by I N Foggarty
Deciding that his hair would not co-operate he opted for the easy solution and picked up a tube of gel. Rubbing a small amount of it through his unruly hair the sound of the shrill woman’s voice could be heard once more. “BOY! IF YOU DON’T GET YOUR REAR END DOWN THOSE STAIRS NOW YOUR FATHER IS GOING TO HEAR ABOUT IT.”
Yet again startled by the sudden sound of the woman’s voice, Dylan dropped both comb and gel into the sink with a clunk. As he motioned to pick them up the one part of his hair he had been furiously trying to make stand up flopped back down to his scalp. Biting his lip he stifled the urge to yell something rude at the housekeeper; he did not want to give her a proper reason to call his father after all.
“Ok, Tabby, I’ll be down in a minute. I’m just getting my stuff together!” he replied instead, trying once more to fix his hair.
“Oh! Don’t you ok Tabby me,” the voice replied back; distinctly fainter than the last time. “I’ve been up since the crack of dawn… no respect… don’t know who you think you are…”
Stupid old witch Dylan thought as his ears failed to pick up the rest of the woman’s rant. Someone should tell her that if she moves away from the person she is raving at the intensity of her prattle decreases to the point where they are spared from it. He made a mental note that it would be in the universes best interests not to inform the woman of the finer points of acoustics, lest people be forced to endure even more of her than he already had to.
Back in the main part of his bedroom Dylan quickly located some socks and a pair of customised sneakers. Slipping his feet into both he expertly laced them up then wandered over to his study desk and collected a green ring-binder from its surface and began flicking through it. Finding the part he was looking for he neatly slipped a stack of freshly printed pages inside and closed it over. Picking up a black leather laptop case he carefully slid the folder inside before shouldering the bag. He sighed and made his way over to a set of double doors. Time to run the gauntlet. Turning a small key in the lock he opened the right-hand door and poked his head out into the hall. Looking both ways he surprisingly found no trace of the housekeeper anywhere in the hallway. Satisfied he had a clear path to the stairs, Dylan left the room and locked the door behind him.
Cautiously he made his way down the hall stopping every now and then to listen out for any sound that would indicate the location of the woman. Halfway along he turned to his left and stopped at the foot of two connecting flights of stairs; one leading up the other leading down. Choosing the downward set he made his way down, avoiding any and all floorboards that would make excess noise. Nearing the ground floor Dylan poked his head through the gap between the bannister and the roof to survey the hall. No sign of Mrs Mardle aka the old witch here either. Perhaps she was cleaning something on the first floor he thought, breathing a sigh of relief and edging ever closer to the bottom.
Feet touching down in the wooden entrance hall Dylan’s eyes fixated on a door at the right-hand bottom side. Making a b-line straight for his goal he crossed the polished floor in only a few strides. Cautiously turning the handle he slowly eased open the door, slipped inside and then froze at the sight of… nothing.
“Did we forget that our car is away having its brakes fixed today?”
Dylan’s head almost hit the top of the doorframe as he spun around. In front of him stood the housekeeper, her wrinkled features twisted into a look that Dylan knew to be glee. He had been in too much shock from the revelation that his car was gone that he hadn’t even heard the woman scuttle up behind him. His mouth hanging open the woman wasted no time in continuing her victory speech.
“So, we thought that we could sneak off without being caught did we?”
The woman stepped back from the doorway as she spoke. Cursing both his memory and his car's brakes, Dylan reluctantly re-entered the hallway and closed the garage door behind him.
Mrs Mardle raised a long-nailed and gnarled finger and pointed it at him like a sword. “Now you listen here, Boy. Your father entrusted me to make sure that you were properly fed, watered and kept out of trouble…”
Dylan rolled his eyes; he heard this one at least three times a week. Why could his father not have hired a much younger and more attractive housekeeper? As this thought fluttered through his mind he had to take a few steps to his left to avoid being impaled by a pointed fingernail.
“…Now you just march yourself into that kitchen and eat the breakfast that I made for you half an hour ago.”
The housekeeper brandished her favourite weapon in the direction of his face and it struck Dylan that his younger and hotter looking housekeeper might not work to his advantage after all. Had discipline style been top of his father’s list of priorities when he had hired this old witch, then his fair maiden would probably have turned out to be one of those dominatrix type women who would have had him chained up in the basement and flogged for his actions that morning. Or to simplify things his father could just have hired his best friend’s girlfri… Oh no his brain screamed at him that was taking things into a realm that he had no wish to venture. He did not want to be stuck with the image of his best friend’s girlfriend flogging him in his own basement for the rest of the day. Most likely because in reality, he would probably find his best friend chained up next to him as the girl punished them both.
“Well, what are you waiting for, Boy? March yourself into that kitchen immediately!”
For once Dylan was glad to have the woman’s piercing voice shatter the image in his head. Returning to reality, which looked a lot more bearable now, Dylan glanced at his wristwatch and groaned. He would have to run for it. Without his car, he would have to walk to school and that would take him most of the time that remained between now and homeroom.
Taking a firm grip on the strap of his laptop case Dylan braced himself. The instant the housekeeper’s finger moved to point towards the kitchen he ran for it. Darting to his left, he managed to cross the hallway before the woman achieved enough air to screech at him. He weaved and ducked slightly, senses on high alert and eyes scanning the various table tops and shelves for would be projectiles that his enemy could throw at him. On reaching the front door a suspect vase caught his attention. Grabbing it he wrenched open the door and stumbled out into the warm sun. Turning only for a split second he tossed the vase up in an arch and then legged it faster than any of his characters had run that morning. Feet hammering into the long drive that led to the main gate he could hear snippets of the various threats and curses the housekeeper made from back on the porch, indicating she had stopped chasing him to catch the probably priceless family heirloom that he had thrown.
Halfway down the drive and the distinctive noise that could only be the banging of the front door being closed reached his ears. Though he did not slow to a more socially acceptable pace until he was safely out onto the street. Victory achieved…at least for now, he would be reprimanded for his actions later. Perhaps in hindsight having his best friend’s girlfriend for housekeeper might not be such bad idea after all he mused. Then he could at least have some company while he was being punished.
Dollars, Donuts and the dead art of conversation
Only one word could describe the street that awaited Anna at the bottom of the concrete stairs, stereotypical. Situated in one of the less grandiose parts of town it had an old dilapidated look and, for some inexplicable reason, it always felt like autumn. The watered-down warmth of a sun that split the pavements elsewhere only seemed to glance in the general direction of this area. A cluster of dried up leaves mixed with old newspapers and other rubbish blew along the gutter in a breeze that didn’t seem to exist anywhere else in the city.
On the walls of several buildings and a singular metal shutter, faded, half-finished graffiti was randomly plastered. Indeed the hoodlums had not been the only people to have given up on this street, the fact that only a quarter of the buildings looked upgraded and a collection of boarded-up shops were a testament to the air of neglect. Yet, ironically, not
everything sat abandoned. A small general store still stood on the bottom corner, while a set of crumbling brick steps led down to a decrepit looking bar with a broken neon sign above its door depicting a woman wearing less than was socially acceptable.
Aside from the various stores, both those deserted by customers and by owners, the rest of the street was residential. The buildings were a mass collection of rotten wood plank covered windows, smoke-filled curtains and an old national flag with only forty-nine stars, above a desolate strip of potholed cracked tarmac.
Beside the curb, there were scarce few cars parked and even then those that did exist were universally old and most in want of a trip to either a mechanic or the scrap yard; one even sat atop bricks. This, plus the general state of the road, served only to suggest that this street could certainly lay claim to the title of ‘the road less travelled’.
A gnarled old woman stood on the sidewalk by one of these loosely termed cars, washing her windows with a dirty rag dunked in greasy water. On the other side of the street, a middle-aged man lay in a drunken stupor at the bottom of an alley. A Stetson hat of all things pulled across his eyes.
Overall, a general consensus existed with regards to life here. You were either an old person who had lived there all your days and were too blind to notice the condition of your wash water. Too drunk, stoned or otherwise intoxicated to care about the condition of where you slept it off…. Or you belonged to the third and generally worst off group, you simply had no choice and had to ignore the living conditions. Irrespective of group, to survive in this neighbourhood you were either not worth bothering, a stranger to sobriety or appeared crazy enough that even the most determined mugger would give you a wide berth.
About a third of the way up this street from behind a thick wooden green hulk of a door Anna stepped out and allowed the heavy thing to slam shut behind her. With purpose, she quickly made her way down the chipped and cracked stone steps at the front of the four-story building to the sidewalk below. She rolled her eyes and sidestepping the old woman who, when Anna came within a few feet of her window washing, turned to look at her and shouted something akin to, “Keep away from my husband you filthy skank.”
Batty old bitch Anna thought as she crossed the road to get away from the old woman and her brandished rag. She would never go near the geriatric gas bag’s husband. He was dirty, dishevelled, decrepit and above all dead. At least that’s what she had been told by one of the streets other denizens when she had moved in two years ago.
For the next ten minutes, Anna expertly made her way through a grid of similarly interconnected streets. No one else said anything to her. In fact, anyone watching closely might possibly have argued that the few people whom she passed all seemed to find an excuse to move ever so slightly further away from her cementing, somehow, her position in the third aforementioned group of residents. She paid them no heed, briskly continuing along her route.
A couple of well-negotiated turns later and the collective noise of the morning rush hour traffic reached her over her music. She stepped out of a narrow alley and onto the main road and breathed a small sigh, the slight tension in her shoulders from the way she had held herself on leaving the apartment ebbing. From somewhere amidst the expanse of gridlocked vehicles a car horn sounded, followed by another, then another. Soon the inevitable chain reaction was in full swing and everywhere horn blasts of different lengths and tones could be heard with each vying to be heard above the others, as though their driver’s individual protest against the jam were the most important.
At least she did not have to put up with all this noise on her doorstep Anna mused; a small positive. She had enough trouble sleeping without adding this. Joining the throng of people who were standing at a crossing one gentleman in a suit and overcoat glanced at her and wrinkled his nose. A few moments later and the sound of another car horn from directly beside her filled the air and ignoring the man a thin smile crept across her lips. She didn’t even need to look up to know that the lights had changed; traffic could be so predictable. She moved forward with the throng.
Reaching the other side of the road Anna allowed herself to be swept to the right by the crowd as it made its collective way down the busy sidewalk. A few minutes of intricate weaving later and she managed to reach the outer edge; just in time to detach herself from the conglomeration of mid-morning travellers and peel off down a quieter side street coincidentally joined by the man from before.
Leaving the main road, with all its single-minded drivers and pedestrians behind her, Anna reached a hand into her right pocket and pulled out her phone to check the time; she was on course to make it with a few minutes to spare. On realising this she let out a slow breath and reduced her pace slightly. No need to hurry now, she could just meander along the rest of the way and enjoy the music…
Crap. The singular word floated around her mind upon realising that she had been in such a hurry that she had not noticed the silence in her earbuds. The mp3 player might have been cheaper than she would have liked but at least it provided her with a source of music while away from her stereo. Sighing at the lost opportunity, even though it could only have been a few minutes, Anna fished the device from her left pocket and began furiously untangling the inevitable mess of wire that her earbuds had been doomed to become from the moment they descended into the pockets denim depths. It still seemed to be playing. She turned the wire, unplugged it and put it back in. Nothing, not even a hiss to indicate the connection worked. Dismay filled her and the total in her head gave her the option of either $10 or $12. They were broken. Truth be told the earbuds were another concession and had they not been her only option it would not have bothered her so. She would have much preferred a sturdy pair of cans but the cheapest Wallmart could offer cost $12 which she was dubious on spending, coupled with the bus fare there and back…
She pinched the bridge of her nose, the weekend could not have been worse and the week did not look promising… “Yo, Morgan, wait up,” a voice called out from behind her…and getting worse.
Anna froze in her place on hearing the voice, her first mistake. Her spine stiffened and her fingers almost crushed the now useless hard plastic earphones without even thinking. She needed neither sight nor voice recognition to tell who the owner was. The content of the ‘greeting’ had been enough.
Turning on her heel while at the same time stuffing her broken earphones down the front of her t-shirt, for their own safety of course, Anna fixed her greeter with a look that would have sent most people scampering to the airport and onto the next flight out of the country. Slowly her green eyes met his brown ones and she opened her mouth.
“Don’t. Call. Me. Morgan,” Anna said slowly in a voice so cold, calm and emotionless, that it sounded though it could have been drawn from the still surface of an ever frozen lake.
As her icy eyes bored into his she could sense that the boy already regretted his choice of words with every fibre of his being. Perhaps she had finally gotten through to him. Never releasing his gaze Anna knew that no response would be forthcoming and that if either of them wanted to get on with their day then it would be up to her to break the deadlock.
She sighed in a manner that suggested his presence brought her great pain and rubbed her left temple. “What do you want, Dylan?”
“Geeze, Anna, no need to bite my head off,” Dylan exclaimed finally finding words and apparently having managed to regain some shred of composure.
“Perhaps if you used your ears more and your mouth less, you would save yourself a lot of trouble. Besides, in my experience you get on best when you keep this shut…,” she raised her hand, placed her thumb beneath her fingers and then brought them together, “… and only give short replies when someone requires you to answer.”
He blinked at her stupidly for a moment sucking air in and out, annoyed. “Why do you always have to speak to everyone as though they are a child?”
“At-at-ah,” Anna cut in, bringing her the index finger of her left
hand to her lips and waggling the one on her right in a tisk-tisk manner. “We aren’t using our ears again are we?”
Dylan’s mouth seemed to have fallen open, like that of a guppy. Anna took that as a sign that his lexicon had used up its word allowance for the day and that the conversation would be rather one-sided from now on. Faking a sigh she continued.
“Since you have such a hard time learning things I suppose I’m going to have to let this one slide and give you an example of how to answer a question.”
When a response from the boy was still unforthcoming Anna let out an actual sigh and rolled her eyes before recommencing.
“To answer your question, if by everyone you mean you, then the answer’s simple, it’s because you act like a child. So one often finds it better to talk to you as if you were. Your housekeeper for example. I imagine she calls you Boy because she doesn’t think your teeny tiny brain will cope with the much more syllabic, Dylan.” It was a cheap shot, allowing her annoyance at her morning to get the better of her. She added a lifeline for him to soften the blow. “Now why don’t you take a deep breath and try it yourself. Oh, and remember to keep it short and to the point.”
With that Anna casually turned around and began walking away; completely missing the stunned look on the boy’s face. A few moments later and the sound of his hurried footsteps filled her ears and he came up to walk beside her. It had been too much to hope that he would have decided to count his losses and move on.
“Look I just saw you walking down the road and thought, hey we’re going in the same direction why don’t we walk together. Excuse me for trying to be nice.”
