Chapter 2 – Present Day
The metro rocked back and forth, the wheels clicking in the familiar rhythmic tha-dump, tha-dump, tha-dump every few seconds. A few conversations flitted through the stale air and over the noise of the screeching metal cars, but mostly everyone kept to themselves. Anyone who didn’t have a phone in their hand had their eyes closed, waiting for the train to slow and the automated voice to stir them awake through the crackling speakers.
Owen Cooley didn’t have a phone in his hand. He couldn’t afford one. Nor could he sleep despite the dark circles under his eyes. He rubbed his knobby hands together, the tie around his neck loose with the top button of his shirt undone, the elbow patches of his jacket resting on his thighs. He stared at the black grooves on the metro floor and the piece of gum the man standing in front of him had almost stepped in for the past twenty minutes. Twice the heel of his Nike nearly landed in the pink glob, but he stayed clear, and at the next stop the man walked off, never knowing how close he came to catastrophe.
The train doors closed, the speakers beeped, and the train jolted forward, waking the large black woman who had dozed off across from him. But while the man in the white Nikes escaped doom, nothing had changed for Owen after a day of endless interviews and zero job offers. And if he had to choose between not having a job or gum on his shoe, he’d gladly take the latter.
By the time the train pulled up to his stop, the sun was setting. A nurse stood to exit, and Owen held out his arm to stop her from smashing her toe into the ABC Double-Bubble. She flashed him a pretty smile and softly touched his arm as she stepped ahead of him. It was the first good thing that had happened all day.
Unlike his interaction with the nurse, there were no smiles at the end of his interviews. He either had too much experience, not the right kind, or not enough in general. He’d worked as a welder and machinist for seventeen years. And at only a few years shy of forty, he found himself jobless with a mortgage and family to feed at home.
Owen kept his hands in his pockets, a warm breeze flicking his tie lazily to the left on his walk down the sidewalk. He kept his head down, his eyes scanning for any more gum mines lurking on the concrete. He rotated his shoulders uncomfortably and took his jacket off. His undershirt was soaked with sweat. Partly because of the summer heat, but mostly from nerves.
Sit up straight, make eye contact, nice dry and firm grip, but don’t hold too long, and don’t break off too early. It’s all about the shake. At least that’s what the employee down at the job center had told him. What the desk jockey hadn’t told him was that the jobs he was being interviewed for all required degrees, or computer knowledge, of which he had neither.
Not to mention he was always the oldest applicant in the room. And in most cases, he was older than the hiring manager. Compared to the spry youths that surrounded him in those hip offices, sitting in chairs that looked nothing like chairs, he was an old man. But he didn’t feel old. He still felt useful. There just wasn’t anyone that wanted the skills he had.
So, for the past six months since he’d been laid off at the shipyard, Owen Cooley had gone down to the job center every Monday to speak with the ‘career planner’ to look for jobs that paid more than minimum wage, which was what he was currently making at the McDonalds that only gave him twenty-five hours a week. The burgers and fries were a nice perk though. Not that he was supposed to take them home, but he knew they’d just throw them out at the end of the day anyway. A rich man might call that stealing. A man in his position would call it feeding his family.
A few cars rattled down the street, one of them giving him a honk, and Owen raised his hand in a friendly wave as he watched John Clarence’s old Ford roll toward home. He’d been in the same boat as Owen when the shipyard closed, but he had managerial experience and ended up getting a job for some construction company as an office pusher. It paid just as well as the shipyard did, but at their son’s baseball game last Saturday, he said he didn’t like the environment. Too stuffy. Say the wrong thing and you’re outta there.
But Owen only nodded, his mind wandering to the third notice he received in the mail that morning for being late on the water bill. It shut off the next day, and it was another three before he and Claire managed to scrape up enough cash to get it turned back on. Three fucking days.
Owen stopped and looked up from his shoes. His home was just two houses down, but he didn’t know how much longer it was going to stay that way. Their savings was gone, and what had gnawed at him the most on the train ride back home wasn’t the fact that the interviews hadn’t gone well, or that last week his kids couldn’t shower for three days. What bothered him the most was that it was his fault. A man was supposed to provide, and he’d failed. And now he’d have to walk into that house, look his wife in the eye, and tell her that at the end of the month, they’d have to move out. And go where? He had no idea.
Owen passed the mailbox out front and almost didn’t open it, but knew it was better for him to check the mail, that was if Claire hadn’t gotten to it first. She’d been doing that more lately. It was because he started to hide the bills and late notices from her. He did it so she wouldn’t worry, but that didn’t lessen the hellfire unleashed upon him when she found out.
And it was foolish for him to think he could keep that stuff from her anyway. She knew how much money they had down to the penny. But no matter how low that account got, Claire never wavered, didn’t even flinch. She was tougher than him in that way, and he loved her for it.
The mailbox didn’t give him anything to help lift his spirits. He shuffled through the envelopes stamped with labels in red lettering that spelled out “final notice,” “past due,” and “foreclosure.” He paused on the last one. Those eleven capitalized red letters had been haunting him since the shipyard closed. And now the monster had finally sunk its teeth into him for good.
Owen stuffed the mail in the pocket inside his jacket and walked up the front porch steps. The laughter drifting through the open windows helped lift the weight of the day off his back and brought the only real smile he had all day as he walked inside.
“Daddy!” Chloe lifted her arms in the air triumphantly, dropped the crayon in her hand, and sprinted toward him.
Owen crouched and scooped her off the floor. He planted a kiss on her cheek and walked her back over to the table. “Hey, bug. What are you working on?”
Chloe sighed, the tone behind it decades beyond the five year old that spoke. “I just can’t get the princess’ hair right. It turns out too much like spaghetti.”
Owen laughed, and Chloe giggled as he tickled her sides playfully, then set her back down and kissed the top of her head. “I’m sure you’ll get it. Where’s your mom?”
“In the kitchen!” Claire answered, and then stepped through the cutout in the narrow hallway that was split down the middle of the house that separated the kitchen, bathroom, and bedrooms from the dining and living rooms. She clasped her hands together and arched her eyebrows with a hopeful expression. He walked to her, kissed her lips, and shook his head.
It was hard watching the hope disappear from her face. But she didn’t let it keep her down for long. “Well, dinner is almost ready. Matt’s out back with Grandpa. Why don’t you go and get him?”
Owen arched his left eyebrow. “You left them alone?”
Claire squeezed his hand, keeping her voice low. “He was having a good day today. And it made Matt happy to throw the ball around with his granddad.” She kissed his cheek and then called Chloe into the kitchen to help set the table as Owen walked down the hallway toward the back door. Before he even stepped outside, he heard the hard smack of ball in glove.
“Easy there, Ripkin!” Roger shook his hand exaggeratedly, and Matt laughed. “You’re gonna bruise an old man.”
“I didn’t throw it that hard, Grandpa.” Matt turned to the door and his face lit up. “Hey, Dad!”
“Hey, buddy. Dinner’s almost ready, so why don’t you come in and wash up.”
“All right.” Matt peeled his glove off and tucked it under his arm. He walked with his shoulders slouched.
Owen ruffled his son’s hair on his way inside. “And help your sister set the table.”
“Okay.”
Roger tossed the ball into his glove, then closed the mitt and held it with both hands, lingering in the yard. Owen watched him closely. The doctors said the early stages were some of the hardest, and there wasn’t any way to know how fast it would progress.
“You all right, Roger?”
He nodded. “Fine.” He looked up but didn’t smile. “How was work?”
“No work today,” Owen answered.
Roger shook his head, frowning. “Right. I knew that.” He hurried back inside the house, brushing Owen with his shoulder on his way past.
After the dinner table was set, Claire brought out the spaghetti and green beans, dumping conservative-sized portions on everyone’s plate. The food needed to last.
Talk at the dinner table centered around the excitement for the end of school and the start of summer, and Chloe’s urgent plea for more crayons in order to expand her exploration of the color spectrum. Her own words.
“We’ll see what we can do, Picasso,” Claire said, then looked down to Matt, who’d kept himself reserved through most of dinner, picking at his noodles with his fork. “You okay, Matt?”
Owen looked up from the last green bean on his plate and watched his son nod with a half-smile. Owen didn’t buy it. “You sure?”
“Yeah,” Matt answered, more confident. “I’m fine.”
Both Chloe and Roger asked for seconds, and Owen declined another plate, though he knew he could have eaten one. Once the dishes were done and homework was finished (after being double-checked by Mom), it was showers and off to bed.
Roger descended into the basement without a goodnight to anyone, one of the smaller behavioral changes that Owen had noticed in the old man. When things worsened, Owen wasn’t sure what they were going to do, especially if he was still unemployed. But all those worries disappeared the moment he stepped into Chloe’s room. It was more gallery than bedroom, the walls adorned with the artwork that she deemed acceptable for people to view. “Night, bug.”
“Night, Dad.”
Owen kissed her forehead and then shut off the light on his way out and closed the door. He walked next door to Matt’s room and saw his son in bed, sitting up and picking at the fringes of his glove. Owen entered and pulled the desk chair next to the bed and sat. “You want to tell me what’s bothering you? And don’t tell me it’s nothing. I know you better than that.”
Matt looked up, his eyes red and misty. “I know about the house.”
His son’s words hit like a one-two combo to the gut. “That’s not something you have to worry about.” Owen moved from the chair to the bed and lifted his son’s chin, a few tears breaking from the cluster of water in his eyes. “We’re going to be fine.” He tapped the glove in Matt’s hands. “Plus, you’ve got summer ball soon. That curve of yours is really coming along.”
Matt wiped his eyes and sniffled. “I don’t think I should do it.”
“Why not? You love it.”
“It’s expensive. And I don’t want to be the reason we’re homeless.”
“We’re not going to be homeless. I promise. Okay?”
Matt nodded and then wrapped his arms around his dad’s neck. The boy was always worrying about things beyond his ten years. It was a trait he shared with his sister, though her worries were more artistic in nature.
“All right,” Owen said, kissing the top of Matt’s head. “Lights out.” Owen helped Matt under the sheets as the boy tucked his glove into his chest. “I love you.”
“Love you too, Dad.”
As Owen shut the door to his son’s room, he lingered in the hallway a moment. Not once in his own childhood did he worry about whether he would be homeless. He’d be damned if he was going to let his own son do it.
After he had time to mentally prepare himself for the last conversation of the night, Owen entered his bedroom. Claire was sitting cross-legged on the bedsheets, his jacket at the foot of the bed, the bills spread out in front of her.
“We can’t get an extension from the bank?” Claire asked, reading through the foreclosure notice. “We’ve been with them for almost fifteen years, and up until the shipyard closed, we never missed a payment.”
Owen leaned back and lay down, resting his head on the pillow, staring at the ceiling, which was void of any chewing gum. “They won’t budge. If we can’t pay by the thirtieth, they’ll kick us out.”
Claire collected the rest of the bills and then tossed them on her nightstand. “Well, I think it’s bullshit.” She rolled over to him and rested her head on his chest. It bounced gently up and down in time with his heartbeat. “How was it out there today?”
Owen groaned. “Bad. You should see some of the looks I get when I walk into those interviews. You’d think I was marked with the plague.” Owen ran his fingers through Claire’s thick, wavy black hair. It was familiar. It was home. “Matt knows about the house.”
“Of course he does,” Claire said. “He is half me, you know.”
“Thank god for that,” Owen said, kissing her head.
Claire propped herself up on her elbows and looked at him. “Hey. You need to quit that. You never give yourself enough credit. Just because you’re not a twenty-two year old with a degree in computer science doesn’t mean you’re not smart.” She grabbed hold of his hands and kissed them. “You are very good at what you do, Owen. It was why the shipyard stayed in business for as long as it did in the first place. It’s not your fault there isn’t anyone hiring right now.”
“You’d think I’d be able to find some welding work, or construction, or—”
“Something will come up,” Claire said. “And until then, we’ll get by. I managed to get a few more hours tutoring next week, so that’ll help.” She kissed him. “We’ll get through this.”
Owen nodded and forced a smile. “I know.” But as he switched off the light and they lay in bed, he wasn’t able to convince himself it was true. If he didn’t get a job by next week, they were going to be evicted. He couldn’t let that happen.