Rent-o

By Solomon Evans

Abraham Walker, ex-cop, ex-alcoholic, has a quiet life as a messenger for an armored truck company, until his son gets in trouble with a vicious local gang. Abraham soon realizes that his son is not the real target-- he is. With everything on the line, Abraham does what it takes to protect his family.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Solomon Evans
• Release date: Jan 27, 2016
• ISBN: 9781311432216

Book preview

Rent-O

Solomon Evans

Copyright 2016

Smashwords Edition

It was an odd place for a bench. It faced a thruway for container trucks, and, across four lanes, a cubed apartment with square windows. Most of them were black, but a few shone yellow in the gloaming, a no-hope hotel populated by single men between the ages of forty and sixty, men who had failed at something, marriage, careers, meaning. He’d lived in similar boxes most of his life, so it was no surprise he lived in one again. But he didn’t feel like going inside, not yet, so he sat on the bench sipping a cherry cola, watching the sky change from faded blue to gray above the concrete city.

He didn’t know his neighbors. He passed other men in the hall, or on the stairs, and everyone was polite, nodding and saying hello, but there seemed no desire to go beyond pleasantries, which suited him just fine. His wife was the social one, and he would go along with her to parties or dinners, but he was never all that comfortable. She made friends easily, his wife, with her wide smile and warm laugh and her way of making you feel like you were someone in the world who mattered. Until her smile was wiped away, and all you saw when she looked at you was disappointment. Maybe it was the drinking, but he had a feeling it was also something else, something to do with how he couldn’t feel things anymore, the way his feelings were buried, obscured under a layer of dust. But that was all over now. His career. His marriage.

He finished the soda and left the can on the bench for Willy, the old man who sang lullabies to himself as he rode through alleys on a rusted bicycle. There but for the grace of God. He knew how easy it was to slip off the path. He’d already fallen.

The apartment halls were pristine white, tinted blue by fluorescent strip lighting. He walked up the carpeted stairs to the fourth floor. One of the tubes in the hallway was burning out, and it flickered like a mosquito trap as he turned the key in the deadbolt. He flipped the switches. More fluorescence in the kitchen, this time steady, and a standing lamp in the living room. He changed into jeans and a white t-shirt, folded his pants into clean lines, and put the uniform shirt in the laundry basket.

His suite opened to the kitchen, next to a living room with two doors, one of which led to a bachelor bathroom with a cubicle shower, and the other to a bedroom. There was a window in the living room, a window in the bedroom, and, because he had the luxury of a corner suite, another window beside the fridge. The apartment was small, but he didn’t have much furniture, so there was room to move around. He couldn’t afford a two-bedroom, which meant he couldn’t have Emily for sleepovers, but Yvonne was generous with visitation now that he was sober, and he saw Emily at least once a week, sometimes twice. And if he was honest with himself there was a certain relief in driving her home at the end of an evening. It was difficult to figure out fatherhood outside of living together as a family, outside his partnership with Yvonne. Emily was better off with her mother.

He opened the fridge. Nearly empty. Orange cheese slices in yellow plastic. A red squeeze bottle of ketchup. An open packet of hot dogs with pale green fuzz on the corner. A cardboard egg carton. He picked it up and the heft of it felt like two, maybe three eggs. He checked the date. Two more days. A safer bet than the moldy meat.

He set out a bowl and two small plates. On one of the plates he placed a slab of butter, and on the other he cut a cheese slice into smaller pieces. He cracked the eggs into a bowl and beat them together with a fork until they were uniform in color and texture. He put everything back in the fridge except the empty egg carton, turned an element on to its lowest setting, and placed a frying pan on it to warm.

While the pan was heating he brought the ketchup to the TV tray in front of the black leather recliner and put the remote on the arm. Back to the kitchen. He tipped the slab of butter into the frying pan, and when it foamed he spread it around with a spatula and poured in the eggs, waiting until they began to whiten at the edges before evenly sprinkling the cheese on top and carefully folding the circle in half. He covered the pan with a lid and watched as a thin trickle of steam escaped. Looking down he saw blood on his thumb. A nick from the knife. He hadn’t noticed. He pushed the skin back together and held it closed.

After two and a half minutes on each side the omelette was ready. He slid it out of the pan and onto a plate, took it and a knife and fork into the living room, arranged himself in his chair, and turned on the TV. It was tuned to a cop show. He spread a thin layer of ketchup over the top of the omelette with his knife and cut it into bites. Each mouthful had the same ratio of egg to cheese to sauce. Precision. A skill he’d learned in the military. He chewed and swallowed as actors chased each other around a blue screen.

When he was done eating he took the plate into the kitchen and washed each dish in a sinkful of soapy water: two small plates, one large plate, a bowl, a fork, a knife, a spatula, a pan. When the dishes were done he drained the sink and dried the dishes and cutlery and put them away in the cupboards and the drawer. He wiped his hands and hung the dishtowel on the door of the oven. He opened a cupboard, removed a glass, turned on the tap, held his finger under the stream of water until it ran cold, and filled the glass with water. He stood at the counter and drank it in measured sips. When the water was done he washed the glass, dried it, and put it away.

8:52pm.

The TV filled the apartment with the sounds of a singing contest as he pulled weights out from underneath the couch. He did reps of bicep curls to a teenage girl with wispy hair singing Wild Horses and tricep curls to a goateed man in a fedora playing a song he didn’t recognize. After each performance famous people told the contestants what they thought. In the commercials he did pushups. When the show was over the credits ran in small letters up and down the screen and he stowed the weights back in their place under the couch.

Turning the TV off, he took a pillow from the couch, put it on the floor, and sat cross-legged on it, one ankle on top of the other. He folded his hands in his lap, closed his eyes, and began to count his breaths. Once he reached ten he started again at one. When he had done this for fifteen minutes he opened his eyes, shook his arms, massaged above his knees, stood up and went to the window.

It was quiet at night, convenient when he worked the day shift and needed his sleep. There wasn’t much foot traffic. No reason for it. Lots of industrial buildings, a few apartment blocks, and a milk and cigarette store on the corner. The nearest real grocery store was a ten-minute drive south.

Behind the park bench an empty lot glowed ambient green in the white spotlights suspended from the eaves of the laundromat next door. He’d never seen children play in it, or dogs running through, or anyone but Willy lying in the sun. Its existence niggled at him, like a missing tooth. Maybe it was the contrast of grass against so much pavement. A soft spot