Jaden Baker

by Courtney Kirchoff

  Nikolaevich left with Drew to get his grandparent’s belongings.

  “Where did you learn Russian?” Mr. Fain asked, fascinated by the undistinguished man in front of him, oil stains on his trousers, scuffs on his work boots.

  Joel shrugged the question. “I like languages.” Without another word, Joel backed away then spun on one heel and left the office.

  Jaden put his cap back on his head as he stepped into the expansive warehouse. He did not hold the railing as he jogged down a flight of aluminum steps to the floor, where forklifts beeped as they backed out with heavy loads.

  He stayed within the yellow and black striped tape on the floor, a safety path for foot workers, winding his way to a truck filled with heavy boxes. Three other workers were there now, having taken Jaden’s place while he was away. He vaulted into the truck and picked up a box, carrying it with feigned difficulty as two other men shared the burden of an identical box. They scuffled their boots to the edge of the truck, then hopped down before taking the load to a pallet, so a forklift could move it. They glared at Jaden as he unloaded five boxes to their two in the same amount of time.

  He unloaded two more trucks before the union workers took a lunch break. He was not part of the union, but he was hungry enough to take a break of his own. Taking his sack lunch from his locker, along with a paperback novel, Jaden walked to a cleared dock and sat cross-legged at the end, the Sound in front of him, putting the book on his thigh so he could read while eating three sandwiches, a can of peaches, and a bag of animal cookies. A few of the cookies he tossed to hopeful ravens, who watched him as he read.

  When thirty minutes had passed, Jaden shoved the novel in his back pocket, threw his trash in a nearby bin, and headed back to the warehouse to finish his shift. A group of six workers fell silent when Jaden came toward them, but he was neither bothered nor offended. Wherever Jaden went to pick up work, the hired staff discussed him in whispers. He was neither the tallest nor the bulkiest of them, yet he was stronger than men twice his size. It took Jaden—“Joel” to them—a fraction of the time to load and unload cargo compared to the average laborer.

  Noble International used multiple unions; Jaden wasn’t a member of any of them. To please the unions, the manager lied, saying Jaden earned less than the union workers. Jaden often worked ten or eleven hours; he worked faster and more efficiently than three men combined. Mr. Fain paid him under the table.

  He rarely talked with his coworkers. When he did, the topics were limited to offering help or asking where something was supposed to go. Being mysterious was advantageous. Everyone wondered who he was but no one investigated. Because Jaden spoke little, no one had a beef with him. Helpful, quiet, “Joel” was just the warehouse extra, he posed no threat.

  An eighteen wheeler arrived at the warehouse full of unmarked boxes headed to South America. One of the union workers held a shipping invoice and checked off the boxes as Jaden unloaded them onto a pallet, stacking them four high, four across: a perfect square. A forklift came and whisked it away, taking it to a container for a freighter heading south.

  At two o’clock, Jaden unloaded what he assumed to be electronics from Singapore. Three o’clock found him stacking crates in the warehouse, making sure everything lined up properly.

  The afternoon shift came on at three, but Jaden didn’t clock out with the morning crew. He continued to load and unload until five that evening. Mr. Fain requested he checkout like the other workers, using discretion. Once he was off the job, Jaden put his steel-toed boots in his locker, and pulled out his running shoes for the long walk home. He set his gloves on top of his boots and shut the door, securing the lock.

  The sun was playing hide-and-seek. Jaden carried his denim coat as he headed south toward the bridge and off Harbor Island. Overpasses crossed above his head, the evening traffic a chaotic, rumbling song. He passed old school busses and mobile homes, flatbed trucks parked on gravel lots, and semis without their trailers parallel parked on the side of the road. He usually walked straight home but today he took a detour.

  There was a dance and gymnastics studio on this street, and with kids out for summer, it was full of children and their parents. Jaden paused under a tree and watched as a mother ushered her children out of a minivan: a little girl of five, wearing pink tights and a tutu, and an older brother dragging his feet, playing a hand-held video game. The little girl, her hair in pig tails, skipped and danced into the studio, and the mother put her arm around her son, pushing him inside. A short distance from the minivan was a similar family, this one complete. Mom and dad held hands as their twin girls, also in pink tights, giggled and sang. Jaden watched them, separated by the street, as they entered the studio, maybe to watch a recital.

  Good judgment told him to press on. If a protective father caught Jaden watching families, he might get the wrong idea, with Jaden’s long hair and beard, and his dirty jeans and shirt. So he continued home, winding his way a mile or so southeast.

  After making sure no one watched from parked cars, Jaden slid the door open, the barricade moving away silently. Once inside, he locked the chain, and the heavy crates slid back in place.

  Light streamed through the top windows of the old brick building. The ground floor was darker; the windows had been bricked in years ago.

  A wooden ladder lowered from the upper level to the floor for Jaden to climb. Once he was standing on the second story, overlooking the ground floor, the ladder raised and tucked itself behind bookshelves.

  With no interior walls, the space was open and inviting. Ten years had seen the once empty floor transform into a cozy living space, complete with bedroom, kitchen, living room, and bathroom.

  It had taken a long time to complete, but Jaden’s greatest accomplishment was his kitchen. It was modern but not plain, of decent size, and quite functional.

  Shelves stood where a refrigerator should have been, holding bread, pasta, canned food, an assortment of cereal, and different varieties of cookies. His original ice chest still kept his perishables including the occasional ice cream. Jaden checked on the ice. The cooler was efficient, but Jaden had to refreeze the ice on warmer days.

  The bedroom was in a corner near a window. After saving for months, he’d bought a decent mattress, transitioning from the floor to the couch, then to a bed, his body adjusting to sleeping on a soft surface. A hand-crafted chest of drawers contained all of his clothes, most of which were second-hand. He drew a pair of running sweats from the bottom drawer, and from the middle drawer, a long sleeved t-shirt.

  Pacific Northwest summers brought longer days, giving him more time to exercise out of doors. Since he walked home, his muscles were already warmed up. After ten minutes of stretching, he took to the streets and sidewalks of Seattle, running.

  He went for a run every day, to keep up his strength. Today he ran ten miles in just over an hour, which wasn’t bad. The run also helped him relax.

  He drank three bottles of water, pulled right from his ice chest in the kitchen, glad they were ice cold.

  Jaden left his kitchen for the bathroom. Years ago, in the middle of his renovation, he’d found an old ceramic tub in someone’s front yard, with a cardboard sign reading “FREE” taped to it. Setting up a bathroom was second hardest to his kitchen, but he worked a system eventually.

  He had bolted a sturdy shelf above the tub, drilled a hole and inserted a shower spout into a large rubber container filled with ice sitting on top of the shelf. When Jaden wanted a shower, he heated the water and it flowed through the spout, warm and fresh. The tub water flowed into a hose that dropped through the floor to the ground level, where it emptied into a rubber trash bin. When the bin was full, Jaden dragged it outside on a rainy day and emptied it into the street.

  Jaden pulled the curtain aside and stepped into his bathroom. He set his dirty clothes on the floor, neatly folded, and got into the tub, pulling the rubber band from his hair. Concentrating on the ice above his head, Jaden thought of the excited water mol
ecules bouncing around the container. The water poured lukewarm at first, then hot. The water pressure wasn’t great, but worked.

  He bathed fast, then washed his hair.

  His hair had grown long over the years. When it reached shoulder length, he trimmed it himself, saving money on a barber and sparing himself from a stranger touching him and engaging in needless chit chat. As a teenager, no one gave him grief about his hair, and they rarely did now. He never let it grow past his shoulders, it was too long and hard to maintain, and it made him look like a woman.

  Around eighteen, facial hair grew in patches. It was much later that the stubble turned into a full beard. He let it grow once its sparseness didn’t embarrass him, as he found having a beard made him look older in addition to hiding his face. Now, years later, it reached a few inches past his chin.

  Hair and beard washed, Jaden stepped out of the tub. The water froze to ice, only a few drips dropping from the spout into the tub. He dried himself and walked across his flat to his bedroom. A dark pair of five dollar sweat pants, seven dollar per pack-of-three white undershirt, and a Seattle Mariner’s hooded sweatshirt that he found at a yard sale comprised his at-home attire. He slipped on a pair of socks, and called it good. After combing his wet hair, Jaden summoned a stack of firewood from the ground floor.

  Because he didn’t have a heating unit or oven, Jaden resorted to the caveman way. His first Seattle winter was miserable. As soon as he had worked out a solution, he sawed a hole in the center of the floor. Then he installed a large aluminum bowl into the hole, which would hold the wood. For ventilation he cut an opening in the floor above him. He replaced the roof door with a rudimentary chimney, so he wouldn’t suffocate.

  Old newspapers collected from recycling bins severed as fire-starter. Then, stuffing paper in between found logs and thrown-away two-by-fours, Jaden squirt the wood with lighter fluid and tossed a lit match. A warm fire ignited, crackling and spitting sparks.

  In addition to the kitchen, Jaden had constructed two massive bookshelves, a new coffee table, a bedside table, and a desk. He withdrew a new-to-him novel from one of his shelves, Frankenstein, and set it on the coffee table.

  Dinner tonight was simple: chili. He poured three cans into a pot, which hovered above the fire. Two things happened when he opened the can. The first was remembering he earned something extra today. Taking an old cookie tin from the top of a bookshelf, Jaden called the cash out of the pocket from the dirty pants in his bedroom, and counted it. Mr. Fain had not been lying, so he added one hundred and forty-two dollars to the six thousand two hundred and twenty already there. He recorded the new sum on a pad of paper he kept with the cash.

  It was ten years savings, a small amount given the time. Jaden spent most of his money on food, as his voracious appetite didn’t end with puberty. Constructing his many projects was also a big expense, as he didn’t own power tools. He paid a high school janitor to use the shop after hours. Using the equipment without paying was an option, but at first he did not know how to use the tools. He needed help. Parting with cash was better than parting with fingers.

  Thankfully he was done growing, measuring in at a humble five eleven. The only clothes he bought nowadays replaced worn ones. Other expenses like kitchen items, washing laundry, ice, and books had cut into his small budget.

  Though he was a frequenter of the library, he never checked out books. Lack of ID meant no library card. All the books he owned he purchased from second hand bookstores, the local Goodwill, and yard sales. His collection included books on carpentry, architecture, basic engineering, advanced physics and chemistry, and world and American history. Over the years he had taught himself advanced mathematics, a subject that had come in handy on more than one occasion. When he reached calculus, Jaden took another risk, and snuck into an after school tutoring session at Cleveland High School, claiming to attend a different school (thereby explaining why other students didn’t recognize him).

  The experience left him with mixed feelings. Calculus was a hard subject, and he was glad for extra clarification, yet being there meant he had to listen to students discuss goings-on at school: an upcoming football game, how Becca Jurkowski had made an amazing goal at soccer, that Mrs. Sommerfield was leaving to have her third baby, how Kiley was waiting for Cameron to ask her to winter formal, and worst of all, what colleges they were applying to and what futures awaited them after graduation.

  To be friendly, one of the girls, who bragged constantly about how her boyfriend was captain of the wrestling team, asked what college Jaden (going by Edmond) was going to and what his major would be. Having successfully avoided conversation with the other study hall attendees, Jaden was thrown off by the question. He lied and said he was going to WSU to study history.

  Jaden found a Calculus for Dummies book in a sale bin the next day, and he never returned to the tutoring session.

  He was the perpetual outsider, and he never felt it more than when he was with people, especially those his own age. Whenever he wasn’t working, he delved deeper into fictitious stories, or sat in a dark corner of the library, playing language CDs while planning new construction projects.

  The second thing the act of can-opening brought was the arrival of Cat.

  Tail up, Cat trotted into the kitchen and mewed loudly, rubbing himself on the cabinet doors.

  Jaden closed the tin and replaced it on the top of his bookshelves, out of sight. Cat wound himself through Jaden’s legs, anticipating the coming treat. He opened a can of tuna and placed it on the floor, and Cat lapped the juice then gobbled the flaky fish, his purring punctuated by his chewing.

  Before starting Frankenstein, Jaden finished the book he had taken to the warehouse this morning, a complicated William Faulkner novel. When the chili was ready, he took a spoon from his cutlery drawer and ate his dinner as he read about Dr. Frankenstein’s creation. A lot of people in casual conversation stated that Frankenstein was the monster, but they were all wrong. The monster had no name.

  Cat, finished with his tuna, licked his paws then wiped at his face. After cleaning himself, he jumped on the couch and crawled into Jaden’s lap, head-butting him and purring. Jaden scratched Cat behind the ears and smiled when Cat licked his nose.

  “How much money have you got saved?” Seth asked from across the room.

  Seth had grown with Jaden. He too had a long beard and hair, and a deeper, smoother voice. The only difference was the way he dressed. Seth wore the same clothes every day, which Jaden found a little odd. Blue jeans and a red sweater, a sweater Jaden didn’t own.

  “You know how much,” Jaden mumbled, turning a page of his book. He laid down on the couch and Cat stretched out on his chest, eyes closed, claws kneading at his sweatshirt.

  “How much more do you need?” Seth asked.

  Jaden shut the book with his thumb keeping his spot. “You know that, too.”

  “Just trying to make conversation,” Seth said, grinning.

  “We’ve already exhausted this topic,” Jaden replied, opening his book again.

  “There’s not much else to discuss. You haven’t even chosen a new name for yourself.”

  “It’s a long ways off, you know that. I need a surplus before switching over.”

  “Will you be ‘Joel’ forever, and where will you live? You won’t be able to live here as a legitimate citizen. You’ll need a real address and phone number, a membership to the gym.”

  Jaden lay the book on the coffee table, recognizing he would not make progress while Seth was speaking to him.

  “Not necessarily,” Jaden said.

  “You will. You haven’t given it as much thought as you should. It’s a fresh start, a rebirthing into high society, and you haven’t picked out a name. It’s intriguing.”

  “Seeing as how you’re always eager to give your opinions, what do you think I should call myself?”

  “Nothing new age, like the name you have now.”

  “That’s helpful advice,” Jaden said and
Seth smirked.

  “Tatum Faulkner,” Seth suggested.

  “Right, that’s not new age. ‘Tatum,’ is that even a real name?”

  “Of course it is. Tat for short.”

  “That’s ridiculous. I’m not naming myself that.”

  Seth snickered and sat in a reclining chair in front of the fire.

  “I like David,” Jaden said, looking to Seth. “What do you think?”

  “David what?”

  “I don’t know. I have time to think it over.”

  Seth frowned. “I guess that would work. You kind of look like a David.”

  “You guess. People look like who they are, do they?”

  “Don’t I look like a Seth to you?” he asked, grinning again. “And when you look in that mirror into the face of a bearded man with gray eyes, don’t you think you look like a Jaden?”

  “I’ve never met another one,” he said. “Nor a Seth.”

  “Well, you haven’t spent a lot of time meeting people, so that’s not fair.”

  Jaden picked up his book and resumed reading.

  “Oh come now, don’t get surly. We both know that’s why you’re delaying your plans. A new name means a new you. It means there’s no excuse to avoid the rest of the world. One day soon you’ll have to talk. They’ll ask questions about you.”

  “I’ll lie,” Jaden said, staring at the book but not reading it. “I’ve done it before.”

  Seth smiled and lay back in the chair, putting his hands behind his head and staring at the ceiling. “Legitimate coworkers, maybe even in an office with a desk. You’re the smart one, after all. Where did you learn it, they’ll ask. Do you have any funny college stories? Remember that time in the fraternity when...? Oh, I can see it now. Water cooler for dummies and social chit chat 101.”

  Jaden read the same sentence three times, not taking in a word of it.