by Mark Tufo
“Kiss … my … ass …” Michael stuttered between sharp breaths. His T-shirt and jeans were covered in mud, his sneakers hidden in the slop around them.
The two stood in the oppressive heat about two acres southwest of the farmhouse. They had decided this was as good a spot as any: close to the house so they didn’t have too far to go in case they ran out of water (which they would at this pace), far enough away from the creek so the runoff wouldn’t infect the water, and far enough away from the Cove Springs Estates so they didn’t affect the neighbors.
Larry wiped his brow and stumbled to get another water bottle from the cooler. “We’ve been out here an hour, haven’t buried a single cow, but drank six bottles of water so far.” He glanced to the relentless sun overhead. “It’s too hot for this shit. Call the number and I’ll gladly pay for the entire thing.”
Michael accepted a water bottle, leaning on his shovel. “I won’t take your money.”
“Let the dude with the backhoe take my money. You can buy me lunch while they bury the dead. How the hell were we supposed to move the cows, anyway?”
Michael paused and glanced at the sun. “I need to take a shower first.”
"Good."
“I’ll call the number Susan gave us.” Michael began picking up the shovels and pickaxe. “I’m not going back and putting them in the barn. It’s too fucking hot in there.”
“The barn’s closer than the tool shed.”
“That’s why I checked the barn first. Not happening. I’ll leave this shit here, unless you want to keep digging.”
"I'm the one offering to get the backhoe. Are you listening?" Larry wiped his face with a dirty sleeve.
“I hate to admit defeat,” Michael said with a laugh. “Let’s see if we can call the backhoe dude but not tell Susan. She’ll think we buried them ourselves.”
“Do you really think she’ll believe that?”
“Not a chance, but I’m going to try anyway.” Michael glanced back Larry's SUV, parked about a hundred feet away, and his eyes lit up. “I think she just pulled up.”
Larry stopped dialing the phone and closed it. “You’re sweet on her still, aren’t you?”
“No.” Michael glanced down and kicked a clump of dirt at Larry’s car. “Yes.”
“I’ll pass her a note in homeroom, dude. No biggie.”
“Fuck off.” Michael tried to wipe some of the sweat and dirt off of his T-shirt but only smeared the mess worse. “Make the call, please.”
Susan waved from the side of the house and held up two plastic Publix bags.
The two waved back. “What do you think is in the bags?”
“I’m guessing sex toys for you to satisfy her with.” Larry began running to the car before Michael could hit him.
Leaving the tools on the ground they raced to the car. Larry arrived first and locked the doors. “You’re walking, buddy! You’re not getting that stench in my car!”
Michael gave him the finger as he sped away, kicking up mud with his tires. Collecting his breath, he started moving toward the house.
His house.
It was starting to feel like home to Michael, like he belonged here. With a bit of luck he would be able to financially survive. After surfing the internet and finding the sobering amount of money and labor necessary to get this farm up and running again, let alone making a profit, he was on edge, but Larry laughed.
“Dude, this is a fantastic thing for you. The great unknown, the great equalizer.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” Michael asked.
“Beats the shit outta me, it just sounded good. You’re fucked.” Larry slapped him on the back. “I hope you didn’t burn your bridges in New York too much, since you’ll need to crawl back and beg for your shitty job again.”
“With friends like you, who needs enemies?”
“True.” Larry put a hand on Michael’s shoulder. “You’re smart enough to make this work. You need to keep researching and figure out what you’ve got to do to make this work. I think with the money coming in from Cove Springs Estates you can survive and live comfortably, if not richly. If you can find a way to get this farm producing whatever it is that it produces, you’ll be very well-off.”
“Thank you.”
“But I’d still practice my groveling skills if I were you. Just in case.”
"Need a ride?" Susan asked from her car.
He tried to look calm even though his heart was pounding. "I'm good. I'll meet you back at the house."
"You sure?"
"Of course. Go," he said. Before I pass out and die like a loser.
Michael made his way to the back door and stopped, resting his weight against the wooden rail. He didn’t want to go inside huffing and puffing in front of Susan. Larry knew damn well he liked her but would never ruin their friendship by asking her out on a proper date. I need to be happy with what we have together. He realized he was giving up, like he always did, but this was the first woman to ever spend time with him for this long. He was enjoying the company.
Susan and Larry began to giggle when Michael came inside, sharing a secret joke.
“Funny.” Michael pointed at Larry. “Is this the best you got?” He turned to Susan. “Since we were kids, Larry’s big joke is to make pretend he said something funny about me and shared the humor with another kid, and they both laugh around me to make me think I’m not in on the joke. It’s getting really old.”
Susan laughed harder and turned away, putting a chocolate pie and a six-pack of Michelob in the refrigerator.
“You know, you’re right.” Larry stopped laughing. “I’ve been doing this to you for years and years for no good reason. I know the joke isn’t funny and you get upset. I swore once to never do that to you again and I haven’t in such a long time.”
“Yes I do. But yet, here we are –“
“Your fly is open.” Susan started laughing.
Michael looked down. “Sonofabitch.” He joined Larry and Susan in a laugh as he zipped up.
Larry wiped tears from his eyes. “The backhoe guy said they’d be here late next week. Once I mentioned Becky Watson they said late afternoon today.”
“So I don’t technically owe you lunch yet. The work’s not done.”
“After the price I got quoted, I’d say you owe me a lunch today and tomorrow.” Larry pointed at Susan. “And she comes as well. Part of the package, buddy.” Larry seemed to think for a second. "And you owe her mom as well."
“Fine, fine.” Michael threw up his hands. “I’m going to take a shower.”
“I’ll surf the internet for the most expensive restaurant I can find. How does sushi sound?”
“How does a Happy Meal sound?” Michael shot back.
Chapter Fifteen
The phone woke Trisha up at ten-thirty. “Hello?”
“Wake up, bee-otch! We’re going to lunch.” Alyssa sounded chipper and alive on the other end, the opposite of how Trisha felt.
“I’m not going anywhere. I didn’t sleep well last night.”
“Dreamed of Jim?” Alyssa chided.
“I think so… “Trisha couldn’t remember, but knew she had nightmares and Jim Rutan had been in at least one of them. She couldn’t remember exactly what he was doing, but she didn’t think he was helping her.
“Are you coming or not?”
“Nope.” Trisha rolled over and hugged her white teddy bear. “I’m sleeping this day away.”
“Not likely. We’ll be over in about half an hour. You better get into the shower as soon as we hang up.”
“Who do you mean?”
“Me and my sister. Why, hoping your boyfriend Jim was coming, too?”
Trisha sat up. “Did you see him last night?”
“Nope. Samantha and I went home when we dropped you off because we were tired. Did you go to the tool shed without us?”
“No. I went to bed. I had crazy dreams all night.”
“Half an hour.”
Trisha sighe
d. “Give me an hour.”
“Forty-five minutes. We’ll pick you up.”
Trisha hung up the phone and slammed herself back down on the bed. She didn’t want to leave the house today. Despite the sunlight pouring in through the curtains, seemed dark and gray outside. She shivered even with the heat in her room.
Jim came into her mind again. ‘… You have to come with me…’
Admittedly, she didn’t know Jim well, but she still sensed it hadn’t been Jim at her front door yesterday. He seemed so odd, so strange… something hadn’t been right with him and it still bothered her. She decided to stay away from Jim for as long as she could.
“The whole school year if I have to,” she said out loud. To take her mind off of her bad night she started fumbling through her closet for clothes to wear. Knowing the Grant twins, they’d be here in about twenty minutes, hounding her until she got ready to go.
Trisha got a quick glimpse in the mirror and shuddered. She closed her eyes. Is that me? Hesitantly she opened her eyes and couldn’t believe what she saw: the bags under her eyes, her hair stringy and chaotic, and her lips drained of color. She looked and felt like she hadn’t slept in a week. It was going to take more than a shower to get her back into shape.
Her parent’s door remained closed when she went out into the hallway. Empty beer bottles, a stained wine carafe, and a dozen marijuana roaches in an ashtray greeted Trisha when she came home last night. After straightening up and forcing her parents off of the sofas and properly into bed, she had finished cleaning up the spilled food in the kitchen – apparently mom or dad had made biscuits and tossed in two frozen pizzas – and made sure the house was back in one piece. She set the timer for nine A.M. on the coffeemaker as a last thought.
Now, she went back downstairs and unlocked the front door. She didn’t want the Grant twins banging on the door, so she wrote a quick note and taped it to the outside of the door for them to come in and go quietly to her room and wait for her.
She poured a cup of black coffee for herself, bringing it with her to the bathroom and putting the cup next to her outfit. Her feet were cold on the floor tiles as she started the shower. She stood for a moment before taking a big gulp of the hot coffee. One last check in the mirror brought the same, sad results as before: she needed a good night’s sleep. My luck I’ll run into a hot guy at lunch or someone from school.
The water soothed her sagging shoulders and she turned up the hot, letting the warmth drain the stiffness from her back and neck.
I’m seventeen but I feel like seventy, she thought. She didn’t think she was attractive, despite what her friend’s said, and the amount of guys that asked her out or flirted with her. Besides, she had no interest in finding some local boyfriend, and then having to drop him like a hot potato once she got accepted to FIT.
I wonder what New York will be like. I hope just like in the movies, with bustling people and an array of sights and sounds and smells, actors and musicians and sports stars walking the streets with you and –
She opened her eyes after rinsing her hair and found the light off. It was daytime, and light trickled in from the frosted window above her head, but she had put the light on. Had the power gone off?
She finished rinsing off, a lump growing in her throat. As she turned off the water the shower curtain ruffled slightly, as if in a breeze. She backed up into the corner of the shower and hugged herself.
Jim Rutan came to her mind, that evil gleam in his eyes. She knew he stood on the other side of the shower, knife in hand, about to kill her.
Why did I leave the front door open? With an inviting note for Jim as to where I am?
The curtain moved again and Trisha grabbed hold of her fear. If I’m going to die I’m going to go down fighting. Trisha picked up the scrub brush, weighing the light object in her hand. It was better than nothing.
Parting the curtain with her left hand, she swung the scrub brush and connected squarely into the face of her assailant.
“Ow! You fucking bitch!” Samantha screamed, covering her eye. “I think I’m blind.”
Trisha realized she was breathing heavily, the weapon still clutched in her grasp.
Alyssa began laughing behind them in the doorway. “I told you she would kick your ass if you fucked with her.”
“You two are assholes.” Trisha dropped the scrub brush, her heart racing. “I hope I poked your eye clean out.”
Samantha sat down on the closed lid of the toilet. “I think you did.” She removed her hand from her eye. “How does it look?”
A large welt was growing on the side of her face, her eye bloodshot.
“Like what you deserve. Can you two assholes get out of here? I need to dry off.” Trisha reached for her towel.
“You have great tits, no wonder Butch and Jim like you,” Samantha said and licked her lips.
“Screw you,” Trisha said with a laugh. “Take your wounded sister with you. If you wake up my parents I’ll kill you both.”
Chapter Sixteen
By the time that Michael, Larry and Susan got back from a long lunch and some shopping at the mall in nearby Orange Park, the backhoe was in place and a large swath of ground had already been dug up.
Becky Watson, who had to work Sunday mornings and didn't go, sat on the front porch reading a paperback and drinking coffee.
“Isn’t it too hot for coffee?” Larry asked her.
“When it’s this hot the best thing to cool you down is a hot drink.” She took another sip. “You city slickers could learn a touch or two from us white trash country folk,” she said in a mock Southern drawl.
“What are you doing here, Mom?”
“Nothing. Just having a lazy Sunday. Trot Carter called me up to vouch for such a big job and in such short time, so I got curious and came over to check the place out.”
“Been sitting out here in this heat long?” Michael opened the front door and motioned for everyone to enter.
“A half hour, but I had good company,” Becky held up her Styrofoam coffee cup and her Brian Keene paperback. “The book was just starting to get interesting.”
“Did you eat?” Larry asked. “We have some leftovers from lunch if you want it.”
“Nah. I bought subs for Trot and his boys and had a delicious tuna sub myself. I’m full.”
They stepped inside, Michael winking at Larry, who scrunched his face and tried to ignore him. Michael sensed his friend was happy to see Becky.
Michael turned up the central air and the group converged on the living room. Susan grabbed a couple of beers and some soda for them.
“What do you guys want to do now?” Larry asked.
“I want to check out the yard before we do anything, to see what they’re doing,” Michael said.
“They’re digging a big hole,” Becky shot back. She grabbed a beer, handed another one to Larry, and popped the top. “Here’s to lazy Sundays.”
“Here, here.” Susan opened her soda. Michael followed suit, slurping from his Diet Coke. He was still hungry but didn’t let on. For lunch they went to a local seafood place on the river called Monty’s Fish & Chips. Michael ordered and ate the broiled seafood platter instead of the fried, without an appetizer or another order of fried scallops like he usually did. A glass of water with lemon rounded out his lunch. Larry and Susan ordered fried food and neither commented on his choice.
He gulped the last of his Diet Coke and hoped no one else heard his stomach growling. After this morning and his heart threatening to burst from his body he had made a vow to lose weight. There would be no crash diets, no weird soup and nuts combinations, no magic shakes and protein bars and no handfuls of pills. Michael wanted to lose weight the natural and normal way, with cutting down his heaping portions of food, cut out all of the unhealthy snacks like candy bars and soda and beer, and eat more fruits and vegetables. His plan was to drop a few pounds and then begin to exercise and drop more weight. He’d never be skinny but he could get back into a healthier weigh
t range.
“Are you coming?” Susan asked Michael. Everyone else was already heading toward the kitchen and out the back door.
“Sure.” Michael got up and realized standing, without getting winded, was a struggle. No more soda, not even diet. I need to buy a thing of lemons for my water. And some water.
Trot and his two-man crew were busy hoisting cow carcasses and dragging them to the ditch they created, a bit farther than where Michael and Larry had begun their day. Already three bodies were moved, and a fourth was getting strapped into a harness to be dragged.
“I hope that smell goes away.” Susan pinched her nose.
“You will probably need to tear down the fence here as well. Notice how worn the wood is in spots? And it reeks of death. If you’re planning on buying new cows, might do you good to have Trot turn the dirt here.” Becky put a hand on Michael’s shoulder. “You’ll have a heck of a time getting other workers out here to do this for you, though. Trot here owes me a big favor and that’s the only reason he came out.”
“What do you mean?” Michael asked.
“I helped him and his wife with a marriage counselor I knew, helped them out pretty well I’d say.”
Michael genuinely liked Becky and her daughter. They were good people, as Grandpa Zaun used to say. “Did you know my grandpa?”
“Of course. In a small town like this we all know one another.” Becky gazed directly at Michael. “I was one of the few still talked with him before everything happened.”
“Can you tell me what happened?” Michael asked.
“Sure, but I’d rather do so inside the house, in the air conditioning, over a few beers, if that’s alright with you.”
“Not a problem.” Michael was sweating profusely again and needed to change his clothes. His cheeks flushed with embarrassment.
“Let me go and ask Trot to dig up this soil here while the backhoe’s out. Might save you a few bucks. Larry, you need to take the walk with me.”
As Becky and Larry moved off toward Trot, Susan wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. “I’d say we need to get back inside. I can’t take much more of this heat.”