Chapter 2
Legion of Kronos M.C. was emblazoned on the man’s t-shirt, right over the shoulder blades. He reached into his mailbox to find an envelope belonging to his next-door neighbor. Hesitating for a moment, he decided to just go stick it in Greg’s box. He ambled that way. He was standing there with his hand on the rural-type mailbox’s door when Greg pulled up in his ice blue Acura. Lucas turned around and looked, waited for his neighbor to come up.
“Howdy Harold,” said Lucas, looking down at the letter in his hand. “I mean Greg. Got a piece of your mail in my box today.” He held it up so that Harold could see the addressee was Harold G. Mooney.
“Don’t call me Harold. It’s Greg.”
“Says Harold here...Harold.” Lucas noticed the letter was from Q. E. Parkinson, Esq.
“Thanks,” Harold said, snatching the envelope and skirting Lucas out onto the grass.
“You know, if a word gets on your nerves,” Lucas said with sincerity, “Just say it over and over and over, and it becomes meaningless and non-offensive. Try it. Harold, Harold, Harold. Eventually you won’t even be able to spell it right.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“I’m getting ready to cut my grass. Want me to hit yours for ya?” Lucas asked.
“No thanks,” Harold said without turning, putting his key into the doorknob. “I’ll take care of it later.”
“It’s no problem...” Lucas was cut off by the slamming of his neighbor’s door.
A painfully thin woman appeared in front of Lucas’ house with a ramshackle gas-powered push mower, called out, “Here’s the mower honey-bun.”
Lucas crossed the crab-grassy sward to meet her. “I’m gonna to be awhile Baby. I’m gonna cut his grass for him, at least the front anyway. He ain’t lookin’ too good.”
“Hustle up,” she said. “You’re gonna want to shower before the meetin’. Cantrell already called to make sure you’d be there.”
“That’s his job sweetie, that’s his job. Make me a sandwich and I’ll be inside in an hour-and-a-half or so,” he said.
From his position under Harold’s house, Gator scratched his bearded cheek and peered through out through a foundation vent watching Lucas talk to Harold and then Bonnie. Bonnie left and Lucas started on the grass. Even in the heat of the summer it was shady and cool under Harold’s house, and he was comfortable there in his quilted flannel shirt, looking out of the darkness into the bright yard. The mower stirred dust, seeds, and clippings. He watched them float and spiral behind Lucas in the late afternoon sun. They jetted out the side of the mower moving fast, then slowed. Some went to the ground immediately, others circled and began to take flight, passing through and over the picket fence as if it were gauze, then like miniature kites, moved up until they disappeared in the western glare of the sun.
Feeling relaxed and sleepy, he nodded some, finally napped, then eventually sank into a dreamless slumber. When he woke, Lucas was all done, the yard was dark and still, and nobody was around. He stretched like a dog in the musty dark and turned his attention to the world above.
Every time Harold took a step on the floor, Gator tracked it with his senses. When he moved from carpet to hardwood, then to rug, the sound changed, and in Gator’s mind he envisioned the consistency of the footing, flattened pile, narrow oak boards, threadbare oriental. At the back of the house, the sound of a bottle falling, a thump, a squeaking mattress weighted then lightened, a settling rustle on the floor. The sun would be coming up soon.
On all fours Gator went out the crawlspace door to the puddle beneath the spigot and drank, drawing off the top with his lips, his hair hanging around his head like a lampshade. He moved off and pissed in the high grass by a tree in the rear of the yard. The eastern sky was dark purple, the moon long ago set.
He went back underneath the house, shutting the door behind him, and made his way over the lumps of broken concrete and chunks of two-by-four to find the exact spot where Harold had missed the bed and lay on the floor. The ground here was damp. Torn and crumpled plastic sheeting had let the moisture rise from the earth. Scraps of fallen paper and reflective foil insulation lay about and hung from the joists. No insulation covered the spot he regarded. Gator got up on his knees and placed his hand against the sub floor directly beneath Harold’s cheek on the other side.
Can any of you by worrying add a single hour to the span of life? he thought. Sleep well Harold Gregory.
He went back to the spot where he had been sleeping for the past month, a dry and dusty depression in a corner of the foundation where a family dog long dead had wisely chosen to sleep decades before. Shrugging his navy and yellow checked jacket to his ears, Gator curled up and shut his eyes.