“What have you got in mind?”
“I don’t have anything in mind… just saying that we might need to think about getting steadier work. I’m not sure if that’s even possible considering the arrangements we have. Part time and under the table is one thing. Full time and under the table is quite another… not sure if anything like that exists out there, but just something to consider.”
Carter shut off the television at the next commercial break and joined Brenda at the table. “Should we be worried?” he asked.
“Not just yet, Carter. We should just begin thinking about a better way to manage our income. Maybe we could reduce our bills. I don’t know… cut cable or reduce it. It’s just that if anything happens… medically, or if the roof on the house caves in… ”
Carter grimaced. “Maybe there are other ways. I don’t think I could go without my Munsters. Maybe we could both get two part-time jobs.”
“Two part-time jobs that pay under the table?” Brenda asked. “I highly doubt it.”
“Just throwing ideas out there,” said Carter. “Maybe we can build off of them.”
There was silence as they both pondered options for their future.
CHAPTER SIX
The Pearl Street Mall was a favorite of Carter and Brenda. They just loved the feeling of the mountain air and mountain views. They often frequented the coffee joints there, enjoying each other’s company on the outside patio. As they were strolling through the brick walkway, Brenda noticed the flyer for Angie the Psychic. It aroused their curiosity as they read the advertisement again. While reading it, a couple with twin toddler boys walked up to the pole which held Angie’s flyer, and pinned a Wanted flyer over Angie’s page. Carter and Brenda could not believe the gall, but did not say anything since Angie’s business was now on hold, maybe forever.
They began to walk away, and Carter turned back and ripped the flyer from the pole and nonchalantly stuffed it in his pocket while they weren’t looking. On through the mall they shuffled, making their way to their usual coffee spot called The Coffee Shop, where they could enjoy a hot cup of java while being smacked in the face with a cool mountain breeze. What they loved most about this patio was the awesome view of the mountains, which no longer bothered Carter. The altitude of Colorado took some getting used to, so he decided to attribute the headaches that he used to get to just that.
As they strolled along the outside mall area, there was a man preaching to anyone who would listen and anyone who wouldn’t listen. He did not discriminate.
“Don’t make eye contact,” Brenda whispered as a warning. “Don’t make eye contact.”
It was too late. The preacher’s pupils latched onto Carter’s pupils and he came at them with a flyer. “Do you know how to save your soul?” asked the man, who was just about shouting.
“Keep walking. Keep walking,” said Brenda.
“I dunno. Walk on your heels, I guess,” said Carter, and they moved on past.
They safely made it to the coffee shop without further interruptions. While sitting on the outdoor patio, Carter reached into his pocket to retrieve the flyer, which he had a change of heart about and was prepared to attach it to a new pole. He noticed big black letters that said “WANTED” and that caught his eye enough to continue reading. He was also feeling a bit nosy, but they did put it up for all to see. He slowly read the message: Family of four new to area and looking for a two bedroom apartment or house to rent asap. Please call if you have a place for us.
Brenda interrupted when something caught her eye on the flyer. “Carter, there’s a phone number on the bottom. Why don’t you call it and see if they want to cram the family into our spare bedroom?” Brenda then chuckled.
Carter’s eyes lit up as the ridiculous idea spawned a feasible one of his own. “We have three bedrooms. How about if we finally clean out Martin’s room and they can toss the kids in there? We’ll share the house with them and collect rent that we can use to help pay the bills.”
Their ideas were wafting around in the thin Boulder air, and they certainly were not bad ideas. In fact, Carter began thinking about it more, and thought that such extra income could possibly be sufficient to allow them to travel back east to Boston for a couple weeks to figure out what they were going to do with the house.
Maybe they could talk to a realtor about their options, or maybe Charlie’s marriage plans were heading south. He certainly did not wish for this to happen to his best friend, but anything was possible. After all, Charlie loved the house and the low rent, but his fiancée, whom Carter had never met, apparently wanted a palace of her own. He knew that Charlie had changed, but Charlie had a good thing going with the inexpensive rental house, so Carter was not convinced that Charlie wanted this change. He would have made a phone call. That was what Charlie would have done.
As Carter was sitting there on the outdoor patio, he looked over to his right for a second and saw Brenda’s ex-boyfriend, Reggie, from a distance. It looked like he was looking at Brenda. Carter couldn’t be sure, but he did not say anything to her. He just mentioned that it was time to leave, and they got up and did just that. Brenda didn’t see Reggie, and Carter wanted to keep it that way. It had been a long while since they had spotted him. He wanted to keep him out of sight and out of mind.
Once they returned home, they took a tour of the house to determine if it really was rentable. It was certainly big enough, but they would have a lot of work to do to get it ready for tenants. They made their way to Martin’s old room and opened the door.
“Whoa!” said Carter.
“Yikes!” Brenda chimed in.
Carter took a step in. “We haven’t been in this room since… I don’t know how long it’s been, but it smells like mildew. Nobody’s gonna want to live here.”
“Objection,” said Brenda. “I have a special solution that’ll tackle any smell. If there’s one thing I learned from my mom, it’s how to clean. She could clean up a murder scene within half an hour.” Carter eyeballed his sweet Brenda suspiciously. “We can do it,” she continued. “We just have to find a place to put all of Martin’s shit. We should have done this all along, but we did make a pact not to revisit anything in our past. I guess pacts just don’t last forever. Lives change. People change. Their needs and wishes follow suit.”
Carter looked around the room and surveyed the work that needed to be done. “If we can tackle this room in a day, then we could call that couple and make the offer, but we can’t offer until we whip this place into shape. They’ll probably want to check it out immediately since they need it asap.”
Brenda moved further into the room for a closer look. “I think we’d be foolish not to try. We could make them an offer they can’t refuse, and they’re probably a bit desperate with a couple of kids and all.” She went into the kitchen for a box of trash bags, and they both got busy throwing pretty much everything they came across into the bag.
They began piling the bags outside the bedroom door. Carter opened the chest of drawers and grabbed the piles and transferred them into the trash bags. They piled up quickly outside the door, but they kept going, determined to reach their goal by the end of the day.
Once the closet was cleaned out and the clutter was gone, just the mildew needed to be extracted. Carter lifted up the mattress and his jaw dropped. Under the mattress was a collection of items, including a diary, magazines, newspapers, and old photo books that even propped the bed up and would seem to make it uncomfortable to sleep on. “Holy shit!” said Carter. “There’s a treasure trove under here!”
Carter tested his abs by holding the mattress up high, while Brenda reached in and cleared the items from under the mattress and placed them gently onto the floor. These items would need a good going through, rather than be
placed into the plastic bag with all of the other junk. If ever they wanted to revisit their past, this was the time, and it was dangling in front of them like a participle.
They took a breather outside of Martin’s bedroom, and then carried everything that they had found stashed underneath the mattress into the kitchen, so they could inspect the items while sitting at the table under the chandelier. They knew that they had stumbled onto something impressive, and perhaps could get even more information from their past, but it also gave them a chance to rest their backs after all of the bending during the cleaning process.
They spread out the items and began scanning all of the documents. Carter stood up for a bird’s eye view. “Oh my God. Let’s see… we have a photo book, and here’s a diary… another photo book.” He reached for the second photo book and opened it in the middle, then flipped through it to the end.
“Those are all magazine clippings and newspaper articles,” said Brenda in a higher voice than normal, rising from her seat and punctuating her enthusiasm with arched eyebrows. She really got a thrill out of uncovering old relics, and if there was a chance that it had something to do with her, don’t try getting in her way. She backtracked to the first photo book and opened it to the beginning. There was a picture of Martin with his arm around his beloved wife, Shirley. Brenda stared at the picture. “He is all smiles. She is not,” she said.
Carter moved his eyes over to the photo that Brenda was examining. “Look at that,” he said. “She looks totally miserable in that photo. I wonder if she was ever happy with Martin.”
“Of course I was… in the beginning,” said Brenda. She chuckled with a half-snort and playfully pushed Carter back at the chest. She continued staring at the photo, and Carter just observed. He saw her getting lost in the photo as if she was transported back to the time of that photo and actually looking at the photographer. Her facial expression changed to match Shirley’s expression in the photo. She was suddenly melancholy. The change was drastic.
“Brenda, turn the page.” Carter decided to break her concentration. He did not want her to get connected for too long because strange things might happen. It’s not that he thought it was dangerous, but more so that he was uncertain about the effects of prolonged exposure, which he believed had a hypnotic effect on Brenda observing her life as Shirley. He’d seen her transformation before.
Brenda suddenly snapped out of her trance with a shiver. “Oh, excuse me,” she said. She turned the page and there was another photo of Shirley and Martin in even less than happier times. She continued turning pages and looking at the photos of Shirley and Martin. All of the pictures must have been taken by a third party, possibly Carter’s mother or father. Not one picture showed them smiling. They looked like mug-shot pictures from the old tin types.
She moved on to the second photo book, and those photos were of Carter’s parents. The photos of Darren and Alexandra told of misery as well. None of the photos showed them smiling either, and they too must have been taken by a third party. Martin or Shirley must have taken those photos. Nobody in this house was ever happy.
Carter grabbed the diary and opened it up to page one. He was quick to notice that the entries began just after his date of birth and his mother’s date of death:
September 5, 1974
Got this idea from Alexandra. She had an extra diary book and liked to document her days. Now I’d like to give it a try. She spilled her guts out on her pages, and now that she is gone and the house has gone from four to one, it’s kind of lonely, but I kind of like it. I was never much of a people person. Always hated the people. I just prefer going about life on my own. It was getting crowded in this house, and especially when that asshole was banging my wife. He had to go, and he had a train help him. Shirley had to go too, so I took care of her. The bitch. But I miss the bitch. Then there was that girl, Alexandra. She had to go too. Everybody had to go. I hated them all. Glad they’re all dead. If anyone reads this after I’m dead and gone, then go ahead and put me in jail. You wouldn’t have the guts to do it. Neither would I.
Carter put the diary down when he saw it was the only entry. “That son of a bitch. I never would have thought that when I ran out of gas that fateful day, that… it would have been smack dab in front of the house where all this shit went down with… my biological parents.”
Brenda had to console Carter now. She grabbed the diary from his hands and put it down, then wrapped her arms around him from behind. “It’s all in the past,” she said. “Remember that if it didn’t go down like that… then we never would have met. We’ve moved on, and we will continue to move on. Let’s put this away for now and figure out what we’re going to do about Martin’s bedroom. We still have work to do. We have to disinfect Martin’s room and attempt to get that musty smell out.”
They rose to their feet and made their way towards Martin’s room. Brenda then left to grab a bucket of water with ammonia, vinegar and a couple of rags. They spent the next hour wiping down every single wall and object, nook and cranny. Nothing escaped the rag, and the smell was very nearly gone by the time they finished.
“Open up the windows,” Brenda said. “Get some air in here because now we have to kill the chemical smell. It’s powerful shit!”
The windows opened up and the chemical smell began to dissipate with each passing minute. Martin’s room was soon open for business. The second room was all set too. They were ready to make the phone call to that family of four. It seemed like a great opportunity for them, but the price had to be finalized.
“What is an offer that they can’t refuse?” Brenda asked.
“I dunno,” said Carter. “Maybe $400. Collecting the extra money every month would take care of a great weight in bills. What do you say, Brenda?”
“That’s kind of low. Maybe another hundred dollars and that would do a real number on the bills. That’s still unbeatable for a family of four.”
“Let’s split the difference. We just happened upon this ad, having never considered renting. We even got a sneak peek at them and they seemed somewhat normal. Remember… they won’t have a place of their own. We’ll be here to keep them company. Privacy will be non-existent for them. I think we should offer the rooms for $450.”
Brenda was more than willing to rent the rooms for $450. That extra monthly income would do a number on their financial comfort, and it would enable them to maybe take some time off and actually leave the house without having it look abandoned. Their world was about to offer so much more, but they still had to make that phone call to their potential tenants.
Brenda had the sweeter voice, so she was the one to make the call. She really sold them on taking a look, because they were all standing in Martin’s room within the hour, and soon thereafter they were signing a homemade contract with no security deposit. It turned out that the family had moved to Colorado from Texas and had all of their belongings in a moving truck. Every day that they did not get an apartment, they had to pay another day for the truck. That was one of their motivations for quickly signing the lease. With Carter and Brenda’s help, they were able to completely empty the truck and return it to a local office in Boulder two hours after signing the contract.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Carl and Wendy Blankenship moved to Colorado from Texas because Carl was transferred by his company to fill a need in a manufacturing warehouse. They hit it off fabulously with Carter and Brenda. Wendy Blankenship was a stay-at-home mom who took care of their twin boys who were four years old and born twenty minutes apart. After a long day of moving trucks and moving items, Carter ordered pizza for everybody and they sat down at the kitchen table grabbing flimsy slices.
“Your boys are adorable,” Brenda said. The boys sat there, each holding a slice of cheese pizza, looking exactly alike. They both had blond hair and gre
en eyes and a serious look on their face. Whenever Carl or Wendy spoke to them in a high voice, they would flash a quick smile, and then revert to what was fast becoming their signature serious look.
Carter had spoken to Carl about his employment status at their initial meeting to verify that he would be able to pay the $450 per month, but now he thought it was a good time to find out a little more. “So, Carl… how long have you been with your company?”
Carl had to finish his mouthful of pizza before he could reply. He struggled to chew faster and then took an uncomfortable gulp. “I’ve been with Strategic Manufacturing for eight years now. I began in Customer Service… made my way to supervisor of the call center… worked on the warehouse floor, and now I’m a foreman in the warehouse.”
“What do you manufacture?” Brenda asked.
“We’re the leading producer of hotel supplies nationwide. We make everything that you will ever see during your hotel experience. It’s been a wonderful ride, and I have no complaints. I wasn’t exactly thrilled when they told me about the transfer, since we’re both from Texas and our families are there, but it was a great opportunity and we felt that we had to take it.”
Carter offered a Coors Lite to his guests, and they both accepted. “Made right here in Colorado,” said Carter. “Golden is the town. It’s in the mountains… a beautiful setting for a wonderful product.”
Carl took a decent swig of his Coors Lite bottle and down on the table it clanked. “Wow, that really hit the spot. Good stuff. I love beer, but I’d never had a Coors Lite before.”
Wendy’s sip was much more delicate, and her bottle remained in her hand. She wrapped her other hand around it as she assessed the product label. “It certainly has a barley taste to it,” she said quietly.
They continued consuming the product from Golden, Colorado as they polished off the pizzas and a couple six packs of beer. They enjoyed laughter and getting to know each other, and Carter and Brenda got the vibe that they could not have done a better job finding people to share their house.
Desert Son Trilogy: Desert Son, Wayward Soul, Spiritual Intervention (Books 1-3) Page 23