After Forever

by Krystal McLaughlin

  He looked around and spotted the big rat traps his dad had hanging on the wall by his tools.

  Yep. Those will do, he thought, taking the three traps down. He set them around the cellar floor on the outside of his room. If nothing else, Bottles was excited about his move and his plan to keep his hoodlum cousins out of the way.

  On his way upstairs, he glanced at the washer and dryer and sobered. By prefabricating the story about rats to keep them out of the cellar, he probably would be stuck doing their laundry.

  Bottles went straight to the attic and moved his boxes. It took him eight trips to move everything. Afterwards, he took a shower and dressed in clean clothes.

  He slid into his chair at the dining room table for breakfast. Aunt Louise made bacon and eggs, but divided the bulk of the food among her and the boys. She slid an egg and two pieces of bacon on the plate for him.

  With only a peanut butter and banana sandwich since breakfast yesterday, Bottles was hungry. He ate every crumb of food, washing it down with a glass of cold milk.

  “Ralphie. About last night,” his aunt began.

  “Yeah,” he mumbled, feeling the food drop into his stomach like an iron tire rim in the lake. “It was all my imagination.”

  She looked at her two sons. “It seems the boys played a practical joke on you. They confessed they locked the door from the outside so you couldn’t open it.” She looked at her sons. “Tell Ralphie you’re sorry.”

  “We’re sorry, Ralphie.” The boys mimicked.

  “Yeah,” Bottles mumbled.

  “But you did make a lot of noise…”

  “Don’t worry, Aunt Louise. I already moved into the cellar.”

  She looked surprised. “When? I didn’t hear anything.”

  “Maybe that’s because the noise you heard wasn’t made by me.” He pushed away from the table. “May I be excused?”

  She nodded.

  He ran out to the kitchen, but poked his head around the corner. “Do we have anymore peanut butter?”

  “Why?”

  “I need to bait the traps. They’ve been triggered.”

  “What traps?” she asked slowly.

  He shrugged. “Just the rat traps in the cellar. If there’s no peanut butter, I can use cheese. They’ll go after either one.” He turned and ran outside, before she could comment.

  CHAPTER 4

  Bottles pedaled into town, whistling in rhythm to the spinning tires. He was happy to get away from his family. It had been several days since his last soda-bottle pick up and he was anxious to get back to work. He had zero savings now that his cousins stole his meager stash of cash. He stopped in the yard of his first client, Sam Black.

  Sam was rocking in his favorite chair, expending as little energy as possible, gently fanning himself with an old church tri-fold paper fan.

  “Hi Mr. Black!”

  “Where’ve you been? I thought maybe you made enough money to retire and that you didn’t want to bother with us po’ town folk anymore.”

  “No, sir,” Bottles laughed. “That’ll never happen. Do you happen to have any empties for me?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do, boy.” Sam handed him a burlap sack.

  Bottles counted the empties.

  “Wow! Seven. Thanks, Mr. Black. I’ll return your bag on my way back.”

  The boy rode away and could only make four more stops before heading to the bottling plant.

  Jon Flanders, shift supervisor, counted the bottles, thirty-one total, and deposited sixty-two cents into Bottles’ hand.

  “Good job, son,” he called after the boy.

  Bottles waved. “I’ll be back in a little while.”

  By the time the boy finished hitting all his customers, he turned in a whopping seventy-three bottles. Happy with earning a dollar and forty six cents, Bottles made a couple stops before heading home.

  The first stop was to Myer’s Hardware store. The bell above the door jingled every time someone opened it.

  Sitting behind the counter, Bernie Myers was fanning himself.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Myers.”

  “Hello, Bottles. What can I do for you? I don’t have any empties for you.”

  “No sir, that’s not why I’m here. My dad has an account here, right?”

  “That’s right. And it’s all paid off.”

  “I need to purchase a padlock, but I was wondering if you could put it on my dad’s account and I’ll pay for it in a few days.”

  “A padlock?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The old man nodded. “I can do that for you, son. What size do you need? I have three: small medium and large.” Bottles followed Mr. Myers to the display.

  “I guess the medium one will do.”

  Back at the counter, the owner put the lock in a bag. Pulling out his ledger, he turned to the ‘S’ page and made a notation. “That’ll be nineteen cents plus tax, for a total of twenty cents.”

  “Yes sir. I’ll take care of it as soon as I can. Thank you, Mr. Myers.” Bottles hopped on his bike and headed to Toth’s Foodmart.

  He made a few selections and headed to the checkout.

  “Hello Bottles,” Jake addressed him at the checkout line. “We have boloney on sale this week,” he commented as he wrote everything on his pad. Wetting the pencil lead on his tongue, he added the figures. “That’ll be forty seven cents.” He packed the food in a paper sack, carefully putting the bread on top.

  The boy counted out the coins and handed them over.

  Outside, he loaded his groceries in the basket of his bike, pedaled to Sam Black’s house to drop of the burlap sack, and then headed home.

  He walked his bike around the side of the house. Opening the outside metal hatch door to the cellar, he put his sack of groceries on the steps and closed the door. Running around to the front, he went down to the cellar and retrieved the sack. He put his precious supplies in the fridge in his bedroom and made sure to lock the outside door, using the new padlock.

  Grabbing his baseball glove, he locked the bedroom door and ran upstairs.

  “Bye, Aunt Louise.”

  By the time the screen door slammed, he pedaled halfway down the road.

  CHAPTER 5

  Bottles enjoyed meeting up with the other wall rats. They chatted and shared a bag of popcorn, but once the game started, they were all business. Someone passed out hand-drawn paper scorecard. The group was ready.

  By the bottom of the ninth, the score was zero-zero. The game went into extra innings. The Raccoons scored the winning run in the twelfth. The fans went wild.

  Realizing the time, Bottles headed home. He knew Aunt Louise was not going to be happy. Sure enough, she was waiting for him.

  “Where have you been?”

  “At the baseball game.”

  “How can you afford a ticket?”

  “We all watched from outside the fence. That’s free.” He hastily added. “I’m sorry I missed supper. It won’t happen again.”

  “That’s for sure. Get to bed,” she pointed her bony finger towards the cellar door. “No supper for you.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He stopped. “Aunt Louise, can I have a slice of cheese to set the rat traps?”

  “Make sure you only take one slice.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  He skedaddled to the cellar, unlocking the door to his room. Once inside, he unlocked the outside entrance, pulled his bike inside and secured the hatch door. Then he went to work setting the traps. He was sure the threat of rats would keep everyone upstairs. Then he locked his door.

  He made a sandwich of bread and boloney and settled back in the chaise lounge. While he ate, he looked around for a new spot to hide his money. He knew there were a couple loose bricks min the wall. He decided to hide it behind them, until he found a better place.

  With a full stomach, Bottles fell asleep, dreaming of the Raccoons.

  The next morning, he awoke early. Making sure everything was locked up, he went upstairs. He near
ly tripped over a basket filled with dirty clothes. Bottles shook his head. He knew doing the laundry was part of the price for creating the rat problem. Shrugging, he dumped the first load in before heading outside to mow whatever grass still grew.

  Opening the garage doors to get the push mower, his eyes opened wide. The fender of his dad’s candy apple red ’57 Chevy was dented and the paint scraped. He looked toward the house as his eyes filled with tears. “You bullies. You have no respect for anything!”

  He touched the damaged vehicle. “What’s dad going to say when he gets home?” He yelled to the wind, “Come home, dad, come home!”

  He had part of the lawn cut, but stopped to swap the loads of laundry, putting the wet ones in the dryer. Seeing no one else was up, he made himself a PB&J sandwich and went to finish mowing. On the far side of the property, he found tire ruts leading directly to a tree stump, which had streaks of red on its side. “What did those idiots think was going to happen to the stump when they hit it with dad’s car?” he mumbled. “I hate them, dad. I hate them! Why did you make me promise to listen to them?”

  He shook his head, finished cutting the lawn and hosed off the mower.

  Back inside, he put the last load in the washer along with his sweaty clothes and ran upstairs to take a shower. No sense in letting them know I can shower down here, he rationalized. Then they’ll never let me upstairs.

  He just finished drying when one of his cousins pounded on the door.

  “Mom—you in there?”

  “No, it’s me.”

  “Open the door, squirt. I have to piss.”

  “I’ll be done in a minute.”

  “Open the door now!” Jimmy pounded. “Now, I said.”

  Bottles opened the door wearing only his briefs. He barely had time to grab his clothes before his cousin pulled him out and slammed the door shut. The noise, of course, woke his aunt, who stumbled into the hallway. Though her eyes were barely open, she wasted no time chastising her nephew.

  “Ralphie—how dare you run around in your drawers? Have you no dignity? Get dressed.”

  “Jimmy kicked me out of the bathroom. I was taking a shower.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  Bottles just shook his head, dressing on his way downstairs. He stopped long enough to make another PB&J sandwich, then went to his room. As soon as the last load of clothes came out of the dryer, he got his bike and rode into town.

  After cashing in his accumulated empties, he headed to the stadium for the game. At the wall, he talked to several friends about his dilemma. Though none of their suggestions would help him, he felt better venting his frustrations.

  CHAPTER 6

  This routine went on for another week. By getting up early, he avoided any confrontations with his family.

  But, and you know there is always a but in any situation, while in town, Bottles spotted his dad’s ’57 Chevy on the street. He was happy to see his aunt drove and not his cousins.

  He was returning the last of the bottles for the day when Jimmy and Biff spotted him. They watched with interest as Jon Flanders put the coins in his hand.

  Flanders saw Bottles’ nervousness.

  “What’s wrong, son?”

  Bottles shook his head, but glanced outside.

  “Them?” Jon gestured.

  “Yeah.”

  “Who are they? They look like shady characters to me.”

  “They’re my cousins. Dad left them living at home.”

  He put a fatherly hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Are they bothering you?”

  “Nothing that I can’t handle, sir…right now anyway.”

  “You let me know…”

  “Sure, Mr. Flanders.”

  Bottles got on his bike, but the cousins blocked his way. Flanders watched as they pulled the boy off the bike. While one held him, the other shoved his hands in the boy’s pockets, pulling out his precious pennies.

  They laughed as Bottles began to cry. Humiliated, he pedaled away.

  At home, the scene was even uglier. Aunt Louise sat him at the table demanding to know where he stole the money from.

  “I… I didn’t steal it. I earned it from my… my job. I have a part time job.”

  “Who’d give you a job?”

  “It doesn’t matter who. I have one and I have to do it every day.”

  “We’ll see about that.” She turned to her sons. “Boys, I think it’s time you entered the world of finance.”

  While they discussed the boys finding a job, Bottles ran out and rode into town. With school starting in a few days, he decided to go to as many games as he could. Yet, as much as he loved the team, his heart wasn’t in it. He lasted to the seventh inning and left, slowly riding back home.

  Had he stayed, he would have seen the grand slam that sailed over the fence right into his friend’s glove. Not only that, he would have been invited inside the stadium along with the other wall rats.

  He pulled his bike into the cellar and went to bed.

  It was not every day the Raccoons made the playoffs with home-field advantage for the first games. Because of that, the first day of school was delayed.

  Back at home, the cousins came up with a novel way to earn money. Bottles would do the work, and they’d take it from him. Bottles figured as much, so as soon as he finished his chores, he headed into town. After cashing in the first batch of empties, he headed to Myer’s Hardware.

  “Hi, Mr. Myers. I’m here to—“ Bottles stopped talking. Sitting on the counter was a baseball holder with an autographed ball inside it. “Wow!”

  “Nice, huh? The team is giving this away along with these.” The man showed the boy an album of autographed team photos. ”There are four of these, that stuffed raccoon over there, and a few other things.”

  “How do you win them?”

  “It’ll be drawings of ticket stubs. Are you going to the game?”

  “I’d sure like to, but…”

  “Say Bottles—I didn’t see you in the stadium on Tuesday. Weren’t you at the game?”

  “I was there. In the stadium? No, I was outside the fence.”

  “It’s a shame you missed catching that grand slam home run ball. Jack Marshall caught it. Then everyone that was outside was invited inside. Why didn’t you come inside? I know you love the team.”

  Bottles lowered his head. “I’ve been having some problems at home since dad left. Guess that happened after I left the game.”

  “You dad walked out on you?”

  Bottles looked up. “Oh, no sir. He went out of town to look for work.”

  “Who’s looking out for you?”

  “My Aunt Louise is there. But so are her two sons.”

  “Tell me what’s going on, son. Start at the beginning.” He gestured to a chair behind the counter.

  And so, Bottles revealed the ugly details of life with his surrogate family.

  “You listen to me, son. There are laws against what they are doing to you.”

  “But—”

  “No buts. You let me deal with them.” He glanced at the autographed baseball. “You do know the manager of the Raccoons, don’t you?”

  “Yes, sir. Joe Kiski. He used to play in the majors. I only saw him once when I tried to get my ball signed. But he was busy.”

  “Joe is my brother-in-law.”

  Bottles’ eyes opened wide. “Really?”

  Mr. Myers nodded. “Let me make a few calls.”

  “Wow. Your brother-in-law.” Bottles shook his head. He put his hands in his pockets. Feeling the change, he remembered why he was there. “Oh, Mr. Myers. Here’s my money to pay for the padlock. I almost forgot.”

  The owner pulled out the ledger and marked the charge entry paid. As he was putting it away, he spotted the familiar red ’57 Chevy driving by.

  “Bottles—I thought you said your dad was out of town.”

  “He is.”

  “Then who is driving his car?”

  The boy ran to the window. �
�My cousins. They’ve already dented a fender. They’re looking for me—to steal my money again.”

  “Do either of them have a driver license?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  He picked up the phone. “Mabel? Ring up the police chief will you?” He hung up the receiver.

  “What are you gonna do?”

  “Don’t you worry none.” The phone rang; Bernie answered. “Hey Bill. A couple of young hoodlums are driving Bottles’ dad’s car. No. no license. They’re his cousins, but I doubt they have permission. Pull them over will you? Great.”

  “Are they going to be arrested? They sure deserve it, but what will Aunt Louise say?”

  They watched as the police chief flagged the car down to stop. Both boys got out of the vehicle. Bottles and Mr. Myers could see there was an argument going on, but couldn’t hear. Sure enough, after a couple of minutes, the chief escorted the boys to the town’s jail.

  “They sure don’t look happy,” Bottles observed.

  “No they don’t,” Bernie chuckled.

  Bottles looked at the clock. “Oh, I’m late. I have to go, Mr. Myers. Thanks for having them arrested.” Bottles laughed.

  “You’re welcome son. And Bottles, don’t worry. Everything has a way of working out.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  When the boy left, Myers picked up his phone again. “Mabel? Connect me to Joe Kiski over at the stadium.”

  CHAPTER 7

  He saw Aunt Louise walking down the road. He stopped next to her.

  “Aunt Louise? Where are you going?”

  “Into town.”

  He shrugged. “Why not take dad’s car?”

  “Harrumph. Too nice a day. Thought I’d walk.”

  “Okay. See you later.”

  He rode away, but she called to him. “Have you seen my boys?”

  “No ma’am. I finished my job and was coming straight home.”

  “Make sure you do that. And do the laundry.” She turned around.

  He shook his head. “Laundry again? How do they dirty so many clothes?”

  As he turned into the driveway, Bottles decided he’d better lock his bike away every time he was home. He realized if his cousins were grounded, the bike would be the first thing they’d come after.