Outside the Fire

by Boyd Craven

  Steve felt his wife’s hand in his, as her fingers curled around to give him a squeeze. He squeezed back and turned to see her smiling.

  “Just promise me we’ll talk later on about curfew and putting that tracking app on her cell phone?”

  “I hate those applications—”

  “Please?” Angela asked.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Steve said after a second.

  His wife grinned and leaned in close as the two girls crawled into the front seat, now more visible in the afternoon light.

  “I am going to close up, you’re welcome to stick around but I promised the missus to help her out tonight and she’d skin me alive if she thinks I’m skipping out on helping her do her spring cleaning nonsense.”

  “Ok, I’ll corral the girls and get out of your hair,” Steve said and pulled out his wallet and counted out some cash, handing it to Dave.

  “This is too much,” Dave said.

  “It’s worth it, you just made our day,” Steve told him.

  “Well, you know where to come if you ever need it fixed. I reckon I can even fix that German toy car that Mrs. Taylor is so proud of.”

  “Other than regular maintenance, it’s been in pretty good shape, but you bet I will,” Angela said grinning.

  “Deal. You folks have a good one,” Dave said and turned and started walking towards the garage and office, stuffing the handful of bills into his chest pocket on his shirt.

  Steve let go of his wife’s hand and stretched his arms over his head. His back cracked and popped. It wasn’t horribly hot yet, but it was humid. If he wanted to keep his timing right with the neighbor, he better shuck and jive.

  “You want to ride home with her?” Steve asked.

  “No, I’ve got my baby, why don’t you? I’ll keep Little Bit with me, just in case. You have the insurance on it?”

  “Yes ma’am. I put it in the glovebox yesterday when I snuck out here and put the plates on it.”

  “You think of everything,” she said kissing him softly.

  “I’m a prepper; it’s part of who I am,” he said, and then jumped back when she playfully swatted at him.

  The drive normally would have taken them ten minutes, but Steve texted his wife to fire up the grill to let it get warm as they took the Jeep out for a longer ride. The first results were a little bit funny. The docile six cylinder had been replaced with a Chevy small block, something that Steve knew how to work on. The problem was taking off from the stoplight. A lighter foot was needed or Amber was going to be spending her yet-to-be-earned paychecks on new tires. Still, with the windows down and the spring air whipping both of their hair back, it was hard to be critical of her driving.

  Eventually, without having to be told, Amber turned onto the road leading to the subdivision and barely touched the gas as they entered. The small block and short length of the exhaust pipes and muffler still had a decent rumble to it. It wasn’t as loud as a Harley, but only just. A couple people who were outside watering their lawns by hand stopped to look. A few waved, but most just stared. The Taylors were Yankees and outsiders. More so, they went to the new church and were Lutheran when the rest of their small community seemed to be Baptists or Southern Baptist. Couple all that with a funny northern accent, and it took some of them a little bit to warm up to them.

  It hadn’t helped that Steve and Angela were always brought up for discussion at the Home Owner’s Association by two or three households that didn’t like Steve’s edible flower boxes that were a riot of pole beans, tomato bushes growing the smaller multi-colored tomatoes and salad mix spread throughout the boxes in front of the house. They didn’t understand why the Taylors couldn’t conform and plant something normal, like flowers.

  Then there was the fracas involving a neighbor, Sarah Wilson, who watched from her second story window as Steve and Amy dispatched a trio of rabbits in the backyard and processed them. The furor over that was only worse than the HOA finding out that there were also three laying hens kept in the back yard as well. The neighbors were worried that the chickens were going to fly over the brick walls that separated the neighbors for privacy, or the tall chain link gate in the back that abutted Mr. Abbot’s farm.

  The HOA had no specific language that prevented livestock like it did pets and the Taylors were able to keep doing what they were doing, just like the way their planter box garden fit the definition of decorative plants. Overall though, the biggest infraction they got them on was putting the gate in that led to the farm, one that they were still fighting in court. None of the other houses had an entrance out of the back yard. None of them wanted one except the Taylor family.

  That had always confused Steve, but he’d heard of horror stories of HOA’s and people going overboard. When he’d gotten the offer to pick up and move with a generous bonus, by a headhunter, they had helped find him a nice house in a newer subdivision. He’d been able to afford it and when they made the move, it was all Steve could do not to make the cookie cutter house look like a small farm, like where he grew up in rural Ohio. As a prepper, he was glad he was able to find a house that already had a storm shelter….

  “Geez Dad, I think you like sitting in this more than me,” Amber said shutting off the rumbling motor as Steve stared at Clark and Sarah Wilson who had come out onto their front porch to stare at them.

  “It’s not just that,” Steve said, and she followed his gaze to see the Wilsons.

  “Oh man, gag a goat, it’s Billy,” Amber said getting out.

  Steve saw their nineteen-year-old son had come out as well, probably curious about the rumble of the engine. The jeep did stand out in this subdivision, Most cars were darkly tinted, luxury cars. With Steve driving a twenty-year-old Ford and his wife an almost as old BMW, they didn’t quite fit in. The Taylors loved not being in debt, so they kept what they had in shape and didn’t care if the neighbors hated it, because Steve had been looking for property between Macon and Atlanta to start a small farmstead.

  “I thought…”

  “He’s a creep,” Amber said and slammed the door as Billy crossed the lawn.

  Steve got out, closed the door to see the Wilson boy looking at the jeep with a funny look on his face. A hint of marijuana wafted over to him, and he frowned at the boy.

  “Amber girl, is this baby yours?” he called after the fleeing teenager.

  “Yeah, that’s hers,” Steve told him as his daughter disappeared in the front door.

  “Hot ride. When I heard the rumble, I was like…whoa…somebody got a bike, and then I see my girl, Amber, riding up in this baby,” he said running his hands across the silver metallic fleck paint on the hood.

  “Don’t touch, man. Just got it.” Steve snapped more harshly than anticipated.

  The truth was, he didn’t like the kid. He’d caught him looking out the upstairs window in their houses direction more than once, and the only rooms he could see into from there, were his daughters and his bedroom if the curtains were open. He made sure they were always closed. Creep.

  “Sorry man. If Amber wants to take me for a ride, have her call me.”

  “Yeah, I’ll let her know,” Steve said through clenched teeth as he watched the nineteen-year-old walk back towards his parents’ house.

  It wasn’t that he was a creep, he was also a guy who was interested in his daughter, kept trying to talk to her when she clearly wasn’t interested, and Steve’s automatic response to any guy who wanted to date his daughter…his knuckles popped as he made a fist. Realizing it, he opened his hand and gave the Wilson’s a little wave. Sarah whispered something to her husband, and they walked back inside.

  “Assholes,” Steve whispered as Amy came running out the front door with a large salad bowl in her hands.

  “Daddy! Mom said we need to get some beans and salad for dinner tonight!”

  “Ok, you saved me half the trouble, finding your momma’s bowl.”

  She grinned and took her dad’s hand impatiently and started pulling him towards the pla
nter box. It took about three handfuls before cutting the salad greens about three inches from the dirt to fill the bowl over halfway with them before he turned her loose on picking some tomatoes. She’d gotten better at figuring out which ones were ripe. Steve hadn’t made it easier by growing red ones. Some of his were purple, yellow, or tiger striped—old heirloom plants. While she was doing that, Steve picked a double handful of green beans and put them on the top.

  “You’re going to squish it, daddy!” Amy scolded him.

  Unlike her mom and sister, ‘Little Bit’ Ames or Amy, had corn-silk blonde hair and seemed to have a more delicate bone structure. Amber had teased her that she was adopted until she cried and earned a grounding for it, but when Steve looked at her, he could see she was definitely a daddy’s girl. She resembled Steve’s mother more than she did Angela.

  “No, I won’t,” Steve said as a man he recognized turned to start walking up to his driveway, “You take these inside to your mom to wash, then you wash up, and watch for Mister Abbott.”

  “Uncle Dewey!”

  “Ok, scat,” he said and gave her a playful shove.

  She stuck her tongue out at him and then ran screaming, almost tipping the bowl as Steve playfully chased her for two steps. Once the door closed, he turned, the smile wiped off his face. His visitor was in his late fifties, his hair salt and pepper, but you could only tell that because the top of his hairline had receded to well behind his ears and tufts of it stuck out on the side in wild grizzled patches. He was well dressed, and Steve absolutely hated his guts.

  “Doug, you’re trespassing again,” Steve said in an even tone.

  “Am I? I’m on the driveway, I could go on the sidewalk if you prefer. That’s public property, you know,” he said, and took two steps back and stood on the concrete walkway.

  “I’d prefer you go on home, but I figure you have something you wanted to tell me?”

  “I heard your daughter drive in. I saw where she turned and figured I’d tell you that there’s a noise ordinance against vehicles without mufflers in the HOA guidelines. Furthermore, you can’t work on anything in the driveway so—”

  “It’s not broke down, and it has a muffler. Is that it?” Steve asked walking to within four quick steps of his nemesis.

  “No,” he said quietly. “There’s also a rule that only two cars can be parked at any given residence at a time. You have three now,” he finished with a sniff.

  “That’s outside in the driveway,” Steve told him, “How many cars do you see in my driveway?”

  “You also own a truck: a rather old and abused Ford.”

  He didn’t snarl or swear at the man who constantly looked down his nose and was friends with the Wilsons. It was Doug and his wife, Linda Morris, who had been advocating the most to have the Taylors fined until they complied with their twisted sense of normalcy. They didn’t even live on the same side of the subdivision. The Morris’s lived more towards the entrance. Doug must have started walking over here immediately, or jogged, to deliver his crown jewels.

  “I do, and it’s parked in the garage. In fact, most of the time my wife’s car is parked in there too,” Steve said, noticing how good both the BMW and the Jeep looked side by side, sparkling in the spring sunlight.

  “Well, at least your eyesore is out of sight. I’ll have to re-read the HOA rules regarding—”

  “Goodbye Doctor Toodles,” Steve said and held his hand up and wiggled his fingers at the liberal college professor, “Bubye!!!”

  Doug turned red in the face and opened and closed his mouth several times. It had been Angela who had overheard his hated nickname at a township meeting and had told her husband in the event in case he ever needed to use it. It had the desired effect and the professor turned and started stomping back down the road in the direction of his own house. Soft curses and threats could be heard, but he never looked back. Steve watched in amusement for a moment, feeling like he’d finally won a victory against him, when Angela called that Dwight Abbott, aka Uncle Dewey, had made it over.

  CHAPTER 3

  Dwight was captivated by the antics the girls were up to in the back yard. Amy had gotten permission to let her rabbit, one of the breeders, out for some salad and to let her hop around and munch grass. Her rabbit, Mister Flopps had promptly started making circles and had run from the now squealing girls chasing her. Steve took a sip of his beer and waved the smoke from the grill out of his eyes.

  “I always wish I had some daughters to dote on,” Dwight said after a minute.

  “You want mine? No refund or return policy though,” Steve joked and winced as Angela playfully kicked him under the table.

  “You just want boys to be gross and do boy stuff with you. It’s bad enough you turned our oldest into a grease monkey.” Her words were in a playful tone, but Steve got out of range and opened the grill to flip the chicken over.

  “She’s not a grease monkey. She just watched a lot of YouTube. Now, if she’d actually wrenched on a car some….”

  Dwight watched the back and forth, smiling. He was in his early sixties and had been a widow for the last ten years. He had often talked about his son Carter who had joined the army two years after his mother died. Steve thought about what it would be like to be a kid Amber’s age and lose a parent…that was rough, and then he thought about what it would be like if he lost Angela, and he had to finish raising the girls on his own. Nope, that’s a big, fat, nope sandwich there.

  “Don’t burn mine this time,” Dwight called from the table.

  “I didn’t burn it last time!” Steve said as Mister Flopps ran next to Steve.

  He put down the tongs and reached down and scooped the Californian rabbit up and handed him to a breathless Amy who was now staggering towards her dad.

  “Great, now you have to go wash your hands,” his wife told him.

  “I planned on it. Besides, I need a new beer. How about you two?”

  Dwight held his up to gauge how much was left and then upended the bottle and held it up. Steve took his empty and the farmer’s, and as he was going inside, his wife spoke up.

  “How about a glass of red wine?” Angela called.

  “Mom!” Amber said. “Last time you drank red wine on a Friday, you and Dad…overslept on a Saturday!”

  “Oh, the horror,” Angela shot back and watched as Amber turned a furious shade of red, and Amy, who had no clue what it was about, giggled.

  “So, has Jeff quit bugging you?” Angela asked Dwight.

  “He called the Department of Agriculture on me last month. Did I tell you that?” Dwight asked, turning to talk about his favorite subject.

  “No, what did they want?” she asked him.

  “I was telling your husband about it last week, but the fools who built the subdivision next to my farm were complaining that I used manure to fertilize my fields between planting. Something about the smell coming in their windows and making them gag.”

  Angela snorted, glad she wasn’t taking a sip of something. “So they are mad that a farm is doing farm stuff while in the middle of a farming operation?”

  “Pretty much. Then they wanted to see my pigs, make sure none of them were feral or what not. I showed them and when they were done with the complaint they complimented me on how well the farm was doing, my practices, and left me alone.”

  “That’s it?” she asked, knowing there was more.

  “Naw, then your homeowner’s association wrote me a letter, ‘imploring me’ to consider not using something so odoriferous as manure to fertilize. What do they want me to do, use the chemical crap that makes everyone cough and get sick?”

  Steve walked out the back door and put a glass of red wine down in front of his wife and then handed the unopened corona to Dwight. He popped the top with an opener and tossed it on the table to the farmer who did the same and he headed back to the grill.

  “What have you got him all worked up over now?” Steve asked as he opened the grill to check on things.

&n
bsp; “I was telling her about that fool letter from Jeff Arellano,” Dwight said after taking a long pull on his beer.

  “Did you ever end up responding?” Steve asked him.

  “I told him he could take his ideas and shove them so far up his—oh, hi, dear,” Dwight said, clamming up as Amber flopped down in the open chair next to him.

  “Hi Uncle Dewey. Hey, is there any chance I can try the Jeep out in your rocky field before you turn it for the summer crops?”

  “No mudding,” Both Taylors said in unison.

  Dwight looked at them and grinned and shook his head when he faced Amber.

  “Not a good place back there. I only use the big tractor back there, because if you get stuck, it’s a long walk out.”

  “Not if you cut over to the lake stuff,” Amber said.

  “Amber, it’s a no,” Steve said, hating to be the bad guy.

  She gave her dad a cool look, as if to say she’d see who won out and then shrugged and pulled out her cell phone. It had been something that Steve regretted her getting immediately, but Angela loved having her daughter only a button’s touch away.

  “That there was a good meal,” Dwight said wiping his mouth.

  Both girls had headed inside as it had gotten dark and the bugs had come out. They’d fed and watered the rabbits and chickens before Amy got on the Xbox and Amber started her texting and face timing with everyone in Bibb County.

  “Thanks,” Steve said, “Didn’t burn it too much this time?”

  “Naw, the chicken sucked. It was your wife’s salad and buttered green beans that did the trick,” he said, patting his stomach.

  “Thank you,” Angela said, at the same time as Steve said, “Hey now.”

  Dwight looked between the two of them and grinned. He’d seen people that were in true love, and he could tell the Taylors had that. He’d had it once himself, before cancer had split his family apart. Since the subdivision had gone in, he’d had few friends and it seemed like every neighbor was hostile to him, until one day a Yankee in a beat-up Ford had come to his yard one day asking if he could buy a couple laying hens or hatching eggs. It had been almost a year and a half ago, and a friendship was born.