After Forever (18 page)

It took half the night, but Bottles
rearranged the attic into a comfortable room; quite spacious, in
fact. It was hot, of course, but by opening both the front and back
windows, there was a pleasant breeze.

Around two in the morning, Bottles had to go
to the bathroom. It took a few seconds to get his bearings. He
tiptoed down the steps, not wanting to wake up anyone. He turned
the door knob and pushed. The door didn’t open. He pushed again.
Still the door didn’t budge.

He scratched his head, then he knew.

“Jimmy,” he hissed, “unlock the door. Jimmy?
Can you hear me?”

On the other side, he heard the brothers’
stifled laughter.

“Biff? I know you’re there too. Unlock the
damn door.”

Neither boy made an effort to let their
cousin out.

With clenched fists, he pounded on the door,
screaming, “Unlock this door! Jimmy, I’m gonna kill you. Let me
out! Let me out!”

Louise, wearing a frumpy cotton robe over
her nightgown, stumbled into the hallway. Her hair was in rollers
and she had green beauty mud smeared on her face.

“Let me out! Jimmy, unlock the door.”
Bottles kept pounding.

“What is going on around here?” she
screeched in her soprano voice.

The boys spun around, swallowing their
laughter. “Uh, nothing, ma. Nothing is going on.”

Biff slipped behind his brother and unlocked
the door.

“Aunt Louise? Make them unlock the door! I
can’t get out. I have to pee.”

She marched to the door and opened it.
Bottles fell forward onto the floor, striking his head on the
baseboard. She examined the doorknob.

“There’s nothing wrong with this.”

“It was locked. I heard the bar slide out.”
He turned to his cousins. “Someone locked me in.”

“I’m beginning to think you moving to the
attic was a bad idea. We’ll talk in the morning.”

Needless to say, Bottles didn’t sleep at
all. He spent the rest of the night repacking his belongings to
move into the cellar. He didn’t even bother waiting for morning.
Once he was finished packing, he went down to the cellar to look
around.

It wasn’t as bad as it sounded. The cellar
wasn’t like a dungeon with dripping water, barred gates and thick,
stone walls. It was rather clean. The previous owners had started
building a secure room in case a tornado touched down. Bottles
helped his dad finish it. The walls separating it from the rest of
the cellar were solid. The door locked both from the inside and
outside. It had plenty of shelving, a chaise lounge he could use as
a bed, and it had a private outside entrance. There was even an old
refrigerator.

On the other side of the cellar was the
laundry area. There was also a toilet, the laundry sink and a hose
rigged up as a shower. He had his own private bathroom.

Bottles moved some boxes from the secure
room into the other side of the cellar, opening space for his
stuff.

He stood, hands on his hips, and admired his
handiwork. Nodding appreciatively, he was satisfied with his new
bedroom. His only dilemma was to keep his cousins out of the
cellar.

He looked around and spotted the big rat
traps his dad had hanging on the wall by his tools.

Yep. Those will do, he thought, taking the
three traps down. He set them around the cellar floor on the
outside of his room. If nothing else, Bottles was excited about his
move and his plan to keep his hoodlum cousins out of the way.

On his way upstairs, he glanced at the
washer and dryer and sobered. By prefabricating the story about
rats to keep them out of the cellar, he probably would be stuck
doing their laundry.

Bottles went straight to the attic and moved
his boxes. It took him eight trips to move everything. Afterwards,
he took a shower and dressed in clean clothes.

He slid into his chair at the dining room
table for breakfast. Aunt Louise made bacon and eggs, but divided
the bulk of the food among her and the boys. She slid an egg and
two pieces of bacon on the plate for him.

With only a peanut butter and banana
sandwich since breakfast yesterday, Bottles was hungry. He ate
every crumb of food, washing it down with a glass of cold milk.

“Ralphie. About last night,” his aunt
began.

“Yeah,” he mumbled, feeling the food drop
into his stomach like an iron tire rim in the lake. “It was all my
imagination.”

She looked at her two sons. “It seems the
boys played a practical joke on you. They confessed they locked the
door from the outside so you couldn’t open it.” She looked at her
sons. “Tell Ralphie you’re sorry.”

“We’re sorry, Ralphie.” The boys
mimicked.

“Yeah,” Bottles mumbled.

“But you did make a lot of noise…”

“Don’t worry, Aunt Louise. I already moved
into the cellar.”

She looked surprised. “When? I didn’t hear
anything.”

“Maybe that’s because the noise you heard
wasn’t made by me.” He pushed away from the table. “May I be
excused?”

She nodded.

He ran out to the kitchen, but poked his
head around the corner. “Do we have anymore peanut butter?”

“Why?”

“I need to bait the traps. They’ve been
triggered.”

“What traps?” she asked slowly.

He shrugged. “Just the rat traps in the
cellar. If there’s no peanut butter, I can use cheese. They’ll go
after either one.” He turned and ran outside, before she could
comment.

CHAPTER 4

Bottles pedaled into town, whistling in
rhythm to the spinning tires. He was happy to get away from his
family. It had been several days since his last soda-bottle pick up
and he was anxious to get back to work. He had zero savings now
that his cousins stole his meager stash of cash. He stopped in the
yard of his first client, Sam Black.

Sam was rocking in his favorite chair,
expending as little energy as possible, gently fanning himself with
an old church tri-fold paper fan.

“Hi Mr. Black!”

“Where’ve you been? I thought maybe you made
enough money to retire and that you didn’t want to bother with us
po’ town folk anymore.”

“No, sir,” Bottles laughed. “That’ll never
happen. Do you happen to have any empties for me?”

“As a matter of fact, I do, boy.” Sam handed
him a burlap sack.

Bottles counted the empties.

“Wow! Seven. Thanks, Mr. Black. I’ll return
your bag on my way back.”

The boy rode away and could only make four
more stops before heading to the bottling plant.

Jon Flanders, shift supervisor, counted the
bottles, thirty-one total, and deposited sixty-two cents into
Bottles’ hand.

“Good job, son,” he called after the
boy.

Bottles waved. “I’ll be back in a little
while.”

By the time the boy finished hitting all his
customers, he turned in a whopping seventy-three bottles. Happy
with earning a dollar and forty six cents, Bottles made a couple
stops before heading home.

The first stop was to Myer’s Hardware store.
The bell above the door jingled every time someone opened it.

Sitting behind the counter, Bernie Myers was
fanning himself.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Myers.”

“Hello, Bottles. What can I do for you? I
don’t have any empties for you.”

“No sir, that’s not why I’m here. My dad has
an account here, right?”

“That’s right. And it’s all paid off.”

“I need to purchase a padlock, but I was
wondering if you could put it on my dad’s account and I’ll pay for
it in a few days.”

“A padlock?”

“Yes, sir.”

The old man nodded. “I can do that for you,
son. What size do you need? I have three: small medium and large.”
Bottles followed Mr. Myers to the display.

“I guess the medium one will do.”

Back at the counter, the owner put the lock
in a bag. Pulling out his ledger, he turned to the ‘S’ page and
made a notation. “That’ll be nineteen cents plus tax, for a total
of twenty cents.”

“Yes sir. I’ll take care of it as soon as I
can. Thank you, Mr. Myers.” Bottles hopped on his bike and headed
to Toth’s Foodmart.

He made a few selections and headed to the
checkout.

“Hello Bottles,” Jake addressed him at the
checkout line. “We have boloney on sale this week,” he commented as
he wrote everything on his pad. Wetting the pencil lead on his
tongue, he added the figures. “That’ll be forty seven cents.” He
packed the food in a paper sack, carefully putting the bread on
top.

The boy counted out the coins and handed
them over.

Outside, he loaded his groceries in the
basket of his bike, pedaled to Sam Black’s house to drop of the
burlap sack, and then headed home.

He walked his bike around the side of the
house. Opening the outside metal hatch door to the cellar, he put
his sack of groceries on the steps and closed the door. Running
around to the front, he went down to the cellar and retrieved the
sack. He put his precious supplies in the fridge in his bedroom and
made sure to lock the outside door, using the new padlock.

Grabbing his baseball glove, he locked the
bedroom door and ran upstairs.

“Bye, Aunt Louise.”

By the time the screen door slammed, he
pedaled halfway down the road.

CHAPTER 5

Bottles enjoyed meeting up with the other
wall rats. They chatted and shared a bag of popcorn, but once the
game started, they were all business. Someone passed out hand-drawn
paper scorecard. The group was ready.

By the bottom of the ninth, the score was
zero-zero. The game went into extra innings. The Raccoons scored
the winning run in the twelfth. The fans went wild.

Realizing the time, Bottles headed home. He
knew Aunt Louise was not going to be happy. Sure enough, she was
waiting for him.

“Where have you been?”

“At the baseball game.”

“How can you afford a ticket?”

“We all watched from outside the fence.
That’s free.” He hastily added. “I’m sorry I missed supper. It
won’t happen again.”

“That’s for sure. Get to bed,” she pointed
her bony finger towards the cellar door. “No supper for you.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He stopped. “Aunt Louise, can
I have a slice of cheese to set the rat traps?”

“Make sure you only take one slice.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

He skedaddled to the cellar, unlocking the
door to his room. Once inside, he unlocked the outside entrance,
pulled his bike inside and secured the hatch door. Then he went to
work setting the traps. He was sure the threat of rats would keep
everyone upstairs. Then he locked his door.

He made a sandwich of bread and boloney and
settled back in the chaise lounge. While he ate, he looked around
for a new spot to hide his money. He knew there were a couple loose
bricks min the wall. He decided to hide it behind them, until he
found a better place.

With a full stomach, Bottles fell asleep,
dreaming of the Raccoons.

The next morning, he awoke early. Making
sure everything was locked up, he went upstairs. He nearly tripped
over a basket filled with dirty clothes. Bottles shook his head. He
knew doing the laundry was part of the price for creating the rat
problem. Shrugging, he dumped the first load in before heading
outside to mow whatever grass still grew.

Opening the garage doors to get the push
mower, his eyes opened wide. The fender of his dad’s candy apple
red ’57 Chevy was dented and the paint scraped. He looked toward
the house as his eyes filled with tears. “You bullies. You have no
respect for anything!”

He touched the damaged vehicle. “What’s dad
going to say when he gets home?” He yelled to the wind, “Come home,
dad, come home!”

He had part of the lawn cut, but stopped to
swap the loads of laundry, putting the wet ones in the dryer.
Seeing no one else was up, he made himself a PB&J sandwich and
went to finish mowing. On the far side of the property, he found
tire ruts leading directly to a tree stump, which had streaks of
red on its side. “What did those idiots think was going to happen
to the stump when they hit it with dad’s car?” he mumbled. “I hate
them, dad. I hate them! Why did you make me promise to listen to
them?”

He shook his head, finished cutting the lawn
and hosed off the mower.

Back inside, he put the last load in the
washer along with his sweaty clothes and ran upstairs to take a
shower. No sense in letting them know I can shower down here, he
rationalized. Then they’ll never let me upstairs.

He just finished drying when one of his
cousins pounded on the door.

“Mom—you in there?”

“No, it’s me.”

“Open the door, squirt. I have to piss.”

“I’ll be done in a minute.”

“Open the door now!” Jimmy pounded. “Now, I
said.”

Bottles opened the door wearing only his
briefs. He barely had time to grab his clothes before his cousin
pulled him out and slammed the door shut. The noise, of course,
woke his aunt, who stumbled into the hallway. Though her eyes were
barely open, she wasted no time chastising her nephew.

“Ralphie—how dare you run around in your
drawers? Have you no dignity? Get dressed.”

“Jimmy kicked me out of the bathroom. I was
taking a shower.”

“Why would he do that?”

Bottles just shook his head, dressing on his
way downstairs. He stopped long enough to make another PB&J
sandwich, then went to his room. As soon as the last load of
clothes came out of the dryer, he got his bike and rode into
town.

After cashing in his accumulated empties, he
headed to the stadium for the game. At the wall, he talked to
several friends about his dilemma. Though none of their suggestions
would help him, he felt better venting his frustrations.

CHAPTER 6

This routine went on for another week. By
getting up early, he avoided any confrontations with his
family.

But, and you know there is always a but in
any situation, while in town, Bottles spotted his dad’s ’57 Chevy
on the street. He was happy to see his aunt drove and not his
cousins.