re: Jimmy

(Editor’s note: This post is part of the new experiment by this site and The Roost. It is an ongoing flash fiction serial with the working title “MacDougal Drive.” There will be weekly stories. This is the third in the series.)

The news reports kept coming in. Monotone voices of the anchors and the background screeches of sirens and screaming and mayhem combined with the hum of the broken ice machine created a white noise that hovered throughout the house. Dolores Greyson hated watching the news, couldn’t figure out why she did it to herself, proving Walter right. The world really was going to hell, Walter had taught her that, and the news proved that every day.

But those poor kids. Who would attack two boys like that? The evil was spreading, she could feel it in her bones. And the news anchor had the nerve to suggest it was a blessing that one of them had survived the assault. She could hear Walter’s voice, talking about getting a posse together to go after the bastard. He’d left her his entire arsenal, taught her how to shoot. His last gift to her. She saw his face then too, crusty and dying. He told her not to let the scum infect her like it did him. The government had given him cancer through years of testing rockets and God knows what else up on that hill where he had worked. Walter knew in detail the destruction that they were capable of. “Stay vigilant, stay strong.” He had told her.

The knocking at the door cast Walter’s decrepit face away. Dolores eyed the door suspiciously, massaging the .22 in her lap. The knock came again and she reluctantly placed the gun under the cushion and answered the door.

The man standing on her porch was balding and overweight, wore a Maytag work shirt. He was unassuming in all the right ways. The tool box he gripped, too tightly, contained God knows what.
“Understand you’re having problems with the ice maker, Ma’am.” He smiled, but it never touched his eyes.
“I was starting to think you weren’t coming.”
“Sorry, this is my last stop.”
“Well come on in.”
He came in and headed straight for the kitchen, opened up the freezer. He hadn’t given her a name. Bad manners or something else? Something worse? She was old but a good shot. Could she make it to a gun fast enough? He was sure to be quicker than her.
“Terrible about those kids,” he said.
“This world’s sick.”
“Can’t argue with that.” He pulled a screwdriver from his toolbox. “Of course, you gotta wonder if it’s our fault somehow.”
She tensed, inched towards the couch. “Our fault?”
“Maybe we manifest these freaks because of our addiction to shock media.” He looked at her with an unsure smile. “Sorry, I took some sociology classes in college and I sometimes try to impress people with that fancy talk.”
Dolores arrived to the couch and slid her hands between the cushion. She could feel the handle. “Well count me as unimpressed. Whoever attacked those kids is sick, and that’s that.”
“Sorry, ma’am. Didn’t mean anything by it.” He stood up and closed the freezer. “There, that should do it.”

The humming had stopped. Some order felt returned, but now she readied herself for the attack. He walked back through the living room, his gaze paused a second on her hand underneath the cushion.
“You have a good rest of your day, ma’am.”
She met his gaze, held it. “You too, young man.” A slight smile cracked her lips. “Be good.”
He laughed, a bit nervously it seemed, and left her house. She sat still for five minutes before she released the grip on the gun. She leaned back and turned the news on. Maybe it was a small blessing that one of the children had survived.

Bill pulled the door closed behind him, stood on the porch and lit a cigarette. One cigarette a day was all he smoked anymore. He wore a t-shirt and some shorts, the latter being too short and the former too long. His hair stood up on both sides and flat in the middle. The beginnings of a beard grew on his face. Bill thought he might shave soon but was in no hurry. He stepped down off the porch and onto the driveway. The mailbox loomed at the bottom, welcoming and exciting him. Bill had been a writer, once, in that he wrote a few things and sent them off to various publications. One had been accepted, and when the check came in the mail it was the single most thrilling experience of his life.
He dumped some ash onto the driveway and continued down. Mrs. Greyson, the widow next door, stood up from her garden, stretched her back and waved.
“Hello, Bill.”
“Hello, Mrs. Greyson. Beautiful day.”
“How’s your mom?”
“Stronger every day.”
She smiled. “That’s good.”
He nodded and returned the smile, then resumed his walk to the mailbox. His mother was sick, dying in fact. He had moved in with her five years previous. Everyone assumed he was a good son and taking responsibility for her. The truth is he was broke, and his mother had simply lasted a lot longer than expected.
Some kids across the street sat on their bikes and stared at him. He knew they laughed at him. A middle-aged man who’s best part of the day was checking the mail and smoking a cigarette while looking like he just woke up, shit he’d laugh too. But they didn’t know the pure joy of being paid for creating a story. He hadn’t actually written anything since he moved in with his mother, longer than that even, but there were a few stories he’d sent out that never got rejections so he figured it was still theoretically possible a magazine could publish one of them.
At the curb, he flicked the butt into the gutter where it floated away toward the sewer. Bill opened the mailbox. There was an electric bill, some coupons and a gardening magazine his mother liked. A last envelope caught his eye. It was hand addressed to him. He tore it open. The letter said:
You are cordially invited to attend the Santa Barbara writer’s seminar.
Bill’s heart leaped. He fought the urge to run over to the kids on their bikes and show them his invitation. What would he lecture about? Oh, he could talk about craft to the students but there would be plenty of that. He’d focus on the disappointments and dealing with rejection, because when somebody recognizes you and your work it’s the best feeling on earth and all the rejection in the world just can’ t compare. He excitedly kept reading.
Come learn from masters of their craft. The cost is only $350 per person.
Bill laughed, laughed so hard his eyes began watering. He dropped the letter into the gutter where the water slowly pulled it away from him. He kept laughing. The kids’ eyes grew wider and Mrs. Greyson asked if he was alright. He waved a hand at them. Once the fit had left him he reached into his pocket and pulled out another cigarette. He would have two today, so what? He lit it and breathed in. His mother would probably die soon and then at least he’d own a house. Not everybody could say that. Maybe then he could even start writing again. He exhaled and a cloud of smoke rose up, swirled around and faded away in the sky.