Breaking And Entering With Steele Pt. 10

AJ laid down and was out in a split second. He tried to dream about Abbey, but something else invaded his subconscious every time he did. His dreams turned from something simple and controlled, to something nefarious and twisted. In one dream, Abbey was pregnant, stroking her hands over her swollen belly, and smiling at him. But every time she got close, he realized it wasn't Abbey, but Candice instead. Her face changed in an instant. Her hair grew longer and turned platinum blond. She would give him a quizzical expression, and then look down, horrified. "Why did you get me pregnant?" she would scream.

The third time he had that exact same dream, it woke him up, which was a rare thing indeed. As he lay there, trying to go back to sleep, he realized he wasn't the only one up. He could hear something creaking, a rhythmic sound that repeated over and over, intensifying and then ebbing away like the sound of ocean waves breaking against rocks.

At first, he thought maybe it was Abbey. But the longer he listened, the more he realized it couldn't have been coming from her room. The sound was coming from across the basement, closer to the stairs. That could mean only one thing. It was his father and Melody making the noise.

He tried to block the sound out, but the incessant creaking only got louder and louder, until it sounded as if someone were jumping on the bed above his gaming table. He had half a mind to go over and bang against the floorboards with a broom handle, and tell them to give it a rest when out of nowhere, the banging stopped. The entire house fell silent, and AJ thought just then, he could have heard a pin drop. Without a moment of deliberation, AJ rolled over, put his pillow over his head, and went back to sleep.

"I'm adding my cum to yours," Melody said, stuffing a hand full of strawberry gelatin dessert into AJ's mouth. AJ smiled and Melody put her hand on his chin, forcing him to close his mouth and swallow. "Does Mommy's cum taste good?" Melody asked. AJ nodded. It was sweet and tasted like strawberries, not real ones of course, but fake ones. It suited her demeanor and her attitude. Fake, fake, fake.

"Can I get some of that cum?" Abbey asked, walking over and slapping Melody across the face with the flat of her hand. "Ohhh! Tart and tiny! I forgot about you. Of course! Mommy has enough cum for everyone!" AJ watched as Melody pulled her dress up and Abbey dropped to her knees, her head tilted back as if begging for it. Melody spread her pussy open and Abbey slid forward on her knees, pressing her lips to Melody's cunt. She sucked, and licked, and a moment later, strawberry gelatin cubes began gushing out of Melody's hole, filling Abbey's mouth, and then spilling over onto the floor.

"Come clean up Mommy's cum," Melody said then, turning an angry glare on AJ. "What are you doing just standing there? Look at the mess you're making! Jesus fucking Christ AJ! GET UP!"

AJ sat up like a mousetrap being triggered, and he blinked.

"We're fucking late!" Jaxson shouted at him. "Come on! I told you seven a.m.!"

AJ spun, put his feet on the floor, and then turned on "turbo boost" like when he was a kid, racing to his dresser and clothing himself in seconds. He was up the stairs a moment later and out the door a moment after that.

"Come on!" Jaxson shouted for him, from the truck, and AJ ran and yanked the door open, climbing in. As his father pulled out onto the road, he began bitching that it was all AJ's fault that they were going to be late, and he should have never depended on AJ to make sure he got up on time. AJ tried to ignore his father, but it was a hard thing to do, so early in the morning, and without something like a coffee or something to eat to settle his mind.

"Didn't I tell you seven a.m.?" Jaxson grilled him. "Didn't I say, set a fucking alarm?"

AJ snapped. "I set a fucking alarm! You know when I go to sleep, it's hard for me to wake up!"

"So go to sleep early!" his father countered.

"I did! I went right to sleep! But someone was up half the fucking night, fucking!" AJ shouted. "And I don't wake up. Not much can actually wake me up. But someone, someone above my fucking bed, was so fucking loud, they woke me up, and I couldn't get back to sleep forever!"

"Well," Jaxson said, as if he had something else to say, but then, he didn't say anything. He continued holding his tongue, all the way to the Electronics plant, and only then did he speak, and he did so to the men and women working there, offering them an apology, on behalf of AJ, whom he said was stricken with food poisoning the day before, but in the name of honoring their word, they came to do what they were hired to do.

AJ could tell his father's excuse meant little to the men and women who were working there. None of them could have given a fuck, one way or another. When Jaxson asked where the big boss was, they told him the boss was at home. He didn't work on the weekends. Everyone knew that.

Jaxson took AJ back to the area they were going to be outfitting, and they took measurements, wrote down a ton of things, and Jaxson even went so far as to draw a diagram on a piece of scrap paper, and then took another series of measurements and recorded them. When they were finished, Jaxson turned to AJ.

"We're going to need our tools at the house. Gather everything up, and load up."

AJ nodded and snapped to work, putting everything they had used, away, and snapping the locking mechanisms closed. He was halfway finished when his father came up to him and handed him a black tool case. "Take that with us. We'll need that too."

AJ nodded, but the tool case didn't look familiar. He took the first load of tools out, including the black tool case, and then came back for more. He was surprised to see his father was helping, sorting out screwdrivers and crescent wrenches, and closing up the toolbox for transport. He closed the lid, and then turned, and pointed. "Grab that."

AJ turned, his eyes following his father's focus, and he saw a five-pound hand sledge with a bright yellow handle.

"That's not ours," AJ said, turning back to his father.

"Yes, it is," Jaxson said, lifting his chin toward the hammer. "Grab it, and put it in the toolbox."

"But it's not ours," AJ said, not wanting to argue, but not wanting to steal the damn thing either.

"I said, pick the fucking thing up, and put it in the fucking toolbox!" Jaxson shouted. "Or can't you follow simple instructions!"

"I can follow instructions," AJ said, grabbing the hammer and slamming it into the toolbox. "But it has a fucking plastic handle, and it's not ours," AJ said, stubbornly.

Jaxson slammed the toolbox closed, almost closing it on AJ's fingers, and then he flipped the locks closed and stood up, pointing at the last of the cases. "Take this shit out to the truck. I've got to go take a piss."

AJ grabbed the toolboxes and loaded them onto the pushcart the guy had let them use to transport their tools. As he pushed the cart through the building, the guilt weighed heavily on him, and by the time he reached the last room, he was done. A man stepped out of a different room and came toward him, and AJ immediately unlocked the toolbox and flipped the lid open. He pulled the hammer out and walked across the room toward the man, and the man stopped heading toward him. AJ thought this was strange, but he continued toward the man and then held the hammer out, handle first.

"We found this in one of the back rooms and we didn't want it getting lost. Someone probably misplaced it."

"Ahhh, thank you very much," the man said, taking the hammer and then turning it over in his hands. "We use these," he said, showing it to AJ, "because they have a hard nylon handle, and they are triple dipped in plastic."

"Cool," AJ said, nodding.

"Thank you again, for returning it."

"No problem," AJ said, smiling, and he turned around, went back to the rolling cart, and took the rest of their tools out to the truck. When he was done, he brought that cart back inside the building and left it by the back door, and then he went out to wait in the truck. A few minutes later, his father came out, looking pissed off.

"Fucking rag-heads," Jaxson said, getting in the truck and firing up the engine. "You got everything?" Jaxson asked him.

"Yup," AJ said. "It's all back there. The hammer too."

"Yeah," Jaxson said, turning the wheel and gunning the gas. "Never leave tools behind. Never. These mother fuckers are thieves, every one of them. They'll take anything they can get their fucking hands on."

AJ didn't say anything. He was going to be in enough trouble, once his father figured out that he'd given the hammer back, but he wasn't about to let his father know just yet. AJ hoped that his father might just forget about the thing, and then, there wouldn't be an argument at all.

"We need to set up a frame. As soon as we get back, I want you to take the measurements and start cutting the angle to size."

"How?" AJ asked, not sure of what his father wanted him to do. He'd watched band saws in action, he'd even used an oxyacetylene torch to cut metal, but not professionally. If his father showed him how to use the tools, he was confident he could do it, but he'd never done what his father was asking him to do, and he wanted to make sure he got it right.

"Nevermind. I'll take care of it," Jaxson said, pulling a pack of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket and lighting one with the cigarette lighter. "I want you to get the angle grinder and start grinding the stamps off the angle. Anywhere you see it says three oh eight, I want you to grind it off. Understand?"

AJ nodded. He'd done that before. Well, not that exact thing, but he'd used an angle grinder before.

"We need to get rocking and rolling on this. No fucking off, you understand?"

"Yeah," AJ said, but he had no clue what his father was implying. Work was work.

As soon as they pulled into the driveway, Jaxson began belting out orders. "Go open up the garage. Make sure the basement door is unlocked. Make sure we don't have anything lying around that might catch on fire."

AJ hurried to do as his father instructed, but when he returned outside, the truck, and his father, were gone. He called Jaxson, only to get yelled at again. "You forgot we need to go pick up the welder and the supplies!" Jaxson barked. "I'm going to do it myself! I'll be back in a few minutes! Make sure everything is ready!"

AJ still had the phone up to his ear when Jaxson hung up on him, and he wondered then what the heck he was supposed to have ready, for when his father got back. Trying his best without any information whatsoever, AJ milled around and then swept as much of the garage as he could, although it wasn't much. The old beat-up car, a host of boxes filled with sports memorabilia, and a good amount of garbage, things AJ's father couldn't bear to part with, were scattered everywhere.

It took Jaxson a good hour to return, and when he did, he berated AJ for not having everything ready. "Where are we going to work?" Jaxson asked him, waving his arms back and forth. "You didn't set anything up?"

"I don't know what you want," AJ explained.

"We need a spot to work! A table or a bench! You've got a table, don't you?"

"Yeah," AJ said, shrugging. "It's got my T.V. and my video game system on it."

"Well you can play fucking video games later," Jaxson growled. "Go get the table and bring it out here."

AJ went to do as his father ordered, and minutes later he was wheeling the table outside, maneuvering it through the door, one leg at a time. As he got it into the garage, his father took another look at it. "It's too low. One of the legs is broken. Why didn't you tell me this piece of shit isn't going to work?"

AJ didn't say anything. He turned around and began wheeling the table back inside.

"Did I tell you to put it back? Did I? Leave it. We'll use it," Jaxson said, and he turned back to his truck and began pulling things out and tossing them to the floor in the garage.

AJ picked the items up off the ground and began stacking them on the table, and he got yelled at again. He helped his father take the welder out of the back of the truck, set it down, and got yelled at again. He stood by the table, waiting to be told what to do next, and got yelled at again.

"Have you ground the stamps off the angle iron?" Jaxson asked AJ as he finished unloading the bed of the truck.

"No. I didn't have the angle grinder," AJ said, pointing at the truck, and the toolboxes still up toward the cab.

"Always a fucking excuse. If you don't have an angle grinder, use a wire brush! If you don't have a wire brush, use sandpaper!"

AJ didn't say anything. His father was such a fucking asshole. Of course time and energy were of no consequence, when you had your son doing all the labor. Who cared if hand sanding would have taken hours to remove a single stamp, which would take seconds with a grinding wheel.

"Get the grinder, and get it done," Jaxson ordered, and AJ dragged one of the toolboxes to the tailgate and retrieved the angle grinder from it. He plugged it into an outdoor outlet that was right next to the garage and began grinding the indicating stamps off the angle iron when suddenly the grinder stopped.

AJ hit the trigger again and again, but nothing happened. He unplugged the grinder, plugged it back in, and tried it again. Still nothing.

"AJ!" Someone yelled from inside the house, and AJ ran through the basement door, and up the stairs, only to see Melody in the front room. The house was eerily quiet. "AJ. I think the power went out."

"Okay," AJ said, pulling his phone out of his pocket.

"AJ!" his father shouted from the basement. "Grab a flashlight and get down here!"

AJ hurried to grab the flashlight and hurried down the stairs, only to find his father at the breaker box, doing something with a screwdriver.

"There. Got that wired up," his father said, turning and pointing to the circuit breakers. "So the house is one-ten, but we need two-forty. Two-twenty is good enough."

AJ had no clue what his father was talking about.

"Nobody go near the breaker box. We don't need to die on the job," Jaxson said, and then he went outside and began setting up the welder. AJ followed him, and when he tried the grinder, he found it worked again. Obviously, his father had turned the power off to connect the welder.

"You got that going," Jaxson said, nodding. "We need the band saw."

"Do we have a band saw?" AJ asked.

"Yes. It's over there, next to the car. Go get it and drag it out."

AJ did as his father told him, but the feat was amazingly hard to accomplish. Everything was harder than it should have been. His father's jury-rigged everything he could. He used the angle grinder to cut angle iron when the band saw was taking too long, which ended up costing them when the last length on two sections was just a quarter of an inch too short. His answer was to cut a quarter inch off the other lengths, making one frame smaller than the others.

Jaxson's penchant for shoddy work didn't stop there. He refused to wear a welding helmet, instead holding a piece of cobalt glass to one eye while he welded, and told AJ to look away, but never warned him when he was going to start or stop a weld. He had AJ cut the rod using a pair of bolt cutters and then had him hold it in place while he welded. The end result was a shelf that looked functional but clearly made by hand with the shelving spines not entirely lined up correctly.

They worked until almost nine p.m. without a break and by the time they were done, AJ was ready to drop dead. He ate dinner quickly and went right to sleep, barely acknowledging anyone or anything, and the next day played on repeat, again, and again, and again until weeks had passed and AJ felt like a zombie.

As AJ loaded the last set of six racks into the back of his father's truck, he slammed the tailgate closed and sighed. The garage looked like a war zone, covered in burn marks and slag. His table was burned and charred beyond recognition, his father using it as a work surface without care. The grass had caught on fire too many times to count, and now AJ knew he would be the one to clean everything up and put everything away.

"Come on," Jaxson said, hurrying out of the house to jump in the cab of the truck. "You're coming with me."

AJ nodded and got in, thinking he might sleep on the ride, but no. His father wanted to talk.

"The kid still has it," Jaxson said proudly, lighting up another cigarette. He turned to AJ but AJ didn't turn to look at his father. He'd seen enough of his father's unnaturally red face and forehead, his flash-burned forearms and lower belly, to know he looked like a sun-burned panda with a bit lighter skin around the eyes. "We got this job done in record-breaking time baby."

AJ nodded and then put on his seatbelt as his father hit a pothole and everything in the back of the truck jumped and crashed. His father looked back, making sure none of the racks had fallen out, and then kept driving, refusing to tie anything down, and insisting their weight alone would keep them put.

They pulled into the parking lot and drove down the side of the building, and through the hole in the gate that had been cut by Jaxson himself, in order to deliver the racks to the back door. Upon delivering the first load, they'd realized Jaxson had measured wrong, and while the racks fit the acid bath tanks, they did not fit through the inner doorways, and so the fence had to come down.

"This is our big payday boy," Jaxson said, grabbing racks and pulling them to the edge of the truck's tailgate, and letting them slide off into the gravel. "Let's get them in and get outta here."

AJ hurried to lug the hundreds of pounds racks through the open door and when he was finished, he followed his father to get the paperwork signed. They went to Angelo's office and sat down, waiting for him, and a moment later he entered, looking extremely happy.

"I gotta hand it to you," Angelo said, signing the paperwork and nodding as he handed it to Jaxson. "You guys came through. This job was going to cost us a fortune, but you undercut all the other guys by quite a bit."

"Ahhh they all want to rip you off," Jaxson said proudly. "Everything is about money. Nobody had any integrity anymore."

"Yes, well, not here. The money has been wired to your account. The paperwork is done.... I did have a question though."

"What's up?" Jaxson asked.

"You billed us for a number of hours, not that I'm complaining, but... The number of hours, per person, and given the time...it doesn't calculate."

"I billed for six people working eight hours a day," Jaxson said.

"Yes, but you're done in two and a half weeks." Even if you worked twenty-four hours a day, you would not get the same amount of hours."

"I knew you needed the racks quickly so I worked my guys overtime. I had a couple guys help too. Just be glad I didn't charge you time and a half to get the job done quicker."

Angelo nodded and sat back in his seat. "Well, the job was quoted for a month. You got it done ahead of schedule. I can't complain."

"Well, if you need anything else, you know who to call," Jaxson said, standing up. Aj struggled to stand up as well. His entire body hurt, everywhere.

Jaxson grabbed the door handle and opened it, and a man pushed past him to get into the room before Jaxson could leave. He spoke in a different language, and AJ could tell something was wrong. Either the guy had just found out his wife was cheating on him, or, someone had just gotten run over by a car.

"Hold on a second," Angelo said, and then he spoke to the man and they had a brief exchange. "Taryk here says that you used three-oh-eight steel on the racks."

"Bullshit," Jaxson said.