Page 23 of Trailer Park Billionaire
Alexei huffs, shakes his head, mumbles the word‘plan’a couple of times, then veers a few feet to the right, opens a makeshift door, and leaves me behind, standing ankle-deep in the muck.
A few yards down, the first tent of many is pitched against one of the columns that support the highway above. We pass a few more until I finally find what I’m looking for: a big barrel, likely used as a bonfire once the temperatures drop.
I nod toward it. Alexei nods back, finally looking a little more impressed.
“You actually had a good idea,” he says in a high-pitched voice. He kicks the barrel once and crosses his arms. “No one would know the difference anyway.”
I nod. “Exactly. We’ll just grab a bag of this and swap it out with the real stuff at the crematorium.”
My friend’s expression immediately darkens again. “She wouldn’t even know the difference!”
“I can’t lie to her!” I say, louder than intended, loud enough to draw a few glances from people hanging out in their tents nearby.
“Ha!” Alexei lets out incredulously and then responds even louder. “You’ve been lying to her this whole time!”
I‘m about to explain to my friend just how wrong he is, when I suddenly feel something solid jab me in the back.
“Now, now,” a voice says from what sounds like behind a thick scarf, “no funny business, and we’ll have no problems here, pretty boy.”
I slowly raise my hands and glance over at Alexei, who just shrugs and crosses his arms again. “See? I told you. Bad omen.”
“Now, turn around slowly…” the muffled voice instructs, pausing until I do. “So that I can hug you better!” Then the person wraps his arms around my chest and squeezes me like a ketchup bottle. “What brings you to my humble abode?” he asks, tugging down his scarf to reveal an old friend.
“Dusty!” I exclaim.
“You had him going there for a second,” Alexei says and leans in for a hug as well.
Dusty Rhodes used to live in our neighborhood, but vanished a few months back—which, I suppose, isn’t that unusual. He tells us how he had to disappear to avoid getting picked up bythe cops again, and how he’s been staying around these parts of town to lie low.
“Cops’ll roust you for sleeping, but if you get stabbed? Eh, that’s a‘civil matter’,”he explains. “And the shelters? Either full of people, full of bedbugs, on fire, or run by a guy who thinks ‘donations’ means pocketing your last pair of socks.” He grins, patting a dented shopping cart. “But hey, rent’s free if you don’t mind hypothermia or the occasional meth-head philosopher who’ll explain the meaning of life at 3 AM.”
Alex and I listen and catch up with our friend for a while, before we get ready to leave. Dusty gives us a trash bag for the ashes and I leave him an address for where to go tonight, along with the bribe money I’d originally budgeted for the guy at the crematorium.
Which is where we pull up a little later once again, parking across the street and making sure no cameras can capture what we’re about to do. It’s already past 7 PM, and the place looks deserted.
“You sure this is necessary?” Alex asks again as I start picking the lock on the back door. Luckily, we’re out in the middle of nowhere, so the odds of us getting caught are fairly slim.
Helena’s puffy face pops up before my eyes again, the tears slowly sliding down her cheeks without her even noticing while we’re standing in front of the painting. “You should have seen the poor girl yesterday. She wasn’t just crying,” I explain as the door finally opens. “She was… it looked like part of her was still dying inside, you know?”
“Yeah, well,” Alex sucks in a quick breath of air that makes his shoulders lift, “such is life. You live a little, then you die a little. And in time, everyone moves on. I don’t see how this has anything to do with us.”
I lead the way through a dark hallway, ears pricked for any noise, eyes scanning for a door labeled something like the‘Powder Room,’or maybe the‘Burn Ward.’
“We both know you don’t mean that,” I whisper and open‘Storage A.1’instead.
We’re greeted by a room that’s filled to the brim with cardboard boxes in different kinds of colors. Most are beige, some red, some green. Alex checks one of them while I remain at the door, making sure we really are alone.
“This must be all the unclaimed remains. What was his name again?” he asks, inspecting the little labels that are glued to the front. “And, even more important, what difference does it make that we steal the ashes? It’s not like she can’t just come here and pick them up herself.”
“Edward Frame.” I close the squeaking door as quietly as possible and get to checking labels myself. “And, yes, she could come here herself, but you know what she said when we were talking about her grandpa? She said—and I quote—‘you know how we always think that the dying is the worst part? But then the next day comes, and you still have to be a person? You still have to have your shit together, not fall apart, and pick up your grandpa’s ashes at the crematorium the next town over, despite not even owning a car, which is why it would take you half a day to even get there, when all you wanna do is just eat pizza in your dirty PJs and cry into your life-sized emotional support pillow that looks like the statue of David.’” I take a deep breath. “Her exact words, not mine. So, yeah, we’re doing this so she doesn’t have to. It’s barely illegal anyway. Stealing dirt. We’re not getting into trouble for?—”
A loud noise makes me jump up and spin around—only to realize it was Alexei who intentionally slammed one of the cabinet doors. He looks at me with an evil grin.
“Sorry,” he whispers. “Timing was too convenient. Couldn’t resist.” Then he reopens the cabinet again and pulls out a roll of plastic bags. We use one to transfer our bonfire ashes and resume the search for the real ones.
Two minutes later, we find them stacked on top of a pyramid of more boxes, and, after exchanging the bags, it takes another two minutes to get back to the RV.
A synchronized breath of relief slips from our lips as we sink into our seats. As expected, we didn’t get caught.
