Lost and Found (Chapter One)

 

“I'm back.” I exclaim, crossing the threshold into my new apartment.

 

Rosemary darts out of her room to greet me with a smile.

 

“Hungry, Rosemary?” I ask the child, holding out a bottle of marinara sauce. She rubs her stomach and grins.

 

“I guess this would be the first time you've seen me cook, and I have to warn you, I've been poor too long to be any world class chef but my food is pretty yummy.”

 

Rosemary laughs.

 

“What?”

 

“I've never heard you say 'yummy' before.”

 

“Well, I'm happy, so I guess you'll hear me saying a lot of things you've never heard me say before.”

 

She laughs again and I smile. I'm not about to say it but this is the first time I've ever heard her laugh. Good to know the kid has a sense of humor.

 

I place the marinara sauce on the kitchen counter and walk to the bathroom to put the “dark dark brown” hair color in the medicine cabinet.

 

Sitting on the edge of the bathtub I couldn't help but smile, after all I'd been having a great week. Three days earlier I went to a car-wash in the rental Rosemary and I had been sleeping in. I had got mud all over it and it was turning out to be too expensive to rent with no salary, so I figured the least I could do is wash it off before I sent it back. But before I could pull in a middle aged, half balding and somewhat portly man stopped me.

 

“Sorry kid, our tech guy just quit. 'Fraid we might as well be closed.”

 

“If I don't get this P.O.S. washed I'm gonna have to pay the overpriced jerks at the “friendly” car rental place extra so they can do it for me, and I just can't afford that, and on top of it all you're the only car-wash in town.”

 

“I feel sorry for ya, I really do kid, but unless you can get 'er washin' again I'm gonna have'ta turn you away.”

 

So I did the only thing I could do, I got the car wash moving. The portly car-wash owner (I later came to know him as Arnold) drove the old Dodge Neon through the wash while I got it clean and later a few of his boys shined the pile of junk until it gleamed.

 

“Look kid, you need money and I need a tech guy.” He said handing me an application. “Think you can have it back here by tomorrow?”

 

“I don't really have any references.”

 

“I don't care, I saw that kid you got sleeping in your car, and I admire you having to be a single father so young. I was in the same boat as you about twenty years ago, wife passed when I was twenty and I had to raise my son Ray all by myself. And I know jobs are hard to come by. Just fill out as much as you can and I'll give you a job here.”

 

I started to walk to my car when Arnold, my soon to be boss, called out to me, “You need a car?”

 

I shook my head 'yes'.

 

“I got this show car, hasn't run right since I bought it, I guess you could call it a company car. That's it right back there.” Pointing to an older model Mitsubishi Gallant with the car-wash's logo's painted on the side of it. The dark green logo was a definite contrast to the car's shiny white body. “If you can get her running right you can have her as long as you work here.”

 

I got Rosemary all set up in the car-wash's waiting room, where she could watch TV and eat from the vending machine until she ran out of the quarters I had given her. I then looked the Gallant over inside and out then cranked it up and drove it around the block a couple times. I drove back into the car-wash parking lot and called out to Arnold. When he came out I handed him my now complete job application and asked for a fifty dollar advance so I could get the car fixed up. I went to Auto-Zone and got it new spark plugs and then drove to Jiffy-Lube and got it an oil change. Afterwards the car ran like a dream, Arnold could barely believe it.

 

“You fixed the car for fifty bucks? Crazy, the auto mechanic said it'd cost around six hundred.”

 

“Hope I didn't miss something then.”

 

“Look kid, here's another two-fifty, half what a mechanic would've cost me, get yourself some food, and get the kid some too, she's been eating Rice Krispies since you left. When you come in to work tomorrow at seven I'll give you a full advance so you can put a down payment on an apartment.”

 

And that's just what I did.

 

I get off my perch on the side of the bathtub deciding I've had enough time reminiscing and it's time to start fixing dinner.

 

Dinner was a soft ramen (to get soft ramen noodles you have to cook them until they absorb all of the water you cook them in) based spaghetti dish with Italian meatballs from the freezer and a melted mozzarella-marinara sauce. Don't think I used ramen instead of spaghetti because I'm cheap, actually the car-wash pays pretty well, I just think they're faster and they get much more tender than the spaghetti noodles, plus they are easier to marinate (these were marinated in Italian dressing).

 

The dish was delicious. Rosemary thought so too, telling me without me even having to ask.

 

After dinner we watched The Illusionist. Rosemary loved what she saw of it but she fell asleep right about the time when the police were about to arrest him. With any other kid this would've surprised me, but Rosemary is astoundingly intelligent for her eight years. Whenever I leave her alone she watches the news and not just some vapid kid show. Rosemary has been full of surprises.

 

When the movie was over I picked her up off of the couch and moved her into her new bed, tucking her in like the parent I had always dreamed of being.

 

I guess all kids from broken homes dream of one day being a better parent then the parents that raised them, Rosemary certainly did, I could see it in the way she held her teddy bear as she went to sleep. I did too; I thought about how her life was going to be so much different now that we were together; away from all those foster parents; parents that only fostered a sick self image.

 

“We're free.” I said those words to myself as I sat on the edge of Rosemary's bed, watching her drift off into sleep.

 

“We are free.”

 

That night my dreams brought me back into the near past. Something I wished could be forgotten. I saw Rosemary's face as she cried to me in what had once been my room. I saw my escape from our captivity in that house. I saw the train ride from Elderidge to Aurora. I saw his face staring at me through the TV screen.

 

We had arrived in Aurora just in time for the nine a.m. News, it was just a one of the stops the train would make, and not the one I planned to get off at. I had gotten off the train to see if I could get a cup of hot water; one of the things I had brought with me in my backpack was little travel packets of instant coffee. As I searched the news caught my eye, I watched as I was in line at the train station cafe. I watched to see if the Amber Alert had gone out on Rosemary; I watched to see if I was yet a wanted criminal.

 

What I saw was Jason's face on the screen behind the reporters head, “...died while driving home intoxicated...” she said.

 

“I can't cry,” I told myself and I found it far too easy not to. “It's not my fault...” I murmured under my breath.

 

“Next in line please.” said the woman at the counter quite impatiently. I turned to her, but in my dream her face had been replaced my Jason's.

 

I ran.

 

I bumped into Jason five times on my way to the platform. Entering the train, trying to find my seat, I waded through a sea of Jasons.

 

I felt as if I was about to drown as I was pulled underwater by the Jasons. And I swam, fast as I ever did, my lungs aching for air, but I knew I could not surface yet. I swam past at least a dozen Jasons swimming leasurly through the pool before I saw the ladder.

 

Last burst of energy; my hand just reaches the bottom rung of the ladder as my eyes go black. I feel a Jason pulling me to the surface.

 

I open my eyes. My sight renewed I fall out of the train's side doors and onto the tracks below.

 

A train is coming, I do not move. Jasons scream at me to get out of the way, I do not move. I close my eyes, I do not move. The train hits, my eyes flutter open.

 

I'm staring at my ceiling, gasping for air. Bat Country is playing softly on my laptop's small, built in speakers. I close my eyes. Darkness.

 

I wake the next morning wondering how much was real and how much was a dream. Then it is all gone, lost in my memory. I get out of bed. I wander into the kitchen and make myself a cup of coffee. “What did I dream?” I ask myself silently.

 

I then notice Rosemary sitting on the couch watching the end of The Illusionist. “Smart kid. Must've figured out how to use the DVD player all by herself.” As I sip my coffee I stop to think about something that hasn't crossed my mind for much more than two seconds since I left Colorado. I need to get this kid into a school. I can't just make her stay here at home all by herself, it's not fair to her. My excuse at the previous apartment was she was wanted as a missing child and I couldn't risk signing her up under a false name. But now I had false documentation to go with her false name so I really didn't have any excuses left.

 

So that weekend I went to the local high/middle/elementary school to get Rosemary enrolled. All went smoothly except the secretary who took my paperwork was worried by my lack of a transcript for her. Thinking on my feet I told her the building housing her previous school's records had burned down, I even gave her an address. As luck would have it about a year ago a pyro friend of mine from back in Vegas had decided to make the leap to arsonist and set a central office building on fire. Burnt to the ground, taking with it records for all the schools in the county. He was a drop-out, of course, so he didn't give a damn. I had heard about it through the grapevine while I was in North Carolina with my Aunt, just before I moved back into Colorado. From what I had heard recently from my contact in Vegas, Lisa, he was still on the run from the police. I figured Miss Secretary would call and confirm that the building had in fact burned down and leave it at that. As luck would have it thats just what she did.

 

Leaving the office situated in the dead center of the complex I made my way through the dense cluster of large, plain red-brick buildings that made up the middle school section of the complex. I found my nerves easing as the buildings spread out, a web of outdoor hallways connecting them. I didn't need a sign to tell me I had made it into the high school portion and I was that much closer to my car waiting in the student parking lot. Navigating the maze of hallways I found myself missing the company of high school students. I had been a junior when I left Colorado with Rosemary and getting back into school was never an option for me, I had figured out the costs of working limited hours and it just wasn't enough to keep a rent check in my landlord's pocket.

 

But it was nice to see a variety of people everyday instead of just assorted co-workers. I hadn't had any real variety in about a year, since I had moved from Vegas. The school I had attended in Foxtown just months before was as small as the town itself and filled with snotty upper class white kids. The environment was much less charming than the eat-or-be-eaten world of Vegas. These Foxtown kids had no color to them; they were model suburbanite clones and drones. At least the poor punks in "hell" knew how to have a good time. At least in ways other than getting smashed in drunk in their parents two and a half story houses and wrecking brand new fifty thousand dollar sports cars.

 

Us punks in outer Vegas found our own fun instead of buying it. We crashed dive bars, went to wild hardcore shows (not at all like the jaded "hardcore" groups you see on tv but bands driven by raw energy and usually an utter lack of "proper" musical training), and just typically grabbed life by the seat of the pants and demanded fun instead of just buying it or stealing it from our parents, now tell me, where was the fun in that?

 

Our homes in hell weren't much to speak of so we spent most of our time on the streets. That ended up being why I left. Not that I didn't enjoy the streets in their raw sort of way. But it made the people who put me there to begin with a tad bit nervous. Wandering the streets was in it's own way a type of zen, closeness to the earth and utter harmony with my inner desires in a way that didn't way too heavily on my conscience.

 

When I first arrived in Vegas I spent alot of time with one of my first close friends there, Ben. Together we crashed the Las Vegas casinos inhaling the free drinks abandoned by other patrons and on occasions, when we found a server who was either drunk or careless, we had our own drinks. I drank like all hell for that first year and a half, something I later came to regret and tapered my drinking off a bit, only really stopping in North Carolina.

 

I also remember asking a cocky upperclassman at the private school outside of Foxtown, what fun it was to have all your fun bought for you.

 

"We get f*****g smashed." He laughed. Clearly he hadn't quite understood the depth of my question, but I hadn't expected him to either.

 

He invited me to a kegger later that week. I was getting a reputation for being a tough street kid by that time, and all those who weren't overtly disgusted by my lower class blood stood ten paces away from me where ever I walked, afraid and curious, they may have actually admired me. Hell, I could've been the most admired kid at the school, but I never asked or even really cared.

 

At the kegger I barely drank any beer, and the cocky kid made some remarks about me being a pushover in spite of my reputation. I asked him for a bottle of vodka, and after he looked at me with cockeyed curiousity for a bit, he found one and I challenged him to shots. Twenty minutes later, he fell out of his seat and puked all over the floor. The crowd that had gathered around us backed up, and I soberly called them over to another table, challenging and drinking under the table three more smart asses before I stood up abruptly and wobbled home to looks of shock and awe.

 

I missed those kids in Vegas, I missed having peers, I missed being being a kid myself. Then an idea dawned on me as I entered the parking lot and my car was in sight. I remembered the secretary running off the times the three schools ended, and to my surprise they were different. I was only interested in the elementary time so I had at the time payed the others little mind. But now remembering that elementary got out at 3:30, middle 3:00, and high school 2:45, I realize I could probably hang out here with the high schoolers as they made their ways home until the elementary school let out, I would have forty-five minutes. And being the age of a older junior myself I imagined I'd blend in just fine if no one asked too many questions.

 

Of course, all that would mean I'd need to get time off work. The 3:30 I could get pretty easy, Arnold had already said I could have the time to pick her up. It was the forty-five minutes between 2:45 and 3:30 I would have to bargain for.

 

I mulled over what to say and what not to say as I drove through the rows of suburban housing to his abode. He had told me I could show up anytime I needed advice or anything like that. Spotting his street number on the mailbox in front of his modest suburban home I pulled into his driveway. It was a two story white house that looked like it had plenty of space to it. I guess he had done a little better in the car washing business than I had been imagining. Looking deeper into the yard you could tell from bare spots in the yard by the side of the house that it had once had a swing set, some of the grass still yellow, it must've been removed recently. Further, looking between the faux hunter green shutters you could tell the curtains and blinds were hopelessly mismatched, though it seemed there had been some conscious effort to match the ones in the area I assumed was the living room. This gave me the vague notion of a woman's touch having been applied to the house albeit for a brief period.

 

I parked the Gallant in his half moon driveway and approached his door, knocking hesitantly. After a minute of getting no answer, I rang the doorbell. Arnold came to the door in an apron reading "Light my Fire". The loose fitting apron did very little to hide his round belly.

 

"Dean," clearly he was surprised to see me, "I'm sorry I took so long to come to the door. I was in the back yard." He said, brandishing a metal spatula and shaking it animatedly as he talked. I could vaguely smell meat cooking on what I assumed to be a backyard grill. Arnold himself smelled vaguely of lighter fluid. He extended his arm in a way as to welcome me in. I accepted his hospitable gesture and walked into the entryway.

 

The entryway was a long hall leading to the dining room and sliding glass doors that gave you a clear view of the backyard. On the left side of the hall were two oak doorways, leading to the den and living rooms respectively. On the right were another two doors, closed and likely leading to more private rooms, such as bedrooms or perhaps an office. Tapping on my shoulder I turned to face him. He gestured me into the living room and I followed to gesture to a comfortable looking couch.

 

"I'm surprised to see you here, but I did say anytime, didn't I?" He paused, "Well, do you like steak?"

 

"Uh, yeah." I was a little startled, I hadn't been expecting food.

 

"Good, I'll be back in a moment. Please, make yourself comfortable." Arnold said as he turned and walked out into the entryway, presumably to make his way to the back yard.

 

Three minutes later he returned to the living room holding two plates of steak and grilled vegetables. I eyed the plate curiously as he handed me one of them. Certainly he couldn't have cooked the steaks in three minutes and the portions of vegetables looked as if they were one large serving spilt in two. Had he been expecting company? I asked myself. Even if he could've eaten both portions of vegetables the two steaks were far too much for one man to eat alone, even if he did have a healthy appetite. He interrupted my thoughts with a question.

 

"So, where's Rosemary this evening?" Arnold asked between bites of vegetables.

 

"At home. I took her to the library this morning and since we got back I haven't been able to get her head out of her books." I smiled.

 

"Ah. Good, good." Arnold said following the words with a bite of steak. He chewed it slowly and swallowed it with effort. It looked as if a light bulb was about to burst from his head as he put his plate on the coffee table and stood.

 

"I can't believe I forgot the drinks, red wine goes very well with a good steak."

 

"I wouldn't know, but sure, that'll be fine."

 

A moment later he returned with two wine glasses in one hand and a bottle of fine looking wine with a bit of dust on the cork in the other. Setting a glass in front of me he uncorked the bottle and poured my glass full.

 

"Actually, Rosemary is the reason I'm here today." I took a sip of the wine to get the taste. He was right, it was a wonderful compliment to the steak.

 

"Hmm. Really?" He murmured after washing down a piece of steak with a large swallow of wine, to which he added a delighted "Ahh".

 

"Yes, I went to the school earlier and got her enrolled."

 

"So what time will you have to pick her up?"

 

"Three thirty."

 

"So you'd get off around three?"

 

"Yes," I took a big sip of my wine. "Actually, there's been something I've been meaning to tell you. Rosemary is my sister."

 

"I figured as much." He said, unaffected. He skewered a grilled pepper, then a sliver of steak. I had been under the impression he thought I was Rosemary's father. I took another healthy gulp of wine as I prepared to tell the tale of half truths I had concocted in the car.

 

“Our mother died a few years back. There was never any proof but we all kinda knew it was father dearest.” Arnold took a big sip of his wine, clearly appalled but trying his best not to show it. I continued.

 

“I figured I would only have to put up with so much more of him before I left, but without Mom around to balance him out he got worse. So when I left I took her with me and I've been supporting her every since.”

 

“That's either very brave or very stupid, but you don't seem like the stupid type.”

 

“Anyway,” I had abandoned my steak, and was now just sipping the red wine. I was almost lying. It was still half true and if it led him to the full truth Rosemary would be on the fast lane to the hell she had come from, and I would be on my way to jail. “I had to sever all ties to my friends when I left and the last few months have been lonely. I haven't had the luxury of going back to school since work has been the only thing keeping us off the streets. I was a junior in high school then and I'm not much older than a senior now, if I got off work at two thirty I could spend time with the high school crowds as they made their way home. I could be with friends again.”

 

He saw the gleam in my eye, the last part I had meant wholeheartedly, and maybe a little more than I had let on, but you could tell from my eyes that I meant every word. I hoped he could see that.

 

“I would have to think it over.” He stood and motioned to the doorway in the rear of the room. We were both more or less done with dinner anyway.

 

Arnold grabbed the bottle of wine and his glass and made his way to the back of the room. From the living room we entered a brief hall leading into the den. Also it contained what I assumed were the house's only stairs.

 

The den was a complete contrast to what I had seen of the rest of the house so far. The furniture was both new and masculine, almost the kind of furniture you would expect in a rich hunter's log cabin. In the intentionally dimly lit room there was a dark brown leather sofa caught my eye, along with its matching chaise and chair (which I assumed was a recliner). The walls were much darker red than any sane person would ever be tempted to paint their walls but strangely, in this room it worked. There was a thick coffee table made of a long, raw cutting of wood, and a mahogany desk and computer in one corner of the room and shelves of tough yet stylish nicknacks in the rest. The room had the faint smell of cigar smoke, a smell absent in other rooms. In short it looked like the room had been remodeled in a single weekend, and from the way things in this room seemed to match (compared to the confusing array of décor in the rest of the house) it almost seemed as if he had opened some home décor magazine and saw this room and ordered the whole set right on the spot.

 

He must've seen my jaw on the floor. “This has become my favorite room recently.”

 

“Did you just do it?”

 

“Not too long ago, no. Sometimes its good to have a place you can go to relax.” He surveyed the room, breathing it in. “You know?”

 

I shook my head and sat down on the couch, resisting the urge to sprawl out on the chaise.

 

Arnold rummaged in a desk drawer, withdrawing two cigars, a cigar cutter, and matches. He cut the cigars, dropping the cutter back in the drawer and walked over to the assumed recliner. He handed me one of the two cigars and lit his, inhaling shallowly in swift puffs. He handed me a thick match and a striking card then refilled our glasses of wine.

 

I lit my cigar, mimicking the way he had. I still ended up with a mouth too full of smoke and my stomach flopped. He laughed at my obvious inexperience with cigars.

 

“I suppose I could give you the time, everyone needs a childhood, no matter how late in life they may find it.” He said glancing wistfully at the desk to what I assumed was a picture of his son. His son was about four years older than me and from the feeling the rest of the house had given me, I figured he had lived here until just recently. “And I'll give you until, say, five thirty to be back. So you can fix Rosemary a nice dinner. You do cook, right?”

 

“Yes, yes. I'm a fairly good cook.” I took a few shallow puffs of my cigar and a sip of wine, wondering what was up with his unusual displays of generosity. He had always been kind but this was getting a bit extreme. The cigar was nicer than any tobacco I had ever tasted and I wouldn't have been surprised if it had cost a pretty penny. Throw in the wine, steak, and an hour and a half off beyond what I had been expecting, I was overwhelmed by his generosity.

 

“But that arrangement would leave me out and closed for three prime car washing hours. So here, I'll give you a deal and accept your offer, and give you a dollar an hour raise. But I have something to ask of you.” I felt a catch in my throat, sipped my wine then looked at the glass suspiciously. What was he buttering me up for? Where did he attach the string to this deal? And the wine, was it to make me more agreeable to some off character deal. The room felt small. It all felt too good to be true. I felt as if I was making a deal with the devil.

 

He must've noticed the worry on my face. “All I need you to do is find and train someone to take over while your out, and hopefully work weekends too.” His eyes gleamed with the thought of being open on the weekends again.

 

I laughed in relief, I had been worried about some strange offer and all he wanted was for me to train a second car wash operator. “I'll give you the raise as soon as he gets good and trained and starts working.”

 

“That'll be fine.” I said, gazing at the décor on the thick, raw looking shelving in the corners of the room. They gave a sense of masculine earthiness, that made me feel somewhat comfortable and relaxed in the room. I sank into the thick couch, enjoying my cigar and wine. Just then I noticed something on the shelves that caught my eye, a clock, I realized how long it had been since I left Rosemary at home alone.

 

“I'm sorry, but I've left Rosemary by herself too long. I have to be going, but I'll be sure to think over your offer.” I put out my cigar and Arnold lead me to the door.

 

“Be sure you bring Rosemary over next time you drop in. We'll eat in the back yard before it starts getting too hot. How's next Saturday, around six thirty?” Then he added as an afterthought, “Does she like steak too?”

 

I chuckled, “Who doesn't? Sure, I wouldn't miss it.” I made my way over to the car, smiling as I realized the paint job on the car actually matched the outside of his house.

Reviews

[Chiquita]

This is creative and has believablity. I was drawn in. Thank you. Will there be more?