JA20 :: Pockets

Null Pointer

Full Pockets

Jonesy - Notebook

Jonesy pulled the notebook he always kept with him out of his back pocket before sliding behind the wheel of the truck. He added the cost of the tank of gas to meticulous records he kept on the money the brat had cost him. Brat or not, the kid was going to inherit a bundle from some old badger in a backwater town down the Hudson. Jonesy expected to be reimbursed for every penny he’d shelled out on the kid that wasn’t even his. He’d been cheated out of a lot of things in his life, but not this.

Somedays, though, he wondered if it was worth it. This was certainly one of those days. The brat had thrown a tantrum and run off. Good riddance, Jonesy wanted to say, but he couldn’t. The neighbors were fooled by the brat's “yes, sir; yes, ma’am; please and thank you” routine. If they didn’t see the boy out on the farm, they’d call the cops, accuse him of everything up to butchering the idiot. Even if he cowed them into staying out of his business, the kid wasn’t old enough to drop out yet, so the school would send a truancy officer out. While that person would likely know as well as Jones did that the whole nonsense the kid’d gotten so temperamental about was all a lie, it’d still be police on his farm and he didn’t need that. They might have some quota to fill or just be bored and make his life miserable over it, and he didn’t need that. Putting up with the kid was bad enough.

Especially when he went off about some scholarship he didn’t have to college. It was just another shot at Jones. The kid took every opportunity to try to prove how little respect he had for Jonesy, how he thought Jonesy was even more of an idiot than he was. Like they gave out scholarships to kids who weren’t even close to done with school. Like they gave out scholarships to idiots. Like they gave out scholarships to poor kids who weren’t living-in-the-projects poor. Like Jonesy’s parents hadn’t put every penny they had into not living in the projects, thinking that would afford their children a better chance in life, only to find that being able to afford (even if they really couldn’t) to not live in certain neighborhoods also meant they were classified as too well off to be entitled to services.

Jonesy’d been cheated out of a chance to go to college, get a real job, and get off this stupid farm. He wasn’t going to let the kid feed him a yarn about him getting a chance, wasn’t going to let the ingrate throw it all in his face. So, he’d called the kid out on the lie. Predictably, the brat kicked up a fuss. Jonesy didn’t bother to listen, but he was sure there was something in there about how the kid’s birth father was ten times the man Jonesy was, yada yada. Didn’t make the guy any less dead. Suck it up and deal, kid. Time to live in the real world where nobody’s gonna coddle you and spoil you rotten.

Kid never listened. And now he’d gone and run off. Jonesy didn’t want to have police snooping ‘round his property, so he’d have to go find the kid and drag him home. He’d been too easy on the kid up to now. This time he was going to make sure the boy learned his lesson, even if he was sleeping on his belly for weeks because of it. And if he had to chase him all the way down to that backwater town where his great-grand-poobah lived, maybe he’d get an advance on the inheritance for his hassle. Or else threaten to wash his hands of the whole affair and leave the crusty old man to raise the hellion himself! He’d be begging Jonesy to take the money and the boy within a month, maybe sooner, once he realized how cursed stubborn the boy was, and how little he could ever seem to get right.

As if anyone’d give a college scholarship to a kid like that. Showed how stupid he thought Jonesy was, and how stupid he actually was, thinking anyone would believe a lie like that. Hopefully he was facing reality, out in the cold at night. Maybe it’d get through his thick skull how good he had it and he’d shape up a little. Jonesy wasn’t going to hold his breath for that, though. Kid would probably come back acting like it’d been a grand adventure of a camping trip. Too bad it hadn’t rained. Getting good and soaked outside overnight might’ve taught him. Maybe next time they had a good rain….

Regan - Carrot

Jupiter nosed at Regan’s pocket. “What makes you think there’s anything for you in there, hmm? The Belden girl is new to horses, but you aren’t, big fellow. You know you aren’t supposed to go gallivanting off out of the corral without permission, don’t you? You’re smart enough to know better,” Regan scolded half-heartedly. He would scold the Belden girl and make it abundantly clear to her that if she couldn’t mind the rules, he couldn’t have her around the horses; he knew Mr. Wheeler would back him on that, especially where Jupiter was concerned, but he hadn’t been angry when he’d come out and seen Trixie clinging to the big animal as he galloped off. He’d been terrified. He’d seen riders crippled, killed from being thrown, and there was no way Trixie wouldn’t be thrown. Jupiter wasn’t the easiest ride for an experienced rider.

Jupiter nosed the pocket again. Regan reached into it for the carrot. “If I give this to you, are you going to tell me how Honey managed to even catch up to you without you or Trixie getting hurt? Without you coming back with brush all over your coat?” Regan gave the big horse the carrot. “Did you just decide it’s too hot for a run? Or does one of our new neighbors know how to handle horses? Though, who is even close enough, hmm? Just the Beldens, and that old mansion up the way.” Looked abandoned from here, but he’d heard there was a recluse up there. No telling what the old man might have done in a prior life, how well he might be able to handle horses, and that was the direction Jupiter had been headed.

Regan decided he’d have to make a point of learning who the neighbors were, even though he preferred horses to people. If there was someone out there who could safely stop a runaway horse like Jupe, maybe there’d be someone around, other than his boss, that he could talk horses with. That’d be pleasant. His life had been rather lonely since he left Saratoga. There had been problems there, but at least he’d had people around him who understood him. He missed that.

Jupiter had finished the carrot and was nosing Regan’s pockets again, hoping for more, but plainly not finding it. “That’s all I had, big guy. You’re going to have to content yourself with horse food: oats and grain, and the grass out in the paddock. I’ll let you out to graze when it gets cooler. You and the rest of the horses. In the meantime, you just stay here and keep cool, if you can.”

Mr. Darnell - Robin Key

Mr. Darnell sighed as he looked up at the sprawling residence now known as the Lynch Estate. He liked Ed Lynch, make no mistake. He’d liked him better when they were both scraping by, just trying to provide for their families, but Ed was a good man. And keeping an eye on the place while the Lynches were on vacation was just the neighborly thing to do, except I’m not even getting paid for this. It wasn’t the most charitable thought, of course, but Darney just couldn’t afford to be charitable right this moment. The landlord had warned that another late payment for the rent would instigate eviction proceedings. And that was before he’d lost his job. He knew he’d have to go upstate to find work, and that meant moving the whole family, eventually, but he’d hoped to be able to scrape together the rent payment so he could go upstate and leave his wife and the kids home where the little ones wouldn’t know to be worried. But the rent was due in less than a week, and he had yet to find day jobs to cover the bill.

He didn’t like thinking about what that meant: packing up his wife and the children, and all they could fit in the trunk, and traveling upstate together, with no money for rooms along the way, or an apartment once they got there. Sleeping in the car would’ve been bad enough just himself. All of them sleeping in the car, even if one was a baby… that wasn’t an experience he wanted for his wife or children. And that was before they ran out of food.

And even if he got a job quickly upstate, enough to get them off the street, it’d be ages before he’d earn enough to replace the furniture and clothes and toys and everything else they wouldn’t be able to take in the car, especially with the cost of a motel room and already-cooked food chewing through his paychecks.

Some days he wondered what he’d done in a previous life that his lot in this life was penance for. Other days he simply understood that the world was a greedy place; those who could took all they could, and the world took a little extra off the top, leaving those who already had nothing stripped bare.

So, he’d be neighborly and charitable and keep an eye on the Lynches’ home, but he couldn’t afford to spend more than the time it would take for a quick sweep. His first stop was the garage, where Ed’s latest purchase, a vacation home on wheels, dubbed the Red Robin, was hooked up to her tow car, ready to go. Ed had said they’d planned to take it, only changing plans at the last moment. Mr. Darnell sighed again. Ed had two houses, one on wheels, and money to spare on vacations, and yet Darney couldn’t even keep one roof over his kids’ heads.

That bleak thought darkened his mind when he realized the key for the tow car was in the ignition, and a whole new possibility occurred to him. It wasn’t like Ed would need the Robin any time soon, and it’d just be until the Darnells got situated upstate somewhere, until he could find a real job.

Days later, the Robin’s keys felt much heavier in his pocket than they had seemed hanging there in the tow car’s ignition when Mr. Darnell had first seen them. It had started with his wife’s horrified, and then resigned, look when he’d suggested they use the Robin to take the kids upstate and look for work. “You want to steal a motor home from the Lynches, of all people!” She’d hissed, making sure the kids didn’t hear. “Just borrow,” he’d insisted. Then, as they’d reached farm country where he stood a reasonable chance of finding good work, and maybe even food and a room, trailer thefts were all over the news. He was determined to be very careful with the borrowed vehicle, wanting to return it unscathed, not to mention un-burglarized by real thieves. As opposed to fake thieves, like you? His conscience snickered, every time he tried to differentiate himself from the thieves making the news. The keys only became a heavier burden when, far sooner than he’d dared dream, the Robin’s disappearance had been reported and connected to the other thefts, even though all the other thefts occurred upstate and the Robin had been taken from a garage in Sleepyside. He was beginning to fear that he was going to jail for this, but he realized that he was okay with that, if he could just get a roof over his kids’ heads before they took him away. He knew, from the looks his wife gave him, that she’d reached the same conclusion. Jo, his oldest, wouldn’t look at him, especially not now that Sally had broken into a trailer parked next to them to steal (not borrow!) their little black dog. He prayed she’d understand someday the choices he was making, hoped she might even find it in her growing-up-too-fast heart to forgive him for failing her, for letting it get to a point where this seemed to be the only way out.

Mrs. Darnelll - $20

Mrs. Darnell sank down at the little pullout table in the Red Robin. She pulled out the $20 bill from her apron pocket where the trooper had tucked it only minutes ago. The dog stood up on his back feet to sniff at it, before sitting at her feet panting happily. She shook her head, wondering how this was her life. Faced with eviction, she and her husband had packed up their children into the stolen (borrowed, Darney would insist, and it seemed Mr. Lynch had given permission, albeit retroactively) trailer to drive upstate, looking for work.

She knew Sally had been crushed when their dog died, but it had been a relief. They couldn’t afford the dog by then. Sally had broken into a neighboring trailer to steal away their little black dog, and now, somehow, said dog was theirs, which was a sweet sentiment on the part of the young girl with the honey-colored hair, but also a complete disaster. She now had no excuse to not let Sally keep the puppy except the soul-crushing one: they couldn’t afford this dog. Even if they could get the Smiths to take them back – and maybe that was half-way realistic?— it wasn’t realistic to think that they were going to provide room and feed six mouths and a non-working dog just to get one farm hand and some occasional help from Jo, when she wasn’t in school. They couldn’t keep this dog, but Sally was so… Sally, and Mrs. Darnell feared Sally would run off after “her” puppy, if she told the older girl to take the dog with her. Maybe Darney could take it back, when he took the trailer?

The blonde girl had said her Jo was safe, and nearby, but Mrs. Darnell wondered how certain she could be about that. Even if Jo was close by and safe, nothing had changed. Her father had still “borrowed” the trailer without permission, and Sally had outright stolen the puppy. Just because the original owners hadn’t particularly minded didn’t change that reality. What was there for Jo to come back to? As her mother, Mrs. Darnell dreamed of giving Jo everything she ever wanted, but she couldn’t, she could only watch her firstborn become increasingly unhappy with her own family.

Mrs. Darnell smoothed the bill on the table. It was food for the weekend. It was clothes for the youngest two children. It was gas to get the Robin back to its rightful owners. Any one of those things. They needed all of them, and more. It wasn’t enough. It was so much more than they deserved. She also couldn’t help thinking about the casual way the trooper had pulled out his wallet and selected the bill. He’d said it was from all of them, but it wasn’t like he’d consulted the rest of the department, wasn’t like it had come out of the department’s budget. She doubted he was going to be reimbursed, either formally or informally. He’d just given her $20 like it was nothing. Because it was nothing to him. He didn’t see an hour where none of the kids cried out from hunger or cold or discomfort in every dollar.

With a sigh, she tucked the bill carefully back into her apron pocket and hoped her Darney and her Jo would be home soon. Then she and her husband could talk and decide what was most important and how to stretch that single bill for every cent it was worth.

«<0 1 3 ...20 >»