Nobody

Can't Think, Working

Birds took off from the trees as I sat up, screaming Pru's name, reaching out for her, trying to grab her hands as she slid backwards into the dark and fog surrounding us. I sat there for a moment, in the back of the Ford pickup, both hands reach out for something, someone, who wasn't there.

After a moment I flopped back onto the sleeping bag, staring at the indigo sky being slowly lit by the rising sun. I reached out and groped around till I found the Zippo and my pack of cigarettes, lighting one and taking a long drag.

That ended up with me coughing my lungs clear for a good five minutes, kneeling on the bed of the truck and hanging over the side.

I shouldn't have slept outside. The dew had set into my lungs.

I picked up the cigarette from where I'd dropped it into the truck.

Pru doesn't like you smoking with that damaged lung

Pru's dead.

Remembering that made me sit in the back, my face in my hands, and cry for a while. It hurt so bad, my whole chest hurt, that for a long while all I could do was cry. When I was done the sun had crested the horizon, the sky blue. I dropped the tailgate and sat on it, smoking the cigarette and wearing nothing but my boxers and a t-shirt.

One of the chipmunks chattered at me in anger, probably for waking up her chipmunklings, but eventually it fucked off back into the trees to do chipmunk things.

I thought about what I needed to do, in what order, mentally preparing myself for the big job I had ahead of me. The first thing I did was being making each big job into its component parts. From there, the different parts into the smaller jobs that made each part up, and then into the details.

When I was done with the cigarette I grabbed a bottle of juice and an orange, peeling it carefully and chucking the peelings out into the grass for the little animals. The citrus cleared the taste out of my mouth and the water slaked my dry mouth. Once I was done with all the breakfast I could handle I got up and got dressed, just dressing in the clothes I'd been wearing the day before. I walked into the woodline, took a leak, and walked back through the grass.

The dew left my pants soaked to mid-thigh, but that was all right.

First thing I did was check the meter to see if any juice was flowing. There wasn't any meter, and nobody had hotwired any power, so at least the wiring would be cold. The fusebox was inside and I went inside, snapping the breakers back and forth out of habit to make sure there wasn't any power. I grinned, noting I snapped them three times out of habit.

That was OK.

I took the cover off, looking at the wiring. There was a mouse nest inside, so the first thing I did was clear the nest out, then checked the wiring. It was older, but looked good. A few of the breakers needed replacing and I pulled them out, examining them. The contacts were rusted out. I sighed and made a mental note to go in and get new breakers when I went to the diner for a hot lunch.

I decided to start with the first things. I got the dolly off of the pallet and drug it inside, taking a break to let my breathing calm down, then went over to the hot water heater. It was as short twenty gallon tank. I disconnected it from power and pipes and pulled it, noticing that there was another mouse nest under it.

I sighed, and got to work, pulling all the appliances out of the trailer. I pulled them around to where the car was rusting away, leaving them there.

After that I got the ladder and climbed up on the roof.

I was able to spot the two leakers right away, and three more spots I was suspicious of. I started pulling the tar paper off, stripping the roof down the plywood in the June sunshine. I took plenty of breaks, drinking bottled water, and by the time my cheap Timex told me it was lunch I had even pulled the four plywood panels off that were obviously damaged. I'd made up my mind to pull all the plywood off as I climbed down.