Chapter 8

Jack woke up Saturday morning with a pounding headache. Although he didn’t bother trying to establish a cause for his headache, the stress of the previous day had worn him down. He sat on the edge of his bed rubbing his eyes to wipe the sleep from them. When he stretched, a muscle spasm in his back nearly brought tears to his eyes.

He dressed in a pair of short pants. It was just enough to be presentable. He stumbled to the kitchen for some aspirin and water. He opened a cabinet and looked through the packaged medicines within it. It didn’t take long to find the bottle. He popped the lid off and dumped three of them into the palm of his hand. Going over to the sink, he filled a glass with water. After tossing the pills into his mouth, he drank enough water to get them down his throat.

“Good morning,” Abby said watching him from the kitchen table.

“Oh. Good morning,” Jack said blinking his eyes and snorting a bit to clear out his sinuses. He rubbed the area where his shoulders and neck met trying to get rid of some of the tension in the muscles there.

“How did you sleep?” Abby asked. She took a sip of coffee.

“Not very good,” Jack answered. He had tossed and turned the whole night thinking about his paycheck being held by the bank for ten days.

“I slept like a log,” Abby said.

“You’re lucky. I kept having nightmares of bankers cooking steaks using everyone’s paychecks instead of wood for the fire,” Jack said.

“We won’t starve,” Abby said.

He looked at her for a second and then asked, “Where did you get the coffee?”

“Coffee and oatmeal are being served in the garage,” Abby said looking over at him with a smile.

“Our garage?” Jack asked.

“Yes. People are sitting around on the couches that we put out there,” Abby said. She laughed and said, “You did say that our company could stay in the garage.”

“I guess I did,” Jack said not really remembering saying anything to that effect. He turned away to put the glass down.

“Go put on a shirt and get some coffee,” Abby said watching him stretch. She had to admit that he was well developed in the shoulders.

“Why do I need to put on a shirt?” Jack asked. He could feel the aspirin starting to work. It hadn’t helped his headache, but his sore muscles were feeling a little better.

“We don’t want all of those little old ladies having heart attacks,” Abby said.

Jack laughed and said, “Like that is going to happen.”

“There is some major league plotting going on out there,” Abby said. She’d come inside because she wasn’t sure that she was all that welcome. It seemed to her like the neighbors had decided that a commune of old ladies didn’t need to include a young couple.

“I guess I better put a shirt on,” Jack said.

“Yeah,” Abby said. She took another sip of coffee; watching him over the lip of the cup as he left the kitchen. When he was gone, she said, “Poor guy carries all of his stress in the muscles of his back.”

After a minor trip to the bathroom to relieve a full bladder, Jack put on pants and a shirt, and went out to the garage. It was a small detached garage that stood in the corner of the backyard. There were five elderly women sitting around on the couches drinking coffee and talking. They stopped talking when he entered the garage. He went over to the coffee pot and poured a cup of coffee. The coffee was steaming hot. He took a sip and said, “Ah ... that tastes good.”

Realizing that he was drinking hot coffee out of a pot that was in his garage, he looked at coffee pot for a minute. The warming light was on. Wondering where the electricity was coming from, he put down his cup. Squatting, he looked under the table and saw that the pot was plugged into one of his extension cords. He followed the extension cord out the door and saw that it went over to the house next door. Turning to the women in the garage, he asked, “Who did that?”

“I did,” one of the women answered.

Angry, he said, “I might be poor, but I’ve got my pride. I’m not stealing from the dead!”

“What?” the woman asked shocked at his accusation.

Jack marched out of the garage and went over to Penny’s backyard. He pulled the plug from the outdoor electric outlet. Returning to the house, he coiled the extension cord as he moved. He dumped the cord on the floor of his garage. He picked up his coffee and went out the garage door. With a flick of his wrist, he tossed the coffee onto the grass.

Returning to the house, he put the coffee cup on the kitchen counter to wash later. He looked over at Abby and said, “You won’t believe what they had done.”

“What?” Abby asked. She hadn’t felt exactly welcomed by the women and wondered if they had made a rude comment about him being out there.

“They ran an extension cord to Penny’s house. We were stealing electricity from her,” Jack said gesturing in the direction of the house next door with his thumb.

“Oh,” Abby said looking at him. She had seen it and not thought anything about it.

“She’s not even dead a day and they’re stealing from her,” Jack said angrily.

Abby said, “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to fix that front door of hers so that no one can steal anything out of the house,” Jack said. He hadn’t really known Penny, but that didn’t matter to him.

“Okay,” Abby said surprised by his anger.

Jack marched out the door and went to the garage. He went over to the pile of scrap wood and looked through it for something that would be appropriate for repairing the front door. It took him a few minutes to find an appropriate board that wasn’t too beat up. He picked up his toolbox and headed out the door. The old women watched him without saying a word.

Jack went over to Penny’s house and inspected the door. The police had closed it and put tape over the opening, but a small push on the door left it wide open. He got out the appropriate tools and went to work, replacing the wood that had been damaged when the door had been kicked open. It took him about an hour to fix it properly. He wished that he had some paint to make it look halfway decent, but it was the best he could do with the materials on hand.

He tested the door without it being locked a couple of times to make sure that it worked correctly. Pushing against the door didn’t cause it to open. He locked the knob and closed the door for a final time. He said, “That’ll have to do it.”

Jack packed up his tools and closed his tool box. There was a little scrap of wood and he picked that up. He stood there feeling like hell. He said, “I’m sorry that I never got to know you, Penny.”

Grabbing his tool box, he headed home. The garage was empty when he reached it. He put down his toolbox and noticed that the light on the coffeepot was on again. He looked out and saw that the cord went over to Claire’s house. He said, “I hope they got her permission to do that.”

“They did,” Abby said having walked up behind him. She looked at his face and noticed that there were tear streaks on it.

Jack poured a cup of coffee and looked in the crock pot. There was still a little oatmeal left. There was a pile of bowls and some spoons. Using a ladle, he shoveled out a spoonful into a bowl. After grabbing a spoon, he went over to the couch. Sitting down, he said, “I’m sorry. That just made me mad.”

“I can understand that,” Abby said. She poured a bit of coffee and sat down on the couch opposite him.

Jack ate a bite of the oatmeal and grimaced. He asked, “Is there any milk?”

“Not anymore,” Abby answered. There had been some milk out earlier, but it had disappeared about the same time that most of the oatmeal had been consumed.

He got up and went over to the table. He poured a bit of sugar over the oatmeal trying to do something to improve the flavor. He returned to the couch and took another spoonful of hot cereal. It wasn’t much better with sugar on it, but there was no way that he was going to let food go to waste when he was hungry and broke.

Abby watched him eat. She could imagine how bad the oatmeal tasted. It had sat there for more than an hour. She asked, “It is Saturday. What are you going to do?”

“I’ll mow my lawn, Claire’s lawn, and the lawn next door,” Jack said. There wasn’t that much else that could be done that weekend.

Abby said, “I had such plans on taking a hot bath this weekend.”

“Sorry. The banks really did a number on us,” Jack said. He wasn’t going to admit it, but he had been dreaming about taking a long hot shower sometime in the near future. He said, “I might go over to the YMCA and take a shower there.”

“I didn’t think of that,” Abby said.

Jack sat back and said, “I’ve learned a lot about being poor the past year. Ever since the housing market crashed, my income dropped through the floor. I’m a good hard worker and I do quality work. There is just no work out there.”

“I know,” Abby said.

“I thought the election would change things. There was a lot promised about change,” Jack said shaking his head.

Abby snorted and said, “The only changes that I’ve seen are all bad.”

Jack remembered that he had left his truck at the bank. He said, “Do you think that you can take me by the bank to pick up my truck?”

“Why did you leave it there?” Abby asked.

Jack said, “There was a car that was in a bad accident. The driver had just come out of the bank and I don’t think he was paying attention. I was in a state of shock and wasn’t in shape to drive home after the business at the bank.”

“Were they hurt bad?” Abby asked.

“I didn’t go over to the car. A police car arrived before I was even out of my truck. It looked pretty bad to me,” Jack answered. He wondered how much time had actually passed between hearing the crash and getting out of his truck. In hindsight, he realized it could have been thirty seconds or ten minutes. He shoveled another mouthful of oatmeal in his mouth trying to take his mind off the subject.

“I’ll be glad to drive you over there,” Abby said looking over at her car. She was almost out of gasoline, but wasn’t going to bring it up.

“Thanks,” Jack said.

Claire came in and said, “Hello, Jack.”

“Good morning, Claire,” Jack said rising from the couch.

Looking at the bowl of oatmeal, she said, “Wouldn’t you like some milk in that?”

“There wasn’t any left,” Jack answered.

Claire snorted and said, “I’ve got gallons of it in the refrigerator.”

“I didn’t know,” Jack said.

“You can sit down, Jack. You don’t have to stand on account of me,” Claire said when she realized why he was standing.

“That’s okay,” Jack said.

“Sit.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” Jack said returning to his seat. Abby grinned at the exchange.

Claire said, “You kind of shook up, Bev.”