by Hunt, James
Not to mention he was always the oldest applicant in the room. And in most cases, he was older than the hiring manager. Compared to the spry youths that surrounded him in those hip offices, sitting in chairs that looked nothing like chairs, he was an old man. But he didn’t feel old. He still felt useful. There just wasn’t anyone that wanted the skills he had.
So, for the past six months since he’d been laid off at the shipyard, Owen Cooley had gone down to the job center every Monday to speak with the ‘career planner’ to look for jobs that paid more than minimum wage, which was what he was currently making at the McDonalds that only gave him twenty-five hours a week. The burgers and fries were a nice perk though. Not that he was supposed to take them home, but he knew they’d just throw them out at the end of the day anyway. A rich man might call that stealing. A man in his position would call it feeding his family.
A few cars rattled down the street, one of them giving him a honk, and Owen raised his hand in a friendly wave as he watched John Clarence’s old Ford roll toward home. He’d been in the same boat as Owen when the shipyard closed, but he had managerial experience and ended up getting a job for some construction company as an office pusher. It paid just as well as the shipyard did, but at their son’s baseball game last Saturday, he said he didn’t like the environment. Too stuffy. Say the wrong thing and you’re outta there.
But Owen only nodded, his mind wandering to the third notice he received in the mail that morning for being late on the water bill. It shut off the next day, and it was another three before he and Claire managed to scrape up enough cash to get it turned back on. Three fucking days.
Owen stopped and looked up from his shoes. His home was just two houses down, but he didn’t know how much longer it was going to stay that way. Their savings was gone, and what had gnawed at him the most on the train ride back home wasn’t the fact that the interviews hadn’t gone well, or that last week his kids couldn’t shower for three days. What bothered him the most was that it was his fault. A man was supposed to provide, and he’d failed. And now he’d have to walk into that house, look his wife in the eye, and tell her that at the end of the month, they’d have to move out. And go where? He had no idea.
Owen passed the mailbox out front and almost didn’t open it, but knew it was better for him to check the mail, that was if Claire hadn’t gotten to it first. She’d been doing that more lately. It was because he started to hide the bills and late notices from her. He did it so she wouldn’t worry, but that didn’t lessen the hellfire unleashed upon him when she found out.
And it was foolish for him to think he could keep that stuff from her anyway. She knew how much money they had down to the penny. But no matter how low that account got, Claire never wavered, didn’t even flinch. She was tougher than him in that way, and he loved her for it.
The mailbox didn’t give him anything to help lift his spirits. He shuffled through the envelopes stamped with labels in red lettering that spelled out “final notice,” “past due,” and “foreclosure.” He paused on the last one. Those eleven capitalized red letters had been haunting him since the shipyard closed. And now the monster had finally sunk its teeth into him for good.
Owen stuffed the mail in the pocket inside his jacket and walked up the front porch steps. The laughter drifting through the open windows helped lift the weight of the day off his back and brought the only real smile he had all day as he walked inside.
“Daddy!” Chloe lifted her arms in the air triumphantly, dropped the crayon in her hand, and sprinted toward him.
Owen crouched and scooped her off the floor. He planted a kiss on her cheek and walked her back over to the table. “Hey, bug. What are you working on?”
Chloe sighed, the tone behind it decades beyond the five year old that spoke. “I just can’t get the princess’ hair right. It turns out too much like spaghetti.”
Owen laughed, and Chloe giggled as he tickled her sides playfully, then set her back down and kissed the top of her head. “I’m sure you’ll get it. Where’s your mom?”
“In the kitchen!” Claire answered, and then stepped through the cutout in the narrow hallway that was split down the middle of the house that separated the kitchen, bathroom, and bedrooms from the dining and living rooms. She clasped her hands together and arched her eyebrows with a hopeful expression. He walked to her, kissed her lips, and shook his head.
It was hard watching the hope disappear from her face. But she didn’t let it keep her down for long. “Well, dinner is almost ready. Matt’s out back with Grandpa. Why don’t you go and get him?”
Owen arched his left eyebrow. “You left them alone?”
Claire squeezed his hand, keeping her voice low. “He was having a good day today. And it made Matt happy to throw the ball around with his granddad.” She kissed his cheek and then called Chloe into the kitchen to help set the table as Owen walked down the hallway toward the back door. Before he even stepped outside, he heard the hard smack of ball in glove.
“Easy there, Ripkin!” Roger shook his hand exaggeratedly, and Matt laughed. “You’re gonna bruise an old man.”
“I didn’t throw it that hard, Grandpa.” Matt turned to the door and his face lit up. “Hey, Dad!”
“Hey, buddy. Dinner’s almost ready, so why don’t you come in and wash up.”
“All right.” Matt peeled his glove off and tucked it under his arm. He walked with his shoulders slouched.
Owen ruffled his son’s hair on his way inside. “And help your sister set the table.”
“Okay.”
Roger tossed the ball into his glove, then closed the mitt and held it with both hands, lingering in the yard. Owen watched him closely. The doctors said the early stages were some of the hardest, and there wasn’t any way to know how fast it would progress.
“You all right, Roger?”
He nodded. “Fine.” He looked up but didn’t smile. “How was work?”
“No work today,” Owen answered.
Roger shook his head, frowning. “Right. I knew that.” He hurried back inside the house, brushing Owen with his shoulder on his way past.
After the dinner table was set, Claire brought out the spaghetti and green beans, dumping conservative-sized portions on everyone’s plate. The food needed to last.
Talk at the dinner table centered around the excitement for the end of school and the start of summer, and Chloe’s urgent plea for more crayons in order to expand her exploration of the color spectrum. Her own words.
“We’ll see what we can do, Picasso,” Claire said, then looked down to Matt, who’d kept himself reserved through most of dinner, picking at his noodles with his fork. “You okay, Matt?”
Owen looked up from the last green bean on his plate and watched his son nod with a half-smile. Owen didn’t buy it. “You sure?”
“Yeah,” Matt answered, more confident. “I’m fine.”
Both Chloe and Roger asked for seconds, and Owen declined another plate, though he knew he could have eaten one. Once the dishes were done and homework was finished (after being double-checked by Mom), it was showers and off to bed.
Roger descended into the basement without a goodnight to anyone, one of the smaller behavioral changes that Owen had noticed in the old man. When things worsened, Owen wasn’t sure what they were going to do, especially if he was still unemployed. But all those worries disappeared the moment he stepped into Chloe’s room. It was more gallery than bedroom, the walls adorned with the artwork that she deemed acceptable for people to view. “Night, bug.”
“Night, Dad.”
Owen kissed her forehead and then shut off the light on his way out and closed the door. He walked next door to Matt’s room and saw his son in bed, sitting up and picking at the fringes of his glove. Owen entered and pulled the desk chair next to the bed and sat. “You want to tell me what’s bothering you? And don’t tell me it’s nothing. I know you better than that.”
Matt looked up, his eyes red and misty. “I know
about the house.”
His son’s words hit like a one-two combo to the gut. “That’s not something you have to worry about.” Owen moved from the chair to the bed and lifted his son’s chin, a few tears breaking from the cluster of water in his eyes. “We’re going to be fine.” He tapped the glove in Matt’s hands. “Plus, you’ve got summer ball soon. That curve of yours is really coming along.”
Matt wiped his eyes and sniffled. “I don’t think I should do it.”
“Why not? You love it.”
“It’s expensive. And I don’t want to be the reason we’re homeless.”
“We’re not going to be homeless. I promise. Okay?”
Matt nodded and then wrapped his arms around his dad’s neck. The boy was always worrying about things beyond his ten years. It was a trait he shared with his sister, though her worries were more artistic in nature.
“All right,” Owen said, kissing the top of Matt’s head. “Lights out.” Owen helped Matt under the sheets as the boy tucked his glove into his chest. “I love you.”
“Love you too, Dad.”
As Owen shut the door to his son’s room, he lingered in the hallway a moment. Not once in his own childhood did he worry about whether he would be homeless. He’d be damned if he was going to let his own son do it.
After he had time to mentally prepare himself for the last conversation of the night, Owen entered his bedroom. Claire was sitting cross-legged on the bedsheets, his jacket at the foot of the bed, the bills spread out in front of her.
“We can’t get an extension from the bank?” Claire asked, reading through the foreclosure notice. “We’ve been with them for almost fifteen years, and up until the shipyard closed, we never missed a payment.”
Owen leaned back and lay down, resting his head on the pillow, staring at the ceiling, which was void of any chewing gum. “They won’t budge. If we can’t pay by the thirtieth, they’ll kick us out.”
Claire collected the rest of the bills and then tossed them on her nightstand. “Well, I think it’s bullshit.” She rolled over to him and rested her head on his chest. It bounced gently up and down in time with his heartbeat. “How was it out there today?”
Owen groaned. “Bad. You should see some of the looks I get when I walk into those interviews. You’d think I was marked with the plague.” Owen ran his fingers through Claire’s thick, wavy black hair. It was familiar. It was home. “Matt knows about the house.”
“Of course he does,” Claire said. “He is half me, you know.”
“Thank god for that,” Owen said, kissing her head.
Claire propped herself up on her elbows and looked at him. “Hey. You need to quit that. You never give yourself enough credit. Just because you’re not a twenty-two year old with a degree in computer science doesn’t mean you’re not smart.” She grabbed hold of his hands and kissed them. “You are very good at what you do, Owen. It was why the shipyard stayed in business for as long as it did in the first place. It’s not your fault there isn’t anyone hiring right now.”
“You’d think I’d be able to find some welding work, or construction, or—”
“Something will come up,” Claire said. “And until then, we’ll get by. I managed to get a few more hours tutoring next week, so that’ll help.” She kissed him. “We’ll get through this.”
Owen nodded and forced a smile. “I know.” But as he switched off the light and they lay in bed, he wasn’t able to convince himself it was true. If he didn’t get a job by next week, they were going to be evicted. He couldn’t let that happen.
* * *
Gary sat behind his desk, computer monitor off to the side, and typed mechanically onto his keyboard. His tie was crooked, and his nose was large enough to give his eyes an obstacle in any direction he looked. “Okay, Mr. Cooley, let’s see what we have today.”
Owen sat in the same suit, shirt, and tie as the day before. His manager at McDonalds had cancelled his shift for the day, and with the eminent doom of foreclosure, he couldn’t just sit at home and twiddle his thumbs. “I need something full time. Anything full time. And anything immediate.”
Gary flicked his eyes toward Owen, then back at the screen, then back at Owen. He took his hands off the keyboard and set them down on his desk with a thump. “Mr. Cooley, you have been coming here at least once a week for the past six months. And I can tell you every job in the system available from memory, but that won’t change the fact that no one is hiring for your skillset. It might be time to start looking outside of Baltimore.”
“My family grew up here,” Owen said. “My kids go to school here. My son’s little league team—”
“I’m just saying,” Gary said, lifting his hands passively, “if you’re desperate, and you really want to find something full time, and in your field, maybe it’s time to broaden your horizons. It couldn’t hurt to look, right?”
“No,” Owen answered. “I guess not.”
Uprooting his family had crossed Owen’s mind before, he just didn’t entertain it for very long. Plus, the doctors had told him and Claire to keep things familiar for Roger, and the old man had lived in Baltimore his entire life.
“All right, so let’s see what we have out there.” Gary returned his fingers to the keyboard, a sudden pep in his typing. “Nothing here in the Northeast that was close to your previous salary, so let’s head down south.” He poked a few more keys and then scrolled again. “Oh, here’s something.”
Owen leaned forward in his chair. “Is it full time?”
“It is,” Gary answered. “It’s a supervisor position at an auto parts factory, but it says that they’re willing to look at applicants with no supervisory experience.”
“Where is it?”
“Louisiana.”
Owen frowned. When he considered moving his family, transferring them to the south felt too extreme. And Louisiana was the deep south.
“Health benefits, 401k, and the salary is fifteen thousand more a year than what you were making at the shipyard,” Gary said.
“Fifteen?” Owen’s jaw went slack.
“The position is looking to be filled immediately, and it says here that the company will provide housing and pay for any relocation efforts.” Gary smiled. “What do you say? A position like this isn’t going to stay open for very long.”
“Y-yeah,” Owen said eagerly. “Let’s do it.”
* * *
Claire stood in front of the small fan in the kitchen, letting the whirling blades cool the sweat collecting on her face. The whole house was hot. And it was only going to get worse the deeper they went into summer. But maybe by then Owen would have found something and they could afford to turn the A/C back on. With the fan just basically blowing hot air in her face, she thought about taking a trip down to the store to browse the aisles and cool off.
She stepped from the fan, and the beads of sweat returned. Traffic noise and the occasional backfire of an exhaust pipe drifted through the open windows. At least that’s where she hoped those loud pops were coming from.
The neighborhood had changed over the fifteen years they’d taken residence. The ups and downs of the economy had shifted people around. When the kids played outside, she made sure it was in the backyard, which was fenced. It wasn’t as much space as the front yard, and Matt groaned over the new rule, but she wouldn’t budge.
“Hey, Dad?” Claire asked, calling down to the basement. No answer. “Roger?”
“What?”
“Are you getting hungry for lunch?”
“I’m fine.”
Claire lingered in the basement doorway, leaning against the frame and drumming her fingers against the wood. Her father was down there somewhere, wandering in the dark, doing his best to find the light switch. He could still find it more times than not, but that wasn’t going to last forever.
The house phone rang, and she walked back to the kitchen and plucked it off the hook. “Hello?” Claire smiled. “Hi, Mrs. Channing. Yes, I’m good, how about your
self?” She paced around the hot linoleum floor in her bare feet. “I got your message this morning, and I called you back earlier just to see—” She paused and her shoulders slumped. “Are you sure? I felt like Freddy still needed some help with those equations. If my rate is too high, I’d be willing to—” She nodded and then rubbed her forehead. “No, I understand. Well, I appreciate the time, and if anything changes, or if you know of any other parents who need a good math tutor, I hope you’ll recommend me. Okay, thank you, Mrs. Channing.”
The call clicked dead in Claire’s ear and the arm holding up the cordless phone fell limp to her side. For six months, she’d held onto the hope that tomorrow would be better. For six months, she did everything she could to stretch their savings. And amid the constant leftovers, power and water outages, bills and late notices, she never would have expected the crushing blow to come from the mother of a fourteen-year-old boy who was struggling in his Algebra I class.
A car horn blared out front, and Claire spun around, phone still clutched in her hand. The horn blasts came in quick, short bursts, with shouting echoing intermittently between the honking. Claire stepped out of the kitchen and into the hallway where she saw the front door open. She jogged to the porch, and it was there she saw her father standing in the middle of the road, looking around, the driver of a rusted, faded yellow Oldsmobile hanging out the window and screaming.
“Stop!” Claire sprinted down the porch steps, her bare feet smacking against the pavement of the walkway that cut through their unkempt front yard. She waved her hands, phone still clutched in her right, as the driver stepped out. His face reddened as he continued to berate her father. “No, please, he has Alzheimer’s!”
“What the fuck is your problem, old timer?” The Oldsmobile driver was short and wore matching grey shirt and sweatpants, neither able to contain the gut that split the space between them. His hair was thinning at the top and he panted heavy breaths. “Are you fucking stupid?”
