Angel
Bare or bear, either was fine with him.
That next week was a blur of work: run home and see if there was a letter, eat something “healthy” from the microwave, take a quick walk, go to sleep, and get up to do it over again. Fred had explained to Angel about tax season but began to take work home so he’d be there in case she called. Soon the letters were pouring through the door slot. Twice they passed in the mail because they had so much to say. He was getting pretty good at flirting and double meanings, if he did say so himself. In fact, he’d never felt better, like on a high, full of energy, smiling. He was rocketing through the tax forms. He told Angel to call him, and soon. Her next letter said, Thanks for the offer, I will call you March 1st Friday so, dont go on a date just kidding lol!
Did she really think he’d do that to her? With everything she’d told him about the abuse and terror her parents and ex-boyfriend had made her endure, all he wanted to do was protect and care for her. He didn’t expect more than gratitude, at first, but he knew she would want to show it, someday, when she had the chance.
Friday arrived. Because he didn’t want to get stuck in evening rush-hour traffic, Fred left work early and undetected. He kept his cool on the freeway. There was the usual nasty honking and flipping off, but he drove just under the speed of traffic and in the slow lane, thwarting any thug who tried to use it to pass on the right. Pretty soon, he was almost to the intersection he secretly called White Trash Corners at the southern edge of his neighborhood. Twice every workday, Fred’s freeway shortcut took him through the four-way stop.
Uh — glee! The first house had gray paint, gray trim, a never-watered grayish tan lawn, and a gray fence that looked like it was put together without nails in a wind tunnel, leaning this way and that. Not to code. The old guy who lived there with a mousy little wife often put up handwritten screeds in his window about politics or the Bible. Fred didn’t bother reading them.
The second house had peeling, dirty white paint and trim. The residents were a guy and his two grown sons. It seemed all they did was watch over their beer cans as the original asphalt driveway cracked, separated, and disappeared under the thatchy so-called lawn, where a truck and two cars were parked. The truck never moved.
The third house took a woman’s touch to be bad. In front, right on the corner, were three stumps of what had probably been palm trees. The lady there decorated those stumps for every holiday, small and large, and usually left them up until it was time for the next holiday. Just so you wouldn’t forget her fat ass, she had a country-style garden decoration, really just some painted plywood, that showed the back view of some damn woman bent over, probably picking up dogshit decorations.
