by David Horne
Lewis pushed his plate away, got up from his dining table and sat himself right back down on the sofa. Then he cried. He cried all evening. Then he cried into the night. Then Lewis cried himself to sleep. When Lewis awoke the next morning, curled up on his sofa in his wrinkled dress shirt and suit pants, his eyes were red and puffy, and he still held the crumpled-up letter, balled up tightly in his hand.
The hours that followed were solemn and moody. Lewis had immediately contacted work and filed for sabbatical leave, first thing. Then he’d got in touch with Joss Kenla, the legal associate who had handled Aunt Maggie’s will. He was surprisingly young to be an executor, but he was extremely helpful.
He’d told Lewis the story about the last conversation that he and Aunt Maggie had had, which was the last conversation she’d ever had with anyone. Lewis had been torn between the savage urge to both laugh and cry at the same time when he’d heard it. By the sounds of it, Aunt Maggie hadn’t changed much since Lewis was young. Still, the same sarcastic, tough old bird that she’d always been.
The next few days went by like a blur, at least they did for Lewis. It was almost as though he was existing in a different medium, at least that’s how it felt. But Lewis wasn’t complaining. As long as he was living life in the proverbial fast lane, the magnitude of what had happened couldn’t fully hit him. Lewis was eager to hold that off for as long as he possibly could. But, try as he might, Lewis knew that he couldn’t do it forever.
Therapist or not, Lewis didn’t have full command of his emotions, he never had. He wasn’t God, he was a mere mortal. He was only human. The first time the news hit Lewis fully was the first time he stepped into Aunt Maggie’s favorite room since she’d died in her study.
Aunt Maggie traveled a lot in her youth, and when she finally settled down, she decided to write books and research papers about everywhere she’d been. She’d been everywhere. From backpacking in the Amazon rainforest and riding a camel through the Sahara Desert, to riding a felucca down the Nile and hiking through the Himalayas. She’d done it all.
All that knowledge, countless man-hours or “woman” hours of research surrounded Lewis when he walked into the study. In the form of the bound tomes and journals that graced the many shelves, or the countless finished and unfinished research papers that were stacked up on the tables.
Lewis hadn’t even read any of them, but he already knew that he wouldn’t understand a word of it and his Ph.D. wouldn’t help in the slightest.
“Do you need a moment, Mr. Taylor?”
Lewis turned around. Joss Kenla had entered the study after him. He was here mostly as a formality, to oversee the exchange of Lewis’ aunt’s assets to his name. In truth, it all should’ve been taken care of sooner, Lewis had already been staying at the farm for a week. But he’d postponed every chance he got. This was still Aunt Maggie’s house, and the moment that that changed, and it became Lewis’ house, all trace of her really would be gone. Lewis wasn’t ready for that.
“A moment?” Lewis echoed. He couldn’t keep my eyes off of Joss’ jawline. It looked sharp enough to cut the tension in a room! “No. No, thank you, that won’t be necessary. I just…I’m just feeling a bit overwhelmed, that’s all.”
“That’s totally normal,” Joss said quickly. “If it’s any consolation, your aunt had a very high opinion of you.”
“She mentioned me?” Lewis asked, surprised.
“To me, just once,” Joss admitted. He tucked his clipboard under his armpit before slipping his hands into the pockets of his suit pants. “But it was a good once. We were right here. It was just before she passed.”
Lewis gave Joss a watery smile as he experimentally spun the globe that stood on the table. “What did she say?”
“She said you were the right choice to inherit her farm,” Joss said simply. “Because you never went to the family gatherings. She said the other members of your family were always hanging around, waiting for her to die so they could jump on her inheritance. But not you.”
Lewis chewed over this in silence. It was true, he hadn’t been at the family gatherings. Lewis didn’t make an appearance for birthdays, or Christmas, or Thanksgiving. He didn’t write, he didn’t call, and he barely texted. But that wasn’t because Lewis wasn’t interested in the farm, it was because he hadn’t been interested in them. It almost killed him to admit it, even to himself. Lewis did not get on with his family.
He was the thumb on the hand of the family. They were all loud, and boisterous and stoic and loved to argue. Lewis was the opposite. He was level-headed and rational, at least he liked to think that he was. Putting his family and him together was like throwing gasoline on an open flame. Not a good idea.
Aunt Maggie had always been different. The fact that she’d gone to her grave not knowing that Lewis’ work was more important to him in the moment than she was, broke his heart. A great feeling of guilt swelled in Lewis’ chest. It only got worse as he remembered that the house all around him—and the farm around it—had all been left to him.
All Lewis wanted to do was crawl under a rock and die.
“Are you okay, Mr Taylor?” Joss asked, his voice full of concern.
Lewis’ cheek was itching. He scratched and felt something wet. With a start, Lewis realiszed that a single, solitary tear had rolled down his cheek. He quickly wiped it away. “I’m fine,” Lewis insisted. “I believe you have something for me to sign?”
Joss nodded and took his clipboard out from under his arm. “This is a deed that’s been approved by the Big Guys Upstairs.”
Lewis arched his eyebrow. “The big guys upstairs?”
Joss smiled and flipped his head to flick his sandy hair out of his face. “That’s what I call Smith, Johnson and West,” he explained. “The founding partners of the firm I work at.”
“I was surprised that this town had a law firm,” Lewis admitted. “There’s not much else. A shop downtown I think.”
“Everyone needs lawyers,” Joss shrugged.
Lewis supposed he was right. He dug into his pockets looking for a pen, but Joss was already taking one out from his single-breasted jacket. “All you do is sign here, and it’s a done deal.”
“Sounds good,” Lewis said. “Can you just run everything by me one more time?”
“Certainly,” Joss said warmly. “So, your aunt bequeathed her entire estate to you. That includes this farm, all its machinery such as tractors, gardening tools, and whatnot. It also includes, of course, the animals and the barns. The deed also includes a clause which handles Gligor’s termination of employment—”
“Whoa, whoa,” Lewis cut in. “Gligor? Who? What? Who?”
Joss grinned. “Gligor? The driver who brought you here from the airport? Gligor is your aunt’s driver. Well was your aunt’s driver. She was past the driving age limit, you know? I mean, she was still a competent driver, but because of the cancer and the fact that she was over seventy, no insurance company would even consider signing her, so I was able to negotiate a benefits package for her where the US Government paid for her personal driver. Nearly cost me an arm and a leg, but I have some pull with the District Attorney, so.”
Lewis frowned. “When I heard I was meeting my aunt’s lawyer, you’re not exactly what I expected.”
Joss shrugged. “I live to disappoint. Anyway, no offense, but you don’t qualify for the same benefits package, so I assume you won’t want Gligor around?”
“Um, actually,” Lewis said, going red a little. “Is there any way we could keep that going instead?”
Joss narrowed his eyes. “Okay, sure. Why?”
“The thing is, I can’t really drive all that well,” Lewis said, a little shamefacedly.
“When you say, ‘all that well,’” Joss said slowly.
“Or at all, in fact,” Lewis admitted. “I went to boarding school, then university, then I spent my time immediately after, living in Manhattan. Have you ever tried parking in Manhattan? There’s more space to land a helicopter. I’ve sp
ent more time on the F-Train than I ever did in a car, so I just never got around to getting my license. So, it might be handy having a driver around.”
Joss started amending his paperwork. “You will be required to front his wages out of your own pocket, is that cool?”
“Yeah, that’s fine,” Lewis nodded, already going back to spinning the globe.
“Awesome,” Joss said. He handed over the clipboard and the pen. “Okay. New and improved deal. Sign here if you please, Mr. Taylor.”
“Lewis,” Lewis corrected him automatically as he took the pen and scribbled his signature in the box. When the nib came off of the paper and the deed was well and truly done, Lewis felt strangely indifferent. He imagined that he’d feel…something. Something more. Apparently, he was wrong.
“Then we’re done!” Joss said brightly. He reached out, swiped his pen from Lewis’ hand and replaced it with a black and gold business card, with his firm’s name embossed upon it: Evans, Johnson & West. “The place is officially yours. Give me a call if you have any questions, but they have to be about lawyer-stuff. You can’t just call me and ask me why the alphabet is in that order.”
Lewis raised his eyebrows. “That is actually a really good question. And you sound like someone’s asked you that before.”
“Long story, don’t ask,” Joss said briskly. He patted his pockets down. “Right then. I should be off. Thanks for your time though, Mr. Taylor. Lewis, I mean.”
“Where are you off to?” Lewis asked suddenly. “Back to the office?”
“Back to the office, yeah,” Joss nodded.
“That’s downtown, right?” Lewis inquired.
“Right,” Joss agreed. “Why?”
“Do you want a lift?” Lewis offered. “I’m about to go into town myself, I had an idea.”
Joss shrugged. “Sure, that’d be cool. Out of curiosity, what’s your idea?”
“Well, I don’t really know anything about animals,” Lewis admitted. “I’m a therapist, not a vet. So, I’m looking into hiring a farmhand. You wouldn’t know any of those, would you?”
Joss shook his head. “Not personally, no. You could always just put an ad in a shop window or something though.”
“Yeah, that was my initial thought, too,” Lewis nodded.
“Well there’s not really a lot of choice out here,” Joss winced. “Except for the Old General Store. But that’s run by Old Man James, who no one really likes much.”
“Old Man James,” Lewis echoed. “Why, what’s wrong with him?”
Joss laughed. “I’ll fill you in on the way.”
Chapter Two
The farm town was, in fact…beautiful. In a simple kind of way. Joss and Lewis sat in the back of a sleek, black foreign auto as it silently slipped out of the driveway of Aunt Maggie’s farmhouse and into the lane with the crunch of tires on gravel. Lewis had rolled the window down on his side, which allowed a multitude of different scents to slip into the car.
Lewis couldn’t get enough of the smell in particular. Yeah, the place smelled of moss and poop, but it also smelled…clean. Lewis realized with a start that he was, in fact, smelling nature. Smelling the world without the city’s odor on it.
It was a kind of naturally clean smell. There was no stench of petrol or pollution. There was no smell of urine in any alleyways, there were no homeless people along the lane and, perhaps most importantly, no hooded n’er-do-wells hanging out on street corners. Lewis frowned to himself as it dawned on him that he’d just inwardly and un-ironically used the phrase “n’er-do-well”. Was he getting old?
Wait. Thirty-five wasn’t that old, was it?
Lewis was brought sharply back to the here and now as he realized Joss was still speaking to him. “Old Man James is pretty much the oldest guy who lives in this town,” Joss was explaining, as he looked out of his own window. “Typical old guy vibes, if you get my meaning. Likes to shout at little kids, just a tiny bit racist. Probably homophobic, but I’ve never checked.”
Lewis snorted. He was slowly but surely beginning to see the real reason why Aunt Maggie had chosen to keep Joss Kenla around.
Lewis looked back out of the car window as they moved down the lane. Lewis’ eyes slowly and steadily drank in the blue lakes and streams, the green, sun-kissed fields and meadows. It really was quite…picturesque, was the word Lewis was looking for. He could see why Aunt Maggie had moved here. For that matter, Lewis could definitely see why the average Tom, Dick or Harry, in general, would want to move away from the safety and comfort of the city with their shops and parks and cafes, to come and live here.
Lewis automatically and inwardly contradicted himself - New York City was hardly the safest place in the world, not by a long shot. Sure, farms had foxes and wolves that could kill you, but if you were caught in the South Bronx after eleven at night by pretty much anyone, they would almost definitely kill you and take your wallet.
“So, if he’s such a miserable guy, why does anyone go to his shop, or buy from him?” Lewis wondered aloud.
Joss snorted. “Not like there’s a lot of choice, is there? The Old General Store isn’t the only shop in these parts, but it definitely has the most. By a big margin, too. It’s only a few minutes of annoyance a day, which saves you having to import things yourself or go to a different store. Most people reckon that Old Man James is worth suffering for that.”
“Most people would reckon right,” Lewis remarked. “By the way, is that his actual name?”
“Is “what”, “whose” actual name?” Joss asked, suspiciously.
“Old Man James,” Lewis said. “Every time you’ve mentioned him, you call him Old Man James.”
“Everyone calls him that,” Joss shrugged. “Is his actual name James? I don’t know, he must have a name, though, right? He doesn’t correct anybody, so, he must not have a problem with it. Why do you like to ask such hard questions?”
Lewis rolled his eyes. “Okay, how about I keep it simple, then? Do you think he’ll be cool with me putting up this ad in his shop window?”
Lewis held up the flyer. He had printed it off a few days earlier. Lewis wasn’t massively into graphic design. Apart from one or two crash courses, he never had been. Instead, he had resisted the urge to go absolutely crazy with Adobe Photoshop. Mostly because Lewis knew it’d come out looking cheesy. In the end, he’d just gone for a few simple establishing shots of the farm itself, the punchy headline “LIVE-IN FARMHAND REQUIRED”.
Of course, Lewis’ contact details and address were listed below. All-in-all, he was pretty pleased with how it came out.
The automobile’s wheels crunched on the gravel as it pulled to a gentle stop.
Gligor was a man of few words, but Joss assured Lewis that he was an excellent driver. Lewis concurred simply because he had no evidence to the contrary. They hadn’t crashed yet. The polite Hoboken—Lewis had worked in New York but lived in New Jersey—in him couldn’t resist tipping his imaginary hat to him as Lewis got out of the car. Joss got out on his side.
The junction was deserted. The Old General Store was the only building that Lewis could see, surrounded by acres of farmland.
“You weren’t kidding,” Lewis murmured. “The Old General Store really is secluded.”
Joss nodded. “I mean, it’s genius, when you think about it. No competition means nowhere for customers to go to when Old Man James pisses them off.”
Lewis nodded, agreeing. “I’m looking forward to seeing some of these “old man vibes”,” he admitted, grinning.
“Whatever you do, don’t tell him I said that.”
The bell above the door tinkled as Lewis pushed the door open. The Old General Store was bigger than it looked from the outside. The counter was at the far end of the store, at least fifty or seventy metres away. Display refrigerators lined the right-hand wall, while shelves down the center of the carpeted store, framing a walkway, were stocked with uncooked pasta shells, spaghetti, and freeze-dried produce.
Lewis began brow
sing the shelves, admittedly surprised, but pleasantly so, at the vast selection of just…things. “I guess that’s why they call this The Old General Store,” Lewis mused to myself. “It really is a ‘general’ store, isn’t it?”
The isle on the far left was loaded down mainly with stationery. Books and pens and compasses and calculators. Lewis saw everything from rulers and packets of ballpoint pens to sellotape and superglue. He was pleased with the selection available - Lewis had no idea how long he planned to stay at the farm for, and it was comforting to know that at the very least, his basic needs would be available and provided for.
At the front of the store, Lewis heard someone clear their throat. He looked up. An old man was there standing at the counter, staring right at him. Lewis could immediately see that he was way older than he looked, for several reasons. Firstly, he looked about forty years old, forty-five max, and there was no way a forty-year-old man would be called “Old Man James”. Lewis was particularly reluctant to accept this because he was turning thirty-six the following year, and he was nowhere near old.
There was also something in his eyes, and something in the way his mouth was screwed up. Something that looked like he was bursting to go get off my lawn. Forty-year-olds do not shout at kids to “get off my lawn”. Clue the second. Lewis inwardly thought about how he should have been a detective. He glanced at a handwritten sign that’d been stuck on the front of the counter.
It read “ONE BRAT AT A TIME,” only the word brat had been crossed out with a big “x” and the word “child” written beneath it.
All of a sudden, Lewis realized what Joss had meant by “old man vibes.”
“Hey, Mister James,” Joss said from behind Lewis with fake enthusiasm. “How’ve you been?”
“You,” Old Man James growled. “What do you want, you long-haired girl?”
“Oh, come now, Mister James,” Joss grinned. “Is that anyway to talk to an old friend?”