Renewal 6 - Cold

Renewal 6 – Cold

By J.F. Perkins

Copyright 2011 J.F. Perkins

Kindle Edition

Website/Blog: http://www.jfperkins.com

Twitter: @WriterJFPerkins

Renewal 6 – Cold

Chapter 6 – 1

Terry woke to the light brushing of a hand on his shoulder. His neck was stiff from lolling to the side, propped as he was on a hard wooden bench. He blinked heavily and remembered. It was late afternoon. He was sitting in Bill and Aggie Carter’s living room, in what he considered the most public room of the house. He remembered choosing the spot out of courtesy rather than comfort. He had slept in this house before, but he still felt like a stranger, a relative newcomer to the scene.

He looked up to see Aggie smiling down at him. “Come on, Terry. Let’s get something to eat.”

Terry nodded blearily, and got to his feet. His first movement demonstrated that it wasn’t just his neck. His entire body was stiff, verging on soreness, and he got his first taste of the letdown that comes from the end of a hard mission. He had been wound up tightly for days, and only now was his mind stepping down from the heightened state of awareness and adrenalin, revealing the fatigue underneath.

He followed Aggie into the kitchen, where she had already prepared a meal and arranged it on the kitchen table by the broad window overlooking the crop fields of Teeny Town. The table and chairs were a striking contrast to the earthen style of the kitchen. He sat down in the chair Aggie offered, and absently ran his fingers along the bright aluminum trim that bound a tabletop of pink Formica, flecked with green. Privately, Terry thought it was hideous, but he was willing to overlook the table in favor of a bowl of chili sprinkled with diced raw onion and some kind of crumbly white cheese. Aggie sat down across from him and grasped a steaming mug of herbal tea. Terry had no way to identify it over the rich aroma wafting from his bowl.

“Go ahead, Terry. I’ve already eaten.”

“Thank you,” he replied, and picked up the heavy spoon.

Aggie missed nothing, it seemed. “You know, this table came from my childhood home. It belonged to my grandparents first. They gave it to my parents, right after I was born. This was the table where I ate Fruit Loops in a highchair. And yes, it’s ugly.”

“Well, as long as it’s not here for decoration...”

Aggie laughed. It was a rich, mellow sound that made Terry smile automatically. He felt proud for having gotten that response. His humor was a protection of sorts, but it felt risky to use it around the wife of the center of his new world, and he was forced to admit, the mother of a certain redhead.

“Give me some credit for taste, Mr. Shelton,” Aggie said, still chuckling.

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied between rapid mouthfuls.

“So, word has it that you were a big part of the success in Nashville.”

“I see it more like I was a lucky part of the win. I had no idea what I was doing for most of it.”

“And yet you did it very well...”

“It was all very fast. I just did whatever flew in my face.”

“Well, Mr. Modest, you know my main interest. What happened with Bill?”

Terry set the spoon in his empty bowl. “I was on the river docks in Nashville, and I couldn’t get the boats free. I was trying to cut them loose from the dock when a whole bunch of bad guys came out the door of the building. I saw Bill step out into the open to attack them, and I was just sort of watching it happen. Then the other bad guys came out of the boat on the far side of the barge and started shooting at me. I dove off the end of the dock to get out of their fire, but I remember thinking that Bill needed help. I scrambled up the bank. It felt like I was taking forever, like I couldn’t move. When I got over the edge, I saw Bill get hit and this weird noise went off in my head. Sort of like a gong sound...” Terry paused at that point, giving some thought to the sound in his head.

“Go on...”

“Well, it’s hard to explain. Everything slowed down. I remember wondering where my rifle had gone. It seemed like a long time before I remembered my handgun. I pulled it and took my time aiming at the man. I think it was the man who shot Bill. He was still aiming at Bill and adjusting downward. I saw this... I don’t know, some sort of outline on the man. I pulled the trigger. I saw the hit, figured ‘next’ and just kept aiming and shooting until I ran out of bad guys. It seemed like they were just standing there waiting to be shot, so I shot them.”

Terry shrugged. It sounded completely ridiculous to say it out loud.

Aggie looked as if his story was entirely plausible. “Well, I’d say you need to talk to Kirk before too long. That sounds a lot like his reports. We’ve all seen him in action and it looks like magic. To hear him tell it, he casually stuck a knife in a wax statue.”

“Just a minute later, I tried to shoot the guy untying the boat and I missed the entire boat.”

“Again, talk to Kirk. He has some kind of natural talent that he treats like a wayward child. I get the sense that he has spent his entire life trying to control it.”

“It would be nice to understand what happened. I still feel like someone else did it. I was just an observer.”

“Well, Mr. Shelton... I am sure glad that you were there to observe. Thank you for bringing Bill back in one piece.”

Terry blushed, looked down like a small boy and mumbled, “You’re welcome.”

Aggie got up and took Terry’s bowl to the sink. She came back with a bottle of the Teeny Town local beer, and set it in front of the young man. While he was suffering from embarrassment, she decided to up the ante. “Sally’s on watch, down at post twelve, by the middle lake. There’s still plenty of daylight if you’re up to a walk.”

Terry looked up, mentally switching from the embarrassment of Aggie’s focus to a more calculating version of himself. “I can take the walk, but I think I need a full night’s sleep before I face Sally again. She’s hard work.”

“Smart man. Let me set up the guest room for you. No matter what my precious daughter says, you are always welcome in our home. Thank you again.” Aggie gave him a long look, before she turned and left the kitchen.

Terry sat quietly, sipping his beer, wondering what was happening to him.

Chapter 6 – 2

A persistent wooden knocking pulled Terry out of a restless dream. The fog cleared from his mind, and he watched the translucent beams of sunlight hovering in the room. The knocking resumed, and realizing what had interrupted his dream, he felt a brief surge of irritation. Curiosity took the lead and he followed the sound down the hall. He identified the source as Bill and Aggie’s room, and tapped quietly on the door.

“Get in here!” Bill’s muffled voice called.

Terry opened the door and found Bill still in bed, beating the plank floor with the impromptu cane Kirk had given him.

“Morning, Bill.”

“Hey Terry, I hate to ask, but I gotta go something fierce.”

Terry cocked his head to the side. “You want me to hold it for you?”

“No, Smartass. Help me get out of this bed. My leg hurts bad.”

“Well, you did push it pretty hard yesterday.”

“Shut up before I whip it out and let fly. I’m pretty sure I can hit you from here.”

“Ok Bill. Take it easy.”

Terry stepped to the bed and leaned over so that Bill could wrap his good arm around Terry’s neck. Terry laced his own fingers behind Bill’s back and stood up straight, bringing Bill along for the ride.

“Ok, thanks. I can handle it from here.”

“I’ll stay close, just in case,” Terry said, handing Bill his cane and waiting for the older man to shift his weight onto it.

“Better yet, why don’t you see if you can scare up some aspirin and a cup of tea?”

“Yes, sir.” Terry knew that he was giving Bill the space to hobble around unseen. The man had a healthy, or possibly unhealthy, dose of pride.

By the time he returned with Bill’s painkillers and tea, Bill had returned to the edge of the bed and was experimenting with his wounded limbs.

“Damn, it sucks getting old,” Bill said.

“And shot,” Terry added brightly.

“That too,” Bill agreed.

“I’ll be right back.”

Terry retrieved a hot mug for himself from the kitchen and sat down in a heavy oak rocking chair in the corner of the room. “Where’s Aggie?” he asked.

“Oh, most likely she’s out and about, taking over while I’m too feeble to argue.”

“You’re probably right. She seems the type.”

“Between you and me, she does a better job than I do. She keeps up with ten times as many things as I can and still finds time to cook dinner.”

“How did you meet?”

“Now, Terry, that is getting way ahead of the story. You can’t screw with my obsessive need to tell it in order.”

“How about a hint?”

“If you want a preview, ask Aggie. She probably remembers it all differently anyway.”

“In that case, how cold did it get that first winter?”

“That’s a fair question. The answer is: I don’t know. George Carroll’s thermometer bottomed out at twenty below in early October and stayed there until mid-May.”

“Holy crap! It hasn’t been that cold in my entire life.”

“Be thankful for that. We almost... Let me tell it.”

***

The threat of deadly cold was actually good for Dad. With a new project underway, he seemed to recover from losing Francine. At least his guilt seemed to retreat into the background. I can’t say the same for Arturo. Even though he was little out of shape at first, he took a great deal of pride in his physical strength, and his slowly mending leg took a bite out of that pride. There was a period when I thought that the only thing keeping him going was his little boy. It certainly wasn’t Juannie. Looking back, I can guess with some certainty that there were many times when he secretly wished he had left her in Orlando to fend for herself.

She was a spoiled only child, with a proud cultural heritage to boost her sense of entitlement to ridiculous heights. That was fine in the trappings of a convenient pre-Breakdown society. She had her uniformed husband, who went on to a good private sector job. She had worked in a theme park, where her reality was literally a fantasy built on top of another fantasy. The world was completely secure, other than the rampant Orlando crime, and it would never change. After the Breakdown, she was still well sheltered. The park closed immediately of course, and she went home to a well-stocked pantry, one of the few things that Arturo had insisted they do. She had sat in the light of her scented candles and simply waited for Arturo to rescue her.

Now that she was there, in the barn, it seemed that family was secondary to whatever she really wanted, and worse, she was only willing to do the bare minimum to get by. She and Arturo had many sideline conversations in which he pleaded with her to work harder. She had run her usual gamut of pouting, whining, and finally flirting her way out of the bind. In a better world, her sheer beauty could have won entire wars. In survival, it made her look childish at best, and idiotic at worst. Before long, she became just another wound that Arturo tried hard to ignore. He never forgot his responsibility, though. He took care of her even when his real impulse was to throw her out in the cold.

Juannie was hiding in a tent the next morning, when George knocked on the barn door. At Dad’s invitation he came in wearing a blue insulated coverall, a Russian style fur hat, and some incongruous high tech gloves. He was carrying the plug wires from his old pickup truck.

“Morning, folks. Think these will do?”

“Good morning, George,” Dad replied. “Let’s test them out.”

Arturo slid behind the wheel of our station wagon and pulled the hood release. Dad quickly replaced the damaged wire with one from George’s bundle, and told Arturo to give it a try. The car battery was weakened from the cold and the engine turned over sluggishly, but refused to fire. After a dozen revolutions, Dad waved for Arturo to stop.

“Well, that wasn’t it,” Dad said grumpily.

George pulled a small flashlight from one of his many pockets, and removed the air cleaner housing. He looked at it carefully and then set it aside. His flashlight went right to the side of the carburetor. “Here’s your problem, David. See that?”

“I don’t see anything...Oh!”

It was obvious. A round had glanced off the bottom of the air cleaner shroud, with just enough energy to bend the automatic choke linkage. The choke plate was stuck wide open, which would allow the car to run just fine when the engine was warm, but would make a cold engine darn near impossible to start.

Dad fiddled around with a pair of needle nosed pliers for a few minutes, until the plate snapped shut. “Ok, Art. Try it again.”

The engine caught almost immediately, ran ragged for ten seconds and then smoothed into the familiar, rumbling idle. Rich fumes billowed from the exhaust, but no one was worried about carbon monoxide in the vast, windy barn. George watched long enough to see that the choke was operating properly and replaced the air cleaner. Dad slammed the hood with satisfaction. One more problem solved. Arturo killed the engine and hopped one-footed from the car.