Category: A Very Short Story

From the Short Story Vault

I Can’t Wake Up!

…With Scotty gone a new tenant appeared. He was young, brash and a few years older than Timmy and I. He was also a drug user and an abuser of alcohol. Consequently he was often sick and soiled himself many, many times along with the second floor hallway carpet and a great deal of the washroom itself.  He always missed his mark. For me it was getting a bit too much and would soon be time to leave.

What of Timmy and I? Well, our window cleaning business really took off. I could not believe how successful we became in a very short period of time. Perhaps it was because nobody like us had ever canvassed this neighbourhood up until now, given its propensity for rain and heights. Or perhaps other purveyors of our trade felt that there was really no point. When we began canvassing and cold calling potential clients they seemed to come out of the woodwork on our behalf.  Then again, perhaps there was something about these homes that was didn’t quite grasp.

Timmy was good with the gab so I left him to chat things up with potential clients, that being the housewives. When we won over a customer it was my job to look at the place and provide an estimate. Normally I was way under. Inexperience perhaps. On some occasions I estimated a job just by looking at the front of what appeared to be a one floor bungalow or a rancher only to find out later that the house went down three levels at the back. All glass with a cedar beam for separation at all levels. No wonder these people were so anxious for us to take on these jobs. Then again it wouldn’t have taken a rocket scientist to ascertain how these houses were built on the side of a mountain for heaven’s sake. I must admit there were many times where I took my life into my hands, hanging there on the top rung of the ladder, holding against all hope that the ladder would not give way. I operated like some circus performer, acrobat and contortionist all rolled up into one. Often I had to balance myself on the top rung, holding on for dear life on the one side while attempting to wash down, squeegee and dry each of the window frames with my free hand. How on earth I didn’t fall was beyond me. I survived. But my life was only worth about ten bucks!…

House of Horrors…5

…Scotty was well turned out, at least his hands and forearms were. His face was round and jovial looking, clownish perhaps. His eyes were of a dull grey, probably a reflection of the grey matter and visual reality of his mind. His hair was cut very short in a crew cut fashion, well groomed actually. I wondered who cut his hair. Why I wondered that I don’t really know but I dearly hoped that he didn’t have the tools to try this on his own, or to shave himself or anyone else in this house for that matter. Sweeney Todd kept coming to mind.  Was this the Barber, the Butcher of Fourth Avenue?

And through all of this Mrs Redfern held her sway. I watched in amazement as she orchestrated and dished out the various portions of soup, salad, main course, then dessert. She could hardly handle the various pots and pans over the stove with her dangly, fragile arms and extremely dainty hands. How on earth she never burned herself of take the house down and all of us with it I will never understand. I would also learn afterward that she only ate by herself after all was said and done, cleaned and put away.

This was my home for the foreseeable future. I gave Scotty a very wide berth. Robert was harmless until the one evening at dinner when he lost it, big time. His passive aggressiveness exploded into an onslaught of verbal bile the likes of which I have never seen. It all started when Scotty, in one of his rare and lucid episodes of thought and clarity, wormed into Robert’s high sense of personal importance by insinuating that his job at the paper was irrelevant, miniscule and gratuitous in the overall scheme of things, and that he only kept his job due to the good graces of the Newspaper’s hierarchy. They felt sorry for him. That may have been true but it incensed Robert to such a degree that his animosity at what had been said about him by Scotty turned him into a physical pile of mush and with that he lost control of his senses and his propriety. He burst into tears, crying uncontrollably as they took him away to settle him down. We didn’t see him for a couple of weeks after that incident.

Then Scotty lost it.  One day when Timmy and I came home from our day of work we arrived to witness another verbal onslaught at the front of the house. Something had set Scotty off to such a degree that he was now in the middle of Fourth Avenue ranting and raving at the top of his lungs to anyone who would listen about the injustices of the Nixon presidency and its impact on his own sense of well being.  He was calling on all of his conspiracy cohorts, especially the ones from the planets Argon and Anus to come forth and castigate this curse of a human being, that being Nixon, off the face of the earth. I could not really understand much more of what Scotty was yelling about but before long the police and paramedics arrived to take charge.  As the police distracted Scotty the paramedics executed a flanking manoeuvre, caught Scotty off guard, then injected him with something that immediately made him as docile as a lamb. They took Scotty away in the ambulance and I never saw him again. What caused this rant and personal breakdown? Not being absolutely sure or knowledgeable of these things at the time but I was told that Scotty went off of his meds.

This black comedy went on at various times throughout my stay at this House of Horrors. Some were quite hilarious like the time I came home on my own accord only to hear screaming and wailing coming from the front room. I was in my room at the time so I couldn’t be sure it was another wrestling match on TV that was setting Mrs Redfern off. But the timing and day was off so I bolted up the stairs and ran into the drawing room to see what was going on.

It was Mrs Redfern but in a dire state of panic. There she was standing just about upright in her chest freezer with her head holding up the lid and preventing it from falling down completely. She was a frightful sight standing there looking about in all directions, her small tiny hands holding on to the sides of the freezer for dear life. She was screaming in fear at no one in particular but hoping against all hope that someone like me would hear her and show up to rescue her.  It was a good thing too as she was beginning to shiver and turn blue it would seem from mild hypothermia. Apparently, as she leaned over the front side of the freezer to grab the evening’s main course, she fell in. And she couldn’t get out as she was not tall enough or strong enough to leverage herself out of this predicament. I ran over, grabbed her by the arms and lifted her out. What amazed me more than anything else was how light she was. It was like pulling a feather out of the depths of the freezer’s chest. Once I had her settled on the couch, I found a blanket to keep her warm and made her a hot cup of tea.  I then proceeded to scold her for what she had done. I made her promise me, no us, that she would ask someone ahead of time to retrieve the next day’s morsels. I must admit though, when looking back on this that it was a hilarious sight to behold.

Mrs Redfern’s life was a wonderful story. Born in Rochester Minnesota, she moved to Hollywood California during the silent movie era. She knew all of the famous starlets of the time. She was also married a number of times finally settling down with a local businessman whom she shared her life with up until his untimely death. He left her the house that we were now currently sharing with her. Mrs Redfern kept a picture of herself as a young woman on a mantle beside the door to the front hallway. She was a knockout.

She lived a long life dying sometime in her nineties. Mr Johnston also lived to 97. Robert left the coast and moved back east to live in a small town with his aunt. He’d be in his late 80s if still alive. I never heard of him again. Same with Scotty.

That house is now gone. Torn down to make way for monster homes and condos.

House of Horrors…4

…That evening, at supper, nothing was noted or said about what Timmy and I had witnessed. After what we had witnessed, the whole dinner scene was surreal in its normalness.  We didn’t dare say a word or question Mrs Redfern’s antics, especially with her butcher knife in hand. There we sat, somewhat self-conscious of our surroundings, as we were newbies here. So we sat there on one side of the large dining room table, silent yet polite in our countenance.

Being the first at the table, we could observe the comings and goings on of this household at dinner time. First came Robert. He sat at the head of the table. He introduced himself, we ourselves, telling us without us asking that he had a very important job at one of the city’s daily newspapers. Okay, we thought. But there was something off about Robert that we both sensed but couldn’t quite put our finger on. He was about 40 with a balding comb over scalp of thinning hair. His face was thin, angular, somewhat soft and feminine, but featureless with protruding eyes, a straight nose and pouting lips that surrounded a pouting mouth. We would learn in due course that he pouted a lot. He would never make eye contact when addressing or talking to you. He always seemed to shy away from confrontational opinions and conversations, or questions. Perhaps socially he was a passive aggressive individual although at that time I had no idea what a passive aggressive person was.  He was also extremely boring yet pretentious, the most dangerous type of individual to come across.

Then came My Johnston. He was a young 91. You could tell that he spent most of his life working outdoors in hard physical labour. He looked the part: a face rough hewn and full of wrinkles. Turns out he was in logging all of his working life, a “faller” by profession, extremely dangerous work. He had a thick cropping of snowy white hair, all of it there, but curly on top and on the sides. It was lowly cropped and made him appear years younger than he really was.  He had a square face, a tough and prominent jaw and the bluest of eyes I had ever seen. Indeed, his eyes were so blue and so deep and so crystal clear in their gaze and their outlook that they seemed to draw one into their aura, like some visual, virtual magnet, pulling one deeper and deeper into his soul. I had to give my head a shake. His hands were huge with long bony fingers with palms as hard as granite and as calloused from years of hard, tough, physical work in the bush.

Mr Johnston was of a very high intellect even though he lacked any formal education. What he learned or grasped from this world he acquired from books, from personal experiences, from relationships and from living a long and fruitful life. On the downside however, he had no family to speak of and all of his friends and associates were long dead and gone: just memorial blips or flashbacks of his past occurrences. It must be hard, I thought, to watch all of your friends and acquaintances fade away to a dustbin of personal historical record. And what must have seemed important at the various stages and moments of living a life soon become irrelevant in death in the overall fullness of time.

Finally there was Scotty. He arrived non plussed and took his place not at the table but at the kitchen sink. There he stood, forthright, upright and downright paranoid at something or other that was on his hands, his fingers, or his palms. Scotty only knew. He would turn on the faucet and let the water run over his hands and forearms all the while looking straight out the window mumbling something to himself or someone that only existed in his fragile mind.  Once in awhile he would look down at his hands, at the water cascading over his palms or the backs of his hands, rubbing them for what seemed to be an eternity. It was as if he was trying to eradicate some unknown scourge on his person. Something that only he could grasp or comprehend.  Timmy and I turned and looked at one another, in disbelief, incredulous; words that could not accurately come close in describing how we thought about this latest character in this House of Horrors.

Finally, Mrs Redfern walked over to the sink, leaned precariously toward Scotty then turned both faucets off. This seemed to snap Scotty out of his funk. He turned and took his place at the table. He sat there, looked straight ahead at nothing in particular. Feeling somewhat uncomfortable and not waiting for Robert’s introduction I introduced Timmy and myself to Scotty. He looked at me, then at Timmy, briefly, grunted an acknowledgement I think then returned to his own sense of a warped reality…

House of Horrors…3

…Timmy and I went below and took note of our new digs. A very large room in the basement, half completed and just off of an area where our landlady’s washer and dryer area were plus the furnace room and what appeared to be a cluttered workshop: mouldy and dusty, the air would choke an asthmatic horse. We did have a large bed and there were two dressers for our clothes. Comfortable enough. There was even a spot for my “Heath Kit” stereo system and my records, which we brought out with us from the East. Not much in the way of clothes mind you but definitely my tunes. We set all of this up then decided to leave, find a restaurant, and over coffee and smokes discuss our way ahead from here.

Timmy and I decided to go into business for ourselves: a window cleaning business. As we were discussing this fact I couldn’t help but look outside at the continuous rain, mist and greyness of the place. Well, the sun must come out eventually I thought.  No matter. Cleaning windows would have very low overhead. We already had a car, and a few bucks to tide us over for a month. Buckets, squeegees and sponges wouldn’t cost too much and we had all of the water one could possibly have. It was decided then. We also had to purchase a ladder:  a 20 foot extension would fit the bill.

We left and went out to purchase our inventory from a local hardware store. All in all I do believe the total cost came to about 20 bucks, the ladder being the most expensive item on our list. Ready to rock and roll, but where do we go from here.  We hardly knew our area. We’ll start tomorrow. Let’s explore our surroundings now, which we did that afternoon, bearing in mind that we had to be back at our digs for the 530 chow call.

We decided to focus all of our attention to the residential properties of this coastal city. The northern burbs would be our best chance of success as they had views to die for: panoramic vistas over the city, the English sounding bay, the straits and the gulf islands that were in situ haphazardly to the west and southwest of the city’s core. Added to that was the beautiful green suspension bridge that bridged the gap from the city’s main core and large green canopy of a park of old growth trees then over the city’s harbour approaches and narrows to the northern burbs. These burbs, located to the west and north of the city centre and separated by the extension bridge, skirted along the city’s northern harbour limits. In fact one had to be a mountain goat to navigate the streets of these burbs as they meandered uphill from the lower reaches of the harbours quays and wharves and bay. The area also appeared to be an affluent area of homes with small business strip malls. Although this area presented a considerable drive from our lodgings it was ripe for the pickings.

When we arrived back at our digs a very strange and weird occurrence greeted us. As we came into the house from the back alleyway we could hear a high pitched screaming, clamouring, yelling, wailing and shouting coming from the area of the drawing room. Then silence, for a few seconds followed again by a cacophony of rants and curses.  What on earth we thought as we looked at one another in shocked disbelief. Added to that, as we came into the house, the kitchen was a disarray of blazing, boiling and steaming pots and pans of varying sizes and shape strewn about on the counters, on the stove and by the old fashioned farmers sink. But there was no one there looking out and over this disorganized mess!

We called out. “Mrs Redfern, Mrs Redfern. Are you there? Is everything okay?”

Silence, then more screaming. Silence, then hammering of her fists down on the carpet it would appear.

We tip toed through the kitchen into the hallway that led to the front door and the entrance to the drawing room. We peered into the room itself.  In disbelief we saw a very small, frail Mrs Redfern on her hands and knees peering into the magnified screen of the television set, about two feet away: screaming at the top of her lungs at the inanimate characters emanating from the screen into her living room. It was late afternoon wrestling, early evening back east where the show originated. And there, in full physical dynamism, was the famous and legendary Whipper Billy Watson fighting and wrastling some unknown opponent. Or perhaps it was the Sheik, or Gorgeous George or even Bulldog Brower taking on this giant of a man. Regardless, I got the impression watching this bizarre scene unfold that Mrs Redfern was rooting for the underdog as Watson was the star attraction in those days and, what appeared to us, was annihilating his opponent.

Timmy and I just stood there watching, incredulous as what was going on. It was just too weird a scene to laugh at out loud. There she was, Mrs Redfern, our landlady, down on all fours yelling and cursing at every move and at every blow from the Whipper onto his opponent. Her high pitchiness of a voice hurt the ears while her language would make a sailor blush. I am sure they could hear her back east. Yet here she was, our frail and demur landlady, suddenly transformed into a lioness of fury at some indiscretion, misconception of wrestling insanity.  Added to that she held that same butcher knife in her left hand that we saw when we first met her, at the ready, to disembowel any threat to her sense of wrestling fairness and sportsmanship. Timmy and I retreated ever so slowly so as not to disturb this disturbing scene. We would come to learn that this was a weekly afternoon occurrence in Mrs Redfern’s House of Horrors…

House of Horrors…2

…As she stood there, like an aged anorexic, she wielded a butcher knife in her right hand. Up and down it went as she eyed us both with suspicion then queried us as to our business there.

“Hello Ma’m” we said, I said. “My name is John Morrison and this here is Timmy Saunders. We were sent here by the city as they told us that we could get accommodations here. We just arrived from out of town and are looking for a place to stay.”

“Okay boys” she said. “Come in, come in”

We followed her in. She sat us down in the drawing room, looked us over for a minute or two, then smiled and told us we could stay. Price? 50 bucks a month, room and board.  And that was it.

Room and board, 50 bucks each a month? Holy shit, no shit. Yes, yes we said.

“You do know the city will pay the first month for us?” I added.

“Yes, yes I know” she said. “Don’t worry boys. It’s all in hand. They just called me before you called here. Your room will be in the basement. But you’ll have to share a room, and bed. Don’t worry; it’s a big, big bed. And no hanky panky”

Innocent though that we were, this was still a strange thing for both of us. As it turned out it was not a problem. We were not that insecure in the least.

“One bathroom, on the top floor”

“How many people live here I asked?”

“Lets see,” she said. “Dear me. There’s Robert, yes Robert…a very long time resident here that Robert.  Then there’s Scotty. Poor old Scotty. Scotty is kind of crazy in the head but don’t you worry at all because he is harmless…poor Scotty,” she moaned.

“Oh and there is Mr Johnston…ninety one years old now Mr Johnston. But not sure how long he will be with us in this world.  Could go at any time y’know” she laughed, looking at us and wielding that knife.

I looked at her accusingly, suspiciously, and frighteningly at the butcher knife that she still held.

“Then there’s you two, and me.  Just me. My husband died some years ago. This old house is all I’ve got. I sleep on the couch in the drawing room. Yes, yes, and Robert has one of the front rooms, to the left on the second floor; Mr Johnston has the other front room to the right and Scotty lives in the back room, also on the second floor. Nobody is in the attic. Not yet anyway.”

Okay boys. Yer room is down the stairs there. Supper’s at 530. I pack a lunch for you both. Breakfast at 7am.  Will see you then.

That was it…