have a nice day now, Miss Penworth.” She then threw the shovel under the back of the trailer and started to go inside, as the old lady struggled with her groceries.
It had taken that dog almost four days to die. He was an unwanted surprise when they got here from Tulsa. Callie had moved in with Will a month before when the Sheriff called from Texas telling her that her mother was dead. They never found out what killed her, but she probably had dozens of ailments as a rotund late-forty-something invalid, living on welfare. Callie hadn’t seen her for fifteen years after she started working the streets at fourteen. By fifteen, she was in Tulsa, and they never communicated. It seemed like a miracle that the police had been able to get in touch with her. She had a lengthy arrest record, which made it easier.
Her mother was cremated or buried in some pauper’s grave, somewhere. Callie didn’t know, or care. She inherited the trailer and everything in it, which amounted to twenty years of trash. She had never had any decent place, so the trailer was a place to live rent-free until something better came along.
Will hated dogs, and this one was a mess to have around. He began mixing cleaning fluids and anything marked “poison” in its food without telling Callie. The poor beast lost all body control and was too messy to keep indoors, so Will tied him to the back of the trailer and let the sun finish the job. The dog was too sick to move or make any noise. She tried to help the poor beast, by putting water out in a small dish, which enraged Will. He kicked the dish under the trailer and slapped her hard when he went inside. “Don’ you eva defy me, girl! That dog ain’t gonna be around much longer and you’s jus’ prolongen it.”
Through Will’s demented logic, they could have all the freedom they needed without the dog-- except they still didn’t have any money. She had her body and looked good if she dressed up and used enough makeup, particularly in the cowboy bars at night. Will didn’t like her whoring, but he didn’t stop her either. As the recession got worse, and the jobs disappeared around Abilene, there were often nights that she couldn’t even make twenty dollars for a blow job. She needed to find some other way to get money. Will never made enough to live on.
Around five o’clock that evening after burying the dog, it was too hot for any human to be outside. Callie hadn’t moved off the couch, watching TV for hours when Will’s truck skidded onto the gravel space between her trailer and Corina’s Buick. He threw the creaky screen door open hard enough to break one of the rusted hinges and nearly broke the doorframe, opening the door without turning the knob completely.
He stumbled in with a six-pack of Lonestar, with three bottles remaining. “Callie, dear (burp), we gotta celebrate!” His grey-faded white tee shirt had some holes and several yellow-brown sweat stains. His ragged blue jeans, big-buckled belt with “Will” inscribed and dirty sneakers completed his Texas free-loader ensemble. He was five-five, one hundred-thirty pounds of out-of-condition redneck with stringy brown hair and amateurish tattoos common amongst his Arian cellmates. At twenty-six, he’d spent four years unemployed between his dishonorable discharge from the Coast Guard and his time in jail. His crimes were petty by criminal standards, but he was still young enough to get into more serious trouble.
Immediately after moving into Will’s trailer, he began threatening and beating her. He terrified her and was able to control her after that. He never left her alone except when he went out for something or waited for her to finish servicing a client. He never said so, but he hinted often enough that she believed he killed her mother.
Even though she feared him, she was able to put him in place occasionally. She yelled at him, “You’re drunk again! Get out of my way so I can watch my soaps.”
He walked up to the old Sony Trinitron, pushing the power switch off and then stood in front of the screen with a huge grin on his face. “Unh unh. I got some news that’ll change ever’ thing for us!”
She was annoyed. This episode had played before, and she knew he had no perception of reality or their circumstances. “Will. There ain’t no ‘us.’ We only live together cuz we can’t afford to live alone!”
He was weaving, but still smiling like a dog in a trash can, “No, Baby, I mean it. I got a job!”
“Yeah, right. Someone get run over at the car wash?”
“No, babe, I mean a real no-shit money-making job.”
She was getting upset. “Who would hire a loser like you?”
“Hey, don’t you go talkin’ about your new sugar daddy that way. He swayed, but stayed upright walking over to the couch and sinking beside her before taking another long swig.
She stood up. “You smell bad. Did you shower lately? You should change your underwear at least every few days.” She started to walk away when he grabbed her arm and jerked her back down. She struggled and wouldn’t look at him.
“You listen to me, girl. You won’t be needin’ to fuck for money again after I get going.” She didn’t look at him as he continued. “You know I was a helicopter mechanic in the military.”
“You wasn’t in the military, you was in the Coast Guard.”
“Yeah! Well, shows what you know. You know how dangerous it is to chase down drug runners on the ocean?”
“You didn’t chase no one. You worked in a airplane hangar.”
“Don’t matter. I went to aircraft mechanics school, and that’s a real profession. More’n bein’ a whore!”
“Yeah, you hardly got any experience and was kicked out as a thief. Who’d hire a loser like you!”
“Now you listen here. I ain’t beat you in a long time (three days), and you’re not goin’ to sass me, you hear!” His waggling finger wasn’t quite pointed at her.
She shrugged and exhaled, but still refused to look at him. She’d never had a normal relationship in her life and had been beaten by almost every man that ever got near her. Many were her early pimps, when she had one, but after fifteen years on her back, she worked alone, and customers sometimes wanted it “rough”. Will wasn’t any worse than most of her customers, and she could normally control him with enough booze and sex. “So tell me about your big new job.”
He put down the bottle and formed an imaginary frame between his hands. “Okay. Look at me.” She gave him an oblique glance. “I ... got a job as a apprentice mechanic at a helicopter company in Louisiana. I’m gonna be a mechanic! That’s what I went to school for in the military.”
She was admittedly astonished, but skeptical. “You mean someone actually hired you, an ex-con with no references and a bad record from the Coast Guard?”
He looked deflated but wanted her to share his enthusiasm. “It’s not impossible, you know. I got a tip a while ago, and now they give me a job.” He looked at her for response.
“All right -- and?”
“So, I called!”
“A phone call don’t mean a job. What experience did you tell ‘em?”
He was getting defensive. “Look. I ain’t stupid. You know I got good scores when I enlisted, or they wouldn’t ‘a sent me to mechanics school for sixteen weeks.”
Callie knew Will was prone to exaggerate and seldom understood the reality of his situation. She had spent her life living the horrible realities of the world. “All right, Will, so what happened during the call?”
“Well, the senior maintenance guy, he asked me when I could start! It’s minimum wage and no benefits, but he said I could run the whole shop someday if I worked out.”
“You’ve heard that before.”
“Yeah, but I believe it this time, and it’s something I was professionally trained for. This guy, um, I forget his name, we hit it off real good. He’s gonna hep me, and I’m gonna learn a lot from him.”
“Okay, Will. Why don’t you go to bed – shower first. I’ll fix you something to eat when you wake up if it’s not too late before I go to work. I got some o’ that canned stew you like.”
“Okay, but can I have a free one first.”
&n
bsp; “Not before you shower.”
Search
BJ stayed at the Ops Center all night. Some of the management and owners came in also. The FAA was notified along with the Coast Guard, but there wasn’t much information to help find Jake. He was more than fifty miles from the land when radio contact was lost. There was no distress call heard, and he could have flown all the way out past the platform. There was just no way to know for sure.
The mood in the morning was grim. BJ feared losing his friend, and management feared losing the revenue and fighting with the insurance companies. At least the weather was calming down, and normal operations could resume less one aircraft. Jake had been out of contact for almost a full day. It upset BJ to think that Jake was always the “go-to” guy when conditions were at their worst. Now, the odds caught up. Jake was down somewhere out in the Gulf. BJ wanted to wish he was alive, and would be rescued. The latter was more unlikely even than surviving a crash. Survival in yesterday’s weather wasn’t likely, but, if anyone could do it, Jake was the pilot. If he was injured, surviving the crash might be just a way to die slowly.
“Oh God, Jake, please be okay.”
In the early morning, just before sunrise, the wind died, and the chop subsided. The tall swells continued to roll at frequent intervals. Jake had been in the cold water almost twenty hours, but he was able to float more comfortably