by Aiden James
I whirled around to face him, and I must admit that it’s a bit eerie seeing a younger version of Dad and Grandpa, since Manuel’s face is definitely one and the same as theirs… when they were younger. Same hazel eyes that can morph to green when Manuel gets pissed, and his hair thickness and hairline are telltale Radu—the only qualities he shares with Adrian, since Manuel wears his dark brown hair short. From the few portraits and early photographs we have available, he is the ‘spitting image’ of both Grandpa and Dad when they were each just over two centuries old. At present, Dad looks exactly the same as Grandpa when he was nearing three hundred. Sometimes I wished I looked more like them, although we have many similarities. But with Mom’s DNA in the mix, which carries almost as much influence as Dad’s roots, what my sister and I become in our later centuries will be significantly different than our male Radu ancestors.
“How does one do that?” I asked.
“By thinking ‘I’m gonna hide my frigging aura from my uncle today’,” he said, sliding down in the seat next to me at the table, while a bowl, utensils, and a jug of milk that Alisia had returned to the refrigerator after adding a small amount for her cereal, glided through the air to the table. His use of the latest American slang sounded funny with his pronounced accent that bore a stronger Romanian edge than Adrian’s. “You can make anything happen that you picture in your mind with practice and a sincere desire to make it so.”
“Like practicing magic in a household where it’s presently forbidden?” asked Alisia, unable to mask her envy or contempt.
“That simply is not correct,” he said, smiling naughtily. “It is forbidden for you, perhaps, since you live under your grandparents’ and parents’ roof and must obey their rules. I am but a guest, and require no such supervision or restraint…. Besides, if they tried to stop me and Adrian from doing what is perfectly legitimate for us to do under The Code, we would be forced to leave your fate to the whims of Valerian and Irina Matei’s edicts, and try to aid you as best we could from one of the hotels up the road.”
Nearly five miles away on Woodard Street, that is, since the street turns into a highway just outside of the main city limits. The motel chains reside a few miles east from there. And, we are talking the chains several steps down from a Holiday Inn Express. It’s sort of fitting for a town with only a handful of decent eateries and not a single legit steakhouse.
“Well, since we need for you both to stick around until we’re no longer in danger, the kids are going to have to deal with a double standard,” said Mom, moving through the kitchen to grab a soda from the fridge. She had her sunglasses on, which announced to Alisia and I that she was preparing to leave for a while. Grandma stood in the doorway, similarly attired in a summery shorts ensemble and protective eyewear. “Please assist your father in keeping an eye on the ‘hired help’ coming over today, since he advised me a short while ago that he will be busy in his office for most of the day.”
“What about Grandpa? Don’t you want us to keep an eye on him?” I asked.
“Manuel will handle that today,” Grandma advised. “That’s why he’s mingling with the family for a change, and it seems like you three are getting along swimmingly.”
“What ‘hired help’ are you talking about?” asked Alisia.
Good question and it immediately became my point of focus as well.
“We have two handymen that will be working on the house,” Mom advised. “One is the African-American kid down the block from us—the one recommended by Julien to Gabriel the other night.”
“Harris? Harris Martin?”
I figured it was, but I sought to confirm it anyway.
“Yes. He is reattaching the gutters and will re-paint that side of the house, since Father said it is cracking already.”
“Didn’t the previous owners tell you that they just repainted it?”
“Yes, they said they did it last spring,” said Mom. “But they apparently added just one coat, and used such a cheap grade of paint that we’re fortunate it lasted this long.”
“Or, unfortunate, if it would’ve saved you some big bucks off the purchase price for this place.”
I would like to believe the words merely slipped out of my mouth, but I still harbored ill feelings about moving from Wheaton, and couldn’t resist throwing a little barb into the conversation.
“Bas… get over it!” Mom replied sternly, letting me know she was past coddling me and my misgivings about the relocation. “You find me a home this luxurious anywhere in the Chicago metro area for less than four times what we paid for this one, and we’ll move tomorrow.”
While it might’ve been tempting to take her up on the offer, I had already spent many nights doing that very thing the past few weeks, via the Internet. She was right… and actually, the price for a comparative Chicago home with a yard like the one we were saddled with was closer to six times what they paid for this place. Yeah, I know… money means little when the cost of one’s happiness is at stake. But she and Grandma were obviously nowhere near ready to leave Denmark, the Mateis’ presence be damned.
“Okay,” I surrendered, and offered her a demure smile. “I like Harris. Met him the other day while I was out trimming the hedges along the old fence.”
“You mean attempting to look like you knew what you’re doing as you made a nice uneven line,” teased Alisia. “Grandpa and I had a good laugh about that, and he went in behind you to straighten it up.”
“Oh.” Really what else could I say? Good thing my goal that day was to camouflage my true intent for being outside.
“He seems like a good kid,” said Mom. “I doubt we’ll need to keep a close eye on him…. It’s the other guy coming, who has lately chummed up with Father.”
“What other guy is that?” I asked, trying to picture a man in this neighborhood other than Julien, Harrison, Harris, and Dan Dean that Grandpa would find remotely intriguing.
“The guy across the street, who lives in the yellow one-story.”
“No way!” Alisia couldn’t believe it, and I think I was in denial at first.
“‘Horseshit’ Harry?” I asked in disbelief, which brought rousing laughter from Manuel and Alisia.
“Oh, that’s awesome, Bas!” enthused my sister.
“I like that name, and look forward to meeting this one!” added Manuel, rising from his seat to leave the room. He was still laughing as he headed for Dad’s office off the foyer.
“I haven’t heard this name before,” said Mom, who appeared perplexed despite her eyes being sheltered by her ‘Jackie O’ shades. She frowned and looked at Grandma, who shook her head to confirm she hadn’t heard the name either.
“Julien says that’s what the entire neighborhood calls this guy, since he once poured a dump truck full of horse manure on his lawn,” I said, finding it hard not to laugh, but also not wanting Mom and Grandma to worry about a weirdo neighbor wandering about in the house. Frankly, I was surprised Mom hadn’t made the connection between what she had surely heard from Dad about the strange man that had inspired mole-shifting fantasies from Alisia and me. “Stunk the neighborhood up to the point it was overrun with flies.”
“Wouldn’t that burn the grass?” asked Grandma, pursing her lips. The guy’s fate of forever being viewed by her as a village idiot had just been sealed.
“Apparently it did, and he’s been trying to fix his yard ever since,” I said.
“He should clean it up first,” added Mom, who picked up her keys. “Well, just make sure you two keep an eye on him. He is supposed to have some expertise in floor repair of old homes and Father said the guy accidentally discovered the original heart pine floors upstairs in the gallery.”
“Beneath the marble tiles?” I sought to confirm.
“That aren’t even real marble,” added Alisia, enjoying her moment in sarcasm heaven.
“Yes,” said Mom, tersely. “But it’s being fixed, and when the original floors are brought back to where they were one hundred and sixty ye
ars ago, it will add twenty grand to our home’s worth.”
Having said her peace, she turned to leave, with Grandma in tow. Mom’s mention of the place as ‘our home’ stung deeply—almost as much as an unfortunate incident potentially being a twenty thousand dollar boost to the old antebellum’s worth. Words of permanence, as if planting roots with an intent to stay. Meanwhile, the convertible’s engine sprang to life outside in the back driveway, while my sister and I prepared for the arrival of the surly jerk from across the street. Though grimly, I grinned at the thought of Harry Turner working on the gallery floor and running across a problem… then calling for my father to take a look.
“That thar’s some shit!”
* * * * *
Harry and Harris arrived ten minutes apart from each other that afternoon. Harris was a few minutes early, and Harry was almost ten minutes late for their two o’clock start time.
Dad and Grandpa met the pair at the front door and then Dad stepped outside to review the gutter work with Harris, and Grandpa led Harry upstairs. Dressed in similar overalls, Harris smiled and said hello to me, and offered a shy nod to Alisia, while Harry barely acknowledged our presence. In fact, he looked like he didn’t even remember us, or the incident involving his kid.
The differences between the two men extended far beyond skin color. Aside from being young and physically handsome, Harris’s quiet confidence and intelligence gave me the same feeling about his future that Julien had. I tagged along while he and Dad headed to the rear of the house. After my father gave him the details on what he wanted done, and Harris confirmed what he would do to fix it all, he also offered to stabilize the wood in the large trellis that covered the porch at the very rear of the house. Some of the spindles that would have to be replaced were very old, and Mom and Grandma didn’t want it torn down and discarded for that reason. Harris had taught himself how to work with tools long since discarded by mainstream carpenters, and offered to replace the broken and rotted pieces with new spindles made from the same poplar and walnut used in the original construction of the house. When Dad asked if he was planning to do this sort of work once he graduated from high school, he replied that he would enjoy doing this sort of thing, but that he planned to attend the University of Tennessee on a full ride athletic scholarship for football after his upcoming senior year at Herschel County High School. He had recently signed a letter of intent, and planned to become a veterinarian after college.
“Would you like something to drink?” I asked him, after my father returned inside and Harris and I had talked about his upcoming senior year plans. He looked like he would finish up the work in the next hour or so, and other than using some sort of other world wizardry, I doubted I could keep up and produce the quality Harris could produce.
“I’ll take some water if you’ve got it,” he said. “If you’re going back inside to get it, you might want to keep an eye on Mr. Turner. I’m not sayin’ he would steal from folks, but he has been known to walk off a job without tellin’ anyone, and our neighbor John Herbert said Harry took a few things that Mr. Herbert later saw inside Mr. Turner’s house. So, just keep your eyes open.”
“I’ll do that… see you in a few.”
I decided to walk around the house and go in through the front entrance. ‘Horseshit’ Harry would be working in the gallery overlooking the foyer, and I planned on taking a stroll up the stairs if I didn’t see Alisia, Grandpa, or Dad keeping watch. To my surprise, Harry stood in the middle of the staircase, shootin’ the shit with my father and grandfather. His overalls were undone at the shoulder, leaving his wife-beater T-shirt exposed. He regarded me for a moment, pausing whatever story he was telling to Dad and Grandpa.
“Just getting some water for Harris,” I advised, looking for Alisia. She was nowhere around at the moment… probably slipped away when Harry went on his present diatribe. Manuel was nowhere to be found either… so much for his helpfulness.
“Sounds good, son,” said Dad. “How’s he doing?”
“He’s just about done with the gutter work,” I said, casting a suspicious glance at the guy loitering on the stairs. It had no effect, as other than regarding me as if I was a nasty rodent that had just crawled into the house, he picked up where he apparently had left off before my interruption.
“…So, y’all have seen the waddlin’ cow, ain’t ya?”
“I’m sorry… I didn’t know you owned a cow,” said Dad.
“Nah… I’m talkin’ about my wife, Jolsteen,” said Harry, to which Grandpa chuckled. “No, I’m quite serious about this,” Harry went on. “I guess ya ain’t seen her, but she’s a big girl even when she ain’t pregnant. And unless that damned doctor over in Union City is expectin’ two to three younguns outta her, he needs to get on the stick and induce labor.”
Louder laughter came from Grandpa and a little from Dad, too… but also awkwardness. I could tell my father was uncomfortable listening to this nonsense, while my grandfather looked at me as if gratefully amused. I then understood what the old man found interesting about this sorry excuse for a human being. Harry was merely an entertaining distraction for Grandpa to indulge in.
“Let me tell you this,” continued the man who was supposed to be working on the gallery floor and had yet to crack open the toolbox I saw resting near the top of the stairs. “I took her to see a different doctor this mornin’—the third obgyn specialist that Jolsteen’s seen this month. And you know what? That sucker gets this look on his face while he’s examinin’ my wife, and he says he’s havin’ a helluva time findin’ her cervix. So, I says to him, this Dr. Mellick… I says, “Would ya like my help in findin’ it? ‘Cause I’ve been down there a few times, ya know.”
Admittedly, it was all I could do to keep a straight face. Really, the dude could be as funny as he was dangerously crazy.
Grandpa’s laughter echoed throughout the foyer as I slipped out the front door with Harris’ water and one of Mom’s cherished Cokes for me. I was honestly surprised at the energy lift I felt when I returned to the rear of the house, where Harris had nearly finished. I realized then Grandpa was playing with fire by allowing the asshole Harry Turner inside the house. The man’s negativity could prove to be a better spell-dampener than any mischievous spirit residing in the ole Atwater place.
“I bet right about now Mr. Turner is plotting how he can make the most money off the upstairs floor job your grandfather hired him for, and then not do jack shit to earn it,” said Harris, after he climbed down the ladder to take a short break. I handed him his water. “I’m not one to badmouth anyone, and I told you about Mr. Herbert’s plight with Mr. Turner. But I do believe y’all could end up like Harold Gustafson, which would be a real shame. Y’all are good folk.”
He pointed beyond the northeast corner of our yard, which was impossible to see due to the thick foliage from our yard and the Beauregard’s yard. But I recalled that Julien mentioned the Gustafson name as one of the other Harrys in our neighborhood.
“I haven’t met them yet, but they’re the family from Wisconsin, right?”
“Yep,” he said, grinning. “Mr. Gustafson told me that he and his wife took a chance on good old Harry Turner, and paid him good money to put up some dry wall in their livin’ room last summer. He kept stallin’… leavin’ each day anywhere from 45 minutes to 3 hours into the job, sayin’ his wife, Jolsteen, needed him at home for one thing or another, until finally he left without tellin’ anyone. One of the panhandlers saw the door to their place was left wide open and wandered in the house demandin’ money and liquor, and only left when Betsy Gustafson produced a shotgun instead of her purse. They are still waitin’ for old ‘Horseshit’ Harry to come back and finish the job.”
Good to know, I thought… or good to be aware of extra trouble, when it wasn’t at all what we needed. And, no I wasn’t fearful of what Harry Turner could do to us. A mere human couldn’t steal anything from a Radu that couldn’t be readily replaced; and he couldn’t physically hurt us bad enough to wa
rrant caution in that regard either.
What I worried about was Grandpa, and what he might do to this miscreant if he pulled a stunt like what happened to the Gustafsons. Or even what Adrian might do, for that matter. Mom’s vision of this frightened asshole being shoved into the body of a mole might come true after all… only instead of Alisia or me, it could be a master sorcerer doing the deed.
Chapter Thirteen
For those wondering if Harry Turner accomplished anything of note before he left at four-thirty that Thursday afternoon, well… Grandpa claims he did.
I beg to differ.
As far as I could tell, Harry managed to remove two short rows of faux marble, ceramic tiles. That’s it. Nothing more.
And, true to his lazy-assed approach that had forever endeared him to the neighborhood, Harry failed to promptly secure plastic tarps around the upstairs gallery. A thin layer of black grout dust covered everything from the brass chandelier to the paintings lining the walls, including the draperies and wainscoting. Mom was completely thrilled, to say the least. Based on her heated aura that was clearly evident to us all, I was willing to bet this could become the deciding moment for lifting the ban on spells inside the house—either to fix Harry’s shit or permanently alter his DNA. If comparing his shabby efforts against the excellent work turned in by Harris Martin in half the time, who in their right mind would keep this carpenter-wanna-be on the job past the first day?
Georghe Radu.
From all appearances, my grandfather had discarded his sound business acumen—a trait that had kept our family straight for centuries—in favor of his desire for dangerous entertainment. Despite Harry’s obvious lack of professionalism and verifiable carpentry skills, Grandpa found this numbskull ‘refreshing’. In fact, he asked Harry to come back the next day with only a friendly “Let’s see if you make a bigger dent in the project tomorrow,” as an admonishment.