by Will Mosley
However, it was not enough.
There was noise above him. There was noise below him. Below? He thought that noise could not be below him unless it was coming from within the couch, but the corners of a hard surface pierced into his head, forearms and thighs. Above him he heard clanging dishes and light chatter from Ken, a woman, and a female child. He determined that the couch cushions no longer held him and that sometime during the night he had awakened and taken his rest on the stairs.
A moment before he opened his eyes, a body numbing crick in his neck ceased all movement. He rotated his head to the sound of vertebrae forcing themselves into their natural position, popping like dry gravel. When he opened his eyes, he was looking directly down at Ken's small arsenal in the closet through slits between the stair boards. He drew back his head and more crackling resonated from his neck. To the right was an aerial view of the basement. The television was still on and was broadcasting live coverage from SportsCenter.
“Shit.” He whispered, and upon standing his foot brushed against one of his stools and they began crashing against the carpeted floor below. He cringed and paused until the noise stopped, then waited with anticipation for someone upstairs to rush to the basement door. There was no variation in their noise, and because their own sounds probably drowned out everything else, no one opened the door. Relieved at not having to explain why the stools were where they were, Tanner took them back to the bar.
After the realization that he had almost gotten into their living space, he searched for his shoes – ignoring the area beside the couch he had placed them before he went to sleep because they were no longer there. He took two quick scans of the room, as if the shoes might have woken up and scampered away in the night, then looked at his feet. Both feet were uncomfortably packed into the shoes; his toes gnarled against wadded up socks in the toe of each. “This has to stop. I even put my shoes on this time!”
Tanner sat on the sofa, took the shoes off, pulled his socks out, straightened them and put them on before returning the shoes to his feet. “Where was I going? What if I had gotten out?” He incredulously whispered. He remembered Ken mentioned a bathroom somewhere in the basement and found it fully stocked on the opposite side of the stairs. The room smelled of warm cinnamon and the walnut hued hand towels looked too clean, too delicate to soil. He didn't feel worthy of this sort of attention, but it comforted him that Ken's wife had probably decorated the room and was not thinking about Tanner specifically.
After he had finished his business, he washed his hands and dried them on his jacket before going up stairs.
When the door opened, Mary Garay screamed, dropped a metal spatula to the floor and froze – too terrified to move, too frightened to attack. Lainy's round face and plump cheeks rose from her coloring book and big, brown, Garay eyes met the new man, the guest, because surely he could do her no harm with daddy beside her for protection, and Ken leaned the newspaper away from his face and lazily eyeballed his brother. Tanner nodded.
The rich, smoke cured savor of bacon drifted through the kitchen on a thin cloud of smoke from burning toast. Though jagged and unpleasant was the smell of the overcooked bread, it could not hide the distinctive perfume of sliced and fried pig abdomen.
“Quick, Mary, call the police.” Ken said undaunted. “There's a crazed attacker in our home.”
“Hi.” Lainy smiled and waved at Tanner. He smiled and returned her wave.
“Protect your jewels. Hide the Rembrandt's.” Ken continued.
“Ken!” Mary screamed, “Who the hell is this?” Ken folded himself over in laughter while Mary grabbed the nearest knife she could find – which was no more than a dull, wood handled paring knife with a thin butter sheen.
“Hi, I'm Tanner. Tanner Garay.” Tanner extended his hand. Solely from instinct, thinking that it was a gun, or maybe even a larger knife and that she was already stabbed, Mary jabbed at his hand with the knife, not yet hearing or understanding his words.
“Hey!” Tanner recoiled his hand.
“Mary, I'm kidding!” Ken said with his own arm extended as if he could stop Mary's attack. He looked at Tanner. “For future reference, she can't take a joke.” Then back at Mary, “This is my brother Tanner, honey! The one I’m always talking about... my only brother?”
Still, with the knife at arm's length, she tilted her head and studied Tanner's face until familiarity softened her eyes and she lowered the knife to her side. She allowed a smile, a hand went to her chest and she exhaled in relief. “My God, you look like Lee; a skinny clone!”
“I told you.” Ken said.
“You shut up!” She aimed the knife at him. “If you were any closer, you'd be the family eunuch!” She turned back to Tanner and offered her hand. “Hi, Tanner. I'm Mary Simmons. I'm reverting to my maiden name because I won't be married to your brother much longer. Please have a seat.” She gave Ken a long look and turned back to the stove and the sizzling bacon.
“Hey!” Ken said. “I can't help it if only the waffle monster gets my jokes and you don't.”
“I'm not a waffle monster, daddy! My name is Elaine Garay.” Lainy clarified.
“Oh yeah?” Ken playfully growled, then began tickling her ferociously. She laughed and flailed and yelled, “Stop it, daddy!” until her foot kicked the table, jarring the orange juice filled glasses to wobble and knocking over the salt shaker.
“Please stop, Ken! Not in the kitchen!” Mary demanded.
“Yes, honey.” Ken agreed and pouted his lips toward Lainy. “Gosh, she won't let us do anything!”
“I know. She so mean.” Lainy said. Ken smiled and winked at Tanner.
Mary laid her spatula down, looked to the ceiling and sighed loudly. “And you want more children?”
As if glitter, sunlight spilled through the half-pulled, lace curtains, dancing from the kitchen second level bay window and placed light diamonds on the floor and table, and ignited the room's wafting haze.
Once the cooking sounds stopped, pans were placed in the sink for later washing and the meal was prepared, Mary sat breakfast bearing plates on the table until it was covered with heart conscious foods such as biscuits and gravy, a plate piled with at least eight scrambled eggs, and a grease drenched paper towel of stacked bacon. She sat down and the rude hands of Ken and Lainy began reaching and fighting for scraps of food as if the world supply of breakfast was on the brink of exhaustion.
“You're like animals!” Mary said, dejected. “We have a guest in our home and you're acting like a pack of wolves.”
“Don't judge us, Tanner. The doctor said I have to change my diet soon so I'm not letting a day go to waste.”
“It won't run away, Ken. I promise.” Mary argued. “What happened to the gentleman that I married? You're nothing but a savage!”
“I'm a Garay. And so is she.” He nodded to Lainy, who was smiling with a slice of bacon between her tiny teeth. “And so is he!” He nodded to Tanner while playfully nudging Lainy away from the food. “Come on, Tanner, fill up! It's oatmeal and grapefruit tomorrow.”
“And I can't wait.” Mary muttered. Tanner reached over Ken and Lainy's brawling hands and grabbed a slice of bacon. He carefully analyzed it, then took a bite.
“Get some more! The eggs are right there waiting on you. Mary, get him a plate.” Ken said. Mary slid her chair out and Tanner stopped her.
“I'm fine, Mary. This'll be plenty.”
“Plenty?” Ken waved his hand at Tanner and Lainy took the opportunity to swipe a second slice.
“Got it! Ha, ha!” She yelled.
“A piece of bacon? Plenty?” Ken said. “No wonder you're as thin as a rail! For God's sake, get something in you, man!”
“You sure, hon?” Mary asked Tanner.
“This is fine, Mary. Thanks. If I need more, I'll take you up on that plate offer.” Tanner said and helped slide Mary and her chair back under the table.
Mary plated herself a small portion of eggs, then reached into the Ken/Lainy melee and r
etrieved two slices of bacon. “So what brings you into town, Tanner?” She asked. “Ken didn't tell me you were coming.”
Tanner swallowed hard and shrugged. “Just trying to get life figured out. I didn't call him or anything. I arrived early this morning and was fortunate enough to meet him as I walking to mom and dad's.”
“Oh, they'll be floored when they see you. Lee was under the assumption that you were strung out on all sorts of drugs, living on the streets and that you probably died years ago from an overdose or something. But you know your dad – gloom personified.”
Tanner laughed and nodded and quickly glanced to Ken who was looking in his direction with a knowing smile. “So he's still the same, huh?” Mary and Ken nodded slowly.
“So you've been away for a while, at least since Ken and I were married.”
“Since 1992.”
“My God!” Mary said, startled. “I didn't know it was that long. You must've seen a lot in your travels.”
“A lot, indeed.” Tanner took another bite of his bacon.
“You care to elaborate?”
Tanner stopped chewing and looked to Ken, who had now ceased squirming Lainy in one arm and victoriously biting into his bacon with his other hand. His eyes met Tanner's.
“Well... I, uh, I was...” Tanner stalled. “I left Atlanta, first. Then, I...”
“Honey!” Ken said. “This probably isn't the place for that now. Not here.” Ken nodded at Lainy, and Mary instantly got the implication.
“Oh, I see!” Mary said, bright-eyed. “That's okay.”
“Later.” Tanner said. “My life isn't something fit for all ears.”
After breakfast, Mary put the finishing touches on the kitchen, washing the last of the pans and wiping off the kitchen table with a damp cloth. Ken, already wearing a soiled white t-shirt that snugged against his taut stomach and jeans, put on a pair of his old police boots and asked Tanner to go and crank up his patrol car. When Tanner was out of the house and in the driveway, Ken sprang up from the coach and met Mary in the Kitchen.
“You can't tell mom and dad.” He whispered. Mary stopped her broad sweeping rag and rolled her head. Her politeness card, though only temporarily, had expired.
“You owe me something, Ken!” She chucked the rag at his chest. It bounced off and fell in his open hand. Marching toward him, just under his nose – so close he smelled the Ylang Ylang lingering in her hair- she stood stabbing her finger into his chest. “You didn't tell me he was staying here.”
“How was I to know, hon? He just showed up this morning!” Ken plead. “But besides, this is my brother we're talking about here.”
“I haven't bathed. I know I stink to high heaven –,”
“You smell fine –,”
“Haven't washed my hair, no bra,” She touched her breast as demonstration, “still have this damn robe on –,” She disgustedly flipped the ends of the pink robe's belt.
“I actually don't mind the 'no bra' thing.”
“You could have woken me or something! You've done this crap before. You know what you're doing!”
“Before was different. This, him being here, wasn't intentional.”
“Uh huh.” Skepticism squinted her eyes and crossed her arms.
“Mary, you can't, okay? You just can't.”
“I can.”
“Then don't! Please. I'm begging you now. I'll take you to dinner or something and get mom to watch Lainy. Just let me surprise them, ok? You won't get the outcome you're expecting and then you'll get pissed, then you and mom'll fight and drag me into it. Just... please don't. Please.”
Mary sulked and her long dark eyebrows sat atop her eyes as if they were a well-manicured extension. Then, her lips curled into an impish smile.
“Canoe.” She said.
“Oh no! Are you kidding? I'm a cop, not a banker! I can't afford that!”
“I want Canoe.” Her eyes softened and her smile was easy, lips sensuous in their curl. “Chloe Chandler said they ate there two weeks ago and her husband works with you. They can afford it.”
“Honey,” Ken wrapped his arms around her and kissed her forehead. “Come on, now. Mike Chandler is Captain. They can afford –,”
“Either I get Canoe, or I call Judy –,” Mary put her hand to her ear, thumb and pinky extended, and simulated a conversation between Judith Garay and herself. “Judy, you'll never guess who just waltzed into town today! You won't believe it! It's your second born son who you haven't seen in twenty years and Ken's bringing him over –,”
“Alright, alright. Fine. Canoe it is.” He said with a low grumble in his voice – the grumble used on vocals as a musician – that he knew drove her wild. Her arms uncrossed and her hands slid around his waist. He meant to gently kiss her lips, but her tongue pushed his apart and she folded her soft lips with his, carefully moaning, oscillating heads. She lowered her hands to his butt, grabbed hold and subtly gyrated her hips, pushing her groin into his until the pressure against his jeans would not allow an erection to fully materialize. He pulled away from her, grabbed his engorged penis and maneuvered it until no longer taut.
“You sure you have to leave now? Lainy's playing in her room.” She teased, slightly opening her robe, biting her lower lip; the inner curvature of unharnessed breasts slopped into the robe, disappearing into some nook of pleasure.
“Damn.” He ingested her with his eyes. “Yeah, babe. I – I gotta do this. I've been procrastinating for a week. Save that for tonight, though.” He took another look at her inner thigh exposed in a shadow as her knee bumped against the fabric. “Please save that for tonight.”
“I don't know, Ken. I might have a headache by then.” She smiled.
“So, when did you want to get that second mortgage we'll need to eat at Canoe? You wanna go to the bank tomorrow morning, or –,”
“Shut up. It's not that bad.” Mary jerked her robe closed and cinched the belt. “I'll let you know. It'll be a surprise – for the both of us. I can't wait!”
Ken took his unloaded department issued Glock from atop the refrigerator and stuffed it into a brown Brownell’s carrying case beside another gun and zipped it up. “I'm sure, hon. I'll see you in a few hours.”
“What took so long?” Tanner asked. “A quickie or something?”
Ken latched his seat belt, put the car in reverse and only glanced at Tanner, smiling, from over his shoulder. “Close.”
“You shouldn't have let me stop you.”
“You didn't, Tanner. I just have to take care of some things. I don't have much time for quickie's this morning.”
Ken left the neighborhood which mixed him into light traffic in the heart of Marietta. Tanner stayed silent and watched as buildings passed, only opening his mouth to occasionally whisper, “That's still there?” until they pulled into a QuikTrip convenience store. Ken left the car and moments later returned with two Coke's and two bottled waters.
He flopped into the driver's seat. “You haven't asked where we're going.” Ken said, his Coke hissing loudly as he turned the cap.
“Should I have?”
“Well, no, but I figured you'd want to know. I could be taking you anywhere. Come on, take a guess.” Ken said taking long gulps of his drink.
“Gun range.”
Ken pulled the bottle away from his lips so quickly that the liquid sloshed out and splattered on the steering wheel. He wiped it with his hand, then wiped the hand across his shirt. He turned to Tanner. “How'd you know that?”
“I was correct? Damn.”
“How'd you know that? I haven't said anything about the gun range; not to you, not to Mary –,”
“Ken, seriously? Why'd you show me your guns last night? Were you bragging about them to someone who doesn't care for them? No. You were recently fooling with them, probably sometime yesterday before work and probably considered actually using one. When? No clue. Maybe today.” Ken sealed his Coke, sat it in the console, crossed his arms and listened while Tanner coddled his drink in s
mall sips. “And your boots, and the police car and the Brownell's bag. You're not taking me to your job, are you?”
“Probably.”
“Is it career day or something?” Tanner laughed. “You're probably not.”
“What do you know about my bag? How'd you know what was in it?”
“I didn't. But a bag that small, carried by a guy who loves guns can only mean one thing: Competency testing.”
“What the hell, man!” Ken slapped the steering wheel, then folded his arms again.
“What else would that bag be used for? It looks too expensive and bulky to be a shaving kit. Maybe you carry spare dildos in there. I don't know.”
Ken chuckled momentarily, but was eager to know what Tanner knew and how. “What would you know about competency testing? The average Joe doesn't know about that stuff.”
“Listen, Ken. I don't know, alright? I'm just using qualified guesses to deduce my surroundings. And the answer is no.”
“What answer?” Ken asked, confounded.
“To the question that will come shortly.” Tanner turned to his window deeming the conversation finished and sipped his Coke, screwing the cap on after each sip. His thin body strapped to the seat looked like that of an oversized ten year-old in his father clothes.
“What question, Tanner?” Ken asked. But Tanner only nodded at the window, visually undressing a well-designed brunette in a tight skirt.
Within a white painted brick and uneven curbstone 1950's styled shopping complex, Abram's Armory sat nestled between Jeffery's sports bar and a doughnut shop whose orange sign simply read: DONUT. The proprietor, Ryan Singly, owned both establishments that surrounded the 24 hour armory, and with the revolving door of policemen visiting both, he did well, recouping much of his local tax burden.