by Zuko, Joseph
His arm flexed as he lifted his toolbox, “The dishwasher?”
“Right, come on in,” she said as she stepped aside and let him pass.
“Sorry about the mess. I have a sick kid home from school.”
He entered and headed straight for the kitchen.
Robin greeted him with a shout of, “Naked!” as she waved her little butt in his direction.
“You sure are,” Steve looked back at Karen, “No worries. This place is really clean compared to most.” he set his toolbox down on the kitchen floor and took a knee. “What’s going on?”
Robin raced back out of the kitchen to watch cartoons with Valerie.
“Nothing much. I have to drive over to my mom’s to let her chickens out of the coop so they can get some fresh food and water,” she babbled. Karen noticed his smile and that he was pointing at the dishwasher.
“You mean the machine? Not me, I’m sorry.” She swallowed hard. “I turn the knob but nothing happens after that.”
“Okay, I’ll pop this open and get it fixed in no time so you can go rescue those poor chickens,” Steve said as he gave her another big smile.
Karen laughed much louder at his little joke than necessary.
“You want a glass of water or anything?”
“No thank you. I’m good.”
“I’ll let you get to it,” she quickly turned and left the kitchen. Once she knew she was out of his sight she pointed her index finger at her temple and shot herself in the head.
It was a clean kill.
A little bit later she heard Steve close the dishwasher, turn the knob and the loud ass machine came alive. It would limp along and poorly wash dishes for another day. She sprang from the couch and joined him in the kitchen.
“You got it going,” she stated the obvious.
“Yep, the timer was broken so it was an easy job.” Steve snapped the lock on his toolbox.
“What do I owe you?” she said jokingly.
“Today’s service will be gratis.” Steve muscled up the heavy toolbox. He stopped at the edge of the kitchen and looked at the sick little monster on the couch. She barked out a loud cough.
“I hope you feel better soon.” The man’s smile could light up a city block. He looked over at Robin. “Have fun being naked.”
“Okay!” She flashed him another peek at her little booty.
“Call the front desk if you need anything else,” Steve said as he headed for the front door.
“Will do. Thank you again.” Karen followed him.
He popped open the door and stepped through the threshold, “Just doing my job ma’am,” he gave her a wink as he walked away.
She shut and locked it after him. Back to being a mom, “All right girls, who needs a bath?” Karen asked as she whipped off her top and headed for the bathroom.
An hour later Karen stood at the front door and ran down the checklist. Kids dressed and looking cute, check. Valerie’s hair could use a brush but what’s the point. She was only going to lie down on it all day and mess it right back up. The tangled look helped her sell just how sick she really was.
She has her purse, sunglasses and phone. Check. Check. Check. Phone’s battery was down to twenty-eight percent. Jim would freak out if his phone were even close to seventy percent before he stepped out of the house. Karen loved to live on the wild side and run around town with only a quarter charge on her battery.
Karen shuffled the kids out the front door. Valerie announced to everyone that she was sick with a long, deep cough.
"Please cover."
"Sorry."
She locked the door behind herself and tested it three times to make sure she locked it. One, two, three and now they could go.
"Hold hands." They walked out into the parking lot of the apartment complex. It was never busy out here but she liked to practice car safety with the girls.
The family that lived kitty-corner on the second floor to them was loading up their three kids into a large silver van. The two families shared a smile and wave. Karen could never remember their names. Carl and Toni. No, Cliff and Tina, right, she never remembered. They had three children, two of them were close in age with Valerie and Robin and the older daughter was about nine. The three kids had the same jet-black hair as their mother, except the Mom’s had a solid streak of green flashing through it. She had a cool punk rock look. The family’s van sported a few heavy metal band stickers across the back window.
Valerie and Robin got super excited every time they saw the neighbor kids. They would fire questions back and forth.
“Where are you going?”
“You wanna play?”
“Your mom’s hair is green?”
“We have a Botchy.”
“That’s my Daddy and Mama.”
“Look at shoes,” Robin said as she slapped her foot down onto the concrete and the top of her shoes lit up.
“Whoa.”
“Cool. I want that.”
Kids made friends so easily. Karen wished it were that easy for adults. The fear with neighbors was that they would be over all the time. It might be totally cool, but what if it stopped being cool and you want them to go away?
Then what?
It was never worth the risk for her and Jim. During the summer months the kids would all play together at the apartment’s pool. The adults made small talk but it never got any further than that. Tina spoke to her kids in English with a little Spanish mixed in. Karen could only half understand what was going on. Her husband, Cliff was always polite but never really said much. He would second a command Tina had issued to the kids, but that was all Karen had ever heard him say.
He looked a lot like Jim. Same skin tone, hair color, build and age. It was weird how closely they looked like each other. Generic dad look you might say. The main difference was Cliff had his hair buzzed short. He looked like he just got out of boot camp. Karen wrangled the kids into the car and waited for the neighbors to get out first. Then she was off.
She got bombarded with the same questions every time she drove anywhere.
"Where are we going?”
“Can we get cheeseburgers?”
“What's that? What's that? What's that?"
Karen zoned out as she pulled up to an intersection. Her attention was quickly grabbed by flashing lights in her rearview mirror. Two police cruisers zipped by them and raced down the street. Right behind them was an ambulance. Its siren set the kids off and both of them screamed at the top of their lungs only because they thought it was funny. Valerie coughed and coughed. It sounded like she was about to lose a lung back there. The light turned green and Karen tapped the gas. Another set of cruisers flashed past her. She jammed on the brakes in the middle of the intersection.
“What the hell is going on?” she asked herself.
“Mama, you said a bad word.” Karen looked up into the rearview mirror at her oldest.
“I am sorry. Will you forgive me?”
“Yes Mama. You’re forgiven,” Valerie said and then barked a cough into her sleeve. Her voice was rough from the coughing attacks.
“I need to get you some cough medicine.”
“No way. It tastes gross.”
“It will make you feel better.”
“Nope.”
“We’ll see if Ganny has any.”
“Ice cream will make me feel better. Can I have ice cream?”
“Medicine first and then maybe ice cream.”
“Ice cream and then I’ll have medicine and then a little more ice cream?” Kids are so good at negotiating.
A few blocks down the road Karen found the accident that had all of the police speeding past her. Black smoke shrouded a three-car pile-up just off the side of the road. A circus surrounded the crash and there was a frenzy of activity. Some of the officers had their guns drawn. An EMT was laid out on a gurney. His uniform was covered in blood. It looked too black to be blood, but what else could it be?
His body thrashed back and forth.
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Two other EMT’s fought to push the injured man back onto the stretcher. An officer stood guard with his gun drawn. Karen couldn’t quite hear what the officer was screaming.
“Strap…I’ll put a bullet….don’t let it bite…!” The cop’s face was bright red and covered in sweat. He spit commands at the top of his lungs, but the sirens drowned him out. Her view was quickly blocked when a fire truck pulled up next to the scene.
As Karen crept past the mess she did a little rubber necking to catch a glimpse. There was a lot of dark crimson liquid everywhere. It was all over the ground. All over the responding teams. Someone was dead for sure. You can’t lose that much sauce and still be amongst the living. Two more shotgun-toting cops sprinted toward the accident.
“Mama, look!” Valerie pointed out the front window. Karen’s head whipped around and she jammed on her brakes. Her front bumper was a foot away from a young officer. His hand was up, commanding her to stop. He stepped quickly over to the passenger’s side window. Karen tapped the button and the window automatically rolled down. He scanned the inside of the vehicle. He was visibly shaken up.
“Hello,” Valerie smiled brightly at him.
“Hello,” Robin copied. He did not break a smile. Sweat dripped off his young clean-shaven face and onto the passenger’s door. Most people couldn’t resist the children’s cuteness, but it was like they weren’t even there.
“Is everything okay officer?” Karen asked. His head snapped in her direction. Some sweat flung onto the dash. His eyes burned with an intensity Karen had never seen before. He looked like he could cry at any moment.
His voice broke, “Has anyone sustained any…injuries?”
Valerie coughed and his head whipped back to look her over.
“Is she sick?!” he stared at Valerie. She smiled back at him and did not pick up on any of his weird social cues.
“She has a little cough, but no one here has sustained any injuries.”
“Move along, ma’am. Drive safe!” and his head was gone. He was on to the next car. This might have been the most exciting thing Karen had ever seen in Vancouver, Washington.
Chapter 2
It was only a fifteen-minute ride to Penny’s house but the kids drove Karen nuts the whole way.
“I gotta pee!” Robin announced from the backseat. There was a fifty percent chance the kid really did have to go. Karen didn't bring a change of clothes if she messed herself in the car.
Now it was a race. Could she get to her mother’s house across town or would the two-year-old lose control and piss all over her little self? A stressful few minutes later the tires screeched to a halt in the driveway. Karen ran. Popped open doors. Unfastened safety belts. Snatched up a panicked baby and let out a sick five-year-old.
They dashed to the front door. She fumbled with the keys till she got the door open. She rushed the slow-footed five-year-old through the front door and sprinted to the closest bathroom. Robin had her pants on so it took a few extra seconds to get them down, but she did it. Mission accomplished. No pee pants today!
Back in the front door hallway the house alarm went off. Valerie held her hands up to her ears and coughed out a loud scream at the top of her lungs. She did the same joke she did in the car. She screamed her head off because the alarm was too loud. It took Karen three tries but she finally remembered the code and got the alarm off. This headache all for some dumb chickens, but that’s life.
"I'm done," Robin called from the bathroom. Karen got her taken care of and set the TV on Dora the Explorer. She got Valerie set up on the couch with some more water. After some heavy convincing, Karen got Valerie to drink a little cough medicine and then handed her a bowl of ice cream to help wash away the taste. Karen took Robin to the back of the house. Robin knew exactly what they were here for.
"Tickens!" Robin said as her Mama fought to get rubber boots on her little feet.
The backyard was covered in mud and chicken poop. They left a spare set of boots for the kids here. Since Karen and Jim did not have a backyard for the kids to play in at the apartment they would come over here almost every weekend so the kids had a chance to play outside. The coop Penny built for the chickens was big. Really big. There was a good-sized area that they slept in and an even bigger fenced in area for them to play.
Chickens play, right?
She had it set up so you could pull a string on the outside fence area and it opened the coop’s front door. Karen let the ladies out and popped open the gate door. The gals had free reign of the whole backyard. Penny’s backyard was quite large and there was a tall fence surrounding all three sides. Karen let the kids play back here for hours without a worry. Robin chased the poor chickens around as Karen headed back into the kitchen.
She had to see if there was any snack food about to go bad. Penny needed help cleaning out the sweets every couple of weeks. Karen didn't throw them away, she ate them. She called it recycling. She didn't want the open bag of chips to go bad. Those Oreo's couldn't eat themselves. She didn’t know if Penny even noticed that the food went missing. Karen often thought Penny believed that she had eaten the food herself or that there was some kind of a food gremlin. Karen considered it a public service that she did for her Mom.
Jackpot!
A quarter bag of Barbeque potato chips and one little cupcake. She ate the cupcake quickly. If the little ones saw it, there would be no cupcake for Mama. She had a good hour here before she had to pack the girls up and head home. She fired up Penny's computer and did a little Facebooking. She watched through the window as Robin tried over and over again to pick up the same chicken. The girl was persistent.
"Mama, I'm still thirsty."
"Let’s see what Ganny has in the fridge," she said as she clicked "like" on a photo and headed back to the kitchen.
The bay window in the kitchen was full of little plants and porcelain bird figurines. It looked out onto the front yard. On the other side of the fence four cop cars raced down the street. Their sirens called out and let everyone know to get the hell out of the way. It was strange to see that many cop cars on this street. It was not a main road. This was way back into a suburb.
Penny did not have any kid drinks in the fridge. No pop or juice. Nothing. The kids must have drunk everything she had last night when she was watching them for date night. Karen grabbed a plastic cup from the cupboard and moved to the sink under the bay window. She poured a glass.
Her heart jumped when she saw a figure standing in the driveway. It was a man. Dressed in dark clothes. He spotted Karen in the window. He moved for the front door. A second later there was a knock. Karen panicked. She had heard too many stories recently about nasty home invasions ending in murder. Every time a stranger approached the house it put her on edge. Did she lock the front door? Karen couldn’t remember. She dropped the cup into the sink and sprinted out of the kitchen.
It was unlocked!
“Shit,” she whispered to herself.
“Hello.” The thick wood door muffled his voice. As quietly as she could she turned the lock. The bolt slipped into place and she let out a deep breath.
“Ma’am? I’m here to talk to you about satellite. Are you happy with your cable service?” he asked as he knocked again. “Ma’am, I saw you in the window. It’s rude not to say anything…ma’am?” He knocked again.
She couldn’t hold her tongue any longer, “It’s my Mom’s house and she’s happy with cable.” Karen watched him through the peephole.
He was missing a front tooth and had not shaved for a few days. He could have been handing out free chocolate and hundred dollar bills and she still would not open the door.
“See, that’s all you had to say.” He turned away from the door, “Rude ass bitch!” His voice trailed off as he shuffled down the walkway for the street.
Karen heard Robin playing loudly outside. She raced through the kitchen and to the backdoor. Robin tried again to pick up the same chicken. She never gave up on that stupid thing. Karen jumped out
the door and picked up Robin.
“Mama, chicken,” she said as she pointed down.
“I know, chicken. Come on baby,”
“Beautiful little girl you got there!” A voice shouted. It came from the back gate. She faced the man. His big grin stared right at her. There was no lock on that gate. If he wanted to come in there was nothing Karen could do to stop him. Even if she ran as hard as she could for the backdoor she was not confident that she could get the sticky old sliding glass door shut before he got to her.
“I said she’s a beautiful girl! What amazing red hair she has on that little head of hers!” His fingers curled around the top of the wood gate. He pulled himself up onto his tiptoes so he could get a better look of the backyard.
“Oh, thank you. Sorry about earlier…it’s my Mom’s house and I don’t like to…”
“Answer the door, like a courteous human being.”
“I’m sorry.” She shuffled a few steps for the door.
“Could I get a glass of water?”
Karen stopped and forced a smile, “I got a sick kid in there I need to take care-.”
“It’s so hot out today and I’m so…” his eyes floated up and down Karen’s body, “…thirsty.”
That was it. She had had enough of this asshole’s bullshit. She put down Robin and took a few steps closer toward the gate. Robin chased after the same poor chicken.
“Is that how you sweet talk all the women?” Karen stood with her arms crossed. “You close a lot of sales acting this way?”
A look of confusion flooded the man’s face. “I…I…”
“I don’t have time for this sir. I have a sick child to tend too. So please move along and go bug someone else.”
His jaw dropped open like a fish. He swallowed what little pride he had left and let go of the fence. The salesman turned quickly and ran right into a human body that stood directly behind him.