Handyman

With each day that passes Dwayne feels he more closely resembles a skeleton void of skin, muscle, and tendon. Dwayne wonders if it isn’t on purpose as his clients are always commenting on his weight and trying to feed him. Maybe that is just how old women are, he thinks.

At twenty-eight Dwayne had started losing his hair. The husk of his face had always appeared thin and tight, and with the absence of hair it gave him a slightly reptilian appearance.

A black pork pie hat sits at a slight angle on his head. There was a character in a series of books he liked that wore the same hat. They were the only books he had read outside of high school. They were detective novels, mysteries, and like that character Dwayne wanted to be seen as capable and possibly dangerous.

When Dwayne is working, he leaves the hat in the car. He is always working.

Ruth asks if he has seen her cat when he pulls up beside her little one story. She asks after her cat every time he comes over, which is often. It had been several years now since he had pulled the matted ball of fur off the carpet after the beast had expired in the laundry room being left there for multiple days.

“I think he was over by the back fence yesterday hunting chickadees.” Dwayne conveys the lie with little effort as he replaces a dead bulb in her bathroom for the third time that week.

Ruth offers tea that he doesn’t want. It’s cold with a mossy bag floating like a bloated body on the surface.

Before leaving he stands at the front door like an officer of the law. Sometimes she will pass him a folded twenty, sometimes more. He always tells her that he can’t accept while slipping the money into a front pocket.

The old man that lives in the house next door stands out on his little slash of lawn. He has on a long coat with shorts underneath. He has two different pairs of shoes on his feet. A folded newspaper sits on his head like an awkward ornament.

“You don’t belong here.” The old man says. Stopping, Dwayne gives the man one of his cards. The man glances at it for a moment, then puts one end of it between his lips and starts chewing slowly.

Jose’s is a restaurant and bar close to where Dwayne lives. He treats it as a sort of office since he does not actually have one other than his truck. He stops by for lunch and dinner most days. At lunch he only has a drink or two.

“There he is.” Ranjo calls out when Dwayne splits the front doors. It makes him feel special to be greeted in that way even if Ranjo’s politeness can sometimes seem less than sincere.

The mug that is set before him has a heavy bottom and is mostly foam. Dwayne tries to stick with beer at lunch.

“So, what is on the agenda for today?” Ranjo asks. His smile has a plastic sheen to it. A bright yellow necklace sits against the soft brown hollow of his neck. “Any Chicka’s, or too many?” Ranjo chides him. Dwayne laughs along with the man but is not sure what he is laughing at.

A bean burrito Dwayne eats robotically. He isn’t even hungry. He feels it heavy in his gut swimming about in bubbly foam.

He leaves more than is necessary for a tip. Then he is back in his truck pulling onto the road.

Francis is still in her bathrobe and slippers. She takes him to the faucet that before he arrived, she swore would not turn on. When he turns the knob, the water flows freely. He takes his time going over her bill. Before he leaves, she gives him a handful of butter cookies which he tosses out to the squirrels.

There is a small storage unit he rents and keeps some supplies in. It sits in a musty half abandoned office park, which is why it is so cheap. As he pulls up, he sees Anne pacing in front. She had been a local fixture for years milling around the office park and the business just down the street. Sometimes she held a sign asking and wishes for God to bless. Sometimes she was asking for other things. Dwayne had always been cordial with her giving her leftovers or a few bucks. It was never out of compassion.

“I forgot my key,” Anne says sniffling,

“I never gave you one.” He says, and the truck door falls closed behind him loud as a gunshot. Both he and Anne jump.

He digs around in the storage container full of mostly cords and broken hand tools, things he inherited. Anne stands behind him blocking the light and asking innocuous questions. She picks at the skin on her forearms and face. There are little cuts the size of fingernails which dallops of blood dangle from. Finally, she poses the question she had been meaning to ask him since she had been waiting, which to her felt like a lifetime.

“I got nothing for you Anne,” he says wearily.

“Yeah,” she says and tries to thrust out her hip seductively. She seems to be all bones. “I got something for you if you can help a girl out.”

It’s not only her but all women he seems to have no feeling toward recently. The last time he had been with a woman she had acted as if she were doing him some great favor. He knew if the roles were reversed he would never ask them for money after.

Dwayne misunderstands what Anne is offering. It isn’t sex but work. He listens to her ramblings and does not believe them.

“So, you not interested in easy money?”

Dwayne looks from her to his dirty truck with the one missing hubcap. He studies the crumpling building and all the refuse surrounding it. He asks her to elaborate.

Yogurt, almost expired, is all he has in the truck. She rips it free from his grasp and has the top off and scoops two fingers out like it is frosting. Acting as if it were a five-course meal Anne sits back in the truck rubbing her distended belly.

He drives following her unfocused directions relying more on landmarks than streets. He has to roll down the window because of the chemical smell from what she used to turn her black hair blond..

It is a slightly dilapidated building, two stories, more like a warehouse with big dark windows on the second floor only. He circles the block once before pulling into the lot with a chain link fence drooping around it. Anne sits on the edge of the seat expectantly like a dog awaiting imminent release.

“There’s no security,” Anne says. She goes at her scalp with the plastic nail of her index finger. “Well, there is a guy with a taser, but he usually drunk.”

Dwayne is paralyzed with this information. He tries to imagine who put her up to all this, and she tells him.

“Lionel says they got display cases all along the wall that are unlocked. He says the place has to be off because they have no other inventory, no deliveries or pickups, no customers.” Anne says. She goes on to repeat her earlier talk about bundles of trading cards in bright foil that people in retail stores do battle over.

“Who is Lionel?” he asks. Anne looks at him as if the question arose out of jealousy.

“A friend,” she says coyly, stupidly batting her stubby eyelashes.

“One that can be trusted?”

“Of course,” she says angling her face away from him.

“Why doesn’t he just do it?”

“Well,” she says fumbling, “he’s the one with the intel, he is too close to it. He the first one they would look for.”

“The stuff is worth money?” he asks unconvinced.

“I’ve seen it. He showed me pictures of the inside. They all marked or something, so they know exactly what cards is in the packs.”

“And once we have them what then?”

“Sell it.”

“Where, and to who?”

“Lionel knows a guy.”

“I’m sure,” Dwayne says liking things even less now, yet something anchors him.

“Look motherfucker, you don’t even have to come in. You a working guy, normal guy, normal truck nobody looking at, which is what this here situation needs. It’s not like I could call a goddamn Uber.”

They sit in the truck watching the traffic. When she asks him what he wants to do, all he does is nod, and even he almost gets carried away with her mounting excitement.

They will come back the following evening.

At home Dwayne searches out the information on what Anne had told him and saw the dollar amounts for small little squares of plastic and could not believe it.

The next day Dwayne picks up a stray on the street and stops by Ruth’s house. He drops the cat on the porch. It scurries quickly off.

“Thank goodness you found him,” Ruth says from behind the screen door. Dwayne waits for her to come out and give him some money. He hopes it is enough for him to forget about meeting Anne. When the door opens it is not Ruth but her granddaughter who steps out.

The young woman has hair that looks like you could scour a bathtub with it. There are patches of odd coloring on her face like a topographical map. Dwayne felt himself begin to perform, greeting her as if she were a small child. He offers his hand, she takes it, and he knows he has misjudged the situation.

“So besides tracking down my grandmother’s dead cat what other services do you provide for her that could account for the almost five thousand dollars she has paid you so far this year?” the woman asks with her pretty face not even attempting to disguise the anger.

Ranjo’s usual sneer becomes a smile when Dwayne asks him to hold the bean burrito.

“Beans make you strong, no?” Ranjo asks. He casually leans on the counter. Dwayne finishes his third beer and feels a storm in his empty stomach. Rather than puke it all up he tells Ranjo, a relative stranger, about Ruth and her granddaughter.

“So, you are no thief?” Ranjo questions. His lip curls at the corner displaying that gold canine tooth.

In Dwayne’s head there is a list of the things he has done for Ruth; the cheap bulbs and the unsafe wiring. Once he even drove over to her place after dark to calm her because she called and would not get off the phone.

“I do things the right way. That was how I was taught.” Dwayne says and sounds unconvincing even to himself.

“I always find it hard to differentiate,” Ranjo says with hardly a hint of an accent.

Lionel is late. In the cab of the truck with Anne there is the overwhelming metallic odor of her. She is dressed all in black. Even the silver loops of her tennis shoes she has covered in black electrical tape. Dwayne wants to roll down the window but can’t because of the cold.

“What if he doesn’t show up?” Dwayne asks.

“Then we just do it.” Anne says a thumb on the bridge of her nose. When she looks at him her pupils seem to have eaten all the white space of her eyes.

“So, you know the buyer?” he asks her.

“No.”

“Then I’m not doing it.” He says. Anne shrugs as if it doesn’t matter. He is thinking of Ruth’s granddaughter. He wished that didn’t matter either. He pulls open the door. Anne climbs out as well.

Dwayne scans the surroundings hunches against the wind. He walks to the door of the building and feels like his knock sounds like a falling coffin lid.

A man opens the door. He looks as if he were expecting a pizza. Dwayne fumbles with the words he was supposed to convey, he thought he was only driving, but then Anne told him they wouldn’t open the door for her. The man before him seems unconcerned. He steps out adjusting the waist of his jeans. Keys jingle, Dwayne gawks as Anne comes from the shadows and leaps at when the man’s back is to her. The bulbous, weighted end of the baton she holds sparks when she touches the man. He spasms as he falls to the asphalt.

Anne darts past him inside. Several tense seconds are spent waiting until she emerges hauling a large black duffle bag.

They speak very little in the truck. They stop at another lot surrounded by dark buildings and behind that an open drying field. There is one car in the lot.

Lionel compliments them both. He is heavy set with long curly hair and a beard spotted with gray. He talks boisterously, laughing as if this were all some friendly gift exchange. He talks like it is settled business.

Hoisting the waist of his jeans Lionel moves to collect the duffel bag where Anne set it on the asphalt. Dwayne stops him.

“Who the fuck are you?” Lionel asks. It is meant to sound menacing, but to Dwayne it is just posture. Lionel’s bluster evaporates and he meekly pleads that the buyer will only deal with him.

Anne is back in his truck with the bag. Lionel paces holding a phone up to the side of his face. She stuffs the bag under the front seat. Dwayne keeps watch of Lionel though the dirty windshield.

“I wonder if he is even really talking to anyone,” Anne says almost to herself.

“Wait, he isn’t talking to the buyer?” Dwayne asks stupidly. Looking at Anne he can see the clear hate in her eyes. He gets the feeling she is just waiting to open the door, grab the bag and run.

Dwayne bends over the wheel acting as if he is going to start the truck. Serpent like his hand catches hold of one of Anne’s wrists. It is so thin he thinks he could hold both of them in one palm.

She squirms and curses. He gets the truck started and pulls out of the lot as she writhes beside him. She threatens to kick out the windshield out or sink her teeth into his forearm. He slows alongside a gas station and a strip of brownish green grass. He frees her hand and leans across her to open the door, then shoves her out. He watches in the rearview to make sure she gets up and for following headlights.

There is an early game on when Dwayne gets to Jose’s. There are a few people at the bar. He didn’t usually come this late in the day.

Ranjo is not at the bar. Dwayne asks after him but is told he has gone home for the day.

A few sips of a whiskey are all he can manage. Driving back home he thinks he sees a shadowy figure creeping around the front of his apartment. He parks two blocks away. He climbs the small fence and slips in the back. Leaving the lights off, he scurries to the front. He can hear lowered, cautious voices. Dwayne puts his face up to the cut-out window in the door and is spotted there.

Lionel puts his hand to the doorknob, tests it. “Hey man,” he whispers. “We got to do this tonight.”

“Anne with you?” Dwayne calls out. He knows that would be the only way he could know where he lived. Lionel stiffens, does not answer right off. He looks scared.

“No,” Lionel finally says.

“Then I’ll wait.”

There is a dark heat that seems to come from the opposite side of the door. Lionel stands there for what feels like an eternity before moving cautiously away. Dwayne moves around to the front window. He can see Lionel in the street. He waits a few minutes then turns on the tv with the volume on low. The light washes over the clear glass.

Dwayne goes out the way he came in. From the ally he can see his apartment unit illuminated. Moving with speed and care he locates Lionel’s vehicle. He is just in time to see him slowly pulling away from the curb.

Racing back to his truck Dwayne keeps the headlights off until he gets to the main street. He drives aimlessly, terrified because he has lost Lionel. He drives under the electronic signs of businesses that are never turned off.

Behind a movie theater he finally pull over and stops. The last film would not be getting out for another hour. Dwayne turns off the vehicle and settles himself. He reaches under the seat confirming the bag is still there. He leans back and stares at the dark red brick.

A van is beside his truck. It sparkles in the new sun. The side door is drawn back. A round woman exits dragging an industrial vacuum. She does not look at Dwayne as she passes.

Dwayne blinks away the sun. He rubs the grumbling muscles of his neck, sore and taut. He waits until the woman has disappeared into the movie theater before rolling down his window and spitting thick phlegm onto the asphalt.

Driving, he imagines his place being torn up by Lionel and Anne. He doesn’t go back home. He goes to the only other place he can think of to go. He parks across the street from Jose’s waiting for them to open.

Ranjo arrives in a yellow convertible that sits incredibly close to the ground. It looks possibly expensive, but then it has the symbol of a more affordable brand on the front. It looks well cared for, and Dwayne wonders why that surprises him.

Stopping at the front door, Ranjo takes in his own reflection, dispatches an errant hair. Dwaune waits for a passing car and jogs across the street.

Dwayne does not startle the man coming up behind him. Ranjo turns with his mask of a smile as if this intrusion was expected.

“They said you came in yesterday,” Ranjo says. He opens the door to the restaurant, stands to the side to allow Dwayne entrance. “Sorry to have missed you.”

They walk to the bar. Dwayne wondered if any other employees were there, but it seemed they were alone. Ranjo put a hand to the small of Dwayne’s back. His free hand comes up with an ugly little hooked knife, the tip of which puts a hole in Dwayne’s shirt right above his soft guts.

“I believe you have acquired something that is of great interest to me.” Ranjo says. His voice is playful and courteous.

Ranjo watches him from the open door of the restaurant. He smokes a cigarette as if there is nothing in the whole world to be concerned over. Dwayne opens the door to the truck imaging just hopping in and taking off, but he doesn’t.

Dwayne comes back with the bag.

In exchange for his act of contrition Dwayne is allowed to work off his debt, a debt he had not known that he had incurred. He was allowed to work it off at the restaurant. Even after Ranjo tells him the debt has been settled he asks to stay on, and they let him.

It felt good to do real work.

Anne came into the restaurant one afternoon. Dwayne had not seen her in many weeks. She looked tired. She looked old. She tried to pretend that the meeting was happenstance, but soon enough she is rubbing up against him like a cat purring her questions.

Dwayne caught Ranjo watching him. He is forced to push her out of the restaurant. She hardly put up any struggle.

Anne walked slowly along the street. Dwayne watched her from the big dining room window. The car that Dwayne had seen Lionel drive was parked there. When she reached the vehicle and opened the door Lionel tumbled out. His long curly hair roaming the asphalt. Anne slaps at the car turning with her mouth open crying out like a child.

The wide bottomed sedan pulls up alongside her. Through the window Dwayne recognizes the man he had seen working at the bar the day he came looking for Ranjo. Anne stoops to investigate the vehicle, and Dwayne goes back to his duties ignoring the high frequency crack and the commotion that follows.

Bio: Mika Nadolsky's short fiction has appeared in Suburbia Journal, Quartz Literary, Half and One, Free Spirit, Bridge Eight, and Blood + Honey.

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