by JR Thompson
“I was questioning him about how he became homeless and — well, just forget it. It’s not important.”
Alayna raised one eyebrow and allowed it to do all of the talking for her.
Collin was not going to be able to keep quiet on this one. He had already said too much. “Okay, he said an allegation was made against him.” He paused for a moment before continuing, “I didn’t let him tell the whole story because Remmy was right there and I didn’t want him to get scared. Brock said his wife didn’t feel like he would be safe around their twelve-year-old son after the allegations were made.”
“Okay. What kind of allegations? Are you saying he is a pedophile?”
“Of course not, Hon. He said he was accused of being a… um, well… I don’t remember what the word was; I had never heard it before. I don’t even know what it means.”
“You don’t know what the word means, but you’re certain he’s not a pedophile? Now that is reassuring!” Alayna griped. “So he’s been accused of something and his wife believed the allegations. Those allegations obviously involved a child. And he’s in our house, sleeping in our little boy’s bed while our son is in the living room alone!”
CHAPTER 3 – UNSETTLING FEAR
Collin was beginning to feel sick. What have I done? he asked himself.
He walked out to the living room to check on his boy, “Remmy, you awake?” Collin whispered as he touched his shoulder.
As he suspected, Remington was dead to the world.
Not knowing what else to do, Collin picked him up, flung him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, carried him to the master bedroom, and gently laid him in their floor. At least that way, they would know Mr. Sleepyhead was out of harm’s way.
Collin assured Alayna he would find out what the allegation was about and that he would not allow Brock to stay in their house if he felt Remington was in even the most remote form of danger.
The following morning, Alayna fixed everyone another delightful breakfast and sent Remington out to catch the school bus. Half-heartedly, she wished Brock good luck and gave Collin a quick, yet unaffectionate goodbye kiss before the men headed out for the job hunt.
Collin took Brock to the Clayville Service Station, Clayville Lumber, Clayville Grocery, and the Clayville Tree Nursery to pick up applications. One thing is for certain, Brock thought. The people of Clayville aren’t very creative when it comes to naming their businesses.
Collin drove to the Just Right Shoe Department, where he was known as the master salesman. There was good reason for that! For three years in a row, Collin had broken records for Just Right. He had repeatedly turned down managerial positions — not because he couldn’t use the money, not because he didn’t like the idea of being in management, but because managers were required to work on Sundays. That was a compromise he was not willing to make, no matter how much money they offered him.
Getting out, the master shoe salesman reminded Brock he needed to be picked up at 6:30 pm sharp.
◆◆◆
“Business has been slower than an Amish drag race all morning,” Nikki told him as soon as he walked in the door. “If things don’t pick up soon, I don’t know how we’re even going to stay in business.”
Collin shrugged his shoulders, but didn’t say a word.
Trying to make conversation, Negative Nikki decided to ask an open-ended question, “So what’s new in your world?”
Inwardly, she regretted asking. I’m sure he’s going to start telling me all about his sales totals for last week. For once, it would be nice if he had something besides shoes or numbers to talk about.
It wasn’t so much that she was jealous — even though she was, at least a little. Nikki had worked alongside many business types before. Most all of them, at least on rare occasion, had something interesting going on in their lives. A kid that broke his leg, a wife that burned their dinner, a puppy that ran away, a neighbor that kept them up by throwing a wild party the night before, something.
Not Collin. Collin was business. All day. Every day. He was more predictable than the ending of a Hallmark movie.
When Collin told her about Brock, she looked at him as if donkey ears had suddenly sprouted from the top of his skull, “So you come home to find a strange homeless dude, probably an ex-convict, on your deck? Instead of phoning the PoPos or training your gun on the dude and telling him to get to steppin’, you brought him into your crib? Now he’s chillin’ with you and you just gave the dude the keys to your rig?”
Collin told her he knew it sounded crazy, but Brock seemed like a good guy.
“If you say so,” Nikki told him.
“Actually, now that I think of it, he did say something kind of bizarre. He said he became homeless because of an accusation that was made against him. He used some frilly word that I don’t remember but I think it may have involved his son or another child.”
With her eyes growing wide, Nikki pulled out her smartphone and got online. Sounds like a job for Super Nikki, she thought. “What’s this dude’s name?”
“Brock Pierce, or something like that.”
She typed it into her phone faster than a toddler could eat his boogers, “No results found for a Brock Pierce.”
“Try Pearson instead of Pierce.”
Several listings popped up. Nikki began clicking on different links and then said, “Well, poop on my boots! You gotta kick this freak outta your crib now!”
She handed Collin the phone. A news article from January of 2017 had a headline which read, “Local Handyman Investigated For Possible Cannibalism.”
◆◆◆
Collin laughed out loud when he saw the headline. This has to be a joke. There is no way Brock is a cannibal. Perhaps there is another handyman named Brock Pearson. Still chuckling, he clicked on the article and began reading.
“An eight-year-old boy, whom we will refer to as John Doe, has informed authorities that he was grabbed from behind and dragged into a dark alley on his way home from school. He said the man covered his mouth to keep him from screaming. Once he got him into the alleyway, he told the boy he didn’t need to be afraid. He was not going to kill him, as long as he kept quiet. Doe says the man uncovered his mouth and explained that he hadn’t eaten human flesh for several years, but he was suddenly craving it. His attacker’s cell phone started ringing and for a split second, the perpetrator looked down toward his pocket. Doe said he kicked the attacker in the groin and ran out of the alley as fast as lightning. He described his attacker as being in his early to mid-thirties, being somewhere around 6’0” tall, and weighing roughly 160 pounds. He had dark hair and a goatee; he believed the attacker had a unibrow. An unidentified witness saw the man leaving the alley. Said witness believed she recognized the perpetrator. That individual provided the name of local handyman Brock Pearson, who fits the description given by Doe.”
With a rapidly increasing body temperature and a rumbling tummy, Collin dropped the cell phone and ran toward the men’s room — he only hoped he could make it to the toilet. He darted around the employee counter, passed the discounted shoe rack, rounded the corner where the children’s shoes were located, and… it was too late.
Partially digested grits and salmon patties erupted out of his mouth and nose. Without meaning to, he had managed to redesign half a dozen pairs of furry pink house slippers. Yellowish-whitish looking gunk oozed its way from the shelving to the newly carpeted floor below.
Collin’s temperature disappeared immediately, but his stomach continued to churn. Leaving his repulsive masterpiece, he rushed into the men’s room where he humbly knelt before the white porcelain throne. How he hoped no customers would be coming into the store any time in the near future.
It appeared Alayna’s gut feeling had been right. Collin must have allowed his emotions to guide him instead of the Holy Spirit. He had been more than confident that God had told him to help Brock — then again, it wouldn’t be the first time he misunderstood the will of God.
; Feeling his body temperature skyrocketing again, Collin was terrified. Alayna’s home alone, with no one to protect her. Brock knows she doesn’t have a telephone or any way of contacting anyone for help. If he truly is a cannibal, would he be such a monster as to return to the house and kill my wife?
The grits and salmon mixture that had been swishing around inside of Collin’s belly suddenly shot up his throat and gushed out the doors of his face. At least this time, the only thing to change colors was the pond inside the throne.
Nikki knocked on the door, “Collin, you ain’t kickin’ the bucket in there, are ya?”
“No. I’m okay,” he said. “Just give me a few minutes.”
“Okey dokey, artichokie. Just keep in mind, the longer your puke sits out here, the harder it’ll be to clean it up later.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Collin grumbled, truly appreciating his co-worker’s concern for his health.
As Nikki walked away, Collin’s thoughts continued to haunt him.
He needed to leave work to check on his wife, but the rent was due on Friday. They were living paycheck to paycheck — if he missed even an hour worth of work, they wouldn’t be able to pay their landlord. He was trapped between an eighteen-wheeler and a coal truck. If he stayed at work and Brock killed his wife, how would he ever live with himself? If he left work and Brock turned out to be innocent of the allegations made against him, he could cost his family the roof over their heads because of a mere rumor.
CHAPTER 4 – ODDBALLS ATTRACT
“God, please help me; I don’t know what to do. I tried to honor your Word by helping a man in need. I may have acted impulsively, but you know my heart was in the right place. Please, God, don’t let this man kill or hurt my family. Please show me what to do.”
As he prayed, a bitter memory suddenly popped into his mind. When Collin was seven years old, he heard his big sister, Susan, running through the house. She screamed, “Mom, look what Collin did to my hair!”
Collin had been in bed all night; he hadn’t touched her. In a defensive state, he jumped out of bed to see what was going on. Shuffling past his dresser, he caught site of a pair of shiny metal scissors covered with hair. He wasn’t sure what was going on, but it didn’t look good.
Picking up the scissors, he stared at them intently, hoping to find a clue. While studying them, his door burst open and there was his mom with Susan just behind her, “Collin, you know better than this! Why did you cut your sister’s hair?”
Collin insisted he didn’t touch her hair — he didn’t even know it had been cut until he heard the screaming.
“I have no idea how those scissors got in my room,” Collin told her.
Susan’s hair looked like someone had taken a weed whacker to it; she appeared as if she could kill anyone who looked at her the wrong way. Whatever had happened, Collin hadn’t done it; he was certain of that.
No matter how much he insisted on his innocence, Collin’s mom thought otherwise. She grounded him for three weeks. Every day after school he had to stand with his nose in the corner for one hour. He was not allowed to have friends over, to watch TV, or to use the telephone. He couldn’t use the computer or listen to music. He had to go to bed at 7 pm every night. It was twenty-one days of total misery.
The truth about what happened didn’t come out until both Collin and Susan had reached adulthood. Then, and only then, did Susan admit she had cut her own hair. It had been an accident; she was pretending to be a hair stylist when she had accidentally gotten a little too close with the scissors. She then tried to even it out, which only made things worse. It was much easier to let Collin take the blame than to face the embarrassment of admitting her own clumsiness.
A false allegation had been made against Collin, his mom had found him guilty, and years later his innocence was proclaimed.
“Thank you, God. Thank you for bringing that back to my memory. I know what you’re telling me. You’re trying to get me to realize Brock is guiltless. It was a false allegation, wasn’t it, God? Thank you so much for being my Father and for giving me direction.”
With a more settled stomach, Collin flushed his recycled breakfast down the toilet and returned to the employee counter. Nikki asked him if he was going to have to leave work.
“No. I’m going to be all right,” Collin told her.
“Good. In that case, here’s a roll of paper towels,” she said. “Have fun.”
Collin detested the stench of vomit, even when it was his own. The thoughts of cleaning it up made him want to hurl again. Still, he knew he had to do it. Taking the paper towels, along with a trash bag, he took his time walking over to the spill on aisle three.
He set the bag down, soaked up the vomit, and threw the soiled paper towels in the garbage bag. The house shoes still looked awful. They would take a great deal of cleaning and sanitizing, as would the carpet and shelving.
There was always a lesson to be learned from everything — in the future, if he had to throw up, he would make sure he made it to a trash can or a toilet! Or, he thought, I could just aim for Nikki’s shoes.
Around 4:00 that afternoon, Collin began feeling a bit nervous again. In only one hour he would find out if Brock would return to pick him up with the Jeep, if he had stolen it, or worse. He watched the minute hand slowly tick by. It seemed to be the slowest hour he had ever lived through.
◆◆◆
At 6:25 pm, Brock excitedly bounced into the store, “What good fortune do you suppose fell on me today? — You’re looking at the newest, yet oldest newspaper delivery boy in town.”
Nikki gave Collin a surprised look. This is Brock? Well, poop on my boots!
All day she had been trying to guess what Brock looked like. She imagined him to be tall, dark, and somewhat overweight, with a huge scar down the side of his face. This guy, on the contrary, looked more like a cuddly teddy bear. Under normal circumstances, a unibrow would be a huge turn-off. Oddly enough, somehow on Brock it was attractive — it gave him a distinguished look. The neatly trimmed beard made him look mature, yet mysterious. It didn’t take her very long to notice he wasn’t wearing a wedding band.
“Brock, this is Nikki,” Collin said.
“How thrilling it is to make your acquaintance, cutie,” Brock said as he reached out to shake her hand.
Not only is he cute, but he has a deep voice too. And boy, does that man have a way with words!
“Somebody better get the umbrellas out,” she replied while fanning herself with a sales paper. “The sprinklers are about to go off up in here.”
◆◆◆
As far as Collin was concerned, both Mr. and Miss Flirtatious had lost their minds. Brock was a suspected cannibal and Nikki was… well, Nikki. The two would go together like crunchy peanut butter and chili dogs.
Still worried about Alayna, and not wanting to hear any more of their mushy talk, Collin wasted no time in clocking out so he could head back home to check on his bride.
All the way to the house, he listened as Brock bragged about his new job. He talked about the company vehicle he would get to drive, how kind his boss was, how many newspapers he would deliver every day, the benefits Clayville News offered to their employees — he rambled on and on and on.
“I’m not trying to be a Negative Nellie here, Brock, but doesn’t the thought of working for a newspaper bother you a little bit?” Collin asked.
“No,” Brock replied. “Why would it?”
“Well, wasn’t it a newspaper that basically ruined your reputation?”
Brock thought for a moment before saying, “The reporter simply fulfilled the duties of her employment. She was asked to investigate an innuendo. In compliance with her employer’s request, she divulged her findings. Even if her story was lacking in accuracy, Clayville News cannot be severely reprehended for an article published by a different organization. It’s that unscrupulous delinquent I’m distressed with.”
Collin dropped the subject faster than a hot potato. Obviously, Brock was ec
static about his new job and nothing he could say was going to change that.
When they finally arrived at the farmhouse, they found Alayna and Remington ripping crabgrass out of their perennial garden.
Collin hadn’t seen his bride look so beautiful in years. He admired her naturally curly, golden hair. She wasn’t wearing any make-up, but she didn’t need any — she was positively, without a doubt, stunning! Alayna’s rare green eyes matched her unique character. And those shoes — they’re darling on her.
Alayna was the only woman within a thirty-mile radius who wasn’t afraid to work outside in the dirt while dressing like a classy lady. There was something extraordinary about Alayna; everyone knew that. Collin was thankful God had kept her safe.
Running to her side, he wrapped her tightly in his arms and gave her a soft, gentle kiss on the cheek.
“What was that for?” Alayna asked with a giggle.
“I just missed you, that’s all,” Collin said, looking deep in her eyes.
The moment of romance wouldn’t last long — not if Remington had anything to do with it anyway. “How did the job search go?” he asked.
Brock told his story all over again and with even more detail than he had shared before. Collin and Alayna found it almost whimsical to hear how excited a grown man could be about delivering newspapers.
They were, however, quickly put to shame by their thirteen-year-old. Wiping the dust off of his glasses, he said, “Let’s thank God for answering our prayers. It’s a miracle to find a job on a person’s first day of looking.”
Brock gave him a puzzled look, “Prayer is not in the neighborhood of my expertise, little man.”
“Here, let me teach you,” Remington replied. “Everybody bow your heads.”
Remington spoke with such confidence, that no one even thought about questioning him. All three adults followed his instructions.
“Dear Jesus, thank you for being you. You are incredible. You created the heavens and the earth. You created the trees and the flowers. You make it rain and snow. You made the sun, the stars, and the moon to shine. You came to the earth and died for me because my heart was so dirty that I deserved to die and spend an eternity in Hell.
