavily sprinkled his black hair.
"You're just a kid." Mario said with surprise. "What the hell are doing here? Where are your parents?"
"I don't have parents." The boy replied.
Well, I guess that's why he's here. Should have seen that coming.
"Are you a cop?" The kid asked.
"I'm not that lucky, and neither are you," Mario replied. Seemed like the kid still had at least most of his teeth. "You an addict, kid?"
"No."
"What's 13 x 7?"
"Ugh..." The kid paused to think. He might have been even more confused as to why Mario asked him this. "90?"
"Close enough," Mario muttered. "What's your name?"
" Mackenzie. Mackenzie Little."
"How about I just call you Mac?" Mario said.
"Okay. Whatever." Mac looked at him leerily. "What do you want?"
"I could use a cheap hand to help out with some work. You could use a place to stay and meals that don't come from a trash bag. Why don't we work something out?"
Mac took another step back. "Wh-Why should I trust you?"
Okay, he's smart enough to not just listen to random strangers. Good. Mario thought. "Honestly, you shouldn't. I didn't even tell you what the work was. It's a plumbing business that just opened up a little while ago. Mario Bros. Plumbing. Maybe you've seen us, maybe you haven't. Doesn't really matter. What matters is, if you say no, I'll walk away, this conversation never happened, and we can both get on with our lives and probably never see each other again. But if you say yes, maybe you can do better for yourself than fighting off alley cats behind dumpsters. What do you say?"
Mac paused. He didn't trust this fast-talking stranger. Not a bit. But...fuck. It was hard always fighting off rats and he could have sworn the number of gang members on the streets at night were getting higher and they were getting harder to avoid...
"Fine. You got a deal." Mac said.
Mario kept a steadfast expression. Smiling now would only make Mac more suspicious. "Alright then," He nodded. "Come with me. My name's Mario. I'll be your boss from now on. Where you from kid?"
"The South Bronx."
Mario raised an eyebrow. That was no place to fuck with. One of the very few places Mario and Luigi wouldn't go for a job. "That's a, that's about right." Mario looked him over. "Ain't no one looking for you, right? Tell me now so we don't get caught by surprise."
Mac shook his head. "N-No. Nothing like that."
The pair moved side-by-side as they walked out of the alley back to the apartment. "Now, the first thing you're gonna do once we get back is shower," Mario said. "Because kid, you absolutely reek. The first thing I'm gonna do once we get back, is throw out your clothes because they absolutely reek. I'll get you some clean stuff for the night. And we can work all the details out later..."
Luigi woke up and got out of bed. Walking out of his room, he saw Mario standing next to someone over a printer.
"Mario, who is this?" Luigi asked, looking at the unfamiliar person. "And why is he wearing my clothes?" The guy had on a white tee shirt and green shorts with black flip-flops.
"This," Mario said triumphantly, "This is our new employee."
"Our new employee?"
"Yeah."
"Where doe he live?"
"Oh he was a hobo. I found him in an alley a couple blocks from here."
"You brought a homeless person into our apartment?" Luigi said, anger slowly boiling.
"Relax, he's fine. No apparent drug or alcohol dependence, and nonviolent. He has a decent amount of teeth, and he's young. He's probably better than at least 85% of the hobos in New York. We got ourselves a steal Luigi."
Speaking of stealing... Luigi kept his eyes on this new guy. "Do you even know his name?"
"Of course I do! It's uh, uhh, uhhhhh-" Mario snapped his fingers to try to remember. "Kid, tell Luigi what your name is. It is your name after all."
"M-M-Mackenzie Little."
"There we go!" Mario said. It's Mac."
"Okay. How old are you, 'Mac'?" Luigi said.
"Fourteen." Was the weak reply.
"YOU HAVE A MINOR IN OUR APARTMENT?!" Luigi shouted, having had enough. "THIS IS PRACTICALLY KIDNAPPING!"
"Not only is he a homeless teen, but he's an orphan. One in thirty teens are homeless, Luigi. Technically, we are doing him a favor by employing him."
"Can't we just ship him off to an orphanage or something?"
"No, we're not doing that." Mario said, noticing Mac jumped at the word 'orphanage'.
"Where is he gonna sleep?" Luigi said.
"Here! We'll give him room and board. We don't even really need to pay him much, just feed him and put a roof over his head. He's cheap work. If we let him live here we can use him anytime we need it."
Mario turned back to the printer. "By the way, I know a way to get business up. Mac can put up flyers around here."
Luigi took a look at the flyer. "Do You Have Problems With Your Pipes? Is Your Water Running Right? Are All The Fittings Screwed On Tight? If They Aren't, Don't Despair! The Super Plumbers Will Be There! And There's No Pipe We Can't Repair!"
"I thought it was a bit cheesy, but I wanna have some fun with this," Mario said.
He gave Mac a stack of flyers, a stapler, and a 10 dollar bill. "Here. After you put the flyers up, get yourself some lunch."
After seeing Mac leave, Luigi turned to Mario. "How do you know he's not a thief? He could just be waiting to rob us blind! Hell, he could take that 10 you gave him, and run right off with it!" He said tensely. "And I didn't want to say this in front of him, but how could you do something like this, and not even consult me? I thought we were partners!"
"We are partners," Mario said. "I just made a decision without you. People in business do that all the time."
"Yeah. People might pick out colors for a flyer, by themselves. Or buy a new coffee maker. Or reorganize some things. They don't go out and bring in some kid from the streets and make them a new employee!"
"Luigi, we needed a to make a move, and I made it."
"How is employing a teenage hobo going to make our situation better? It's not like he knows anything about plumbing! If anything, it's even worse because now we have another mouth to feed and take care of!"
"We can teach him," Mario said. "Maybe next time with Ms. Winterbottom we won't feel drained if we have a third guy in tow."
"I just wish you had talked to me about this before you did it!" Luigi said. "I have a right be involved in this business just like you do."
Mario threw his hands up. "You're right, I'm sorry. Next time you want to make a big gut call, we'll do it. I'll let you hold this one over me, got it?"
"Deal," Luigi said.
Mario looked back out the window to see if Mac was really gone. "He'll be back. Besides, it was only a 10."
Mario took out a 50 from his wallet. He then proceeded to put it on the printer and scan it.
"What are you doing?!" Luigi said.
"Gonna test Mac," Mario replied. "Get the money jar that we used before we switched over to the locked box."
Confused, Luigi brought out the cleaned out Cheese Puff Jar that the two had used for money storage.
"I'm gonna fill this thing up with fake 50s and leave it out. If Mac leaves it be, he clean and he stays. If not, he's a thief and he goes.
"Oh, I get it now," Luigi says. "So he'd only be running around with counterfeit 50s!"
"Exactly." Mario yawned. "Now if you're done thinking I'm an idiot, I'm going to sleep."
Before he went to bed Mario looked at his brother. "And for the love of God, PLEASE don't mess this up. Don't give him any hints about it. If he asks what it is, just tell him and be done with it. You don't need to prod him or anything. Let him do whatever he is going to do. I'll say it again: Leave. Mac. Alone."
"Okay. I can do that." Luigi nodded. Then he thought of something else "What if someone robs him? Aren't we sorta responsible for him now?" He asked.
"Oh come on Luigi, who is gonna rob him? Look at him! That boy is so broke, that if someone try to rob him, they would just be practicing. Now I'm going to sleep."
"Alright. See you later Mario."
"Whose world is this?"
"It's yours."
"It's mine. It's mine. It's mine.
