Knock On Wood: Special Edition

By Jacob Quarterman

When William’s father died, the only thing he left behind was debt. His uncle Walter has debt of his own. In the dead end town of Applewood, Ohio, they decide to make a change. Unfortunately, they aren’t the only ones in town with a plan.

 

In an updated special edition, Knock On Wood and Bad Break are together in a single volume.

 

Get your copy of the special edition of Knock On Wood today!

• Language: English
• Publisher: El Monito Enterprises
• Release date: Aug 13, 2016
• ISBN: 9781386349419

Book preview

KNOCK ON WOOD SPECIAL EDITION

Jacob Quarterman   

––––––––

Copyright © 2016 

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Copyright © 2016 

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious.

Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

El Monito Enterprises

If only we could correct past mistakes...

TABLE OF CONTENTS

KNOCK ON WOOD

ONE THING LEADS TO ANOTHER

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

THIS, THAT, AND THE OTHER THING

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

THE THING TO CONSIDER

ONE

TWO

THREE

ANOTHER THING TO THINK ABOUT

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

AS FAR AS THINGS GO

ONE

TWO

THE THING ABOUT FAMILY

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

A FEW THINGS TO TAKE CARE OF

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

WHEN THINGS COME TO LIGHT

ONE

ALL THINGS BEING EQUAL

ONE

TWO

THREE

ONE LAST THING

ONE

BAD BREAK

A THING OF THE PAST

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

ANOTHER THING COMING

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

A THING WORTH DOING

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

EVERYTHING COMES TOGETHER

ONE

THE ONLY THING

ONE

TWO

THE END

KNOCK ON WOOD

ONE THING LEADS TO ANOTHER

ONE

The whole neighborhood was dry and gray. The apartments at the end of the street were full, but most of the houses stood empty. Yards gone to weeds. Sidewalks cracked and broken.

William Ash had been twelve when he and his father had moved in fifteen years ago, when the town was still holding on to the last bit of its wealth. They picked out a duplex. They were going to convert it to a single residence and flip it. Move on and do it again, but his father had gotten sick.

The cancer that had infected the town, had infected his father. A different kind of cancer, but just as deadly. As the town had died, so had his father. It took seven years. William lived alone in an unfinished house in an abandoned neighborhood in a declining town. Welcome to Applewood.

The front yard was small and brown. He didn't have to mow it much, but he took care of the weeds. He edged the sidewalks and turned the mulch in the bare flower beds.

The empty houses on either side sat so close that he couldn't walk between them without scraping his shoulders on the algae soaked siding. The sun never seemed to shine in there, and it always smelled dank. Spiderwebs spun between the houses, glistened in the morning, and no matter how many times he ran into them he kept doing it. Just walking right into the sticky strings and flinching in disgust and brushing away the imaginary spiders that he just knew were trying to eat him.

They had removed the front door on the left side, deciding the door on the right would be the main entrance. It was solid mahogany, with an oval window and leaded sidelights. His father had wanted to install a transom window as well, but there wasn't enough room.

There was no porch, just a concrete stoop. William kept the cast iron railing straight and clean. A fresh coat of paint every year. Gloss Black to match the mailbox.

The pressboard siding was starting to weather, warping in the sun, but every year, he would scrape off the old paint and slap on another eight gallons of Driftwood. Classic White for the trim. Franklin and Winny would always be there to help. Sometimes the others would show up, but it seemed the more of them that came by to help, the less work they got done.

The back yard was as brown as the front. A small patch of ground dominated by a garage that faced the alley. The same Driftwood and Classic White. The same water stained three-tab shingles. A crooked sidewalk led from the back porch to the side door of the garage, leading into his gym. The overhead door opened to the alley.

He always parked on the street because the garage was full of weights. Homemade equipment and Olympic plates and bars, ropes and mirrors, and a huge stereo for blasting the metal. It was easier to bust out a heavy single when Phil Anselmo was screaming at you at a hundred decibels.

The original duplex hadn't been a side-by-side, but rather an over-under. The door on the left had opened on to a set of stairs that led to the rooms above. After completing the work on the exterior, they moved inside and tore those stairs out. It opened the whole entry to light. A solid wood railing at the top, sanded and stained and sanded so it shone like glass, and the sun flooded in every morning. His father used to stand in the foyer, drinking a cup of coffee and letting the sun wash over his face. It was the last project they had worked on together.

His father had started to shrink and slow down. Like he was fading away. He would direct the projects from a camp chair, and William would do his best, but it wasn't enough. He only knew how to start. He had no real experience with finishing. Framed walls but no drywall. Exposed lathe boards. Open risers on the stairs.

His father had died in the unfinished master bedroom off of the kitchen. A bullet through the temple had splashed his life on the wall, but it had really been the cancer that had killed him.

William had met his uncle, Walter Ash, - Just call me 'Ash' -  for the first time at the funeral. He lived in Applewood as a police officer. His embrace had smelled like sweat and aftershave. William later found out that Ash and his father hadn't spoken to each other in almost twenty years. William had never figured out why, and Ash still wouldn't come to the house. Their bond was immediate and deep, and William didn't want to risk losing it by asking.

Light shining through the front of the house sparkled off of the dust floating in the air. Dust from sanding drywall. Dust from sanding wood. The windows were all open but there was no breeze. Tools scattered around, and despite the early morning sun, the house seemed dark.

William's room was at the top of the stairs, at the back of the house. He sat sweating in his rumpled bed. He couldn't afford to run the air conditioning, and the afternoon sun beating down made the room an oven through the night.

His back rested against the wall, and his legs splayed out in front of him. A sheet covered his lap. He was very muscular but soft. He looked down at the folds in the fat of his abdomen and disgust twisted his face.

He reached under the sheet and pulled out the revolver. Dark wood handle. The barrel black and shiny. He sighted along its length and saw the bullets nestled inside. The gun that had killed his father. Maybe it would work on him, too.

TWO

The 1978 Buick Estate Wagon. Two hundred and twenty inches long. Three hundred and fifty cubic inches of V8 pushing a four-speed automatic transmission. Custom vinyl interior. Franklin Warner loved his car.

The gray paint cracked and flaked along the hood and  roof. The chrome, dark and pitted. The driver's side window had long since been replaced by a flimsy sheet of plexiglass. The faux wood panels on the doors peeled away to show the rusty gray underneath.

It was powerful and dependable, getting him to and from work, and to and from the hospital for years. The heat and air worked, and the radio sounded pretty good. The car used a shit-ton of gas, though.

Franklin stood on the driver's side with a gas pump nozzle in one hand, and a small pile of change in the other. The pump had shut off showing $58.62 on the small display. Franklin looked at the change in his hand and back to the pump. He gritted his teeth and shook his head.

He used to get headaches a lot. Forget things. Lose things. The pain would start pounding behind his left eye and spread down into his ear and neck. Light and noise would set it off and anger would kick it into high gear.

He would walk into a room and forget why. Then he would forget what he had forgotten and look at the clock to realize he had been standing there for an hour. He would catch his mother looking at him with her sad, dark eyes. He cried every time.

His mother, Angelique Warner, was listed in the phone book as African Psychic. She took phone calls and appointments, but walk-ins were welcome. Her specialty was Tarot. Her cards were printed with scenes from Arthurian legend. He had thought they were very beautiful and very useless, never believing in her psychic powers. How could anybody really put any faith in what came out of a deck of cards?

He had come home one day to find her in a panic. Her kanga had fluttered around her hips as she had run up to him from the parlor. She had been crying and hysterical, dragging him by the hand while he squinted against the headache, and thought about how amazing it was going to be to lie down with a wet rag on his forehead.

She had told him about the tumor. She told him it was a brain tumor but not in his brain. Told him it was a growing evil and a shadow over his soul. The pain had been radiating all the way to his collarbone. Every word she had said had pushed his blood pressure up, and the pain had deepened in response. He had been unkind to her. Loud and hateful. After screaming into her face, he had turned his back on her tears and had gone to bed. Tossing and turning and sweating all night.

The headache had passed in his sleep, and he had awoken feeling rested and peaceful. But looking at himself in the mirror that morning had brought it all back. It was like somebody else had been using his mouth. Not him. He wouldn't have said those things. He wouldn't have hurt her like that.

He had made the appointment and had let her drive. Dr. Stanton had told them it was a meningioma, a tumor growing in the lining of his brain. He had looked at his mother and had believed for the first time. A brain tumor that wasn't in the brain.

The doctor had explained the surgery in simple terms. We just open it up and scoop it out, he had said. Close it up and, boom, it usually won't come back. And it had gone exactly like the doctor had described, and if he started to lose his hair like his pops the scar wouldn't even show. But the part about the tumor not coming back?

He looked down at the change in his hand. He shoved it into his pocket, and hung up the nozzle. What could he do? The headaches had started again a couple of months ago. A slight pain that crept into his neck. The throbbing behind his eye.

He had left the house this morning without his wallet. He had walked right by it on the way out. He had put it on the island in the kitchen, right out in plain sight. So he wouldn't forget.

A Gas Master truck pulled in under the pump canopy and slowed to a stop in front of the station's front window. The truck blocked the view from inside. How long had he been standing there, looking at a handful of change?

He hung up the nozzle and put the change back in his pocket. He was halfway in the seat before he remembered to put the gas cap back on. He growled and pulled himself out, holding on to the top of the door. He screwed the cap on and slapped the fuel door closed.

He jumped in the car and started it up, put it in gear and drove away. He didn't rush. Just a guy going about his business. By the time he reached William's house, he had forgotten all about it.

THREE

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