To Roger, the steady sound of gravel rearranging itself under his boots was a comforting sound. Besides a tractor somewhere to the North, it was the only thing to be heard.
He was headed home from another game of cards with Gran Boykin and home was the last place he wanted to go.
A stiff breeze brought a chill to Roger’s brow. He looked up and saw boy about six years his junior riding his bike. As soon as the young man was within earshot he shouted, “Hey, Oatmeal!” His calls grew in volume as he approached.
Roger scowled, kicked one of the larger rocks and yelled back, “My name’s Granola! How does that sound?!”
The boy brought his bike to a stop only three feet in front of Roger. The small cloud of dust that had followed the boy drifted on past Kilwein’s legs. “I ain’t calling you granola. Whatever that is.”
The younger boy wore a dirty white long sleeved shirt and overalls. The overall’s pockets seemed filled to busting. Roger liked to imagine they were filled with rubber bands and small pebbles. He knew better. It was probably boxes of small caliber ammunition. Once his siblings advanced to pellet weapons, they would use nothing else, even on each other.
“I came to tell you to bring back a couple cans of wee-wees from Gran’s place. All we got is smoked sausage and that isn’t good with beans.”
He turned his is bike around and placed his left foot on the forward pedal. “Oh yea, you weren’t around when we called the shower so you’re last tonight.” With that, the boy rode off in another quick cloud of dust.
Roger turned and began marching back to Gran’s. There was no doubt about it. His adaptive family was a jalopy with more problems than could reasonably be fixed.
“Let’s see, there’s assigning value to poly-resin figurines, homemade cigarettes, dumping everyone’s savings into fireworks, a TV that is on whether people are watching it or not…”
The sky’s shade had slid from dim yellow to a deep orange. It changed the lime green stripes on his grandmother’s trailer to a turquoise color. In the shadows under the porch, Kiser perceived movement from some of the nocturnal animals. The steady glow of a television could be seen from the right window.
Roger knocked and went inside but the old woman never entered the kitchen. “My show’s on! What you want?”
“I’ve been sent back for a couple cans of those little sausages. Ok?”
The voice from the other room took on an even higher pitch than usual. “Ah, now you want my wee-wees! None before, but now you’ve got to have’m.”
There was no impetus for further conversation. Roger grabbed the cans and left. On his way out, a large dog chased him back to the road. It was one of Gran’s part-time “pets.” The fanged monster didn’t quit chasing him until he was half way back to his home.
Roger knew this wasn’t how it was supposed to be for him. An unrefined farm family had adopted him not long before he started third grade. His life beforehand was a mixed up mash of foster care assignments. His Lexa family changed his legal name to Roger Boykin. All his report cards and record papers had him listed as a Boykin but it was a name he never accepted.
Kiser grew to near adulthood knowing that the humans claiming to be his “kin” were birds of an unlike feather. With a slight mock to his tone, he even referred to his adoptive parents as “the Father” and “the Mother.”
The Father set the household’s misguided priorities. To him, memorabilia of his favorite race car driver took precedence over groceries.
“Look kids, lottery tickets aren’t worth the money anymore. But in a few years these things will be worth thousands.”
Before a check was written for the propane bill, the Father would purchase the latest patriotic T-shirt. His most recent shirt eloquently shouted, “Welcome to America! We’ll shoot you if we have to.”
One tragic afternoon, Roger returned from school to find the police in the middle of a raid. Their target was his brother Bubba’s tree house. After a brief standoff, with Bubba firing several rounds from his pellet gun, the officers overran the tree bound structure, and captured two fully functional stills.
The bright headlights from a distant car brought Roger’s frustrated thinking back in line with reality. His unexpected errand had taken so long that evening had fully fallen. His pace had quickened now that night’s chill had ended his pondering. The yard light from his family’s homestead was just ahead.
Once inside he managed to salvage some supper. The Mother had found a deal on apple juice and snack crackers at the grocery store. Roger poured himself an unusually large glass and found a half-eaten sleeve of crackers. He then found a corner to practice one of his only two real forms of entertainment, origami.
Months ago, he found an old magazine on the Japanese art of folding paper. It was lying in the cellar mixed in with all the tabloid rags his parents read. It seemed like an enjoyable distraction and he took up the hobby with gusto. Paper was easy to find and if his siblings destroyed his work, he found joy in making another.
********************
The heavy plates hit the table’s surface with low clunk. Lena had finished the usual and started returning to the kitchen for their drinks.
A feeble thanks was all Tim managed to say before he inspected the food. Short strips of meat with a brown gravy and whole wheat noodles. He poked the meat with his fork. It did smell delicious.
“Son, are you going to start asking your meal questions, are you?” Skechenko already had sauce on the right side of his mouth.
“Uh, is this what I think it might be?” Tim constructed the question as delicately as he could.
“Try some of it and you tell me.”
“I’ll get to it in just a minute.” Tim edged the plate a little to one side. “Can we finish on how your longtime friend arrived in Dakota? That’s what I’ve been waiting to hear about but for some reason we haven’t got there.”
Skechenko skewered the piece of meat closest to him. He then pointed it at the other man. “It gets back to that metaphysical thing! Now listen this time. Roger Kiser would have contently spent his life working the graveyard shift at Lexa’s one convenience store had he not become a pawn in Fate’s cruel proposition. The places he lived and the company he kept weren’t the root cause of his strange lot, but symptom thereof!”
Gravy was dripping from Skechenko’s fork onto the table and he didn’t seem to care.
