To give you an idea of how much fun this can be, I’d had 1500 words pounded out over the weekend and was about to put it up Monday. Read it, decided it stunk, and tossed it out. ALL of it… What follows is a better job… or had fucking better be…
FOUR
Will pulled the filter mask below his chin, pushed the goggles to his forehead. From where he stood he could see every one of the ruined windows on the second floor. In front of those windows were piles of lathe, broken plaster and shredded yards of ruined wallpaper, heaped to the sills. The walls around the windows were naked brick. All that remained of the interior were wall studs and ceiling joists. The doors hanging in the frames looked ridiculously out of place. In the hallways outside those doors lay the woodwork trim from each room, numbered and stacked in the order he’d removed it. Beside them was the trim he’d pulled from the hallways. He’d just finished sweeping the floors, which had been in better shape than he would ever have allowed himself to believe. He’d just add the sweepings to the piles at the windows. Impressive. It had taken him three weeks, and now there was nothing more he could do up here. He took one last look around his skeletal second floor, then took the broom and his industrial sized dustpan downstairs.
The parlor had become his base of operations. It had taken a couple days for his hands to heal up after his assault on his mother’s old bedroom. He couldn’t slip a pair of gloves on, much less grip the maul. Instead he cleaned up the parlor as best he was able, knocking the loose plaster from the ceiling and sweeping it into the living room. That was the first time he was able to appreciate the quality of the oak flooring. Stained and rough as it was, it was solid. It didn’t even squeak. He laid out the ground tarp and set up the tent, brought in the cooking stove and the lanterns. The rest of the contents of the box of the truck were stacked beside the fireplace. His tools were lined up on the other side.
There rest of the time spent allowing his ravaged hands to mend was spent marking the trim upstairs. Some was warped, some was split, and some of the interior window framing on the west side was just plain rotten. He labeled them regardless of condition. Well more than half of it was salvageable. If he got that far, it would be easier to replace what was lost if the originals were back where they belonged.
By the time squeezing a pry bar or tugging on the ripping tool didn’t bring tears to his eyes, he had a solid, methodical plan in place, not only for destroying most of the second floor, but also for how he was going to conduct himself for however long he was going to be in this forgotten and God forsaken corner of the planet. One job at a time. Know the job before you start. Plan the job before you start. Finish the job. If, in doing that job, another task, project or obligation should pop into your head, ignore it until what you are currently focused on is finished. Finished. If, at any time you are engaged in a task you have sworn to see through to completion, you suddenly come to your senses and decide to put Limburg County and all within it behind you forever, you will not jump into your vehicle and seek the comforts and amenities you can now afford if not deserve, you will not pick a destination until the job at hand is complete. Above all else, Mom, Dad, Gran or Nan will not get inside your head until… whenever. At least not when you’re in the company of anyone else.
It had been three weeks. He’d lived on bottled water, canned soup and peanut butter or grilled cheese sandwiches. He resupplied twice a week, doing all of his shopping in Maastricht. Too much Venlo in one day had gotten this started. He feared another visit before he’d accomplished anything substantial would provide him with an excuse to turn tail. Vanity had played its part as well. Spending twelve to fourteen hours a day in a cloud of grime and nothing but a saucepan to bathe in was an effective deterrent to socialization. Taking a dip in the Wahpekute was out of the question.
The weather had also been a factor in keeping him to task. A day or two after his first in Venlo, the weather turned. Over the first two weeks, the skies clouded over, and the temperature during the day hovered consistently around forty degrees. Most nights brought the thermometer below freezing. It had snowed twice, once leaving three inches on the ground. In the middle of the first week, after a couple miserable nights in a fetal position under the sleeping bag and seeing his breath in the first light of day, he’d added a small gasoline generator and a space heater to his shopping list.
The weather, in typical Midwest fashion, had turned completely these last few days. This morning he’d been sweating well before noon.
Will propped his broom and dustpan with the other tools. Despite the warmth of the day, the west wind coming unobstructed through the living room windows prompted him to start the generator. He lit the camp stove, debating for a moment whether to fill the pan with water or soup. He decided the wash rag could wait until morning. It had gotten to the state that Will wondered whether it now added more dirt that it removed. He poured a can of chunky minestrone into the pan and slapped a peanut butter sandwich together as it heated. The sun had fully set and there was no light save the blue flicker of the flame dancing at the edges of the pan. That had been his evening entertainment, watching the flames, and it had no way caused him to miss television.
+ + +
Will was awakened by a crash he felt as much as heard. The thunder echoed back to silence. It took him a few seconds to realize what was happening outside, but when he was alert enough to gain full realization, he acted quickly. He threw off the sleeping bag, rolled from the sagging air mattress and crawled out the tent. He scrambled to the totes, tearing through them until he found a clean washcloth and towel. Before dashing outside, he grabbed a roll of toilet paper. When he hit the side door, he was thankful that for at least a bit longer, God was on his side. The sun had risen two hours before, but it could not penetrate the layer of dark, rain laden cloud above. He hadn’t slept this late in weeks. The morning was the color of twilight. The rain had not begun to fall, but Will could feel it in the rushing air.
As he dashed around the back of the house he ran headlong into a cold gust of wind that almost forced the breath back into his lungs. As he scurried into the windbreak there was a “hissss-bang!” and for an instant the world was bleached white. He decided crouching beneath the cottonwood that had been sheltering his makeshift latrine would be less than prudent. He squatted in a space without a branch over his head and took care of his business. The rain still held out through his return sprint to the house, but no sooner had he made it back inside than the clouds ruptured. He swapped the toilet paper for his bar of soap and in dashed into the downpour.
It was freezing, cold enough to paralyze his lungs for several seconds, but exhilarating as well. Soon he was numb enough that he could breathe and otherwise function. Will rubbed the cake of soap over every inch of his body, scraping his fingernails over the bar and clawing his scalp to work out the amalgam of plaster dust, wood fibers and just plain dirt that had taken up shelter there since that first swing of his sledgehammer.
When the cold had penetrated enough to start stiffening his muscles, and any more scrubbing might start raising blood, Will stutter stepped over the sodden ground and positioned himself in a solid stream running off the roof along a gable valley. He stopped rinsing when he started to cramp. Hunched over and shivering like a half-drowned puppy, he staggered his way back into the house.
Will scoured the towel over his chest until it stung His skin was flaming pink, but he felt clean for the first time in over two weeks; at least above the knees. His feet and calves were speckled with mud flecks and bits of plant matter, but the rest of him was scrubbed raw. After several minutes hunched in front of the space heaters, turned to max, he finally was warm enough to stand fully erect. The gunk had dried on his lower legs and with a couple of passes with the damp towel they were almost as clean as the rest of him. His skin tingled from head to toe. When he ran his fingers through his damp hair it squeaked. It was wonderful, and he had no desire whatsoever to do it again. Ever in his life. Never.
He stood, intending to move only when he felt his bones getting hot, but when he suddenly saw something, hanging right before his eyes, he was suddenly wrought with panic. What in Jesus name was the matter with him? Everything around him was coated with a fine layer of grime. Even in the weak light of the main room, he could see motes floating thick in the air. For a moment he stood paralyzed, afraid to move or touch anything, because he knew the crap would be transferred to clean skin. Even standing perfectly still, the shit in the air was attaching to him, recoating him. He snapped out of it.
Reanimated, he dumped one of his plastic totes and pulled out his last change of clean clothing and a decent pair of shoes. He dressed in a frenzy. He crammed as much dirty clothing as he could into the empty tote and snapped the lid shut. He looked at the sleeping bag, suddenly seeing how much filth had been transferred to it. Better to burn it. He’d never be able to bring himself to crawl back into it. He fashioned a serape out of a sheet of polyethylene, went out, killed the generator and moved it into the kitchen. He loaded the dirty laundry into the back of his truck, crawled in the cab and started it up. About to pull away, he threw it back into park and ran back into the house. He came out with his golf clubs. He heaved them into the back seat. Before pulling away, he shrugged off the plastic and tossed it out of his window. With the windshield wipers on high and the heater going full blast, he gunned it up his driveway. He turned toward Venlo, once again, he noted sourly, with wet feet. But… What a good idea he had. What a plan… but before he would be able to see it through, he needed to talk to Bertie Blom.
And there you have it… For those new here, or those who’ve forgotten, I’ve got an Ebook on Amazon… Something you don’t have to read in installments. Find it HERE: https://www.amazon.com/Lunacy-Death-perspective-developed-investigation-ebook/dp/B079DWFH9T/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1528297541&sr=1-1&keywords=lunacy+and+death