Tourists of the Apocalypse (5 page)

It’s overcast this morning, but still warm. The red line on the porch thermometer reads 76 degrees. Graham doesn’t appear to have a garden hose at his house. When I look around for one it dawns on me that he doesn’t have anything around his house. I recall a lawn service coming to take care of the grass, but still I would expect to find something lying about, a rake, a wheel barrow, something.
Perhaps he’s a clean freak
. In the end, I borrow the one from our house, needing a pair of pliers to get the rusted metal fitting free.

All this delay has me rushing to finish by the 8 AM deadline. I am wiping down the headlights when the screen door creaks open. The mystery woman’s impossibly tall red heels click loudly on the concrete. I have never seen shoes like this outside of the movies. Her outfit is slightly more conservative than last week’s skin tight dress. A knee length grey skirt paired with a matching blazer. The blouse is a shimmering gold and cut almost down to her navel.
This is without a doubt the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.
Without speaking, she prowls around the car inspecting my work. With crossed arms she frowns and points at the rear window.

“The window has streaks in it kid,” she criticizes. “Next time use some newspapers or something instead of a towel.”

“Yes Ma’am,” I reply, looking down. “I’m really sorry.”

There is a pause during which she scowls like an unhappy teacher, but then snorts and puts a hand over her mouth.

“Just yanking your chain kid,” she giggles, opening the door and tossing her shoes and purse inside. “Thanks for the wash.”

“Everything okay out here,” Graham calls from inside, then appears at the screen door.

“It’s passable,” she shrugs. “It’s a lot further out here than I recalled. You’re going to have to up the ante.”

“Pay close attention Dylan,” he advises me as he pushes past the screen door onto the drive. “Women always want to renegotiate a deal.”

“Funny,” she smirks, rolling her eyes at the word
renegotiate
. “I could stay closer to home. It’s not like there isn’t plenty of business there.”

“Calm down Cleopatra,” he asserts, holding out his hands. “What is it the lady desires?”

“Wax.”

“You’re getting expensive,” he chuckles in a tone that indicates this is just fun and games between them.

“If you’d like to turn this into a monetary matter I’m happy to talk dollars and cents,” she offers, crossing her arms over her plunging neckline.

“As fun as that sounds, I’ll pass,” he shrugs, walking over to her, hands in his pockets. “You’d miss me too much.”

“Hardly,” she scoffs, leaning away when he tries to kiss her. “Have the kid do it once a month. I don’t want it building up.”

“You have time for that?” he turns, glancing at me.

I bob my head in reply, unsure of what to say. Adrenaline is coursing through my veins threatening to make me light headed. I am included in a conversation with the beautiful stranger and Graham.
It’s almost as if I exist.

“Deal, one wax job a month,” he nods assuming my answer was affirmative. “Anything else?”

“Not at present,” she answers, pinning her skirt to the back of her leg and slipping into the car. “Further negotiations at my discretion of course.”

“Obviously,” he rolls his eyes and shuts the door gently.

Graham steps back next to me and the car backs out of his drive and flies out of sight. He pulls a roll of bills out and peels off a twenty, holding it out for me. Unlike the previous week, I snatch it quickly.

“You’re going to need fancy wax,” he warns me, peeling off two more twenties. “Make sure its Canuba Wax.”

I nod understanding, having no idea what Canuba might be.

“Don’t worry about towels,” he advises as he hands me the money. “I have pile of brand new crap inside. I’ll leave a few out for you.”

Taking the crisp bill, I nod again.

“Are we expecting your Dad to come storming out again this morning?” he quizzes me, pointing at Jarrod’s rusty truck parked half on our lawn.

“He’s not my Dad,” I announce sternly.

“So, who is he?”

“Mom’s boyfriend.”

“Ah, then you won’t mind me saying he’s a peckerwood.”

“Nope,” I chuckle.

“He take the money I gave you last week?”

I nod.

“Peckerwood,” he repeats. “Is he going to be a problem?”

“Probably.”

“Cross that bridge,” he frowns, shaking his head as he gazes at my house.

There is a silent pause and I decide to shag up the hose and rags. Graham fetches his paper before nodding at me and going back inside. Once the hose is refitted to our spigot, I head downtown to the bank. The only way I can keep my earnings safe from Jarrod is my passbook savings account. My grandfather took me to the small town bank when I was eight to open it. Sadly, I have not made as much progress as Gramps intended, the balance being less than thirty bucks. Today that’s about to change. I need to break a twenty to pay Jerry back, and then buy some fancy wax. Even so, today I will nearly double my net worth.
I wonder what wax jobs pay?

….

Over the next three months I earn $320 dollars washing and waxing the yellow Porsche. The beautiful lady’s name turns out to be Violet, and we get to be fairly friendly. Graham is still somewhat reclusive, but claims he’s preparing for his friends to arrive. To avoid Jarrod, I get up around six to wash in case stealth is required. I start at five thirty on wax days just to make sure it all gets done.
If my work ever disappointed Violet I would be crushed.
At present, her approval is upmost in my mind.

I’m just wiping off the headlights when the fight starts. Breaking glass can be heard even though I am two houses down. Mumbled yelling and then a crash echo from the house, as if furniture has been toppled over. I take a few steps toward home, but then freeze in thought. Last year I tried to get between Jarrod and my mother and wound up with my arm in a cast up to my shoulder. After this indecisive pause, I decide to go help. Before I can, Violet comes out the screen door.

“What’s the racket,” she mutters, coming up behind me. “Something going on at your place?”

Embarrassed, I don’t reply, striding across the lawn of the uninhabited home between Graham’s and my own. As I reach our driveway my mother comes stumbling out the door holding her face. She’s wearing only a nightshirt and fuzzy slippers. I arrive at the steps just in time to keep her from falling. Jarrod comes storming out the door, in the process flinging the screen door open so hard it bounces back and hits him in the chest.

“Missy, where do you think you’re going?” he booms, scowling when he sees me.

Putting myself between the beast and my injured mother, I back her away from the porch. Jarrod pauses initially, but then comes bounding down the steps towards me. Before I can find words, he grabs me by the hair and tosses me onto the grass. My mother cowers with her fingers holding the edge of his truck to keep from falling over. Her jaw already puffing out, one bloodshot eye quickly swelling shut.

“We weren’t done talking,” Jarrod grunts. “You were going to take me upstairs and apologize the right way.”

He gets his meaty hand around her upper arm, but before he can drag her back inside, his head is driven into the passenger window of the truck. It doesn’t shatter, which surprises me, but rather his head rebounds off it and back into Grahams hands. Stunned, Jarrod blinks and is then tossed on his back and straddled by Graham.

“You looking for a fight? I’d be up for a scrap, but how about we leave the women and children out of it?”

Jumping up, I pin my mother between myself and the truck, looking back over my shoulder. With them this close I’d guess Jarrod is only marginally taller than Graham, who I estimate to be around six feet. He outweighs Graham by an unknown amount, but it’s a big number. Jarrod begins to recover his faculties, shaking his head and blinking. I’m expecting Graham to unleash a flurry of blows, but this doesn’t happen. He simply holds Jarod’s head off the grass slightly with his other hand wrapped around the front of his flannel shirt.
What is he waiting for?

“Get off me,” Jarrod mumbles confused, trying to recover from the impact with the truck window. “This is none of your business. I’ll frigging kill you.”

“What was that?” Graham asks loudly for all to hear.

“I’ll kill you man,” Jarrod snarls, reaching a hand back to push himself up.

“Sure you will” Graham replies coldly, holding Jarrod by the hair with his free hand and using the front of his shirt to drag him next door.

By the time they land on the lawn Jarrod fights free, stumbling to his feet. Graham stands by looking almost amused. He doesn’t know Jarrod like I do.
He’s going to get himself killed for sure.

“Oh you’re gonna get it now,” Jarrod shouts, taking a swing at Graham.

He ducks out of the way of the punch, and then slips the next one as well. Only getting more furious, Jarrod rushes Graham, who punches him in the throat with a cat-quick movement. Jarrod grasps his neck and wheezes. He’s frozen there until Graham sidesteps him and kicks down on the side of his knee, causing a crunching sound.

“Son of a —,” Jarrod bellows as he crumples to the ground, one hand on his throat, the other on his knee.

Walking around him, Graham waits for Jarrod to look up and then kicks him in the face as if he were punting a football. The smacking sound echoes in the pit of my stomach. I have never been witness to this type of damage inflicted on anyone. Jarrod lies motionless now, face peering blankly at the sky. His lips quiver for a moment then he coughs, leaving tiny speckles of blood on his face. Graham watches him for a bit, and then shakes his head.

“You alright doll,” Violet yells from the door of her car.

“Yeah, you should get out of here.”

“Use your
one phone call
to let me know if you make bail,” she remarks, pinning a short purple mini-dress under her leg and climbing in. “It will save me the drive next week if you’re in the can.”

“I’ll be here,” he chuckles. “This was clearly self-defense.”

“Ya think?” she smirks as the window rolls down. “Looked pretty one-sided.”

“He’s in my yard,” Graham points out. “And he did threaten to kill me.”

“He looks real dangerous. Just lying there bleeding.”

Graham points down the street and the yellow Porsche zooms past us out of sight. Leaving Jarrod in a pile on the lawn, Graham helps me get my mother inside. Her jaw is swollen and painful. He tells us it’s broken and we need to get her to an emergency room. One eye is puffy and closed, but she shakes her head. Graham looks at me for answers.

“We don’t have a car,” I explain, “or insurance.”

“I’ll take you,” he assures her in a soft voice. “You can’t walk around like this. It won’t heal.”

She nods and squeezes his forearm. He smiles back in a reassuring way, then whispers to me as he gets up.

“Get her a jacket or something and bring her outside,” he whispers, averting his eyes as she has nothing on under the nightie. “I’ll pull the truck around.”

“What about Jarrod?” I balk; fearful he will be outside waiting.

“He can drive himself to the hospital.”

…

Graham takes my mother to the emergency room. He also pays the bill and fills her prescriptions all without asking for any money. When we get home, Jarrod is nowhere to be seen. There are however, two moving trucks, one in each of the uninhabited house’s driveways. The trucks are locked up and deserted, but a yellow light glows in the front window of the house closest to ours.

Graham knocks on the door and has a conversation with a rough looking black man in a desert camouflage jacket. There is hugging and smiling, then he points a thumb over his shoulder at us and conversation gets more intense. Before long a woman slips out and takes my mother by the hand.

“Let me take her,” she offers. “Let’s get her lying down.”

The woman is very pretty. Not pretty like Violet, who looks like Jessica Rabbit, but nice looking. She’s very fit with shoulder length dark hair pulled back over her ears. She reminds me of Mrs. Hamilton, who was my third grade teacher. A dull blue tee-shirt and grey cargo pants give the appearance of a uniform, but it doesn’t match the guy who answered the door. I release my mother’s arm and watch her go. My first instinct is to hang onto her, but trusting in Graham has become a thing today. Clutching her bag of pill bottles, my mother disappears into the dimly lit house.

“She will be fine,” Graham soothes me from behind. “Izzy will look after her tonight.”

“Who are these people?”

“My friends,” he explains, then pauses. “Jarrod wouldn’t dare come over here.”

“True, but he will be back. We can’t stay over here forever.”

“No, you can’t. Let’s wait and see what tomorrow brings.”

…

The next day brings a jet black sedan parked in front of the third house, two houses to the left of mine on the circular dead end. A man Graham refers to as Lance is living there with Izzy, the dark haired woman I met previously. Graham tells me it’s safe to go home and helps me get my mom upstairs and into bed. While I insist that Jarrod will be back, he assures me that this isn’t the case. I sit in my mother’s second floor window, eyes glued on the street. After a week, I relax as it does appear Jarrod is gone for good.

Izzy comes by to check on my mother while I am in school and Graham takes me to the grocery store on Saturdays. I withdraw all the money from my savings and manage to pay the light and water bills when they come at the end of the month.
The problem is Jarrod was paying for everything
. A bank account once held by father and mother contains enough to cover the mortgage payment, but I have to close it and take the last cent to do so. This puts me on a thirty-day clock. As long as Graham keeps buying us groceries, and there is no verbal agreement for him to do this, I will have no money to pay when the bills come next. Time passes slowly over the next thirty days. I can’t focus at school with this hanging over my head. My teacher’s complaints fall on deaf ears. My mother is feeling better, but will be drinking through a straw for another month at least.