The Mix-Up Ch. 05

"Tell you what, I got something good comin' my way, a little lady said I got some money in the bank. I'll fix your door. We'll get you a comic book and a Mountain Dew. And another elf porn book."

"I don't want YOUR money," Gary sneered, pushing up his ketchup-smeared glasses. A glass lens lay on the ground. "You've taken everything from me, my job, my friends, my car, now I can't talk to my GIRL."

Lester snorted. "Now wait a moment partner, your girl? The one you were creepin' on? I gave you a key and last I checked, I didn't make you go into her place. Your story's as straight as a sleeping snake - no wonder you're tryin' so hard to blame me."

The smaller man dusted off his pants and walked from the fire. The crunch of his footsteps faded into the dense woods. Orange flames flickered in Lester's eyes as he studied the figure dimming into the darkness.

"This isn't the path you have to go down, Gary! Think before you do something stupid!" He curled his big toes in the mud. Twirling his roasting stick between his fingers, he gazed into the void. In a soft voice, he muttered "I've been in the darkness too, it's not too late."

Turning to the RV, he could just make out the pale tile of the shower. The memories came swirling back.

~~~~~

September 1st, 1984.

White suds dripped from the underbelly of the Burns family RV onto fresh pavement below. A young Lester Burns, only twenty-five, steered his truck by his dad's Chevette, careful to not park under a nearby bird nest. He pulled a Cabbage Patch doll from the passenger seat and shut his truck door gently, the new truck smell still filling his nose. He'd heard the toy was going to be a hit that Christmas - perfect for his dad's toy shop. He loved being the idea man behind the operation, and to hear his dad's laugh that could rattle a coffee pot.

His slim figure reflected in the freshly waxed chrome of his truck's bumper, his new knee brace strapped outside his jeans. He tested his knee and bounded up the steps. The door was ajar. He swung it closed behind him. Strange, Dad hates wasting A/C.

"Pops, you gotta see this one! It's gonna be a hit."

The scent of fresh lemons washed over him. A soap bottle lay on the edge of the counter next to the sink, its slow liquid ooze reaching the floor.

"Pops?"

His eyes darted to the flickering flame on the stove. A pan of charring chicken sat off-centered on the back grill. A groan emanated from the shower. Lester forgot the doll, dropping it in the sticky puddle. Picking up a toy baseball bat, he eased forward.

"Who's there?" His voice felt foreign.

His mouth dropped as he turned the corner. Rivulets of blood dripped down the shower curtain, the smeared frantic thrashings captured in blood. His father, clad in his trusty red Hogs hat and a green plaid shirt, looked off into eternity. Percy Burns had no last words that day for his son. Lester's Converses slipped in the bloody puddle as he knelt before his dad.

Tears stung his cheeks as he sprinted out, kicking the stupid toy box and running through the door, slamming it off its hinges. He landed on the concrete, his knee popping and pain ripping through his leg. He threw his knee brace off and scrambled up as best he could, hobbling on his good leg. He pushed away his younger brother Leon who'd just arrived, yelling at him not to go in the RV. Soon a flood of flashing blue lights illuminated their little plot.

The news reported it as a robbery gone wrong, a mix-up. The next day, Lester sold the box of toys for an unlicensed gun. The information never came. Who did it? Why? Why kill Percy Burns, a kind-hearted toyshop owner?

So Lester ate.

His body that had been forged by years in the military, trained to infiltrate enemy lines, wasted away on the couch. His bulky knee brace never returned, and the regular exercise that'd honed him into shape was as forgotten as the joy in his life.

One night cruising in his truck, Lester threw his tenth beer can onto floor mat and swerved into another car. The police officer struggled to snap the cuffs on his big wrists after finding the gun on the passenger seat. Not hidden - but ready to use.

Word got out in the Forrest City pen about the hard-eating Lester. Through exchanges through bars and between guards, an inmate approached him one day saying they'd heard a tough talker in E Block taking responsibility for his dad's murder. For a price, things could be made right.

Besides his thirst for revenge, all Lester had was his rations. His so-called hunger strike paid the bill to the other prisoners. The loudmouth endured a rain of punches and kicks so fierce he lay in the infirmary for nine months, the same amount of time Lester later emerged as a free man. A free man, but broken, aimless, and grieving. Revenge never filled the hole in his heart.

He never set foot in the shower again. He set the Cabbage Patch Doll inside it on the one-year anniversary. Every year it was a different stuffed animal. A few years later when the first Beanie Baby came out, he put one of them in there too. He figured his dad would have loved them.

The toy store quickly went under, and Leon opened his dealership a couple years later. Lester's half-hearted work in the auto shop got him fired by his own brother, his treasured truck sold off to pay bills. The years came and went. He worked odd jobs here and there. Washing himself in the sink, big puddles stained the previously pristine RV carpet. It faded to dirty beiges and greens.

~~~~~

As Lester dropped a couple ten's on the toy-store counter, he gazed out at his dilapidated Chevette. Besides his RV, it was the last relic of a dead man, his father. When a scrap man came by earlier that day offering $500 for the RV, Lester stuck out his chest so proudly his chest hair tickled one of his several chins and said it was going to be fixed.

Lester huffed out to his Chevette with the plush Beanie Baby in hand. The car groaned with his arrival but not so heavily this time. If he'd found a scale, his eyes would have crinkled with delight. The constant scrambling of his former job and exercise with Taryn was starting to show. It was time to honor his dad with his annual ritual.

But that little shrimp of a man fluttered to his mind. "Gary, Gair-ree..." he mouthed the syllables to imprint them in his brain. How so much hate could be contained in such a small man, I'll never know...

His thick fingers gripped the steering wheel tighter. "Ah hell, maybe he was right. Be better! Even if he's a fuckin' sack of coal whenever I see him." His fingers traced the worn grooves. "The 'lil twerp deserves a bit more cash."

Dad woulda been proud of that, of helpin' someone less fortunate. The Chevette whined past Taryn's apartment complex and left the weed choked clearing in its wake.

~~~~~

Gary's apartment door lay in an undignified horizontal state, its dark green paint peppered with small dusty footprints. Beyond it lay a puddle of water that would've looked the part in the Everglades, with orange autumn leaves drifting on top.

Lester squinted and wiped his head with the stretched-out sleeve of his formerly white shirt. He'd instinctively raised his arm to knock, showing his pit stains, which looked like they'd been doused in apple juice, but thought better of it.

"Call off the crazy for a minute, Garth--" He scratched his head. "Ahem, Gary - I come in peace."

A bird whizzed out and Lester ducked, nearly falling into the bushes.

"Dammit to hell!" His big shoes stomped on the door, leaving footprints that dwarfed the pharmacist's. The wood creaked and moaned.

Where is the little twerp? Where would he be?

Only the burbling fish tank disrupted the stillness of the apartment. Plastic bags spilling with trash covered the floor. Who the hell would leave the place such a dump? Lester shook his head. Maybe some vagrants, maybe Gary... at this point, hard to know.

His hammy toes crunched a plastic fork, and the big man stumbled against the wall, battering the remaining picture on the wall, of Han Solo, which shattered on the floor.

"Fuckin' hell! Piece of shit!" He grabbed his pricked foot and leaned forward, gazing into the bathroom. His mind drifted to the last time he'd been there. The blonde goddess had bent over the sink as he dropped his gut on her lower back, trapping her, using her, positioning their incongruent bodies together and defiling her.

But on her urging.

The memory drifted in like a documentary on the mating between two wild animals, with a British host encapsulating the action in snippets. Lester couldn't remember the last time he'd watched such a show. Probably with his dad.

"First the male positions himself... then the female accepts her fate. Their mismatched size and age foretell a potentially troublesome mating attempt. Will her youth and fertility overcome the male's inadequacies? It's an oddly mesmerizing display..."

His hands slid down the greasy mat of belly hair to find his stiffening cock, hidden between a fold or two. It was harder than the tile he stood on. He laughed. The blonde could draw a boner from a dead man! He was only human. His lips mouthed words as he sat back on the toilet, forcing it to moan in protest.

"First... in the hot tub... slutty little bikini... then right here," he said, little more than a whisper. His heart leapt at the memory. Right here. Right here I fucked her. "How her young jugs jiggled every time I fucked her. Her body was just begging a man to fuck it!" A girl like her would've lasted only hours in the trailer park where he grew up before she'd gotten knocked up in the back of a pickup.

His breathing grew as raspy as his snores. "And in my RV, her legs pinned so far back I musta put her in the splits..." Not to mention the muddy romp where I worked that ass of hers. Was there ever in the history of the world three hotter fucks?

His ball sack slid along the cold porcelain, nearly touching the floor. They were getting swollen again, needing to release themselves, and hopefully in the strange girl whose behavior confounded him. The chirping of a bird in the living room brought him out of his head.

"Where's that little shrimp? If not here... Probably pining over that girl!" He stretched his arms over his head, the flab of his biceps hanging against his ears. "Wait... that's it."

Wherever she is, he's gotta be. After a taste of prison, 'course he's been thinking of her.

He grabbed his flip phone and typed 'AskJeeves.' After several minutes of mashing his fingers against the tiny keys, he threw his hands in the air and dialed 0.

"Operator Assistance, may I help you?" a female voice asked. He sat forward, pushing a hairy earlobe against his phone. Sounds pretty, probably some hot mamacita.

"I can't hear you." He smashed the speaker button. "And where da hell is Jeeves?"

"--sir?"

"That internet guy who I used to ask all the questions! He ain't there anymore!"

"Sir-- may I help you?"

He grumbled. "Fuckin' Jeeves. Just like everybody else, not dependable. Er- yes - I need the address of uh - Tara, I mean - Taryn Addington, here in Little Rock - and wait - not her apartment. Of any of her family in town."

He glumly picked at his hair lined nostrils, but his bulbous finger could only get fingernail deep.

"She has family at 120 Spruce. That's where - one moment, sir - Andrew Addington, her father lives."

"Right near the Popeye's, I know the place. Thank ya, hun!"

He huffed out of the apartment, back into streams of daylight that made him squint, the bubbling fish tank behind him the only sound in the darkness. As he pulled his Chevette out of the parking lot, a rusted black Corsair, more oxide than metal at this point, lurked behind him in the afternoon light.

~~~~~

The number 2 of 120 Spruce hung upside down on one of its 1920's columns, a victim of the furious storm that'd ravaged the area days before. The crisp green bungalow reminded Lester of the deliveries he'd made for the toy store all those years ago, owned by proper folks with shiny cars. No such car was in the driveway. Just as well - he wasn't keen to meet Mr. Addington.

Lester snorted. As crazy as his daughter is, just imagine him!

"Wouldn't want dad getting' on my case. Gary?" He cupped his hands around his lips. "Gary! Come on out, ya little scrub!"

Making his way up the monkey grass lined hedges, Lester stepped on the still-wet porch when he looked back. A glass jar holding sunflowers lay underneath a tree in the front yard, with a picture of Taryn leant against the trunk. But was it her? She looked older. An incredibly striking woman, her smile dazzled through the space and time of whenever it was taken. She owned that moment.

Lester's face hardened. That musta been her mom. He bowed his head for a moment. Poor gal.

Being not much younger than when I lost my dad. His hand turned to a fist. "And Gary stressing her to halfway to hell. Gary! Come on out! I'm gonna give you a bit more money!" The wind whipped his remaining tuffs of hair about his head on the silent porch. Only a solitary dogwalker down the street broke the stillness.

Lester peered through the panes of the front door. Cardboard boxes were scattered haphazardly throughout the living room amongst power tools and paint cans.

"Well shit. The girl ain't livin' here for damn sure." He returned to his Chevette, the car lowering a full 6 inches as he sat in it. He found a KFC receipt from 2011 and scribbled with a pencil.

Hello

It's Les. Just so you know, you're Stalker Gary may be around. Watch out - He has been talking crazy lately. I'm trying to get him back on his feet and make him stop. My phone number is On the other side. Call me.

P.S. Sorry about your Mom

He dropped it in the mailbox and carefully backed up, turning the radio up. As he turned to return to his RV, he gazed down an alley which was blocked by a car half obscured by darkness and overgrown bamboo. Its lights cut off immediately. He frowned and continued on.

~~~~~

Taryn rolled her eyes at the words coming through her phone. The wind lashed her long hair, billowing it behind her onto the car seat and beyond.

"We can get you a deal on this Wrangler, Taryn, no financing needed... or maybe you could do some promo for us. Drive it around, have fun. I'm sure a girl like you does."

"I'd have to check with management," she said. I've never heard of a Ford Agency model doing work for a local horny car dealer. She pressed her foot forward, trying not to laugh. He'd nearly knocked over a coffee pot to get in front of the other salesmen to talk to her first. And why shouldn't he?

Her legs bore the benefits of her youth and genetics, shapely and toned, that carefree golden softness that teens take for granted. Her daisy dukes and tank top clung to her curves, emphasizing her hourglass figure that got her the contract in the first place.

"I'll get it back to you tomorrow, just checking and seeing how I like it, okay?"

The salesman agreed immediately, insisting she call him by his first name and giving him her phone number. By the time her pretty feet navigated up her porch and she'd checked the empty mailbox. She closed the door behind her.

~~~~~

Gary's dusty glasses slid down his nose. September in Little Rock wasn't kind to him. The pleather of his newly acquired beater stuck to his back was coursed with stains from 1994 McDonalds runs and God knew what else. His heart thudded in his chest, the adrenaline aching in his arm from running to her front porch and rummaging through the mailbox for what Lester left inside.

He squinted down the dark alley. The last 30 minutes of his life sounded like the spy novels Neil always talked about. He'd spotted Lester creeping around in his studio and had to decide whether to take pictures of the big man right then and call the cops OR follow him to figure out where Taryn lived.

He'd never have known either. The house looked like any other bungalow in the neighborhood, but it was hers. Taryn's. A sweat droplet splotched the paper in his shaking hands. If robbing him of his dignity and his job wasn't enough, his eyes fixated on Lester's grammar. You're stalker Gary. His hand tightened into a fist. What a freaking idiot.

Thank god I stopped his lies from getting to her. My queen. But where was she? He looked up to see a sparkling Jeep Wrangler in the driveway that he hadn't noticed while reading the letter.

"Shit shit shit, is that her dad? Boyfriend?" Did they have a Ring doorbell? He hadn't cared to check. Sweat coursed down his forehead, strings of wet hair mingling over his fogging glasses. He grabbed the door handle and crept out.

~~~~~

Lester's hand began an instinctive right hand turn into KFC before jerking left, eliciting a honk from a truck in the left lane.

"You're a fucking moron!" the driver yelled. Some dickwad, Lester mused, shoving his middle finger out the window. He slowed and turned into the Goodwill parking lot. The truck sped off with its horn blaring. Lester's gut rippled and groaned.

Something was off. He couldn't place it. Gary's fish didn't dart his way seeing him as they had before when they were hungry. They'd been fed recently. If what the twerp had said was true, that he was without a job or friends, he would've probably been close by his apartment. Was he hiding inside? Nah, he'd flip his snout at the mention of money...

His mind returned to that dark car in the alley. What possible purpose did it have being there?

"Wouldn't be bad to swing back by and see that everything's dandy," he said to himself between bites of dumpster found pastrami. "That little twerp is outta his gourd."

Ten minutes later, his Chevette nearly scraped the back of the Jeep Wrangler. In the five minutes it took Lester to crawl out of his car, Taryn stood on the front porch.

"What do you want?" She retreated behind the door as he clambered up the sidewalk.

She stared at him, the chain of the deadbolt crossing her face.

"Like - what the fuck - how did you know I live here..."

He frowned. "You got my note?"

She shook her head, her long locks twisting along her lower back.

"Your stalker Gary - that 'lil rat of a man..." he looked around. "I think he's here. Like who else woulda taken the letter from your mailbox?"

"What fucking letter?" She threw her arms up. "I'm calling the cops. And how's he even out? He's in prison!"

"Wait, no cops. Just lemme explain. I felt bad for him and bailed him out -"

She stamped her foot. "You BAILED him out?" She jabbed a manicured nail against her temple. "I can't believe this, I actually can't."

"Is everything okay over there Taryn?" an elderly neighbor called out from their porch. "Is that man bothering you?"

She took a deep breath and shook her head. Somewhere DEEP in his misguided soul he thinks he's helping me.

"I'm just fine Ms. Ethel!" She flashed a bright smile before turning back to Lester. "You have one minute to explain yourself," she said in a lower tone, holding the smile until her neighbor went back in. She unlatched the lock and opened the door, which Lester shuffled through. His ripe odor recoiled the blonde teen's nose.

Lester's cock twitched seeing her, her fresh girlish perfume settling around him. In his wildest dreams he couldn't conceive a girl of her beauty, with her flawless skin and bright eyes. She made his magazine girls look downright plain. His gut closed the distance between them, brushing against a cardboard box full of dust covered books. She stepped backward as he rubbed his palms together.