Page 18 of The Deadbeat Next Door

“Which is why I came to you first. I guess I was wrong, since you don’t know him.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, you hard-headed heathen,” she said. “Of course I know him. That’s Maureen Pickle’s boy. He’s still living at home with his momma because he’s too damn cheap to get his own place. He’s a clerk over at the courthouse, but he likes to pretend he’s still nineteen. He’s a few dishes short of a banquet, but he won’t hurt your girl.”

“How can you be sure?”

“I’ve got eyes don’t I? And all five of my senses, plus common sense added to it. That boy is too cheap to treat her to a nice evening out, but he won’t hurt her. And she’s driving, so he won’t strand her.”

“Thank you, Miss Betty,” I said, letting a little extra south creep into my voice.

“You ought to do more than thank me, boy. You ought to get over here and fix that loose porch railing I told you about last week.”

“You’re right. I’ll do it first thing tomorrow.”

“Not first thing, boy,” she said. “Especially not if you spend the night at Carrie’s again. Wash the stink off you and then come over.”

I mock saluted her. “I won’t come over until I’m squeaky clean and not smelling of sex.”

She huffed and complained about my foul mouth, but I headed back across the street and pretended I didn’t hear her.

***

I was back in my chair, reading my book and actually invested in what was happening, when someone else crossed Carrie’s lawn to her front porch. This time it was a kid with a piece of metal in his cheek. Carrie’s nephew, the one who’d told me off for playing my music too loud when I was washing my truck, the one who’d made her cry. “She’s not home,” I shouted before he had a chance to knock.

He crossed over to stand in front of me, blocking the dim light from the setting sun that I’d been reading by. “Do you know when she’ll be back?”

“I’m not her keeper,” I said, my jaw clenched tight. “She left here a while ago with some clown in jeans and a t-shirt.”

“One of her students?” Harrison had the good sense to look wary of me, but his concern for his aunt seemed to take precedence.

“Not unless she teaches thirty-year-old men.”

“A date then.” He deflated a bit. “She’ll be gone for a while.”

He started to walk away and I almost let him go, but it was just too much. “Wait a minute.” I stood and put my book down on the chair behind me. The kid turned back to me, his eyebrows raised. “You’re her nephew. Harrison, right?”

“Yeah. Did she mention me?”

I strode over until I was standing toe-to-toe with him. The kid wasn’t short and he wasn’t skinny, but I towered over him. “Yeah,” I said. “You’re the asshole who made her cry.”

I pulled back my arm and punched him before he had a chance to respond. I’m not usually violent. Okay, that’s not true, I’ve been in my share of fights before, but none of them felt quite as good as punching that kid. It took away a little bit of the antsiness I’d been feeling since I’d seen Carrie so sad the other day.

I picked up my book and sat back down and the kid stared at me, dazed. “What was that for?”

I could have gone into detail and explained why Carrie had been crying over him, but he didn’t appear to be an idiot, so I thought he could figure that part out on his own. “You made her cry. I don’t like to see her cry.”

The kid looked at me like I’d grown a third head and I wasn’t sure I hadn’t. “Aren’t you the same guy who turned your music up when she asked you to turn it down?”

The kid had a point. “It doesn’t make any sense to me either. I didn’t like seeing her cry and it made me feel better to punch you.”

“Glad I could help.” He didn’t look glad, he looked a bit put out, but he wasn’t angry. He knew he deserved it.

“Don’t make her cry again. Now, are you going to leave me alone so I can finish this book before the game starts? Or are you going to stand there and yabber at me until I punch you again?”

“I’m going. I’ll just sit on Aunt Carrie’s porch and wait until she gets back.”

He sat on Carrie’s porch with a heavy textbook and pored over it intently. I waved at him after half an hour and invited him in to watch the game at my place. He was a punk, but he was Carrie’s nephew and I didn’t want him sitting on her porch in the dark. He came over, seeming to harbor no ill feelings, and we went in and turned on the game. I offered him a drink and some chips and we relaxed on my couch in front of my massive T.V. He didn’t ask me why his aunt was crying over him and I didn’t ask him what was going on in his life. On the first commercial break, I did ask him if it was true that Carrie raised him, because, despite my best intentions, I couldn’t stop thinking about her.

“Yeah,” he said. “I moved in with her when I was fourteen and I lived with her until I started college a year and a half ago. I lived with her for six years, because I was a bit behind in school and it took me a while to catch up and graduate. She saved my life.”

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