Chapter 2: Greg H. Hives Ruines Lives

 

            Greg F. Hives was once a employee of my mother’s. Yes, my dead mother was once Greg’s boss. I remember being in the car with my mom on the way to the bank. She would ask me to sort through her checks and find the total of all of them together. She had two piles, ones to cash, and once to sign and make out for her workers. Sometimes I would grab the wrong pile and Greg F. Hives was always on the top with at least twenty dollars more than all the other employees in the stack.

 

 I once asked her why he had more than all the others. If he did anything that others didn’t do.

 

 She smiled then looked at me and said, “Honey, he’s a very good man. He’s great at what he does.” She tried to disguise her smile but unlike everything else in my life it was in plain view.

 

 A month later I met him. The man’s name I’ve read over and over on the Mom’s checks. He wasn’t quite what I expected. My mom had gone out with very few men since my father’s passing, but the ones she did date were very handsome, slim, well dressed, well groomed, just very put together-looking. This man, oh how to even describe him without making you sick! This man was at least five inches shorter than Mom, his hair, long and greasy. Stuck to his head greasy. It looked like how some men gel their hair back flat against their head but his was clearly not gel. It was slicked back, yes, but that’s not including the fly aways defying gravity orbiting his head like stringy satellites. You could barely see his little beady eyes under the layers of fat on his face. What he was wearing struck me like a slap to the face. He was wearing a white wife beater revealing a tattoo of a woman in a bathing suit on his flabby left arm, and what looked to me like plaid boxers. He couldn’t possible be in his underwear to meet me at my mother and my house, could he? But he surely was.

 

 When he finally said something to me after staring me up and down slowly, uncomfortably, as if he were trying to sum me up in his mind into one word, I thought I was talking to a teenage boy going though his voice change. His voice was so high and squeaky. It was almost obnoxious. I couldn’t believe my mom was dating this guy.

 

 “Hallo, Alice” he said is his puberty voice, “I’m sure you’re mother has been speaking highly of me to you. I’m sure I don’t even have to introduce myself but for a lovely young lady like you I will offer to waste my breath. I am Greg F. Hives.”

 

 “That’s great.” I say sarcastically with extreme lack of enthusiasm.

 

 He goes to say something else but he chokes on laughter and my obviously demented mother joins in. The laughing goes on for a good minute that it seemed like forever. I was completely left in the dark as to what they were laughing about. I felt a bit self conscious so I started examining myself in the mirror on the wall a few feet away from me. I looked normal and non-funny enough.

 

 The explanation I got was “Ha ha did you think that was my real voice?” he says like he’d just pulled the best prank ever in a now fairly normal voice. “We got er, Babe! We got er!” He says to my mom without taking his eyes off me.

 

 Babe? Babe is not a way to address my mother if you are trying to earn my likeness toward you. You call her that again and I’ll break those pudgy fingers wrapped around my mother’s waist.

 

 Mom wipes under her eyes as if she had laughed so hard she started to cry and smiles widely and beautifully and like a flash of lightning it struck me that now he was kissing her. Not just a peck, but a full fledged kiss right in front of me! This nasty old man was no where near worth of even seeing that smile but kiss it. This was unruly!

 

 I was so infuriated that I knocked a vase off a table near by and it shattered into a million tiny pieces on the marble floor.

 

 Greg turns his face to mine and that’s the first time I saw Greg’s death look. I would be getting much, much more of that look over the years and that would be a warning for me to run. Run fast. Unfortunately for this day I hadn’t come to know that look and what meaning was behind it.

 

 “Oh, Lord!” my insane mother exclaims, “How did that happen?!”

 

 “I think I saw Sampson push it.” I lied obviously. Sampson, my cat, was curled up on my bed sleeping.

 

 And Greg is still staring at me with that same look that seems to shoot right through me.

 

 “Okay then.” My mother says enthusiastically, “Why don’t you two get to know each other a little better while I get the broom and get this mess cleaned up!”

 

 Greg’s face did a total transformation to an expression that almost seemed to glow as he turned and smiled at my mother and said “Will do, Babe.”

 

 Once she was out of view, Greg’s face reached inches from mine.  I could feel him breathing on my face. I could smell his toxic breath. How could my mom just have kissed this guy?

 

 “Don’t try and play games with me. I’m warning you. You will be sorry.” The way his voice stung my ears gave me chills. “Your mother will never know it was coming.” 
 What did he mean by that? I thought it was all another joke until he pulled an object out of his boxers just enough for me to identify it as a gun.

 

 “One more screw up from you and the bullets in this gun will be unloaded in and out of your mothers head.”

 

 Mom’s foot steps were getting louder and although everything after that was a blur I was so observant and appreciated the way she walked. The way her red pumps clicked against the marble floor.

 

 Once she was in view I realized how extremely beautiful she was. How could a goddess like her produce such an average-looking girl like me? I can’t loose her! I tried to come up with a plan.

 

 Run to the phone and call 911? No, because he might pull that gun out again and hurt Mommy. I can’t move. Just to be safe. My mother’s life is not something I am willing to risk. I was defenseless.

 

 I just stood there and watched my gorgeous mother walk into the room. Her dirty blond hair bouncing on her shoulders as she walked perfectly into the room making a triangle of friends and -unknown by her- enemies.

 

 He looks at her and smiles. She smiles back.

 

 “Well, I hope that doesn’t happen again. I loved the vase.”

 

 “Oh, it won’t babe. It won’t.”

Reviews

[Erin]

Ok, there are a few small things I need cleared up. Some of the time, you changed there names around....I was a little confused on that. But so far, so good!